001back against the We can't be sure. >> All right. Greetings everybody. Welcome. Thank you for joining us. This is the uh September 3rd, 2025 special board of education meeting and workshop for the Chico Unified School District Board of Education. I'm calling this meeting to order now. Uh the meeting is being recorded and live streamed and per Governor code 54953, board member Hase is joining tonight by teleconference. H you with us? >> I am. >> Excellent. Let me hear you. Everything's working right on. All right. Will you please all join me in rising the flag to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands one nation andice for all. Thank you. All right, we had a good laboratory, but we are back to business. Uh, welcome to the consent
002calendar. Are there any items from the consent calendar that need to be pulled for further discussion? >> I can't see anybody. >> Tom. >> Yes. Um um Erica had sent me instructions that I need to include a general description of uh the circumstances relating to the need to appear by teleconference and that's that I was uh exposed my granddaughter tested positive for COVID and I'm experiencing um symptoms. Um so I just wanted to make that clear. Um and then also um my my husband who is 18 years of age or older is in the house with me but he is um he is not in the room and I don't anticipate that he will be but just to disclose that to the public. >> Appreciate that and we certainly wish you good health and speed
003recovery to you and your family. All right, that said, I think we had no one pulling an item off consent. So, we're going to go ahead and ask for a motion regarding say, is there any public comment regarding the consent calendar? Seeing none, do we have a motion regarding the consent calendar? >> Second. >> All right, we have a motion by member Robinson, second by member Olsen. Uh we are going to do a roll call vote. This is our first vote. Do all votes call have one member on the Yes. Okay. So all votes tonight we'll be roll call. Please give me a line. Um but we will go ahead and start with member H. >> I land. That >> is unanimous. Thank you. going to go ahead and move on to item three which
004is our big topic for discussion today workshop regarding Chromebooks and technology use uh specifically regarding Chromebooks in our school >> take it away please >> okay thank you as Tom mentioned our workshop topic tonight is titled and unified school district. It will include survey summary, requested research, our use and safety. We hope to to give a comprehensive review for the board members tonight. I do want to mention that myself, Tim Carris, and John Vincent will be teaming together to give you the components of tonight's presentation. And I want to thank our board member Tisha H and Rea for their time to meet with us and provide thoughtful and ideas for this presentation. Tisha, I'm so sorry you couldn't be here for this time, but I'd like to appate. All right, the presentation overview is going
005to have four main pieces. >> So, Tyler, is that second one? Is that you doing that one? They're separate. I'm so sorry. >> You want to go and do the slides? Do the one >> as I mentioned back presentation will have four components spike. First is talking about the survey results from the spring 2025 feedback that we received from students, parents and teachers. Second piece will be research findings. Our board member lays on a student request for research items on education technology and best practices for third piece is actually the use what we do with those here at the elementary levels and the secondary levels. And then fourth will be our safety measures. John Wson will guide you through a lot of the comprehensive pieces that you have in place for our controls and parental
006controls as well. I'm gonna introduce Tim Carris. >> Good evening. Um so following the April board meeting where this topic came up, the first order of business was to administer surveys. Um so we did uh parents, parent guardians and teachers. Right off the bat, we waited a little bit for the kids because they had other surveys to do, but those were all completed um by the end of May. So it was end of the school year and we actually had a pretty fairly decent um regarding as far as how many people responded. So the surveys, all three of these surveys focused on these four items. Time on Chromebooks at home and at school. The use of Chromebooks for homework. The knowledge of monitoring systems on the part of parent and teachers and students awareness of
007the monitoring that's happening in their classrooms. Okay. So really the stu student I'm going to go over students first and really this these results matched with what we had heard anecdotally um from students and teachers and um talking with folks around the district. Uh you can see in elementary u around 40% report 30 to 60 minutes of inclass Chromebook usage. Uh please keep in mind these are third through fifth graders. So K2 TK2 is is not here. Okay. Um so about 40% with 30 to 60 minutes of inclass usage. At home there's either no use or short bursts. About 40% of students report homework requiring homeworks. At the middle school level, um, students report an increasing reliance on Chromebooks for schoolwork. Over 50% of students report at least one hour a day of class use.
