001do i have to keep my finger on it when it started good afternoon welcome to the special board meeting at this time we will get started uh we'll have the pledge of allegiance i'm going to ask mrs pinedo to say the pledge please if you'll all stand and join us miss jones climbing a quick comment before we get started thank you um for those who are watching on youtube and those in the audience and those of our board members we are experiencing a little bit of technical difficulty tonight uh miss garcia is a is going to join us via teleconference and we're working through some technical challenges for those who are uh who've been tracking what we do here at central union this is our first in-person board meeting in many in over a year
002but we're still trying to provide uh the service out to the community for those watching via youtube our youtube channel so we're working through some of those challenges and also one of our other board members is on the way but we do have enough to proceed uh just and a special thanks and we'll talk a little more in depth but a special thanks to our technical crew and the folks who have made this happen today especially with the last minute change thank you dr andrews at this time we'll have public comment uh presentations requests listed on the open session agenda speakers are to give their names and addresses the time limit for speakers is three minutes the board shall limit total time for public input on each item to 20 minutes the board deserves the
003right to limit presentation this meeting is being recorded is there anyone that would like to speak we have no requests uh prior to this okay i don't see anybody so we'll just proceed uh is there a motion to approve the agenda all motion to approve the agenda thank you mr hernandez is there a second i second thank you mrs pinedo it's been moved and seconded to approve the agenda all those in favor say aye aye aye does that need to be roll call okay i will now go to action information isis adoption of board resolution 051121-27 proclaiming the month of may as american pacific islander heritage month we're going to read the resolution if you wouldn't mind i'd like to read this central union high school district board of trustees resolution 0051121-27 in recognition of
004asian american and pacific islander heritage month whereas the people of the united states join together each may to pay tribute to the contributions of generations of asian americans and pacific islanders who have enriched the history of the united states whereas the history of asian americans and pacific islanders in the united states is inextricably tied to the story of the united states whereas the asian american and pacific islander community is inherently diverse population composed of more than 45 distinct ethnicities and more than a thousand language dialects whereas according to the bureau of the census the asian american population grew faster than any other racial or ethnic group over the last decade surging nearly 72 percent between 2000 and 2015. whereas there are approximately 22 million residents of the united states who identify themselves as asian as
005asian approximately one million six hundred thousands of the united states who identify themselves as native hawaiian or other pacific islander making up nearly seven percent of the total population of the united states whereas the month of may was selected as asian pacific heritage month because the first japanese immigrants arrived in the united states may 7 1843 and the first transcontinental railroad was completed on may 10 1869 with with substantial contributions from chinese immigrants whereas section 102 of title 36 the united states code officially designates may as asian pacific american heritage month and request the president to issue an annual proclamation calling on the people united states to observe the month with appropriate program ceremonies and activities whereas the central union high school district wishes to recognize may as asian pacific american heritage month now therefore
006be it resolved now therefore be resolved by the central union high school district board of trustees thereof concurring that the central union high school district hereby recognizes may 2021 as asian pacific heritage month to enhance public awareness thank you dr andres i know that our district has a number of asian american students and pacific islanders i know that we have two teachers in our district that are filipino descent and culture and so i think that we need to recognize them as uh well it's madeleine markholtz and jennifer bird so let's say hello to them and recognize him this is a resolution we need a roll call vote hi yes yes and absent at the moment is trustee garcia ruiz here from did we hear from her uh she is waiting to join the video call
007as soon as our technical team is able to get that established okay thank you the resolution has passed uh four to zero at this time since she's not on board so we'll go to the next item thank you dr anderson would you like to read the background on the information item please gladly um at the request of one of our board members we had a discussion early on a few weeks a few months back regarding the california healthy youth act and the implications of what the new law is has an effect on our health classes and for our students for their well-being and so questions arose around are we covering all the topics appropriately do we have appropriate materials for all of our students and we rather than having an overview conversation or something that
