001[Music] Um, close session. May I have a roll call, please? Trusty Perez. Studentust here. Ch here. Trusty here. Vice President Walker here. Thank you. Uh, we have an agenda. Are there any changes to the agenda? There are no changes. Move to approve the agenda. Second. All those in favor? I. I. I. We have minutes from our April 1st meeting and our April 17th meeting. Move to approve the minutes. Second. All those in favor? I I uh there's nothing to report out of our closed session tonight. Uh agenda item 11A, our April student of the month, our adult school program principal, Mark Bashers, will present. Board of Trustees, Superintendent Prea, Executive Cabinet. Good evening. Uh, every year when I pull our teachers to uh, get the student of the month, I I get multiple names. They're
002all deserving. They're wonderful, and it makes it very challenging. This year was the easiest year ever because our staff overwhelmingly selected Maria Fernanda Hon oraniano while I get to read a speech all about you. Maria Heron is a student in the district's adult school program. This year she will be completing her English language studies. That means she's gone all the way through advanced in addition to completing her high school equivalency. To accomplish this, Maria has been taking classes in the morning and evening, knowing that by putting in the effort now, she has a greater chance of fulfilling her ambitions more quickly. In addition to being a great and eager student, she's a cheerleader for her classmates and an inspiration to us all. Her ESL teacher, Andrea Jesse, had this to say about Maria. Maria is
003a delightful student. She is always enthusiastic about the lesson and about working with other students in class. She's s shown an enormous amount of improvement over the last year. Her mother, whom she calls her best friend, also studying English here at the Jefferson Adult School. Maria looks forward uh to her upcoming academic adventures at college following graduation from both the HSSE and ESL programs this May. HSSE department chair Amy Wong wrote this about Maria. Her enthusiasm for school never ceases to amaze me as well as her diligence in achieving her goals. She studied hard to pass her GED test and immediately afterwards started planning her academic future at Skyline. She never hesitated to seek me out for assistance when needing to meet her goals. It was always a joy to see her smiling face in
004the halls and the joyous sounds of laughter. HS teacher Francisco Lzalde had this to say and he calls her Mari. Mari is a great student to work with. She would enter the class and go to my desk and greet me personally and sometimes tell me something that had happened that day that she considered worth commenting on. When there was an event in the district she really was thrilled about and even excited when she knew that there was going to be food to share and that we would all get to sit together at the table. She loved to comment on the progress she had already made with respect to her GED studies and loved to encourage other students to keep working hard, stressing that at the end they would all see positive results. because she had
005made it, other students would make it, too. She was nervous when the time for testing was approaching, but so happy when she knew she had passed an exam. We all, teachers and students are so proud of her. She has surely been paving a path of success to college where she dreams to be soon continuing her education. Our very best wishes to her. And again, so many of the staff were were reaching out to me specifically that she should get this honor. Our uh transition navigator, Twilight Feet, Eva, shared this. Maria is such a kind and soft-spoken student, but also incredibly focused and determined. What stands out about Maria is how proactive and deeply committed she is toward her education, often asking thoughtful questions and taking initiative to stay connected with staff to ensure she's on
006the right path. She's also a very caring person. She'll pop her head in just to say hi or check in. And she's always mindful and respectful of my time with other students. It's those small, thoughtful gestures that really show her character. Maria's next step is continuing her education at Skyline College this fall. She worked hard to get here, and I know she's going to do great things. Finally, adult school counselor Lisa Lee wrote this about Maria. During my time at Jefferson Adult School, I've had the pleasure of getting to know Maria Hon. Maria is a kind, thoughtful, and goal oriented individual. When Ria and when Maria enrolled with us, her goal was to earn her GED certificate and continue her education. Despite the challenges she faced, such as staying motivated, staying focused, and learning new
007material, she never let those obstacles stop her from reaching her academic goals. Maria's resilience and determination are truly remarkable. She's unlike any student I've ever met. Overall, I've been extremely impressed with Maria's performance as a student. She's shown tremendous growth during her time at Jefferson Adult School and I feel privileged to have witnessed her transformation. And then she said this, "Maria, I am so proud of you and I can't wait to see all the amazing things you will accomplish as you continue your journey. It is my pleasure to present to you Maria Fernando Hiron Oriana Ju JSD student of the month for April 2025. Thank you so much. Um, I just want to say thank you. I'm so grateful and excited and this is one of proof that all my is worth it. Thank you.
