ABCUSD Board Meeting - October 17, 2023

001[Music] he [Music] d [Music] he [Music] he [Music] yeah [Music] yeah [Music] a [Music] all right good evening everybody this is our board meeting of October 17 2023 I'd like like to call this meeting to order roll call please Danielle president Mr Beach present vice president Mrs say present clerk Mr Nishi present board member Dr yeno here board member Mr nil Yola here board member Dr Rios board member Mrs U here thank you all right report out on closed session items this evening we will be discussing the following items in closed session Public Employee dis dismissal release evaluation one matter conference with labor negotiator update on negotiations with abcf asme and CA existing litigation one matter and anticipated litigation conference with legal counsel clerk Nishi are there any public comments I do not see any

002may I have a motion to move to close session second all those in favor I any opposed motion passes 60 moving to close session [Music] n [Music] he [Music] [Applause] [Music] y [Music] n [Music] he [Music] no [Music] n [Music] a [Music] he [Music] a [Music] a [Music] he [Music] oh [Music] he [Music] e [Music] he [Music] a [Music] no [Music] [Applause] a [Music] w [Music] w [Music] w [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] e [Music] n [Music] the [Music] n [Music] n [Music] a [Music] [Applause] [Music] o [Music] [Applause] [Music] he [Music] he [Music] he [Music] he [Music] oh [Music] [Applause] [Music] a [Music] oh [Music] oh [Music] yeah [Music] oh [Music] n [Music] a [Music] h [Music] [Applause] [Music] a [Music] yeah [Music] m [Music] done [Music] he

003[Music] a [Music] you [Music] [Applause] [Music] evening everybody welcome back to open session may I have a motion all those in favor I motion passes 70 for those of you in the audience welcome please silence your cell phones Clos session report out tonight in Clos session the board discussed the following Public Employee discipline dismiss or release evaluation one matter conference with labor negotiator updates on negotiations with abcf asme and CA existing litigation one matter and anticipated litigation conference with legal counsel Pledge of Allegiance I'm honored to see Dr yeno and my alma moer he and I both went to Mary Bragg a long time ago we are Bob and we're excited to see you here Pledge of Allegiance please uh begin stand put your right hand over your heart face the flag ready begin I

004pledge of allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all now now if you would please join us for our new PBIS pledge hold up so should I say on the count yeah on the count of three please begin 1 2 3 today I choose to be respectful responsible kind and engaged because I value myself my learning and my community I'm ready to do my personal best go [Applause] Bobcats good evening president of the board Mr beach Vice President of the board Miss say school board members superintendent of the ABC Unified School District Dr zlo cabinet members and ABC staff Community parents and students my name is Sasha kering and I'm the president in student

005leadership and a sixth grader at Brag Elementary this evening I would like to share with you about our core values and what student leadership has brought to the table here at Mary bra our core values are to be respectful responsible kind and engaged at Brag we can understand and practice these core values with our PBIS chart and weekly reminders from our principal Dr hake our new pledge was modified to fit our core values to teach students about how important it is to be respectful responsible kind and engaged we are taught to be to be the best we can in and out of school with our core values when students practice these values they earn Bobcat bucks Bobcat bucks can be turned into a raffle where students can earn prizes from the goodie cart or have

006lunch with a principal at Brag student leers ship has not only brought our school together but our community at school we have had monthly events that are run by student leadership like our games at trunk Retreat which is on October 27th Thanksgiving turkey mural holiday gift shop flying to 2023 our cherry blossom me Message Board where students wrote what they loved Shamrock scavenger hunt our chess tournament and brag Got Talent Mrs Lee who is an amazing teacher at Brag runs student leadership and helps us play and all of our events BR Scott talent for example was our very first talent show and it was a huge success it was an event where students could showcase and perform their talents in front of friends and family after school all of these events were both fun and

007exciting for both students and parents these events bring us as a community together students get to have fun of these events and that's what we love to see stud leadership leads Monday morning assemblies pledges monthly Spirit Wares and events we as a team bring students together we also work side by side with our wonderful PTA that hosts our Boosterthon which pays for our field trips and supplies this is my last year in elementary school and I am excited to serve as student leadership president student leadership allowed me to plan and host school events and gave me a broader perspective being a good leader in all this shows how much student leadership has brought to the table and how we at Brag Elementary follow our core values they thank you for listening and now I will

008pass the mic to my friend Kyra malikot good evening my name is ky maliga I'm a student leadership representative and a sixth grader at Brag I'm also an Eco leer from grades of green tonight I would love to share about what green team has overall done and how that has impacted me as a leader green team has changed the world in many ways Miss Flores who we may already know has always encouraged and inspired the team with the help of a lot of people my friends Lauren Haley and Emma who who won the EPA presidential environmental youth award for our trash free lunch have never let the team down and are trying to produce to pursue even more dreams in middle school with Miss flores's and our students hard work Mary Bragg earned the prestigious

009California green ribbon award which was one of the which is one of the most best moments in my life on top of that we have multiple groups that are led by student leaders each leader takes a different step into making our planet Greener some projects are whol School recycling Strone roll and Beach cleanups which are currently on Hiatus but we do have a beach cleanup on the 28th it's not just me that has been impacted by Green Team but over 170 members have also been beside Miss Flores and the new Miss and Dia to protect our planet locally and even across the world like in Nigeria you might be wondering how did we protect the planet in Nigeria well it's because of our sister school team and the program unite which GES of gream has

010created for students to talk to other kids in less fortunate places and raise money for them our team partnered with jss tutin Wanda School in Nigeria to learn about each other's lives cultures challenges and environmental realities one of the many challenges was when we called with them they had to use their teachers phones after school even with this problem we were still able to talk to them and I'm and it was one of the best experiences that sister school offers we made $548 for them to purchase Shoes desks chairs plants and trees for their school last spring we even met Pastor Isaac who is the adult leader from Nigeria he was able to get a check for the money and a tree to honor him this impacted me to realize how we treat our Earth

011and how we could work together to help it not only working with green team helped me become an Eco leader but also the decision to help kids across the globe I can't wait to see what we do this year and hopefully I can extend my unite Journey now I'll pass the microphone to our chairman Raymond Fernando good evening my name is Raymond Fernando and I am a sixth grader and I am Mary brags chairman of student leadership being chairman has and will continue to bring out the best of me speaking of the best I would like to talk about how our amazing staff and teachers push to bring out the best in all students teachers at Brag such as Miss Lawrence have programs that give us fun but academic skills as well the program is

012called Mind readers in this club they read books and then later go on into competition with other schools in this program you are reading a whole lot and that gives students academic skills that that will be used later on our wonderful staff at Brag are experienced and very dedicated as brag staff they work hard to get jobs done and make sure we as students are doing the best we can without our fellow staff and students trying their absolute best Mary brag would not be what we are today after coid when we came back to school there was a change in test scores Mary brag set an academic goal and teachers and students work to achieve that goal brag students not only met these goals but surpassed them in things like English there was a gain

013in test scores we had a 3% gain in ela our students went from 70% to 73% and in math believe it or not we had a 6% gain on tests we went from 64% to 70% students were either at grade level or above we will also continue to have rotations at Brag we have Library art and our new rotation Jaa or Performing Arts each rotation gives us 45 minutes of time to have fun outside of a classroom but still learn at the same time these rotations and programs give us motivation and academic skills students need to keep up these fantastic scores I am very proud to be able to say I am Bragg's chairman and be a student at Brag thank you for your time and as we say at Brag go Bobcats at this

014time I'd like to recognize all the parents of these wonderful students that are in the audience can you please stand and be recognized all right I'll bring it back to my board if there's any comments vice president say I think we not just only have parent also have a grandparents here too supporting this program I know one of my uh past uh staff which is mar is here she so much support her grandchildren's she always involved in their uh mared back school thank you you folks clerk n thank you Mr President so this is an amazing thing right kids can make a difference they don't have to wait for later on to make a difference in this world they're making a difference in Nigeria they're making a difference in their own Community um and it's

015not just the things that you do in the world but your academics are your tools for the future so doing better in math doing better in English doing better in all these things we're going to give you the tools to make this world a better place I think and so I'm really proud of that and uh um so you got the silver award what are your plans for 2024 to top it is that a rhetorical question or a real question it's just uh uh so anyway uh maybe it has something to do with the the tie-dye t-shir right right no okay all right that's one of a kind thank you thank you Mr President thank you Arie Dr helig staff and bobcats I'm extremely proud of you all your academic increases the Green Team results

016just absolutely incredible and I want to thank you for that missu you thank you uh Bobcats I saw you guys as I was entering the room you guys were in small groups here and there practicing really excited that's the teamwork and that's the excitement keep up your passion and your love for academics and learning and just your beautiful smiles and innocence keep it up children God bless you thank you Bob all right before you leave is everybody's homework done yeah sure I have a fourth grader and a sixth grader and I know there's one of you that needs to go home and do it anyway than thank you for being here and go Bobcats thank you [Applause] all right we're going to move on to presentations we have with us tonight a very special person

017named Issa albinali Whitney High School senior who wrote a book it's on Amazon's bestseller list as a children's author so I'd like to call on Dr zlo and we're going to present him with a certificate we'll go ahead and have you come on up Isa um he wrote a book called The Not So Special fish and it um has encompassed a number of things his interests in science as well as um aspects of learning as a kid um he's been going to different schools and reading to our first graders and he was recently interviewed on Good Day LA and so we're very proud of you I don't know if you want to say something about your book and then we can take a picture and recognize you yeah yeah so I wrote the um book

018The Not So Special fish and I think you know going I the first school I went to um is gon Salis elementary school and you know seeing that um I guess you know the idea that I had in the beginning with the book of you know spreading it and especially to you know children in my community was something that was important to me and so you know being able to share this um you know interest that I have and you know thing that I made with people in the community and uh specifically in in gon salz Elementary School with the first graders um it was something that was really special and yeah I definitely want to do more stuff like that and you know bring this uh thing you know this book to other people

019so thank you thank you we'll we'll come up and meet you in the middle here H one time it's one than I [Applause] Esa we're so proud of you uh congratulations great job can I sure vice president say Ethan oh my God this so proud so honored to be the board member here today because one of our kids wrote a book I can back about everywhere I go and I'm going to I was I asked him I say do you have extra couple books with the audience people and I would like to purchase he said you can't have this book I said wow I think with the signature on it this will be in my library in my room and I'm going to read to my son the little one cuz I love to read

020my all my children love to read and we were um by neighbor my kids since three years old they always read the the things really get worse is they even brush your teeth they read the book that is that everybody take the bathroom for a long time because we love to read in my bathroom always has book there but I want to thank you so much and I appreciate it and we need to tell people more people to get get to Amazon to buy this book to support him thank you president thank you okay we're going to move on to distinguished young women East and West class of 2024 and I'd like to call on Darna Shaw from the distinguished young women please come forward like us to say a few words by the oh

021there they are okay um thank you school board for having us here today and thank you for recognizing these amazing young women that are behind me and uh just to let you know a little bit about the distinguished young women you may have heard of it as America's Junior Miss and now it's called distinguished young women and it is not a beauty pageant uh so what we what we judged the girls on and we bring in judges who are qualified in their respective fields and we judge the girls on academic Fitness talent self-expression and interview and interview so uh those are the five categories that they're judged on and it's very competitive although if you dropped in at one of our practices you would never know that the girls just are so wonderful they help

022one another and this is a great bonding experience for high schools across high schools and U we generally get about 20 to 25 participants we wish we could get more uh but the beauty of this program is although we give out $8,000 worth of scholarships to these children uh there is not a penny cost to them okay there is no entrance fee there is no uh you know we don't even want them to go out and buy clothes and shoes to participate if we can provide it that's what we'd like to do so um without further Ado what we're doing here is that we're we send the winners from our local program to the California state program and then the California state program picks a winner who then goes on to the National program and

023is is declared the Americas uh distinguished young women and at every level the judging is on the same criteria and just the money keeps increasing so you end up having you know the America's uh distinguished young women could probably have like 440 or $60,000 worth of scholarship and the good part is that it's own for college it is for college tuition so we don't hand them a check and that they can run down to uh sido's uh Mall um we used to but we don't do that anymore but um so we give them we hold the money and as soon as they go to college and show us expense for tuition books computer Etc we reimburse them right away it's their money we hold it for five years so we have students these girls are

024so smart that you wouldn't be surprised if they got a free ride uh to their undergrad we hold it for five years we say when you go to Masters we'll pay it then you know so and we extend it too because we if there's reason why they need to use it beyond the five years we'll extend it the board will make a decision so I'm going to introduce uh our we send three winners and then we SP we select an alternate because in this day and age with all of the stuff that's going on with the pandemic we never know so we always pick winners and an alternate the we decided on three winners because everybody who came to our program from the state or national said your girls are so fantastic that when you

025just send one winner or just two winners you're just not doing justice so we scrap together scrape together the money that we need because every child we send we have to pay a um a fee to the state program and it and uh so we we scrape together the money we scrape together the uh the donations from local businesses and also there's a lot of people that help us the seros college helps us by giving us the Student Center to hold our program uh there's local churches that say you can have your practices here uh Senior Center says you can have your meeting here so the whole Community kind of rallies together and not to mention that City both Aria and citos give us some money so we basically beg borrow and do whatever we

026have to do to get these girls to State and what I have who I have here is um Amy ganatra I have uh Sam Samantha Sugino and Amy ganatra come on forward sweetie and um Samantha Sugino we have I I want to say Alia but no it's Isa jeromi and then our alternate is Dia bwat Samantha is from seros high school and the other three are from Whitney High School U and I I won't go into the amounts but needless to say somewhere the winners get something like you know $1,800 $2,000 and then the rest of the people that aren't here get in different categories so every category winner gets money and then the overall winners get money so these four young ladies are super super accomplished and if you have Juniors please tell them

027to look up this program and tell them to participate and I'm just going to have one of them I know we there's a Time limitation so I'll just ask Amy to just say a few words about what it is we're participating in this program if that's okay sure okay hello distinguished board my name is Amy ganatra and it's an honor to serve as the distinguished young women of Sero Aria e and thank you so much for giving us all the honor of being recognized today distinguished young women is a program that I know myself along with all of us hold very close to our hearts just because of how much it's been able to teach us um seeing that all of us are seniors now the programs values and the different categories that we're judged

028on kind of help us as we prepare for the future um one of the most notable ones I kind of want to mention is the interview process I think especially starting that phase of college admissions applying for jobs inter ship being able to get that exposure to an internship the preparation needed for it and then just being able to kind of evaluate yourself in so many different areas of academics um your personal health um just so many different factors in your daily life you truly kind of see how focusing on those factors and just really honing in on them help you become the best version of yourself and that's kind of the whole I guess mission of the Distinguished Young Women program and as a whole it focuses on Five Pillars so being responsible being

029ambitious being studious being healthy and being involved and I think all of us have been able to like exemplify a portion of that in our schools in our communities and I think just by being able to be a part of the local program a state program we've been able to get that exposure to so many like-minded girls who are able to kind of accomplish the same thing in their own like schools and their own communities and by being able to find that sort of like Community environment by such like-minded individuals has been such an honor and I can't wait to see how we're able to help the next group of girls achieve the same this year so thank you for having us today I just like to say to the school board we have two

030great talents right here Samantha siga won the talent award at California state Dia won the talent at the local and so if you guys ever need performers for anything those are the two names you want to keep in mind thank you [Music] you the girls it takes away from the girls thank you thank you takes away from the girls it's it's a girls [Applause] before they leave I'd also like to recognize their parents if you're in the audience please stand we're very proud of these young ladies congratulations [Applause] okay we're now moving on to the Filipino American History Month I'd like to call on Dr Castro good evening board president and distinguished community members board members we are happy again to make sure that we're honoring our community uh Filipino American History Month is in

031the month of October and so we wanted to make sure that we took time to honor this special group that has uh made an impact in ABC unified tonight with me is Blaine Watson our Equity officer who is going to cover the majority of the presentation and as the screen prepares itself and as the um presentation is prepared I just want to remind us that um this is a little different than a Heritage Month this is really about the Filipino American history and how it impacts our community and our students and our staff here in ABC so without further Ado I will hand it over to our Equity officer thank you thank you Dr Castro all right good evening I first of all I want to say magandang Gabi hope I said that correctly uh

032magandang Gabi means good evening in talo um my name is Blaine Watson good evening distinguished board um I am here to talk about Filipino uh American History Month and uh first of all I want to thank the board for allowing us to present this evening so again good evening president beach Vice President SE um board clerk Nishi board members yeno noola Rios and you hello Dr Sito and cabinet members and last but not least again mandang Gabi to our guest tonight um I quickly before I start I want to say that this has been an honor to study and research uh Filipino American history I grew up in San Diego and grew up around a lot of Filipinos um in a grw up went to school in a Filipino mostly Philip community in Linda Vista

033and Sarah Mesa in San Diego so uh a lot of connections in San Diego uh a lot of friends so I was very proud to be able to study and Elevate uh the culture we're going to celebrate today and for rest of the month uh so we'll go Ahad and begin uh again like we mentioned we're here to celebrate the theme of this year's uh Nationwide celebration of Filipino American history is recognizing 125 years of Philippine American history our looking at the demographics of our of our district we recognize that 11.7% of our student population or student body is Filipino American also it's important for us to uh to understand uh some of the history right related to uh how uh the Genesis right the beginning of Filipino American history um and I would say

034that I'm honored again before we there's some things I learned in this presentation in this work I learned something a lot about what we call the bayanan spirit it's the communal giving of Joy care and putting others first in the Filipino culture and also and again if I'm if I'm not pronouncing these words correctly please forgive me but the idea of kahit mahat Basta samayo which means it doesn't matter if life gets difficult as long as we're all together and that's been the theme of all the relationships I have with my Filipino friends and going to family events that is the theme of what I see uh so talking about the history there's some things that we should understand uh Filipino American History Month uh commemorates the first Filipinos to arrive to the US so

035history states that uh there was a trade route right uh during the colonization of uh the Americas but also the Philippines there was a trade route that ran from akapo to the Philippines and back and then returning from AKA returning from the Philippines they would had East or east right in Northern currents there we go um and and this this was the trade route so you'd have a lot of a lot of explorers a lot of Traders coming from aapo into into the Philippines in the South China Sea going then up across uh the the Pacific and back across down California the coast of sou Baja California back down to kakapo I'd be remissed if I don't mention my fifth grade uh son 10-year-old he's a student in Torrance unified he said dad I learned

