001Okay, we will call the May 22nd, 20125 regular board meeting to order at 6:32 p.m. Can I get roll call, please? Falls Graph here. May sir, Brianna Tony here. Dr. De Jesus and Mr. Mascan are both absent. Agenda for the regular meeting. I'll go ahead and move that in. Can I get a second? I'll second. And there are no changes for the agenda for tonight. Thank you. Thank you. Um, any discussion? Call for question. All those in favor? Balls. J I May I? Brianna Tony I with two absent. Uh 2 A public participation. Sorry, not for right now. Thank you. 3A close session discussion items. We may discuss conference with labor negotiators, public employee discussion, discipline, dismissal, release, conference with legal counsel and or student matters. 3B adjourn to close session. I'll move. I'll second.
002Any discussion? Call for question. All those in favor? Falls I Brianna Tony I with two absent. We are adjourned to close session at 6:33 Okay. The regular board meeting of May 22nd, 2025 will reconvene at 7:34 p.m. um for a flag salute. Miss Emily, would you mind leading us in the flag salute as the past student board member? stands one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. 4 B civility statement. The civility statement states, "Communicate clearly." Communicate clearly and concisely with respect for others time. Listen objectively, carefully considering the opinions of others. Understand the counter counterproductive effects of disruptive, demeaning, and intimidating behaviors. Understand and respect district policies and procedures. Respect the district's rich history and the efforts of others who have served in the past. Vice President, can I make a
003motion? Yes. I would like to hear the student uh representative report first now. Then I would like to have the superintendent's report uh arranged to bring these fine young people here. Um whatever you have to do with them. Then once that is done, I would like to report out on close session at which point we'll return to the superintendent's agenda. Can I have a second? I'll second. Any discussion? Call for question. All those in favor? The Jillian I Falls I I'm sorry. Brianna Tony I. Um there was Ken. Okay. So we will move on to 7 C student representative to the board. Okie dokie. Starting with High Desert this evening. Some Hawk highlights we have. We are so grateful for Nurse May on our campus. We celebrated her during nurses week last week. Um some
004past events for the Hawks. The fifth grade students are finishing up at Starbase. The program is a week long where fifth grade students go to Edwards Air Force Base to participate in hands-on science activities. They get to see jets fly, touch and try on space suits, and learn about space exploration. This trip is always a favorite. Our incredible counseling team has been celebrating mental health awareness week with activities and spirit days all week. Thank you to our team for raising awareness about mental health for our students. HDS welcomed community members from a wide variety of careers to share their professions with our students during career day on May 16th. We are so grateful for their professionals for the professionals in our community to be sharing with our students. Some upcoming events for the Hawks. Schools
005to watch celebration is coming up on May 29th at 8:30 a.m. Student showcase and open house is also on May 29th, but on at 6 p.m. Hawks promotion day is on June 5th at 6 p.m. Some athletic updates. High Desert Athletics is wrapping up of wrapping up all of our spring seasons. Track and field has their final meet next week. Our students are setting new personal records with each race. Some campus updates for the Hawks. The mural project is complete and we look forward to everyone being able to see it during open house on May 26th. Moving on to Metallark Elementary School. Some highlights from last week. Spring concert was was an amazing success. Our students gave an outstanding performance during the spring concert on May 14th. Families packed VHS to celebrate our budding musicians
006and and the evening was a resounding success thanks to the leadership of Miss Benitar, our music teacher. Open house and the ribbon cutting ceremony was on May 15th. We welcomed families for our open house events at both Metallark and the new Lolc campus. The turnout was excellent and families expressed gratitude for the opportunity to see student work and tour our learning spaces. This week we begin our mental health awareness spirit week promoting student well-being with student with themed days and mindfulness activities throughout the campus. Some upcoming events for metallark awards assembly is on May 30th. The schoolwide carnival is on June 3rd where our school will be ho will be will host a fun-filled carnival for all students. This event will feature games, music, and treats as a final celebration of the school year. Building
007with Dad is on June 4th from 5 to 6:30 p.m. We are excited to host a hands-on family engagement night where students and their father figures will work together to build projects reinforcing STEM skills and family connection. Fourth grade promotion is on June 6th when we will honor our promoted fourth grade students in a special ceremony to celebrate their achievements and wish them well on their journey to middle school. And that is all for my report this evening. Always fantastic. Thank you. Um, now we will move to the Sorry, I'm on the wrong page. Um, 7D superintendent report. Thank you, Vice President. Tonight, I'll focus on two goals of our strategic strategic plan. Goal two, effective instruction and goal three, community engagement. I'll start with goal two. This past weekend, I received a message from
008the instructional branch manager for the Marine Jotc program. Our application has been endorsed and and approved, which is great news. However, I was also informed at as at that at this point in time, they do not have the funding in their budget to move forward for the upcoming school year. Unfortunately, they will reassess their budget scenario in January of 2026 and inform us of the possibility of kickstarting the program at Vasquez for the 2627 school year. Of course, I'll keep everybody in the in the loop. I know everybody was excited for the program, but as we do at AADUS, we persevere and we make sure that it happens. So, I want to share that with with our community. Goal three rece we received a very gracious letter from Miss Ramona Hall president of the friends
009of Actton Auadulce Library thanking us for supporting their efforts to set up an and organize our by-early used book sale with the help of Miss Yolanda McCully my executive assistant. The following students were praised for the for being courteous hardworking by helping out with categorizing uh hundred hundreds of books. No surprise there that our students are always courteous and hardworking. Thank you to the following students by the library. Dieago Kamacho, Desessie Rualis, Josh Sandival, Lucas Williams, and Fernando Vasquez. Good job there. And thank you, Coach Rachel Harter for the support as well. All right, tonight we have two presentations. Uh first we will start with um kicking off uh highlights of Vasquez High School. Um we started with Metoark and then we moved into High Desert. Uh tonight we'll go ahead and call up Dr.
010Raina Smith to provide Vasquez High School highlights for the 2425 school year. Dr. Smith All right. Guess the other board members heard me talk enough yesterday. Um, so at the end of my presentation, I'm going to try to get through it briefly just so that we can get to our highlight, our special students. Uh, good evening. Thank you, Dr. Sahakin and board members. Tonight, I want to give a brief overview just of our amazing Vasquez High School. So, first our our office team. I'm Dr. Serena Smith, principal, and you see in purple our lovely secretary, uh, Miss Shiloh, we call her Miss Shiloh, and Lana, our records clerk. We have two TOSAs, Sheldon Sparks and Alexa Lep. Two very hardworking counselors, Nicole Saledo and Tiffany Casada. And then our school social worker, Miss Charlie. Now,
011I'm not going to read all those names, but we have about 20 certificated staff. And you can see that our teachers and their departments and then we have about 23 classified staff members that we can definitely not do without. I want to share a little bit about our enrollment and right now we have 394 students but that number fluctuates a little bit. I think at one point we had 400. Uh our bigger groups are ninth grade and tth grade and then our uh as far as ethnicity our biggest groups are uh Hispanic with 57% white students with 33%. And one thing I thought I found interesting when I um came to Vasquez was that we're very boyheavy. We have 59% of our bo uh school are boys and 41% of our are girls. So I
012just thought that was interesting. um a lot of energy on that campus just let me tell you. So special programs we have online students we have 25 and that's 100% online they don't come to campus and we have 20 36 in glasses 36 students that are on that they come to school part of the time and then they have classes online and we have 11 foster kiddos and 77 in special education 31 in um English learners although I think that number is a little lower some have exited but we're still monitoring ing. Next slide. So, speaking of monitoring, we're always consist continuously monitoring our attendance and always looking for ways to improve. So, you see our month-to-month attendance. Um, and we absolutely recognize that a big part of our school is that we're trying to
013have that school climate be very positive, encouraging students to be here. For example, if you're late, okay, but glad you made it. Um and and also looking at our first instruction because if our instruction is fun and engaging, um students are less likely to miss because they're going to feel like they're missing something. Um speaking of engaging and we're trying to embed field trips, projects, events, because again, when those things are happening, surprise surprise, we we have a more attendance. Um kids don't want to miss that. Parental engagement has been huge. We've done some home visits, got to see a lot of nice um home pets, and uh we are making lots of connections with I think parents are surprised to see that we we can very quickly get to them in their home language.
014So, that's been very fun to see the excitement when they're like, "Oh, speak Spanish." You can um they can immediately tell us what their concerns are and what we can help them with. So, we're going to continue to do our start meetings, SSTs, our tier 2 interventions, counseling, our men mentoring. Um, our advisories are really meant to really, we call it like adopting our students because that's where we want to make some more connections, but we want to be more intentional with that. That's a big goal for next year, too. And explaining to students, I I was surprised how much they didn't realize what how attendance does impact them. Um, and then very um good news, this is our first week where we actually were able to start our docuign. So I think that just
015having us and parents have more accessibility to signing those independent studies and I think we'll be able to recoup a lot of that ADA that whereas before they were just absent. So some data I like numbers they don't lie. So our ELA English um at the very top you see state that's where they're at with their ELA scores. they're uh 55% uh are meeting standard and then right below that's where we are at 46. So definitely some rooms to grow. We're in the orange. Um I was actually very um pleased to see however that in the middle what you see is our benchmark scores and those are from Renaissance. We we don't use I Ready at the high school. So, you know, we're just still exploring what's um you know, what's effective, but but the
016data we do have um if it's kind of hard to see at the top, but if you see ninth grade, you you could see ninth graders and then how those ninth graders did last year um when they were in eighth grade and then how they did the year before those same ninth graders in seventh grade. So, we're looking at three years. And over three years, I'm seeing that green bar get bigger. Um and that's according to our benchmarks not not not the state scores. Of course we want that growth to transfer into our state scores. So um but I am seeing that red line it's getting smaller. So um some good news some trending in the right direction. Next our our math is where I would say has been our big conversation. Most of our
017staff meetings the state is at 27% and we're at 20. Um, I would say this is a challenge across the state, but math is still it's we talk about this a lot. Um, we're in the red, but again, I'm seeing that green bar over these last three years according to our benchmarks is getting bigger. So, um, and in seeing how they took the state scores assessments this year, I think a big part of that is explaining to students what what this means to them because these scores don't go into the grade book. So it's like why do I need to try and and keep in mind state assessments are much longer. Our benchmarks are shorter. So I think kids are getting fatigued. It's a it's a lot of questions about how do we motivate them
018discipline just very briefly on that top right suspension in the last four years. Um I mean they weren't huge but couple years ago in 2019 we're at 7.9. Now, it went down and then last year we were at 8.1% of our students were suspended. We're in the orange. Definitely um room for growth here too. If you look at the bottom and you can't see the numbers, but um we have 25 suspensions this year. This is monthtomonth. So, the first bar is August and then you can see we have less suspensions as the year has gone on. I would say there there's lots of reasons for this. Um, but if you go to the next slide, here are some of the things we we have done. I think there's still more work to do. But I
019really enjoy the visual on the side, the triangles, because that's probably there isn't a staff meeting that we aren't talking at least some at some portion of it about discipline and um PBIS. So, we're trying to spend most of our time, most of our work on being proactive because if we're being proactive, then we're spending less time on the correction and the time away, students not being in class or being suspended, um, spending more time in the office talking to somebody. We want them in the classroom. old school way I say is being more reactive where we're not spending that much time being proactive and therefore because you're not being proactive anticipating um being preventative then you're spending more of your work in correcting and constantly correcting. So these are the things that we have
020been doing and we're still going to continue to focus on big one is 4:1 ratio where they're seeing and hearing more uh positive dialogue for positives for every one correction and then PBIS our rewards we have them you guys know they're there however you guys have heard us talk about wanting to beef those up so that you guys have more exciting things to purchase with your PBIS points right um next one so That's that's how we're trying to improve that school culture and behavior um social emotional how do we uh how what are we doing to improve instruction? So some of the highest achieving schools just um statistically they're they're looking at data. They're getting all the data they can uh get a hold of and they're constantly going through it. So yes, we're looking
021at data but I think we have to be more intentional on what we're we're looking through. Um, of course we're using our Renaissance benchmark data. We have interventions. We're trying to focus more on during the school day than not just necessarily after school for those interventions. Um, you'll hear more about peer mentoring. Our PLC's I wrote the word effective PLC's because do we have PLC's? Yes. Um, are we collaborating? Yes. But I want us to be more effective in having more frequent uh assessment cycles. Um, and that just takes time to really get understand that whole process. And we also recognize that students are going to do better if they're connected to their, you can go to the next one, their community and u they're involved and connected to school. So, here are some things
022that our students are absolutely involved in. Um, a lot of clubs, a lot of partnerships. our culinary club are they're visiting schools fall festival go to them and we also know that when students are connected to say sports they're going to be doing better academically I know their coaches are doing such a great job with making sure academics are a priority and they're monitoring that so we we're walking around trying to hey try out for this team try out for that team which sport are you going to play I'm not sure oh you can try this one. So, we have our our fall sports, our spring sports, winter I think was the last slide, and our teams are actually doing pretty well. You you've hear all about them and their successes, breaking records. Um, this
023is uh our counseling team has also been trying to uh create a lot of pathways. These are pathways where students have something concrete once they leave high school that can turn into careers. So, we're really trying to um our goal is to get more students to go through these pathways. And if you were at our night of the stars, you saw a lot of them had earned that and that was really exciting. We're you see down here our graduation um I think our graduation rate is excellent by the way. We go to the next one. Oh, you know what? I missed um I think there was a slide a little bit ago about electives because um I know that's one of the most exciting parts with students. It's probably forward some of the the they
024often say the class they look most forward to is their electives. Um and oh it's okay I can read them off. Um I think one of our most popular ones definitely would be the culinary and um construction. But I would say those are the classes that kids are definitely most excited about. Um, I think here there's some highlights about some of the universities our students are going to. 35% are going to community college, which is a great option, especially if your first two years are free. And now I would like to invite our students um because speaking of student leadership, we have lots of options for that on campus. We have ASB, um, National Honor Society, Science National Honors Society, and, um, here we have this year the student superintendent advisory, and I have, um,
025let's see, Logan, William, Emily, Hunan, um, Cassidy, and am I missing someone? Oh, Ryan Ames, come on down. And they're going to share a little bit about this and close out our presentation. They're just comfortable. One, two, three. Oh, this is Hello, my name is Kathy and today I will be starting the introduction for the Superintendent Student Advisory Council. The purpose of the superintendent advisory council is to provide feedback and input to the superintendent regarding district and campus initiatives, events, and procedures. Some of the people who participated in the ideas for this are Emily Hananian, Ryan Ames, Lexi Vim Blarkcom, Logan Williams, Raymond Uma, Mia Cassidy, Gabe King, Alex Vim Ornham, Chris Gutierrez, and our two adult mentors, Dr. Eric Sahakian, and Dr. Rea. Hello, my name is Logan Williams and I will be continuing
026this. So, for the foundation of the superintendent advisory, we have a uh a DUSD 2030 strategic plan. Uh so, we're focused on goals for like student achievement, uh community engagement, and like just the safety of students. So some of the strengths we identified in our meetings were the staff commitment to students and the ability for students to access the teachers and like talking to like them about stuff. Uh teachers know students as individuals and not numbers. Uh teachers are friendly and accessible. The teachers motivate the students. Uh that the athletic program is strong and that the stud uh study hall for athletes is a plus. And some of the challenges we identified are incentives to increase student involvement and engagement in activities. Uh communication with staff and teachers need to be timely during unprecedented emergencies.