008Oh, stay up there. Thanks, Andy. Uh, so this is an opportunity for the the board to say a few words. Uh, we'll start with our student trustees. Um, do you want me to start? Yeah. Okay. Um, so right now this week Oh, okay. I'm so sorry. Um, so first of all, I want to say that my name is also Maria Fernandanda, which is kind of nice. Like I was listening to it and I was like, "Oh, wow." And also like by the way the word describing you, I could tell like it was true. I can see it in you and I'm so proud of you. Like I don't know you like that, but I can feel it and I see a like a future in you and like never give up. Like keep going and
009Yeah. Thank you. Maria, I don't I don't think you know me, but um I'm very proud of your accomplishments and your journey throughout high school and I know that it's very hard, especially, you know, knowing another language and coming to fit in in in JHSD and being a new student and I transferred to Turnover my sophomore year, I understand like the how out of place one may feel, but judging from what your teacher has said about you, you've risen through that and you've accomplished a lot and you radiated a positive energy that we in GHSD would like to have more. Thank you very much. Wonderful. Hello. Um I just want to say congratulations from um from the words that were said about you. You sound pretty amazing and I just want to say congratulations on
010this accomplishment. Thank you. Yeah. I as well just want to say good job with everything. Um proud of your accomplishments that you made. I know it could be hard. um especially with a lot of challenges going on, but you made it and you did it. So, good job. Thank you, Maria. Incredible work. Um we are very proud of you and and and what you've accomplished and I and you should certainly be proud of your accomplishments and really can't wait to see what you're able to do going forward. You've really set yourself up for success and I know you will continue to be successful in whatever it is that you choose to do. keep up the great work. Thank you. Um, just want to say congratulations, Maria. Truly incredible. Um, a little bit of a personal
011story. You remind me a lot of me. Uh, as a first generation immigrant, came to this country, didn't really know how to speak. English was not my first language. Um, and if I can do it, just watching you beam and having your teacher say all these things about you, I I strongly know you're going to go places. So, let your light shine. Own your stage. Never back down. All right, let's go get them. Thank you. Hi, Maria. Um, congratulations to this um this deserving award. um just that everyone in adult school, you were the person they thought of when this came up. And um I love that you're such a great role model for others and that your mother is also taking classes. It's wonderful. And that you're so thoughtful, caring, and kind. And just
012for our c your counselor to say you're unlike any student I've ever met, it just means so much. And and you you weren't just to get your GED wasn't enough for you. You're going to skyline and I went to Skyline and I know that you're going to um you're going to go far u because you seem so driven even though you're very softspoken and humble. I could see that you're there's so much more and that you want for yourself and your family. And I also want to congratulate your family for all of your dedication and hard work and in supporting this amazing young woman. Congratulations. Thank you so much, Maria. Congratulations. It's um it's nice to be in a position where uh you get to see someone's hard work pay off. Um and I'm just
013really happy for you that this has worked out. Uh we are and uh your principal specifically are so pleased that we can give you an award like this to reward uh your hard work. And it also kind of makes us think this is why we offer these programs. This is why the people in the district, you know, work hard to set up for student success. I'm happy it's kind of a big happy circle of of uh of good vibes. So, uh, as our president would say, keep doing what you're doing, you know, setting goals, working hard, you know, meeting them, setting new goals. Um, I'm happy to be here tonight. Thank you. Thank you. I always get to go last and then everybody said a lot of the good stuff. Um, but what I really
014want to say, there were some words that jumped out at me that were written about you. Focused and determined. Um, you're working in the daytime and in the night time. you're getting, you know, your GED and you're doing English language. You are working hard and you are going to go very far. And alongside that, you're caring and that shines through. I think Rafferty said it like it's shining from you. So, um, I'm grateful that you are representing our district. Congratulations. Uh, Miss Shre, are we going to do a photo now or should we do sports first? Do a photo now. You let us know what you'd like us to do. Yeah. I think if we do it all together. Okay. We're going to do some athletic presentations and then we'll take pictures. Okay. Okay. Okay.
015Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Um, agenda item 11B is our winter sports championship recognition and uh, our director of communications, staff housing and CTE, Denise Shrie, will present. Thank you. The board of trustees is proud to recognize the incredible achievement of our district's winter sports athletes who all happen to be in wrestling. Um, this year they have trained with discipline, competed with heart, and today they stand as champions, not just in titles, but in spirit, perseverance, and pride. Wrestling is one of the most demanding sports physically and mentally, and each one of you has shown what it means to rise to the challenge. Through early mornings, long practices, and fierce competitions, you've proven that hard work, dedication, and teamwork pay off. I'm now going to recognize each one of you. Hopefully, I say your
016names correctly. And um as I say your name, I'd like you to come up and I'll present you with your certificate. And I'd like you to stand up here and stay so the board can also recognize you. So our first two athletes are from Westmore High School. The first one is Nurm Mohamad Aba Debbeov Beov and he was um the champion in the 114 pound division for PAL boys wrestling league champion. Congratulations. Oh, 144. I had a typo. Yes, please. And if it's a typo on there, I'll fix it. Um, and then also Abdullahiz Abdekco. Um, I'm close. Sorry. Um, and he was a champion in the 165 pound division, PAL League boys wrestling champion, third place in CCS North Regional Tournament, sixth place in CCS Master Tournament, and he is the first male athlete
017in the master tournament to medal since 1980 for Westmore High School. Next, I will recognize Terteranova High School. First is Ava Mendoza, and she is placed in the 130 lb um division PAL Girls Wrestling League Champion. Next is Sophia Dreer and she has um placed in the 110 pound division PAL girls wrestling league champion and 110 lb division CCS girls wrestling league. And last is Oceanana High School Angeline Galan. She had placed in the 100 pound division PAL girls wrestling league champion. JUHSD would like to extend its appreciation to all the coaches and families for their guidance and support to these athletes. They exemplify exemplify what it means to be a stellar athlete. Way to go. All of you make JUHSD proud. I'm going to ask you to turn and face the board so they
018can all speak to you. Yay. Uh student trustees. Um first of all, first of all, congratulations. Like it actually sounds very amazing what you guys do. Like I cannot imagine how hard it can be and like I admire your dedication and hard work. Um, oh, I would also like to say congratulations um for being able to um balance both school work and um and athletics like having academics and um athletics is a very valuable thing. So, congratulations. Knowing how strenuous wrestling is and how much it takes your time and your energy and even like with your diet and lifestyle, it just really impresses me how you guys are able to keep up with your academics as well. and knowing Ava and Sophia, especially with Sophia being in my AP chemistry classroom, it is very impressive
019that you guys are very up to date and especially since Sophia knows a lot about the AP chemistry equations, which is honestly just so difficult. And on top of that with wrestling, it's just really impressive that you guys are having all these multiple lives that you're living at once and just overall balancing them very well. So, I I applaud to every single one of you and thank you very much. Um, sorry. I just want to say congrats to all of you. I do swim at Oceanana and so like I I know how a stamina also like still kind of sport is really difficult and I would never be able to make it to the level that you guys are all on. So I just want to say that's really impressive. Um, and yeah, again just
020kind of echoing what they're saying like balancing school while also being so successful in sports like you guys are is just really all inspiring. Yeah, I would just like to add on to say good job to you guys. Congratulation. I know when it comes to a sport, you sacrifice a lot um personally, mentally, especially balancing like your schoolwork out of stuff. So, congratulation and good job for working hard. Wrestling's in the house. That's awesome. Really just great job, guys. I mean, all of you. I'm really, it's impressive that we've got three schools that that have have done such amazing amazing skills in the sport. So, congratulations to all of you. I can't say it any better than these student trustees have. So, well done. I'm a huge sports fan. I don't know much about wrestling.
