001All right. We convene this regular board meeting of the board of trustees on Thursday, September 12th, 25th, 2025 at 6:30 2 p.m. Can I get roll call, please? >> Balls graph here. >> May's here. >> Yes, he's here. >> Brianna Tony here. >> Mask on here. Agenda. Get a motion. I'll move. >> I'll second. D second. Any changes to the agenda? >> Um yes. Uh I would I would like to request an amendment to close session item 5B be as in boy. We will not be bringing forward a leave of absence request for employee number 63430. Thank you. >> Thank you. Call the question. >> I may deony. >> Mask on. I any public participation at this time? >> not at this time. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> This time we will adjourn to
002close session where we may discuss conference with labor negotiators, public employee discussion, discipline, dismissal or release, conference with legal counsel or student matters. >> I'll second >> call the question. Wall your father >> may de suicide. >> Brianna Tony I >> masc. We adjourn at 6:33 p.m. All right. We uh reconvene this regular board meeting at 7:37 p.m. Mr. Look, would you lead us in the flag salute? All right, place your right hand over your heart. Repeat after me. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> Mr. Fgra, would you please read the civility statement? When conducting the district's business, we will strive to communicate clearly and concisely with a respect
003for the time of others. Listen objectively, carefully considering the opinions of others. Understand the counterproductive effects of disruptive, demeaning, and intimidating behaviors. Understand and respect district policies and procedures. and maintain a respect for the rich history of the district and the efforts of others who have served in the past. >> Thank you, Mr. Fitzgraph. Dr. Haki, do you have any public comments tonight? >> Um, no, not in person, not virtually. Thank you, sir. >> Item seven, correspondence, proposals, and reports. Add a representative. When was the last time we had had a representative? It's been a while. It >> was two weeks. Two weeks ago. It's been intermittent. >> Yeah. CSA representative, student representative to the board. >> Hi. Um, so at Metallark, all students made sore ovens in the maker space lab with the science
004teacher and they melted s'mores, which is really cool. Um, the book fair was very successful this past week. Today was family picnic, very successful. Parent teacher conferences are coming up. They will be starting October 16th. Mrs. Thacker, the maker space teacher, is still at risk of losing her position due to budget constraints. Faculty says she is an invaluable part of the team. Over a high desert, sports is extremely active and successful. There's an active art club that is a new improvement. They didn't have that when I was there, which is really great. Um the sec the 12th of September was a drugrevention assembly and a parent workshop. Very successful. The 29th upcoming there will be a mental health parent workshop over at High Desert. And October 3rd, there will be coffee with the counselor at
005Vasquez. Um the 19th, our teacher of the year, Miss Christina Wagner, was honored at the state banquet at Universal City. She was unable to attend due to health, but she was honored to be represented. Um the 9th of September, our counselors attended a UC conference for updates about requirements to help prepare students with upcoming college applications. September 18th, Vasquez held a parent workshop about suicide awareness. The 24th, Vasquez had an ELAC meeting, which was a big success. Upcoming events, October 1st is college application night at 6:00 p.m. October 2nd, there's a field trip to UCLA, which is highly anticipated. The 16th will be the Great California Shakeout. The October 18th is the PTSO fall festival. October 24th is the homecoming game. October 25th is the homecoming dance. October 28th is PSAT testing and October 29th
006is SAT testing. Regarding athletics, girls volleyball is doing well. Senior night is October 2nd at 5:30 p.m. against Lancaster Baptist. Um the cheer team has grown to 17 members which are working really hard since summer camp at Cal Lutheran. Um tennis, we currently have 20 girls. The program has exploded with their wonderful coach. Flag football is third place in their division after a nail-biting battle against the top seated West Ranch. They've earned victories over powerhouses like Courtz Hill and Golden Valley. They are charging towards playoffs. Cross country the 19th of September attended the Woodbridge Invitational which is a very competitive meet with over 15,000 runners from all over the country. Six of our runners earned medals. Congratulations to Alexis Vanorum, Ivy Rios, Ben Hegen, Logan Williams, Healey Honiki, and Riley Laren. Football right now is
0074-0 with their next game taking place tomorrow against California Military Institute. >> Thank you very much. >> The superintendent report. >> Thank you, board president. Tonight, I'll focus on three of our goals from our strategic plan. Goal two, effective instruction leadership. Goal three, community engagement. And five, utilization of fiscal capital. Go ahead and start with goal two, effective instruction leadership. I know Autumn um touched upon this as well. At our last board meeting, we celebrated and recognized our phenomenal Mrs. Christina Wagner as our district's 2025 teacher of the year nominee. She was also recognized as part of an excellent group of teachers last Friday by LEO at Universal City Hilton. Again, the 2025 LA County Teachers of the Year is an honors competition to spotlight teaching excellence and exemplary professionalism in public education. Unfortunately, she
008was not able to attend as she needed to rest due to her pregnancy, but we were there to represent her very proudly, I might add. Here's a short video of Leo announcing Christina's name at the lunchon. And once again, many congratulations, Christina. is currently right now. >> Let's put our hands together one more time. >> Exactly. Yeah, there was some dramatic flare there. She wasn't actually in labor, but we just said that she couldn't make it because she needs bed rest, but we just went with that and we didn't interrupt, so that worked out. >> Okay. >> No, that'll be in in a few years, sir. A few years. All right. Goal three, community engagement. Here at our district, we're always looking for opportunities to enhance and expand the learning experiences for our students. With
009that said, we are interested in offering a dual immersion Spanish language program geared towards a new kinder section, crossing our fingers, for fall of 2026 here at Little Owls Learning Center. This will be based on a commu community input and interest. We have pushed out a dual immersion survey just this afternoon to our TK parents in hopes of assessing their interest in moving forward with this project. more to come and I'll be happy to provide updates as we move forward. I know we'll get this going for the fall of 26. Goal five, utilization of fiscal capital. I'd like to provide a brief update to our mental health demonstration grant status. Last spring, we were notified by the US Department of Education that our grant cycle will be terminated prematurely, I might add, at the end
010of this calendar year, December 31st, 2025. However, we have technically two additional years left on this grant cycle um which is being cut short. All LEAs, districts, agencies who have been awarded this grant received this type of notification. Um the notification from the department of education did provide an appeal process. We submitted our appeal in time. However, there were no timelines provided by the Department of Education in terms of what the process will look like in terms of timelines when we would hear back and so forth. Um we then heard a we then heard of a possible action in federal courts in the form of an injunction to halt the cancellation of this particular grant. As a district, we join the nationwide injunction in the federal courts and are cautiously optimistic that we will prevail.
