001so hi everyone um i want to welcome you to venetian unified school district's um board meeting it's 4 22 of 21 and it is now a 706 p.m so welcome to all of you call this meeting to order bringing us back from closed session and i will call this meeting to order roll call do we not need to do just at the very beginning okay thank you so then we are going to report on closed session items and we have nothing to re report from them this evening and then um item 5.2 there's an announcement um charles dr young uh i think that's just the reminder it's just right oh the meeting is recorded for live streaming and archiving on the district youtube channel at youtube backslash c backslash venetia unified school district for your
002convenience moving on to item number six um let's see maybe we can have our parent miss manookian would you lead us in the pledge this evening can she hear me here would you lead us in the pledge certainly thank you i pledge allegiance to the flag the united states of america and to the republic of which it stands one nation one we're going to move on to approval of the agenda which is item number seven uh i'm gonna um is there a motion on the floor does anybody want to make a motion to approve the agenda as written i'll move to a proof do i have a second okay roll call vote yes yes yes okay so our agenda has been approved moving on to item number eight which is the highlight it's the week
003of the young child family celebration and we have with us tonight june reese excuse me june regis who's the director of child development hi june hi mrs regis how are you i'm doing well thank you good thanks for being here thank you for inviting me uh june can you hear me june so i just before just just before mr regis starts uh just just for the the general public this is the uh agenda item that we tried to adhere to every board meeting we select something in the school district that we like to highlight uh you know there's a lot of wonderful positive things taking place throughout the district and this is certainly one of them and uh that's what this is about in case that's the first time certain uh uh maybe some parents
004have been tuning in and also i would just like to point out that miss regis i have to say this june that uh i'm going to say it real quick we're so proud of june because she's in the final stages of finishing her uh doctorate at uc davis uh and she's in the final phases of putting her dissertation together that's such a tremendous achievement and we're just so proud of you jim so we get to double highlight that good job and now this so i just had to say that so uh on you thank you thank you so much thank you thank you for your support um so the week of the young child is a celebration that's done through naeyc which is the national association for the education of young children and this is
005an international celebration so we indonesia have been celebrating this for the last 10 years and usually we at the end of the week we have a big carnival-like celebration inviting all our parents preschool and after-school um families to come and have a good time with us this year unfortunately because of um coven and our restrictions that come along with coven we have had to do it as a drive-through celebration with a couple of our partners so last saturday we held a um family drive-through at the district office we're from 10 to 12. and um here's some of the pictures from it um some of the highlights we had we had um yes um dr beetson she spent all the time with us and there's alfredo um romero he is our director of maintenance and they
006were there with us um we just put a little blue a bunch of um families called us and told us how happy they were with it and um so um so that's what that little blurb is from one of the families she did not realize it was going to be such a big deal it's her first year with us so she was very thankful for it we if some of our partners were um food solano so food solano gave each family we gave out 60 boxes of food on saturday each family got a box not just with vegetables but there was a gallon of milk there were hot dogs there was chicken there was yogurt so they got like a full box that they can really you know um do some good meals with so
007i want to thank um heather and um everybody at futa solano and we had each of ours um our preschools they put out a table we have four sites so each site put out a table and they did um curriculum packets that families can do at home from cooking to math to science stem they did everything that the family can work together because usually they would be on site doing this but we gave them a um a packet and the only thing they would have to add to it is if they needed to add water but we put everything in there for that family to enjoy a nice little project with each other and then first five solano gave us full backpacks with a lot of supplies everything that you can think of that you
008want to put into a child's backpack first five solano gave us that and we were able to give every family a backpack so they got a backpack they got curriculum and then benicia reids gave every family a book so each family got a book and then from our cdu program we gave them a water bottle and a t-shirt as part of our marketing campaign so um family is already surprised with all the little goodies that they got so i just want to thank um the board and dr young and dr beetson um mr ray hill for supporting us and alfredo romero for coming out and spending although i must say his wife is one of our teachers so he had to be there but come on out and supported us so i just want to
009thank you guys for allowing us to do this and our families were really i'm happy with what they received so that's my highlight today oh my god it was a great highlight fantastic thank you so much everybody that had anything to do with putting that together it looks like it was a fun event yeah it was we had a good time putting it together and being there with the families because you don't get to see people like you used to before yeah yeah we're getting there we're getting there yes we're getting there okay thank you so much mrs riches for sharing i appreciate it you're welcome and have a good night thank you you as well bye bye bye okay we're moving on to item nine which is reports the first up are our student
010reports did any of our students show up i don't think so so at this time we'll go ahead and skip that if they show up we'll we'll bring them back next is 9.2 it's the superintendent's report dr young you are up sir very good thank you uh president zeta welcome everybody and uh everybody's tuning in at home uh we have a good agenda for you this evening uh one of the items that we you know have on there um repeatedly is uh you know how are things going with our return to in-person instruction so we're delighted that we're we're back uh and so uh we'll look forward to hearing about that and and with that being said i know there's a lot of questions and thoughts about what school is going to look like in
011the fall and the board and i've had an opportunity to talk about this and i'd want to tell the community that barring any uh dramatic turn in the wrong direction uh with things related to you know kobit 19 and the pandemic the intention of the benicio unified school district is to go back to full-time in-person construction in the fall uh that that is what we're that is our intention that is what we're planning to do um we're excited about that uh there's a lot of really good indicators uh around that that are in our favor so i just want the parents to know that and uh for the folks that don't watch board meetings i'll have a brief update on that to the community that i'll i'll send out a little letter uh tomorrow and
012then you know again barring any turn and that you know events that we can't control because you never know um but that doesn't happen again the intention is to bring everybody back full time so i just want to start just want to lead by saying that um so that's that's really it from your superintendent at this moment president zeta and thanks everybody for tuning in appreciate it thank you dr young i think we're all excited for fall i'm getting really excited get those kids back okay then we're going to go ahead and move on to the board reports any of my colleagues have anything they would like to share dr moss mr miceli miss grubbs who am i missing i know i miss oh miss virtue nothing i don't have anything either so we're going
013to go ahead and skip over that we're going to move on to item number 10 which is comments public and let me see here in an effort for our community's voices to be heard venetian unified school district has transitioned to accepting public comments public comment voice that will now be available members of the public wishing to address specific items on the board meeting agenda are requested to call 707 748-278 one comment per person per item to three minutes on the day of the meeting between 3 p.m and 7 p.m please identify yourself by stating your first and last name if your comment is for closed session please be sure to state that so it can be addressed to close session the board clerk will play the recording of open session public comments to the to
014the specific items then being discussed by the board board bylaw 9323 during the public comment item the governing board allows speakers to speak at regular meetings and on agendas and non-agendized matters under public comment comments are limited to no more than three minutes per speaker at which time the voicemail will be cut off by law no action may be taken on any item raised during public comment periods and matters may be referred to staff for placement on a future agenda of the governing board please be reminded to keep our comments respectful and that students may be watching our meeting so with that um we're going to go ahead and start playing our our the information that we've gotten on the on the recording um i don't know how many do we have this evening but
015i think it was around 15 i think approximately so i want to thank everybody for for reaching out with your comments we appreciate it and and here we go hello this is a public comment made by amanda sanderson a parent of the venetian unified school district um behind my son i was hoping to speak and make a comment on i believe item two or ten in regards to the school and our students my concern that i wanted to address and bring up is that right now when they released the return to school plan on march 4th it had mentioned that as of today let us be on april 22nd we are currently in model 2 which is a high rendering there has been no communication of when we will be moving into model 3 and
016what needs to occur in regards to the state of our counties and where we are with covid and just the measures of when it will be progressing a second public comment and the same items that i would like to be addressed is the usage of laptops during class time while we are both in hybrid and then hopefully for the future when we move to model 3 as well i would really greatly like needs to be addressed because it has not been communicated um reaching out to principal um teachers and also by you guys as well so that's why i'm making this public comment and i will be following up with an email thank you so much and i hope that this will be a part of the goal later on my name is gia quinn
017my son is a student at matthew turner elementary i have comments regarding two agenda items item 12.2 equity and opportunity update i would like to see the district adopt a more inclusive equity goal taking into consideration the needs of students with disabilities the achievement gap across income levels along with addressing issues of race affecting busd students i fought very hard against many to get a special education position on the matthew turner pta board i have seen quite a lot of district communication regarding racial equity and while i applaud those efforts the lack of equity for special education students is a gaping hole the main attention i have witnessed in regard to special education students is a drastic cut in support as well as a major cut to time spent in the general ed classroom these
018cuts are not specific to my child only and they are achieving the exact opposite of equity regarding 12.4 return to in-person instruction your agenda notes that the purpose of this report is to highlight the successes at each level i saw the slideshow and it has quotes from kids being happy and i would like to add a quote that my 11 year old son just said this afternoon he said oh no i don't want to do more speech on zoom i like school in person better and i don't want to do virtual anymore therefore i will likely not force them to participate in zooms anymore i find it extremely sad that our kids are happy to accept the minimal amount of in-person learning that the district is willing to offer our children have been left behind
019for so long that they are eagerly accepting these crimes regarding next school year please begin planning now so that our children receive a full year of full-time in-person learning if you are not 100 planning to have our kids at school full-time in person in the fall then you have an obligation to tell the parents that now there are many of us that need time to start looking elsewhere for a full-time education there has been little to no transparency as far as what the science the district is using to refuse full-time in-person learning for our children this lack of transparency and communication has caused a great divide in your community you have the opportunity here to correct this misstep if you choose to be open and clear about next year's plans it will go a long
020way toward repairing the relationships and trust between the district and parents if you refuse to be open and continue to gloss over our questions and concerns then i believe further damage will be done i am no longer asking for you to explain the reasons behind your decision to prevent our kids from being on campus full-time because i don't believe there to be any instead i'm asking for you to please fully open our schools now thank you hello my name is andrew barrett leaving a comment on item number 12.4 and and my children attend joe henderson school and i teach at robert temple and i just wanted to commend and all of the staff and the front office staff teachers and custodians anybody who's working at school sites and cdu staff and the transition to hybrid
021has been um hard work and my children are really enjoying it my oldest daughter who's a high schooler and is in west contra costa which is where i live and her experience in west contra costa that is what my boys are having initiative initiatives is so far ahead a west contra costa actually hasn't even reopened for the year i also noticed similar experiences with colleagues of mine who are over in henryville and some some charter school networks haven't reopened and so i just wanted to give kudos where kudos to venice unified for um a fourth one safe old men and and i know i've been a warm demander and have been critical uh towards some things our district definitely still needs to work on particularly uh as i know it's been critical of equity but
022in this instance i wanted to call and praise and and in particular finally just the extreme hard work that i see all the niche unified staff doing and to try and make school great for virtual and in-person scholars thank you joy lerner 524 a cooper drive venetia i'm relating it to item 12.2 and i am very interested in having more diversity in our school staff and our teachers there's a lack of diversity now and it's a huge disservice for all the students the staff should reflect our community thank you hello my name is krishna paxton and i'm a venusia resident in regards to discussion item 12.2 equity and opportunity update and session i strongly advocate for our children to have access to a curriculum that is historically accurate reflective and representative of the contributions of
