AUSD Board Meeting - February 2, 2021

001good evening everyone welcome to the asusa unified school board district meeting today it is 601 and we uh are going to go ahead and start our open session for today i'm sorry [Music] we're going to go ahead and start an open session today i do want to remind that we have translation available for the meeting we're going to go ahead and get started with the flax salute and we our guest today is edwin perez bartholomew from ellington thank you edwin for being here with us today go ahead and lead us on uh the flag salute we'll wait for you to get started i'm so excited so i'm gonna take a little brief take your time all right i'm ready all right so good afternoon my name is edwin and i am a 8th grader at

002edington school please stand place your right hand over your heart ready again i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to a republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you edwin you did a great job thank you for joining us today and leading us in the flag salute we move on to next to to roll call we have board member i'm sorry we have um one thing i wanted to go ahead and say we have a no um we have no uh report from closed session at this time um next we move on to roll call we move to board member rodriguez pena president we have board member cruz gonzalez here board member sabrina beau here board member career here

003and i gabriella arianis i'm here as well we're all here let's move on to approval of the agenda i i i want to go ahead and note that we're pulling uh minutes i start off a pulling item 10.2 before we move to approve the agenda you can please note that can i please get a motion to move the approval of the agenda without 10.2 for today we have a first by board member adrian greer and we have a second by board member beau great i didn't second i'm sorry that wasn't me it was me thank you for clearing that up board member uh rodriguez pena and this is where we report the action of closed session matters and we have nothing to report i'm so sorry let me go back at this point right now

004do we have any discussion for the approval of the agenda we can go ahead and vote okay it passes 5-0 now we'll move on to report action of closed session matters which is none and now we move to 6.1 public comments do we have anyone in the public that would like to share comments please raise your hand if you are in gym attendance and you would like to make a public comment okay seeing that there's none we'll go ahead and move to 7.1 comments reports and requests by the board we'll go ahead and get started with the board member bow thank you president arianes uh good evening everyone thank you and welcome to the first week of february first week of black history month i wanted to take this time to recognize that the work

005that we started around diversity equity and inclusion i know it's a very heavy lift and i'm grateful that the district is leading some very serious efforts and communication on this topic at yesterday's library commission meeting i was really pleased to learn that the library will be partnering with the district to build library collection at district schools um with an emphasis on social justice titles that were really exciting to hear and i know today we are considering resolution to honor national school counselors week and so i want to offer my congratulations and appreciation for all the school counselors working with all of our students and families today thank you great thank you next we have a board member rodriguez pena yes um good evening everyone first of all i'd like to congratulate all the parents that

006are going to be receiving their uh parent of the year award we um have many great parents at ausd and parents you play a very important role in the unified schools and your input is very valuable so we thank you for that and i want to thank you for you know uh it's all volunteering your time and we appreciate you taking that time and i i did go to um zoom on on um helping our students during the pandemic at uh with my foothill family and um mckinley and they were speaking to parents on how to help their child or what to look for in their um you know if they're depressed or they have anxiety they you know um gave them some some things that they can do to work with their child the

007do's and don'ts you know self-care and i think this is really great at this time that we you know are are i know we spoke about having these kind of um uh people come and speak to our children so i want to thank um assistant superintendent dana mitchell and foothill middle school and mckinney services i also went to the center middle school the concert roxanne reyes she was talking about believe it or not transitioning to high school and i'm like oh my god it's already that time again you know uh how time flies and um you know talking to the parents regarding credits on how how credits are going to be so much different than when they're in in middle uh elementary school or even um junior high school you know how credit's how important

008it is for them and um to keep track of their credits and she was speaking them how to read the gpa how to read their transcripts how to read college information so i want to thank center school and i know also that foothill middle school is doing the same thing i'm just enjoying their link but i know that they're all but all the middle schools are on their way um working with our eighth grade students going forward i went to the azusa parent learning network and it was having to do with math counting collections focusing on how parents can use counting strategies at home with their child with items in their home example pens pen papers um pencils and uh the next topic will be on positive behavior i think it's really good that um

009we have the owl cap and metric uh i am sorry i want to thank the director el capitan metric jennifer bryant and the teachers from um mislead the principal uh jennifer flores and tosa julie mcgall and the last i went to foothill middle school where um maria maria mahia from welford attendance she does a fantastic job when speaking to parents the importance of attendance even they are if they are doing distant learning how important is it is it for them to log on how to pay attention and you know how they still get their grades up so parents have many questions regarding um you know the grades in in logging in and and maria also does a really good job and then i want to thank her for that thank you thank you for that

010uh next we have board member chris gonzalez good evening um i will be brief i just want to echo what yolanda said about um honoring and our parents i'm really excited tonight that we will be honoring a handful of our parents um i know just i we have so many parents that do so many wonderful things that i think this is just one way we can show um that we appreciate them and that we value them and that um we think that they and their students should be at the center of all our decision-making and our voices and anything and i appreciate our our district's journey in that in that direction and i hope we can continue that and i think you all of you as parents make us stronger as a school district um

011so that's it thank you great thank you uh next we have board member adrian greer yeah i'll also be brief yeah excited and and grateful that we take this time uh you know in our you know in our school board calendar to to stop and pause and and recognize uh parents and so again this year is a little little different um but the appreciation um is no less and so just grateful for for all all the parents out there and grateful to be able to highlight some of them tonight um and then also just want to say thank you as well to um counselors um and all the work that that counselors do um that that is that is so vital um for for our students um that's all i have thank you for that

012and i would like to um also personally thank um the counselors um and i'm so excited to again do this resolution for this next year um i'm really excited for parent of the year you know it's because of parents that bring their children to the school district is how um we keep this district live so thank you parents and congratulations to all the parents that were nominated and congratulations to all the parents um that one and our district parent of the year um i'm really excited that this week the committee for um our diversity committee is going to start so i'm really excited about that it's a new journey for our entire school district to embark so really excited for the students the teachers and everyone who's going to be involved in that i would

013like to remind all parents teachers students that we have a survey out and it is really really important to to hear what you have to say please take a few minutes out of your time and please help us by filling this survey out so we can serve you and your students in a way that you would like to be served we want to hear you out and lastly we have a new employee mr ellen that i know has a birthday today so welcome to the team and happy birthday mr allen and that's all i have for today and next we're going to go ahead and instead of moving to 8.0 we had actually three individuals three teachers that um were not able to log in for public comment we're going to go ahead and move

014um to that real quick we have let's see here we have a meg can you hear me yes we could hear you trying to do this through my phone we had a very hard time um getting in through zoom so first i would like to thank you for the opportunity to address the board um and cabinet i am here related to vaccinations and i'm asking you to consider an option uh first and foremost i'd like to say that we are in the process of doing a survey with all of our certificated employees and while we have 24 hours left in that survey window as of right now which a large percentage of the teachers have participated almost 80 percent of them are in favor of having district-wide vaccinations before returning to school and so i'd

015like you to hear that statistic because it's powerful that you have a large group of teachers counselors toe says nurses that feel that mandatory vaccinations is is important for return to school secondly i'd like to talk to you about an option that i have witnessed and i think that it would be a good process for our district and i i would like you to consider this as you're discussing vaccinations and that is the model that chaffey joint union high school district is employing right now they have contracted with a health care provider and i don't know if it's blue cross blue shield but it's one of the blues i believe and they are utilizing a local medical facility they have a one week period where every employee is supposed to schedule an appointment within that

016given week they have a massive list of um a comprehensive list of all the employees names the employees show up show their id get vaccinated during that one given week and it is coordinated through the district i think it's really important that we look at a process like this versus just randomly asking teachers to go by signing up online somewhere and finding some distribution center vaccination center however you want to call it whereby they are individually responsible for getting the sun because that means it's all over the place and it causes more problems for any possibility of return when this teacher gets it this teacher doesn't this teacher missed their second dose whatever the case may be and so i'd just like you to consider a coordinated effort and what that means for the efficacy

