001Hey. Hey. Hey. Let to come to order and start our meeting at 6:04 p.m. May have a roll call. here. >> Here >> vice president >> here. >> President >> here. Thank you. Uh we have an agenda tonight. Uh were there are there any changes to the agenda? >> There are no changes. >> Let's approve it. Shall we move? Uh move to approve the agenda. >> Second. >> All in favor of approving the agenda? >> I >> um there are some minutes from the February 10th board meeting. >> Move to approve. >> Second. >> All those in favor? >> I uh item five, recognitions and commendations. Uh, we're going to talk about the Teranuas Terteranova High School student of the year, Principal Carrie. Good evening, members of the board. Every year, each school site selects
002one student who represents the very best of its spirit, leadership, and promise. And for Teranova High School this year, that student is Gabby Dogi. It's always fascinating every year as the principal to watch this whole um process unfold to watch the staff come together around a nomination for this honor. Sometimes there's discussion and sometimes like this year there is an immediate consensus and it was Gabby. Yes, Gabby. Of course, Gabby over and over, chorus upon chorus. And what struck me just as much was what happened next when I reached out to her teachers, adviserss, coaches. The responses poured in. In fact, they were continuing to pour in today. The stories, the examples, the admiration, all of it truly wrote this speech for themselves. Um, in fact, it's probably the easiest job I've had all year
003is standing up here talking about Gabby. And everything I'm about to share comes directly from those who work with her every day. and I've simply just had the privilege of putting all the words together. So, in the film Braveheart, the protagonist William Wallace charges into battle first, his army falling closely behind. He does not lead from the sidelines. He leads from the front with courage, conviction, and example. And Gabby leads in much the same way. Time and time again, she is the first one to step forward during spirit week. While others enjoy the music and games, Gabby is the one pushing the speakers into place, organizing her committee, capturing the microphone, and MCing lunchtime events from start to finish. She empowers her team, but never asks anyone to do what she herself is unwilling to
004do. She leads with enthusiasm and kindness, and our students respond. At the conclusion of rallies after the crowd has left, you can often find Gabby at the front of the gym with a broom in her hand, meticulously sweeping the confetti off the floor. As our ASB president, the most visible student leadership position on campus, it is both refreshing and humbling to see her serve in this way. Her leadership is not about recognition, it is about responsibility. Gabby has been an elected student government officer since 9th grade and again currently serves as our ASB president with a student leadership class of about 70 students across all four grade levels. The role is no small task yet she approaches it with natural ease. She listens first, gathers information, weighs perspectives and then makes thoughtful, fair and informed
005decisions. She is strong, diplomatic, and deeply respected by her peers, and her impact extends well beyond student government. Since her sophomore year, Gabby has served served as president of the Asian club, fostering belonging and strengthening cultural celebrations on our campus. In fact, Gabby organized Teranova's first Filipino American Heritage Month celebration in their new quad where students enjoyed a lively lunchtime filled with original Filipino music from classic Filipino disco hits to modern favorites. The buzz and curiosity she created resulted in many other groups following suit. Gabby is the founder founding member of our women in STEM club which creates opportunities for young women to see themselves in science and technology fields. Under her leadership, the group has not only dissected a fetal pig during lunch, but has delivered presentations on ocean acidification to middle school students
006in Pacifica and was recognized by the Sanonteo County Office of Education as a sustainable and climate ready schools challenge standout leader for the 20242 school year. That recognition honors those who drive meaningful environmental transformation across campus and community. And Gabby did exactly that. She has represented Terteranova at the youth climate summit, participated in beach and campus cleanups, and balanced all of this while competing as a member of our basketball and track teams where she is a fierce competitor, and always represents the black and gold with pride and positive sportsmanship. She has led and organized our senior sunset, homecoming dance, senior sweatshirts, multiple senior fundraisers, and the first ever senior winter fest. Each event reflects careful planning, inclusive leadership, and a commitment to creating lasting memories for her classmates. With a cumulative 4.244 grade point average,
007Gabby is one of our top students in the class of 2026. She has taken our most rigorous course offerings and has excelled in each of them. Her teachers describe her as a natural student, someone who shows up daily with a smile and an eagerness to learn. Her curiosity, creativity, and strong analytical thinking sets her apart. But again, what truly distinguishes Gabby is not simply the number of titles she holds or the event she leads. It's how she leads. with joy, with humility, with resilience. She's always smiling, always uplifting others, and always willing to charge forward first. She embodies leadership, initiative, service, and compassion. She represents the very best of Teranova High School, and I can think of no one more deserving of being named our student of the year. It's my great honor to present
008Gabby Doy. Sorry, I thought you were going to say something. No pressure. Um, we we'd like to speak to you. Congratulations. Uh, student trustees. >> Um, if I could go first, please, >> I'd be very blessed to. Um so for the past few years or past four years, Gabby has been one of my best friends at Teranova. Um a lot of people know her as an incredible leader, athlete, and student, which of course is true, but she is also easily one of the most grounded people that I know. Um and I really don't know anyone else who deserves this more than her. She is always extremely kind and helpful and funny um with whatever she pursues. and she's also the kind of person that knows exactly how to keep it real with you. Um, so
009thank you. Um, and congratulations, Gabby. Any other students, >> please? I remember thinking in middle school, "Wow, this girl's really cool and really smart and you're doing so much and like getting involved in the community and I'm so excited to see what else you do with like the amazing amount of like intelligence and ability to lead that you have." So, congratulations, Gabby. You deserve this. >> Trusty Deno. Um, I don't have as much to say as my other trustees, but to have um, a group of teachers come to such a consensus about a student of the year means a lot to what you've done throughout your high school career. Um, I'm sure they've worked really hard to get here and yeah, that's amazing. >> Thank you. >> How you doing, Gabby? How you feeling out
010there? >> Yeah, pretty good. >> Good. Yeah, you should. >> Yeah. Um, congratulations. Um, uh, it's quite the honor to be, you know, elected the, uh, student of the year. Um, but I think it goes without saying that you've earned that. You've worked really hard to get to this point. And, uh, I also want to congratulate your parents. Um, and thank you for blessing us with this lovely child you have here in our district. Um, you know, uh, Gabby, it sounds like, you know, your leadership really is is is kind of, you know, taking center stage with with everything that you do. Um, and I think that, you know, you're probably impacting more more of the people around you than, you know, and I would like to just encourage you to continue to do that.
011And, um, uh, I think this is just the beginning of, you know, the accolades and the recognitions that you're going to get for all your hard work and the things that you're going to continue to do. So, um, really impressed with the whole, you know, founding the STEM club thing since I'm kind of a science nerd myself. So, um, I think those things, especially from from the female standpoint, is I think we need more of that, you know, in in our society. So, um, keep up the great work. Um, congratulations and, uh, enjoy the rest of your accolades. >> Thank you. Yep. Incredible work, Jabby. You have clearly made an impact on your school community and and your classmates and and and us as a district. We're very proud of the work you've done and
012you should be proud of the work you have done as well. So, as you reflect on this now that you're on the tail end of your high school career, what jumps out at you? What's that one favorite thing that you did over the past four years? Um, I think it's definitely starting my woman in STEM club. Um, just being able to see the impact on our community has been truly great. >> Fabulous. That's great. Thank you so much. And congratulations. >> Thank you. >> Hi, Gabby. Congratulations on this great honor. Um, and I seem so humble and probably a little uncomfortable hearing all the great things about you. Um, I don't I'm sure you don't remember, but um because you were really little when I used to see you at Fernando with your mom and
013your mom was my son's teacher at Fernando and uh your parents are legends in the Daily City education community and um it it just I've seen your name over the years as someone who always achieved and was always involved and now so when I I I was not surprised and I was really delighted Um, but I what stood out for me is it's not that you do all these things and you get all these accolades, but it's how you lead and that you're not you are there. You're going to be one of the ones to sweep up. I mean, and that you're out in the community. It's not just the Terteranova community, but you're reaching out to middle schoolers, too, which is huge. Um, and I I think what uh Trusty Ggo said, the word
014that stood out to me was you are impactful. You have touched a lot of lives, including ours here right now. So, I just want to say thank you so much for everything you've done for our district because you really do exemplify the best um of us and you make us very proud. Thank you. >> Thank you. Congratulations and thank you very much um for impacting the district for making it a little bit easier for all of us. Um it seems like you've uh been able to learn a few things along the way. You've shared it with some people and I'm always happy about the student of the year because it's kind of like hey you've learned a few things. you learned how to figure out a couple hard things and I hope you can take
015it with you. I hope you enjoy this journey. Um, everybody else said something good. So, uh, I don't have much to add. Congratulations and perhaps I will see you at the long jump pit tomorrow. >> Yes, >> Gabby. Um, I want to say of So, you have stood stood out to me over the years. you're one of the first students that we um asked to be in a listening session. So hopefully lots of students at lots of schools have been in listening sessions. But that first year, Miss Miss Baka and I went around and just sort of asked the principles. We asked in advance to, you know, gather up a diverse group of students for us to talk to just to have a conversation about, you know, if you is there anything you'd like to
016change at your school? If there is, what would that be? And um so I think that's the first time that I sort of formally met you. Um and you really stand out because of your really kind aura. I think when you walk into the room, you just sort of radiate this kindness and positivity. I know I feel it. Um and so that for me personally stands out with you. I loved reading all of this stuff. It's clear that you have an interest in um the environment. I love that you started the women in STEM. That's fabulous. And I know that whatever you do uh in life, you are going to make things better. So, um congratulations. Congratulations to your parents and thank you for raising uh this lovely young person and this strong young woman.
017Um and congratulations. >> Thank you so much. Okay, sounds good. I think we do it. Would you guys It's all night. Just Okay, thank you. >> Yeah. Okay. Thanks everyone. Uh item 6A, the board report. Let's start with some students. Mr. Miles. Um so out of Jeff, um our prom theme was recently announced by our student government. It is going to be Golden Knights, City Lights with the San Francisco theme. Uh, this applies to the whole district, but spring sports have started their seasons. Um, our quarter 3 finals are this week, Thursday, and Friday, which kind of works out like midterms for us. Uh, today at lunch, there was a Bruno Mars lookalike contest hosted by Filipino American Club. Um, in light of his new album, there was a sock drive ran by student government
018to help those in need. Um, I'm not sure who's won yet. There was a track invitational meet at Skyline High School in our 4x8 relay team won second place medals. There was an ear night hosted by Middle Eastern North African club in honor of Ramadan. Our senior superlative winners were announced. There was um I think the last of ELPAC testing and our Stanford blood drive is going to be March 27th. Anyone who's 16 and older is eligible to participate. Um, for Teran Nova, we had our first badman game against Jefferson. Um, last week, baseball and softball have been very active. We have our first track meet hosted at Teranova tomorrow on Wednesday. And last week we had our sports boosters crab feed. Um, our spring musical, Legally Blonde, will be hosted at the end of
019this month. And some fundraisers we still have going on are our class of 28 seas candy fundraiser and our round table. Um, fundraiser for also for the class of 28 in the Lindamar roundt. Uni unified Olympics and unified proms are in the works. Our March Madness starts this Friday. Um, we also have outdoor ed this week. Um, this past weekend we had all city festivals and concerts where we had a bunch of vendors and some of our band performing. We also had our career fair last week which had um many vendors like the San Francisco Zoo. Um, and state testing for our juniors begins this week. >> Thank you, Miss Schuler. >> All right. And for Ocean, we just recently had our spring fling dance that took place um last Friday. Very successful. I think
020it was one of our best decorated dances yet. ASB really pulled out all the stops this year and we got a lot of good feedback regarding our lighting and the DJ. So, that was cool. Our prom committee has also um begun working on advertisement and our venue um for the event. We've also had our academic support through our associated student body. Congress, um, which is a relatively new committee, has started offering English language arts support in addition to math lessons after school in our library. So, they're expanding. Uh, we're also beginning the distribution of our senior sweatshirts. Um, we've had our first track meet at Berling game uh this today actually. Um, and we did have our minions rally on the 27th. Um we had interim fair recently which was if for those of you
021who don't know Oceanana has a weekl long program where students are able to um engage in like a specific elective. Um so all the electives were out to fund raise and sell food at this event. Um it was very successful and a lot of funds were raised for these interims. Um, we're also having our upcoming event uh to bolster enrollment uh which is called Springfest this Friday offering free food and games for incoming eighth grading eighth grader students. Um, we're also having we had a Panda Express fundraiser for our interim that flies out to Washington DC to interact with a bunch of different students from around the United States. Uh, we also have our upcoming senior exhibition on Friday, March 27th, where all of our senior students who have been working on a specific research
022project all year get to present their findings to the community. Our Black and Latino student union club also invited a poet to come speak to our Spanish classes and our 9th and 10th grade students who are involved in world history and ethnic studies courses. Um, we're also having a career day this Friday as well. Also students will get a chance to explore different fields um in not just science and healthcare but also the trades. Um and then our toy toy drive which was hosted by the secretaries in our associated student body is ending and they're starting up a hygiene drive. And then our representatives from Westmore and Thornton unfortunately were not able to attend this evening but at Westmore the first they had their first bad mitten league of the season against Berling game. um
023the first time they doubledigit won. And they also had their first invitational for track which is the Rustbuster and Certino. They also had their MESA competitions at SF State this Friday when Mesa stands for math and engineering science achievement. It is also pi week at Westmore. Um they're having a Westmore math competition which is a 45minute test style competition after school. The Westmore pie master competition which uh students can memorize as many digits of pi as you can for a prize. They're also having a Westmore poster making competition and a TEDex math speaking event. So, adult and student speakers will talk about where math has taken them. They've also had they're also having a home track meet next Wednesday. Uh their production of Mamma Mia premieres this week. Um they're having a theater spirit week
024beforehand. Prom tickets are on sale and they're having volleyball tournaments Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. There's also a upcoming link crew assembly and upcoming 9th grader schedule choosing the social justice coalition civil engagement speaker event. There's also having that with Fernando Fernando Montentes Montanes. So, sorry, I do not know if I'm pronouncing that correctly. There's also a 9th grade town hall meeting, I believe, where they discuss uh upcoming events. And the French cooking field trip to Oceanana was on last Friday. For Thornton, their quarter is ending this Friday. They're having finals on Thursday and Friday. They're also having a career day next week. And Thornton was recently awarded the model continuation high school designation from the California Department of Education. Uh, thanks a lot, Miss Schuler, for doing triple duty. Uh, uh, board of trustees, trustee
025Goss. >> Yeah. Um, first of all, I want to say I want to give a huge shout out to our to our, um, student trustees up here and, uh, filling us in on all the happenings at the schools and and, uh, kind of seeing how involved they are in all of these activities and how much you could tell they really care about that stuff. And it's really nice to be able to have him up here and share that with everybody. Everybody watching, everybody sitting here. So, you guys are doing an amazing job. I appreciate that. And, uh, as for myself, uh, it was pretty quiet during our little break, so I didn't really get into a whole bunch. I did go to the the all city music, uh, and arts festival at Teranova. Uh, my
026son, he goes to Cabrillo, and he was playing percussions and maracas in in one of the songs. So, um it's just really cool to see music in schools still. I know for a while there I think you know just thinking about having to cut things like that out of our um out of their programs. Uh it's kind of a bummer especially when you see how much they enjoy doing it and you know what they get out of it. And for three schools to get together like that in Pacifica, couple middle a middle school and a a K through eight and a high school and really come together and make some good music like that. It was really impressive. And um I I really enjoyed it actually. um been to a lot of band recital and
027can't always say that, you know, when they're trying to learn how to play instruments, but these guys were killing it. So, uh huge shout out to Oliver Bishop at the Terteranova program, Matthew Gyos at the Cabrillo program, and Dylan, uh Benander at at IBL. So, that's it for me. Just a couple of quick ones for me was last week attending the ifar Ramadan celebration at Westmore or I guess that was two weeks ago which is >> Ramadan and Karim >> Trusty Lee. >> Yep. >> And and then of course I also did with Trusty Tahada. We were at the early part of the All City Band and Arts Festival on Saturday there from about noon to 1ish. able, you know, great to be able to support the vendors and to, you know, see some of
028the um performances that the students had around campus. So, it was great. >> Now, we've got a long meeting, so I'm not going to share all the stuff I did, but um it was good to be out in the community. Um uh Superintendent Preston and I, we attended Thornton Family Community Night. Always good to be with the community there and uh talk to a lot of the families and the uh the staff. Um let's see. And I did attend and we also attended the Jefferson Jefferson's first ifar night. It was beautiful. It was a really beautiful celebration. Um and uh let's see. And then uh on the 24th we hosted on the behalf of the commission on the status of women um we hosted our district 5 listen and learn here to talk to um
029folks in the community and um it was great because we really partnered I felt really proud to show off our district office and everything that we do here um and so that the community knows us better as well. So, I want to thank uh Superintendent Prea, Mrs. Breast for uh really and and our uh staff here, facility staff for really helping us with everything that day. And um we'll I'll report out later on our facility subcommittee. >> Thank you. Um I'm I'm happy to see a former B board member in attendance with us tonight, a mentor of mine. Thanks for coming. Um, recently I went to uh masters in governance training uh hosted by California School Board Association in San Jose. It's a new location for them. And I um I know I'm kind of
030silly sometimes. I'm so serious right now. I was very much enriched by my time that day and I'm happy I was able to go. So, um, I'm looking forward to, uh, doing something like that again. On Saturday, I attended, I want to get this right, the Black Student Leadership Conference for Sonteo County. Uh, they had a session at Kinyatta College that was also very special. Uh, and I'm happy that I was able to be a part of it. Uh, like, uh, Vice President Tahara said, to get into the community. Um, it's great to see students in the room tonight. Um, it always changes the energy. Uh, and I'm looking forward to this great meeting. I'm pretty excited right now. And I'll end it there. Superintendent report. Miss Prea. >> Thank you. Uh, I'm going to
031be brief. The my two biggest highlights actually. Um there are lots of activities that I go to um in the district, but two of my favorite things were both the Jefferson and the Westmore Ramadan if where we were able to share with the community when they broke their fast. I was really touched both nights um and grateful that we were invited to be there. Uh I also want to just highlight um it was said briefly in the report that Violet shared with us. Thank you. But Thornon um Dr. Moreno received a phone call from the CDE, so we don't have it in writing, but he believes it was not a crank call. Um that they were name Thornton was named a model continuation high school. And I just want to kind of say that loudly.