027For example, the power outages we had in winter and students met metriculating to Vasquez High School needing support to successfully make it uh to their journey to Vasquez. Hi, my name is Ryan Ames. So, in order to kind of play off our strengths and work on some of these weaknesses that we identified um over the course of the meetings we've been having, we talked about establishing a peer mentoring group. Um essentially the idea is that students um probably seniors and juniors um they would help both younger students and students transitioning from High Desert or another middle school to Vasquez to kind of navigate that um that journey. uh there's a lot to high school. There's a lot going on and sometimes people feel lost and they may not feel as engaged because they don't know
028as much uh what's going on. Um so in this peer mentoring group the idea is that so like I said some older students um who are vetted and have decided to join this group and have a passion for helping others um they become they form a relationship with these younger students that need help whether in social environments, in academic environments um in any of those kind of environments where they need help. and they can guide them through that process. So for example, we identified um we can play off some of the things that are already identified as strengths um such as the National Honor Society in academic topics. Uh so the National Honor Society uh would be able to potentially offering tutoring support and other academic support uh to the students uh and gain community
029service hours in exchange um in order to help kids better understand their coursework and uh things like preparing for college decisions and college uh you know general life goals where to go after high school um and in that journey. Um and then so the main main goals of this group would be to support obviously the navigation of Vasquez getting around class. Um just first things to do after 8th grade coming into into high school and then to increase student engagement so they care more about the school. They have more school pride. Um and then finally to offer academic support and help with attendance. Hi I'm Emily Hunanian. Um, I'll be finishing up the presentation. So, another one of the proposals that we came up with from the council meeting was offering additional opportunities to expose
030the middle schoolers to Vasquez High School. So, like Logan mentioned, one of our challenges that we identified was getting students involved and engaged in the school. So, we figured this is almost like a preventative measure. Why don't we take the group of students that are going to make up the future population of Vasquez and instill that excitement in them now? So, for example, we have arts day where high schoolers go to um high desert and do different art activities with them. We also have the road show where the middle schoolers, specifically the eighth graders, come over here and we show them what they're going to experience next year. Um, and we brought up a new idea, uh, like a VHS arts day where it's the same idea as the arts day we have now, but
031instead we bring the middle schoolers here. So now you're getting the same experience of the arts day, but you're getting to experience it in the environment that it comes in. So like culinary, for example, you're going to cook in the culinary classroom. You're going to see Miss Wagner, our culinary teacher. You're going to see where we put our aprons and where our equipment goes. And you're going to see culinary as it is at Vasquez. So hopefully the eighth graders get or even any middle schooler gets excited and now when they come to culinary they're even more excited and want to engage and that can be applied to many different subjects we have at school. And then another thing that we came up with was a welcome packet. So, a different challenge that we identified was
032um offering middle schoolers or just anyone coming to Vasquez with the smoothest smoothest navigation and just adjusting process. I think coming into Vasquez, whether you are from high desert or an outside district, eighth grader or 12th grader, it's an adjustment. There's a lot of new things to learn and it's a new school and that can be challenging and overwhelming. So to mitigate that, we came up with a welcome packet. It's a really simple concept, but it's really effective. It would include an FAQ sheet, staff directory, who are your teachers, what are their emails, even maybe a question directory. If you're interested in this, see this person. If you're worried about XYZ, this is where you go. These are helpful websites. You know, the list goes on. Um, I even see this like I can attest
033to this. I'm gonna go to college in the fall, so now is the time where it's register for orientation, housing, do this, do that. And sometimes it can be overwhelming and confusing, but those FAQ sheets are really helpful. So, our goal is to essentially translate that into not just middle schoolers, but anyone that's coming to Vasquez. Don't go too far. Um I'm you know we have fantastic students as we all know but I I am exceptionally proud of the students that you see behind me. Uh we met twice a month for months on end and they were very very open and transparent with the strengths of the campus the challenges of the campus and what to do in order to actually move their ideas forward with with a tangible item. And so we came up
034with peer mentoring. Um kudos to you. Thank you for being here tonight. Thank you for your participation. I don't think it was just the pizza at lunch that we provided. I think it was, you know, that you really are invested in Vasquez and many of you have been here for so many years. If we could give them a huge round of applause, but let's hold the applause first. I saw the hands going up. Ryan is going to UC Berkeley in the fall. Miss Emily is going to UCLA and I hope that I have Cassidy and Logan back in the fall. Um, they're smiling. I take that as a yes, mom and dad. um for the fall for the superintendent student advisory. And now we could give them a big round of applause. I commend you.
035Yes, Lucas UCSD. Congratulations. She had to put you on the spot. That's a parent for you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Smith. Thank you, students. Once again, incredibly proud of you and your contribution to AADS. All right, our second presentation. Can Can we pause right there? No, you don't apologize. I'm cutting you off, so I'm sorry. Um, can we go ahead and loop for board member comments? Um, who's got the slideshow? doing to read a quarter of these aloud. I will and then we'll run down the row. I'm an old man so I'm losing it so forgive me but kick it off please. We have Sean Ghorian our virtual academy department, Adam Rogers in our math department. Chip Cwick in our math department. Anthony Saledo in our mathscience department. Karine Karine Pacio in
036our sped department. Joshua Park in our English department. John Santa in our history department. Jackson McKelie in our CTE department. Oh, okay. We have the plan Mangle Joe Tibet Dr. Shotti Mug Hadis, excuse me, Mahajins. Thank you. Christina Wagner, Kayla Walker, Harry Owens, uh, Joseph Beas, Marshall Beas, uh, Baker, Tony Bates, Mario Bates, Taylor Blackburn, uh, Arai Burrows, Shandra. Oh, Shandra. Uh, Eric, what? Erica, like, sorry. Uh, Angela Flores, Martha Flores, Lee. Oh, I was going to go to All right, I'll go ahead and finish them off. I'm so sorry if I butcher any names. I'll do my best. Adelise Garin, Rachel Harter, Amy Hbert, Guido Harmo, is it Alan Mora? Yes. Eddie Romano, Juan Hernandez, Mervati, Carol White, Jennifer, Jennifer Zapeda, Tammy Brooks. That's Tammy Brooks. It just says Brooks there, so maybe Tammy's
037covered. But Miss Tammy Brooks, April Carson, and Vicky Perez. So, huge thank you to all of our staff. Thank you for having us read those out loud because those people are very important, Ken. So, then he asked to go to slide four, please. Yes, correct. So, it includes Yeah. Um, well, it could be there could be a student that has only speech services. There could be a student that only has uh resource services, which is being in a gened classroom. And then there are students that are have SDC courses that are a smaller group. Out of the 394,77 have an IEP. brought my thought process, please. So, at the end of the day, do I need to yell louder? Did anyone miss what I said? Because I can repeat it word for word, enunciation exact.
038Okay. So, like I'm sorry, Ken. People online couldn't hear you. People in the room can. I can hear you, but tell them to come in here and watch me. So, at the end of the day, did you hear that? At the end of the day, where was I? If you're around a staff member that has a reputation as being caring, an example and gives an a an example of behavior. I think that the the TOSA system in our school has given people an opportunity to move from a teaching position to a practical administrative role. And I think we're talking about Mr. Sparks who will come up to you and tell you don't do this, don't do that. Come on, dude. Or whatever he's doing. So, you think Mr. Sparks is good in his role, guys?