036last year that these trade routes the reason they traveled West in these routes is because there were there were a lot of strong currents that went West and the stronger currents that went East up along the northern part of the Pacific so that's what there was a natural trade route in terms of currents and uh he also taught me that Native Americans uh Native Californians would repair ships when they landed uh in California so uh we're celebrating commemorating uh the first Filipinos to arrive in California at around Moro Morrow Bay and those are the first Filipinos that arrived in the state of California now the state of California also important is just celebrating some facts right understanding um who the Filipino uh culture has become and has developed a very diverse culture very diverse people

037uh if you look at what we're thinking about in terms of the celebration of this of of Filipino American history uh there was a lot of movement a lot of I want to say advocacy to make sure that we celebrate a specific month in the in the United States and October was designated that month at around 2009 but also like I mentioned before from 1565 to 1838 the Spanish colonized the Philippines and then in 1898 uh that's when the US occupied the Philippines and I remember learning about the great disaster of 1898 I was a Spanish language and literature major in college I remember learning about how the Spanish was a great it was a huge disaster right in Spanish culture because Spanish lost their empire they lost the Philippines they lost Cuba and lost

038Puerto Rico so when I think about the 1898 that's what comes to mind just like how the Spanish lost were losing their empire but present day we're talking about the Filipino Americans being the first documented Asian people in the United States the third largest Asian-American group in the nation after Chinese and Indian and then third largest ethnic group in California after Latinos and African-Americans thank you so what are what are some things that we're doing in ABC unified to honor Filipino American history uh you may or may not know that two of our high schools at Aria high school and gar high school we have Filipino we have a Filipino Club Aria and also um we have the barcata club um which is led by Mr malikat um also at Sero Zar High School I've

039met via email I've met uh Madame Oliva who teaches our tagala courses toal one through four uh levels one through four uh at both high schools gar and Sero she shares assignment at both schools and then also last year we piloted a program called the know your roots program in partnership with the Pacific asan iian uh family organization to teach uh Asian American uh students specific Asian well aapi students I should say about relation positive relationships and understanding their culture some other ways that we are celebrating and honoring Filipino culture we talked about uh last time I was with you all we talked a little bit about honoring the community cultural wealth right the different levels of capital that we celebrate whether it's relational capital and cultures whether it's uh whether it's the social capital

040whether it's the resistant resistance capital in different cultures um but we definitely elevate it through our uh District unity and Equity committee um that is a group that is going to be working through different initiatives understand the diversity of or of our organization also our schools and understanding what representation needs to be set and supported supporting our different communities also I mentioned the know your rights program know your roots program already and lastly there is a plan right now we have three different two different different family circles we're we're supporting the black Family Circle and the Hispanic Latino Family Circle but there are there is a plan to um to start our aapi family Circle in the spring of this year also talking about we talked about Madame Oliva and the courses at both high

041schools uh we do offer the seala by literacy and uh for our students who are taking to T tagala course and I will say that at citos we have 16 students whove completed the Seal of bi Literacy for talik um and also at gar High School for students in our curriculum so how do how does our curriculum right both in the elementary levels and secondary levels represent and I want to say also support the representation of our Filipino Americans um you may or may not know uh the history of Larry itong um who was who was fighting alongside Cesar Chavez for um for Farm Workers rights here and he actually was the initiator of the Delano uh Delano Excuse me yes Delano grap strike there we go sorry lost my thought and he uh and

042that is a voice potentially and a representation that sometimes often goes missing so I'm glad to know that we are studying and sharing this history with our students let's move on to the secondary level um there's definitely coverage of our the Philippine American war um we also uh we also learned that we're studying uh further studying the national Farm Workers Association the work that they did in collaboration again it leang and SAR Chavez and also the what happened in the history the beginning of the relationship of the United States and how um and how there was the we had the Filipino Revolution and how they worked with the US initially uh to fight for revolution to fight for independence but that did not happen right there was an occupation from the United States for almost

04350 years in the Philippines so other activities that we are doing to support Filipino American History Month um I would ask us all to support the gar High School Bara Club picnic October 28th uh from from 2: to 5:00 P pm. at Liberty Park here in our community I would also ask ask us to if you can attend our seros high school club mag kaisa dance troop performances um the dance is titled SAA sa Bano at Leal on Monday the 23rd and then also Halloween event after school at uh seros High School October 27th in room 209 um and then lastly if you have a phone I go back one slide please if you have a phone I'd ask you to take out your cell phone and and take a picture of these of these

044QR codes this will take you directly to those Club Instagram Pages you can study and learn more about what they're doing all throughout the year so I allow you to do that for a second all right so lastly I'm not going to talk about everything here but some of the things that we can consider doing to support Filipino American History Month and learn more about the culture diversity of the culture is reading Filipino American Studies books for example Filipino Americans transforming uh transformation and identity um it's a foundational comprehensive text and Filipino American studies study at the University level uh we can learn more about um conducting oral and share oral histories that highlight Regional experiences of Filipino American history here in California for example so ask asking local Filipinos about their experience in California

045about how their family arrived here I think that would be interesting to learn more about also locally um I went to this restaurant last week um this restaurant um mckenny panai Pride um and I love Filipino food I've Loved Phil Filipino food since San Diego and I had a wonderful time great great reception there wonderful staff um so I would encourage us to try this restaurant and others in the community I know there's several so lastly I would share that we in order to continue to elevate and again celebrate the cultural Community cultural wealth of our uh Filipino American Staff what we wanted to do is make sure we highlighted uh the stories from within so how proud and how representative is culture for Filipino Americans and so what I would like to do quickly

046is not talk about every single person but we have several submissions here that we're going to highlight um and so we we're scan through every single slide quickly but I'm going to highlight a few so this is one um Miss Christa Araneta one of the things she said here is one of the toolic sayings that I love is kahit mAh Basta s samayo which means it doesn't matter if life life gets difficult as long as we're all together this is something that you'll see a lot especially in the Philippines no matter what happens Filipinos are are together with big smiles on their faces uh someone else would like to celebrate here is uh again second just there we go uh Mr Jason malmont education specialist at our high school as a Filipino American and he's

047also the club adviser for the barata club as a Filipino American educator to be able to play a role in empowering young students as they form their own cultural identities is not something I take lightly because as students begin to see themselves in their stories as part of the narrative this of this country they build empathy towards others and become agents of change in the face of justice of Injustice excuse me um another person highlight here is Josie Miss Josie Cox director purchasing and risk management here in the district office she mentioned and this where I learned about the B Baya nian Spirit it is the communal giving of Joy care and putting others first we allow the rules we we follow the rules we are resilient and we adapt easily this coming from a

048country influenced by the malaise the Chinese the Spanish and the Americans a couple more uh Miss araseli balit balut there we go secretary at Burbank Elementary she says I still remember being part of the Filipino Club at Cito high school and Performing the many different traditional dances to show off my culture to family friends and classmates and still being friends with the same group of people after 20 years okay think we have just a couple more here want to go down to slide 24 go down to Allison daus one more there we go Allison says the stories from my parents and grandparents about the journey they have made in their lifetime have created in me a deep sense of gratitude for my Filipino Roots I love the culture I love the food to cook it

049and share it with those that surround me in the Philippines feeding people is how we show we care for them and the respect that we have for them I'm extremely proud and grateful to be filipin okay we're going to do one more here all right so Mr Ricardo Brown principal at Tracy all right so I think he's in the house here there you go Mr Brown there you go so uh playing professional basketball in my mother's Homeland in front of the greatest and most devoted fans in the world for nearly 10 years and to be the first Filipino ameran to play in the Philippine Basketball Association and inducted into the League's Hall of Fame in 2009 is nothing short of a true blessing from God thank you very much I want to I want to

050I think I think we owe all of our staff submitted their profiles here a round of applause I'm really proud of everything submitted so again I thank you for the opportunity to celebrate and share the rich cultural history of Filipino Americans and continue to celebrate their Heritage within abcusd thank you very much any questions bring it back to the board any questions or comments Dr yenel Dr Watson thank you so much for that presentation you're welcome I'm actually uh deeply honored and humbled that we have our own month that's right and actually um thank you for intr ucing this book to me my my maternal grandfather he actually worked the farms in deleno wow so I'll be I'll be buying this book wow thank you for introducing that to me thank you thank you thank

051you for sharing anyone else okay well I'd like to recognize Dr yeno our very own board member who is my Filipino friend from the second grade thank you sir okay excellent thank you thank you all right we'll now move on to Spotlight on teaching and learning abcusd College and Career enriching educ ucation and expanding opportunities Dr Castro thank you for this Spotlight in teaching and learning we're going to be um combining two programs discussing two programs which is our dual enrollment program and our work experience programs hopefully you've received a copy of our dual enrollment catalog at your tables we're happy to say we also have a version in Spanish as well for our community and so uh these will be made available to the public after today as well as um we have our

052guest from cico here also as part of the presentation we want to honor and thank them for their partnership as well as various staff members that will be honored and recognized during the presentation to provide us with this presentation is our supervisor of special programs for College and Career programs specifically Miss Sasha Leonardo thank you so much Dr Castro and as the presentation is coming down um good evening board president beach Vice President SE clerk Nishi e esteemed board members superintendent Dr zlo our superintendent's cabinet Community I am so grateful to be here this evening to talk more about our programs again I am Sasha Leonardo your supervisor of College and Career programs and I have the great honor of being joined by our incredible Partners from the southeast Los Angeles County Workforce Development board

053executive director Yolanda Castro and the director of contracts compliance and strategic Partnerships Sandra Michel this evening we're going to be talking about how our incredible Partners both educational partners and Community Partners are really helping us enrich education and expand opportunities to ensure our students are College and Career ready for the first part of our presentation this evening I'm going to be speaking to our dual enrollment program in which we partner with cito's college and then I will be um sharing the mic with our partners from celico so really quickly dual enrollment is exactly as it sounds it's the ability for our students here at ABC Unified School District to enroll in college courses and earn college credit but dual enrollment really shifted in 2016 with AB 288 the College and Career access Partnerships program and

054I want to take a moment to recognize and acknowledge our assistant superintendent of academic Services Dr Carol Castro for really leading the charge in bringing ABC and Sero College to the table to form our CCAP agreement it was because of this work that our students had the unique opportunity to remove barriers that were typically in place with dual enrollment and gain access for our students who are typically underserved or just don't see themselves pursuing College Beyond High School under our CCAP agreement our students have the ability to take closed college courses within ABC meaning they can enroll in college courses and they're not open to the general public students also have the ability to take these courses on their school sites virtually or asynchronously again increasing that access piece and these courses come without any

055student fees and the textbooks and curriculum are supported by ABC Unified School District I think one of the most incredible pieces about this is the support services our students can um take advantage of from serito college such as their Student Health Center tutoring Services College counseling as well as access to the library I want to provide a quick snapshot of the data to show the incredible growth the dual enrollment program has have you can see in just one year alone we have increased by 61% in terms of our enrollment numbers that's 523 dual enrollment students currently enrolled this fall we also have 66 dual enrollment classes under our CCAP agreement and if you see the chart here these are those students who are typically underrepresented in higher education and we've had steady increase in growth

056in all of those sections over the last 3 years and acknowledge the fact that we still have work to do to continue to increase those numbers and increase access I realized nobody can actually read this whole page um but I wanted to show just the um the volume of cataloged course we have under our CCAP agreement and I received confirmation about 30 minutes ago that ABC Unified School District officially has the most CCAP classes out of any partner with cito's college as a part of our dual enrollment program we have other specialized programs that really support our students the first being our early college program in the early college program our students have the ability over the course of four years in high school to to embed dual enrollment courses that fulfill their lower division

057requirements for higher education upon completion students earn up to 53.5 units that they then transfer to CSUS or uc's what this means is when our students enter the university system they essentially go right into their major or minor courses or electives of choice um we currently have two high schools Whitney and Aria that have cohorts in early college program and anticipate gar High School in 2024 sorry I'm going to go back on that I do also want to note that at fedy middle school we have another special program which is our dual immersion dual enrollment program um this is an important program to us and I I jumped ahead too quickly but I think it's always fun when we hear from students versus adults so I'm going to play a quick video where our students

058from Fetti talk about their experience in this program I'm Fernando mono the Luna I'm a 13-year-old that goes to fetty middle school my name is aana Roa I go to fedy middle school I'm in eighth grade I am the first one to be in the dual enrollment program it's helping me get my goal quick like accomplish my goal quicker of being a cardiologist in the future so the subject is Spanish and in this in the course we're learning about like the cultures around like the Hispanic cultures around the world like um Spain Mexico places like that something I'm proud of that I accomplished in this class was getting a 91% on my first exam because I wasn't really sure how the exam would be how long would it take so I had to study a

059lot and I'm glad I got 91% all that cuz I earned it I'm the first my family to go to college and I'm doing it in middle school I think it's a good idea for middle school students to have the chance to be in the do enrollment program because it really gives you an inside look on how College will be and how you need to work around the environment there and it'll just prepare you a future goal is I want to like become I want to become an occupational therapist so we're really proud of our students at fety Middle School these students came from from Ferguson Elementary School's dual immersion program they are now eighth graders and they're taking Spanish 111 and 112 these courses are not courses where students are learning to speak Spanish

060these courses are meant for students who already speak Spanish and these can be seen as an equivalent to an AP language or an AP Literature um it's incredible that these students have taken this leap and as you had heard from one of the young woman she's the first to attend college and she's doing so in Middle School um kind of going back to that early college program the tie in here is if these students transition to Aria High School enroll in their early college program in the junior year they would take Spanish 245 and upon graduation they would have received an associates degree in Spanish from seros college and finally another specialized program within our dual enrollment programming is our CTE courses so what's so special about these is that students are earning college credit

061but they're also earning IND certifications as well as participating in internships or work or fieldwork experience and so you can see here very quickly our tja high school Auto and Welding every summer um partner with Harbor Freight to do a work experience summer we have our AWS cloud computing where students are earning their Amazon web services certifications and our new medical assisting program I'm so proud of it's our first CTE pathway course that's taking place after school seros high school has their education techn techology pathway our hope is that we retain the talent that we've raised here in ABC and they come back as teachers and administrators and we have our new mental health worker certification program a quick one-year program they started in May they're going to end this coming May with 80 hours

062of practicum experience in the mental health field and of course gar High School's amazing Kinesiology program where you will see those students in a gym or on the field shadowing athletic trainers and supporting the athletes and our new theater program that we just started this fall with dance 101 as Dr Castro shared you should have received the catalog in both English and Spanish and this is available for print or online um for our community and we were able to get our first um addition out this uh past two weekends ago at our College and Career resource Fair where we were able to present to our parents and Community about our dual enrollment programs and with that being said I'm going to switch the mic over to our amazing Partners from Southeast Los Angeles Workforce Development

063board they support our students in becoming Work Ready through paid work experience and so without further Ado we have Yolanda Castro and Sanda Michel honorable and distinguished board members thank you for the opportunity to come forward and share a little bit about our organization we are your local Workforce board we are established to support the cities of Aria flowers serritos Downey Lakewood Hawaiian Gardens norwak and paramont our Focus are con is connecting job Seekers to employers helping job Seekers as young as 14 and my oldest job Seeker has been 80 and he successfully found employment he was bored staying home we also work with our employers to help them build their capacity in providing services or businesses or serving delivering their services within our communities and we're really proud of the programs that we have

064but we're more proud about the Partnerships that we've developed um I've been with the celico Workforce Development board for 31 years and ABC has been a strong partner since I've been there so I'm going to turn it over to the next slide and um let's s to talk a little bit about how we're working with your programs thank you uh thank you distinguished board for this opportunity um as Yolanda mentioned and as Sasha mentioned the ABC Unified School District since 2014 uh took a leap and applied to become a youth atw work provider uh this funding comes from the County of LA and it provides students with 160 hours of paid work experience it has uh in addition to paid work experience a component of personal enrichment training that covers career exploration mentorship leadership and

065everyday soft skills needed to sustain a job successfully within their age uh as I mentioned the ABC unifo School District since 2014 on an annual basis has served over 160 students with paid work experience under the youth at work uh program in collaboration with the county and the cical workforce board in addition to being a youth at work provider uh the ABC Unified School District on an annual basis submits a proposal when the workforce board releases a request for proposals to provide Workforce Development programs under the workforce Innovation Opportunity Act uh ABC since 2011 has been a provider of in school Workforce Development programs known as weoa youth now it used to be called Workforce investment act before that CA before that jtpa but since 2011 they have exceeded not have only met performance but

066exceeded and contributed to the success of Workforce Innovation opportunity programs for our board um on an annual basis they serve over a hundred students with paid work experience occupational Training leadership mentorship and it's important to note that these programs are designed not for Underachievers necessarily as it's been the notion but it's maybe overachievers that just don't have a plan of action after high school so in bringing in youth at work experience in bringing weoa programs combining them and bridging them for long-term assistance uh we have built a great collaboration with the ABC Unified School District and it's important to note that they're the only School District within our Workforce Development local area that submits a proposal runs a program directly with the intent to guarantee these slot for their district and provide this opportunity to

067their District um we're grateful for the opportunity and I think we're going to talk a little bit more about the award um I have thank you so much um so as mentioned I I always love to hear from students I think that's really our why right and why we come to the table and so um we have a past participant he just graduated from gar High School this past um June and unfortunately he couldn't be here tonight CU he's busy off at college but he did send us a message hello my name is Matthew I was a past student worker at the Abc INF 5 school district the work experience itself was great I met a lot of great people established a lot of good connections my boss was great my co-workers were definitely great

068I can go on and on about them it was it was a great experience and I I definitely felt valued there where I'm currently at now is at UCI oh yeah Goan eaters and I'm I'm currently majoring in mathematics and my career Ambitions are to become a sports atici or possibly a math teacher the benefits of working at that student program were I learned a lot about myself especially how to work in a work environment how my performance affects the performance of others just staying on task and being responsible is definitely important and that's what I got from it that's last but not least go all right well I do want to point out and especially to Mr nen that the amazing supervisor and amazing colleagues were actually here in our very own business services