023all ethnic cultures of the united states i am hopeful that the current curriculum audit our district is undertaken produces a classroom experience where our students are learning truth through a diverse range of lenses as a parent i request that an equity curriculum audit task force be created composed of diverse educators diverse parents and diverse community members to ensure that our curriculum is culturally accurate and reflective of the truth through their life lenses and life experiences the racial gap between educators and students in the uscs is frightening black and brown children are faced with a damaging reminder of how much they are underrepresented on campuses in the city the lack of diversity in our busc educators is doing a huge disservice for all of our students as they are only receiving a limited perspective and representation
024of all the beautiful cultures in our country for anti-racist professional development i ask that our children be provided with access to a safe and equitable learning environment in which teachers and staff are provided with a robust anti-trai racist training which include restorative justice practices racial equity trainings and trauma-based interventions and practices as we all know as a recent event um should be put into vex in fact as soon as possible i also would like to speak with um on discussion 12.4 returning to in-person instruction update it is important for us as a school community to acknowledge that the black and brown families have been disproportionately impacted by covet many of these family faced barriers that made them feel unsupported by our school communities even before this pandemic the past year has shined an even brighter
025light on how inequalities have led to many of our students being under the serve i want to urge our district to engage in conversations about how we can support these families to build space and sending their children back to school thank you hello my name is lindsey arendt i'm calling in regards to item 12.2 i am a banisha resident um i'm a parent of two children who attend joe henderson and i wanted to bring your attention concerns that i have that the district has not done enough to address racial inequity in our schools i'm concerned about this not only because of the recent action actions at rayleigh but because of many other stories i've heard from friends of color who live in venetia first i ask that our children be provided with access to an
026equitable learning environment in which teachers and staff are provided with robust anti-racist training these trainings would include the sort of just justice practices racial equity awareness training trauma-based interventions unconscious biased training and practices that would overall be a benefit initially unified an example of this is an upcoming surge training stand for standing up for racial justice it's actually organized by the benicio library indonesia black lives matter i recently took this intense succession course and learned more than i ever did in any college course the course is there towards by white people to learn about whiteness white privilege history of white supremacy and the history of racial justice movement i'd also like for our students to have access to a curriculum that's historically accurate and representative of contributions of all ethnic groups to the culture of
027the u.s as a parent i'm requesting that an equity curriculum audit task force be created composed of diverse educators parents and diverse community members to ensure that our curriculum is culturally accurate and reflective of the truth through their life lenses and life experience thanks for taking the time to listen to my request hi my name is janelle couture and i have a comment for the item 12.4 return to in-person instruction updates and i'd like to request a very clear discussion around what your expectations are for full-time in-person learning for the 2021-22 school year if there's a possibility that you don't expect the returns of full days and that we may continue this hybrid plan for the new school year parents need to know that now i'm a mother of two young elementary school children at
028matthew turner i worked full time and i'm the sole income of my family i can no longer take hours out of my work day to support the hybrid or virtual programs you're offering i end up not getting any normal parenting time with my children because i'm either doing their schoolwork with them or trying to finish my own work because i haven't been able to work appropriate hours during the day if i had known this was going to be the situation the entire school year i would have made different decisions so all i'm asking for today is that you begin communicating what you expect the 2021-22 school schedule to be that way we can all make the proper decisions for our family thanks my name is josh steiner um this is in regards to the in
029person um section of the agenda my comment is that i am in full favor of returned in person um for students i very much want for my two daughters to return to in-person class instruction thank you hi my name is kristen kelly my daughter is a student at venetia high school i'm calling in regards to agenda item 12.4 return to in-person instruction update my daughter should be overjoyed to return to in-person learning but instead the district has only allowed high school students to attend two days per week during those two days she sits in a classroom with very few peers one to three to be exact while other students attend the same class via zoom she has little to no interaction with her teachers rather most of her teachers would be allowing their main focus
030to be on the students on zoom instead of the students who are physically in the room therefore instead of being thrilled to finally be back at school she is disappointed to have such a disconnect to staff on campus after asking her how her first day broke down in tears she said that it was just a change of scenery from all the other zooms and that it felt like they were trying to make it miserable so that she didn't want to come back this is extremely confusing to our family why is it that she's allowed to play water polo games with no masks but when it comes to her education she's sitting in a normal sized classroom that is practically empty and ineffective my husband and i moved our family to this beautiful town nine years
031ago we knew all three of our kids would be we'd be attending saint dominic's but felt good knowing we'd still have wonderful options with the schools in this district if we decided to go public my daughter transferred to bhs last this year and what a slap in the face with them school thing seems to know how to educate kids properly even during a pandemic in fact they're killing it because of you guys they have all they all have wait lists for kids to get it we have a son who will be a freshman next year he wants to attend bhs we want him too i need to know that both of my children will be in person full-time five days a week in the fall i will not let my kids get robbed of another
032year if your plans are to continue this crap i would like to know now that we can plan on either moving our family to a district that is open or find a private school you have done enough damage let's start the healing let these kids get onto a normal education please reopen our schools for full-time in-person learning enough is enough hello this is for post session comments my name is julie steiner and i am calling in regard to two children i have attending joe henderson elementary school right now who will be going into the middle school in the fall i am calling because unfortunately we were chosen for both daughters to continue with virtual learning which is not what we had hoped for and i have heard talk that there is the possibility of the
033middle school being hybrid next year and that it will not be all in person and i wanted to get more information on that and make it known that um our family is very um heavily uh needing both our jobs to be back in person for middle school so i'd like any sort of information on the status as to what the middle school would be looking like for the fall to be addressed during the meeting thank you hi my name is robert crowley i'm a resident benicio foreign court i'm calling in in regards to discussion item 12.2 the equity and opportunity update discussion i understand the district is currently interviewing for a vp position at venetia high school which was previous previously held by the only african-american administrator in the district there's also a principal position
034in one of our elementary schools that seems going to be available for new hire we have a big issue with the racial gap between educated students within busc black and brown children are faced with damaging reminder every single day and they're underrepresented on campuses in this city this is a great opportunity for the city of venetia for busb to seek out black and brown educators and administrators that come help increase diversity look at our education from a different lens and more importantly make or allow our black and brown students to see representation at within the educational or excuse me the administrator and the educator level that make them feel more safe more at home somebody that they can relate to i highly recommend that we look everywhere when trying to hire these two positions thanks
035for your time my name is jackie mueller and i'm a venetia resident this is in regard to discussion item 12.4 return to person instruction update during these past weeks my wife and i have been fortunate to send our children back into the classroom and we've been able to watch the joy and happiness they've shown finally being connected with their teachers and friends again this is an imperative moment for us to give voice to the inequities that we have within our school community and to acknowledge that the families that have been impacted the most by covid our families of color may not feel safe to bring their children back into their classrooms many of these families have faced barriers that made them feel unsupported by our school community even before this pandemic hit and this past
036year has just added a layer to the inequities that exist in our community the past year has shined an even brighter light on how inequities have led to many of our students being underserved i want to urge our district to prioritize these families and put effective supports and programs in place right now so that our children can feel safe and emotionally supported as they enter their learning environment again i urge our district to engage in conversations with our community to learn how to better support our families as part of this as a parent i would like to request that an equity curriculum audit task force be created composed of diverse educators diverse parents and diverse community members to ensure that our curriculum is culturally accurate and reflective of the truth through their lifelines and life
037experiences i request that the community be kept abreast of this work towards more equitable education with equity updates presented during busu governing board meetings on a bi-weekly basis additionally the lack of diversity in our busy educators is doing a huge disservice for all of our students they're only receiving a limited perspective and representation of all the beautiful cultures country i ask that our children be be provided with access to a safe and equitable learning environment in which teachers and staff are provided with required robust anti-racist training which include restorative justice practices racial equity training and trauma-based interventions and practices finally i advocate for all students to have equitable access to mental health services this goal can be achieved by staffing each school site with a full-time mental health support services composed of school counselors school
038psychologists and teachers who have participated in robust anti-racist to weed out biases that are harmful to the students they serve thank you for your time my name is brittany sapien i am a mom of three children in busb our twin boys are in kindergarten and we have one enrolled at joe henderson in the ais program and the other at robert simple in the skills k-5 program tonight i would like to address item 12.4 return to in-person instruction update previewing dr beeson's presentation before the meeting i was surprised to learn that such a presentation was needed to once again prove to the board that in-person learning is what is best for students is this really surprising was another outcome expected parents educators and even students have been arguing that they needed to be brought back to
039in-person learning at the earliest available date all year long but those calls were dismissed or outright ignored it was this board that has dragged their feet for over a year failing to provide science-based explanations as to why busb was the last district in solano county to return to in-person learning and yet here we are again tonight following in the unfortunate busb status quo of failing to move into the right direction in an acceptable timeline instead i would have appreciated hearing from dr beason about now only just about the great successes of returning students in person but also learning about the comprehensive plans that we all know dr beatson and her team are capable of making and providing to the district about reopening schools come fall 2021 failing to provide families with a plan standing to
040provide insight into the 2021-2022 school year what will that look like for students is crippling to many families particularly special education families as they move into their iep meetings this spring how can the district expect parents teachers and therapists to meet discuss and come up with an agreement to meet the needs of students without this vital information for those members of the board who need to be reminded ieps are federal contracts that outline an individual education plan for the next 365 days from the day of signing for students with disabilities when the team itself has been given no insights into what the 2021-2022 school year will look like how can you expect the team to accomplish any such tasks many districts such as novato turlock lodi mariposa and several others across this district across the
041state have been announcing their plans for the upcoming school year why is denisha once again at the back of the pack i encourage you all to do your due diligence make some phone calls collaborate educate yourselves so that the full in-person plan can be a reality for busd lastly parents need to know what where the negotiations are with bta transportation transparency is the only thing that is going to reinstill trust and confidence in the district continuing to shut parents out will lead to further mistrust the lack of transparency should outrage everyone much of this discord could have been avoided if the district led by this board had been open transparent and honest this past year it's time for denisha to start healing itself please do your job thank you good evening my name is christa