011Fortunately, we join the injunction process with the federal courts in time as as I recently received an email from the US Department of Education that our appeal to continue our mental health efforts was rejected. That's okay because we're part of the injunction in the federal courts. The next court date and part of the injunction process is set for October 7th and I'll be happy to update as we move forward. So, keeping fingers crossed there. Okay. Concluding my report, I'd like to move on to completely off topic. If I don't say the following word, I won't be able to live with myself. Parliamentarian. There I said it. Now I feel better. Much respect to Autumn because I did butcher her butcher her um introduction two weeks ago. So, there we go. Okay. Now I feel a
012lot better. >> Okay, >> that concludes my report. >> Comments for the dual immersion program. Will that start only with kinder or can we start multiple grades at once? >> Depends on interest. So we're, you know, optimistic that we'll have one kinder section, but who knows in terms of the number of students that might be interested. So like to share that as we, you know, gather some >> I have friends that have kids in a program like that. It's amazing how how fluent they are. It truly is and and it and it really encourages student achievement overall. >> Uh facilities and finance subcommittee report >> and the facilities and finance subcommittee meeting this last Tuesday. Uh we went over the facility projects and statuses. Thank you Ernesto for everything you're doing to get those done.
013Um he does have projects coming up over the winter break, new roofs on couple facilities and things like that. Um, we also went over the ASB works new uh software which will track ASB funds. Um, it looks like that'll be a great help uh as far as being able to get everything tracked properly and credit card services and things like that that we don't have at this time. Uh, we also went over the IE G lease agreement and uh, we reviewed that. Um, we also looked at leasing bus costs instead of purchasing so that we could always have new buses compared to older buses. So, that is something that's being looked at. Uh, and then also the mental health grant which um we just went over. Uh, our next meeting will be in October uh
014the fourth week of October probably. >> Thank you. education subcommittee report. >> Um at our last ED subcommittee meeting, we had a brief update on the instructional continuity plan um and the attendance recovery and Saturday school plan um from Dr. Chamberlain. We also started a presentation on CTE program um and Aselis um and just different things happening at our school. We as we were going through that we decided to go ahead and table that. So that will be on upcoming meetings. Um, so our next meeting is October 21st at 3 PM either here in the office or via Google Meet or Zoom. Sorry. >> Thank you. Policy and management subcommittee report. >> We did not have a meeting. Our next meeting is October 9th, I believe. >> Thank you, Dr. Hawkins. Submissions. >> Uh, thank
015you, Mr. Mascot. Tonight we have a submission for renewal by mission academy charter, a public hearing on um October 23rd and a bo board vote at our December board meeting. >> Good good evening everyone board members and guests in the audience. My name is Lindseay Ree. I am the area superintendent uh for Mission Academy. We are presenting our renewal at this time and we want to thank you in advance for your consideration. I have brought along uh share uh flash drives for everyone and then Nishay also has uh binder hard copies. So, thank you in advance for your consideration and we'll be back in October for the public hearing. >> Thank you. >> Item eight, consent agenda. You get a motion. >> I'll second. >> Dr. Thank you. Um, if there's any questions regarding any
016of the consent agenda items, I'm more than happy to go ahead and answer. >> Call the question. >> Falls. I >> Claus I. >> May I? >> Jesus. I >> Brianna Tony I. Mask on. I item nine, personnel report in motion. >> I'll motion. >> I'll second. >> Dr. Sakin, >> thank you. There are no changes to the PAR this evening. Thank you. >> I have a question. >> Discussion. >> Um, are we knowingly delaying any recruitment for any position? >> That is a no. So, we all know that um that there's been influx of students and we know that certain groups of students are represented that have needs that are probably outside of the average student. I'm being very careful here. And that um those needs come with the student and they're typically supported
017by uh spad law, state and local. And the needs of those students are defined with within an IEP that's with that's supposed to be held within 30 days of them arriving here. >> Correct. >> So I'm not asking questions about compliance, but are the needs just generally for that group of students to support those students? Are they act being actively recruited for? >> Absolutely. >> Good. And then I'm also very interested that we don't have stacks of paper this tall and that we're conducting um recruitments based on sticky notes on someone's computer screen. Are we doing what we can do to escalate that process and speed it up to where the computer is telling us this person needs to fill out this form, this person is lacking this reference or are is that being held
018up on just because there's not enough people to do it effectively? >> Yes. So looking at automated uh feature software is something that um we would like to move forward. So, what would concern me is if we start hearing things like the number of resource minutes or the number of speech language pathology minutes or or those kinds of things that have been agreed to short of somebody being sick that were shown good faith effort to put people in place so we don't fall behind on those minutes. That's just my comment. Thank you. Call the question. >> Claus I. >> Falls graph. I >> Maze. >> Deus. I >> Brianna Tony abstain. >> Mask on. I >> subject B. Me Metallark Elementary School. Interimm principal contract. You have a motion. >> I'll move. >> I'll second.