069department uh we were so fortunate that Matthew was able to actually work internally here and align his career goals working in math and and statistics and apply them here so thank you so much for that yes so on September 29th of this uh this last two weeks ago I think it was we gathered with uh friends and partners and colleagues and celebrated 40 Years of delivering Workforce Services to this region as part of the celebration we realize that our success is not only based on what we do internally but the partners who come alongside us so we recognized four partners for their Spirit of collaboration their willingness to come to the table our program isn't always easy to figure out so sometimes the willingness to come alongside us break through those gaps of understanding and

070create amazing programs that help us all succeed one of those Partners was ABC Unified School District they were given the award the spirit of collaboration to ABC Unified School District leveraging resources that support in school youth with the journey to successful careers we're very honored to have you as a partner but there was also one more award that was sent and I'm I have the privilege of providing you with this certificate from Senator Lena Gonzalez it's a certificate of recognition presented to ABC Unified School District Spirit of collaboration in honor of your commitment to leveraging valuable resources in support of in school youth thank you for making a difference each day in the lives of your Youth and setting the foundation for their success UC as they take up the Call of Duty to take

071on the challenge we face today on behalf of the 20 uh 33rd Senate District thank you Senator Lena Gonzalez and we can't tell you how um what a value it is to work with Sasha lonardo we had the privilege of working with an griffle when she started this journey with us and Sasha has taken it to a whole other level and we're thankful for that partnership awesome I feel so blessed to lead an incredible team in our College and Career programs but I certainly can't stand up here alone um there is a hardworking um group of women that are in our department they are um Grant support staff some of them have been with us for over a decade and they're really who pushes our programs and who supports our students so I I want

072to recognize them this evening so as I call your name please stand we have Jenny Chan Christy Chang cheryn Sue Kaylee Reyes and Yan palar thank you so much for everything you do in preparing our students to be College and Career ready this award is truly for the work that you do and with that being said that concludes our presentation thank you thank you Sasha I'll bring it back to the board uh for any comments vice president say thank you president I first want to say thank you m n also want to thank you Dr Castro under your leadership with the staff here really make the your immersion program so wonderful and well known by local uh other school district I also want to thank you um Miss um I'm Sorry Miss Castro and Michelle

073thank you for supporting our program thank you for give such wonderful words of our district our staff deserve to this uh rewards I always believe uh second language is Al so important I remember when I uh start working at St Francis long time ago 1980 1990 it was prefer I mean it's like recommend Spanish background and then they don't be become preferred and then now is you must have second language in Spanish speaking person to in order work some the area I think not just create them to have better education but also job opportunities there for us thank you so so much thank you thank you next board member Su you thank you president be thank you very much Sasha just a quick question how many students participate in this career so every year we

074enroll anywhere between 200 to 250 students in this program and this is specifically for these paid work experience programs this does not include the other um internships or other work experience programs that we um coordinate as a department how can the paint how can the students apply and get access to this program absolutely so we work very closely with our School site counselors our College and Career Specialists as well as our um programs here such as the um Teno Porter's Department with Foster homeless um we're always seeking to reach the students that qualify for this program and so we really tap into all of our resources at our school sites to make sure that this program is marketed and that students have have access to apply thank you of course board member noola uh thank

075you president Beach I just wanted to thank uh Sasha and Dr Castro for their amazing work um as a former Falcon I'm extremely proud to see all our ABC students uh enroll that Sero College already being College Bound and showing the rest of uh the rest of the community that they're they're they're ready for college uh and I also want to thank uh Sandra and uh Yolanda uh I've known them before I've worked with cico and they have amazing using programs not just for our students but for the entire community so if you haven't checked them out please do they have a wonderful wonderful program thank you thank you clerk Nish thank you Mr President yes I would like to really thank Carol Castro and and Sasha Leonardo for a amazing program I mean it's

076not career or college it's both because you need both to get farther in this world it's not you know the people who didn't do well go here no it's it's everybody needs to be part of something practical when looking at these classes introduction to law medical assisting to be a cardiologist those are all Advanced Career things that we can all think of today and now and I think that's uh amazing it's it's like all these Partnerships that you've built up with the other entities and you know you have uh um welding and those guys make a lot of money by the way they do more than teachers no no I don't say that don't say that but uh um yeah so it's it's amazing how you've built up these Partnerships I know you're going to

077build more Partnerships and and really expand this out to the next level and uh these kids will Thrive because of it it's not going to be it's not not a down it's actually an up to be part of something that's going to be practical for the rest of your life and exciting for that kid who's going to UCI and enjoying the aner life thank you thank you clerk Nishi I wanted to thank the southeast Los Angeles Workforce Development board for your partnership over all these years it really means a lot to me personally and our entire board and Sasha to you and your team excellent work I want to thank you and thank all of them thank you so much okay we're moving on to approving our agenda may I have a motion to approve

078the agenda for the regular meeting of October 17 20123 so move by Sophia second all those in favor I any opposed motion passes 70 approv all of the minutes may I have a motion to approve the minutes of the regular meeting of October 3 2023 so move by Sophia second two and I believe we have two abstentions Dr yeno and Dr re but all those in favor I I any opposed sounded like 5- Z okay Board of Education president's report I'm happy to report that I attended the Nixon Watchdogs meeting and that their membership is way up it's growing we got a lot of new dads involved I'm still trying to grow the program across our entire District so if any schools would like to start the watch dogs please let me know I'm happy

079to assist we shot two 30 and 30 videos one at Carver one at Willow those will be coming out soon and lastly I'd like to mention that the governor has recently signed a significant number of assembly and Senate bills the first thing I want everyone to know is that these bills originated from Sacramento and not our district I've spoken to our superintendent and asked for legal opinions from our Council about the impact of these bills to our district I assure you that student safety and learning will remain our top priorities we also value keeping parents informed about their kids we will keep this community informed as we navigate through any potential changes thank you Dr zlo thank you um just as a reminder to families um I I'm going to start this evening by um

080just asking you to take time to talk with your children about safety safety going to and from school is key um and I think sometimes it get lost and sometimes we think our teenagers don't need these reminders but they do um if they're riding a bike they should be in a helmet if they cross a street they shouldn't be doing that wherever it's quickest they should be using crosswalks and using the lights um if they're walking they shouldn't be alone um and if you need support with that there are options available at our schools there's activities after schools for the high schools there's ABC excels programs at all of our elementary and traditional middle schools but if students are walking remind them to be watching around them don't be reading your phone or text messages

081while you walk take out at least one airpod maybe so you hear what's going on around you um for families that do drop off please think about the safety of your child don't use the red zones use the drop off Lanes it might mean leaving five minutes sooner but it will be worth it in the end if you are safe and if you're a member of our community we ask that you please slow down in neighborhoods slow down by schools um you don't want to accidentally change someone's life because you were in a hurry um our goal is to work together and be safe if you see something if something's not right report it report report it to the sheriff report it to your school we want to help um and I think with that

082that'll be my report for tonight thank you Dr zlo we'll move right along to student board Representatives we have Jessica Navaro and Chris Smith of Tracy High School [Applause] welcome good evening president of the board Mr beach Vice President Miss Clerk of the board Mr Nashi distinguished board members superintendent Dr Zelo and cabinet members good evening to everyone my name is Jilla Navaro a senior at Tracy High School and my name is Chris Smith a junior at Tracy if you haven't visited our school or know little about it I'd like to share a few things with you this evening Tracy High School is a small learning community that is unique in ABC with what we believe has many attractive advantages for our students in comparison to the comprehensive high schools in ABC these advantages include

083a smaller class size and opportunity for individualized instructions a more intimate environment where teachers and students know one another on a personal level a quarter system that allows for credit recovery a bell system a bell schedule that provides students an opportunity to either work or be duly enrolled in one of the local community colleges and a strict Safety First environment that helps to create an overall calm that is not often found on large school campuses as a senior who could return to Gar at the end of the semester I chose to stay at Tracy because since I arrived at Tracy I have developed a sense of pride in what I know I can accomplish and I now consider my no new home school Tracy has some significant significant changes for 2023 and 2024 school year

084first we say goodbye to miss to the assistant principal Valentina shabat who left Tracy and ABC to accept the principal's position in the Semi Valley School District we thank Miss shabata for the dedication and eight years of service to Tracy and wish her the best at the same time we welcome our new sensed principal at to Tracy uh Manuel Cruz we we we arrived at Tracy having served an administrator at both artisia and gar High School the rest of the admin team includes Julian gray who returns for her second year as an interim dean of students and Ricardo Brown and his six year principal of Tracy we also have an English learning counselor for the first time at Tracy soku Roos whom we share with High School Middle School Miss roas is Tracy two times

085weekly and every other Friday enrollment at Tracy is currently 183 students 115 of those are seniors traditionally Tracy's enrollment has increased each quarter over the past few years so we anticipate a slight bump as we begin the second quarter this week and especially at the semester in January Tracy's enrollment is dependent upon referrals from the ABC Comprehensive High Schools artisia gar ceritos and Whitney it is the desire of our administrators and teachers to have students who are credit deficient refer to us earlier than later so we can help them get back on track to graduate on time recovering the necessary credits returning to their home school being successful and graduating on time is the immediate mission of our students enrolled at Tracy High School but our school is much more than a credit recovery there

086are many students who find Tracy exactly the type of school environment that allows them to be successful on an intr level art finally returns to Tracy yes after fouryear absence art has finally returned to Tracy High School Matthew melr Tracy's new art teacher is on a shared contract with Tracy in carminita Middle School teaching two classes at each school students are very excited to have this class back on our campus Miss mrees has f plans to take art to another level at Tracy one of the most significant editions this year is our schoolwide Wednesday advisory period The Advisory period is scheduled every Wednesday after period 3 for 28 minutes that includes kths weekly TV progress and the variety of lessons focus on College and Career social emotional learning that utilize the thrively curriculum and life

087skills the Tracy advisory classes involve all teachers in students and will continue for the duration of the school year the feedback so far has been very positive for the Tracy students and we have looked great great things to come out for Tracy advisory dual enrollment dual enrollment continues to be huge at Tracy being duy enrolled means a student is enrolled at Tracy High School and either Long Beach City College and or Sero College it's a great opportunity for Tracy students it provides students the opportunity to earn high school credits and college credits at the same time a student who's doing great as a duly enrolled student is sbth Vergara Ramirez a senior who is also in the team parent program Seth will graduate with the Saints class of 2024 this may with 15 college credits

088to go along with her high school diploma the program's coordinator is teacher Anthony Oda as of today 60 students are in the Dual enrollment program and that number is expected to increase by the end of the school year duel enrollment is definitely a hot ticket at Tracy Tracy's Red Cross peace Club in ASB are all running at Tracy Red Cross participated in an annual cleanup at the S beach in September and has activities scheduled for the year some of those include blood drive the Hawaiian Gardens Carnival in collaborating with Tracy peace Club on Halloween spirit week in the Hol holiday toy drive peace Club has numeral activities scheduled on and off campus as well and ASB again will sponsor Tracy prom and Grand bash at the end of the year this this week's there is

089a lot of sport action in the quad at lunch as usba sponsoring the first ever fall classic 515 volleyball tournament Tracy Red Cross is under the director directions of the teacher Heather CL Kon Tracy peace club's coordinator is retired teacher Pat aosa and ASB is led by Saia Pablo Vega that's our report for this evening please check out our Instagram and Facebook social media pages and learn about some of our fantastic students on behalf of our fellow students and staff we sincerely thank you for this opportunity to share many wonderful things that makes up Tracy we invite you to come to our campus and feel the positive energy in person many thanks to everyone and as always go Saints before you go I'd like to bring it back to the board if anybody has any

090comments Mr noola I just wanted to thank uh Miss Navaro and Mr Smith for coming out and sharing some information about Tracy I visited Tracy and all the students are are great uh I want to give a shout out to uh Mr Ricardo Brown uh and all the staff that he has he has dedicated staff that have strong relationships with the students that just want to see them succeed and grow so thank you guys for sharing thank you clerk Nish so yeah I I also reiterate that uh Ricardo Brown is actually an awesome principal over there uh really inspires a lot of the kids I think so what clubs are are you guys in any of the clubs you're on ASB right now um I used to be one of the members of the Red

091Cross um I am in the dual enrollment program so what classes are you doing taking well we were taking um psychology oh very good and I've completed a couple courses last year very good and me I'm in a dual enr as well and what class are you taking psychology oh also okay very good well thank you I wanted to give a special thank you to I thank a couple of dads in the back for being here to support your kids or any other family members that are here thank you I also want to thank Principal Brown for being here tonight and Jilla if I pronounce your name wrong earlier I apologize and Chris great presentation thank you very much thank you okay moving along to employee representative reports I think we have Ray gear here

092abcf no report no report thank you sir okay public comment clerk Nish person's wishing to address the the board fill out a card located the table on the door and place it in the silver tin over there speakers will be called in sequence during the public comment section which is limited to 1 hour and each speaker to one presentation of 5 minutes unless the board wishes to wave the time limit those who have a group concern are encouraged to select a spokesperson to address the board persons wishing to address the board on a specific agenda item at the time the items under discussion are limited five minutes each and will be called to speak following the staff comments and prior to the board's discussion and taking action adver remarks about a person's race ancestry ethnic

093group identification religion color national origin sex sexual orientation gender mental or physical disability or age may not be made please avoid remarks or charges would reflect upon the character motives qualifications or ability of any school district employee concerns presented to the board will Fe followed up and addressed by the appropriate staff please remember that the board is unable to directly respond to comments made during the public comments section and also uh remind that everybody be respectful to other speakers at this particular uh venue the first speaker is Mindy oops good evening board members I am a mother of four standing here today to ask the board to consider the consequences of the new bills that are being passed or are passed by California state I would ask the board to place a parent notification policy

094in the ABC School District the fact that we need to have a policy to force school districts to communicate with parents is a disgrace deception to parents have become the norm in public education excuse me um excuse me I request that we have decorum so I don't expect any booze or claps during public comments this is interrupting her time to speak so than thank you we have schools partnering with Planned Parenthood who undoubtedly are pro- sexualizing children and have gender affirming care transitioning 9-year-olds and socially transitioning 5-year-olds parents have not been told that the school district's mental health workers are trained to only affirm children's self-proclaimed identities parents have not been told that the suicide hotline on the back of the student ID cards surveying kids giving them 11 plus genders to choose from this

095is not only deceptive it is exploitative and violates Education Code 51513 apparently our own government is breaking the law please be the first district in the Los Angeles County to stand up against breaking the law as did six other districts in Orange County have done I am not only in support of parent notification policy but I am against deceiving parents through these outside Partnerships and so-called Mental Health Resources stop this betrayal of Parental trust kids will get their rights as an adult at 18 if a 12-year-old is allowed to medically transition without parent approval why not declare adulthood at 12 this is a there is a reason why legal adulthood is at the age of 18 because 12-year-olds are not capable of understanding the consequences of Ras decisions made in their adolescent teen years why

096not let them vote at 12 then let them buy cigarettes or alcohol why do these laws seem reasonable while the lgbtqia supporting politicians push this gender ideology on our kids please let them learn math English social science science they speak about inclusivity parents should be included as well please keep parents involved and the teachers and the left leaning counselors and the California licensed psychologists who are by the way trained only to affirm gender identity and not to contradict them or they would lose their license they should not keep a child's gender preference a secret from the parents if parent notification is declined many parents will pull their kids out of the district thank you thank you Eric Ching followed by Thomas Burns and if you could come also to the podium as we speak the

097second name thank you uh I I just want to thank you for allowing me to speak and I thank God for also allow me to be here also I want to thank you for your work because you're teaching our kids and then uh for their future that's a future of our country especially I want to thank uh suu for your outstanding work as not only as a Schoolboard member but as a community leader that you bring up many of the important subjects so that we we're informed now I I like like to address another bill which is on its way in the Sacramento it's a legislative uh process it's called s SP 596 that's a c 596 I'm just going to read portion of it it says School Employees protection existing law provides that any

098parent guardians or other persons whose conduct in a place where a School employee is required to be in the course of a employees duties materially dis disruptive classwork or ex curriculum activities or involve substantial disorder is guilty of a mism punished by fine of not less than 5,000 $500 nor more than $1,000 or by pun uh imperson in a County Jail not exceeding one year so what that means is that that this bill if it passed could in true uh uh our first amendment rights as parent is as commune members so I would hope that uh I will urge the school board take strong action against that because even as clapping could be uh de is disrupted because the language it would as is written it's very vague as to uh how you define a

099disruptive so I I hope that uh this boort will take action against that because uh you know this will have great impact not just for this generation but generation down the line and this also could be uh uh legally challenged and then that will be wasteful for our uh resources so thank you for your uh listening to me thank [Applause] you good evening uh supervis followed by Esther good evening supervisor and board members I'd just like to say that the ABC Unified School District is very special to me I was a graduate of FY Ross Middle School and went on to graduate at gar high school at gar High School in 19 19 77 I was chosen to represent this area as a representative at boy State up in Sacramento and there I enjoyed hanging

100out with our California state government for a whole week and learning that process that was wonderful and then um in 1978 I was chosen as Student of the Year at gar high school but uh with the things that I was able to accomplish as a student in the district I have to testify to you that I wasn't always happy at home with my parents during that time uh there was harshness in the home but I look back and working through those things with my parents is what helped develop me and mature me and we kind of Incorporated the Filipino saying that we heard tonight it doesn't matter how difficult things are as long as we stick together right so I'm just here as an appreciative product of the school district I just want to encourage

101you all please um support our parents thank you thank you Esther followed by B Culver good evening hi my name is Esther um I'm just so thankful for your dedication and your commitment to serve our community I know that you guys are here um weekly daily thinking about our children for their safety for the care for their future and I truly appreciate all your commitment thank you so much I too am here as a mom truly just it's just in my heart to care for them love them that's all I was taught since I was young and it's too bad it's so unfortunate it is heartbreaking we're in such devastating time where so many laws and policies are made to not really protect them but in truth hurting them I want us to really think

102about what is truly going to help them and keep them safe safe you know we're constantly worried about safety and kidnapping and abuse these these things are taking place and we don't hear enough of that but I'm here to talk about the parental and children's protection in terms of our family Unity we truly need more communication we truly need more policies that support transparency and communication we need to know as Mom and Dad grandparents are here as well we need to know and we want to know what's happening to our children we I we communicate every day asking what's going on at school what have you learned what did you eat are you eating healthy food are you anybody bullying you anybody hurting you are you having these communication with your teachers we truly support