042heredia i'm a venetia resident i have two student sons who attend robert temple elementary school and one grown son who attended both venetian middle school and venetia high school i am calling tonight in regard to discussion item 12.2 which is the equity and opportunity update i am very eager to hear what will be reported this evening as i have many weeks before and i will continue to do so i strongly advocate for our children to have access to a curriculum that is historically accurate reflective and representative of the contributions of all ethnic groups to the culture of the united states i know that our district is currently going through a curriculum audit and i am hopeful that as that audit happens our district is undertaking um it produces that i want this audit to eventually
043produce a classroom experience where our students are learning truth through a diverse range of lenses so in order to achieve that i want to specifically request that this group creates an audit an audit task force that can be composed of diverse educators diverse parents and diverse community members to ensure that when we look at this curriculum and that when we're making decisions about what to implement and what to change that's doing it through a way that is reflective of multiple lenses not just one lens multiple lenses diverse lenses and life experiences the next point i want to make about equity and i hope to hear about this in the update is the lack of racial diversity among our venetian unified school district staff this is something else that our group has been talking about um
044for weeks and weeks and months and months there are some key positions open right now administrative positions that i'm aware of at both the high school and one of our elementary schools and what is our district doing to go beyond simply saying the words that they're trying to hire for diversity it's just words until we see the action and then once our staff are hired what changes are being made within the district so that our black and brown staff members are supported and they're retained so it's not just about hiring it's also about retaining talent lastly i want to ask i hope tonight specifically what programs or resources that will be required and provided to our staff members our teachers and our administrative staff in regard to anti-racist professional development things like restorative justice practices
045racial equity training trauma-based innovative interventions things that are available to help our staff give our students the experience that they deserve on campus and that that is required of them it's not just something optional um you know learning anti-racism learning needs to be done in a group um in order for us to see real results in fact behavior and school environment so i'm very eager to hear the update this evening and it's time to see action the time for planning is done there's there's been enough time for planning and what we need to hear now is specific plans and dates of implementation and until we do see and hear specific plans and dates we're gonna keep at good evening my name is michael shepherd my daughter attends bms and is in grade eight i would
046like to make a comment regarding item three i appreciate the opportunity to speak to this item during this meeting i'm calling to express my extreme disappointments with the efforts of in-person learning and specifically the hybrid schedule the 1.5 hour time for in-person learning is extremely difficult for working parents the rapid commute is disruptive to an already challenging time in the middle of the day once the kids are at school the limited interaction with teachers is again disappointing the kids routinely attend in-person learning only to have the teachers work remotely regardless and dial in through zoom this is not accomplishing my expectation of in-person learning communication to the kids has been overly political and extremely opinionated towards county and school policy this is inappropriate material that teachers are communicating to the students this is not part
047of the curriculum and these policies are not driven created or enforced by the students i have personally worked outside of home since the beginning of the pandemic i respect the safe precautions required to limit the spread of covet 19 and to keep people safe it is disheartening to see many schools successfully and safely return to in-person learning throughout the county the state the country and worldwide this takes a big commitment and a lot of efforts to keep people safe however it is being done safely elsewhere it is disheartening again to try to understand why this same effort and why this same system cannot be put in place for my daughter i believe what is lost is the lasting mental and emotional damage being done to a once enthusiastic student my daughter is not alone in
048feeling like like this i imagine a once proud enthusiastic excited student now returns home routinely in tears demoralized disheartened and disengaged i stand by to support any efforts to improve this system which for my family is clearly not working thank you hi my name is sean henderson my address is 159 in crime place adesha california 94510 and i'm calling with a general comment i'm a parent of two venetia students a high schooler and a middle schooler and i have this nagging worry that we are not in the right place for my middle schooler who was a black child but i'm encouraged by the opportunities that busd is presented with right now and i just want to call in today to let you know that acting on these is of utmost importance to families like mine
049and to all denisha families first i understand that there is an effort being made to hire black faculty and i applaud that but it's not enough to try it is imperative that this happens my son has had one teacher in his school career that looks like him this is wrong minority students pay a real cost for being in an overwhelmingly white school environment in fact i read recently about a study done in 2018 by john hopkins and american university that found out black students that had one black teacher by grade 3 were 13 more likely to go to college if they had two black teachers they were 32 percent more likely to go to college that's huge and it's not just black students that will benefit from more black and brown faculty it's all students
050who need perspectives from everybody in this country that make contributions to who we are the second opportunity is the curriculum audit i am really happy to to see that we are are auditing our curriculum right now i think there's a lot of room for improvement and would really like to see people of color uh being included in that process not just included but their voices be given a lot of weight so that we can come up with a curriculum that's anti-racist shortly accurate that's representative of the contributions of all ethnicities and that's culturally responsive the third thing um is equity training i really believe this should be required for all teachers and staff and should include things like workshops and real world activities where they really learn how to make a difference thank you [Music]
051that concludes the public comment okay thank you so much thank you everybody for those that reached out um we appreciate your comments thank you um we're going to move on to item number 11 which is the consent calendar all matters listed under the consent calendar are considered by the board to be routine and will be approved by the board in one motion there will be no discussion on these items unless members of the board staff or public request specific items to be pulled and discussed so at this time um do i have a motion to accept the consent calendar as written i'll move to approve thank you second cece uh thank you mrs grubbs uh roll call vote please miss martinez yes yes yes yes okay we'll move on to item number 12. um 12.1
052is the benisha grad night light and i have here with me um there she is miss manookian um has been involved she's a parent and she's been involved in planning for the grad night this year for our senior students so i'm going to turn the mic over to you now so you can share what information you'd like us to know thank you thank you very much i appreciate the opportunity to address the board and thank you dr young for the invitation i think actually it's a great opportunity for vanesha grad knight to not only tell everyone what the grad night is about but also to give you an update about the changes in grad night this year as it relates to covet 19. uh i believe most of you i recognize most of your faces
053and i'm quite sure that many of you do actually know about brad knight but just by way of background the benicia grad night is a program that is developed for graduating high school seniors from benicia high and liberty high and it is a program that allows for a celebration of the grads on graduation night and it is hosted by a non-profit organization that is fueled by 100 percent volunteers volunteers in our community are parents and they are old graduates and teachers and all sorts of people who feel strongly that it's important for our graduates to be able to celebrate in a safe and sober environment i think most of uh most of everyone here tonight is old enough to remember probably the 80s and 90s and during that period of time there were um frankly
054um a really a large number of fatalities and accidents nationwide that involved graduates especially on graduation day often involving drinking and driving accidents and so in response to that nationwide many communities including benicia started a grad night program so we could sort of ensure that all graduates who wanted to could come and celebrate in a location that was safe and that they could then of course after that celebration return safely to their families so venetia grad night has been a program in town for i believe i think this is the 32nd year that it's been active and it is a program that is supported by of course some of our biggest supporters are the benicia police officers association and the venetian fire department and other groups that are interested in creating this protection for our
055seniors to allow them to have a fine graduation night the the part of the benicia grad night this year that will look different than the years in past is typically the graduation party is indoors and outdoors and of course this year it'll be all outdoors the entire event will be outdoors with the exception of when students need to use the restroom and other than that it'll be a 100 outdoor party for them the duration of grad night is traditionally begins about 8 30 in the evening and it wraps up about 2 30 in the morning some communities actually keep their grads all night into the morning and they actually sleep over but venetia's wraps up about 2 30 this year though it'll wrap up about 12 30. so the program will be shorter than usual
056it'll be all outdoors and of course we will have all of the coveted protections that are required by the various health departments and regulations throughout the state of california and specifically whatever tier we're in come graduation day so um other than it being outdoors it'll be a shorter a shorter length and then of course typically grad night costs each student about 200 dollars for admission this year the admission ticket will be 50 so it's significantly less expensive although we will still offer like we do every year a scholarship program for any student who cannot afford admission our goal is to have as many graduates attend as possible and this year we our estimation for the number of graduates at grad night will probably only be about 150 students and this is partly because of covid
057and also because we had a group a large group of seniors graduate early this year uh from uh from the school in december i'm sure you all know that so um the program has also modified the activities to allow for appropriate social distancing among this among the participants so that they can still have a good time but remain socially distanced from each other we'll have additional volunteers this year to assist in maintaining the sanitation stations that will be provided throughout the program and they'll also be volunteers to remind seniors if necessary to maintain their distance from each other while they enjoy the evening the um the uh the president of our association judy brink i think this is her 17th year either participating or running this program and she um is maintaining many of the
058things that we would already do of course there's insurance for the program and there are waivers that the kids engage in and their parents sign as well so all of the sort of the fundamental structure of the program will remain the same but they'll be a heightened um you know concern with respect to uh covid so uh i am happy if if you have any questions i'm happy to answer any questions that you may have about grad night or specifically um how grad night will look different in 2021 thank you so much mrs manukian appreciate all the words and the effort and the time that um has gone into trying to get this to go forward before i i reach out to my colleagues i wanted to see if mr thompson wanted to add anything
059to this before we open it for discussion sure president said yeah thanks i was going to request that so the one thing i kind of want to weigh in on is in the seven years i've been at the high school as vp i've been a liaison to grad night and their entire operation and their approach is flawless i mean they this this group is very dedicated they've they've come in on non-uh covered years and have transformed a basic classroom into you know a movie theater that rivals what you see at disneyland i mean it's it's they do really fantastic stuff there's like 18 wheelers full of stuff that show up and then disappear in seconds they're always respectful of our of our policies and our infrastructure um really the summary is if they say they
060can do it they can do it that's my experience i have full faith that their plan is really well thought out i was able to meet with ms manukian uh miss tillerson there's a lava in this brink and they have a very good plan um you know even from the safety perspective they thought they've kind of thought it through and uh so i full confidence they'd be able to do this well thank you for your input um i'd like to reach out to my colleagues to see if anybody raise your hand if you have any questions or concerns dr moss yes and thank you for the information about grad night um so i'm curious to know with um it's going to be outside um can you give us an idea of like location on campus
061or structural wise is there going to be a tent or you know is it booths or just kind of give us an idea sure dr moss by way of background venetia grad night traditionally is an event at the high school that is both indoors and outdoors so a good portion of grad night is always outside and the portion of the grad night that's outside mostly in my view kind of resembles sort of a carnival um there are all kinds of activities for the kids to do outside and that generally takes place uh in in what i would call the quad of the high school uh we use um the space between the buildings uh we provide actual there's fencing um in the perimeter of of that quad area if you can kind of visually picture
062that and the fencing is uh you know quite frankly to contain the seniors inside so that we can guarantee their whereabouts uh and you know that's one of the pledges that um the organization wants to make to parents is that when their parents sign them up for grad night that they in fact know they're at grad night and um and so there is so the the infrastructure of the high school is great because it allows us to sort of define those boundaries uh for everyone involved and so if you can picture the the quad that is that's basically where the outdoor grad night is anything else dr moss i know that was it thank you um mrs fruchi anything yeah actually i was just going to thank them for keeping up the tradition i've actually
