EUHSD Regular Board Meeting - April 8th, 2025

001All right, it is 6 o'clock and welcome to our monthly regular scheduled Escandido Union High School board meeting. This is our call to order. I'm going to establish a quorum. So, we'll go down the line first. Christy Knight here. Great. Bill Durnney here. Ryan Williams, I'm here. Bob Weller. Oh, you want to be in this, David? Yeah, sure. Thank you. Thank you for inviting me. And David Vincent here. Great. Thank you. We have a quorum. And David, you are also up for the Oh, yeah. So then, mission and vision by Alandre and uh Cadence. Mission empowering every student to graduate prepared for college, career and life through excellence and learning. Vision we relentlessly pursue with optimism equitable support for all students who give net navigate a changing world by providing rigorous and revolent learning experiences

002that strengthen their capacity as open-minded and invested collaborators. effective and thoughtful communicators, resourceful and creative problem solvers, curious and analytical critical thinkers, and informed and compassionate community members. Thank you so much. All right, David, if you'd lead us in the pledge of allegiance, please. All right. So, that brings us to item C4, the inspirational student recognition by uh principal Jason Jacobs of Escandido Union High School. There's the mic for you. Good evening, guys. Um, I would like to take great honor and pleasure to stand before you representing the great Escandido High School. As you know, Escanido High School has been in our community since 1894, second oldest high school in the county. And tonight, we are represented by an outstanding student from our high school. Um, as you may know, my name is Jason Jacobs

003and I am the proud principal at Escandido High School. It is with great pleasure that I present Angelina Tran as Eskanito High School's inspirational student of the month. Angelina is an exceptional student and remarkable individual. She stands out as one of the most driven, well-rounded, and inspiring students. Angelina has consistently distinguished herself both academically and as a campus community leader. Her academic prowess is evident by her multiple Cougar academic awards of excellence and her perfect score on the math section of the PSAT. Angelina's intellectual curiosity and work ethic are truly exceptional. Angelina's achievements extend far beyond the classroom. She embodies the concept of a well-rounded student who balances her academic pursuits with significant extracurricular involvement and community service. What truly sets Angelina apart is her resilience, determination, and genuine kindness. Her ability to connect with

004peers from various culture and social backgrounds is remarkable as her willingness to help others. Whether she's volunteering at the local public library or welcoming new students to our school, Angelina consistently demonstrates empathy and commitment to her community. Angelina's dedication to her passions is evident in her extracurricular pursuits. This past summer, she se she was selected for NASA's STEM enhancement in Earth Science Internship Program at the University of Texas Austin Center for Space Research where she conducted research on the lunar south pole. Last this last December, she had the opportunity to present to the American Geoysical Union with her NASA mentor in Washington DC. This experience combined with her academic achievements has solidified her ambition to become an astrophysicist. Angelina truly embodies our school motto of being loyal, strong, and true. And I would like to

005invite a couple more people up to speak about Angelina at this Good evening. Uh my name is Lisa Ireland. I'm a teacher at Escandido High School. Um it has been a true joy to work with Angelina over the past two years. Um, I teach the AVID junior senior two-year cohort loop and over my I've been in the classroom for 27 years and Angelina really stands out as in a classroom full of standouts for AVID. Angelina really goes above and beyond. Um she's pretty much the whole package in a sense where you have students who are super hardworking and academically gifted and then you have students who are really well-rounded. And in class I see Angelina reaching out to other students to help them an AVID tutorial or welcome them uh in class when they're new

006to our program. Um, I think her transcript and her extracurriculars um, only tell one side of the type of person that she is. Um, I don't know about you, but I don't know many high school students who would willingly give up their weekends or Friday evenings or holidays to work on college application essays. But we applied to over 14 colleges, both uh, public and private. So I think more or less she wrote and revised continually close to 30 short and long uh longword essays. And so that was just not writing them but continually revisiting them. And so for me I think that shows how she is determined to overcome anything that is in her path. She doesn't just wait for opportunities. she actually goes out and seeks out opportunities and works hard um and meeting

007her goals. So this past summer, as Mr. Jacobs talked a little bit about her opportunity to participate in a two-eek residential program um at University of Texas Austin. So that's pretty prestige. I was I feel very humbled when I when I think about where she's off to and I can't wait to see where what her next chapter school or her post high school and postgraduate career where she heads off for that. It's it's my pleasure to to see her graduate head off. I'd like to introduce uh Marbel Estavan who works with Angelina. Good evening again. My name is Marbel Estavan. I have been a counselor for over 30 years and Angelina Sansa is one of my top students over 30 years. I still remember my first contact with her. She was in eighth grade. It

008was towards the end of COVID. So our our communication was via Remind text. So she texted a lot. She had a lot of questions and she was so excited about high school. Had just so many questions. There were a lot of texts and I couldn't wait to meet her in person because through the text I can feel her bubbly personality. She's just um very very um uh you know witty and bubbly. And so Angie's personality definitely has shined also as an EHS news anchor. She's uh energetic, articulate. Her leadership doesn't end in the things that she's involved on campus. She's also involved in Key Club, National Honor Society, CSF, um the Aerospace Academy, Steam to Careers, just to name a few things. She's incredibly talented in managing her time. Aside from all this community involvement,

009she has also taken one or two community college classes almost every semester of high school. And so um she is a true inspiration and example of what hard work being focused dedicated can help us achieve. And she started her journey in school as a English learner. Um she has overcome significant challenges to become fluent in three languages, English, she Spanish, she speaks Vietnamese and she has also started learning Korean and American Sign Language. And she has some amazing options uh to pursue her degree in astrophysics. as Ireland mentioned the 14 schools, but some of the schools that she's uh on her list to consider are UC Berkeley, UCLA, John Hopkins to name just a few. I believe that wherever Angie decides to attend college, she will be an asset to that university just like she's

010been an asset to Eskanito High School. Her academic excellence, her leadership skills, her community involvement, and her personal qualities make her an ideal student who undoubtedly will make significant contributions to whatever college campus she ends up at. I believe that wherever she continues to, where she continues to go, will inspire others just like she inspired her classmates at Eskanito. Thank you, Angelina Tran. Um, good evening everyone. My name is Angelina Tran and I'm a proud senior at Escanido High School. I'm extremely grateful to be here tonight to tell you my whole story. So, starting from the beginning, I was born in Vietnam 18 years ago with my mom and grandma in the room. I didn't learn English until elementary school and my parents didn't know how to guide me through the school process. So, as

011the eldest daughter of an immigrant family, I was learning everything on my own. And as silly as it sounds, I was practicing filling out college applications in sixth grade just so I was prepared. But it wasn't until high school that I started doing everything for me. I was motivated to do well and truly explore everything offered. The opportunities were endless and I was becoming interested in astrophysics as a career. Why astrophysics? Well, my fascination with astronomy actually began during a second grade field trip to the Polymer Planetarium. In high school, I took astronomy and space science courses, built aerospace technology in NASA's Aerospace Academy, did a a paid summer STEM internship sophomore year, and many more extracurriculars such as academic league. However, the most impactful experience was, as they mentioned, my 2024 summer internship. During

012the second semester of my junior year just last year, I was working with my avid teacher, Mrs. Ireland, to apply to prestigious internships. I had barely discovered their existence, and we worked day and night to apply within the short time frame. Our hard work paid off. I was accepted into two MIT summer programs and one NASA program. After many pros and cons lists, I chose the NASA internship. For two months online, I learned Python coding and Earth and space science. I also met my team, a group of six teenagers from all over the United States and my NASA JSC mentor. When I arrived in Austin um at UT Austin Center for Space Research, we conducted research to plan a permanent lunar base and experiments. I loved working with passionate mentors and teammates, gaining insight from

013NASA scientists and presenting our work to thousands of people. Everything about seas from the experiments conducted to the people I met and our late night UNO games affirmed my decision to pursue astrophysics. It was truly the experience of a lifetime. Without all the support I had in high school, I do not believe I would have gotten to this point. I especially want to thank my counselor, Mrs. Estabon, and my teacher, Mrs. Ireland for helping me when I had nobody else to turn to. With their help, I applied to many UC's and private schools. And as Mr. Miss Estabon already spoiled, um, I was accepted into John's Hopkins University, UC Berkeley, UCLA, and UCSD. And now I will be attending John's Hopkins University to major in astrophysics and minor in space science and engineering with a

014$55,000 renewable scholarship. But no matter where I go, I will always be grateful that Eskanito High School was my start. Thank you for listening. If you stay up there, I'll bring you the certificates. Also, Mayor White, would you like to come up and present yours from the city? Angelina, congratulations on being awarded the inspirational student of the month and I'm almost speechless. Uh it's truly inspiring. Your your work ethic and determination is truly something to be envious of. Um I wish you all the success in your future endeavors and again congratulations. Absolutely. Do you mind? Yeah. The mic. Thanks Dane for reminding me to use the mic. So we have two other commendations here. One from the county of San Diego fifth district supervisor Jim Desmond. Here's your certificate. And then this one here from

015the Escandido Union High School board district or district for our board of education. This is our certificate. I also wanted to say that you come from a proud heritage. I graduated um University High up in LA in 1976 and that is right at the end of the Vietnam War and the amount of Vietnamese students we had come into our high school was a lot. Our valid Victorian in 1976, two years in the country with,00 students in our high school in LA was from Vietnam. I just want to say congratulations for continuing your proud heritage and working so hard. All right, we are now back to item number C5, report of action taken in close session being reported out by Christy Knight. Thank you. This is the report of action taken in close session for Tuesday,

016April 8th, 2025. In close session, on motion of board member Williams, second by board member Weller, the board of education voted to approve physical education waiverss, case numbers 789 through 8:19 for the 2024 25 school year by a five, five yay, zero nay, zero absent, zero abstain vote. Um second on motion by board member Durnney and a second by board member Knight. The board of education voted to approve graduation waiver cases number 44 through 48 for the 202425 school year by a five yay zero nay zero absent zero abstain vote. Next, in close session, the board voted unanimously to ratify a separation agreement with one classified employee, a coordin coordinator of attendance outreach employee number 532255. And the roll call vote was as follows. Eyes were Durnney, Knight, Williams, Vincent, and Weller. Zero nos and

017zero abstension. That would conclude the report of action taken in close session. Thank you, Trusty Knight. All right, moving on to approval of board minutes uh from March 4th. Um I'll take a motion in a second, but I have a couple discussion points. Can I get a motion to approve it? I'll second. Okay, thank you. Um so, a couple quick things. I noticed that we had video started um video recording the meetings as well. Those are um not posted in the minutes on the board docs. They are out on YouTube. Is that correct, John? Okay. And on the website. Thank you, Amanda. And I last time I saw the camera was over there, but have the cameras moved up here tonight. Oh, yes. They just weren't working. Um, so that's why we have Oh, I

018was wondering. Okay. Well, I'm excited. So, now the whole board can be seen. So, that's excellent news. All right. So, I call for the vote. All in favor of approving the motion to approve the minutes, say I. I. I. I. I. All right, that carries. Oh, yes, sir. Oh, yeah. And the student board members, if you're in favor, say I. I. All right, that carries. Thank you so much for approving that. So, then we move down to the approval of the agenda. Are there any additions, deletions, or corrections to the There are none tonight. Motion, please. I move to approve the agenda. I'll second. Very good. So then student board members, if you're in favor, you may say I. I. I. Thank you. Elected board members, all in favor say I. I. All right, that

019carries as well. So that allows us to move on to item number C8. And this is the approval of the consent calendar items on the agenda marked with an asterisk. uh consent items for the audience are basically considered routine items of budget voting and things like that. Um I do have one item um that I would like to uh pull from the consent. Well actually two items um and that would be item F1 uh field trips. I want to understand the deeper learning. I guess I have some deeper learning questions and because I want to learn deeper and then the other one would be G3 variable term waiver. So those two items um based on the removing from consent of those two items. Can I get a motion to approve? Please make a motion to

020approve. I'll second. Very good. And student board members, if you're in favor, say I. I. I. Thank you. and elected board members. All in favor say I. I. I. I. All right, that also passes. Thank you so much. That allows us to move down to the recognition and presentations and student and staff recognition by Superintendent John Peterson. Thank you. Good evening everyone. I'll begin with student recognitions. The Greater Escandido Chamber of Commerce recognized five exceptional district students at the March Rising Stars breakfast. Congratulations to Daniel Lagona from Delago, Angel Rivera from Escanido High School, Sizala Hernandez from Orange Glenn High School, Shayin Kai Lopez from Valley High School, and to our very own student board member, Cadence Forby from Sasqua High School. April's rising stars will be recognized at the last rising stars breakfast tomorrow

021morning. We'd like to congratulate Simone de Jesus Salivar from Delago Academy, Melanie Flores Jiannis from Eskanito High School, Yarita Leva from Orange Glenn High School, Jacob Whitney from Sasqua High School, and Saul Solarano from Valley High School. Students from Escanido, Orange Glenn, and Sasqua high schools recently participated in the EUHSD 6th annual culinary competition. Congratulations to Eskanito High School for winning first place entree and to Orange Glenn High School for winning first place dessert. All teams were commended for presenting beautiful and delicious dishes that were five-star restaurantw worthy. At Delago Academy, the Escanido Art Association recognized two Delago Academy scholars at their senior awards last month. Congratulations to Anne Hernandez who received an honorable mention and to Ava Manushar who earned third place in the competition. And congratulations to Taran Warren for being the first

022Delago Academy athlete to compete at the national level. Haron raced the onemile event at the New Balance Indoor Nationals recently. Though she didn't win the race, she certainly made history at Orange Glenn High School. Congratulations to the 1904 cadetses for competing in their very first firefighting competition and taking third place. More than 30 high school students competed in the best of the best high school firefighter challenge in Powe. This is the first year that the 1904 cadetses is offered as part of the after-school programming at Orange Glenn High School. Now moving on to SAS Squall. SP student Mason Cupel from the manufacturing welding program earned the American Welding Society Aerospace Certification with a classification of D17.1. Way to go. After winning the Port Wine First Robotics Regional, the SPHS Super Nerds went on to win

023the San Diego regional. The Super Nerds qualified and will be competing in the world championship next week. Best of luck to them. Napasqua High School junior Talia Travasos has been selected as a 2025 Carson Scholar. The Carson Scholars Program recognizes students for high academic achievement, humanitarian qualities, and community service. Finally, I'd like to recognize staff. Congratulations to Sasqua High School teacher Michelle Kavasa and district service center counselor Holly Anderson for being two of six educators selected to receive the leader among peers award from three Northern Association of California School Administrator Region 18 Charters. They will be formally recognized at the second annual AXA Region 18 Northern Consortium of Charters Leadership Awards Ceremony on April 22nd. They are recognized as demonstrating equity, promoting leadership, and facilitating a community of learning. Valley High School teacher Adam Morgan

024was selected as the 2025 California Continuation Education Association Plus Region 1 Teacher of the Year. The award is given annually to individuals who have gone above and beyond in their leadership of staff, their dedication to student success, and involvement in their community. And finally, Escanido High School's Steam to Careers program was selected by Classroom of the Future Foundation's Innovate Award recipient. They will be formally recognized at the 22nd annual Innovation and Education Awards. Escandido High School re will receive a $5,000 grant to help keep the momentum of the program going at Escanido High School. Thank you very much. Thank you, John. very much. It's great to hear all the wonderful things going on in the district. I tell you, it's everybody's pulling together. It's nice to see. All right. So, then that leaves us. We

025are at the student, let's see, we'll go down to D2, which is student board member reports by Alandre Pñena and Cadence Forbes. So, Alandre, if you'd like to start, please. Good evening, members of the board and everyone who decid decided to join us today. I will be giving you an update on a few schools around Escanido. Starting with the Lago Academy, the robotics team competed at UCSD in the first robotics competition from March 21st through March 23rd. They competed with 50 other robotics teams from around the world representing the LA. One scholar Benjamin Traxxler won the deans list award which recognized outstand outstanding student leaders who emply technical expertise leadership and dedication to advancing STEM in their community. On March 26, ASB announced where and when prom is going to be held at May 3rd

026at the Bridge Aquarium in La Hoya. ASB will have their officer elections from the 21st of April to May 21st. The girls lacrosse team won against Vista High School, Hilltops High, and Monte Vista School. On March 31st, they had a game against Ramona High School 175 DLA win and had a fundraiser at Canes where 15% of the sales profit will be donated towards their team. The boys lacrosse team won against Mina Mesa High School, Sage Creek High School, Prusius High School, and Morris High School. I'm sorry. Congratulations to singer Danielle Laguna for being one of the finalists for the Gates Scholarship, aka my bestie. Moving on to Eso High School. During the month of March, Esco celebrated their seniors for their academic achievements and cast testing. Last year they held a two week spirit weeks