019>> Dr. >> Thank you. So pending board approval of course Mr. Dr. Larry Luick will be joining meark elementary as the interim principal administrator. Mr. Luick brings an extensive background of course in education as well as experience serving as elementary school principal. Many of you uh have seen him before. He was here um helping us out as interim principal at Vasquez High School and so we're glad to see him here in the audience. Welcome Mr. Luick. >> Thank you. >> Discussion. >> Mr. look at extensive experience within this district itself. >> Thank you, sir, for coming back. Uh we appreciate your service and glad to see you here. >> I'm going to parry his words. Thank you for coming back. It's great to see you again. >> Agreed. >> I'm going to say a little
020bit more. How long is interm? [Laughter] What about after >> one more question? Are you still saddled with that burdensome thing referred to as your retirement? >> Yes. >> Okay. >> You're very busy. >> I call the question. >> Clouse I. >> Bald I. >> May I? >> Jusai. >> Brianna Tony I. >> Mascon I. Student and Education Services Memorandum of Understanding, Medal of Honor Foundation. >> I'll move. >> I'll second. >> Dr. Sakin, >> thank you. So, one of my all-time favorite teachers at High Desert, well, in general, Mrs. Marilyn Alfred. She brought the Medal of Honor program, of course, to High Desert and is looking to continue her efforts with the foundation by attending professional development opportunities through the Medal of Honor character development program. So if this is approved, she could continue
021her efforts for high desert and wishing her all the best and continue success with the Medal of Honor program. >> Discussion. >> I not yet. >> Oh, I I >> think it's a great program. I mean, I love that program. So, just want to put it out there. >> Yeah. Same. That's awesome. I'm glad she does it. Call the question. Now, it's you. >> Class. I >> I may >> de Brianna Tony I >> Masan I >> subject B draft AEDUSD el master plan 202526 first read Dr. Saken >> yes thank you so as a first read um Dr. Chamberlain. She'll review with us the contents of the plan for English learners which includes English learner identification, assessments, placement, as well as the process on how they exit from the program itself. Dr. Chamberlain. Gotcha.
022Thank you. >> Discussion. >> Um, thank you for the the report that the board gets in that's made available to the public 72 hours before the meeting. Those thorough reports everybody may not understand that we're just not rubber stamping everything, but we can dive into depth and I appreciate the depth of the report. Thank you. Thank you. Business services subject a maintenance and operations facilities projects presentation. All right. So, Mr. Mora, our director of maintenance, operations, and transportation is here this evening to provide the community, our trustees, our school district, um, a presentation of summer projects completed as well as ongoing projects. It's a heavy lift. Mr. Moira, >> hello everyone. So the first project was at High Desert School. We fixed everything everything inside the culinary arts room to have it ready for this
023coming year. High Desert School, we receded the football field, removed all the weeds around the campus. Beautiful. It's all completed for this coming physical school year as well. Vasquez High School replaced all ceiling tiles, all broken drawers that were inside the labs, receeded the football field, Metallark Elementary. We fixed all the bungalows, the roofs on the bungalows, repainted all the bungalows. We did general maintenance around the campus. Little owls. We added sand on the sandbox, new mulch on the kindergarten area, added safety fence around the kindergarten area to make it safer for students and staff. High Desert School. Uh this is still a pending project for building one and building two. This will take place this coming winter. That's a picture of the actual bungalows, the classrooms. This is a picture of the after fact
024after we receded the field and we did the weeds and the landscaping around the uh office. There's a picture of the culinary arts room, the uh washer dryer, and the uh sinks. Vasquez High School. Uh we're this is the pending project. We're going to put in the shade structures pretty soon. Within a couple months, you'll start seeing that in process. The shade structures are going to be right there around where the football I mean where the uh Mustang's located in the center of the quad. They're going to be surrounding that whole area. That's what the ASB students wanted. and the principal and the dean. That's a picture of the uh lights and the multi and the uh the gym itself. We converted everything into LEDs. That's a picture of the uh football field. Got receded
025over the summer. There's another picture of the broken After we fixed the broken stools and the uh drawers around the lab area, Metallark Elementary, we painted classrooms and did port and also landscaping around the bungalows. There's a picture of the bungalows after we painted them. For Little Owls, we replaced carpets and a couple classrooms. We also did a room 106, completed the whole building inside there, put new ceiling tiles, new paint, new flooring to have it ready for the kids. For the little owls, we also did the cafeteria sink and the um and a water heater inside there. So that that way it's all compliance. There's a picture of one of the classrooms or the Kinder and that's a picture of the actual sink that we installed. And there's a picture of the playground area
026and also the area where the teachers are going to have their work room area. We installed two new drinking fountains for the little owls on the playground. It's another classroom that we did during the summer with new furniture. We did an uh safety fence. That's the picture. And we also did the uh fill in all the cracks to make it safer for students and staff. That's a picture of the fence that we put on the on the side where the bus yard is so that way the kids would stay away from that area to make it safer for them. We also put in uh 12 new door levers for little owls. We have walkie-talkies for every single staff. We painted the staff lounge. We installed two drinking fountains at Metallark Elementary. We put in new
027furniture on some of the classrooms. We did data data drops for the little owls, new printers, four of them. That's all I have for projects. That was the end of the report. >> Any questions? >> Yes. I just want to say it's just questions. >> Oh. I just want to say thank you so much for all the improvements. I'm really glad Vasquez is getting a shaded area. It's really difficult with the lack of shade in our campus um to lunch is just really difficult. even the winters cuz although it's very sunny, it's still very cold and windy wi windy and just uncomfortable and it's the gym isn't always open or the library and it's just a very uncomfortable campus during lunch and break and um we're all really excited that we're getting a shade area.
028So, thank you very much. >> You're welcome. >> Um if you know the answers to these things, good. Were there any lost education days because these projects drove into the school year? >> No. >> Zero. Good. Um, were there any significant cost overruns on your projects? >> No. >> What percentage of the work would you say was done by in-house staff? >> Probably um 30% 40% around there. >> Thank you. Mhm. >> Um what I want to call out here is um this idea I had for these subcommittees. It it went on for years and years and years. And I think the hero here are a couple of people. First off, somebody that sits on the facilities and finance committee. Um who is the head person of that committee? Everybody, anybody? >> No one knows
029who >> as far as as as far as our board leaison. Uh the chair is Mr. Mascll. >> That would be me, Ken. >> So So well, the newspaper doesn't know the answer to this question. So who's the active participant in the meeting? Is staff an active participant in the meeting? >> Yes. feel that it's mutual. >> I straighten people out in a minute. >> It's mutual. >> So I want I want to remember that when I was the vice president I three years I can't remember anymore at the end I said we need to expand our campus and I remember the days when these rooms were being rented out to charters so it was too small so they could move to San Bernardino. Is that not the same classrooms that now house our students?