063been on that committee for years since i've had multiple children go through and i've actually served as the chair it's a phenomenal event if you've not actually participated yourself it's it's a great i think it's a great way for the kids to have their final their final send off from the high school and from and from and with their friends and you do it's an amazing event lots to do lots of fun activities and you don't see very many of them get bored it keeps them pretty busy so i'm very grateful that the parent groups are still continuing to provide this service so thank you mr miceli any comments or no nothing hi mrs krabs i just wanted to say thank you to you and your group for putting this on i know you there
064are extra constraints um due to covid and it's been such a year and i think it's so much work it is crazy fun i worked it when my kids were going through and i i i know that the planning is phenomenal but also the extra steps you have to go through are just make it that much more it needs you know you put so much effort into it you and your crew so thank you so much yay for those seniors they get to do it this year yeah um okay so seeing that everybody that wanted to speak has already spoken i i i also applaud everything that you guys have done i still have some concerns um because it is coveted and we're like splitting up our our graduation into two to be careful about
065anything with the kids being too close together and seeing as there's going to be a couple hundred kids 150 200 kids plus i read somewhere there's a hundred adults that's a lot of people outside um so that just makes me a little bit concerned because i think when they say when you guys were saying something about not having kids aren't going to interact directly with each other but based on what the things that we could be doing at this particular event which i don't think you've locked any of that down completely yet it seems like those are things that kids like if there's dj and dancing they're going to be dancing together there's going to be other things that go on where they're going to be interacting together and i i know that you said
066you're going to be having all the equipment available there to help satisfy the fact that it has to be uh decontaminated or whatever word it is you just disinfected i guess is a better choice of words um and that you're gonna have that available i mean is that do you think you're gonna be able to take care of all that while this function is going on between students that that's my fear and i so i you know i'm just putting it out there it may not something that people are happy here i mean we're already making precautions using the graduation to be split so i just i just wanted to put that out there um uh hopefully to put you at ease masada a few things that i can tell you that we have planned
067um uh to begin with when the students arrive uh we will be able to take their temperature well i should start with by the first week of june i'm happy to know and i'm sure you all know that everyone who wants a coveted vaccine will be fully vaccinated by the first week of june including all of our seniors because they all qualify so that's a very good yeah that's a that's a very good piece of news right there um but when they come to the graduation party they will be required to wear a mask we'll have masks available if they lose or forget their mask we'll have sanitation um stations throughout this throughout the event and um if our budget allows we're also going to provide them with um you know individual sanitation um devices
068for themselves that they can carry with them and they can if they want to they can continue to sanitize throughout the night um without even going to one of the sanitation systems but um i in in my personal opinion uh based on my observations of my own senior and others uh i think the kids are very responsible i think they're very accustomed now to social distancing i think it's second nature frankly um in in my personal observations i i don't expect um any difficulties with getting the kids to maintain that those distances we're selecting um particular activities that that allow for that and i don't want to necessarily ruin the surprise because our graduation um plans our party are oh it's always a surprise for the seniors but we're selecting games and events and things
069that they can do um you know essentially alone of course there'll be kids nearby but um it will be it'll be a bit different because what we're expecting them to be distanced from each other so um i have confidence that the kids will continue to follow the instruction um that they've been given um at the high school and and i really um i did want to clarify we we have probably a hundred volunteers but we do not have a hundred volunteers at the event that evil so um but yeah there is a small army of volunteers don't get me wrong but they are often behind the scenes they you know they they work in shifts and they set up different parts of grad night and then they go away and a different shift comes and
070does whatever they need to do but the hands-on night of the event volunteers there's nowhere near 100 adults and the adults i would expect to be vaccinated by then i wouldn't know of any reason why they wouldn't be okay i i appreciate the clarification i must have misread it when i saw the hundred volunteers but yeah it makes sense that it would be partially there at different times of the day to make this happen and then the one other thing i had and i i think i had asked dr young about this was you had mentioned that it's a it's a group it's a non-profit group that puts this event on every year as it has in the past aside from i think last year we didn't do it but it's a it's a non-profit
071just your non-profit have a an insurance policy and i think maybe mr thompson will understand this and um is it is it that overrides the like an umbrella over an event like that that's on campus but not school sanctioned yes of course of course yeah i mean obviously there's some understandable confusion even when we talk to parents as administrators that because the work that they're dedicating that they do for for the students is directly related to our seniors there's some natural confusion that's a school event but you know really on the on the 5 000 foot level this is an outside user group that has always respected our property and our infrastructure and is requesting use of it specifically for the benefit of our seniors i also think it's important to point out they graduated
072earlier in the day so really they're yes there are students and and they do a great job of having a waiver and the parents do sign off and yes they have always provided a very substantial insurance policy as every outside user group does to cover you know liability but from my perspective these are adults that are choosing to attend an event that just happens to be at school and so you know i'm a safety coordinator i have safety concerns students you know i i don't think you're wrong from that perspective but i also believe in choice and liberty and i think this is an opportunity for for seniors and their families that would like to participate to do so and again you know can't repeat it enough they're fantastic i mean brad knight always does
073a great job um they're great to work with and so i've i have full faith in what they're saying they can do that's that's amazing and wonderful i'm glad to hear that clarification as well it cleared up some things in my my mind so thank you for that i'm excited for these kids i'm really excited i might stop by and play they'll have to bring a mask oh i have one in every pocket all the time i'm good thank you so much for sharing that information i hope that makes our families excited that's awesome thank you thank you miss miss minoki you did an outstanding job and again this this is not a typical item that we bring to the board but since we live in different times and you know really good interesting questions
074around just making sure we're ensuring everybody's safety but you did a fantastic job of uh delineating all the safety measures that you will put in place and i think the trustees and the rest of us have the utmost confidence in the group that create a great event for our graduating seniors and it's a much safer place for them to be there that's the intent of it from the beginning so thank you so much absolutely thank you very much thank you thank you everyone you're welcome bye-bye okay item 12.2 equity and opportunity update and discussion and this one dr bison you are uh no not you yes you i'm actually going to turn it over to miss rice who will take you through uh tonight's presentation so thank you mrs rice thank you good evening everyone
075good evening uh binicia community i am here let me just get it cued up and all right i am here tonight to give you the busy equity and opportunity update um but before i do just jump right in after that presentation from miss manookian again thank you for that i do want to put a plug in for that uh benisha grad knight i volunteered for that it is magical and i will date myself by sharing that i attended uh binisha high school's grad night in so i think we were like the fourth year and it really is it just it just puts a bow on the end of the year so if you're looking for something to sprinkle a little sparkle in our banisha seniors there's definitely places for you to volunteer all right so
076back to the presentation i always like to start with our busd vision and i think it is completely appropriate for equity and opportunity update where all students achieve at their highest potential in an engaging inspiring and challenging learning environment so our focus tonight is at the center obviously is supporting student learning we're going to reflect on some data as requested by dr moss at our last board meeting and then we will update you on monitoring our student group and i will share actions identified pre-coded that i shared and where we are with those as well as sharing some new actions and plans with you and if you have any questions along the way please you know feel free to ask while i'm presenting i don't see any of you so just go ahead and jump
077on in all right so i'm about to share some data with you um but some of the overall points is that looking at our students they're achieving at least levels consistent with spring of 2020. so that was right when we went with cobis overall our students are achieving at higher levels than pre-covet our our student groups that we progress monitor are still performing uh below our overall um so still having the um performing gap or performance gap excuse me as identified before and then but with that said our progress monitored student groups are also achieving at higher levels pre-covered and i'll explain that we have different measures due to covid and that you'll see that the learning gap is less in mathematics than in english language my apologies my forward moving arrow is not working
078there we go all right so this is a a table that you've seen before in blue is our casp our state assessment that we take every year except for this past year due to covid i've shared this before where we've looked across the grade level to see how we're doing and we've also looked diagonally at our cohort data also on this graph you'll see that for 2020 spring of 2020 when we went out for covid and then 2021 that was at our trimester 2 for elementary and our quarter three for our secondary we have in the green or our what we call s p scores that's our reading level assessment that we do in elementary sponsors and vanilla and then in purple we have our scholastic reading inventory our sri spores and then in red
079these are current grades so you can see that we're performing similarly from 2020 to 2021 but overall with grades and reading scores our scores are higher than what we were performing on cast and then we also have our student groups that we're monitoring because we've identified that we have learning gaps with this particular group again we have our cast scores and then we have two columns here 2020 and 2021 of our secondary scores the red again to remind you our percentage of students meeting or exceeding standards and this is reflected by grades and then we also have our elementary students and you can see that they're performing similarly from 2020 to 2021 but also still we are identifying that there are learning gaps for all of our identified student groups but when you look at
080how they're doing in covid via grades versus the cast measure the gaps are smaller i also linked in the notes two different data points that i won't click on and pull up but i will just speak on i also added some further data um because we're constantly looking in monitoring the data of some uh some further points for sri we've dug deeper so the finishing middle school is giving the scholastic reading inventory and they give it this year they give it last year and they gave it pre-covered and they've actually the students have grown and improved each year and they're performing actually higher now on the scholastic reading inventory than they were pre-covered i also included our dlac presentation we had our district english language advisory committee meeting last night and we were digging through
081data we were working on doing a needs assessment that we will get out to our families of english learner students to um really intentionally look at how to support our our english learners and their families and one of the data points that we were looking at is how our english learners are performing compared to all but the other piece that we looked at was our students that are considered rfap or reclassified where they have either passed celt or our lpac assessment also met our other rigorous criteria and then they no longer have to take that assessment but we still monitor their progress to see if we need to intervene and provide support and our rfep students are performing either at how all of our students are performing at average or they're performing above they're really
082doing well our reclassified students in math this is just like the ela data here we have our task again that we look from year to year and we monitor by cohort as we're moving through the grades and then we're looking at 2020 in the spring in 2021 just passed currently these are current grades we did not have grades here for three four five because last spring our standard space report cards the teachers gave grades by narrative but you can see again we're performing at a similar level as we were last spring and then when we look at the data again bride our identified student groups that we're monitoring in mathematics we still are having from year to year those performance or learning gaps when we look at our secondary from 2020 to 2021 again in
083mathematics you can see that the there is still a learning gap but it is not as prominent as it was in english language arts and that they are performing all the different groups are performing uh stronger than they were compared to pre-covered in cats and then also when i presented the cast data so that would have been the beginning of last year when i was presenting the 2018-2019 cast then we also identified some actions that we were working on so i wanted to go back to those actions and show you what we have either started initiated and nothing i can't say anything's ever finished right it's always ongoing so we had a focus on building relationships and we have begun training and culturally responsive practices for all teachers we actually started that last school year