021I just know it's hard and I never like even like try to even understand the mechanics that goes into it. I know there's a lot of techniques and skills and all that really comes down to boil down to you guys are still so young and it's just amazing to see that you can be that dedicated and this committed. So don't lose sight of that whenever you face difficulties in life. Remember those days that you had to train even harder, right? Um and enjoy it. You made us proud and we're getting you an athletic trainer. So, you guys will get even more stronger. So, yes. Surprised. Don't worry, it's almost over. It's like you have three more people to listen to. Um, Wesmore, is this your first year back doing wrestling? Is this the second year?
022Amazing. Amazing. Um, I went to Jeff in the late 70s and 80s, so all powerhouse um, wrestling programs. Only like two girls wrestled back then. And I know I've seen you guys here before. Um, you know, you're continually um, winning championships. But this makes me so proud. I came from a family of wrestlers. Um, you know, I went to a skyline and our wrestling coach there was Lee Allen who was a legend. He coached the 1980 Olympics wrestling team, Gregor Roman wrestling team, except we boycotted those uh, Olympics, so he didn't actually get to go, but he had a bunch of champions and I was really lucky to be in that program and run some tournaments for him. Um, and I know how hard this is and for you to balance it with school. Amazing.
023um so so proud of you. Thank you to your families cuz that's you know you they dedicated a lot of time to helping you. Um and I used to have to help my brother cut weight cuz he always ate too much. So the day of, you know, I have to help him cut weight and give him the the rubber sweatsuit and can run out there on the track um before weigh. and and also to your coaches. Thank you so much for um guiding these champions through. Thank you. Um you're a great representation of our district. Congratulations. Um I'm looking here at these accomplishments. Is CCS is that a state coast? Central Coast. All right. I'm from a state that has 600,000 people. So very impressed by that. Um, so I don't I don't know what
024taught about wrestling. I tried it in eighth grade and I remember a couple of things. Um, how strong everybody was, especially the grip strength and then um, Trusty Cho mentioned technique and I remember one guy beating the pants off me um, and telling me what the next move was going to be. Um, it was like getting clobbered in a chess match. that hurt. Um, so congratulations for being able to do all that planning, to have that strength, to do that training, and to have success. Um, I'm thoroughly impressed. Great job. Congratulations. I am impressed. I I want to echo what some of the students said. I know what goes into being a student athlete just in general, but you excelling. I know that you put in so much work outside of school and you're also
025students and it sounds like you're good students. So really that you're achieving in all areas. Um congratulations on your hard work and I also want to give a shout out to I see many people in this room here that are supporting you. I see your families. I see your coaches and you know it takes a village. So thank you to everyone who's supporting our student athletes. Congratulations. So, now we're going to take some pictures. So, um with us, too. So, we're going to move over here and Miss Free will organize us. And let's not forget your families. You want to do the tune of the month first or do you want to or do you want to do the wrestlers first? And then I'll take pictures outside. Okay. And then Yeah, that's probably I'm sorry.
026Now, if I can have the wrestlers and the coaches and Sorry. We right back into it. Okay. Thanks everyone. Uh I think most people are outside but thanks everyone who came to uh support our students who we uh commended tonight. Uh agenda item 12 a the board report. We will start with our student trustees. I'm going to call in Fernando first. My microphone is not working. Um all right. So this week um the CASP test are happening and it's mainly for sophomores to practice engineers to um actually do it. AP exams are coming soon. Um awards night are happening soon. Um Earth Day and Earth Day happened recently and they did stuff to related to it to celebrate it. Um promise this weekend and progress report is due this Friday. Thank you Montana for Westmore.
027Uh actually today FBLA is heading to to um Anaheim for their state conference. Uh as well as this week I believe our choir and music um programs are going to New York to perform and um we have rally next week and our theme is safari. Um, Miss Tam, FBALA is Future Business Leaders of America. Yeah. And if I'm correct, Westmore has a bit of a tradition with that group. Is that right? Yeah. Good stuff. Thanks, Mr. Perez. So, for Turnover High School, we had a rally last week, which was an Avatar the Last Airbender theme, and we also had a canned food drive outreach, which is still happening until the 25th. And moreover, we have the special Olympics this Friday and we had student government elections which were held last week and officers were announced
028for next year last Friday. Moreover, we have prom upcoming this May 17th and our last our last track meet is um tomorrow and we also have the MMA Mia play in progress and they will be airing later this April and until May. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Pa. Okay. So, um stuff happening at Oceanana. Spring elections are coming up. We have speech practice for prospective officers tomorrow. Um prom is coming up which will be exciting. It's early May. The theme is star night which should be very fun. The rally is also coming up and the rally games and days and theme will be announced pretty soon. Uh the juniors just did CASP testing. We finished up last week. Um the AP humanities entrance exams were the past couple days and so within the next month
029the people who get into AP humanities will learn if they got in or not. Um and winter sports are kind of coming to an end like track, swim, and tennis. I know we have our last swim meet uh before PAL's um this Friday. I think that's it. Thank you. is rebe. Uh so currently at Thordan we're working on a mural for one of our school walls. So there's a lot of prepping going on right now. Um today we had a group come to the school so students younger than 18 could register or pre-register to vote and final credits are due in the next couple of weeks for seniors. We do have a lot of upcoming events like senior breakfast and other events for the seniors coming up in May. and students recently received their grad
030pictures back. Um, a lot of students are finishing early. Um, and yeah, that's pretty much it. Don't forget that student trustee, uh, Danny finished early since he's not here to plug himself. I know. And I want to add that I think um, Miss Urebe is also going to be graduating early as a junior and Danny is here in the house tonight. There he is. Pretty impressive. They're both impressive. Congratulations, Dusty Le. Yeah. So, a couple of things. First, um, a couple weeks ago, I had the chance to to go up to Sacramento and testify on behalf of Assembly Bill 1021, uh, which is, uh, an Assembly Member Buffy Wix bill, as well as co-sponsored by California School Boards Association and also City Lab at UCLA, which will actually expand um, educator workforce housing, streamline some
