Chico Unified School District Board of Education Meeting 4/2/2025

001I was really really sad. What's going on with you? Welcome to the April 2nd special board meeting of Uni Tito Unified School District Board of Trustees. Good to be here. Let's go ahead and start to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. We are going to jump right into the consent calendar. Does anyone want to pull an item off calendar? Are there any? I don't see any. All right. Do we have a motion? I'll make a motion to approve. All right. We have a motion by member second by member case. Um, in terms of discussion, I just want to say that I did notice there was a musical theater for middle school class on

002that, which is super exciting. Really excited to see that play out. Any other discussion? Since this is our first vote of the day, we'll go voice from a roll from left. You want to start us off? I said I unanimous. Thank you all very much. All right, we are on to the main business of today I suspect is the board workshop attendance and the impacts thereof on budget and programs. So u thank you for having us tonight and um thank you for the input prior to the meeting together. Um I will be presenting tonight along with Jen McCall. coordinators information we know David McKay from well principal at Citrus they're kind enough to come out and stay late at the DC office thank you all right so we're going to talk about student attendance in

003general as well as the impacts of attendance on budget and therefore programs so um There we go. Perfect. Uh first of all, um some facts. Um these come from Attendance Works, which is a private um organization aimed at providing information to school districts, especially on attendance. Um we use them quite a bit for some of their documentation, right? Um it comes as no surprise to the board. Um, we've talked about this in prior meetings, but the the pandemic um increased chronic absenteeism very very significantly. So 14.7 million students statewide were nationwide were chronically absent. So that's absent 10% or more of the school year. Poor attendance can influence reading proficiency. You know, we we strive to get is reading by the end of third grade at least. Um if they're not at school, they're it's

004harder for that reading to sink in and for them to continue to develop. Um by sixth grade, we see chronic absenteeism as a leading indicator that a student will drop out of high school prior to graduating. Yes. Can I ask a third question? of the 14.7 billion is that like K through six, K through eight that would should be K through 12 nationwide. Okay. And one more question. How is an absent actions defined? Is it like they're not there the whole day, they're there for part of the day? How do we that will be an all day? All day. So this is research regarding that chronic absentee is a mark of 10% of the school and really that's only 18 days uh for our kids and it will negatively affect academic performance obviously like the

005bottom the first slide the draft version of this slide was kids aren't at school, they're not learn they're not learning the academics that we need them for and being socialized. So, one of the things that I thought was interesting in the presentation, I know it was just the idea that that's that's two absences a month, which doesn't sound like very much, right? I mean, as as a parent or as a student, it doesn't sound like very much, but that's and you know obviously more than that but um I was like I hadn't thought about that before even as a classroom teacher I hadn't thought about it it's less it's less than people picture yes it's like that kid you're seeing most of the time in in your class you're seeing them a lot and so

006I was I was kind of stunned by that and I think it's an important thing to get public's attention yeah absolutely I'd like to back up just a bit about a statement that was made just a second ago about what constitutes an absence. Once upon a time we had a big um there were were issues about the definition of absent. Is it truly all periods now? Okay. Because it wasn't really settled for a period of time. Yes, they are here for any portion of the day. 88. Oh, okay. So, you just said the opposite of what I was thinking. So, thank you. So, moving on down the slide, um, you can see, uh, students in living in communities with higher poverty are four times more likely to be chronically absent due to reasons beyond their

007control. um listed up there and we'll talk more about how we tackle that a little later in the in the presentation. U attendance works is saying attendance improves when schools engage students and parents in positive ways and when schools provide mentors for chronically absent students. So, um this comes down when we talk about um engaging students. That was our ma the major focus of our tier one um instructional uh topic that we went over all year long with our secondary staffs. Um we're always trying to engage parents and you'll hear more about that um as we get into the staff that's involved in attendance. Another thing triggered a thought. When we talk about what impacts positive change, you mentioned mentoring. We don't mean that the mentoring has to be just because of absences, but any

008mentoring contact with the student works. I like the fact that you're shaking because I think Well, I would say where my head is going is um we have an intervention that we call it check-in checkout. And basically what it is is a student who's having maybe behavioral or attendance issues is checking in with somebody at the beginning of the day. In elementary, they're checking with the same person throughout the day and then at the end. And they're really kind of making that connection. Um it's an opportunity for staff to, you know, school. Those kinds of conversations keep it very positive and that keeps the kids accountable for like we talked about today, you know, one one chico high student has drastically improved her reduced heries and increased her attendance just with I believe it was

009six weeks of that. So that's something that we're um that we that connection with and and I put um reading and other one-on-one tutoring type of activities before and after school and stuff in that category of what helps. All right. So, we're going to go ahead and talk about um attendance rate and the funding um that comes from that chronic absenteeism measures over the years and then the state reporting process for attendance. So this slide is showing you guys the historical attendance percentage over the last six years and um our LCAP goal for the district is 95.5%. We hit that goal in 1920 but since once CO happened um we hit below that but we have been increasing every year after we came back in full session. This graphic is also showing you um a

010picture from the California state dashboard. And so it shows you what the state chronic absenteeism rates are. And our highlight here is that Chica Unified has remained under the state goal this entire time. So we have done better than the state average. My role for Chico Unified is the coordinator of student information and there are state reporting requirements with my role. Some of them are to report attendance to CalPADS which is used by the state to calculate chronic absentism rates. And the other system that we use to report attendance is the principal aortionment data collection which is where we report our ADA. I report this three times a year and um that's at P1, P2 and Tim. Can you explain what is? Yeah, Calpads is going to go blank on what the acronym stands for,

011but it's the California student data system. So all the data that we yeah California longitudinal data system. So um all the data that we have on students um as far as demographics, attendance, um discipline get sent to Calpads. Um special education status, um we send staffing information to CalPADS. Um, and that's kept year to year. And that's kind of the when we look at the at the dashboard, for example, all that data comes from originally longitudinal pupil achievement data system. Thank you. You're welcome. All right. Next, we're going to jump into the physical implications of attendance. We'll talk about average daily attendance or ADA as we commonly refer to it as well as some absence makeup opportunities. So just a reminder the the state funds California school districts and charter schools based on our average

012daily attendance not our enrollment. So when we talk about these percentages at 92 93 94% not only does it say on average that's how many students are attending every day but it also drives our funing. Um so fortunately um each year there's three options that that we automatically get the higher of the three um from a funding perspective that leads to the highest ADA option. So we can look at our current year average daily attendance our prior year or three prior years average. Um so that three prior year average was implemented um by the legislature with Gavin News pushing a couple years ago to give us that third option um because kind of postcoid as you saw earlier the percentages are significantly lower um and as we're building that up than we have that third

013option. So currently um we budget around it for a 94% attendance rate. So that's that's our goal right now for the current year. Um with that percentage right now the district is spended on prior year. So, but if we're able to increase to 95% just 1% um then we would be funded on current year and it would generate an additional 575,000 in funding. So, it is based on a districtwide attendance percentage. So, we do see that our high schools and ironically not our TKs tend to be our lower um attendance percentage. Um so, it would require that some combination of all our grades um increase so we hit 95%. Just a clarifying question when you said 94% is is the goal really that's just for budget budgetary. Yes. Yes. Thank you. Yeah. Much higher. Yes.