084pre-covet all teachers went through at least an initial training and culturally responsive practices for those that had already started the work there were some other levels offered to them we also provided the beginning level of training for all teachers in universal design for learning we have worked to expand our dlac and we're still looking for parents and families to be a part of our district english language advisory committee as well as it was our benicia african-american moms group which now has expanded to mom's dads and and whoever is welcome and it's we're working on possibly making it a formal apac but it is grown and then our focus on our low performing our low performing student block grant work groups we implemented a systematic phonics program in grades tk through second we have focus support
085um on our struggling students and we have made more intentional work out of our reading tutors and expanded what they do we trained our intervention teachers at the elementary level in orton gillingham and as they've been monitoring our students even through covid they've definitely seen growth in what we're doing and a big attributing factor they feel is their focus on using these strategies for the students we have not yet done an analysis of the middle school system so that's still on the list of to doing we did focus and do a study on name and need and identifying students that are struggling and really digging into what the need was and focusing on an action we began working with a city wide reading campaign and we're ready to do our launch and then covet hit
086so that is still in the works and once we can we will reengage with that and you also heard an a component of that um i know june regis spoke today and i know some of their books that they got out to their preschoolers also had to do with the banisher reading campaign and then we also did the secondary instance of plans and that has to do with tasks and increased supports for english language learners and then some new actions that we've added since that last presentation is we have worked on increasing equity and inclusivity in our adoption and renewal protocols so when teachers are going to adopt a new curriculum we take them through a rigorous process where there's many steps in how they're looking at their curriculum and then they go through this
087adoption protocol where they're looking at key focuses they rank them and then we come back and discuss them to see if it meets the criteria another level that we just added was we also have um it usually happens more secondary but where teachers are using a particular curriculum and then a new updated version comes out and in the past we would just update to the new version but now what we're doing to really focus on um equity and opportunity is we're also taking the team through the renewal protocol which they go through and look at how it's beating the standards how how many different entry points are for our students what different equity pieces are are shown in the curriculum so that's something we've updated and then you know as you've heard uh by parent
088sharing that we are working on um a curriculum equity audit and we're working on that currently through our district curriculum council and we went through and looked at many different tools and we focused in on a tool out of the university of washington and it's a very in-depth rigorous tool so right what now what we're doing currently is looking at how we can one train teachers on how to use the tool two look at how the group of teachers so we're talking about not just having teachers look across a grade level or across a subject matter but having vertical articulation happen so that's one piece within our teaching community but also then having a team which it will tap into establishing a district equity team here so that we can get more perspective from from
089the the rich culture of our community and be able to have that feedback and some of the expertise of our equity partners to really give us feedback and guidance in this equity audit process so it's not a a quick one two to do um it's definitely being thought out and intentional and in the works the other thing that we're working on simultaneously is hiring outreach and dr gill is heading up this charge and hiring outreach isn't just hiring new staff it's really looking into recruiting what what our recruiting processes are and what our hiring processes are and more importantly how our retaining processes are and we're really looking for a pool of highly qualified staff with a focus on black educators and educators of color and then as well as that we're also hand in
090hand looking at our onboarding process so as we're doing this work in binish unified such as doing professional learning here and working through xd modules how then do you staff and minisha um get up to speed where we are so we're working on what that onboarding process is and to make sure that people have under their belt um one the equity work that we're doing and two that they're trained as well tomorrow i'm really excited to work with our equity partners we have a full day planning session with nicole anderson consulting epic education lindsey fuller these are i want to call them the dynamic trio they really are a really um non-knowledgeable group um epic education uh headed up by dr nancy dome we'll be working with her tomorrow as well as lindsay fuller who
091i know you've heard of leading up some of the professional learning communities that our teachers sought out and we're working with and now we're partnering with as a district and then nepal anderson she is um has been doing this work um across the state and is also one of our busc parents so we're really excited about that as i touched on we have ethic for education at equity modules which our teachers began working on at our first professional learning day i know dr moss you asked how many uh have actually done done what was expected or more and um as of right now we have um at least 88 of our staff has completed the required modules plus some and it's still open and people are currently utilizing them and they're also being utilized and
092brought into components of staff meetings and then we have a professional learning community happening right now with lindsay fuller she's heading that up and like i said we're working on establishing a district-wide equity team and we'll be working with our equity partners on doing that but really having this overarching overarching hub of input with representation from students parents certificated classified committees and representing the diversity of our community and then also now moving on to curriculum uh we've increased uh digital curriculum for differentiate differentiation excuse me and accessibility we've added on several different resource components to our base curriculum to enhance what the kids are learning but not not just enhance but also add entry points for all i touched on reading tutors we've create increased their capacity this year we're working um the binisha middle
093school is working with the california literacy initiative reading grant which has a focus on our special ed students as well as bringing the rigor up for all students in their reading and writing we have increased support for english language learners we've done additional outreach this year to families such as our english learner families to do some check-in and make sure their needs are being met we are offering after-school math and ela support we have attendance monitoring and support so in the past you know it was attendance was monitored but there was more intervention when we got to that 10 absence mark but now we're checking in and supported when we get to that third absence mark student services is also working on looking into providing transportation support that will be post-covered but to support our
094mckinney-vento or homeless families in getting them some support and getting to school currently we're contracting with brickspace at the middle school and this is in-person support provided outside of when they're in their in-person learning time and we're offering um we've provided some scholarships for students to participate as well we just uh talked to for a co if you're familiar with her owner of brickspace and she had some phenomenal things to share and just how engaged respectful and just brilliant the students are that she's working with so it's just a really exciting opportunity miss tanya courtney is still heading up getting all those meals out to kids and we're still able to provide the free meals for both breakfast and lunch and uh for for families to pick up in and take home so that was
095not everything going on but just what's been going on since we updated you last and before taking questions i just want to leave you with two quotes that really have spoken to me and the first one is all of us did not have equal talent but all of us should be given the opportunity to develop our talent and that's john f kennedy and then this last one is effective diversity efforts must represent mirrors and windows a space where all people see themselves mirrors and connect with others windows in ways that foster an equitable society and as banish unified we believe wholeheartedly in this and this mirrors in windows work you know just speaks to be in the work that we've been doing and equity and opportunity and diversity where you really have to work from
096within and also see the world around you as well as our students need to see themselves in what they're learning as well as different people around them so that's what we're working on any questions i do have a question drop my share so i can see your face for bringing together um the data i do really appreciate that so absolutely you know a clearer picture but i did want to just kind of refer back to one of the slides just because i want to make sure that um if you know any of our community members who are listening so they can really understand as we're looking at the data with all the numbers and everything so for example on the ela slide um you know just as as an example over time like say starting
0972015 you shared the data in terms of how students have been performing right with with our with ela for example so if we look at our students who are english learners um as an example um so families you made a wait until you pull it up yeah i'm looking at it because i'm looking at it on my other computer like where did it go sorry about that that's okay go ahead keep sharing and then i'll get it out we just wanted to just to so we all clearly have the picture so from 2015 we have the data and then you you moved if moved us all the way up to 2021. so for example if we look at um english learners in 2015 out of our english learner population only 38 um were at um
098where they were either met the standard or exceeded correct so as we look at the numbers we can kind of see that that was the percentage of that student population and that's how they were doing correct let me let me just pull that up sorry i was really still stuck in where did it go i'm so sorry um all right so you were talking about this slide slide four um yeah i think i was looking at no i was looking at the other one um yeah it was that one yeah so just uh you know just to have a clear picture so we do see that there has been some progress just over time um correct what it's looking like so okay so just kind of looking at our our our subgroups is what i
099was really kind of concerned with too and then also i noticed that with our students who were like our our houselessness family so um is that to say that we didn't have any data or we didn't have any students who identified in that category i'm doing now um if they have to reach a certain we have to have a certain number of students before we actually get scores on the dashboard and um i'm trying to think of what year dr beetson i know it's just been in the past i want to say three years that they started reporting out on homeless foster youth but we did not have the numbers during these years and we did in 2019 to actually receive sports okay all right so it looks like we we've made some progress so
100just overall as you kind of indicated and do we know um were you guys able to identify like maybe what those key areas were that either caused the dips or caused the you know the decline were you able to identify anything in any conversations or um you know just kind of looking at the data as far as dips and declines um like looking when we would look back and dig back in as a whole and we've we've looked at data slides you know um year after year this way as well if we go with our our our group um we can look from year to year that we may have um like from fourth grade 57 and then we say in 2018 we're at 56 but for the most part overall we've increased going from
101cohort to cohort now one thing that we have noticed and i shared at the beginning of last year with you all as well um i don't think dr boss you were here then though but um we do notice a decrease from elementary to middle so that's been something that we've been talking about as far as that focus on transitioning from going to elementary school into a middle school in the different things that they're faced with so that's been an area of focus and that was a strong focus also pre-covered and then you know many things were also focusing on but there wasn't one um one like cause that we were able to identify as far as a dip except for when we look at mass per se or even what's interesting is in ela we
102went up but this was the shift of of going from start to cast and raising the rigor um you know of the assessment that was something that we identified um but one particular thing i'd have to actually honestly look back um from some notes when we did our uh teacher dive in our content collaboration miss rice we can also talk about in um on the student groups one of the the struggles in our demographics is our our number of students so particularly if we look at english language learners is very small so we only have 2.8 of our students district-wide that are classified as english language learners and in a year where we have a lot of reclassifications that will really adjust the performance level because it only takes a couple of students to really
103swing the percentages in a different way and i remember it was several years ago we hadn't reclassified in a while and then there was a bigger reclassification so it made a bigger adjustment when we looked at our overall grant so that was one thing the other thing with um the english language learner is the test changed and i don't remember uh miss rice i'm not sure exactly what year it was just a few years ago it moved from the um celt felt the alpaca which i believe was much more rigorous and students have to get a four on that like they have to meet the highest level on all parts of that assessment um to pass and to get reclassified now and then i have another question too in terms of all the the services
104and supports that you've um started to put in place um and then and you gave me that you gave us the information on the participation you said 88 of the staff has participated thus far um and then so i'm curious to know how how are they how is staff supported in this continuous effort in conversation so for example if the modules are given to the staff for them to to participate on their own so to speak is there ever a time where they actually come together you know and have this continual conversation about about what they're learning what they're doing um do they have opportunities to be able to to to watch each other in some type of way i know it's different now um we know with covet so we can't quite visit uh