030>> Yes. >> So, where's all the DSA claims now? Do we find a way to do this where DSA is knocking on the door? No. Yes. Yes. So, I I want to tell you that the only reason we're accepting new students into classrooms that are so acceptable and everybody loves them is because of the work of staff and the facilities and finance sub. So, I I couldn't be more pleased with that. Um, if I if I'm right, all of these projects were discussed in that committee. The budget for them was estimated and the work was basically approved and discussed and financed by the board before the work even started and there's virtually no cost overrun. There's maximum use of staff and their skills and no educational days were lost. In fact, we gained a bunch
031of educational days. Are those rooms full or are they empty now? >> Full. They're full. >> Good. I hope you guys are making the connection that we used to have to turn the shenanigans to finance this district and now we are ready to receive new students in wonderful facilities that have been just sitting there waiting for someone to plan this. So again facilities and finance subcommittee and staff this is really what it's all about and too many agencies are just talk talk it's just donut talk circle round and round nothing middle. So congratulations guys. I'm so happy with this. Will we be seeing a presentation about next year's project with the budget and all that as part of the budget study? >> Yes. >> And we won't be representing you guys in special education as
032impingements on the overall general budget. I hope >> again thank you. Um, it is a honor and uh, privilege to be able to be on this committee and to be seeing what is what you guys are able to do to bring these facilities up to a much cleaner condition. Thank you >> again. Great work. All that all the updates. Fantastic. Had a question though. Is there any foreseeable future that we're going to get a a a remake of the basketball courts? Are they going to redo the the black tops, especially at High Desert? Do you foresee that in your plans? >> Probably uh once we talk about in the subcommittee, we'll we'll definitely do something. >> Great. I'm definitely going to go to your your next meeting because I do want to talk about one
033of the one of my major concerns is at Metallark the uh pickup of students because we have no space. So, I want us to all put our our minds together and figure out what's the best way, the safest way that we can get parents going in and out of there picking up their students because it's a mess. And I know we don't have enough room for parking, but I think there's some options that we can we can look at >> that um maybe on that other side street, but we'll get into that later on. But, uh I do want to that's a big concern of mine. So, we'll I'll be touching bases with you and the the uh facilities committee in the next one. You're >> welcome to join. >> I will appreciate it. Um,
034when I attended the Little Owls and metallark back to school night, the day before school started, um, just walking around it was obvious all the work that was done. I walked into classrooms and literally my jaw dropped. The classrooms here that were redone are absolutely beautiful. and then walking through Metal Arc's hallway and then out to that um the quad that opens up to all the bungalows and seeing them all just beautiful, bright white and blue. It was absolutely beautiful. Um and it sometimes we don't always know what you've done. Like I I'm sure teachers can tell that their carpets were cleaned or replaced or whatever, but we don't always know. Um, but there were so many things that were so obvious and it really made our facilities look fantastic. Um, so I just wanted
035you to know that that I noticed and people noticed and it does look it looks beautiful in these classrooms here. Um, gorgeous. So, good job. Thank you very much. >> Yeah, thank you very much. Um, to, you know, mimic what uh Bill said, it's just it's wonderful to sit on that with you and um, watch all the work get done. I I will say the work that was done at Metoark with the repainting uh he kind of brushed over it pretty quick, but that was a massive project. A lot of the wood had to be replaced on those buildings. The fascia board had to be replaced. So, there was a >> there's a lot of work. >> Probably the most substantial project that was completed so far. And it looks amazing what's been done. >>
036I don't know if anybody had ever been back to where the new staff rooms are back there, but these were gutted rooms. There was nothing in them. They had been untouched for a very long time. Ernesto had been quietly kind of working on them, kind of bringing them up the speed a little bit, but once the >> probably untouched since we went here. >> Yeah, it was probably that long. >> Did you go to school? >> I didn't know that. Yeah. >> So did I. I heard that before. >> Um but yeah, those rooms coming back to life and uh you know, seeing everything usable again and being able to make use of this uh wonderful asset we have here. Um it's all thanks to your guys' work. So, thank you very much. >> You're
037welcome. Subject B, approve the district voiceover IP, a phone system project. >> I'll move. >> I'll second. >> Dr. Sakin. >> Thank you. So, if the phone system project is approved, it would be dy funded through ELOP grant um elop funds. It's onetime funds as well as general funds. And to provide the why for the project is our assistant superintendent, Mr. New. >> All right. Thank you, Dr. S. And um right now our existing phone system or the telephone circuit are all maxed out. There are four classroom that does not have a phone system in in the classroom. So instead of upgrading the existing legacy phone system, we're going to go into voice IP where our phone will be on internet protocol. It will be more scalable and then we'll also tie the bell and
038paging system together and IPbased system. discussion >> what happens when the internet goes down. >> So there will be a POTS lines here where there's going to be two POTS lines. So in event if the phone goes down, the power goes out, right? Obviously we have a UPS available that will maintain for for maybe about 10 minutes, but once those goes down, then we can use the pause line to call up for emergency purposes. >> Okay. I think the UPS's last longer than that, don't they? >> Yes, it it depends on the um what's is attached to the UPS and how big the capacity of the UPS is. So, yes. >> So, my question, you guys are using acronyms that I don't know. So, that was my question. I didn't want to feel stupid, but
039I don't understand what you're saying. >> An old telephone service. >> So, copper line, right? >> Copper line. Correct. >> Landline. >> So you're saying pot back. >> I thought you were kidding when you said plent service. >> Okay. I thought you were joking. >> That's what the acronym. >> Okay. And when you say UPS, that's mail service. >> Uninterrupted power supply. So in the event of a of a failure, there's still backup battery power that lets it continue to operate even if all the power went out at campus. And then if we still have no issue, there's there are telephone lines like physical like old school telephone lines. >> A real phone >> as a real phone. Uh that's kind of the failover. So it'll fail over to bots lines. >> Okay. So if