031of the requirements, and especially with uh, with Satua uh, infill uh, restrictions. uh streamlined for for educated workforce housing projects and also and a couple of other things that make it a lot easier. Higher density limits uh for projects especially in small and rur for small districts and in rural areas but also increases density limits in both suburban and urban urban areas. So it was great to be able to do that before the assembly housing community development committee. Um, I do want to call out last week's uh on-site board meeting for with the adult education group, which wasn't so much a meeting as it wound up being a tour of the adult education building. So, even though he may outside taking pictures, but grateful to principal bashers for taking us on a tour of the
032adult education building and having a chance to speak with staff uh in particular. And then today, I was uh speaking at the student workforce student and workforce housing conference down in LA. and I made it back here in time for the board meeting. So that's all I've got. Truly the superhero of trustees. Um basically couple of things to that I um had the chance to attend the stand up and speak out for schools uh march um earlier this month. uh really just advocating for programs that are potentially not potentially that are being cut and potentially will be cut. Um and so just fighting for for our school districts, guiding fighting for our kids and the little things that we can do like hold up a sign actually really do matter. So it was really a
033privilege and honor to be able to experience that. I too had the chance of doing the on-site um adult school tour. Absolutely beautiful um experience. Got to see real life training that some of these kids get to get and I'm like, "Wow, this is this is really cool. I got to get a free soda." So, I still want to pay for that soda. She won't let me pay, so I'm happy to pay whenever she wants to come back. Well, I attended a community um event for uh celebrating the 10th anniversary of the Daily City Arts and Culture Commission. And it was really great to um you know, connect with people in in Daily City because I I don't I'm not, believe it or not, I'm not out there that often anymore. Um but it was
034really good to uh see how they'd evolved um over the last 10 years and actually got to connect with a student who I had not seen since she was in sixth grade and now she has a master's and she's a teacher. So that was like the highlight um reconnecting with that family. And um I want to also say that we spent 5 and a half hours here at the district office on Saturday um going over the LCAP with Miss Ba um Miss Prea and Miss Van Raphst and the budget. Um it was quite illuminating. It was um it was I I'm always learning and um this is my 11th year and I'm always learning, but I I have I have so much faith in this district and the work that we're doing. And then we
035spent um some quiet time going over Miss Press's evaluation um which is really really important because we love her. Uh that's all I'm going to say about that. And um I say I I plan to attend as many of the events at these schools as possible in this spring because they're all coming. Uh, I was at many of these events that my fellow trustees have mentioned and I thoroughly enjoyed them and it was good to see. Um, the priorities of the school district uh coming from the district office. Um, you know, seeing it with our principles, um, seeing our students today, um, I am proud of the work that the district has done and proud to help support it. Um, so thank you for that opportunity and congratulations on your success. I guess I can
036kind of say our success but um really I'm talking about the people who come up with the ideas who um come up with the methods. So thank you. Um and I also attended an event from the Daily City KMA Chamber of Commerce. Um it was just a lunch and assembly member Katherine Stephanie uh presented and it was nice to hear her um talk about her first months in that office. I guess this is our home. Yes. Okay. Thank you. Um, so I'm I'm going to lead with the fact that our room is filled with our student trustees tonight. And so last night was one of our final they have one more meeting um for the year, but last night was was our probably the last big meeting that they had. And um I want to
037say very publicly how proud I am of all of them. They've done a wonderful job this year and we will all be hearing from them later. But I just want you to all hear me in front of the board saying thank you. You've done a great job. Um I also so some of the things I attended, thank you Rosie for remembering that we spent Saturday in a board study session. I want to thank the board because they really give a lot of their time to serve our community. Um and I want to thank Miss Baka and Miss Harri as well. We had a really good and really productive day. Uh last week I was very happy to attend the AXA region 5. It AXA is the association of California school administrators. So they recognized Victor
038Zho as he was honored as the co-administrator of the year. So that was that's a big honor and many of us attended a dinner for him where he was he was um highlighted. That was last week. Um, and I also want to say there are so many things during starts in April, goes through May all the way to the end of school. There are so many culminating events. There are so many end of the year plays and music programs and, you know, celebrations. There are so many things and I really actually wish that I could go to all of them and I I can't. I, you know, I try to go to what I can. I'm looking forward. I will be at MMA Mia this weekend at Tteranova and I will be at Fame Night.
039What does FAME stand for? FA fine arts, music, entertainment. I don't know. Fame. We know what's fine arts at Oceanana. And so, uh, I'm going to those two things. And, um, I'm just it, this is a a really fun time of year, actually. It's when we just sort of get to celebrate all of the work that people are doing all year long in the students. So, yeah. So, that's it for me. Thanks, Oh, fame. I want to live forever. I know. I almost did that. I almost broke out into song but refrained. Uh, are there any board subcommittee reports? Um, [Music] okay. Uh we're going to do our uh AFT local 1481 report. Thank you, Miss Casey. Seeding her time. [Music] Um okay. 13 isformational only, right? You um 14 consent agenda items. Move to
040approve consent. Second. All in favor? I do. We go straight to 15. Is that right? Thank you. Is there any public comment? Clerk Tahada. No, no public comment at this time. Discussion items 16A1. Uh our student advisory council presentation. Ms. Prea. Thank you. So students um you are going to we you know the order new student integration is the first group and I'd love to call you up to the podium and you your team will present. Miss Baka has put your presentation up there but you can use the um the keyboard and the mouse to move your slides forward. So come on up. Trustees have separated the presentations into three parts because there were three groups. And make sure that you speak into the microphone because it's being recorded and also speaking clearly and not
041too fast because we uh have interpreters. You got it. All right. Um well, thank you so much for having us tonight. Um, and we're going to do introductions in the following slides, so I won't read out everybody's names, but we are the new student integration subcommittee. Um, my name is Violet Scheler. Though I am not a multilingual learner or a new student at my school in the district, I have grown up in an area with a large population of these people. And it's been very interesting to me to observe the different classes that they take and even sometimes the different treatment that they receive in school. So immediately this was an area of interest to me to explore and I am very thankful that I was able to get information on this within my school.