017of our district and the delivery of education for our students so thank you for your time i greatly appreciate it stay safe and healthy and hopefully i will i can see you and you can't see me but hopefully i will see you all soon thank you thank you miss mix developer very input um next we go to greg cahill mr cahill you may mute your man hi good evening um i don't know how my name got on this list i didn't put it on the list but while i'm here congratulations to all the wonderful parents in azusa for all the work that you do thank you thank you for for that uh next we have miss diane reese miss dan reese you can meet yourself yes can you hear me yes okay thank you good

018evening school board members district officials and viewers my name is diane reese and i have been a teacher at dalton elementary for 32 years i'm here tonight to discuss the serious decisions regarding the most effective and purposeful instruction for our azusa students in the upcoming months ahead these are critical and permanent final decisions that cannot be reversed once we all move forward as professional educators district employees and school board officials we are having discussions in various weekly meetings to have a clear understanding of our options to either choose a form of hybrid model or continue our current distance learning and virtual academy programs although our conversations clarify or bring insight to diverse perspectives from many different angles your final decision impacts our families and students for this reason i deeply feel that our parents and

019families should have their voices purchased as well as ours what would this look like during this short timeline first it would be essential to provide a parent meeting from the district and our school administrators to explain the possibilities of what is offered based on l.a county and the viral transmission rate if they are not able to attend a digital message from the superintendent would be feasible reaching the remaining families next a parent survey would give them the ability to express themselves in possible scenarios depending on the questions and help clarify hybrid models it may be unclear what this may even entail for example driving and dropping off their children at diverse times of the day and um and a few you know depending on which days of the week and supporting different age children um

020they may have heard about hybrid models from their relatives or the media but may not even understand what our final design may look like in their mind they may be thinking that we are either continuing our online programs or returning to a full-time classroom currently they are focusing on their own daily survival and how to keep their children motivated to stay in our online classes we had the responsibility to continue being transparent in not only our own decisions but our intentions as well since other districts have involved parent feedback through their surveys they have been able to make the final best decision and plan for their staff and families i hope this will be deeply considered for the sake of our students and our families and thank you very much for hearing me and have

021a very safe evening thank you miss reese okay we're gonna go ahead and move on to um 8.1 comments and reports by superintendent cabinet and student board members let's go ahead and get started with student board members do we have a destiny miss destiny contreras good evening gladiators have been very busy the last few weeks members of our asb class have started a podcast called gladiator arena it's up on our instagram and our asb website we appreciate our gladiators taking initiative and making their voices and opinions heard glads participated in a virtual symposium last week where we bonded with the other asp classes in the mountain view league glads attended a virtual well-being conference last thursday students learned about the importance of connections and how young people can lead to make a difference in their

022communities to honor black history month asb will be making posts on instagram to inform students on african american leaders that have made change in the world since its national school counselor week ghs would like to honor the counselors for all their hard work hard work this year thank you thank you destiny next we'll go ahead and move to jacob vasquez hello everyone my name is from missousa high school so first stop be seen on screen be engaged past your classes students are actively engaged in classes and have their cameras on will receive pbs tickets for some great prizes ipads iphones nintendo switch airpods bluetooth speakers headphones electronics games and etc our senior class is in the process of ordering senior sweatshirts we are really excited to buy something that represents our class on february 4th

023we are hosting our monthly cafe esteca each meeting has a special discussion topic with guest speakers and presenters we have our school auditory contest on february 10th the top three will advance to the district contest also february 10 we are recognizing the students that have a perfect attendance for 100 days chick-fil-a has donated a gift cards for each of those students on february 12th we are having our virtual aztec academy awards december ceremony recognizing our asset scholars that have gpas of 3.25 or higher and lastly our elpac exams are beginning soon and we are excited to see how much our asset scholars have learned thank you thank you jacob next we have alex arkenberg good evening board members cabinet and superintendent ortega this past week seniors attended a meeting with citrus college regarding the early

024decision program this program will provide students with the opportunity for priority registration in the in the fall at citrus college the presenter shared that financial aid application assistance is available through the cash for college event on february 10th at citrus college serious spirit day fundraiser at chick-fil-a will take place on february 26 proceeds of the cells will go to our school when the customer states that they are supporting sierra high school thank you thank you alex we'll go ahead now move to comments and reports by superintendent and cabinet thank you i would like to start by using my opportunity to congratulate the parents that will be honored today as well as thank all of our parent volunteers and guardians that continue to help us to educate all of our peoples and second i would like

025to use my time to introduce our new addition to the business family and the azusa family and whole mr brian allen um mr birthday boy himself he started officially two weeks ago he hit the ground running he's coming strong from santa ana unified with a lot of construction background i think he's a huge asset to our district and more importantly a huge asset to our business division so with that i want to formally introduce mr brian allen to the board into the community of azusa thank you latasha thank you board members and uh i just want to say i'm excited about starting my new position here and look forward to some positive changes and continuing the legacy that's uh out of zeus unified and uh yeah i look forward to getting to meet every one

026of you and getting to know you better from face to face hopefully and uh we'll talk to you guys later take care you alan enjoy your birthday thank you um i would like to go next um i want to uh acknowledge one of our teachers uh from ellington it's at arlington night we had an ellington flag salute and i just want to give a shout out to kathy sahagian kathy was featured recently in a scholastic book club video which is on their their official website in it she shares uh strategies for literacy and social emotional um that she employs in her own classroom for others to consider and so the fact that it's on their website for others to see thank you for representing us azusa in such a powerful way i am so excited

027to announce that today we launched our superintendent and student roundtable that consists of 30 students across our three high schools we we came out of the gate running today it was our first meeting but we discussed the following topics we discussed distance learning school reorganization especially at the high school level surveys and graduation the students did such a powerful job of communicating effectively being professional sharing their perspective and being honest my hat's off to our students some of which are in this room right now and i look forward to our next our next meeting i would also like to thank uh to thank all the parents that sit on the parent round table for the opportunity to collaborate listen and learn from you it is really inspiring to witness the amount of leadership positivity and

028partnership that you bring to the table and i just appreciate you for that uh with that i want to segue in to congratulate all of the parents that are being honored tonight your partnership your commitment and your leadership are essential to what we do and i want to personally thank you for everything uh that you do not only for your students but for the district and the community at large quiero felicitar atollos padres su association su compromiso is thank you good evening i would like to show my gratitude and just um immense appreciation to our counselors for everything they're doing to support our students and our families and staff during distance learning we just we appreciate you and and celebrate you also want to announce that on monday january 25th we held our first district

029diversity equity and inclusion committee meeting and it was co-facilitated by myself dr jennifer edick bryant who is our director of el capitan metrics and jenny lee who is our director of early childhood education and our participants include high school students parents classified staff instructional staff teachers and administrators our first meeting included getting to know one another and then really digging into the what the why and how the work uh collaboration and some consensus building on working agreements and then beginning to really define uh diversity equity and inclusion we did a reflective activity and had dialogue and breakout rooms and the conversations were powerful insightful and inspirational thank you good evening board of education community members i just want to use this time to thank all of our parents our grandparents and family members that partner

030with our district the work that you do could only enhance the the the work that we all do as a district together i also want to show my deep and sincere appreciation for our counselors uh your work is absolutely essential for the success of students thank you great thank you guys all for your comments next we'll go ahead and move to 9.1 covet 19 update thank you so the business department is still currently working to equip our sites um to make sure that we have adequate um ppe as far as dex desk partitions we have contracted with the company who has begun to walk each one of our sites they complete the district office and half of our sites as of today and they will conclude that this week well they will give us a

031thumbs up like hey everything's in place or make recommendations so that we can place orders to make sure all of our student staff are adequately prepared and safe thank you um i want to thank all of the teams that are currently working really hard in preparation for an opening if that is something that is going to be allowed and something that is safe currently the governor has a safe schools for all plan which would incentivize school districts to apply for reopening in the tk2 level uh in the first phase and then three to six in the second phase and that would and that um that is dependent on having a seven day average daily rate that is under 25 per 100 000 residents this opening would also be in a cohort fashion currently in la