008And at home, one to two hours a day for homework generally. Moving up into the high school, uh we see usage increase with extensive daily usage often throughout uh periods u with the majority reporting at least one hour a day. At home, very very light usage for for non-school activities and they're really expected to to manage their devices with less oversight than the elementary and middle school students. Moving on to teachers, um, elementary teachers are using, uh, Chromebooks for building foundational school uh, skills as far as re reading and math go. um they are doing their best to minimize non-academic distractions with Chromebooks and the daily use in class reported by teachers is generally over 30 minutes. When we move to middle school, um Chromebook use becomes more integrated and independent. It's used for research,
009collaborative projects, um etc. The majority of teachers estimate less than 30 minutes of required usage in a class period. Moving on to high school, um, Chromebooks take a larger role. Um, they're used for a wider variety of tasks throughout throughout the students day. And like I said earlier, the students are expected to manage device use responsibly and independently. And I'm going to about the monitoring that happens um at all the levels in the so as far as parents go um the lowest rates were the lowest usage rates at home were reported by elementary parents um seven >> I I'm sorry I had raised my hand I didn't I don't think you saw it >> no I'm sorry um on the elementary um usage. So it says daily use in class generally over 30 minutes. Do
010you have anything that's I mean did it say like what that means? I mean daily use over 30 minutes could mean you know 30 31 minutes or it could mean you know hours. So correct just wondering about that as a >> the choices. I wondered if there was any better breakdown than that. And then I'm assuming that at the middle school it's saying that um that's 30 minutes per class, correct? >> Yes. >> Less than 30 minutes per class. >> Yes. >> Is that correct? >> That's correct. Um and going back to the elementary your elementary question there the kids were given time spans to choose from. So 30 to 60 1 to 2 hours 2 hours plus. All right. So let's go ahead parent perception. Um so 75 to 88 and what that those
011percentages means is third grade was 75 and up to 88 in other grade levels and they're reporting less than 30 minutes a day on non-school activities at home. So very minimal usage reported by the parents. It matches with what we heard from um from kids. 88% of TK1 parents and guardians report less than 30 minutes a day on school activities with the amount of time increasing through the elementary grades. Uses is almost exclusively for school work and non school use uh is rare. We went on to middle school. Over 40% of parents report 30 to 60 minutes or more a day on homework. Uh less than 30 minutes a day by the by the vast majority of parents is what's reported for non-school activities at home. At high school, uh over 50% report one to
012two hours a day or more at home on homework. Parents at a very high rate report less than 30 minutes a day on non-school activities. So the reporting that we're getting is the usage for non-school activities at home is low relative to the in school usage. >> Right. So moni monitoring is an important piece of what we do and John will talk about that more in detail later. Uh we were pleasantly surprised um by the amount of parents who reported utilizing securely to monitor their child's usage. You can see 60% were reporting some usage. And then with teacher use of GoG Guardian which is the teacher tool that teachers use monitor in class um Chromebook use. We heard from teachers that 74% of them consistently use it. In middle school that increased the the monitoring
013increased in middle school and that goes down pretty significantly in high school. So as far as the students perceptions of monitoring um Again, 40% report homework required at the elementary levels. They report higher teacher monitoring and more frequent screen grades. Middle school uh homework increases. Teacher monitoring u is slightly lower as the student perception and less screen. >> Oh, sorry. Sorry. Sorry. In high school, uh, nearly 90% record homework requiring Chromebook use and there's less teacher monitoring and fewer screen breaks. So, key takeaways from the survey, um, engagement with Chromebooks increases through, uh, the grade levels. homework is is the main driver of uh Chromebook use amongst secondary level students. Uh younger as far as parent perceptions go, uh parents of younger students express more concern while older parents of older students report less concern.
014Um we do acknowledge that there's a we see in the data that there's we need to do a better job talking about filtering systems um getting that message out to our parents um and our teachers and in fact we have added more guardian assistance this year already. Um balance a balanced approach approach is what this data calls for. Um so promoting a balanced purposeful Chromebook model continued parent education I hate to take you all the way back first if you don't mind >> yeah so in column one there 35 to 43% report 30 and 60 minutes are we looking at 35 to 43% because that was the single biggest group >> that was the biggest group for um for each Okay. >> And then um were there and I hate I'm sorry to ask you
015because I ask you beforehand. >> Um what I would love to know is whether there were any patterns. I assume there were some people who reported more use than that. >> And I guess what I'm looking for is do we know or did you notice any patterns in groups of students who might be using the Chromebook more in the elementary? Like do we know that we know these usage numbers? we track along any of our like our targeted subs. >> We have not done that analysis. The finest grading data we have is on that I'll turn it back over to the second piece of tonight's presentation centers around the research items on educational technology and best practice. So we know that technology decisions can be guided by our current research and best practices with the
016goal that we can have. And this section again shares research requested by our board members and implications for the links in the blue on the bottom of the page are three pieces of research that were shared and used. We did um in part of our preparation meetings we t later on requested that included and we did put a summary in the blue boxes here talk about so they talk about purpose matter first box technology effectiveness how is integrated into instruction not just also highlight the strong partnership approach we do know that technology integration successful and supported by clear guidelines established through the partnership with school and a balance and mentioned that a moment ago. It comes up again in this part that technology or in our case Chromebooks tonight should complement other educational activities that