032I'm so very very proud. we know the good work that they're doing, but to be recognized at the state levels uh really shows their hard work. It's quite an honor for them. So, I'm very proud. And then the last thing that I want to say is um I'm really uh proud of our student trustees. We've been trying something different this year where they are sort of doing action projects in the schools and um every night. So last night happened to be student advisory meeting and the time flew by because they were so engaged and um I'm just so excited for you all to hear some of the stuff that they've been doing. So that's it for me. Thank you. >> Uh board submitt subcommittee report I think vice president. So, the facility subcommittee met yesterday
033and we discussed the Ceremoni Del Rey project and our agreement with the city of Pacifica for use of the pool at Oceanana High School. And the subcommittee received an update from our consultants on current housing construction market conditions. And we discussed the upcoming expiration of our joint powers authority with this city of Pacifica, which is scheduled to end in December of this year. There are no specific actions or recommendations for the board at this time and the subcommittee is planning to meet again in May. >> Any other subcommittee reports? Uh 71 uh is about the OA Latinx Youth Conference. I believe Miss Blanco's here. skip. >> So, item 6B is the AFT local 1481 report. Ms. Casey, I tried very hard to skip you. >> You did. And I'm going to be very I'm going
034to be very quick. Um, I'd like to thank all those um who participated in the March 4th day of action. Um, we had a, you know, wear your union t-shirt, get together, wear old posters and show your, um, solidarity with the people in our communities. So, thank you for those who sent in pictures and you can find them on CTF's um, Facebook page and on our own website announcements page. You can see those photos. And um I'm going to be quick today because there's lots of people to talk. >> Thank you. Uh I didn't say anything before, but I want to give a shout out to our AV team who has this new camera angle of the podium, even though I can see them right here. I think the camera angle is awesome. Even though
035I'm looking at myself right now, and that's really weird. Moving on. 7 a.m. uh the OY Latinx Youth Conference. Uh, Miss Blanca is here to speak to us. Welcome. >> Good evening everyone. >> Thank you so much for allowing us time to speak about OA. Let me introduce myself first. My name is Jennifer Blanco. You all are former colleagues of mine as I was a schoolboard member for the San Bruno Park Elementary School District for 17 years, but I was involved in San Bruno and across the county for 30 plus still involved. I am currently also not only on the planning committee for OY, but I'm also a juvenile justice and delinquency prevention commissioner for Sontel County. So, I'm just going to go ahead and um I'm going to allow Chris I asked Chris is
036our student OY outreach intern and I'm going to allow him some time right now to introduce himself and then we'll go into the presentation. >> Hello everyone. My name is Chris Velasco. Um I'm a senior in high school. Um I was at Woodside High School, Sequoia Union High School District and I'm now doing the middle college program. So I'm at Kinata College doing dual enrollment program and I also work at Kinyata. So I'm a student ambassador. So I go around tableing doing college fair prayers. I worked at Teranova High School last week in their college fair. Um and last year I was a student MC and this year I'm an outreach and marketing intern. >> I'm also on the outreach team. He um helps supports the outreach efforts on with OYA. Chris, you can come
037up here with me. It's great having someone come. I was here a couple years ago and I was by myself. So, I'm I'm thankful that you're here with me. So, we do have a video for you, but we're going to show that to you to you a little bit or you're going to put it up on your >> new screens here. Um, so the first OY happened in 2010 at the Fair Oaks Community Center, the unincorporated part of Redwood City, and it was that that's community center is really small. And so it got so popular that they outgrew that space. So OY was born at the Fair Oaks Community Center and now Kinyatta College is home to Oy. The reason why OYA came about was because of the need to support Latino youth in the
038community. And what happened was they had a um some community members that got together and said, "Let's do something for our Latino youth." That's how OEA first was. It was it was focused just for Latino youth, but it has grown and for the conference through the years all students are welcome from all backgrounds. So, OEM means it has dual meaning. OM means hear me in Spanish means hear me or listen to me. And then also it's an acronym. It stands for oruo. The translation is education and provide. Um, our keynote speaker this year is doc is Dr. Emanuel Alejandro Perez, uh, CSM's current college president and the theme for this year is resilient and strong. we always carry on. And the theme was students came up with the theme and as we all know with
039the current national political state of our country with predominantly Latino the Latino community being hunted and targeted where our kids with our youth obviously know what's happening in their surroundings. So this is why they came up with the theme and Chris if you want to share a little bit been bit a little bit more about the theme feel free. So Oyette during the day our day is student led as Chris just mentioned last year he was one of our student MC's and so it's led by by students we also do have workshops that are studentled. We have some amazing topics every year. Um, one of them is our youth, our dream club from Seoia Union. Um, I'm sorry, Seoia High School. The dream club usually comes and they do they put on a workshop about
040know your rights and uh topics such as that. And so we have keynote speaker, we have two sessions or workshops, various topics and we um and then we also have we end the day with an oy fist. We do have we do provide food. We know that food brings people together and so we provide a very light continental breakfast and then we do have a lunch. Last year I think it was papooseas. Correct Chris. We're not sure we're not on that committee so we don't know what the hospitality uh committee is going to be providing for all of us to to break bread with one another. And so I think this would be a good time for us to show the video. And this year, what's new with OY is in the past with the
041emails and my communications with your district, we do provide transportation. This year, um, Sanonteo County Office of Education is partnering with Oy and they're going to help support us in those efforts to provide transportation to our school districts that may need that level of support to transport their students and their families. So, if you want to go ahead and show the video and then any questions feel free after That's awesome. >> No chatbt for us right now. >> So, I want I'd like for Chris to speak a little bit about our student MC uh OA MC program. >> Yeah. So, um every year we choose new MC's to um just host the event. kick off our um the main part of the event and then just the ending the festival. Um so we choose high
042school students and they're selected through a whole like process. So there's like an interview process. You fill out a form and then you get chosen to be interviewed and then from there they choose the MC's. So there's a lot um parts to it and then once you do get accepted this year we have three MC's um and once you get accepted there's like um a whole training session um weekly for two months. So, I think we already selected our three new MC's this year and they've been training. They've been meeting every week and they meet up into the conference and so I was a part of that last um year and I had like a coach um and he trains us just everything like improvising just how to um look natural on stage and it
043really helped a lot. Um but there's also just a lot of student involvement opportunities. I'm like an outreach intern this year. So, I was in charge of making the fire, which I think you'll see in a second, and just reaching out to our strategic partners, making designing the banner that gets put up in Redwood City. So, a lot of behind the scenes work. We also have an administrative intern that helps um just write the agenda for our meetings and reach out to all our planner um board members. And I think our students also like we get to have a submission of who wants to like design the shirts or what kind of um food they want to see. just a lot of uh student voices are heard to plan the conference. We have so many
044students on our planning committee and we cannot do this without them because it's for them. It's right. It's for them by them. So if you have any questions for us. No. Okay. Well, thank you so much for the time and we hope to see students from Jefferson Union High School District. >> I have one question. Can you tell us the date again? March 28th. >> Thank you very much. >> Thank you. >> Item eight is the consent agenda. I will entertain discussion, modifications, or a motion. >> Move to approve consent. >> Second. >> All in favor of approving the consent agenda? I >> I >> uh item nine is public comment. Mr. Clerk, do we have public comment at this time? >> We do have one um non-aggenda. At least I'm presuming it's non-aggenda item
045because it is not marked, but this is from Karen Cunningham. If present or not, then maybe not. All right, then we can move on. The other the other public comments are are for other agenda items later. >> Uh item 10 is discussion items. Uh A1 >> uh sorry I lost my place here. >> Proposal to rename the Westmore track. You want to turn it over to me? >> Miss Presto. >> Thank you. Uh, so tonight I'm proud to bring forward a facility naming recommendation that I think speaks to the heart of what makes our school special. We received nominations from across the Westmore community, staff, students, parents, and alumni, all asking that we honor coach Ron Deaggio by naming the Westmore track after him. I took that to our executive cabinet and after careful consideration
046and the actually and the Westmore leadership, we're in full agreement that this is exactly the kind of recognition our naming guidelines are designed for. Coach Deaggio has given more than 40 years of his life to this district as a teacher, a coach, and frankly as a cornerstone of the Westmore community. He's led the cross country and track and field programs for decades and in that time he shaped generations of student athletes. His program is both competitive and welcoming. He's helped athletes reach the league section and state levels while always keeping the focus on teamwork, dedication, and personal growth. What really stands out though is how consistently people describe him as so much more than a coach. Current students, alumni, parents, and staff, they all talk about him as a mentor, someone whose investment in kids
047doesn't stop at the finish line. Um, I'd like to call up I think Caroline Sheron Barrow, are you? Great. So, I'm going to call her up because she's got some words as well. Um, but I am recommending that the board approve the naming of the Westmore High School track, the Ron the Ron Deaggio track. Um, and if the board directs us to move forward, then I will bring a formal resolution to a subsequent meeting. So, I'm going to turn it over to Caroline. >> Good evening, everyone. Um, I just want to tell you a little bit about my experience with Coach. I'm a little different from many of the those you see here. I'm I'm um I'm an outsider for him. He he reminds me of this every season because everyone else you see here
048is an alum of his. It's a former athlete um and parent now and maybe even a coach. So um so anyways, I've had a chance to participate in a lot of different programs versus athlete myself in a college high school and college and now as a coach. But for the past 25 years, I've had the privilege of coaching alongside coach Deaggio. And through all of those experiences, I can honestly say that what coach has built here is second to none. What makes his program so special isn't just the success on the track or the field. Yes, the 50 plus championships and victories are so impressive, but what really stands out is how he coaches the whole person. He teaches our athletes to be respectful, kind, and accountable. He pushes them to work hard, to work
049as a team, to root for each other, and to not be selfish. He recognizes their effort whether they win or lose. One of my favorites is his tradition of giving out t-shirts to his athletes every after every meet. And it's really not just it's not the stars all the time. It's it's those who show the most effort, determination, the most heart. It's simple thing, but it's it's what he values the most. He values hard work, character, and growth. Um, watching the way coach builds relationship with athletes and holds them to a higher standard has truly inspired me, not just as a coach, but a teacher, too. The program coach Deaggio has built here is incredibly special, and I am grateful to have spent the last 25 years coaching alongside him. I've heard I've learned from
050him so so much. Honestly, when you think about the impact he's had here, decades of athletes, generations of families, and a program built on character and commitment, it's only fitting that this track bear his name. It's a well-deserved honor and a long time coming, and there's no better reminder for future athletes of the standard he set. Thank you. So, it's a discussion item. We um if the board would like to discuss this proposal and provide direction to me, we can always come back with the resolution. >> We do have a handful of of public comments that we'll just take those at this time. >> Yeah. Yeah. Perfect. >> All right. Uh reminder that you do have three minutes to speak at 30 seconds. I'll just give you a reminder to wrap it up. Uh so
051the first speaker we have on this item is Allison Torres. Please come up to the Hello. My name is Allison Torres, Westmore High School, class of 88. Um when I first came to Westmore as a 14-year-old freshman, I was so shy and timid. I barely spoke. I stopped showing up for track practice, but coach found me in the hallway and encouraged me to come back. He did not turn his back on me. He encouraged me and four years later, I was MVP of the cross country team and would go on to run cross country and track at the collegiate level. All of that would not have been possible without coach's guidance. He held our team at a very high level of sportsmanship. He has shown dedication for the last 40 years and he is just
052a institution of caring and kindness and what it means to give to the community. Thank you. We have Raymond J. >> Hi, thank you. Uh so my name is Raymond Hugh and I uh was at West Moore's class of 85 and uh I personally did not run or in any track or running program but I knew a lot of classmates from Westmore including a couple here who did ran track uh back in when he started. I I was 81 85 and he was already there back then. So he's been there for like 45 years and a couple of the classmates here their daughter also ran track you know so the multi-generation thing but what I got got to know coach dejo was uh more recent years and that I hear classmates keep running into him
053uh somewhere and he would stop and say hello and chat and the other thing that uh my class had a 40-year reunion last just last September and uh the first one of the first faculty members we thought about calling in was coach Deagio and he even though he that night he had an event with the current runners a dinner event and the next day he had a a event down in way down in South Bay he still found time to drop by our reunion and and visit with his ex-classmates and He not he's been attending the reunions of other classes also. So, he's a regular and he he definitely stays in touch with the classmates uh runners off the the uh the course and uh that Westmore track is so nice down there and I
054can't think of a better person to be named after and coached in Rhonda Majio is definitely a Westmore institution for so long and and I would hope the board considers uh naming the track after coach Ronda modu. Thank you so much. >> Next up is Ronnie D. >> Hello. Thank you. Thank you board. Um this is this is for me this is a slam dunk. I mean he's such a great person. Uh I'm born and raised in Daily City. I met Coach Deaggio in uh 1983. I was a football player. played football for Westmore uh frost off and we were terrible. And so I had some friends that I met in high school, you know, because uh it was kind of weird back then you got to choose where you wanted to go and I
055was kind of on the border where to go to Jeff or Westport, but I chose Westmore. It was closer to home. Uh my friend said, "Hey, there's a there's a coach and uh he doesn't cut anybody." Even though I was already an athlete, but I was like, "Okay, I'll try it." and uh and he he uh he hooked me. It was it was his personality uh the way the way somehow if and if you have this experience if you ever met him and and had any kind of uh uh spent any kind of time with him, he he has this innate ability to make you feel special and and he always finds time no matter what what he's got going on. and he's got a huge family, grandkids, and he always seems to find time
056for everyone. And and this honor would it couldn't be more fitting for for a a special person than Ron. And uh and and I uh I urge you to vote yes. And uh it sounds like it's going to happen anyway, but uh thank you very much for your consideration on this matter. He means a lot to us. Um, I am as EMS person for the Ram Invitational. It's the last Saturday in September. Please come out and support by Lubia at the snack bar. Uh, he holds this invitational and thousands of runners come. Thousands of runners come. It's a huge fundraiser for his program. I know because I feel the water cups. I filled more water cups than anybody in Daily City ever. And uh and the job I it pays uh like crap. It doesn't
057pay at all. But like many people that have been involved with coach uh you have this feeling of not wanting to disappoint him and that's why I keep showing up. I And I'll be there as long as he's there. Thank you. Thank you. Next we have Benio Laban. >> Hello. That's how coach always uh pretty much greets me when I come there every single day. I come there pretty much 15 to probably even I've come an hour early because I am I'm in middle college so I get out early. So, pretty much I started track because my dad did track. My dad did track in Virginia and I was like, well, I'm going to try track because one, we don't have a football team and I am tall. I'm not tall enough to be on
058the basketball team and I'm know I know I'm not going to do that well because I wasn't that good in middle school and I didn't do anything in co. So, here we go. I'm like a freshman. no idea what to do, but I knew I'm I I knew I was fast. So, we do the 100 time trials and I smoke everyone in the 100 time trials. I'm the fastest freshman and I get and I'm like, woo, I'm fast. So, he So, he puts me in the 100 and I do I just do high jump because uh because I know I can jump high, too. I did basketball. I'm like, hey, I can I can jump pretty high. But then my freshman year goes on and 100. I'm doing well in the 100, but I'm not
059winning races. I'm doing high jump, but these kids are way way taller than me. So, coach was like, "That's not that's not the types of events that I want you to do. I want you to do the long jump. I want you to do the triple jump." And that and that next year, I makes I make CCS finals in the triple jump. The year after that, my junior year, I got second at CCS at CCS finals. And that was and that one decision that coach made that that came uh that went from me going from a sprinter to a horizontal jumper made me go from just some guy at a at the league that at the league meet that does pretty well but doesn't do the best to a state jumper and someone who is
060now getting recruited from college. I really wanted to do co uh track in college and coach was the person that made me go made me reach out to coaches and now coaches are reaching out to me about about jumping for their college and that was only because of one decision and he does that decision for every single person on the track team and that's the impact that he can make even by just talking to him or just by or just by being on the track team. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Okay, we have Alicia Perez. >> Hello. Good evening, Superintendent Prea and members of the school board. My name is Alicia Perez, an alumnest of Westmore High School, class of 93, former cross country and track and field athlete. I am here to advocate
061for the stadium and track to be renamed the Ron Deaggio Stadium. I could not believe that Deaggio was still coaching after all these years. I am happy to get the chance to be back with him while he coaches my three kids at Westmore. Ariel, who's an alumni as well of the class of 2024, Xavier, where are you? Right here. Who's a junior and Jacob who is a freshman this year. Sit down. How many people can actually say that they and their kids have been coached and mentored by such a dedicated and knowledgeable person? Since my daughter started cross country, I have joined coach Deaggio and have become a volunteer coach/teamom for both cross country and track. Ron Deaggio has been there for so many students and athletes throughout all these years. He has always run
062a great program, demonstrating how to be respectful by having our captains thank the hosts of each meet that we go to. He guides the athletes, helping them build confidence, character, and teaching them about teamwork and running. Deaggio has been coaching over 45 plus years now and is very much respected at Westmore. And in San Monteo County, you cannot talk about high school track or cross country without Ron Deaggio's name popping up. Since he could have retired or left to coach with his son years ago, he stays for Westmore's kids. Sorry. Um I'm just a little emotional. Sorry. He's and the Ramly way. His bonus rewards are awarded when athletes like Kylie Goo who is here, Benio, Jasmine Comolmes, and many, many others who have qualified for the state meets in either track or cross country.