014That amounts to 575. If we can Yeah. If we can increase it to 95% generate an additional 575,000 per year. Yep. Okay. So the other piece, and I think Tim hit hit it hard at the beginning, ultimately if kids aren't at school, they're not learning. So what we do is we have two programs that allow for attendance recovery. We have short-term independent study, which is 15 days or less. And then we also have a Saturday school program where students can make up those instructional minutes that they missed. So Jen was able to go through her records and get me the ADA for the last couple years of how much um was recouped during during those programs. and then the associated dollars here. So, pretty significant. Our short-term independent study program does break between 30 and

01540 ADA. You'll see here that in 2324 there was just over 34 ADA that generated about 436,000. Um, in 2122 there was almost 48. 40 ADA that generated 400,000. And the reason that seems kind of backwards is because the per ADA amount in 23 24 was larger than 2122. So even though there was less ADA, it generally more dollars. And our Saturday school, which is primarily our secondary sites, um does range between 10 to 15ish ADA that is recruit from those days. There's just less days available than a short-term study. Yes. At one point there was discussion about secondary level, Saturday school, whether or not you had to have a certificated employee being in charge of Saturday school. You do. Okay. Yes, you have to have a certificated teacher who's overseeing um the activity and

016then they become the teacher of record, right, for that Saturday school program. I know that was there was a lot of discussion along those lines. wasn't sure where it was now. So, how does the state decide what our ADA was? I know you take the census P1, P2, and annual. Do they look at those just those three numbers? Are they average? We're funded off of P2, which is period 2. So, P1 is reported just before Christmas. Y um kind of gives us a a guide rail of where we're at for the year. Um that's really used by the state for cash flow purposes so they can distribute money to the district. P2 is where the district is funded. Um when when we talk about these dollars, I know it's a little bit in the weeds,

017but the reporting for P2, is that like an average of every day leading up to that point? Is it just a snapshot of one day in the district? What is It's literally every day. Every day. Okay. Every day after that point. Y. Awesome. Thank you. So, one last I'm sorry. Yeah, I know that does seem sweet and small, but I think I think branding and and is is an important thing. I like I like that it's being changed to like Saturday's success academy. I think Saturday school has a negative connotation. And so even in things like this, I think if we're going that route, which I think is better, I think, you know, I think it's nice you know, positivity wherever possible. And even in reports like this, I think all of those those little

018cues of, you know, sat Saturday success. I think just it's not a criticism, it's just an invitation to say I think that's a great way of going and and words make a difference. Connotations connotations are carried. And so I think you know everything that we can do to to put forth that kind of new rebranded idea is a good idea. Okay, we're going to move into talking about encouraging and monitoring attendance. So what goes into that? Um including staffing um the multi-tered system of supports or MPSS and the school attendance review board. All right. So, talking a little bit more about my roles. I work closely with the tendance clerks at each school site to ensure proper attendance coding and that regulations are followed. Correcting in coding or regulatory errors when they might pop up

019and happen, training people who are new to the position and communicating any changes to the attendance processes and ensuring compliance. We meet several times throughout the year to discuss best practices and challenges that I'm excited. Oh, are we still auditive to the degree that we used to be where you can have your fingers smashed with a razor or a ruler if you didn't get it right. We are audited very closely. Yeah. Our auditors ask for phone um to prove that the parent called in on a particular their student attendance. So, um because it drives a large percentage of our funding, our auditors are asked to kind of bring it down to the money to ensure that the students legitimately were in class or were not. Is that auditing done by a state organization or responsible

020for bringing third party? We bring in a third party. Yeah. HMS is who we've used the last couple years. their local and and I just know again from my classroom experience like um there will be times when a student only showed up to my class right mine was the only class they showed up to and I get things from my attendants saying were they really there and I'm like absolutely they were here they logged in I mean I can show you that they were here I don't know what happened to them the rest of of the day but they were here and so I know that they're like emails from teachers. Yeah. And and also that I have to sign that that I'm not lying that they were there. You know, I'm putting my credential

021on the line saying, "Yeah, I'm not making this up." Just to get the school ADA. So, I'm excited to talk about a new campaign we have here at the district called our tenants succeed campaign. We started it about two years ago and it's comprised of Erica Smith, Christy Benson, and myself. Um, our team has been creating new attendance materials which you guys can see behind me and cups at your super cool near your chairs. Uh, we've been creating lots of positive messaging for the school sites to use, for social media, for our websites. We put a lot of emphasis on we're so glad to see you. We're happy you're here. You know, after um absences or tardies. So that is our focus. We've been printing materials and coming up with different incentives. Um the picture

022in the middle is we attended the TK kindergarten registration fair. We were there to distribute materials. We were there to talk to parents. We're coming up with lots of different FAQs for parents that, you know, sometimes after working here for a long time or if you don't have kids, you don't think is maybe a question that parents legitimately have. But we're coming up with lots of that kind of stuff. And one of the examples of the materials is um on the right part of the screen where we developed a when is sick too sick to stay home. So kind of a guideline for schools to use and a guideline for parents. Um back to attendance clerks. They are the faces of a school. They are every day building relationships with families and students and encouraging

023good attendance. They are busy welcoming students back from absences, answering the making the phone calls to parents after there's absences, talking to students, developing, like I said, those close relationships. They also have to do the record keeping. So, they're responsible for reconciling the daily attendance. They work with school intervention teams to help improve attendance. And um as you can see the staffing, there's one attendance per elementary and junior high site. There are three at the high school. And targeted case managers are another um staff position that comes into play a lot when we talk about encouraging attendance. Um much like the attendance clerks um their job is and they do it very well is developing relationships with families and students and encouraging attendance um amongst other things. But both of these groups, when you talk

024to them, um they're their heart's in it. Like they are pretty driven to get kids to school. Um they're welcoming parents into the school community as targeted case managers. They're bilingual. They're making contact with families um for a variety of reasons, not just attendance. And they're working with families to remove barriers to getting to school. So they might provide bikes, bus passes, just kind of general guidance. Um they're out visiting homes at times. Um and they're connecting families to community organizations. So they do a lot for us and they're um uh they're a huge benefit to Chico Unified. It's not some uh targeted case managers are not in every district necessarily. Um but they are the attendance course are really like a point person with attendance and targeted case managers can can help with that.

025There's the chart I wanted to explain. Yes. So, um, we've mentioned the multi-tered system of supports prior in this presentation. We've talked to the board a lot about it over the, you know, recent past. And part of that u system includes mon monitoring meetings where groups of staff and it might be um or typically is administrators, counselors, intervention teachers at community school sites with social workers. Um there might be special education staff present. Um there may be attendance present. But basically what they're doing is they're meeting on a regular basis and looking at a set of of data um that's provided for them to identify who needs help with what essentially and then making sure they're providing that support. And so everybody, you know, attendance is huge um when we talk about learning. So um

026attendance plays a strong role in it. And the the picture is really just an example. It's a screenshot of what those what those uh teams are looking at and it's an example that includes um a list of students and you can see the second row over the or sorry the second column over the red that's the attendance rate. And so you can see these kids have been pulled out um based on on their data and attendance rate is very low. Um so really these intervention teams are going to you know address this very differently than a student who's maybe having at school every day but having behavioral problems or other other needs. So So what does SIS stand for? Student information system. Oh okay. Y and so the d that staff has to look at

027includes the whole whole stand attendance, discipline, grades, test scores, um, demographics. So, this is a crucial part of what we do for encouraging attendance. In here, I was able to go to bid well, I think it was a couple weeks ago and sit in on one of those meetings and it was it was fabulous. you know, the team working together, having conversations, who's responsible for what what more followup needs to happen. Um, it was it was really impressive and they it was very targeted um each student and what their needs were and what the follow. So, it is. Thank you. more questions about about this graphic that I don't understand. Is that a student ID number down the first column? That is so that's the student identifying the student staff sees student names, right? But

028we can't show those, right? Um then the next column over is reported absence rate. Um in the first column that's the number two that's minor discipline I'll just go across there um minor discipline so that's you know um discipline incidences that don't reach the the office generally they're not sus suspendable offenses um they might be a student might be given a minor discipline in by a yard supervisor really. And then going across again, the CIS reported rate. So that's the student information system reported rate for attendance for attendance. Um, and then the other um columns there are are grades. And really this this spreadsheet goes on and on and on and on. Um, grades for each class. Um, like I mentioned before, you know, major discipline, um, pretty much a a very like well-rounded look

