001welcome everyone we call this meeting to order at 6:30 pm. on February 27th 2025 get a roll call please ball Graff here may is here yes's here Brianna Texon here mascon here can I get a motion to move the agenda I'll move I'll second Eric there are no changes to the agenda thank you all right any public participation not at this time let's vote call the question for the agenda F graph I may I I Brianna ton I mascan I any public participation and not at this time thank you all right this time we'll adjourn to close session where we'll speak about conference of Labor negotiators Public Employee discussion discipline dismissal or release conference with legal counsel or student matters can I get a motion call the question F graph I maai thisai Brianna ton
002I masc I we adjourn to close session at 6:31 p.m. e e e thank you for your patience everybody um we reconvene our this board meeting at time 7:36 p.m. you lead us in the flag ready begin I plance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic Nation God indivisible with liy and justice for all Mr F gra would you read the civility statement yes and I will break it several times a night civility statement when conducting the district's business we will strive to communicate clearly and concisely for the with a respect for the time of others listen objectively carefully considering the opinions of others understand the counterproductive effects of disrupt demeaning and intimidating behaviors understand and respect District policies and procedures and maintain a respect for the rich history
003of the district and the efforts of those who have served in the past thank you Mr F gra I have a report closed session the board by unanimous vote took action and closed session to approve the staff recommended the staff recommended to expel student 40022 2 3 4 we have any public comments we do but I believe and correct me if I'm wrong there two for options for youth but I believe they'll like to speak um right before agenda item 11a ofy Charter renewal correct excellent correspondence proposed proposals and reports add a represent there I didn't have to do it this time um good evening just uh updates we're looking forward to um sharing uh with you soon an employee satisfaction um survey that Atta took for all of the Atta members um we'll um
004so hopefully that will we'll have the numbers for that soon we only um we don't have quite everybody yet we're hoping a few more trickle in so we can give you a a good um a good view of how our employees are feeling and how and maybe some of their needs that aren't being met we can we can address those issues and then um our contract negotiations are going on um they've been going well and uh we're looking forward to the good teaching conference here in a couple of weeks that's thank you thank you CA representative out tonight student representative to the board good evening everybody um today I'd like to start with high desert middle school some haulk highlights for everybody student Alexander gon Gonzalez is always being respectful to her classmates and maintaining
005a smile and a positive attitude Jordan Herrera is constantly choosing the op that benefits everybody not just himself Leila paru Ani has been very helpful and a great leader in ASB including taking initiative to ensure decorating for the dance was done not only by the teacher but also by students Miss Marilyn Alford Walsh is exemplifying the medal Medal of Honor core value of sacrifice her dedication and willingness to put the needs of others first as she leads by example is amazing her service to the school and Community is immeasurable Mrs Paula Herrera is working diligently behind the scenes to support our multilingual Learners she truly loves the students and their families and wants them to be successful some past events for the Hawks Engineers week presentation was on February 21st thank you to Bill Schneider
006rayan Harris Ted and Ted Leonard for sharing their love of engineering and inspiring the Next Generation to pursue engineering career paths The Impossible science fair at cesson was held on February 25th 7th grade students participated in the science fair with Hands-On projects and touring the season campus as part of as part of the Avid College and Career Focus class High Desert hosted Avid professional development yesterday for all the certified staff in our district Li Liz Kenny and an avid trainer provided Hands-On Hands-On practice with supporting students through focused note taking High Desert enjoyed having all the teachers together for food learning and kodie kod kod camaraderie thank you everybody I had to help you that's terrible so embarrassed Medal of Honor Medal of Honor Mentor day our eighth grade Hawks have been working hard this
007year going into the fifth and sixth grade classrooms to share lessons on Medal of Honor core values the lesson this month is honoring African-American members of the military who have received the Medal of Honor although they were not a although they were not able to be rewarded at them of the medal at the time of their heroic actions their service has not been forgotten and they are still continued they still continue to be recognized today some upcoming events for the Hawks High Desert is starting its first ever robotics Club led by parent volunteer Mrs Smith and teacher adviser Mrs goodstein they are working on building a Lego robotics team to one day enter into competitions High Desert invites everyone to join them for their steam night on March 13th at 5:30 p.m. it will be
008a great night exploring science technology engineering art and Mathematics some athletic updates for HDs HDs has has had two teams this year for JV boys basketball and brought home second and third place trophies this was our first year in the JV league in Santa Clarita and we are looking forward to seeing the the program grow even more next year thank you to coaches Lisa and Justin mcwilson for their great work with the students Varsity boy and girls soccer are off to a great start to the season they are really enjoying being able to play the home games with our new scoreboard and championships are set for March 17th at Basquez High School JB flag football tryouts for the JB flag football team were last year or I'm sorry last week excuse me sorry and the
009team looks forward to starting the season next week they are such there was such a huge turnout at the tryouts that the Hawks are considering at the considering having two JB teams this season JV girls volleyball team has been set and they they will be starting practices next week thank you to all the parents for their constant support and to our HDs coaching staff for their commitment to developing our youth some campus updates HDs lower field ribbon cutting is on February 28th at 3:30 p.m. we look forward to seeing everyone at the ribbon cutting tomorrow it will be a great opportunity to honor all the people who made this possible for the students join them at the ribbon cutting ceremony at 3:30 tomorrow and stay for the community soccer game right after moving on to
010Vasquez High School some highlights of the past two weeks on February 25th students went on a campus tour to csula and to learn about the great campus activities clubs GPA requirements to play sports and their great programs such as nursing engineering film forensics and Aviation some past events on February 19th the counselors met with seniors to complete their fall ABC application the VHS counseling team has been going to High Desert for the past couple of weeks to provide students with additional support in academic planning and goal setting for their freshman year of high school some athletic updates swim season has kicked off this week and students have been early risers to practice early as early as 4:30 in the morning coach Denise Seymour has done an an excellent job recruiting a large team and building
011excitement for it our track and field students are training in the community coaches IV and Dawn are eager to see multiple athletes qualify for CIF prelims this year boys varsity volleyball is currently leading 3 to zero in games and continues to win throughout the season moving on to metalark Elementary earlier today metalark hosted student performances in honor of black in honor of celebrating Black History Month St classes are currently learning how to code our Bots and how to blast mixing chemicals to observe different reactions in addition we are preparing for an exciting stem project and need the community's help please donate empty toilet paper worlds and empty paper towel rolls for our students to use in the special activity any contributions will be greatly appreciated and that is all for my report tonight thank you
012superintendent report thank you board president Tonight Tonight I'm excited to take you all on a journey through our schools each quarter each quarter we will shine Spotlight on one of them starting with metalarc Elementary moving on to High Desert and wrapping up the school year with Vasquez High School through these highlights we'll celebrate the incredible work that's happening at each of our campuses I'd like to begin this journey by calling up our medal AR principal Mrs anitus Jones for our metal Arch presentation for this evening Mrs Jones good evening to our board president masone and our board members as well as Dr sahakian and our community members and parents welcome I'm anus Jones the principal of Metar Elementary School here in Acton and I'm going to share some things that we're doing at our school
013uh I'm going to start with this is my second year at metalark and we took this past year to update our website for our school and we've added all of our information so that it's more accessible to parents so that they'll know what we're doing within our school we've also created a Facebook page and Instagram page for our uh families so that they can follow us throughout the day and see what we're doing actually live at school um in addition to that I want to highlight Lal Learning Center which is a part of middle art schol the programs in which they use there is Frog Street it's an integrated curriculum including literacy math cell lessons and stem steam they also include handwritings without tears and a writing program uh Project Lead the Way Miss Kenny
014Dawkins recently completed 17 hours of training and the Project Lead the Way launch program which Taps into students exploratory nature engages them in learning that feels like play with Hands-On activities that build each other in relation to the real world uh in addition to that they've had many successes at little all Learning Center uh they have high achievement scores when they come over to kindergarten they're well prepared notable improvements and Innovative teaching practices in which they all uh make sure they attend professional developments to keep up their teaching practices um I wanted to give a quick o Outlook of our cast scores for the 23 24 school year so that you can get a picture of where we're actually going for this school year and what we're aiming for so our third grade uh students
015in cast for math math actually went up they showed an increase from 2223 to 2324 by almost 7% um and in English they actually went down a little bit almost 4% in for 26% in 22 23 to 22% in 2324 uh so that was really great news that they actually went up almost 7% in their scores in math so that was great and we still have some work to do in our Ela program uh our highlights for fourth grade in cast testing they went down a little bit in mathematics about almost 3% but they actually went up almost 7% in reading so that was really great uh that they went up that much in our reading um in ela which is English language um and literacy uh what we're doing at metalark to help improve
016our test scores our goals for this school year and on is to familiarize students with the cast test format and question type strengthen key skills in ela and math align with stake standard State Standards develop test taking strategies to build confidence and stamina utilize data to guide instruction and intervention we've put together a plan for the next seven weeks where we will actually Implement strategies and include it has it also includes professional development where someone from Leo will be coming to our school and working with our staff on implementing strategies that are needed so that our students will understand the cast test format and be able to answer those questions with you so we are working diligently and making sure that we are uh targeting our students where they are and giving them the interventions
017that they need to move them um move that needle for our casts for um our timeline that we're going to do for our cast uh planning that we're doing for our schol the phase one of it is Baseline and goal setting we're doing that for the month of February where we're using our I data to drive our instruction and our students are working and our teachers are working really hard in aligning our cast um standards along with what we're doing with our I reading and math um in March they're going to do targeted skill building and they have comprehension checks uh for writing and understanding how to respond to performance task and things of that nature across the board consistently in grades three and four and as well as our other grades from one through