008was kind of just information to board members we chose and the board chose to have this study session today so for this purpose we're meeting the district and our staff has embraced the opportunity to take a deep dive into exactly what our program looks like we've had tremendous contributions from our staff upon this matter so the purp so i'll read the background information that's on the agenda item the purpose of the california healthy youth act is to one provide students with knowledge and skills necessary to protect their sexual and reproductive health from hiv and other sexually transmitted infections and unintended pregnancy provide pupils with the knowledge and skill they need to develop healthy attitudes concerning adolescent growth and development body image gender sexual orientation relationship marriage and family promote the understanding of sexuality as a
009normal part of human development ensure pupils receive integrated comprehensive accurate and unbiased sexual health and hiv prevention instruction and provide you educator provide educators with clear tools and guidance to accomplish that end provide pupils with the knowledge skill and necessary to have healthy positive safe relationships and behaviors one thing i would want to note is that this course that we provide to students our health course is provided in their freshman year it's a semester-long course so these are incoming students sometimes i refer to them as old 8th graders but these are brand new high school students that get this and either have it first semester or second semester so it happens in their freshman year when the course is offered to them the the health the health class is much more than just the sexual
010education component that we're discussing today from the california healthy youth act there's more to it and our staff will also share that so this is just a unit within the course that we're focusing on today and of course much attention and california's been brought upon it as a district we are required to provide the instruction and our staff will be able to explain that families have the option to opt out of the instruction when they request it and we have alternative curriculum in its place so as a district we have a mandate and a requirement by law to make sure we provide it and that our teachers are well prepared and we have the appropriate materials but families still have the option to proceed so with that i'd like to turn the time over to
011our assistant superintendent miss rana fox for a presentation thank you i know you're here rana where are you she's making her way up from the audience it's a little bit of a walk uh good afternoon my name is ronna fox the assistant superintendent i'm completing my third month here i'm so grateful to be here today um i have with me dr andrea correa she's one of our teachers in our health department and she'll be speaking a little bit about what we've been doing with the curriculum this year after i just go over some generic information so as you know we're here today to talk about the california healthy youth act it's commonly referred to as chaya because in california we love our acronyms so the california healthy youth act can be found in the education
012codes it's in sections 51 9 30 through 51 939 and it really has four basic articles so it talks a little bit about the general provisions of the california healthy youth act it talks about the required components in service training for teachers and then article 4 being that parental information and the parental excuse so the general provisions and dr andrews went over them there are five purposes of the california healthy youth act really it starts with providing people's the knowledge and skills necessary to protect their sexual and reproductive health so it's all about teaching students how to protect themselves from hiv sexually transmitted infections and then from unintended pregnancy i just want you to notice that the california healthy youth act always uses the term unintended pregnancy rather than unwanted pregnancy that's kind of a
013change from years ago when we would say unwanted pregnancy it's referred to as an unintended pregnancy number two is to provide them with the knowledge they need to develop healthy images like healthy body images gender images sexual orientation relationships marriage and family really we're trying to promote that sexuality is just a normal part of human development something that everybody goes through number four it's there to receive this um curriculum that at the is unbiased it's integrated it's accurate it's related to the health field it's medically accurate and at the same time to give our teachers the tools they need to accomplish that goal and then finally it's just to provide them with the knowledge to have a healthy positive safe relationships so it talks a lot about having a safe relationship so the required components
014we are required as dr andrew said to teach um the california healthy youth act once in grades 9 through 12. it's intended for grade 7 through 12 so it's once in middle school and once in high school and here in our district we do it through our health department and that is in grade nine i just wanted to share this slide with you to show you that the california healthy youth act is just one small portion of what we teach in our health class i believe it's six weeks it's gonna be four weeks now four weeks so it's four weeks of an entire semester dedicated to the california healthy youth act there are many other components required for our health classes the healthy the healthy hunger-free kids act human trafficking is required to be taught
015in our health classes tobacco use and prevention under the toupee suicide prevention explicit social emotional learning and environmental principles and concepts those are all pieces that are taught in our health our health classes and the california health youth act is one of those pieces so i wanted to just be clear about some definitions that you'll see in the california healthy youth act one is this comprehensive sexual health education what does that mean so it's education regarding human development and sexuality and it includes education on pregnancy contraception and sexually transmitted infections so that's what they're talking about when they refer to the compre uh comprehensive sex health education and then there's also hiv prevention education so that's on methods of transmission of hiv and how to prevent hiv and then also some some social and public
