001Hey, 103. >> Sorry, I was loud. Um, we have a roll call. >> Trusty Jacobs >> here. Here >> vice president >> here. >> President Walker >> here. >> Student trustee sir diva >> here >> and student trustee >> here. >> Thank you. >> Uh item eight. Student >> student trustee Maya here. >> Uh item eight, there's nothing to report out of close session. >> Um item nine is the agenda. Do we have any changes? >> No changes, but we've attached the student advisory slides to the agenda for the public. >> Thank you. What do you think of the this agenda board? Move to approve. >> Second. All in favor? I I >> uh let's approve some minutes. Um item 10 A, uh meeting minutes from April 14th. >> So moved. >> Second. >> All
002in favor of approving the minutes from April 14th, 2026. I I uh item B is the board minutes from April 18th, 2026. >> So moved. I >> second. Sorry. All in favor of approving the minutes. >> I I >> one of those things. So great. >> Thank you. I >> move to approve minutes of April 23rd, 2026. >> Second. >> All in favor? >> I. >> Um item 11 is recognitions and commendations. Uh item A is the adult education student of the year. Believe the principal Bashars will help us out. >> Welcome board of trustees, Executive Cabinet, Superintendent Press, President Sheret Walker. It is my pleasure to present to you Kadesh Dorstan, the Jefferson Adult Education Student of the Year. Kada came to the United States from Thran four years ago and she had three
003very good reasons for doing so. Her two daughters and her grandson who I just got to meet. Both of the daughters have successful careers in the tech industry. A reflection on the work ethic Cadia and her husband and still do. Now back in Tyrron, she and her husband owned a restaurant where they worked together. They had a happy life, but the need to be with her daughters and grandson here in California compelled them to make the trip. Very soon after getting settled here, Kadesian enrolled in ESL classes at Adult Ed. Cadia is currently taking basic English with teacher Mark Rufelope. This class is where students first begin finding their their handholds in the sheer cliff that is is the English language. It's very easy to get discouraged at this time. You try explaining why r,
004cough, and dough all have the same o u ghing, but are pronounced differently. Or why the past tense of sneeze is sneezed, but the past tense of freeze is froze. Kadesh has remarkable attendance, and according to her teacher and her casa scores, she is showing considerable progress. Cadish has continued to attend classes despite her concerns for her family back home in Iran. The war is a constant threat to the safety of friends and family, and this has been an emotional time for her. But her dedication and resilience are an inspiration to both staff and students. When I see Kadesh walking into the school in the morning, she always greets me with a smile, expresses her gratitude for the opportunity to study. Her goals are to complete her language studies and to enter college and to
005watch her grandson grow up, sharing in his development. Her teacher said this to me, "Personally, I find it humbling when students like Kadesh allow me the opportunity to teach them. She makes exciting to come. that makes it exciting to come to work every day. I present to you Kadesh Dorston. Would the board have do they have any comments to make to us? >> I think at first we'd like to uh invite Miss Dorstand to say a few words if you'd like. Otherwise, No, >> no, thank you. No problem. >> Sure. Cad, would you like to come up here with me? >> Come stand here >> so that we can say nice things to her. Thank you. Hi, I am Khadija from Iran. I am so happy that you choose me. I am very grateful to
006the teacher and the school principal. My teacher is kind man and repeat a word the 10 times. to z V my teacher opened my eyes to another word and I'm grateful to my teacher which has good nature he re revive re revival my motiv motivated to read again. Thank you so much to very one who Kim Kim and meet and me happy and mu David. How I would like to thanks my husband and my two beautiful daughters Anna and Anahita. Thank you. >> Can you do you mind staying with us over here for a minute? >> Okay. Um the board's going to say some thanks. Uh would any student trustee like to start? >> Yeah, I can go ahead. Um, I think that was just really inspiring seeing your story and it honestly brought tears
007to my eyes cuz my parents went to the adult school as well and I think that like you being able to accomplish that is just amazing and um, yeah, keep it up. >> Anyone would like >> I just hope everything works out for you. Your story is really inspiring to me because learning a new language is really a struggle and I can't imagine what it would be like especially with English being so difficult. So I want to say congrats to developing such good English and I hope the rest of your time here goes well. >> Any more students? Mr. Ga. Um, I I would just like to voice how immensely proud the board is of your achievement. This is something you should be proud of and I'm really excited to see what the future holds
008for your educational career. Congratulations. >> Well, uh, trustees got >> Well, congratulations to you and your family. I remember when I was a young girl and in seventh grade, one of my good friends came from Iran and she had to learn a new language as a teenager. So, she had all that stresses and we helped her and she went on to do good things and you're going to go on to do good things. You have great commitment and your perseverance and the love and support of your family. So, Congratulations and and incredible work and we're just we are very proud of you for the work that you've done and what you've accomplished in your time here so far. And I know it's very clear your family is very proud of you as well. And you
009really represent us well. I mean, we're a community that prides ourselves on being so inclusive with so many different cultures and languages that are spoken here. And you and you represent the best of us. So, thank you. I'm um so overwhelmed with um pride. You look at your family, how happy they are for you, but the work that you've done is amazing and inspiring, especially considering what's happening in your home country right now. It's heartbreaking and I just wish all blessings for you and maybe you'll invite us to your college graduation. I would love to see where you go, but you're just so very inspiring. Thank you. >> Thanks for sharing your story with us today. Um, thanks for giving us reason to celebrate. It's uh always wonderful to have students in the room, to
010have families in the room, and um to see what the effect of, you know, oversight role that I have uh can have on people. Um congratulations for your hard work and thank you. >> Congratulations. Your family I I'm getting choked up too, Adam. Your family is so proud of you. I hope you can feel I'm getting choked up. Feel that pride. Congratulations. >> I think we'll >> picture. >> We'll take a picture. >> Yeah, >> let's do it. >> I couldn't even talk. Sorry, I missed you. It got me all thrilled. You're okay. I should start. I was still this opportunity to pour in water. >> Uh, go ahead and take a sip of water or something. We're just going to wait one minute. That mine. >> Okay. 11. Item 11B is uh our sports
011championship recognition. Um our director of communications, staff housing, and CTE, Denise Shrief. First, I'd like to say congratulations to our Westmore and Oceanana High School winter sports champions. Their hard work, dedication, teamwork, and perseverance throughout the wrestling season have led to this well-earned success. We are proud of the way that they represented their schools and community with determination, sportsmanship, and excellence both on and off the mats. Thank you to the coaches, families, and supporters who helped make this season memorable for our student athletes. Congratulations on an outstanding season. We celebrate you tonight for your achievements and look forward to all that is ahead. And now I'd like to present each of you with your certificate of achievement. And then I'm going to have your coaches come up and say a little thing about each of
012you. So, first I have Mary Angeline Galon, Angel from Oceanana. This is for you. U Mary Angel um is in 11th grade. She earned um PAL Ocean League wrestling varsity champion in the 105 pound varsity weight class. Natalie Cucalista is from Westmore. She is in the 12th grade. Girls varsity wrestling 155 lb first place PAL finals. Alan Olcon Westmore 11th grade varsity wrestling 250 pound division first place PAL finals >> Peter Gigonga from Westmore 10th grade JV wrestling heavyweight division first place PAL finals And now I'm going to invite Manny, the Westmore wrestling coach, to come up and speak. >> Just want to say uh good job to my fellow athletes. Um I want to start off with Peter. Peter had a phenomenal season. Um obviously he won our league tournament at the JV level.
013he worked really hard this year. And uh also want to give a special shout out to to Allen. Allan also won the league championships and they both work extremely hard this season. Um Peter's also very good academically as a student. And last but not least, I want to congratulate Natalie. Natalie's been a pioneer of our uh of our sport for women's wrestling. Natalie is the third uh woman to ever wrestle for Westmore and she is our our second woman's league champ in over 10 years and in the history of the school. So, thank you very much you guys. Uh we hope Natalie goes on to wrestle in college hopefully if that's her will. Thank you. No, I didn't think so. Okay, so um just lastly, let's give them all another round of applause for their
014achievements in on the mats, as I like to say, since they're all wrestlers, and for all of their hard work and determination. They are what represents JUHSD student athletes. So, congratulations. And now we'll take a picture with all of >> Oh. Oh. >> Do you want to each want to say something? >> Shall we say something? >> I think Mr. Maya might have something to say. >> Yeah. So, um, go Rams. First of all, I'm so proud to see so many of us being recognized today. Um, I think that honestly like I've seen the wrestling team um, travel like really far for meets as well and I just think like it's so amazing for what you guys do. So yeah, congratulations. >> Well, first off, congratulations. That's an amazing thing to accomplish as an athlete.
015You know, going to the championship is a big thing and being a student athlete can be tricky at times. So congratulations to that. Keep working hard and do consider playing your sport in college. It's an amazing feeling. I want to say congrats to all of you because wrestling isn't just a sport, but it's a lifestyle that you have to work on day and night through practice and every other aspect of life. And I hope you find more success in your sports career later in life. And also just generally um I'd like to congratulate everybody, every wrestler here, but I'd also like to extend a special um congratulations to Angel. Angel, I've seen you grow as a wrestler and I've seen you grow as a friend and I'm really proud of you for being here today.
016So congratulations to everybody, >> Miss Gutter. Well, I just want to say congratulations and clearly when I was your age, there was not a female wrestler or female a lot of things. So, it's it's honest. So, I am so proud of you ladies for representing yourselves well, for choosing and choosing a sport that's not traditional, but clearly a lot of younger ladies are going to be looking up to you. And I do hope that you continue um in the future with your wrestling. And to the gentlemen, just all of you that are placing first place, that is really incredible. I'm really overwhelmed and very impressed by what you've been able to do and still really have good grades. So, continue on the great path that you're on. >> Indeed. Congratulations to all four of you.