018two we're using the race strategy which will help them to construct responses that are needed for them to pass um any assessment that they take espec especially in any format of testing that they complete and we also have writing assessments that are done quarterly to make sure that our students are on target with writing papers that require an opinion it's a narrative or um an expository paper uh we're doing the same in math we're emphasizing problem solving strategies and multiple steps problems as well as lending our math curriculum to focus on discourse so our students are doing a lot of talking within their math and they're able to explain the operations and um the mathematical vocabulary that they need use the mathematical vocabulary that is needed to understand and develop their math skills uh the
019timeline to continue we're going to do some practice tests uh some other test taking strategies that will be included and then finally in may we will actually take the cast um assessment our focus on literacy and intervention uh we have now expanded our literacy support program so we have sore uh program that's reading intervention for our students we completed our I assessment in January and we found that we had a large amount of students that were struggling with phonics and femic awareness so we sat and we actually revamped our curriculum in our store program and if you come to our school now and you watch our children in the store program you can see how quickly they're developing those skills that they're needing so what we're putting in place now which was taking um about
020a year or two to get kids to show just a tiny amount of of growth is now showing growth within six to eight weeks um the teachers are now coming to us in our sore program and telling us that they can see the work that we're doing in sort and how it's translated into their classrooms so I'm very excited about that our uh structure within our school within our for our teachers we developed u a reading block where not only are the students divided according to red green and yellow red meaning you need the most intensive support yellow means you need some kind of intervention in place and green means that you um mastered that particular skill so our sore program takes all of our red students that have been identified and in the classroom
021the teachers are implementing a similar format with different materials to meet the not needs of those students that fall in the yellow and green category so that's either targeting the instruction for our yellow students to get them to Mastery and our green students that have mastery um giving them instruction that will push them Beyond um the level in which they're currently performing our new Initiative for our steam program at maker space I'm really glad that it's something that we started talking about here in the district because our students are loving maker space uh each Tuesday Wednesday and Thursday they have classes scheduled all day we currently have 15 classes that come weekly uh Miss Coleman also attended a project leadway Workshop to learn how to incorporate technology and other Concepts into the curriculum we use
022in maker space uh our Focus has been on engineering and design process creative problem solving basic coding with bbops and scratch Jr um exploring shapes and structures light Shadow simple machines circuits and electricity and also using our 3D printer and wood making machine within our maker space I invite each and every one of you to come and see our students in the space because it is just remarkable here I selected some pictures you see Mrs stacker is the teacher and she's teaching the kids this is the very first lesson where she was introducing the um Bots and our kids work with this from kindergarten all the way through fourth grade so they're decid at on this particular lesson they're actually trying to figure out how to make it move forward to the back to the
023right to the left and then now they've progressed to where they can give the bot a voice they can um give it voice directions they can now um Cod it to make several turns uh she gave them mathematical problems or equations to solve and they had to create a pathway to get to the end of that they built uh during the Valentine uh during Valentine's Day that they had to construct powers to see how high they could get it they did chemical reactions using vinegar and some other solutions to see how you could divol dissolve the kissed candy of how fast it would dissolve according to what um chemical reaction it made with the liquid um that they were using um here's a sample of a video of our kids that were programming um the
024different people have programmed them to say different things at different times get ready for the cheers you can make it it okay we got one minute so excited and these are the types of activities that you will see if you come into our room this week uh Dr sahak actually came to visit and he saw the kids where they were trying to balance um to see how you can take a piece of wood and they had paper and they were doing an accordion style to see how heavy you could put something on this before it would collapse and they were get so C creative that they were taking their shoes off they were stacking their shoes high U you could here the discourse with them trying to figure out how to make it stand and
025not fall over so they're really having those more in-depth conversations when it's centered around learning um staff communication there's a principal Jones Monday memo that goes out every single Monday to our entire staff um it covers our resources for staff it has all the forms and documentations documents that are needed our minutes from any me meetings that we're having and so much more is included in that uh Monday memo that goes out each month um our students are engaging in extracurricular activities um step up to tutoring which is a free math program and they can get tutoring within their home we have a student council for our fourth grade um they've worked this year to collect food for um different organizations they also did a drive for the families that were in the fire so
026our students collected clothing and whatever they could get from the community and they actually took it to the fire department so could share the um items that were collected with people that were in need we have a choir that comes for during their lunch we have over 60 students that signed up for our Garden Club that started a few weeks ago and our garden is starting to look beautiful in the front of our school so that's something else you can come and take a look at in a few weeks uh we have two classified staff members that every Wednesday they decided to um introduce Sports to our students they do it on their own time uh they they worked with bat M um handball and different at um tether ball they're teaching the kids how
027to play the older games that they don't normally know the rules of so and the kids that recess you can see them like running to go and play those games because they know the rules and they know how to teach all the other kids how to play them so um in our upcoming we're getting ready to start a drama club where we have a teacher that's going to um work with students she volun during her time and she'll do it after school and the kids will come and they'll learn put on a play from that we also have a first grade play that will happen at our school on March 6th and 7th and if you're free please come at 9 o' in the morning to watch our first graders in their uh play I
028do a schoolwide communication where every week at metalark we send out a weekly parent newsletter and in that newsletter it covers everything that we're going to do for the week it has um different types of activities that parents can engage with with their students if they're struggling in reading math or social emotional uh needs all of that is included in that newsletter family engagement uh the parent communication as I told you our Weekly Newsletter we also have volunteer opportunities where parents come into our school and they help work with our students they also help our teachers um and then they do um anything that we ask them to do within the office they'll support us uh we have workshops and educational support we are currently uh seeking and searching for an organization that is willing
029to come to our school and partner with us to provide English classes to our Spanish-speaking parents at the time that I wrote this which was a few weeks ago we now have identified an organization of golden o school that is willing to come to our school and work with our families that want to learn how to speak English so we're um doing some research on how we can what is need needed to get them to come here to provide those Services uh we continue to have our Hispanic heritage festival our family picnics ra of tables Book Fairs and assemblies at our school these are some examples uh samples of that some pictures you see at the top it was our U Hispanic Heritage Month celebration we had over 350 parents to show up our kids
030had an assembly for BMX bike that was during uh Red Ribbon we we also have had uh that's our family picnic that we had where we had um over 800 families to come through for family picnic that's our parades of table that our parades of table were our uh PTO staff PTO members not staff create a beautiful table they always do really great work and that's the uh Committee of people that were there to support and then [Music] um this is our third and fourth grade assembly that was our First Assembly of the year it was our award ceremony and that was our First Assembly the PBIS assembly where we actually go over our uh school rules we do our schoolwide expectations where everyone knows what is expected within our school and our students um
031know how to behave in the cafeteria in the hallway on the playground and in the classroom um we have a social emotional learning uh cell initiative where we're working with Weare there are students that are having difficulty with self-regulation or trauma or getting the support that they need with a social worker they're able to get um oneon-one um therapy pretty much with a certified social and emotional um social worker she's a therapist she's really great with our students uh her name is Emma and she's new to our school district I don't know if I should have said her name or not but she's awesome and she is really great with our kids upcoming events at metalark uh March 3rd through 7 we had read Across America we have our talent show in April uh Kindergarten
032Roundup April 16th and 17th we have our VIP breakfast for our families uh parent volunteers that we do we'll have open house May 15th we'll do the Senior Walk which is June 4th we have a schoolwide carnival that we're going to do on June 5th we invite everyone to come out for that because it's going to be the first Carnival that we're having at our school uh we plan to have rides games um all sorts of things it'll be a great time for all and we have our fourth grade promotion on June 6th these are the big items that we're having at our school for the rest of the school year future goals at metal art I kind of won't get all into that but these are some things that my staff and I have
033talked about at metalark uh social emotional learning specialist if we ever can get to that point I know um we've talked about getting some interns and things of that nature so we are looking at that and those interns will provide support for our students that fall in a tier 2 category to help them with self-regulation to give them someone to talk with um to do small groups and help them to understand how to regulate themselves at school to also provide a sensory or break room within our school so that we can provide a space for students that um sometimes have difficulty managing their emotions and calming down so those are some things that we're really hoping for and wishing for that maybe one day will get at metalark thank you for listening to um my
034presentation about Metal Arch I'm really proud of my school and I love my family and children at that school thank you Bo [Laughter] comment oh don't don't leave okay here we go you had your You Had Your Shot we we're talking about her presentation you don't have any questions Natalie no thank you for the presentation all right I'll make that's very cool that you you know what's going on that school she can use your report to give her presentation I think that's wonderful okay at up here where I see it I'm not an educator that's pretty obvious I'm looking for safe environments and I'm looking for uh they're just productive for everyone there so I appreciate that um I'm can just go with that what's really important to me is that everyone at every campus
035here understands that eel is a federally mandated program it's not an elective I hope everybody hears what I'm saying there um You Can't Hide on Google it looks it looks like in your background about the time of title one where people were being punished with program Improvement does it sound familiar to you that you were sent into very focused environments where the scores were dismal and you would bring up scores unless Google is lying the same thing you're doing here I'm so glad you're here tell me if you can or just tell me don't ask that question how do you go from being high highly motivated as a consultant and knowing what needs to be done and and trying to bring that into some new environment where it requires staff Buy in you want me
036to tell my secret here in front of every yeah because I'm GNA do it tomorrow and make money if you tell me how can't go in and change anything um right off walking in because that causes a lot of problems with them in school so my plan here has been the first year when I walked in I looked at our scores and I saw where they were and what we were doing as I walked around and saw what was happening in school so my first thought was if I can get everyone to um start with small groups in rotation and that they're actually able to manage the classroom and manage how our students are moving in the classroom I didn't necessarily focus on what was being taught in those uh rotations but can you manage