103the um you know all the these years even our constitution there is such a law that's protecting the communication I'm here to continue to um support openness communication transparency so on behalf of 665 ab6 665 what can we do Gavin new signed such a sad day October 7th when Israel also got struck you know the great policy parent parental notification policy we're in such a desperate situation that is that the only thing that we can rely on I wonder I hope that's not the case I just hope that we continue to hold and stand strong on great policies we need more great policies and we just need to be more aware and be informed a lot of the parents stand on this position but they're afraid to speak because we're we're left in the dark

104so please continue to notify us and what's going on and let us just have a genuine communication and if all the parents just know there will be more more people coming to the school Schoolboard meeting city council meeting everywhere thank you so much thank [Applause] you we have B Culver and man Barky good evening uh my name is mover and I have a couple questions for you it's just a kind of a reminder actually I'm want to tell you something first I was part of the ABC School District education system years ago before probably some of you were born anyway I learned Upholstery and I'm very good at it thank you to the adult education now if you say adult education they think you're talking about something else anyway I have a question how do

105you destroy a nation a country what makes a nation great what is the strongest part of a Nation its strength its foundation God family and Country our constitution was built on biblical principles we are one nation under God doesn't even mention any kind of color or skin or anything we're one nation we're all equal our rights are given to us by God not the government our children are not imminent domain does not apply to our children anywhere what government new did by signing this bill AB 665 I think it should be called AB 666 without really reading the whole thing I don't think he even knew what all of it was was to legalize the theft of our children your children our grandchildren for any reason Under the Sun this sounds very hitleresque to me

106because they stole their children made them soldiers and the W and the young girls as young as 14 they made a mommies for the Aryan race they you don't know what happens to to these children once they're taken from you you'll go to school one day pick up your kids and they're gone and you're not allowed to know AB 666 is unconstitutional it violates our god-given rights it is child abuse it's unbiblical woe to anyone who hurts a single child they should be put aunder how do you destroy a nation with its within all as all nations around the world have fallen it's because of they've lost their way they've lost their principle their god-given rights and they've trampled on their constitution they have trampled on and ignored and violate the principles on which it

107was founded they have destroyed the families separated the families the children they got a report on their neighbors their moms their aunts their uncles and nieces and they got to squeal on them I have a story from my doctor who was born in Ukraine I won't give it to you tonight but it was a wonderful story how he stood up for his principles at seven and how he got bullied his entire school years until he came to America these laws that our government is I hate to say our government are completely unconstitutional they're unbiblical and they will destroy our nation unless we stand up against them thank you thank you Mari barkle and Jenny Al hi thanks so much for letting me speak tonight I really appreciate the work you do some of you know

108I'm on the Orange County Board of Education but I'm really not here on that capacity in that capacity I appreciate the hard work of being on the dis and and listening to everybody and doing everything I'm really here tonight um on behalf of California policy Center where I work we're an educational nonprofit We track all of these bills we try and help local districts as well as elected officials understand the bills what they mean and how to how to encourage you to pass them um one thing I do want to just clear up um someone talked about s SP 596 and they're right it was an overly Broad and vague Bill and it did attack our first amendment of Rights but it's been vetoed so we don't have to worry about 596 so anyone who's

109worrying about that it's been vetoed so I just wanted to clear that up um also we're talking about a lot of bills and I think some people don't know what the numbers mean so I was just going to explain what a few of them mean but before I do that because I want to make sure I don't run out of time the main reason I came was to talk to you about our parental rights notification policy um you probably know um it was talked about several in Orange County have passed it's not really just Orange County so far believe one in Orange County but they've been in a bunch of different districts throughout the state have passed the policy and I'll just read you from my notes so I don't forget anything and basically the

110bottom line is we don't feel it's ever okay to lie to or deceive parents and we believe believe that's constitutionally protected we we know it is we know the laws with us we know that this lawsuit with bont against chuno Valley has no standing he's actually referring to CD recommendations not law so we believe that we're on the right side of law and the right side of History so I'm just going to read few of my notes very quickly about that um that it's basically never okay to lie to or deceive parents honesty is always the best policy um we really feel I feel strongly that adults should know it's never okay to teach children to lie whether it's a teacher telling children to lie to their parents or anyone to lie to anyone the

111US Supreme Court has consistently ruled for the last century that parent not schools possess the fundamental right to raise their children and to direct activities and make decisions regarding the child's care and to control their education parental rights are among the most basic Civil Rights of Man children don't have a right to privacy from their parents as some will make you believe Education Code section 51100 and 51101 are very clear that parents have the right to be informed of their child's progress in school and have access to the school records of their child no duplicate records that parents don't see nowhere does current state law require teachers and administrators to openly lie to parents as a matter of fact we've had a couple rulings against that a federal ruling in San Diego as well as

112a case in spreckles where the district paid a mother and daughter $100,000 because they were telling the daughter to lie to her mom um I'm very concerned that I see the state um Public Instruction uh Tony Thurman and and bond to misleading many school boards and intimidating not to consider this policy it's also an infringement on our local control we as local elected officials should be controlling our districts and deciding what policies are best for them not Sacramento that's why we have local elections the relationship between the teacher and parent is very important secrecy erodes that relationship and the trust between parents and teachers it also puts many teachers in the awkward position of having to lie to someone and I don't think most teachers want to do that we've seen that in some recent

113court cases it also leaves students wondering whom they should trust so I appreciate you thinking about passing the policy if you want more help um the California policy Center would love to help you do that we're part of a large Coalition a Statewide Coalition that's been working on this policy so let me know um another uh bill I was going to talk about was s274 this has been signed into law and it eliminates the ability of schools to suspend or expel students for disruption or willful Defiance again I think that's an infringement on local control and I think it's it it encourages is it keeps our kids not as safe as far as their personal safety and we talk a lot about that and learning safety if you don't have a classroom that you control

114you can't keep our children safely learning what they need to learn thanks one minute I'll speed up and I'll just tell you whatever I have time for um AB 665 we talked about and that is scary because For the First Time there doesn't have to be Alle alleged uh incest or child abuse for our children to be taken away so basically you can have a fight with your your child and your child just decides you know I just don't want to live here anymore and you come home and they're gone it no longer has to prove that the child is being harmed at home so the scary stuff is going on I hope you'll pay attention to bills please reach out to me at Cal policy Center Mary Barky we have a great uh tracker

115all these bills are on there it tells you where they are have they been vetoed are they still being voted on so I'd love to help you and I appreciate your time and I appreciate everything you do thank you thank you Mar if Jenny O followed by Charlene Hebert good evening Dr Gina zlo and uh board members uh it is a pleasure to finally meet all of you and I'm grateful to be given this opportunity to speak before you my name is Jenny um and I've had the privilege of attending tlof middle school and graduate from seros high school U my husband and I are medical professionals owning a business in seros for nearly 20 years we are blessed with two beautiful sons the older excelling at gar high school and the younger thriving at

116tsof Middle School my alma moer U although we reside in the city of Norwalk I'm so grateful that we can raise our sons in the ABC Unified School District in all the years my sons attended ABC USD we can't express all the love and support that we receive from the teachers and staff and administrators we we've had great relationships with our principal such as Miss Ortiz uh Dr Tracy Mr hura and so forth uh when there was much controversy about health education uh I opted out and worked with Miss Ortiz and Dr Tracy to view the educational materials prior to be uh giving consent for my older and younger son's participation and the materials were fine uh this was just one of my examples of many um great experiences that I've had with abcusd and

117I can't tell you how many other direct positive experiences I've had with Nixon tsof and gar staff and teachers however with the recent passing of ab 665 I am very concerned so concerned that I recently had a medical procedure and was told to rest at home but I'm here today to plead for your assistance because this issue of parental rights is so important to me and many if not all the parents of abcusd I do not expose my private situation for sympathy nor an Applause I am here simply demonstrating the importance of what I am about to discuss and plead California has already passed a bill which allows children 12 and older to Select Medical Services or to make medical decisions without parental notification or consent now this act of alienating parents from their own

118child or children has been escalated and implemented in the form of ab 665 essentially packaging the bill as an altruist IC Solution to provide mental wellness and support to Children 12 and older completely minimizing the devastating effects on the children parents and the family If the child does not feel okay at home without parental consent and notification the child will be abruptly removed from the home and placed in a shelter undisclosed to the parents the ramifications of this bill is outrageous we as parents are notified via Class Dojo Google classroom room Aries emails and countless other venues if our child has missing assignments or is tardy or is absent or has any other issues that uh teachers are concerned with even something like a fall I get a call oh I put ice on your

119son or if they need meds like Tylenol the school contacts um us parents over uh just issues that are trivial in comparison um I don't understand how these policies stay in place and yet something as major as issues related to mental health and imperative decisions related to such parents are completely removed out of the equation this bill is not beneficial to the child and strips the parents the rights to properly care and to be involved in their own child's well welfare we've all been 12 no matter how wise and intelligent a child is he or she is simply a child in a I these vulnerable children are going through tumultuous times they are experiencing physical mental hormonal changes how are they able to make sound decisions under these types of situations faced with various questions

120and confusion uh we as parents have already walked this road we have hindsight 2020 and we can offer wisdom and solutions to our children that they can't grasp uh this bill does not leave room for parents and children to forge together together and to come to an understanding and resolve this bill places a wedge between schools and parents and also divides a relationship between a parent and child as a parent I always view teachers and staff at as my partners in assisting my sons to grow academically socially emotionally and mentally as stated earlier this was my experience and I truly hope this will continue in abcusd honorable Dr zlo and board members I am pleading with you in conjunction to the passing of ab6 five that our district will Implement a parent notification policy this

121is not a political issue it's the issue of parental rights and preserving the family I have great faith in abcusd Dr zlo and all the board members this is a reason why I have brought 30 plus families into abcusd the students have been great contributors and due to Medical re reasons I was unaware of the meeting until a few hours ago I ran out of bed and just composed this great speech so I'm going to cut it short thank you um even though it's not eloquent I just hope that you see my heart and I I ask you to please please consider implementing a parent notification policy thank you Sharon Hebert and following that is Michelle Martinez my name is Charlene Hebert former pastor and the Seminary Professor I'm proud to understand our superintendent Dr

122G uh J Dr Zina zlo Decades of services and abcusd leaders declaring student achievement is main thing most proudly I know that you work with families of our community focusing focusing on the main main thing for student achievement last year in September the US Department of Education honored KET middle school and Whitman Elementary School with other Awards and accolades at the National Blue Ribbon awards ceremony as ABC USC mission statement direct you you all work hard to live up to this Mission daily by offering rigorous academic programs and student support through you one of the board members I have known her for few years I witness that her life aligns with your mission statement and she wholeheartly practices it daily with you I'm very proud of how you all excelled in your belief in children's

123education unfortunately now there are many reasons for old parents to protect their children from government schools as quickly as possible despite of for 40.7% uh of student being economic disadvantages timely matter I plan to present five reasons only uh uh quoted from the certain light uh website parents believe these five ungodly reasons are going on in the education system and do not want their children to get these things but expose them first indoctrination indoctrination with the dangerous propaganda and ideologist with the purpose of turning them against God church family country and morality since the government began taking over education under the leadership of utopians including Robert Owens horest men and John Dy second dumbing down those children are left as handicapped when it comes to Reading Writing and reasoning It is Well documented in books

124such as Crimes of the Educators the Federal government's data shows that over 2/3 of eighth graders are not proficient in any course subject third sexually sexualizing children with radical sex education including flagrant promotion of homosexuality fornication gender confusion and more some schools have even been caught actively normalizing pedophilia number four removing parents rights to their own children attacks on the family unit and uh um fundamental rights has become so extreme that schools are helping underage girls get abortions without parental consent and helping children to get sex changes behind their parents' back one minute fifth teaching fake history is calculated to make them hate their country their Heritage America's founding uh fathers and the biblical principles upon which America was founded America birthed remember that America birthed a free and prosperous Nation on back of private

125and more mostly Christian education while we are keeping our mutual respect between different ethnic groups ABC USD parents from Hispanic and Asian family backgrounds want and stand for biblical values as lifelong Learners creative thinkers and responsible individuals as a mother of three grown-up children I hope ABC USD develop of a school Community with these powerful parents and families thank you for con your consideration thank Youk you Michelle Martinez followed by Michelle wolf Bard thank you for the opportunity to address you I'm also going to speak on uh the importance of a parent notification but as a Latino uh parent and grandmother I think it's important that I address this in Spanish because I want my Spanish-speaking Community to understand what is being taken out of the policy and what is um being included so I

126will read from your policy uh what is being taken out EX [Music] Med thank you very much thank [Applause] you Michelle wolf followed by Julian elely hello Bor um we AB 665 is uh part of a heated controversy right now but I as I've asked you in the past we don't have to follow these laws that Nome has put in place the district is able to uh not follow or doesn't have to follow them there are seven districts in the state of California that are not following nome's laws and so I urge you not to follow the craziness that he signing in place and protect parents rights thank you thank you Julian yes good evening thank you I'm um happy to be here happy to have the right to speak and um I'm echoing the

127comments of most of the speakers so far I am an ABC Alum went to SOS starers Carmenita and citos um I gained a lot lot from my education uh they taught me Spanish in second grade which I'm very appreciative of although I forgot the Spanish I learned French Japanese and I'm learning okan language now so I appreciate that Head Start I also took Roop that gave me my first job I'm thinking of all these things that I heard tonight um so I I got a lot from ABC district and I thank you all for your hard work um I'm also very grateful that at every stage here um when the students came up with their success esses for Mary Bragg or the other schools or the um Tracy um at each stage you acknowledge the

128parents and um I think that's just a wonderful a wonderful thing to do every time I hope it's not an insult uh to those who devote so much of their time to educating our youth to say that I believe that there's no one who loves children more than their parents I didn't know this as I was growing up um I didn't know that until I be until I um had faith in God and I started learning about parents and so um I agree with those speakers today and I know there is some pressure I don't have a lot of statistics and things like that like the other speakers but there is pressure in state of California and other places to um Keep information back from parents and um briefly that's I don't think that's a

129good idea it may be under the under the um guise or intent that the parents don't have their best the children's best interests at heart or that they are not safe to their children or something like that but I don't think that's the case so to conclude I would just urge the board um as much as possible to honor the parental child relationship trust it I think it's of God and it is uh the most trustworthy thing for the future of those children who will be with their parents for their entire lives um I also had a rough childhood with my parents and working through things over many years um I came to love them both recognize their love for me and their good intent whether they were perfect in everything they did or not

130so I just agree with the speakers today and urge the board to do whatever possible to keep parents informed to keep the relationship between parents and children strong thank you very much thank you that concludes public comments okay thank you clerk n we'll move on to the consent calendar May I have a motion to approve the consent calendar so move by Sophia second F second from yel is there any anyone who wishes to remove any item to be considered separately or ask any questions seeing none all those in favor I I any opposed motion passes 70 action items 1.2a may have a motion to approve resolution 23- 09 Filipino American History Month in the month of October 2023 noola second okay clerk n are there any public comments I do not see any okay this

131time uh the board is going to read the resolution if you wouldn't mind we'll start with Dr Rios thank you Mr board president resolution 23- 09 Filipino American History Month whereas in California Filipino American History Month was first recognized Statewide in 2006 when the California Department of Education placed on its cration calendar and whereas in California and Hawaii many Philippine American organizations in these states often initiate their own independent celebrations a pivotal year was 2006 as it marked the Centennial Celebration of Filipino migration to the United States and whereas in n in 2009 California state Senator lyen e introduced a resolution which was passed that recognized October as Filipino American History Month in past the California state as assembly and was admitted to the California Secretary of State and whereas in 2009 the US Congress

132designated October as Filipino American History Month a month-long commemoration and appreciation for the Filipino experience throughout American history stretching as far back as 1587 and whereas Filipino Americans are the largest second largest Asian-American group in the nation and the third largest ethnic group in California after Latino and African-Americans the celebration of Filipino ameran History Month in October commemorates the first recorded presence of Filipinos in the continental United States which occurred on October 18 1587 when Lona indos came ashore from the Spanish gallion nestra seora de esparanza and landed at what is now Moro Bay California and whereas Filipino Americans have made significant contributions to American culture politics science and including but not limited to labor leader Larry Leong who jointly created the United Farm Workers Tony award-winning Lea salongo and retired Supreme Court Court Justice

133Tani cantil Saka and co-founder of Snapchat Bobby Murphy and now therefore be it resolved that the Board of Education of the ABC Unified School District celebrates Filipino American History Month in the month of October 2023 passed and adopted this 17th day of October 2023 by the Board of Education of the ABC Unified School District all in favor please any opposed motion passes 70 1.3 a I have a motion to approve revised board policy and administrative regulation 5113 absences and excuses motion approve your hand second by Sophia Dr L welcome sir perfect Tim good evening everyone hi there we go good evening everyone good evening board president Beach esteemed board members superintendent zlo and esteemed cabinet members um I'm presenting before you uh some proposed revisions to board policy and administ administrative regulations surrounding um absences

134and excuses these policies haven't been revised since 1999 so you'll see a lot of changes uh before you uh the first one has to do with board Poli policy and there's a sentence there at the end of the board policy that we're proposing which pretty much states that in the event of a quarantine basically referring to a pandemic the board would have the ability to change the ways and which it verifies student absences so this is clearly a response to our Co 19 pandemic which we're getting out of and hopefully not foreshadowing a future pandemic but being in a position where the board can make some choices about attendance and and absences okay thank you sir any public comments clerk Nishi I do not see any any board discussion seeing none all those in favor

135I any opposed motion passes 70 1.4 a I have a motion to approve revised administrative regulation 5117 interdistrict attendance Dr l oh sorry we have a motion thank you Dr Li again this is the administrative regulation which mirrors board policy you'll see more changes in rearrangement in language because again this hadn't beenis since 1999 uh the Education Code has made changes to you know why and how students are excused and you could see those conditions on pages 60 and 61 um also going on into 62 uh you'll see a methods of verification some changes to that on pages 62 through 63 um we've also made some changes to our treny language and policies those begin on page 64 and go on through Page 66 which discusses our s student attendance review teams and student attendance

136review board one thing I do want to point out and you'll have to pardon me as I look forward to all of these changes I believe I had noted it but it's basically that the idea that our district in the past has allowed up to 14 excused absences when a family has stated a student is ill um chronic absenteeism is up throughout the nation and the state and the county and our district so we've aligned that policy to reduce the number to eight before we ask families to provide medical verification and that's in alignment with other local districts and just a manner in which we could hopefully support parents and students in getting their kids to school and to take advantage of the wonderful educational programs we have CL n any public comment I do

