001so we'll go ahead and call the meeting to order at 3:39 search for lattes with leadership that's the title of this SL I just email it to him no that's what he asked he just email it oh no he said he was in he is so just em to oh again yeah so today I'll I'll do the review of the agenda today we're going to um be going over School site attendance initiatives get an ADA overview um and then talk about future um meeting agenda items and then can we also unmute George and let him turn on his camera okay that's better I'm sure hi George all right that's good thank you okay so we'll move on to public comment do we have any any it doesn't look like there's any public here but anything
002all right moving on to opening comments I don't have any opening comments um are there any other opening comments before we get to the school site oh I do have an opening comment um I know you guys were questioning the this meeting and the meeting following I did send um Eric um a text this week and asked if we can possibly move the Education subcommittee meeting up to 3:00 because having the education subcommittee at 3:30 and the finance and Facilities subcommittee meeting at 4 4:00 um is very overlapping and every um it just seems to overlap too much so I wanted to make sure that we both subcommittees had enough time to discuss what we need to discuss so moving forward the Education subcommittee meeting will be at 3:30 or 3 o'clock not 3:30 and
003the next one's already been scheduled on the calendar at 3 so Yolanda already made that update for us awesome um so that's my only opening comment does anybody else have any anything George I do not thanks okay um so can we move into Paula can we move into your um School site attendance initiatives um we're gonna flip if it's okay we're going to move the Ada overview up because Kai's here and he needs to go to the next meeting so is it okay if he goes first sure okay thank you I'm gonna switch to share well good afternoon everyone and um I'm just going to give you a brief overview of the average St attendance how much revenue the district receives um on the first slide here it give us an idea of our average
004day attendance which is the Ada we get Bas we get supplemental and we get concentration funds and we also get gr span adjustments basically the gr span adjustments provides um for TK to third grade provide small class sizes and then for the high school it's it's it's more about Career Technical education so so so CD gives school districts um a great span adjustment of of that dollar amount if you look at the first row from TK through third grade it's about $3,482 and you multiply that by 255 average day attendance then you'll get 3.43 million and then for grades 4 through six is $2,397 and you multiply that by 208 students you'll get 2578 million for grades 7 through 8th it's 12,763 you multiply that by 140 you'll get 1.78 6 million and then and
005then for the high school is is $1 15,17 High School gets more funding than versus um primaries grades then in addition to that we also get home to school transportation and then transitional kindergarten funding as well so in essence in summary the districts in for the local control funding formula we get $13.93 five million right and if you go to the next slides here this is what we're looking at this is the history and I showed this at the second in round last week in regards to our enrollment to average day attendance Trends um right now we're projecting for 2425 it's going to be at 90% but um when I complete the P2 hopefully our our average St attendance can increased by one or two percentage point so for every on the next slide here
006for every in increase in one percentage point the district received an increase of funding like about by about $160,000 for increase in average by one percentage Point that's just approximate and um if anyone has any questions I'm more than happy to answer um can you go to go to the first slide thank you so when you were going through and you said Grade 9 through 12 is 15,000 178 yes um so you were adding the base grade span supplemental concentration and then multiplying it by the Ada in the First Column and that's how you got the last column right yes okay okay so and then the Ada that you have there that's the attendance that's not the enrollment right that's correct that's correct yes good point where so you said this year on the second
007slide um this year is about 90% it was 89.9% um and then I think if I remember right I don't have my calculations right in front of me from the board meeting You're Expecting next year and the year after to be 91% I think it was 92% um what is I know we can't have a an a goal of 100% but what would be a an attainable goal I I feel like 91% or 92% is still low can we have a goal above that what's a what's a realistic goal when we're looking at increasing our Ada hi Briana um the the average the average U for districts and for the state I want to say is somewhere between 94 to 96 so if we hover around 95 would be the ideal um and I know
008in our lcap plans you know as it's quite Progressive from year to year you know uh we we we try to attain some realistic goals such as a 9 2 then to the 94 to try to reach to the 95% over let's say a threeyear span okay so in our lcap goals our our goals are 93 to 95 I'll have to verify those we'll verify I'm working on the update on that right now and we make um we we we review that annually and so we're in that process and we can actually um readjust our goals too but we do um you have to look at what the original metrics were that I put in for last year okay I would just I I would love to have um I would love to have where
009we are which is what we have and then goals set and I know that what Kai has to do is realistically from where we are this year to where we're going to be next year for Budget reasons 91 or 92 in there is what has to what has to be done for Budget reasons but I would love to have goals that um that all of our our board as a whole the board as the education committee um the finance committee the admin office staff that parents understand that so we're all on the same page this is where we're at and this is what our goal is and these are the steps we're taking to get there um so I'm really looking forward to seeing the next part of this and seeing what steps we're taking
010and then maybe being able to share um between schools what's working um what ideas that different schools might have that would be great I don't know if you guys have already done that um but I would love to know like where where we're at and set set some goals to where we have um we're closing that Gap from 89.9 up to the 95 where the lcap goal is and and that's ideal and that's that's what um ed services and our principles are working on um George and Briana as far as the school side attendance initiatives that will be presented after the Ada piece there's a lot of best practices that have been implemented um with that with that with that slight increase that we've seen um from year to year but there's some ways to
011go so they're constantly sharing readjusting tweaking the plan um and you know even to share it with parents we had this topic for attendance initiatives and Ada at um the previous lates with leadership inviting parents to the district office to go ahead and um share what what what we do in as far as the attendance initiatives how's that going are you getting parents coming to that it's it's hidden myths um it depends on the topic itself so we're looking to actually change venues to actually rotate from site to site and maybe piggy back on an existing parent meeting so that we have some built-in um foot traffic so to [Music] speak cool George you have anything I just a quick question for Mrs Jones I know you recently had that um reward incentive for um
012for kids who were attending the whole month of of February I believe the uh slime party did you see any noticeable increase in attendance for that initiative or that uh little reward um we started implementing those rewards last year so every month on average when we first started we were about 50 kids or so and now we average anywhere from 70 to about 80 kids per month thank you appreciate that because I know my daughter was excited about that that slime party so I was thinking about that incentive program but appreciate that Miss Jones yeah slime works so why not yes until you have to clean it up okay so if there if there aren't any more um questions on this presentation we can say thank you to Kai and and move on is that