017promote communication within humans, physical activity and digital association. If you would like to read those or any member in the public reads in here, shows an triangle. This is also a piece of data that was shared by school library. It's called the EDC triangle. And this triangle again upside down provides a balanced approach to integration. It does consider our learning outcomes. transformative at the top to what they call destructive down at the bottom. The next slide talks a little bit more in depth examples of what those those layers were transformative and gives you some examples what we can see in our in our schools that will include robotics computational thinking digital creation tools and assisted technology for our students with special needs. Supportive layer on that triangle includes things like our digital resources that are
018available in print, audio books if students should read them, the intentional use of sharing platforms, video conferencing for different learning experiences that our students. When we get down to the tip of that inner triangle, you see restricted or disruptive. And that's when you start to see things move away from the educ and include things like typing based games for tech. Um the research also suggests some effective guard rails when using Chromebooks. And this was part this was a big part of our discussion when we talked about preparing for this was what are those effective guard rails that that could be used and again a summary for for board members and the public as well. There's some guiding principles when we talk about technology guard rails that are effective that Chromebook should serve out. We screen
019time should be balanced with other learning modalities and there's a clear distinction that needs to be made between educational and recreational use of those programs for implementation. We want to look at free time [Music] a summary of what research The third part in our presentation tonight centers around what are we doing with Chromebooks in our elementary grades and our high schoolings and junior high. So this first slide talks about our current technology use for elementary including TK5. Um I talked a lot Andrew, they talked a lot to effort to get this information as clear and concise as we could for this. Under device management, we found that school's K3 students are not taking Chromebooks home as a as a general statement. We did find and talk in a little bit more depth at one school
020it was reported that the third grade may occasionally take Chrome books home for project or something like that. We wanted to include that because of us like to make a general broad statement that is true for everybody. So there are a couple of pockets that we discovered that it may happen from time to time. Fourth and fifth grade students may take their Chromebooks home for homework assignments. And while in the classroom is supervised talk about that guardian within the classroom teachers are really monitoring for academics. Our Chromebooks have a place in independent learning pathways during center time. Example of that is our elementary grades during times when different groups of kids are activ that state testing does begin in third grade for our kids and the testing move to the Chromebooks while >> a large
021bubbles on the paper. So there is a need to make sure that our kids can use to show what we know when it comes to that state and again you've heard me say it twice before I'll say it again approach multiple modes of instructions and various assessment methods we services team worked hard last year this share about supporting professional development and our teachers with really really looking at instructional practices that teachers do. There are a variety of ways to reach our students >> it's okay. Thank you. Um on the testing um are there accommodations for students who wish to use paper and pen or you know paper and pencil rather than the Chromebook? >> There we we are 100% online testing. There are accommodations within the online testing system um that we can that we
022can use um but we don't do paper pencil testing. The themselves are computer adaptive. So they're depending on uh students answers to know what the next question is going to be presented to the student. >> Great question. >> Thank you. >> For secondary and our secondary levels we look at access as the survey results. Kids do take home the devices for assigned homework and they do have digital textbook access. The um the days of just having textbooks as books has has progressed as time has moved and a lot of the textbooks that we have to purchase are digital form as well at home. >> So are they only online or are they available to students both online and in traditional form? We have books for them. My understanding is a lot of kids enjoy the
023digital access as well because they don't have to take home books and they have to get them wherever they go. Grandma's house after school one day that I have access to >> electricity. >> Yeah. Yes. I think they do have access when I was teaching they do have access. I except my students in my support preferred the book because they can flip through you know find it faster. Uh there are some advanced applications to consider for secondary students including research based projects that they work on the use of digital collaboration tools within groups and then college and career readiness. We know that as our secondary kids levels, colleges and careers rely heavily on the use of computer, laptop, the awareness and the knowhow to digital citizenship of course When checking with our after school program,
024which and this did Rebecca remember our conversation about the after school program reached out to them. They had kind of a a really timely conversation with us because without even having the conversations together. They were moving a certain way. So in the current practice, did you know that school day rules do extend to our after school hours? That means that homework completion can take place in the after school program through the after school program made a decision there should be this year to reduce the recreational screen time that they in the past. So ongoing improvements include their expansion of current hands-on activity options in the after school program, introducing more board games, physical play, things like crafts, other things that engage students in different ways on the street and the hope would be balancing experience.
025So bottom paragraph, we really wanted to acknowledge them at our school program. They are very supporting more physical movement hands activities to reduce that screen time while also ensuring equal access to technology resources for All's gonna pass that on to John Vincent to talk about the piece of our presentation which is >> good afternoon board. Appreciate you giving me this morning to talk about how we keep our kids safe on Chromebooks. It's something that really is one of the most important things we do and we will make that happen. Um to get this task done, it takes multiple layers of software to cover all the different pieces. So I'm going to go ahead and dive into on the next slide the Well, before I start that, let me go to this side. So this slide
026is about um why cool. So we chose loop because they're so easy to manage compared to Windows machines. Windows is a big operating system that has a lot of components that are hard to manage. So Chromebooks are much more sleek and stripped down version of an operating system that's much safer to use. So that's why we went with uh Chromebooks. Um for instance, Windows has 60 patches that are released every month to vulnerabilities whereas every month is much more choice for us. So the first layer that we use to control Chromebooks and to manage them is called the Google admin. It is the base layer. It allows us to manage our students what they have access to, what apps they have access to to um to set policy to create a a walled garden here