017incredible work to be able to to work so hard and achieve this level of of accomplishment in your respective sports and it's always fun to to celebrate champions in this room at so congratulations again. >> Um it's it's amazing that uh when I went to school in this district um Oceanana was the powerhouse wrestling school. Wesmore is pretty good too. And then I was shocked that we didn't have it anymore when I became when I came on the board. So the short amount of time that Westmore has revived the program. We've got a bunch of champions. Fantastic. Young women even more fantastic. Um I applaud all of you and just that you've been able student athletes work extra hard because you've got to do double the work and wrestling's really tough. Uh my brother and
018my nephew were wrestlers and I used to help my brother cut weight and you know I had to control his diet so you know so he would you know make weight that day. Oh my god especially when he was trying to wrestle a weight down. Um but anyway wrestling's really tough. I commend all of you. Thank you for representing our district so well. Thank you. Congratulations everyone. I'm trying to get my words together. I am so impressed with the sport of wrestling. So the way I see it, uh you have to be strong, agile, flexible, smart. Um and you have to play this whole chess match in your head while someone's trying to hurt you. So, um, so I'm overwhelmed with your success in this incredibly impossible sport that I was never good at. Um,
019uh, congratulations. >> Congratulations to all of you. Thank you to your vice principal, the West, Mr. Warden, our Westmore vice principal, for being here. Thank you to the coaches. Thank you to the families who are here. Thank you to everybody supporting you. But most of all, congratulations athletes. I can't imagine wrestling really. I don't even know how that is incomprehensible to me. Um, and I do echo my colleagues here when I'm just I'm really glad that young women have a chance to wrestle because that wasn't something when I was in high school either. Um, but congratulations. I also know that it's really hard to go to school, you know, get good grades, do what you need to do, and then have practice outside and on weekends having matches, etc. So, it really takes a lot
020of skill for you to get everything done that needs to get done. And I know it's a kind of a stressful time of year. So, I hope you're able to take a rest now that you won this championship. Okay, congratulations. >> Let uh take a photo. But I wasn't really Excellent. Actually, Thank you. >> I know. >> I never realized I don't know what >> item 12 is communications. We will do a board report. Um students first. >> Yeah. >> Westmore High School, >> Mr. Amaya. >> Yes. So at Westmore, we've been really busy, especially with just AP seasons coming up. But um first of all, all classes have been working really hard to prepare for our rally that'll be happening right after um AP testing. But um we've also had food fair last week
021and it was really successful just seeing all clubs come together and um being able to fundra for themselves. We've also had our track varsity pal trials this Thursday and it'll happen next Saturday. In addition to this, we also have swim PAL um tomorrow on Friday and Saturday. Uh we have bmon pals next week and our uh science department actually did a really good earth week last week I believe and there was just a lot of um participation with amongst the student body. Um we've also celebrated education week coming up and our social justice coalition has started a voter registration um drive. Thank you. Jefferson, Miss Jacobs. >> So, at Jeff, uh, baseball season has recently started. They have had four home games so far. Our boys volleyball played international, uh, this past week and they
022took two sets off. Uh, we had CTE capstone presentations here at the district office last week. I myself and another student represented chef Scott for advanced culinary. Badminton swim and track are entering pals. We had a step up rally where our seniors walked out and we played some games. We have AP AP exams coming up. BSU was up and running again. And junior testing has been this week and last week which we've had a schedule change, drastic schedule change. We had we have had senior activity day on Wednesdays. We had senior signing and prom which was on on the boat around the sea. We our finals are coming up for sen senior finals and then sorry and then we have senior awards night and athletic awards night as well as graduation. >> Thank you Paranova.
023>> Last Friday we had Special Olympics which was a big success thanks to the assistance of our cheer team and leadership. Now, this week we have our last rally in spirit week and the theme is glow big or glow home. And for this spirit week, our outreach activity is a canned food drive that also lasts until Friday. And during this, our yearbook is open for online sales and the theme will be announced at this rally. We also currently have ASB elections and students are currently voting. Um, our spring sports are also having their postseason, so they'll have various pals throughout this week. and our students are preparing for CTE pathway and capstone presentations. And lastly, we have prom on May 16th. >> Thank you. Uh Oceanana, >> so Oceanana has also been keeping themselves busy
024with AP exams coming up. So students have been hard at work preparing for their AP exams. Also, we have prom coming up right after AP exams and our theme is city of gold. Uh, track senior night and swim senior night just happened. So, congrats to all the seniors. And the swim team is also having their PL um Wednesday, Thursday, and Saturday. As well, we have fame night coming up, which stands for fun, art, media, and entertainment. I don't know if I'm that's right. Um, and then we also have ongoing ASB elections, so those are still going on. Additionally, Be the Change Coalition just had their youth summit and the Junior X deadline is also coming up for juniors. Lastly, Oceanana has a rally coming up after AP testing on May 15th. >> Thank you. Anything
025from Thornon, Miss Julian? >> Um, last week, Wilderness went on a field trip to Elkus Ranch with students from Susan B. Anthony. Um this Thursday we have early dismissal. On Friday we have no school for RA testing. Um juniors and graduating seniors will be signing off May 15 and graduation is May 19th. >> Thank you. >> Um trustees. >> Okay. Well, thank you. In my second month of being on the board, I'm plugging along, trying to learn a million things, but um I was privileged to go to the adult school, but the principal um was very kind and introduced some of his staff, took me on a tour. It is great over there. If you don't know, they have a great garden in addition to all of the programming. So, that was great for me.
026I attended the um the be the change summit this weekend. That was fabulous. Mary Beer and her staff, but really just how the youth that are part of it, they were just so confident. I mean, I don't know if they've just been practicing public speaking, but they were just so unbothered, unnerved. They gave personal experiences which is very difficult to do in a room of people was very well organized. So that was great. And last night I went to the access to higher education scholarships in coma. I think it's com daily city. So that was just so wonderful to see I think it was 40 plus youth get scholarships this year. So it's just been a good time. It's a good time getting ready for graduation season. >> Yeah, there is a lot. I there's
027a lot that went on and in the interest of time, I'll just keep it really really brief. There was our budget work study that we had a couple weeks ago and I also attended the Yimi action gala for all the proousing movements. So, it was really to just connect with people who, you know, are interested in the work that we have done. I don't have much to report except that I'm looking forward to some more activities uh this week like the U at Oceanana the Pi Ranch event, the dinner and also um I'm going to the Jefferson spring concert. I'm really looking forward to that. >> I was at the Daily City KMA Chamber of Commerce event last night with Trusty Gutter. It's nice to see some of our own trustees get awards. Um it's
028really exciting to hear people taking next steps. I love this time of year. Um I've attended the events my colleagues have. I've also seen some sports. Um I checked out a track meet um where I got to see uh I saw a track meet. It was fun. Uh, I've been at the, uh, new baseball field at Teranova to see some softball and I've seen two Westmore baseball games. Um, it's been a lot of fun. Uh, they have pretty good time out there. I imagine that probably schools, sorry, players from all the schools have a pretty good time playing baseball, but I kind of forgot how much fun it was. Um, I love this time of year. Is there a superintendent report? Thank you. I have less to report um this week because I've been doing
029a lot of parenting college tours. So, I haven't so many of my colleagues have been filling in for me at events. So, I want to thank you to my uh deputy and assistant superintendent and the board for really showing up. Um I did get to go to a track meet today and see senior night. Um I don't always get to see that and that was super fun. Um, mostly I'm going to talk about our student advisory who I'm going to introduce in a little bit because they're going to give their report. But last night was our final sort of working meeting. We do have one more meeting where we just kind of get to eat Chipotle and then they get some awards and things like that at the final board meeting. Um, but I have
030been very very proud of their work all year and I'm excited to for you to see what they what they have to show you tonight. Thank you. Do any board subcommittees need to report out? >> Uh for the highlight of the evening, item 12D is the AFT local 1481 report. Don't miss it. >> Thank you so much. I don't have much. Um um just just a reminder that this week we are celebrating um Mayday and International Workers Day on May 1st. And so we've sent out um some lessons short or long, you can take your pick. Um so that students can understand what it is that Mayday represents. Um, and so that's across the the whole district. So we've sent that out to everyone so everyone is aware. So that's all and you can always
031check our website no matter who you are. It's available to everyone. Our aft 1481 website, especially the announcements page. >> Thank you. Uh, item 13 is for your information. Check it out. Uh item 14 is the consent agenda. >> Move to approve consent. >> Second. >> All those in favor of approving the consent agenda. >> I um we do have one public comment this evening non-aggenda. U Anthony Sujisaka, president of the board for Jefferson Elementary School District. You have three minutes. >> Don't worry, I only need two. Good evening board of trustees um superintendent cabinet um I'm really and actually I didn't realize I was coming when so many things were being celebrated so congratulations to all the students in the audience all the students who are sports >> students of the year um I
032saw a bunch of things being celebrated so congratulations to them no I'm actually just here just to see how your board works since we are the few you are the place where our students go and so um and I know that you represent a lot of different districts but one of the things that we value is that we share the same name. Um, Jefferson Elementary, Jefferson Union. So, um, I'm just showing our unity by being here and just see getting to know you all, what you do, and what you represent. And hopefully, you know, you all are welcome to come see where your students come from. That's really all I have to say. Thank you. >> Thank you very much. >> Uh, 16A uh, sorry, 16 discussion items. A1 is our student advisory council presentation.
033Miss Pa will bring us up to speed. >> Thank you. Before I start talking, Miss Baka, is the clicker up here for them? Yeah. Okay, great. Okay. So, Student Advisory Council has been actively engaged this year in identifying challenges that matter most to their peers and developing thoughtful student-driven solutions. Through surveys, listening sessions, and collaborative discussion, students pinpointed key areas for improvement across academics, school culture, and student well-being. They've made meaningful progress on several initiatives and are prepared to share their findings, steps taken so far, and ideas for the future. So, this year, I've mentioned um in in our board meetings this year that the student advisory council did something a little bit different. Usually, they they certainly are trustees. They come to board meetings and they represent their schools. Um, but when we meet
034throughout the year, they look at issues that they want um that they that they think need to be solved or, you know, ways to improve our district. And typically at the end of the year, they they sort of just report out to the adults. And then we do listen to them and make, you know, take actions and do things, but it's not always um obvious or evident some of the actions that the adults take. Number one. And number two, we've really been working these last few years in our district to empower our students and to include our students in the solutions um and to just be um to to have more agency. This is their school district. So this year was kind of an experiment um to see how it would go because we knew
035you can't solve everything in a short amount of time. But you can take you can start taking small actions and some of those small actions will grow. And I'm happy to say that many of our student trustees will be continuing next year. So we don't have all seniors. We have I think sophomores, juniors, and seniors, but I think mostly it's juniors moving up. Um, so some of these uh initiatives will indeed continue, I'm sure. So, our student trustees have worked very hard on their presentations and when they come up each Oh, I'm going to call out their names and just have you stand when I call your name. You can remain standing so that you're not alone. I'm going to introduce all of you, but then when each group comes up, they will introduce themselves.