027to make cast testing more fun and encourage their junior class. On April 25th they will have a winter sports pep rally. They will have their prom on Saturday, April 26 on the inspirational hornblower. Congratulations to student Jacqueline Mña seenor for being a Hispanic scholarship fun finalist. And congratulations to Marisa Lopez, English teacher for being named March teacher of the month. And congratulations to Ala Rio lab assistant in the learning center for being named March classified employee of the month of March. Wrapping up with this adult school, they are happy to announce they had added conversational English as a second language class. Thank you. And this is the end of my report. Thank you so much, Alandre. And Cadence, real quick before you start, um David Vincent and I had a chance with the superintendent to

028travel to the adult um high the adult school here in Escanido. Talk about inspiring. Extremely inspiring seeing all these adults at night. I don't know what time we were over there, like 7 o'clock or so, 7:30. They were totally engaged in the class. The teachers were totally engaged. It was very inspiring to see that we have a school like that in our district and these people really want to get their degrees and move on. And so, I'm very proud that um our district supports that. So, thank you for bringing that up in your um your uh talk just now. All right, Cadence. Good evening, board members, faculty, staff, and community members. I'm happy to share our latest events from each school, starting with Sasqua High School. Congratulations to Christine Gibson, who received one of four

029$200 grants offered by Cal RTA, Division 63, to teachers in the Escandido Union High School District. Her dedication to her students and classroom innovation is being recognized districtwide. Some upcoming events and past ones. March 21st, Sasqua held their spring pep rally where they introduced their prom theme lost in Rio held at Park. On April 28th, Sasqua will host a recognition assembly for all grades. and recently they just had their junior CASP picnic inspiring students to do well on the math section of their CASP. ASB will also host a birthday booth at the end of April to celebrate all the students with April birthdays. Now, let's move on to Orange Glenn where in March they had a food fair offering wide range of delicious options while supporting their student clubs and they will be looking forward

030to a blood drive on April 30th giving students and staff the opportunity to make a meaningful impact through blood donation. Continuing on with Valley High School, Valley Valley's flag football team is in action this month with games against Ivy High School, Trade Tech, and Alta Vista High School. And on April 30th, Valley will host a family night welcoming an event that encourages families to connect with school programs and resources while supporting student success. As we move into April, it's inspiring to see continued engagement, achievement, and school spirit across all of our campuses. With spring break just around the corner, I hope everyone deserves a welldeserved rest and especially excited to see all of the seniors begin to commit to all of their colleges. Thank you. Thank you, Cadence. Thank you, Alandre, very much. And then

031we will move on to D3. And um one of the things that has been important to this board is really find out what different um people, teachers and administrators have been learning at the conferences we've been um sending them to. So, um, as it says here in public comment, a board member has requested to hear a summary of the key takeaways from the EU HSD educators who attended the recent computer using educators Q annual conference in Palm Springs on March 20th, 2025. So, um, see, thank you. Damon Blackman here to to share what they learned at Q this year. Thank you so much. Thank you very much for the invitation to share our learning at the Q conference. This year we had six staff members from the district that serve in a variety of educational

032technology roles and tech leadership roles in the district. Excuse me. Um I think each of you have a copy of the newsletter that also went out to our staff today as a summary of kind of our our learning. Two of our teachers were quite impressed. Yes, that's correct, Mr. Weller. Um, two of our teachers were quite impressed with what one of the uh most widely used tools within our district, Canva, which is like a presentation tool. Many of our productions here at the district service center um are using Canva. Abby Smith who is our edtetosa at Eskanito High School. She wanted to share her learning around how assessment can be done in a very um enhanced way with the tools offered in Canva. She talks here about how with tremendously powerful and easy design tools,

033teachers are able to customize templates, quizzes, worksheets and do so in real time so that they can see how the students are learning content with each of these. As I speak, you'll see on the left side there will be a link provided so that those people who have received this uh digitally will be able to click on and see the slide deck of the resource. Of course, we ask that any of our staff members who are interested for more information to contact this person directly to learn more about it. Uh Kelly Moer is a uh a technology uh lead teacher at Escandido also uh especially focusing on the use of technology in the language English language arts with brisk teaching and she wanted to share the information around magic studio specifically and magic studio is

034canvas's version of AI which does things that frankly 10 years ago you would need uh to take a 25 hour course in Photoshop to learn how to take um and manipulate images. And now with Magic Studio, it literally is a click and 5 seconds later it uh will remove an image and fill in the background with AI that is reasonably good. Um for example, if uh there was a surfer on a wave, you can remove the surfer from the wave and then the AI fills in the surf behind it seamlessly. And with it, she wanted to share how Magic Studio can create lessons, assessments, images, recordings, and more using AI tools. For example, um in one way, you could for those of you who are used to using Canva or any of the similar tools,

035you can describe what you want the topic to be about. But what Canva will do is take it a next step further and that is it will design a presentation or a flyer or whatever based on not only the content but also it'll find content and give you a head start much like some of the other tools we use that use AI such as Magic School. Continuing on the left side here, uh John Johnson is an edtetosa at Orange Glenn High School. He wanted to share what he learned in a session around our learning management system which is Canvas with an S, not Canva. And um what we're finding is that teachers are doing a really good job extending what is available to our students and to our families where they're just not making some

036content available as kind of like um a um filing cabinet of resources and links, but to go and make sure that teachers are giving feedback that matches a lot of our learning goals. And so some of our teachers know this is a move towards competencybased learning which it it matches learning outcomes with the grade and Canva as he says here yes Canvas can do that. So uh on the right side uh Sue Pastor who is our edtetosa at Sasqua High School she and I actually attended this session together. I'll let her take the lead on this one. Um, it is really important for us as an organization to make sure that we are supporting critical media literacy with our staff and students. And doing so is even more important while we navigate artificial intelligence. And

037this session was talking about how there are assembly bills and movement within the state of California to have frameworks designed that are coming out that will incorporate digital literacy requirements as well as AI requirements in the coming years as the frameworks are coming out. English language, arts, mathematics, science, social science. So on those curriculum are being um those frameworks are being updated and the media literacy is going to be written into it. And so we as a district um it's our understanding that the next big release of content is going to be coming out in the coming months from the state in AI in the classrooms. uh Jesus Alvarado, a math teacher at Escandido High School. He was um really impressed with how project-based learning lessons and curriculum can be developed using artificial intelligence. He's

038one of our lead teachers in our PBL math rec uh credit recovery program at Escanido High School. and he was really impressed with how embracing AI can enhance the learning experience and streamline the lesson planning especially when it becomes contextbased problem based to make sure that the learning makes sense to our students so they learn how to apply mathematics and with that application it sticks it stays longer and then um lastly I'd like to present uh the session that really rang true to me which is differentiation through uh tools with Adobe Express. Now, as educators uh we do get access to the tools such as Canva and Adobe Express free of charge from those companies. It's their way to give back to education K12. And Adobe Express is similar in many ways to Canva, but

039it's also designed more tightly in some ways to a classroom experience by creating classrooms where students can actually be given particular assignments and the teachers can manage those and students can get feedback within that um that setting. For me, uh, one of the things that I hear frequently is how teachers can work on getting content out to students using QR codes and in some cases what we call flat files or PDF files where they need to take many resources together and put them into a single PDF. And so that was one of my big takeaways here for how teachers can use this these tools here instead of the what we'll call the premium versions that are out there where there's a limit to x number of QR codes a month and then you're out of

040luck after that. Um we do provide access to Canva Canvas and Adobe Express through our single sign on working with our IT department. That basically means if a staff or student member knows their email address and their computer password, they can access all of these tools with just that information instead of managing more than just that. Thank you. I got a quick question. Yeah, go ahead, David. Um, so you have a lot of these uh different types of uh programs. How are they all integrated to each other? How are they differ from each other? And how are they used in application? um because what I see here there seems to be a lot of redundancy maybe um but I just trying to get a feel of how they're used in the classroom. Sure. So overall

041Canvas is our learning management system. We call that kind of like the delivery system or the glue to whatever the tools are, whatever the learning is, whatever the content is, it can be housed and managed in a learning management system. As a matter of fact, the California state system uh for community colleges and many uh universities within the state of California use Canvas as their platform. We want to give our students a leg up in using that platform. Now, from there, it is true that tools such as Canva and many other tools are integrated within the one tool so that it's kind of like in a single login, you're automatically logged into other systems. Canva for education is one that was just added recently as a result of going to this conference to learn how

042to do that. Um in terms of the other tools, uh for sure we're going to have a lot of um excitement and wonder and a little bit of anxiousness regarding the use of AI and those tools. So those are brand new coming on board. I had presented this information to the board previously. Um, I'll say that it is true that for some tools there might be some redundancy, it's one of those things that because Canva and Adobe Express because of that redundancy. Um, and since it's at no cost to the district, we're okay with that redundancy because some people are going to lean towards, hey, I know how to use Adobe, which could be very much a resume builder because it's a known quantity, right? um versus uh other tools. So if we ever have

043any kind of um overlap, something that we're perhaps paying for licenses, that's something that we need to evaluate. It is very rare that they're identically the same. They have pros and cons to both and we'll always make sure that we go through a process to make sure that if we are paying for any kind of um of service that we make sure that we're doing so wisely. Another question regarding your presentation model in here. Is that similar to Microsoft uh PowerPoint or are the presentation applications totally different? So I would say the presentation for Canva and Adobe Express in terms of having this 16x9 frame is about where it the similarly similarities end. For example, in Adobe Express, we can take students who are practicing speaking a newly learned language, whether that be English, maybe

044that's Spanish, maybe it's French. And in Adobe Express, for example, one of the things you can create is um a little character that will then with AI with a recording actually move, make gestures, and that match the cadence of the voice. Oh, okay. Right. And so we can use it as a a tool for storytelling. So in that case whether it be Adobe Express or Canva or other similar what we'll call content creation tools um it's really your let your imagination be your guide and PowerPoint is really not terribly imaginative when it comes to those things not discounting that it's a very strong product and we offer it free to all of our students and our staff through our licensing and it's important to know those tools too in so far as being a member

045of or um if you were let's say earning a certificate in Microsoft Office Specialist for example might not be the most important tool. I think we could probably agree that Excel and Word is probably the stronger of the suite. But um I think that anytime that we give students an opportunity to tell a story and tell it well shows demonstration of learning which is a part of our um our uh our instructional focus for example. And so, uh, I can say that well over 80% of our students in the district, for example, have used Canva at least once. And some students have done so over 20 or 30 times. And um, I don't think it's just because the teachers have said, "Here's an assignment." It's rather here's a tool. Maybe I did an assignment in

046English, but I'm now going to use this same tool to then demonstrate my learning in another subject. Thank you, Damon. That really well put together. I appreciate it. I've got a got a I got a quick question before you go here. So, uh, as a as a full fully full full, shall we say, of of AI, I use it all day long, every day. Um, at the conference, what and a lot of AI talk here at the conference, what um what was talked about in terms of the bad part of in terms of the the challenges guides are lying to you a lot. So, I'm glad you asked that and overall our response our response to that is that we have a responsibility to our staff and to our students to talk about those limitations

047and understanding what we need to do in order to make sure that AI is being used ethically, right? And so you think you probably read in my original board update that talks about how the um uh chief academic officer of code.org or was a presenter and it talks about how it's important to make sure that we're doing what we should be doing with our students. And so for us, it's number one is we're trying to go slow to go fast. So like for example, when a student logs into Magic School, there's a screen before the student starts the lesson with the tools that have been given to them by their teacher. It'll say number one, your teacher can see your activity in Magic School. So be aware of that. Two, there are some limitations to

048the AI. For example, it's not a replacement for your thinking. Sometimes it comes across with bias. Sometimes it comes across with inaccuracies and at times is very s um suspect in terms of math calculations. Tends to be a little bit better with explaining some things sometimes. That's what we're really after in terms of offering tutoring tools for students. Um, we want to make sure that students and staff are not putting any of their private information into the AI. And that again is a part of that ethical responsibility of not feeding the information. Even though our partner Magic School will say, "Please don't put this information in. We'll do our best to scrub it, but you still have to make sure you're doing the right thing on your end, and it's just safe practice." Um, and

049then the biggest lesson we learned was that AI is only as good as the prompting you give it, which suggests that there has to be some cognitive load. Some critical thinking that goes into the formulation of asking the AI to get out of it what you need. That in of itself is a good pro is a is a good process. one that we should feel more comfortable than sorry just googling it right garbage in garbage out absolutely and in this case you need to have the right input so and so that is a skill that we're developing with our staff and students um I just um tomorrow I have my training with Magic School over at Escandido High School um so far we have uh 22 people sign up from all of the schools Escandido's

050group tomorrow is like five or six people um and uh staff and um uh we know that uh think we're doing a good job with approaching this with care but also um kind of not um no AI is here to stay. We want to make sure that we're using this opportunity to teach our staff and our students the appropriate way. Thank you. So, Mr. uh Blackman, thank you so much for presenting. Also, thank you Dr. Kauus and Superintendent uh Peterson. I know this has been a big um point that I've really found that has been important for us to know what is going on for the conferences that we're sending these teachers to. One of the things that you did say, uh Mr. Blackman, is that you want to go slow to go fast. I

051appreciate that for sure. One of the terrifying things that you said is that once again the state of California is pushing down a ton a ton of stuff on us when we're still struggling with math and English. By the way, that's not directed at you, that's directed at them. And so I'm that's one of my big things is that I really want to protect our district from all the other stuff that's distracting our students from, you know, basic good fundamental education here. So based on that, I'm going to ask David and Ryan um if you guys have any next steps that you would like to see from um the district presenting regarding on the magic school um what magic school uses one's a song from my generation group. Yeah. But anyway, uh David and Ryan

052talk about puff the magic dragon. Um, so one of the things that I found is helpful and I appreciate if you could share with me is uh or the board is give us regular update on the performance attributes that may come out of this that you see as a positive for the school district. I think that's important. Um how how well the kids are grasping this technology because it is with it's going to be with us and um for a long time. So it's good to see that you're integrating this into curriculum. Thank you Dr. Casses for uh definitely moving in that direction. Happy to do that. Okay. Thank you. My only comment would be is I believe uh I remember right the last time we had this type of conversation we're talking about how

053it was a should we say a locked system. So myation doesn't I thought I heard you say like you have to be careful about what you put in. So can you maybe clarify in terms of Absolutely. Although the partners that we have will do their best to scrub any kind of PII that's put into it. For example, let's say our students are using an AI tool to improve a resume. We would want our students to know that they should not be putting their address, phone number, and so on, which would normally be on a resume into the tool. It's not that we're concerned about what Magic School does with it, which is nothing. It's more that if we train students to do that regardless of the AI tool, whether it be open or closed, that's

054the closed one we're referring to now. But the open ones like chat GPT, Gemini, those when they're open and not through our system, what have you, those are the ones where it's just we'll call it proper digital hygiene, right, Jerry? what we talked about uh Jerry being our IT director as we talk about how do we message this out and so Jerry and I are on a committee for the ed for edtech and it's like how do we message this out and I don't know if hygiene's probably the greatest word to use for it but you know what I mean it's one of those things it's just a best practice that you even if there are safeguards let's not do it so so in conclusion right the school bus concept is is a closed system

055right Yes, absolutely. Yeah, we would not go into a partnership with something that wasn't that way. So, if it's closed system, uh how much information for research purposes are you able to get access to rather than a open system? Are the are the for the closed system are all the queries and stuff embedded in there already? Is that a part of the software? Closed system in this context is more defined as will the AI system build upon its own model based on the interactions with the end users. In a closed system, the answer is no. Okay, it'll only be the AI AI has been trained magic school. through 2021 around vetted educational content and with it um it will not feed into the system what we have done for example in an open system if

056a teacher has a dynamite lesson plan that as they ask the AI to improve through a certain lens by doing that yes the AI can assist the teacher in doing that but in doing so you also give up the copyright so to speak because you because you fed the system this AI in the next generation of will in some small way perhaps have that come back out and in the systems that we are using the closed systems that is not the case ultimately I think that this will all be resolved when we see the results of students uh going forward so um I guess I would like to suggest that maybe we have a quarterly update on edtech you know and just quarterly come back can give us an update on this and we can

057compare it also at the year end as well to performance of our students. So really appreciate giving a pretty technical uh presentation like that and thank you for your time. Welcome. Thank you. All right. So then based on that uh we are going to move on to recognition and presentations item D4 and that'll be presented by executive director Sean Roner. Sean, welcome tonight. Good evening. Thank you so much for uh inviting us to come and present. And uh want to begin by introducing our staff members that are here. But we have Leslie Clifton who's the principal of Eskano Charter High School and we have George Taus who's the assistant executive director. Next to him we have Jonathan Tagi who's our business manager. Thank you. I also want to take a moment to to thank you