032county that number uh although it is trending downward uh it is still above the 25 per 100 000 that is required to open under the current governor's proposed plan we continue to be grateful for our think together partnership and the implementation of the in-person learning hubs currently they have 336 available seats in that program for the in-person learning hubs and the enrollment is 290. uh there are 20 students that are pending enrollment they're either on a waiting list or they are new enrollees think together has been providing us with daily enrollment numbers in addition to any numbers of any cova 19 positive or exposure cases of students and adults think together is also serving students in a virtual setting after school and has 64 students enrolled also they have an equitable access grant and so

033they have been providing an after-school intervention program at paramount and they started their second session which is offered tuesdays through thursdays and it runs for nine weeks thank you and again lastly uh the human resources department continues to work with employees who have contracted the virus or have been in close contact with confirmed positive cases we are also closely monitoring the information from the department of public health and the governor's office as it relates to the dissemination of vaccines and additionally the district recently partnered with valencia laboratories to explore the administration of testing for employees and students if we do return to in-person instructions as was described earlier any questions or any comments by the board seeing that there's now we'll go ahead and move to our next agenda item and it's 9.2 school reorganization

034update thank you i will share my screen all right is that large enough for everyone what's up yes okay so our last school reorganization update we provided an overview of model one through three and since our last update we have held an additional meeting where we discussed and outlined model four so tonight i will provide you an overview of model four and as we promised before we will hold another meeting we will have in-depth discussion with all of us together on all of the models that have been presented before um the school reorganization team has held four meetings and we have our fifth meeting scheduled for tomorrow in our meetings we have continued to discuss the why behind the reorganization and during the meeting we emphasized that we did not want to tie the reorganization

035to budgetary cost saving measures now as we said before we all understand that school closures can equate to potential savings but right now the focus on roi is one to maximize facilities as well as maximize programs so during our session we're going to address our why behind the reorganization and we took time to ensure that all gain the understanding of the model and all of our models included six agreed upon pieces whereas piece one was the model piece two is the implementation plan piece three the programmatic drawbacks piece for the programmatic benefits and piece five support staff and p6 including any potential budgetary impact so we have two why's behind our reorganization plan the first why was to maximize or is to maximize facilities as you see illustrated on this slide before you um back

036in 0.203 we barely had 20 percent of our capacities available and now most of our sites are operating with over 50 percent capacity available the second why behind our reorganization which will be touched on later on the discussion with dr mitchell is maximizing programs so piece one the model this model is called our sixth through twelfth grade model this model includes five traditional elementary which is tk 1 tk8 and 2 6 through 12th grades piece 2 the implementation the 5 year implementation allows for phase in phase out approach it allows time to roll out the implementation plan it also allows those that are currently in the third grade and up to promote from their current home school and this model also gives parent choice now we'll pass it to dr mitchell so with this model

037there are some potential programmatic drawbacks there would be younger students on a high school campus smaller 6-8 student cohorts at the tk-8 self-contained classes and not traditional electives smaller staff teams sixth through eighth self-contained eighth grade students would transition directly to high school and a coordination of pe and sports facilities the high school and the middle school would be on the same campus there's also some potential programmatic benefits parent choice of traditional elementary and a tk8 larger elementary schools might mean fewer combination classrooms in a tk8 school fewer shifts for students and that would be that means the consistency of the learning location so they don't change schools also increasing student population could increase collaboration for programs at sites there might be an opportunity for an elective wheel at tk5 and tk8 students or possibly

038magnet specialty focus like school of the arts class sizes would remain the same larger schools might create larger parent groups and then the last potential programmatic benefit would be all current cte pathways would still be viable and for example pax and patterson pittsco labs would be installed at both of the 612 schools and i have the pleasure of walking you through the support staff that presented here the table here is our work in establishing floors for the great bands that are represented in the tk through eighth grades so sites that have these gray levels would uh would be impacted by these floors uh for so for sites that um have a seventh and eighth grade all sites would have at least a 0.5 uh fte of an assistant principal uh sites that have more than

039750 students would it would gain an additional one whole fte um the same applies for counselors so for sites that have less than 750 students the site would have at least 8.5 fte of a counselor and similarly to my previous statement those sites with 750 students or more they would have a additional counselor for social workers this is a new position that we we are introducing and against sites that have less than 750 students would have a 0.5 social worker and then those sites that have more than 750 students enrolled would have a full fte of a social worker i'd be remiss and and not pointing out when and how we established the 750 students uh this would be established at the um the normal seabed reporting date which is october 2nd so we would

040be using the enrollment data of the um of the year uh proceeding when they the sites would actually be receiving this uh additional um fte if if called for uh the second half of the table um speaks for for our our sites largely in the elementary level is that um already uh again establishing a floor for those sites that do not have more than 750 students so if uh at all sites elementary sites that have less than 750 students will at least have a four-hour uh base of a community liaison for our base of a library aid and an eight-hour uh clerk base once the enrollment again using the same idea of the seedbed state once that enrollment exceeds um or meets and exceeds 750 on the uh the site would be would be given

041six hours of a uh committee liaison and actually i want to make sure this is uh accurately stated it's a as a total of six hours so it'll be an addition of two additional hours for of community liaison similarly an additional two hours of library aid if the enrollment exceeds and then an additional half fte of a clerk so the total amount that a site would receive if their enrollment exceeds 750 would be 1.5 of an fte total and for the sixth piece which was the budgetary impact in addition to the projected cost that would be associated with the increase in support staff the only other budgetary impact that we foresee at this time is if we added tk or kinder to any school that currently does not have that program as we would have

042con construction costs to equip the classroom to meet the standards as well as the restroom and the playground area and with that i will say thank you thank you so much do we have any uh questions or comments from board members i have a quick question okay okay go ahead remember both uh mr monkey i just had a quick question i'm sorry i didn't ask this in previous presentations um on the slide where it it talks about adding a 0.5 ap counselor or social worker would that 0.5 ft be to serve the seventh and eighth grade only or is that for the entire school yes for the seventh and eighth grade would be the the council but i mean these uh my understanding is that the counselor will will work with who wherever there is

043a need but the primary work would be with the seventh and eighth grade students okay so would that mean that a school of 700 students would have one and a half ftes in those positions okay so half or the seventh and eighth or what would that look like no if the school of 700 would have a um 0.5 of a counselor and a 0.5 ap and a 0.5 social worker correct okay thank you yes in case um anyone else probably before we move on okay great let's go ahead and move to 9.3 mandarin language dual immersion program thank you board president giannis um we're going to call norma into the room sorry give me just a second there she is good evening can you all hear me yes we could hear you okay wonderful good

044evening ford president arianes and cabinet board members and cabinet um i'm just going to share just a brief overview overview for you in your packet and as an attachment you have an overview that we provided that outlines a few program types that could be utilized for a mandarin language program the first being a dual immersion two-way program in which the class enrollment would include a balance of native english speakers and native speakers of the target language in this case being mandarin the instructional model could be a 90 10 90 bean mandarin in this case 10 english and the english would increase by 10 each year thank you it could also um be a 50 50 model for the duration of the program being 50 of the day taught in english and 50 of the day

045taught in mandarin and the goals of this program would be language proficiency academic achievement in two languages as well as cross-cultural understanding another program type is a one-way dual immersion program and the makeup of that class would be primarily non-native speakers of the target language in this case being mandarin this instructional model is typically taught in a 50 50 model being 50 in english 50 in mandarin and the goals are similar to a two-way immersion program being language proficiency academic achievement and cross-cultural understanding the third program would be a flex or a flex which is a foreign language elementary experience or school the enrollment is made up of non-native speakers of the target language again being mandarin in this case all students or designated students or designated grade levels could receive time during the school

046day or after school for language study the goals of this type of program are typically exposure and enrichment and an additional language so i just kind of gave you an overview of what those three types of programs um are and what kind of enrollment requirement that they would have these would fit the mandarin program that i know that you are exploring and to share some previous efforts that were made to establish a mandarin program in the district that began in 2018-19 the district began by advertising a potential mandarin program to the community by sending out 60 000 mailers advertising mandarin as well as our spanish dual immersion program we also hosted six community meetings um two were at dalton at that time we were discussing housing a mandarin program at dalton school we hosted a