027to create a walled garden. So for instance with a walled garden they can't email people outside of the district. They can only email teachers and others inside the district and others outside can't email them. So it gives a safe environment for kids. It's also a granular control. also can make controls based on grade level or even by groups of students and it does a great job about the wild card. So if a student had a personal email address, could they via Google? Could they log into that from the Chrome? >> They do not. So we have that set up so that only Chico accounts can lo on the login screen it says. That's great. >> So once again, this is the base level. Everything really stacks on top of this. When we need to make
028a change, a broad change to how we manage our Chromebooks, this is where we do it. And I need to say, there's a lot of settings in this. And Google changes these things periodically. So every couple years, we have a company called Amplified and they do an audit of our environment to make sure that everything is set up. There's nothing that sometimes people changes, they add new settings because they're always adding things. So it gives us peace of mind knowing that everything is set up correctly when they can So the next layer in this is goardian. So goardian is the piece of software that our teachers use in the classroom to manage all the comics in the class. So if you have 30 35s in your classroom, how do you manage those when all you're
029seeing is the back of the software, it allows you to do all kinds of cool things. You can pause all so that the kids can't go to do anything. Um you can set it up so it only sends out a handful of websites that they need for an assignment or for a test. You can go back and look and see what a student was doing 15 minutes ago. If you think they were off task, you can go back and see what they were doing or last week back and see what they were doing here. So, it gives all kinds of different controls in the classroom so that teachers can manage all those devices while they're in their class. So, we're going to move on to security. So, security is our filtering software. So originally the
030district used what's called PaloAlto. PaloAlto is a brand of filter that really is top of class in the for businesses for and that's provided by DC. So we've used that forever for our Windows machines for Chromebooks whenever they're in the district. So we purchase security separately from because that way we had something to put on Chromebooks when they would have this. So when they took them home they have at home as well. So traditionally he was set up so that PaloAlto is used in that district and security is used just at home and that's it was that way for a long time. So as times gone by really is not meeting that need. It's made for industry and it does a great job what it does but security is made just for education. It's made
031just for and so we made a change. I know this this we had concerns about filtering come up in the spring and we had already been working with a new filtering methodology that security had released with Citrus at that time and so we were testing it out at that at Citrus it uses AI and it's a much more granular much stronger filter. So since that time we've now rolled that new filtering profile out to all of our grades between TK and so TK now are using the new filtering profile. So it should be should see a nice difference on that at home. So folks at home or in classroom and we also no longer using power off security in the district as well. So could change >> is this a level at which parents and
032teachers have some control like if uh the AI versus incorrectly marks a useful resource as we've you know blacklisted can teachers or parents make that change or what is the process? So for teachers, teachers can contact us and we can then add that website to the block list ourselves. If a parent though has a has something that they want blocked, they can either contact us and we can do that or on the next slide we have the parent portal and they can do that >> and it works vice versa video if you need something unblocked they can also contact. >> Yes. >> Thank you. All right. >> Yes. >> Okay. >> Correct. Or you do it through the parent portal. So let me unblock to the parent portal. So security at home this is why
033we bought security. So there's a lot of filtering solutions out there. You know we have goardian for the classroom. Goardian at the same time had a filter just like security. It was a full package of classroom and filter together. And then same thing security had classroom and filter but go guardian's classroom tool was much better. So we went guardian for that. And then security offered the parent portal. And that was the reason we went that originally because it gives parents the ability to manage these devices when they're at home. gives them an ability to be able to set a schedule so it turns off every night at 7 o'clock or to hit a pause button and turn off the Chromebook whenever they're whenever they want to. Uh that you see what your child's doing, you
034see the websites they're going to to be able to block or allow websites. So that was the reason why with security in the first place to give parents that ability to be able to manage these devices at home because it's so important when you have a device at home, even your phone to be able to manage those devices at home and keep your kids safe. So security aware is another product that we added during COVID. So what security aware does is it it uses AI to watch for any kind of terminology or search searches that kids do that could show there's some kind of risk. And so, as our our counselors can attest to it, this works well because we get a lot of alerts that get sent to our counselors so that they they
035can go and check in with us to make sure they're safe. And if it seems like, you know, if if a student is searching for multiple things and it seems like it's going in a really wrong direction and something may be imminent, security will actually call the police force. So, that way if something looks like it could happen, they will make a call. So, it's it's a great service. It helps a lot of kids. Um, and it it allows our kids to feel safe while they're on a device because they know that um, you know, if they are feeling depressed or something bad going on, you know, their counselors are there because their counselors are going to reach out to them and work with them. So, these are all the layers. We have all these
036different layers and all together it gives us a a secure safe environment for our kids on Chromebooks. And we we take pride in the fact that we work hard to make these safe for our kids. I feel like these are some of the safest devices in the whole county, you know. So that's how it works. Any questions? So we do definitely want to acknowledge that we have resources for family education in this capacity. There is a resource hub on our district website that offers district support, access tools, articles, guidance. It is a work in progress. I would say as things move and and change over time, we need to that as well. So, um, that is something that we know has to continue to to happen on our end, that providing the resources, including to