058as a board for your uh leadership in our community and in your support for our schools. And I want to thank superintendent and his cabinet. Um you've been uh so professional joy to work with. Really really appreciate that. We for having us this evening. Here we go. You click in for me, Grace. Second. All right. So, what I want to do uh first is just very briefly I I know uh I think most of the board members are are familiar with our schools, but it can be confusing some sometimes. So, I want to take a moment and just briefly give you an overview of our schools. Uh, we have two LEAs that are a part of our organization. So, Heritage K8, excuse me, Sean, um, can you move the mic up to you? I just

059checked with somebody at home and they wanted to hear you. Let me know. Uh, yeah, I'll get a message here in a second. So, we have two two LEAs. uh one Heritage K8 that's authorized through the elementary district and of course Eskin Charter High School that's a authorized through our high school district. So we have three campuses that are elementary. Heritage Elementary which is our full-time so think of it as two tracks uh one traditional track full-time which is Heritage Elementary, Heritage Junior High School and then um our traditional classroom program at Escanido Charter High School. So there are about 1,300 students uh in those programs from um K to 12. And then on the bottom, our hybrid program or what we call flex is Heritage Flex Academy, which is TK through 8. And then

060at Escanido Charter High School, we have a flex program. Uh and the total enrollment there is about 930 or 40 kids uh in those programs. We're about 23 2400 students in our programs. Any questions about that? Let me talk about our enrollment. This is our current enrollment for this school year at Eskanito Charter High School. So, you can see our full-time classroom program uh by grade in the first column. Uh so, 120 freshmen and you can see all the way down to 60 seniors for about 400 kids, students. Then our two flex programs, we have a classroom based flex program, which is basically just means there's more time on campus uh for the students. You can see there's 313 students. And then our uh more full independent study program where students come uh either one

061day a week uh to meet with a teacher of record or they might blend into some classes uh in our in our classroom program. We have about 220 kids for a total of 932. One of the questions that comes up I think for board members is where's that enrollment been? Has that changed? It's pretty much been the same for the past five or six years and we don't anticipate it growing at all. Um and so um that that number is pretty static for um can I ask you a quick question about the difference of uh 60 students in 12th grade versus 120 in 9th grade um are students moving within the different models what's happening there that's what's happening so when we first um gosh since 1996 I think um although we've had two really

062good programs I think for for a lot of our families in the community are tradition program was sort of the full-time classroom program was really a flagship for us. Uh and it still is in many ways. It's very successful. But when we started the the CLP program, which is sort of a hybrid between full independent study and the classroom, a lot of our juniors and seniors love that flexibility and co just accelerated that for families and they said, you know what, we don't want to be fully independent, but we want to be able to be on campus more and they love that flexibility. And so we start with 120. A lot of those kids end up transferring over and enrolling in the program. Great question. Got a quick question. You said that from an enroll

063total enrollment standpoint, you're pretty well, you know, static and plan to keep it that way. Um what's the rationale behind that? Is that just the limitations of the campus? Is that great? Yeah, it's a great question. Um a couple of different reasons. I think uh one reason um I think philosophically for us since we started we've just been really committed to serving our community meaning you know the school community and our leadership team feels it's really important to be able to be a part to know the staff to know the kids uh I love being able to go to the different campuses and and be involved in that and it just gets harder it's just a practical challenge the second reason is we've been always been very mindful about the impact that we have on

064our authorizing district. Um and so um we want to work in collaboration and that's important and so even though we could grow that doesn't necessarily mean that's what would be best for not only our school but maybe even for our community and so that's a something that we have to be mindful of and we are. Then I think thirdly um our facility space we're maxed out. I mean, we're pretty close to being maxed out if we're not already. And I think just for our team, we love we've always been from the very beginning um concerned about having a small sort of intimate learning community and it just gets harder. Anybody that's especially at the high school level, if you get involved in managing the high school, it just gets more and more challenging more kids

065that you have. uh our average class sizes are still below 20 to one and that that's uh pretty extraordinary but gets harder as we add add students and try to expand that. So even though we have a big weight list for kids to get in, we just is something that we've made as a our board and our leadership team has just felt something that you said um if you don't mind me asking uh you said that you were try to maintain stability with regards to your staff how is that is it very stable? Do you have a large turnover rate? So, we actually because uh just a quick quick answer to or explanation to that. We uh we I know these statistics because we uh did private bond financing for our facilities. We have $34

066million of facilities here in town and um because we don't do public bonding um we have to go out and privately bond pay for that out of our regular revenues that come in from the state year to year. So the money that is meant to be paid for books and teacher salaries, we have to use that directly to pay for those facilities. So part of their report that they ask us for each year when we do our calls to go through the our financial information is our teacher retention. And so we're we're we're somewhere around 95%. We keep our staff and I think a lot of that um has to do with just the culture and the family uh vibe that we have. We just uh it's it's tough. you make a sacrifice when you

067choose to be a charter school teacher. um know that um and what we try to make up for um and some of the things that they might have as a teaching staff is autonomy uh support from the leadership team and a a culture that supports learning and in the mission of the school and over the years we've just found a lot of success with teachers believing in but I can definitely tell you that it's a I think I speak for all school leaders that it's definitely a challenge because San Diego County North County San Diego is incredibly expensive, it difficult for teachers and and school administrators to to make it work in the ways that they might have in the past. So, I think we all have to be creative. That's unfortunate, but it is

068uh some of our policies that we have. Yeah. That's causing that. Sure. 100%. Yeah, good point. Other questions about that? Yep. Uh here's just some over over uh a big picture perspective of of some of our dashboard elements um that you can see our A throughG uh in our classroom program. It's it's it's almost 100% of our students that complete A throughG because that's our graduation requirement. Um for our credit recovery students and of course we have different options for them. You can see on the lefth hand side our absenteeism um our graduation rate there on the top and then um our cast performance and pretty consistent questions about that. Um yeah I'm just looking at the staffing uh we're so you have these subgroups uh students and subgroups. Can you explain that a little

069bit? Uh you're referring to the subgroups over here. Uh, which subgroups are you? What do you mean first? Top left corner, I think. Oh, okay. Uh, the top left corner. Oh, got it. So, um, two of our Great question. It's confusing, but the way that the the dashboard works in California, we have a variety of subgroups, but we chose two of our largest our two largest subgroups um to make it simpler. And so, the two largest subgroups are basically the students, all of them, and then our socioeconomically disadvantaged students. We have other subgroups, but those are the two largest subgroups um that we have of our population. So to David, can I follow on with that? Yeah, sure. So on the public section over here, I hear the term unduplicated students all the time, socioeconomically

070disadvantaged. Does that relate? Yeah, it does. It does relate. So uh technically speaking, um the old term that we used to use, it's commonly used is free and reduced lunch and students or students that qualify for that. Now we use the term unduplicated and um yes that's it's a similar terminology. So then just to look at A3G so back basically from 2021 to 2022 up to 2023 2024 um so that's saying that that percent of students are on the age ag path is that what I understand that yes what that's saying is of our socioeconomically disadvantaged students and all of our programs including our credit recovery program uh for example uh 55% and 23 24 55% of those students of the total population completed all of the A throughG requirements with a C or better.

071So they they qualified to go into Cal State or UC school. So I I noticed that that's going down. Just for a record for the audience, my son went to uh charter and he went to trades. So he shows he said I'm never going to college. So he got his job a job as an electrician apprentice. So he falls into the percentage that's not here. But I just want to make sure that I understand this is that in 23 24 54.8% were on the AG path uh completed the A throughG path. Completed thank you of socioeconomically disadvantaged. Okay. So I there's something that impressed me and that's your chronic absentes. What's your formula? Great question. Uh David, I you know uh Jonathan, our business manager and I were at a conference uh a few months

072ago, charter school conference and we were doing uh it was a finance session and we were going through some uh sort of examples and we were working with a charter school group and we were talking about that and they were shocked at our at our attendance and um we haven't done anything differently to tell you the truth. Um, I mean it's it's not that it's not a challenge and we've definitely seen since co uh that's become more difficult, but Leslie and her team do a great job of um holding the high school kids accountable. I also think there's a real urgency in the classroom from our students and understand that need to be there. Then I also think that um the culture that that Leslie and her team have created um make students feel like

073they're at home and they want to be at school. If I could tell a quick story, we we had a student who um tragically had a mom who passed away during the school year. He's a he's a sophomore student for wonderful family. And um the next day his his dad called me in the morning uh and said he wanted to wants to come to school. And I thought crazy. Uh and so when I pulled him in to talk to him privately, he said, you know, Mr. Owner, this is this is my family. This is what this is where I want to be. I want to be a part of my friends and community. And so I think that um is a way to address that when students feel like they belong and they're a part

074of something, they they want to want to go and they want to be a part of school. Yeah. I I'm just impressed because postco seems like the damage done during co right cut downs and reproduct from that is effectively for years. So just impressed and also I'm also impressed got ELA percentage increase on math 54. I appreciate that. Followup question on the A3G. So, uh, you said how closely are your, uh, graduation requirements aligned with A3G? That's a great question. So, if you think of our high school as if you could simplify because it can be a little bit confusing with these different options. You just think of, hey, you got a classroom program and an independent study program. Kind of think of it that way. Independent study program has about 220 kids, right? That's

075the PLP. Of that, there's a far less percentage of the students that complete A throughG, which um, you know, technically speaking, brings those numbers down because we take in on purpose. We have great kids in the program, but we also take in um students who might be credit recovery or struggling with different things. And and we love that's what the program's designed for. uh in our classroom program the numbers are are uh it's 100 almost 100% they can't graduate in our classroom program without completing the with a C or better well I should completing AG classes in so the in-classroom program is right aligned with AG that's what they have to so the minimum requirement is two what we call 230 credit plan is what's required to get into CalState Smark about 50% I think

076less you think it's 50% % of the classroom kids uh complete the 260. Is that what about what is it's probably 50 or 60% complete the minimum requirements for the UC system? The director owner um I was noticing the cast scores and I did want to thank um our superintendent for a meeting with you uh John because I know that it's a and you and Dr. causes have quite a big burden for our CAS scores to get up and so I appreciate you guys meeting with Sean and what they're doing over there. I think that I think one time you and I um Sean had talked about it and you you basically said it's just it's the buyin from the teachers. It's the whole espree deca core at the school that allows the students to

077get to that because we have a couple well one in particular that is really struggling in this area and we'd love to apply what you're doing over there uh over here. I appreciate that. You know, one thing that that I would say is um in education, it's difficult um because every community has different needs and circumstances. And you know, what I often times share with people when I go out and speak is, you know, I can speak authoritatively with our community. Um but it's hard for me to speak in other areas that that I'm not involved in and and I'm not looking at the data or or evaluating teachers or doing those sorts of things. And um we've been one of the things that we're has been really fortunate for us is terms of what

078you said is we've been able from our TK through 12 for the most part to create a community of kids and families um who come from adverse backgrounds but um to build from the early levels and I think what's a challenge I would imagine for high school district any high school district is you don't necessarily have control over uh what's happening in the lower grade levels and and um that really gives us an advant intentional about about that. But I appreciate that and there's anything we can do to support. Yeah, to do that. I appreciate you bringing up the fact that we are a high school district. I know that I have actually been going to some of the elementary district board meetings and following what they're doing and putting some pressure on them to

079deliver students that are ready to learn at our, you know, at our level as well. So, I'm sure I know who some of the board members are watching there tonight and I'll get a text from them later, but uh we definitely need to work closer and I I'm hoping we can have a joint couple board meetings uh this year together to build towards that. Thank you. Um this is our demographic information. Um so this is basically what gets reported to for our dashboard and you can see the information. Uh I think just kind of simply put um about 70% of our students or more generally speaking are are minority students and 30% are white. You can see our free and reduced lunch. Um you can see on the lefth hand column here special education numbers.

080I'll talk about that uh in a in a moment are our English language learners and then uh our uh free and reduced lunch uh students who qualify for free and reduced lunch. And one of the things that that uh was brought up to us was a question was the dip this year and that and and that was really a reporting thing. We we switched up the way that we reported or we collected data for that information and um didn't go out so well. So the the uh the data the the percentage of students hasn't changed. So we're going to go back to doing it the way we used to do it. So unfortunately it's going to have an impact on us. So I got a question to ask of demographic. Have you aligned u graduation

081by ethnicity? Have you looked at that? Oh, you mean the the the statistics? It's pretty close. Oh, go ahead. you say um on the previous slide when you look at that A throughG I think one of the numbers in that that that I'm really proud of is the fact that our socioeconomic disadvantaged population and uh the whole population of students the difference in that is actually not very significant I think that's actually pretty remarkable for the high school team what what they do with the kids um I'm going to be honest with you David we my perspective is every student desol uh deserves a great education and we just give it to them. Um there's no there's no differences. Um we understand that there are real differences in terms of where where a student's background

082may be and there's challenges that come with that. I mean those are real challenges but I think if um from our perspective uh if we really believe what we say that every student deserves a great education then they deserve the best just like they would get in a private school or some any any great school and um that presents challenges for our staff because the expectations are very high but um we've been able over the years to to to work through that. I think partly back to the original question at the beginning about having a small campus. Um, keeping it that way gives us the ability to know the know the students and to work with their families and to try to give them any other questions about this on your special ed. Are we

083taking care of those kids or you are you are and I think that's um this my next slide and I'm very excited to say uh that we have Jeremy here who provides uh our special ed and directs at uh so my plug for for Jeremy and his team. They're fabulous. We we really appreciate our relationship with with the district and the sped team is particular. Um, I did leave off and I want to say Kate Tattoo is also on our staff and I left her up. We've been very fortunate. Lee has been with us uh for 10 or 12 years. We really appreciate the the team um getting a chance now to work with Jeremy and his new role has been wonderful and we appreciate that. You can see uh you can see the numbers

084there um for us. Any questions about special ed? Um sure. looking at numbers but I'm not getting sure. So, um there's two parts if you just simply put there's two parts to uh for students who may qualify uh for special ed services. 504 which are uh comes under federal guidelines which we we we provide those services for those students not the district and then IEPs which come under state state guidelines essentially and uh Eskina Union High School district team under Jeremy's leadership provides those services works with our staff to provide then what we do in return is our special ed uh monies that come in of our students goes to the district and in return the district um we leverage that and provide services. So you offer that ser you offer that service too. Do

085I offer this? Do we offer we offer the district offers the ser the same services that the district provides for Eskano High School and Sasqual and Orange Glenn. They provide many of those services at Eskanito High School. Okay. For our students. Thank you. Okay. Um, just a couple last minute items and then I'll take any other questions that you have. Just a few uh program highlights. One of the things that we shared with uh the the cabinet was that we're working hard on on an MTSS program for our high school students. That's a multi-tered program of intervention. And we think that that's something as um special number of special needs students or students with special needs has grown um how can we um step in before we get to the assessment process and and for

086those students to qualify. And so we're working through that process and um we're hoping that that'll be something that will not only be great for our kids but also offset some of the pressures that may happen for the high school the district's special ed team. So we're working on that. We've been um expanding our co our co-curriculars o over the over the past few years and we're continuing to do that and we've got a great uh music program that we've begun and um sports program and trying to provide sort of a 360 options for our kids the best that we can. Uh and then just on our curriculum, this is something that's been there for a long time, but we've uh especially coming out of COVID over the past few years, just refocusing our attention

087for us, always at our core has been back to basics approach. And what that means to us is just ensuring um mastery of fundamental skills and knowledge for our students um K through 12th grade. And then the core knowledge, what's the core knowledge that we're providing our students that every student's going to have access to from all of the at all each of those grade levels. Um, and so we've begun over the past few years curating that and organizing that and sharing that with parents, students, and staff. And then our posture with our with our students and and in the classroom is what we call based on a classical model. So it's a focus on um not just the mind, the intellect, rich content and deep conversation uh and fostering their their imagination but also

088their we call their hearts their character. So how are we teaching them not just on the football field but in the classroom what kind of uh people they can be and um so that's something we're really Any other questions or comments or concerns? So your athletic department, do you compete your schools and that? Yeah. Yes, we do. So just just like uh you know, Sasqu High School or Orange Glenn. Uh one of the things that that I shared with John that we really appreciate uh is being able to rent facilities sometimes. So we rent for football games. I'll rent Orange Glenn or Eskanito High School. Um we really appreciate that. So yeah, we have a football team and basketball and all the other most of the other. Excuse my ignorance. I It's okay. No, no,

089that's why I'm here. That's why I'm here. Yeah, we don't always play each other now. They have different rules about how they rank teams each year. Sometimes we do. Uh, in fact, you know, we we had a tough game against Sasqual and softball. Uh, but they were good. They're really good. So, uh, we're proud of the girls. Good team. David, it's the White Tigers. What's that? It's the White Tigers is their mascot. It's our mascot. Good. Well, thank you so much. I really appreciate you giving us some great information. I appreciate it. And again, thank you for the opportunity. And if there's ever any questions or concerns, as always, just don't hesitate to reach out or if you'd want to come out for a tour or visit or anything else, don't hesitate to do that.