047parent and community meeting at longfellow and three here at the district office in which we shared information about our dual language programs we also advertised on our social media our district website flyers were put up on peach jar and they were also sent home in a paper form on our website we included a link to an interest form that parents could complete and then we were able to follow up with them with additional information in 2019 we had a total of eight transitional kinder and kinder students interested in a mandarin dual immersion program three indicated a primary language of mandarin and five indicated a primary language of english in 1920 we began that advertising cycle again we got to host one parent meeting prior to closing on march 13th but our efforts were thwarted by

048covid and that year last year we had a total of three families um complete the interest form one being an etk extended transitional kinder and two kinder students so i i gave you quite a bit to process so i'm happy to clarify any information answer questions maybe research some questions that you might have do any of our board members have any questions at this point uh yes board member bro thank you hi miss camacho it's nice to see you again nice to see you um i have to have a couple of questions kind of um looking at some of the background of our current spanish dual immersion programs um can you talk a little bit about the the benefits and the challenges of implementing the spanish di well the benefits for our spanish dual immersion

049are obviously you know our goals are to develop students who are prepared to engage in a a global world a global economy we know that technology is making our world smaller um we also have predominantly 90 approximately 90 of our student enrollment being latino latinx um so we want to really you know um you know utilizing and highlighting that spanish language as an asset was important for us so those were some of the huge benefits we also have historically in this district supported bilingual programs in spanish and we have many of our teachers who have b-clouds in spanish so we were able to utilize our internal staff and not have to seek outside of our staff um to to teach those classes um some of the challenges um are sometimes because of the makeup of

050of our schools um having an exact 50 50 um we usually have about a third primary spanish speaking about a third bilingual students because many of our students do come from homes where they are bilingual they um either have learned spanish and english from a young age or have parents or grandparents at home that speak spanish but you know that's not really a challenge but you know it does it's a little different than a traditional makeup of the dual immersion program but typically our our spanish dual immersion um we have a lot of interest our tk there's waiting lists for our preschools and tk's for those those programs and um as students matriculate and stay in the district um how well are we able to retain our base um of dual immersion students in middle

051and high school well our district program hasn't reached middle and high school yet we are currently our program is currently at uh fourth grade at hodge victor hodge elementary and at valley dale elementary and is this the is it was it called the second strand so we have the older strand that went through in a generation it did not go through middle school um we we like to refer to the that that's that program as our 1.0 and we have a 2.0 um so our 1.0 program has existed in the district for many many years it is um currently at about fifth grade at hodge um and that is the program that shifted over but historically that program was only one class um beginning in uh preschool um and moved through fifth grade but some

052of the challenges with having just a single strand is sometimes as students would mature matriculate and leave the program we had very small classes at fourth and fifth grade because our class size changes from 26 to um it increases to 35 at fourth grade so sometimes we were looking at a particularly smaller class which was why we shifted to a two-strand class and then we were able to open up more seats to our dual immersion program so currently our fourth grade bi classroom at hodge has about i believe 30 34 students so we were able to avoid that challenge of a shrinking classroom with the two strands the two strands at each school in thinking about thank you for the background on the spanish dual immersion program in thinking about um the possibility of offering

053another world language in a dual immersion setting or or another world language in a district-wide program um can you talk to some of the anticipated challenges of implementing a mandarin dual immersion program well um i think with just looking um at some of the initial numbers that that we got um having if we wanted to offer a two-way dual immersion um having sufficient um mandarin speakers to to be able to offer a true program and then also looking at numbers of student enrollment to be able to either offer a two-strand the way we do with spanish which would um help us to avoid um having um a very small classrooms or combination classrooms as class sizes increase um but obviously if we weren't we didn't have the numbers for a two strand you know looking

054at the potential of offering one strand and then considering how how we would adjust to to a smaller class size as the students reached fourth grade and above and miss camacho this is i promise this is my final question that's okay um and and i know my my colleagues uh may also have questions around this um just in thinking about um possibilities of offering world language um to elementary and middle school students has the district ever offered or explored the idea of doing the um the primary or middle school years international baccalaureate program that could possibly be a feeder to the ib program at azusa um i'll jump i'll jump in here uh miss camacho thank you uh to answer your to answer your uh your current question and then i want to go back

055to something to to also consider in terms of moving forward with the dual immersion mandarin uh yes we have had uh conversations about a primary year's program and the middle years program as potentials just as a note when you do have a primary years program at an elementary site one of the required components is actually language and that is not for a particular grade level or a particular class when you are a primary years program site uh the whole entire site uh it's expected uh that they are getting uh a second a second language um we have i'm gonna tie the next two things together uh one of the things that i think we should consider is that right now we're currently going through a school reorganization process and so you know just having those

056wonderings about how does a a potential a school reorganization decision affect a potential decision in terms of a quote unquote dual immersion mandarin language program as you have seen on the potential drawbacks and the potential uh benefits one of the things that we list as a potential benefit for our several of the models that we have provided to the school reorganization team is this idea that if we were to to to kind of uh grow smaller then we might want to consider uh potential magnet or potential uh schools that would be identified for example a school of the arts for example a stem school for example a primary years program school so it has also been talked about in that context that as as a possible programmatic uh benefit um if we were going to

057do uh something like that um as you as as as you may or may not know um we had to move the uh the spanish dual immersion program from um mountain view uh to valleydale um we we captured a majority of that program uh they are thriving and they're doing well at valley deal but we did not have a 100 of those students that were in that program uh come over to to to valley deal so just just as a consideration or you know something to add to the conversation thank you we have board member chris gonzalez has a question um no more uh more commentary um so i you know i appreciate all the input um and it seems to me the thing that you didn't mention that it felt like was the biggest

058doubling block in the past was really around the um um having the the certificated teachers to be able to even do a program right well that's it that's a challenge for mandarin right and i mean my understanding is in districts that do this um a lot of them actually recruit people and and even support them through the credentialing process so that they have teachers coming in that's what i've heard from many other districts to be able to have a high qualified credential teacher so i i i guess from my perspective i think we've been talking about this as a as something that's important as a board for a couple years and it just hasn't actualized so the reason i wanted it on this agenda is that we could start talking about like what what direction

059are we going to go in this how can we make something like this um viable right and so whether it's it's the the ib route which i think is great i mean i think it would be great to have the whole the whole continuum from kindergarten to 12th grade to have ib um whether it's that route or whether we think about an individual program i i i want to see us moving forward and i i say that because i see most many districts around us moving forward and putting programs and being successful even a couple that launch them in the middle of the pandemic right and so you know as we make decisions with budgeting and decision making this spring i want us to think about and i guess maybe i'm i'm actually i want

060some agenda because i want to hear from my other fellow board members is this a priority for us is this a priority for us to expand our language programs to give students access to other languages beyond just spanish because it is for me and i think i think it makes it would make us as stronger as a district as we move forward i am completely in favor of exploring options to increase the world language component in isuzu unified i think for all the reasons that miss camacho iterated around global economy um the cultural competency um and it and the programs being reflective of our demographics i think that's important um i also think it can be a great attractor for students to move into the district um i know several families who were really hoping

061that we would open our mandarin program here and when that didn't realize they're in different districts um but you know their students are in kindergarten so i think there's an opportunity to attract back some of the students that left the district um for some a highly structured program and personally you know i i would love to do more work around looking at the ib program because i think it's important to have a base um i think it's it's hard when you have the shrinking cohort to you know for students to have that student support and also to build that community and so i am definitely in favor of exploring these opportunities in the greater context of reimagining schools i think so and i well uh yeah what about the rest of you do we have

062a uh any more comments or uh questions a board member career yeah i i would agree with um with all those uh those sentiments uh sabrina that you shared i i think that you know similar to you know the idea of the concept of having a continually shrieking cohort which would be discouraging i i guess one is this is or or let me answer your question shilling i as as a member of the board do i would i be interested in seeing us pursue this absolutely i think pursuing these options and keeping these options in front of us um but being careful to not put ourselves in a a position where we kind of start a program that is maybe doomed to to to not um flourish um and so and so i i guess