137not see any any board discussion clerk Nishi just a thank you to the legislative Review Committee and people who are working on this to to provide this uh policy to us and update things to ensure that we have good attendance thank you for all your work it's a lot of time I remember spending time on that committee thank you clerk n all right all those in favor I I any opposed motion passes 70 1.5a may have a motion to approve revised board policy and new administrative regulation 51183 enrollment procedures for Whitney High School may I have a motion seconded by noola Dr Castro good evening board I presenting to you an updated BP for our enroll procedures for Whitney High School um I just want to make sure I note a few of the changes

138first of all this ensures that some of the board policy requirements still meet what we had prior um policies indicated which is we want to make sure there's a diverse mix of students from across our attendance area providing um some limitations on enrollment with students who are residing with the boundaries of ABC unified in additionally providing some limited slots to Children of employees in addition to that there's a special notation at the top of the board policy that the district will utilize a non-discriminatory admissions process that occurs during the fall semester to govern the Whitney High School admissions process please note that this is a different different from years in the past as we know as we are moving our timelines um with schools of choice and as we are considering ensuring that families know

139early on in the year about notifications of attendance or admissions to Whitney High School we are making every effort possible to make sure we're moving up those timelines so that families will receive notification in time for schools of choice right around that same uh timeline of February or so and then there's also specific standards for acceptances and rejection of applications as well as an appeal process thank you Dr Castro clerk Nasi are there any public comments yes we have Eddie Salo Mr n just as a point of a clarification what's the time a lot me five five minutes okay uh good evening everyone um when we met with Dr Castro uh a few months back and we asked how the district was implementing their admissions policy for 2324 her response is is we got lucky

140verbatim we got lucky we got lucky is one heck of a policy besides the fact that 5118 3.8 was already in place and has been since 2000 but despite that the district kept its admission policy of stacking the deck as you are now aware served with legal council that your individual and districtwide pro practices have violated ABC unified board policies 511 8.3a California educate education board policy and violated the civil rights of ABC students and their families tonight the board will overwhelmingly approve this new policy this updated policy is a farce the things she just pointed out nonsensical all the admissions policies were already in place so nothing has changed other than fundamentally the cover your ass line of this district will utilize a non-discriminatory admissions policy basically admitting that it has been up till

141now the question is not whether or not the district will will follow this it's actually will they follow the the policy that was in place if you look at the admission standards the criteria nothing has changed it was so much so in the past that it was so clear what the policy was Whitney High School had their policy for admissions on their own website when we brought this up in August guess what they took the policy off of their website if you go to Whitney High School's website and you try to look at admissions it says page not found they've taken it off because they knew it described exactly what the policy was of how students should get in yes the policy needed updating and clarification and it was our hope that the district would

142take this seriously and address some of the ambiguity that was in the policy instead the revised policy gives the district more leeway to kind of make it up as they go along whatever benefits the administration not the students I hope you've all read it and did a side-by-side analysis of it it's changed some of the numbering it changed some of the language but it doesn't change anything in terms of the actual admissions policy have you followed your own policy over the year dozens if not hundreds of students would have admitted that deserve to be admitted and thus changing the trajectory of their lives instead you manipulated the process to your personal benefit namely the staff in Pursuit Of The Glorious new US News ranking while congratulations you're number two you have prevented kids from pursuing

143opportunities that otherwise may not be there and as Dr Castro also described in a meeting it adversely affects students on the south side of the district and other words where most of the Hispanic kids live these are the kids that you discriminated against these are the kids that you violated their civil rights these are the kids that you fail to protect to do the most fundamental part of your job that is provide them equal opportunity and education and you continue to make baffling decisions moving the writing test to October yes she said we wanted let people know earlier but the kids that need it the most that need the education the most are the kids that are hurt the most by moving it to October the kids that can't afford extra tutoring the kids that

144could take the extra two or three or four months of being taught in their classrooms how to write an essay those are the kids that are hurt the most we've shared the numbers of all of these policies in emails we've presented evidence of your mouth feas I've done it here before doing it again and we're going to continue to pursue this through freed of information acts we have received and reviewing several documents from Mr Smith and and through through previous requests that we've already put in and there are some gaping holes in there the parents and the students need to know the public needs to know us news needs to know that your stack backing the deck Miss Dr zlo we will be asking for a full audit of the admissions numbers for 2324 we

145want to know how Carmen receive 51 spots when they're allocated a maximum of 32 spots we want to know how fetty only receive 18 spots when they allotted 28 we want to know how the district is 45 Hispanic 23% Asian but only 11% of whs students are Hispanic you and your staff will be held accountable it might not be today it might not be tomorrow might not be next month but you will be held accountable you have denied students their rights and though it doesn't affect my older one anymore because we pull her out of the district which is something that is also needs to be addressed in this board and this District but I do have one more daughter and I wanted a fair and Equitable opportunity for her thank you for your time

146thank you any other public comments I do not see any okay we'll bring it back to the board for discussion vice president say Dr Castro this policy have went to the policy uh committee to read again for this policy yes it went to the lged policy committee I believe on September 27th September 27th and those committee was um appointed by our Bo member am I right yes the um board representatives were present at the meeting all the board here yes anybody absent that day um I'd have to check the records I believe there was one member who was not able to attend um but I'd have to check the records to know exactly who okay I always believe all students should be treated equally you know doesn't matter which side you're leing it and have

147you compared this is this policy taken from the csba or um there is no csba such polic process have you compared to local other school districts such as Irvine area you know how they choose the the student to be accept the yes we've compared it to other school districts that have similar policies regarding a um admissions program pretty much same um there's differences there's differences that are uh more specific to our community some of the other policies require that fifth grade scores be used rather than current scores for the current year um there's other districts that require an admissions process for all students rather than opening it up for any student students attending the district so we definitely uh made some differences for our community to ensure that there's access to the assessments and there's

148access to the program across all of our schools in ABC because I remember my kids actually my first two got to the uh to the wiy high school but my SEC the third one didn't gain and then I remember we been waiting and waiting and never got in so we accept the fact is not every kids will go to Wi high school but again um the poge should be stressed for all all student not just only certain group of the area and I believe our school has tried the best we can it's really hard to make that decision I understand that too and follow up too you know some kids will accept it accept it some people with the last minute to accept it so it's really tough tough on especially opening spots such I

149think about 160 160 or 170 spots there right it's an approximate number of about 150 150 so students um you bring up a good point that I do want to emphasize this is a choice program we cannot require families and students to sign up for this program so sometimes we may offer admission but they are they do have the choice to say yes or no and some of our families do say no how do we prepare them for this uh I know we accept the sixth grade uh uh GPA thing how do we prepare them to to take the wey High School uh the I mean the state test such as writing and math right these these assessments are based on what the current standards and what they should have covered up to that point

150it does not try to test them now for standards that they should have known at the end of the year so they're Norm referenced exams that give a percentage based on what students know at this point in time and the assessments are something that we've been uh working with our schools on our writing assessments is something that schools have been continuously working on because it's not just an assessment for Whitney it's an assessment to just gauge how students are progressing with writing and as you know the state assessments also have a performance task from grades three through 8 and so there's been preparation along the way to prepare students for those types of exams such as the writing assessment in my years in here I remember we do a lot of Provider service to the

151especially horing Garden we have the after school program am I right that help does it help them to we offer yes we offer academic tutoring and support to all of our students um particularly in any schools that need that additional support because students are not able to um achieve the minimum grade level standards so so far this policy for tonight it went to the policy committee also went to the people that were appointed sitting the uh in the committee and they approved this and that's what they bring it here to to do to allow us to find a vote am I right correct of all those committee members that were present it was a unanimous vote in the positive for this policy and Mr I'm sorry um Sal s see I'm sorry Mr CA has

152gave some kind of Rec some recommendation the last I wanted all student treat the same and that's what I'm here for not for certain area because all students should have equal right to go to school he had pointed some the eror that we were not I don't know that's what he said I mean uh do you try to work with him to see what the issue that we have possible we don't see it um I have worked with many families to make sure that we're addressing the needs of our community at large I do not want to discuss uh conversations that I had with individual parents but the policy reflects um the information and try to provide Clarity for our families in ABC nice thank you so much D my questions thank you clerk Nishi

153thank you Mr President um I'm G to have a questions and also I'm going to have uh requests for edits as I go along if that's okay because it's going to might take some time here I apologize for that um so I see here under uh bp1 18.3 a limitations on student enrollment residency skipping the first sentence going to the second sentence resident students attending private schools comma or other Public Schools outside of the district via interdistrict permits are eligible for admission subject to a restriction then only 10 enrollment spaces each year may be filled with such students um I think there's a little bit of a typo here with then only 10 enrollment right is that was am I wrong no um no it's that's correct then only 10 students we have 10 spaces

154of offers of admissions it's a typo right is a typo oh I see what you're saying yes it doesn't make sense I I do see what you're saying yes there's a typo I'm trying to help here yeah um so but it's kind of a long sentence right it's kind of um I don't want to reformulate the sentence but it says resident students attending private schools or other Public Schools outside of the district via VIA interdistrict permits but you're not referring to Via inist permits for the resident students correct so what this statement is referring to is that students who live in ABC who attend other districts outside of ABC but they live within the boundaries of ABC could also apply for admissions I I understand the intent but uh the language it's says via interdistrict

155permits it this could actually refer to the previous one attending uh resident students and then the question is resident students I mean are the students residents or are the parents residents and the students are um I mean can we have a it says resident students does that mean these are kids that live in the district I'm presuming yes it's students who live in the district so so maybe we should have a definition that that's what we mean by that because it seems it seems like an odd wording of that I don't know resident students is referring to the prior sentence which states all students residing within the boundaries so if we need to add a point of clarification for a definition of Resident students that could be um added to the language but that Resident

156students are students who live within the boundaries of ABC and then we need to make this via interdistrict permits to be more clear that it only refers to the public schools outside of the district so Public Schools don't go outside the district right it's students that go from outside the district so or other resident students attending private schools and then so that's one group and then there's other Public Schools outside the district via inter so it's the residing it's the resident students who attend other Public Schools outside of ABC via an inter District permit can we write this a little bit better so it's clearer because it's I just see see it's not as clear as it could be so the next sentence here addition Ally children of ABC students who are not residents of

157the district are eligible for admission subject to restrictions than only three so that doesn't make sense then only three enrollment spaces each year may be filled with such students so that's that's a typo right what I will say is that the language was purposeful in order to make sure that um we reviewed the language with legal council to make sure that each item of the language was correct and so this was a recommendation based on legal counil um if you would like further clarification we can certainly add that to the language so yeah I'd hope I was thinking to reformulate it to something like non-resident ABC employees with eligible children may apply for a space uh space I'm sure how we would say it because one family could have two kids that are eligible right

158or take two spaces one of three enrollment spaces um so that was I was thinking that would be a way to formulate reformulate that sentence slightly um and this is reserved for non-resident ABC employee children I'm not exactly sure but I'm kind of hoping that we could because this wayed right now is is then only three own spaces each year may be filled with such students it's I know we had Council look at it but I I wish they had tried to read it aloud because it doesn't make sense that space is a typo it's subject to a restriction that only three enrollment spaces can be filled with such students so this is basically saying if we have ABC employees who whose children want to apply or who want to be a part of it

159they don't live in our district only three spaces would be given right so I see the typo there that's a great verbal expression but we have to do this in writing on paper with Clarity and so I'm hoping that we could um reformulate this so it says non-resident ABC employees with eligible children so that defines the the universe of it may apply for a space space one space or I'm not sure exactly it's because it's they could actually get two of those spaces right they just apply they maybe they apply for a space of the three enrollment spaces that are available something like that it's clarified so be clarified and I know you didn't write this but I I just have to ask somebody to go next um the next one here is the next

160sentence regarding appeals individual May appeal a decision by the district not to offer admission to Whitney within 10 school days of the notification of decision period that's easy the appeal will be heard by administrative designia at the district office a district administrator designate will review the request and decision is final so is the administrative design and the district administrator designate the same person yes okay so then we should call them the same thing so that way there's no confusion right so either call it a district administrator design that way it's clearest from the district that would be my suggestion and so what is the basis upon which they review the appeal do they just have any basis that they can make a determination sometimes families have questions regarding how their students performed on certain assessments

161and so that's the initial part of the review is to look at if there were any errors or questions regarding the assessments um the appeal is usually about ranking and we do not really student ranking for reasons of privacy okay um and then to reassure families you know of the process and we walk them through the process sometimes there's lots of questions regarding the actual process itself so then so the is it's not like a hearing right it's a meeting with this District administrator design correct and then they explain to the parent that their kid didn't get but it's not really a decision because nothing's going to be changed or is the district administrator authorized to make a decision that's different than What's um out there um it depends on the situation that's occurring if

162there was something that occurred in terms of an assessment and reviewed the scores um they parents can see the process if there's a change in the recommendation because an error was found of something occurred the the district administrator would then refer to the superintendent and a different decision may be made okay um so it's it it depends I mean it's it depending on the situation that's brought forward so so because right now says the district administrator shall will review the request it doesn't say they actually make a decision it just says and the decision is final so I'd like for it to say something like the district administrator design will review the facts or review the situation and make a determination period and then this determination will be final so that way it's that they

163actually make a decision if there is a decision if we could put the basis for that decision it would be nice like if it's the decision will be based upon uh clear error or something like that um so that's just I'm thinking you need to know the basis for the decision and they need to actually make a decision this doesn't actually say they have to make a decision it just says the District Administrative design will review the request and the decision is final it doesn't actually say that they make a decision so we need to make sure that that language is in there it doesn't have to say a specific time but I'm sure we would add in uh within a reasonable time 10 days within 10 so we should put in specifically ah so

164this says they may appeal the decision within 10 days but then um how long does the administrator have to make a decision usually it depends on when the family can meet with us so that that's that's the reason for there's not a timeline because sometimes families can't meet with us right away or because of our schedules we're not available to meet right away with certain decisions okay so they have 10 days to appeal the decision and then you set an appointment it can be any time correct yeah we try to do it as soon as possible okay and then after that meeting that you have with the parent or maybe non- meeting because they decide not to go then the administrator makes a decision but there's no timeline for that decision right no there's no

165current timeline okay so um to give the discretion to the administration we should probably say there's a reasonable decisional period that could be uh provided right yes can I interject it no I was do talk sorry it's clerk M she's thank you and I apologize but I I wanted to anyway I'm not going to say um so I'm all the way to the next part the last part of the BP here regarding entrance exam entrance to Whitney High School requires successful completion of an entrance exam while students may study for the interest exam utilization of materials copyright uh and that's that's fine but is this entrance exam the same thing as the placement exam that set yes those are used interchangeably okay okay so can we just use the same language for both that way

166it's um there's no question as if there's another uh thing out there going to the AR 5183 we haven't we haven't gotone on to the AR yet oh okay okay all right so then uh that's my uh my final conclusion for BP thank you Dr re yeah I have a few questions and then I comment how are we ensuring Equity uh in the are you can see some of the procedural processes but we're ensuring that all of our students in ABC have the opportunity to take the assessments and to be considered by removing any barriers of having to complete an application process if they are currently attending one of our schools we're also I know that Whitney High School has made some efforts to reach out to the community um where they see the least

167enrollment with families that are hesitant about having their students attend Whitney High School by doing parent presentation nights in multiple languages as well as providing transportation for various areas in the district um and providing opportunities when students do come to Whitney to stay after school for additional tutoring or support and providing Transportation at later hours in order to go back to their neighboring Geographic attendance area so that transportation is not a limitation to our students fantastic and the next is a comment that you know it's not new I've made it several years ago when we had um I think it was the diversity training about how the Optics are not great right our district is 45.4 uh% Lettin know according to the statistics today yet make up a significant minority at Whitney um I know

168the comment is often made that you know Whitney is not for everybody but it should be it should absolutely be for everybody and we talk about an equity Gap in this district and we talk about certain kids not having the same opportunity to learn that other kids have and and and I hate to see Whitney be um a place that they can't get to not by any fault of their own but because of the geographic area that they live in or the particular school that they happen to attend um I'm looking forward to you reviewing the AR because um you know I have some questions about that again at the top of the list would be the issue of equity like how are we insuring and if we are insuring Equity then why is there

169such a discrepancy in um representation thank you vice president say uh we was talking about Equity Equity that the we High School is based on the the academic preparation program designed uh for college preparation student in grade 7 to 12 you know I remember I went attending a csb there was a huge issues about Equity things I asked and my questions here is are you ready to go this school are we ready to get you prepared to graduate the school that's our our as a board member here it's not because I want to get you in because the color the this and that then more people they can go in other people cannot go in we're not treating that equally we are supposed to treating all student equally because I remember I said in the

170csba I said I feel so bad one of my best friend actually kids attending lingu lingu compt lingu area high school what had happened the kids went to UC Berkeley and then she had a problem to tolerate their school he had a breakdown he running around the school was naked is this what we want to I I am a concern is this what we want to push all kids go everyone go to weie you know some kids can be doing really well I had three kids actually Gabriel did really well he went to different high school he graduated he you know what actually he had the best choice all high school all the college he wants to go he asked me mommy should I just a play so to college I said no you play

171whatever school you want to if they accept you you go they don't accept you because you're great because your other activity he got in actually way better than other two children so I believe in here as educator here I think we have a principal here assistant principal here and we have all the people work in education we always want to treat all kids the same if you treat him differently then you are set him to be a failure and I don't think I wanted my kids to set them to do failure in here and I know my audience right here we want to treat all kids the same and I think all the parent here too if your kids are able to go that school then go to that school and graduate with the honor

172and go on with the next thing but not every school they can I went to the trade school I mean High School I only have LV I don't have a high school diploma look at me in here today I have my master in two after I become a adult which is late age 40 I decided I want to go back to school I want to get the degree and I got I probably want to go to the doctor degree again but I never thought I can be here today like this but I all I want to do is my target is I want to do the best I can we want to treat our student I went to the uh the teacher the last time we had a meeting there and we were talking about