037our community schools, which we have new to our district, which are great places to incorporate a lot of parent education with with regard to Chromebook use. And it expands our parent and family education around technology, technology use, and digital safety as a whole. The resources continue to be built. We sent out communication just this week and and have made planned efforts to continue to do that whether it's from us or whether it's from the schools themselves to keep reminding families about about these things. So beyond the school walls continuing to support our families there as I mentioned we have the is a great go to really quickly if somebody has some questions they need answered. It might be in the evening when they can't contact anybody at school. The access to the securely home controls
038are on there as well. Again, is a nice location for people to go after hours and get some answers if they would like. Acknowledging we are partners with our families. While we can't control what happens outside of school, we can do several things. We can help equip our families with knowledge and that they seek. We can help create consistent expectations across the environments and we can offer support challenging situations that families or students may experience. And and we do want to do that. You know, we we encourage people always talk to us, talk to to us, the ed services team, if you need some help at a school site, if you have questions or concerns that are that are seemingly in one grade or one classroom, we have an open door. Please come talk to
039us or the We're happy to to help if we know what the concerns are. And closing up today here, the last piece is we did want to include some relevant board policies. Uh they are linked here because there are four different policies and you can go and view those if you haven't yet. Again, in the boxes, we give a little summary of what these are. And ones that pertain to this in particular would be technology and instruction, internet acceptable use, um perhaps employee technology use, student technology use. And with that, we have finished our pieces. We thank you for listening. I hope there was some interesting information. In closing, we just want to share our appreciation to hes once again for their input and conversation while we were preparing this presentation and I welcome you
040to discuss the presentation at this point. >> I just make one comment. >> Better late than never, right? Um I personally I I was um surprised to see that the use of GoG Guardian at secondary in particular high school was not as strong as it maybe could or should be because we know teenagers, right? Um and so it would be nice if there was better support and use of GoG Guardian from secondary teachers. I want to add >> I'm sorry. I am impressed by securely that sounds I wish I was a parent in the district right now so I could you know try it out but it sounds amazing and thank you for all your work that you've done everybody that's been involved in this I appreciate it. >> Go ahead. >> Yeah. Thank you
041for for the uh the work put into the presentation. I appreciate that. And I also want to say that um I was surprised as a high school teacher to think that um that the that GoG Guardian usage declined in high school over middle school. And I I I I understand that like perhaps seniors could be more independent, but I'm with Gail. I think I think that if teachers are using uh computers in the classroom, you know, you want to make you you want to ensure that students are using it in the ways that um it was designed and um it's a a a uh real temptation just to be able to open another tab and do something else. So yeah, I would encourage our teachers in the high schools to um to use it. >>
042I think one of the thoughts I had that probably stands out the most and um I'll be honest, my main concern when it comes to Chromebooks is is in the elementary years. Um I understand that as they a greater need for them. But if in fact they are used 30 minutes or less in elementary years, I do recognize the importance of learning how to to test on Chromebooks. see that as valid, but if they are in fact used 30 minutes or less, um is it worth the expense, you know, that we're putting forth um to provide Chromebooks for for students? And then also, is it worth the risk of the the misuse? Because I mean, I I understand that we have things in place to protect, but I still see great potential for misuse. Um
043with all the the protection in place. So, I just I just want to throw that out there as um I'm gonna stand by I I don't see a a great need for the use of programs in the homes. Um aside from the importance of being comfortable with them when it comes time for state testing, feel like there might be a better way to to prepare students without the expense and the potential Um I think or it sounds like what I heard in the presentation is that with the littles of the littles um they might be doing stations and depending on the reading or the math program that's been adopted there is an online to help reinforce or retach something that you know in the small group with the teacher you know that student needs extra
044practice with and it allows them as they move around their groups to do that. I was actually pleasantly surprised that the pro usage was as low as it was because I was I was honestly I thought oh we're gonna get like they're on it for like two hours a day and you know that would that would have been a real problem but I just wonder if the books help to support reading and math skills. I definitely was pleased to see the low I mean the reported low amount of usage in the classroom. >> Um again just >> but if you go back to like old olden days like when I was in elementary school >> and I learned to do you know reading and math and you know and I I think I came out
045just fine you know >> so I I hear that argument as well like let's go back to >> I appreciate the research that was done but you know I've also spent looking at that as well. And I I still have great concern for the use of of technology in the in the younger years. I think there's effective ways to accomplish that without >> I think your point about not necessarily about questioning whether we need there was a big rush 10 years ago or so for everybody get to go one to one right where all it was the big one every is going to have device and every district went that way but it's worth questioning like if the music is this briefly does it make more sense to go back to having you know the
046computer or you know one set or a couple of classroom so that they can, you know, access specific activities without necessarily the same class and where we have really really clear control over what they're doing with it. There there's a fine line, right? We need students who progressively get are more and more comfortable with using technology as a tool without creating students who require technology to solve the problems they face in their dayto-day. My big concern is that and I it doesn't like we're doing that basically philosophically. My worry is that we make sure that we are helping to grow students who don't rely on technology in a way that if it were to not be there would be you >> I probably have a different take on because I'm a student that came through