063This is all from his coaching positive influence and his wisdom of these sports over these years. Being able to experience watching my children do the same as I did at Wesmore and making memories of their own with Coach Deaggio is unprecedented. We should all be so grateful to have someone with such expertise, devotion, and giving of his time every day for our teenagers. Please honor Coach Deaggio and his 45 plus years legacy by naming the Westmore Stadium track after him. Thank you for your time. >> And the last one we have is Jody D. Good evening everybody. All right, glasses on. Good evening. Thank you for making the time to listen to all of us convince you to honor Coach Ron Deaggio in a way that is long overdue. My name is Jody Goo and
064I ran for Coach Deaggio from 1982 to 1986. So 44 years ago, my husband Ronnie Vu, class of 1987, also ran for Coach Deaggio, as well as our two daughters, Kylie, the class of 2013, and Laney, class of 2017. Jefferson High School has John Madden in football. At Westmore, we have Coach Deaggio and track and field. Jeff Jefferson did have coach Deaggio for four years many many many years ago but we have at Westmore we've had him for almost 50 years on coach Deaggio's track and field team. There are no tryyouts. no fear of being cut from the team for not meeting a minimum time or a minimum distance depending on the event. All he ever expects from his athletes is a willingness to put in the work and a positive attitude. He will help
065you do the rest. That is only part of the reason. I could go on and on and on and if you ever want to have lunch with me, we could talk for hours about him. um on and on. That is only part of the reason that 100 to 120 students each season come out and have trusted him for almost 50 years. He consistently coaches to personal bests, league championships, CCS championships, and even state championships. Because of his coaching, many of his athletes have gone on to compete in college, a few professionally and also in the Olympic trials. Most importantly, he has mentored all of his athletes to be respectful >> 30 seconds >> goal-driven hardworking members of society. As we all know, anyone, any group with enough money can pay to have anything named after
066themsel or their family members. It is rare to have some something like Westmore's track named after someone purely for the love, hard work, and dedication to thousands of youth over the last four decades. Thank you for your time. >> Thank you. And that is that is all. Thank you. Uh I want everyone's here everyone who's here to take a chance if you would like uh to check out our agenda which has a video um that you can look at about uh coach Deaggio and everything he's done at Westmore. Um board are we going to do some discussion? Yeah, I don't I don't really have a lot more to add to it. Uh, personally, um, I mean, it sounds like, uh, it sounds like it's a good idea to me. I mean, you know, I don't
067know coach Deaggio personally, but you know, if if listening to these stories is a testament to the man's character and what he's done for this district and for a community, um, and it and aligns with our our policy on on naming an institution like that, then I think I think we're good. Um, >> yeah, >> I agree with it. Yeah, I would I certainly would be in favor of of you bringing back a resolution to before we should formally vote on it at the next meeting. It's very clear the passion and the impact that he has made on our greater community when we have multi-generational families having been coached by him. Um, you know, and and I'm and I resonate with those of you who graduated in the mid 80s because I'm class of 87
068myself. So I certainly understand that, you know, for you to give up a a Tuesday night to come here and speak for a person who has made an impact on your life, that's that's a powerful story. So I'm really grateful to each and every one of you for coming out in support of this. I I I definitely share that passion from hearing your story. So thank you all for being here and I will certainly when it comes back, I will be a yes vote at that point. >> I also want to thank everyone for being here tonight. Um, my son ran for coach. And here's the thing. I saw Ronnie go over there and I asked, "Is coach coming tonight?" All we say is coach. You just call him coach. You don't say coach Deaggio.
069You don't say Deaggio. It's coach. And my son ran for him, jumped for him for four years. And um during one of these years, my uh my son's dad had a very serious uh brain injury and he had to learn how to walk again. Um but he was able to see. And what got my son through that sophomore year was running track, being really good at it. Um and Coach Deaggio just keeping him together. that that family is the track family. It's huge. It's huge. And it it really saved our family in a lot of ways because, you know, my daughter who was, you know, seven years younger than her big brother, she lived on that track. She loved she was like the little mascot, you know. Um and all the videos I took of
070my son, great memories, but all you can hear is run Evan, run. I mean, you you you just hear me yelling, but um but uh coach goes way back in our family because um I my sister-in-law went to school with Emma Jefferson, class of 66, and she wanted to go watch Evan run. And I said, "Hey, I think you went to school with his coach." She goes, "Yeah." And I said, "Ron Deaggio?" She goes, "Oh my god, is he still at it?" And that is who he is. Yeah, he's still at it because he cares about these kids. And um he doesn't cut anyone. There's it. It is huge. The track team is huge. He knows everyone. He pays attention to everyone. So many alumni come back to coach, to volunteer coach, um to be
071volunteers, to work the snack bar, uh on those foggy, foggy, cold days when you're just waiting for your cup of noodles after you run. I mean, all of them are waiting, you know, um or the hot chocolate. Um but uh he he finds a way to um to fund raise in a way that everyone has opportunity and my son went on so many invitationals and those road trips you cannot get those back. I mean those are memories that you make for these students, these student athletes and and he sometimes my son would have to miss practice because he had a huge test or something and he would he never coach always understood because academics was really important and um and so he he had a way of fundraising so that there were so many invitationals,
072there was um you know buses for everybody. And um of course he didn't spend a lot on the uniforms, but it's okay. Those uniforms had to last a long time because he put it all into the students into giving them opportunity. And so even to this day, you know, my son and his friends talk about, you know, when they were down in King City or, you know, Martinez relays or, you know, stuff like that. and and it's these memories that he makes for them. And I I I've been wanting this for such a long time and I'm glad that we're finally I we're I think we're finally going to do it because I'm all for it. >> And before you jump in, SH, I just wanted to add because I know Ronnie and the goose
073very well. Um that's my bon one of my bonus daughters is his niece, Yasm mean. And Yasm mean actually ran track >> at at Wesmore. So I didn't have any direct contact with Deagio, coach Deagio, but um I I did indirectly through her and I know she was, you know, she was a basketball player there. She was one of their star basketball players, but um wound up loving track and I think it had to do with him. So >> yeah, >> thanks. Um I've only met coach in this room and it was a pleasant experience. Um, I'm rather impressed that six or seven different people who did track came up, spoke for him, and nobody mentioned a PR. So, uh, he must be doing something right. Um, you know, I'm, uh, happy to record. >>
074I don't know what a PR is. I'm not sporty. >> Miss Prea is a new track parent >> and will soon know what a PR is. Um, >> so I'm I'm happy to accept the recommendation from from our district office and from the Westmore staff and um support this effort to name the track after Deaggio when we get this chance. >> Awesome. Thank you. I will bring it back formally. >> Thank you everyone. Thanks for showing up. Uh I I'll just say one more thing. I have a track background. Um 156 and uh I want to let all of you know that uh it's cool that you all came out because really the whole point of a track program is to show up for each other. So thanks for doing that tonight. >> Yeah. >>
075Um we keep it moving. Uh, item 1082 is a board policy update. I lost my place again, but I got it. Uh, this is board policy 10,000 concepts and roles. Miss Pa, >> thank you. Um, and I I see it's okay to leave if you'd like. We are moving on to the next thing. I give you guys a minute. Yeah. Thank you so much for coming out. >> Okay. So, board policy update, uh, board policy 1000 concepts and roles. So, the board is asked to consider updates to board policy 1000, which outlines the district's foundational approach to community relations and its role in educational leadership. The proposed revisions strengthen and clarify several key areas of the policy. language has been updated to emphasize the importance of two-way communication between schools and the community and to
076reinforce the district's commitment to collaboration with parents and guardians, local organizations, and city and county agencies in support of coordinated services for children. The revisions also clarify the board's expectations around community use of school facilities and participation in board meetings and school activities. Additionally, the updated policy aligns community engagement and decisionmaking processes with board bylaw 905 governance standards and refineses language around the board's legislative advocacy efforts, including building relationships with federal, state, and local leaders and collaborating with other organizations on key educational issues. These updates reflect the board's ongoing commitment to transparency, partnership, and advocacy on behalf of the district, students, and the broader community. >> Any questions, >> Miss Preston? Is this what we call a first read? >> This is a first read. Yes. >> Uh, any discussion? Okay. >> No, thank you.
077>> Okay. >> Uh, item 102, board policy update, board policy 10,000. Sorry, it's 1083 board policy update BP 1340 access to access to district records. >> Thank you. Um, so, >> good lord. >> Oh my gosh, that's hilarious. His phone just went off in a funny way. We bring forward, so I bringing forward an update to board policy 1340, which governs public access to district records under the California Public Records Act. This policy is being presented alongside its accompany accompanying administrative regulation AR1340 which has been updated to reflect several new legal requirements. So typically we we um bring the board policy formally to you. I'm including the administrative regulation for information simply because it's where most of the change happened. So first pursuant to AB 10004, the regulation now recognizes that financial records provided by
078an Indian tribe to a public agency as a condition of receiving financial assistance are confidential and not subject to public inspection. Second, the regulation has been clarified to ensure that any disclosure of an individual's immigration status is handled exclusively in accordance with our board policy and administrative regulation 1445, which governs our district's response to immigration enforcement. Third, in response to AB370, the regulation now expands the definition of unusual circumstances that may justify an extension of the standard 10-day response window for public records requests. This includes situations where a cyber attack has prevented access to electronic servers or systems, as well as circumstances where a state of emergency directly affects the district's ability to search for and produce records in a timely manner. These updates ensure our policies remain current with state law and continue to
079protect both the public's right to access information and the privacy rights of individuals and tribal nations we serve. Um so as you say this is a first read. >> Thank you. Any discussion? >> No thanks. Uh item 1084 is board policy update BP 1445 response to immigration enforcement. Uh BP 1445 is to replace BP 5145.13 response to immigration enforcement. >> Perfect. Thank you. So this item updates the district's policy regarding how we respond to immigration enforcement requests. This new policy rep replaces our previous policy on the topic and align our practices with new California law, Assembly Bill 495, which requires school districts to adopt language consistent with guidance from the California Attorney General. The updated policy clarifies that district staff may not collect or share information about a students or family's immigration status, education records,
080or other confidential information unless required by law. It also outlines that immigration enforcement officers may not enter non-public areas of school property or district transportation without proper legal documentation. The policy also reaffirms that all students have equal rights to participate in school programs regardless of immigration status and that students may not be subjected to discrimination, harassment, or bullying based on their or their family's immigration status. In addition, the policy requires that the superintendent report any immigration enforcement requests to the board and ensure that families are informed of their rights. It also prohibits the creation of lists or databases based on immigration status or other protected characteristics. Overall, this update ensures the district remains compliant with state law while continuing to support a safe and inclusive learning environment for all students. discussion. >> Just a comment,
081just glad that our policy is catching up and you know and that we're in compliance and grateful to the state for passing the legislation that requires us to make these changes. >> Thank you. >> Thanks, Trust Healey. Uh 105, board policy update BP 6115, ceremonies and observances. And I lost my big script that I wrote for these. So I'm simply going to read the board agenda. Policy updated to add events of present- day significance to the governing board's recognition of importance of students celebrating events of significance. Additionally, policy is updated to reflect that specified commemorative exercises may be required by law and include educational components. Uh we'll move on to section 10B uh education services. Uh we have our school spotlight for Jefferson High School, Ms. Baka. >> Good evening, President Walker. Good evening, members
082of the board. Tonight, I would like to introduce Mr. John Herrian, principal of Jefferson High School, who will be highlighting great things that's happening at Jefferson. Mr. Harrian. Welcome, Principal Herrian. >> Thank you. Uh, good evening, uh, Superintendent Prea, President Walker, and members of the board. Uh, thank you for allowing us, allowing me to share a lot of the good work that's happening at Jefferson. Um, and it's awesome. Um, I'm so, uh, grateful to be at Jeff and to be working there. Um, it's it's fun all the time. Um, so I would like to kind of walk through uh some of some of our site focus, um, some of the highlights, some of the things that we're working on. Um, and just kind of share some of the instructional things and also some of like
083the social emotional uh, and so I'll get right in it. Uh, okay. So, um, all right. Got to get grounded here. Okay. So, um so our site focus this year is really about supporting and serving all students academic, social and emotional um needs. Uh fostering learner agency uh which I'll go into and kind of explain a little bit more. And then student recognition uh something that we felt that we were not doing a great job of before. So, uh the first thing I want to highlight are our CASP scores from last year. Uh, and so we had a 7% improvement in math, uh, and a 4% improvement in English, language arts. So 7% improvement in math was awesome. Uh, it's really hard to do. Uh, it we have a lot of work left to do.
084Uh, we're still well below standard in mathematics, but we're working. Uh, and it we're being really intentional with the work that we're doing. Um, and so I would uh steal a phrase from uh President Walker uh that this doesn't happen by accident. I think I've heard you say that a time or two or something similar. Uh and so it is very intentional. It's very purposeful in in the work that we're doing. Um so one of the things that we're we continue to work on are course maps. Uh we call them blue sheets. Uh, and so really it's I know you all have heard about it a lot. Uh, but they're planning guides. They are um kind of our our maps if you will. They talk about um standard or standards. They talk about um learning
085objectives. They talk about assessments and trying to really get teachers and teams to be consistent with one another as far as what they're teaching and leaving the how they're teaching up for kind of their own individual uh approach, but the what they're teaching is what we've really spent a lot of time focusing on. So now we're starting to dig in a little bit more into the how. Uh that's been a shift this year that we've kind of made is picking a piece of data and kind of looking at it together. Uh and so that that work has started. Um and uh another thing that we are really proud of, I know I'm really proud of it, uh is our co-eing and the number of courses that we support uh students with IEPs in the general
086ed classroom. So we have English 9, math 1, math 2, math 3, biology, physics. Um, and so we have a lot of students receiving support uh in GenEd. And so what we found this year uh and I thank Miss Baka for for noticing this or pointing this out to me um was the CASP improvement for students with IEPs is off the charts. like ELA improvement uh from 22 23 when we kind of started to do co-eing um we were 157 points below standard this last year we're 90 points below standard so making progress every year math 224 points below to 164 points below this last year and so I think what really sticks out is access to grade level standards positively impacts student performance and it's hard like what students are doing what teachers are
087doing is hard. It is not easy. There's often questions about our students thriving, they're not thriving right now or they're struggling or this is really difficult. It is hard. They are being pushed. Uh and what we want to have is productive struggle. And so we're hoping that we're in that band where they're getting enough support um that that they can be successful. So, one of the the district is committed uh to supporting the district and county um to supporting co-eing development and so working with the the the teachers that are doing the work in the classroom and so that's going to help kind of push our co-eing even further and developing the skills in and the teachers. Okay. So last spring we were doing some listening sessions with teachers uh and we heard teachers kind
088of what we heard uh we we did the listening sessions with National Equity Project uh with staff and it was around students that were we're uh we're were struggling uh in classes and so we we met with the teachers and said all right tell us about this and so we had a bunch of questions for them and one of the things that came out of it was this sense of agency like we thought well the teachers didn't feel a super sense of agency in some ways and if teachers aren't feeling agency there's no way their students can feel agency so learner agency is a big piece of UDL uh universal design for learning and so there's really like multiple components to learner agency uh but it refers to the capacity of students to take ownership
089of their learning make informed choices and active participate in their educational journey. So, it's kind of divided into three areas. Purposeful and reflective, resourceful and authentic, strategic and actionoriented. And as a like older teacher at this point, uh I don't really think of myself that way, but I guess I am. Uh learner agency wasn't something that I was really taught to think about. And so, we have done a lot of work this year introducing the concept to staff. uh having teachers select um a goal. So we allowed teachers to select their own goal that they wanted to work on in their classroom and then we've done lots of PD around that and mostly the PD has been it's been framed so that teachers are helping teachers. So they're doing a lot of work in in
090trios. They're doing a lot of talking, a lot of listening, uh a lot of meeting, uh and just trying to support one another. So, we have done tuning protocols. Uh we just finished our second round or probably our fourth round of tuning protocols where three teachers get together and one person's talking, the other two or one person is introducing the problem that they're that they're having. The other two are listening to that initially and then they ask probing questions of the original presenter and then those two talk about the problem in front of the presenter who can't talk. It's a weird exercise but it really is powerful. Um and it and it we've we've done it a lot. Uh so we're on our second round of this now. Um, and we're getting ready to do
091our peer observation week coming up like uh it's next week for two weeks. Uh, and so we have about 25 teachers in the fall. We had about 25 teachers visit six classrooms and they're looking specifically for learner agency, evidence of learner agency. Uh, and then last year we had a similar practice but the same number of teachers we they went and visited nine classrooms each. I don't know if it's the incentives that get them to do this or what, but um we have really good participation. Um so we have about 65 teachers. So it's pretty good pretty good percentage of teachers are going out and doing a lot of walkthroughs on their own time. So some of the highlights for us um there's a lot of other things that are happening um instructionally. We have
092a lot of other work that's going on. That's just a little bit of what I wanted to focus. So, um, some of the academic highlights. Um, this is year two of our extensive support needs program. And so, this year we have about 19 students in the program. Uh, that has been a big shift on campus. Um, it's been a lot of learning. Uh, we have we have um we have we expanded. Last year we had one class, now we have two classes. Uh so we've doubled doubled the number of students and our extensive support needs students are out in general ed classrooms almost half the day depending on the depending on the quarter. Uh they could be out more or less. Um but so so the school is getting adjusted, students are getting adjusted and
093we're trying to find our way in the best ways to support each of these individuals. Um, so our master schedule, I want to highlight this because I think it's kind of cool. Um, our master schedule is built on equity. And so, uh, Vice Principal Ho does a lot of work. He's here tonight. Um, he does a lot of work, uh, with our special education teachers and also with our students learning English, uh, support team to kind of identify, uh, where students should be placed, what what classes should they be in, what level of support should they have. And so, it's really cool. It's very individualized and we do that every student. We go through and we meet and talk. Okay. What what what's their level in math? What's their level in English? What where should
094they be? What how much support should they have? Um and then we have a career day coming up March 25th. Uh so we haven't done a career day at Jeff in a long time. So we're really excited about that. I think we have about 10 different speakers and so we're we're excited to to bring that back. And then our peer tutoring program continues uh and it it is growing and getting stronger and stronger and we're finding more and more evidence that peer tutors are getting better in the classroom uh in their support of other students. Uh they're it's like they're not TAs because they're actually going around they're more like a parah in a lot of ways. They're going around and helping support students uh with the lesson. So they're paying attention at the same
095time. um that the students are so they can go and help. All right. So, we have a lot of highlights for college and career like a lot. I'm really proud of this. Um so, our graduation rate for class of 2025 was 95% which is up from prior years. Um and our UCA through G rate is up to 66%. So, the number of students who are eligible to go to university right out of high school is at 66%. which is awesome. It's great. We had um in the class of 25, we had 169 students admitted to CSU. Um and we had our our number of applicants was down to to UC. So, not sure why. Um I mean there's there's some theories, but um nothing concrete. Um, and then so the class of 26, um, we
096do an on the spot admissions. I talked a little bit about this at some point last year maybe. Um, that we have we pay for the application fee uh, for SF State. So that's an agreement that we make with the students. If they're A throughG eligible, we pay for their app. And so we had 208 students this year apply to at least one CSU. 190 have already been admitted, conditionally admitted to SF State. Um, so that's really cool. It's like I think it's over 70%. It's right about 70% of the class, which means that they are right now A throughG eligible. Yeah, it's really cool. Uh, and then future grads continues to be a booming thing on our campus. We have about 140 students actively participating in the 10th through 12th grade in future grads.