040the internet goes out because we have internet before we have like our internet has been down. I think this year internet was down. >> Um so if our internet goes down we go to pots lines. >> Yeah. >> That's what we're saying. and the walk >> do. So the the classrooms won't have phones if our internet goes down even if we have power. >> so there will be another line coming in and it will be paid out through funds. So it will be called SIP lines there. There's 24 channels in that and one there will be one channels for um miscellaneous use with AT&T, but there will be 23 channels and people can call in and out. Well, so so in the event if the internet's still down, the plots the zip line will still
041be available for us to call out. >> Okay, >> I'll take dictionaries for a thousand. >> There's several redundant system. >> Do we have we have a cellular backup as well? Um, we have cell phones here and there, but um, yes. >> You've got the walkie-talkie still. >> Yes, we still have the walkie-talkie. >> My concern was just calling out in case of an emergency. If our internet goes down and some emergency happens, we can still call 911. So, >> yes. So, that's >> still reach out to parents. We can still communicate with the outside world short of going outside and yelling. >> Well, they have no phone lines now. So, You know the phone. >> Yeah, that's right. >> So, this is an improvement. >> Yeah, >> also is a problem. >> They have
042walkie-talkies right now with all the >> Thank you. >> Call the question. Do we have a dollar amount on that? >> So, it's $52,000 for three-year contract. >> Was this budgeted as part of our facilities and finance? Uh >> as part of facilities finance. Yes. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Is this within budget? >> We're going to be using Split of general fund and ELP funds. Yes, >> understood. Call the question. >> Bai. >> Balls. UF. I >> may I susai. >> Brianna Tony I. >> Mask on I. >> Thank you. >> Item 12 board policies and administrative regulations. Subject a new board policy and administrative regulation BPS 131.2 and AR5131.2 to for bullying. >> Second read and adoption. >> I'll second >> Dr. Sak. >> Thank you. So, as shared two
043weeks ago at the board meeting, uh this this is now a standalone policy for bullying. A new policy brought to us by CSBA, California School Board Association. Policy outlines and addresses examples of bullying such as physical, emotional, social, and cyber bullying. It also outlines measures to prevent bullying as well as staff and student awareness and professional development and how to report bullying along with corrective actions. >> Discussion. >> Um what makes this policy different than one we had before? >> That's a great uh question. Um Autumn before it was there was an excerpt in let's say the discipline policy in terms of the the definition of bullying and some consequences but this is now a standalone on its own policy that really goes in more depth in terms of cyber bullying the emotional component of
044bullying um and then additional corrective actions that a school site could actually take to go ahead and course correct this behavior. >> Our IT department has put it up on the board at your request. Dr. Hakian, um, when we adopt new board policies, how do we educate the staff on new policies that we've adopted? Um, at staff meetings or professional development, um, the the handbooks that are being updated, the safety plans that are being developed at the school sites, there's teams for that. And so they have the new, let's say, legislation, new policies. So all of that then is regurgitated back let's say at staff meetings or professional development or in the handbooks. >> Thank you. I have a comment. Um most of these policies are being frontloaded into policy and management subcommittee by Miss
045Eldridge and we have robust discussions there. Um, those meetings I believe are archived on the district website and I believe that the key words that you would find in the subject matter are searchable on the district website by hashtag. And so if you wanted to familiarize yourself with things like, for example, just what can I come up with? Oh, if a kid with an IEP is going to be uh uh suspended that you would have to have a manifest determination hearing. That one just popped into my head. So, we have these robust discussions and so anybody that wanted to understand these policies would get a preview of them and then typically what would happen is during the first read and discussion there would be a reference from the board president off to the subcommittee. the
046appropriate subcommittee to see if there's any comments that it has been vetted out to the public and made available to the public on the district archive. Thank you. So, you said that it goes out on um in uh training sessions, whatever. Is this after it's adopted tonight? Is it sent out an email tomorrow to the teachers so that they have it immediately as far as it adopted? Great question. Uh not necessarily to the teachers, but in terms of let's say bullying prevention, uh the discipline that goes along with that u it goes to specific groups. So for example, let's say social workers that help to support let's say the social emotional piece. Our administrators at the school sites, our principles in terms of the enforcement of corrective actions. >> Yes. What is the recommendation of
047the policy subcommittee on this uh this board policy? >> Recommend we approve it. >> All right. Call the question. >> Objections. >> Claus I. >> Falls draft. I >> Maze I >> de Susi. >> Brianna Tony I. >> Mascon I. Subject to B update board policy and administrative regulation 5131.6 Six, alcohol and other drugs. Second read and adoption. >> I'll second. >> So this is an update to the existing policy which includes language and prevention um programs as workshops in the form of workshops and presentations um programs professional development to uh staff as well as the implementation of these types of programs through school mental health professionals such as social workers and counselors. In addition, a referral program for students and enforcement of discipline is part of this updated policy as well as ways for
048district to actually monitor the effectiveness of these types of programs. >> Discussion. >> How is this going to be um taught or implemented on the students within the entire district of all age groups? >> So we have we have social emotional programs and curriculum at our sites that are age appropriate. So the social emotional curriculum does address this this type of um content. We do have even outside agencies that have come for example most recently to high desert for parent education workshops around alcohol and drug prevention and what to look for signs and symptoms as well as our counselors and social worker interns going into the classrooms to to to to facilitate this discussion with students. That's just an example. >> Okay. regarding um what they've been teaching at Vasquez in the advisory teach uh