047without technology and struggle. I I mean struggle doesn't even start to describe. Had I had the support of being able to repeat repeat repeat what I was not understanding because the the computer was knowing what I wasn't understanding. I think I' I'd been more successful, >> but I didn't have that. And and so by the time I got to nth grade, don't even look at me if it was something to do with math or study. I couldn't do it. I didn't want you to try to teach me now. So I the extra support that looks like programs are allowing teachers to do monitoring which student needs more help and specifically what help that student needs. >> I totally hear and I don't think anyone is saying that you know they don't bring some benefit. I
048also think that we have better with technology on the just on the educator side. I think they have a much better system for tracking and supporting students even if that doesn't necessarily include putting them in front of a educational software. >> I hear what you're saying. Absolutely. There's definitely utility to some of those education programs. >> I hear your argument with um you know being able to monitor where they are academically. I think there's a valid point to that. Um, I also believe most of these kids are super confident using a device regardless of whether or not they have a Chromebook. And I'm I can't say 100% of kids, but I would I'm sure most kids are feel pretty comfortable with a device regardless of whether or not they have a problem. I could be
049on. >> Yeah, I Yeah, I want to say that. Um, again, I want to uh bounce off what Rebecca said. I it is an important question to say what is the need at the elementary school level. Um I do understand uh rotating through stations and that I mean that that has a has a place. Um but also there's uh research that talks about how when um text is being replaced electronically that that has a negative impact on kids. And I also want to remind us of the student who spoke um Miss Ward uh I think it was last time how just how quickly things can go from um you know from bad to worse and you know we're seeing research from around the world talking about how you know addictive uh technology is and um
050I I just think that I think it would be wise um to to really evaluate whether at that elementary school level like I don't think uh preparing our third graders to be able to test is a good reason to try to you know to have Chromebook usage. Um first of all our youngsters are it's kind of like their native speakers to technology. um you know they're able to do so much more than than we did at their respective ages because we aren't the technology wasn't native you know when we were younger. Um and frankly to have kids be able to navigate the computers for uh standardized testing this is this is something that could be done a week or two ahead of time to um I I mean I firmly believe that. So the testing
051h having kids be you know familiar with computers for testing I I don't think is a compelling use of uh a compelling reason to use uh technology at all. Um that said, you know, you don't want to throw out the the baby with the bath water. Um, I I understand it has its place, but I do think that it's important for us to really look at um the idea of, you know, is it adequate just to have a classroom set of computers and like Tom said, then it would be much more controlled usage. Um, anyway, those are my thoughts. the elementary students, they they probably have a problem assigned to them, but do they leave them in the classroom if they don't need to take them for homework? >> They do. Okay. >> They stay
052in the classroom, >> which would be impossible at secondary because they see 210 kids a day, right? >> Or every other day, >> every two days. Yeah. >> And we used to do the Chromes in the That was >> had it own set of problems for sure. >> Yes. >> What I'm hearing is we're all interested, it sounds like, on seeing what kind of strategies are to prevent an over reliance on technology. So maybe some more digging into that in the future would be would be appropriate. What support can we give kids so they don't feel like turning on a computer is the first best option? without like singling anyone to school. I think part of the reason this has been brought to discussion was because there are some school sites that are allowing students
053to bring home their Chromebooks. Um so without taking general rules for every school site, I mean would there be a place to come up with some sort of I don't know policy is the right word or guideline for use and and the idea of keeping Chromebooks on campus with the idea that they I'm not sure how >> can we go back to the uh slide regarding existing board policies see if maybe it falls under any of those under the uh student technology use paper we talked about um >> like I personally I I love that the after school program is moving towards >> less technology but is there really any you know for technology about their school program. I mean my understanding and this is just with talking with various um parents um in the
054district is is some it's often or I should say often it is used at times for like a reward and I I understand that that is not an appropriate use and I believe it's not appropriate use of a a Chromebook but is there a way to kind of just eliminate that possibility al mean using it as a reward >> or just use of Chromebooks in the after school program >> I mean I do think there's a space because some a lot of people do use that after school to take home right that's >> is that how all I mean >> that's a good question how how is it used to >> understand it's after school program it's used for homework if they have to complete it in those fourth through sixth grad put away. >>
055Yes, they typically time is what you have. >> Do they have access to go guardian after school? >> I would think >> is that standardized across all sites? Is that the rule of the homework? >> I believe they are. Yes, because we run the program on our sites. >> Thank you. >> So, this is anformational only item. I can take action, but we do we'll have a chance later on to discuss whether we want to upate any of our board policies with our so we can take action at this time. I'm not trying to cut discussion board because there's a lot of good stuff coming out. I think there are follow. We might have more to say, but I do want to check in real fast with our public and to see if there is
056any public comment on this because I thought there might be. Yeah. Okay. Take a little break. >> Um, okay. So, just some thoughts as the presentation was going on. Um, I am actually kind of surprised at the parent perception of Chromebook usage. Um, especially at the secondary level where they're reporting to me, it's a high percent of less than 30 minutes daily on non-school activities. Um, I have the privilege of being home with my kids after school. So, I'm able to be with them as they start their homework. Typically, while I am cleaning up the kitchen, getting dinner ready, things like that. Um, they are within eyesight. And I know I can look over and they will have a smile on their face and I tell them, "You look too happy to be doing homework."