105well you can still actually um visit classrooms to see um to do like these these um kind of learning walks so to speak um so are you being able to do any of that um well so that initially was the missing piece um was you know we had the epic modules uh the beauty of it was that there were uh there was a lot of choice um you know our bottom line was they had to get through these two they had to get through at least two modules and they had choice within seven but it really was that discussion piece so we did offer two professional learning opportunities followed up with an epic presenter that went through some of their different protocols and then gave an opportunity to ask questions we did break out rooms
106and discuss now we did not have that was not a mandatory training as we are thin on that at this point because we had our um big trainings but those were offered and as well as we've done follow-up with uh dr beetson has led us through admin council in pulling out components of the epic modules to model for management staff to then bring it back to their sites and i know different sites such as elementary sites are coming together you know through coming up with their equity teams to focus on but that is something as we're planning now already so we're trying to finish strong and plan forward how our professional learning goes if we integrate some modules there has to be a key debrief section and what will that look like so that is
107a topic actually for next week in district curriculum council so stephanie can i also ask a question and i know i sit on curriculum counsel so i'm probably going to hear the answer to this question but i know the blue that um that gosemity and and you have been referring to was a different assessment so if we look at the 20 19 20 20 21 data there's still there is a drop when you go from 20 20 to 21 so i am assuming that that's part of what we're going to be addressing as we go forward with summer school programs which as we go forward in september because if you go all the way down each each achievement group there is definitely a drop from last year to this year if you look at you're
108on the other slide which is by grade level if you look at the cohorts there's definitely a drop and that's kind of what i was watching for just to see where we were last year versus where we were this year my obviously one of the biggest impacts and we've had this conversation before in curriculum council is what the kids have lost this past year so when you're when you're looking and seeing for example 74 going down to 70 77 dropping down to 65 we're definitely seeing that there is a loss and i think we're only looking at grades report card rates is that right the the the redder grade the the green is the font is yes and the purple is the scholastic reading inventory okay so we're not even comparing apples to apples then
109we're looking at it because we have totally different measures mm-hmm yeah but the the six seven eight you can look at that's scholastic reading inventory so that's probably the most accurate similar six to seven is doing what typically happens they increase at seven because they lose it at fifth and they get six seven to eight as well and then when we look at 2018 we actually increased pre-covert from 2018 uh to 2019-2019 to 2020 and that's what i have attached here as well and that's what i shared with you uh ms fruichi um yeah so there there is some growth um you know we could look and discern you know how you know why is there some drop here uh i'm i'm sure there are many different reasons you know there's many layers to the
110onion but i definitely think our rigor has increased but when we look at as far as our next slide you know that shows our student groups um they're still like you know we're definitely we're we we know we need to do something for our group yeah it's definitely um a learning gap but in different groups there's less of a gap in grades per se than there was in casp scores so those are all different things and and like dr moss was saying you know we have several questions and and things we're trying to tease out um to identify you know what some of the what's are um so that is an ongoing discussion and process for sure um and i think i have one more question just in terms of the the different levels of
111support for um in terms of like you know we have these tutoring programs and things like that have you have you been looking at other you know other types of services that may be of support i know i had asked about a presentation um from the willie b atkins program for example um is there any discussion in terms of of maybe other partnerships that might help um you know help students because i also want to know that that when students graduate that they that they're not it's not a mystery it's like not a mystery in terms of if they want to go into the work you know workforce or into a trade or if they decide they want to go to college i mean like i i would hope that we're we're having conversations with
112students as early as possible so that you know so that they kind of know or if they give an idea they have an idea of what their what you know what possibilities are um for them so you know dr boss i i just want to say first of all thank you for bringing that up because you know when we prepare these slides we have to get it ready the week prior a lot has happened in that week dr beason and i actually met yesterday day before with uh the willie b atkins group um and we are looking into having a some sort of partnership with them they we had an amazing conversation an amazing presentation of everything they offer to our students 8th grade through 12th they do everything that dr moss discussed is really
113investing in the students helping them set up plan monitoring the students after they graduate to see you know what trade they end up in or what school they end up in it's really a really strong mentoring ship program that really hones in on life skills and things that students connect and relate to and it is a program that really shines light on our african-american students all the all of the leaders um or at least from what um i understand are are are african-americans so they you know are seeing themselves and really having that strong mentor opportunity so yes we are looking with uh into ways to partner with them okay good yeah they have uh judges who participate so it's good to be able to see um you know to be able to build partnerships
114and then to see people not only who look like you but people who are also successful um and i know that they help all students so you know i know it's open to all students but they definitely are there to support students so thank you for that i appreciate that yeah they they were amazing he gives you goosebumps when you talk about it you know it's great thank you any other questions i think i think everybody's asked who would like to um ask i i want to thank you um mrs rice for putting this together it's a lot of information and i want to say i appreciate the fact that you worked on these in advance and had them attached to our agenda so i that happened in all of our different areas and i
115just want to say i know i really appreciate having the information sorry if there should have been stuff that could have been modified a little bit more but um i appreciated having it in advance so thank you and i just want to say that you have a 1265 emails oh my gosh that's a lot oh my gosh anyway thank you for the pr absolutely trustee grebs has a question oh i'm sorry yes she's not on my screen sorry go ahead um i i actually have have a concern if we could go back because i i'd like to share my screen for um in a minute you want me to stop sharing or did you want me to show something first oh no are you done with your presentation stephanie yes i can be done with
116my presentation absolutely i thought you had a question for me sorry no i have a comment i i i have actually a concern but i wanted to okay i do want to say how um um i appreciate all the work that's that's being done um in regards to equity and um but i do have a concern and and before i comment i want to clearly state that my message tonight has nothing to do with skill or creativity of any group i know it's been a really hard year but that being said i'd like to acknowledge all the data gap data diving and trainings that have been offered and accepted and participated in i really appreciate all that work that's gone into this i'd also like to point out that the the trainings and the data
117gathering um and equity if they're not practiced in real time with all stakeholders um if the stakeholders aren't aware of possible inequities and unfortunate it can be a really unfortunate um issue so if i can just share my screen for a second i want to i know where to go i've lost my i'm sorry it's been a long time since i've done this can you see my screen now yeah okay great so at the last board um at the last board meeting we were shown these great dividers right these are three-sided uh see-through dividers and i was under the impression that all the elementary schools have these three-sided um see-through dividers because this is what students need to to learn to see their teacher to see their peers etc so those were great but i
118was unfortunately incorrect in my assumption one of the schools that was one of our the schools one of the elementary schools was given um one-sided solid dividers i'll show you that looked like this um you can see a clear difference right these are one-sided dividers you can't see through them the kids can't see the teacher in certain areas the teacher can't see the kids in the back of the room where this this kind of solves this so as you can see there's really a clear a clear uh difference here ms grubbs this is dr young i know that uh you you were very um forward thinking and uh put those questions out to us and i think is mr romero still with us i think he had an opportunity to to weigh in on that
119would you like him to comment on those real quick for the to address your uh concern well what what i wanted to say can i say one more thing that i wonder if is is this related to the return to school up or this is more an equity issue okay and do you want me to show you the pictures again um i wanted to see i see this as a student i see this as an inequitable situation for those students now i'm i hope that that situation has been rectified but what i want to say is that it's important for all of us to look through the lens of equity so when we're planning when we're looking at different aspects of a classroom and of student learning we need to look through that lens of
120equity and this this to me and it's just me wasn't an equitable situation so now my question is has it been rectified so um hello um you you bring up a fantastic point um so know that um the back story of this has has been um an ever-changing situation that has happened um as we originally ramped up for the return to school those those early pictures um were what we could find out there we had a limited supply of of uh materials that we could find and possibly afford so actually weren't we provided with a lot of money for ppe yeah so the picture you're looking at to be clear is is real early in um in or trying to reconfigure the classrooms so at the time that those dividers were put up there weren't
121any pre-manufactured dividers anywhere and robert simple was actually the first to get those custom dividers um as time went on then the need for those dividers became more and more in demand and manufacturing began so um not to contradict what you're saying but robert temple actually had those dividers before any of the other elementary schools um so um i don't know that it's truly inequity um as as much as it was the timing of what what became available um and so if you look at it in that respect they were the first to be uh outfitted with any kind of barriers that might help for the students to come back and later on when the when the other schools ordered their these particular dividers then was robert simple able to order those dividers as well
122that is correct um and that's probably my mistake is when i i um asked each site what their needs were i was asking the maintenance people that were at those sites i didn't go directly to the administrators i went to um because at the time that we had found these uh dividers there was still nobody on campus it was just strictly maintenance so i i you know went ahead and said hey what do you need and we based it on the amount of um tables versus desks that were in these classrooms and so they said okay um we'll need this many and we'll need this many so i got a count from everyone and robert temple had gone above and beyond and outfitted the entire school with custom dividers and then they had gone back
123and cut out and made made amends of what they had had since then the teachers had come back rearranged their rooms didn't necessarily like what they saw took down a lot of what was made and since then since you know um this has come to light uh they placed an order and we've placed that order they should be honestly they should be here either tomorrow or first thing monday so so for the kids that are in person are do they can can the students see the teacher can they do you know what i'm saying because yes i i know exactly what you're saying the the solid divider was later um altered to be clear even though they were we did that in-house those custodians there at robert temple are amazing they went and cut out
124each divider that was already set up each custom divider and re-customized it so that a clear piece of plastic was in between the student and the teacher and the teacher they situated each desk where they felt again teachers weren't in the classrooms when they did this where they felt that the teacher would have the best angle at keeping an eye on their students and they did this throughout the school there was no scent there's no center piece is that correct um not necessarily so depending on where the tables were set up how they were set up it was it's possible that um a a teacher from a teacher's desk there could be a divider that wouldn't obstruct that teacher's view of the students and so those were left in place do you understand why i
125think this is an equity issue absolutely absolutely thank you but i i just wanted to be clear that you know um we tried to give them first what what we had and what was available um so it wasn't like robert temple got pushed to the bottom when they were actually brought to the to the top um of of receiving this kind of um ppe i guess we can call it um they were at the forefront honestly and and i thought that uh custodians did an amazing job in you know again evolving with each each kind of situation that came up and as time went by we started to get a better understanding of what we're dealing with i i'd like to add um just a couple of points one is a lot of that happened
126way back in the spring when we started trying to get things and there was nothing to be found you could not order any clear anything it was just like the toilet paper in the grocery store gone um and the second thing is in our mou dividers were really not mentioned for all um all desks it was the teacher's desk could request one and then dividers when we couldn't keep that uh six foot difference and they've gone above and beyond and offered to anybody that that wants them and so that was another evolution that has gone uh above and beyond uh you know this is not about anybody i'm not as i preface my statement it's not about going above and beyond it's looking through an equity lens so were all elementary schools offered the same