090We got a great team that love to have you out. And again, we appreciate your support and all the things that you do. Do you share tickets? Share ticket share share tickets to to the board members. Uh yeah. Well, here we can. I know. Thank you very much. Okay. I appreciate it. David, you have a countywide pass. Just to let you know, if you haven't gotten it, we'll make sure we get it to you. Cheating wise, I gave it to my daughter. She thought she was a celebrity when she walked in, but I did get it back. Um, all right. So, u, thank you so much, um, Sean and staff for that. Appreciate that a lot. Okay, we're going to move on to D5, which is a special education presentation by Jeremy Owen. And thanks

091for coming back, Dr. Owen. Uh, thank you to the school board. Thank you, Cabinet, for inviting me back. Um, last time that we met, we went over the entire landscape of special education, which is a lot to try to wrap your head around, to digest. Um there's a lot of details in it, a lot of nuance, also a lot of perspective in terms of best practices ethically, what we're doing, what the law says. And so, um, I really appreciated the questions that came. I think, uh, from my perspective, it was all turning back to, well, what's the student experience here? And so, today in this presentation, I'm hoping to be a little bit more tangible, excuse me, in terms of what the special education department is focusing on. Well, uh, one of the main questions

092is really what's the vision of special education? And so, I'll get into what the what the purpose is and some of our priorities, but our vision is one and the same with the district. Um, our expectations and hopes and standards for any student who receives services is the same. We have the same vision that we're striving for, excuse me. And our mission is the same that regardless of disability that that's individual, that student is ready and prepared for life. When thinking about the mission and really um one of our primary charges is to empower students to be ready for life. What does that mean to a child with a disability? Um it could mean very different things depending on that individual circumstances. And so I think broadly speaking, these are three of um kind of

093to me what the purpose of my work and the purpose of our staff's work in supporting these students. It's to maximize opportunity. How are we trying to open as many doors for an individual as we can? Now, recognizing that the students we're working with do have a disability um or an impairment that's impeding progress, how are we teaching them specific skills that they need to overcome those challenges? That's very broad. For a student with a math disability, how are we teaching them specific math skills? or are we teaching them to use accommodations in their classes to overcome those challenges to still access the critical thinking um that they're capable of? For others, maybe it's an emotional challenge. And so, how are we teaching them the coping skills, regulation skills, the problem solving skills? So, that's

094a big charge of any IEP, individualized education program, is it's outlining what are the goals that this student needs and how are we going to meet those goals. Finally, when our students leave us, they're on their own. You know, they're with their family. They they're in their circumstance, but we want to provide as much support as possible to teach them the skills they need, but also build their autonomy and their independence as much as we can. you know, for our students who aren't on a certificate of completion track, who have possibly intellectual challenges, communication challenges, um challenges just with problem solving and kind of getting through the day. How are we meeting them where they are, teaching them skills, but then doing so in a way that they can generalize that and use that without

095an adult standing over their shoulder prompting them to to do that? How do you do that? Encourage independence. Yeah. So once it's it's really looking at where the deficit is and it's understanding that if a if an individual doesn't have the ability to do something then we either need to put in place an accommodation or something to help overcome that or teach them another skill to work around it and so then through kind of coming up with what is this idea and this is what IEP team is discussing is what are these replacement behaviors or what are these strategies that we can use and it's practice and practice practice and practice and then one day, you know what? Why don't you go try this yourself? I'm going to watch you and I'll jump in if

096you need it. And so, it's a lot of routine and a lot of um I imagine that can be very complex depending on the level of disability, right? Yeah, it does. Um and I think that that's something, you know, if you talk to a special education teacher, you can just sense and they radiate this passion to help people. And I think it's that passion really that they're leaning into to have that persistence, you know, have that fever to keep going because there are some some students and we all to certain degrees have strengths and weaknesses um but that require a lot of practice and a lot of routine. Um and then you know when you see a student um for example I'll reference later but um some students have a real difficult time um composing

097thoughts into words and so they don't verbalize a lot and so one potential strategy for this is using an augmentative alternative communication device where they can search for words or themes or or even just type sentences. And so it's something where that takes so much work and so much repetition to train someone here's a way to communicate with other people and when you see them start to use that that's that's kind of that motivation and encouragement like okay we're getting somewhere and I can see that you have that skill now how do we build on that? I'm impressed with the teachers that have to teach those specific course because they have to learn technology too to help uh the disabled students or special needs children that so I'm very impressed that they have to still

098learn technology to help support their growth become independent. the teachers need to be very multiaceted and it's it's amazing the breadth of responsibility and skill that they have because not everyone on their case load has that same one issue that they're working on. So it's patience too. Yep. Thank you. Um, so we looked at this last time, um, in terms of the students, uh, who receive special education services. And to me, um, as I referenced earlier, it's it's always important to bring it back to the student. We're always talking about what the student needs and what the student outcomes are. And so, in thinking about, well, what's the plan for special ed? What are the priorities here? It's coming back to this exact thing that there are,42 students that we're responsible for supporting for getting

099ready for life after high school. So, uh ask you a quick question. So, you have students who read how does that um how does that happen? How does that occur? Like when you got 10 non-public school students. Yeah. Students teach do teachers go there or is it like how does the education happen? Yeah. Yeah. So um from the general education which are the mild to moderate students down to the mod severe students at start that's our adult transition program. Those are all on our campuses. Okay. And so any movement for a student, anytime that there's a challenge where we're saying the students not being successful in their current environment, there's a series of strategies we go through and this on one of the slides in terms of looking at what are the supports, what are

100the personnel and we have to exhaust every one of those opportunities to consider do they need to move to a more restrictive placement. And so what you referenced a non-public school is that's a school that's run um by a different agency than us and does not have any general education students, only has students in special education. Um a residential a student in a residential facility um has such challenges even outside of school that those challenges preclude them from being able to access instruction. So they need to live where they go to school. And then the home hospital instruction. Um these are for students who have such medical needs that they're not able to come onto campus. And then it's our teachers who go and work with them. Um typically, you know, around an hour a

101day. Thank you. I appreciate that. Of course. Oh, that was a quick That was what I pressed. I spoiled the whole presentation. Okay. So, going from the purpose to our priorities um to empower every student to be prepared for life after high school. These are my three kind of critical areas um that ste that branch off into everything that we do. Number one is developing a system of supports for all these different student groups. on that last page, we and I just kind of talked about some of those different placements, but it's making sure that we have um a proactive plan for each of these groups of students so that we can anticipate success. Of course, adjustments need to be made, but um I think articulating really that that pro-social planning ahead, having everyone on

102the same page is very important. Number two, as we've been talking about, special education teachers have a tremendous amount that they have to do. instructional assistants have a tremendous amount that they're dealing with in classes. So, how are we supporting them? And then three, um what are we doing to enhance the rigor and relevant learning experiences for students? Um school for a lot of students, not some students with disabilities is twice as difficult. one, they have a disability that's uh inhibiting them from making quote unquote typical progress and so it's difficult and that compounds year after year when they're trying so hard. Um so how are we making this relevant and purposeful for them? So I'll speak to each of these priorities in in the upcoming slides. So in terms of the systems of support,

103uh you may recognize this from the last presentation. This is our continuum of services, all the different kind of programs, if you will, that that we run through our schools. Um, last year I pulled out four um kind of very specific areas that we made progress in in terms of looking at the last presentation I spoke a lot about least restrictive environment, understanding that we're to the maximum extent possible educating students with their peers. And so we made progress in this over the last year. Also in terms of the eighth and nth grade transitions, we really increased our communication with both of our feeder districts in understanding who are the students that are coming to us and likewise explaining our programs to them as 8th grade teams make recommendations for what program a student goes

104into in high school. So, we've done a lot of collaboration and we're going to continue doing that in terms of making that trans big transition as seamless as possible and making sure that students are going where they where they should be going. A quick question for you. You just mentioned that with your uh the LRE you said you made a lot of progress on this in last year. Can you elaborate on that? Sure. So most of the progress has come to clearly communicating to all of um all of our different programs and teachers and um departments across the district and really kind of what the expectations are and what the targets are. And so I think one before we can see tangible progress and growth in numbers which we have slightly um I think everyone

105needs to understand why are decisions being made in in this way. Why are we talking with the eighth grade teams to talk about the the benefits possible u concerns about a co-taught class versus a separate class in a in a a separate setting. So, I think that conversation that's happened across the district um means that everyone's informed and so hopefully as we make some decisions, as we do professional developments, it's all with kind of this aligned perspective of okay, these are some of the driving tenants of of why the district's doing this. Um, and maybe this is uh something that I don't get a feel for u when you're discussing this. Has any of your special needs um children ever go see the special need go into regular? Yes. And that's that's what I really

106want to see if there's success there and that transition if it does happen. Yeah. um you know that would be great great data to look at at some point because ultimately what happens when a student receives a diploma that essentially ends special education for them. So you know the the 75% of students that that graduate with a diploma in those first four years they've been exited if you will because they successfully gone through the program. But there are a handful of students that we do periodic evaluations of every student and the team discusses you know you can be exited from this program you don't need these supports and that that's I mean that's the goal and talking going back to autonomy and independence if we can work an individual up to not needing that direct

107support they go into the regular they go Yep. And you don't have statistics on on that, right? I mean, we do off the top of my head. No. Um, thank you. Yeah, I think that's a real success of the program is that independence for the agreed. Our journey program is for students with uh significant emotional needs. And so this these past two years we've done a lot of work about what the vision and the mission of that program is. Um we've kind of adjusted our instructional model and so we're fitting into finding um you know what is the right way to present and educate these students who need a very supportive environment. And so um that of course is going to be continued work going into next year. are moderate severe uh students with functional

108needs. These are uh more impacted students. We did the same where we defined a vision and mission. Um and one thing that we worked on this year was developing a rubric for how we establish what our different kind of what our continuum is as far as support students who need more intensive needs, which class to go into. And so we worked with our mod moderate to severe teachers um with all the incoming eighth grade graders and kind of worked on using that rubric and having placements for them next year. Looking at next year, kind of what the plans are for our students who are um in the general education setting for a large majority of the day. They're likely either in gened classes or co-taught classes. That's bullet points one and three. is really looking

109at what types of professional development or what kind of time do our teachers need in order to um improve how we're providing that instruction. Um I had mentioned the 8th to 9th grade um transitions. We're going to look back at the success rate of those really analyze um the data in terms of which students um over the course of the year maybe needed to change what track they were on. um as well as working with um their special ed department on having students have a little bit more um ownership of their IEP process. And so that's something we're working together um starting in 8th grade, you know, where where students can be more involved in the IEP and leading the IEP and having their voice kind of heard by the team more. Quick question. So

110how do you how do you define a success rate evaluation that you know the uh the elementary district you know placed them at a certain level and then you re-evaluated that level same therefore you call that a success? Yes. Yeah. If they stayed there or if they moved up um to even more restrictive I think just an understanding about essentially what I'm looking at is how accurate were our placements. you know, if 90% of the students stayed where the eighth grader team recommended them, um, you know, I don't know exactly, you know, if is that success, is that enough? But I think that's an indicator to us about our communication is 90% effective. What would you say that that success rate is up your head? One of the challenges is if we put a student

111in a more restrictive setting, we don't see a lot of those students being able to get off of that track. And it's not it's not a track, but being kind of in that setting yeartoear. And so um what our hope is tying it back to that least restrictive environment kind of goal and priority is if we put them into a co-taught class and we provide the professional development and give the teachers what they need in terms of time and planning um and you know procedure are those students staying in those co-t talk classes or do they need to move down to the more restrictive classes so when you say our current success rate and maybe I use that to I shouldn't use that term. Um, I think most students are staying where they are. Um,

112I also think that we were placing students in more restrictive environments than we should have been doing. I may be jumping the gun here. Um, for bullet point four, um, review support for student truency for student behavior and discipline. Um, how do you manage that? Especially do you follow the same system? Yes. So what we have now currently or do you have a different system? Yeah. So students who are in special education are general education students first. So all of our district policies apply to them equally. Um, but I will say for students um with disabilities, them not being at school um either because they have attendance problems because they're demonstrating behaviors or there's discipline. Um those are two of our biggest obstacles as with any student because if they're not here then we can't

113help them, we can't educate them and and grow with them. And so um this is working with general education administration to figure out you know what are we what are we doing in terms of our practices that are supporting students returning back to school. So what kind of give me an example of like what you would do as a disciplinary action. I I'm just kind of curious how you would man I imagine there would be different levels of that required right so um typical discip discipline would apply to any student for any school infraction that happens there are protections for students with a disability in terms of if their behavior was um caused by their disability or was a symptom of Then we have to be thoughtful in maybe punishment, punishing them for what they

114can't control is not the right answer. How are we either teaching skills? How are we developing a behavior plan that that teaches them replacement behaviors that reinforces them? And so it would be taking more of a restorative um type of approach rather than a punitive um you know, well, I'll I'll just add to what Dr. Owen was mentioning. Um, if it turns out that the infraction was a manifestation of the student's disability legally, we cannot discipline the student without taking other steps that we're obligated to by the law. For instance, a behavior intervention plan, other interventions that Dr. Owen is going to mention as well. But while those same rules apply, the level of discipline of how it's applied and when it's applied is vastly different for a student that has an IEP. Thank you,

115Dr. So yeah, I want to when you go through I'm going to elaborate a little bit more. I'm really want to get to the um concerns that I have about other students safety and how you manage that. But we can discuss this. I because if we keep if I keep asking questions, you'll never get through this. So um please go ahead. Um, and then a theme that you'll see through this is really looking at how we're orienting and supporting our new staff terms of increasing support for educators. We'll go over a couple slides looking at um professional development for our staff and looking at some other ways that we can um them. I did not include anything about our moderate severe programs. That's what I had to reference earlier about the the journey program and

116the functional skills. We're going to continue doing that work and refining um kind of the track that we're on. A question. When you put special ed students in regular classes, are the teachers aware of the special ed need of that student? Have you also had any um anonymous surveys that you can give out to just teachers in general wondering like, hey, is this working? Are they finding it too disruptive to the rest of the students? because I think one of the struggles that we have in this district is the fact that different students whether it's a special ed student or a student that for example has to be expelled really pulls down the learning from the other students in the class and I'm wondering if there's a way to mitigate that or if that's been

117addressed. Yeah. So I think really the most poignant way to get at the heart of that is working collaboratively with our teachers to understanding kind of what are these challenges? How can we support students who you know demonstrate different types of behaviors or different types of learning styles in a class? And so to me I think my most direct answer is really education and support and um guidance in terms of how to support the students in the classroom. Okay. So, um this was a slide also from last time just looking at who our staff is or our classroom um teachers and instructional aids in the classrooms. The question about the contract um part of the educational process, who do you use that? Uh who do you use for the contract part? Oh, the contracted services.