016health issues that are also related to hiv are included in the california healthy youth act so the one thing that the california health and youth act is really explicit about is what you cannot do so first of all you can't teach or promote a religious doctrine um you can't teach what um the church of christ believes about sex or what the church of latter-day saints believes about sex you have to stay away from all religious doctrine related to this topic you really can't teach anything that reflects a bias or any type of prejudice against any one group of students everybody is protected all of our protected classes come into play in the california healthy youth act also in california you cannot teach abstinence as the only way to prevent an unintended pregnancy or a sexually
017transmitted infection it cannot be the only thing that you teach the other piece one of the other pieces of the california healthy youth act is the in-service that's required for teachers so our four teachers dr correa miss cordova miss legacy and miss wilkinson have been working with imperial county office of education i believe all year long really diving deep into the health program we have in the california healthy youth act so they've done some sexual health educator training we've done curriculum updates we've had regular updates at the curriculum meetings they've done child training with other districts they have they have ongoing health conversations and they've been meeting them after school to really work on our health curriculum and how chia fits into that health curriculum and in their department meetings on or make it happen
018mondays it also is a topic there as well so lots of in-service training that's required under the chaya is taking place both within our district and then using outside resources so the notice and the parental excuse so really the chair requires what they call a passive um consent so we send a letter out to parents we let them know what's in the program always parents have the opportunity to review the curriculum but parents don't opt into chaya they have to opt out of chaya so what that means is the parents must notify the school in writing that they do not want their child to participate in child if they do nothing then the child automatically receives the instruction in the classroom and we cannot require active consent so we can't say uh miss jones your
019daughter cannot participate in chaya unless you sign the permission slip it's the opposite you know mr hernandez your son will receive chai unless you give us something in writing so it's really an opting out it's called passive consent versus active consent and it must be in writing from the parent so also part of the chai in this parent letter that the state has um is an alternative curriculum so it says if parents opt out of child you must provide them an alternative curriculum and there are two books that we've purchased them both to take a look at which one works better for us and those two books are aspire or navigator so these are two alternative curriculums that have been recommended and this is aspire aspire really is about future goals financial success a healthy
020future marriage family life it's a positive path forward and it comes with some cds and other resources for the teacher so we have purchased on this alternative curriculum as well as navigator navigator is more about avoiding risky sexual behaviors it talks more about pornography alcohol tobacco other drugs it's a different type of a program than inspired but they're both approved for the alternative curriculum the other alternative that we have for parents is to give their child some type of a research project so if a parent wanted something else besides aspire or navigator we could also do your child need to research sexually transmitted diseases and their impacts on teens and you know you give them the parameters for that so there is an alternative again though only for those parents that in writing opt out
021of the program and they can't just up out of pieces and parts they have to opt out of the entire thing so i can't say you know dr correa i don't want my daughter there when you're talking about um abortion you can't do that it's either the whole chaya or nothing you can't choose pieces and parts miss fox just real quick can we go back to the parent notice just for a minute so a question i guess procedurally like what does that look like at the school site i know that because i've actually spoken dr craig carla and she showed me like the letter that goes out and so forth what does how does that like it goes the letter goes out but then when someone provides a notice does it go to the principal
022does it go the teacher do we keep a copy like what happens with that process i'm going to let her explain that i do know this part i know that it's sent out in the freshman registration packet last year we had to mail it out because we were late but i'm going to let andrea explain what happens after that yeah thank you i know that we get somewhere between eight and ten for the whole district every year so i was curious like what like where does the letter go does it stay in a file somewhere like what does that look like well to the best of our knowledge i don't know if you can hear us but to the best of our knowledge it was supposed to and it was intended to be in the
023original freshman registration packet but was um as the frameworks have changed over the years of it just sort of did not make its way into the packet and so that we would send a letter home and then the ki the parents would have the choice to opt out but a lot of times there was i don't know something lost in the mail or lost in translation and then because we didn't get the opt-out the child is actually taking these worksheets home and then we were getting a lot of grief from the parents that i didn't like this or against our religious or whatever the culture is of home which is totally cool that's why we have the opt-out form but now with chaya it's gonna be something that we're gonna try and put in the