039Good. Thank you. Moving on. I want to go to slide whatever the end slide was that Emily who was talking about. Two more right there. I'm just not talking. Get in. Emily, I'm very proud of you. You are wonderful in your role here. Very wonderful. But if some old man is nagging at you, you should be doing this. What are you going to do with your life? What does that do for you guys? It does nothing. But when you guys are doing something to protect our brand by building your community, that is what's going to fill our classrooms. So I thank each and every one of you for being the example that you are. I think that's all I have. Thank you. She's tired from carrying all her ribbons around. Okay. So, thank you to
040um Dr. Raina and your staff for putting this together. I can't imagine um and all of the schools have had to do this, but I can't imagine taking like thinking about what are we, who are we, what's going on, absolutely every aspect of a school and narrowing it down to 20 slides. That has to be so overwhelming at first. And you nailed it. It's principles that have gum done this report in the past have nailed it. You guys are fantastic. So, I do want to say first of all, thank you for doing this for us and for our community and our students and highlighting all these great things and areas that we need to work on and just really explaining down to the nitty-gritty what our schools are all about. I think that's fantastic. Um,
041I don't know what slide is on. Can you go to the attendance slide? The one that has the months of attendance across the top. Fantastic. So when I look at this, we have some months that are 96. Month six, great. What were we doing in month six? What field trips were going on? Were was nobody getting sick? Were we not taking vacations? What were we doing in month six that made kids want to come to school to get our our ADA summary up to 96.7? And then on that same note, what the heck happened in month seven that kids were like, man, I don't really care about coming to school today or we're extra sick today or like I would love to dive deep into those and I'm not asking you to do that. I'm
042not let's not do that. I do too. Let's not do that right now. But if we look at this and we look at let's just at least go look at our calendars. What were we doing? Why did kids want to come to school? Why didn't kids want to come to school? How can we stop that and and duplicate month six and really get into trying to figure out how we can make every month look like month six and then move up from there, that would be fantastic. Really diving into what what we were doing right that month. Um, and I really think that if we can get kids to come to school butts and seats is going to change so much. Of course, it's going to give us ADA. And who doesn't want our school
043to have more ADA? That means more funding. That means more programs. All that. We can say that till we're blue in the face. That's fantastic. But then the next slide, if we do change our ADA and get kids coming to school, we're going to have our test scores going up. Plain and simple, ADA correlates to our test scores going up. So, and if we're going to get our test scores to go up, get kids to come to school, um, and just continue to make those green bars go over, um, that's that's goals. I know I harp on attendance a lot. Um, I'm a a big a big attendance person. So, um, I think that that diving deep into where we're doing right with that would be awesome. Um, and then for the students, you guys
044are fantastic, and I know that there's quite a few that were on that list that aren't here. So, thank you to you for being here, for taking time out of your day um to be here. I love the idea of the peer mentoring. Um, that plan sounds incredible. I love the idea of taking VHS students, yeah, you do the road show, but actually taking them up to VHS to do the arts day and really get into working like they're a VHS student and doing all the cool things that you guys get to do cuz Vasquez gets to do a lot of cool things that most high schools don't get to do. So, um really getting kids excited about doing that and then getting them um on board with the the welcome packet. Those sound like
045fantastic ideas. So, while you were saying that, I was asking like, how you guys are seniors, how are you going to carry this in next year and the year after and the year after and really grow those programs? And then I realized you're not all seniors and you do have underassmen. And I am looking forward to watching those guys carry on um what you guys are building here. So, and watching you guys that are juniors become seniors next year and really carrying on what you've already started and then just continuing to build on those fantastic ideas. That's very cool. It's a very cool program you have going on. So, congratulations to that and and keep up the good work. And that's all I have to say about that. I'll make a motion that we take
046a five minute break, please. I'll second that. Call for question. The Jillian eye, Paul's graphi, maze eye, Brianna Tony Yeah. Okay, we will return from our little break at 8:26. 6 p.m. We're going to move to 5A report of action taken in close session. Uh we did not have action taken in close session, but we do have a summary to be read. Uh Mr. Falsgraph, can you please read what you have been provided? Yes, I'm going to read a prepared statement word for word. Good evening everyone, comma exclamation point. Welcome to the May 22 meeting of the Actton Auados Unified School District Board of Education meeting. The statement I am going to read is a summary of the results of an investigation that the board of education authorized. The statement was prepared by legal counsel
047and district staff. As you may recall, we received a number of complaints about the principal at Meadowark Elementary School. We also received an online petition that the principal engage in unprofessional conduct and created a toxic work environment at Metoark Elementary School. The mass the vast majority of the 245 individuals who signed the petition online had no connection to the school district. Approximately 30 of the 245 individuals who signed the petition had no con connection to Meadowark school or the district. In order to ensure an impartial investigation, the board retained a board of education, excuse me, retained an outside investigator to invest in investigate the allegations against the principal. The investigator prepared a report for the board of education and a summary of the report will be made available to the public. The investigator interviewed 30
048witnesses and reviewed numerous documents. The investigator stated that she was asked to investigate allegations of bullying and unprofessional conduct by the principal at Metal Art School as well as the allegations listed in the petition. The polit the petition alleged that the principal used unjust criticism, public humiliation, and unprofessional conduct. Let's start that line over. It's important. This is read word for word. The petition alleged that the principal used unjust criticism, public humiliation, and intimidation tactics that created toxic work environment and undermine the ability of the teachers at Metallark Elementary School to perform their duties effectively. The investigator found that many of the complaints were perceptionbased, rooted in secondhand information, and often lacked a clear connection to any policy violation. The investigator stated that dissatisfaction with the principal seemed to stem from resistance to implementation of
049new systems and accountability measures and the principal's direct style of communication. The principal told the investigator a number of teachers at the school were very disrespectful, confrontational, and rude to her when she began working at Metoark. The investigator used a prepoundonderance of the evidence standard in the investigation. If the investigator determined that it is more likely than not that an allegation was true, then a finding was made that the allegation was sustained. Where there was not sufficient evidence to meet that threshold, even if there is some supporting evidence, the finding was that the allegation was not sustained. The investigator stated in the report that in many cases information provided was not supported by the evidence and was based on misconceptions. The investigator stated that in some cases the people who were interviewed appeared to be
050biased against the principal and complained of matters that did not involve the principal. The investigator found the principal to be credible and forthcoming throughout the investigation, providing reasonable expectations for her actions and decisions. The principal characterized much of the complaints from teachers wanting to maintain the status quo and opposing changes that the principal wanted to make. At staff meetings, several teachers would complain about the programs the principal wanted to implement. The same teachers alleged that there was a lack of support for teachers by the principal. As an example of misperception pointed out by the investigators was when the principal presented data regarding low reading scores at Metoark Elementary School and the need for a change in instructional practices. Some of the teachers perceived the discussion of the need for a change as a lack of
051support for the teachers at metal arts school. The investigator also cited this as evidence of the teachers becoming defensive and claiming that disparaging remarks were made about teachers by the principal. The investigator found insufficient evidence to support allegations of unwarranted writeups of teachers by the principal, allegation of negative statements to parents by the principal, allegations of mishandling of specific student incidents, and allegations of inappropriate conduct by the principal related to student safety. In all of these cases, the investigator concluded there was insufficient evidence to support the allegations. Also, several teachers described the existing teaching staff to the investigator as rude and unwelcoming to new staff members. Several staff members described the existing staff as opposing to using new programs introduced by the principal. Some staff members describe the principal as a fantastic principal who's very
052supportive of teachers. In conclusion, the investigator stated that many of the complaints were con perceptionbased, lacking in corroborative evidence, or did not indicate that there was a violation of district policy. The investigator concluded that the principal was able to provide reasonable explanations for her actions. And the investigator concluded that the principal was acting within the scope of her position as principal. If anyone would like to review a more detailed summary of the report, the report will be available for review at the district office. That concludes my statement. I would like to propose that we carry on with the superintendent report as it pertains to our guests. Then we move immediately to the presentation by the clinical social worker. Do I have a second? I second. Thank you. So our second call the question. The Jillian
053I graph I bas Tony I. What what item number are we moving up back to the superintendent's report and then we're moving up the presentation by the social worker where what is the title of that report please that is 10A presentation we care a AUSD beautiful so we will move we will move on with the superintendent report and then move to 10A and at that point we'll pick up the agenda and I thank you for the patients of our association representatives this evening. Dr. Sahakian. Thank you. Finally, our second presentation in this superintendent report is with our AV SULPA and our AVCAC. Here this evening to share. We have Miss Rosemary Napoleon, AV SULPA program administrator. And I'd like to uh also share thank you Miss Bené Loftess who is retiring for her leadership role
054um in that capacity. and the chairperson for the ABCAC and our AADS representative, Miss Angie Martin. Welcome. Hello everybody. Good evening, board, superintendent, staff, and community. I'm Angie Martin. I'm the district's representative to the Analopee Valley SULPA Community Advisory Committee. I have been the CAC representative for 5 years and I have held the position of chairperson for three years. I wanted to give an update on this past year and share some exciting news for us moving forward. Okay. Um so what is the CAC? Well um we serve as an advisory capacity collaborating with the SULPA to help support parents navigating special education. Um, as the CAC representatives board, we um have board meetings and we plan parent workshops. We um each year we send out a survey to the to our entire listerve which is
055well over 200 um on what topics they would that would be relevant to them. We sent it out in English and in Spanish. In 2024, we had workshops on navigating the IEP journey, transition and graduation for students in special education, IEP peacemaking, unlocking the power of alternative dispute resolution, and behavior boot camp, equipping parents for the summer stretch. Our workshops and board meetings are held in an in a hybrid model and interpretation is provided via Zoom. Um, we were finally able to work out the glitches on that and make it happen about a year and a half ago to have our meetings hybrid and that was always been something that's very important to me because equitable access to information um has just been on the forefront of my mind um since I started volunteering here.
056So, so making sure that everyone that wants to participate has access um was a definite priority when I became the chairperson. We currently have nine district representatives. Um it's actually mandated that each school district has a CAC rep. Um when I became the representative 5 years ago, we had three reps. So that means seven did not even have a representative at all. Um and so it has that's been a huge improvement. Um the CAC partners with the AV SULPA staff. We host um tables at resource fairs throughout the region, usually about two or three a year. Um I field all the incoming emails that come in from all over the region um asking us to attend different events. And so um it could be a movie night, anything. And then I send those out to
057our whole list serve on a regular basis. So these are kind of things that even the SULPA office might not even be aware of. Um then every year the the CAC we we view the annual budget plan and if there's anything that we would wanted to input into it, we can do that. uh every 3 years we um review the local plan for special education and I did that the last time and many school districts had groups of people that came in um and we literally went through the document section by section and it's I know it was presented to you guys it's very very long um and we had we had a very shining star group um that was actually led by Miss Rosemary Napoleon. Um and it was just this is a very
058interesting funny story that I turned to one of the SULPA staff very impressed with how her team just diligently went through their section um cuz not everybody participated. And I turned to one of the SUPA staff and I said, "Wow, they sure went through that with the fine tooth comb." And our eyes lit up. So at the end I presented her team with the fine tooth comb award. So it was just I just you know have to keep it going now. So um so we will probably I think do that next year and then annually next slide. Um the state SULPA puts on a legislative sharing day and that is the purpose is um uh selpas from all over the state. We all meet up in Sacramento and the SULPASS bring um vice chairs, chairs
059from their their CAC. Some of these parents will even bring their children. And we have guest speakers um this year was the uh state superintendent of education and he spoke. We had a couple other speakers. Um so then next slide. And so these are the state sulfa priorities. These are not priorities that anyone else comes up with. The CAC does not come up with them. Some people have thought that, but that's not true. So these are the priorities that all that they've all came up with. Um when I I have gone now to Sacramento three times. Um, and I'm never pressured on what bill that I am going to speak to. I chose number one. Um, and I'm going to read you that bill. It's actually a resolution. So, AJR7, special education funding protection. Um,
060background. This measure would call on members of United States Congress to oppose reductions to funding that negatively impact educational services for students with disabilities and on the president in Congress to ensure that services and funding for students with disabilities are uninterrupted. I also follow that up with I shared about our small rural school district and any funding loss could be devastating. Then unfortunately one week later I'm sitting here in a board meeting to hear that our mental health grant is threatened to be cut. Um I've been attending schoolboard meetings for six plus years now. Um so I'm very aware of how our district has struggled financially and throughout these years. Um the grants that our superintendent has brought to our district has provided much needed breathing room but these grants have provided much more than
061that. They have provided growth and hope. So um so this is part of legislative sharing day. This is where we meet in the morning. This is where we hear our guest speakers. And um then then we move into we um unfortunately the actual capital building is under construction and has been. So there is what's called a swing space. It just looks like a giant building unfortunately. But we were able to sneak into the state assembly hearing on AB1454 and it was regarding literacy and it was really it was very very interesting. There was literally 50 to 100 people standing in line to just say who they are and that they were supporting it. And it was just very interesting to watch the process and to hear the assembly members speak. And while we were waiting
062to go up the elevators to go um have our meetings with um the assemblymen, we could hear the cheers of when it was voted on and passed. So you'll remember that bill because you'll be hearing about it. This was um picture of our meeting with um Assemblyman Tom Lackey. Um I don't know if maybe not everybody knows but actually Tom Lackey um was a former sped teacher um a former school board member. He is so supportive, as most probably know of our school district. And when I shared what I shared about funding in our rural school district, he says, "I know. I understand the struggles of AADUSD my kids went through." And it's just just to have that personal connection with with someone up in Sacramento. It's it just it just really means a lot.