118Yeah. Um so for every student has a case manager who's a special education teacher and who um oversees the IEP. That's the that's the teacher who distributes the IEP to all of the teachers of the various classes. And then a student may require additional services. Something like if they have a speech or language impairment, they might need a speech pathologist to work with them. Um or if they have a challenge with fine motor skills or sensory skills, they may need an occupational therapist. It's related services like the speech and OT um and some different therapies. That's who we have the contract with. Okay. Thank you. Um so in terms of areas for professional development, so kind of um Mr. Weller going back to your question about all right, how are we supporting these behaviors? This

119is the aspect of education I think um and looking at this upcoming year really looking at two different facets. Um one is around behavior and safety in terms of accommodations and special factors understanding behavior escalation and how to respond to escalation and behavior. Um and then I'll go through the functional behavior assessment and behavior plan in just a moment. Um we also do regular restraint training and um the special circumstances instructional assistant is an evaluation that looks at what type of personnel support may a student require. And so these are areas that we're really going to focus on um with different teacher groups in terms of understanding kind of what are the responses uh for some of these different challenges. That's a uh that's a big list of of areas of focus. Yeah. Do you

120have maybe two that are the top priority? The reason I put it all up there is it's kind of all a tiered hierarchy of response level. And so I think what happens a lot of times is if there's a if there's a challenge um and we're looking to solve the problem, there's it's very clear in terms of what the expectations are and what needs to be adjusted. Let me jump ahead really quick. First, we'd be looking at the environmental um the setting that the students in and what types of um accommodations or strategies a student can use. And so, um it's this process through kind of trial and error, but being thoughtful in implementing an intervention and seeing if that's an effective intervention or not, that we kind of progress through the IEP. So if

121if those accommodations, the changes to the environment aren't working, and this can be for anything, for learning style, for a behavior, for addressing a medical need, just any challenge in a classroom. The next step, if you can't make those tweaks that kind of um help to make it all go naturally, then we're looking at developing goals, specific goals, like we talked about before, that this is a specific skill that needs to be taught to a student. With that comes a service. there's a person or people who are going to teach that skill through progress monitoring. If that's not effective, then we're looking at doing an evaluation um to understand what is the function of now this is behavior specific but what is the function of the behavior. What is all behavior is uh communication. It's

122communicating a need or a want. Understanding what is the need or the want here. What is the specific? What are other behaviors that can replace that behavior and how are we teaching that and how are we reinforcing it? That's all through the behavior intervention plan. Sometimes that's implemented and it doesn't resolve the issue. So then it's another conversation about let's look at personnel. Let's understand do we need to do that in um instructional assistance assessment? Do we need to look at perhaps changing the um the personnel involved? And through this process, it's a a lengthy process where the IEP team is meeting every time. There's some of this that we just can't implement. Some things we can if it's accommodations, um the parent really needs to be on board also. And so it is a

123process of sitting down and evaluating progress and coming up with a new plan if progress isn't being made. Um and so finally, kind of if we've gone through this list, then it's understanding, all right, what what is the placement? Is there a consideration for the placement of the of the student? That was a very long-winded way of saying that understanding I think that that whole that whole process is important in terms of the specific areas if you're going to say you know like who needs to attend what it's different um depending on what group we're talking about. Can I um one thing crisis prevention restraint training I mean there's that's a touchy subject isn't it? Yeah. There's a liability associated with that. So is all the instructors trained on how to perform that? Um and

124what is the requirement so you're not kind of walking on that thin ice with regards to metro litigation? Yeah, it is it is scary. anyone who um hands on a student to preserve safety um which is typically you know if there's aggression directed at someone or significant property damage those would be the only times that restraint would happen. um is or well yeah they would need to be trained in this and so this is something that we have our a lot of our special education people are trained security is trained and so it's a it's a training that happens every two years I'll go back to my last question because I'm still not sure I understand the answer here what are your top two and most important things that you're working Yeah so in terms

125of um talking about general education ation teachers, um, mild to moderate special education teachers is 100% the first two. They they may deal with some behavior plans, but it's really about how can we accommodate and uh find alternative ways for students to access their what they need um without changing their setting, without having this extensive behavior plan. And so these are a lot of good strategies and just understanding like what does escalation look like? what are some responses if a student, you know, stands up and yells in exasperation. So, that's useful things for teachers. And when we look at like our school psychologists and our behavior specialists, it's 100% the behavior assessment because they're the ones conducting that and understanding what are we looking for? Is this consistent across each of our sites when we

126do an evaluation? Then how are we writing behavior intervention plans that teachers actually understand and are willing to use? Um that's why Dr. Let me jump in here uh real quick. There was a request from the board to from the special ed department to address safety and this was an example of how safety is being addressed in our special education classroom. So to answer your question, board member Williams, professional learning and safe, how to make our our special education classrooms safer and to improve instruction column left and right. So um you can see in terms of instruction we'll be focusing again on that onboarding on orienting teachers um but teaching strategies for the teachers that's applicable to then we're going to look at some other aspects as well. Another request that came up the last

127time from the board was looking at our instructional assistant numbers. Um right here I was able to pull the year that um our instructional assistance levels four and five started with us because one question was long longjectivity. So you can see you know um some have been with our district for many many years but about half of our instructional aid staff is new since co um I just want to bring something up and I'm going to go back to the safety part of this. Um, and I'm just going to give you a case sample, but my uh wife who she actually special program um here in the district, David, yes. What school do you know? Uh, elementary school. Okay. So, she goes whenever there's a need for uh special needs educator, she comes in and

128helps out. So she's an instructor instructoral sorry assistant support in the elementary district. Exactly. Okay. Okay. And I know this is high school but I just want to give you an example. Um so one time uh there was a troubled child who actually ended up uh becoming violent and my wife had to hold back. But what was really no lot there were people standing around uh watching this this cafeteria and another student who was special need came in an ad to restrain the kid himself and the vice president a principal sorry my bad um basically said hey why is this kid holding this other kid back um you know so my my thing is in that situation was that lack of training was it the wrong people were there at the time and didn't know

129or the were the people not properly I'm just giving that and maybe I'm not being clear in my delivery of that but it was pretty straightforward one kid got violent and attack another kid my wife had to intervene um and uh one of the students actually had to restrain the kid and then the vice president principal came down basically intervene ask that question. So David let me interrupt here a second are you basically looking for under the areas of professional development where under the column of professional development behavior and s safety do you think that you were looking more for presentation on behavioral escalation from Dr. Owens because this is pretty broad presentation. So, I'm trying to hone down exactly what you're looking for so that we can give direction to staff. I'm really more

130concerned about safety um and how that impacts other students. That's what I'm looking for. Um and are are we under staff? Um is it lack of training? So, it has to boil down to safety. Okay. So, with that said, and I think Dr. Kus brings up a good point. I think that what we should do and Dr. Owen you can finish your presentation but I think you should define a very specific um direction um for this for the um cabinet David for the next meeting on what um you specifically want to see because your your your point is well taken. I mean, we have, you know, things in the district that need to be improved with safety, but I think it needs to be definitely more um specific of what um you're you're trying to

131get to. So, I thought that I made that clear when I wanted this presentation the last time. Um I wanted to be more specific on safety, but that's okay. No, I get that and I I'm with you and Dr. Kauus interpreted the same way. So, I just want to say that we'll work on that and give that to the cabinet. Can I can I just add that slides 11 and 12 Dr. Owen if you could go back that's actually addressing safety. Uh so he was well I'll let Dr. Owen explain but slide 11 on that left hand column those are all different ways that we try to train pared educators instructional aids and special education teachers on how to address classroom safety in particular the example that you brought up Dr. Vincent but I'll let

132Dr. Owen maybe jump in there how might might apply on the left hand side. So okay, gotcha. That's why I had an a hard time answering which one of these would be a priority because it's really the full continuum of behavior that we have to understand. In the example that you brought up that would be relevant to behavior escalation and this crisis prevention restraint training. So I think that it's a continuum of services and understanding that in many settings we wouldn't expect to see certain behaviors. In other settings, we would expect to see those behaviors. That's why that setting exists. And so, what are we doing proactively so that our teachers, our staff, the students in the classroom all understand how to respond to certain certain situations. I'm thank you. I'm really about student safety

133and that and I want to make sure all aspects is there's certain incidents where that may occur um that you know where we need to make sure that our students are not in any way form in harm's way and I understand I can appreciate that it's a tough job and you can't predict things but I believe some of this some of the steps you have in place, you're able to evaluate if a student has that particular type of behavior. Is that correct? Yes. Yes. There are methods for evaluating any type of behavior um which typically also includes an extensive records review. So, not all the time, but many times we see that a student has a history of or a of behavior. And that's where it's important that we're being proactive in understanding what are

134the supports and strategies that we can do before the student starts with us or that's put into a behavior plan for them that specifically address that. We anticipate a challenging behavior and how is everyone in that setting informed about exactly what is the response one more importantly is what are all the other things that we're doing as precursors up to that behavior. um you know there there are triggers there are anticedants that can make a behavior happen very quickly or that can build and so it's in really understanding what does that specific individual need in order to help accommodate setting accommodate adult responses to him and prompts for a different behavior I I'm really um big on preventative and predicative models um and that's why I'm concerned to that do we have a predictive model

135and is that predictive model covered under um the professional development behavior and safety or is it based on the behavior escalation or functional behavior assessment? I see. So I would say it's really real quick. I'm going to interject here because it's 8:00 and we've been on this for over a half hour. What I want to do here in the next couple minutes is take a fivem minute break and then we can sort because David we may have to schedule like in a continuation because there's like another six or seven slides here and we're getting kind of deep on this. Would it be okay let Jeremy finish his thought here and then we take a fivem minute break and sort out how much more we want to do tonight. Sure. Okay, that works. Thanks. Thank you.

136I bring up a long list of interventions here because there's not ever one thing that's going to fix it. takes an IEP team which is students parent, teacher, general education teachers, uh the related service providers to be thoughtful and knowledgeable about what are the challenges that the student may have, what are the behaviors that they may have. So when you say being predictive, we can do that because they have a whole team of people. And so if we do have a behavior that's a cause for concern, if we have a cause for safety, it's about getting that team together to say, where are we in kind of our hierarchy of interventions, have we started here? Um, have we thought about doing an assessment to evaluate this? Does the student even have a behavior plan? So,

137these are all the questions that an IEP team works through and um our our special ed staff understand kind of this hierarchy of interventions, but I think it's really beefing that up so that it's substantive when they're having a conversation about it. Thank you. All right, so I'm going to call for a fivem minute break as long as everybody's okay with that. And then when we come back, um David, you and Jeremy maybe talk during the recess about how much you more we should go over tonight. Okay. Thanks. take a I can say that right now. He can finish up and we can talk later than that. So I'd rather just finish up. Well, after we Okay, we're going to take we're going to take a fiveminut break. subject matter to cover. I'm going to

138work with John and yourself um and Dr. Cass is to discuss specifically um what we can do on this you know to get more understanding of your safety protocols from a risk perspective and how we can prevent any potential issues occurring in in the future and that so uh that being said I I think we need to move on and uh we will have uh address this um topic with uh John Dr. passes in the future and I'll put some more guidance together of what my expectations to you. Okay. Thank you, Dr. Owen. I appreciate your time tonight. I I I would like to request uh I mean, if we can please finish up the slide presentation. I just wrap it up now, but Well, I rather quickly. Okay. If you want if you want

139to wrap it up quickly like in the next three or four minutes, go for it. without a whole lot of details and questions and follow up on. Okay. I'd like to at least Okay. So, yeah, I can move through this very quickly. Um, so in terms of our instructional assistance support, similar to some other themes in supporting staff is really about how we're onboarding and providing consistent communication and professional development. Um, I think a lot of the questions that we've had about behavior and some of these other safety, it's really about how we're being responsive, how the staff is informed, and how we're communicating with each other. So, I'm hopeful that through opening up these conversations, through opening up these trainings, we all have an equal knowledge base, so it's a little bit easier to

140work together. Um along those same lines, our our special education administration, we have a program specialist um at each of our comprehensive high schools, and we're going to be working collaboratively to have a uniform uh type of professional development sequence that we can pro provide to teachers that really focuses on best practices, uh legal considerations, and is much more practical in how to write IEPs and progress monitor. And then finally, uh I spoke earlier about relevant learning experiences. There's a component of the individualized education program that sets transition goals. And essentially what it boils down to are asking questions about what does an individual want to be when they graduate from high school? What do you want to be when you grow up? And this is going to be an area of emphasis for all

141of our students next year from students who um have mild to moderate disabilities and are in co-taught classes to some of our students at non-public schools. Really trying to make the IEP process very student centered in understanding what is the students hopes and aspirations for after high school? What is the family's hopes and aspirations? And I'm hoping through this lens that one, we're we're able to become much more poignant and uh proactive in leading that student to positive outcomes for post high school. Um but also so that we really know our students and can make it relevant and can increase the rigor at an appropriate pace. And that's going to look different for every student. And so, um, you know, I think I went over a lot of this, but really looking at understanding, uh,

142backwards mapping for the student. So understanding if they want to have this job or maybe maybe it's a student who has a lot of uh self-help challenges but they want to live independently. What are we doing in the time that we have them that can have them make progress and so that they can be independent and more autonomous and have the skills that they are hoping to have to reach their goals. Here we go. Thank you. Thank you Dr. Ver. Dr. I appreciate your time and that and we can talk further about the safety aspect. Thank you. Thank you. All right. So now we move to um section E public content and do we have anybody from the so on the um report from the California school employees association chapter 219 I will take that

143as a no and then report from the Escandido Secondary Teachers Association. Anybody from there? Guess the handwaving means you're coming up. Okay. I just got new contacts so I know what your pain is. All right. Good evening. Wow. My daughter's here with me and she's like, "Mom, I'm just a send. I get to go into school late tomorrow." Um, that's why we wanted to speed it up. I'm calling in work to sick, too, so we're good. Uh, so before I jump in, um, I just wanted to point out my my seven-year-old is not here with me tonight, but she gave me this before I headed over. And this says, uh, it says, uh, Eris. Um she uh she wanted to remind me tonight to just use my voice and um to speak up when I

144see injustice. Um means you are strong. And um shout out to the Spanish teachers because let me start again. My my oldest daughter is is going to criticize all my pronunciation but And a real shout out, both my both my daughters are bilingual and it's uh it's a real honor to be their mom and uh and just know that even though she's judging my pronunciation, um I'm here really to to speak for our Spanish teachers, right, and to our teacher layoffs that continue and our counselors. So, um, first I, uh, I wanted to just bring up the cuts that we're making as a district. I really had hopes that when our district started making cuts, the first thing that they would think of is how can we start these cuts furthest away from our kids?

145And that's just not what's happening. Percentage of cuts that's falling to teachers and counselors far outweighs any other group. Um, we did receive some good news, right? Three English teachers, one PE and one social science. Their layoffs were rescended. But the bad news is the A teacher and with it the entire A program at San Basque is being chopped. The entire A program is gone. or Spanish teachers, a counselor who I know our student board members spoke to last month in terms of how that impacts their ability to meet with their counselor which is already difficult and now we're continuing to cut counselors. I imagine that you've been led to believe that there are being cuts made to management and I guess that just depends on your perspective. From our perspective, cutting mental health clinicians

146and a social worker, those aren't cuts to management. Arguably, none of the cuts that we have been told about even come close to actual district administration. In fact, and I know you already know this, this district already spends more on administrative salaries as a percentage of algo than Fbrook does. and Sweetwater, Oceanside, San Marcos, Grossmont, and then Sanito. You guys make that possible. That's where our money and priority is and administrative salaries. That's where it's tied up. So choosing to cut teachers and counselors, the ones with the most direct contact with kids, not actually administrative salaries, that's questionable priorities. Not only do we already spend more there, we also spend less on our teachers and counselors than guess what? Grossmont, San Marcos, Sweetwater, and Sanito. So when cuts are proposed and then acted on, I

147find it alarming that our district administrators are saved, and I say district administrators and cuts are being made as close to kids as possible. I don't even think I need to mention the everexpanding reserves that we sit on. You should not be cutting teachers and counselors while while quite literally and intentionally building a reserve. It serves no one in this community and I do not remember any board members running on that platform. Cut teachers. Second, last month I spoke about cuts to TOSAs. TOSA is a teacher on a special assignment. They usually are supporting an area of need. For example, you guys got a presentation last month on uh attendance toas which were cut. So I thought it was funny that you guys had a presentation on it or math teachers, right? Coaching math teachers,

148things like that. So ESA is being told that as of right now there are 35 TOSS sections that are currently in place now that won't be there next year. That's the equivalent of seven additional teachers being cut. That my friends is called a reduction in force or a riff. However, this board did not take proper steps to cut to sections. Dr. Good and this school board have not not followed the law with these riffs. And I'm happy to stand corrected, but we have seen no board action to eliminate 35 sections. As a reminder, last year this board did take proper action with a riff or a reduction in force of 2.8 to sections. So the board properly adopted a resolution and reduce those sections. This allows for timely notifications to the teachers impacted and afforded

149them due process and their rights in a layoff situation. That's the law. No such board resolution regarding the elimination of 35 to sections exist. don't think I need to tell you, but you're not above the law. Lastly, I wanted to circle back to the myps that I spoke about last month. I um if you remember, I gave my embarrassing example of how I thought pointing out actual growth in district reserves would be met with some sort of understanding by a board 13 years ago. I specifically mentioned that there was a 17 20 and 27% increase when I looked 13 years ago. There was increase the district gained and I just kept thinking my cannot be how we decide cuts. So in case you're wondering, I looked at the second projected year in the my 2223.

150So what that means is I was looking at the projection for this year, right? So two years ago, what was the projection for right now? It was projected to have an ending fund balance of 28 million change. That was the projection. The actual amount was about 51 million. So you certified that document in March. So that's a difference of a gain of $22.5 million. You certified those results in the same meeting that you claimed we're deficit spending and we need to cut. If you're following along, it doesn't make sense. We're not deficit spending yet. You're cutting teachers, you're cutting counselors, you're not cutting people further away from the classroom. proving once again that projections in my is always going to project deficit spending. I have never seen an MYP not say the sky is falling.