029at at data on students and students. And so these are just for the English language arts grade book. This this is just ELA for that's just an example, right? Correct. But that's what this is represent. Exactly. And for middle school and high school. Yeah. Okay. So how is that represent is the way you know that I I was confused a little bit about the middle school and high school. I'm assuming that these numbers differentiate who's a middle school or high schooler or you're because because you have fall semester and the spring semester. So I'm assuming one is Yeah, I I was confused by that. So it's not both middle school and high school. So correct. Correct. Okay. So these are when the When a team sits down to look at it, they're only looking at

030kids at their their school. And because each level is different, the data sets are different. So, for example, we don't have letter grades in elementary and then, you know, we'll have more assessment numbers with the colors indicating areas need. Um, so it does look different. depending on the level. I I have more questions. Um so in column number two, that's the absence rate, not the referral rate. That is the column number two, the SIS reported right rate. That's the percentage of school days that the student is present. Okay. So you can see like the row two 77.6%. So that's far below um the cut off for chronic absenteeism. Way far below 95. In the next column, fall semester, let's use the same student. Um it it has an F. Does that mean there's one F

031or three Fs or That means for that that course there was an F which was English language arts at the top right here in little tiny writing shows English language arts. Yeah. And that's why I was thrown because it says ELA but then it says for middle school and high school and I'm like what can't that would be four semesters at least. So yeah. So this is just for English language arts and just and again this is just a larger Thank you for that question because some of what we heard from our students when we sat down with our students was that they felt that intervention and support from their counselors needed to come as soon as they have one or you know, this doesn't seem to be able to tell us that we can

032pull out, you know, that that you have to have more of what we're wanting to prevent in order to get right. And so this um this is an example of one list that a site team would have and this is based primarily on attendance. Sites actually have mult list that they can review and do a review. One of those involves grades and FS. Um, basically what we can do is is set parameters for the system. We can say any student with one or more Fs show up on this list. Um, and so so that is done. Um, it's just not this is this one focused on attendance. So what you're talking about with that, you know, inter because I I like to pay attention to what our kids say at these meetings that we go

033to where they they tell us what they think they need. And that that's one of the things they keep coming back to is wanting intervention, wanting attention for themselves, and they're struggling with that. It doesn't that they want it soon. They don't want it later when they've already wrapped up three or four apps, right? But you can set your targets in that database so that you can pull those. Yeah. Here's my next question. When you do that, do you get a manageable number? The the manageable number piece There is times where we adjust the thresholds that we're looking at um at times um just to make it a manageable number. Showing the staff a list of kids that they can't talk to anyway. You know, it's not a manageable number is not a good use

034of time. Okay. I'm I'm gonna I'm gonna come back to that particular issue because experience is that it depends on where in the grading period you're you're taking that temperature. So, I would want to really focus on not not letting kids get past that there's too many to deal with. Right. Right. And I think our counseling staff can chime in. Um, Mr. McCay, our counseling staff keeps tabs on on grades and their intent. They want to intervene just like you said, as early as possible. Um, so they are combing through data and really like we've been talking about MTSS for like the last handful of years, but they've been doing that for forever pretty much. It's like combing through list of kids that have an Yeah. And that again, that was one of the most

035valuable indicators of who's about to have trouble when the school year started. you know, as an attendance clerk, we we didn't have a number of those ways to pull things, but we could pull number of absences, number of FS, and boy was that a quick indicator of who's headed for trouble. It it really was a reliable thing. So, if we have staff, and we do have more staff now to focus on that PS and and stuff. Please, you know, get to those kids because the kids want intervention. That was the other thing that's so clear when you sit down with our students and listen to them is they want help. They really want help. I'll just attest that my time at PD the counselors absolutely absolutely reached out to those kids the minute they saw

036and called the kids in made a plan followed up follow the support they need is happening it is a priority that's on top of the work that the teacher teachers are seeing And that was also part of a message that came through loud and clear yesterday when we met with with junior high students was how closely they feel their teachers are paying attention. It was you know they they said it to us a number of times was our teachers care. They are paying attention. They are you know getting to us and saying is everything okay? What can I do to help? Okay. So, for more severe attendance issues, um the school attendance review board is is a route um that I'll describe right now um called SAR. Um so, after receiving three truency letters and

037meeting with school administration. So, three truency letters are um we send uh attendance letters home every week. Um and so by the time uh some family or one of their students um receives three and met with this school administrator, um they may turn to a SAR hearing as the next step. There's cases where that doesn't happen where that conversation with the administrator um might um a plan might come out of that that okay, we're going to test it out for a while and then we're going to meet again perhaps. It's not an automatic um thing where students go to the starting because we kind of exhaust all resources and you know strategies to get them but there is cases where kids do end up going to a star hearing and those are um attended by

038the student um parents their parents or guardians um sight staff district staff and community community agencies at times currently uh so I'm just want to make sure so the truency letters are triggered by an unexcused absence right any unexcused absence they get one at the end of the week they get one I can't say when they get it usually by Friday yeah so if they have one that if they have unexcused absence on that week typically the end of that same week they'll get the absence letter it's actually uh they get generated on Tuesday the following week capture any prior just to clarify is that um a truency from one period or is that a truency for the entire day? There's a little um difference depending on the school site and how they're set up.

039But for the all elementaryaries of course are just all day attendance. So the all day attendance um the junior highs I believe are also just on the all day. So they're missing all six periods, then they'll get the unexpeds in the all day and that's what the letter will kick off of. Um and I believe all debt in high schools will count period absences. I guess um this might trigger kind of my next question and I guess this is how does chronic tardyism relate maybe that's not a correct word relate to chronic absenteeism and hate to get personal here but I'm going to throw my 17year-old under the bus but um just as he's a new driver he's driving himself to school and has that new responsibility of arriving to school on time. And it's

040not uncommon for me to get the little text on the phone. You know, your your child has missed um a period. And so I confront him. I ask him and his response often is, "Mom, I was five 10 minutes late to school." Which of course I'm not I I don't see that as acceptable. I I expect him to be to school on time. But my question is, I guess financially, um, how does that impact the school district when you might have repeated tardies for one period, not the entire day? Like, how does that play out? There's no impact financially, right? I mean, I understand the educational impact and I I value that. Um, and I I think he's been appropriately like received consequences for experience, but I'm just wondering like what the relationship is for

041all of this. And I'll add to that that um staff is looking at tardies as well. Like the example I gave earlier when the student would check in check out that came about because of tardies. So staff is watching those and that's particular. Yeah. As I I appreciate it and I support uh at the secondary level. Um we do have administrators that sometimes occasionally will send SAR cases where there are the focus is just specifically tardies. So I'm not going to share too much but we've had cases where there's students that had 40 plus tardies and so we kind of focus on that. this school admin just want to impress upon the student that we want to go in the class on time. Would there be any value in sort of trying to distinguish out

042like this is a tardy versus absenteeism? I mean according to him and I'm just using him but like he says he's a few minutes late but they've already you know submitted that to the office as a as a there's a certain number of minutes before He's in trouble. I go in and change it to Yeah. Yeah. Gail is absolutely right. If they're over, what was it? Yeah. I also wanted just to clarify so the letters go out but you know it could be just oversight by parents not excusing an absence and then at which time they oh my gosh yes this we went to a doctor's appointment or whatever and that is then then the unexcused absence is changed to an excused absence and that first truency letter Is it a boot point at that

043point? You basically get a pass for the next absence so that Aries can write the number of absences and will kick out a second letter until there's an actual additional unexcused absence. My my point is is so if I forget to call in for my kid, um then there's going to be this unexcused absent, you know, it's going to be unexcused and I get my first letter. But then I'm dutiful and I call in and say, "Hey, my bad. Sorry about that. Really, this was should have been an excused absence. Only my fault, not the kids's fault." And I'm saying that parent wouldn't be on track to be receiving like if this happened three times in a year, which could happen. I mean, life happens to us, they're not going to be triggered for a