173what they want to be is not what they want to be we want to be what we want to be teach all kids the same and same thing the parent too if you kids you know I agree with the Mr so say hey it's a problem that they didn't get in the the area assigned that is a problem it's a problem that we need to look into the future but not Equity because we'll go by the race is the color certain number can go to this school certain number can cannot go but that's not the purpose we set up the school for S ABC has all good high school a teacher High School it was I never forget when I first accepted 207 as a board member their test score was a 600 700 you

174know what sergy PR you going to inqu inquire test scho they did they made it and a lot of kids actually went to the better school G High School I tell you went to the better College than Ser at Wii high school and they have better uh scholarship I never forget Dr Weiss and I were pra one of the student was homeless student and went to the Stanford or Harford University get a straight straight right scholarship and that's what I want to see it not the prev you give to certain people go into the certain program we're not helping them we are spoil them we're set them to the failure that's work together focus on all student that's what we're here for thank you thank you Dr Rios I resent those comments board members Su

175I mean board member Sophia say um you imply that because people are who are you know of a certain background are going to get into Whitney based on on the fact that they're students of color that is not in any way what I am trying to say um I graduated from Harvard and USC I didn't get an invite to Whitney my daughter scored in the 99th percentile on her gay test she didn't get an invite to to Whitney my son was probably the top scoring student at his Elementary he didn't get an invite to Whitney so is you know and I was okay with them I'm happy my daughter went to school where she did she got a great education but this has always been an something that has been personal to me and something

176that I think is a district issue as to how is it that you know there is such again a discrepancy about who gets into winning and who doesn't and I again very much resent the fact that you think that you know certain people are not equipped whether it' be academically or cognitively to handle the rigor of Whitney because my argument is that they absolutely can and that's exactly what I'm trying to say that we have students who can um perform at the level that Whitney students can perform in every one of our schools in every one of our elementaries right now today but yet it seems that year after year only a certain amount of students or a certain type of student gets into Whitney why is that board member noola uh thank you Mr

177uh Beach um I just wanted to you know address some of the you know the comments being made uh I've met with Dr staford and we acknowledged that you know Outreach in Hawaiian Gardens and the Southside schools has been you know something she's been trying to put more effort into and uh like Dr Castro mentioned uh they are trying to reach more parents so to make it to demystify that Whitney High School is for only High achiever Le that all families and students can't can't get there uh I believe like Dr Rios just mentioned that every student is able to get into Whitney High School uh we just have to be able to support them so I that's something I will be working with Dr staford to you know let our families know on the

178south side that you know their their student can and if they work hard they can get into Whitney thank you board member Su you I'm got to make it quick Dr Castro uh we have a uh admissions um procedure in place my understanding was is that each middle school has a certain spot so all the elementary school kids in sixth grade if you attend carmenina Middle School they get certain amount right 30 and then tlof gets 30 isn't that how it works um that's further addressed in the AR for this proposal but currently how it works is that we look at the geographic attendance area of middle schools and 20 spots is allocated for every Middle School right um and then in addition to that we look at the um ranking of students at their

179attending Elementary School and so for the larger elementary schools they receive three offers of admission um and that's for the largest of the 14 and then for the remaining they receive two offers of AD of admission so my question is so there's a certain um uh procedure and protocol for admission but the reason why we have less representation is that because students get accepted according to the numbers allocated but they just don't accept or what is it can you clarify it's a variety of factors because of uh we're trying to make sure there's a diverse mix of students and so there's geographic representation as well as representation from across the schools um but yes many families do say no um who have limited knowledge perhaps of the Whitney High School but it's also that there's

180a u minimum 75th percentile rank that must be met and so when students don't achieve that 75th percentile they then we then go back to looking at the geographic attendance area Dr Zillo I think that if there's a if if board members some of us seem like we're confused it would be uh necessary and um helpful if we can get a clear transparent um educ education and information on how the process is that will be helpful I would like to like a presentation on it absolutely yeah thank you okay probably should finish yeah thank you thank you um I'm gonna go to vice president saying clerk Nishi one more time and then I'm gonna get my comments in please Vice pres I do want to say something about the Hawaiian Garden residence area has improving

181a lot in the past since I've been here 207 I see a lot of movement and change the area parent are so much involved actually more than some of the seros area and I really I witness on that and I was praised that all the time in the board here meeting too but I also thinking about like you um U Mr aana just met uh board member my colleague just mentioned about you know we do need to work more to let the parent understand that um I remember the when we when I went door too I you talk to me about the school education there's there's a change there's a movement change already maybe you don't see it but I see this already from years and years went by and the only thing I am

182a concerned if like a board member Dr rck ogario said her kids is 90% cannot get get to the wiy high school I like to open the case I want to see what's happening why they did not at that time there must be some reason because that otherwise I'll be really upset I would discriminate certain people but I don't think so cuz my kids didn't get in and I know G even teacher guarantee he's supposed to go to Winnie high school you know what accept the fact actually teran's better but then some parent may be seriously Say Hey I want to go that school so in the future I the her case I really like to open and see it I mean I want to see why they didn't gain if we made a mistake

183then we need to apologize to Dr Regal ogre Real's here why her kids not gain other kids get in I like to open the case for that in the future so that would be fair for us to understand more I know we need High School policy very well because I've been studying this many many years already there thank you clerk Nishi so I don't think board member Rios is saying about her own kids in that manner I think it's more that there's this Equitable procedure that we have that's that's fair and it's applied equally but there is a disparate result and so we know that with harass uh certain uh parts of the law where there's a disparate result we try to address those issues because education is the way out of uh many uh

184a way of advancement for many areas so the uh important importance of Whitney is is is there it's the a way to enrich yourself enrich your family so we should probably look at how we do things that UC system was uh looking at their standardized tests because they didn't see that standardized test was a good way of uh um predicting the future of success the students I'm not saying we're doing that that's that's not what I'm saying but I just need to think we need to look at how we apply our procedures actually how are Equitable procedures create disparate results and if there's a way to intentionally ensure that everyone has uh a fair ability to to get into the school I think that's what um all these our board members are are talking about

185here um I'm not saying any specific issues you know just like uh b b say says you know this we have great schools all over the district but the way we get into this particular school does matter and having an equitable and fair results is something we should aim for we may not achieve it I know we may not achieve it but it is a good aim that we should be intentional in achieving thank you I don't think board members who you has spoken twice and I have to be Equitable so Miss Sue you I'm going to make it very quick so everyone's concern is very legitimate but in terms of admission policy right when families don't accept it that's not a policy issue I just want to clarify that's not a policy issue however

186we want to work on it like our colleague you know NOA um pointed out we want to work on it but that's not a policy issue just wanted to clarify thank you miss you I have several questions and then we'll move on to the second half of your presentation was this policy written by our legal council yes it was reviewed and supported by legal council does our district follow our policy in regards to the Whitney High School selection process yes it does excuse me sorry are there acceptances are the acceptances based on Merit yes acceptances are based on these procedures do you have to score a certain percentage to be accepted into whitne High School on your test yes I know my daughter got a notification she's listed as Hispanic in our database I think

187all students Got a notification in sixth grade that they're eligible to take the Whitney High School test is that our policy that every student in certain grade levels get an parent notification that the Whitney test is coming yes okay did we move the test forward because Oxford Academy's test is sooner and they were stealing some of our students principal sters was really concerned about that and also our School of Choice Lottery used to be where that was done before the Whitney selection process so when kids were moved it opened spots and we had to go without out of District families rather than our in District families are those two considerations that why we move the test forward there were various considerations but the timing is purposeful because uh parents were receiving notifications so late they

188were going to other districts as they were receiving notifications much earlier in the year uh this timeline does align with our schools of choice as well as aligns with some of our neighboring districts including Anaheim Union which I believe is what you're referring to um and in addition to that because notifications were going out so quickly at the end of uh close to the beginning of the school year um schools only had two weeks uh as little as two weeks to uh fill those open spots and sometimes those open spots were going to out of District permits thank you my last comment is I support clerk nish's recommendations to clean up the language use similar words make uh gr grammatical changes uh and we'll go to Dr yeno after the presentation if he wants to

189accept your amendments Dr Castro please continue did we or do we vote on the BP first I'm sorry no it's all one okay thank you all right so uh in light of all the questions I am going to walk us through the AR um just to make sure we're all in the same page um in terms of the enrollment procedures again I just want to reiterate that Whitney is a choice program as some of our other programs are and so families do have to make a choice and some of those Choice considerations have to do with whether they want their child to experience a comprehensive high school or a choice magnet school as is Whitney High School a comprehensive high school has various CTE programs that may not be available at Whitney due to their

190focus and their smaller population and those that is also consideration not just the fact that they don't have knowledge about Whitney so that there are other program considerations that are occurring in regards to what is available for students at some of our other schools um such as Early College Programs as well as uh comprehensive programs at those School sites so in the enrollment procedures under the AR as listed seventh grade admissions all sixth grade students enrolled in District elementary schools will be given the middle school placement test and sixth grade writing assessment parents will be notified of the assessments and can opt their student from participating in the placement test by providing a written request to the school principal or design a pool of students residing in the district will be identified as eligible for

191admission based on the rank ordering high to low of student placement test scores and sixth grade writing Assessments in each of the elementary schools in the district all students within the pool must place at or above the 75th percentile on the composite score the composite score is based on the combined students placement test scores and sixth grade writing assessment scores the placement test scores will be weighted 70% and the writing assessment scores will be weighted 30% are there any questions at this point Dr reals so I hesitated making comments about my own personal experience exactly because of that because I didn't want them to be misconstrued but like you know did anybody on our board ever consider sending their kids to Hawaii Garden school or a lakeood school because they thought that that's where they

192were going to get the best education there's this misconception in our community that certain schools get better results because it's a fact you can go to a school in a certain city and your kid is likely to meet standards at 80% at 70% you go to another school at the other end of the district district and the school the numbers are a lot less have we made improvements absolutely but if you're a student who's in sixth grade who's attending a school that where 30% of your classmates are meeting standards what are your chances of getting into Whitney they're not very high and so that's what I'm talking about equity and that's what I'm talking about you know this misrepresentation where are our Latino students well I think at the last check who Elementary was what

19390% Latino what's their achievement scores so that was the broader issue that I wanted to bring up my daughter did attend Leo because I wanted her at the highest performing school and she probably didn't get in because there was a lot of competition and she was up against maybe I don't know what it was at that time but regardless you know would I have wanted her to attend Whitney I don't know but I don't like the idea that she was somehow you know didn't have the opportunity and that's the argument that I'm making that these 45% of students in our district have an opportunity to get there because do I know that they have the academic ability to compete at Whitney absolutely I mean a kid from artia ended up at MIT and it's now

194very successful so it it's it's not about the rigor can they handle it absolutely it's not about are you know are they smart enough to say otherwise I find it very very offensive so to my question about they have to score at the N at the 75th percentile what are we doing about it and again these schools that have incredibly low achievement when it comes to reading and math so just a point of you're asking specifically what are we doing to support the schools in terms of academic achievement in the areas of math and English no I don't think that's what I'm asking so for example the so you're the students that are going to be considered for Whitney admission have to score above the 75th percentile is that correct correct okay Carver just got

195T they just got named a blue ribbon you know are we going to expect that a majority of the students that are going to meet this standard are going to come from Carver or are they still limited are we still limiting the percent I guess I'm trying to make sense of it like how okay I think I understand your question and if you will allow me I will continue reading so that there's a point of clarification under item five okay so let let's just please hold all comments if you could go through the whole section and then we'll take I I thought she paused so that we I'm changing it because there's going to we're never going to get through this so let's just go through the whole thing please item three private school students

196or students attending Public Schools outside of ABC unified through interdistrict permits who reside within the boundaries of the ABC Unified School District will be eligible to apply for admissions students must score at or above the 75th percentile on the composite score the composite score is based on the combined students placement test scores and sixth grade writing assessment scores the placement test scores will be weighted 70% and the writing assessment scores will be weighted 30% number four children of permanent ABC employees who are not residents of the district may also apply for admission students must score at or above the 75th percentile the composite score the composite score is based on the combined students placement test scores and sixth grade writing assessment scores the placement test scores will be weighted 70% the writing assessment scores will

197be weighted 30% the following admissions process will be utilized or number five excuse me the following admissions process will be utilized with annual adjustments based on enrollment and other mitigating factors for admissions students are ranked based on the composite score by Middle School Geographic attendance 20 students will be selected from each of the five Middle School's Geographic attendance area based on the ranking of the composite score this will comprise the first 100 students who are offered admission Item B students are then ranked based on the composite score by attending Elementary School based on this ranking two students are offered admission from each attending Elementary School an additional offer of admissions will be given to each of the 14 schools with the largest sixth grade enrollments totaling three C if an elementary school has an insufficient

198number of eligible students the school's remaining offer of admissions will be given to the highest scoring students from the poll of eligible students at the feeder Middle School seventh grade weit list after the initial offer of admission the district will establish a wait list for seventh grade students based on the composite score by Middle School Geographic attendance area number two if a student declines the initial offer of admission an offer of admission will be given to the next eligible student based on the composite score by Middle School attendance area and item three rankings will not be released as a matter of student privacy 88th through 12th grade admissions students will be selected for openings in grades 8 through 12 based upon highest composite score all students within the pool must place at or above the

19975th percentile on the testing instrument other General criteria are a waiting list will be reestablished each year using the same criteria and B students must demonstrate evidence of status Factory academic progress at current School of attendance no lower than a 2.5 GPA and then it goes on to repeat the appeals uh policy that was already outlined in the BP thank you Dr Castro bring it back to the board clerk Nishi thank you Mr President um so the first parag uh seventh grade admissions we have a middle school placement test and sixth grade writing assessment and the parents will be notified of the assessments it doesn't say that they're going to be notified of the test but can we make sure that the language is consistent so that they are notified of the tests and the

200assessments as well so parents will be notified of the assessment or the placement test and the assessment so they're notified of both because we separately described them and can opt out of their student from per can opt out their student from participating in the placement test we should also say placement test and the writing assessment right because they would opt out of both so the writing assessment is not exclusive to Whitney the reason why they can opt out of the placement test is because that is exclusively used for Whitney admissions okay the writing test is a sixth grade writing test it is not not exclusive to Whitney and so those scores are provided to teachers and to make decisions about students needs in terms of writing us you know writing progress okay so that's intentional

201thank you so then you would leave it that that way perfect uh the next sent I was looking at this the pool students talking about this um okay yeah that's okay so three and four it's private schools and four is uh ABC employees so we have three spots available to those both of those two classes right a total of three so it could be two private school students or it could be one permanent ABC employee that resides outside the district or it could be um the reverse is is that what it is now uh if you look back at the board policy for private school students it's up to 10 offers of admission and for children of employees it's three offers of admission oh it's 10 okay so I'm just kind of trying to figure

202out um the number of people that would actually qualify in terms of you know outside of the district is three um that's probably just an issue of policy I would guess right in terms of and Equity as to whether we allow more or less from outside of the district to come and take the test and and qualify correct how do we come up with the three and the 10 is it in terms of the competitive numbers that apply or is it just a number that we put there um these are numbers that have been reflective of the previous policy and so it's uh probably due to looking at the students who are attending current schools and residing within the district to have the majority of the slots and then providing some options for students who

203are not currently in the district as well as children of employees okay we determine that three is the appropriate number and 10 is the appropriate number for the other side somewhere in the past we've decided that yes okay all right and I'm not sure if that was based upon there's a big pull of these people and so therefore it's the same ratio with our own own residents or may we provide residents a better advantage or whether we provide uh ABC employees a better Advantage if they're residents or non-residents I'm not exactly sure how that was determined but I guess we've made a determination regarding that um so what are the mitigating factors for admissions you have number five here the following missions process will be utilized with annual adjustments made on enrollment and other mitigating

204factors for Missions is the mitigating factors related what is that mitigating factors is the related to the school population question yes it's related to drop in enrollment so if we continue to see changes in our enrollment in ABC and the current committee that is reviewing enrollment decides to close a school or take take it open um those are factors that may change the number of schools and so rather than uh being explicit about a specific number it's to adjust for that in the future so the mitigating factors is a broad kind of catchall yes okay thank you um the next uh page 79 uh B at the top of the page students are ranked on the composite score by the by attending an elementary school students are then ranked based upon the composite score by

205attending elementary school then ranked based upon the compos score by attending elementary school okay that's we're missing a word there right so we'll we'll add that word that's required for that I'm not I just want to make sure that she's answering the questions but she's not the one necessarily who wrote the policy it's an attorney who wrote the policy that's not here today uh based upon the ranking two students are offered admission from each attending Elementary School an additional offered admissions will be given to each of the 14 schools with the largest sixth grade enrollments totaling three I think I know how that works but the way it's written it looks like they get an additional three not a total of three like you start with two and I think you give them one more

206right but this thing looks like it says totaling three it looks like it's an additional three so can we write it so that it's just it's really 100% clear the most any Elementary School will get is three so that way um people don't say oh uh Leo will get five and that wouldn't really be fair right um and I'm sure that's not the intent of the policy so if we can redraft that to appropriately include that um if a student declines the initial offer admission the offer admission will be given to the next eligible student based upon the composite score by Middle School Geographic attendance area I'm guessing that means the the person who had the next highest score it depends so I asked but um I'm not going to um I would like to

207move this to the next agenda but there isn't sufficient time because if we do move it to the next agenda then we're going to have a problem with the uh wine admissions which needs to go out relatively soon correct yes we are currently accepting applications and we have um are starting to give the Whitney admissions as well as the writing assessments right so this this has to be approved today I can't wait for an attorney to go over this and that's why um you know I wish we had a little bit more time but here here we are please continue Ary thank you um so it should be in there somewhere that it's the next eligible student should the next eligible highest scoring student is that what we're looking for because it could be anybody

208in the 7 75th percentile it could be the highest it could be somewhere in the middle we should right it relates to the elementary but we should okay so if the elementary school has insufficient number of eligible students the schooling offer will be given to the highest scoring students from the pool of eligible students probably at that school at the feeder middle school if that person uh decides not to take admission then we should also say for the person who declines admission the next person in the list should be the next highest score rather than just the next eligible student right it goes back to the pool Middle School right but rather than have somebody reread this and and try to be confused we should make it clear that it says the next highest students