151And yet every time we gain, tremendously gain to the tune of a reserve 28% over the legally required limit. And I heard the comments that many of you made at the end of the last board meeting insisting you do care. And I am assuming that was directed at me wondering how boards make cuts, claim deficit spending, and certify growth and reserves all in the same meeting. What makes me sad is that people who do care don't have to let people know that they care. They show us with their actions. Thank you. All right. Well, we appreciate the request some clarification staff, please. Please. I want to understand this resolution that is being claimed that was necessary that we did not and help me understand TOSA's are teachers on special assignment. So, they're a temporary position

152rather than a permanent position. Please help me understand that resolution and what would have been necessary from a Miss Katie's perspective. Thank you. From Miss Katie's perspective on the the TOSA sections that are not coming back uh for next school year believes that those should have been included on the layoff resolution. Our assertion is that that's not necessary. It's akin to this year we have 15 sections of world history. Next year we're going to have 10 sections of world history. We don't bring that for a layoff annually. Our position is this is akin to that. And can you help me understand those TOSA positions that were the TOSA position that was eliminated? None of those teachers on special assignments have been laid off. Correct. They have not lost their jobs. Not lost their jobs. Okay.

153So, I don't understand why we why why the imp not to why a resolution would have been necessary for TOSA position. We don't believe that it was. Okay. Thank you. And to follow up on that, um, Trusty Knight, so there was a comment made that, um, we broke the law and so I don't know if that's something that needs to be fact checked and brought up next month because that's a pretty dramatic statement. I can provide a our belief is that we have Wait, say that again. our our position is that we have not Okay. All right. So, we may want to have that in close session just to follow up on that. But thank you. All right. Unless there's any other comments. Um let's see. So, now we're going to move on to section

154Oh, yeah. Christie. No. Okay. Uh section E3 comments from the public on non-aggentized topic that like oh hi we're moving on to you I do need to read I do need to read something uh before you get to speak. So thank you for being patient. So for the public at home, this is on non-aggentized topic that lies within the subject matter jurisdiction of the board. Um this is to be read by me, the president. The board shall limit total time for public input on each non-aggenda topic to 20 minutes. Generally, each person may speak up to 3 minutes at the board discretion in order to allow all persons to have an opportunity to participate. Uh if desired, the board may reduce the time. We're not going to do that tonight because there's only two of

155you. Um, in the event more time is needed for public comment on non-aggendaized items, we'll move that to the end of the board meeting at J1. And the board looks forward to and encourages your participation. We have received cards from two people who wish to make public comment during this meeting. Oh, the first person, well, since you're standing there, I have two cards. What's your name? And I'll just go with your card first. I'm Veronica Middlebrooks with uh Grand Canyon UN. Hey, hold that thought real quick. We didn't have a speaker card for you. Um, but if you'd like your three minutes, we can go ahead. I can fill one out afterwards, please. Okay, that that sounds good. Okay, go for it. Well, good afternoon or evening rather, uh, superintendent and board members. My name

156is Veronica. I am the local, uh, counselor in the San Diego County area for Grand Canyon University. I just wanted to share some of the awesome resources that we provide for school districts. Um we are providing some of these same resources for your um the elementary school district as well. So we wanted to extend that offer to you guys at the high school district. Um so I want to talk about a little of those resources that we offer. We offer what's called a participant and learning and leading um service learning leading servicing alliance. And basically what that means is this is an innovative program that's designed to support public school districts. Um and it is a nocost non-exclusive participant program um that is easy for folks to join and it's super impactful for educators, for

157families, for students and the community. Um there are a number of different benefits in here and I'll read off just a few of them that are super highlighted that a lot of our um other school districts have been working with. I saw some familiar faces, but I think they had to head out. Uh we worked with Escanido um Charter High last year and it was a real success uh working with Leslie and uh providing some of those benefits that we offer. Some of the benefits are uh discounts on tuition um which could range anywhere from 5% for faculty, staff, board members as well as spouses of any faculty, staff or board members. uh that certificated and classified staff and then their spouses as well and also parents of students who go to the schools that

158are within your um so that's a really cool one. We also offer par profofessional support for any par profofessional that you guys have that's employed with your district. We offer a 32% off tuition uh scholarship for those who are seeking an initial teacher lensure scholarship or initial teacher lure program at the bachelor's level. If they're looking to go and get a master's level degree, it's a 25% scholarship. Um we also offer a number of different scholarship opportunities for our traditional age students who tend to go to our campus that is located in Phoenix. Um, and we have just launched our Canyon Rising, which provides 100% tuition coverage. They still have to pay room and board and meal plans and things of that nature, but this is the first year that we're offering that. We don't

159have a football team because we believe in making sure that affordable education is um something that students can have. Um, and then also we provide Canyon uh professional development. We want to make sure that we're professionally developing um our staff members as well as our teachers. I have a folder here for the superintendent to review a couple different items for you guys to see what all we provide as far as professional development. I sat and listened in on quite a few things and we actually can help with a lot of that. So, thank you all so much for giving me the opportunity and I appreciate it. Veronica, thank you. Um definitely be in touch at least with me. You can find me on the site. My son actually is going to GCU in the fall

160as a teaching and my niece, his cousin graduated from GCU and teaches at charter. So you guys are having impact in the district and I think it would benefit us to get a full presentation from you, not three minutes. Oh, thank you. Yeah. Yeah. Just leave it with Rita and then Thank you. All right. So then next speaker is going to be Ava Contrares. Thank you for being patient. Ava, you get to chat now. Hello everybody. Um, I will be reading a letter on behalf of a staff member at Escanido High School named Tom Winter. He really wanted to be here today, but he had some malfunctions with his electronic wheelchair, so he couldn't make it. I'll be reading his letter for him. Thank you. Dear board members and cabinet, I'm writing this letter with

161the hopes that you would consider reinstating the position of a classroom laboratory assistant in the learning center next year for Miss Eva Rios, specifically at Escanido High School. I've had the pleasure of working closely with Miss Rios in her role as a classroom laboratory assistant and I can confidently attest to her exceptional qualities and invaluable contributions to our educational community. Miss Rios has consistently demonstrated a remarkable ability to adapt and excel in an everchanging educational landscape. Her visit versatility and willingness to go above and beyond her designated responsibilities have made her an indispensable asset to our team. Allow me to highlight some of her outstanding qualities and accomplishments. Bilingual communication. Miss Rios has played a crucial role in bridging the communication gap between our school and Spanish-speaking parents. Her ability to translate effectively has significantly

162improved our parent outreach efforts and fostered a more inclusive educational environment. This is a huge help specifically since my Spanish speaking ability is limited to ordering food and asking where the bathroom is. Two, technical proficiency. When our site lead was temporarily unavailable, Miss Rios stepped up admirably, assisting students with navigating complex educational platforms such as ingenuity and synergy. Her technical acumen and patient guidance ensured that our students should continue their learning without interruption. Three, adapt, sorry, adapt adaptiv and initiative. In the face of the rapid shift of online education, Miss Rios has shown remarkable adapt adaptability, she has not only embraced new technologies, but has also taken the initiative to help both students and staff navigate this new terrain, demonstrating her commitment to continuous learning and improvement. Four, empathy and support. As a teacher with

163special needs, I can personally attest to Miss Rios's invaluable assistance. Her thoughtful support and proactive approach has been instrumental in helping me adapt my teaching methods and maintain an effective learning environment to our students. Five dedication to student success. Miss Rio's consist consistently goes above and beyond to ensure that every student has the support they need to succeed. Her patient and nurturing approach has helped countless students overcome challenges and achieve their academic goals. Miss Rios's contributions extend far beyond her job description. Her presence in our school has fostered a more inclusive, efficient, and supportive learning environment for our students and staff alike. Her exceptional interpersonal skills coupled with her technical proficiency and unwavering dedication. We would be doing a disservice to our students and our district by eliminating this position. Please do not hesitate to

164contact me. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Uh, next speaker will be May Fay. Good evening board members and cabinet. I am the learning center lead at Escanido High School. I am here to respectfully ask that the position of laboratory classroom assistant be continued for next year at Escanido High School. This position supports eight independent study classes and 11 campus online classes. Many of our independent study students have opted for independent study because of issues affecting their success in campus classes. including, anxiety, autism, PTSD, and bullying. Most of our campus online students are behind on credits for graduation. Our lab classroom assistant calls home for all of these students if they aren't attending class or not working on their online courses. Independent study teachers are required to meet one on-one with students at least

165once a week. When the teachers are working one-on-one with students, the lab assistant opens and proctors tests, helps students with work, supervises and monitors students, escorts students who face campus safety issues, and keeps detailed records of all her contact with families, which are shared with the teachers. Our classroom laboratory assistant welcomes students when they come into our building, reminds them when they need to be focused on work at school, and lets them know what they need to do at home. they are able to look up each specific p uh students individual needs and where they are at that moment and where they need to be. This person is trained on how to work with our online program for classes, our attendance and student information system, and our program for monitoring student screens. They build a

166positive rapport with our families in both English and Spanish. They make a critical difference every day and are an effective use of funding. This is why we were so shocked when we found out after 15 years of this position. It was there from the inception of learning centers um that it was going to be eliminated. I have Wait, I'm going to give you time to finish, but I was just curious how much longer you thought you had. Um two minutes. You get two minutes. Thank you, Mr. Waller. I appreciate it. I was told by our site admin that they were not given a chance to provide feedback on this position's elimination unlike the others that were eliminated at our site. Bring this into focus. Um there was a teacher who chooses not to have the

167classroom laboratory assistants help with their students. I'd like you to look at the chart on the right. I've also made some hard copies if you can't quite see it. You will notice that last year 23 24 that our students had who with the help of our classroom assistant yes 95% were um attending 95% of the time without the classroom lab assistant. The number last year was 69.5. So when she was there, she equated she equated an additional funding of $151,844. The teacher who didn't have her assistance, there are 69.5 lost us about $59,000. This year we are up to 98.7%. And this is just through March because obviously we're not at the end yet. But our funding that she has been able to create above the person without the assistance was $158 or $158,551 approximately.

168The person without her assistance was at 61.5% or a loss so far of $46,351. These I think these numbers are really clear and good, but I do have to ask you that your time is up. Sure, no problem. Um, we have handouts for you and I have some specific examples and I also made copies of the letters that people wrote in support of continuing our classroom lab assistant. Okay. I respectfully and thank you so much for your time. Please reconsider because she does make a difference or the person in this position makes a difference every single school day. Thank you. Dr. Good. Just as a quick reminder, when do all the cuts have to be finalized? Approximately. Oh, hey Dr. Good. Sorry about that. Approximately when do the cuts have to be finalized? Hi. May

169what? Oh, the next board meeting in May. Okay. Thank you so much. All right. So, now we're moving to section F, Educational Services Division, and um we're under um sorry, my brain's gone a little bit. under the consent item. Item number one in F1 was to ratify and approve field trips and conferences. And so, um, I need some help here, John. Um, do we I've pulled the one item from consent. Do we approve the rest of consent and talk about this or do we talk about this and then approve the rest? We already approved the consent calendar. Okay. So, this is converted to an action item now. So, you treat it like any other action item. Okay. So then let me get that in front of me here. So um what I wanted the reason

170why I pulled that um item well one sadly that conference already occurred and people went so I'm not going to make a big deal about that. I'm sure things made a mistake. It's in there, Bill, if you if you take a look. The conference was on um April 3rd through the 4th. So, people went the thing that kind of caught my eye is the whole deeper learning um conference. And so, I think what I you've been very helpful Dr. process of providing um a more detailed breakdown of conferences and instead of getting into the whole deeper learning project-based learning discussion tonight, I think what would help in the same way that we had that presentation tonight from edtech and the teachers and I guess I don't know if we need to make this as an

171action item or we can talk about it next month, but I'd like to know the specific breakout sections that the teachers or uh administrators are planning on going to at the conferences. And I I don't know if every one needs to, but I have some definite concerns of like the deeper learning conferences and other um very radical breakout sessions that are there. So, I I appreciate your patience dealing with me as I have concerns about this and I'm not trying to bury the staff in saying every breakout session, but on certain ones, I think it'd be important to know what was the breakout session and what did they learn. I don't know if we want to talk about that right now or um I can give some context if that'll be helpful. Um number one,

172we've been sending teachers to deeper learning for the past six, seven years. Most of the teachers that attend are from Academy. The deeper learning conference mainly focuses on giving teachers tools to implement project-based learning. As you know, Academy has opened as a project-based learning school also happens to be our highest performing school past 12 years. um this particular uh deeper learning and the reason why it's on sort of a ratification. It already happened was because five of our teachers were offered to go for free. The one that was not going for free slipped by cuz we thought everybody was going for free and the board policy is that anything above $1,000 has to come to board. Um they were invited for free because a lot of them presented and there are CTE teachers which you

173know well Orange Gun High School screen and printing and design which most of our CTE courses are project- based learning because you're not going to take a multiple choice test or an essay in construction or also in CTE print. Um so happy to get some of those teachers. Most of them went to present. Some of them attended workshops but happy to invite them. I will say that is there discretion to come uh and if we're forcing them to come, we have to pay them and they could say no. You might just get a summary from myself or Cararissa Duran. I'll remind the board that Carissa Duran did have a whole presentation on projectbased learning uh this year. So happy to do whatever the board like. I appreciate that. I did not link deeper learning to

174project-based learning. John briefly pulled me aside earlier to kind of bring me up to speed on that. So, um, what I'm thinking is that a while back, you know, I had some concerns on the conferences we were attending and if I remember correctly, um, Trusty Knight had suggested that maybe we put some details together of acceptable and unacceptable either conferences or topics at the conferences. So, what I'd like to do is um you know ask for my other board members if anybody else would be interested in bringing back to the board the ability to define some of the topics that we would like to see at conferences and some of the topics that we wouldn't be interested in seeing at conferences so that we could put some structure in place. Is anybody else interested in

175that? As you I as I recall a couple of months ago we did this we had this conversation where and there was guidance in a policy and I can't remember the policy now right but there was some framework or guidance around [Music] um conferences and attending and what would rise to the level of something made that come forward and I think there was a very strong paragraph in in there that that John that John um recommended and I I recall us being comfortable with that. Again, um I'm not in the position or feel in the position to micromanage every single conference. So to the extent that we ask for feedback on conferences and understanding what is being learned, what is being taught, what is being brought back, I think that is important. Um it's a

176lot of work for the board to be micromanaging that level of it. And I do feel like we put some guidance in there. I think a lot of these terms, deeper learning, social learning, some of these terms that are a little out here really hard maybe to define what exactly does that look like makes it hard for a board to understand like what is deeper learning? What does that mean? And it it does it just puts a lot of vague some of these conferences seem hard for us to understand. But um yeah, I just personally I feel like we've put some safeguards in place that I feel good about. Um that's kind of where I'm where I am with it. No, I appreciate that. Thank you. Conferences that start to raise concerns, we you know,

177this discussion may need to happen again about what those what those guidelines look like. Um, but right now I've I'm in agreement, too. I mean, I think we've got good guidelines and we're keeping track on things. We've got more insight into what's going on. I'm trying to say I want to know just which sessions someone went to. I think that's really pushing it. It's like saying, "Oh, you went to the CSBA AE." Bob, which sessions did you go to and why? and I want to cherrypick which ones you can go to and that wouldn't be a good idea. So I I I'm kind of like in agreement that what we've got in place is good until you know maybe we find that it isn't. But I I think we're doing okay for now. Thank you.