127thing at the same time yes oh in the beginning no when robert simple received those materials that was all we could scrounge and we went to several different hardware stores and we reached out to local manufacturers trying to find in our our own vendors to try to find plexiglas it just wasn't available um the only thing we could find were these uh was this material and so that's why we went with it and then you know was like our pilot program can we make this happen uh why i understand i really do understand so thank you and and thank you for yeah no no problem absolutely i i think that i understand where cece's coming from but i think you've probably answered her question i'm hoping she understands kind of what happened um and mr
128miceli did you have any questions before i close this and go to the next item nothing okay so um thank you very much for sharing that information and thank you cece for your comment i appreciate it um we're going to move on to item 12.2 no 12.3 which are student assessment updates and um we're going to welcome back mrs rice to go over this with us she has a presentation all right take two thank you all yours screen share please wear all right let me just get you set up for a moment all right so my next presentation is to update you on our state testing requirements as well as discuss our uh recommended plan for this year so um you're probably aware that california pursued a waiver in regard to state testing casp also
129known as sbac and they um actually decided to uh go forward with that waiver in march going forward with that waiver their focus was and i'm going to read this because i think it's important that assessment a focus for assessments to provide information to parents educators and the public about student performance and to help target resources and support the waiver's intent was to give leas so us options based on their students situation and county states and then the us department of education also encouraged school districts to consider other steps within our purview to further reduce the stakes of assessment this year such as excluding their youth from students final grades grade promotion decisions educator evaluations and local school ratings so mind you california is going for their waiver in march it was approved april 6
130so right during spring break and the waiver that was approved did not remove cash or our state testing it actually um just allowed for some flexibility and also removed some of the stipulations for for reporting so some of those things that were moved was the requirement to have the progress measured on the california dashboard that we always present also the they still want you to encourage having a 95 or above participation rate but they've removed the penalty for this year that would be reported in the academic indicator they also are removing the requirement to identify schools to get support or be in comprehensive support and improvement they are requiring schools that are currently identified for support to continue receiving that support and they're also allowing schools to exit based on their graduation rate and then
131they are going to resume according to now next year identifying schools and we would be that would be based on next year's data not on this year's status some things that we'll have to report on is chronic absenteeism student and teacher access to technology and then we will also need to report on our academic measure for our sarc and our and also to our parents and guardians what this waiver is allowing us to do is to have some more choice so they call it the most viable option during covid and what the requirements need to follow is of course alignment to the california state standards it needs to be available to assess the grades that we did through state testing in the past which was third through eighth and eleventh and it needs to be
132not uh uniformly administered so you can't have uh one second grade class doing this assessment another second grade or another eleventh grade class doing this assessment it has to be uniform across the board and we have to be able to then have data to report publicly and the data that we have to report publicly is the student performance and we do report publicly the number of percentage of students tested and not tested but again we are not held accountable for not reaching 95 so busd's plan which we feel is our most viable option and this was discussed at each site level is to assess in may to allow for that reopening transition it has to be complete by the end of school which right for us is the first week of june our plan and
133actually our plan has changed since i submitted this presentation we're planning to assess second through twelfth grade students and we're going to use the nwea math assessment for both ela and math and the reason why we're choosing this assessment is really because first it applies or it allows us to access the data almost immediately we get it in 24 to 48 hours so we'll have timely data to help support our planning for a summer program to help support our planning for um supporting our kids for next year whereas cast is all often lag data that we don't get until after the start of the year we also chose nwa math because it takes approximately two days or two class periods to administer versus the way the cast is broken down for um supporting in-person and
134virtual students can take up to two weeks for administration and we just don't have that much time left it does provide great reports for parents and guardians that can give some targeted suggestions at the elementary level some of the suggestions are connected to programs we have such dyslexia your child is struggling here there are some activities they can work on in lexia so that will help help us support our students that are struggling over the summer as well as some of the assessments through cast such as the caa which is for students identified students with disabilities is only offered in person and not virtually so it we couldn't assess all of our students with this option that's another reason why we chose nwa map nwea map is a test that is adaptable so the student
135initially starts with a question that is in their grade band and depending on how they answer if they're getting questions right the rigor slowly amps up if they miss some questions it scaffolds down so it is accessible for all learners in addition to nwea math we're also going to offer cast to our 11th grade students as that's the last time they take tasks in high school this would be in addition to taking map and optional and the high school is working now on getting information out to students to see if they would like to participate and then to also progress monitor our kindergarten first grade we are going to use their esgi system that all kindergarten and first grade teachers use we are going to give a universal math assessment and collect reading levels for
136these grades and then the requirement has not been changed or altered at all for our english language learners the expectation is that we still finish giving the elpac summative assessments so we're we're really diligently working now to get all of our english learners assessed and then if time permits around giving nwa math elpac ap assessments and all the other tests going on then we will look to assess our 8th and 12th grade students on cast so cast is still on the table but they talked about kind of this hierarchy of assessment that we need to test all students in math and reading and then cast is typically given to your fifth grade your eighth graders and your and once in high school and we do it in 11th grade um so that is why we
137are focusing on 8th and 12th and then i also attach for you all the information that i've been receiving from cde and u.s department of education and our sco counterparts on all of the different decisions that have come up so that's where we are with testing testing will happen this year we're going to try to test as many students as we can and really still leave the focus on getting that information but allowing for as many teaching days as we can and that's it thank you mrs rice yes any questions i think have a general question um and it's kind of just tied into your last presentation in this and just thinking about the list of services and supports that we've been providing students um and i just want to make sure have have students
138been receiving would you say less support academically or has it it got the same or has it increased well as far as after school support we're offering them the math and ela support and that's more than we were offering in the past um we also have the after school um like i shared with lego brickspace and that's not just you know an after-school program but it's a tutoring support opportunity as well and then with um you know definitely during covid yes things were our time has shrunk but as far as teachers availability i i have a high school student so i can speak for my experience as well you know my daughter in math her teacher you know they had their lessons and they were able to work but he was always available for office
139hours and extra support even building that in on fridays the other opportunities i've seen is allowing for late work it's not just a one and done you know we want you to get this concept so allowing that flexibility um and a lot of teachers are doing the you know retest like you may have gotten this grade now but the the goal is to get here for mastery so you know i'll speak again it's just right in the fresh in my mind mr guyan and math you know you're in charge of your learning i'm here to support you along the way so yes this is your grade now but i'm here so let's work together and i'm going to give you you know you have another shot so that's a shift um definitely in the positive
140that i've seen i don't know if that answered uh your question but there's you know there's different things but there's been a lot of silver linings as well as far as flexibility and grace and giving kids more opportunities okay any other questions mr micelli mrs farrucci um mrs grubbs we're all good okay again stephanie thank you again for your hard work and putting this together and keeping us up to date with all the new information we absolutely wish us luck um yes good luck a positive piece as well is our students have been working really hard right um they're ever so resilient and uh this has been a lot for everybody but the students really are going strong our teachers have worked so hard so i you know i'm excited to see um this this
141amazing rigor that still happened and let's see you know what information we get from that so thank you for letting me share of course thank you so much okay then we're going to move on to item 12.4 return to in-person instruction update and i would like to invite dr beatson to share her information that she's put together absolutely thank you so much for having me um i'm excited to share a little bit about our reopening from third through twelfth grade since that has happened since the last time we met um and i have here with me uh mish kleinschmidt from venetia high school and miss lewis from uh liberty high school and um mrs dalski was here but she had to step off to uh go get her her student from some sporting thing that
142she was doing so she apologizes uh for having to step off before we got to this agenda item so what i have for you tonight is really um my part will be minimal and then i want to turn it over so you can hear from the folks who have been at the school sites who can share what what has been happening and what's going well and anything that they've learned along the way so we want to just remind everyone that before april break we brought back our tk to twos and you heard from our elementary school principals and then since april break our third through fifth our middle school and our two high schools have come back online um and just a reminder these percentages are still uh about right i know there's been a
143little bit of movement at benicia high school and at liberty high school around more students deciding to come in and more students deciding to stay home so it's been a continued flip-flop that way but we have about 50 of our elementary students sixty percent in some cases and about um thirty five to forty percent of our uh middle and high school students uh choosing to come back in person and so here are uh some additional pictures and quotes from our third through fifth graders and um in the bottom left corner you can see the teacher has both her students in class doing a read aloud also with the students at home on zoom so there is a separate time for in-person and uh virtual learning but the teachers are often bringing the kids together as
144well because they want to continue with that classroom community so when they have the opportunity to do both some teachers are choosing to do that um and a beautiful quote from an elementary school student uh a student said when the teacher reminded them friday was a virtual day uh miss so-and-so teacher are you going to be lonely so the kids were really happy to be back teachers are thrilled to be back and what's happening in the upper right hand corner is a social emotional learning lesson and so the kids went out because we encourage people to learn outside as much as possible you can see their socially distance and enjoying a sel lesson here we have phoenicia middle school you know middle school as we know the most important thing for middle school students is
145being with friends because that is the age of peers are the most important so i like being back and seeing my friends that was really important you have pe in the bottom left corner playing ping pong socially distant and then you can see in the upper right hand corner uh students continuing to learn both in person and online and the school campus looks beautiful by the way so they have done an amazing job there and then liberty high school um uh it's only day three and i'm feeling i i feel i'm already doing better it's great being back with friends i missed my teachers and being here at liberty and so um we have outdoor uh i believe it was an outdoor pe mindfulness class down in the bottom and then the upper right hand
146corner is the new wellness center that um was set up differently when we before we had to be socially distanced but now that we needed to be socially distanced they had to rearrange the furniture a little bit to uh students further apart but it's just a different setting and they were coming in and learning together and miss lewis will be able to tell you a little bit more about what was happening in that picture when we get to that part and then finally um just some information from vinicia high school uh this is a dream come true i'm back from a venetian high school student and then staff as well it's great to see students back on campus and in the classroom today has been a great day it feels good to be back and
147so you can see students really just rising to the occasion as they always do and following the social distance rules and expectations and then the upper left and then in the right hand picture students are working in stations and that is in the medical careers with their new equipment that they have there and so at this point um that's the end of what i have oh and then just a huge shout out sorry this is a huge shout out to every single department staff classified staff teachers administrators because it has been an ongoing journey this year of figuring out the big details and then the teeny tiny details and people have done an amazing job and then very resilient and flexible um and so what i'd like to do now is open it up to