209right we could add language next eligible student based on the rank composite score if you remember the composite score was defined as the percentages and then that the weight list is established by ranking of those composite scores okay so but I can can kind of circle that back into this language so that it closes I I understand what you're saying so it closes the loop you could Pi the middle in the group or the highest in the top 75th percentile you could pick number 99 or you could pick number 76 I don't think you mean to to provide that kind of leeway right right so next eligible student based on the ranking composite scores okay and then all students as we're going down to 8th through 12th so the seventh grade weight list and the

210eth through 12th grade admission there's not an additional test right so we're looking at the test that they took in sixth grade to make a determination if they're going to get in uh or so you have seventh grade and you have an e8th through 12th grade admission right right so 8th grade through 12th grade admission they do have to take a um they also do have to take the assessments they have a writing assessment and they have a placement exam as well those spaces are based on enrollment availability and so that is a different process that's just a straight ranking order so they take another test right right it is not based on their grade scores right so maybe we should put in here 8th through 12th grade admissions should be based upon uh another

211test because it looks like it's still based upon the sixth grade score potentially because we don't reference another test here do we or do we I I I didn't have time I I can add that language into this portion um that it's based on a current placement exam okay that' be great because you know I I just want to make sure that we're we're you know secure in this uh District administrator will review the request and I just want to again make sure that it's known that they make a decision and uh period that within a reasonable amount of time and that decision is final so just make sure that the actually says and we could say the basis a reasonal basis or um yeah we don't want to give a too much of a

212discre we don't want to we don't want to constrain them too far so maybe say based on a reasonable decision and that decision is final as a separate sentence so that way it's it's two different parts those are my only real questions and the last one is again I think uh reiterating that there are other ways that we can explore in terms of making sure that this test is uh achieves what we want which is an equal opportunity for everyone so I'm I'm sure we're going to explore that for the following uh Academic Year as this year it's going to be a little bit too late to re-explore that thank you thank you clerk Nishi vice president say Dr Castro what is attending elementary school when you mentioned about for example where I'm going to

213use Dr oo's kids uh her kids original school is what school is supposed to be okay what is the orig okay for example my neighbor kids uh I remember uh Gina I use her name it's not a real name Gina attending at Ser elementary school but her home school is nemas okay so when you decided when she took the test okay she got a score but you based on nemma school which is she's supposed to be attending it rather then she was a school of choice at uh seros as you know once a student accepts the schools of choice process that school then becomes their attending Elementary School and so the attending is the school that they're currently at that's what I was told I was understanding it because I remember back in the you

214know I know very well CU I know the couple cases are there and that's how we go back your attending school I mean your original attending school then you'll be in that pool can you double check that for me it is the school that you're currently enrolled in so the attending school is the current your school that you're currently enrolled in okay I have to go find them more cuz that's not this exactly situation I mean went through many many years attending school is actually your original assigned to then now you you choose inter District so if I can refer you to item five um the first part of the policy refers to the Middle School Geographic attendance where the first 100 Schools come from the geographic attendance of the middle school so that is

215the middle school you're supposed to go to because currently you're in sixth grade grade so that is the feeder pattern that is the geographic attendance area the item you're referring to is the next set of admissions offerings which is for the elementary schools and those are for students attending those elementary schools was supposed to be attending the elementary school that they're currently attending those Curr attending which is inter District went to the that school then you base on that race there I want a clarification because that's not what I i f i I understand that yeah so if if they're let's say they have school of choice at citos elementary the attending elementary school is serito Elementary but if they're homeschool would mean that where they live at home they would go to Ross Middle

216School right they would be on the Middle School list for Ross but for the attending school they'd be pulled from seros they're pulling for attending school so there's two different pieces right when it's So based on the when they go Advance school which for this process there's two different pieces okay the majority of kids we pull by where they live mhm that's right we add additional kids based on where you're currently going to elementary school see that's why I wanted people did not know that which mean you are resident School most of the time people didn't know what the benefit they also getting from there actually I study that very well attend your like you say home school when they go back to pulling your home school people have better chance cuz if you do

217well for example you do well in the Leo elementary school but they don't put you in the Leo pool they put you back to NAS pool you have better chance such as the uh the student you know what I'm talking about here now and I know very well um when the kids in some school the especially the student enrollments getting less and less cuz we did have the the we had a geography um presentation like one time a lot of kids from Hawaiian Garden are moving out to the local area so when they go back to choosing the Wy high school they go back to resident area original school there so they have better chance because less student go there anymore most school student moving to the uh to the uh serito Leo enter school

218so they have a more chance because this what I we've been doing study for five years already follow up that already because and then we just also see I want people know that actually I just have Chinese parent complain they have 10 student on winning high school they find know what's going on how come they canot get into it because most of them I want we need go to Leos wheatman Gonzalez so they're chance those the P that put student in that pool area they're very hard to get into the wey High School the thought people thought it's easy to get no they're not because they go back to the resident school so when we're talking about haai Garden school they should have better chance to go in there that's why we need High School

219more Hispanic they have even have a Hispanic club now it didn't Happ before and they're very strong there versus a wiy high school I I just had a Hispanic and the Chinese Korean people come to me how come they cannot get into the program why they other people come see and I told them take the test in the area you guys want to choose the they use sometime they maybe they use address to those area pool area so they have a hard time to G to win it there's reason so people don't not understand behind the screen I I I I just want to say this is I really been following more than 5 years already since my kids in school my kids not getting into it and then this is it because the area

220you choose sometimes the area that go to it's I'm tell you in Hawaiian Garden have more chance get to the win High School than other year again that's how I I find out thank you Dr Rios Dr Castro can you please answer I mean I I I have a problem with people saying things that can't be proven is is that true if do you have a better chance by going to Hawaii Gardens schools to get into Whitney I cannot comment on that um I know what the slots are allotted and the offers of enrollment um there when schools of choice happens there's a mix of students that move throughout the district and so there's different opportunities available um I'd have to do more longitudinal data to examine that um but I cannot comment on that

221right so it would be an opinion not a fact fact okay um uh I really have a statement I guess I was troubled by C if an elementary school has an insufficient number of eligible students like every week we have students come from all across the district and we comment on the exceptional um skills that they present here whether they be incredibly articulate or just incredibly engaged in their studies and so I have a very big problem with a school who would not have eligible students and I would um you know ask that should that be the case that a lot of support be given for their instructional program because again I don't think it's a student issue at that point um I would you know ask that that instructional program be looked at um

222because yeah there's there's obviously a gap we have yeah that's it thank you board member suu I move the previous question close the debate okay is there a second second and I will preface the next part by I haven't had an opportunity to speak but that's fine it's been motioned and seconded uh all those in favor let's do roll call Danielle please she she moved to close the debate it's been first and second and we're going to vote on it roll call Daniel voting her on to close the debate and move it to vote Mr noola yes Dr yeno yes Dr Rios no Mrs U yes Mr Nishi yes Mrs SE yes Mr Beach yes that's fine motion passes six to one okay so now uh clerk Nishi I think you want to make a

223motion to amend the initial motion with all your Corrections that's correct yes okay is there a second second sop okay all those in favor of that I I any opposed point of information we just voted to close the discussion don't we now have to vote on the item yes okay that's what we're going to do okay roll call Danielle and this this will be the actual initial item without modifications without amendments without amendments oh okay well I I jumped out of order with making your motion okay when it was called the question the debate's over we vote on the motion that's on the floor which was the initial motion so then if we vote on the motion uh with without the Amendments then it's what we have here the the typos included correct all right

224that's why we shouldn't have closed the discussion Danielle roll call please Mr noola no Dr yeno yes Dr Rios no Mrs U yes Mr Nishi no Mrs SE yes Mr Beach no oop sorry the motion so that motion fails clerk n so I like the amended notion with the uh clarifications and typos fixed okay I second it second okay Danielle roll call please Mr noola yes Dr yeno No Dr Rios yes Mrs U yes Mr Nishi yes Mrs SE yes Mr Beach yes motion passes 6 to one okay item can I recommend one more thing no that item's closed not not on this but just hear me out just one thing is it about 1.6a um not about the policy okay so uh we're moving on to 1.6a uhhuh you'll have board comments later okay

225okay 1.6a may I have a motion to approve revised policy and administrative regulation 6158 independent study second by noola Dr Castro thank you uh this proposal of this board policy in AR the revisions are based on recommendations from csba it also emphasizes the larger role of our educational partners and independent studies particularly parents and students it clarifies timelines according to our Ed code and the requirements by CDE um in regards to learn learning agreements as well as the type of instruction that is available for students and I do want to make a note that on page uh 96 of 1.6a on the bottom um there is the independent studies for physical education in grades 7 through 10 which um gives the governing board believes that all students benefit from participating in physical education that is

226provided through a comprehensive standards aligned program that integrates physical fitness into the broad range of activities that students enjoy quality physical education programs help all students develop health related fitness physical competence cognitive understanding and positive attitudes about physical activities so they can adopt healthy and Physically Active lifestyles in order to provide students with educational opportunities they're accessible through independent study physical education instruction as an alternative instructional strategy the district will establish criteria guidelines application procedures in an appeal process posted annually on the district website the application window will be limited in order to ensure that students can be notified 14 days prior to the start of the school year and this is reflective of community requests as well as board member requests to allow for independent studies PE based on national ranking of certain groups

227of students thank you clerk n any public comments I don't see any any board discussion Sue was this you from before or do you have something on this item um I didn't clear it yeah it's not on this item clerk n so just to confirm it only goes to 7 to 10 is there it doesn't go to 11 or 12 there's no requirement for PE in grades 11 and 12 okay great and so this is for those uh athletes who may excel in a particular Sport and will'll enable them to potentially apply for this independent study and not have to go to a second uh PE class like within they would create a gr culum within there uh within the district they would get approved by the district and uh so they wouldn't have to

228like show up to a second PE class if they were at a competitive level of uh Athletics it would give students the alternative to take PE through independent studies and it doesn't matter if you're a competitive athletic person or not those guidelines will be established but it is based off of um the rankings of students on competitive guidelines so potentially a competitive athlete athlete could utilize this particular procedure to um not have a redundant injury invoking um activity potentially yes thank you thank you okay all those in favor hi hi any opposed 70 all right 1.7a may I have a motion to approve request to contract with the leadership ledge LLC to provide co-administrators with professional learning and coaching sessions focus on instructional Leadership School culture student behavior management and data driven decision- making for

229the 23 24 school year by Sophia any public comments clerk N I don't see any any board discussion clerk Nishi just want to uh thank staff for the answering a lot of questions I had related to this particular contract making sure that the uh public interest is uh upheld in terms of how we select these particular uh contracts uh the basis upon which we do this and uh ensuring that uh we get the best dollar best competitive dollar so this is not this is based upon specific guidelines so it says approximately up to $90,000 but there's specific basis upon which they get to that particular number and so with that I'm very satisfied with the answer that I received thank you okay seeing no other comments all those in favor I any opposed 70 3.8a

230may have a motion to open a public hearing and adopt resolution 2310 for textbooks and instructional materials compliance and approved certification of provision for standards aligned instructional materials with education codes uh grade K through 12 fiscal year 2324 may I have a motion move second Dr Castro with the passing of this um resolution it allows us to meet the Williams instructional materials requirement which we were found to be 100% compliant with in terms of our instructional materials if families want to know more information they can click on the family tab of our district website under parent resources and they'll find the curriculum and textbook um um listings of our current approved books and the process by which they can access the curriculum and review the books um by making an appointment or reaching out to

231one of our staff members clerk Nishi any public comment I do not see any is the person who's writing uh going to have make comment of this no so there's no public comment any board discussion all right hearing none I close public hearing let's vote on the motion please all those in favor I I any opposed motion passes 7 4.5 a may have a motion to approve bid award ABC 1627 fencing and gates to Western Fence and Supply Inc DBA Pilgrim fence as lowest responsive and reasonable bidder 23 24 school year and an option to renew annually for four additional years and I have a motion any public comment clerk M no public comment any board discussion okay all those in favor I any opposed motion passes 70 we have about 10 minutes we're going

232to board member reports if you guys want to move fast fine if someone wants to make a motion to extend we can do that too but for now exed to 11 o' is there a second second all those in favor I any opposed okay meeting is extended to 11: p.m. board member comments we have board member suu yeah um number one I want to use this uh you know comment section to to uh recommend uh we've talked about the the equity issue several times and I'd like to know if we can um have a adoc committee and I would be glad to get on the board on that committee I would like him to be here because he's from Hawaiian Gardens okay but um you want to pause on your comments yeah let me pause

233on that because I want him to yeah I'll come back to you vice president say thank you I do want to actually I my comment on dis young woman I do want to make comment on the distinguished young woman um remarks uh I was so pleased to recognize this young woman they are our future leaders and we are so lucky to have them as a students the distinguished young woman program is very good and has helped many of students get into the college not only do this young woman can earn the scholarship but participating in this program helps and uh College participation uh application uh I do want to recognize one of the student we have is alternate uh DW I don't want to mention her name again who was choosing this year um as

234alternate um that student I was really proud of her and we also know he recently lost one of the member in his family and she's still attending today I really want to appreciate it and I also want to appreciate dasna um she put out so much energy with the with the girls and trying to help them out and like she said it's not a beauty contact it's all not just only one their talent their speech their uh leadership everything has shows that and we do couple our student earn the state um champing on that so for my report U October 7 attend the ABC Community Showcase I really enjoyed Dr Zeno's presentation what Amazing Story and she shared her remarks about her F how family can lead Backle of for their children and I was

235had a good chance to talk to Dr zelo's U mother and the sister it was really good well um conversation especially when it comes to education I I realized how much they they um they focus on it and I uh brought my daughter to that event and we visit every school and it was exciting event and I want to thank Dr Zillow and all who were involved in putting the Showcase together and I can't wait until the next year and I do know for the change we have right now do save a lot of money from our district we used to go to the um Hilton Hotel hotel and just the hotel self cost a lot of money and then all the food and event but this time we not just we have all the

236parent comes we also have a lot of giveway the door price things like that really I mean that to me is more positive that we made another change in movement on that and also save our cost at last um some of you probably know I like to volunteer I re I was actually former president for dyw as do help demand do the flower arrangement for uh the event um I recently volun here with the Red Cross to help sh family in Lakewood cuz I know Lake when they have City layout Lakewood and Bell Garden or some other area I choose a lab because that's kind of my school district area so I work with the um smoke detectors and we install this uh smoke uh detector for free one house actually we put up five

237uh smoke detector we we put every room they have one and you know the family was so happy they told us actually they were so they think about to put the smoke detector um in the house but you I guess the financial cost that five quite a bit and they told me just cross the street they had a fire and you know they so they really pleased and so I was really um happy to help thank you president that's my report thank you I'm going to go back to missu yeah thank you uh number one I wanted you to be here before I sh so we we had you know several discussion so my recommendation is to have some kind of I don't know how to call it um ad hoc committee or ad hoc

238uh committee to have a pilot program to walk to work with the Southside families and students not in sixth grade because it's too late maybe fourth fifth fifth grade to prepare them academically and also awareness uh you know of the the the magnet wiy program that's offered for the ABC students and um um I'd be glad to get on the committee to help you know because the the students need academic preparation and the families need that awareness and we have a equity officer who could also we can pull sources and I know that Whitney also has tutoring program for the students but that's just a volunteer that's just volunteer parent groups they fundraise get the tutoring going but how about if uh our district can allocate twan's not going to lie me but allocate some

239funding to strengthen a legitimate program something like that just um that's just I want I want to throw an idea in there second second thing is um this one I would like to agendize on our next meeting is um to look at our board policy on parent alert I know that we do have something in place and uh um look at the parent alert because of in in uh reflection to some of the the legislatures that are passed there's a lot of concern for the ABC uh parents and uh I would definitely would like to ask the board to to put this on the the next you know month agenda to look at the board policy and and to to you know look at what we can do to have that kind of a communication

240with uh families can I ask for a consensus you certainly can so there was two different things there you talked about an ad hoc committee initially um do you just want staff to do Outreach in the South or do you actually want an ad hoc committee that we're all going to appoint people to and meet monthly for so long not not maybe um Mr President I don't know that this is an agendized item that we can create a consensus vote on right now it's not an agendized item but a board member under board member reports can request an item to go on a future agenda it needs to be seconded and then it'll be voted on it would be voted on at this point where we've not had a agenda that public has not had

241a chance to no no comment on it it will go to a future agenda it can be information then go to the agenda no I understand that but uh um how else would you ever get an agenda item on we would do it the normal way which is request I check with legal counsel this is proper procedure I'm requesting all right yeah okay so let's take them one at a time yeah let's do the U parent alert board policy first okay so you want to recommend on a future agenda to be a parent alert notific look at the policy okay that's very broad though what do you mean parent alert policy in the light of the uh AB 665 there's been a lot of concern and this is going to be a growing concern in

242all the districts and I know that we have a board policy to a certain extent I talked with you know Dr zlo about we have some policy in place but uh what can we do to we need to know what's in the policy and what we can do to uh strengthen the policy so that when our you know children you know um as young as 12 you know want decide to um make some medical decisions or um counseling or therapy that parents will be notified yeah okay so I think I understand you want staff and legal counsil to look at a policy for Parental notification yes and have a board discussion with the community involvement of community and I have everybody have the opportunity to discuss it put it on the agenda is there a

243second and this is for the item to go on a future agenda yes you're on your second okay Danielle roll call please so wait a second don't want get to comment and ask questions yes board discussion because and then we should have public comment but the public didn't even know that we're having this on the agenda this is to put it on the agenda right I understand that I understand that we can have the discussion when we once it goes on the agenda so I would just uh make sure or request that we follow our policies of our school and uh ensure that before it comes to us we have everything go to the legislative Review Committee and so that you mean our legal council no our legislative Review Committee so all the the policies

244that we put forth here are first reviewed by our legislative Review Committee first and then they um review receive analysis they uh discuss and then they provide recommendations as it relates to additional items and that's when it gets on our agenda so I I prefer that we have the benefit of our appointees and have it go through that normal regular procedure whenever that is Into the Future No so what what what might be good at this point board member you is for you to have it come back as an informational item first we'll get information about it we'll have a little clearer picture of what it is then if approved it'll go to the legislative committee and then come on our agenda no that's not what I want um don't all Poli go yeah we

245could I could request an an agenda and have a have it in the information item we can discuss about it we're not going to like put it on the action item immediately and he could go to the legislative later on and we have a legal council that we can check into so I think that's what uh a president Beach is actually uh no that's not what it is you want this to go into the legislative committee first before it becomes on the agenda correct that is the normal proced I'm asking to put put it on the uh information item agenda I want to agendize it for next support he can she can she can make information item for information it put okay yeah I have the right I can do that okay so just to