036The first group to be ready to come up is going to be school environment, just so you know. Okay. So, I'm going to call your name. When I call your name, please stand up. So from Westmore High School, Adam Mayat, he's standing up on the de Ryan Chow, Ethan Tam, Caitlyn Tan, Schuming Tion from Jefferson High School, Angela Chin, Romina Pastana, Edward Miles, Adriana Cervantes, and Ava Jacobs from Teran Nova High School. Eli Ashalong, I messed up your name, didn't I? Alashong. Okay. Bianca Slater Santos, Ramona Orlando, Valerie Yen, and Casey Spiegel. Oops. Sele. Sorry, Casey. Um, Oceanana High School, Violet Scheler, Dominic Prea, Rajin, Eva Emperado, and Marina Sergiva. Let's give them a hand. I missed I stopped before the end of the list. Kami from Thornton High School. Camila Chulim and Naomi Gutierrez
037Amaya. Now, let's give them a hand. I saw you sitting there. I thought, why aren't you standing? Okay, thanks. You guys may take a seat. And if I can ask the school environment group to come on up to the microphone. The clicker should be right there and you can direct yourselves. I think the down button advances the slides. The down. >> The down. I'm pretty positive because it's always counterintuitive. >> Should I point it? >> I don't know. Where do they point it? >> It just will work. You don't have to just point wherever you want to go. >> The room gets it. >> Okay. >> And you can Yeah. move that to >> Okay. Hi, my name is Adrian Espenosa. I'm from Jefferson High School and I'm a senior. >> My name is Angela
038Chin. I'm a senior at Jefferson High School. Hi, I'm Bianca Slater Santos and I'm a junior from Tanova High School. >> Hi, I'm Arona Orlando. I'm a sophomore at Tanova High School. >> Um, hi, I'm Romina Pastana. I'm a senior at Jefferson High School. Good evening. Um, so our group is called the school environment group and our focus of our group is, you know, we came up with multiple things. The first one was school our school atmosphere cleanliness you know cleaning basically save the environment say you know green and our second was research on improving school environment # you know the yonder pouches and the effects and the future of them so our progress it was mainly we started off as a stop it app group but then as we started thinking about like ideas
039of how to improve it we started thinking it's more of a serious issue and it's something we couldn't figure out in just the span amount of time we have so We decided to do a smaller min milestone which was clean cleanliness and improving the school environment which is why we changed our group name and because of that uh we shifted our focus to more everyday issues and basically that's what we have now. Oh wait, I'm not um we also did research on improving school environment, specifically yonder pouches as they have been implemented at Teranova and we just researched on the data and effects that it has had at Teranova. Mhm. >> Okay. This um was done at Jefferson High School because um for bathroom school cleanliness, we just thought that most of the bathrooms were
040not clean enough and our principal agreed to that too. And so that's why we only have one bathroom that's open during class time and two bathrooms that are open during brunch and lunch. So, we sent um a bathroom school cleanliness or just about a school cleanliness form to students and we received 57 responses. And but our most significant statistic was that 20 students answered that the bathrooms needed the most attention. And here's a quote from a student. Yes, there's a lock in a bathroom that I see is about to fall off and it doesn't fit well. I don't like the part almost all the bathroom are closed half of the time. Okay. Um, moving on to our objectives. Um, Jefferson, um, actually we met with our principal, Mr. Herrian, to help us solve the issue
041with cleanliness, not just in the bathroom, but like the whole school in general. Um, and the plan was approved to help like improve the student mood and focus. Um, and like we implemented the idea of call buttons. Um but while the buttons were ordered and a presentation was ready to be presented, we were unable to set up like assemblies for all students just because of the opportunities were all occupied during that time due to like um like year end announcements and um presentations. Um before I start off on this portion, I would like to show you the yonder pouch itself. I decided to bring mine in as a turn of a student and show it to you. >> It's a little gray pouch. We store our phones in it >> and the information I'm about
042to share is how much has changed the schools. Along with that, I would like to show that our school newspaper is constantly reporting and informing the students about the yonder pouches. On this slide, you can clearly observe that the information provided by turnover teachers was consistent in many aspects. Considering the fact that I only had 25 teacher responses, but that was more than enough for us to understand this information. The first thing that stands out is how 88% of teachers mentioned improve their students focus as a four or five on a scale of a 1 to a five that we had done for our survey. While the same number is present for the student students social interaction as well as the total impact for the teachers teaching skills. But the main point here is not
043only the information presented but also the way that the results affect teaching itself. There's evidence that students become more engaged and focused on their tasks interacting with other students and show lower rates of offtask behavior. These assumptions can be um observed in the quotes present on the uh right hand side I guess my right uh for yeah my right I had to think about that um where teachers mentioned that students have become more engaged and eager to communicate in particular one of the teachers emphasizes that how they talk more the students uh without being preoccupied by phone conversations. Besides, another teacher mentions that taking away phones lowers the rates of distraction and stress among students. We also sent out a form to the teachers from the other schools that currently do not have a phone
044ban. Oh yeah, we got 87 responses um from school from the other schools including Oceanana, Westmore, Jefferson, and Thornton. As you can see on the pie chart on the bottom left, the majority of our responses were from Westmore and Jefferson teachers, but that corresponds with the fact that those schools are bigger and there's more teachers. We did get less responses from Ocean and Thoron, but they have we got they have less teachers because their schools are smaller. As you can see on the graph right above that, uh we this is a survey question asked was asking teachers to rate phone disruption. how much phones disrupted their teaching. And as you can see, 75% of the teachers rated it on a four to five on a scale of 1 to five and the other quarter rated
045it from 1 to three. And there were similar patterns in other questions that we had asked. 69% of the teachers said that yonder pouches would likely improve the focus and participation of their students if they were implemented. and 66% of teachers said it would likely improve the school and social environment. Most teachers already have a classroom phone policy implemented but rate them only moderately effective and support is positive overall for implementing yonder pouches and bring it to other schools. Some significant quotes that we got from our survey is that the attention spans are decreasing and students do not interact in a human way with each other anymore. Another teacher stated that students are less engaged and they do not talk to others and without phones they communicate. And lastly, one of the teachers said that
046it probably depends on how the phone policy is implemented and monitored. Um, now we have the part of what the surveys suggest for future use. Uh, this slide highlights some of the findings that are drawn from the broader surveys across both groups. First of all, the commonest problem that the student of that is student engagement. As stated above in point number one, there are notable improvements according to Teranova teachers. The teachers who do not have yonder claim that the cell phones are the biggest barrier in participation. The second commonality is the element of experience. Teranova teachers responses are more assured while those with other of the other are more speculative because they assume instead of try having tried it out. This comes out clearly in point number two. As I just said, it comes out
047clearly in point number two. Um, thirdly, implement imple implementation counts. In point number three, it's clear that although the teachers support the idea, they are very concerned about the need to have a proper system of enforcement and management of expectations in place. Obviously, it is hard to manage a bunch of students and tell them, "Hey, you got to keep your phone locked up. You got to keep it locked up." And sometimes maybe kids will sneak it, but I can It's very You could see how enforcement might be a thing. teachers might be worried about. Um the last common factor is the social benefit. Reducing cell phone usage results in increased social interaction among students. The recommendation section says that the suggestion here is to take the case of Teranova teachers as an example and plan
048a staged approach to implementation to the other schools. Uh this involves defining the implementation framework, training teachers, communicating with parents and others. Our final evaluation throughout the course of our group brainstorming a f um throughout the course of our group brainstorming a focus to present to you all. We decided to reestablish and rename our group as the school environment group. Initially we were the school problems group but this we felt that this limited our focus a bit because of the challenge of finding a singular solution to problems that vary in severity and effect from schools throughout the district. Essentially changing our focus to improving school environments considering the differences of schools across the district has been more productive. Thank you so much. And um ladies, if you want to stay there, the board may have
049some questions or comments for you. >> Ask away. >> Anyone students? >> Miss Tatada looks like she might have questions. >> Oh, I How did you go about giving the surveys >> uh for the honor pouches? Um yeah, the yonder pouches and also for this school environment, the cleanliness. But >> so we had the help of Miss Prea helping us send out the uh surveys and stuff. We kept them very simple around eight questions. Um and part of the questions we also had if the teachers wanted to get more specific with their information and we got a lot of responses in that far too big of answers to add to slides, but it was like it was very interesting information to receive from the teachers and we would not have been able to get that
050information without Miss Presa's help of sending them out. >> Oh, great. >> Thank you. And then Miss Prea had Miss Baka's help. >> Okay. And so >> the kids made great surveys and Miss Baka got them to the right people for me. >> We we have that that survey information handy. >> Oh, we do. >> Yes. Okay. That's really great. And who did this slide? It's really amazing. It's >> okay. >> It was a Canva template. >> It's fantastic. Wow. Okay. Yeah. >> Well, I think this was a very well put together presentation. It just really reminds me of like a even a capstone gra, you know, when you're in college and you know, just the whole coming up with the name and then it's like, okay, this is going to be our focus. Okay,
051that's not going to work. So, we're going to pivot. I heard a lot of pivoting. I thought that was very smart. and just how you thought of not your own school but the other schools and the fact that some of you are going to still be here next year to really see the continuation. Excellent. >> Considering you know we did have we you know we just you know updated and passed the cell phone policy several meetings back. This is pretty timely information, right? And because we know that there's been some good data just from the first semester of the honor pouches that Miss Terry shared with us early on. And now that we've we've now now that we've got nearly a full year of data and your survey information and that's powerful powerful data that
052we'll have be able to carry forward especially as note as you note in your recommendations and also to to the three of you from Jefferson great job just making making sure you're reaching out to understand what are the most important issues to your local community as well and identifying it and I and keep that up because because I think you might see that it's going to be something that that your fellow students will want to focus on next year, but there may be new issues that come up as well. So, well done. >> Yeah. >> Uh could you also describe the call buttons? >> Right. So, the call buttons were like essentially like when you press the button, it's it calls like a caretaker. That's like what the call buttons were advertised for on Amazon.
053But we're going to place them in the bathrooms because um most of the time like the sanitary products are out of order or like and the toilet paper is like >> there's no toilet paper. >> Mhm. >> And the trash cans as you saw in like the images are sometimes really full. We just thought like um having the call buttons there to call like the staff to check up on the bathrooms would be good especially with like a lot of students um smoking in the bathrooms. >> Oh, that doesn't happen. No. So, so >> I know. Well, they're truthful. They're truthful. So, um, so you worked with Mr. Herrian to get this um, ordered. And so, you you're coming up with a plan on who it will when a call button is um, activated, >>
054who it'll who will it go to, >> right? It will like show a number to the administration. So, the numbers will be in the office and then the office would be able to like contact the security guards since they all have walkie-talkies, >> right? Okay, that's great. >> Thank you very much. Nice job. >> You're pointing at >> Sorry, there's somebody who wants to speak. >> Somebody wants to speak, please do. Thank you. Um, I just wanted to say that I'm really proud of you guys, especially after seeing all the innovation and work you've put into this at every meeting. And I also wanted to say thank you to Ramona for shouting out the Tteranova newspaper cuz I edited that page. >> Um, I'm also really thankful that you guys took time to like investigate
055and really take your time with the Yonder pouch. I know especially at Westmore, we have a town hall meeting coming up. So, um, as a graduating senior, my hope is that, um, you know, people are able to come to a conclusion with, um, especially with the data that you guys have gathered. >> Fantastic. Anyone else? Okay. Thank you very much. >> Oh, all right. >> Um, I just really like to congratulate you guys. This is a really interesting presentation and you guys kept everybody very engaged and honestly this shineed light on something that I didn't really know was an issue. So that's really impressive and I applaud you for that. >> It's great intentional look. >> All right. Thank you very much. >> Next we have the wellness group. Um so we're the wellness group.