063i i would wonder what some of the interest is what some of those numbers um would be what it what is some of that critical mass that's needed to to sustain a program through you know um what could be you know even the slight diminishing of the cohort i guess i would wonder some of those things but um all those things are would be investigated and i think it's definitely worthwhile to investigate uh those things yeah i also agree i i think it'd be i think it's it's it's actually past due it's been needed i know we've discussed this many years ago and i think the perfect timing is now through this reorganization um to bring a new program to our district i think it'd be great and again hopefully we we will get um

064people from out of the district that will come because i do know uh that mentioned that you know schools our surrounding schools they do have uh mandarin dill version and i think this is a unified i think we're overdue thank you i would like to also express um that i think it's a great opportunity to embark um i also agree with my colleagues and um especially now that we are going through the reconfiguration trying to figure you know what schools would be uh available and towards this this um moving into this direction i have a question for my colleagues actually there's there's three different um types of programs that are being presented to us um right one of the things that i heard board member grier say that we would like to go ahead and

065have a program that um it is uh is successful and if we look at all three programs the dual immersion the the two-way um we tried it and we did not have enough response from our community um to to have a full class um so so one of the things to think about is perhaps you know how how do we we know we want to start this program but how do we start this program do we start at you know the um the flex flex uh way where non-native speakers of target language right so we we start with with that program do we start with one-way immersion um i would like to hear from the board um what are your thoughts on that um well i can do you mind if i jump in i

066think i think there's just a couple things um one i would just caution um both available with you and adrian i mean i hear you start talking about like how is it going to pencil out from the beginning right if that was our criteria we wouldn't even have our dual immersion program that we have right now because when we launched the spanish one the classes were not full and we didn't have waiting lists right um you think about ib right like ib still is starting to still continue to grow we have a commitment to it because we have a belief and it's and it's growing as we've seen right and so to me some of it sometimes when we decide to do something some of these things um it's really around what we think is

067the best for our community moving forward and maybe at the beginning maybe of course it doesn't pencil out and not we don't have like full classrooms we've done that and we continue to do that when we think it's an important something important that that as we go into it is going to be really valuable for our district so i just want to put that on the table in terms of which program i would just i i mean and this is my personal preference right when you if we're going to do a dual immersion program right there's only one most programs in our area are 50 50 half and half there's only one 90 10 program mandarin that i know of in the area um in the region and that's in pasadena so there's only one

068district that's doing a 90 percent mandarin 10 in in english program so if we wanted to like put a program out that was very competitive that was very appealing right because when you when you actually look at language models um students students gain greater um fluency the english learners that are learning mandarin actually become better speakers of the foreign length of the target language when it's a 90 10 model um and so it we would it would it would make us more competitive because the other districts around us are only offering 50 50 models so it means the kids get 50 mandarin 50 in english right so i would suggest that the the difference between that and the fles and flux programs plus and flex are more like a like it's not it's like like

069it's like a after school activity right like the kids are not going to learn to become fluent in the language it's more it's more about them just getting an exposure to another language and i think if we're going to go that route i'd like to have a conversation about how can we say that's a priority for our district and all kids should have that kind of should have that kind you should have access to touching a foreign language um but that's a very different conversation than saying we want to launch a program around dual immersion where we have the small cohort that's going to become biliterate in english and mandarin so i mean that's why i i i guess the short i gave a long explanation but i think i would those are the decision

070is do we want dual immersion do we want like a like an after school like a like you know a uh um what would you call those classes um when the kids get to choose what classes they have i'm sorry i'm losing words like an enrichment class right enrichment class right or do we want to have a program where kids learn to be biliterate and then that after we make that decision then you can decide is it 50 50 or 90 10. anybody else have um yeah um would it so what what would the process of of you know assessing the cost um of or you know the initial and maybe even even term investment into something like a full dual immersion um i wonder if if that was known on the on on the

071front end and and weighed and recognized um i think that would be helpful for for me again so so i'm still 100 in the camp of like let's explore that let's explore you know dual immersion even to to the point of of a full and entire daily immersion program but um what you know how difficult would that be um and could we get that to see what what that that investment would look like maybe maybe even for each of these but but i'm really interested in the dual immersion um of the three the dual immersion um again um to board member cruz gonzalez's point um in the most ideal situation uh you would have you would you would build from the get-go to full kindergarten classrooms and the research backs up over and over and

072over and over and over and over again that the 9010 model is the model to go with so the first investment would be two teachers uh who have a b-clad and are authorized to teach in mandarin and then of course the materials that would that would have to be accompanied for this program now again in the most ideal situation you have 52 students in these in these two classrooms in each classroom half of those kids are native mandarin speakers and half of those kids are not but again that's ideal right and and that's that's again that's that would be something that you would strive for or that you would work for if you only launch one classroom then i think i think that it is our responsibility if it's a dual immersion it's our responsibility

073to make sure that we're communicating from the get-go uh to our community that because we only have one classroom moving up that when they get to fourth grade uh we're going to make decisions as as we move along but we want to be transparent that in fourth grade um we we depending on the numbers uh there might have to be a combination or we might have to um mess with the with the uh program a little bit uh the model that we all that we are offering because again at this point in time it's only one strand moving up and any dual immersion program we see this in our spanish dual dual immersion program you're gonna have attrition as you move up people move people change their mind about being in the program and so

074the reason we have those two strands is that when we get to fourth grade boom we have a full classroom uh so again the initial cost is the is the staff and the material for for the staff i just want to do a quick time check i think um i think we were supposed to start the parent piece like 15 minutes ago and so i'm i mean clearly it's not going to happen the next couple weeks or the next two days so i'm wondering if we can just you know continue this conversation maybe do a little get some more information for board members to mull over and so that we can move along on the agenda i'm going to go ahead and suggest i was looking at the time um it is 7 12 the

075award should be starting soon but is this something that we would like to go ahead and bring back at a future to discuss in the future okay we can go ahead and just make that recommendation there's obviously a lot of interest i do want to share real quick before we move on i do have two kids that have gone through the dual immersion spanish i have one in high school right now and um just exactly what they said she is a sophomore and she is in the spanish speaking class and she is working towards getting her by literacy seal and that is you know that is um something that she decided to do and continues to um commit herself to spanish so i do see the benefits in the dual immersion program and this is

076definitely a conversation that um we'll definitely get back to we're so uh all passionate about this and thank you miss norma camacho for for all your work and dana mitchell um thank you so much we'll go ahead and move on to our next board uh item we're moving on to 9.4 approve resolution 20 21 25 for national school week counseling week february 1st through the 5th 2021 and i would like to go ahead and invite frank chang to say a few words before we move on thank you um good evening board president ariana's members of the war superintendent ortega cabinet members and the azusa unified community thank you board of education for considering the resolution this evening and recognizing our counselors you have always been so supportive of them and recognizing the hard work and

077dedication they consistently demonstrate please allow me to recognize them by name as i know as i am honored to share not only their work but the people they are dominique perez at slauson middle school who i believe is in the audience roxanna reyes at center middle school steve scott at foothill middle school sandra wyatt at sierra high school daniel soriano at adult education center gladstone counselors george abdo joyce de leon dr janae koram who i also believe is in the audience and laura ortiz who also services ellington school azusa high school counselors jackie oak crystal mejia anna sanchez and dave lewis we are all hoping for a speedy recovery and that he will be back with us soon thank you karen kardashian for stepping in and assuming his responsibilities and goals in these challenging times

078our counselors have continued to do what they have always done advocate for our students and ensure they can realize academic achievement and or social emotional well-being for example counselors have been collaborating regularly sharing social sharing ideas but also offering support to one another on how best to adapt to the challenges we faced during this pandemic they have been in virtual classrooms presented information on the importance of middle school years to transition into high school developing four-year plans talking about grades credits credit recovery a through g graduation requirement reviewing transcripts college applications post high school college or career plans college and career lessons on ambiance academic and social emotional learning lessons but most importantly being a comforting presence to allow students to explore their fears concerns struggles and dreams counselors are continually reaching out to both

079students and families on a daily basis by phone through google meets and emails new ways of communication have been put in place such as informal student hangout groups an instagram account and even check-in surveys to assess how students are emotionally coping during these difficult times counselors are providing access to services through mckinley's children's center azusa pacific university counseling and foothill family they have continued to coordinate teacher parent conferences sst meetings 504 meetings home visits and even participating in iep meetings they have presented at parent meetings led multiple fafsa meetings and are also planning on virtually visiting feeder schools in preparation for next school year such as course selection goal setting and simply answering questions as you can see their work seems endless but they are unrelenting i am truly blessed to be able to work