024freshman packet that way we can just alleviate everything altogether to the best of our knowledge what we've been doing right now is a copy is sent to the secretary to maria baez or at least on our site at southwest and the principal does keep a copy uh well there everything's electronic right now but it would have been a hard copy but and then we get one also just for our records so i know that in the thank you very much um and thank you for your experience in that process because like you mentioned we're parents have that right and we honor and respect that um the i know that in the parents rights and responsibilities packet there is notice provided in the current packet there's not a form but i don't think the law requires
025a form just that we provide notice so in practice what we currently do with providing an additional document in essence is kind of double covering ourselves in terms of providing notice correct in the past what we would do is as a department when i was first hired eight years ago we used to draft a letter and just say we're going to start this packet in about two or three weeks just so the parents know that that we're going to be on that topic because we do talk about some pretty heavy and i guess some households would call them controversial topics but they are just politically politically correct topics that we do need to cover and so it just might go against the culture of the home which is also fine and so that's why we
026do let them know that we're going to start covering this in a certain amount of time so they have enough time i guess to think and opt out and a lot of times that alternative assignment when you put the responsibility on the parent they opt in again yes between between both sides central and southwest and we had about a dozen about 12 that decided to talk in fact all of mine that had opted out um they accidentally thought it was an opt-in and so they thought it was a permission slip and so they were opting out and so that's what we're trying to is to curve a lot of the misunderstandings because in some homes there is a language barrier so we want to make sure that we do cover that because i know in
027some homes there are just some topics that are not discussed when we're talking about this topic which is neither here nor there but we do want to make sure that nothing really gets lost in translation speaking of translation it goes home in spanish as well okay questions of the board on this topic so i talk a little bit about the curriculum that we have we're currently in the process of investigating and going through health curriculums we really we received one of the ones that the department likes the best from wilcox today that they'll be going through and we we will be looking to adopt a new health curriculum and that should be coming hopefully either the end of the month or possibly in june to adopt the new health curriculum but i wanted to talk
028a little bit about the curriculum that's specific to chaya and kind of the route that it's taken so there's an organization called ashwag or the adolescent sexual health work group that the state put together the state investigated the curriculum that was on the state website in regards to chai and found it to be deficient in three areas it was deficient in the fact that it was not gender neutral that it had some issues with access for second language learners and access for students with exceptional needs so they pulled that curriculum ashwag did pulled the curriculum from the website and they're now working on new curriculum to be implemented with chaya it is not yet out they are still working on it i check every day and it's not there as of yet so in 2016
029it was pulled and they've been working since then to give some curriculum that's gender neutral has access for second language learners and has access for students in special education um so it was removed from from the website it kind of went over this it's in the process of review but they haven't posted any curriculum yet um and the curriculum will be posted to the california healthy kids website as well as the ashwa ashwag website once it's available but we're required to begin to look for curriculum and there are some free resources available so if you see on that page there are three the good heart wilcox the health smart etr and the human kinetics right now we're really looking more at the goodheart wilcox because that's the one that the teachers feel best meets the
030needs of our district but that is a health curriculum that covers all of those topics related to health not just china and so um they're we're working through the health education implementation checklist planning tool so we've been really aligning that they've been working after hours on that again trying to find the right curriculum to meet the needs of the entire health curriculum and then chaya is just a piece of that and they're still working on that at the state level so we have some next steps for us as a health department in our district um in health education like i said we're purchasing books we'll be asking the board to adopt our health book we're looking at monthly content team meetings are updating it we're discussing curriculum and common assessments in the area of nutrition
031and physical activity again those online supplemental materials are what we're looking at with the good heart wilcox techs they do have the ability for both and then we are looking district-wide probably through our expanded learning opportunities grant to offer the youth mental health first aid training to teachers and classified staff as part of that mental emotional social health and really we need to have some more updated training in lgbtq plus for our staff because we're a little outdated in that area as well as well as also the identity so in the gender spectrum and the sexuality spectrum we need some updated training for both of those and then at this time i'm going to turn it over to dr correa and just let her explain the process that her team has gone through this year