056Um it's um we're focusing on tackling wellness issues and supporting initiatives across the district. >> Do you want to introduce yourselves? >> Yes. Um, hi everyone. My name is Violet. I am a senior at Oceanana High School. Um, and I joined the wellness group because I've always taken uh an interest in mental health and people's experiences throughout not just my school but the district and also the county. Um, and seeing what we can I was I wanted to get involved in improving the resources that we already have to offer. >> Hello. Uh, I'm Dominic Presser from Oceanana. Um, I joined the wellness group and student advisory kind of as a whole because I thought that joining this body would really give me an avenue to make my voice heard and the voice of, sorry, I'm
057raising this up. Um, the voice of my student body kind of heard. Uh, yeah. And I thought it would be a really good avenue to kind of make real change and action for not just Oceanana, but the broader district. >> I'm Eva Eva Emperado. I'm a senior at Oceanana. I chose the wellness group because mental health is a topic that's really important to me and it's something I'm really passionate about and I want to make sure that it's something that um that gets a lot of focus. >> Um hi, my name is Ethan. I'm a sophomore at Westmore High School. Um, I mainly joined the wellness group because I saw a lot of my peers at Westmore um, kind of not aware of the resources of mental health and I also want to break the
058unhealthy stigma around mental health. >> Hi, my name is Camila Tulim. I'm a senior at Thoring High School. And the reason I joined wellness is because I feel like in continuation schools it's not something that's really spoken about, especially mental health. And so I thought that joining wellness would be like a good way to like advocate for students especially at a continuation schools. Hi, my name is Naomi and I go to Thoren High School and I joined the wellness group because I feel like mental health is really important. I feel like that people don't really spirit awareness about it. Um, so our essential question is, how can we work with campus wellness foundations and departments to best support students at each school? Okay. Initially when we were discussing um some of the issues and some
059of the goals we wanted to solve at um at our schools for mental health, we came up with um promoting opportunities for student involvement in wellness departments. Um ensuring wellness checks check-ins are accessible as possible and reform counselor request process. Um yeah, we wanted to make sure that it was easier for students to um assign meetings with their wellness counselors. And lastly, we wanted to normalize mental health awareness. So in relation to our topic and the broader question that we wanted to explore um that involved this group that we all joined, here are some we did some research on some statistics um throughout San Monteo County for the experiences of youth um in the past years regarding um situations of crisis or otherwise harmful ideological situations. So we found that 22% of girls and 13%
060of boys said that they had considered attempting suicide within the past um years through 2020 to 2023. Local hospital data shows a steady increase between 2009 and 2015 in emergency room visits due to adolescent suicide or intentional self-inflicted injuries. And this also follows a broader trend in recent years across the country, not just the county, that shows an increase in students experiencing mental health issues um in local neighborhoods. the need for mental health support emerged as a top priority um when residents of local of other um neighborhoods and residential areas were surveyed. Um this these statistics all add to the importance of our studies that we got ourselves involved with throughout the year of providing more avenues for students who are interested in getting involved with promoting resources and making people aware of just how
061dire these issues can be. Um these just support basically why we became involved. Um okay for universal check-ins um initially we thought that it would be important for every student to have a um annual check-in with their um wellness counselors at least once a year. And we thought this would be um kind of nice because um we felt that a lot of students um kind of didn't know how to meet up with their wellness counselors and even if um like they were like undergoing issues, they didn't know how to reach out to them. And we thought it would be nice um that with these check-ins that um each student would be getting um all the resources that they needed. Um, so the official definition we came up with were check-ins with their counselors that each
062student would have at least once um with with them in a school year. And our objective was um oh wait actually, yeah, what's more um when meeting with my wellness counselor, we actually concluded that it wouldn't be feasible to have these universal check-ins. And um because when speaking to him, he told us that um on average um in one school year, they are only able to meet with at least onethird of the student body. Um and that's probably because Wesmore's um overall student body population is pretty large. Um but we were brainstorming new ideas um to reach our ideal targets, if not being able to reach the whole student body. Um, at Jordan, we plan on making workshops twice a month that would be focused on wellness and this would also allow students to earn.
063>> Okay. Um, and then at Oceanana, I had a really long meeting, Violet and I had a really long meeting with um, our wellness counselors multiple times throughout the year. Um, and I'll be referencing that later in the presentation, but universal wellness check-ins are something that we brought up in that meeting. Um, and in talking to the wellness counselors, we learned that it kind of they tried this in the past couple year then a couple years ago, they tried universal wellness check-ins and they only were able to get to like I think halfway through the sophomore class going from the freshman up to the seniors. And so it didn't seem super feasible like what um Ethan said. And so it's in the Oceanana 5-year wellness kind of plan to either reattempt wellness check-ins, but at
064this point um they're currently utilizing kind of group presentations. So going into a lot of freshman classes and underassman classes um just to kind of get their face out there so the students know who they are, resources that they have, kind of how to contact them as best as possible because universal wellness check-ins are kind of a difficult thing because there's so many students kind of at all high schools. Oh, sorry. >> Oh, also one thing I wanted to add was um we took into account that if we had universal check-ins with each student, um we realized that students go like into phases with their issues. Um sometimes it might be harder to deal with mental health towards the end of the school year with like AP test and finals. So, we thought um that
065was another reason why we didn't think it would be possible. Um and then some of the potential ideas that we were brainstorming um was an initial screening process. Um we thought that although we couldn't reach the full student body, we thought that um at the beginning of the year if we had an initial screening process, we could reach the targeted audience and the students that probably um needed more help fixing u with their issues. Um, and kind of how we thought this would be would be like a Google form that students would have to fill out during the beginning of the year assembly. Um, and another idea that we had was community circles. Um, we thought that this would um allow the um the wellness counselors to reach more students during the school year. And
066um this could be led by potentially our peer assistants or trained facilitators. Um, and then the last idea we came up with was partner check-ins. Um, we thought that this would be more um kind of like instead of a bigger group, we thought that it would be nice to have a two partner check-in with students who were um dealing with kind of similar issues and with the um similar backgrounds so they could like relate with each other. And we thought it would be nice where they would be able to meet on their own, but then also with um a few check-ins um like maybe like around once a school year or something they could meet with the wellness counselor as um a pair which would be nice. Yeah. Um so for one way we were
067thinking of making mental health um like counseling more available was um expanding I guess the way we're going about the counselor request process. So, um, for both Wesmore and Oceanana, there are QR codes if you'd like to meet with a counselor that you can scan. Um, and they're kind of posted around the school. But, um, among our group and among the people that we've talked to at our schools, very few people actually utilize those QR codes. Um, and when we were brainstorming, we thought that could be attributed to how public they are. um with people maybe not feeling comfortable being seen scanning those QR codes um with maybe there being stigma around that. Um so we brainstormed some other ways that we could have students request to meet with counselors. Um so the first one
068of those ways that we thought um was we could make bookmarks um with QR codes to meet with counselors on the back of them. Um this way students can scan them wherever they want. It doesn't have to be in public. um they can have it with them too. So if they need to meet and they're not they don't see any QR codes around, they can just have their bookmark and they can scan it there. Um another way we were thinking of was um for Teranova at least we could do yonder pouches. Um like there could be perhaps like a little sticker or something that we put on the yonder pouches um just making that QR code more accessible. Um another way we were thinking is maybe an easy access link. So, we were kind of
069brainstorming if it's possible to put like links to requesting counselors on like school websites or on like ASB websites if that could be something we could do. Um, and then the last way we were thinking we could also do this maybe with little stickers. We could put the QR codes on the back of student IDs and that way everyone just has it from the start of the year and they can utilize it whenever they need to. Oh, also something to add for the easy access link. We were thinking that since the academic counselors meet with um each student towards the beginning of the school year, um we were thinking that the wellness counselors could also meet with those students during the same meeting. Um just to show them kind of how to access the link
070and just for the beginning of the school year so that students could could easily use it throughout the year. So, one of our main objectives this year was more student involvement and wellness. Something that I noticed while I was making an effort to make myself more aware of the resources that were offered at Oceanana is that we have an abundance of them. We have a whole hallway um a wellness hallway where we have access to a chill room. We have a whole bookshelf with pamphlets for students to read through and scan and basically um a a lot of ways for students to feel recognized. But these are all provided by our wellness department officials. There isn't really an opportunity on our campus for students to become involved um with our wellness department. So we actually
071turned to Westmore and with Ethan's help, we were able to uh learn more about their peer assistance program. So, peer assistance at Westmore is a year-long course where students learn to be resources to their peers at Wesmore High School themselves with the goal of promoting positive change and making the school a better community that it already is. So, where does this fit into Oceanana? Well, Oceanana already has abundant wellness resources as I was talking about. We also have themed advisories already. So for reference um if anyone was unaware an advisory is a 45inut period 50-minute period period close to an hour a little bit under at the end of each week where students of similar grade levels are able to meet up and it's not exactly a study hall but it is an opportunity for
072um students who normally wouldn't share classes to just come together as a grade. Um it's usually where surveys are distributed and it's basically a check-in period. It's smaller groups of students, so it's easier for whichever teacher is the adviser to check in with each individual. Um the theme advisories that we currently offer are our garden advisory um where students can go into our school ran garden and help out in that regard. We also have a yearbook advisory where students help curate our yearbook and then we have our associated student body advisory wherein student leaders come together and do planning and relay announcements to the other grades. So if we wanted to have a class or a related um opportunity to peer assistance, a theme advisor would be the best opportunity to do so, which we
073established after conferring with our academic council at Oceanana. Dominic actually presented to them about um we he reviewed the peer assistance class syllabus with them and discussed potentially bringing this as an advisory option in future years. We also discussed this with our wellness department who is interested in creating this class for students who are very um curious about being able to have these skills to be able to help out their friends and family outside of school. This could also be an opportunity for students to earn community service hours as they are a graduation requirement at Oceanana. It's also an opportunity to bring county initiatives in through the various commissions that do deal in mental health and crisis recovery services. Okay. Now, I'll speak a little bit more about kind of some of the stuff that
074we talked about with our wellness counselors. For context, um, some of us in this group who are from Oceanana met with our social worker, Miss Kahion, and our wellness counselor, Miss Janette, and we covered a lot of various topics like Violet mentioned, peer assistance, as well as kind of bullying at Oceanana. And so, though bullying is not a huge issue at Oceanana, there have been certain instances that um, bullying has kind of become an issue or come up. I mean, personally, I experienced bullying at Oceanana in my early years. And so this was kind of a personal subject and kind of a touching subject to for me to explore this year. So in talking with them, we kind of were looking deeper at like what does bullying look like at Oceanana. Um it's not as
075like the textbook definition of like shoving somebody into a locker. That's not kind of what it looks like. It's much more underground kind of like social issues that arise. And in through that kind of talking about what it looks like, we decided that like we should look at how wellness hears about like bullying and hears about kind of social issues happening on campus. Um and so one way is through the stop it app, but um we kind of talk about kind of the drawbacks and the good parts of Stop it, but um there's also kind of from admin hearing about like students going to admin saying, "Hey, I'm experiencing this." Um and then obviously going to wellness straight up. So we um in conjunction with wellness uh we created a kind of contact a conflict
076oceanic conflict contact framework. So um if some sort of social issue kind of happens, a student can immediately go to admin and they can start an investigation into the bullying issue and then they can um have some sort of conversation um and reconciliation with the two parties creating um a better situation than what started or um students can go to wellness counselors. So once they meet with the wellness counselors, the wellness counselors can go towards I think yeah towards the left um to the admin route looking at kind of investigations and conversations with the students or they can have a conversation with wellness counselors and from that conversation there's kind of two routes that could happen. There could be a well there's kind of three. There's one they have a conversation with wellness and they
077pick a path that's not um exactly in this framework but um the main ones are a restorative conversation with the two parties. Um this is a big thing at Oceanana that happens um I think pretty often that like when there's a social issue the counselors facilitate this conversation with the two parties so they can or come to a better conclusion and come to a amicable state so that our student body is um flourishing. There's also they can lead them to self-sought resources that I highlighted here like the crisis text line, the youth point, youth point health, um Pacifica resource center and Santo County rapid response hotline. Um the counselors and I felt like this is super important to have this conflict contact framework so that students were abundantly it was abundantly clear to the students
078that when a conflict happens, what are your options? What can you do and how can you get support in that? And with that, thank you. Anyone have any questions? >> Comments. >> Andy comments too. >> Really well done again backed up by by data which is solid and and having and and doing the research to find that pathway forward. So, I commend you on that and and there's a lot of really thoughtful things in here that I think we should certainly consider doing at least, you know, which is why you're doing these presentations in the first place. So, really well done and I'm I'm pretty excited about h how we can implement this in some capacity. >> Thank you. >> Okay, I'll go next. Um, that was amazing. Okay. So, just hearing you speak, I
079used to work at the juvenile hall. So, that's where I retired from. So, I worked with a lot of kids that were under similar stresses to kids that are not in the juvenile hall, but they just have a little bit of extra. And I just appreciate your thoughtfulness and just wanting to really educate the adults to why mental health is so important. But while you're educating the adults, you're also making it normalized for your fellow student. So, it's just totally fine because in the juvenile hall, the kids are more apt to ask to speak with someone. And if I were to mention it, they're more apt to say yes. You know what I'm saying? Because potentially because their stress is about to tip over, you know, when the balloon is getting ready to burst. possibly.