063So, um Oh, skipped one. Okay. No. Oh, okay. There was I don't know what happened. Okay. Anyways. All righty. So, it is my honor to introduce our new program administrator of the Analopee Valley Sulpa, Rosemary Napoleon. Thank you so much. Well, thank you for inviting me today um and letting me have an opportunity to introduce myself. I actually just started this position on April 1st and I've had the pleasure of working with Angie for the last couple years actually in a different capacity. I um just a little bit about myself, I spent 20 years in Lancaster School District, so it's been really hard to transition out of my Lancaster home. Um 10 years as a special ed director. And if you don't know any know much about special ed, it's about a fiveyear career. So
064I spent 10 years doing it. Um I just loved it. I love special ed. Um my I'm a parent of a a student of a child actually an adult of a of a child who has profound disabilities. So I spent my life just caring for him and um he had cerebopy epilepsy total care. Um he passed about eight years ago. It in July would be eight years. He was two weeks before his 28th birthday. Wonderful life, wonderful person. Um, so my life passion is to support families to understand the system of IEPs. It's a complex system and I think in my work I realize that parents grieve. Parents grieve from the time we make kids eligible to the time they leave us. So I think I really spent my work just having our IEP teams
065help parents understand special ed. That's all I want. And have um patience and grace. We walk into IEPs with so much stress in our lives. And I think we forget in school systems that we also outside of school deal with medical, we deal with social security, we deal with all other issues. And um I was fortunate enough to have a job, but a lot of our families out in the Analopee Valley don't. and they deal with a whole bunch of other things. So, I always taught my staff to um have grace and have patience. And that's kind of what I spent my career doing in Lancaster is um mentoring and helping our teams understand. So, I actually met Angie um like she said in our local plan meeting and we had coffee one day and
066I said, "Hey, what do you think about doing some alternative dispute resolution work with me?" So, we actually started this program where we help families um resolve conflict and we were very successful I felt um this last couple years and um and I really didn't want to leave because I really wanted to continue that work but I thought going to the SULPA I would not only help Lancaster but I would help 10 school districts and I wanted to um extend my work. So um that's kind of where my passion led me to. Um, but I I I do miss the ADR work, but I feel like I could now mentor new directors and I work with Devana, your your program coordinator, who I love and she is um amazing and I I she has great
067potential. So now I mentor her and um I just feel like that is where my work is now, just bringing my own skills to new directors. Um, but I I wasn't sure if he could make it, but I want to introduce um our SULPA program specialist. Um, uh, yeah, my name is James Borie and I'm a program specialist, uh, board certified behavior analyst that supports the Sulpa. I started February 3rd of this year, so Rosemary's time and my time together is five months if I do the math right. Right. But we have some big plans. Talking to Angie about some big plans. Um, I did have a speech lined up, but I know it's a school night, so I think I'm gonna go ahead and save the speech for next time I see you guys.
068But yeah, we just want to be here to support Angie and the CAC is a a big opportunity for us to meet with our parents. We're hoping to get uh more participation and um yeah, reach reach our parents, support our parents, our families. You know, the relationships we build with our with our parents is probably one of the longest relationships that they're going to have over that that time that they're in school. And so, um, as Rosemary said, like the the IEP system, special ed, it's it's more than just special education services. It's it's supporting the community, supporting parents, supporting families along that journey. Next slide. So, just to let you know kind of what we do. Um, our special education local plan area, we support 10 school districts. Um, your district is one of
069them. So, technically, I kind of work for all 10 superintendent. So, um, these are our 10 school districts. And this is just kind of a summary of what we do in a nutshell. We do much more than this, but we really want to support and build the capacity of our uh leaders um in just ensuring that our students with disabilities receive a free and appropriate education. We want to really make sure we have a continuum of services for all students. So, for example, um visual impairments. If we have a student who has a visual impairment, we need to make sure that we have services for the student. All districts can't afford to have their own VI teacher. So we have um so Lancaster was um the VI teacher. So we made sure that we had
070the VI teacher in Lancaster and any district who had a student with um VI needs, we made sure we supported that district. We want to collaborate with community partners and families and that's where Angie comes in with the CAC. She does amazing work and we appreciate it's all voluntary and I just am amazed at everything she does and the time she spends with the work that she does and the community with our community partners like regional center with family focus. We are starting to build relationships with them. We ensure compliance with the um California Department of Education make sure our data is clean. Um James and our other program specialists provide professional development. Um I'll show you our website in a minute. Um and just understanding that um working with students with disabilities. We want
071to build capacity not just with um teachers and staff with anybody who works with a student with disability. And like Angie said, we support our local plan every year um every three years. And we have an annual budget that the superintendent look at as well. And then um CAC also looked at next slide. So here is our if anybody would like um more information here is our website. Um it gives information about who we are, what we do. Um parent um parent handbook is on here. Um that's really important. We have our policies and procedures. Um we always talk about you have to tell your own story and you want to make sure we give our positive kudos. So, I actually started our AV Sulpa Instagram page. So, I just started it two weeks ago.
072Maybe we had 14 followers last time I checked. If anybody like to follow us, um we want to just really talk about um just um like Angie said, our CAC flyers. Um I just highlighted Gorman School District. Um James and I went out there. Um we had goats that were pregnant that had little baby goats. We're going to post those. Um, so we just want to highlight our districts and all the great things we're doing out there. Um, students with disabilities and their families need to be recognized. We are parents who need a support group and we are here for each other and I think that's what we miss and um, and it it is a hard job being a parent and and having a student with disability just adds extra pressure. So I just
073really want to be out there for everybody. So, um, you know, we're going to be out there and, um, you know, we're going to post. So, if anybody wants to follow us, that's where we're at. Um, next slide. I think that's it. Okay. Thank you so much for your time. We appreciate it. Don't go anywhere. Um, we'll go ahead and loop for comments. I have absolutely none. Thank you so much. I have one question, James. Tell me about your background and your training and your experience level. Uh yeah, my background started about 13 years ago in the home setting working with parents and families of students with special needs, extreme behavioral concerns. Um I did as volunteer work while I was at community college. Um I had a lot of thoughts at the time of
074doing something different. It was really hard work uh like Rosemary said working with the families. Um, it was tough. But as I continued my education in the field of psychology and behavior analyst, I was able to support families, watch uh, families observe their kid say their first word, request their first meal, what learn how to do self-help skills. And so that rewarding piece there kept me in the game. Uh, trans transition over to Cal State Long Beach to get my uh, behavior analyst certification as well as my master's degree in school psychology. ended up meeting Rosemary Napoleon at Lancaster School District about six years ago. All the leadership she talked about I could vouch for. It's what had me follow her over to the SOPA and continue this work but at a bigger capacity. You
075catch that. Yeah. And that and now now I got a game going on that's been being played for six months. Do your part. Is it how many times I say um or what if? Okay. Um no, but that now that brought me to the cell in February and so that's where I'm at. Perfect. Be seated. Thank you. I don't want to wear your legs out. Tired up here. Just go. No, seriously. Be seated, please. No. No. I want No, we're not. I'm making sure they're comfy. These aren't questions. Relax. I'm going to talk to you about my experience historically with the SULPA. And we're not going to look at, you know, who or what or why. But this didn't happen people by accident. This is not a meet and greet. I started worrying about funding
076a long time ago. And this presentation that's going to come up by our clinical social worker is not an accident. So here was my experience with the SULPA. I went to my first SULPA meeting. Um, you all know my daughter that just passed. Um, I sat in a room one night on Christmas Eve and told that we should terminate her uh before she was born. I sat in a a doctor's office who gave us her genetic makeup and diagnosis at 18 months. There was a psychiatrist and a social worker there because imagine that you are told that your child is inherent as their nose shape or anything like that is genetically programmed to die young and be basically nonfunctional in every way. Some people can never get past that because they spend their life mourning
077a child who was not born normal. And this this child is just a constant reminder of that. Imagine that. Yeah, I know what you do. I don't know how you do it. I'm glad you do it and I'm glad a person of your capacity is at the SLPA. But this is what the CAC meeting looked like. I walked in and they have programs that are supposed to be educational programs. So, if somebody's in the background and it's a mandate to have a CAC rep because anytime there's tax money, you got people like us up here that are telling these people what to do and we don't know, I won't swear anything about anything and we're just a necessary evil. And I think back then the CAC rep was was there and I saw the meeting
078hijacked by a group of little angry parents who had their agenda to push and it was like and then it went out in the parking lot and there was strategizing going on against the district. It was horrendous. And then there's this idea about parents. You walk into I I did an interesting thing called underground schoolboard. It talked about the land of goooo gaga where you're a parent and you're at the house and it's a three-hour trip to get out with a diaper bag and everything. And so all of a sudden, you go into a room and you're still dealing with your own thing and people are saying things like, "Oh, that's a medical issue." Or or no, we don't do that here. you're just looking for help. So, you walk into an IEP meeting and
079it's like, "Oh, uh, hi. How are you? Um, you're the worst dressed one. You're the most uneducated one. There's 50 people there. I've been into an IEP meeting in which it was lawyered up for two and a half days." and a and a person was serving the district who was a con as a consultant testifying against Tammy's needs while they were also serving on the executive board of her foundation. I've been in the trenches. I know what it and I'm going to tell you this. If you look at the website for the policy and management subcommittee, I ran the lawyer. No one knew I was doing this. I appear to be so random, but I ran the lawyer step by step how to create a $2 million lawsuit liability. Watch it. It's shocking. I lay
080it out how to do it. So, historically, what's happened with these people here is they're uh the CAC is kind of like we are to the district. So, they're the the the the community aspect that comes in and says, "Hey, we're here to help. We're here to have a relationship, but we're also here to make sure that the taxpayer uh money doesn't go to a superintendent salary and personal wealth building. And I'll leave that at that. So at the end of the day, what I was seeing was a culture of people coming in bullying people, staff, and then that the goal of what they're really trying to do as a unit here is to make it where someone is not coming into the meeting feeling ignorant, feeling massively overwhelmed, un undereducated, and then worse off
081underdressed because there's a big fashion show going on. And then at the end of the day, I don't care what anyone's saying up there at all. It's the It's the most insignificant thing in my life. Sorry. Not sorry. But then they ask you questions like, "Tell us about the strengths of your children." They call it a facilitated IEP meeting. It's very funny if you ever have to go through one. I wouldn't wish it upon anyone. But what happens is board members all they see of special education another settlement to the point where somebody asking someone hey I I I need some help here. I need to find something because the federal uh special education program is mandated by federal law. I can be if I do the wrong thing on the school board, I can
082become responsible uh staff members. So, when I'm in the back and I ask about a case, first thing I ask, was IEP timely? Second, did you support the the parents right to have some information upfront? If you don't have that, you're dead in the water. At some point, there's a book called um survival guide to due process hearing. I tried to get it. It was a nightmare. had to threaten legal action to get it because what it is, it's a handbook that says if you've dropped the ball at this point, this point or this point, this is what the attorney will do. So everything that staff has tried to do, whatever gets swept aside so the attorney can get a signature of release and then because somebody dropped the ball because they were underfunded, didn't
083have the authority, the capacity, or afraid of the school board bullying them because we're all ignorant about the needs of others. We've put somebody out of state because well, you just have too 15,000 a month. You're flying all kinds of people all over the place. And we get what do we get ADA a kid? 125. So every month I'm putting an ADA for for a kid and a half. So every kid and a half we earn we're paying somebody to go to a non-public agency and then they tell us oh you have to monitor their emotion their their uh whether the educational program is relevant or not. and that that those people's lawyers are like, "Oh, yeah. Well, you couldn't do the service yourself, so we're going to villainize you." And we watch money go
084out the window. And meanwhile, this relationship is undermined. And then suddenly, the most effective part of all this is at some point, they call in their specialist like this gentleman or whatever, and you call the SUPA to get you out of trouble because you have internal cultural sickness and illness. I do not like my students characterized as needing constant help like they're fragile and hid in some type of identity crisis every day. That's not reflective of the kids in my town. I don't give a damn if you voted what way you vote. I It's not our role to be partisan up here. I'm not going to be characterized as somebody that uh you know I'm not Portland. Sorry. Our streets are clean. We give people services. I want you to remember I asked a little
085bit ago. You have to watch me because it'll hit you six months later and then I'll act stupid like it was all random. I ran the attorney at the first policy and management group sending out a message. Do not screw up. Ask for people, especially people who are trying to help you, please. But at the end of it, we still have 19% of our kids requiring special education services ed exiting high school. Those numbers are supposed to go down because at some point you realize this is the capacity this but when you got that kind of pass through is it when you go to the next step which is college do you have the same level of support? No, you're on your own. I dare anybody that has a normal kid trying to enter the