032as they've investigated chaya our health and the needs that we have yes this is actually going to be the third textbook this is year eight that i was here but i was actually here four years as a student so i do count those but those do count as years of service so um but yes it's been a long arduous process it's the one thing that we can say about our department when i first came in it was very welcoming and we saw that we're one of the very few school districts that have a health ed class as its own standalone course a lot of other school districts do have it as something that we like to say infused into their pe course which is something you do i guess when the weather's hot or inclement
033weather or something and it doesn't really give us due diligence and maybe it did in the past but there's been a shift into making a real conscious effort to really showing what the whole body and the whole mind especially during this pandemic with the addition of social emotional learning because we know that when we return back to in-person learning in you know whatever date that's going to be there's going to be some there's going to be some hurdles as to trying how we're going to teach the whole student mind body everything so we went through a few it's um we started from scratch of what we had and we wanted to sort of work our way backwards if we had a new textbook then we would kind of retrofit what we had to see what
034the holes were and just patch them up according to the new textbook the new health framework has just barely rolled out two weeks ago so there isn't a new text that's fully completed since the new framework just finished so we're kind of working forwards but backwards at the same time i don't know if that's so i guess we're not moving so now that i think about it we're kind of in the same spot but that's really good because it gave us a chance to really expand on things when we talk about the lgbt community lgbtq plus community it it really just stopped at t and there's a whole lot of additions to that and there's even a they had to put the plus because there's additions of of additional identities that these students feel that
035they are but there's a big um i guess confusion between the legal term of sex and then your actual gender identity because sex and gender are two very different things and so when we try and explain that well how do we explain that how do we approach that and so there's a lot of questions and what's politically correct when we talk about abstinence and abortion and family could you know the family dynamics well we want to use the word planned parenthood but then that has its own stigma and so then we have to take a step back and teach what stigma is my finger's getting tired i don't mind you i know my i was shaking that's a little embarrassing so um and so then we have to teach what is we don't even use
036the word unplanned pregnancies because some are planned some are not you know it's just a terminology that we want to make sure it is politically correct especially when we talk about contraceptions we don't want to say oh i heard this or the what if questions we want to avoid that just by simply teaching what are the fda approved ones according to our local government that we have now and even the textbook that we had four years ago in the last presidency it was brand new it was only a year old we had a new presidency and then our drugs chapter was outdated because marijuana and cannabis changed and so we have to teach that and that comes with its own host of issues i heard that and what if this you know so it's just
037trying to keep them updated on a world that's constantly changing by the second so when we get these new textbooks it's really going to help to really set the framework of where we can and cannot we know really the parameters of how we're going to teach these topics so hopefully we'll have a digital textbook as opposed to lots of old copies that are instantly outdated okay we're looking at a blended model um for a couple of reasons one that has the textbook online for that purpose because you will receive the updates much more readily when it's online but also some hardback textbooks for those students whose chromebook is broken or who don't have viable internet at the home they can check a textbook out too so it's really important to the team that whatever we
038chose has the blended model that offers both the digital textbook as well as the hardback textbook so we can serve the needs of all of our students i have a question so i know there's about 11 topics that need to be covered right and so i know there was recently added some new topics and i want to know where we are and including some of that information into what we're already teaching our students i know that something that's new is a piece on sexual harassment sexual assault sexual abuse have we integrated that into our curriculum and then also adolescent relationship abuse and intimate partner violence yes that was actually one of the ones that we wanted to focus the most they we tell the students they have a lot of ships in their life whether
039they're intimate relationships you know casual relationships even the relationships that they have in their home have dramatically changed during this pandemic um you know bridges have burned or have been formed or what not but we do go we do talk about healthy and unhealthy relationships the dynamics of it abusive relationships and verbal both physical and emotional especially the emotional part because this pandemic really has caused us a force in a good way to change our curriculum because you know we're all facing things that we've never faced before i've had to teach these students in a manner that i've never done before and how do we connect with students who are just simply unengaged or dealing with very negative homes or homes you know even the ones that are overly positive and supportive are still struggling