097Um, okay. So, school culture, uh, continues to be a thing that we're focused on, um, because I think it's really important, uh, we all do, actually. Uh, this year we reintroduced kind of unity days, but it's called breaking down the walls. And so, we did three days of that this year. Uh, we had a senior retreat and barbecue. Uh, and we had a Grizzly Den. We call it Grizzly Den. It's a program that brings arts, athletics, activities, and and groups together, and we kind of look at school pride, school spirit, uh, and figure out what to do to make it better. Um, international week continues to be a great uh, opportunity for students to showcase who they are, a little bit about who they are. Um, I'm really stoked about 2026 prom on a yacht.
098So, we are actually on a yacht this year out in the bay. So, uh we're not at the zoo. Last year we were at the zoo. This year we're on a yacht. So, I'm super excited about the yacht. Should be a great time. I don't think I can be out on the water and not have a good time. Hopefully, it's not choppy. Yeah. Hopefully the kids don't make me regret or have to work. Um okay. So, uh parent engagement, uh we continue to have some success but struggle. Um, you know, parent engagement is is a challenge. Um, and so we have we we have offered parent orientation. So, freshman parent orientation. We get good turnout at that. Uh, we've had a pretty good turnout at the senior parent information night that we do in the
099fall. Um, but, you know, we'd love to have more people. Uh, we have a PTSA family fun night if any of you are interested in coming out. Uh, it's Garage Band. will actually have it in the engineering room. That's really fun. I want to say it's the 24th, but don't quote me. It's Tuesday. Okay. Um All right. So, here's some notable data. I just want to share it because I want it to be out in the world for people to see. Uh but I think one of the really awesome things uh is that there is a lot of parody. We don't have big giant gaps between students, student groups, groups of students. So like our students learning English, 43% were A throughG eligible last year. That's a lot. That's a lot of work. Um, and
100so I wanted to share that because it it often doesn't show up that way. Uh, for a lot of schools, they have really high achievement and really low achievement. and we're kind of, you know, our gap is not not as great as a lot of schools. Um, it's not where we want it to be, but it's it's good. It's getting there. Okay. So, how are students feeling? So, uh, National Equity Project survey that we administered last spring, we had 779 respondents, which was a lot. Um, we had about 80% of the students feel valued, seen, and heard at a level three or four on a 4. So, uh, we had more students at 24% say, you know, feel very valued, which is great. Like that that's awesome. Much higher than the low. It's more than
101the level one and two combined. So, that's saying something positive. Um, how many students feel safe at school? 84%. So, 30% felt really safe at school. Um, those are really positive numbers for me. Um, okay. So, California Healthies Kids Survey, it says that we still have work to do. Um, which we do. Uh, the number of students who report having a caring adult relationship is at 59%. um that's not that's not good enough. Uh and I think we all know that and you know are trying to find uh ways to address that. One thing I know that we are going to do this year is administer the healthy kids survey differently than we have in the past. We've been doing it in an advisory class and I don't think that students really understood what they
102were doing when they did it. So we're going to do it in an academic class uh this year. So, and make a little bit bigger deal about it. U school connectedness is at 56%. So, not terrific. Um, so, but what does it say when you dig into it a little bit more? It says our counselors and wellness folks are awesome. That's what it says. So, nth grade students do need more support around optimism and life satisfaction, but the measures of chronic sadness have improved. So, um, so for 11th grade, it says that we're trending in a positive direction. We're better than the state average in a lot of places, um, in some places. Um, and that they felt more optimism and less sadness. So, uh, something that we realized, part of this came out of
103the NEP surveys from a couple years ago, uh, but it's also from listening to kids and knowing how they're feeling. Uh, but they don't feel like they're being recognized that much for academic achievement, for doing well academically. And so, what we are going to do, uh, and the students, I was kind of hoping Edward was here because he would have heard it. He probably, this will be the first time he would have heard it. uh we haven't rolled it out to the students yet, all the all of the students. But so we're going to we're going to recognize students every two quarters. So after two quarters, the average they have above a 3.0, above 35 or above a 4.0. And so this based on quarters 1 and two, we have 614 of our students out
104of 1020 uh that had above a 3.0. It's pretty good. 60% of our students. Um, and then students who have improved by 0.5, and that could be they went from a zero to a 0.5 GPA or a 3.0 to 3.5, uh, they'll also receive recognition. So, uh, you all receive this. So, a little keychain. So, all of the kids, all the students that qualify, meaning they have a GPA above a 3.0 or a.5, will receive this and then a charm. So, the you you all received a silver one, but we have a silver one, a bronze one, a pewtor one, and I think a gold one. Um, and so students can earn these based on what recognition they're receiving. So, they can I mean, they can load them up. Um, so we're excited. Kids, they
105like charms. Making a comeback. Uh so uh we wanted something that they could display, something that they could have. They'll also get a t-shirt. So our hope is that we'll be able to do this giant picture uh coming up in a couple of weeks. So we'll have about threequarters of the school almost uh out to take a big old picture all wearing iHeart Jeff shirts. So that's our that's our plan. Um and so perfect attendance is also included in this. So, we have 39 students who had perfect attendance through the first two quarters, which is pretty good. I know I didn't when I was in high school. Um, okay. So, that is that's it. Um, and there's a whole lot of excitement about the new spaces. Um, they will be built. It will be built.
106Uh, it right now is not much different than when we took our picture. Uh but it is it is coming. It's coming and it's going to happen. So thank you. >> Yeah. >> Discussion. >> No, but I do want to say thank you for the presentation. Um um I know speaking, you know, from from a parent's perspective on uh the recognition part that you're offering to students coming up. I think that I know personally that uh having raised three kids, the oldest being 27 now, just how important that is uh in some way, shape or form. Um >> accolades are always nice. Um you know, talking to them about it, a pat on the shoulder, however, however you want to do it, they they they love that stuff. Um you know, it's reinforcing. It's um
107it gives them something to look forward to. Um, and it's and it's positive and it's just something that I think they need more of. And you're right, I don't, you know, I don't know if it it happens enough um in their lives in general. So, for it to just take place in a in an environment where they're trying to, you know, accomplish things and work hard at stuff um that positive reinforcement's um super important. So, thank you for doing that. I think it's a really neat way to do it, too. Um, I think kids do really enjoy collecting things like that. >> They do. Did you get the gold one? Yeah, I got the gold one. Yeah. So, you know, it's I think that's a pretty cool idea. Um I'm also really impressed with um
108how the kids are, you know, the the amount of kids, the percentage of kids that are feeling safe now considering all things because I'm not in that boat myself personally just given the the current state of affairs with with the world. But um you know, we need to protect them from that as much as we can and give them a safeguard in the places where we can. And you know, for you to be doing that there and it's a big school, so it's a that's a big task. Um, that's huge. And it gives them it gives them hope. Um, it helps them relax and make that learning environment uh something a little bit more manageable for them, you know. So, and that and I think that's kind of that and all the hard work you
109guys are doing obviously is is is a direct uh reflection of of of the numbers that you're seeing which are really impressive. So hopefully you guys are um you know keeping a playbook on some of the things that are working really well and >> some of the things that aren't you know because >> you know if we get this thing rolling like this and we could use it for to model for some of the other schools or you know guys everybody trades information that's that's great stuff. Um, yeah. I guess one of the things that we've touched on a lot, especially with LCAP and things like that with the ELA improvements, that's, you know, really important obviously to see that I, you know, I obviously we want to focus in on on the kids that
110need it the most. And to see those improvements, um, at all levels is great, but at those levels especially, um, there's a lot. I wrote a lot of notes here, but you know, all in all, you know, I appreciate your your your um feedback with the school and how things are going. John, I know you got a lot on your plate over there. Big project going on and you know, and trying to manage all that stuff, but uh thanks for all your hard work. I appreciate it. >> Thank you. >> You guys and your staff, everybody over there. I mean, that's a lot. So, >> thank you. >> I'm a little surprised you didn't come out dancing to La Russell. So, I'm a little disappointed. >> I think about it right as he was talking
111about. I'm like, I should have had that. >> I mean, are you from the Bay? Come on. >> From the Bay. Yeah. >> No, for sure. Transplant. >> I can say it. >> Oh, so I just have to say, you know, when you showed the notable data with regards to the A throughG rates across all the different subgroups, you know, we talk, everybody talks about closing the gaps and here you are actually closing the gaps. You know, I I I don't know that I can remember any of these subgroups being this close to the to the top line, you know, and especially at Jeff. >> I mean, we all know what that what that what just the overall A throughG rate was just 5 years ago. >> Yeah. >> And to be sitting at 66%
112for last year's class is remarkable. And I presume that number is going to keep going up. And the and the gaps between the subgroups will continue to close. I mean for SED to be two points off are you kidding me? >> That's that's impressive. Uh so I remember when we did I think it was it wasn't the last it wasn't this year's site meeting but the year before where we had that robust discussion about math and the correlation of of math grades to math CASP scores and it's pretty clear that you've been doing a lot of work that way. Can you kind of elaborate a little bit on what work's been done over the past year and a half? Yeah. So last year we last year we we met probably 10 12 times uh release
113days here at the district. It was great. We had such I mean like I know the rooms um as a result of being here so much. But what we did is we started just by looking at what is the test like what does a test ask? What kinds of questions are being asked? And then what do we what do we do with that and where do we think kids will struggle with these questions? Um and so teachers took the test. >> Um and so we started there and then we started to identify gaps and we set some some goals around uh we set goals on you know kind of problem solving. Um you know we we identified a number of things. One is like what to do when you get to an unfamiliar problem. Like
114when you get to something you don't you haven't seen before, how do you approach it? What do you do? Um how do you you know problem solving, basic problem solving? >> Um and my brain totally went blank. Uh we ended up with four goals. And so we spent um we spent the next however many meetings kind of figuring out how to address those retention recall um recall was one. So how do students recall information? How do you develop that skill? It's a skill and it's something you can get better at, you can learn. And so we implemented different tech different strategies to address recall and we implemented different strategies to address problem solving. um you know when they get to uh something they don't know how to do, what what steps do they take? And
115so every classroom got a poster, you know, like we tried to make it as simple as possible. Um the questions probably took us the most amount of time cuz we actually had the teachers after getting aligned uh vertically um with you know what was what was being taught what year and kind of what we could let go of so that more time could be spent because it's picked up in math 2 we don't need to cover it as much. So we spent a lot of time doing that, making sure that our course mapping was good. Um after that then it was like okay so now we need to create questions like unfamiliar questions CASPL like questions. So we created tons of these questions and then went through and picked out the ones that we thought
116were the best. Um and then the department agreed to give these questions at the end of every unit test. So just to increase familiarity with these kind of ridiculous problems that are written in a way that's really difficult for people to understand and to follow and so that students became more familiar with them. And so um after that then we bring all those tests back and look at them and go okay why do we think the kid made the errors in this problem that they did and we kind of go and do some diagnosis and then figure out okay how can we address the teaching that's going along with this. That's the piece that we didn't get too far into really. it was hey let's increase familiarity um and let's talk about recall let's talk
117about problem solving those are the three of the four that we really dove into last year >> so um and this year they've the departments continued to do the one question or the question one or two I think it's like two I don't think we got to three questions uh on each of the unit tests but so they're still doing that and then they're coming back on their Wednesday PLC meetings and talking about how kids are doing on them and they're difficult. >> Yeah, >> they're difficult questions, but >> that that thank you. That's really impressive work and I'm really grateful that you are I mean that you you saw the problem and have pretty much addressed it immediately. And that's and and and >> come up with a plan to be able to to
118ensure that the kids are actually learning the material and then know how to how to address the material in the confines of the crazy questions that th those kinds of tests ask. >> And the first question was really like, okay, here's the test, here are the questions. Are you teaching all of these concepts that are being tested? >> And the answer was yes. >> Okay. So then then as a team the team figured out all right well what do we do about that like >> so why are they not able to do these questions because we teach them these concepts and they understand these concepts when we test them but they're not able to do it in the way that CASP is asking. So okay now let's >> right >> let's problem solve around that.