057And it's definitely at a higher rate than 30 minutes a day. um and trying to remember what the questions were. I remember when I took the survey two times for my two students, I feel the verbiage was a little confusing in the questions and h and how to answer them. Um so I feel that again personally that's not an adequate reflection. Um because they're on there daily for there's something at the high school level I think that's equivalent to that. um that I know with one of my students, they could be doing it and they get distracted and then do something else and I'm coming to check on them and they're doing the you know the quick X out or tabbing over that they've learned on their own to go back to what they're supposed
058to be doing. Um and so I mean obviously that's a problem and that does lead to being on the Chromebook for more than 30 minutes a day doing non-school activities. Then there's the discovery of YouTube. Um personally with the Chromebooks I think Giving our kids that education regarding technology is a great thing. But I often tell people I have a lovehate relationship with technology because it's very useful. But it also gets abused. For our family personally, I feel my children were exposed to the internet sooner than we would have liked them to which has created at times these addictive behaviors. So we've had to have discussions of like if you can't hear me when I'm calling you and you're zoned in on your computer that's showing a kind of an addictive behavior because you're closing
059off everything around you. So again, while I can appreciate having this technology for our kids, they're still in that developmental area where they don't have the tools necessarily personally to know when to cut themselves off. And we know as adults, like we struggle with being on our cell phone and knowing when to put it down. So how can we expect kids to have um those more mature behaviors and of having to learning how to navigate and how to put um self boundaries and things like that in order to have these um Chromebooks at hand. And we're a family where we have a desktop, we have tablets and things like that, but for some reason when it comes to their Chromebooks, they they there's an overuse of um what they're doing on them above the school
060activities. Thank you. I appreciate that. Um, and we looked earlier at the link to the resources site that we have. I'm just curious, are there supports on there for parents to have those kind of conversations about how to set limits? And because that doesn't mean I don't want to impinge on you know the home the parent child relationship but understand these are our devices and I do want to make sure the parents have all the support they need because those can be hard conversations to set firm lines with their kids about yeah it's yours it's for school but also it's not really yours and here's what we can do to make sure that you use that and not every parent is equipped to have those conversations in a really good way. Well, and I think
061it also could involve all of technology devices as well. You know, how do you have conversations about the phone isn't there still? >> Do we have any sort of curriculum or programs that specifically teach healthy technology use to our students. Is that part of any of our packages? >> I know that some of our in our classes they teach on things but I don't know if we have a particular curriculum that does that. >> Yeah, I have a permanent curriculum that might be embedded in some other as >> we talked about, right? Part of our mission is to, you know, help raise and educate students who have all these these soft skills when they head out in the world. And this is definitely one of them. Interesting to see what we supposed to do and
062what we might be able to to embed in things we already do so that kids can be having that conversation both at home and at school. is my urge to look at my phone right now, you know, the healthiest and best option I have at this point. >> Interestingly, last last spring, if you're if you're listening here, you'll know you'll know what I'm talking about over at High School students presentations. I class there was one about the student generated in terms of kind of she wanted to experience I think it does go back to that balance to think Um, so I that was my question. Thank you for asking that. Um, I wanted to know what uh the school district does to provide students with that knowledge about what their digital footprint looks like, searching
063um, criteria, making sure that they're not running into traps where they're going to be potentially exposed to material that they shouldn't be looking at. um and safety and how that relates to their own mental health. So, I would love to see something developed. Um, and I think curriculum is the appropriate word for that. It should be more than just something that's available on the website. I think it should be something that's pushed into the classrooms and all students that have access to this Chromebook, regardless of their age, should have that age appropriate training for that. Um and then the the second question I had what kind of takes us back to um the parent concerns that were brought up that kind of prompted this conversation. Um specifically regarding the elementary the youngers because I have
064a younger um I believe that the parent concern was regarding uh an older classmate telling the student that they could change their birth date to access their Chromebook. and I forget. I'd have to go back for sure, but I wondered um if students have their own Chromebook, how that wouldn't hit some kind of a firewall or some kind of a a thing saying, "Hey, the birth date that you're providing doesn't match what's on your profile, per se, and having that be kind of a red flag." Um, so I wondered if that's available and how that happened, I guess. >> Good question. I saw Mr. taking some notes. So some feedback from that though I don't >> I teach please >> I I believe yeah I believe what happened was and you're that's my memory of
065it too is an older student taught a younger student how to change their birth date so that they could have different YouTube access. And so what I'm understanding you to say is that if a younger student who is being managed by Chico Unified School District, how are they able to get around that that filter, you know, that, you know, if they're able, you know, to do that? So that is my understanding is that that was one of the concerns. And um and just to add on to what was said earlier um you know all the students in our district there there isn't a student in our district that has a fully formed brain because you know brain development goes on until you know into the 20s. And so I just think that as a district
066we have to be um have a greater sense of um responsibility in you know making sure that uh we're using technology not just appropriately but judiciously I'd say and um and again uh there's research that shows that uh learning things digitally is um has a different pathway in the brain than than seeing it in text. And um I just think uh I appreciate all of the uh the security that uh goes into providing the equipment. Um I I am appreciative of that. Um but it just especially at that elementary school level especially the very young level um the question is uh to me is it doesn't matter how much security there is is there the need that's really that's really the the question for me is there a need to have TK through three um