178Bill, I'm assuming all these conferences have to be preapproved. Is that correct? Okay. And that's part of what the policy stated that you're referring to um that there is a system in place uh that we have in order to get approval. So what happened in this case is because we're leaders in this area. We were invited to at the conference and there was a misunderstanding um and extra person who wasn't comp um and so that doesn't typically happen. So that's why you're being asked to ratify rather than approve one of these. But you'll notice over the the last several years that usually all of the conferences on this list are future conferences. Yeah. No, I we can totally understand that the present. Who's the presenter who was asked to present at this conference? Do we

179know? It's Carlos Felix and the Latinia Cassopia Guthrie who right now is a a teacher and residence at Cal State San Marcos but is our employee. Ah, okay. Well, I'll work with the super. Sorry, I didn't mean to cut you off. We've tried to be very intentionable intentional about making sure that the conference is aligned to our goals. U which is partly why you see a little more detail on this listing than we have in the past. um to let you know which goal uh we're trying to accomplish training. Yes, I appreciate that. All right. I will definitely work with you to look at the review the policy that I know that we passed a while ago and I'll also go back and look at the project based learning presentation and I appreciate you guys

180patience as we work through this. So, thank you. All right. So, it was an action item. Now, you'll need a motion and a second approval. Uh I there was an action item. I'm so sorry. one is it you pulled it from consent. So it is now an action. Oh, I'll make a motion to approve or to ratify and approve field trips and conferences. I second it. Okay. All let's see. Student board member in favor say I. I. Board members. All in favor say I. I. I. Any opposed? None opposed. The motion carries. So there we go. It's approved. Thank you, John. All right. So then moving forward here going down the list F12 oops I just lost my screen. So if somebody F1 and two were consent F2 is on consent and approved already bringing

181us to three at this time uh to approve curriculum revisions in the area of guitar and piano. Okay. So um can we get a motion for that please? So moved. I'll second. Do we want to have any discussion on that other than we like it? Student board member in favor, please say I. I. Elected board members in favor say I. I. I. I. None opposed. So that motion carries. Um, let me see if I can get my screen back here, John. Um, one second. because you're using Microsoft Edge Chrome. Are you serious? Since my vice president has attitude on that. While I'm getting my screen back, Ryan, can you read the next one, please? I have lost my screen. And I am going back to sign into board docs. Absolutely. So I'm reading the uh

182F4. Right. Actually don't know how to do this. That's not a problem. I didn't mean to put you on the spot. Um can I get a motion in favor or SF4 is a recommended action to approve a new course data science. So moved. Second. Is there any um conversation on that? I did um find it so fascinating that before I came here I decided to print it out and I noticed that I'm going to have to get another color printer at home. But I'm really excited to read this because based on what we saw with um the one student tonight that I think this will be a really good course. So, um, since we have a motion and a second, I'd like to add just say the same thing because I think it is great

183to have, uh, this as a course and, uh, look to expand on things like this in the future. Maybe I do have a question in terms of, um, the teacher or teachers for this class. Do we have people who are ready and trained and able to teach the class? Yes, it requires a single subject math credential, but also specialized training, which we have provided and we'll continue to provide. This course has been piloted this year, correct? Perfect. Two sites. Yep. Okay. Excellent. Thank you for um putting this course together, Dr. Kasus and St. And um Oh, with that said, we are now uh we're at the three. We did the piano. We're now at four F4. Yes, we're going to I'm call the vote. So, student board member, please, if you're in favor, say I.

184I. And then uh elected board members on in favor say I. I I I as well. None opposed. So that carries. So that's excellent. Looking forward to seeing that in the curriculum. We're now on F5, first reading of course pilots. There's quite a bit here. So um Mr. Superintendent um I can Okay, Dr. Kas. Yeah, I can jump in. Uh these are pilot proposals for courses that we would like to pilot next year. There's quite a few. So, I'll just provide quick statements about each one. Uh, the first one you see there is AP World History. This is to offer an alternate AP option in 10th grade. Currently, 10th grade students in social science can take world history, AP European history, and now we can add a third option, AP World History. Um, going down

185the line, AP African-American studies. Our hope is to offer an alternate way to meet the ethnic studies graduation requirement if we get students after ninth grade enrolled in our district. As you'll learn later and as we've been talking about um ethnic studies is proposed to be offered in English 9 English 9 ethnic studies. So we need to have viable options for students that enroll in our district after 9th grade. So, we would like to take the opportunity to pilot AP AfricanAmerican studies for students that enroll with us after 9th grade. Um, fire technology is a pilot that we're excited about. You heard students from Orange Glenn have been doing um an afterchool program in fire technology and now this would be a CTE program during the school day. So, we're pretty excited about that to

186add to our already um ex uh to our to our already, you know, expansive CTE options that we already have as our district. So, we're really excited about that. Um AP business principles and personal finance. Uh as you know, the district has now been piloting this year personal finance regular course or college prep course. Uh this is an opportunity to pilot the AP business principles pilot course in personal finance uh that college board has developed and we'll be part of a national pilot. So one of the first in the country to actually pilot it. So that's pretty exciting as well. Congratulations on that. Long overdue. Yeah, it's really exciting. And on the back uh you see a description of English 9 ethnic studies. And I'll just uh write a little summary of the work that's

187happened. A culmination two years of work. Uh recall that last year the board uh denied the initial standalone ethnic studies course proposal on the grounds that it could adversely impact students ability to take CTE courses. Accordingly, the board asked staff to rewrite the course to be embedded uh to embed the e ethnic studies curriculum into English 9. A dedicated team of e English 9 teachers throughout the district from uh one per school site worked diligently to rewrite and redesign English 9 uh into English 9 ethnic studies. Additionally, every unit was also vetted and reviewed by this board's ethnic studies subcommittee that consisted of board members Christy Knight and David Vincent. Also, I want to um publicly acknowledge the um thei the continuous uh dedication and effort of our director of curriculum instruction, Kelly Griggsby, who's

188in attendance tonight, uh for her hard work on it. And we have members of the writing committee also present as well. These are all first reads. Thank you, Dr. Kas, so much. Um can I ask a question? Yeah, there's no action, so it's just discussion. Okay. Um is there we have an AP first nations or does not exist in college board and so what we do when college board has a course we basically just off we copy paste their curriculum it it's what the college board provides so currently college board does not have that course that you described why I we would have to ask college board I don't I don't know I don't know okay but if they would offer it that I think we jump on that. Absolutely. I'm glad. Thank you so

189much. Appreciate that. I think we should. Could we hear from the board members on the that did participate? You know me, I was probably going to say a few things. Um but first, I do really want to acknowledge and thank staff that worked really, really hard to make this happen in such a short period of time and under circumstances that they quite frankly were not excited about to begin with. So, I just want to acknowledge that. um and thank the first team that worked hard to develop that first um draft that we looked at last year and um the work that was put in again over the the last few months of of taking time out just a lot of work and um thank you to my counterpart Mr. Vincent for that Dr. Vincent, it

190was a a very um enlightening process. Normally the board is not involved at this level of curriculum development, but I think as we saw from last year and that letter that was sent out by the governor, there were concerns and um I was just grateful to be able to that's not you imple uh really look at some guiding principles that help that were really strong guiding principles that helped develop this. Um, I I'm hopeful that the English teachers really enjoyed the process of redeveloping English nine. Maybe that hadn't been done in many many years. So, I'm hopeful that was fun. There's been um new materials I think brought forward, but um it was it was great to see that process of how things are vetted and looked through and um and then this will be

191a pilot. So, I'm excited. My um son will be a freshman at San Pasqua, so I am hopeful he'll be in that um English nine pilot. But um I'm also very proud of the ve of the the hyper local con uh focus that we took by really incorporating a lot of Escanido's history and how that relates to um our local ethnicities and the kids in our community so that they really see themselves the way we intended through this um through this curriculum. um coming from a place of empathy. I think that's really embedded um empathy throughout the entire um curriculum. So, just really proud of what we've created and um hopeful the board um is now kind of why we really I you know maybe I dug my heels in um and it may have

192not been as appar uh clear as to why um but I'm hopeful now that there's um some more clarity and um just appreciation to everyone for this entire process and I think we're ahead of the game. There's a lot of districts that are going to be in lawsuits over this and all kinds of mess, but I think we've done a really good job. So, thank you. I just got to add that um I my same opinion that you just expressed. Um it was a great working with the team and that I think we uh went over a lot of material, a lot of material. Um and the good the good part of this was it was a learning curve for me of how much effort's put into a curriculum. Um, I don't know if you

193realize that there's a lot of effort. So, my my hat goes off in admiration for the English teachers and and the second group that actually developed the baseline for this. But the best part of this is it's based on local history and that and and and our community and that and that gives a better optics of how the the our community um developed and helped to the growth of Escandido and how they contribute uh to trial and tribulations and that. So, uh, that being said, we did, um, Ryan, to answer your question, I'm glad you asked it. We did do a lot of due diligence. We reviewed the data. We actually looked at all the links. We went through and we didn't use AI, by the way. I'm sure you're going to do that. You

194should have, but but we did. Actually, I take that back. I did I did I I'm going to be transparent. There was one section where I used AI to see if there was a bias in in the list of suggested um females to explore during one one section. and AI pointed that there could have been a slight bias and perhaps we looked at and I I brought that back and I just said just from a very basic AI um interpretation there was a slight bias and I appreciate the ability for everyone to take a look at that fairly and just say like so yes I did use AI it wasn't me making that statement that it was so I got to share I started using AI and it just didn't give me the accurate response.

195I had to do a deeper research in that in the information I was getting from it. And I did a deep search on the AI um and I had to do more due diligence in what it was presenting and that to find out if there was bias. So to let you know, I stopped using it and did my localized research that uh based on the information that was put in the curriculum. So that being said, um I think the the group put a really assembled a really good course and I want to appreciate everybody's support in that and uh I think we should definitely not going to sway you guys but I think this for a first read this is definitely put together curriculum and thank you Dr. Casses and and the team and that

196for their support. I I just want to thank Christine Knight and David as well David Vincent because they did not rubber stamp anything. No, they gave us feedback and we would go back to the team and we would implement that feedback and sometimes we would say well here's how they felt about it and so it was a true collaboration and so I'm just really appreciative of your perspective and the feedback you gave the team and glad we finally here. So thank you. Was not a normal process. So, thank you again to the board and um even though I may not have had all five members support the idea of how this happened. Um I'm hopeful that um there's a little more understanding now as so that and thank you to our student board members for

197staying up so late. Okay. All right. All right. Well, thank you all so much. Um I'm excited. Uh point of order or just a question going forward. So since there's a whole list of pilots next month when we bring them back, are we going to be voting on them individually or as a group? Uh they will come as a group. They will come. And is their um curriculum already written for AP World His the other pilots? Yes. For the AP courses, we just copy pasted what College Board gives and so it is written. Yes. Right. So then can the board John help me with this. Can the board be emailed that? Even though send you the links to the call. Okay, that that works. Yeah, just to kind of take a peek. I am not

198thinking that any of us are going to rewrite them. I just wanted to see them. Okay, with that said, thank you all for that. Uh we're now going to move on to an action item which is F6 and this is the action upon ex recommended expulsion from the accused student for case number nine. It is going to be a roll call vote. And is there a motion? I move to accept and approve the recommended expulsion of the accused student for case number nine from April 8th, 2025 through at least June 30th, 2025 and to accept and approve the stipulated expulsion agreement. Do I have a second? Second. All right. So, we have a first and a second. A second. So, this calls for a roll call vote. I'm going to go down the line here.

199So, then Christy Knight, how do you vote? I. And David Vincent, how do you vote? I. Ryan Williams, I. Bill Durnney, I. And myself is I. So then, um, that action roll call vote passes. Then we're going to move to section G, which is human resources. And most of that was confirmed on consent. We did ask that item number G3 variable term waiver could be explained and then after it's explained we'll have some discussion and then we can call for a vote. So Dr. Good would you like to explain that please? Be happy to. Uh so, President Weller, what you're seeing there for G3 and other members of the board uh is a variable term waiver, which is a local assignment option to keep a teacher in the classroom to allow and in this case

200uh to allow the teacher additional time to complete requirements uh for his English learner authorization. I'm a little lost. Can you explain that just one more time? So it's it's about the teacher, not about the student, right? Correct. Okay. So the the teacher has not yet completed their English learner authorization to be able to teach English language learners in their content area, which this case is wood. And so to keep him in the classroom, he's well equipped. He just has not re completed the necessary work to get that added authorization. This affords him additional time to do that and required to do that this year. It it's it it's only approved for one year. So yes, the clock will be ticking and there will be some urgency to complete it. Got it. And just to

201clarify because I think I discussed this with John like our are our nor uh typically teachers complete that as part of their credentiing because person is a CT instructor. It wasn't correct the so there's a different process for teachers to attain their designated subjects their CTE credential. This teacher is the CTE designated subjects teacher. it doesn't follow the typical pathway that the three of us may have gone through where that was embedded in our okay credentiing program where I get tangled up all the time is term variable term waiver so it's it's it's a waiver yeah totally so so the term waiver so what are we giving we're giving him extra time to we're we're applying to CTC to request last an additional year. Okay, got it. For him to complete his EL authorization and

202that's known as a variable turn wave. Correct. Thank you, Dr. Good. All right, any other discussion? We'll need a motion for that to pass. I'll move to approve. Second. Second. Thank you. And we have no student board members. So, all elected board members in favor say I. I. I. Any opposed is no. So, and I say I also. So, that carries. So, thank you for handling that team. Um, so that moves us down to human resources division item G4, approved proclamation in observance of school nurse day. We celebrated on May 7th and uh, Superintendent um, Peterson, did you have any comments on that? We'll turn it over to Dr. Good. Okay. So presenting to you this proclamation as you mentioned uh recognizes school nurses day on May 7th. Our school nurses provide direct support to

203our students their overall well-being and development. Play a critical role in keeping our school students staff well and safe. A fitting line from this proclamation that honors their work is school nurses understand the link between health and learning and are in a position to make a positive difference for children every day. I think this proclamation is a fitting tribute to their work in our district for our kids and thank you Dr. Good for putting that. Um can I get a motion please? I'll move to approve. Are we allowed to? Yes, we may. Let me get a second and then then you can discuss. I Okay. And then David, go ahead. So, I just want to add um that and then maybe since we're talking about nurses and that I do have to acknowledge um that

204the nursing profession unfortunately is not recognized as much as they should be. And I'm referring also to certified nurse assistants who get um their their salaries are $19 an hour. The governor um approved and then rejected their $25 an hour salary. Those individuals um work very hard. They have a lot of empathy. They take care especially in the nursing homes. um they take care of our elderly are disabled and um and they work very hard. They're they're exposed to um blood bloodborne pathogens. They have a high risk level and I feel that they've been done an injustice by not getting $25 an hour like the governor promise and took that away from them and that because what they do for our elderly are disabled our veterans is very honorable cause and they have a lot

205of empathy and they love what they do and I can speak personally because of my daughter uh she comes home uh there's times she's cried died because one of her patients passed away. So, it's a very emotional job. They love it. They get into it for a passion, but they should be compensated for that. And I say all nurses should be compensated accordingly and that because it's an honorable profession. So, thank you for having this recognition. I know it's um school nurses, but I do appreciate um opportunity to speak on that. Thank you, Trusty Vincent. If there's no other comment, uh, call for the vote. So, elected board members, all in favor say I. I. I. Motion carries. Allows us to move down to G5. And here again, approve proclamation in observance of National Day

206of the Teacher to be celebrated May 6, 2025 by and California Day of the Teacher to be celebrated celebrated May 14th, 2025. Dr. Good. This is our second proclamation that we're presenting to the board tonight. As you mentioned, May 6th as the National Day of the Teacher, May 14th is the California Day of the Teacher. Uh I'll share a fitting line from this proclamation as well that recognizes the importance of the work that our teachers do in the lives of our kids every day. Teachers are a source of caring, concern, empathy, warmth, and love. The students in EUHSD are fortunate to have a team of skilled and caring educators who exemplify all of these qualities. I believe that this proclamation is also a fitting recognition of the important work our teachers do creating a sense

207of hope and opportunity in the lives of our kids. Right. Thank you. Um motion to approve. Yeah, I'll second. Uh all in favor say I. I. Motion carries. Who where did the language for the proclamation come from? Uh it comes off the CDE website. Also CTEA has language that they include as well. All right, moving down to G6. Another proclamation approved proclamation in observance of classified school employee week to be celebrated May 18th through the 24th. I like how the classified employees get a week and the teachers get a day. Two days. Uh this is our final proclamation for tonight. You recognize that it's correctly May 18th through the 24th. Our 418 classified employees in our district fill various and critical roles uh from maintenance technician, instructional aid, school secretary, campus security, student nutrition services,

208and everything in between. Uh collectively, they help support our students by ensuring they have clean, safe classrooms and schools. academic support to graduate and pass classes and are wellfed and ready to learn. Uh I'll share a line from this proclamation as well. Classified employees serve a vital role in providing for the welfare and safety of EUHSD students. I think that this proclamation as well is a fitting tribute to their hard work, dedication to our students, staff, families, and community. Thank you, Dr. Good. Can I get a motion? I'll move to approve. Second. And all in favor say I. I. I. And then that motion carries. I will say just from the um maintenance staff, the gardening staff, our high schools look really beautiful. I really am impressed with the way they look. It's They do

209a nice job. Yeah. Really nice. I I I care about grass. So my wife gives me a hard time about the fact that I really care about grass. You should go look at S Pasqual High School and the work that they did outside. Yeah, I did actually. I drive by it almost every day and I was like, "Wow, look at that. They did all that new landscaping and the school colors to boot." Oh, I'll have to notice that. I'll have to notice that better. Thank you. Okay. So, then item number G7, um, ratified ten of agreement between Escandido Union High School District and the California School Employees Association, Escandido Chapter 2019. Dr. Good. Yes, pleased to present to the board this tenative agreement that we reached with CSEA for the final year of our three-year