037it and can you set up those rotations within your classroom and I also was grateful that we received I ready because I knew that if my teachers put the students on I ready that was going to fill in the gaps that they were missing while they were learning how to set up their classroom for what I wanted them to do this year so that was really all I did last year was trying to maintain what was whatever was going on in school and implementing those two things and then this year I came in um with the mindset of looking at sore uh for the past three years and how our kids were moving how many students were in sore the amount of time they spent in sore the growth that was made in sore and
038my Initiative for this year was to change store what are we using in store because I felt that the materials that we were using weren't beneficial to our students um so I took what they were using as before and I actually gave it to our teachers to use so that they would now have um a curriculum that they were using with some Fidelity and all the kids would be getting the same instruction at the same time using those materials while I worked on changing what I was doing in store because those students need more intervention so now uh that we have the right people in place uh people that are motivated and really want to see our students succeed we're now able to see that growth quicker than you've probably seen in the last three
039years um as I stated in my presentation now that we've changed the curriculum you're now seeing grow within six to eight weeks and it's not taken a year or two years to see trainy grad you're seeing like a lot of V within all time and we're progress monitoring weely so if there are Concepts that are Tau that starting on Monday and on Friday there's a check for Mastery if they don't have it we're immediately changing what we're doing and then with the next two or three days we go back and we change and we change and then we go back and we take for Mastery again and then we move them on so it's not giving them the same material and not getting uh prodject uh we also look at teach and arcave comprehension strategies
040text taking skills all of that is now done within Source we use the components of Science of reading within there so we're covering the vocabulary the fonics the um theic awareness the fluences it's all Incorporated embedded in one lesson and it's not taught in isolation the way that it was before so you'll start to see that growth um I also identify strengths and concerns within our teaching staff and assigned uh someone that could go in and give them um individual support and they can trust this person they can talk to this person I'm not a part of that I don't know what they their coners ations are about it's all about the teacher identifying what their strengths and weaknesses are and the person actually working with them and developing a plan and coaching them to
041where they need to be so once everyone gets on board and knowing how to implement those groups within their classroom and what we're doing in thort you'll start to see the results then next year I have another step that's going to put the icing on K and we just start to see the growth after that cool so I think ultimately the the the measure of your success will be displayed when the cohort moves to miss van oram's school and then we'll will determine how um ready they are to be there I would suggest that you invite the um off facilities and finance and educational subcommittees on an educational visit to your school to point out highlights and the staff I'm glad you're here using your skill set I want to give a shout out to
042um the teacher at your school um two of my kids have gone through the school Tammy was there for probably eight years and was a least functional person in the district kandra gra grabbed up a bunch of degrees at UCLA she's in her second year law school now and she would she's also employed by an entertainment company simultaneously besides her having my name um the teachers at matar were the biggest influence on in her life and I recognize that and some of them have been here many years so if when we can take that level of experience and commitment to the individual kids in our community regardless of what their capacity is low or high we'll have a winner and um like I said I like to hear up here when it comes to individual
043sites I want to hear that they're safe and I want to hear that the learning environment is productive and that's about all I want to hear Bill thank you sir um looks like the kids are having a great time we appreciate everything you're doing uh my grandkids will be starting to go there in the next couple years so I'm glad that you're getting everything up and ready for them so thank you great presentation and thank you for your hard work and dedication my first job in education was at metalark I was an hour and a half and I just played with kids on the playground and it was a blast I was 18 and that's all I wanted to do so metal Arch has was that I actually grew up here I don't know if
044you knew that um so metalarc as I was saying before I was I was metalark has a special place in my heart um I thank you for letting us see parts of what happens at metalark that we don't get to see so thank you for your presentation and really diving into what is happening at metal at its core um so thank you for the information yeah thank you very much uh for the presentation it's good to see everything that's going on there really nice to see the maker space being used as well I think that's uh empty for longer than it should have so it's nice to see that's uh that's being made good use of do you know what programming language they're using it's probably python righty yeah I would think so too um
045yeah and thank you for going through some of the details of the work you're doing to try to move things forward there so we certainly look forward to the results on that so thank you very much thank you a second call the question the jilan i m Bri t i Mas see all of you good evening my name is n Patterson I'm the director of Charter services for Acton say Unified School District um tonight we have a public hearing um for options for youth um Brian gesi is the principal and he will be doing the presentation tonight oh yeah um we have two we're gonna go ahead and uh open a public hearing at 8:14 PM February 27th 25 what's gonna happen Okay so currently we have uh student uh representatives from the school who
046would like to speak uh during the so each one of them will have the three minutes um to speak and then from there um Brian will present and he has approximately 15 minutes to present yes uhuh and then from there the board typically if they have any questions they will ask um Brian or the members that he has brought from the school um and typically it's equal time that they are given to answer and respond um who would like to go first Jaden green or all right state your name and where you from Jaden green I'm from Fontana and I went to offens good evening members of the aaga do school board my name is jadden green and I'm St here today as a recent graduate of options for I want to share my story
047with you because this school has truly changed my life before coming toy school wasn't something I enjoyed I started at edana high school and why things were great sometimes like being on honorable and playing basketball things eventually went downhill one day I quit the basketball team after a rough practice and and everything from there stopped going to class I stopped doing homework and eventually I was droing atanda I thought about giving up on high school entirely then I found offs for you I didn't want to be there at first I felt embarrassed about everything that happened but that changed when I met Mr sham one of the most car teachers I've ever had it took time to get to know me as a student he encouraged me every day and he believed in me even
048when I didn't believe in myself Mr Sean introduced me to the basketball team lfy and that's where I found my new beginning our coach is coach Tom Coach G and Co Jessica created a team where academics came first being on the team gave me a sense of purpose for the first time I wanted to be at school and we can spell too long at ofy I wasn't just the number the teachers and staff help me rebuild my confidence and gave me the tools to succeed with their support I earned my high school diploma and even won two Basketball Championships but more importantly I learned that it's never too late to turn things around now I'm heading to American Career College to join their nursing program I know it's going to be tough but my time
049I apply Tom anything is possible when you put in the effort I want to thank the teachers coaches and staff who supported me every step of the way ofy isn't just a school it's a place where students like me get a second chance I'm standing here today because of the opportunities and support I found there to the school board I hope you see how much orifi means to students like me it's not just about academics it's about changing lives thank you for giving me the chance to share my story and believing in the mission of options for you thank you thank you I'm Anthony jordano I went to upin options for you good even members of the school board my name is Anthony jordano and I'm honored to share a little bit about my journey
050with you tonight I first attended options for you to catch up on some credits so I could go back on track to my regular High School I thought I'd just be there temporarily but what I experienced at ofy changed my ways in life I never expected when I walked through those doors I wasn't just another student trying to make up L time I was treated like someone who mattered teachers like David Amador they didn't just teach they believed in me they went the extra mile to make sure I understood the material stayed on top of my work and felt supported not just in school but in life I could tell they genuinely cared about My Success even after graduation coaches like Tom and Jessica they also made a huge impact on me they pushed me
051to my limits as an athlete teach me to be disciplined and resilient but more importantly they preached academics first at ofy extracurriculars weren't just handed to us they were rewarded for doing well in school that mindset helped me stay focused and when I did well academically I got to enjoy some amazy sorry some amazing experiences like senior beach trip and prom another person who helped me tremendously with Sam my career way path count Pathways counselor with Sam's guidance I was able to create made a solid plan for life after graduation thanks for his support I am now three months two months away from becoming a hbac technician at UI college and I start working for the city of Rancho kukamonga in two honestly I don't know where I'd be without oy it gave me structure
052motivation and a sense of purpose most importantly it showed me that education could be personal supportive and even enjoyable I want to thank the board for giving me this time to tell my story and for supporting school as like option for because of this program students like me who might otherwise slip through cracks got a second chance I hope that future students will have the same opportunities to succeed that thank thank you for sharing uh good evening Dr sahakian and board members thank you for allowing me the opportunity to speak tonight I'm really excited to talk a little bit about our go to the next slide and if we're going to watch a video and give some highlights of of the option for youth program options for youth Acton understands that students seek Alternative Learning
053settings for a variety of reasons from the moment moment the student walks in the door they're guided through the entire enrollment process and instantly given access to a multitude of resources available to them as students of a Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act exclusive partnership school weoa is an integral part of the success of our ofy Acton students ensuring they are successful after graduation ofy act in as many Community Partnerships from day one our Workforce Partners manage students to ensure they're accessing all Workforce resources and completing all required activities being collocated with one of our weo partners means that students have the highest level of access to their case manager case managers will assist students in getting into workshops getting job training learning valuable soft skills and job placement as soon as they're ready to enter
054the workforce internships apprenticeships CTE programs and on-site job training are just some of the available opportunities students are assigned an independent study teacher that remains with them throughout the course of their high school education the purpose of this teacher is to not only educate but to Mentor guide and ensure the students are at the appropriate differentiated level of their assigned courses by staying with the same teacher throughout the four years of high school they're guaranteed to build a lasting relationship with an important member of their educational team the assigned curriculum is available in a variety of modalities the students have the choice between small group instruction classes online classes independent study work hybrid classes and even cohorts taking a closer look at small group instruction classes you'll see the class size remains below 15 students