067you know using Chromebooks in their classrooms at all Um, and I would love to hear more about that from from those teachers because I didn't teach TK through three. But I will say that as a freshman teacher, I we we didn't have I I most of my career we did not have uh Chromebooks for every every student. And you know, we had to still teach our kids how to research, how to get valid um uh sources, how to word process, and that meant, you know, the English department having to schedule time in the library where there was a computer lab. And we were still able to meet all of those learning goals that um were English um in the English framework. and we didn't have onetoone computer usage. And so even at the freshman level,
068I just know that there's so much that goes on with technology that um has a downside that um I I just want us to really take a careful look at uh use of of technology, especially in those lower grades. I definitely agree with what you're saying and I think um I think we talked about the topic of we kind of related it in our our session um prior to meeting uh with new like for example nutrition. I mean, when it comes to providing food and meals for our students, we're obviously going to make sure it's a safe situation that we're providing food in a safe way and um we're following um all the protocol to do so. Uh but we also want to provide like the best quality, right? Um when it comes to nutrition
069or education. And I just think that I agree with Tisha. I mean, is this is this the best practice or is this the the most effective way to teach? And I think it's worth looking at. I mean, obviously, there's the safety component and that should be sort of just an obvious thing that we are making sure it's safe. I mean, I would hope that that's just, you know, happening. Um, but also is this is this the best way to educate? And I I really believe like, you know, this similar talking about cell phone use. Um it's not something it's like where it's so black and white like no no computers but more of a step approach like obviously like in elementary we're using it in very limited amounts with high levels of supervision. And it's
070you know as they grow and mature and hopefully um can discern um appropriate uses that that that can grow um as as they make their way through their There's a lot to chew on there at this point. Do we have any other uh discussion from the board? >> I just want to thank Rebecca again for agendaizing it. I think it's a really important topic and and I'm I'm grateful that she um uh had this put on the agenda and I'm grateful to you know Tina and and um John and Tim all everybody who did the research and know Pedro and Heather everybody who put in the the time to put this together. Very appreciative of it. Thank you. >> Absolutely. Thank you. >> All right. Eric, you have access. meeting's over. >> I'll text her
071and let her know that >> is down as well. >> Everything going down. What my question would be is do we have anything important policy that allows the district to teach schoolboard members how to turn their computers on and do searches get on public websites. You know, for those of us that weren't born in the digital age, navigating how to do research and get the most effective information to ourselves is so frustrating. At least this board member gets so frustrated and then I have to bother Erica and then I have to audit classes in audit class >> and the public comment was fairly adorable. the public. It's a letter USD school board included a letter from a student who wanted to share her opinion about wanting to take Chromebook home in order to practice your
072skills. And then there I want to take my computer home. I love to work. for me. We're just waiting to get see if we can get feature back for you. The last the last Yeah, I'm communicating. Sorry. >> Are you a Brazilian girl? [Music] >> All right. asking questions but also don't want to talk about anything that's not agenda just you know time to celebrate randomly to hear from Heather about what's going well so far this year the agenda guys >> no pressure. >> What do you know about what happened when service take out the power? people. came out of their houses. Yeah. >> Time. CSV >> want to look at the log files on it. I want the time down. the log files and see why. >> So, hey, I shut down this. So,
073I wrote the time go back and look at that. >> Right. Hello. >> Long time no see. I just changed the audio. >> You're back. We've been here the whole time. >> Are we >> I've been here the whole time. >> Perfect. >> Are we streaming still? Have we been? >> Yes. >> Good. All right. In that case, um thanks to our public out there in TV land for bearing with us while we've got that figured out. go ahead and move on to our last order of business if that's okay with you guys. >> Yep. >> All right. It is related um under board member agenda items um at the behest of some board members several board members I did go ahead and put on um a request to talk about the technology board policies
074so that if we want to continue this discussion with an eye toward codifying any changes we can do that. Um, I don't have a particular one in mind. Again, I put this on the agenda just so that if the data we received today, the presentation, the feedback from the public warranted it, we could choose to have a discussion about board policies related to technology. I think it's worth having at this point after what we've heard and some of the board member discussion. that we probably ought to continue the discussion as an action item with a with an eye towards really being very careful about what our technology policy says and how those technology board policies are being turned into AR and actually being implemented on school sites. Um, so that's my ask. >> So we'd
075be looking for a motion to add this to a future board meeting. And then what we what I would like to do just is let's not name the board meeting tonight and then that way we can talk to staff and figure out you know how we get the information to you. You can look at you know the board current policies and things and then we can figure out okay you know maybe the October regular or the November regular makes sense to have the future discussions. >> Yeah that making sense? >> Yeah absolutely. Um, so at this point I just want to ask if my ask was clear enough. Does the uh board have any questions or clarification of what I'm trying to put on the agenda? >> Great. Awesome. As ever, is there public comment
076about this item? See a couple thumbs up and no no other comments. That's awesome. Um, okay. In that case, yeah, do we have a motion regarding this item? Since it is mine, I'm going to go ahead and move it. >> I'll second. >> All right, we have a motion and a second by Land and Conan, respectively. Um, again, this is going to is there any further discussion about this? And again, as always, we can't go into super specifics because the goal is just to put it on the agenda, not to have debate tonight. That said, any other talk about this one? >> Okay. In that case, we're going to do a roll call. We are again going to start with number H and then come down the line at this point. >> H I >>
077Robinson I. >> It is unanimous. All right. Um, again, we did talk about a specific meeting, but uh staff understands that we'd rather see the rather than later so we can make sure we're having this discussion. Awesome. Thank you very much. Um that is the final item on our agenda. Uh is there a motion to adjurnn to close session? >> I'll make a motion to adjourn to close session. >> I will second that. Once again, can we go ahead and vote on adjournment? >> I Robinson. >> We are to close. Thank you.