013okay thank you thank you everyone appreciate it thank you for being appreciate it thank you then and our next meeting I'll use this data that he shared with us today to kind of look um just use the trends we have to consider goals over the next three years that we can discuss and you know decide you know maybe collaborate on and see kind of what what we have as far as consensus yeah thank you thanks K thank you everyone were they able to share the slide with you to um share when we get to the next part did you get it Cesar we're finding interest thank you for asking what the inducation no this is the agenda the title of the slide deck is lattes with leadership because we're using the same one I do
014have that I don't think I realize that's what you were using for this I do I have that one fers for lot of leadership 29 um so it should have just come right in the top of her her email right now has Raina res shared it if not I can do it again you need it again you sh it again you're in Paul's right sorry folks I'm Caesar's going to project in the moment I have it here or Michelle has it you want to share your screen's good thank you okay thanks apprciate that are you able to make it where it just duplicates your screen instead of extended [Music] stricky like I don't like to use it because it just see thank you Cesar yeah just duplicate the screen then whatever you see we see
015oh okay yeah are we I wasn't sure if you guys were starting or we were starting you just Brianna goes so Brianna we're ready for the next if you want them to start with the school attendance initiatives the sorry I was muted that'd be great thanks okay right I'm not sure who's presenting I don't know we're all kind of presenting so I can start you can go to the next one so um we just we really just talked about um the importance of students attending um as we know it has a financial impact but as an educator it has a significant impact on learning um when kids aren't there they're missing out and at least specifically in Middle School um it's hard for them to catch up when they get back and then it kind
016of spirals the more the longer that they're out so we worked on our attendance policies and procedures and um having strategies to support regular attendance and then making resources available for families so and then the next one so this is our presentation that we did for the parents so I'm we're going to skip a couple of things because I don't like I'm sure you guys know why attendance matters but we went over like why attendance is important for academic success social emotional growth future Readiness and data and um statistics so we we talked about like how absenteeism affects student achievement and then you can go on to the next one and then um this is just a chart showing like if you miss school um how it has an impact over time by the time
017you get to you know be a senior even from kindergarten so just emphasizing that attendance is really important from the very beginning and it has a progressive effect as the kids get older and Raina and Anisha please feel free to just jump in when we do these with parents it's a lot more free form and everybody contributes so just jump in um and the next one so this is really what I think you guys were more interested in um was the School attendance policies so a treny would be a student with unexcused absence specifically three unexcused absence makes them equals a truancy um and then chronic absenteeism just by definition would be a student that misses 10% or more of the school year no matter if it's excused or unexcused and I think that's the
018most common misconception among our parents because they think oh I gave you a doctor's note I you know they were ill they were whatever and it's like yeah that's an excuse so they're not Trent but they're still chronically absent because they've missed more than 10% of the school year so uh when we spoke with parents that was the biggest misconception is they they think that because it's excused it's okay and it's like like yes it's excused but you're still having learning loss you're still like all the negative effects are still happening even with an excused absence I pause I don't know if they want to jump in and well just because it's you're talking about percentages I just I was throwing in there I like to share with students and parents and anybody that'll hear
019me um with percentages that students are supposed to attend a certain percentage of the school year and so I like to remind them and I forget what that magic number is I want to say it's like 30 days you know once you miss that it doesn't matter what grades you have if you're passing all your classes which is unlikely because we know that if you're absent you're missing school you're probably um not doing as well academically or uh falling behind but then we're they're supposed to repeat the grade so they're not supposed to be credit getting credit for that grade level I think it's a little bit maybe more applicable in the younger grades where you know you get retained um no we're not in the business of retaining students but you know we we
020do like to say you're you're required by Ed code to attend a certain percentage of the school year um for us it's a little different because it's credits you either get the credits or you don't so but that does help and it's kind of some kids do ask me like oh what number am I at so um I don't know maybe yeah and definitely like we don't have credits at the elementary and middle school but for high school having your credits it's very different than retention right like you could you could be credit deficient in a class and have to repeat the class because you didn't attend it enough for sure so um next slide so um this was just familiarizing everybody with what is an ex ex used absence versus what is an unexcused
021absence um the excused absence are mandated by the state so those aren't things we have control over um and they're only these excuses um and then the other thing we talked to parents about was that um any anytime you have more than 10 um absences even if the parent is calling them in saying they're sick they're sick they're sick once they hit that 10th one we are requiring parents to have a doctor's note um to say is this really a chronic illness because we're already passing like chronic absenteeism status so we want them to get support so that they can um decrease the number of times that they're absent so and then um so we're also working on tardies we want students to be on time um one of the biggest things for me about
022being on time is we're really trying to raise good humans and their de developing habits that are going to take them into their College and Career life and they're doing that right now and so if they get accustomed to being late all the time they're going to grow up to be an adult that thinks it's okay to be late to everything and so that kind of when I talk with kids about being tardy I really focus on that like you know if your parent showed up late every time to their job you know how long are they going to be able to stay at that job the job's not going to put up with that and so so I really try to connect it with them like like this is important it's not just oh
023I missed you know Avid or I missed whatever and I'll make it up it's not about that it's about building a habit of having an internal importance of being on time so um so we have attendant support plans um if you've seen any mtss models this is a basic mtss model that just talks about like tier one is what we do for everybody and then if we have students missing 10% to 19% we're looking at early intervention and then 20% or more would be that intensive Intervention which would be like the sarb um sarb and sart um teams tell what that is that oh sorry um so the s team is the School attendance review team so that really is at a site level so we would have a site it's kind of like an