210contract. Includes an increase to the salary schedule and an increase to the benefit cap. Uh, and I'd like to take a moment to publicly acknowledge and thank the CSEA team for their collaborative, productive approach that helped us reach this agreement in very short order. uh Rachel MSAS, Juan Vargas, Marilyn Engles, Carla Grove, Chris North, Diego Manasses, and Peggy Barrett. And then on our side of the table, myself, Vicky Kim, Amanda Phillips, and Principal Corey Gregory. Happy to recommend this TA for your approval. Thank you. Um any motion to approve? I'll move to approve. I second. Thank you. Um any discussion? All in favor say I. I. I. Motion passes. We move down to number G8. Um approve compensation for all classified management certifi certificated management non-represented employees supervisory and confidential employees. Dr. Good. This is

211a management or excuse me a salary increase uh for the groups that you just mention mentioned excuse me that aligns with the uh salary increase and benefit cap increase that was afforded to CSEA. Thank you. Um I'll take a motion motion to approve. Okay. Second. Okay. Any discussion before we vote? All right. All in favor say I. I. I. And no oppose. So that motion carries as well. We move down to number nine here again. Action item to approve memorandum of understanding between Escandido Union High School District and Escanido Secondary Teachers Association related to summer school for the summer of 2025 only. Dr. Good. So thisou uh with ESTA establishes for summer school 2025 the rate of pay. uh also memorializes a pay structure for preparation, planning, grading time for teachers of summer school as

212well as includes language to staff school counselors during summer school. I'd like to recognize and thank Mr. Joe Gellerini for his work with me in getting this to the board tonight. All right. Thank you, Dr. Good. Motion to approve. I'll second. And I have a couple quick questions. So, um, thank you for putting in where it's located in the LCAP. Um, it has a dollar sign in front of the 213, but I'm assuming that's section 213 67 or Oh, I'm sorry. I'm not Oh, I'm so sorry. On the agenda items of fiscal impact fiscal. Thank you, Christie. That's the number of dollars that come from Oh, so that's actually special ed. There's a separate amount and Oh, okay. Got it. Okay. So that's not a section in LCAP. That was a dollar amount. Okay. So

213thank you. So then summer to pay for summer school, it's going to be roughly $225,000. That's correct. Okay. Think it's worth it? No, I think that's the increased cost. Oh, that's the increase. You have an estimate, Amanda, on the total amount? I think it's probably about six, five to six million thousand. Okay. 100,000. Okay. Okay. Good. All right. And how many students approximately go to summer school? We had about 2,000. Oh, wow. Yeah. Okay. A full campus. Okay. Because it's at one campus. And which this summer? Orange Glenn. So, it rotates. Was at Orange Glenn last year when we toured. Okay. That's right. Thank you for reminding me. All right. So, we have a motion and a second. And so, I call for the vote. All in favor say I. I. I. Motion carries. We're

214able to move on to G10 and receive the Williams report for third quarter 2425 January through March 25th. Not related to Ryan Williams. This goes back. Always confuses me. This is simply an info item. Williams report for the third quarter as you mentioned. Uh happy to report there's no complaints. All right. Uh motion. I'll move to approve information. Oh, information item. So there will be no vote. Thank you, superintendent. I was enjoying moving through so quickly. You didn't pay attention. Okay, so business services division, which will be Miss Phillips. And so items number one, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8. Let me scroll down here, are all approved on consent. So is there anything that you have to say about anything? We can talk in the next section. Okay, very good. District operations uh

215section I adopt the recommended revisions for board policy and administrative regulation 3100 business services. This is an action item. So I will give it to um Miss Phillips first. Yes. So this is a second read. So this was uh the BP and AR related to the budget very simple additions um addressing the LCFF multiplier which is a new form of funding that um we have um equity multiplier sorry that we have at Valley and then the really great option in the near future that we can have in 2027 to not advertise in with the budget someday. Wow. Those are the changes to 3100. Okay. Thank you for doing that. Um, can I get a motion, please? So moved. I'll second. Any discussion? All in favor say I. I. I. Motion carries. That moves us down

216to I2, first reading of recommended revisions in board policy and administrative regulation 3280, business services. Miss Phillips. Again, these are brand new. Um, all just CSBA recommended language. Um, we are just bringing them up since they were last touched in 2014. Um, we don't have any real owned property that we are thinking about selling or leasing, just to be clear. Um, the last property the district did have was um, we call it the Maple property, but 240 uh, Maple Street. um I believe is where we had center city uh high school and that was in 2015 which is probably why this was last touched in 2014. Um but so it's just coming up for review and we figured why not just update something that is 10 plus years old. So it just addresses a lot

217of the language around the uh advisory committee things that just need to be updated forever to want to sell or lease. So that's it. Good for your pleasure and reading, nighttime reading. Any major differences between the AR and the BP that we should be aware of? Um the BP basically just walks through all the legal uh government code and uh public code that is has changed over the years. And the AR basically specifically addresses the definition of um what like defines surplus land. Um, so that's a major change in the AR. Thank you for explaining that. Saves us having uh Trusty Williams loaded into AI and get back to us. Would probably tell you great things about this code, I'm sure. I would never do that. Would answer all your questions. Right. Okay. Let's get

218through this. Uh, back to item number three. First reading of recommended revisions and additions in board policy administrative regulation 4261 4361 human resources. So is that going to go to Dr. Good. Correct. Uh as you mentioned this is a first read updating board policies and administrative regulations on the general 4161 series. uh changes shown on your attachments come directly from CSBA uh in order to comply with law or changes to existing. Again, just a first read. I would love to say that I had the opportunity to read this in advance. Is there anything that stands out that you'd like to summarize? No, it it really just kind of reorders as you look on the on the first page. uh it really serves to reorder the the numbered types of leaves an employee may take and

219then in some ways changes uh how they're explained. Very good. Thank you. Um all right. Can I get a motion? Oh, wait. So, first reading. Moving on. Also, item number I4 is also a first reading. No action required. First reading. Recommended revisions in board bylaws 9130, 9260, 9310, 9321, and 9400. That goes to the superintendent, John. Yes. As you know, the um the 9,000s are the board bylaws, the 10,000s through the 8,000s are the board policies. And uh we were working on chipping away at some of our old bylaws last year um to bring them up to date because some of them haven't been touched since 1990s. But we took some time to work instead on board workshop and governance handbook. But now that that's done, I'm going back to our bylaws and reviewing them

220one by one and uh bringing them up to date from the last century into the current century. Um according to CSBA recommended language changes, you'll notice that um at the bottom there's three of them that say deletions. Those are uh board bylaws that have the little carrot next to the number. Um when they have a carrot next to the number, it means it was a locally developed bylaw or board policy or a R, not one in the CSBA policy guide book. Those were one ones from the '9s. And as we looked at the information they contain, they're covered in the other board bylaws. So they are superfluous. So, we're just proposing their deletion um and then updating our board bylaws according to the latest recommendations from CSBA. CSBA has their own team of lawyers that

221make sure our policies are up to date with the government code and with the education code. So, that's have So, John, I just got a quick question. Uh how many more of these do we have out there like this? And I mean I mean it sounds like you got to do a lot of house cleaning here. Well, we're doing a lot of house clean. The board bylaws is probably the shortest section. There's probably like 50 of them in there that we're take a look at and work on, but there's a lot of other board policies and ARS all throughout the 1000s through the 8,000s. And uh we should just be disciplined and that every school board meeting bring a few forward to review them. even if changes aren't needed, we can at least review them

222and reapprove them so that they're up tod date. Um there's even uh one of the bylaws that's a first read tonight is a bylaw on BPs on board policies. Um and it suggests how we go about creating board policies and the fact that ARS administrative regulations are actually developed by the administration to develop procedures to carry out the board policy. So it's responsibility of the board to develop and pass board policies. The responsibility of the administration to create administrative regulations that carry out the board's intent. the policy um our board policy does say in the first read here that the we may take the ARS to the board for review and approval. That has been the tradition in this district. Most other school districts from what I understand the board does not approve the ARS.

223The administrators have them to carry out intent. But if it is board's um wish that you continue to approve ARS, we're happy to do that. And our BP, right, our board bylaw tonight says that we can for approval. It is my wish to not see the ARs for the record. All right. Well, any other uh comments? Thank you, superintendent, for doing this. Um, very interesting to look at actually when you finally get into it. So, thank you. Any other comments before we move off of item four. All right. So, we have board member reports and we'll start with Trusty Knight. you for all that are still here and for everyone that was here and left. I do want to acknowledge that we had a student from a charter school in attendance that looked like they

224were here to speak along with his family and the principal. And I just feel incredibly bad that that the the time got away from us and that that student ended up leaving without being able to speak. So, um that was a little little bit of a bummer. So, I would like to figure out if there's a way because we continue to have some lengthy presentations and a lot of good discussion happening at the board, but I want to make sure that when the public comes to speak that they are heard within the first hour of the meeting. That was two hours that that family sat here and did not did not get to speak. And again, it's no one per it's nobody's fault. I just want to be mindful of that and see if there's

225a way that we can address that so that um while we're doing a lot of acknowledgements and presentations, but that is really important that if we have public comment, it can happen. I was reflecting I noticed that and was reflecting on that too. Um in the order that we have the agenda has worked well for us throughout Yes. years. Um but over the last few months we've been doing an increasing number of presentations and they're taking good thing they're taking more time. So we may have to take a look at the order of the agenda and perhaps perhaps the presentations move to be embedded further down the in the particular cabinet area that they belong to rather than being up front. I agree. I have Thank you. Thank you. That was just something I wanted

226to bring and otherwise that would conclude my report and month and look forward to a lot of happenings over the next uh six to eight weeks right. So I have to updates are very do appreciate Dr. drones showing up and presenting. To your point, I felt like had a lot of questions and he did his best and I understand why we wanted to cut things short, but I do have a lot of respect for him. I didn't mean to disrespect them by saying let's, you know, move it on because I still had a lot of questions that I felt needed to be addressed. But I do want to sincerely say I appreciate him showing up and sharing. Um I do still want to discuss with you on the safety aspects of our students and special

227ed and as well as the teachers and others to make sure that things are in place to protect them if there are any that may occur that we have a predictive predictive and preventive system place. So I and that and you know I sometimes I get long the new Linda or and you got it the new and me. So anyhow um and I just want to acknowledge again the ethnic studies great job that everybody and effort that was put into it. I think we got a showcase curriculum and uh we should be very proud what the team has done. That's it for me. Thank you, Trusty Durnney. Uh, thank you. Uh, yeah, I do like the presentations, but I do think to move them back and maybe limit the amount of the deep dive we

228try to get to because I think we were getting a little too deep. Maybe for something like that, we need to schedule another meeting. Uh or maybe limit the content to be more specific when we ask for somebody to show up. Be very specific what our expectations are. I didn't mean to take your time away, Bill, but I think I think that's very important point you brought up there. Uh then I did have a couple of questions. Um, one point that was brought up was that our administrative costs are higher as a ratio compared to other districts. And that may be true, but I'd also like to ask, are our administrative costs classified the same as everyone else, too? Because some places may have this position as an administrative and other school districts may have

229it as a classified. And if so, that would increase our administrative overhead. So, I'd like to see if we are actually comparing apples to apples or are we not? I think I can partially address that. Member Durnney. Uh I know that in our district we have several uh employee groups, I'll say that are included in management that are very atypical and not included in management. For instance, social workers are typically not included in management ranks. School psychologists, uh, I feel like there's a couple more off the top of my head, but those in particular, so those would normally be included as a classified or certificated account, yet we're now including them as administrative overhead. Correct. Correct. Okay, that helps with that one. The other thing I want to mention is about and this is not

230going to be pop popular and I'm going to hear about it, but who cares? Uh public comments. Uh you know, I've been on the board for 10 years. I've been watching public comments and I'm going to call out a specific group on this one. Uh but I've been watching them come to this meeting for the past 10 years. They take more and more time and their comments are getting more and more venomous and you know for the past for the past year maybe Esther showed up maybe half the time and half the time they're here they just let me give you our version of your finances and I'm wondering do we need to hear again and again and again and do we need to put limits on how long that we have here and listen

231to say hey you're not doing this bill and I know that's not popular say but I'm going to say it so thank you very much well luckily the first amendment still reigns bill and you did not violate any of it so thank you for your comments on that trustee Williams would have follow up if I quickly on that I would be curious to find out what's typical practice across um perhaps the state when it comes to standing comment reserved for your labor partners wasn't something that was uh an automatic given to county labor partners. I worked at the county but I am curious that you bring up a good point. It is a standing item that sits on our agenda and if it was utilized twice so far this year or whatever the ratio is

232and what kind of what is that a common practice? I like to look at what's out there and where do we fit into the spectrum of what's happening out there. So, um, that might be useful information. I will second that. We'll do that. I can tell that the superintendent is taking notes on that, Trusty Knight. So, I know that will come up at the next meeting. So, they are obligated uh for freedom of speech. I my understanding. Um, so I don't know if we can limit it there. Well, the issue is is where we put it because it can go under public comment. So, they're going to do some research on that. Excuse my ignorance. Okay. Okay. So, on my side, I I would like to uh reiterate the the piece on just timelines timelines

233on presentations and ideally allow the the public to have their have their say earlier within the meeting. Uh, I think that that item's been heard. Also uh regarding what uh what Bill said in terms of the um how how we budget and classify different expenses especially on the um the uh the salary on an administrative standpoint. I would recommend that we try to change how we're classifying it so that they kind of runs in line with general standards so comparisons like this can be more in line even though it hurts our percentages. Um and then also I uh I actually uh I did run chat GPT up here on the stand here and uh and and I and I uh and in doing so I I did see the numbers that were shared in terms

234of us having a higher you know per student um out pay terms of administrative salaries and benefits as well as ad admin total administrative costs. Um so it kind of it validates the data that was shared there. um uh assuming that the the categories aren't you know not apples to apples but at the same time I did the same thing for teachers salaries and benefits right and that one also ranked higher than everybody else's so so just want to kind of wanted to share that apples to apples comparison right um but but I do think that if we have uh if we're doing something that's not standard in terms of how we categorize various p um GL's then I it at least from my perspective it makes sense to try to standardize that. All right.

235Well, thank you. We need to actually have a new board position for AI director. Sort of like a sergeant- of arms but like a quick like fact checker. That is my comments for the night. Superintendent, your report, please. Thank you. This week we celebrate adult education week. Escandido Adult School is a vital part of our community, empowering individuals with education, job skills, and new opportunities. Adult education changes lives by helping people achieve their goals. We celebrate the dedication of our educators and students who prove that learning has no age limit. We also celebrate National Assistant Principles Week. We have wonderful assistant principles who support our students and staff, and I thank them for all they do, even if they don't get their own proclamation. The coming days and month, we will recognize bus drivers, administrative

236professionals, principals, school lunch heroes, school nurses, teachers, and classified staff. We kicked off celebrations by holding a visual and performing arts showcase at the California Center for the Arts for the first ever EUHSD arts expo. Congratulations to all the staff that participated and helped make it possible. In recent news, the San Diego football club announced last week that they have acquired Sasqua High School alum Milan Ilski on loan from FC Noraland, its sister club in the Danish Super Liga. The 25-year-old attacker is expected to remain with San Diego FC through July. The school year has been going by quickly. It's hard to believe that we have only 32 school days left in school year calendar. I'm looking forward to all the upcoming celebrations and student performances. I'd like to wish everyone a wonderful spring break.

237Students will not have school beginning day after tomorrow, Thursday, April 10th through Monday, April 21st. We look forward to welcoming our students back to classes on Tuesday, April 22nd. Before ending, I'd like to remind everyone that the Sasqua High School's Super Nerds will complete will compete next week from April 16th through April 19th at the 2025 First Championship in Houston, Texas. World Championship will have 800 different robotics teams from across the world. They are currently expected to be ranked number 32 at the world championship level. Team will also get to meet three teams that they have been mentoring remotely. One from South Africa and two from India. Best of luck to the super nerds. Thank you. Excellent report. Thank you, superintendent. So then um any remaining public comments? I don't have any cards for that,

238but just checking with everybody out there. I see there are none. We're not going back to close session, are we? Do not need to. We do have dates to remember. Okay, go for it. We will have addition to spring break as just mentioned uh a board workshop. This one focuses on the LCAP on May 1st. So the next time we meet as a board will be May 1st and then our regular board meeting will be on May 13th. Thank you. Yes, I appreciate the board all the time you guys and the um cabinet for all the time you guys put in on all this. It's it's definitely a lot. So, thank you for all that. And so at 9:44 with my new contacts I can see clearly.