055all of the classrooms are outfitted with state-of-the-art technological resources because of the small class sizes teachers are able to differentiate instruction BAS on the variety of different learning styles small group instruction classes also allow for alternative schedules and for students with chronic absenteeism to easily catch up internetwork Sports promote teamwork and soft skills students can play year round in an inviting and Equitable environment options for youth Acton has a robust student leadership program we understand that students feeling ownership empowerment and inclusion in school activity while at the same time impacting their Community is imperative for supporting the growth of responsible citizens options for youth act in partners with the pathways travel program providing students with the opportunity to travel the world while building character earning in education and learning [Music] Independence students can take advantage
056of our robust CTE program offering courses in information technology veterinary medicine technology construction and nursing we believe that all the opportunities and support that option for youth acting provides its students with is what makes us a critical stepping stone for their future success and the perfect alternative for reaching their graduation goals [Music] so this side shows that we have our eight Learning Centers opportunity to act in is proud to be a Workforce Innovation an opportunity to act exclusive partner our commitment is to provide students with a personable educational experience that prepares them for graduation and equips them with the skills and knowledge needed for success in their chosen College and Career paths ensuring students leave prepared to enter the workforce is our number one priority uh this is our mission statement as stated in our
057mission statement our school's purpose is to provide access and opportunity to all students and Empower them to reach their goals and dreams uh this is our Charters leadership team uh three principls that are here tonight Brock Champion myself Brian gpie and jod Marino um we have served students for the past seven years in AC our partnership with the district has been going strong for the past seven years um we look forward to continuing this collaboration collaborative partnership uh for years to come our educational model is designed to offer opportunities where i' promise you to recover academically and get back on track to earn a high school diploma and this is just a few ways that we do that as stated before ofy Act is an exclusively a we aligned and Workforce entered school every aspect
058of the school's instruction reflects WEA elements for example the school's exclusive instructional design that details how the school provides students access to all 14 elements um the wheel exclusive design describes balanced collaboration between the school and its wheel or Partners to ensure all students are prepared for college and the workforce in operates all we all elements and responsibilities into the School's daily practice serves as a guide to Workforce Centric instruction and this uh looks at some of the Partnerships we have we have strong relations and consistent communication with our partners including the collocation with Eis um in our Fontana one location the collocation ensures um our students have immediate access to the partner we continue to prioritize collaboration with our partners on their programming and ours to ensure alignment this is looking at weoa from
059the student perspective um the slide captures how all students have access to the WEA program components and is an example of what a student might experience at our WEA school we have dedicated staff that case manage students through our WEA programming based on their goals skills and academic needs and barriers students have been successful uh by working steadily with our partners starting immediately upon intake and ending 12 months past postgraduation School leadership is constantly monitoring student progress and Success Through each indiv student plan and and accountability measures that have been put into place this next side looks at who we serve um we have the privilege of serving at promise and underserved students who may have otherwise given up on their education and their high school diploma this slide looks at our special ed population
060um which continues to grow at a rate of about 1% per year um on average we serve a large population of students with disabilities our small intimate learning environment and personal connections with school staff contribute to the success of our students with disabilities the school's budget covers all costs associated with services for students with disability this looks at our English language Learners our bilingual Scholars as we call them goals for English language Learners align with the state and local priorities we monitor student progress towards reclassification using the lpac we follow our Eld master plan to ensure continuous Improvement of students becoming fluent in their use of English and we'll see some really um cool things that were um results with our English Learners a little bit later this is our enrollment projection we're excited about
061the growth over this Charter term and we expect that it's going to continue um due to enrollment Trends and the pace of families moving to the Inland Empire in High Desert um we definitely anticipate growth in the future uh our accountability profile this graphic graphic captures how we're held accountable as a charter school in California our dashboard alternative school status alternative metrics and state local indicators are essential to chartering this looks at our dashboard alternative school status the D C system is for schools Charter and non-charter alike that serve at promised students a505 provides for modified measures I.E alternative metrics to fairly evaluate the success and progress of alternative schools that serve at promise students this slide looks at our eligibility the slide displays our at promised student population for D eligibility criteria at the
062time of our 2024 application we serve a high population of students who are credit deficient to qualify for alternative accountability status an unduplicated count of at least 70% of the school's toll must be compromised at high-risk student groups oy active meets this Threshold at 83.3% required by the state to certify this at promise student enrollment moment for this alternative status a student is considered out promise if they meet one of the categories approved by the state of uh State Board of Education upon first enrollment at the school schools must apply for D status every three years we applied for D status earlier this year and were approved um this approval covers the school's St status from 2024 to 2027 established per assembly Bill 1505 these alterntive metric alternative metrics are the standards for ofy act
063in Charter rol as a Das School uh so we're going to look at some of the alternative metrics some that we're going to celebrate and some areas that we need to work on to the next one so a through G completion um the school is committed to Preparing students for college and courus demonstrated by their rise in a through G completion rates our expectation is that all students start on an A through G planning guide upon enrollment and we can see the numbers um year-over year have gone up we aim for students to show at least one grade level growth in a school year um on our reading and math um we continue to implement Freckle an evidence-based Intervention Program at the is independent study desk to drive growth towards grade level reading and math
064proficiency for our students given the high transiency of our students average grade level growth sometimes f uat year-over-year but we continue to see growth very close to or above our goal of one grade level per year student progression is a measure of the students engagement with their cours work and measure unit completion um and we're seeing our rates are back to where they were before the pandemic in our school s climate inventory all areas of the school climate inventory shows positive ratings one thing we are working on we're taking steps to improve our social media rating including implementing Yonder pouches and these are areas that uh we're seeing growth in but we we need to see more growth these are areas that we'd like to work on a bit more uh our CT Pathways completion
065as you can see it's increasing um the school is increasing CTE course offerings based on student interest and job market trends we're increasing CT pathway completion dual enrollment for our students CT pathway completion more than quadruple from the 201819 school year to the 2223 school year the number of students completing these programs is still lower than we'd like and we're looking to improve that number just a heads up you got about two and a half minutes remaining okay uh with uh core core course completion there was a Slowdown and work completion but is training back up on a trajectory to exceed pre pandemic levels soon due to small group instruction tutoring and other academic supports across all subgroups W AC is proud of its increasing its one-year graduation rate even when the pandemic hit the
066school is able to continue improving and graduating students the one-year graduation rate is better is a better measure for our school performance in the four to five year rate given that we have a highly mobile student population a large number of credit deficient students who enroll with Hopey active and these next we're going to compare some uh similar School data um all the uh please know the green bar represents ofy act in this in the following slides um ofy act and outperformed Other Des schools Statewide across all significant subgroup for negative distance from standard a smaller bar is better so um many of the students who come to us are below grade level we work to close that gap for those students we skip okay um this goes into we'll just go to the one
067that you had the the next one so uh and out performance D schools and the state is at 48.7% making progress on the English language learner progress indicator and then comparison overall acting tends to outperform other death schools um in College and Career Readiness um our school Pathways coordinators actively recruit students at the start of each school year to join the cohort the next looks at our suspension rate the one thing we're really proud of is you barely see any green bars there because we have very low suspension rates in our school and this is a a comparison looking at other death schools um both um Charter and and traditional schools across and The Greener areas that we're outperforming some areas that were really proud of um if you look at our LPI which I
068talked about we're outperforming 100% of the other Das schools um Charter and traditional in the state um and we're proud of the how we're performing again against other schools one area that we'd like to focus on is our four to fiveyear grad rate and that definitely needs to improve but the other areas we're performing exceptionally well and with that I'd like to thank the board and district for their support we look forward to continuing the partnership with the district in the future thank you did I get it you did trying to hurry it had 15 seconds left with my 15 seconds I would like to say as I look at the the state the seal behind you the many paths to learning one standard of Excellence is definitely a philosophy we share as well thank
069you thank you can sit down or I think you might have some questions Natalie no thank you good evening good evening um let's start off with this when I got on this board this District was using Charters as a as a funding source that was all the hearings were 10 minutes the LA Times characterize me as a charter killer I'm not a charter killer I'm just here to make sure that we signify that you're the right ones I want yall to know that the questions I'm going to ask they are going to be just and um and they're business I want you to know that I care about you I care about is that your mom well if you can sell her that I'll buy it okay so but but in reality there was a
070time when this District opened the door to someone who stole 880 million in Educational Funding and they sat sat up there just like this gentleman will and lied right to my face so when they were in indicted in uh San Diego courtroom I went down and saw him and offered him cigarettes on the way to prison so I'm serious about what I do here and the reason why is because I cannot have have my kids in my town I can't have them jeopardized so some of these questions are going to be really tough ones I want you to know that this gentleman and this gentleman have sat out there and their presentation you're going to find out was geared towards every question I have here almost in the order I'm going to ask the questions
071if someone is willing to show up in our in our school board meeting and drive out here and waste their time listening to me ramble on and on you you're already tired of it tonight they've end dired it for four years so I I want you to know that that doesn't go unnotice um um staff is Sherry looking over this good okay so you ready yes I am in your organizational structure is there one organization like like an umbrella or do you have different schools with different boards or different schools with different boards so has its own School Board okay so is there a board somewhere in this organization that the other boards are subservient to no yeah let me explain that what happens it becomes very easy for someone to hold thems out in