044surgery. I I I can clarify for that just from the elementary. So it's kind of like a stair step. So the first thing we're always looking for is building that relationship, understanding the communication. So first letter is triggered. It is common that we get a call in a panic just for that. Oh my god. I mean I I'll sell myself out too. Here I am. I've done that before too. I'm like oh my god how embarrassing. So that's the that's the first step. As long as we have that communication that and we understand what's happening then we can kind of continue on that. the sometimes the letters are still automatically generated but it's building that relationship. The next step is okay this is kind of becoming a pattern now admin and the targeted case manager

045they sit down and they kind of come up with a contract. So parent comes in we make a game plan and really try to get to the bottom of what's what's really happening what's getting in the way and how do we get you here? Then we kind of sign student signs. We come up with a plan and we monitor that. If that plan is still not serving anything. Then the admin team goes, you know what, we we've tried due diligence here on site. We're going to move them up to the next level. And then they come to a SAR hearing. And then once they're at the SAR hearing, we do the same thing, right? We have community resources there. So boys and girls club is there. Um the child protective services is there, family ties

046is there. So we bring community resources in and say, hey, this is to support. So, this is to bring everybody into a room and again look at what are the bigger barriers and is it transportation? Is it are you having trouble waking them up? Can we connect you to somebody that can give you some parent support in the home? And then we continue on that way. So, it really is a stair step. Yeah, I I appreciate that that that input. I I just one of the things I um I think is true I I'm hoping that those target managers are really involved before even those the first trinity ever letter ever went out. I mean, I I would hope that, you know, we're I don't know, maybe maybe the second one, but I I guess

047when those dark letters are not very friendly, you know, they're very and if I'm a parent and a student who is um if I am having troubles, having threatening letters from school districts is probably not the best route to go. I mean, when you're, you know, to get more flies with honey than vinegar. And I I'm understanding I I get that attendance is very important. I also think that there there needs to be that measured and not saying it's not, but what I what I'm hoping those SAR letters I don't know what can be done to make them feel less like I mean I get Pedro's point when he's saying when you have a kid with 40ies and you've tried everything and you want to Hey, no kidding. You need to get yourself to class

048and on time. I I understand that point. I think that and as a parent, you get there too, right? But again, it's that give and take and you don't want parents who may um have for a variety of reasons like real PTSD to um shows demonstraable authority. And I I think the one piece to keep in mind too because I I right the letter does come out is that before that letter our attendance clerks people have been reaching out via text via support before that ever. Yeah. And so that but so the letter is kicked out to say hey you're kind of just leaving us. We have no idea what's going on and so that sometimes is what triggers them to then connect. I'm glad to hear that that because that's where we you know

049we have to we have to be absolutely again I'll speak from personal experience that John knows I've had several students that we have tried and tried and tried everything and and you know you name it we've tried it um and I would personally get frustrated because I'm like when is a SAR letter going to go out but the point that we have as a team we exhaust everything before before that happens. And it is the law to make sure it is in school. So we don't want to be getting held accountable. Absolutely not. Absolutely. But I can say these guys are working with us. Well, I just think it's important for the public to know how how much we do to make sure that that happens. back one. Um, okay. So, Heather Swanches mentioned the

050um solutions that may involve community and school resources. Okay. And she mentioned some some agencies um that are available to help. Um, SAR pairings may result um in a referral to attendance court. Um, and that really hasn't always been the case, but we're told that that's um on the table now. Um, and then just for some uh, you know, perspective on on on this process, last year we had 108 star pairings and we're about on the same pace this year. So, we expect, you know, a little over 100 stars, which is less than 1% of our Yeah, we have our population is 12,300 kids and this is 100 a little over 100. I'm going to jump in with a followup to what you just said and remind all of us that even at that rate,

051one absence is still one absence. And if you think about everything that goes on in the classroom in a unit or a class in a in a setting, that's a lot of information to be missed. It makes a lot of extra work for teachers to make sure that they're getting makeup work to those students. I I just an absence not just an absence. An absence is a heck of a big problem. But I'd say at the elementary school level, too. I mean, when you're thinking about trying to teach kids to read, um, it's it's tremendously important to not be missing direct instruction with something that takes direct instruction. All right. So, we have um Shann Payne here from Citrus and Dave McKay here from Bidwell to tell you about um the the details on what

052they do at their site to address attendance. So, first we have um citrus. I just wanted to note that B comes before C. Not in their not in their slideshow. Good evening everybody. Thanks for having me here. I appreciate it. I love talking about our school and the things that we're doing to um address our needs. attendance um is super important at elementary as you me mentioned and we've done a lot of mind shift changing around how we um try to create community with our families and get them in and in and so much to the minute level of like we changed our tardy slips to just say we're glad you're here today um instead of tardy because it just changes the the whole dynamic from the way it's passed out to the student and

053the parent we greet them with we're glad you're here today regardless of the circumstances where they're at in their attendance journey. Um so it's an important thing for us and we've got a great team. Um we Tim started us off with our targeted case manager who is incredibly um active with attendance at our school. Um Jess Alonzo does an incredible job. Um she sends letters. She just sent me a proof letter um to go home prior to this 4day spring travel break that we have. and um so she sends out letters to remind them of how the importance of attendance but also um to remind them of important upcoming dates so that there's sometimes in elementary world confusion like a lot of people thought we had Monday off or C Chavez day we didn't so

054she's she's sending you know and she's communicating that a lot with our parents who struggle with attendance and um so she's fantastic she also does um a lot with our kids who are in chronic attendance um absenteeism I should and she does punch cards with them. They meet with her personally. So that whole mentor idea that you were talking about a little bit earlier in this presentation is alive and well inside of our school and she does a lot of that direct connection with our social worker and our counselor. Um and really they get prizes when they get to 90%. We celebrate them. It's a you know it's a big exciting thing. They come to the office and they see me give them high five and congratulate them for um their success because we know

055in elementary school often times our kids are not the people responsible. getting themselves to school. Um, and so that was part of that mindship change for us. Sorry parents, I'm but you know that was part of that mind shift change for us is um when kids get to school and the first face they see is like where have you been? Um that's just it's not helping them. They didn't they didn't choose for the car to break down or for the bus to be late or um for their bike to have a flat tire. things that um a lot of our students at Citrus are, you know, kind of running up against her mom has overslept some. Sibling doesn't want to go to school, so there's a different kind of um communication at home trying to

056get everybody ready on the same page. Um so, um and then we do a lot, she just does a lot of affirming phone calls when parents and students for those parents just she tells the kids, "Won't call your mom today and tell her about how excited we are about you being at school more that you filled your punch card out." And so that reconnection with them and on the positive because we are talking those letters are they feel daunting when you you know they see them I have a lot of parent calls that come in and so giving them that that positive back when we do see the improvement is has been really great for our community and just kind of saying hey we're in this together and it's super important that you're here every

057day and then schoolwide um we do the Iron Man trophy um matter of fact we do an Iron Man on Friday Friday we have a schoolwide assembly every Friday morning. Um and during that time we celebrate our Iron Man and academic and athletic achievements and all these things but once a month we do Iron Man and they get um this month they're getting a the two winning classes are getting popcorn parties. Um so we try to give them a little something. Sometimes it's pencils, sometimes they get power paws which is our school currency. Um, and so the highest attendants, we celebrate them and they get a cool thing that says, "This class is awesome, a banner, and they hang it out in front. They're super proud." And kids come running back with the Iron Man.