119>> Great. >> So the the the teachers the math teachers they're awesome. They worked really hard last year and and it took a lot of like took a lot of time, took a lot of effort um to kind of come to those findings and solutions. >> Great. Well, well, thank you so much and thank you to you and and the staff for really putting in that that work to be able to address that. >> Thanks. >> Hi, John. >> Hi. >> Thank you for your great presentation. >> Oh, thanks. Um, yeah. I I like just seeing it's very concise, right? Even though it's 19 slides, it's >> Sorry, >> it's still great. Great information. Um, everything we need to basically everything we need to know, letting us know how things have been going. Um, I
120like that you are all so committed to finding solutions and just not saying what is going on here but actually God taking the time and trying to tackle it in a way that um that works you know because you're here you are you know your students and so how how can we present things to them in a way that they can they're learning it but it's you know but you're also O not trying to teach to the test. It's it's just understanding the questions that are asked. >> Yeah. >> In a way that they can understand it. >> Um yeah, I I felt, you know, I I really um I really empathize with that because I know when I went to Jeff, um I don't know why I didn't test so well. I I was
121a class saludiatoran, but I think it was just the way the the academic language was on the test on like the SAT. You know, I finished it real fast. I thought I did really well, but my scores were not very high. And I think it's because I could not understand it in that way. And um and I I as on the board, you know, I feel like I I really empathize with these students because growing up in Daily City, you know, especially English was not my first language. Um just just trying to uh even though I commanded the English language, it was not my first language. So there's a lot of still a lot of learning to do. Um, congratulations on the improvement in the test scores um and the the uh learner agency. Really
122really interesting. I really like it. Um, and I also want to thank you and your staff for being so committed to your work with the National Equity Project. Um, that's a huge commitment um on top of everything else you're doing. But um it really, you know, you're really um committed to that and the work within our district. >> Um I am I don't know. Can I join peer observation week? >> Yeah, absolutely. >> Yeah, I'm going to work that out with Miss Prea because I'd love to see how you do it. Um and the uh boy, the extensive support needs students. Um, so you said they spend half a day in general ed classes. >> They can. It depends. Some some quarters they're three three periods are in. >> Okay. It depends on >> a
123sheltered classroom and one period's out, but there's >> like quarters where it's two periods are out. And >> so they're in a lot of elective classes. So it's a lot of learning that we haven't quite >> figured out yet. um how to provide the support for the teachers, how much support is needed. >> Um I think we need to do a lot more for staff, the school about understanding autism and kind of uh raising awareness. That's something I know we need to work on. >> Okay. And how can the district support you better in that way? >> Oh, I think it's just asking. I just need to ask and say we need to do this like how are we going to do this? Wonderful. The support's there. >> Yeah. I just I just need to
124ask >> and then figure out where it when we're doing it. >> Okay. >> There's so many things that we're working on. >> Oh, yes. I can see that. Um and student recognition. I I think it's great. They need to feel valued. Um and I know that our student advisory council, that's something that they had brought up before. You know, they they want it. So, I'm glad that you're you're doing this and and very frequently and very creatively. It just kind of reminds me of in elementary school when they had the fundraisers and you earn a ducky. >> Um, kids are really trying to collect that. But this is super cool. So, thank you. Thank you for your everything you're doing over there and please thank your staff for us. >> Thanks. >> Yes. >>
125Hi, I'm Violet. I'm a trustee at Oceanana on the board. Last year I was working with the new student integration committee. And a lot of what we did, especially at Jefferson, was talk to English language learner students about what they wanted to see improvements for. And a lot of the feedback we got was that there were students who were really interested in them like excelled at math and science, but they just weren't getting good grades because they couldn't understand how the questions were worded. So I think a lot of the disconnect there just stems from what Ro was talking about with just not being able to understand the academic language. So I think a lot of what we were able to tell the board was got we got that information from speaking with English language
126learner students about what they wanted to see either from the school or from the district. So I think that would be a great starting point for also um learning more about how you can help out these students who are bright but just don't have the means to express themselves. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Uh congratulations, John. Um and thank you. Uh you mentioned something. I think you were calling it a T 2V1. Is that right? That's when you have three teachers sitting together. >> Oh, a tuning protocol. Yeah. Or consultancy. Yeah. Um, that sounds like a a powerful learning tool. I I like the fact that you're working through something you say is extremely weird but powerful and that people are going through that with you. Um, did I understand right that
127the peer tutor program has students in classrooms? >> Yes. Yeah. So in part because of the 4x4 we have students can earn 320 credits and need 225. So they have a lot of elective space. So some of the students burn through you know they've taken all the electives that they want to take and they want to be a TA or they want a period to help somebody and so the counselors try to steer them away from being a TA and toward being a peer tutor. uh and so they're enrolled in that classroom and we try to match up peer tutors with subjects that they're interested in or have some aptitude or skill in um try to find students that speak another language that can go into a class and help um some of what Violet
128was talking about which was you know helping students be able to express or be able to get translation if they need it but so they are enrolled in those classes and they can do it starting their junior year. So, we have some students do it four, you know, four times. They'll do it for two years straight. We're hoping to get some teachers out of it. >> Yeah. >> Right. Yeah. Um, we've mentioned your uh incentive with the charms. I I don't know. I don't think it matters, but I don't know if somebody's going to say, "Hey, look, I got the charms." or if they got home and like put it in a drawer and be like, you know, when they take out a pair of socks, they're like, "Hey, check out my charms." You know,
129>> look what I did. Um either way, I'm I'm pretty pleased that that >> I think that can have a lot of power. >> Um I don't really have anything else. Congrats on your success and improvements and your plans for more. >> Thanks. And uh thank you very much you and uh your administrative team and your staff. Thanks. >> Thank you, John. I'm going to be somewhat brief because I because we have a long night ahead of us. Um but a few things stand out that I want to call out uh in public. First of all, you are an instructional leader and I'm really grateful for your your in particular John Herrian your work. I'm grateful for all of the work that goes on. Um but you the difference in math scores I think from
130my vantage point are largely due to the work that you guys are doing and that's largely due to your interest and your experience as a teacher and as an educator. So, I want to call that out and thank you for focusing on that. I also love that everybody's heard the word tuning protocol now. And I'm going to shout out Lorie Robinson who's been working with our principles using tuning protocols. So, we've been working this year in instructional counsel um on supporting our principles in their educational leadership. And so the principles will take problems of practice dilemmas to our group. And as John was explaining, it's a little weird. You know, you describe something, you have to have to be quiet. >> People kind of ask questions and talk to each other. And it's it's different
131than how we often interact with others and it's very very powerful. So I'm thrilled. I don't know if you knew it before and you know like I'm not >> I did >> or if you learned it from Lori but I'm so grateful to Lori for bringing that. >> I picked it up at the NEP training last May. >> Yes. Yes. Yes. Meetings for equity >> and National Equity Project has influenced our district so positively in so many ways. So I'm thrilled that you you know it it takes a village as they say. um really thrilled and um you know there are so many things that I could say the fact that the test scores are going up uh just indicate that students are are are capable and um we know they're capable and we we
132want to make sure that doors are opened for them not closed to them. So thank you for your hard work and for the work of your entire staff and your your team at Jefferson. >> Thanks. >> Well done. Thank you. Item 10 C, sorry. Yeah, 10 C1 is our board policy update BP comprehensive safety plan. Ms. Basuino. >> Good evening. Uh this policy is being updated with a few just a few minor language changes. That's it. >> This again a first read item. >> First read. >> Thank you. Any comments? Board policy update BP5125 student records. >> Again, first read. Uh, this policy is being updated to include information about deleting student records from a third-party app, online services or website, how to respond to requests for immigration or citizenship status, and gives direct direction
133for the retention, disclosure, and security of student records. >> Thank you. Stop me before I say board policy update BP5125.1, release of directory information. first read. Uh, this policy is being updated to add releasing student email addresses along with student information in accordance with law and board policy to colleges prospective employees/military. >> Thank you. Uh, good. No questions. Uh, we're going to take a break. Do we need to vote on that? Good. Uh, let's take a 10-minute recess. We'll come back at 8:21. Uh, come back from recess at 8:22. Uh item 11 A1 is uh regards our board member provisional appointment. Miss Pre is going to let us know all about it. >> Okay. Thank you. Uh good evening. This item is the interview and selection of a provisional member of the Jefferson Union High
134School District Board of Trustees. Uh, so Trusty Cho notified the board of his intent to resign on December 16th and the board determined that it would fill the vacancy through a provisional appointment consistent with its our bylaws. The position was posted on January 15th and applications were accepted until February 13th. The district received four applications, Jesse Leaven, Joelle Castenho, Jennifer Anne Kramer, and Landre Gutter. All trustees have reviewed the applications in advance of tonight's meeting. Tonight, we will interview these four candidates for the provisional appointment. Thank you to each of the candidates for your willingness to serve and for participating in this process. I will explain how the interviews will work. The order that the candidates will be interviewed will be determined by pulling names randomly. However, the candidate who's joining joining remotely will be
135the first to be interviewed. Each candidate will be asked the same set of questions and candidates will have up to 3 minutes to respond to each question. While each candidate is interviewed, we ask that the other candidates adjourn to the front office area. And my assistant, Mrs. Breast, will show you where that is. After all candidates have been interviewed, we will open the meeting for public comment specifically related to the candidates. Following public comment, each board member will write their two top choices on a slip of paper and pass the papers to me. I will read them out. If there's a majority in favor of one candidate, President Walker will ask for a motion and will also ask for a roll call vote. If there is no consensus, the board will discuss the merits of
136the candidates, deliberating until a further motion is made. The selected candidate for the provisional appointment will be sworn in tonight and will begin serving immediately with their first regular board meeting scheduled for March 24th, 2026. This provisional appointment will serve until the November 2026 election, at which time voters will elect someone to serve the remainder of the 2-year term. Again, thank you to our candidates for your interest in serving the Jefferson Union High School District and our community. If the board is ready to proceed, we will call forward our candidates to take uh to to adjourn to the other room. And as I said, Jesse Leaven, who is our remote candidate, will be interviewed first. Miss Bruss will pull the names of the remaining candidates out of a little bowl right now to determine the
137order in which they will interview. Once we determine the order, Miss Bruss will take you guys to the other room. Is the board ready? >> Okay, >> board's ready. >> Miss Bruss, do you want to call names, poll names for the order? So the second interview is going to be is it Joelle? Okay. Is Joel Pasteno? The third interview is going to be Landre Gutter. And the fourth interview will be Jennifer Anne Kramer. Okay. Thank you. So Chelsea's going to walk you over to the waiting area. Okay. And can we call Mr. Lean into out of the Zoom waiting room and into the meeting? Hello. Can you hear us? >> I can hear you loud and clear. Can you hear me? >> Wonder. >> Yes, we can. Wonderful. Okay, I'm gonna turn it over to
138you, President Walker. Okay, >> we're we're going to begin with our questions. I I have the first question. >> Um, >> we timing. >> Sorry. Yes. Thank you. So, you have three minutes to answer each question. Mr. Lean, do you have a copy of We emailed a copy of the questions. Did you get that? >> I I have them in front of me. Thank you. >> Wonderful. Okay. Okay. >> The first question is, tell us about yourself and what motivated you to apply for a position on the school board. >> Certainly. Um so I'm I'm an education economist um which basically I I deal with research and educational effectiveness and school finance um mostly and I've been doing that for about 23 years. What motivated me to to to to apply for this position here
139um is is kind of multiple purpose. Um, first I feel a very strong sense of duty um and uh duty to community and public governance um and especially trying to keep in mind students and their families. And I think that this is reflected by my previous board um trusteeship on the Pacifica School District board. um uh as as well as other things like um I I uh oversaw the uh led led a bond measure effort in uh in in Pacifica school district which was successful uh way back when. Um the the second thing is I I just truly feel that I could add some value to and perspective to the board uh given my research background. Um, third, I've seen firsthand how boards can play a very influential role to um to improve district policy
140and and and and and ultimately um the outcomes of children. So, it's very exciting for me. I have to say that you know being virtually watching this uh this presentation was really really exciting. everything from the student trustees to John Herringan. Uh his his I mean the Jefferson the the Jefferson High School presentation was great and I learned a lot. Um so uh I'm just uh extremely motivated and jazzed about uh about the prospect. Um finally I have two sons. One uh who is a sophomore currently at Teranova High School and the other one will be a freshman next year. So I I feel like this will provide a um you know uh uh a a nice different lens, a parental lens. Um even though I know many of you are parents, but this would
141be another parent. Um and I feel that that I have a nice mix of both the parent lens as well as the research lens. And I'm also involved in um uh various other uh educational endeavors such as being part of the Special Olympics Global Research Collaborative and I'm part of the California Department of Education technical design group. So I kind of have this practitioner um policymaker perspective as well. I that's all I got for that one. >> Thank you. >> Yeah. >> Hi Jesse, it's Rosie. >> Hi Rosie. Um my question is what do you believe are the fundamental purposes of public education and what role do you see yourself playing as a board member in supporting those purposes? >> Okay, you know I I I see it's a great question first of all. So
142I really want to separate out two big purposes of public education and one is to really promote the life opportunities of students. Okay. And it's it's a huge responsibility that public education takes on because um clearly research shows us that uh a good education um in improves social mobility. It improves um in not only individual earnings but health um things like uh incarceration rates um reliance on public systems of of of of welfare. Um so so there's a huge motivation to try to improve individual students lives. That's one side of it. The second side of it is almost more of a collective. And where I'm going to go with this is a little bit um researchy nerdy, but really Horus man was uh a brilliant thinker who uh who who who really created our our
143our public school uh model. It it was called the common school and he had several motivations that were more collective in terms of societal purposes for education. And the first one was nurturing and preserving our democratic system. And I can't think of a better time to bring this up than right now, just to let you know. Um, and and and so, you know, self-governing democracies really require a knowledgeable and literate population. And where are they going to become knowledgeable and literate? Well, in public schools. The second motivation that that that man put forth was to tr try to provide equal socioeconomic opportunities for individuals. So, this goes back to that social mobility. your your outcomes in life should not depend on um the the wealth or the standing of your family, but everyone should have
144an equal opportunity to progress in society. And that's the second. And then third, really promoting the the economic standing of of the country. Um and and and trying to improve everybody's uh everybody's um uh standard of of of living in in in the country is a really important motivation. And you know, when when people say, "Well, that's my kid. I don't care if public education does anything for that kid or not." They're all of our kids. Everyone I mean, think about think about over at SFO. Those those people that are working on the planes there, if they're not educated, right, some somebody's going to suffer, right? Um, so I'm a firm believer in in in in what these thinkers, great thinkers, you know, kind of promoted in terms of public education. I'm not sure if
145I'm close to three minutes, but I do see just to recap individual motivation and a societal motivation for public education. >> Thank you. >> Your turn. >> Yeah. >> So, I've got the next question, Jesse. Our district has identified equity as a core value. What does equity and public education mean to you and how would that belief guide your decisions as a board member? >> Certainly. So, um I'm I you know, equity means so many things to so many people, but I'm going to give you two big meanings of equity that I think are vitally important. One is is one that I think most people are familiar with. Um, and that is what I would call instructional treatment of students and equitable treatment of students. Um, and and many know about unconscious racial bias. And
146I think that that's really important. But I I don't think that that's the only source of inequity that we face. We have to we have to address that. Absolutely. But the other form of inequity that that I'm really afraid of because I've studied it for 23 years is resource inequity. The fact that you have some schools that have better programming and more experienced teachers and other schools that have less. And um in addition, it's not just about the school level, but it's about the different subgroups of students. I'm talking about students from economically so e economically disadvantaged families. I'm talking about English learners. I'm talking about special education students. And so I'm very very concerned that they are both resourced appropriately as well as these different students um are included in the ecosystem of the
147school. So, for example, I'm very interested in Special Olympics, and Special Olympics has a uh a program that's actually being being uh offered at uh at at Tteranova um which is called the the Unified Champion Schools program. And the whole idea is to try to include students with disabilities into programming at at at schools. And they do this through sports programming, but it pervades the whole school ecosystem. And so I'd like to see things like that. I heard um one of the student trustees talk about English learners and the challenges that they face. They're not making performance gains on math because they're not understanding the problems, right? The word the word problems, the language of the problems. Well, I would like to get to these root causes. I think that that's a great example. Get
148to these root causes and try to identify equitable solutions. Now, it's not my role to do that, but it's my role to stress to district leadership to do that. >> And and and to to to specify that that is a that's a top priority of mine. Um, so I I'll I'll I'll relent on the rest of my time on that. I think I've said enough. >> Good evening, Jesse. Thanks for joining us this evening. Um, nice to meet you. Uh your next question will be what strengths, knowledge and experiences would you bring to the board that would help contribute to its effectiveness? >> Certainly. Thanks for the question uh trusty gyos. Um so first of all I have experience uh being on a board before. So I understand how you all operate. I understand the
149restrictions the limitations under which you operate like the the Brown Act. Um so that's one. I also think that I bring uh this research perspective to to the table and um I'm happy to share with you that research perspective as you might have uh uh encountered in my application. Um in addition, I I am a parent and my kids have been going to Sanonteo County schools the whole time. My two boys went to uh Cabillo just like your your son does. Um I I can't couldn't remember if it was son or daughter, but uh but uh okay. Uh so um so I'm familiar with with the area and uh and and and I would like to become more familiar with uh with Jefferson Union High School District to tell you the truth. Um uh I've
150got 23 years of research experience. A lot of it is based in California. Um but it's all over the country. Um uh boy uh I I think that I'm I'm also a very personable p uh personal guy. Um and I I I have uh I really want to learn and to to interact and I feel that that everybody can learn from everyone. All of you as as trustees have different experiences from me that I can learn from. Um, I learned a great deal from district leadership in Pacifica, uh, when I was there. Um, and I I've learned a great deal from from my research colleagues and also from the the policy makers and practitioners with whom I've worked in in in research. And I think that that's a a unique lens with which to uh
151to govern and I lent on the rest of my >> Yeah, you're good. Thank you. Yeah. Yes. >> If selected, what would you hope to accomplish as a member of this board >> and how would you measure your success? >> So, I have a huge focus on equity. When I look at numbers, I think looking at averages and changes in averages, uh, average outcomes is great. It's a great starting point, but I'm a firm believer that you also have to look at the variation around those averages or an easier way to say it is are different student groups not not not making the average. And I would probably measure my success from trying to improve the outcomes of those students who are most academically struggling. And um I would also say it's not all just
152about academics. I also am a firm believer in in in looking at socioeotional learning outcomes. Now, we don't measure as many of those, but there are some, and certainly the California Healthy Kids Survey has has some of that that that that we heard about. Um, so I I would look at the outcomes of students in particular those students from traditionally underserved groups and um want to narrow those gaps and and ensure on the front side that all of the students have an equal opportunity to achieve. And that's done through through um ameliorating those sources of inequity, that instructional treatment inequity, these ecosystems where there's unconscious racial bias, as well as making sure that there are the resources in place to support programming for those English learners that can't read the math problems proficiently enough to
153to to to get the the answers right on the tests. Um uh I I think that I'll I'll I'll stop there, but that that's I mean at the end of the day I'm I'm very I I would measure myself against how well have we done at narrowing those gaps. I think one more thing is getting the perspective of families with what their priorities and their satisfactions are with our schools and the programming there and we have to listen to them as well. Um, so it's not just about the California state standards. That's very important. It's also about how parents are feeling um and the community as a whole are feeling about what types of programming and and outcomes uh our schools are producing. I hope that's helpful. >> Thank you. >> Okay. Imagine a parent
154approaches you in a grocery store and asks for your support on an issue. How would you respond? >> This has happened to me before. Um, a couple of times. Um, so there are a couple steps here. First, you want to authentically listen to the parent and make sure that they know that you're not just nodding along with them and going, "Uh-huh. Uh-huh." Next, because you've authentically listened to them, you should bring that concern to the superintendent and possibly if the superintendent feels it's warranted, um the district leadership team as well and talk it through. Um now, I think an additional followup though is to not leave it there, but to make sure that some action has been taken. And when I say action, it could be a decision that we can't, you know, it's impossible
155for us to address this. Let's say the parent comes up and wants, you know, the district to do something that they absolutely can't because it's illegal for some reason. Um, well, that that can happen and it's very important to follow up with the parent to make sure that they understand that they were listened to, their concern was considered, and there was some sort of decision made. Now, we're not going to be able to satisfy everybody all of the time, but sometimes we will, sometimes we won't. At the very least, they can feel listened to and and and felt authentically heard. I hope that's helpful. >> Thank you. >> Great. >> All right, Jesse. Next one. When voting on an issue before the board, how would you balance factors such as community concerns, student needs, legal
156requirements, staff recommendations, and your own values and beliefs? >> Okay, this is a great question. This is I think one of the most difficult questions you guys offered here for me at least. Um, one thing is, you know, values values are inherently subjective. So, I would try to put those aside. Instead, I would try to look at the evidence that's out there and, you know, and that's kind of, you know, values and beliefs. Beliefs could be, well, what what research do I believe or what what results do I believe that that that we've got going on in in our district? Um, I would I mean, I think that you have to balance community concerns. I just referred to I think sort of community concerns in my last response in that um we have to understand