072the group and then all of a sudden the boards that are answering for their school each school is different you end up the board just as a puppet to a bigger organization here's a here's a good one are there any positions in your organization that are duplicative in function and held by one individual that when all the hour efforts of their hours are calculated is there what I'm really getting at is there somebody in your organization that's charging to be an administrator at full salary at six different sites good did you get that I've seen that I'm I'm I get paid six principal salaries and I'm one person right um I would say this but it's almost ridiculous describe for us your Charter School law exception I think WEA is probably it right yeah and
073are any of your sites we ow I ask these all of everybody are are your weo agreements intact and current yes they are have you peace seems not decisive right have any of your weo relationships changed during the current authorization period the only thing that's changed is if we had a funding change with the wayo a partner we've not lost any we've actually gained partners and we're always looking to add more Partners okay you're jumping ahead of me because I was just going to ask you who and why but thanks anyway how many do process sigings have you had during the life of the current authorization we have not had any okay so did you get out of those by having do process settlements before a ruling was no awesome do you have a pre-enrollment
074screening process or questioners that ask questions like does your grandfather tell you stories in a language other than English no we do not have thank you that's good how many Auto reports have been late and during the your your required audit reports how many have been late during the current um authorization period none do you have students that attend your school Under court order we don't have any currently but if we did we' follow the normal enrollment process cool are you willing and able by way of your alternative programming are you able to serve students from this board that suspend or expel students from this District in accordance with state law yes okay here's a good one this is a this is the the the educational staff I'm seeing that most of this stuff you
075you're likely to pull in a lot of transient students so I'm here to recover students this gentleman seems to think he got fooled into finally being able to do his homework by coming to your school to gain credits and then okay cuz that's the end game cuz here's what kills Charters when you're looking at numbers everybody goes well here so tell me what your cohort looks like is the kid that's in ninth grade likely to be there in 10th Grade and does that affect your scores it does I mean we do have a transient population we do look at um and our counselors look to group those students and then we have cohorts especially as you get into like 11th grade and our 12th grade cohorts um as they're looking towards postsecondary but we do
076cohort the kids but some kids leave for good reasons though they they come to us because they want to catch up and they want to go back to a trous that's a good that's a good reason to leave but it does affect their scores so you would say that the the percentage of kids that might be in ninth grade when you're looking at them in starting 11th grade there's likely to be a low percentage number that they're the same unlike here where first graders are mostly like you might lose one or two okay that's accurate so how do you motivate your staff to work with students that they know are transient I think it starts with our hiring practices I mean when we look for teachers we look for people who have a heart for
077this type of Kit you know that's um one of the things um the most important part of our program really is the connection that our staff has with our students and we look for people that like exemplify that when we interview them you're not available for hire at this time right um here this isn't funny this is serious business people what Salpa do you participate in the LA um does your District uh us being your authorizer take any Sala direction from this District No do we charge you any any sped related fees no do we perform any sped related Stu related service to any part of your organization either to students through therapy or administrative function no do you pay any facility fees to this District no I'm done all right he asked all the
078questions um you two gentlemen thank you for coming great stories glad you guys found these this school to move on hbac that's a good good career path for you that's right all right um and thank you everybody for showing up I know it's long drive thank you for your presentation and he was right Ken stole all the questions so I'm not going to ask any thank you two for sharing appreciate that I'm actually from the IE I uh was raised in Colton graduated Colton High and uh 30 years ago but uh so thank you for sharing your story appreciate that um I I don't have any questions for you but thank you guys for coming and sharing your story I know that there's probably a lot of students that are in your spot thanks to
079your staff um I work at a high school and I have quite a few kids myself and you remind me of my boys so thank you for being here and thank you for making this trip and thank you for sharing and congratulations on where you're going and just keep going up cuz that is fantastic you guys are carving out an awesome some life for yourselves yeah thank you very much for sharing your stories and uh thank you for all being here uh I do have a couple questions uh tell us about your balance sheet or your tell us about your p&l your finances uh what do you wanna what are you in deficit spending this year do you plan to be for the next two years no so everything looks good and healthy you have
080a good Reserve yes do you know what it is percentage wise uh perfect facilities are they all your facilities are they all lease facilities long-term leases long-term leases we none are expiring really soon and we have the option to extend on all of them very good that's all I had Ken got everything else yeah thank you we close this hearing at 846 p.m. I move that we adjourn for 10 minutes I'll second call the question Falls your go ahead the Julian I Falls maai Brion masc we'll return at 8:56 p.m. e e e we call this meeting back to order at 8:54 p.m. and we will pick up with the agenda at number seven d superintendent report are you done yes sir I am done thank you for asking all right uh nothing for facilities
081and finance subcommittee report uh item F education subcommittee report the education subcommittee also does not have a report looking forward to our next meeting when is that meeting it's the third Tuesday of every month at 3:30 pm. excellent policy and management subcommittee report I'll take that one so we had a productive session during our recent uh policy and management committee meeting which was today uh we discussed our overarching goal of reviewing District policies to ensure they serve the best interests of our students Mr weard provided valuable insight into how policies are developed and implemented and ensure that they comply with um Education Code and the law as well as the potential consequences if uh or when if a board member exceeds their roles particularly uh in relation to the suspension policies I encourage members of
082the community to review the recorded video in the meeting for more depth understanding of uh what transpired I also uh encourage you to come to our next meeting which is scheduled for March 27th and I look forward to continuing our work to support the students and staff uh Mr Ken do you have any further no thank you that was awesome submissions there are no submissions this evening thank you I think for the uh policy and management subcommittee um I would definitely be interested in understanding some of our budgeting policies um we've done a lot of work on the finance subcommittee about making recommendations related to um our buildings how we're going to make improvements keep the lights on that sort of thing so it would be amazing to uh to see some of that policy
083taken up in the policy and management subcommittee report you guys want to Loop one or time good I'm good I'm totally number eight incent agenda sorry I'll move I'd like to uh anybody want to pull anything I think we I think we could make a a uh a quick comment from the superintendent about the donation uh item e sure thank you for that I would like to thank the spears Spears family for their gracious donation of 9,000 99 uh 9,927 um we have to make a correction the dollar amount above on the agenda 9207 needs to be corrected um for the record 9,900 9,927 cents and this is for the Vasquez football team a fiveman blocking sled was purchased for training conditioning and practice so thank you to the spears family call the question thean
084I F gra I may who I Ranna txon I mask on I and thank you once again to the spears family personal action report Eric I'll move it in a second I'll second there are no changes or amendments to the part that has been posted for this evening thank you board member comment hearing none call the question BPH iulian I Ma I de Sude Brianna ton I mascan I nineb new job description for health technician I'll move second this is a new job job description that was developed um between management and CSA thank you CSA for your efforts it's very similar to a health clerk position that um school districts typically have the technician will provide minor treatments of injuries for students uh Mrs erdrick HR any comments regarding the job description uh for the
085job description before we had someone that was working out of class so this is actually defining the actual position and work that they're doing so that's why we came up with the new job description thank you comments will this person be able to address diabetics or diabetics kids the monitor thank you call the question Julian i b I may I yes I Brianna ton I mascan I 9C memorandum of understanding between California school board employees Association number 473 and the act and a say Unified School District Health technician I'll move theou outlines some specifics to the health um technician position such as it's a 10-month position 5.7 five hours per day call the question the Joan I maii Brianna ton I masc on I item D classified employee salary schedule updated I'll move I'll second
086thank you having work with cs there's been an adjustment made to the classifi salary schedule specifically Q as longevity schedules needed updating uh Mr nen or Mrs erdrick any additional comments to that thank you so what was updated is originally when the U salary schedules were approved in May for longevity it had step one through five well step one was lower than what you were making before longevity at step five so we corrected it so it's just the last step of each of the longevities because if not it'd be actually taking you backwards instead of forward so that's what's being corrected comments will you be making any adjustment to uh our forecast or our financials as a result of this change no because it doesn't affect it it's we've been applying it to the employees
087correctly so it's just now the schedule actually matches it accurately thank you call the question to Jan i v gra i m husai i mascon i subject e information power school thank you Mr Mas on tonight we have a presentation um by power school it is a platform um potential platform for the district in support of Human Resources functions Mrs errick any comments before we turn it over to the presenter I'd just like to introduce the presenters from power school we have Rich vesa John Pendergrass and Brie mikkelson and they're going to do a brief presentation for you hi just want to make sure everybody can see my screen yes we can okay perfect hi my name is Bri Michael S the director for our talent solution sales team here at power school and I
088appreciate the time that you guys are providing us to give a brief description and overview of the solutions that we would like to um work with your district with so there's two solutions that we're going to be talking about today um applicant tracking and so our applicant tracking provides tools um to really improve the hiring process resulting in a greater chance to connect with quality effective diverse Nationwide Educators um District hiring teams will spend less time on hiring tasks with streamlineed workflows to post jobs communicate with candidates and make offers jobs posted through our applicant tracking are posted not only to your District branded applicant tracking site but also to our national jobs um School spring job board that has over 2.5 million candidates um that are viewing and actively applying for jobs you'll also
089be able to post jobs to Ed joint to ensure maximum visibility um candidates searching for jobs using power schools platform have one login for any District they're applying for which really helps that candidate experience they're able to utilize their profile information to automatically pull into the job applications to easily apply making the process really easy and efficient um on the administrative side your staff is going to be able to easily filter through applications using our filtered staro d down to the top candidates to bring in for interviews automatically send out reference checks um and principles and hiring managers can recommend to hire our appli Contracting system is also equipped to help districts with the ab25 34 legislation ensuring your District stays compliant once you're ready to make an offer system can um go ahead and