058You know, it's it's a thing. Um, and then, um, our targeted case manager and social worker are making daily phone calls to those high-risisk that we're super concerned about. And we identify those families through our wellness team. Um, and so that wellness team meets by by monthly in order will communicate with us those families that she's most concerned about. Also does that personally with me as things kind of come up that are unexpected. But then we do have that group of families that we're really tracking and targeting with our resources um through the wellness team and we discuss that and then disperse um you know uh information to them uh home visits um rides to school. Um I've driven several students to school for many weeks in order to get them, you know, to where

059they need to be when families are having some sorts of different difficulties. And so do my target case manager and social worker. So, and then we continue to monitor them and intervene when it's necessary. But we've had some great success. It's been as part of being in community school been amazing to have a social worker with that next layer of understanding of how we can connect services to our families. Um, and you know, that wellness team has our we have special education educator inside of that. um myself, our social worker, targeted case manager, counselor, um our attendance clerk, and it's been really a game changer for us. So, good times. You're doing great. Yeah, [Music] thank you for uh inviting us to be here on behalf of Bill Junior High School. Um we we've had

060uh Monica Mia, our targeted case manager, just tracking down kids for years now and Alicia Leonard in our front office monitoring attendance, making communication phone calls. Been doing that for a while. This is the first year on top of all those efforts that I feel like we've really made a concerted effort to try to improve attendance. One reason is because it's such a daunting task and because once you know even on a low attendance day we still got 950 kids rolling in the halls and they usually give us plenty to to think about right there about you missing. I wonder where Jenny is today. remind people to go figure out, you know, like like so it's just I know that sounds sounds bad, but it's hard. We're aware of it and the kids right in

061front of us, that's just the reality of it. So, um I was taking a look at our attendance and I was wondering, you know, I wonder what it would take to improve our attendance by half a percent. I know we probably need to go up by 1%. What would it take at Bidwell to go up half a percent? Half a percent over the course of a year equals 900 individual decisions to go to school more than last year. 900 decisions. We ain't covering that with Saturday success academy or any other way that we polish that up or short-term independent study. Like those are all part of it. Yeah, we definitely want to offer as many as we can, but for a half a percent 900 decisions to go, nope, you got the snipples, you're going

062900 times for half a percent. So, it it's an enormous task. And so, this year, we decided to try to empty the clip and see what we could do. So, the slides that we have here represent our our efforts to just like spray and and pray to a certain extent. Let's see what sticks. And we've had a lot of great help on the way. Um, Eric and Smith has been great in helping us uh pilot out some Aries communication ideas that we feel are going to capitalize on some of the the more effective communication strategies that we've had with our parents through text basically only not coming from staff's cell phones but rather through a communication and then also the the mentoring idea like do they need to notice that I'm gone like yeah we

063want them to notice that they're gone not just when they come back but you know ideally 10 minutes after attendance is taken in in first period. So all that takes time and and energy and and a certain amount of bandwidth. So with that in mind, um this year we we rebranded our Saturday success academy from Saturday school. If you got four cell phone violations, you're going to Saturday school. What if I don't go to Saturday school? Give me two Saturday school for six weeks from now. Mark your calendar. You know, like it just the whole thing was like really this didn't make a whole lot of lot of sense. So we we decided to uh to try to rebrand it to be a positive thing where it has actually has nothing to do with discipline

064and it has to do with helping your student to get more connected to school and to have some dedicated time with a certificated staff member to get some work done. It's going to feel good. It's going to feel your kid wants to get their grades up and you can see right there in your Aries profile what the missing assignments are. No, we don't expect you to sit down and do math or history or whatever with them. It's great if you can, but we realize that's not possible for everybody. If you can get them there 8 to 12, they're going to get so much done during that time. They're going to feel a lot better and it will effectively erase a full day's absence so that when they look at their profile page, their attendance is

065going to to go up and that's going to make the kids feel better. So, it's it's not just about a statistic. And we even say, well, it's certainly not about money. And I realize it's probably, you know, we look at 12,000 kids. Of course, there's a monetary factor to it, but at Bidwell, you know, when we have 95% of the kids every day showing up. Okay, we got the money. Like, that's that's fine. We have a decent amount of money coming in. We're really talking about helping each and every student overcome whatever obstacles in their way uh to get to school every day. Once they're here, they're going to feel better. They're going to be glad that they're here. Junior High is all about your friends. They're, you know, they still love their teachers. Um

066and and they're going to feel better when they get here. A lot of times, just working through that kind of crisis moment in the morning. So to try to help wrap our minds around why some of those 900 folks assuming positive intent may make that decision to stay home, we we asked some students, we asked some parents. And uh one of one of the trends that we came up with was, you know, we had COVID and it was don't come to school at all even thinking about being sick. And then it was, well, if you got the snipples, yeah, probably not. And then the next year it was like no, you're good. If you're just like this whole thing, you're coming. And so you can kind of see the number going down. And I think

067right now the brutal facts are I think some kids and parents have kind of fallen into an avoidant situation where oh I don't feel good. What does that mean? They could be anxious about any number of things. U peer conflict at school falling behind you know I think that's the biggest one. Speaking from personal experience you kind of find yourself in this hole. But we can't help that kid if you know everybody's buying into, oh, I guess he's sick. Like, no, he's not. He's avoiding the situation. Let's get him here. And then it's not just business as usual. We can plug him in to different supports on campus to try to bridge that gap. So, see, look, you got here, you went 10:00. That's way better than not getting here at all. You got here

06811 o'clock. That's way better than not getting here at all. Now we can wrap our our arms around you and and tackle this situation which now at Bidwell you're talking at about 220 kids out of over a thousand who fall into that 91% and lower um rate. So even with the rebranding of the hey come to Saturday Success Academy um we were we were still getting like seven to eight students a Saturday school session. So in January we decided to run a monthly query on Aries 91% or lower. The idea being that we want to catch those kids who are close to dipping below that 90% and then a bunch of kids that are in that 88 to 90% range that that that is a Saturday Success Academy problem or a short-term independent study problem.

069So what we did was regular messaging to try to change the culture. If it's a culture like, oh, I'm gonna let my kids stay home because whatever, like, we're gonna, you know, assume positive intent with our parents and really start changing that culture, which is going to take multiple years to get them to to bring their kid at some point, trusting that we have a plan in place for kids who need it. And so, uh, part of that was the adopt a student list. So, that 91% and lower goes out to all staff and we invite staff members to sign up to adopt a kid. Just one kid. And preferably it's in your first or second period class. if they're not here, make a note. And then this is where the Aries communication comes in.

070Maybe you send that parent uh a text through Aries communication. We're also working again, this is probably going to be something for next year where with the parents permission, you know, the students cell phone number on there and you can Aries communication, the student and the parent. So the parent thinks their kids at school now they know that they're not and they can text the parent go, "Hey, you got to got to get there. I don't care if it's 11 o'clock." That's way better than not getting there at all. Um, also, um, sometimes just call in the parent, letting them know at junior high that their kids not there, we notice their kids not there. Oh, yeah, they're sick or or what have you. And then of course when they come back and they are

071there, we invite those staff members to check in and mentor those students to make them feel even more connected to the school. It really is about strengthening their connection to the school uh in a positive way that's going to make them want to come more uh and get out of that avoidance cycle. Um, so since January, we've gone from about 240 kids on that list to, as of April 1st, about 220. And so if if we reported today, we would be about uh 3% lower than last year. Last year, we're about over 19%, this year, we're about 16%. We got 60 students that are in the the 88 to 90% attendance range. So, if they didn't miss any more attendance between now and April 15th, our reporting period, and then if they have 15 absentes,

072they went to Saturday Success Academy. If we had all 60, I know that's pie in the sky, but if they're watching on TV, come on, man. They got a special a special invitation to the Saturday Success Academy. Do I know that's going to do it? If those 60 um all took care of business and got over that 90%, it would be a 10%. So now you're looking at at precoid u numbers which is really what we're we're trying to get back to and then let's keep working from there to that next chunk of kids. Um part of that is the short-term independent study agreement where it's it's a it's a conundrum because how easy do you want to make it if I'm thinking like a classroom teacher to miss my class like oh don't go