086job market right now and they actually think about the American dream. What a joke. But I'm tired of our funding being cut. Rosemary, I know more about you than you know. I am tired of watching our aotment for this district go to band-aid services when it's too late. I know about your program and I hope that somewhere in the SULPA plan there is a little tiny bit for you to make yourself known and for you to make yourself known and I really don't want to see you around but I'll be happy when you are if we need it. But we got a new school right out here and I want to remind everybody who's the first kids in our school system. Who hits you first? The three-year-olds, where do they come from? The regional center
087referral. They need early intervention. I do not want to spend money on some parents that are lighting up everybody in the parking lot because they don't get the emotional support they need. I don't need staff checked out because they're being bullied and harassed. I don't need any of that. Please be at our new campus often and early. and and if you need a place to take what you've done at Lancaster and show that it'll work at a regional level, please do that for us. I'll have comments for you um when you give your presentation. This lights me up. Thank you for your patience. Thank you for all you guys do. Uh it's very much needed. So, we do appreciate it. So, I know that the majority of the people have no idea, including me. I
088don't I really don't know all that you do. I I get maybe 1% of what you do. Um and I know it's huge. I know it's big and I I'm very thankful that I don't know what you do, honestly. Um Angie, I know that you give a lot of your time, a lot of volunteer time. Um, you're here every single board meeting and I know that you do so much that nobody in this town knows what you do, but you do give so very much of your time and your energy. Um, and I just want to thank you for all that you do for people that have no idea you're even doing it. You're working in the background and you're working in the shadows and you're doing things for people um that need it the
089most. So, thank you so much for all you do for our kids and our families and our community. We next is anyone. I would invite you to stay uh if you're uh if if your schedule allows. Thank you for being here. Um are we ready to hear from our clinical uh social worker? Thank you, Vice President. That concludes my report. Thank you. I think there's more but we'll cover it at the end. Okay. Now we will move on as previously voted for this change in our agenda. We will move to 10A presentation. We care a ADUSD. Thank you Dr. Sahakian board members and the community for having me and giving me this platform. Um, I am Elizabeth Ortiz, the licensed clinical social worker and therapist for the AADUSD mental health program. We care. This is
090my amazing, wonderful team of therapists. They are the dream team. Um, this is Sherika Emmel. She has her ASW PPSC therapist and preceptor for Vasquez High School. Alandre, ASW therapist and coverage preceptor for High Desert Middle School. Zulie Quesada, ASW, PPSC, therapist, school counselor, and field supervisor. This is Emma Reyes Lopez, ASW, therapist and preceptor at Medallark Elementary School. The WECARE program also has a school internship program under the USC School of Social Work. We had two fabulous interns for this school year. Miss Christina Morales is the intern. She serviced Vasquez as well as High Desert. And then we have Natalie Arkea and she uh did both High Desert and the elementary school. And what this does is this allows for our interns to come in to learn about the field um to learn, you
091know, what it is to be a therapist, um all of the techniques, all of the therapy interventions, and they get their field learning experience. And this also creates uh services, more services for our kids on our campuses. Uh we'd like to give a huge thank you to our school counselors for supporting our program and collaborating as a team. When we came into this district, they were the two uh pillars who helped us, you know, uncover what are the needs for our schools, what's going on on the campuses, uh what are some things that we can be working on right away. This is Nicole Salceo and Tiffany Quesada. We've been working really closely with them, our team, just to develop and to uh learn what our, like I said, what our school needs are. Our mission
092um the AADUSD mental health program's mission is to provide access to direct mental health services to the actual unified school district students to promote and advance the safety, health, and overall well-being of each student. Our vision is to create a culture of safety and wellness at the actual Unified School District and the community as a whole. Focusing on mental health services, support, health, education, and wellness events. We strive for all students to feel safe, respected, and valued. Creating a school environment that promotes emotional well-being to sustain academic success, encourage lifelong achievement for students. Our services we provide direct mental health therapy to students face-to-face therapeutic sessions and groups training to all AADUSD staff on mental health and wellness and psycho education our services like I had mentioned direct mental health therapy groups training and psycho
093education not only for our students but for our staff and the beauty of our program and there is no service fees as you all know mental health it's very hard to get into an agency because of various things, because of insurance, because there's long waiting lists to a lot of agencies and as you know here, this is the first time ever that we have ever had mental health directly here on our actual area. Um, other than that, we have to outsource and provide linkages. Our closest ones is Palmdale in Santa Clarita. Uh, so the beauty of this is there's no service fee and then it's right on our school campus. So the students don't have to don't have to go anywhere. the parents don't have to transport them. We are directly on campus and as
094you know we're a rural area. Um it is very hard for transportation to get out to Palmdale and to Lancaster and to uh Santa Clarita. And again our services we cannot because they're direct mental health services. We cannot meet with the students unless we have consent from the parents. our referral process. Parents, teachers, school administration, and staff can refer a student to receive mental health services, and students can self-reer through our AADUSD mental health program. We created QR codes to make it even simpler for our teachers and for our students. So, as you know, it is difficulty as it is if you're, you know, struggling or having mental health issues. So, the students don't have to come into the office to even say, I need these services. they can go and on their phone tag
095the QR code and put their information that they either need to see us right away, they want to see us tomorrow, or they just want more information about the program. These are our fabulous We Care ADUSD uh sweatshirts. This is our logo that we created as a team. And then on the back it says, "If you are reading this, you matter. We care." And you know, this has allowed us to show the students we really do care about you. We are not disciplined. the kids know we are not disciplined. Um you know if we're there for them if there's a discipline issue um you know we provide the social emotional support and then for the discipline you know that goes to administration to principal so they know that we're there to be like hey what's
096going on tell me tell me what's the underlying thing. So you know we have really worked hard to build rapport on our campuses to establish relationships with not only the students but the staff and the students really feel that we're approachable with them. They have even stated that um you know we're the first ones there in the morning usually before the bell even rings. So we have students even lining up at our door to maybe talk about what happened the night before, what happened over the weekend that they need to process something. Um and we're the last ones to leave because our students, you know, after school that maybe something happened during the day or maybe they're struggling and they they're scared to go home that night. So we're always, you know, first thing in
097the morning and, you know, last to leave all the time. Um the brochures that we have, these were created by our team. Um Alandre cond uh Alandre, she's one of our, you know, she's called the the Canva queen. So she, you know, makes a lot of our logos, a lot of our brochures. Um we have one for each school and you can find them in the front office of each of our school sites with all of our contact information. We provide this to the parents, we provide them to the students and the community so they know how to reach out to us. um these beautiful mental health resource posters also created by Alandre by Zulie and the whole team um added to it. These are posters that are going to be up in our classrooms,
098our campus sites that shows where the students can receive mental health resources not only on our school campuses but on other uh for other agencies as well as well as you know what are some things that you are experiencing some positive coping strategies. Um there's a QR code with our referral on it and then how to avoid um avoid the strategies of you know being stressed out or feeling overwhelmed and some more resources. Uh our certifications so we are my whole team is uh certified in CBITS which is a cognitive behavioral intervention for trauma in schools. A school-based group and individual an individual intervention that uses cognitive behavioral techniques is designed to reduce the symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder, PTSD, depression, and behavioral problems, as well as to improve functioning, grades, and attendance, peer parent
099support, and coping skills. It's been used with students in grades 5 to 12 who have witnessed or experienced traumatic life events such as a community and school violence, accidents, injuries, physical abuse, domestic violence, natural and humanmade disasters. We are also certified in bounceback. This is an adaptation of SEBITS. The bounceback program helps school-based clinicians work with children in kindergarten through fifth grade. like sebis. The program is intended for students that are exposed to at least one traumatic event who are experienced traumatic stress symptoms. We have had a few groups for the bounceback and for seis and we also collaborated with the official trainings trainers that created these uh interventions and they have allowed us to even use some of the interventions for these programs in our individual sessions. So we we are pulling from the
100notebooks and we are actually doing these in our individual sessions as well. Uh we are actually uh the threat and risk assessment team part of the assessment team. Each site has been has an identified risk and assessment team. So we work closely with our principles with our admin. Uh nurse Carrie has been a huge part of that. Thank you to nurse Carrie. She um is also specialized in risk assessments and she gives the medical lens when we really need it and also you know just information about medical um that we need need for a student. Uh we did receive formal training with Dr. Wong and she is a trainer that has been providing a lot of the trainings in respon in response to a lot of the school shootings that are um nationwide. So she,
101you know, gives us strategies, she gives us ways on how we can um go about threats or any risk on our campus sites. And out of this, we created policies, procedures. Uh Tiffany and Nicole have, you know, before we even got here had created a lot of the policies and procedures, and we just fine-tuned those policies and procedures and worked with them. Uh confidentiality. So we are confidential. Um you know confident confidentiality requires behavioral health professionals to protect their clients privacy by not revealing what they say during sessions without their consent. Of course we tell the kids um the students you know what stays in here. What you say in here stays in here unless is you're harming yourself, harming others or um for any child abuse or neglect. Um and they know that their
102se their sessions are confidential. So they feel and I've heard this from a lot of students that they feel safe in our rooms and you can see our rooms on the next slide. We worked really really hard to create safe calming spaces. Um I've heard from many students that they feel so safe in these rooms. They feel very calm. So if they're having an anxiety attack, a panic attack, they know to go to Miss Charlie's office, Miss Zulie's office, Miss Emma's office, Mr. Laundre's office. uh they we really worked really hard to figure out what we need in our offices and what we can use um for the best interventions when it a student is experiencing these things. Uh we did have kindness week at the beginning of this year um which was huge for
103our sites. So we created on metallark site and for the little elves and for the middle school we did trees. So the students would come, we had heart cutouts uh and they would put kind things on the hearts and it was amazing to see what they would say or they would even give it to their peers which is which was a beautiful site. So one of them on here it says you are beautiful just the way you are. And for Vasquez we did a leave one take one. So they would write on the heart and then they would take one. And just to see the smiles on their faces or just saying like I really needed that today was huge for these students. um classroom presentations. We've been going into classrooms and we've been doing
104bullying prevention, um information about bullying, different kinds of bullying because as you know, cyber bullying is, you know, really common with um with the world right now. So, we do a lot of intervention for bullying, uh testing anxiety. We're just doing overall, you know, mental health, a lot of classroom presentations and then reminding them that we're here for them if they need to talk. In a lot of these presentations, they would go back to the offices and right away students would start coming in. You know what? You brought this up. I need to talk to you about this. Um, so it just gave them a way to open up about a lot of things. Uh, PD presentations. On the next slide, we went into PDS for the teachers and we provided mental health training or
105just, you know, opening it up about what mental health looks like. Um, you know, teachers there, you know, they're overwhelmed with just even teaching and mental health is just a whole another level. And, you know, we were trying to let them know ways that they can incorporate things in their classrooms, how we can support them, uh, what that looks like for a student. You know, we really don't know what's going on with the student every day. They can come in with, you know, a whole bunch of stuff that happened in the morning. And we use the iceberg analogy, like we, you know, we only see what's on top of the iceberg. We don't see what's going on in the bottom. There can be a lot going on. A student maybe didn't even eat this morning,
106didn't eat last night. So, they're not concentrating in class. That comes out as they're being um you know, they're being argumentative or dismissive, but really their their basic needs are not being met. And what we're doing is we're we are pulling that child or we're not, you know, saying, "Oh, you know, these behaviors are so bad." We're asking, "Hey, what's going on? Like, what's going on? You know, what's going on at home? Are you okay?" And we're finding out that there's more underlying needs and we're able to help them or help their family. And then we see like a complete 360 on the the behavior on the campus. You want to turn the next slide. We did have mental health spirit week as you heard earlier this evening. Um this week so we had music
107Monday. Wear your favorite band t uh t-shirt because music is a great coping skill. Uh Tuesday twin day dress like a friend because you're not alone. Wear green Wednesday mental health awareness month. Uh wear colorful clothes to represent the many emotions that we feel. tie-dye, as you see, Michelle's wearing a tie-dye today. I love that. Um, feel good Friday. Uh, wear pajamas to lower your stress level. Um, I've even gotten the district staff to participate. Uh, you know, letting them like where's your green? Or, you know, pick a buddy and dress like them. Um, so the kids really got into it. They loved it. This is our talk activity that we did actually yesterday and it was a really beautiful site to see. Um, so I personally did the ones at the little owls outside.