040academically so we do talk about those um we talk about mandated reporting you know as far as for us what we see in our classrooms and it's a little difficult when they're online and the cameras aren't on always but um it just which is you know that's frustrating in and of itself you know i feel like i can't connect with you if i don't have the camera on um but yeah we do talk a lot about that and we do talk about social media cyber bullying that is a huge thing a webiket the etiquette of the internet um appropriate and inappropriate behavior online especially with social media and it doesn't really matter the platform of social media it all is the same so we we do talk about that and that kind of blends into
041sex trafficking because a lot of sex traffickers tend to use social media as recruitment tools so we do talk about that thank you dr correa and i and i'm glad to hear that you are covering the the sexting and social media because it's actually one of the new and optional topics so i mean that means that we're ahead of the game if we're already covering it and and i think this is very very important something that i've shared with dr andrews before is that we do i think we do an exceptional job of preparing our students for you know with a3g requirements and getting to college but i think there's another side of that for them going away you know the whole um interpersonal um skills and and the social scene once they're you know
042not at home anymore and i think we need to arm them with this information so they'll make informed choices when they're once they're out um in the world and away in college well we just actually covered because we all four teachers we try and be sort of around the same spot in our curriculum um but we just finished covering the well it's a new ish california law is that yes means yes law and it talks about consent during you know to give consent to have a sexual relationship with someone or anything more intimate than just a casual relationship and it's a new ish law in california but a lot of states are starting to adopt it and it they didn't know that you had to say yes they just thought you know it's just something
043that eventually happens you know it's always you have to teach them the parameters of the different types of relationships that you're going to have in your life including the intimate ones okay these are tough topics for 14 year olds how how because i visited your classroom last year when there was a classroom to visit the physical one right i appreciated being there and talked to a couple of your students the one i particularly spoke to was very well prepared by yourself and her parents for what your experience has been online how has this gone i mean i hear the part about making connections with them but these are tough topics and then you do it online what has that been like for you and your colleagues i think one thing that we get is that
044we're very comfortable with these topics it's not like we're talking about the lgbtq community oh that word lesbian oh gay and my goodness and so it's when you really provide a united front where you're very comfortable with these topics i mean i'm just simply teaching you one thing that you're going to find out in the world regardless of my personal opinions or biases or you know political aspects or whatnot this is just is what it is and we don't tell them don't do drugs don't do this don't do it this is what happens if you go down this road this is what happens if you go down that road and you make your own decision based on facts that and and that's the best way to approach any topic with a neutral you know with
045an initial set of eyes but we found that they even tell us like wow you just you just say those words like it's nothing well it it's not nothing but if you're not educated on something you're going to continually be uncomfortable with it so that's the only way it is just to create comfort so they can decide on their own how they feel about the topic i'm going to quote what you just said later down the road when we talk about ethnic studies and about being comfortable because you're knowledgeable so you can speak comfortably about it because you have knowledge i think that was very profound actually so i just want to pause on that board other questions actually do have one more question so on the curriculum so my understanding is we've been using
046approved curriculum but they're kind of pulling it back and kind of reviewing it to make sure there's changes to it and so we're waiting for that to be released okay so i i think i really want to make sure that whatever curriculum we choose that it's evidence-based and that it's peer-reviewed i think that is very important to provide our students with the best information and the most accurate so i just want to make sure that that's what we're doing yes the the curriculum that we're doing is more covered for our health head and the i mean because the chai is this is all very new stuff that's continually rolling out and so when we talk about just the health ed portion of the class with this one lego piece sort of missing we're always continually
047doing professional development always updating everything almost on a semesterly basis because as new laws are changed and new amendments are made a lot of our curriculum because of what we talk about i mean i remember in year eight when i first or the first year that i started and this is year eight we only talked about the lgbt community and now more letters have been added as people have become more and more understanding of what gender identity is and understanding of themselves and what it is to identify yourself as a gender regardless of the sex that the law has assigned to you at birth and so there's you know there's a lot of education that has to go with that but yeah we we are always continually updating everything i mean we only teach what's