080with such amazing yet humble people every time we meet there is laughter and yet there is always a seriousness and focus to do work that they do and they always are thinking about what is the right thing for our students they are always willing to help each other and help guide me when i need help they are an invaluable asset and resource to the school for staff teachers and administrators their expertise dedication kindness and empathetic nature have always been so critically important to the success of our students and never had those qualities been at full display or have been so needed as they have been these past several months thank you thank you frank for those words if we can all give our school counselors a round of applause thank you thank you thank you

081to all the school counselors can i please get a motion to move 9.4 make a motion on 9.4 we have a first by board member rodriguez pena can i please get a second by second thank you we have a second by board member beau any discussion seen that there's none i just want to um excuse me i'm sorry okay i i just want to thank the counselors for all the all they do for our students for helping them continue their education and also always being there for them i do recall my children and grandchildren when they were in school when there was a situation going on they're like oh i need to go talk to my counselor you know no matter what it was and and i'm very thankful for them thank you yes thank

082you board member rodriguez pena anyone else seeing that there's none let's go ahead and cast our vote please and it passes 5-0 we'll get we're going to go ahead and move on to consent calendar we have 10.1 can i please get a motion to move item 10.1 approval of consent calendar so moved thank you we have board member cruz gonzalez can i please get a second second we have board member adrian career for second if we can uh does anyone have any uh comments or anything that they would like to pull cnn at this time let's go ahead and cast her vote i'm sorry i'm sorry board president i like to pull item um 10.9 10.10 and 10.11. i hear you correctly you want to go ahead and pull items 10.9 10.10 and 10.11 is

083that correct correct great thank you okay now we pulled items 10.9 10.10 10.11 can we please uh get our vote casted to go ahead and pass ten point ten sorry ten point one and it passes 5-0 moving we move to items um we move on to 11.1 which is the approval of adult education affiliation agreement with skilled nursing pharmacy and we are open for discussion i'm sorry can we get a motion to approve this that we can go ahead and move into discussion thank you we have a first by board member rodriguez pena can i please get a second second i'm sorry president ariana what is the what's the motion it's 11.1 approval of adult education affiliation agreement with skilled nursing pharmacy it was an item that was pulled um i'm not seeing that on

084the screen yeah board president uh we apologize uh 11.1 is what we had pulled um i'm sorry it's it's the regular board let me go ahead and and we're not that that we should uh that's being tabled to another meeting uh so that is that is not that should not be an action item um so um we are actually um if hope can't fix it right now then we're actually not actually on 11.2 okay let's go ahead and move to 11.2 and i see that the 11.1 let's go ahead and move to 11.2 let's write it by and come back to um 11.2 which is the approval of adult education affiliation agreement with skilled nursing pharmacy now can i get a motion for a first motion forward to move this forward so moved second okay

085we have a board member crews gonzales first we have board member rodriguez peng ii okay and it's open for discussion okay my question is it's actually on the on the three items and they're all the same um because it says no budget trees you know we're not paying anything my question is regarding the insurance who pays the insurance on the liability and um on item e on item g under criminal uh criminal screening ausd i want to know um who is paying for it for the the student to be screened because i know like parents you know they get me they need permission like to come and speak to their uh students volunteer their time in school and i want to know who's paying for these two items thank you for the question i can

086answer that so the the screening there's a fee for this screening and that is actually part of the student fees the students are the ones that are paying that go through the fees and then the insurance is part of our district's liability insurance okay thank you very much for the clarification thank you yeah so go to the registration correct and i have the same question in all three so okay thank you you're welcome okay let's go ahead um anyone else have questions okay let's go ahead and cast our vote for 11.2 okay let's go ahead and do a hand vote we start with board member yolanda yes board member cruz gonzalez excuse me we're oh yes yes we're voting on this okay thank you board member career board member beau yes and i vote yes

087and it passes 5-0 moving to 11.3 approval of adult education affiliation agreement with roland convalescent hospital can i please get a first motion make a motion to approve we have first motion by board member rodriguez pena can i please get a second second we have board member adrian career second and since it was the same question same question same answer okay great let's go ahead and cast our vote yes yes okay we have board member rodriguez pena we have board member cruz gonzalez yes board member bo yes we have board member greer yes and i say yes 5-0 it passes let's move to 11.4 which is approval of adult education affiliation agreement with citrus college citrus valley pharmacy can please get a first uh motion to move 11.4 i make a promotion to approve 11.4

088we have board member rodriguez pena with the first motion can i please get a second just for transparency purposes board president i apologize 11.4 right now is uh showing approval of new and amended exhibits um if we go back to the original request by board member rodriguez pena uh the one that should have been pulled uh was 10 11 which is the approval of adult education affiliation agreement with citrus valley pharmacy and it has been corrected it's now 11.3 right there okay so it's okay and that that's what i had said right yes to go ahead and move forward so it's 11.3 and can i please get a second to approve 11.3 a second thank you we have board member cruz gonzalez seconding that and any more discussion on this seeing that there's none let's

089go ahead and uh cast our vote we have board member rodriguez pena yes we have board member cruz gonzalez yes yes we have board member greer yes member bo yes and myself i say yes we passes five zero thank you we'll go ahead and move to 12.1 ratification approval of change order number zero zero three field upgrade at gladstone high school can i please get a motion to move 12.1 make a motion we have a first motion by board member rodriguez pena can i please get a second second board member adrian career seconds the motion to move 12.1 any discussion seeing that there's none please let's cast our votes and the computer is ready and it passes 5-0 now moving to the item of the agenda that everyone has been waiting anxiously to get to

090we're moving to 13.1 presentation of the 2020 2021 parent of the year awards and i turn it over to dr mitchell thank you thank you good evening board president ariana's board member superintendent and cabinet it is both an honor and a privilege to present to you the 2021 ausd parents of the year a plethora of educational research has shown the family engagement positively impacts student outcomes in so many ways not only in academic achievement but also in the social emotional development of children you may have heard this african proverb it takes a village to raise a child this proverb means that an entire community of people must interact with children for those children to experience and grow in a safe and healthy environment in this environment of distance learning that is exactly what our ausd

091parents have done all of our parents and caregivers have joined us in community of partnering and supporting our azusa staff and distance learning in the midst of a devastating pandemic it's been an all hands on deck approach as our parents and caregivers are supporting the learning environment in their homes many of which support multiple grade levels at one time and for your continuous support of learning we want to thank all of our parents and caregivers for all you have done to support the children in the azusa community we're so grateful for your support it has truly made a positive impact tonight we recognize the parents selected by their schools as parent of the year these parents have been selected for the outstanding ways that they have supported all students staff and parents tonight's parents of

092the year are giving back to our community in numerous heroic ways which contribute to the development and well-being of all the children in our azusa community our parents of the year volunteer on school and district committees such as pta school site council boosters elac delac they lead other parents in families and schools they serve on the pac plus superintendent and parent roundtable district advisory committees wasc accreditation committees model continuation parent committees and school fundraisers our parents of the year have a strong sense of community and support all children in our district through community service such as supporting isuzu parks and recreation mentoring students church outreach scout leading youth sports and supporting after-school programming our parents give up their time and talents they participate in virtual family engagement activities attend numerous ausd online meetings and parent

093learning network opportunities and they are making a positive impact on our community by leading by example they have gone to extraordinary measures to take the time to reach out to other parents they have helped other parents to access resources and tools in support of student learning and well-being they have taught other parents how to help their children and made it a priority to look out for other parents to make sure their needs are being met our parents of the year are a voice for our families they are not only devoted to their own children's education but also they're devoted to all the students in azusa unified and we would now like to present our parent of the year videos to celebrate the extraordinary support they provide to our students staff and families we will also