049period through the sweet 360 program has been ineffective and if anything um as a representative as a whole district you can say you can ask any of the faculty or students the advisory period and especially that sweet 360 program is um regarding all the social emotional learning is ineffective towards Vasquez students and I'd be happy to expand more on that but I'll move on for now. >> Thank you Autumn. Um we have our principal here Dr. Smith. We have our director of education services Dr. Chamberlain. Your input is heard and we'll go ahead and explore explore that further. But thank you for sharing that with us. What is the recommendation of the management and policy subcommittee on this board policy? >> We we recommend approval. >> Call the question. >> Claus I >> vol. >>
050Thank you for your comments. Autumn mascot I >> subject C new board policy 5030 student wellness first read. Thank you. So again, this is a new policy and it's a standalone policy which outlines goals for nutrition, physical activity for students as well as nutrition guidelines of food foods that are available at each of our sites. With this comes guidelines on program evaluation. Lastly, districts are required to develop a wellness council that could be comprised of staff, parents, students, um, and the like who will advise a district on health related issues, activities, and programs. Thank you. >> Discuss. I think a wellness council could be a really great idea for our schools, districts, our grades. And um it could also once again be a great alternative to especially what we have at Vasquez. I'm not that
051caught up to what we have on social emotional learning right now at High Desert in Metallark, but I will be catching up on that quickly. And um I am I have been looking into alternative solutions for social emotional learning at Vasquez and I have many new solutions and um proposals for that that I think would be great new incentives and yeah this wellness council I think would be a great idea. It says um the superintendent can assess and implement the implementation and effectiveness of this policy every three years. I think it'd be great at maybe if we did this every year. Um and yeah, I think this is really interesting. So, thank you. >> If this were assigned to a subcommittee, which one would it be? Student wellness encompasses so much, you know, because there's
052physical activity as a component that could be at services um easily. Um you could actually touch upon all three to be quite honest. >> Would that be a place uh that the annual concerns that Miss Klouse is speaking to where they could be expressed and captured in the archive? Yes, I I would say, you know, in terms of her insight this evening with us, it'll probably uh be best suited at the ed services >> and it would be appropriate for the student rep to participate without violating the Brown Act. >> Yes. >> Perfect. >> I think that was an invitation to the ED services subcommittee. >> That was in order. Thank you. All right, moving on. Everybody's favorite time. Board comments. All right, first off, I attended the Analopee Valley School Boards Association with our
053vice president. Um, I'm going to defer to uh the vice president to cover this. Is Would you like to do that? I'm gonna I'm I've got this whole other thing. I'm going to go down the route which will probably ruin it. So, you can do the celebratory part because I think you the tour and everything was really important for you. Um I'm so glad that you did the um the event here because we weren't on that tour and I understand the other districts don't want to be embarrassed by what we have, but it was good that you brought them here earlier. Um, what we were hearing from is the California School Boards Association. Some people like that, some people don't like it because it's this overreaching thing that says, "Okay, this is the best practice."
054And and what's good for um a big district might not be good for us. I listen to some of it. Um, most of these board policies come uh as best practice, but what I learned um at this meeting, there was some legislation that came down uh from a complaint in Maryland. The last I saw, I I don't have Maryland plates on my car, so I don't know what Maryland is doing. And I personally don't care. I I care about what's happening in Actton and the people that voted for me and even the ones that didn't. So some of these things that jump up into the federal court have widespread effect effects across the United States that can be very alarming and sometimes uh I I don't want to hear right, I don't want to hear
055left. It it means nothing to these positions up here. Um I just want to know what's good for our kids. And sometimes I think the state um uh government and the federal government are at odds right now. And I don't think that everything that's being said has kids in mind. So that was my synopsis of that. Brianna has much better things to say than that. But I want to I want to talk tonight. Sometimes I try to be politically correct and the message seems to be confusing. this grant that we got. I remember when the superintendent came here, I said, "We've been pulling $4 million a year out of some kid in San Bernardino that doesn't even know we're getting the money and calling it oversight and god knows what." And he was challenged to
056get funding that made us self-sufficient, starting with growth, starting with the kind of enrollment we need. Uh, I'm going to congratulate um the educational subcommittee right now because I don't know that everybody understands that this policy and these movements we've made towards getting people to be able to do the work when they're absent. I like to think that that's not a just check the box and we can pretend that the kid was here and there's no real educational outcome. I think you would agree that you would never agree to that. Correct. Good. So, when we have a way to get kids to in school, we benefit financially. I'd like to think that the um the projects again tonight, the ones we were talking about, the finance subcommittee, there's going to be I don't know how
057many houses coming in up there. They're moving so much dirt up there. I don't know how many more years they have before the kids get here, but the track we're on, we need to prepare for those kids to get here. And I think that other than the fact that that we're close, that this idea that we're that we have clean buildings, that everything looks good, that we discuss things, that someone can actually look at buying the house and say, "This is a great place to send your kid. I don't need somebody in Maryland to tell me what I need to do here. I know what I need to do here and that's make the facilities nice, make room for kids, and expand our programs that we're competitive and we all feel safe. So, feeling safe.