024SST sort of but you really are talking about like you're you're showing the data and saying this is where your students at and these are the potential consequences and you make like an action plan for them to remediate that and and then you have like check-in dates to say here's where we're going to check in on how you're doing on that action plan and then the sarb is a uh attendance review board and so that would be at like a district level so if our efforts at the site level do not um bear fruit in that the the behavior doesn't change and their attendance doesn't improve then there's a district level um meeting and so really it's supposed to increase the accountability for the parent to say oh my goodness now I'm being called to
025a the district for a meeting I really got to work on this like this is a big problem so it's just kind of emphasizing that importance is that what you want me to share okay it's blue so this is you Anis we went over our tardy policy telling them how school starts by 8:30 and the definition of tardy and the process that if they arrive 8:31 they're considered tardy so they have to come through the front of through the front of our school and they receive a tardy pass that they take with them to class we can go to the next slide um we just continue to talk about the tardy policy and how it's counted and the consequences of tardies which is a part of what Michelle already explained that if they have three
026tardies accumulated in a day students will receive a lunch detention that's something they do at the higher that the middle and high school but not at elementary school so for high desert we do have a school attendance plan um uh I can make sure that you guys get this so you could actually click on that link but if you go to the next slide so um we as a School site made um program goals and I apologize I'm having a hot flash so ignore the Fanning um but we made like an attendance plan and kind of what our goals what the students were going to be doing what the teachers are going to be doing and what we as a staff are going to be doing so this is the attendance slide for that um
027we did it for all of our programs and then specifically within the attendance plan you can see that there's tier one two and three like I was saying before so those are specific action steps that says this is what we're going to do for all the students here's what we're going to do for those students that are you know hitting that 10% Mark or and then these are the ones that really need like the tier three intervention so and all of those have clickable links on it so like I said uh I'll make sure it gets shared with you guys so that you can click them and then I think this is Raina so our our policies are you know we're always trying to deter Behavior yes we we we're we're looking looking at both
028sides the incentive part but also there are real consequences and I know Michelle you mentioned that real life consequences you don't get to keep a job um special programs you don't get to be in a special program um you know I'm thinking even in college if unless you're attendance is good so um our consequences we're trying to especially since it's not if you're tardy at elementary your you're tardy once and the um and you have the same class all day at our school you can be po po you could have six in one day um and you know we have to kind of keep explaining that to parents um that you really could accumulate that many um I mean there I think earlier in the year we had some students in the teens you know
02918 tardies in a week um so when they have three they have um I'm in a meeting and lunch detention and then when they have um more than that four or more they have uh an after school activity that they're doing so um yeah and I I think we were we were kind of trying to collaborate and see what what other other things we can do to try to deter that and I would say from the beginning of the year I mean I look at students individually like I mentioned somewhere in the teens and then we're seeing now yes are they still on my list yes and we're trying to get them off that list each week but if they started with 18 and now we're looking at they have four or five to me
030that's progress um of course the ultimate goal is that they're not even on that list and we were doing similar at high desert and I would say datawise I think the biggest change for us is tracking it and letting kids know that we are paying attention that has made the biggest impact um because when you're calling them in and you're saying hey you were tardy like for we don't have as many between classes but in the mornings you know you've been tardy three four times this week we've narrowed it down where it really is like the same six kids which six out of 300 is actually really not bad um but it's kind of the same six kids and we're working trying to work with their families and and things like that so we so
031we went from having like 30 down to six so the things that we're doing are working but is it you know have we gotten 100% we're not at 100% for sure right so next one um we also shared just the impacts of chronic absenteeism um I'm not going to read to you guys you can go to the next one we should and then um this we just talked about different options so one of the things like we um I just met with a students family today that had type 1 diabetes and so because of his t1d attendance does get impacted depending on his boot clast levels and so we were talking about you know taking advantage of being able to do short-term independent study if he's going to be out for a few days as
032they get it managed or things like that because then that doesn't count against them and they're still getting all of their work uh so those types of things like taking a short-term independent study also changed in November so it used to be that it would have to be um three or five days or more and the state changed it where it could be as little as one day now so utilizing that to help kids get caught up in the event they absolutely have to be absent um to kind of mitigate the academic impact and then long-term independent study that is what we call Virtual Academy so for students um it technically is independent study but really we changing their program to be Virtual Academy and they're becoming online students and no longer they're no longer
033attending in campus or like Raina I don't know if I think you had talked about you guys do like a hybrid even just for some classes I was going to share a little more about that later I think there's another slide oh okay we'll get to you so if you want to go to the next one that's anus yeah anus okay some of this is like cut off I can't see the top but what the topic of the slide was but we have monthly challenges for perfect attendance uh we have Sora attendance Raffles Sor attendance raffle where we pull weekly for kids to get uh PBIS Rewards or certain uh gifts that we have for them we also have a golden metal Arch trophy that we put into classrooms that have the highest attendance for
034that week um I talked about the PBIS B bucks for students with perfect attendance for the month they may receive um extra points to purchase items from our store uh we're going to add the principal attendance celebration where students with perfect attendance for the month or quarter are invited to a special celebration that is something that we have not started yet but we actually will start to implement that as well as uh we give out quarterly certificates to students that have perfect attendance during that time and then for high desert um we have the attendance Expectations first of all being taught directly in the class and then um the student attendance success plan so for students that are struggling we actually have like a a plan where they make an action plan of what they're