094be posting a link to the transcript of the videos in english and spanish in the chat and we'll be posting the video and the transcripts on our website as well okay lika my name is laura clark and i'm the principal of dalton school it is my honor to introduce our parent of the year norma castillo her leadership has had such a positive impact on her family and community norma has been volunteering in azusa for several years beginning when her children attended longfellow school that is when her advocacy for her two boys became apparent and has inspired many since norma has become a great resource for other parents norma's helped so many teachers with hours upon hours of paperwork and making copies even when her children aren't in their class my favorite teacher comments are about

095how she works with people how she gives courage and strength to those students that may lack self-esteem and motivation how she has such an ability to lift people up when they are feeling down or doubting their own abilities and how normal looks beyond the challenges in life to find ways that effectively move people to action i couldn't agree more we are so fortunate to have norma castillo and her family at dalton good evening my name is dr rosinas and i am the principal of ellington's tk through 8. it gives me great pleasure to celebrate leslie jones as ellington's 2020-2021 parent of the year leslie jones is one of the most dedicated parents that i have ever met she has five children all of whom have attended ellington leslie has always been involved in every single

096aspect of all of her children's education even throughout this pandemic leslie continues to virtually volunteer in the classroom and is the driving force of our pto leslie is as concerned for all students at ellington as she is of her own during her time on campus leslie eagerly helps students getting little ones to their classrooms and setting up for the book fair every year ask any student at ellington who she is and they kindly refer to her as ellington's pto lady she's cool leslie is also actively involved in multiple activities with her church the entire arlington community thanks you leslie jones for all that you do for all eagles and congratulate you for being ellington's parent of the year congratulations good evening my name is victoria velasquez principal of victor hodge elementary it's my honor to

097present to you our parent of the year mrs sonia friesar smith wife mother of three busy working mother she always finds time to volunteer volunteer in the classroom for each of her three children get her hands in there and do something creative with other people's children because really she has a heart for service she's humble she's collaborative she wants to see the greater community involved in every way but also she quietly looks on ways to form partnerships an active member of the pta mrs smith has also put her heart to work saying even in the pandemic virtually anything is possible a listener a collaborator someone who wants to see membership grow in pta and active participation she's often found listening to others inviting them to be a part of things especially our children in fact

098she even facilitated with the collaboration of the pta virtual parties for our kids please join me in honoring mrs sonja smith good evening i am diana rojas principal of charles h lee elementary school and it is with great pleasure that i present ms lucia bob rodriguez as our parent of the year mrs babraduce is a proud mother of two children her daughters in the armed forces and her son ian is a fourth grader at our school mrs bob rodriguez's passion for her son's education and advocacy for all students in special education is to be admired along with her positive nurturing selfless parenting for the last two years she has served as our school's parent rep on the district's parent advisory committee in addition mrs balbrodicas went above and beyond for our lee and azusa community

099this year when the organization that she works for fiesta ducati inc collaborated with our district to contribute a large amount of ppe supplies for our students and their family as a mother mrs bell rodriguez is an exemplary parent she is soft broken has a heart of gold and her desire for ian to grow into an independent productive citizen is always evident therefore at lee elementary school we are blessed to have miss lucia bell rodriguez as a parent and partner and are honored to recognize her as our parent of the year for charles h lee elementary school i'm jenny lee director of ece and i'm honored to present to you long parent of the year mrs melissa wilson perkins mrs perkins is a natural in the world of education she's devoted to her children's education and

100immerses him in knowledge she fosters her children a sense of independence community gratitude and thoughtfulness mrs perkins not only volunteers in her own children's classroom she also volunteers on behalf of the entire school community as well as the district community currently she's on the district's preschool advisory committee a pta board member a spirit committee member and a diversity equity inclusion committee member at hodge and she's also on a usd reorganization team her energy positivity selflessness and solution-oriented approach is contagious she recognizes the strength potential and area of growth of the district and acts to make ausc the best place it can be for her two sons and all the children in the district good evening my name is jeanette flores and i'm the proud principal of murray elementary tonight i'm honored to introduce to you

101murray's parent of the year ms karen padilla karen is the mother of three healthy fun and active boys they are ivan 8 max 7 and dominic who goes by mickey and is 5 years old the ruiz boys definitely keep karen on her feet at all times during the day karen makes sure her boys are connected to distance learning and is there to help whenever they needed when the day is over she spends time with them outside watching them ride their scooters going on walks and taking them on hikes karen is one busy mama she is very present in their education both in person and in distance learning she always takes the time to get to know her son's teachers she is not afraid to ask for help and in turn is always willing to help

102when she is needed for these reasons we are honored to recognize miss karen padilla as murray school's parent of the year congratulations karen my name is antonio forest director permanent in my name is of powell school of the arts and it is my honor to introduce amanda spencer powell's parent of the year amanda and her husband braun have three wonderful children kenneth louisa and sandra when i met amanda it was crystal clear this mom is highly invested in her children's education she approached me right away to let me know that she and her husband were willing to serve on any committee and asked me to call her if there is anything that we needed as we began distance learning she has been an example to other parents setting up a classroom-like space for each of

103her children at home communicating regularly with teachers and supporting her children with their learning as you can see her excitement and dedication rubs off on her kids as they put their all into their school projects amanda is an encourager sewing masks for staff and dropping off homemade treats to lift our spirits she helps to create the supportive family-like community that we strive to be paul's strength is in our people and we are stronger because of amanda spencer the valley dale community is excited to recognize miss priscilla pantoja as her parent of the year although this year there have been many challenges we continue to be blessed by the kindness and support from priscilla pantoja she is a person that you can always count on and who is willing to lend a helping hand last year

104she was often volunteering in classrooms and helping out at school events and this year is no different it's just done virtually priscilla has stepped up in so many ways and has become a staple of support for teachers students and parents she's worked alongside teachers to learn the tools that they're using in distance learning and has shared these tools with other parents she has supported parents with technology issues and has become an advocate for the dual immersion program and she does this with a heartfelt smile as a former viking she's motivated to make anyone who comes to our campus have a wonderful experience whether virtually or in person we thank priscilla and her family for their commitment and love is good evening my name is sam perdomo and i'm the proud principal of foothill middle school

105it gives me great pleasure to announce gloria del vr as foothill middle school's parent of the year whatever activity meeting event that is occurring at fms you will be certain to see gloria at one of those functions gloria participate and attends all the coffee with the principal in elac meetings and she plans and facilitates all the families and schools parent workshops transitions to high school and college knowledge moreover with respect to gloria being involved in her children's education gloria feels that she must always be involved with all school activities in addition gloria feels being present at her children's social and emotional development is of the utmost importance finally gloria also promotes healthy discipline and feels it is a key to productive decision making in particular where shared intelligent and responsible decisions should be practiced fms

106is so lucky to have maria del vr here at fms as a parent volunteer and we will be lucky to have her for another year congratulations gloria delviar hello i am yvette walker principal at slauson middle school and i am proud to present mrs rosa ramirez as this year's parent of the year what an honor it is to have mrs ramirez as such an involved and supportive parent at slauson mrs ramirez supports and assisting students parents and the community whenever possible she takes an active part in her children's learning and schooling by dividing her time between schools she has participated in providing support in the pta student council meetings and educational trainings she has also volunteered her time in after school programs such as think together homework house and district events such as mariachi of

107azusa she is caring hard working and has followed her roots by embedding her beliefs of continuous growth through literature parenting classes and trainings in the community thank you mrs ramirez for sharing your time and your positive energy with us at slauson congratulations to you as lawson's parent of the year hello my name is martin gomez and i am the proud principal of azusa high school go aztecs i am excited and honored to celebrate and recognize azuza high school's parent of the year mr jason de la torre high school thanks mr delatorre for everything he does for our school and our ass team mr de la torre is an active parent and member of the azusa high school family along with the community he has coached in azusa american little league participate in district committees he's

108also the baseball coach member of the aztec football boosters and he provides a unique perspective not only as a parent but also as an educator and a professional in law enforcement because of people like you you improve our azusa community and the lives of our children thank you for all you do for our aztecs he is always willing to support our students staff and our community congratulations my name is gabriel fernandez and i am proud principal of gladstone high school on behalf of the students faculty and staff we would like to recognize our nominee for parent of the year ms leslie jones to borrow from amanda gorman's poem the hill we climb one thing is certain love becomes our legacy and change our children's birthright miss jones is an example of a gladiator parent that