073to the hard class and write the essays and take the test just do the package. I'm just I'm oversimplifying it. Well, obviously we don't want to make it easy for folks to opt out, but we also want to honor that there's circumstances beyond the kids control, including when dad gets a vacation, you know, and if you're great, man, you're Hawaii, you know, that's awesome. As a family, we want to support you in doing that. Hopefully, it's not, you know, 20 times a year, but we realize that's definitely not the kids problem. How do we make it um as easy as possible to strengthen that kid's connection to the school while they're gone and um and when they come back? And so we're revamping the the short-term independent study agreement so that uh number one, the

074the the packet work reflects the essential skills that we as a bidwell staff want our students to be able to get more practice doing. So it's not just some arbitrary stuff, but it's legitimate stuff. Now, if they missed the waves of motion lab or the end of the math chapter test, they're still going to have to retake that. You know, that's fine. But coming back without work done takes care of all that other you know the little assignments the day-to-day things and it and it keeps more importantly I think it keeps the kids skin in the game. Um one thing that we looked at when we were talking with students during our prime timemies and and talking to some parents is is that that that they're sick or they had to go out of town

075for a family emergency three four or five days kind of sacked up. So, we reached out to them and and asked if they would be interested in signing a preemptive short-term independent study agreement because the board policy code says you can sign a master agreement at any time in the school year. Not just, oh, hey, we're going out of town next week for 10 days. Can we get a a short-term, oh, we can't do that because we didn't give our teachers enough notice? Like, oh, okay, what do we do? We get the preemptive agreement going on. And that way, the kid knows, the parent knows they already have it. And when that kicks in, they can do that short-term work, bring it when they turn in, when they come back, they have some skin in

076the game, they have some hope, they have some connection, another reason to check in with people upon their return. And hopefully that can also clear some of those um those absesses. So, those are some of the strategies that we've been doing besides our, you know, our tier one attendance messaging videos and our messages in the Pioneer post um that we've been we've been messing kind of emptying the clip this year. We're really just getting started and it's been exciting. What's on the next slide? To see the response from from staff and and from students. People are talking about it and I think starting next year, especially with some of these added features that we can implement. It's going to we're going to we're going to continue to improve off of whatever we get this year,

077which hope if it's at least at 3%. I'll take 3% a year. That would that would be great. I mentioned the prime timemies already is is talking to students during our bonus period and we we're figuring out hey what why do you miss school? What's going on when you're missing school? And trying to tailor our our messaging and our interventions and our supports to meet the needs of those actual students. I love everything you had to say both of you actually. Um, and I definitely think we're having to do a lot of clean up postco and um, there were a lot of messages that that parents and families received and like you said, we gave them a hundred reasons why they needed to stay home and now we're telling them, you know, this we need

078to be back and um, I think probably what I would say the most important message is like you like you already said, it's not about the money. Um, we know that being in the classroom um is what's most important and that's what like that's where the success is and we see that with the grades. Um I mean we clearly the message during co was we can accomplish everything that we're doing in the classroom or close to it at home and now we're having to like reverse that message and saying no actually you need to be here um to accomplish the same result. So I think it's just going to be erating like the relationship between being in the classroom um less failures um and it's not about them. That would be my point and hopefully

079we can get that message out there because they received a different message a few years ago. So that's all I have to say. Okay. So thank you both for for coming to and and that's what we have for you. Um so is there any questions or anything before we move on? I just want to make a comment um that the overall the overall arching is the building of relationships and that's so important because when we were out with co and I was a teacher at that time you just needed to keep that connection with kids and yeah there were academics but we couldn't do everything we needed to do but we needed to keep that connection which was really difficult and so continuing to keep that connection and build those relationships And um we heard

080was that just yesterday you were here. Yeah. You know that every kid, this was the sign. How many of you have a relationship with a teacher that you feel like or or an adult on campus you feel like you can go and talk to about things that might be going on in your life? Every single one of them. So um thank you for just continuing to build those relationships. That's number one. Kudo to staff, the proverbial all of you. Um, our people are working really, really hard to do what's right and best and nurturing and supporting for all of our kids. And if we don't remember that and continue to our We recognize you. We appreciate you. We know the impact you're having. Thank you. Um, shame on us. Yeah. I mean, success isn't possible

081without, you know, everyone pitching in. And, you know, it does take a village to raise a child. And I think that's what is really important. And I love seeing targeted case managers and more social workers. our resources because um we have some families that have lots of resources and we have other families that don't and it's really important to um you know to to acknowledge that and then also in response to um in in response to what happened during co you don't know what you don't know and this is you know you just have huddle along the best we can with best intentions and did everything go, you know, um, you know, hindsight's always 2020. Um, but I I I think even then we were caring deeply about our kids and our families and um,

082you know, trying I know that like you know being teaching your kids through me is it's very limiting and um and you know teachers had to have this incredible learning curve for technology and it's like I didn't know what Google classroom was before co it was it hadn't existed before co I hadn't used it and then all of a sudden you're having to learn technology and do things and so I think um it is you know we've had we've had a tough time but I think we're just making those steps in the right direction I wanted to that I didn't bring up. We talk about mentorship. One of the Chico High School has the Chico High heroes program which are a CTE program that is dedicated for teachers uh young young people in high school

083who think education might be the the path they're on. Currently, Citrus hosts 19 of those students. I just told Cammy Taylor who does an amazing job with that program. Um give them all to us. We want them all. We want every one of them. And so we have little desks outside of every one of our classrooms and these some of our that we're having some attendance went with where we're trying to they're doing more than just attendance, I assure you, but they're building relationship. They go out and mentor these young students. And what is really powerful about that connectivity is that some of the these kids look like our kids. Um they're just a little older and they're so positive. They come in in their Chico High School Heroes um jerseys and they connect with

084these our students who are struggling in a lot of different ways. It could be academically. It could be um behaviorally, it could be attendance-wise. And we're connecting these students and they are doing an an outstanding job of connecting students to school. And what is so powerful is they're just not far away from them in age. So that connectivity is real. Um like a big brother or big sister coming on campus. And so, um, I just I I neglected to say that as I haven't spoken in front of you all before and I think I just kind of was rambling through my brain, but um, big shout out to Chico High School, the CTE program and Tammy Taylor and the work that those students are doing at Citrus with our kiddos. When is the P2 reporting

085date? I will be reporting in May. forward to seeing that data. Anything else for you guys? Thank you guys so much for being here. Appreciate it. You're welcome to say does not need to go a point of order and drop a motion on the table to the rules briefly. We got a request move item the one item in five four the one item in four we have one public speaker so we can get them get them spoken and out the door before it gets too late have a second for that motion to any discussion about about that all those in favor signify by saying I great thank you that we're on to item 5.1 which is a discussion of a board member a request to agendaize an item regarding these Chromebooks in the classroom, on

086campus, and at home. So, I'm going to ask that board member to introduce it and then we will hear from our member of the public. Who wants that one? So um this meeting I'd like to um request to put on the agenda the discussion um at a future board meeting of books in the classroom on campus and at home and um this primarily comes from um parents who have approached me um and asked to meet with me and I've had the opportunity to speak with several um families who have increasing level of concern about the use of Chromebooks and just um how they're utilized in the classroom and um also in the home setting. And I think this um deserves attention. Um and I I actually wholeheartedly support. I think there's been a significant amount

087of misuse of Chromebooks And I think we had a really thoughtful and provoking discussion when it came to cell phones. I'd like to kind of um just relate this to um cell phones and just that I think that Chromebooks um although they can be used in a useful way and they they serve a purpose and I see them useful in different capacities at different grade levels whether it be elementary, middle school and high school. Um I'd like to just open um up this opportunity to discuss like just sort of some guidelines and um maybe some restrictions particularly in the younger years and in the elementary school years. I think um I'm going to go out on a limb and say I don't know that the the benefit is outweighing the risks when it comes to