042My name is Evelyn Kas. I go to Jefferson High School and when I transferred to Jefferson I was part of the EL I was considered an EL student. So I experienced a lot of things when I I joined Jefferson. So, I just wanted to improve the system and help the students like me. Hi guys, I'm Natalyia Alvarado, also from Jefferson High School. Um, I as well came from another country not knowing the language and well I was part of EL but not during high school but I know how impacted is of learning as you get older another language. So I wanted to be part of this presentation because I'm always like hanging out with people. Hi, my name is Liome and I go to Teranova High School. Um, being on the subcommittee has just been
043um, a really amazing experience learning about and also learning the like resources and how to help um, people who are multilingual learners. Hi, I'm Rafie Perez and I go to Tanova High School and I'm actually I used to be a new student. I came from the Philippines and I spent my freshman year there. So, I chose to be part of this new student integration subcommittee because it really was important and it was very personal to me. But yeah, thank you. Hi, I'm Adam. Uh I'm from Westmore High School and I recently moved here my sophomore year from Yanmar. So working on this subcommittee was it really resonated me and just being able to help new students integrate better into um Jefferson was I mean Jefferson Unified High School District was an amazing experience like Evelyn
044Nathalia Rafford and Adam um I also moved here in 2020 um I'm Charlotte Sang and I'm from Westmore and I think I thought that this project really resonated with like my goals and my beliefs and how I wanted to improve improve the district in general with um more access with like um language barriers and like etc. I just noticed that you all have your outfits coordinated. Nicely done. So before we start our presentation, we wanted to keep in mind the JUHSD equity statement um which is a big text and uh I think everybody here can read this. So I won't bother saying repeating all the words but we did keep in mind throughout the duration of our presentation how the aforementioned groups and the staff working with them feel that they fit into this definition
045and we asked ourselves how can their experience within the district be improved. So the first thing we have here is something that actually Miss Rosie mentioned that you guys went over um is the LCAP analysis and we have some data per per school. Um at Jefferson High School we have 172 students and 23% of those students are considered multilingual learners or EEL students. So they're learning a new language. Oceanana High School has the lowest population of students in the district and also the lowest amount of um multilingual learners with 471 students in total and only 16 students being multilingual learners which is 3% of our student body. Uh much like Oceanana Teranovas uh has 24 out of 740 students who are multi- um language learners which is also about 3% of our population. Um as
046Westmore is the largest um student population in the district, we have about 20% of our students are multilingual learners which are like 252 students. So for Thorn High School, we h they have 89 students in total and 29% of those students are considered multilingual learners. So for the district total that's about 15% of our learners. um of of our students that are multilingual learners in total. So um we made a list of the current issues that our um schools are facing. Um first we have Jefferson and we can see the lack of involvement in student activities for multilingual students. They're not as active in clubs, sports or extracurricular activities and they we also have not enough outreach. Um for Teranova we saw that mainly there was a lack of awareness from the multilingual learners as
047well as like staff who were advising or teaching them about um activities around campus as well as lack of um connection with other students on campus. for Oceanana. Since we have such a small population of multilingual learners, we actually took an approach where we turned to the staff who work with these kids and we asked them what their thoughts were. Um, and some things that came up were not knowing how or where to best support students. They really did not want to have any stigmatization of multilingual learners be perpetuated in any of the course material that was being taught or any uh or just any assumption sorry, assumptions um made about these students. And another concern was time management during these support periods. Um these staff didn't want the periods for multilingual learners to turn
048into study halls. And they even wondered if this period was required because the multilingual learners at Oceanana tend to be higher performing. And we also had some concerns about garnering schoolwide coordination. So, it wasn't just one staff who was working who was designated to work with these um students. And besides multilingual learners, since our subcommittee also has to do with new students, we were wanting to work towards standardizing each administrator's introductory presentations. Um after interviewing administration at Oceanana, uh I became aware that it wasn't just one person giving presentations, it was multiple. and some students reported different um experiences with these people. So standardizing would mean that everyone gets an equal opportunity to learn about what Oceanana has to offer. And finally, we wanted to include counselors more in new student orientations as they are
049a great resource for mental health as well as financial aid or um other resources for families. As mentioned earlier in the ELCO analysis um Westmore has 15% of their um student population that are um ML um learners. So so we are unable to reach the multilingual students because it is so niche and therefore when we plan our school events sometimes there's also a poor poor connection between the ML leaders in our school versus like student government events or any club events in general and they're not informed about all those events. Um, additionally, there aren't any like um multicultural appreciation or culture events that are happening in our school, which is for example like international cultural day. Um, but to add on to that um there is also a little like not a lot of recognition
050for Westmore for um the ML leaders. I know that they have stepped up but um I don't believe that the community is informed about their existence and therefore um they should be more accredited. So to get some feedback, we did do some interviews to both teachers and par profofessionals throughout our district. And some of the comments that the teachers have made or the the district and EL coordinators are working really hard. So they do appreciate you guys and see your hard work. the EL classes are like they like that they're based on students different levels so they're seeing your effort. um the activities that have worked most effectively for them are projects and games that involve the English language. And in order to help MLS students um more effectively, our trainings for MLS students/newcomers would
051be really helpful. That's a suggestion they made. And a little more search for bilingual teachers for sure. On the par prof profofessional side having a bilingual trilingual par profofessional in the classroom does bring more support to the students I have seen that myself working with a prof par prof professional um translation and understanding of the topic that's what they um offer usually and a little more about the par profofessionals is that understanding where students come from with this knowledge We provide the help required. They said those words because they not only help the students. They get to know the students and connect with them. And it is important that p professionals are provided with the class topic and context ahead of time so we can fully be prepared to support the students. They that's a