108Um, and you can see the picture on the bottom. Uh, I asked the littles, you know, what makes you happy? And one of them said, "My family makes me happy." And she drew her whole family. And she was like, "Oh, my dad is bald." And she was going into like actual details and saying like that there's a my daddy's holding a heart because, you know, I love him. So, it was just beautiful to see, you know, what their perspective was. And then a lot of the middle schoolers, you know, actually wrote uh very very big and very um positive things like it's okay to not be okay, but it's not okay to give up. You're loved. Um we saw a lot of kids collaborating and even working together on the talk. So it was just
109really beautiful yesterday and it's still on our sites if you want to even go see it. Um the next slide, um Zuli Quesada, she actually partnered with DH and she got DMH to come here free of charge because you know we just built that connection and she provided training for parents. So DMH actually came in provided uh many trainings for our parents on our high desert site and we got a few parents to show you know we're just trying to promote it a little bit more and then actually Zulie and Alandre um after that was over they overtook it and continued with the parent training. And our next slide is you know really powerful. Um you know we sat in a lot of rooms that you know students sitting right in front of me they
110were in very dark places. um you know they had plans to take their life to they had a means to take their life um a way to take their life and they were going to do it that day and try try not to cry because they were sitting right in front of me right um but these are the things that we we do we you know we help them through this this darkness um you know we're kind of like that light kids have told us that um some of the things that they you know go through anxiety depression anger suicidal ideation self harm term, eating disorder, peer conflicts, trauma, substance abuse, and self-esteem. Um, and grief. Um, and there was just two quotes that I used. Uh, may it be a light to you in
111dark places when all other lights go out. Hope is being able to see that there is light despite all of the darkness. So, this is what my team does for the students. Um, these are some data um on our services. So direct student services and support number of individuals determined to need an assessment either a risk assessment or a threat assessment. And this is just you know we just started this last year. So this is and we have a very small school district. So out of that was 173 that we've done so far and this is with our counselors. Um of those number of individuals that are determined to be a threat to themselves of others 127 out of the 173. Of those number of individuals that are referred to a program 140. a number
112of students currently receiving therapy services. 102 services that 102 ser students that are receiving individual counseling. Uh 9.4% of our district students currently receiving individual therapy services. And this is not even counting the students that we just provide support services for. Uh whether it be they're just having a bad day that day and we're just being a supportive staff. That does not go into these numbers. Uh so some of the support services that we do on the next slide as well is we provide guidance to teachers and staff through emails and inerson meetings. We share safety plans once we implement them. We attend IEPs with permission of the student and parent to provide support and update on therapy goals and services which I love that it was talked about earlier about IEPs. You know a
113lot of our students they feel like they don't have a voice and we we are encouraging and advocating that they have a voice for themselves. So if they feel like they want to say something in their IEP, we actually talk about that in session. We write it down with them and then we sit with them in the IEP and give them that strength to actually say that in the IEP. Um same with the parents. If the parents feel like they want to say something, if they need our support, we also sit in with the IEPs. And this is just an extra service that we do. This is not even part of our grant requirements. This is just something that we saw there was a need for um offer referrals and linkages to external mental health
114services for more intensive care and other other community resources. So for those students that may need higher even higher than us support maybe it be FSP services wraparound services or just more intensive therapy we do provide that outside and we continue to provide that support inhouse um and we collaborate with their outside therapists or their outside team and then we attend a lot of the morning huddles or morning meetings with our principles and with our admin to see what's going on on the school site. How can we help? Um, and this is just something that we came up with, um, handle with care. So, you know, we're very confidential, but what we do is, um, if a parent reaches out to us and says, "Hey, like this is going on, they're having a rough morning,
115we send a handle with care notification through email to the teacher, to staff, just to, you know, let them know they might be having a rough day today. Can you just give them, you know, some extra love today?" And that's how we notify them. Again, I want to say, you know, the names of my team members because these are amazing human beings. um that work on our school sites. Miss Charlie at Vasquez High School, Miss Alandre at High Desert Middle School, Miss Julie at High Desert Middle School, Miss Emma at Metallark Elementary School. Um school campuses have increasingly requested additional support services highlighting their growth, their growing in need. It is difficult to imagine these services uh being reduced or eliminated and I cannot envision our school campuses without this team of highly dedicated individuals.
116Um and you know, I'm from here. I'm from this community, so this is I'm very passionate about these services and I'm very grateful that I have the opportunity to be the first school social worker. Um, so it's more than just a job to me. This is me giving back to my community. Um, I graduated Vasquez High School and my teachers were there for me. I had Tim Jorgensson, I had u Miss Susie Bkosski, Miss Lloyd Dqua, um, you know, Miss Ames, they were all there for me when I went through the loss of my dad. um I was about to graduate Vasquez and they were all there for me and I wish I would have had a Miss Emma and Miss Charlie or Miss Alandre because they just added more support, you know, when someone's
117grieving because a lot of our kids are grieving and a lot of staff don't even know that they're grieving because of a loss of a parent, a loss of a relative, a family member. Um so we're just there to guide them, give them resources on what the grief cycle looks like. Um so they can concentrate in their classrooms. And then the next slide, this is my contact information. Um, again, I'm Elizabeth Ortiz, licensed clinical social worker. That's my work cell phone, my email. Um, and if you ever want to reach out to me, let me know. Any questions, comments? Yes. Um, I haven't had the pleasure of meeting the whole team, but I have met Miss Charlie, and it just it makes me really happy and it brings a lot of comfort to me knowing
118that my whole school, all four grades, they have someone to talk to. And actually about 2 months ago, Miss Charlie reached out to me about the mental health awareness spirit week. Um she wanted to collab with ASB just to promote it more and make sure the students would be into something like that. So she was just so great with that and I I'm with her every day at lunch now talking to students and doing these chalk activities, doing bubble activities and building rapport, building relationships with these students and it's just so awesome to see and I love it. I wish I could I wish I wasn't graduating but that's that. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you so much. I hope everyone can see that what we saw tonight was a showcase of how we address on
119a personal level of personal excellence. that somebody comes to school ready to work, ready to do the right thing at a professional individual level instead of looking around and pointing at somebody else and making it their fault. And nobody hears about this. I wanted everyone to hear about it because here's what's going on in my brain. I'll save you six months of trying to figure out what the hell I do. I know when I was a little kid, mental illness was a stigma. It meant you were lazy. It meant you were unmotivated. It meant that you weren't beat enough when you were a child to to be uh compliant in the classroom. If you don't think that there's mental health needs in this country, then you haven't watched me very much. I have been through
120terrible things, especially recently. But the comfort I have, and I'm not going to lose it here, but the comfort I have is you people were watching Tammy and she was dying and we didn't even know it. So, when nurse Carrie brings a book forward and I put on some show about is am I going to have to get a lawyer to find out that my kid is trying to identify as a kitten at school? I don't like to be grouped into that group. That's not what we're doing here. And so what this was all about tonight was when we have to sit down and write a letter and he wastes his time to write this letter. Oh, what are you going to I remember I was a candidate for him. It was like hey false
121graph what's your plan without the charter money? Do your job do it well and live within your means. So now he works, brings the money in, leads in a way that supports this kind of thing, takes shots in the community because of one thing or another. There's biases all over the place. Now he's going to waste his time writing letters like, "Please don't take our money away. The reason we did this tonight because you're on television and I want you to send a hyperlink of this video in every every letter of appeal you send out because I want them to know what you do. What you do what you do and nurse Carrie what you do. Principles, thank you for supporting this. This is an indication of I'm always telling you I don't want to
122run your school for you. I don't want to do when I when I have to do your job for you. Oh, I like a body count. I really do. I like lessons. Let me tell you, I work for a governmental agency and what I tell the commissions and council that I report to is that I respect the fact that their role just like the CAC, just like us, is to kind of look at what the taxpayer thinks and wants for the good part of our community and represent it that way and not be up here being some constant change agent and vilifying me. I vilify myself well enough without anybody's help. But to support that person cuz you know I got so many superintendent notches on my gun belt. I'll take them out in a
123minute. But it's his job to find a way to make education meaningful. So principles, I appreciate the fact that the way you run your campus, you don't bring things up and drop them in my lap where I'm outside looking at the people that voted for me and I'm embarrassed and be appear to be a puppet of an attorney telling me what I can say and not say or a puppet to staff. I I'm proud of this. I'm very proud of this. The county used to run this and what mental health to the county meant is it's the extreme case where they show up for a 5150. So you in addition to any problem you're having, imagine me being your father. That's enough. But you come to school with your issues and then you have a
124day where you just can't handle it and you say the wrong thing or do the wrong thing and you're in an ambulance. Do you ever want to go back to school? You're ostracized, marginalized. Um, nurse Carrie, thank you. Principles, thank you. All of you two, start all of you all people, put your head together. Make that little school over that we just opened up a showcase. Can you do that? And Elizabeth, if I may, I appreciate you being there. Do you know that the Analopee Valley Press that you're on the front page today? Did you know that? Well, you know now that. Yeah. So, you'll sign me a copy, but it talks about what you were talking about tonight. and and and I asked for this and I appreciate the fact that you can give
125us data and numbers so people who are cutting us thinking about cutting us back we can put your report we can put the newspaper in the package and say it's very clear we don't deserve to be cut we're we're we're getting the money's worth. So, thank you for summarizing the data and making it in a way that it shows measurably what we're doing and it's not all touchyfe. You're giving numbers, but you're most of all protecting the dignity of the people you're helping. Thank you very much all of you. This is the best puppet show I ever put together. All right, I got a couple things. Um, one I've seen firsthand what you guys can do and it's amazing. Um, as a a survivor of the country's worst mass shooting, my kids were in elementary
126school, um, they did not have a program like this and it took them a while to be able to understand mom and dad are coming home if they go out. Um, I wish we would have had something like this for them at their school when they went the next day and we weren't home yet and they didn't know what to do. So, I do appreciate everything you guys do and yeah, thank you. Thank you. um to see how far we've come. Um in the 2020 2021 school year, we were down to one counselor in our district. Um and that's not because we only needed one counselor, but that's what we had. to see how far we've come and what you have built and the team that has just poured heart and soul into this program.