058I did a I did a an internet thing on one of my channels the other night and I had to look back at being a parent of a kid for about 19 years. We knew going into the pregnancy was a big problem. One day she didn't come home. And out of all of it, all of it, all the the medical stuff, all the special education stuff. If I were to summarize old people say, I wish I known now then what I know now. The one thing that was most important to my child, if I could have known this from the beginning, I would have known that what was most important to me, I didn't have to ask for in this town. I wanted the dignity of my child preserved. That's what I wanted. She had
059very limited capacity, but there was a gym full of people one night that confirmed that. So all the programs, all the policies, all the rules, all your daddy being on the school board and whatever that involved, all I needed was the kid to have her dignity. Everybody around the world knows it from if you know our story. So back to this financing, there's a point to what I'm saying. We are wearing ourselves out. The superintendent goes and gets the grant funding, applies for the grant funding, and immediately throws 1.6 6 million a year back on the table. Then the next thing, one thing leads to another. What What was the education gain this year? The ADA gain >> uh 60 students >> and which translates to >> approximately 800 to 850 850,000 >> close to
060a million dollars. Correct. Brianna and her team is figuring out how to how to get closer to 100% of that money instead of 89%. So everybody's banging this away, but I want to rec I want you to recall there was a meeting one night and there was one part of the room that wasn't really happy. But then we started talking about this grant and losing this grant. And so some people came in here and those people were the district's uh community advisory committee district representative. That's the person that interacts on the interest of the district appointed by vote of this board to go over the special education local plan area which is the oversight agency that provides training direction and dissipates funding to all the 10 districts that are in our southpaw. So we had
061the CAC rep from our district here who is also the president of the whole um advisory committee for all the districts. We have a brand new um um SULPA director. We have brand new lead psychologist. We have all these people come in here that night to tell you what their commitment was to special education children. Shortly after that, Elizabeth, the we care program director or whatever you want to call it, has clinical psychologists gaining experience here. We're not having a bunch of people coming in there with all their whack job. Uh, I've asked the question, do I need to get a lawyer to to to make sure that my child isn't identifying as a kitten at school? We got people coming in here that are not pushing one side or the other. They're making sure
062kids are okay. So, we have health, mental health, special education supports, and everything in order. So, that night when the meeting was over, it was perfect. Um, I I I fell asleep reading all your articles about how you co covered that. Please check in with the new uh SULPA director and the local CAC rep because here's why. When you have a child that's born to you, multiple births, certain genetic things, the county regional center comes in and offers you support, the early intervention things. And so a parent can virtually lose everything about their life by taking kids to therapies, doing this, doing this. They're highly involved. They drop the kid off. They talk to the therapist. They get a little break. The therapist comes out and say, "Hey, it went great today or we had
063a challenge. Do this at home." Blah blah blah. So for three years, the parent is like chained to the the early uh intervention therapies. Then all of a sudden it gets handed over to public school education. The big fail in in that is all of the stuff before they hit our little owls room is medically considered. Nobody tells the parent if you've got an autism diagnosis that the school isn't going to look at that. Why? Who pins a autism label on a three-year-old that's going to follow them for their whole life? Our staff looks at them and says, "Okay, where do you fit? You are here. Our special education program is to grant access to the child's best capacity to the curriculum. It's educationally based. It is not medically based." I see so many people
064coming in. Oh yeah, but they said my my doctor said, "No, no, no. were were educationally access and focused on your access to the curriculum. So, this district has done everything including the CAC rep, your Sela director is showing up here. Your lead psychologist is showing up here. All the psychologists for the the district were here. I remember in this district when mental health is a 5150, call it Vasquez, and that kid gets ostracized for the rest of their life. This team that is put together is here to offer a continuum of support at any time. Everyone is fragile. Everybody and I've got the newspaper shouting the message out. The superintendent puts a package together and appeal to the loss of funding. It had links to all these people talking all of the supports. Like
065I said, I can't tell you Analopee Valley Press. It explained word like one, two, three, connect the dots. The only missing piece is the early intervention. Help me with that. Tell me about Rosemary. Tell me about our district rep. Tell me what this the CAC meetings are about. But this district in order to fixing things up, in order to having a great curriculum, CTE, the best subcommittees, we are producing outcomes. And in the background, we have the best supports. And those supports are offered in a way that protects people's dignity. This is so important to me. So important to me. Should I keep going about something else? You want me to make Give me a topic. Your turn. >> Turn on my mic. Um I just want to say again, welcome Larry. We're super excited
066to have you um to see what's going to happen at Metallark. Um football best guess football is doing great. Uh 4 and0 um the boys are showing a lot of enthusias enthusiasm. Um and it's been fun watching him play. Um and again maintenance. Oh, Ernesto left, but uh want to thank the maintenance team again for everything they're doing and just uh everybody have a great week. >> All right, first off, I want to thank everybody who's here tonight. Mr. Luick, thank you for accepting the challenge again. Appreciate that. Also want to extend a big thank you to Metal Arts staff for hosting the wonderful picnic, the family picnic today. There was a lot of participants. It was great to see all those families out together with their their children on the field. I also want
067to take it this moment to recognize one of our dedicated employees from High Desert. Her name is Maria Gonzalez. She's a custodian there. I had the pleasure of speaking with her uh last week during a volleyball game. And she's been with the district for over 19 years. And what really stood out is that the first nine years of working here, she was d she was commuting from past Huntington Park all the way up here just because she loved to work here. And after the nine years, she decided that, you know what, I want to move closer up here cuz I like the district so much. So, she moved up this way. That shows the dedication that she has for this district. I mean, I can't imagine there's so many job opportunities from here to past
068Huntington Park that she could probably could have t taken, but to come up and drive for 9 years that and commute, um, it just it just shows you how wonderful person she is and how dedicated she is to this uh this district and this community. So, I wanted to say thank you to her, Maria Gonzalez, for your uh her incredible service. That's all. >> Maria is pretty great. Um so, as Ken stated, we did attend the Analope Valley School Board Association dinner meeting. It was their um education summit at Lancaster High School. Um, but the daytime started at 7:45 a.m. I met with several um, school board members and um, representatives from Wareo's office. Um, and the president of the California School Board Association. Um, and we jumped on a bus and we toured schools
069all over the valley. Um, we started at Los Amigos. It's the dual immersion school. It was the first dual immersion school in Palmdale school district and now they have four of them. It was very cool to get a tour um and hear from their principal and we went into Spanish classes and English classes and just kind of hear how um their program is run and they've been doing I think that school is on 23 years or something um close to there. Um, so they've they've got it they've got it nailed down and their program is fantastic. So while I was there, I was um texting Eric, I'm here. This is really cool. We should, you know, get a tour going. They offered for our school. Um, whoever is involved in the planning and implementation of