035going to do to improve their attendance we also have quarterly attendance Raffles um we have semester attendance awards for perfect attendance and also commended attendance so students with 95% or better attendance um in addition PBIS rewards points their Avid class has a chart that says perfect attendance on it that's what you can see here and so every day that their class has perfect attendance they color in a letter and then when their class completes the word perfect attendance they have a class party and they can restart that as many times during the year to kind of do some pure encouragement to get their perfect attendance and like we mentioned that there's the the two sides one we're trying to deter Behavior but then also what are those incentives and so we also use PBIS rewards
036we give rewards for um students when they have an entire week of uh good attendance and and um they're able to purchase all kinds of things they're they like food food items uh snacks candy um items other things school supplies so I know that they that's been kind of um ramped up and then also um but I mean you got to keep in mind that the research shows that the the consequences and incentives that kind of gets um some of those middle kids that are kind of on the fence but if we're really going to Target those The Chronic kiddos the ones that essentially make my list every single week that's not you're not going to catch them with incentives as much as we love them as much as you know we we're trying to
037do consequences it's going to be and I know Michelle mentioned that like the meeting with them finding out Case by case what is going on um for and I'll give you some examples um for example one that sticks in a cou actually I just had it last was it mon no last week a student student she was um working at Jack In The Box getting off at 6:00 a.m. so then at 6:00 a.m. because you know she gets home imagine how much rest you're getting so she's coming in late every single day but you're not going to get that information unless you're really digging in deeper and seeing what what's going on so I do love that we have some alternatives for our kiddos um that for for her we we made it to where
038she is able to come in later so she's on a blended program so her first few periods of the day she's on L and the then she comes in what second or third period and then she could finish out the day other kids do it backwards um there's just different reasons um one Kiddo he has um family with severe medical things and he has to take care make sure his his parent has medication in the morning so he has a lot to do in the morning a lot of grown-up um responsibility so um yes attendance is important but it's also looking at those individual situations and seeing how you can help and again he was one that we put on a blended program um just looking and seeing what what can we do some students
039um and talking to them like wait why did you leave class early oh well I got finished with my assignment I was done I was I was a little bit bored so then those kinds of things tell us um then we need to go back at our staff meetings and look at you know our bell-to-bell instruction it's not it's not an attendance issue it's more of let's how do we have our lessons be so engaging that kids aren't wanting to leave 10 minutes before the the period so that's how we're decreasing a lot of the kids coming to class late trying to leave early in the treny throughout the day um again connecting with students yes we've done surveys home visits oh that one got us a a kiddo to come she she knew we
040were serious so she came to school um and she actually finished school early she's done she's gra officially graduated um but otherwise I don't know that she would have made that um so that's it I could go on for a while but it's it's looking at those kids Case by case I think that makes a huge so this is what I was sharing about earlier the student attendance review team so this is at the school level um and I won't reiterate but basically to identify all the things we talked about and then the next one talks about the School attendance review board so this is at the district level and again they what they would do um and then the next one so we talked about how parents can help um and then the next
041one is why attendance matters and the next one would be about resources um and so places where they can seek support um either in the community um and for you see like the the the supports are wide ranging because the reasons kids are absent are also wide ranging it might be a counseling need it might be um you know they're struggling in school and they don't want to sit in a class they don't understand or it might be a health reason or it might be Transportation or lots of different things so we we really try to work with families and the students to identify what is it what what is causing you to be late and how can we help so that you can be here every day so I think that's it yeah that's
042aw one I don't know if you guys have questions for us awesome thank you George do you wna jump in with any questions first yeah thanks I have a few questions do you see like The Chronic absenteeism at a certain level a grade level or is it kind of um level across all the the school sites I don't know if the sites have that data but I we're in my office we're working on um it's a spreadsheet that breaks it down by different different ethnic groups and for the it it breaks it down by grade level and it breaks it down by um the reasons for the absence whether they're ill or they're unexcused or they're going to the doctor like it lists all of our attendance codes we're in the process of filling that
043out for the last two years I could probably get that information to you by our next meeting so you see specifically do you see a common denominator of why you know why students are absent I remember I used to sit on the SAR boards a lot when I was uh doing the juvenile IMPACT program and a lot of the problems were the were the parents not dropping their kids off on time and just being kind of lazy with their education so do you see a common denominator in in in any of schools um for from a site level I would say uh yes you're right it mostly is not the kid um but what I have seen um just having been before and after covid um before covid you guys were asking about numbers our
044district sat about 95 96% attendance rate preco um as far as ada8 for after covid um it really dropped and we've been making significant progress in in increasing it but what I still see is every little sniffle the kid will be like oh I you know I have a sniffle I'm going to stay home or I you know I have a headache so I'm going to stay home and parents are still allowing that instead of saying okay you know you have a headache but you don't have a fever here's some Tylenol you're going to school or you know I mean like you have a sniffle let me give you some or a cough let me give you you know cough medicine like something to help with your symptoms but but every little thing for some
045families is like a reason to stay home um so some of them chronic ones that's what I'm seeing is just that overabundance I don't know if it's leftover from covid or what but it it just seems like like they haven't shifted that mindset of we really got to try to make it unless we're like vomiting or we have a fever and another thing that I saw and looking at our data in our district overall is we have a really disp portion amount of absences due to um illness where parents are saying the kids are sick Way Beyond the 10 absences and we weren't asking for a notes so what parents do is they know that an illness is an excused absence so they were kind of just taking advantage of that not realizing Al that
046you are going to hit that chronic absenteeism at 10% so and now that we now that the sites are asking for notes parents are more likely they're going to bring their kids more because they're not be able to get be able to say they're sick unless you know they're really sick so just so that I would expect to see that data and I'll have to look from last year because our chronic absenteeism did drop last year based on um the dashboard data and then we can get the high school data off of a data Quest um but I I I haven't yet looked at the reasons for absences so I'll look at that as well I think that spreadsheet we're creating um actually we'll shine a light on that as well too I imagine a