157what the community values and that certainly holds weight um the student needs. I think that you know that can be informed by by by research evidence and also practitioner uh practitioner uh I'll call it opinion but it's very informed opinion right professional opinion and I I I think that principal herrian uh you know he talked about uh universal design for learning which is great I love that right and it's great that you're seeing uh results so you know that's an an instance where okay there there's a research face here we see in practice it's actually seems to be working that would hold some weight legal requirements are legal requirements so I you know I I don't think um it it's up to the you know the the district council to to help us through those
158um staff recommendations again I think that goes goes in with with kind of the evidence base um I think even staff recommendations includes what I would call anecdotal evidence even if it's not hard research evidence And I would take all of these into into account. Um I I would try to limit my own values, okay? Because uh uh I you know I I'm I'm a trained economist and so it's it's it's a positive science. We try to tell you what is rather than than than tell you really what should be um according to us. Uh so so I I try to kind of le leave my my subjective values out of it. Um aside from my passion for equity and I I guess you know one could say that not everybody agrees that we should
159provide equitable opportunity for students. >> 30 seconds left. >> Oh I I I will relinquish the rest of my time to to you all to to ask me more questions. >> We're almost there. Jesse number eight. >> Yeah. How can an effective governing board ensure that parents and community members have meaningful opportunities to share their perspectives on important policy issues? >> This is a great question and this is all about communication, communication, communication and not one-way communication. So I would argue that um that that one of the necessary conditions here is that the the the district becomes an expert communicator in terms of making things transparent and understandable to parents, but then opening up avenues for parents to provide feedback and input. Now we we we have, you know, things like LCAP meetings and I
160think that those are brilliant, but I've also seen those go both ways. Not I'm not talking about Pacifica here. I'm talking about in in other districts where the LCAP becomes kind of a rubber stamp exercise where you know the the principal say well here here's our plan and then the district says here's our plan and there were some there there were some parents there to listen to the plan but not really provide authentic feedback, right? Have to avoid that. have to generate or make accessible avenues for uh for for parents to to authentically provide feedback. Um and and this means all parents, not just the two or three that consistently always make it to the LCAP meetings. Okay. Now, what does that require? That requires some investment. You're going to have to make things in
161multiple languages, right? When there are, right? Uh so so the calls to these meetings um I would try to leverage technology in that way and and mind you I might be telling you things you're already doing but this is just what I would do. So my apologies if you're already doing some of this. Uh in any case you would really have to um develop a communication strategy that was two-way and authentic. The other thing which kind of hearkens back to to one of my other responses is once you get input from from parents, they have to know that it's been listened to, it's been processed and considered. So that also has to be messaged out as well. It's not just uh we got this. Check that off. It's we got this. We took it into
162consideration and we're reporting out what parents said and this is this is what the district says and this is where the two meet. This is our intersection. I hope that's helpful. >> Thank you. >> Okay, question nine. How would you continue to develop and improve your effectiveness as a board member during your term? >> Okay. Uh, another great question and and so um when I read this right before right before starting answering these questions, I I thought about it briefly and and one place where I really do have to improve my game is um I is becoming familiar with the school communities there. And when I say becoming familiar, there are a lot of different stakeholders to become familiar with. Students and their families, staff, and the larger communities or neighborhoods surrounding each school. Um,
163I think that there are points that I would have to understand in order to really aid my decision-m on the board and and interact with all of you. And one is what are the goals of each school? I'm a firm believer in in in local control. And I I don't believe that stops at the district level. It flows down to to each school. Each school community is unique. The second thing is what are the strengths that the school feels they have. And the third is what are their challenges? What are their pain points? Right? So, so I would have to get up to speed and learn all of that. These are things that I think you all as as as veteran uh board members have, you know, definitely have a leg up on me. you've
164been you've been you know uh you've been gathering this information for a while now but I would I would have to to to do that in order to become a more effective board member. The next thing is more general which is just learning learning learning and that means going to Saturday sessions with all of you. It means listening authentically to all of you. It means going to uh CSBA trainings, right? All of the above. Um, and then of course, um, just continuing on with with what I do professionally, which is researching and and and learning, you know, about educational effectiveness and um and and learning about ways to promote uh educational equity. I'm not sure if that's close to three minutes, but that's what I got for you. >> Okay. So, do you have any
165questions for the board that would help you prepare for this role if you're selected? >> Um, one of my questions for you all is which I I think I have a good handle on, but um my my highle question is is how do you all interact with each other? And when I say you all, I'm going to split up the board, school staff, and district staff, district leadership. And how do you regularly interact with one another? Um, and and are those are those relationships healthy? And if if not, how could they be improved? So, that's one question that I I think I have. I think that's that that's the only question. I'm not sure if you're going to answer them. Maybe maybe this is only me answering questions and you guys get to ask the
166question so we don't answer it. >> Okay, that's fine. I I could talk to you all offline regardless of how this works out. Okay. >> Uh thank you. >> All right. >> Uh so those are all our questions. We uh we can give you two minutes to make a concluding statement. >> Okay. Sure. Well, I I I just wanted to say that I'm I'm a very passionate about public education and I come at it from a researcher a policy uh research policy and parental perspectives. Okay. Um and uh I I I truly believe in in equity for all students um and have tried to kind of live that in my professional life. Um I you know I I'm not sure what else I could say. I I think that, you know, um I also know
167know where where I would have to sort of sharpen my game, and that is to get up to speed on Jefferson Union, and I'm perfectly willing to do that. And I'm just excited at the opportunity. Thank you all for for uh for for allowing me to uh to apply um well, allowing me to to interview. And I'm really sorry that I couldn't be there. It's just um unforeseen circumstances, things that I couldn't avoid, but I would I would definitely be there if I could. >> Thank you very much. >> Thanks so much. Have a good night. >> Thank you. Thank you. >> Okay. So, um we're going to take a moment and Miss Bruss, Mrs. Breast is going to go into the other room and call in Joelle Casteno to interview. We are going to
168have the in-person candidates sit at the spot where um where there's a bottle of water since we decided making people stand up wasn't a good idea. Thank you um Rosie for bringing that up earlier today so we could make a plan for it. So um Miss Bruss is going to go get Joelle Casteno to come in and you can write your notes. Joelle in order to speak. welcome in. Um the questions are in front of you and there's a bottle of water that has not been opened. It's yours. >> I was told to take it with me. >> Is all for you. And in order to speak in the m the you have to push um to to see the green light for us to hear you. So you can just leave it on. >>
169Okay. Yeah. Thanks. >> Good. Thanks for coming in. Uh I have the first question. tell us about yourself and what motivated you to apply for a position on the school board. Yeah. Um, so thank you for having me. My name is Joel Castino. I am a parent. I am a mother of three. Um, I have a 19-year-old, a 9-year-old, and a seven-year-old. Um I also uh through my own uh mentorship program with the Vuiti Cares Foundation support uh high school students present day today um through house healthcare pathways that maybe their um schools can't provide um in the Oakland area um today we visited um Al Camino um it was a good time. Yeah, go ahead. >> Can you put the microphone closer because I know I can't hear you very well so we want
170to make sure everybody hears. >> Okay. >> No. Uh much better. Huh? >> Yeah, much better. Thank you. >> Yeah. So, I was um saying I'm a parent. I have three children in 199 and 7. Um I also do mentorship programs in the um Oakland Unified um school district. Um and I was a very engaged parent um at Westmore High School for the four years my daughter went to school. Um I served on school site council. I served on the bell schedule and I also served as an um interviewer for um our uh we went through some pres um some principal transitions. >> Um so I'm sitting in front of you all today both based on my own engagement with the community. Um I am local. I also am a daughter of a Westmore High
171School graduate and my auntie graduated from uh Westmore High School. So, I'm very Bay Area native and I um love to support students in our communities and yeah, >> thank you. >> Hi Joelle. So, what do you believe are the fundamental purposes of public education and what role do you see yourself playing as a board member in supporting those purposes? That's a that's kind of a hard question. Um how public education is viewed today probably has both um strong aspects to it and um some lacking aspects to it. Um education is the stepping stone and cornerstone of building our future um adults and our future leaders. Um and also um is an important space because not everybody can find themselves happy to be where they are at today and maybe school is an outlet for
172them. Um education serves a lot of families and students um in areas that maybe they're not getting the support that they need. Um, as a school board member, I continue to see myself supporting um the schools around us and the students around us um in meeting the needs or requests that they have and really helping them um meet some of their goals um that they have and hope to achieve. >> Thank you. >> Hi Joelle. Our district has identified equity as a core value. What does equity in public education mean to you and how would that belief guide your decisions as a board member? >> So equity for me is that we are all um we are all equal um and that we all deserve to have a voice and um that we all should
173be um perceived in an equal manner. um how I how that belief would guide me in my decisions as a board member is I don't I see people for who they are on the inside. Um I'm not here to judge anybody. Um but put my I mean it was very touching just this evening attending this meeting and hearing from students and faculty members and um people of the public um and to see them for who they are and where they're at in life. Good evening, Joel. Um, what strengths, knowledge, or experiences would you bring to the board that would help you contribute to its effectiveness? I do believe that my most recent experience at Westmore High School um would help contribute to the board being that I did sit on a recent school site council
174and I did work on the Bell schedule so that we could increase our graduation rates at Westmore High School. Um there were unfortunately students not graduating just because they were missing um a handful of credits. And now with the Bell schedule, that has enabled students to not only take on more electives and find value in the things that they enjoy when they're attending school, but graduate high school, which is an important milestone, whether it be that they're going on to a four-year college or they're going to take up a trade school or they're going to have a gap year. But I think that's um extremely important. Um in my own personal life um I do um I have about 10 years of leadership experience um supporting um my team of practice administrators and healthcare workers
175um and clinical workers um and that has given me a lot of resilience and grit um caring for health care um even though it is seen to save lives, it is also um an operational business that is hard to run and with different laws and regulations and um insurance policies, it's very hard um to hold on to not only that we're there to care for our patients, but we're there to make a difference just like we're doing with our next generation of mentees u that are seeking healthcare career pathways. >> Thank you. Okay, next question. If selected, what would you hope to accomplish as a member of this board and how would you measure your success? >> I think um something that's really important about being a board member is having that facetime with um
176the schools and the students. really showing up and being present for their events, their initiatives, their goals, and being able to come back and speak to them. I think um taking on a role like this does require some some time to um observe and learn from my own uh mentors or fellow board members. Um, and in order to measure that success, I would uh definitely make a goal of visiting um at least one school um and at least uh two events per month um so that I am able to sit in front of you all in the public and speak to my observances and what I've experienced and to stay um attached to the district. >> Thank you. Imagine a parent approaches you in a grocery store and asks for your support on an issue.
177How would you respond? >> Um, I don't I don't know that I can clearly say how I respond. I don't know what I would do um in that instance. Um, but I would imagine that it would still be very important for me to acknowledge that parent and hear what they have to say. Um, and then with the current knowledge I have today, take what they've had to say and let them know that they've been heard and maybe it's something I need to leverage or resource I have um, and circle back with them or learn what the best possible response would be, but I don't know that I could just immediately support their request. Okay. When voting on an issue before the board, how would you balance factors such as community concerns, student needs, legal requirements,
178staff recommendations, and your own values and beliefs? Um so um I think it's again very important for me um to really to hear you know everything that's being brought before me. Um but I have to again not ensure that maybe my internal feelings or my emotional feelings or even my judgmental feelings don't play a part. Um, I be I truly believe in being fair and honest with both myself and when I'm reviewing something. And sometimes it's about making the right decision. Um, and to me that's the best decision. Okay. How can effective governing an effective governing board ensure that parents community members have meaningful opportunities to share their perspective. >> Microphone's not allowed. >> Oh, >> I'll start over. Sorry. Uh, how can an effective governing board ensure that parents and community members have meaningful
179opportunities to share their perspectives on important policy issues? >> I think it's very important to get the word out there. I know we uh live in a very technological world where you can receive emails or newsletters um but unless you're directly involved with a student or um the school itself, I think it's very hard to uh continue to stay engaged and I can speak for that myself now uh sitting before all of you and being able to attend this um evening's meeting. I actually didn't know these meetings really existed in all honesty. Um, and I think being able to um I don't know that the right word is advertise, but share that these um that the community and parents continue to be reached out to and actually asked for their involvement and engagement. I I
180actually sat um during uh one of my meetings and asked, you know, how come there is such of a lack of engagement? And it was a very honest response that it's very hard once um parents um or community members are detached from a school or your kids are already in high school. It is it's a little bit harder to stay engaged because you've kind of raised raised your kids up um to a certain extent and then it's just, you know, you're able to take on your own personal careers and goals. And I really think it's important that the board reaches out to the community as much as as possible and tries to engage parents in the community as much as they can. >> Excuse me. How would you continue to develop and improve your effectiveness
181as a board member during your term? >> Yeah, I think feedback is extremely important. Um, I've always been very open to feedback and receiving feedback and having open question or dialogue um to ask uh how my effectiveness is. What am I doing well? Where do I need to um what are areas of improvement or opportunity? Because we're all growing throughout all stages of our life. >> Great. Um not that we can answer this but we are asking do you have any questions for the board that would help you prepare for this role if you are selected. I think one of my question is that uh when you do select your um ideal candidate, how do you plan to bring them on board in such a short amount of time um with high priority needs and
182demands before you um have your full-time board official? >> Thank you. So those are our questions but uh we can give you up to two minutes. We are giving you up to two minutes to give a concluding statement. >> Okay. Thank you. Um I just want to thank you all for the opportunity um for having me here tonight and listening to me. Um I was very honored to be here by um sorry it's very emotional um to be here by um Minister Victor Zho our principal at Westmore and to speak to all of you and to be uh to feel such a part of this community it takes a village um and you guys are all very dedicated and to see that um on an as an outsider to what you all are doing I
183think it's extremely impactful and um I thank you for that. Thank you. >> It's all good. >> All good. What's that? Oh. voice is loud. >> Welcome. >> Thank you. >> Yes, you have the the questions in front of you. Um and I'm going to turn it over to President Walker and we're going to get started. >> Okay. I'm gonna ask you the first question. Thanks for coming in. >> Three minutes. >> I have three minutes to answer each question. >> Okay. >> Uh >> I'm going to see where that I'm going to be over the three. >> I I'll let you know when we have 30 seconds. There's a clock up there, too. Tell us about yourself and what motivated you to apply for a position on the school board. >> Well, my name
184is Landre Gutter and I live in the district. I am retired from juvenile hall. So, I worked at probation. I worked inside the juvenile hall. Um, >> someone told me some years ago, hey, I think it'll be good at being on the school board. So, that just shocked me. So, clearly I went and did my investigation a little bit, you know, a little investigation to see what the school board did to see how the school board supported the community at large. And I thought I saw myself doing that but within the juvenile hall. So in the juvenile hall you just have a group of kids or you know in the car in the carceral system and me as a staff provided certain things. Did you go to school on time? Did you need help for
185your schoolwork? Did you get to court on time? Did I write your court? Just a lot of things. And I learned from them how to be more empathetic. It challenged my biases, what I thought should be to what is actually happening. I had an understanding that I don't have the whole picture. And I just think that my very first job as a babysitter um and then working at the juvenile hall and then retiring from the juvenile hall and everything that I learned in there cuz it's a lot of learning. You go in knowing nothing and all of your learning comes from the kids. And I just kind of feel like this those things have given me everything that I could give to a school board where I don't have all the answers. I would still
186be learning, but I do have something to give. I like being around kids. I really thought I was hip when I worked at the juvenile hall because they keep you current. Really? They keep you current. I know you don't think that they're going to use the new little charms, but they're going to use them. They're going to use them on their backpacks because kids adorn things. They're going to use them, like we said earlier, on their Crocs. >> So that um I was very impressed by what happened today. So I just think >> 30 seconds. >> Thank you. I do think I know how to deal with problem solving. You know, how to deal with problem people, problem youth, troubled youth. I've had so much training in mental health and deescalation and probably a lot
187of stuff that I'm going to forget, >> but I'm ready. Um, I'm on the Commission on the Status of Women, so I know what it's like to work with a board. So, thank you, Thank you. >> Andre, >> hello. >> What do you believe are the fundamental purposes of public education and what role do you see yourself playing as a board member in supporting those purposes? Well, the fundamental purpose of public education is to provide students with what they need to be successful voting um citizens in the future. So I think public education is also to it's an environment where kids learn what they're good at, you know, and on things they're not as good at. They get a they can learn a toolbox because of all of the services hopefully that that um school
188district provides. Um public a education is just everything. Kids learn how to be around other kids that they don't know. They learn, they learn empathy, they learn how to get along, they learn problem solving. Um, what role do I see myself playing as a board member? I I'm going to be a great board member. I'm not a pushover. I stand for things. Um, I'm always going to bring it back to the children, to the students. I feel like this board has been together for a while, so you guys have kind of jelled. You probably have a good working relationship and I think I could contribute to that. Just come in silently, but you know, taking notes, not trying to overrun, but there, you know, and maybe asking some questions that you hadn't thought about and
189clearly learning um from all of you. Oh, education is so important. I just think that even the literacy rate in America as a whole is dropping. So, I just think um the phones did a lot of disservice to the youth even though we love them. And um I just think a lot is on public education right now to supplement for some other things that are going on in the world. Seems like Jefferson High School District is from what I heard tonight being very responsive to the community, to the youth, to the families, bringing those scores up. It seems like it starts every level is important. The school board is important. The superintendent is important. Everyone's doing their job. That principal today had me very motivated >> because it's his leadership got you. Thank you. his
190leadership going down to the teachers and clearly the students are reaping the benefits of that and the community as a whole because they're going to go out and be good voting citizens. All right. Um, our district has identified equity as a core value. What does equity and public education mean to you and how would that belief guide your decisions as a board member? Equity versus equality. So equity means that okay, everyone has the school, but does everyone in the school have what they specifically need to succeed and be a good voting citizen when they leave? And are they going to be empowered? All students are on different levels. And I know it's a lot on the school board and the schools and the teachers and everyone, but we have an obligation to serve youth. And
191sometimes you don't know that you're missing something. And I know Violet answered a question earlier to what the principal was saying. I was like, there there goes your answer. it's with the students and it seems like there's a lot of communication. You have a lot of studentled things and I think that's going to help the equity because sometimes the students don't want to hear from us older, more mature people. They want to hear from someone who's on their level and then it we have an obligation to meet that. And I think when you think of equity, we're meeting people where they are, giving them the tools for success, and it's going to look different for every for everyone. Um, it seems like I have some more time, so hold. >> Okay, I'm going to end
192there. Yeah, I can ramble some. >> It's all good. How you doing, Luna? Um, what strengths, knowledge, and experiences would you bring to the board that would help contribute to its effectiveness? >> Well, I personally think that I am great. I think that I should be chosen for this position because of my vast experience with youth of all nationalities, of all abilities. I know someone mentioned autism and I know in the juvenile hall we had kids from all walks of life and we the staff, not the administration, but the staff had to work together. I mean, you're not doing this thing in a solo. You're working together to meet their needs. Not every youth even knew how to take a shower. So I not every youth was normally functioning. I don't know. I don't want
193to be rude and say the wrong thing, but we as a staff work together. I might have been the lead staff, but I never did things on my own because it would not have worked. You have to be collaborative. If me and the staff couldn't figure out, then we would go to maybe it was a medical issue. I've called the nurse down to talk to kids about hygiene. I've called Kora in to talk to some youth that had issues with sexual trauma. I mean, we've done all kind of programs. I've run programs. I work with girls for 10 years, so I might have a little extra love for them in my heart, you know, and developing some of that self-esteem and acknowledging to even male staff that they are different and they do require something
194different and it's okay and and we're going to give it to them. So, we're just feeding kids with things that they need and and that's what the school board does with establishing guidelines, right? And hopefully you're choosing a superintendent that shares in a vision that can just implement implement that down. I I I might have got off the subject. >> Hold on. So, I just think my my strength and I know how to deal with difficult people. I know when people are angry, they just want to hear you to hear them, you know, because I'm about the policy, but I can still hear you and I can still respect you, you know, and I know how to deescalate pretty well. I'm not perfect, but I think I I think I would be a good choice.