127Absolutely incredible. Um I've sat at in a school office when a student came in the office and said, "I need to see the principal right now." And she was busy. She was in an IEP. Said, "Can you wait? Do you want to sit?" You know, do all the normal things. text the principal, "This kid needs you right now. It's an emergency." He only wanted to talk to our principal. Um, and because of the relationship that she was able to build, the student was in the bathroom, he had the means with him on campus um to end his life. And because of the relationship that she had built with this particular student, um he told her that he thought of her and what it would do to her, not to his family, not to his friends,
128but that relationship that she had built with that student on campus. Um and I think of that moment often where she came out of the IEP and took him into her office and he laid a handful of pills on her desk and said, "I needed to give you these." Um, I think of that moment often working in a school office, working around children. So, when you say you sit in rooms with these students day after day, the amount of lives that you're changing and our school district is is not a stranger to the unthinkable, to what the worst of the worst that can happen. Um, what you're doing is not just changing one life. You're changing the lives of kids that you don't even know that you're changing. People that you may not even talk
129to. Those are the lives. It's a snowball effect and it's absolutely incredible um what you've been able to build. So, thank you so very much. Um, thank you for this presentation. Thank you for what you do every single day. I where we would be, who knows where we would be without what you've built. Um Dr. Zahaki, in the first I I think your first day here, we took a walk outside and we talked about mental health. Um and you explained how you come from a counseling background and how important it is for you. And I let you know that that was one of the things for me being coming onto the board that was hugely important to me. And then my years as president, um, I just wanted to build our mental health. This is
130so far beyond what I could have ever imagined for our district. And I feel like you're just continuing just because you're here and you're doing great things. Um, I feel like you're just going forward and forward and building and building and constantly in a state of what more can we do and how can we build on what we're doing now. And that's absolutely incredible and our school district is incredibly lucky to have this program and to have the people that are running this program. Um, switching gears for a minute, I attend um the California Schoolboard Association annual education conference every year and every year they come out um in April. They ask for submissions of workshops. Um, and I'm always thinking like what could we do? Like I think our school district is fantastic, but
131what could we do to to take our little school district? What you've built needs to be shared. So submissions for this upcoming um annual education conference in December have closed, but if you guys could think about doing that um for the 26 AEC, that would be this would be something to share with everybody in California. You need to share what you've have going on here because it's absolutely fantastic. Um, not not a directive obviously, but I think it would be great for you to share what you're doing. Um, and then I do have one more question. Eric, are you wearing PJs tomorrow or how's that going to look? That's a great question. Uh, I I'll try to find what I have. It's appropriate. Thank you for the question. Yes. Go ahead and loop. Thank you
132so much. I've I've got nothing. the reserve so stingy. And please get the money back. Do whatever you need to send me to talk to the people if that's necessary. But I want to point out something. There are things that we need to do to keep things safe. So if you look at the purpose of the subcommittees, it was are your facilities safe? Are your systems safe? Are your is your IT department making things safe? Are your classrooms safe? Are people are your kids safe from emotional duress? This was the purpose of the subcommittees. So, we've been in the AV press and I would like to thank Sophia Lesios for covering the district two or three days in a row. That's significant and thank you for your you you're just saying what people say and
133you're promoting our district and and that's great. But this this board made a commitment to put $900,000 of the reserve into um the buildings and Bill and Lester were on the first subcommittee to do that and they hung in there and said, "No, we we don't care what it is. It's going to take us closer to the fiscal cliff." But this one is really, really important to me. It's really important to me. So, I want everybody to know that when I get on to something, it's going to stay there. I want this program here. I don't think everybody knows what that means, but I want this program to stay funded even if we have to do it out of the reserve. So, when you're coming up and asking for, you know, can we have this,
134can we have this, I will send you to talk to Miss Elizabeth and tell have her help you through why I'm not going to give you the money, but I want this program funded and the day will come soon where I'm going to have to ask for that. I can see it coming. I'm not going to have the district characterized as it is. This is a perfect example of why I serve on this board right here. This is the best day of 10 years of my life right here. Thank you. Thank you. Byebye. Okay. So, now we will resume our regularly scheduled program. We're going to go all the way back to 6A, public comments, recognition, and reports. At this time, we don't have any public comments. Thank you. Point of business. Is there an
135estimation about how long it will take us to get through this? Do I need to make a motion to extend the meeting till 10:15 or 10:30? I I would say 10:15 at the earliest. Thank you. So, I make a motion to extend the meeting to 10:30. I'll reluctantly second. Call for question. Natalie, I It's It's you, Belle. I Brianna Tony I. Okay. 7 A. She's already ready. She's not messing around. ADA representative. and it's one of my longer uh little things I I love you all. Just saying. Okay, so remember back a couple months ago when I said I ran a little staff survey. Um I did turn in um four reports to Eric uh for you guys to look over on your own time. There was no way I was going to present them
136all here. It'd take me two hours. So, but I wanted you to have all the details of every all of the findings from it because I thought it was important. And so, I just wanted to come here and give you the briefest of brief summaries of what it had said. And so, that's what I'm sorry, but there was uh 41 staff members across multiple campuses that participated in the um survey. It provided a range of feedback from um new and experienced educators. Overall, staff morale can be described as cautiously optimistic but strained. Um there's a strong appreciation for students, co-workers, and sightbased support, but this is undercut by the deep frustrations around the district level communication, unsustainable workloads, and inadequate resources. morale was um across the various sites. High Desert demonstrated uh the the most
137positive morale of all of our uh three sites. Um Vas Vasquez was just slightly lower, not as much lower. And then of course um uh Metallark had the um lowest morale rating um reflecting um serious burnout, insufficient support, and administrative issues. Um despite the hurdles, many of our educators expressed a desire to stay and serve our students. Um though they're increas increasingly waving their red flags. Um focused improvement in leadership, consistency, behavior uh policies and compensation and manageable workloads is critical um to reversing the burnout and restoring morale. And that's all I have to say. Thank you. Thank you very much. Um 7B, CSCA rep, we don't have one available. Uh 7E, facilities and finance subcommittee report. Uh finance and facilities subcommittee met on May 20th. Uh, we went over the project oversight and project
138summaries for this coming summer slash going on. Um, Mr. Win and Ernesto went over how long it's going to take to get a lot of this stuff done. Uh, i.e. the new canopies for uh, Vasquez roofs at High Desert uh, and painting at Metal Arc and repairs. Um, so they're going to get that stuff done as quick as possible once they get their bids in. Um, we also went over software licensing and uh cost of usage. Um, real quick, what was that number again that you were saving? Uh, they figured a savings of $80,000 after going through and figuring out what they could uh get rid of and not use anymore. So, thank you for finding those cost savings. Um, and then, uh, yeah, that's pretty much what we went over that meeting. Thank you
139guys. 7F education subcommittee report. Um, we met this past Tuesday. We spoke about the new short-term independent study contract. We went over the contract. Um we also looked at how it's being used um in school sites and talked about uh staff training um and how staff is going to be um using this across the board in the same way so that parents are um getting the same information no matter what school site their students are at. Um, we also I I asked for feedback from our school sites. Um, and Paula is graciously going to do another update at our next meeting and how that's going. School staff just started using this new STIS contract and the docuign in the last week or two, maybe three weeks. Um, so there were a couple of suggestions and
140so she's going to report back um at our next meeting and hopefully we can get a whole bunch of things ironed out so that at the beginning of the school year that's you know up and running um and we have all the kinks out so that we can really raise. I think that's going to be huge in raising ADA. Um, we also had a report for instructional minutes and how many minutes our students um have this school year and some of the um discrepancies and um waiverss. So, if you're interested in any of those details, definitely go back and watch that. Um, we had a few board policy updates that we are going to start seeing on um on uh board agendas. Upcoming meetings we're going to, like I said, look at um the SCIS
141usage and the training of the school sites for using that. And then we're also looking at the plan for EM emergency school closures. Um that would be called the instructional continuity plan. Thank you, Paula, for that. Um, we plan on chitchatting about that at our next meeting, which will be June 17th at 3 p.m. We do realize that school is out. Um, but district staff is still working and we do still have a board meeting after that. So, we did decide to go ahead and meet um for the June meeting. We will not meet for the July meeting and then we'll be back in August. So, that is that. Um G policy and finance subcommittee report. We have pushed that meeting until I believe the 12th. There's already an agenda. Staff is ready to go.
142Uh the committee members were not the other committees are doing so well that we're not having to come in and put the hammer down on new uh board policies to adjust problems. So again, I can congratulate both teams. My vision was that we would be able to address safety, student safety, both physically uh in learning materials and I think we just had the uh icing on the cake tonight with the presentation of the different groups that are there to make sure that kids who need to feel safe do so. We will look forward to um having the agenda posted for that meeting. Um again, I think think it's June 12th. We will look forward to that. Thank you. 7H submissions. There are no submissions this evening. Thank you. Fantastic. Cons consent agenda. I'm going to
143go ahead and move that in. Dr. Sahakian, any changes? Uh, there are no changes. Thank you. All right. So the consent agenda calendar items 8B through 8E discussion call for question. All those in favor I balls I may Brianna Tony I 9A personnel report I'll move it in. I'll second. Dr. Sahakian thank you. Uh we do have an amended par. uh speech pathologists uh resented their acceptance of the position after we posted the par report on Monday. Thank you. Discussion call for question. All those in favor I FJ I me. Brianna Tony I. 9B approval job description and salary schedule board certified behavior an analyst BCBA. I'll move it in. I'll second. Dr. Sahakin, thank you. It's a newly created position u pending of course approval um by our board. The BCBA implements appropriate instructional
144strategies, behavior management, and behavior in intervention plans. This um job description was vetted with our union. Uh Miss Erdrich, any comments? Reason we're putting this position in in is because currently we're contracting out. So this would be a cost-saving to the district to have someone internally as our own employee discussion call for question. All those in favor? Dillian I. Walls have I. May I? Brianna Tuon I. 9C initial. Thank you. I didn't I just skipped right over that. Thank you for that. Um 9C initial proposal for the CSEA and chapter 473 to AADUSD for the 2526 reopener negotiations. I'll move it in. I'll second. Thank you. This is an initial proposal for the 2526 reopener for negotiations that have been submitted to the district by CSCA. Initial articles presented transportation salary benefits and leaves. Discussion
145call for question. All those in favor Jillian IS. Brianna Tony I. D. initial proposal of the AADUSD to CSEA and chapter 473 for the 2526 reopener negotiations. I'll move it in. I'll second. Okay. A USC presents um our initial proposal for 2526 uh fiscal year reopener for negotiations with the following two articles which are salary and benefits. Discussion. Uh, call for question. Dillian I. Paul. You have I. May. I. Brianna Tony. I. All right. We already covered 10A. So we're moving to 10B. Second read and adoption school plan for student achievement SPSA for Metallark High Desert and Vasquez high schools. I'll move it in. I'll second. Thank you. As part of the second read agenda item are three principles. um have put together a presentation uh that will present the highlights of the SPA plan
146school plan for student achievement as requested by the board. So we have Miss Mrs. Vanorum High Desert as well as Dr. Raina Smith Vasquez High School. Thank you Clicker. Um I'm going to share on behalf of Metallark School first. Um Mrs. Jones is at her daughter's graduation from high school. So um also very important. Um so for academic achievement um their goal is academic achievement, strategic support and professional learning opportunities. And so their key things are they're going to be working on acade academic achievement by implementing a comprehensive literary literary literacy support program um UDL model for math intervention and expanding learning opportunities for students like through their um STEM program that they've been using the maker space and then al also implementing a more comprehensive ELD program specifically with designated ELD instruction for strategic
147support. Um they're looking at utilizing technology platforms for differentiated learning. Um they have a PLTW grant as well. So that's part of it. Um they're working to provide supplemental instructional materials as well as the adopted curriculum. And then with the area of professional learning opportunities, conducting datadriven instructional planning um primarily through the use of the I Ready data that we have and being able to utilize that in a very concise way to improve student performance and then professional development specifically we've talked about social emotional learning in effective instructional practices and um aligning our writing instruction so that it will support CASP testing and improve school culture. Goal number two, student engagement, attendance, and positive behavior. So, providing staff with professional development on student wellness and behavior, ensuring that they have safe physical environment. Um, for