070the program that you had mentioned for us to come and tour. Um, and like I said, I would love to be included in that as um, education subcommittee and um, really dive into what they're doing right and how we can mimic some of what they have going on because it was it was a very cool um, from there we went to Night High School and we toured their um, DDE Academy um, and their fabrication um, facility. what they have going on. I our superintendent, I say our superintendent because I work for that school district, but um Greg Nihan, the superintendent for the high school district, said that that was the only fabrication um facility of its kind in the nation. And he knows that because they couldn't even get insurance on it. They didn't even
071know how to write the insurance. But those kids, what they're learning out there is absolutely incredible. So to go from the elementary and then to see this um this design academy and then we went over to um Buen a Vista School where Palmdale school district had their mobile clinic out. So they have this bus that goes out to neighborhoods and it's a full clinic. So we toured their mobile clinic bus. They said they have a library bus. They have all these different things to go out into the community which I thought was really fantastic. Um and then Buen a Vista School where they have the mild moderate all the way to um severe intensive special needs um and medical therapy unit. Um and why I found that important is because we do have students that
072we bus to other facilities because we don't have the facilities within our district. So, we um contract out and send our most severe students out to these schools and they're riding on our school buses sometimes for two hours. Um they get picked up from their from their doorstep, bust out to these intense special schools. Um, so to walk those hallways and to see all of the medical equipment, um, and just the the different therapies that they're getting all day, um, it was really eye opening to say the least. Um, we also toured Palmdale Discovery Center and that school serves um, severely autistic students that are not not at the point where they can be on a typical um, regular ed campus. Um, and we were able to walk into classrooms and sit down with kids
073and it was it was really fun. Again, very eye opening. Um, and that's another school um or program that we do send our students um that aren't in our our regular ed classrooms. Um, we also toured Palmdale High School's health careers um and their engineering academy. We got to see their solar car. Um, talk to kids. They actually have a trailer that's from a um an ambulance. They took the back of an ambulance off and this health career and their sports medicine students go and intern and they're at all of their high school games. So if somebody gets injured, it's the sports medicine students that are actually like wrapping and um evaluating. It's it's so cool what they're able to do. And when we are such a small district, we're not going to be able
074to get a ambulance. But when I looked at and they have one or twommies, maybe threemmies on their big high schools. Um, and I compare it to what we've got going on at Vasquez and we have our culinary and our construction and our e teams and our the so many different um CTE programs that we're able to offer. And for being a small school, we are able to offer so many things. And it's very cool the amount of opportunities that our Vasquez kids are getting. And then where that trickles down to High Desert to the Maker Space Lab or the Paxton Patterson lab, which we also got to tour um Joe Walker's Paxton Patterson lab um and really compare how they're using their Paxton Patterson and how we're using ours. It was very cool. Um,
075we also toured Hughes Elizabeth Lakes School and that is such a tiny school. Super old, beautiful old facilities. I love their character, but it was really a cool thing to see the difference between what a huge district like Palmdale um Palmdale School District or AB High School school district is able to do and then um really showcase the tininess of Helis. Um, and then in all of that, we also got to collaborate with each other. And um, I we didn't get to come out here time-wise. Um, driving all the way out here wasn't feasible, but I did get to brag on our district a lot. So, we did brag about our Paxton Patterson lab and our CTE programs in conversations. Um, and um, nobody of course knows where Actton is. of course, somebody that comes
076from Monterey, like the um president of CSBA. So I said, you know, the the McDonald's with the water tower that you drove right by, she said, "Oh, I know where that is. That's how we always describe it." So um I said, "Next time you're in town, come on in. We'll give you the grand tour of our schools." So it was, like Ken said, it was really nice that we did get to have um all of the school boards, all the local school boards out last March um for them to see our facilities since we didn't get to do that. And then on the bus on our way back when we're talking about where we're all from and um different uh different things that we have in our neighborhoods and in our our communities, the representative
077from um Juan Coreo's office said, "You live in Actton, you guys keep it so clean out there. You don't have any dumping. You never have any trash. You never Your community is so clean every time we go drive around." And I was like, "We do have dumping." So, huge shout out to our volunteers with the Actton AUG or Actton illegal dumping task force. I did text um Tammy Necessary and let her know, hey, we're talking about you on this bus tour that really doesn't have anything to do with our community, but they got um kudos. So, I just wanted to do a shout out to the our illegal dumping task force and then all of the volunteers in our district and in our community that volunteer and go out with the the task force and
078pick up trash. It's it's noticed outside of our community that our community is clean and that was that was huge. That was awesome. Um and then we went to the dinner. Um, and the thing that uh Ken was talking about something coming down from Maryland, because it went to federal court, it's going to be a mandate for all of us. And it had to do with um parents being able to opt out of um lessons. And uh we had talked about that being something that eventually the ed subcommittee will have to talk about um because we are going to have to develop and talk about what that looks like here on our campus if we do have instructional material that parents aren't wanting their students to participate in and what kind of equity um will
079that student receive. So that was one of our topics that we decided would um eventually come to ed subcommittee and to the board. >> That's that >> let me jump back. >> I yield my time to Mr. Folzka. >> Um after Brianna has said that and I'm glad she covered it. Um there's another unspoken here. Um, when I ran for board the first time, one of my campaign goals, the third one was to restore the good name of the district in the greater educational marketplace because back then everybody over there and over here was suing the district over charter schools. The colleges wanted nothing to do with us. So, the first uh goal I had was restore a focus on local students. So when Brianna is telling you that she's interacting with all these people
080and looking at you have no idea how important this is on how our district is perceived for example these medical sped units all these people we pay full ride when some kid leaves here and I refuse to put Tammy on a bus for two hours just because the lawyer said oh you can get them to pay for this or this. So, it's about working together with people and I hope the model in the SULPA changes to where the districts aren't penalized for full cost. But when Brianna is over there, I call her Miss Congeniality and in good fun. That's her role. But she's over there representing us really well and we're proud to hold our head up and we're part of this now and when we were just not before. You have no idea how
081important that is to our district and its reputation. So, thank you for the way you represent us. I got a little bit of my time left. Uh just really quickly, um we recently had a couple workshops, the drug and alcohol and mental health workshops. I think there's a lot of people out there that appreciated that because there are a lot of kids and parents struggling with how to deal with that. So offering an opportunity and support and some education on how to help you help you deal with that with your kids or even yourself, I think is a great thing that we offered. Uh Mr. Luick, again, welcome. Looking forward to uh great things. And finally, uh, thank you everyone for letting us do a parade lap on everything we got done with the facilities
082and finance subcommittee. And another shout out to, uh, our team here for getting it done. Thank you. Next item, calendar. Next meeting will be October 9th and October 23rd. Any uh, issues with those dates, anyone? >> Nope. >> Future agenda items? Uh right now we're looking at the Aselis virtual academy. And with that can I get a motion to adjurnn? >> I'll move. >> Discussion call the question. >> Clouse I >> I >> Jai. Brianna Tony I. >> Mascon I. We adjourn at 8:54