052request for them because sometimes they have them be a day on the classroom and then skip a day and then come back and they're like a bit lost. So they want to be aware of like the full class so they're they can help them more effectively. Um, so going more into detail about ways our ELD program can improve at Jefferson High School, I would think that designate a section or like a unit in the ELB and newcomers classes to teach more practical and daily language that they can use because sometimes the students learn this really fancy vocabulary that they don't really use in their daily activities or have like a daily conversation And so when they have they need to communicate with someone they have a really hard time. So we think that having more
053of topics like h just learning how to learning how to communicate in a daily basis will be really helpful. Also provide the paraprofessionals a specific class materials and topics ahead of time like mentioned before so they are prepared because like Natalia mentioned they switch from classes so they have a certain schedule on Tuesdays and Thursdays and they they have a different different classes Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays at Jefferson. So sometimes they have like chemistry class and they missed Friday and Monday, but then they have to go back on Tuesday and they're not really sure about the topics that they're what they're t working on. So providing them the class material ahead of time will be really helpful for them to help the the students. Um also include collaboration time within the regular schedule for teachers
054and par profofessionals to plan and align support. I think this will go with the one that I just mentioned as well because that way the par professionals know what they're going to do in the classroom and they don't just show up and be like lost, you know, so they communicate with the teacher and they can be more helpful. And also have bilingual teachers in in EL and newcomers classes. I know that it's can be hard just um find bilingual staff members but in like the case where is not able to have a par professional to help the students because in most of the EL classes the the teachers don't speak Spanish and for example in Jefferson is mostly Spanish speaker students so it's really hard for the teachers to communicate with the students and explain
055something if they don't speak the same language So these are the things that we think that can be improved and we can work on to have a better system and better support for the e and newcomer students. All right. So a little bit of history about um ways that Oceanana has attempted to support multilingual learners in the past. Um, we used to offer a multilingual learner support period as a class period, but due to the declining number of multilingual learners enrolled at Oceanana, administration felt that this period would be better consolidated into an advisory block, which is basically 45 minutes at the end of every week that students of similar age groups either um about 15 students from one grade or 15 students from uh one grade above and one grade below um come together.
056And it's not a study hall, but it is personalized time with your teacher to check in about any work or any questions you might have regarding your courses. Um, and this was an area of concern for the adviser because they did feel that it was a study hall and it functioned as a regular advisory as opposed to one who that was actually functioning to service these multilingual learners. So last year we began offering it as a flex time which is um an amount of time equivalent to an advisory period that we offered um one day out of every week for um the students at Oceanana for multilingual learner support for individual work time and I believe this year it is a preparatory period or a flex time again. Um but yes it is the same
057staff who has been doing the advisory that has been doing the flex time and they're the person that I was lucky enough to interview to get my information for the slide. So after speaking with them um we have come to the conclusion together that repeating flex time periods or advisories focused on skill development and individual needs assessment would benefit this group of students the most because as you can see from the pie chart presented above there is a very small amount of students at Oceanana who do fit these requirements. So the only way to fully reach all of them, which I guess would apply to larger groups of students, would be to meet with the teacher separately and have their needs assessed as opposed to just making general assumptions about all the students in that
058group because everyone is different. And like I mentioned before, um the multilingual learners at Oceanana tend to score higher on language examination assessments. So they may need a different type of assistance as opposed to ones who struggle more with learning the English language. And another thing we came to a conclusion together on was that um more than just this one staff should be encouraged to set aside time in their courses to talk to check in with multilingual learners about their understanding of course material because they could fall behind in subjects such as math or science that have more complex vocabulary words if they're not familiar with that terminology. and they could be very talented mathematicians or very talented scientists, but misunderstanding one term could set them behind all the rest of the students. So, it's
059very important to check in individually. And another thing that we were talking about was how the population of multilingual learners benefits um much more than the general student population with the publication of immigrant resources. And Oceanen is actually already working to include more immigrant resources in their publications such as our newsletter Shark Bites. And we are constantly looking for more materials to publish in these new sources. Um the process for uh choosing which events to publicize is it goes through our principal, Miss Torres, and she checks the sources to see um usually if they come from the district office, they are deemed reliable and immediately put in our advertising. But if they are from an outside source, she does check in on them. She sees if they cost money. And Oceanana never advertises events that
060cost money. it's always nonprofit and accessible to everyone who needs the resources. So, speaking more on new students, um for transfer students, Oceanana did mention that it is an area of improvement for transfer students, their experiences and their orientations offered here. So after speaking to Miss Torres, we agreed that an standardized structure for transfer and new students should be established um to ensure the same reception for all students across the board and also involving wellness counselors because a lot of our transfer students left their previous schools for either mental health reasons or not feeling accepted or really heard at their last school. And at Oceanana, we have a huge focus on mental health. And this should be, like I said before, a very big part of the mentioned um opportunities available to these students. Our
061counseling department is amazing and they have a lot of resources that should be shown to new students just so they can know where to go if they have any issues. Also for incoming freshmen, we do have very good programs for these students with um we have our new student orientation and we have back to school night and we also offer shadowing. Um but we have received several complaints from from prospective students about the content of these tours. So in the future we would like to include um the opportunities for personalized campus tours for these students. So, we would have a form to fill out about which subjects they're most interested in, and we can set up a time period for them to go and visit a class with that subject so they aren't visiting a