080I I just like some of the ideas. I just really like starting the year off with a form. You know what I'm saying? So, you kind of just have the student pre gauge where they are and then just have a little QR code to stick on the um ID. It's like perfect. All, you know, you're just killing all these birds with the stone. It's just fabulous. I can't wait to see um how this progresses. Very good work. Very good work. Thank you, Wow. Uh, so many great ideas and you guys were really thoughtful. Really, really thoughtful. And, um, I think one of the big things is you, you know, the problems with accessibility and you talk about stigma. Um, and just needing to normalize why I I think students now are more apt to um,
081they're the ones who are saying we need this. you know, this is important for us and you guys really really emphasize that so well and all the different um I could just see how you're brainstorming all the different ways to do it. Um you know, and I know that in our district we a few years ago we we really felt the need to have more wellness counselors and part of that was student advisory council. that was a huge thing that we need more wellness counselors and the district listened and said, "Yes, we know we do. We're we're going to try to find the money to do that." Um, but this just so many different ways. I I really am looking forward to seeing how we can implement a lot of this. Um, just great great
082ideas. Thank you so much. >> Thank you. Um, I I it was not lost on me that you used the verbiage that you typically use with your senior acts for Yoshi seniors because you did start off with the phrase the essential question. So, I appreciate you incorporating what you've learned into this presentation. >> I I'd like to piggyback on that. I saw a lot of u themes of leadership uh as you went through. Um I just made a couple notes about them just now. uh universal check-in so it's for everybody. Um it's it's a health related which concerns everyone. There's elements of service in being a bridge to all this. Um I wrote down again it's for everyone. Um, I don't have good words for this, but you've uh made it okay for everyone to
083have a way to talk about this. You made it accessible. I think that's what I'm looking for. Um, and at the same time, you able to encourage people to keep their privacy. And I think that there's a lot of themes of leadership in there. And so, um, congratulations on doing a great job and for, um, keeping those themes together. >> I have one more thing. >> Yeah, please. >> What, what I also loved about how you approached this is that you're talking about the universal check-ins and then when you you did your homework and you talked to the adults who um, you know, would be affected by this and they told you it's not feasible. Well, you accepted it, but then what else? What can we do instead? What can we Okay, you're saying it's
084not feasible. Okay, your explanations u make sense to us, but what else? You weren't ready to just settle for that. You were looking for another avenue. How else can we help our students? And I think it's just fantastic how you did that. Thank you guys. Okay, next group up is student academics and opportunities. I'm also was reminded to ask you students to speak slowly because we have translators that what this is live streamed on I don't know I think YouTube and they are in real time translating what what you're saying and so if you speak really quickly it's it's hard thank you very >> hello all we are the student academic group and this presentation will cover AP courses, their expenses, as well as the effort into getting more across the JUHS JUHSD district. These
085are student trustes who part participated in these slides. I'm Ava. >> Yeah. Hi. Uh my name is Ryan. I'm a junior at Westmont High School and this is my second year actually on this committee. So, I'm really excited about the work that we did. My name is Valerie. I'm a junior at Teranova High School and this is my first year on Student Advisory Council. Hello everyone. My name is Casey Cyple. I'm a sophomore at Tanova High School and this is my first year on student advisory. Hi everyone. My name is Eliia. I'm a senior at Teranova High School and this is my third year on student advisory. Hi everyone. Um I'm Rajin. Um, I'm a current junior at Oceanana and this is my second year. >> Sorry. >> Um, so the focus of our presentation,
086we mainly wanted to expand um opportunities for more students and we found that one of the easiest ways was to focus on AP. So that will be the first um section of our presentation. Um, AB courses are integral to introducing students to more challenging and college level coursework that will of course um better prepare them for college level work. Um, and through a couple of preliminary surveys that we sent out, we found that students who um just concerning APs were either uninterested in current coursework or were actively seeking more. So, our solution to that was to expand um possible AP course work and see specifically what courses um students would be most interested in. So, we sent out forms to all the JUHSD schools to review what students were specifically unsatisfied with. We met with
087school principles and administrators to see if um adding courses was even feasible and sent out forms to teachers to see what would encourage them to possibly get AP certified or what was specifically stopping them from teaching AP courses. All right. So with the data that we got back from surveying both teachers and students throughout the schools um some common thing some common things that prevented um schools from adding more APs was financial support, time and workload and lack of interest or signups. Uh many teachers said that if they were to teach an AP class, they would want an extra class um to kind of prep for their AP class and extra time to grade work. Um and with that extra time, they would want to be paid for those hours. Um, so finding the funds
088um was one of the things that prevented them. Um, also a lot of students weren't really sure exactly what APs they would want to sign up for. Um, for example, we had a lot of students at Teranova that wanted to sign up for AP physics, but Teranova doesn't even have a college prep physics course. So, we would have to go through the college prep courses first to get the APs. Um, so it's kind of spread with the level of interest, but yeah. So after much research, we decided and we found a formal AP course recommendations for JUHSD. So what we did was we surveyed students across JUHD about their opinions of AP classes at their schools. These students were from all grade levels. This included questions like what prevents you from taking AP classes? What
089classes would you like to see at your schools? So we got 233 responses across all the schools. And our main objective was to analyze which AP classes students would like to see at their respective schools that are not already offered. So while we sent this form to every school, we decided to focus on our smallest schools, Teranova and Oceanana. When we were looking at the data, we felt like there were more similarities in the responses for these schools compared to Jefferson and Westmore, whose responses differed more drastically with when I was looking through the data personally. I could only like the most similar responses would be like six people saying the same thing and with big schools like that it's not really enough. So we found that AP biology seemed like a very excuse me
090seemed like a course that many students at Terteranova and Oceanana were interested in. Of the 153 Tteranova students that filled out our survey around 33% of them collectively expressed interest in an AP bio course. Um, and though we had a smaller uh group of people responding for Oceanana, 46% of Oceanana respondents also said the same thing. Another class that we kept seeing show up on our responses was AP Physics. It was frequently mentioned with um around 14% of Teranova uh respondents saying that they were interested in taking this class. However, college prep physics isn't currently offered due to, as Avani said, lack of interest. Though many students may not want to take a college prep course when for higher level sciences we already have two other APs. We have Apes and we have AP Cam.
091So they may see taking a college prep course as maybe less impressive or they would rather take an AP for the college apps. However, if AP physics was offered there may be more interest. So overall we believe that adding AP biology to Tteranova and Oceanana course cataloges would be feasible and beneficial for students. This would give students more options for science classes that may fit with their interests and their future goals. Um, I just wanted to note that Teranova's current um, college prep biology teacher has confirmed interest in teaching AP biology, but and there's her email up there, but she's concerned about some of the needs that a lot of teachers throughout the district have, which I'm about to explain. So, we surveyed teachers from all around the district with the help of Miss Prea
092distributing it for us. And while they did have unique concerns in the way they described them, a lot of the main concerns were very universal with the first being they need an increased stipen or income. Because while AP courses are very rigorous and fast-paced for students, this means it's also more rigorous and fast-paced for teachers. And so they feel that with this added work, they need extra an extra stipend or income to go with it. And then the second reason they felt that um the ideology behind AP courses and the environment it brings to certain schools does not align with their beliefs. First of all, AP courses contain a set curriculum created by College Board and it limits the teachers freedom and input in the courses and maybe lacks some components or aspects of critical
093thinking that they might want to include. but don't have time for with um the College Board curriculum itself being so rigorous. And then also it may create a toxic student environment due to increased student competition and also through tracking where a lot of students who start on a certain pathway end up in APs. And so you see a lot of the same groups of students while other students feel that they can't get into them. And um the third reason that was very significant especially to me was support. Overall a lot of teachers throughout the district acknowledge that there was a satisfactory amount of support from the district and individual schools um helping them get access to AP certification training in whatever subject they were interested in teaching. However, like Avani said, a lot of teachers
094express the need for a an additional prep period. While it may be provided, they may be assigned to too many classes to have this accessible in their schedule. And so, they essentially emphasized that this is a non-negotiable, especially for a lot of teachers who feel held back from teaching an AP class currently. And another concern was that there isn't enough student readiness. And especially some of those teachers who said that emphasized that um without honors classes while they see the ideology behind that in students regular college prep classes or maybe they didn't take a class at all in the subject before this. They haven't been able to students haven't been able to have the baseline knowledge expected before they take the AP class. So then teachers have to do more work to teach the basics,
095which goes right back to the first point where they don't feel like they're being seen. Yeah. So that was the bulk of our first project about AP student rec uh adding AP classes. But we also wanted to work on projects that were more involved in the school community. And one problem that we identified was that the process of studying a club is pretty difficult to understand and most of the information is coming from adults within the schools. Um if you look at like Westmore High School for example over like around 70% of our clubs are studied by upper classmen. And so I just thought that was a really missed opportunity for freshman and sophomores to get right into this culture of cultivating these educational spaces. And um the second part of the problem is that
096we think there is not too much of a friendly resource or support system for younger students. And we think that clubs are a really integral part of creating a more educationally diverse and motivating environment. So on a note, we worked on the club information resource guide and it's written by student advisory council members. um between all of us and while we don't represent every school we hope to continue working on this in future years to add more documentation but it goes through a lot of key concepts like starting a club which is called chartering affiliation with external organizations outreach meetings and also planning school events at the moment it's been added to a district newsletter and it's also been sent to individual schools although not all of them just yet and this is also that's
097kind of personal to me um I started did the TEDx West High School student club in my freshman year. And I really wouldn't have been possible without the support of um our activities coordinator and my adviser. And I just hope that in the future we can have more um students cultivating that culture and make it so that there are like friendly students around the corner who they feel comfortable talking about it with. And yeah. >> All right. So, just to sum up our overall findings, um AP biology would be the most feasible class to add to both Terteranova and Oceanana's course cataloges. Um and teachers and administrators express a lack of payment, um especially for the extra work required in teaching AP classes as their biggest obstacle. Thank you. >> Yeah. Um I have some
098comments. Um I think that I think the student guide that um your committee was able to provide is really helpful especially as like a firm believer of um spaces for students to thrive and learn. One comment I do have is that I think that while um our district definitely, especially with your survey, has a lack of AP classes, um I think that there should also be consideration of um other classes and opportunities um that may not be like the traditional AP experience um for students to grow cuz I think those are equally as um important for students. Um to respond to that, uh we originally started this project with um implementing honors and AP classes. Um but we had kind of found out that honors classes were only mainly available at Tteranova and they themselves
099were also trying to cut down on honors classes just because um it was like another class, but you get the grade boost, but you don't get like the college um like prep points. Um, and so yeah, we they just I think the district was trying to cut down on honors classes, so we wanted to focus primarily on AP classes. >> Yeah. And on this, I just wanted to add that while we did start brainstorming at the start of our project a lot of goals for other opportunities and classes, this is what we decide to focus on because it was what was most manageable in our time frame. And we totally hear what you're saying. Well, I think this is a very well put together presentation and honestly I really don't know that much about AP
100classes. I've just heard about it. I think the best we had was advanced biology or something when I went to high school. But um I really like how you pivoted based on the time frame that you had. I liked how you even pivoted and said, "Okay, this can't even work for all of the schools and we're going to narrow it down to the smaller schools." Just getting the input of the teachers. This is just really highlevel investigative um I mean this is just excellent um work that you've done and the fact that you have done a guide >> for freshmen. Well, for all the students is just impressive because I remember how it was the first day of high school and it's just terrifying. It's just kind of nice to know that you're thought of.