088Chromebooks particularly in the younger years. And um I have I have a pretty good amount of concern and And this comes from um concerns that parents have expressed um to me and maybe it would be better um explained from some of these parents who are here tonight to talk about that. Um but I think I think it I think it's worthwhile to bring to the table um as a point of discussion on the agenda. So do we need a second? There's no motion yet. So, um, what we're going to do is first we'll see if there's any clarifying questions. And at this point, we have to be very careful because again, this isn't on the formal agenda, so we can't get into a debate about it. And that's why I'm kind of being general. I

089don't mean to be so vague, but does the rest of the board have questions about uh what member content is trying to achieve organization looking for that we can clarify without starting a debate about. Yeah. And that's why I was being vague. I just want to make that clear. Well, I just I will add that I also to see if we can have it on the agenda. I think it's an absolutely it's always good to look at you know data and see what's working in terms of the tools I mean our teachers aren't there are no other questions of clarification and I'm going to ask for uh our listened speaker Carson Bradley hi everybody uh is there a time limit there is you have three minutes three minutes uh do we have a timer set

090so 30 seconds the tone will let you know 30 seconds left okay first first time speaker here, so bear with me. Um, first of all, Becky, thank you so much for presenting this to to get on the agenda. Thank you all board members. Thank all you guys for being here. We're all trying to do the best we can. Um, I prepared some remarks. I'll just go ahead and read because then it'll be a little more um clear clear thinking. Um, so, uh, I would like to use this opportunity to question the one to one Chromebook ratio of the district and hopefully open up some serious dialogue regarding what appears to be a full speed ahead commitment to Chromebook learning. I would argue that 247 access to their own laptop might not be necessary to ensure

091that they are prepared to succeed in this tech heavy world. In months of research and meetings and observations, I'm concerned with the answers that I have been getting to the many questions that I have been asking about usage, safeguarding, etc. The safeguards and policies in place are not nearly strong enough for our elementary school kids, perhaps even for our middle school kids. As such, it is my hope that we can take a deep dive into what we are setting out to accomplish by handing these out to our youngest kids as their very own laptop to carry with them at all times for the duration of their CUSD student lifespan. often this is the very first personal device they're receiving and as in our case with parents who are not ready for that and who are

092not wanting their child's elementary school experience to be that we've put up a smartphone policy in place yet we have actively handed out Chromebooks that have similar functionality to the smartphone and certainly share many of the same issues. Do we know how much is how much time is being spent on Chromebooks at school, at home? How much time are teachers spending policing Chromebooks in the classroom or on campus? What are Chromebooks doing to our kids social skills, their mental health? What are Chromebooks doing to our kids attention spans and focus when they play educational games that addict them to dopamine hits? How's our handwriting looking? Are Chromebooks improving our academic outcomes? Are Chromebooks safe when they can be used to access all kinds of websites, not just those vetted by the teachers? Each one of

093these websites collect different data on our children. How are we ensuring that all of that data is safe? 30 seconds. There are so many questions to answer. I think we need to provide the answers. Research shows that experts are telling us to limit screen time. Rearch show research shows us that the educational value of pencil to paper. I believe that we can work together, teachers, parents, the district, the board to take a good honest look at the way we're using Chromebook learning and screens in our classrooms. And again, I asked the question, are Chromebooks improving our academic outcomes and our students well-being? If the answer isn't obvious and a resounding yes, then we need to seriously re-evaluate these tools. There are too many risks and the stake is too high. Sorry to go over. I

094appreciate it. Thank you all. Are there any other members of the public for the public who want to listen to this? I'm here um to support Rebecca on her effort to item for future conversation. Thank you, Danielle Penny. I am also here to encourage that this be agenda so that we can dig in deep and look into this. as somebody who has worked in the classroom and seeing how much time that the students spend on the Chromebook. I think it's something we really need to look at. Thank you very much. You have members of the public. Thank you guys so much. Appreciate you. Thank you guys. With that, do we have a motion associated with this? I'd like to move that we agenda. I second it. We have a member Congress by member Hayes. Uh

095it is open for debate and I'd like to ask specifically what do you actually want to see? What kind of like stack together? I think it would start um particularly with a parent survey. I mean that being the most important component like is this something that parents are wanting their child to have? I mean, as Carson mentioned, this is um her child's first device, and I certainly think that that stands to reason to ask them what their opinion is. Um I do believe that it should be different for each sort of grade level. You know, elementary should have a different standard um compared to middle school, compared to high school. I'd like to don't It's something that information that we could gather, but I think it would be information to know like are Chromebooks is

096it positively benefiting their academic performance? I mean that stands to reason. I don't know if that information is available. Um and I guess parameters um safeguards that are already in place. Are these safeguards actually effective? questions. So, and I'll I'll say also from a you know a teacher's perspective um while I while I appreciate that at some point we want our kids to have you know access um to maybe their own device. Um I guess I would love to hear from elementary school teachers like how are being used and um is the um is the maybe a benefit is for differentiated instruction and how else could that happen and um and could they accomplish the same thing by having an inclass set rather than something that is taken home so that each class could have

097like before co I had a classroom um set with it own little rolling cart that charged, you know, 36 computers for my for my freshman class. And so it seems like um there there would be an option to have so for elementary school teachers, I'd like I'd like to know really a report from them to see my focus like Rebecca saying, you know, focus really on the younger grades. Um yeah, I as I've said instruments in a previous meeting. Just the sheer weight of a Chromebook for a second grader. I mean, I know that second graders come in all sizes that literally my granddaughter, she's so petite. And I'm I No kidding. I think this this would be a third of her weight in second grade. I'm I'm not joking. She's tiny. And so it's

098like having to carry just physically carry it around and just I don't see the third grader or whatever. I guess I want to also add in an important point is fiscally like the cost of the Chromebook and I mean is the financial cost really paying out? Are we seeing the financial payout of this Chromebook? And other another thought I mean I know that like you said they're going back and forth with the kids to school. I mean is there an option to just purchase like a classroom copy and they actually in the classroom and they don't travel back and forth because there's a I mean I I love the fact that Carson's an involved parent, but we have students who don't have parents um available at home and then we're sending them home with this

099device and they're they have access to who knows what. Um so I just have a lot of concern with what's available to them when they leave the campus. And this is like we're providing to them to access unlimited information or what I mean to be determined to be add um I elementary yes but I I also interested in the impacts you know at all grade levels and then specifically like social emotional and just having interactions with your peers think I'd be interested at elementary and it's a given day. How often for how long how much each time are students on Chromebooks? Um and then addition at secondary, middle school, and high school in your class, how often are kids using their phones? That that would give me some kind of solid information that 90 minute

100block period. Kids are on their Chromebooks for 70 minutes in seven of their classes. Or maybe it's the other way around. You know, it's kind of appropriate. I spent the day today um chaperoning a field trip with my fifth grade daughter and it was a glorious day at the Sutter and we were we saw snakes and we, you know, looking at different wild flowers and algae and I mean just like those are the experiences I want for our kids more and more and not looking at these. That's all. Thank you. What I'd like to make sure that we look at is we have what nine years now with the one Chromebook. Yeah. probably around eight or nine years was one to one. Yes. That um we have a we have a big bucket of information

101and pulling together how successful we are at different issues surrounding the information we're trying to get to our students. We should be able to disagregate that information in a way that helps us make the decisions that it seems as though we're all questioning. So that's that's my concern is that we make the decision using the data that's available to us. We got here um when we looked at the state uh achievement data, we broke out data and compared it to uh districts that were similar in size and demographics. It would be interesting to know if we can find out whether those districts had um one policies also and look at that comparison again with that one variable just to see. Well, I I'd just like to say that I think it's difficult to draw conclusions