062class that does not matter to them. And we also would like to give more personalized introductions to administrators and counselors so that it feels less like meeting a strange person because Oceanana is a small school and a tight-knit community being fostered is not a hard thing to do. So if we introduce the administrators and counselors to these students, it helps them better fit into the community right away. Thank you. Hi. So for Westmore um and ways to improve uh we actually had an amazing CTE student who's uh doing the computer science pathway Shuing Tang which is a student uh at Westmore and the trustees and her we collaborated on this website called breadcrumbs and you're more than welcome to scan the QR code to go to the website but essentially what our website did was
063to really break down the touring and orientation part of Westmore. more. So, what this meant was that we had a whole map and we had a whole interactive map with different areas of Westmore shown on the map so that when uh so so that before students come into our school, they've already experienced and aren't lost when um they arrive at Westmore. Additionally, we have a frequently asked question section where they're just allowed to um not only navigate through the general school information, but through academics and sports and areas of interest they might have because what we noticed that uh what we noticed was that there were many high achieving um new students that came into Westmore, but they weren't u met with the information needed. So, we really wanted to provide the information to students
064uh that came into Westmore. Um, additionally, some suggestions that uh we have for Westmore was just going off of what fellow TR trustees have said, this really humanized connection with our school administration because we feel that they are really important people, but um at times they they may come they may seem really intimidating to approach. So just having this connection between uh whether it's transfer students or uh EL students and our administrative site uh administrative team would really improve the relationship between Westmore and Westmore's students and the district overall. Thank you. Okay. On top of the very exceptional insight given by the previous schools, Teranova with despite having only 3% of its students becoming multilingual learners, we have done a very all right job with providing very um wide available opportunities and services for students,
065but there will of of course be more improvements. Um, for example, the first one on our list would be the peer helper/linkrew committees. And these are essentially where students are given the opportunity to meet with other students. And this helps new students have more familiarity and more of an establishment with Teranova as a social level. Moreover, we also have student mentors and this is very true in the English department where our teachers essentially give work for upper classmen to help write and like edit the the essays of younger and lowerassmen which especially is very helpful because it helps students tailor their English and their writing abilities. And it is also very important for multilingual learners because oftentimes when you come from a different country or like a different school, you might not be used to
066the way a school is run or the way things are done. Like for example, an international student may not understand the rigorousness of an AP course. So by having student mentors, not only do new students and MLL students have the opportunity to meet with a student and furthermore develop their social their social um welfare, but also that they can also help each other. We also are very proud to host diverse clubs which can help students with connecting if they ever feel out of place. And we have things such as Latin X club, black student union, we have the Asian club, Jewish student union, and a whole bunch of other clubs where students may feel they are very passionate about. Moreover, we have wellness support from our counselors and clubs such as students in action which
067they have a lot of awareness opportunities. They like to spread awareness with red cards. And I remember they would also post posters about um positive messages and just basically to let people know that there's always somebody there to support them. And also the most important one I believe in my opinion are flex times because especially when you're coming from a foreign country and oftentimes when you do not know how to speak English you may have a very difficult time with trying to for example keep up with a test or keep up with the course schedule and it is very necessary that students have that extra time to catch up but also so that they may talk with their teachers over things that they may be confused about And so in propositions in progress or in
068theory that those are essentially the things that we hope to see in turnover and the whole district these could be things that are that are in planning such as for example we plan to switch to a seven period schedule for more credits. The reason why I put that on there was because I feel like it's very important giving my experience that a lot of new students should be aware about what credits they are missing in order to graduate and there should be more awareness on extracurriculars and opportunities and I feel like the CCC is not necessarily enough although they do post a lot of emails on scholarships and other things. I believe that we should foster more growth within like student teacher conversations and classrooms and it is through those like conversations that students are
069actually very touched and they're very more moved to join like for example I joined this committee because of Miss Prea and she actually recruited me while I was playing badminton so I was really grateful and so we also also really hope to have more counseling program for new students which is essentially What are some things that we may know like for example for graduation requirements but also things like what are some classes that we may take that's very interesting or things that can help assess new students and their academic capabilities and help them further grow more. Yeah. Um to recap what um each of the schools and presenters have said today, as a whole, JSD students and especially um our multilingual learners generally um see less outreach and communication with um within the staff and
070students and there's a lack of awareness on specific opportunities that um you know they should have access to to fully integrate within their schools. Um so we're proposing that the district and schools individually should focus on um garnering more student and peer support so that they're um able to I guess assimilate more into each of their schools social structures um and especially um ensuring that staff working with these new incoming students are aware of events that these students should be able to participate in. Oh, and thank you. Thank you. [Music] I'm wondering if we want to take questions between the presentations. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Students. Yeah. Dominic, I don't have a question. I have a comment. Um, I just want to say that was amazing all of you and I am proud of all of
071your accomplishments and all the investigative work you guys conducted throughout this process. Yeah, trust me. Yep. Indeed. Um, I echo that great work, great research. Fact that you went out and spoke to staff, your principles, etc. to make sure you understood what was going on and with concrete ideas of what to do at each school site. And I would hope that um that each of the sites will implement some component of these of these recommendations. Um and do at least just a quick question for for you. Do you think at least in the conversations you've had with staff and and with your respective principles that you think that some of these will be done? Um, I think definitely because a lot of the staff that we have spoken to have been very open to not