101You know what I'm saying? Because, you know, in 8th grade, you're like at the top of the food chain and then you drop all the way back down after two months. You know what I'm saying? So, um, thank you for this presentation. Have a lot to think about. Thank you. I think with regard to the AP question, you hit the nail on the head. I mean, you really hit all the pros and cons of the AP classes, but one of the things that I know I run into sometimes when I'm out talking to community members, people do ask me, you know, about the AP classes that are offered and, you know, why does this school have this class and this school has that class and it's not offered at the school my kid attends? and
102you've just done some incredible work to identify how you can add a course and where there is interest and that's really important data to have. So really well done and the club information resource guide that's brilliant. I guess I should have probably read the district newsletter on Friday because then I should have found out about this and clearly I did not. But this is really brilliant. So brilliant work. >> Yeah, excellent work. Um, yeah, I I run into that all the time also. Um, but also, you know, we we made a decision years ago that we would make AP accessible to everyone. So, that was a big step that we took, but still students don't know what they are. Um, uh, and I I won't even touch master scheduling. That's like above my head. Um,
103but I'm sure that you guys looked into that as well. That that is that's a whole another animal. Um, let's see. But with the I have a question about the that club guide is amazing. >> Um, do does each school have a different process for getting a club chartered? >> Um, I think there are like slight variations, but most of them have a club charter form. I know at West we have to like clubs had to give a pitch to the associated student body executive board. Not quite sure if it's like that for other schools, but want to make sure that we are like specifying for which schools to be a very clear process. >> Do you know how it is at Oceanana or Jeff? Um, I know for at least Terteranova, we don't have
104to pitch it to anyone, but student interest is probably the most important thing because um, new clubs have to fill out a form that at least I think 25 people fill to make sure that there's um, interest and then it gets approved by um, our principal, Miss Carrie. >> And then you have to find an advisor. >> Yeah, I think that's pretty universal. Very cool. um at Jeff. I'm not exactly sure how it is, but I know that recent earlier I said that B BSU was up running again because they were we were not active during the first semester. So recently we just got we got club more club members cuz there weren't that many people involved. So I think that we had to get more people involved but it's kind of similar to how
105they do it at their school as well. >> Cool. Thank you. >> Thanks very much. Nice job. Um, I have a question. So, you talked about how you did some pivoting, you made some choices about what ended up being a bit of a concentration on AP classes. Thank you. Was there anything else that stood out that you kind of regretted having to pivot away from? I think one of the ideas we initially had that first came to mind was we were initially focusing more a lot on like opportunities. So it was like the club guy that we um made. But I remember another um idea idea that we had was introducing more college tours or um more collaboration with our um college and career counselors. >> Thank you. Nice work. Great. >> Thank you. Well
106done. And our final group for this evening is new student integration. Okay. So, welcome to the new student integration. So, >> I'm going to stop you. Sorry. I had told some kids that you guys needed to stay for everybody, but I'm seeing that they're the only row who's staying and all the other kids are leaving. So, I'm going to let them go. You guys may go cuz I realize it's getting late. Um, but I'm sorry. I see a bunch of people leaving and I don't want them to do it right while you're speaking. So, if you need to go, you may go, but if you have time to stay for your peers, that would be nice. Okay, Adam, turning it back over to you. >> Yes, thank you. So, we're part of the new student
107integration and um I think that last year we also worked on an interactive tool and I think carrying it on to this year, our group was able to build upon it. So, um yeah, we have much exciting news for you guys. So, hello everyone. My name is Adam. Um, I'm a senior at Westmore High School and this is my second year serving on this subcommittee. Um, and a main reason why I chose to join this subcommittee was because I believe that the student experience um, in JUHSD should be really the integration of the whole process should be much smoother. So, I really wanted to improve upon that. Hi, my name is Shuming Tion. I'm a junior at Westmore High School and this is my first year serving on the student advisory board. Uh the main
108reason why I chose the new student integration was because I myself faced these struggles when I first uh came to Westmore and I wanted to make it easier for other new students to settle in Westmore. >> Good evening. My name is Marina Sergiva and I'm a current junior at Oceanana. And the main reason for why I joined this subcommittee of new student integration is because I wanted to create a space that could welcome students and help them integrate into a new environment such as high school. So yeah, my name is Edward Miles. I'm a junior at Jefferson. Um, I joined new student integration because I feel like Jefferson, especially with its unique schedule and large student population, has um a bit of intricacies that I personally needed help with when I was entering the environment.
109So, I think it's really important that people get the help that I've needed. >> Hello, my name is Caitlyn Tienn. I'm a junior at Westmore High School. This is my first year on student advisory and um I wanted to join not only to bring awareness to these issues but also find solutions for them too. So um we did a lot of brainstorming about the different issues that we've personally seen with new student integration. um our head was in a lot of different environments, but the main thing that we decided to focus on was the integration of freshmen since they are the biggest um population of new students. So, after surveying a variety of students around around the district, um we found out that around 20% of JST's class of 29 didn't know where to find
110basic information about their schools, like classes, clubs, or sports. And a lot of new students don't know about their school's opportunities and programs that may that may even involve things like scholarships. Um, adding on, we discovered that 53.6% of our current freshman class have never talked to a counselor. So, this shows that new students aren't familiar with our school's resources and also that schools lack a lot of engagement with newer students. So um to summarize, we identified a significant gap in support available to students entering the JUHSD community. So many incoming students struggle to navigate their environment, connect with extracurricular opportunities, and access counseling resources, which all of which are essential and beyond important for, you know, a successful transition into high school because it's such a different environment. So to address this we developed
111a digital resource that brings together um extracurricular information. It brings together the maps of the campuses and also counselor support as a whole accessible platform. So our goal was to create a practical tool that helps students um from the very first day. So this resource is also now available um through a QR code. So, if you'd like to scan that, you can also follow along and try to interact with the website as we go ahead and give a little tutorial about how it works. Just let us know when you're ready to transition the couches. >> We will get into that, I think. >> Should does it matter what school we follow or is it universal? Um so there currently on the website we have three different schools so it doesn't really matter which you follow
112along with um most of them are all developed so you guys are free to explore as we give a little tutorial about how >> yeah so initially you'll probably land at this welcome page where you get to pick the school that you want to navigate around and then afterwards uh this map will show up where there's going to be little red dots all over the map. And you can click on any of those points to get more details. So, for example, we chose the Westmore High School map. And if you click on a location, it'll show something like this where you get to see a picture, a visual representation of what it is like and some information about that location. So, for the main office and like some contact details at Wesmore. So, yeah, that's
113basically the main gist of it. And also, I'm not sure if you can see, but there's like a navigation bar on top. And through those, you can access the common questions asked for like common questions answered for that school, the clubs that are at that school, and the counseling tab, which is linked to the counseling website for the respective school. >> Okay, I'm so excited right now. >> Me, too. >> I'm losing my mind. >> Excuse us while we don't pay attention. I am just blown away by this. This is crazy. >> I also know you're presenting. Oh, I've been over here saying myself. >> You can let them show it to you. You don't have to. >> No, no, no. It's It's We're exciting. We're excited. >> It's like when teachers pass out papers,
114but then they say, "Don't look at the paper yet because >> we're all pouch." >> I put my phone down so I can listen to you, but Oh my goodness. Wow. >> Well, u um we've stunned you >> based on what you've seen and will probably seen um after exploring our website after our presentation. Our expected outcomes um of this tool is not only so that new students can feel more prepared but we want to use it as an aid for teachers and counselors. I think that um you know this is when given to teachers and counselors and using like you being used um really well like it can really be able to help students um trans transition into high school and it can only add to their high school experience especially when um students
115are given the knowledge to join organizations and clubs and much like the previous subcommittee presented we're like a firm believer believer in these organizations. Um, and we really do hope that this starts um making it a lot easier for them to start. Um, so looking ahead at our future goals after we've collected data from over 250 students schoolwide, I mean districtwide, and creating our website, uh, we still have identified several key areas for growth. So, we intend to expand to other campuses such as Terteranova and um Thornton. As you guys have seen, the website does not include those campuses, but we are anticipating on adding those. Um, and we also intend on collaborating directly with counselors and teachers to integrate this into a new student um integration process. So, for example, at Oceanana, we've spoken
116with counselors about um so a little bit of background, Oceanana students receive a folder with resources that they can access as a freshman, and we have created a resource with a QR code, so a flyer that will also be placed into their folder. So, that will be um a resource they can access. As well, student um sorry um as well, we also plan to work further on our wellness resources with the counseling team. may be in relation to the wellness committee. So, we want to make resources much easier to find because as the wellness committee has stated, resources are accessible, especially in Oceanana's case, but they're rarely ever used and utilized. Um, so, you know, and lastly, we want to improve the overall accessibility of our website so that every student can benefit from such
117a resource. So right now while it's still you know only for three schools we want to work further to expand our horizon and obviously to um incorporate a more counseling aspect with like wellness counselor and make it overall a platform where students can get any information they may need. Thank you. Any questions? Wow, >> I have so many questions. >> How But how did you develop this? >> How did you do this? >> Um, so this is like a continuation of the student integration. Yeah, the new student integration project from last year. >> Yeah. Uh, I initially made it for Westmore last year and this year we expanded it to two more schools. Yeah, >> I I I don't even I don't even have words for what I just experienced. I think it's amazing and
118this is just going to always be with the schools. So, I already see it expanding. It's already expanded in my mind, you know, because this is just the new way and the way that the ghosts remind me of Pac-Man. So that >> Exactly. >> I was excellent. Absolutely excellent. And I'm always concerned with um that portion of the population that's missed, that just slides under the radar. So for some reason this made me consider them and that's like the first group that I thought of and it's like yes we want and if you just start as freshman maybe we won't lose people you know I I I don't know that thank you for this presentation excellent >> like if I could add on to your point I think the wellness group made a point about
119how accessibility for like a counselor there's this stigma about you know scanning QR post to get in touch with a wellness counselor. But we feel like as a group, this resource could be something where those students that are, you know, inherently a little bit more extroverted might want to access and they will get the resources they need through a more digital platform. So I totally agree with your point of getting to every student equally >> and thank you. Well, actually all the groups really are working for everyone. >> So it's just very impressive. Thank you so much. >> The fact that four of you are going to be back for one more year to help build this out even further is very exciting and and you know I look forward to seeing how you train
120others behind you so that this continues on in perpetuity you know and and just just really well done. This is really literally out of the box thinking and I hate using that phrase but I have to use it in this case because it's very clear. Um, this is a necessary resource. And will this QR code also be in the district newsletter? I wonder. So, fantastic work. Really well done. >> Great work. Um now I know this is all developed by students and for it to be more broadly distributed in the district. You know I uh I would invite input from you know our our uh our leaders at the district. um you know, talk to them, you know, cuz I could see this that boy if I if I well, I used to n try