195Let me just say that. Okay, next question. If selected, >> oh, uh, what would you hope to accomplish as a member of this board and how would you measure your success? I would just hope to be a part of a system that really made all the decisions. turning back to the kids with the kids at the forefront of that, you know, oh, it's about money. Okay. Yes. And then we're turning back to the kids because when we keep them in the forefront, then we're probably going to be okay. The we're probably going to be okay because we're all on the same page. It's just it's it's not perfection, right? It's commitment to the process. And in the end, um, we're going to win. We want we we've seen what commitment can show in that presentation
196and how those scores, I didn't know all the terminology, but those scores and those gaps that you were talking about, those gaps were shrinking. And that just showed you that damn, those teachers are connecting with these kids. Those kids are trusting those teachers and then internalizing the belief that they can do this. They're not stupid. Maybe it's something in the language of the question. And we all know that standardized tests were not really meant for everyone in the room. So, so I would just like to see continued success as a board member. The con I mean the the numbers, the percentages and the 90% graduation rate. I mean, it's it's just really astounding. I I just think to continue doing that, but I do wonder who else isn't being heard. What voices are we missing?
197and just making sure that we are doing our best to find out what voices there those are and trying to meet them to see what we can do, you know. Um not sure what that's going to look like, but I know if we have the will to do it, it can be done. >> Thank you. >> Okay. Um, imagine a parent approaches you in a grocery store and asks for your support on an issue. How would you respond? >> Fine. I love parents and parents have approached me in grocery store before and I've had their kids and they just want to talk about their kids. They just want to talk about their kids. Um, parents just kind of knew what I was going to do or not do. They know I wasn't going to break
198any rules, but sometimes they just want to talk to me. And I'm okay with that. And I'm okay with giving my opinion within the framework of, you know, what's appropriate. I'm okay with suggesting things to parents. I know like if parents are upset like maybe with even me as a board member, I would give them the process whatever the procedure is to go through that process. I mean, I've had teachers angry. I'm okay with it, you know, because we can both want success for this chair, but do it a different way. So then I don't understand why you're doing this even though you want s. You know what I'm saying? So sometimes it's a miscommunication, but let the process that's in place to handle disgruntledness, let it let it take place. I'm okay with that.
199I'm I'm I'm okay with talking to parents, giving advice, and listening and listening and also if required because you know I used to work at the juvenile hall, we always have to write incident report. I don't even know if that's a part of your processes because I mean you honestly can't remember everything that happens in an incident unless you write something down right after it. I mean a lot is lost after that. So that's it. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> When voting on an issue before the board, how would you balance factors such as community concerns, student needs, legal requirements, staff recommendations, and your own values and beliefs? that comes with working and dealing with people all the time in your life. You you learn how to navigate things in school, on your teams,
200um with your coaches, with something you don't agree with in class. So, that is like a lifong process. So, I'm on a board already. We don't agree, but we really do. Um, we respect one another. So, I'm going to listen to what you're going to say. You're you're going to listen to me and we're going to bring the kid back into the focus, the kid, the student. Yes, we have to do, you know, I've mentioned earlier, yes, we have to deal with money issues. Yes, we're going to have you come into things with your own beliefs, but it I mean other beliefs are valued, correct? So, put those things aside and just talk it out. What is the goal? Can we get to the goal by continuing to argue over your belief is better than
201my belief? That means we're off track. So, I think it's a mutual respect and What are we here to solve, right? What are we here to solve? And to make sure that we're solving that with the student in mind. And I think we'll be okay. It's not perfection. It's commitment. That'll be it. How can effective how can an effective governing board ensure that parents and community members have meaningful opportunities to share their perspectives on important policy issues? >> Well, for one, you have an open meeting, right? And everything's public. It's easy for parents to find out about it. I think also when as you build the community with the parents right now I don't know the parents except for the two that I just met out there but becoming a board member you go to
202certain events you meet parents you tell parents about things you tell parents why we respect their opinion and we would love to hear their opinion more maybe you cannot come we understand the grind I'm retired but I understand the grind so I don't know if it's appropriate, but can parents write letters or to state their concerns? Um, so I think once you get out there and start learning the parents and they start seeing your face and you start saying, "Hey, where's that letter?" You can't just be telling me stuff in my ear for only me. I need you to put it out there. Um, that's one thing I can think. It's hard to get parents. I heard that also to get the parents to come to events. It's hard because parents are on the grind.
203But maybe giving them another avenue. You know, once they meet us and they see how fantastic we are, then they will feel comfortable after a time telling us some of their real concerns, some of the real challenges that they might have. And I work with a lot of kids, so I know how to deal with a lot of parents that might have some concerns that are different from like he doesn't want to do his math homework, but that might involved the police contact, you know, we just want to keep people out of out of detention. But I just have some thoughts that I could probably help parents with on that if they needed some something. Yes. So that's it. >> Thank you. >> How would you continue to develop and improve your effectiveness as a
204board member during your term? I'm just going to be a sponge. I'm going to be a sponge and I'm going to be present. I will say what I feel needs to be said. Something that maybe no one's thought of. Not to be disrespectful, but you know, just an opinion like throw something out there. So, I would continue to develop myself by being in your presence because I mean, you guys have been together for a while and you have such a wealth of knowledge about the schoolboard and other things outside of the school board. And I just think all those things together make such a great working team that you can really be effective. And as a result of that, you're really helping to build a strong and healthy community. That is the end goal. The
205community is well because the students are well. The families might not be well though. That might be a thing that you don't know. That the families might not be well even if the students appear to be well. But you're not going to know that until you really get in there. Or maybe another student tells you. And we might have to get some wrap wrap services. What are wrap services? Just to help the family a little bit more because they're probably not going to come out and stuff. So that might be a one of the groups that we don't know about, you know, the the families that aren't well even though their students seem well. So just throwing that out there. >> Thank you. Do you have any questions for the board that would help you
206prepare for this role if you're selected? >> I don't have any questions for the board, but I just want to say I was very I feel privileged to be here. For one, for someone who I didn't really know to suggest this to me 2 years ago, they don't know that I cannot make decisions like for things like this I feel that are serious that it takes me time to think on that. They didn't even know that. And it's a it's a big responsibility what you do and it is valued by me. I know you guys get a little hate from people that don't understand the processes and um I'm just appreciative for your time and I know that you will take your time in deliberating on who you feel is best and I do like
207that that I know it's quick but it's intentional and you know what's missing from your I mean not to replace the other person, but I know you're looking for someone who could come in and kind of gel and and I and I of course I think I'm going to be the best person to do that, but I'm just saying and I just appreciate the people that support things that they see in you that you don't always see in yourself. And I think that's what we do for students. We see things in them that they don't see in themselves and we plant seeds and then all the other things come to support those seeds and then there's success. There is success. So thank you. Uh those are the end of our questions but we can give
208you will give you two minutes up to two minutes for a concluding statement. >> I think that was my concluding statement. Thank you. I appreciate your time. >> Thank you so much. some of that. Thank you. Welcome. The questions are in front of you. Thank you. I see that Chelsea's moving the um microphone. We need to make sure we hear you. That that water is new. It's for you. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Yeah. Thank you for Thank you for being here and being the last person. You had to sit for longer, but we appreciate it. >> No problem. So, I'm going to turn it over to press President Walker. >> I have the first question for you. Uh, tell us about yourself and what motivated you to apply for a position on the school
209board. >> Um, I'm a mom. I have three kids, uh, 15, 17, and 21. Um, I have two kids in high school. One already went through high school. I'm electrician for 26 years. I'm on the executive board for Local 6. Um, and I just care about what happens to our schools and our community. I've lived in Pacifica for 47 years of my life. Um, my mom went to Cabrerillo, I went to Cabrerillo, my kids went to Cabrillo, we all live a block away, and I'm just part of a community and I want to make sure that, um, someone from our community is on the board that cares about our kids. >> Thank you. Hi Jennifer. Um, what do you believe are the fundamental purposes of public education and what role do you see yourself playing
210as a board member in supporting those purposes? I believe uh it's the purpose is to provide everyone a safe uh education or a safe place to learn and the basic educational what you can offer and it's hard because there's a lot of different students with different backgrounds and they're all in one class and it's just trying to get the most information and setting them up for the best chance of success, giving them the best opportunities to the best opportunities to succeed and knowing that all the kids are different. So, it's just being able, I think, to offer them different avenues and different ways that they could learn and be successful. And for what I see myself playing as a board member um is I just would like to be open to uh hearing ideas. I
211think I'm objective. Um I want what's good for the schools and the kids and the teachers that we retain the teachers. Um, and I just want to have a positive learning environment for our kids to be successful. >> Hi, Jennifer. Our district has identified equity as a core value. What does equity and public education mean to you and how would that belief guide your decisions as a board member? Well, I think what you in invest in your education is like the more you have and the more you invest in like if you find good teachers starts with good teachers. It starts with a good curriculum plan. It starts with a good like it starts with the interest of the students I would think and just having the tools to be able to like have to
212be set up right. So equity I would think would be like having all your having the most you could bring to a class like um I don't know making it fun making the opportunities easy to learn make hoping that the teachers involved in uh want to teach that class have knowledge in that class be prepared for that class so that the kids are prepared for that class I don't know uh keeping them entertained um just you you know, backing up teachers, you know, for the plans, making sure that they have plans, I guess you would say. Uh, making sure that the schools are, you know, offering classes that are that kids want to take. I would think that that's important and just letting them have the opportunity and finding out what kids are really interested
213in, what they want to learn, and how they learn. Hi, Jennifer. Um, what strengths, knowledge, or experiences would you bring to the board that would help contribute to its effectiveness? >> Um, I think I I bring I'm objective. Um, I care about kids. I care about our community. I want our community to be successful. Um my experiences I've been on the local six executive board for uh about nine years. So I've been involved in um making decisions, sitting on a board, paying bills, going through minutes, just reading a lot of stuff about what's going on, making decisions, listening to candidates, a lot of listening, um and just trying to make a good decision that will help the our our members at large. And I believe that's kind of similar to hear you're making decisions that
214will help our children and our community at large. Next question is if selected what would you hope to accomplish as a member of this board and how would you measure your success? I I think I would just try to be as fair as possible and just be open-minded and be open to hear good ideas and hopefully be able to back someone up and be part of a plan that might help our kids out with our with our learning and, you know, making them successful. Thank you. >> My question is, imagine a parent approaches you in a grocery store and asks for your support on an issue. How would you respond? Well, if a parent approached me at a grocery store and asked for my support, I would like to first of all get as much
215information about what she's asking for support for one and just be read the material that she's she's or he is explaining to me that they want support for and hopefully just make a a decision on whether I support it if it's well if it's going to help our students or our community. It doesn't have to do with it's if they it's not for their motive. It would have to be I would only support something if it was for helping our students or helping our schools. It's not for their personal gain. When voting on an issue before the board, how would you balance factors such as community concerns, student needs, legal requirements, staff recommendations, and your own values and beliefs? That that's the hard part because whenever you vote on something, you're not going to someone's
216not going to be happy. So, you have to figure out what's the best for most of the people involved. So I think that probably you probably go legal first. What's legally you can do first and what the effects the community has their own opinion but they don't always see the whole picture. So they they sometimes have an opinion on what they see what they're losing and not seeing the like what it takes to lose something sometimes. But I think you just have to be objective and you have to figure out what's the most important thing and stay honest. All right. How can an effective governing board ensure that parents and community members have meaningful opportunities to share their perspectives on important policy issues? So an effective governing board is open to new ideas as long
217as there's a good plan. I think um you know it all starts with planning. So ideas are ideas but you need a plan to make things follow through. So I think it all starts out with a good plan and I think that's what important and being open to the hearing other people's perspective and ideas even if they're not your own and being supportive and you know just getting feedback of what what people in your community want what kids want and just being objective. Okay. How would you continue to I will start again. How would you continue to develop and improve your effectiveness as a board member during your term? Um, I probably would just read as much as I could about the issues coming before me. Maybe just listen to feedback on what's coming before
218me and just trying to be knowledgeable of the information. I think that's the best way that you could be effective of being a good board member is to just knowing what the items on the table are, what's being asked of you, and what your options are to make your decisions. And the final question is, do you have any questions for the board that would help you prepare for this role if you're selected? Um I don't just probably what were the I know I asked before about the two meetings per month the first and third Tuesdays of the month is there other times that would be need to be available or different what are the uh the job requirements or kind of or what is asked of us like that's the only other thing I would
219ask probably. >> Thank you. Uh those are the end of our questions, but you have up to two minutes to give a concluding statement if you would like. Um, I really just applied because I um I read that there was a vacancy and I just wanted I hope that someone would be from the community that would offer some good insight and I think that I'm fair and I've been part of this community a long time and I want what's good for our schools cuz it all starts with our schools and it matters who our kids are going to be and who the people in our community are going to be after. So, you know, if they could be successful at school, they have a better chance of being successful at their job. They have better
220chance of being successful in our community. So, I just would like to hopefully give everyone the opportunity to do that. And I think the people that interviewed, the people I met there, I think that you guys are going to win no matter what. So, it's going to be good good for you guys. >> Thank you very much. >> All right. Thank you so much. So, um, Jennifer, if you would like, what the board is going, we're going to open it up for public comment once the other applicants come in. So, if you'd like to come and take a seat back in >> the regular seats. Yeah. >> Okay. Thank you. I agree. We are going to be lucky either way. We've had really good applicants. I need another potty break here in a minute, dude.