090close out that job system as approval uh workflow processes which can notify candidates that had applied but were not selected it'll send out the job offer notifications as well as the new higher onboarding checklist and sets up their profile and our records solution switch over here to employee records so our employee records system is really a process management system um that can process new hire paperwork processes and internal Communications to ensure new hires are ready and equipped to begin working on day one each form and records has its own individual workflow approval process so only the people that need to review sign off or approve are notified making the process quick efficient and secure records provides you with the ability to set up any type of process that can include forms to be completed and
091signed some examples including onboarding offboarding beginning of the year checklist FMLA intents returns and and any other processes the district manages we also provide checklist completion reports that provides real-time insights into each of those individual processes and Records is a permission based solution so documents as well as staff are only accessible to those that need the access and Records also sends out electronic um contracts which can be set up in advance and scheduled to send out on specific dat and provide completion reports so I wanted to pause there and see if there were any specific questions around either of those Solutions I know there were a couple that you guys had posted in advance so we can go through those or if we want to open the floor happy to take questions I just have
092H one question I'm sorry go ahead yeah anybody else have figur be the only one no questions uh just one question tell us about your uh data security standards um considering you would be holding all of our employee records and information y absolutely so all of our systems are hosted on our Amazon webbased um platform where sock compliant and we also have um we can send over if You' like to see all of our data compliance um guidelines we're happy to send those over to the district as well for your review did you say you're sock to compliant yes we are okay any other specific questions no please continue okay all right well there were five questions that the the board sent over we did want to address those individually I want to thank the
093board and the and the general public for their time and a recognition of that time we'll be brief but if there is additional information that you want or additional questions please feel free to ask so uh really the first question was what would the platform replace as far as current HR practices uh really not here to replace practices we're really here to enhance them uh and move those practices from manual to an automated basis right so that's going to provide a lot of things to The District in in terms of value most importantly uh data security uh Time Savings uh and hard and soft dollar cost Savings in the long run um which leads into question two would the platform mitigate or lessen any future cost for human resources in the district yes absolutely uh
094in the form of hard cost things like paper and all the things that go along into storing new hire and and existing employee records uh we're going to mitigate those costs uh when you look at some of the soft dollar costs in terms of Time Savings uh in terms of um even the cost of having unfilled classrooms uh we know there's a cost associated with that we're going to be really mitigating those costs um in the long and short term um so number three would the system mitigate human errors absolutely uh once data is verified in the hiring process moved over into the onboarding process automatically uh not having to duplicate that data entry that's an immediate reduction in the possibility of human error going back and having to correct somebody's time sheet or their
095paycheck for the first time is a very uh difficult process to walk through we like to take care of that very much on the front end so um absolutely will be reducing human errors um number four was would the platform mitigate liability absolutely um there are many ways that we can do that one example that's really uh come up here recently in the state of California uh legislation AB 2534 goes into employment verification with employees uh in their previous districts that they've worked at um applicant tracking records set up to help you do this automatically right providing a paper trail for those processes as well removing liability from the district for all the things that you guys do that's just one example there are many others that we can get into as well so and
096then the last question really my favorite with a small employee account is this platform a viable option the ab the answer is is resounding at a very simple yes right smaller District uh you guys have the same responsibilities to your constituents whether those are employees or students uh teachers anybody involved with the process but you don't have the resources of a larger District so systems like this really allow you to stretch those resources much further uh than than a larger District would have to so rent to that quickly any additional information you would like or do you have any additional questions thank you sorry can you can you walk me through what it's like so this is an addition to Ed join so people are applying through power school but also through edjoin so correct
097when we've partnered with districts uh in California what we've done is we've taken your job posting links and embedded those in edjin as well as in ours your your District branded uh job postings as well as school spring as Bri mentioned when those links are accessed whether it's through them finding them on edjin or School spring or on your website it will Direct them to one place to apply and that's in our appin tracking piece okay so an employee we we apply we run a we post a job people from everywhere apply can you walk me through from that step what it's like for our I I honestly don't care what it's like right now for people um applying I care what it's like for our staff so can you walk me through from the
098time we post a job all the way through putting that person on our campus um what what that's like and why is your platform going to make it easier for our staff getting that person on our campus working with kids walk me through that please absolutely so uh the system actually delineates between internal employee emplo position and people that are not employees right so the the application process itself is fully customizable to reflect what your processes look like so for internal positions if you want that to be a very quick type application you can design it that way you can have different application types for different positions as well right so if you need a longer uh application or more in-depth application for teaching positions than you would for uh classified positions or a bus
099driver you absolutely can do you have the freedom to do that just as well so um with an existing employee we would access records and all the information that's already set up in the system to go into that application you can have that application filled out in a matter of minutes really and then whatever your internal process is for interviewing internal candidates we can we can mirror that in records uh and applicant tracking so that process can you can move just as quickly as as you need to and I hope that answer your question if not let me know what else You' like to know yeah yeah I I want to know that that gets so now we're on the interview process but I want to know all the way through to having them step
100foot on our campus so is that are are our employees having to um look at applications on edjin and then also look at applications on and I don't think it's Power School you said something different so they're not like actually logging into Power School to look at applications what did you say that they were so our so our applicant tracking solution is where all of those applications are going to come in so it doesn't matter if they're looking through edjin or they're looking at our school spring job board we'll have the link that will direct them to apply through our applicant tracking site so all applications will be housed there um on the administrative side they'll be able to go and search through so if they're looking for specific criteria there's certain things that they
101want to see they'll have out a glance view to be able to go through and really um identify which candidates they want to bring in for interviews and you can tag so there's different color coding system that each individual um admin will be able to go in and really tag those candidates you can invite them into interviews that can happen through the system as well so you can set different dates and times um those will be sent out to the um candidates they'll be able to go in select those times to come in either for in person or or virtual interviews however you guys choose to do that um and then once they've interviewed and you're really processing through the through the process there's different areas there for reference checks so those can be sent
102out automatically through the system either at the point of application or at some point during the system you can trigger those to be sent out and collected back um there's different note taking functionality as well if you do panel interviews um you can have you know those forms filled out um in the in the site um if you're hiring managers if your principles are the ones that are recommending those hires to HR they can submit that through the system HR would get the notification and they would be able to really start that hiring process so through the hiring process they will be able to select which checklist that new hire is going to be assigned um that will kick off that onboarding checklist um so you know certified classified there's different forms Andor processes that
103are associated you could have different checklists for them can go through an approval workflow process so if it needs to be approved by the board by the superintendent um h director whoever needs to approve those that can all happen through the system and the system can also send out those um um sorry it's really late here um what am I trying to say the job those job notifications or job acceptances yes um the acceptance letter and then it will automatically start them in their hiring process so again on the candidate side they'll get that that onboarding checklist for the administrative side they'll have a checklist view to see who you know what task that employee has has completed and also internally so they can see you know the employees completed the specific form but it's
104still waiting for payroll or it's still waiting for it to approve um automatic reminders will go out through the system on a weekly basis you can also bulk remind so if we're getting closer to like the beginning of a school year for example and you want to start reminding on a day-to-day or a couple times a day you can send out those reminders through the system um they'll also be able to send out forms Andor other processes throughout the course of the year to individual employees or groups of employees um and then from the employee side they'll also have access to a bank of available forms so things like if they need to change their direct deposit um or they have a name change they can go in um access that form complete it um
105HR who or whoever needs to get notified will receive an email they'll log into the system and they'll see that that form that they need to then take action on and then we can run reports and we can automate those reports so if you have report need to go to payroll system or another platform those can be run on an automated basis um those will get exported on a CSV file um onto an SFTP site that can either be automatically exported and and or imported into records did that address the question that absolutely answered my question thank you y any other questions yeah one more question before we cycle um so I think the purpose that uh this will was for was for document management for existing employees and this will address like ongoing document
106management as well so simple things like the employee handbook and everybody who signed it we decide to update that send it out this would handle kind of the sending it out getting the uh signatures back that they've received it that sort of thing absolutely so if you a lot of districts will do that kind of on an annual year-to-year basis as part of maybe beginning of the year checklist but yes if you have you know another form that needs to be updated and sent out to all employees to resign that can be sent out through records and then that will be housed electronically you can also give employees access to view those files um after they've signed or you may not so it is permission based so you determine what forms and what um what
107folders they have access to view so all documents that goes to all employees all gets handled through this all the acknowledgements the signature capture everything is handled through this yes absolutely it's probably the most valuable part of it I have no further questions Ken uh yeah in my capacity at work I am a hiring manager the candidates come to me after they go through an initial online questioner um and then there is an outside panel and every attempt is made to limit employee bias so I don't have somebody yeah I didn't like that guy he looked too much like Ken um whatever so at the end of the day I'm very interested in keeping the hiring recruiting practice free as much as possible as from bias of existing employees or screeners so here's my question