121to navigate the when my son was in school, it was hard navigating the website to find bell schedules, all this stuff. Um if I had this, I would be able to find things so easily. And then also um this would be great for you know uh when we have our open houses you know if people want to get more information about each school they have it handy. Um I mean even here how many credits do I need to graduate? Um you have so many different things that you've thought of. Um but we I I would love to get this expanded. It's just fantastic. So, the tech is cool. Um, congratulations and it's useful and a lot of things that people say in um, Internet Workflow meetings, congratulations. That's fantastic. Um, a few meetings ago at
122student advisory, trustee Gyos came up to me and he said, "Do you know what they're doing over there?" I said, "I I've sat on their group a little bit." and he goes, "No, no, no, man. This is pretty cool." So, I wanted to say that because he's not here right now to say it. Um, so congratulations on all that. Um, I didn't say something to everyone and you can only say it after the last maybe it takes the last group to kind of notice the patterns. Um, I hope that this experience has been great for all of you. It's been great to see you go through it. It's been great to be in your student advisory meetings and see your groups grow. Um, I hope there's a way to get this on your resume, on
123your college applications, your scholarship applications, whatever you do next. You know, I hope there's a way you can find to do that. Um, maybe there's a way that someone who sees this can recommend you for something. Keep that in mind. And I think that it goes for all the groups. I still see themes of leadership. Um all the groups again talking about personal motivation, um problem solving, service, um raising awareness, um taking care of the inexperienced people. Um that's a common theme. Um you know, this one's cool because it's modern, has some it factor going on. And uh I think that it's fantastic to see these leadership traits. Congratulations. >> So, I'm sorry um that I didn't navigate all the kids staying, but I'm really grateful that some of you did stay. And there were
124a couple kids who went out right after you presented because I I know that some of your peers saw you guys working, but everybody was kind of working on their own. And I hope that they take a look at it because this was really great. All of the groups worked really hard. And as I said at the at the beginning, we did it differently this year. I kind of gave more input than I usually do. Kind of was more teachery. Um, and I feel like I'm really excited as as was said that many of you are going to be continuing on because I just see it growing even more in the coming year. Thank you. I'm sorry that you're out so late, but thank you for staying and have a good night. If you haven't
125seen Superintendent Prea in teacher mode, you should you should get a get a look at it. I feel like um so once again students in the room I feel like we should like celebrate or something before we just move on with the agenda but we'll just have to satisfy ourselves with the action items and public hearings. Um >> no there's one more one more >> sorry Bashers is going to follow that. >> I'm so sorry. We've got another fabulous presentation. >> Uh 16B1 school spotlight, the adult education program, which is just across the parking lot. Principal Bashers. >> Well, I usually don't have a problem following other acts, but that that was genuinely exciting. I I'm just blown away by that. They were all fantastic, but boy, they saved the >> knockout crunch for the
126last thing, didn't they? That was amazing. >> Well, thank you guys so much for letting me spotlight uh the Jefferson Adult Division. Um, okay. >> Oh, you guys can't hear me over there? Usually, usually they can always hear me. So, uh, uh, yeah, as you can see, I picked a nice classic daily city, uh, weather day to take a photo of the school. Um, so just a quick overview, uh, the adult division includes the adult transition program. These are, uh, adults with IEPs ages 18 to 22. We also have the adult education program. And this is, uh, well, I'll break it down for you. We'll start first with ATP. Uh, we use this program. This is to empower students with extensive support needs to achieve life progress. We're focusing on uh on on their independence
127and actually you know this all came from um the guidance from our our director uh Lee Medvidov and the program that he went through at San Francisco State and and these were the the five things that he really wanted us to focus on when we both started collaborating on ETP. that's focusing on student independence, um, job skills assisted obviously by our fabulous transition department and the job coaches that we have over there. Uh and and to kind of dig into that for just a little bit, we also are so pleased that, you know, with this community that we're in, we have Ace Hardware, Dave and Busters, Walgreens, Youth Point, Costco, uh Classic Bowl, uh you know, that these guys and and others that that open up their institutions and let our students come in and
128work on these vocational skills. And I should also recognize Kim Schrader and you got to see it the other day, the vocational training room that we have upstairs, which is is kind of unique and sort of uh you know a crown jewel of the uh the ATP program. We al also focus on community participation. ATP students spend a lot of time in the community working on pedestrian safety, learning how to navigate, you know, SAM Trans and BART, uh visiting the library, shopping for nutrition lessons. Also once a week, Miss Laura Yuri takes a different class out into the community for directed activities, community exploration. They go to grocery stores specifically to learn how to read nutrition labels. Uh learning about the oceans at California Academy of Sciences or just recently they they all went out
129to um Grace Cathedral to to do the labyrinth out there. And then just general life skills, you know, these are functional academics. There's there's still we do an academic rotation in the afternoon after lunch. Each student will go to a uh their class rotates to a different teacher. For one, this allows all of our teachers to get to know each of the students. So, there's 42 students, you know, in at at ATP. Every teacher knows every student by the name. Every parent knows every student. And uh and the students then they also know all of the adults in the program there. Um, yeah, with the life schools there, it's it's functional academics, planning a shopping list, looking for bargains, planning a budget, learning about health, cooking, and using a washer and dryer. Um, we also
130do a sexed unit while we're over there, which is very important. And then finally, recreational activities. This is going to include physical activity. This is we want our students to maintain their health and their happiness when they uh when they leave ATP. If you ever want to swing by on a Friday, uh, after lunch, we call it fusion Fridays where there are different activities that students can choose to participate in. They may want to be working on art, they may go down to our wonderful neighbors over at Westmore. They let us use their track on uh on, you know, on days when they're not their classes aren't in there. And we also have karaoke and things like that, you know, for the students to just kind of show off and do their thing. We've started
131something new over there and it's really just in the beginning phases, but we call it the paraprofessional collaborative teams. It's kind of a riffing on PLC's. They're specifically designed to build professional capacity in our paraprofessionals. Uh we coined the term, I think in a couple of years, it's going to be a buzzword. You're going to hear it around the district, but paraprofessionalism. And and that's something that that really what we want to see our paras. you know, they they gather data, service providers expect them to do it. Do they spend any time with that data? Have they learned how to analyze it? And can it inform their practices and the way that they work with students? Students, you know, they're there to achieve goals. We've got goals listed in their IEPs. What about when they're
132standing at the bus stop? Can a parent be working on a speech goal with a student? Can a parent be can a parent be working on on an independence goal, on a behavior goal? So we're looking for ways where where our paras work in small teams. They look at student data and they'll just focus on one or two students at a time and then look at and then provide feedback to the case manager as well as the uh as the service provider. It's getting our paras involved in what the students are doing on a on a day-to-day basis over there. Most of you are familiar with Imaginate Youth, the collaborative arts program that we do with creativity explored. It was designed specifically for our students. Uh they came and found us and we gosh I
133guess we're going on our third year now. Um this this body you guys have have recognized two students from ATP who are are both very very active in the uh the creative arts u and working with creativity explored. I got to go to the gala, the creativity explored gala on Friday night where Megan Williams, you guys all remember her from the fall. And last year's uh ATP student of the month, Yahir Perez, was there. They both had artwork in the silent auction. Megan's sold for $250. Yahir's piece sold for $950. And he gets to keep half of it. It was so great. It was it was really special. Uh and and Chelsea has just sent out the invitation for the final exhibition for the spring. Uh if if you're able to make it, they'd love
134to have you. It's really really a lot of fun. Little bit about enrollment just so you guys can get an idea of what's uh what's currently happening. There are 80 students, you know, between 9th and 12th grade in the district right now that will eventually be coming to us. And you can see how uh how we're projecting the numbers to grow. We'll see. We've got 42 students this year. We'll have 52 next year. We're hiring a new teacher. Uh actually, we're hiring two new teachers. We expect by the following year, uh we're going to be in the high 50s, but we we definitely expect the program's going to keep growing. So, now to talk a little bit about adult ed. So, um you know, the the the main thing that we do at adult ed
135obviously is going to be e English as a second language. I am waiting for the state to catch up with what we do at the high schools where we call it English learning. You know, English language learners. They still call it English as a second language. Although a number of my students speak more than one language, more than two, more than three. We also do high school equivalency and diploma. You can finish your secondary education. You can earn your credentials. You get, you know, equivalency or even work towards your diploma if you were within a certain number of credits. And then there's our career technical education programs as well. that's going to be a big focus moving into the future and I'll talk a little bit about that. So, you guys are very aware of
136some of the changes that adult education is having to navigate right now. Uh, a lot of it has to do with declining enrollment and uh funding reductions. Um, this has led us regrettably to have to close some programs. our PM classes over at Jefferson, you know, in the evenings. Uh, I started seeing it last year and getting concerned. It was right about January, right when immigration enforcement was really, really ramping up and we saw the numbers just plummet over there. Felt like there was a little bump spring of this year and then five targeted ICE activ, you know, actions in in the community and Mr. Ino's class emptied out entirely. Literally was nobody coming back. Uh also war memorial the uh the the attendance there had dropped to about four students and maybe three would
137show up regularly. And this has also forced us to to you know have to adapt our our our online program restructuring it to optimize our resources. Basically we've had to combine some classes. And so these are not things that we wanted to see, but this is this is definitely what uh what we're looking at. And give you an idea. You can look at what our enrollment spent. Prior to the pandemic, right about the time I came over here, you know, there was and I should point out these are duplicated student accounts because you may have a student taking uh an ESL class, they're also taking a CTE class, and they might also be working on their uh their high school diploma. Um but yeah, you can see you know we were starting we had about
1382800 students. Uh the numbers obviously dropped during during CO at 2223 we bounced up almost back to our precoid numbers there and then you can see you know went down to 1759 1445 and then this year we're at 1265. I don't know how much of this we can we can say has to do and it's it's it's anecdotal in many ways but I have been looking a lot into how uh policy shifts on immigration have had an impact um for one one thing that you can see is that uh um you know these changes are creating they're creating systemic headwinds new federal policies and look we all see what you have seen what happened in Minnesota while that's gone on other things have happened that are quieter that people are not get necessarily protesting $100,000
139for an H-1B visa. um you know the the this this is having a chilling effect obviously you know there's there's fewer student visas going out people who have already been vetted and are in the United States are getting revetted and then we're seeing travel bans and path um pathway posits and these these are affecting nearly half of all permanent visa pathways. It's a disruption of the education to career pipeline. Federal policies are breaking this critical education to career pathway that previously moved international students into the workforce. This is directly impacting California's ability to address workforce shortages in key sectors like technology and healthcare. Um let me talk a little bit about our budget so you can see how it impacts us. Now the state guarantees us our money. That's the cape funding. California adult education