109is leaving love as their legacy at the happy rock her steadfastness her selflessness and her commitment to her daughters is evident even in the darkness of this pandemic through the past two years she has supported the ghs music program the athletics department and been a strong advocate for the medical academy with other parents ms jones compassion for all children is apparent as she works for the change that will become all of our children's birth rates i'm kent stout principal at sierra high school and i'm proud to announce our parent of the year mrs lupita casteron mrs castrion has been married to her husband roberto for 20 years she has three children stephanie kevin and carlos and two grandchildren frankie and sarah yi mrs casparian has always been willing to help out at sierra she attends

110our parent meetings served on school side council elac and the model continuation parent panel her dedication has been greatly appreciated as a parent she motivates her children to always try and believe in themselves she believes it is important to set an example of being a good citizen she helps neighbors by taking them food or walking kids to and from school this year she has taken a high school student under her wing providing him support and treating him as her own she has a kind heart and always cares about the azusa community we at sierra high are lucky to have her as part of our parent group congratulations mrs lupita castron on being sierra high school's parent of the year good evening azusa unified board members cabinet and community my name is marcela fonsica and i

111am the wildly proud principal of magnolia school because tonight i have the distinct privilege of presenting to you the azusa unified school district's parent of the year maria samaniego maria is a wife and mom of five children and now she gets to add parent of the year to her resume her youngest son emanuel is a sixth grader in mrs wright's class and when asked to describe his mom he wrote my mom is great and never gives up she is very humble amazing so loving and nice maria's passion is raising her children in a loving home and helping them grow into the best versions of themselves she models for them the value of becoming a productive contributor to the community while emphasizing the importance of education and cultivating an informed view of the world in which

112they live her desire to be an ever-present and positive influence in her children's lives is what allowed us the privilege of working with maria as a valued partner she faced the challenges of the pandemic and turned them into opportunities to serve as secretary on the school site council donate supplies participate in district and site-level meetings and volunteer in the virtual classroom maria's servant heart shines in all the thoughtful ways she contributes to our wild community emmanuel you are absolutely right your mom is nice great humble and amazing and now she is officially wild maria thank you for all you do for magnolia school we appreciate you and the entire san maniego negro family and we are proud to have you represent the wild mustangs as azusa unified school district's parent of the year congratulations again

113to all of our parents of the year we are grateful for everything you have done to support students and staff and families and now please join me in recognizing and congratulating the ausd 2021 district parent of the year magnolia parent maria samaniego hi good evening can everyone hear me okay um good evening i feel honored to have been nominated and selected to represent magnolia elementary school and the asusa unified school district i would like to thank miss angie wright my son's fifth and sixth grade teacher for her perpetual support of not only our children in school but of the parents alike also miss fonseca the wild mustangs auspicious and delightful principle thank you miss wright and miss fonseca your enthusiasm and hard work are truly appreciated in addition i would like to thank our school

114board cabinet members and magnolia staff this past year presented many challenges for our families our communities and schools we've had to adapt to a new normal which included being physically apart from family and friends to virtual meetings and learning remote work for those of us that are fortunate no work for others any pandemic that has devastated the entire world who would have thought that via zoom teams google classroom we would quickly recalibrate into virtual living this is the right moment to join and support our schools by logging on to board meetings school meetings community meetings and truly understand the impact of our new normal by doing so i found that we as parents have a voice and responsibility to advocate for our children and collaborate with our teachers and administrators in the decision making that

115impacts our children's academic education i invite all parents to take an active role and partake in the committees that impact your schools and ultimately shape the future of our children thank you everyone before we um open that up and uh have our board members say a few words again maria congratulations um on being named our district parent of the year we do have um we do have melissa alcantar here and so she is from uh foothill federal credit union so i i believe she has a little presentation yes good evening um thank you so much for allowing me to join these are my favorite events and i'm so happy to be here on behalf of foothill just to show support to the school community and i just want to congratulate all of the parents of

116the year um everything you guys are doing is so important and i think it's awesome that you are leading by example for your children and i think it's it makes a huge difference for the whole district and it's so amazing to witness the community that azusa has and all of the passion that everybody puts into the district um so on behalf of foothill credit union i would like to award the district parent of the year um mrs samaniego with a 50 gift card just to show um recognition and our appreciation and her dedication to her children and to the school and to the whole district so congratulations mrs samaniego and thank you so much for all your hard work yay thank you thank you so much and now i will turn it over back to

117board president arianis thank you dr mitchell would any of the board members would like this is the time you'd like to say anything any last words yeah just again want to say thank you um and and congratulations to to everyone um congratulations to you maria on being selected as a district uh parent of the year um if ever there was a year where where being you know the parent of a student um and being committed to that student's learning um just was you know as challenging as ever this this was that year and so for for those parents that that stood out and that that that continued to to you know either continue to to shine in the ways that they have or maybe even saw ways and saw new needs and and so therefore

118shined you know through in in and in the midst of and in spite of uh the the pandemic um just want to say want to say thank you and again recognize that those parents who are being highlighted um it's because the the care and the concern that you have um yes is most certainly there for your child but it's clearly also there for you know the the those students throughout the school and throughout the district and so on behalf of all of those the you know those within the district and for all of the work that that you do um to to make us a stronger community and a stronger district just want to say thank you very much and i like i like to um ditto what i said earlier regarding the parents how

119important you are how important your voice is in in in the community and in your child's school i want to thank you for volunteering your time i want you to uh thank you for your passion uh coming to the schools and and i miss seeing everyone person to person i do see you on um on zoom meetings and and i just can't wait to all get back together to have a little coffee together and you know have a great time thank you very much parents kudos to all of you thank you thank you to all the parents recognized tonight mrs samaniego especially i offer you my congratulations and appreciation and always i think that parents um parents are our children's first teacher and we remain with them throughout our lives so appreciation and thank you

120to thank you all and i just want to echo my colleagues um to thank all of you um just a couple things i'm really excited to see that the gender diversity and i think a lot of us you know stereotype think about oh the parent volunteers are all mothers but it's so great to see that that's really not true and then in our district all parents care about their students so that i'm really excited about that and money i just want to say i really appreciate your message that you just delivered i think i think under pandemic we've seen a lot many more people engage in with the district and some of our official committees and different decision making um and i hope that that we can continue to spread that word about how it's

121so important for everyone to be engaged because we want you to be engaged and we need you to be engaged um and so i'm glad i'm glad i hate to hear you be that messenger for the rest of our community because it often it it comes but it's it's it's more it's better received from peers from other parents than from maybe the district so really really appreciate your message thank you thank you thank you i also want to echo my colleagues uh maria semego congratulations um just like board member greer said during this pandemic you're still out there and volunteering and just trying to do whatever you can and congratulations to all of our parents i i also wanted to point out um i i've never seen a parent be nominated for two schools at

122the same time and i want to bring that to light miss leslie jones i i was you know when i saw that i thought i was a um seemed there was a mistake but obviously it's not a mistake um so um we really really appreciate all of you um and just like board member cruz gonzalez said you are your your children's first teacher and we thank you for allowing um our teachers to to serve you and for us to be able to serve the needs of your children thank you so much um do we um miss mitchell is there anything else that we i just wanted um i just wanted to say thank you again so much to all the parents um and i want to um also thank the the panel uh we have

123a district uh parent of the year panel lori ray um last year's parent of the year denise lopez anna quack sandra banuelos thank you so much for serving on the panel and it was truly a joy and a privilege to be part of of this process here and process this year and getting to know each one of the parents and meeting them and i'm just again i was so incredibly touched and i'm just so grateful for um for everything that they're doing in it it they truly truly are all just such examples of community and we couldn't do it without them so thank you great thank you and as we move down to our last item of our our agenda we moved down to 14.1 and this there's no more items um on this agenda

124to to um there's no more items to to keep moving forward so um at this point right now we are actually not a journey we are going to actually be going to in back into closed session and therefore we want to thank all of you guys for joining us today and this special day for parent of the year award celebrations you guys all have a great night and we as the board and cabinet will go back into closed session take care