047lot of it has to do with that pre-o type of mindset when you're looking at your child and you're sick and you're like I don't want to send my child to get to school and get infect somebody else and you don't know what they have I think that stays in some parents Minds the ones that are doing the trying to do the right thing so I think that's a considerable factor to look at where whether you know if we reach out and communicate with parents and say hey you know what it's okay if they're if they don't have a fever or if they're have the sniffles that you can send them to school CU I think some parents don't want to look back and say here I'm sending my kid to school and they have
048a runny nose and they're and they're coughing and then now they look like a bad parent that they just sent their kids to school with these uh you know not not taking care of this kid putting them at home and sending them to the doctor so I think a communication piece is necessary to tell parents hey you know if it's if it's a simple no fever simple simple cold you know send them to school I don't know I defer to you you guys are the experts so I defer to you know whatever you guys are no that's exactly and so as we have conversations we agree it it's just that leftover like you know they don't want to get other people sick but um you know but unless you're really sick like come to school
049right my last question I don't know who can answer this one for the online program do we track any type of online activity I know there's no absent ISM but is is there any way do we track their online activity and say hey you need to log on at least once a once a week or can they go like a week or two without even logging on how does that work they have to log on every day oh they do okay yeah they and then there's a requirement for um them checking in too um I know I don't know exactly I need like Nicole or Alexa here but they have they're on I know at the high school they're on every day because kids check in at different times but there's a lot more kids
050on there I know Nicole chantu who does k through eight has office out hours pretty much every day and she has kids checking in some kids we require to check in so if we let us student go on Independent the on the acelis program um and they were having attendance issues before because that means you don't qualify we will put them on provision and because sometimes kids will uh have better attendance online and so um th sometimes we have kids check in every day but they have to sign on every day or they get marked absent and if they are absent um chronically at all like they they get have to come back to school in person we don't are those numbers tracked by the state as well are they are they kind of regulated
051by the state or no those numbers well it goes in it's it becomes part of I mean they they're on Aries just like um our regular kids that are here but I don't so it's actually um because it it's whether they log in they they have to actually complete work because um we had to clarify with some students that they they would just log in they'd be on for a minute it's like no no no no no and it wasn't us trying to be a bad guy it's just that this the requirement is that they have to complete work now I don't know if there's a certain um amount of work that they have to do but we designate like you have to have these goals um certain task amount of tasks and then that's
052how they get credit so and they also have to make academic progress if so as far as the amount of work they have to passing their classes or they have to come back okay if you're failing online there's contract if you're failing online we weero it you have to come back now I do wish that I because if I if I understand and I'm not um like Aries there's so much to it I think it compiles both of those things together online and are iners so I wish I could just de you know look at just our inperson and then versus our online because I think it does I think it does bring down our our numbers our percentage um like I think we had 91% our attendance percentage but you can run that you
053can run you can run your attendance based on your kids that are on you have a list of your kids that are on Virtual you could run an you could run that I'm sure there's a I'm sure there's a way I I was working with lanaa to try to figure that out and we were we kept pulling just it it would compile it all together so we'll work on that it would be nice to look at it separately yeah your virtual kids should actually have better attendance because if they don't come we you guys do it you make the kids come back to school in person so yes we do but um but on a daily basis I would say they're um if they've been on for a while and they understand the routine but
054if they've been on not that long ago then they think they can get away with it so it's just monitoring is is there a very low number of students who actually trans go back to uh in-person School based on non-compliance with the online or is it is it very low or is it I would say so I would say it's low so say a hundred kids go online I would say only less than five return because we're on them and we don't just say oh you had a bad day come back we we say hey the last couple days so we're always checking in on them like okay we're going to give you this these next this next week and if you don't do well you're coming back so we're always monitoring and checking and
055we're on them um so I would say a lot of them no no no okay I'll do better and they do so most of them were able to keep them you know in check thank you and when with our students at least at the middle school um it's not generally that they're coming back in person because they were not successful usually they miss being with their friends and they miss being with other people so we have a lot more kids actually returning they're able to do the work online they just don't it isn't what they thought it was going to be so so so at the middle school level that's what we have more when they return from online thank you that's all I have Brianna okay so um somebody said I don't remember who
056Michelle I think um said that after covid we've continued to go up in our in our percentage getting better um from the graph that Kai showed um at the beginning of this meeting and at the other meeting our Ada has gone down it was in 22 23 it was like 93% then 92 then 89.9 so 90% And then he has projected 91% for the next two years so we have continued to go down since we come came back from covid in the 2122 school year um I I should have missed I was speaking about High Desert data I actually don't have access to the district data until it was presented so yeah as as a district that's that's fantastic so but as a district um it's concerning to me that's that's why I wanted to
057address this here um in detail um because it is it has continued to go down so if we follow the trend this year we're at 90 % and next year we're going to be at 88% if we follow the trend of what we' been doing we're going to be at 88% and Kai has projected 91% and that's going to be a big difference um so this is something that we can't wait to see how things play out for another year um if we're going to be on track with budgeting we need to be at 91% next year otherwise we're in trouble as far as our budget goes um i i i in my opinion I think student learning and students attending school is more important than our budget um I know that might be a
058crazy thing as a board member to say but I I my focus is on the student learning but if we're going to drop another 2% like our trend is has been going um our student learning is going to be impacted as well and that's really concerning um so that said a couple of things when we're talking about tardies way back in the slide and we're talking about tardies and um I I just want to point out that when a student knows that they're going to be tardy or a family a mom knows oh my kid's going to be tardy again they always get mad at me forget it let's just stay home I guarantee you that's happening if we're if kids are getting in trouble or getting talked to when they're when they know they're