048the fda approved because that's what's available in fact based based on what's available politically depending on the you know the current healthcare system thank you any other questions for our team recommendations concerns comments you excited about adopting a new health textbook i am excited for it because just things have changed so quickly i mean i think a concern of mine i mean i'd have to look at the curriculum etc but i know one of the main things like that's been coming up along with the many right the big list that we already have is you know i remember teaching stuff like the safe relationship so i'm sure it incorporates in that but i know a big thing for teenagers even when i was a teenager but even getting more now is you know safe relationships
049even in sending pictures uh things like that and i know that probably is like stuff tough stuff to talk about but even it's crazy to say but even um nowadays i mean there's websites that 18 year olds so i know seniors some seniors can turn 18 and the idea of deciding to monetize pictures right there's websites like that already that you're 18 years old you can create it you monetize and things like that so i mean i don't know if curriculums talk about that or if that even comes up because it depends right like there's that framework the boundaries of what's discussed but i could see questions like that coming up in the future of like what could be of that and i mean that's in the media all the time about monetizing yourself but
050got female and and male so i think it's good for our teenagers to kind of know you know the responsibility that comes up with that because just because you're 18 that decision is going to follow you the rest of your life you know there's even professionals that end up getting into those websites and they lose their job for it so i think hopefully in the curriculum i mean i'll have to i haven't seen it but hopefully it even covers stuff like that where it's just about relationships and even for yourself about if you decide to go in that type of monetization or something you know so i think that's important but hats off to all that because that's a not difficult well yeah i mean it's difficult but like uh very um you have to
051keep it straight face because i know some teenagers at some pretty uh and they're serious though like you have to just take it serious some pretty out there questions but deep down they probably are curious you know even if they laugh it off because they want to play it off but so hats off to that because that's a very like difficult or you know keep a straight face and just answer the facts so thank you and in regards to the alternative curriculums the aspire and the navigator if you wanted to see them if you would email me i can make sure that you could get a copy to borrow and bring back we have 50 copies of each oh we don't need that many also to the new curriculum the the good heart wilcox curriculum
052you'll be able to see that before you approve it it'll be part of the packet um i'm not sure we'll be able to have digital access but we have hard copies that we could bring um that you can look at that as well but even some of the topics trusting hernandez that are that are coming out that are not always included in our older textbooks is when you talk about relationships you have to talk about heterosexual relationships and same-sex relationships right so that's that piece too is changing and anything and everything in between right uh you know you're you're asexual you're non-binary you're binary everything and so you're right and it changes so quickly that it's so hard for the textbooks to keep up which is why as dr andrew said we're really looking at
053a digital component that will then keep us updated they usually just sometimes they'll send you like handouts of here's the new information so that we can stay up to date but these four teachers who happen to all be ladies they do an amazing job with the curriculum and they're so knowledgeable and just so comfortable in their topic that the kids feel comfortable in the topic and they really are touching on some situations as a parent that are more difficult for me with my own child but they handle it with our yeah my daughter was in her class so she does i know she does an amazing job from the parent perspective it's changed since then um but you know it's important that we have the right teachers and i really do truly believe our two
054brand new teachers as well as ms cordova and dr jorah do an amazing job of working together and staying on the same page so and also too we're blending in the teacher that's at phoenix rising as well to make sure that those students are receiving the same curriculum but i think that's important so that as a district we can be seen as having the most accurate up-to-date medically accurate information that we're providing to our students because that's what our parents expect of us and one more question uh miss fox i um so the curriculum needs to be used with our special needs students as well as our english learners right so we're assuring that that is that they have access to the information as well yes that's um that's something that we always wanted to
055do we definitely you know for lack of a better term we definitely didn't want anything lost in translation we understand that everybody has different learning speeds different processing speeds for different topics sort of the heavier the topic the more it takes the student sometimes to digest the topic that we're talking about especially when we get into things about you know reproductive health and it's just reproductive health you know we're not having the birds and the bees talk because that's for your home because that is just that just leaves too many potholes to stick your feet in because that is very much opinion based and that's not what we're doing we're doing a fact-based curriculum and so that's why we want to really stick to the curriculum for that and we definitely want to you know