102when we have no control group. So, there hasn't been a group within our um student population that didn't have access to Chromebooks. And so it's hard to draw conclusions about how successful we are at. You know, we may have made great gains, but those gains may have we don't know what is attributed to technology versus targeted case managers and you know more attendance. So I I don't know that we have a way of really looking at that. I think there I think looking more generally at um kind of objective things like we do know that there's brain research that talks about um the the impact of of um you know video versus writing. I mean it's a whole different brain function seeing things here than seeing it here. Even seeing it just visually and then

103doing this rather than doing this it's a whole different brain. I think we need some um I I think this is going to be a complex thing to to say we need to have people that actually have some brain research. I know that I know that um uh Christina has has done some of these things. Is that right? Yeah. So, I I just think that there's I think it's an important topic. I I don't know that it's easy to draw conclusions about whether or not we're more academically successful for having one to one Chromebooks because we didn't we didn't have half of the kids do not have them, right? It's that's that's just I don't know how we would draw those conclusions. I think it would be improper to draw conclusions without having a control

104group. That's I think Tom was asking with our comparison schools, not with our current students, but districts that other districts that we use for comparison would frankly I'd be surprised if there were many that didn't have one, but was more in response to the idea of but I think having information on the research and I could Google it but I don't know if I'd be getting the right information just regarding the research on the brain and development and Chromebooks and screeners in higher education to see if any of them were up on that. Um, we've had we've heard a lot about a topic that was decided for the two agenda. So, I kind So, we have a do we have a motion? Yes. Yes. And a second. And do we know what does staff have

105an idea of what that motion is at the point where we think we can put some kind of action agenda item agenda passes? Yes. Um but I mean we're going to need to we're going to have to ask some people to sit down and meet with us and make sure that we're getting because this is huge and it is certainly not a topic that our staff is going to be prepared to address. We're going to have to pull in some outside resources and certainly is going to have the expertise to address part of that. But you know, brain research and that kind of we're gonna do a little bit more. But I think working with board members and certainly community members as well. What do you want to hear about and then recognizing this is

106not going to be a short 10 and it will take some time to pull this together. But it definitely I almost wonder if we should set a goal for a workshop instead me I'd like to offer substance motion. I think involvement. I thought run away. I'd like to move as a substitute motion that we uh create a we can't we probably make do that. It's actually outside agenda. Let's just agenda this for the very next meeting and then we can move the process. I don't know at the next meeting we can actually take action after agenda such as to create a video or to make a specific workshop you and I set the agenda, right? So we can set it as a workshop agenda and then as part of that we want to have people

107get the motion to agenda what it feel like on that understand what we're trying to do. Um in that case uh let's go ahead and do a voice focus because it was kind of a complex and long one. Um so the motion as I understand it is just to agendaize a discussion about the use safety and um other data regarding research research regarding Chromebook usage generally and from there we'll narrow it down and that might allow for more community involvement if they know it's on the agenda how they feel about it. That's enough to spur us to and when we put if it's on the agenda, we'll be able to gather more information if we need it. That said, go ahead and vote. I think yes, go I Robinson I that is unanimous. Thank you

108very much. Thank you for your help for the next meeting. Um, when do you think we might see this? Well, if we're going to do it as a workshop, it probably won't be until June or July. So, will you let the parents know through a survey or something that this workshop is happening? Absolutely. Not sure if Mer is trying to communicate something or just thinking. No, I'm just listening. Secret. Um okay, thank you. Thank you. So yes, um the agendas are always available for the meeting and in this case we will certainly get that information out earlier. Um we have a way to get signed up for alerts about upcoming meetings if you're not on that already. Um Eric Dino has a mailing list basically. So, President I just like to say that I would

109love to be on that committee if we end up creating a subcommittee. We can't take that action. Okay. I thought Kelly said we can informally get in action at this board meeting. This is just a discussion about Yeah. I guess I misunderstood. So do that. So, superintendent set the agenda. We want to expand what goes into setting that agenda item. Pull in people to help develop this agenda item. We can do that. And so, I'm just saying when that happens, I'm throwing my hat in what I'm That's what I'm saying. I'm interested. Are we allowed to ask a question? Um, we can you can ask, we may not be able to answer. Okay. Well, just my question is you're saying we're going to put it off until June. Can we do like a parent survey

110beforehand? Because in June parents are going to be gone and kind of just start gathering information from parents, letting them know that in June we're going to look at it, but at least start gathering if they have concerns or questions. Yeah. And again, um, I don't know that we know exactly what questions we're going to And that's what I mean. I think this is going to take some time and some research. But I think there's other places that are doing things otherwise it's going to be a very very simple probably not beneficial survey. Yeah. I think if you put out to your parents do they have any concerns because you're looking at doing this in June that you'll probably get quite a bit of ideas from parents. I'm just concerned don't wait until June because

111for the parents to know that there's a they can give input because they'll you won't get much in June. I don't have a problem. Why do you need to be later? No, I don't have a problem with the workshop in June. I would just ask that the parents could have input before June for that June meeting. Thank you. So, so every board meeting people can bring these to the floor usually twice. Correct. So, at any time, you know, you can, you know, as Carson did, you know, parents could if they're interested in this even before a survey. I mean you can come and speak to us. Okay. I think we know mostly where we're at. I hear collecting uh input from the uh community. Always a good idea. But um We can certainly do an

112opening question. I think we will be shocked at the lack of but if we don't try Thank you very much. Thank you again. Back in time real fast. This is just most of the board members. Order item 4.1.1. Uh there is a request to change the May board meeting. Right now in May we have both a regular and a special meeting. Um both uh the superintendent and I have outstanding conflicts of those schedules. So sure. So um on our May 7th board workshop we are talking about supporting students block schedule in terms of education. So that's the May 7th. Our regular date May board on the 21st uh really does not have a lot on it. We have this review of our annual charter school visit which is typically very short list and athletic sustainability

113update. So it's a pretty agenda. So, I know that I have a conflict with the workshop. Tom has a conflict that he can't miss for the regular board meeting. So, knowing that we had two short agendas, I wanted to propose that we have a meeting on the 14th and we treat it as a regular board meeting. We start at 5:00 in close session. We go out We hear from students, we award staff recognition. We'll do our board workshop and then items that we have from the regular meeting. It would allow us to have one meeting instead of two participation. So just toss that out there and see what the rest of the board was on that. So, just like everything else, do you guys have any questions about what we're right here? I like it.

114And do we have any anybody from the public want to comment about this calendar change? No. All right. In that case, yes. Um um I will go ahead and move um I would like to move that we uh switch our board calendar so there's only one meeting in May held on the 14th combining both our regular and Do we have a second? Thank you very much. Um, any debate or other discussion about that one? Seeing none, all those in favor signify by saying I. I. Any opposed? Along those same lines, can't do much about it right now, but I did have a request from to be superintendent Blake that you guys thinking about moving it back in formally agenda as item about moving the July board meeting to the very last Wednesday in July to

115give staff a break and they said hey I'm going to be on the job by that first board meeting they walk in seven days so probably not going to be very valuable to anybody at that point so um in the past we have not had board meetings in July I think it is important this year in July just because you do have someone coming to move that to the very end um would give who has to be here to put the whole agenda together in July and let people have a little bit of flexibility and then on the future. Yes. Thank you. Can we ask you a question? Sure. So just so I'm just not I'm just not following are we doing the where you're saying just have one and have it at the very

116end. July is only July doesn't have a workshop. So there's only one in I see. All right. For the last four years we haven't the very last I'll bring it forward in a formal. Okay. Thank you. No. No. It's good. Well, we also want to run Brown because it's not on the agenda. someone who could have been really angry about this this idea and wanted to have input while we talked about it. No. So, we'll have to bring as an actual agenda item so people who really want Greg to show up immediately can come talk about. Exactly. Um, in the meantime, I think that's all we got. Um, do I have a motion to move to close session? Seconded. All in favor? I All right. All right. All right, we're done. Thank you guys. All

117righty.