059going to be late on their way to school oh we're tardy let's just stay home and that's not good for anybody so yes let's attack tardiness um because that's important but I just wanted to point out as coming from a mom's point of view my kids at metalark had their own laminated tardy slips so I know how it feels to be that Mom that their kid is always tardy I saw some of those looks that you guys gave me I'm late all the time my mom was late I was late to school my kids are getting better but I was that Mom that said oh we're going to be late that lady that sits at metal Arc is going to be she's going to be rude I'm just not going to take them and that
060was five kids five kids not going to school that day because that lady that sat in the front she's no longer in our district but because that lady that sat in the front was going to be rude to my kids when I dropped them off so I just didn't take them so I just want everybody at every school to be mindful of how those conversations are going and I don't know how they go at your schools I'm sure I know that we have fantastic front office staff right now um hi kiddo um but I just want to be mindful of how we're treating those kids and making them not be too scared or nervous or just not want to deal with it coming to school late if they want to come to school at third
061period you know what come on that's come on come to school we want you here we just want to make sure that the the the what we're putting out to our families is that we want you here not why were you late we want you here no matter what how can we get you here um another thing that used to happen when um Lyn David was was in charge of attendance she was fantastic with attendance we had to call home um by 10 o'clock every day we had to call home every kid that was absent and um called to clear their absence we had to um ask why they were absent is there any way we can get you to come to school is there anything that we can do to help you every single
062day even though if I just talked to you yesterday and your kid was sick I'm still calling you again today how are they doing any chance they can come to school around noonish can we get you in um and partial day attendance is better than no attendance at all so we had to call um all three schools were were supposed to call and honestly I it helped me because I would go to school in the morning I would go to work in the morning and my I got a call that my kid wasn't at school he was at school so that changed his attendance he was actually there and he was mismarked so I was able to say oh no no he should be there but what if I thought he was at school and
063he wasn't really at school and something happened in that drive to school and here I am thinking he's at school and I'm not going to know it until I get the call at 6 o'clock p.m. when I get an automated call that's scary um so but those calls I did I was able to get several students in when I was the attendance clerk making those calls I was able to get students to come in and oh are you sure it's not too late no come on in um also making it a priority for parents to schedule their vacations um outside of school time I that I think that that's a big thing in our district is parents scheduling several vacations throughout the school day and then calling them in with the mouse flu because they're
064at Disneyland or things like that um just really reiterating to parent that just because you can take a vacation doesn't mean we should be taking vacations and I know sometimes it's not um not something we can help that's when the parents time off is but um just really stressing that that just because we're calling them in sick doesn't mean that that that absent is a freebie um STIs do we have do we have language that has gone out to parents letting them know of the changes and that that's available some parents don't even know that that's available um do we have anything that has gone out to parents any um anything at all um just one thing for you to know the phone calls back to that they are happening daily um so those calls
065are happening still um just so you know at High Desert is that something that's happening to all three schools or I know it happens at Vasquez I'm sure it still [Music] does anus is Dana making those yes it happens all three and Dana and Alex actually call throughout the day so we have a parents we have a link that they can sign on our website and in our newsletter that parents can click on and Report their attendance so if they don't report it there in their absence then uh Dana and Alex will give them a personal call yeah are those happening in the mornings in time for them to get get to school or in the afternoons um they happen throughout the day it depends on the uh activity that's going on in our office
066but when you just said to make to tell the parent you can bring them in I'm going to start having them add that because that is a piece that has not been added um so I will make sure that they're doing that and that they can try to call before 9:30 or that would be that would be great um yeah trained by ly David so there was that I have an advantage there I know how militant she was about attendance which is awesome so yeah definitely um with regard to your other question about short-term independent study um one of the things that came up at one of our principal's meetings um is just that we really do need to look at our independent study contract um because it is outdated and we need to update
067that language and so we're in the process of working on that um but yes we probably should send out like a more uh like a notice to people we I at least at High Desert we're communicating with people every time we talk to them like anybody I'm talking to about attendance like the type 1 diabetic student we were talking about that again today so anybody we talk to about attendance we are telling them um but we could definitely do better as far as uh sending it out you know like an all Call of hey if you're going to be out here's the directions and that can also be added to phone calls like um if you if your kid is sick and you know they're going to be sick for you know tomorrow and the
068next day let's do an SIS contract today um and if you could have that going through like Adobe or docu sign or something and have that parent do that signature right away um I don't know if there's somebody on your campuses that is available to do stas contracts um on a whim like that but I know um like at at our school at not at virtual because we don't do sis at virtual but at Sor prep that was part of my job as the attendance person um pupil Services technician sis um we did it right away so that even if they were going to be absent for that one day let's do that s contract right now let me shoot it out to you on Adobe parent signs it we get it back we've collected
069Ada for that day so then that kid isn't absent for that day or you know if if it really helps now that it's gone back to one day when it used to be five then oh well we're only going to be out for four days so we'll just take the absence um whereas now even if they're out for one day in those phone calls you can say can can we do an a short-term independent study contract that way your student isn't missing out um I think that if we can get parents that are doing the onesie TWY absences um get that to do sis contracts that way the kid is doing the work that's not the same as butts and seats but it's second best um and I think that that might that might help
070a lot for the onesie TWY attendance yeah Mo'Nique does that at High Desert um as our attendance Clerk and she um offers all kinds of things you know to parents and is really good at accommodating them um I think where we need to go is what you're saying about the docu sign because we still don't have an electronic way to get that communication faster and quicker so we need to update that part of the process because we're kind of old school on that part do you guys have Adobe um we don't we don't have the docy sign part of adobe no what are you talking about virtual but we're working on it yeah so that's I know for me like now I'm at virtual so I send out all of my Master agreements I send