056adhere to our 504s and our ieps and but we still want to give them the same quality education with the same academic standards to what they can do at that point in time you know of what their i guess what their comprehension and processing skills are so along those lines specifically for english learners the textbooks are we providing those in a spanish language or is it still english they're getting support in the in the understanding of that material how does that work with our els specifically if mistaken the choices we currently have don't do not have a spanish version i'll definitely look into that a little bit more i do know all of the parent letters that the state puts out come in multiple languages not just english and spanish but when it comes to
057our students who are newcomers or who are still in the beginning levels the developing levels of english then we're making the modifications we need for them to understand it actually using visuals using realia restating peer translations if we need to but i don't believe the textbooks currently that we have available to us come in spanish but i will double check to make sure and if they do we will definitely purchase them correct and not all of our curriculum is there's not a requirement to do a dual language immersion version of this but we need to make it accessible for early developing language learners as it were because i don't think there's any sort of requirement nor i don't know if that's the best expectation uh because it's the same true across the all content area
058where we're required to provide alternative language materials i know the notification should be in parents because that's for parents not talking about students on that one but these are such critical topics these are like life-saving topics that it clearly the strategies related back to the b-clad and cloud credential come into play in terms of good quality instruction i said yeah you're not in your head like yeah got it well and also too um like i mentioned we we're just beginning to get the pilot samples of the curriculum so most times if they have an online component an online tutorial component most of your more current programs will offer translation within the digital component but again we're just getting them and we haven't really taken a really deep dive into those components but it's definitely something
059we'll look for but you're right i mean because we have more than 20 percent of our our parents who speak english as our second language we're required under the law to make sure that we put everything out in spanish at this time so our two primary languages are english and spanish but the parent letter is available in other languages if we happen to have a parent who spoke tagalog or a parent who spoke mandarin we could give them that letter in that language we would have to just download it from the website i have one more question i don't know if we have the answer for it yet it just popped in my head was um you know the independent study school so would they be following that new curriculum too or it'd be from
060you know how we have that it's not a mentum but the other i forgot the name of it but that they usually follow so that independent study school do you think we'd follow that curriculum we probably haven't decided yet obviously but is that being discussed you know what actually to be honest trustee hernandez i don't think it's something we we've thought about yet but it's a very good it's a good point for us to consider because i'm not sure what edgenuity offers in the area of health i mean if we truly felt this was a more viable option and it does have the digital components my concern with that would be i'm not sure this health curriculum is something that is meant to be self-taught in an independent study model so it's definitely something that
061we'll have to consider as far as if we do have freshmen entering what what will we do with them and it's something that the team and i can look into but it's a really good question awesome thank you let me just approach that just briefly um edge annuity when they serve schools in california have to their courses have to be compliant with california uh expectations and requirements so we will take a deeper dive and then answer that question for you specifically but i'm going to make the assumption that yes they do they would have to have gone back and revised updated their curriculum topics um because they are serving at california school that's pretty common for a big publisher like that but we'll double check for sure i do know they have a health i
062mean if that's a question do they have a health curriculum yes they do is it is it the one that our health department would prefer i'm not sure about that i haven't made a comparison also too um thinking of the population that might enter the virtual academy you're looking at students that come from for example that come from imperial valley homeschool academy which have religious beliefs so you might see more opt-outs coming from the virtual academy than you would from our comprehensive high schools but it's definitely something we want to investigate to make sure they're getting the same level of curriculum that's up to date as the ones on that we're doing here on our main campuses are there any other questions or comments from our board regarding this information item i just want to
063thank both of you you did a fantastic job thank you thank you yeah and i also again just want to mention how wonderful these four ladies are and now i owe dr correa like three train to size coffees from starbucks so thank you very much thank you at this time we'll adjourn this special session of the board meeting thank you very much you