221Or I'm just going to run off and let you hit. Uh, at this time we'll open up for public comment. Mr. Clerk. >> Yes, we do have three comment cards this evening. The first one is from Dr. Lauren Sneed, you'll have 3 minutes and at 30 seconds I will remind you that you have 30 seconds. >> Um, good evening, Superintendent Prea, um, President Walker, uh, board members, community leaders, family, and friends that are here. It is an honor to stand before you today to recommend and speak in support of Lashandra Gutter as a potential board trustee for the Jefferson Union High School District. Miss Gutter represents the kind of leadership our schools and community truly benefit from. She's grounded in service, compassion, and a deep commitment to the well-being of children and families. First and
222foremost, Miss Gutter is a mother. Like many parents in the community, she understands that education is more than academics. It's about creating environments where young people feel safe, supported, and aspire to their full potential. Her perspective as a parent allows her to approach educational decisions with empathy, understanding, and a focus on what truly matters for students. Beyond her role as a parent, Miss Gutter has demonstrated extraordinary commitment to public service. She is the vice president of the commission on the status of women. She is a powerful advocate for women's and family in our community. And in this role, she has elevated the voices of women that are usually unheard to impact policies, funding, and even at the schoolboard level as well as the super the Samonteo County School, the Sonteo County Office of Education level.
223Her professional leadership further is dedicated as she was the former institutional services manager at the youth services center. She worked closely with young people, guidance, support, and opportunity. Through her leadership, she helped create systems of support and encouraged growth, accountability, and a better outlook for students. What stands out is her unwavering commitment to serve families. And she understands that strong schools are built on partnerships. Miss Gutter is a champion of school programs and innovations as we have worked with her for many years. She recognizes that education must evolve and meet the needs which is what she did at the juvenile system where she introduced really the first student to go to J to go to actually college. So she opened the doors to what we now have as a project change program. She's student centered
224community collaboratives and for these reasons I would recommend Miss Gutter as a potential schoolboard member. I'm confident in her leadership. >> Thank you. >> Next up we have Dana Johnson. Good evening to the board. Superintendent uh Prea was about to say your name. Um I I I've been hearing Superintendent Pressa say another name. So is it okay if I say Miss Johnson? Okay. And also here um thank you for everyone in your work here and um good evening to everyone that's here. Um, I don't have anything to read. Um, I have more of a personal story. Um, for the most part, for folks that know me, they know that I worked in juvenile um, hall and I worked there for about 14 years. And for about 14 years, I had the opportunity to work with
225Landre Gutter. Um, you also may be aware that I identify as LGBTQ plus and more on the um spectrum of being trans non-binary um in a juvenile justice system um where um a lot of folks aren't accepting. Um Landre Gutter helped pave a way to make me feel I was accepted. uh we worked in the girls unit um so for about eight years and she is correct they are different very different um and they do need other support but it's not so much that they're different but they're unique and they each show up differently and they need support differently and Landre basically showed how we should stand up in support with that. Um, just a personal story quickly. Each month we would decorate um our unit depending on if it's Black History Month, depending on
226if it's um a President's Day. Um Oh, shouldn't have said that one cuz who cares about that now? Um basically, we would dress up the unit to reference that month. Um, she empowered me to do Pride Month. Um, no other space in that juvenile hall had rainbow flags and rainbow historical stuff. Not only did she empower me and made me feel like it was safe to do it. She asked questions about it. She said, "How can we bring the youth in to learn more about it to try to be empathetic?" So what you're hearing tonight and what you heard from her, >> 30 seconds, >> she really shows up that way. I can speak specifically for me and how she was my lead and motivated me that I could do the same and then I
227became a lead. She is the truth. There is a lot of things that she can support with, especially if there's barriers with juvenile justice. A vote for Landre is really a vote for you. >> Thank you. And we have Kimma Saludin. >> We're good on the section. >> So good. >> There's a first time for everything. >> Well, well, well, well. Uh, my name is Kim Slahoud and I was on the Jefferson Union High School District board for 12 years and your former colleague. And two years ago, I heard Landre speak and afterwards I went up to her and I said, "You should be a school board member." And then I gave up. Two years later, uh, she didn't take me up on it until today. And I'm super happy that she did. Uh, and
228I had no idea that she lived here. I just said, "Oh, I think you should be a school board member." I had no idea that it would benefit a district that I love so much. Um, I first want to thank everybody that applied. Like, you know, everyone talks about democracy being in danger. It was just so heartwarming to live it locally and see so many people who care so much about students speak and want to be a part of of the JUHSD. So, I know it's a tough decision, but I'm here to personally uh speak and ask that you appoint Landre. Um, you saw who she is in the in the short time that she was able to speak. That gave you a great snapshot. In the position of power that she held in some
229of our uh students weakest moments, she leads with empathy. She's such an empathetic leader full of kindness and heart that is wrapped in this loud boisterous uh personality but deeply deeply loving and kind. Um she is a team player. She uh as she said when she talks about working collaborative with people that's exactly who she is. She's the known um thought leader when it comes to dealing with children at risk and in foster youth. Uh people go to her and I was so happy to get to know her better because of her relationship with Dana. And every time I see her, it's Johnson Gutter, Johnson Gutter, because they refer to each other as their last names. But that the other reason why that sticks out is because anytime any youth any youth who is now
230as an adult, anyone who had any time in their system, that's the name I hear yelled out and the person comes running across now as an adult. And it's so to see them again and to build that type of environment in a place that normally fosters such you know for me I think of just sadness depression to foster that level of compassion and love where people as an adult are so happy to see you again >> 30 seconds >> that's the kind of person that I want sitting on that dis and representing our entire community and to bring um a perspective that sometimes I struggled with as a school board member and was so happy to be able to talk today and and have questions about um youth that I had no lived experience with.
231So I um I don't envy your position, but I humbly ask that you appoint the Sandra Gutter to the seat. Thank you. >> Great. Thank you. Thank you. >> Those are all the public comments. >> That's all the public comments. >> Yes. That that that is all the public comment. >> Awesome. So, um, in a moment. So, I'm going to ask the schoolboard members to now write their top two choices on a slip of paper. I'll give them a few moments to do that, and then they're going to pass those papers to me. While they're doing that, I want to echo the sentiments of one of our candidates who said that really we're going to be really lucky with whoever um uh ends up filling this position because really I can confidently say that all
232four of the candidates um I know would be really uh really good board members. We'd be really lucky to have them. So, however it goes, I want to encourage everyone to keep an eye on this school board because, you know, sometimes vacancies happen and so um you know, always keep an eye out. Um and so whoever is appointed tonight also will, you know, there's an open election, uh in November, so people can also run for that. Okay. So, I talked I filled up the space for enough time for the board members to write their um selection. So, I'm going to read out the top two candidates and we'll see if there is a majority for number one. And if not, then we'll open it up for discussion. Um and if there is a top candidate,
233then um President Walker uh can choose to call for a vote. Okay. So, um, Shret Walker, number one choice was Joelle Castereno. Number two choice was Landre Gutter. Rosie Tahada, number one choice was Landre Gutter. Number two choice was Joelle Casteno. Num Jerome Gyos. Number one choice was Landre Gutter. Number two choice was Jesse. I don't have Jesse's last name. Thank you, Levan. Um Andy's first choice was Landre Gutter and number two was Joelle Casteno. So with these paper ballots, it looks like there is a majority number one vote if you would like to >> uh board the chair will entertain a motion. Move to appoint Landre Dutder as the um uh as the next trustee for Jefferson Union High School District. >> Second. >> All those in favor? >> I need a We need
234a roll call. >> Let's do a roll call vote. >> Trusty Das. >> I Lee. >> I. >> Vice President >> I. >> President Walker. >> I Okay. I'd like to congratulate Lisandre Gutter. >> Can can I make a comment? >> What? I I just want to reiterate what you commented just that >> I just want to thank all the candidates who um came before us. It was like >> a wealth of riches. You don't always get that, you know. You don't always get that. and and I could hear your um commitment your commitment to our community, especially to our kids, our students. And I just want to thank you so much for for stepping forward and um being willing to serve with us. Thank you so much. >> Yeah, I I do want to
235echo that as well. It's not easy. you know, first you have you you know, your approach to to apply. There's all the questions you have to answer. You know, you meet with a superintendent, you might meet with a board member or two, you know, and then you have to put yourself out here to answer questions. That streaming on YouTube and people in the public will will see. And that's that in and of itself is an incredible act of bravery and courage because it just shows exactly the type of person you are in being willing to step forward and serve this community. I mean there's there's, you know, roughly 4,000 students here, you know, there's 600 staff, you know, and then there are all the different all the families associated with it. And the fact that
236you want to serve all of these people is is awesome and you're everybody is to be tremended for that. So, thank you so much. >> Anybody else? >> Yeah. And just real quick, just to touch on the intention that I heard from everybody and how meaningful that was to me, just how, you know, thoughtful you guys were with your answers in regards to taking care of our kids because that's that's really what we're here to do, right? And so, you could tell you guys were all passionate about that and your answers. And, you know, not long ago, I was in your guys' position. I haven't been doing this that long. I'm only my third year in and and I remember how tough it was trying to absorb and learn all the stuff that that I've
237you know learned to to date and um it's been challenging but it's been rewarding. So you guys keep an eye out like Miss Prea said you never know when an opportunity is going to arise again. So >> um I agree with what everyone said. We're not going to say it again. Thank you. Mhm. >> Uh I think we have to do some important business. >> Yeah. So, thank you. And Landre, if you wouldn't mind coming up to the podium so we can do the loyalty oath. >> We're swearing you in. >> Yeah. >> Oh, look at that. >> I know. That just shows how lucky we are. >> I know. Thank you so much. >> Thank you. Thank you. >> Wants to come up with me. Is that okay? >> Yeah, >> of course. >>
238Can I have everyone come up? >> Come on. >> Was she kidding? You look like she >> I don't know what the procedures are. >> That's fine. Okay. >> So, do you Who wants to administer >> I was going to read it, but would you like to read it? >> No. No. Do you want to go up there and >> Oh, I I was going to read it from here. So, >> okay. >> You think I should go over there? I'll do whatever you like. >> Thank you so much. >> It's all fine. It's all fine. >> It's just that >> Okay. So, this is the person I was talking about. >> We trying to figure that out. >> I didn't know if I should say her name. >> Okay. Go ahead. You can you
239take the >> She has a way. No, she just told me like this and walked away. >> I'm not sure I can get her. >> Okay, sure. >> So, I'm just going to be reading the loyalty oath. I will read it and if you can just repeat right after me. Okay. >> Wait. >> Okay. I, Landre Gutter, >> swear or affirm >> do solemnly swear or affirm >> I will support and defend >> that I will support and defend the >> Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the State of California >> the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the State of California >> against all enemies foreign domestic >> against all enemies foreign and domestic. that I will bear true faith and allegiance >> that I will bear true
240faith and allegiance >> the Constitution of the United States >> to the Constitution of the United States >> and the Constitution of the State of California >> and the Constitution of the State of California >> that I will take this obligation freely >> without any mental reservation >> or purpose of evasion >> that I will well be faithfully and that I will well and faithfully >> discharge the duties upon which I'm about to enter. >> Thank you everyone. Thank you. >> Oh my gosh. >> Come on up. Come on up and take your seat. >> Oh my gosh. >> I get to take I don't know if they want to make it. >> So, I know. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. >> All right. Okay. And the train moves on.
241Um item 11 A um delegate assembly ballot for sub region 5B which is San Mo County. So, the next item on tonight's agenda calls for the board to cast votes on the CSBA delegate delegate assembly ballot. As you know, the delegate delegate assembly is a key component of the California School Board Association's governance structure. Delegates are elected by local board members across the 21 geographic regions statewide and work to ensure that the interests of school districts and county offices of education are represented at the state level. The assembly meets twice a year in May and immediately preceding the annual education conference. Delegates elected this year will serve a two-year term running from April 1st, 2026 through March 31st, 2028. As a board, you are eligible to vote for up to three candidates representing our sub
242region 5B here in Sano County. Our ballot must be submitted to CSBA by Monday, March 16th. So, uh, I will turn it over to you now to review the candidates and cast your votes. Um, I do not have it open on front of me, but it looks like there are two candidates. I believe >> there are two candidates. >> Yeah. >> Um, >> do you like to discuss >> any discussion? >> No, I I think I think we're fine with with these with these two individuals. So, move to approve the um these two candidates. Can I do a little discussion before we get a second? >> Thanks. Um, so I considered uh advocating for the board to vote for me, >> but I just don't think I can do it. And uh I don't know
243>> if anyone on the board >> for the third person. >> I I think you would actually be a fine addition because the So here's the thing. So, you know, I'm currently serving on it. My term's up the following year. Uh the commitment right now would be one weekend in May. So I think that's right around May 16th, 17th, 18th, that weekend. Two days of meetings there and then basically a day and a half of meetings or so right before the CSBA conference. Those are the minimum requirements. If you can add one week, if you can just do one weekend in midday and a day and a half basically be in San Diego at the conference for ba a full week as opposed to just the three days of the conference. >> Okay. I can't
244do that. >> Okay. >> But but thank you. >> I appreciate it. >> All right. >> Um, anyone else interested? >> So, it looks like the two people on the ballot are Chelsea Bonini and Terry Chavez. >> Right. Right. >> All right. I may have interrupted you motioning. >> Sorry. >> All right. Move to approve uh Chelsea Benin and Terry Chavez for delegated assembly. >> Second. >> Okay. >> Second. >> All those in favor? >> I I >> Any oppose? >> Thank you. Uh thanks for indulging my discussion. Appreciate it. >> Yeah, no problem. Maybe next year. Next time. >> Next year. Um I'm not trying to waste time, trust me. Um 11:83 approval of the JUHSD 2627 uh board of education governance calendar. Miss Pa. >> Thanks. Uh I just recommend that the board
245adopt the proposed calendars as presented. Move to approve the JUHSD 2026 2027 board of education governance calendar. >> Second. >> All in favor? I >> I um 11B1 uh public hearing in action JUHSD aft 1481 contract negotiations proposals for the 2526 school years. Ms. Luhan. >> Good evening everyone. I first want to call it a typo in the title because it's actually 26 27. We settled 2526 last year. Um the body of the item is correct. Uh what is here before us this evening is the articles that aft 1481 would like to open as well as the articles that the district would like to open before we and we are sharing this with the public. So the public has an opportunity to comment on the articles we're opening before we start negotiations on Thursday. >>
246Thank you. Am I supposed to check for public comment? >> Open the hearing. >> I will now open the public hearing. >> Seeing no comments, I will now close the public hearing. Uh do we have any discussion board? >> No. >> Okay. Let uh let's take action or not. >> Um so yeah, we'll uh move to approve these um these items on uh for the for the 2627 school year, the sunshining of these items. >> Second. >> All in favor? I >> I >> 11 C1 the second interim report missed the uh school year calendars for 27 28 28 29 and 2930 >> 11B2 not using my computer I think that's affecting me >> because I'm so good at this every other moment I try it Luhan >> good evening everyone the item before you
247this evening his school year count yeah calendars for the school years 2728 2829 and 2930 aft 1481 and the district have come to agreement and we are pleased to be presenting these for you to you this evening um move to notice I'm sorry can I make a motion >> yes >> okay move to approve the 2728 2829 and 2930 school your calendars. >> Second. >> All in favor? >> I >> uh 11 C1, the second interim report, Ms. Van Raphorse. >> Thank you, President Walker. Good evening, everyone. Before you tonight for your consideration is the district's second interim financial report. In compliance with ED code, the second interim report covers the actual expenditures for this school year through the end of January. and it makes projections for the remainder of the school year. As the
248report shows, JUHSD will be able to make our financial obligations for this year and the subsequent two years. So, I'm recommending that we file a positive certification. I am going to um talk briefly about some highlights in the report. Page two, please. Yep. Um, we had the first interim report in December and since then we have gotten more specifics on our expenditures and revenues. But as you can see, there are only minor adjustments since the last report. And the ending fund balance um at 12 1.5% reserves is very similar to it was what it was at first interim. Then on the second page or the third page there's the a little bit further down. There you go. The multi-year projection of course is a very important component for us to look at. Um, again, there
249have only been minor adjustments since the last update. Our projections for tax revenue and pretty much all of the other factors that go into determining our projections have remained consistent. Um, as you can see, we continue to project deficit spending. This is a structural deficit. We have ongoing costs that are being paid for out of reserve funds which of course can only be used once. This is something we need to closely monitor and we will discuss this further in our board work study in April. Um if we see our reserve levels continue to drop in the next few years, we might need to consider cuts. Looking ahead, we will spend time in April discussing the 2627 budget and then we will bring that for approval in June. I am happy to talk more about this
250report, but since there have been only a few adjustments since our last report, I thought I would be brief. So, please let me know if you have any questions before considering approval of this report. >> Thank you. Uh any questions, board? No, thank you again just for the succinct um objective summary. BL it was good to see that things hadn't moved too much from the first interim. It is crazy to see us though at 128% of base funding and still be you know and still have the gap between us and the other districts be as large as it is. It's pretty disconcerting quite frankly but move to approve the second interim budget. >> Second. >> All in favor? I >> I >> thanks everyone. Uh any consideration of future agenda items? Hearing none. Do I
251hear a motion to return? >> Second. >> All in favor? >> I. >> Good job.