071out withdrawal forms I do everything over Adobe sign whatever everything is is signed through Adobe with our parents um you just don't have that here yeah so maybe maybe that's something that I don't know Paula if that's something that you look into or we have cabinet tomorrow so I'll talk to Eric about it tomorrow check our it guys about like how we go about getting that she are sitting right here they probably know a little bit more about that but I I'll talk to Eric about that tomorrow we'll follow up on that and then um we can look at it sounds like somebody you are using the short you're using the independent study form there's a short there's an old shortterm one it just needs to be updated because it has a lot of language
072on there that no longer applies yeah so I don't know if we have a an editable form of it I I they probably have some kind of way that they can collect those signatures because if we're already sending out enrollment forms for our families it would be the same process so I'm quite sure well Caesar probably could give more information on that but I'm quite sure that's a document that we can create and we all can use the short term the other piece that we're working on is just the work completion part because um just for equity and access like not all kids have access to um a computer or a Chromebook at home so I know that's something that we need to look at um because definitely a kid with technology access they can
073log in and do their work that's assigned on Google classroom but if they don't have one getting them that so that way they can actually do it while they're home and return it when they come back that's that's another thing we're working on are we still checking out Chromebooks for kids that that need them um not as readily as we were before um we we just we don't have enough for every kid to have a home one and a school one and so um one idea that the tech committee had floated around a year ago was about um you know switching to a checkout model like just checking them out and kids bring them every day um so that's nothing's decided everything is just in discussion right now as to what would be the best
074option because we we don't have enough Chromebooks to check out to every student um and and for them to have one in class but the ones that we know and we've talked to and need it we've been able to accommodate them so they've picked one up at the district office so again it's Case by case I mean we don't advertise it like everybody come get one it's just whoever needs one and we we work it out right that makes sense um do you guys do mtss type things as a district or as a school probably both we do it as a district so we have a regular mtss team that meets monthly it's been pretty consistent it's been meeting the four years that I've been here so we do that here I believe that the
075I know at Vasquez when I was there we did it through leadership I'm sure they still are can let the principal speak to the site plans so I know that Michelle you shared your um your attendant mtss sort of model um I was just wondering if there was a a metalark and a Vasquez like the same the same type of thing for metal Arch and Vasquez yeah I mean it's the same I think it's the same pyramid that you saw the tiered system and is it weekly or by every other week I think because we're we're getting the same information and then that's just we're sharing it with our teams um and of course we have similar situations with when we have our meetings um and it sometimes that might lead to some a different
076type of meeting in SST where we need to be more put more things in place but yeah it's the same I think the same similar diagrams okay so you guys everybody has the same attendance plan that that high desert shared well we all have an attendance plan it kind of changes according to the grades like some of the things that she has in her attendance plans they're not in my attendance plan but the overall expectations of what should be in our attendance plan is in all of ours like the mtss tier ones two and three those are in everybody's we can even I mean it's a similar uh pyramid for behavior and for social emotion we look at that also for academic so that bottle gets used for a lot of different um topic areas
077if you will and it's all K through 12 well TK prek through okay um so I guess moving forward um the the goal is to improve um and stop the the steady decline of our overall Ada and and start to improve um I know like the immediate goal would be to match the 91% of Kai's budget for next year um but I would love to have better attendance than that I I know that we would all love to see be back up in the the 95% um so I would love to see the lcap what you have for goals on the lcap um and then maybe get um if we could do quarterly updates either um at in an ed um committee meeting or in a board meeting um something where we can see what
078what's working um Miss Jones you had said was it you that said you had um you had a list of things and then you said we haven't started this yet but we're going to start this and we're going to start the last two bullet points you hadn't started yet but you're going to I would love to see after you know a little while of doing those things how they're affecting attendance at your school I think those are really great ideas and I would love to see how they're impacting um and then how we are going to raise that ADA and raise raise the attendance and if we're steadily declining we can't keep doing what we've always done so you guys are doing amazing things but mixing it up and maybe sharing within each other and
079saying well this is what I do I you know I have these 10 things that we do and maybe somebody has something that you're not doing and you can swap ideas and share and if we're always doing that same thing and our attendance is slowly going down by a you know a percentage point every year and we need to do something different so I think really making the attendance initiatives a huge priority um on campuses um and within within staff and parents and let us as a Schoolboard know how we can help um and if purchasing a program to where you guys can send out Master agreements for um for STI yes or you know sending things out like that if we need to purchase a program to make that easier on you and your
080staff by all means let's let's look at it let's get it um I just wanted to share that like the things that you're seeing it's hard to tell over time so like for example our perfect attendance this is our first year doing that and our Raffles this is our first year doing that so there's like the things that are listed some stuff is from before but every year we we've kind of added and adjusted and changed this is our first year doing the Student Success meetings um postco um so do you know I don't know if that makes sense like we are doing new things every year we're not like continuing to do the same things it's just when we're summarizing it it's like these are all the things we're doing this year um the
081other piece too that I would say is just the um for the biggest impact that I saw our school was cruising clear up until we hit January and then we hit January with weather and um every day that Vasquez closed High Desert attendance took an impact and I'm not saying Vasquez should have been opened but if a family has already one kid they're not dropping off the same thing happens if metal art gets out early or if Basquez has an early day everybody picks up their kid from High Desert also because they're like I'm only driving once um yeah when you have to drive three miles up a dirt road just to get to school right so so that's what I'm saying um one of the things when we were talking about the technology access
082at home one of the considerations too is that in the event that we can't open school because we don't have power we don't have water if we switch to having kids have Chromebooks um that they're checked out to them we could more easily switch to distance learning that day and they could potentially access from home not the distance learning is the best but it would be better than just being closed and having that learning loss for the day so just to you know I mean kind of toggle back to that um because that I will tell you our our attendant we were cruising we were looking at like 93% for this year at least for high desert on the data I was looking at and it was like 76 for January it was really it