140programming. That's roughly 1.8 million that we get. uh it's you go down to San Mateo who's adult they're a part of our consortium they're closer to 4 million you know but that was worked out long before I got here but the state will also supplement that with a cola increase every year but that is slowing to a trickle um the the preliminary funding has been uh announced um the director our executive director of the consortium you know she says I'm not allowed to show it yet but she's like but she could basically give you know the gist you know, we'll get our guaranteed 1.8 million. Uh we haven't seen the May revise, but uh right now it's only about a 20 grand cola increase. Where we get hit a lot is with we owe a
141title two. Um that's the federal funding and that money comes from what we call payment points. So students come to uh they want to sign up for ESL classes, they're going to take the cases test and that gives us a precore allows us to place our students correctly but it also sets a line and then when they take their post test if we can show a gain that's a payment point. Persistence is a g a payment point. If a uh student after they've left us they complete the employment and earnings survey that's a payment point. So these are ways that we get money. As you know, enrollment declines, there's fewer students means fewer payment points. The impact, you know, as I mentioned before, on California's education, we've got about 25% of the nation's foreignb born
142population here in California. So this is going to have a big impact. I've been talking about it with my uh uh colleagues in the consortium. um even had an opportunity on a WASK visit to talk with uh you know other uh adult school principles from around the state and and we're all kind of seeing the same thing. It's a chilling effect. It's discouraging enrollment due to fears of data sharing and this revetting. It's the pipeline disruption. Um and you can see student visa issue issuances have dropped 50%. And then, you know, if we're forced to rely on state cola as an international student revenue drops for our state, that's $7 billion. Uh, big surprise, California has, you know, we get, you know, the majority of the WEOA funding. It comes here. The consortium which uh
143we belong to is San Mateo County College. No, San Mateo. We didn't do a good job renaming this. We used to be called Excel. Now we're called, I think you could pronounce that, Smickace. Smickace, San Mateo County Consortium for Adult and Career Education. I got it. Rolls off the tongue, doesn't it? Um, you know, for one, all of our schools, we follow the Safe Haven guidelines. We we do not require proof of uh uh you know legal entry into the United States. Um we have a voluntary social security number form if if you know if people want to give it to us. The state likes to get that. By the way, there's payment points for it. But a lot of students understandably are very you know uh hesitant to to do that. We follow all
144of those because we want to keep our students feeling safe when they come in. Um, recruitment at Jefferson Adult is pivoting towards upskilling domestic workers. This follows I spent some time with the the Migration Policy Institute's uh most recent report. Yes, what's happening at the federal level kind of looks like a moratorum on um on immigration, but the one thing that we do have to remember when WEOA was was originally authorized that was it was a very very popular thing. it was bipartisan. Um, people want to make sure that there is still adult education out there. Unfortunately, a lot of the focus now is shifting away from ESL and even high school equivalency and high school diploma towards career technical education and upskilling. But you know uh until they have absolutely you know taken away
145the wea money we are working towards pursuing 243 grants starting in August. Uh the 243 grant comes open again. Uh we have uh two programs that we'll be we'll be trying to get uh funded through that. One is our our instructional aid/paraprofessional preparation program called understanding children and the learning environment. Uh that's been pretty popular. We have seven people completing that and getting their certificates that will be able to go to our district district across the street over to South San Francisco and get a job as an instructional aid or a paraprofessional. And I'm kind of excited about this one because I started trying to make this happen when I first got to uh adult ed looking at at a major industry in Daily City in KMA where the Bay Area likes to bury their
146dead. We are going to be offering a funeral assistant program starting next year. We're doing it in um association with San Monteo County, I mean with San Monteo uh uh adult education. Uh it's a hybrid course. During the week, they will be on the students will be online. On the weekend, they actually have their in-person class and that will be over in building B. This summer I will take delivery on an inbalming table, a gurnie and a casket and have to find a place to put them over there. But this is how we're, you know, we're we're wanting to get that money that will offset some of the losses of the other programs and also with the help of the district, uh, you know, we've managed to, uh, figure out how we're going to keep
147the programs that we have open and and stay there. Oh, well, you guys have been listening to a lot, but I'm sure you have some questions for me. I don't really know where to start, but uh just your thoughtfulness and just really covering like the whole pie of the situation and finding ways and pivoting. I know you had to combine classes and that's what you have to do, but it could still work. is not optimal, but that you're still looking to bring the same level to your students, the community, which is going to better the community. I I really like I really like that. And the about the funeral assistant program, chef's kiss on that. >> No. >> Yeah. That was not phrasing that I was expecting to hear in a board meeting. >> Oh,
148sorry. >> No, no, it's okay. No, no, not that, but very specifically the journey and the inbombing table, etc. So, >> instructional materials, right? >> No, it is. It absolutely is. >> Um, you know, I'm glad that you, you know, shown a light on specifically what's happening at the federal level that's causing the disruption in our communities and the targeted attacks, frankly, on on our neighbors. and it sucks and we have to call it out here in this in this forum. We we do have to say it. I mean, it's it's it's we're we're a community here that doesn't shy away from the truth as it's happening. And I'm glad that that you were able to to speak to it because because it is a direct impact on the people we care about. I just
149across the room I could feel your emotion, you know, as you were as you were saying that and and I remember, you know, that Wednesday when we heard about, you know, what happened over by ranch 90 99 Ranch Ranch 99 Ranch. Um, but how much pride I felt when I heard that two Westmore students, you know, they heard what happened. They rushed and found their principal and their principal immediately, you know, called that faith and action um crisis line and it was like the that's why I love being in this community. I mean, people do try to look out for each other, >> right? >> Exactly. >> And I know that's, you know, that is really the feeling on this dis. That's the feeling in this room. We we're all we all have each other's
150backs to make sure that we take care of the people who need the help. Yeah. >> So, I appreciate that. And, you know, and I I just have to say, you know, just on a personal level, since my son Henry was a sub and last year and he and one of the his favorite assignments was actually helping out in adult transition very specifically, he really enjoyed working with those kids when he when he picked up those shifts. So, thank you. Um, thank you for allowing him some space to be able to enjoy spending some time with these students. Um, I just want to thank you for everything you're doing. Um, because you care so deeply. And I, this is a an incredible slideshow you gave us, but what's behind it is a man who cares
151very much about our community. um every single one of these uh students and um who's gonna I mean you're such a big advocate for them and uh and I just see when the students are crazy about you too, you know. Um I uh I I like what Trustee Lee said. I'm I'm glad you didn't I mean you're you actually addressed a lot of the pains that um we're going through and the uncertainty um and the the hard truths about what our community is facing. That's why I finally got a passport in case I get detained. and uh you know my daughter Carly um she she forgot her ID and she said well I have my passport on me and I said I said why why do you have your passport in your backpack why because
152mom you scared me you said I need my passport and I you know and this now that we're there's some people who believe that there's relief that these are targeted detainments, but that is not a relief. They're coming. They're here. >> They're here. And if it scares our our families and our students, um, you know, I I we all have to rally together to protect them. You know, >> I'm going to add that every person who works in that building over there says exactly what you're saying there. and and you know couple of weeks ago was right after you know that uh that incident you know I know Victor met with his staff and and I met with ours and and you know the level of interest everybody takes in being able to to provide
153security you know for our students make sure that they feel safe coming there honestly I think something about that building and and and I can't thank you guys enough for for seeing that project all the way through to the end that students do feel safe in there because for For some reason, the students are still coming at night. >> That's great. >> To that program, >> they're they're not as comfortable being out at Jefferson at night, but they keep coming here. >> I I feel like it's the atmosphere there and also it's tucked away. It's uh it feels safe where it's located. Um yeah, I'm glad we got that done, too. But I just want to thank you for everything you're doing, your entire staff. Um, you know, I'm going to miss the uh creativity
154uh the the final um show, but >> I think you've been to all the others. >> I have cuz Carly's graduating, so I'll be in New York. >> That's very exciting. >> Yeah. So, thank you so much, Mr. Bishiers. >> Thank you. That was uh an all-encompassing presentation. Um I don't have many questions. I don't have any questions for you. I don't have a bunch of comments, but I want to continue what I said earlier when the students presented. I see these themes of leadership again and I want to congratulate you on them um for providing them to your staff and I when we had our meeting last week, I think you said something about um how about what they give that helps the program that helps you plan the program helps have success. So,
155I think that's two-way street. I see uh agility in what you're doing. A lot of times having to come up with a new solution throws people for a loop. Um and I I wonder if you see it as an opportunity. Um uh in my fourth year on the board, I think I've heard Trusty Lee say this a few times. You're doing the work. Um uh also on Thursday you said um that in some unnamed year you uh did your student teaching in the district and never left. Um and that's uh that's loyalty and I like the way you've looked out for your staff. You talk about some professional training. Um I keep seeing these themes of leadership. Um thank you. I'm going to be brief. Thank you so much. Um Mark, I am just impressed
156with your your slides game that you're honestly that was so that was great. I mean >> that first one though that I'm like looking at myself like oh >> no for real. I I mean like it's all information that I know because I you know work with you and talk with you and know what's up. But it was um I think a really great like I want to post that somewhere because it's a really clear explanation of the adult programs. Um I mean it was it was um visually appealing as well, but it was a really clear presentation of like what goes on over at adult school. So thank you and thanks for your good work. >> Thank you. Uh 17A1 is a public hearing and action item. Uh the resolution 2025 202614 increasing school
157facilities fees as authorized by government code section 65995B3. Um, who's going to talk to us about this? Oh, Deputy Superintendent of Business Services, Ms. Van Rapor. >> Thank you, President Walker. Good evening, everyone. Uh, before you tonight is a resolution to increase developer fees uh when construction happens in our attendance area. The impact to our schools uh is offset by these fees. We recently conducted a study that shows the justification for raising these fees to the maximum allowable rate authorized by EDC code. And if you have any questions, let me know. Otherwise, I recommend that you adopt this resolution following a public hearing. >> Thank you. I'm I'm looking for a little guidance. Should we discuss first or should I open a public hearing first? >> Public hearing. Thank you. Let's open the public hearing.
158Seeing no public comment, I will now close the public hearing. >> Discussion. >> Questions? No. >> Yeah, it's pretty clear. >> Pretty clear. >> Pretty cut and dry. Move to approve resolution 2025202614 to increase the school facilities fees to $5.38 per square foot. I second. >> All in favor of the motion as stated. >> I >> um thank you. Uh the next items, consideration of future agenda items. I don't see any. Uh the next item is adjournment. So moved. >> There is a >> Oh, okay. Is that >> the adjournment? There's something to >> Oh, there's a read. I'm sorry. Thank you. Uh so I'm going to read an adjournment. Uh tonight we adjourn tonight's meeting in honor of Ellen Litman who was hired in 1986 as the first special services counselor for Jefferson Union
159High School District. A role now known as wellness counselor based at Westmore High School. Miss Litman was a dedicated advocate for expanding student support services, an effort that grew to include five counselors and five graduate interns at each school site. Her enduring commitment to child advocacy continues to shape the work of the current JUHSD wellness staff of 20. Uh we the Jefferson Union High School District send our condolences to her beloved wife Nano Oconor, her children, grandchildren, and greatgrandson. Uh we have moved and seconded uh to adjourn. Uh all in favor? >> I I >> uh we're journed at 9:32.