108um is this system good at saying okay the funding source says you're ready to on board somebody and we're going to need them by February so I can use the system to back out a schedule of people who need to be in the process and they could be prompted along the way to meet deadlines is it does it have that capacity what you're referring sounds more like a are you referring more like a position control solution no no no I'm just saying if I'm gonna I'm going to if I want to use your program for recruiting and use the segments of it your program is only as smart as I am so we're in trouble so at the what I'm saying is if I want to onboard somebody in February I can go in and
109set up a hiring Gant chart that basically says on this day I need to have these signatur for approval of the funding the position and I can send out internal notices that automatically trigger people hey you need to look at the applications hey you need to do this and this and this so you can set up when you're setting up the job postings you can set up those dates for when you want the jobs to be posted either internally and or externally so just I'm asking yes or no so you're your program has the ability to to to to notify if it's told to notify correct here's the big one I'm really concerned about this does your program have the ability to track and verify and document responses so in other words you could we
110could put a form in there and I could say uh the question would be do have you ever been released for improper conduct in the presence of students in any time of your employment and and if I were to ask people to fill out a form to give reference as it said do you know of this person outside of any personal reference have ever been involved in any kind of controversy regarding improper conduct with students because the California Teachers craning Association doesn't seem to be able to do that for me right so that that leads us only does he look like me he thinks like me I like that so at the end of the day you have the ability without humans saying oh I think that they said to me that they didn't remember
111that I'm looking for do you have the ability to have people get on there and fill out a basic questioner and once one part of it is conduct and ethics and they check the boxes and sign it and close it out without an employee of the district doing that function so when they hit send they have virtually given me a legal statement that says you have not been involved by statement yes so that's part of our employment verification cool okay I'm done thank you thank you I think have you used this program before in a previous District I used a program that was similar it wasn't Power School uh it was a similar program okay I I think what I'm looking for is this this is our process currently right now we take this yellow
112piece of paper and we take it to that office and then when that's done we walk it to this office and this is how this program will help I want it compared directly to what we're doing now and I I know that would be hard for you to do right now standing here um but that's kind of of where like I I hear what they're saying and I I'm a little bit familiar with what we do but not really so I want to know how this is going to what we're doing now and how this is going to change it so the biggest difference is that right now when we decide to hire an employee they come in they do fingerprints once those have cleared they come in to get their paperwork I pull every
113sheet of paper that they need to complete and give it to them they bring it back and then it's like you know you start to do the process to put it into HRS and all of a sudden it's like oh they didn't return this this you know piece of paper or they forgot this or oh look there's a signature missing here whereas with their program it would check mark everything as it is completed so there's no chance that they forgot to do a part of it so they would take care of doing all that and then as I'm checking it's like okay this person has everything completely done let's put them into the you know they're in the system we can get them started so we're fully automating instead of correct we're bringing everything to
114the 20th century and fully automating the system okay thank you what happens this is a an initial Buy in and then yearly we there's a fee correct yearly the fee is approximately between $8,800 and 9,200 so my question is what happens if we get to the point where we can no longer pay the 8800 what happens to all of our records we can print them so if they if if we were to get to that position we would print all the records that are in there and put them into files for each employee the school owns all the data out of the system so if it if at any point in time you choose to leave either for another vendor or for another reason we would help we would help to ex export all the
115information all the data and all the forms out um with your help to get that out so that you would have that moving forward all right thank you uh for your time on this this is the information session on hang on I'm confused this is the information item correct all righty then okay no X thank you for your time thank you appreciate your time today thanks everyone thank you an education services so we're on the Sark report 10 yes thank you um board president this is a first read item uh for the school accountability this no it's it's not it's a first read thank you for thank you for checking the school accountability report cards um this is for the 23 24 school year these reports are specifically for each of our respective School sites
116metalark High Desert and Vasquez it does cover areas such as enrollment numbers for each respective site class sizes chronic absenteeism numbers Casp uh standardized test scores um school facilities uh condition of the school facilities as well as uh fiscal data and this is a first read we're going to see any information on it tonight are they just other than here just the attachments um as posted thank you comment no move on to item 10B can I get a motion I'll move for items 9 B through D school plans are updated annually with information regarding schoolwide drills [Music] procedure oh yeah sorry 10B through D school plans are updated annually this um with um at the school sites and approved by School site Council uh this information in terms of updates have to do with the
117drills procedure procures emergency preparedness teams and school Maps do we need to move these in each individually and vote on them individually or okay any comment call the question item 10 B the Jillian I I MA t i Brian ton I mascon I item 10c I'll move we got your explanation on that one uh yes any comment nope no call the question the jilan i i m tusi Brian and ton I mascon I item 10d second reading adoption metal Arc School Safety plan I'll move call the question the jilan I may Brianna Tex on I item 10 e second reading adoption Aus comprehensive schools safety oh last on I'll move I'll second Bri t i 11 Business Services we already got through 11a so it's time for 11b we to open the hearing now we
118open this hearing at 9:29 PM so 11b we're going to go ahead and um patch in Mr Ward as well as demographer Mr levit we need to read this yes uh before they get started we're going to read into the record welcome this is the actona Unified School District California Voting Rights Act cvra fifth public hearing on composition of maps February 27th 2025 welcome to the aguel Unified School District's fifth public hearing regarding the drafting of trustee map areas under the California Voting Rights Act cvra as it is commonly known the purpose of today's public hearing is to receive input from the public on the maps of the five truste areas that have been drawn by the demographer and possibly decide which map to adopt before I turn over the podium to our legal counsel
119Ronald wart to introduce our demographer Justin levit I'm going to just mention a few major points the cvra is a state law which prohibits at large voting systems that impair the ability of racial or ethnic minorities to elect the candidate of their choice the cvra favors District based election systems in which candidates must reside in a trustee area and only the voters residing in that trust truste area vote for those candidates to avoid the potential for litigation and the cost of attorney fees the board has decided to modify the current election system in the established a district based system for the 2026 election this means that beginning in 2026 voters in those trustee areas up for election in 2026 will vote for one candidate in their trustee area and the remaining trustees will hold an
120election in 2028 the change in the election system will not affect the 2024 election or School attendance boundaries now I'm now going to turn over the podium to legal counsel to introduce our demographer and provide us with additional information followed by public Ron are you there yes um we're here uh we do not have a formal presentation uh for this hearing uh Jus and I are here to just answer any questions you may have uh we've got a resolution uh that we've proposed for approval and uh so with that I'll just open it up to any questions that uh the board members may have good evening this is um Ken Falls graph I'm finally going to make some comments on this I was the president as this was being cycled and I appreciate everyone's um
121of patience um we I'll say for the record there was a death very close to being the family I missed two board meetings this board did not attempt to delay this or whatever I'm not going to share personal feelings about what I think about this I do understand the intent of uh the the law um this will this will be the first thing I say about it and the last um first I have a couple of questions Ron and de demographer did either one of you talk to me individually at any time outside of closed session no no did I ever ask you any questions in close session about this in front of my colleagues not that I recall now so I have not influenced this in any way no I don't believe so no
122and I think you would agree that I haven't looked at it and said um you know this would cause me to be at a disadvantage or it would give me an advantage and I never ask you any questions about how um uh how the maps were construed what effect that would have in giving one incumbent an advantage over another no there was never any discussion like that good so do you ever recall sending someone to verify where I live no I think we I don't I believe we just got the addresses from the district I don't believe we checked so I could live in Chicago and you wouldn't know that no I would not personally know that no right so there was no verification of where I sleep at night no okay and you are
123familiar with elections in which they fly people in and parachute them in because they don't tend to line up with whatever the party is uh on that year you you're from that was a rhetorical question but you would say as an attorney that um being announcing your lean towards whatever the common political parties isn't really applicable to your service as a school board member no it's a nonpartisan office and so there we go partisan issues don't usually come up okay so I live at 34520 Red Rover Mine Road I have lived there for 20 years I intend to keep living there I am I am a I'm saying this for the public I am a homeowner now I will ask you this based on the intent of what this is all about I'm I'm only
124and I know that there are parameters there's parameters about certain population variances and and all I I get all of that regardless of what how it might affect me or any of the other incumbents which map in your uh professional opinion as consultants best meets the intent of the action well so I will take the start here um and just uh for the record uh we do believe that all five of these Maps meet the basic legal requirements so that regardless of which one you end up choosing all five of these are legal that being said um we have previously expressed concerns about map 104 and uh that one was something that the new law the fair Maps act asks us to show we don't believe that it is the best um in addition to
125that we had some requests back at our October board meeting um about map 102 that eventually became map 105 and I would say map 105 is strictly better than 102 of the three Maps then that are remaining 101 103 and 105 uh personally um and this is just a professional uh personal opinion um as I said all three maps are viable um I believe map 105 does the best job capturing the board's stated communities of interest and goals um as expressed um at the previous hearings but again I think all five of these Maps do meet the basic legal requirements so to answer my question um your professional recommendation as a consultant that was hired by the district under a legal action is5 that's correct Bas particularly based on the comments made by the board
126previously I hang on hang on I made no comments I want everybody to understand that I made no comments um and I don't I I don't engage in trying to figure out where I live versus who else where it lives my comments are over thank you for your work I understand the sensitivity of it I don't care how map 105 affects me or anyone else um but thank you for being the first consultant in history that will ever give me a straight answer thank you Ron I'm done well I just want to add that uh uh one of the comments the all the comments were made in public session uh so uh and that had to do with not dividing Vista Ladera the homeowners association and so map 105 reflects that I have no questions