083January crushed our average I think that's a great idea and I definitely support that option I mean I think that's that should be just a common sense practice if you're not going to school here's a Chromebook to finish the uh or to at least you know gain some knowledge through the online platform yeah that sounds great except for the kids that are on the on the grid for the school and they don't have power either so there needs to be a a plan for those kids as well um so like if metal Ark and high desert are open um I in my opinion and I'm just I'm just a you know one person but having an area on um High deserts campus or the district office or metal ark or nth graders go to High
084Desert and you know 10th graders go to the do something where we can just switch and have them you know come to where we have power we have warmth we have food we have power we have flushing toilets come do your work and here you can use one of our Chrome books for the day do your work and then go home you know when you're done with your work for the day something where we're still offering those students um a way to log in would be great but we can't just say Okay Vasquez is closed so everybody does distance learning except for you kids that are you know live up Red Rover you can't do distance learning either so now you just get an absence for the day that would not be fair um so
085we definitely need to have some sort of a plan for and that would be the same for high desert kids if High Desert is is off and and the other schools are open you know we do need to have some sort of a plan if we're going to say sorry George I definitely agree I I just think that you know like you said I don't think they should get an absent for that day the students who can't log on but I think the people the students who are willing to they want to learn then maybe they just have an option if they're able to I mean if you have if I send you home and you're able if you live outside to act where you have power and you want to log on there should
086be some type of educational option for you but definitely not to penalize anybody who doesn't have that option as well I think that's a great point you mentioned so I just want a couple things that there's a new um that law requiring us to create a continuity plan um that's a it's an addendum an addition to our comprehensive safety plan for our district and the continuity plan actually addresses the the things that you're talking about um in the event like for example what happened with us when we didn't have power what will we do so these are some really good ideas um that we'll have to kind of consider like which things can we do and I will say in cabinet we've already that we've had the discussion just as recently as last week about
087what it would cost to have oneon-one Chromebook so in the event kids were off for two or three days they would have access to um curriculum and I like the idea and I think we can figure out a way to do that is to have kids who didn't have access to electricity go to one of our other schools um so we'll kind of have to talk about that as team like how would we who could we house where could we house them um and make that part of the continuity plan for districts to continue to be able to apply for wavers when we have natural disasters like the um electricity going out for them for districts to be able to actually apply for those waivers they're going to have to have this continuity plan as
088part of their comprehensive safety plan so um I can make that as we kind of move forward working on that I can make that a topic with this team too because it really should be a collaborative effort as it relates to creating that plan uh and then another kind of interesting so I'm going to look at this so our chronic absenteeism rate declined significantly last year that should have increased our Ada um so I'm going to kind of look at those numbers and kind of see where the difference is because if your chronic absenteeism rate declined that means kids were at school more um I mean maybe something else offset that because that means you could have had more kids absent but they just weren't chronically absent so that that population of kids could offset
089that so we we need to look into our data a little bit more um hopefully that chart I was talking about the uh spreadsheet that we're creating maybe also will shine a light on that because I think that's interesting that our chronic absenteeism rate declined which means the kids that were chronically absent are going to school more but if our Ada dropped that means overall we still had more kids absent so that's kind of interesting that is interesting [Music] I'll look into that but yeah it I love attendance sheets and looking at all that data and why this and why that this group of kids how can we target this group of kids um when I was at high desert and when I was at Sor prep and then here also at virtual we don't
090I I've been on the mtss team like trying to um really focus on those kids that need the extra the extra ex ra supports so um thank you guys for doing what you do um and I'm I'm definitely looking forward to seeing those those trends go up yeah me too um so if we're I'm I'm done with my questions I think I have sticky notes all over my desk now um so I am done with my question questions if any do do we have anything else to Michelle I'm sitting over here and I have my heater on and I'm freezing my desk heater's on this is the joy of being old I'm older than you what by six months you're making me like I'm over here freezing my fingers are freezing I'm like rubbing my
091hands together it's freezing over here well if I was closer you would see my face and everything is bright red and on fire right now so I'm sorry um okay so future agenda items um Paula do we have or George either either one do we have a future agenda items well our next meeting is April 15th I mean based on some of the things that you guys asked for is some lcap numbers so I put a note on that I also um would like to be able to share with you some of the data sheets the ones I've shared with you they should be done that might you know give us answer some of these questions or at least give us some more data to kind of get a better understanding where we might want
092to focus next so um I'm not sure beyond that that sounds great I don't have anything else that sounds good okay I can I'm just looking at my notes I took a lot of notes but kind of those were the two main things was looking at the alab numbers telling you where we are um and then looking at the data sheets and I'm and then my just thing was just kind of The Chronic absenteeism rate versus the um Ada so just kind of again that's kind of interesting because you would think if one dropped the Ada would go up um and and if if not obviously we want to continue to focus on chronic AB cism as well but we sounds like we might need to like widen our net a little bit so the
093data should maybe the data should give us more information to help us like I said determine next dips so I'll look at those three things and then if you think of anything to um that you want to add to the next agenda just let me know um and I'll do the [Music] same okay I have something in mind but I do want to talk to Dr sahakian first okay so somebody will let let you know if we decide to throw that on there as well okay and then I'm going to when I get done here I'm going to um link the um slide presentation that our principal shared to this agenda and I'll just email it back out to you just so it's in the top of your email so that way if you want
094to download either one of the slide presentations you'll have them okay and then will that also have the links that um Michelle touched on yeah because when you yes when you open her the presentation that the principal's put together all their links will be in there perfect that'd be cool yeah I'll do that thank you guys so much thank you guys for all right we've kept you late enough have a great night thank you bye