148attendance, they're looking at a comprehensive attendance plan. Um, providing schoolwide social emotional learning program and establishing a coordinated student support system. So, that's MTSS. And then for positive behavior, um continuing the implementation of schoolwide positive behavior supports and professional development and collaboration. So providing targeted professional development aligned with the LCAP action, um supporting teacher participation in professional learning. So those are things like attending conferences and then collaboration really um improving the instructional coaching and mentoring program and making sure there's teacher collaboration for parent engagement and communication. um hosting family workshops, providing translation and interpretation services, um making sure to create a welcoming parent resource center, establishing a parent ambassador program, and then for advocacy implementing a comprehensive communication system and supporting meaningful parent involvement in decision-m. Okay. So, high desert um or high desert things
149that we are working on. Our specific targeted areas are on math, writing um and ELD. And we're looking to increase the instructional supplemental supplies um specifically with those um key areas in mind. Increasing interventions. So, we've talked about before our double electives that are forthcoming. um there is going to be built into the school day a math intervention class and an English intervention class that are separate to help with those two specific areas rather than a general study skills elective. Um also we've expanded opportunities for athletics and um I just shared about the expanded electives for student engagement. We're um we've already seen some of that, but we're increasing our parent education workup workshops really developing like a parent university where parents can also get the extra education and things that they need to feel
150confident in supporting their students and their families. Um grade level field trips um field trips are really important and and you know seeing beyond the classroom and so we're going to continue with those and fund at least one field trip per grade level. Um student extracurricular play and academic engagement. I think you've seen that's been a a key focus on our campus of um I really believe in if you keep kids busy doing good things, they won't have time to do all the naughty things. And so we've increased the amount of good things that they can do. We're in increasing play areas um and and really um giving floor space to academic and uh the pursuit of play um to keep our kids engaged. Um improving attendance. That's also one of the ways we're working
151on improving attendance is by increasing their desire to come to school. Um if kids feel like they're going to miss something, they're more likely to come up or to show up to school. And so we want them to, you know, feel like school's that important and I don't want to miss. Um so we're working on that for attendance um and really engaging instruction. And so by focusing on engaging instruction, kids won't want to miss school. Uh we were looking at um classroom renovations. We started with teacher desks and chairs. We're hoping to be able to get some student desks and chairs going as well. And we have some from like the 80s. So we're hoping that those will they're in the works in the process. um positive behavior continuing for PBIS, SEAL, restorative practices, academic
152invent intervention, and really what is like the core of our school is the Medal of Honor character development program, professional development. So, lots of PD. Um our campus has a lot of new teachers and um but we actually pride oursel in that. We are like literally growing teachers. We're turning subs into teachers because we think they're so amazing and we're like, "You need to get in a program and let's make this happen." Um, it's hard to recruit from out of the area. So, we're trying to build from within the area with all the all the amazing staff that we have on hand. It does mean we keep shortening the sublist though. So, we do need to increase that. Um, uh, so let's see. Um, mentors and intern support. So, while you're trying to grow teachers,
153you have to provide mentor teachers to support them. And we have some really amazing veteran teachers um that take new teachers under their wing and just show them everything that they need to know because I was discussing it earlier. Um teacher preparation programs for as good as they are. They don't prepare teachers for what it's really like in a classroom. They teach them all the textbook knowledge, but classroom management and all of those things, they need peer-to-peer support and live interaction to make that really successful so that they can learn to do instruction and management at the same time. Um, and then attending conferences. Um, just like I want kids to leave the campus and get outside experiences, I think it's important for educators to do the same thing because there's a big world out
154there and we want to bring all those awesome ideas back to our campus. Oh, there should be a four. There you go. Okay. And then communication. So, parent guardian communication. Um, we made some big strides with this with the um, mental health workshops that Miss Zulie brought um, with her connection with DMH. There were workshops that were offered 100% in Spanish, not translated like the whole workshop was provided in Spanish. And it had the biggest turnout. And so we saw that there is a need for parents to be able to feel comfortable and join a meeting where they can just hear it start to finish in their native language. And so we're going to work on increasing that as well next year. Um, and then like I talked about our parent university. Um, some different
155ideas we have with that and community engagement. We've done a lot with increasing community engagement and we're just going to keep enhancing those programs. So that's it for High Desert. Thank you. All right. So keep in mind this is about a 60page document and this is three slides. So goal one, see if we can condense this. Our um goal is provide all students with it mirrors goals um provide all students with a high quality high quality teaching and learning environment. So we have four action items 1.1 is PD and also keep in mind we try to be vague because um as this is for next year and we can only spend money that we say is in our plan. So if it's not in there, we can't buy it. Um uh so you know we
156say things like um I I might say AVID or but I but I can say maybe things related to sped things related to EEL because we don't know what kind of trainings are going to be available which ones we're going to be able to sign up for. So there's a variety there um conferences related to these items science technology social emotional there's so many social emotional programs there's PB there's boy town so we just kind of give a general idea so as you can see that's where we're putting in a big chunk of our money is in our training and also materials that we need for those items um it could be supple physical materials could be books supplemental materials we have then 1.2 instructional strategies. So things that are related to differentiating instruction supplies
157that go into that. AVID's a a good one. I think we're already signed up for that for this year, but again, this is for the next school year. Um release time and PLC's, collaboration time. We have 1.3 interventions. So that could look many different ways. We can have subteers there to release maybe our teachers to collaborate department collaboration. Um so 20 20,000 for that category. We have technology. It could be anything from Chromebooks to maintaining um online programs that we use or tutoring. Any I say devices because we could even include say um the projectors or things. um what do we call the visa v can't think of the word thank you and those are pretty awesome next goal is related to students parents families and how we connect just like we were talking about
158in our presentation about connecting students to school school engagement um we have our again more collaboration MTSS that encompasses a lot um we have our meetings in any any materials related to that. We have um drug awareness. That's one thing that was that's one of our goals. Um awards, we'd like to award students and recognize their accomplishments. 2.2 improving attendance. That's a big and also keep in mind this is all based on data that we have been collecting. Part of that 60 page document is collecting all this data and what does the data tell us. So um attendance that's going to be a big focus. 2.3 increasing parent engagement and um we're seeing ELAC that's one component um PTSO and a lot of community partnerships again there are being vagues um last goal we only
159have three and it's a little redundant because it's a big priority the PD the training that's related to our big categories um and then science in technology. I know in the other ones you mentioned specific ones maybe Q. That's a big one. That's a good one. But again, I've run into the problem before in the past where we're we use up all the money in one category and there's something amazing and very beneficial. So then we have to go back to our team, the site council, and um they have to approve, you know, borrowing from another category. So, we're um trying to be vague but still give some explanation as to what we're what our focus and our goal is going to be. And then the last one is for EL students. Um and a
160lot of things that we do for ELS for interventions are good for all students. So, um we have an elective class and it's inter it's really related intervention programs. So, that's our last goal. We we just have three discussion. Um I I'll just say thank you very much for your reports. Um and hearing no other discussion, call for question. All those in favor? The Jillian ISA? Brianna Tony I. 10 C second read and adoption where to start a survival guide to anxiety depression and other mental health challenges. I'll move it in. Thank you. As a second read, we brought this as a first read a few months back. This easy read survival guide um um hardcover book for mental health if if adopted this evening um will be available at the front offices of our
161of our school campuses. Thank you, Miss Carrie Wright for bringing this to our attention. Some of the highlights include the, you know, what to look for in terms of signs and symptoms of mental health and where to go looking for professional help and support. I guess that's where we need Elizabeth's QR code. So, just saying that's that's all I have discussion. Is this in our libraries or just the front office? Wellness center. Oh, library. Okay. I stand corrected. Wellness center and libraries hearing. No other discussion. Call for question. All those in favor? D. Jillian. I Paul I me. Brianna Tony I. 10D. First read Hillbilly Elegy a memoir of a family and culture in crisis. Thank you. I'll defer to Dr. Chamberlain, director of vet services. Good evening, board community. Drs. Hawin. Um Carrie Owens
162had u is asking to ask the add this as supplemental materials for her AP class for next year. Um it's a memoir. I haven't read it. I've heard fantastic things. I'm going to plan to try to steal it out of Dr. Sakin's office and read it this weekend. I know others have read it besides uh Carrie and I've heard nothing but really great things about it. Thank you. Discussion. Um that was my name until I was adopted. I've seen the movie. It's it is a good sir. Yeah. I didn't know it was a movie. Um no other discussion. Moving on. 11A Leo AB1200 acknowledgement letter. Dr. Sahakian, thank you. On May 8th, our board president, Mr. Mascone, received the AB1200 letter from LEO, LA County Office of Education, and they have reviewed and approved the
163tenative collective bargain agreement between CSEA and our district. Um, CSA chapter 473 to be exact. Mr. Newman. Oh, thank you, Tu. Thank you, Dr. Hawin. Um, like what Dr. mentioned, um, this is a letter from LEO informing the board that negotiation settlement between the district and CSEA for 2% on schedule and 2.5% off schedule for the 2425 school year. Discussion. Okay, hearing none, moving on. Thank you. Uh 11B contract with is it ID Eddie ID Bailey CPAs and business adviserss. I'll move it in. I'll second. Dr. Saki. Thank you. So, prior to my arrival, um this this uh CPA uh business advisor has been a support to the business services office as preparation for supplemental uh reports and materials um such as charter reports as well as other time-sensitive reports. Went any other comments? No.
164Um basically what a Bailey Ed Bailey does is they they'll compile and calculate the district inl and the 1% oversight fee for the charter schools. Discussion hearing. None. Call for question. All in favor? Did you I JF? I mess it. Brianna Taxony I. 11C approval of migrant service agreement. MOU. I'll move it in. I'll second. Thank you. The MEP migrant education program is a federally funded program responding to the educational and health needs of migrant um children students. Thisou is a consortium of the Analo Valley school district um school districts including of course ours a USD um indicating that we will all comply with the parameters of title one of this title one mandate. Thank you. Discussion hearing none. Call for question. All those in favor I I Brianna Tony I. 11D resolution 202425.16 declaring
165unusable obsolete or no longer needed equipment. I'll move it in. Thank you. I'll defer to Mr. New. Thank you, Dr. Stok. Um, these are legacy equipment that are Chromebooks, laptop, desktops, projectors. They're old. They're end of life. So, they're really no use for the district for the students to use. So, I'm asking the board to approve that. Discussion. Call for question. All those in favor? Dillian I Wallsgraph I Ma Brianna Tony I All right board comments Mr. false graph. I have nothing. Holy moly. Mark the date on the calendar. Bill, can you loop? Uh, so just wanted to say uh I was at the Asmo concert. Uh it was a great concert. Um, glad to see that it's still going to continue with our uh teacher, Miss Benitar, and the new, I guess, funded uh
166instruments that they've gotten um so that we can keep it inhouse and keeping that going. Um, also the ribbon cutting at the act campus here, that was a fun day and good to see more classrooms opening. Um, and Night of Stars. Uh, it's great to see how many students we have at Vasquez that are stars. There we go. All right. Um, I was at the Little Owls ribbon cutting as well. That was really fun seeing all the little kids running around this campus. Um, and seeing teachers, families, dignitaries all come out and celebrate um, kids being on this campus. It always bums me out when I'm not able to make it to every event in Night of the Stars is one of them that I I'm really bummed that I had to miss, but huge
167congratulations to all of our students that were honored. Um, and congratulations to our staff that gets them there as well. So, it's a great event. Um, the pictures that I saw on posted on Facebook look absolutely beautiful. Um, I know Shiloh has a big a big um role in making that happen. So, thank you to Shiloh and all of the staff at VHS that makes that happen and gets our kids to where um they are. It's it's definitely shows in our graduation rate and how many kids are honored at Night of the Stars. So, good job and good job to the families for getting those kids there as well. That's not I mean some kids are super easy and they just do it. some kids while your parents and your families have really worked hard
168for that as well. So, good job everybody. Um I'm super excited for all of the end of the year activities. Um the senior walk at both campuses um everything to just celebrate our our end of the year. Like I said last meeting, I will not be at the Vasquez graduation unfortunately because my child is also graduating high school on the same night at the same time. but I will be at Metallark and High Desert promotion. So, I'm looking forward to that. Um, also I wanted to point out that we do have an ASVBA dinner coming up for our board members. Please come with me and hang out. It's really fun. I promise. Um, so we do have that coming up on May 27th at 5:30. It's in Palmdale. Um, the exact place is in your
169email. So, let's go. Come hang out. Um, and that's all that I have. 13 calendar. We have our regular board meeting June 12th and then we have our last meeting for the 2425 school year on June 26th. So before we meet again, we'll be out on summer break. So, you know, just thanks for a great year to all of our staff. [Music] Um, do you guys plan on being at those two meetings? Awesome. Future agenda items, quarterly strategic plan report and adjournment. It is 10:20. I move to a second. All in favor? The Jillian eye, Paul. Amazon eye.