127no questions no questions thank you I have no further questions I have no further questions either would someone like to make a recommendation to uh all right we close this public hearing at 9:39 PM Ron and Justin thank you for your time a pleasure thank you The Next Step would be uh if the board is so inclined to make a motion uh to uh approve one of the maps and adopt a resol the resolution I will make a motion this Falls graph I will make a motion that we adopt map 105 is selected by the consultant as the map which best meets the intent of the action second I'll second call for question FS graph I meaai ran ton I masc I okay The Next Step would be then to adopt the resolution I read
128this into the record resolution 2024-25 do12 trustee area map it is recommended the motion b as follows I move that we adopt resolution number 2024-25 do12 to adop truste area map 105 and sequencing the elections to complete the cvra process with the goal of achieving a transition to truste trustee area elections for the November 2026 elections can I get a second I'll second call the question I will respectfully abstain FS graph I MA Ranna ton I masc there you go okay I think that completes the process if any of our if any of our community members would like to look back on this topic and look up documentation available everything is under this board item so anything and everything you'd like to know about it is available for you if you're really board and the
129next step is the the county Committee hearing uh which will be held in the the district boardroom um sometime this spring we'll have to arrange the time date and time with the county committee thank you again Ron any other comments before we wrap this up well thank you all all right thank you thank you thank you good night all right moving on to item 11d approval of contract for Christy White and Associates I'll move a second second Eric thank you it's our recommendation for the board to respectfully approve the contract with Christy White and Associates internal auditor on that's required for the school district with them Mr Newan if you could provide some information a little background thank you evening board um Chris W has been our Auditors for the last several years this is
130a noral routin where School District are required to have an auditor to look at our um or financials to make sure that they're accurate and um I'm asking the board to approve that um as you can see it's a three-year contract but they'll build us every single year and it's a 5% increment for for cost of living adjustments basically comment call the question hang on hang on so this escalation is this CPI based no this this is what okay so so it's not okay that's good so will you Bill at uh so I think what we have to do is if this is going to be a three-year contract has Christy white expressed an interest that she would do this work uh for a three-year contract and possibly even give us a slightly less price
131for doing a multi-year contract I can definitely ask her I don't want to hang your work but um uh unless everything in the district is going to escalate at 5% I would avoid this okay all right let me um reach out should we table this is that staff's recommendation oh I would approve to um I'll table let's table it then and then I'll bring it we can bring it back I move that we table this till the next meeting second call the question the Jillian i fs graph i m Ranna taon I masc item 11e approval of estimates K&K Construction Corporation not to exceed 35,000 I'll move Eric thank you uh I know there's been um plenty of discussion through our facilities and finance subcommittee as well as our education subcommittee as far as uh
132three classroom refurbishments here at the Acton site for the additional floor space that's needed for the expansion of metal Ark with the growing numbers so this estimate of 35,000 would look into the refurbishment to expand the Early Childhood um education center here at the Acton site comment what is the um the facilities and finance cup subcommittee you guys have anything you could help me understand about this or steer my decision uh basically at our meetings we discussed um where we could put the younger students um and basically at this facility and redoing some classrooms um to bring them up to standard is what we're trying to do to be able to have more classroom facilities and with respect to my counterpart bill I think we're our goal is to free up classroom space I think
133we're kicking or punting it to the education subcommittee to decide what to do with it um there were some ideas lofted about but initial idea is just to free up three classrooms supporting three classrooms on boarding that's correct any other comment call the question the Julian i i m Brianna ton I Mason I item F approval of High Desert School mural project move come ER microphone will help so at the last board meeting uh principal vanornum is part of the superintendent report um she a a a lovely presentation with visuals of a proposal for murals at High Desert to be funded through the Arts grant funding and so we have that presentation that is attached to to the agenda as well for the community to see comment hearing none call the question Dean I M
134Brianna ton I masc on I item G csba delegate assembly region 22 candidates for 2025 I'll move I'll second Eric thank you it's recommended that our trustees approve the aid usd's 2025 ballot with the two candidates um two vacancies and the two candidates that are listed in the ballot um two candidat Ates for region 22 are uh Miss Moore and Miss Vega comment hearing none call the question Julian i b i Ma I just Ranna ton I mask on I item 12 board policy and administration regulation subject a second read and adoption board policy 6174 BP and administrative regulation education for English learning I'll move thank you just to go ahead and uh put this in perspective once again uh California School Board Association provides districts um in California with recommended language for updates to
135both the board policies as well as administrative regulations and tonight we have our second read for the education for English Learners changes included striking out language pertaining to parental exception waivers type of instruction and updated language recommen recommendations had to do with elap and the advisory committee thank you comment this is all recommended To Us by the csba that's correct call the question jilan I F gra i m Brianna ton I mask on eye number 13 board comments this Mr fcra good evening I have asked for a couple videos to be played let's start off I someone sent me this I think this is good everyone should listen to this in their own capacity it marks ra it marks that you're going somewhere and you may go there alone hit it do you want to
136be popular or prominent because prominence is painful like if you're going to lead you have to have the courage to be disliked if you're going to be successful you have to have the courage to be misunderstood and if you're going to Champion change you have to have the courage to be criticized because here's the truth at least what I've come to see as the truth people who have never sacrificed for a dream will tell you how to give up on yours people who have never built anything will tell you what to build unsuccessful people will tell you how to spend your money and people without a platform will challenge your platform one of the biggest reasons that people shrink back from leadership from success or from change is that they're afraid of standing in the
137tension of being unliked unappreciated unpopular or uncomfortable they want growth without resistance influence without opposition progress without discomfort but you cannot stand out and stand still at the same time you have to make a move and if you're waiting for everyone to approve agree or applaud you before you make a move you'll stay stuck right where you are you'll get what everybody else gets because you'll be doing what everybody else does look leadership is lonely success is grueling and change is painful but if you're going to make a difference you have to be willing to be different next please okay when we had Tammy's memorial service there was a gentleman there named Fred do you does anyone that was there remember Fred he kind of gave us some a come to Jesus moment about the
138significance of the loss of Tammy um Tammy would spend a lot of time at the guitar shop up in Malibu and I I have a couple of guitars there you can't see most of them um but that instrument she's holding there was made in 1918 and she would sit there and watch us work and that was hanging on the wall and one day Fred said um I we we need to get this fixed up because it it was cracked and stuff and it's very valuable but Tam would sit there in the chair and look at everything so he told me let's get this thing fixed up and so I did the internal work he did the finish and then he said well this has got to go to something very important so when we were
139done he said it was Tammy and so I took it home and I handed this to her and that's she immediately knew who gave it and this is her sign for Fred's name so um before she uh left us I was headed one morning to the guitar shop in Malibu and I'm driving down the road and I got bib overalls on and I'm headed to Malibu and I see a sign that says agad Women's Club yard sale and we know that the Acton Women's Club through their Boutique and the aguad do Women's Club through their through their garage sale um support this district and its students and scholarships and they're very meaningful so I'm like I'm going to go to a yard sale and I'm going to go me so I'm walking through the yard
140sale and you have to see this up close to believe it but I I saw something that stopped me in my tracks I saw this the doll does not have its finger on its chin if the the doll has it its finger on its throat the reason she calls um that she called Fred that is because well Fred's going to join us right now hit it this message is for everybody that's a vapor my name is Fred and I have had a serious life-changing lar inject toy as a result of smoking cigarettes my dad at a big music store he died when I was 19 I had to pick up the pieces everybody had a cigarette and so naturally you know wow I want to be like the big guys my voice just kept getting
141worse worse and worse one day I go to the doctor and he says you know Fred I don't like what I'm seeing you're going to need a operation but out of the hospital I've got these bandages around my neck I can't really show up in my store because there's periods of bleeding my business started to fall apart the price you pay for smoking is so incredibly expensive that's all I have for this evening thank you okay uh looking forward to the ribbon cutting tomorrow miss anoro um thank you Mr Jones for the update like I said before the kids look like they're having a great year um and thank you to the spears family for the donation to for the football team they greatly need it and it will help them a lot thank you
142very much thank you Ken for sharing those videos I appreciate that U thank you to metalark and for all your hard work for the presentation it turned out really good thank you appreciate your your dedication I also appreciate the field trip that the students went on to C Sun my daughter had a blast it's great to see these younger students be able to see what to look forward to I think it's I think it's uh very good we started at an early age to look at you know what's what's next what's after school both my daughters will be going to se Sun so it was a great opportunity to for my daughter to see what her sisters are going to be doing so appreciate that and thank you all for attending I know it's so
143late I know everyone has to work tomorrow so again thank you for your dedication I'll keep my comments super short um congratulations to boys volleyball who won tonight um undefeated 4 and0 now um and I'm looking forward to the ribbon cutting I got to get out and watch some high desert soccer the other day a little bit of it while I was at work um that was pretty fun and I'm excited about everything going on in our schools and that's keeping it short so so thanks well done uh Ken thank you for sharing those videos um and uh good work tonight everybody we got a lot of things done this evening and uh thank you to all the staff and everyone who participated I uh hadn't been to a couple meetings we canceled the last
144I wasn't at the last one we canceled the one before that so it's been since December but um I never failed to be proud of being a part of this District so thank you again anybody want to let's see calendar next reg next regular board meeting is March 13th anybody have any issues with that date sounds like we'll have a quum future agenda items I'm getting some bizarre emails about funding that's related to something that this board has um P per se some level of influence over when it comes to an audit finding which seems to be historically problematic I would like it if it if it's not here I would like the um facilities and finance committee to bring somebody in to give a basic training about how to manage um funds I I'm
145being as sensitive as I can here uh but yeah it sounds to me like there's a problem I don't like those emails I'm getting thank you we will take that up in the facilities and finance subcommittee and bring something forward thank you for that comment Ken any other future agenda items yeah metal Arc presentation quot quarterly strategic plan report and cvra updates if we could respectfully add High Desert and Vasquez to provide their highlights as we move forward with the academic calendar I would appreciate it thank you you need to vote on that all right adjournment 9:59 PM can I get a motion I'll move I'll second call the question Julian I I masc we adour 9:59 p.m.