246be clear you're asking for an information item on the next agenda yeah put on the agenda Dr yeno is that what you're seconding second okay yeah is there any more discussion Dr Rios like I would really caution or board to get in to discussions that are beyond the purview of what we do in our rules like she mention medical procedures I mean when was the last time a child underwent a medical proc Pro proced procedure on our campuses can anybody speak to that please that's right and where is there something that I can answer we we shouldn't have I sorry okay not Dr would you like an answer to that or well what I like is for legal to check that again if we're going to have a discussion about something that we do not

247do then I will I I would be for that but if it's a discussion about you know again simply a senate excuse me Madam uh okay board member you about Senate bills which we have you know that's a state um assembly bills that's a state Governor actions that's a state we're here to talk about education of students so if it's within that purview I'm all for it but if it's not why okay thank you anybody else my numbering system here is for board report so any else you know I'll just make a simple comment most of us up here are parents I think all of us would want to be notified if our kid hits his head on the playground if our kid you know does something minor like we do for the major things

248I think most parents want to be notified too so I'd like legal counsil to look at what other districts are doing you know what's reasonable and then get information on it first which is what you're asking for and then if there's consensus from there it would go to be agendized so um I think that it's good to have uh a lot of information however it needs to be relevant information related to the authority that we have as a school board yes so to the extent that it doesn't go into uh State rules or federal Rules by which we do not have authority uh over um and doesn't get into those state and federal rules then it should be acceptable because it would be within the realm of our decision- making and board member you you're

249asking for legal council to review the information item correct okay yes is there any more disc discussion on this Danielle roll call please Mr NOA yes Dr yeno yes Dr Rios yes Mrs U yes Mr Nishi yes Mrs SE yes Mr Beach yes motion passes 70 okay now in regards to your ad hoc committee yeah so it doesn't have to be an ad hoc committee it could be just a maybe a small group maybe a couple of board members work with the staff to work on this program because we've been talking about the academic strengthening and you know all that stuff and today when I heard several board members and the concerns uh if we can do some kind of a committee to help and work with the students on the southide also the families

250not just Outreach in sixth grade but Outreach as early as fourth fifth and let them know the benefits and the programs that's available and then to get some of the students and get them you know trained with the work with the principals work with uh our staff I think that would really be concrete progress and help because the policy we cannot change policy is there but you know like as I said it's a different issue yeah I think this is a great idea to help our students U I guess we can take this offline and if a few board members want to form a committee with staff to try to help right it would not be amendable to a vote but I think she can direct the superintendent to do such and that would be

251appropriate can I say something CU I've been pushing my button there I just want to make sure board board member to understand we serve our student what about African-American student there we have 8% there what about other cultures people there we need to be considered really carefully say I only want to focus Southside I know we have two board member prob from Southside but what about others who speak up for them don't forget our purpose here is serve all students you know I understand certain area maybe needs more help or something we been we have been down a lot but we need the treat all student what about just like I mentioned how about African-American people they're not here nobody nobody represent for them please think about that twice okay thank you uh Miss we'll

252move on with board comments board member noola uh thank you president be I just have a few quick quick updates uh this past two weeks I was able to attend uh the Mig migrant education parent advisory committee uh we they went over nominations and updates from fetty Middle School uh and prior to that I attended Melbourne Elementary and I got to visit the campus and I was kind of volun to to be part of the young men's league so I will be uh participating in that at Melbourne uh October 13th at Aloha Elementary I got to visit uh their campus with M uh Delgado and got to see how he gets involved with the families uh and I like to give him a shout out he also you know is very very uh Community Based

253he actually walks with some students home so he is very involved with the families um and the day before to that I got to visit Palms Elementary with Dr smart and I just wanted to share one piece she said she said she got into education because she wanted to be the administrator that she deserved when she grew up so I think that's something we can all embody uh including including us here on the board uh on December 13th I was also at the Hawaii Gardens trunker treat it was a great event uh all our elementary schools had a trunk and it was Jurassic theme so it was a very good event and October 11th I attended the Head Start uh policy committee meeting and I just wanted to share that it uh my I just

254wanted to acknowledge all the parents that are are participating and acknowledge that it's all women and moms that are there supporting their students and trying to get involved so I just want to give them a special shout out um and I also attended the Community Showcase and it was a great event I just want to thank staff for all the hard work they did thank you thank you sir Dr Rios thank you mine is the statement um I encourage members of the public to reach out to individual board members we have areas that we represent and um it's important to know that people that come to our Podium um or it is helpful to know that they are in fact people that we represent um I'm more than happy to um improve communication because what

255I'm starting to see is that opinions that are coming to the podium appear um to be people that maybe are not from our district like I want to hear the opinions of people that live in our district that are current parents from our district that are taxpayers in our attendance area that are residents and not Outsiders from extremist organizations that are pushing an agenda um it's important that people not use our public forum to propagate misinformation I mean normalizing pedophilia like oh my goodness like we are in charge of educ ation we are in charge of um schools and out outcomes we want our kids to be prepared for the future um for college and careers like the stuff that we are listening to is just wow um the other thing that I want to

256say is that again I I I I it it really bothers me to see that people are using our po our public forum to propagate misinformation to disrupt and dup our efforts to provide a free and public education for all uh unfortunately boardrooms have become a place for some people to bring their political ideologies and religious ideologies and do exactly what they're trying to accuse us of which is indoctrination or again propagating these these ideologies um I caution my colleagues um I don't know that they care but I like to think that they do the last time we indulged in discussing policies that we were beyond the realm of what we do it got dangerous I mean it got so dangerous that I had to file a police report because people come here and they're

257very passionate about their ideas and they have every right to but all of a sudden they come on the attack when we don't agree with them or when we SP speak up against them or when we don't vote in the way that the person that they align their ideas with votes they're we're here to do a job of board member we're not here or shouldn't be here to discuss I'll say it again Senate bills assembly bills actions of the governor there is a forum for that there is a place for that it should not be in the boardroom and when we indulge in that and when we invite people to even do that here I don't think it should be acceptable um again if it's about what we do then we're more than happy to

258I'm more than happy to support that um the last thing that I want to say is we're about parents it's part of our lcap goal and you're never going to talk to a teacher that doesn't want to communicate with parents you're never going to talk to ad administrator that doesn't want to let them parents know what's going on in the school that their child attends whether they got hurt whether they you know need to do something if there are is other issues there are laws that protect students and you know you want to talk about Freedom you know that's not something that we get to infringe upon there are Title Nine maybe that's something that we need to have a a forum on on the rights of of students parents want to be a part

259of that I mean I'm never as a parent going to claim that the school is raising my child I rais my child my children very well whether or not they went to Whitney they're very they're doing very well because I see that they have a quality education I see to their core values I see to their who they become as people I take full responsibility for that and full credit for that I want them to go to school so they can learn how to read how to write well how to communicate how to think critically how to do all those other things that are academic do I want the schools to look out for their social and emotional well-being sure I don't mind my kid learning how to you know take a breath when he's

260upset or or how to use mindfulness strategies to calm himself down or how to use strategies to deal with conflict that's what seal does when you start talking about medical procedures it's just like Beyond me like why are we even um indulging in that that's not what we're in the business of doing so again that's that's it again I I like us to focus on the role of a school board member the role of us as Educators and that is a discussion of what is best for students am I for parents being involved 100% I don't know that any of us would would disagree with that ever that's it Dr yenel thank you Mr President since I was absent last meeting I'm going to go back a little bit um on Tuesday September 19th I

261attended seros High School football booster fundraiser at frantones Pizza thank you artisia councilman Renee trino and Angel Loria for the invite on Thursday September 28th I attended our strategic planning board advisory committee meeting thank you Dr Castro for changing things up and getting all members involved I was most impressed with our student representative Miss Sophia manala Manansala for her leadership and ideas she's definitely Beyond her years on Saturday October 7th I attended the city of Aria's International Day Festival thank you to the Aria city council for planning and throwing a successful event on Thursday October 12th I contributed to the garban boosters fundraiser at seven leaves in artisia and had a tar milk with Boba and this past Saturday October 14th I got a much needed Car Wash I attended chs's Club maaa Car Wash

262fundraiser thank you to Club maaa adviser Miss Oliva and Club president Caitlyn kasikas for the doughnut breakfast and a much needed Car Wash that's all I have Mr President may God bless you all and keep you well thank you sir clerk Nishi thank you Mr President so yes I attended uh the Dali Festival I went to the International Festival I went to the artisia Showcase bubble festival at uh uh at one of the elementary schools we did all these things what I'm glad about is Dr jeno's report that the focus is on the schools that's what we are here about we are here about what we can do not what we can't do um and I do appreciate the parents that came and said you know kids are the number one concern of parents and

263that's true and communication is a I remember I think one of the parents said it was communication is a very important factor that's also very true and so I I appreciate parents and our specific community members members within our community expressing those particular views so those are all good things that we do but we have to keep it on the kids because I caution this board from talking about things that we would love to talk about um the state legislature and uh the feds and everything else like that but the reality is we sit here on the school board and our main focus should be on brag and how those kids kids can make a difference for the future and how those kids can have the tools academically to succeed that's what we should be

264talking about we can't be distracted by things we can't cont not even control that we have no ability to do we can listen and that's important we are our job is to listen to parental concerns and our job is to implement the best we can within the constraints that we have the policies and procedures that we are permitted but literally they regulate when we wash our footballs so to discuss these other things and also create division within ourselves right that's that's the impression that we provide to the school district you know that there's some school districts out there where 23% of the principles have resigned 23 is that good for the kids absolutely not it is not good for the kids for that to Happ because that school is distracted they main thing should be

265their kids instead it's the drama on the board and it's sexy it's fun to to fight about these issues but we should be talking about math scores guys math scores I like how brag bragged about how they got better math scores 6% in one year how can we replicate that other places do we want to spend precious board time talking about things we have no control over there's no doubt we all care about our kids and we all struggle under burdens and difficulties we had a person who won an award and they had to do that without their parents and we have people all over the world who don't have the pleasure of living in a place where they don't get bombed literally um I think we should appreciate what we have we should be

266that we're blessed to live in this great country but that us as members if we talk about school if we talk about academics we can't lose but if we talk about everything else that we don't have control of oh sure we're going to have a bunch of issues thrown around the world and what did we do what can we do about it um nothing we could just express our opinion divide the community divide the board and lose sight of the main thing which is our kids rather than lose 23% of our principles rather than have parents going and protest and getting votes for things I would rather the parents work to have their kids study hard I'd rather the the parents not have to go out and get votes or come to board meetings I

267would rather that they got to have their kids uh spend time with their math homework that's what I think the main this thing is I thank board member yeno for his excellent report talking about the schools I thank board member noola for his excellent report of talking about the schools these are the things that we got to talk about not things that divide us thank you thank you vice president say you know I I just want to publicly say I the student gave me the book but I after I think over I think I should turn into the school district put in uh the principal office because it looks nicer I will buy this book and go ask him to sign for me so I'm going to return it to you and I also want

268to tell as a board member I think we don't just work in like focus our student here we also need to know what's going on outside not government always right but we need to figure out what's the best for our school that's how I am here for I think we need to look both Sid not just say hey we're only here for student well there's something we need to also represent if it's nothing not right how can we make right that's my final thank you uh pres I do want to say you B member you're great what you involve in your in your in the city which is I used to go to Hawai and got a lot before I hadn't got but I will go back again but you did a great job in

269there you involved not just only your own area you also visit other school like such a we you went to see it because there is the message that you are presented to me today that you won't make changes in there and I I want to salute to you I want to thank you so much look out to all students thank you okay thank you announcements our next meeting is November 7 at 7 pm I'm going to skip the committee meetings I want both of our public speakers to get their full five minutes second public comment Clerk and she Mr Eddie Salo thank you Mr Beach thank you board members for extending their time tonight um I'm surprised you voted on 5118 3A um given all the discussion how flawed it is um how fundamentally flawed

270it is I'm not going to accuse Dr Castro of lying but I will say there was some misinformation that she provided the board and there's plenty of evidence to back that up I think her luck as she said when I met her we got lucky her luck is continuing tonight by getting this pass through but I would ask the board how do they change the timeline of admissions without passing a new policy I think you got strong arm tonight because they changed who they Dr zlo Dr Castro staff changed the timeline on you and drop this on you Ernie you did not have to vote on this tonight you could have postponed there is a policy in place what wasn't like there wasn't and if you read the policy line by line there is no

271change it's the exact same policy with the acception of some additional language that gives them more leeway to adjust the numbers however they want for example this nothing changed with 10 kids from outside and three School Employees 13 this year we only had seven so six additional spots just magically went to someone went to one particular school we have no rhyme reason we don't know how no evidence will be presented they just took those six spots and they gave them to well in this case it probably looks like Leo because there 27 students from Leo it's it's not okay I don't know how you pass this policy it's just it's fundamentally F even the geographic uh uh positioning okay put that in there geographically these if you look at the map you go to the

272school district board uh I'm sorry website there's a map it says these feeder School schol these feeder schools these feeder schools from the elementary going into this middle school but yet again the numbers I gave you 51 kids come from carminita I mean the numbers are uh 59% of Whitney High School seventh graders this year came from Two element or two feeder schools how is that possible how we talking about fair and Equitable there's no way even if you go and you go in one by one and you say okay this was the original home school when it counts against that where they went to school of choice even then the numbers don't add up so you could have taken some extra time you already had a a policy in place there was no reason

273to pass this new policy because it just gives Dr Castro and Dr zlo and whoever works with them excuse me uh please avoid remarks or charges which reflect upon the character motives qualifications thank you I'm not sure that reflected that but okay understood I let the first couple go okay Dr Beach oh excuse me Mr Beach I apologize for my Outburst in the middle of that by the way I just wanted to note that it should not have come out no matter what we're still going to find the points that need to be found to hold this District accountable okay and we there were some other things that popped up we're not talking for of action we're not talking about Hawaiian gardien parents don't know Hispanic parents African-American cents Asian parents they're all very resourceful

274so this wasn't about any of that this is about fundamental process there's no way you can implement this process if you have 100 kids come from the 20 20 times 5 they have to say yes or no and then you have to go and reorganize what the elementary schools are one two three because one can go up to the 20 if that's just basic math it's just basic fundamental implementation of policy you cannot send 152 acceptances 156 acceptances at once you cannot you can send 100 they come back they say yes or no then you reorganize then you reorder then you give the 10 days it just there's so many things that could be worked out here and that's why I'm surprised that you voted on this I appreciate you guys having the discussion that

275was a very long discussion and I appreciate that and at least there's some contemplation going that but how you pass such a fundamental and legal council wrote that and there's that many just basic gram grammatical errors in it I mean I would rethink my legal Council especially if for asking about medical practices and all different things on campus but just sticking to this particular thing there was no reason to pass it tonight and nothing changed nothing if you're going to create an ad hoc committee it should be an oversight Committee of what Dr zlo and Dr Castor are doing with the admissions process that's an ad hoc committee that we can all support because right now they're doing basically anything they want because there is a written policy that was in place that was not

276followed period in the story and um doc or Dr rias if you want the numbers all the numbers are here in terms of what the admissions were thank you thank you Alexia brenis hello board um I'm gonna try to be as brief as I possibly can um so nobody here is trying to dispute California law you know I think suu had brought up before it comes from Sacramento I think all the parents and the community members are very aware of that we are not trying to dispute we are not trying to rewrite legislation um what we're simply trying to do is put in a parental notification policy such as Tula uh Chino Orange um there's many other districts in the state of California since this uh legislation has passed that have also done so so

277we're not doing anything outside of what the board's local Authority is or what we're not requesting anything for you guys to go and re write uh California law um so that's that's number one um I did email everybody on the board about a few examples of that um so we can fix it or edit it um if you guys choose to do so the next board meeting um that way it has you guys have an example of how that format looks and then we can tailor it to our specific community and what our needs are in this community um so this is all uh this new bill is all under the guise of mental health which we have spent millions of dollars in this District on mental health so I totally uh think that this

278is something that's very important to our community however if any child receives mental health the only thing that parents are asking is that they're being involved in the the process that's all that's it's that simple we just want to know what's going on with our kids if we they get pulled into the office um there's been many stories of students being pulled into the office um and parents had to come down last year they were notified um that they think that it would be best that their student in ABC that their student should be in a temporary facility just to give them some you know clear headp space now with this new legislation it would what would happen is the parents would not be notified of that and that's where parents want to know we

279want to know what's going on with our student especially if they're suffering mentally um we need that partnership right the other thing is that um I didn't really appreciate the comment that said um that the public when the public comes to speak um claiming cling that they are extremists claiming that they are um you know you have to write police reports because parents are are being violent or the community members are being violent or we're seeing people from outside of our community my children are Latino they are part of the 94% in this District so for me um it's very important to come and speak to these board meetings unfortunately we we have to take the time away from our kids to be here that's just the reality of it it sucks we don't want

280to be here but when we are seeing so much go on in the district or so much going on in our schools it's good for us to come out and and let the community know what's going on so we can address these issues we don't want to take time away from tutoring our kids in math or whatever it is we want resources for further furthering the education so we can all be as successful as Whitney is cuz Whitney is a number one school in the state and we should all be very proud of that but let's now transfer that over to our other schools so we can all be successful um now uh not all parents can make it but yeah saying things insinuating that parents or community members are being violent without any proven

281evidence based um that that comment was just very disturbing to me because it could discourage a lot of our community members from coming out and speaking and that's the opposite of what we want to do in our district um the other thing is the Filipino um month right I thought that was great I really appreciated how they kept it Filipino because it's all gender inclusive now with the Latinos we have the Latinos which is also all gender inclusive but we added the A and the X I don't appreciate that I feel like that is very offensive to our community because our community is um it's been around for many many centuries like very a very long time the Latin community so to put the X because they don't like the a or the O when

282the O is allinclusive is really an attack and an assault on our language and it's a new thing that Americans have decided to implement onto our um our culture so if we can just I don't know if that was a survey but if we could just revise that and remove the X I think that would be the best thing thank you thank you okay it's 11 o'clock is there a motion for adjournment so move by Sophia all those in favor I meeting adjourned thank you [Music] everybody [Music] [Applause] [Music] he