148ms lewis and miss kleinschmidt if they have any other additional pieces that they would like to share i'll go ahead and jump in um good evening everyone it's it's great to be here and to be talking about reopening uh at the end of our second week um it's been great to see our students back on campus we continue to adjust to this new way of doing school and over the past several weeks have continued to communicate with parents probably more than ever before answering questions accommodating requests we've had students change from virtual to in person as they've seen our successful reopening heard from friends we've also had some students some families choose to move from in person to virtual just based on what's best for each family our counselors our teachers have done an amazing
149job at communicating with all of our families helping our students supporting our students we've had a lot of students express being back for their social emotional needs and the benefits that they're feeling being back at school i think the request we get most often is can we come more can we be here all four days and that's something we're actually working on and heading in that direction i think fairly soon so i'm really happy to report that but we're at about 37 of our students back in person uh and so divided between we're there two days a week for our blue group and two days a week for our gold group so 37 percent is then divided between those two groups and looking at those numbers over the past two weeks we continue to analyze
150that so that we support our students the best that we can our teachers as well and get as many students on campus for as much time as we possibly can in addition we're working with our special education teachers our case managers our students that need the most support and getting some of those students back on campus for four days a week starting next week so that we're providing the highest level of support possible it has been great those quotes are i actually was able to hear those quotes our first day back from some of our students and um i'll add to that by saying you know today at lunch we had students up on the stadium just happy to be together again just enjoying you know seeing friends a lot of them making new friends
151because maybe their whole friend group isn't there and so it's a unique opportunity to meet other kids in their classes our largest group is our freshmen we have just a little over half of our freshmen that have returned and so it's a great opportunity for them to be on campus and have that experience make those relationships and we look we look forward to the next uh several weeks and continuing with in-person learning oh i get i'll i'll jump in um i want to echo the sentiments of miss kleinschmidt as what's happening at liberty um the joy that we're receiving as adults to see the kids um being happy to see each other over fills our buckets every day um we're we're over 50 of our student population is in in person with i got four
152more requests this week because they want to come back i think word of mouth is that kids are enjoying each other and enjoying the experiences that we've created on campus i want to give a big shout out to art spanisha who's come on board to help um do some trauma-informed care through art as we unpack what we've gone through in the last year not only as students but my teachers are getting into the um the art lessons to express themselves express their feelings of what we've gone through our wellness center and um kids are finding that a safe space to talk about and connect with each other so um while there is definitely a focus on academics we really do have this strong pivot and strong focus also of looking on how um the overall
153well-being of our students and um and selfishly i giggle every day so i know my teachers are doing well because they see the joy in their kids so overall liberty is doing great we're really excited to be back and um like ms kleinschmidt says it's just moving forward and just in communicating with our parents that um there is joy being in the classroom uh thank you and thank you for both for being here uh late this evening uh do you have any questions ms ruti yeah i i actually have one that came up with us earlier and one of the things that and we were we were concerned about and maybe dr beats and you can address it was the idea of the zooming student zooming in the classrooms instead of having the live teacher
154interaction um can you speak to that at all or is there any possibility that you could get us some information so that we know there is actually live instruction going on in the classroom i can speak to that and i don't know if uh miss kleinschmidt has anything that she wants to add as well and then i can definitely follow up um so because at benicia high school um the periods are the same so the students are there all day they're uh if they're not in person they're either live streaming in to the classroom or the teachers find a different way to present and teach the material ahead of time or posting a video or what have you on the days when the students aren't in school and so right now the numbers in some
155classes are small and there's a lot of students at home and it is tricky i mean i think that's that's the the most honest answer is to try to engage students who are at home learning and the students in class and keeping the the activities equitable so that you don't do something completely different with the kids who are in school versus the kids that are at home and so sometimes it is um the the experience of being in the class is the experience but the teacher may need to teach the same way through a video lesson or or zoom lesson but the other piece that i do know is oftentimes some of the direct instruction happens that way and then students might go into breakout groups to continue to work collaboratively and that's the opportunity
156where the teacher can work with the students in the classroom and then pop through the breakout rooms and so they're trying to balance two different things at venetia middle school the students there they split their schedule is a little bit different and so they will offer say first period and second period the zoom first thing in the morning and then the kids in the afternoon are doing that same lesson in person i don't know if i completely answered that but it depends on what the class is and what the teaching that's happening and how the teacher is choosing to engage the students at home if it is simultaneous or if it's in two different sessions did i capture yeah no you did capture it i think i think we were trying to figure out if
157in fact that was the experience so and then the other question i have and i know we've talked about this before is now that we know that our students are going to be assessed coming up rather quickly venetian middle school has cut their schedule the students are only in class for an hour and a half and that's two classes so 45 minutes so i i'm still concerned that they're only getting an hour and a half every day well they're getting an hour and a half for two classes for two classes correct so each class has been cut back for 15 minutes each class has been each class originally was 52 minutes and so no they were their class was well i'm not going to argue with it but it was longer than that yeah when
158they were doing just zoom so i'm concerned about the fact that they have been reduced to the shortest schedule [Music] of all three grade levels and they're also going to be need to experiencing testing as well so i think that's a concern for our middle school kids and i don't know where instructional minutes or the expectation of reduced minutes i've not been able to get a clear answer from that of what's expected of students during this time period when they're oh i was just gonna say that dr b said maybe you can provide that over the next few days come up with something that can explain it more so we can see it um is that maybe president xavier maybe she can uh put it in a board update maybe that'll be perfect exactly yeah
159and she can maybe uh she can also talk a little bit about the process about what those decisions were made that always helped ourselves how we got to where we got i had one thing i wanted to say me as we wrap this one up maybe that i had an opportunity to talk to a number of teachers uh it was at the elementary and i said uh upper grade kids i said when the kids came in did they have a hard time you know were they slow to start interacting with one another because i'd heard a little bit about that [Music] i talked to a number of teachers and they said no not really and i was so happy to hear that that they were uh pretty quick to start engaging with each other and
160ms lewis i talked to your teachers too and they said the kids were ready to talk so i was worried about that right because they've been home so long but that little sample size that i did that's happy news so well thank you team good job good job well i actually uh have a question too i know that um we had the three cases of covet at the high school in the first two weeks uh have we been able to figure out was that school related or sports related or was it just they happened to catch it somewhere else outside of school and then we had one at the middle school it seems like the the uh [Music] deal that hooks them all together is sports is there an issue with the sports or it
161just happens that the uh kids go ahead i'm sorry miss kleinschmidt go ahead i didn't want to interrupt i'm sorry um no worries part of our you know we reopened coming off of spring break and um you know from the tracing that we've done and the timing of of those cases um it it reasons that that came from spring break um and uh those three cases were not connected um only one of those students uh was on campus and that was the first day only and then we notified any students any teachers that were considered close contact the other students were not on campus and we're not connected to that so we've been definitely concerned and definitely keeping a very close eye on that and and working to communicate uh to the utmost uh so
162that everyone uh oh you know it's one thing to be safe and it's another thing to feel safe we're doing so much to make sure everyone is safe we want them to feel that way also and so we continue to really just stress the importance of social distancing especially during lunch if people are eating and their masks are off right probably wearing masks not just during school but outside of school we recognize that people are socializing and there's sports and there's other activities and we want everyone to take that responsibility to help keep each other safe at school and outside of school and where are the high school kids eating lunch i was just curious about that because i know months ago we talked about it and uh sean said that they'd be like in
163the bleachers with little x's where they could sit socially distant are they doing a good job of staying socially distanced at lunch they're doing a good job we are definitely giving reminders often but they're doing a good job mr thompson went above and beyond he actually um painted stencils underneath our picnic tables so that kids know exactly where to sit he's done announcements a few times to remind students and to encourage that if students have friend groups of more than three that they eat up in the stadium where there's plenty of room to spread out because the picnic table safely seat three with distancing and so we are out and about more than ever we get all our steps in every day but the stadium has become a pretty neat place it's growing in terms
164of the number of students that are going up there and um and you know different groups are coming up and and everybody's kind of finding their spot you know and that takes a little while even in a normal year uh and so they've spent the first two weeks doing that also and it's been neat to observe and see that working but they're doing it they're doing a good job uh we remind them as needed but so far um you know no calls home and no kids sent home for that reason so i'm glad to report that right that's fantastic and i think you guys did a really good job dealing with that out you know the uh coveted issues at the school in terms of communication i wanted to commend you on that thank you
165hey mr uh thank you mr miss kleinstein isn't there three places where the kids could eat because i was praising food services because they've got you know the upper stadium like it's like places i'm so proud of them so three places that they're serving food yeah so out of our cafeteria out of what we call the lunch box that's in the quad and then also they're serving up at the stadium from uh what's normally our sort of our canteen for games and so there really isn't a weight because there are these three different places with free meals for our students which is just wonderful um students can just walk up and have their id cards scanned that they're wearing on their lanyard this makes it very easy and they could not be more friendly our
166food services staff is just doing an amazing job we walk up every day and they're waving at us saying hi reminding us what's for lunch so we can help sell it to the kids and yeah it's going really well awesome that's fantastic was there anything dr moss mrs grubbs anything that you want to say no thank you again uh this was well received by think all of us um we're glad to see things start going back to normal and um i i certainly enjoyed the reports of our two high schools in our district so and i feel that we've been hearing the same things from our elementary and our middle school we've seen a lot of the same things that are positive so um without further ado i am going to move on to uh
167number 13 our non-consent action items and the first there's only one and it is consideration and approval of the to 2023 and the 2023 to the 2024 school year calendars and um with that i am going to let's see the who's going to be oh dr gill if i could have you back thank you sorry i got confused there for a second no problem good evening thank you and trustees dr young and uh members and our community members and staff so um our tradition in our district is that we are always like to stay ahead of the game and have future year calendars drafted and outlined not necessarily like back to school night so it's kind of thing but at least the first day of school last tips or breaks so that our staff and
168parents and students everybody can plan their their years uh time off and those type of things um i do want to apologize because of kovaid we were we are behind so we are that's why bringing two of you to get two of the calendars together i do want to thank you thank our committee uh we have uh uh vt members csa members and management team members uh on the committee they all worked very very diligently to prepare these calendars we spent hours working on these and these have been looked at and proved by the committee these also has been ratified by the bta unit members and bringing them forward to you for your approval uh so that we can post them on our website and share those with the community thank you dr gill so
169right now i want to um find out i would like to see if there's a motion on the table to approve these consent calendars over the next couple few years i'll move for you sherry thank you i didn't want to have to say all that again it's okay okay first you have a second i'll second it thank you mr micelli and with that we come to an end of our evenings meeting and we thank all of those that have oh darn you know what i was doing so good tonight darn it like okay i'm gonna get a roll call vote please thanks yes yes yes excellent thank you mrs martinez for keeping me on tack track um so without further ado please stay well and enjoy your families and uh there's a reminder that the
170next regular board meeting is going to be on may 6th so um thank you for tuning in and we will see you on the flip side thanks see you on saturday well yes that too thanks everybody good night good night you