072only talking about these ideas, which is a very very important first step, but being able to implement them as well and reaching out to students in particular. Great. Fantastic. and um Westmore, great job on the uh map and that's incredible work and I would hope that the other schools might want to do something similar. Just a hint, you know. Yeah, more of a comment and I think u trusty Lee just stole my comment. that was about the map just something so which I feel like is often underlooked just giving that resource available on the palm of your hand it's just relieves so much anxiety and as you guys hear me preach every week I'm up here I'm all about healthcare wellness and like living a life that is fulfilling and you know that just being
073able to relieve that level of stress from somebody you've already taken on a barrier it shows that student that we care, right? So, yeah, I echo that. I think all the other schools should take some notes and wow, tremendous, tremendous work. Um, really proud of you putting this together. I know you've all all of the groups have worked so hard on this and um yeah, I I uh I especially like how thoughtful everybody is, especially those who um came from other countries into our district. It's not easy. Um English was not my first language, but I was very young and I I learned to speak English like as five or six year olds. So, it was just a lot easier for me. But I'm just curious when when did you forget? Huh? Okay. Sheret. Um,
074but I remember when my cousins came here from the Philippines, there were I had to enroll I was only 19, but I had to enroll um like five of them into our schools. And they struggled and I and and the big thing was I didn't understand was how are you going to learn English when your your teachers don't speak the galook? I I don't know. It it must be really hard to teach students ear learning English. It's so much harder for the students and especially our school district is growing in the number of languages that our new students are are um coming here with. So I this is a question for our uh administration like I know we're trying to recruit you know um by probably bilingual teachers or um paras or um any other
075staff members classified. Um but it's I think it's just really hard when we're trying I I don't know how our efforts are actually on that and that would be something that would be good to to learn. But then I really love how every one of you said there has to be better outreach and how do we do that? Is it on the school level? What can we do up here? um you know because lots of times these students don't know how to speak up for themselves and it's usually those who've been there in their shoes like you or who are empathetic who know what they need because they're not going to ask themselves. Um, and I think that's really important for us to remember is that there are people out there who don't have a
076voice and then you've actually lent them a voice just with your presentation. Um, and it's something I really have to remember. But thank you so much. Thank you. And great job. I think that my big takeaway is to um do what I can to be a part of next steps. It's, you know, really nice to sit up here and uh take the credit credit for all the hard work that everyone does. And I think the great part about that is you get to empower people to to do great work. And I think that what I can do is continue to empower them to do great work in this area. Thank you. I'm not going to say a lot. I'm just very proud of you and I want to echo the sentiments that uh I think
077Trustee Lee expressed just the degree of sort of research that you guys did and the interviewing. We've learned a lot as um leaders in the school district that we learned the most by what we call empathy listening sessions. When we meet with students, when we meet with people and actually talk with them, that's when we really learn the most. So, I'm I'm just very proud of you. Well done. Thank you. If I can make one more comment, um the website I think could be really good to have it in multiple languages, right? So, navigating otherwise really awesome. Okay. Nice. Uh thank you very much. We go to the next group. Um, hi. So, we're presenting student outreach and opportunity. I'm Chloe. I'm a senior at Westmore High School. I'm Lauren. I'm also a senior at
078Westmore High School. Hello. My name is Ryan. I'm also well I'm a sophomore at Westma High School. I'm Avi Rajin and I'm a sophomore at Oceanana High School. I'm Caitlyn Wyn and I'm a senior at Oceanana. Okay. Okay. So, I'll go over the agenda. Um today we're going to be talking about areas for improvement, possible solutions, and conclusion. So as part of our presentation, we interviewed various JUHSD students to gain insight on areas our district can improve in in different categories which is going to be um in the presentation. We also came up with possible solutions that are studentled and that can be supported by the different schools and we have a final conclusion as well. Um, for a quick disclaimer, our group consists entirely of students from West Oceanana. And although we solicited feedback
079from students in Jefferson, Tteranova, and Dorton, we didn't want to make any bold assumptions about the student experience at all of the schools. So, as a result, we wanted to make our presentation more generalizable to all schools. So, now we're going to go on to areas for improvement. So, first we have interview questions. So our first question category was academics and the question says how do you think your experience as a JUHD student has prepared you for your college and career. Secondly we have how can JUHD improve its classes such as more ac more or less academic rigorous courses and its currics curriculum for example more course offerings. So second next we have environment and culture. Do you think the JUHSD environment and culture allows you to grow as an individual? And then for the
080second question for this is what are the most critical areas of improvement you believe JUHD JHS should focus on based on your student experience? Lastly, we have student community. Do you believe that the clubs and programs provided at your school are inclusive and representative of the student body? and how can JUHSC better involve and represent students in its various clubs and programs. So over this me we um all of us went over some we discussed some questions with other students and our peers from our school and first we have from a student from named Arwin from Oceanana class of 25. She says the district can improve their curriculum by adding more language courses other than Spanish for students. Also more practical skill classes like workshops and teach and teaching kids about financial independence. So things
081outside of school that would be useful for outside life like even growing up knowing how to discuss money things like that. And for Westmore a senior quoted, "I wish that my school had more class offerings when it came to APs. maybe introducing honor classes for those who would like a ch to challenge themselves a bit but would not take an exam. Um as well as a sophomore said one way JUHSD can improve its curriculum is by adding more life resource classes classes where students can learn important skills that can will help them as adults. Additionally reacted to our ASB class ASB president Julian Dalton and he says our experience offered at Oceanana has a vast variety of opportunities for students to explore all types of subjects. My main concern as a senior because of our
082declining enrollment rate. It gives less access for students to try different types of courses. This is due to the fact that we have the same electives for the last three years taking away the chance for other students to try something new and different. Then we also reached out to a past um a past Oceanana student and he says, "Students should be able to be comfortable with expanding their choices when it comes to learning about different subjects. What I have done as an as a high school student was enroll in a dual enrollment classes outside of school to receive college credits and be able to explore different areas. It also helps me prepare for rigorous college courses I'm presently taking at Cornell according to Sager." And then regarding the school environment and culture, um, one quoted,
083I think that there should be more of a focus on more rigorous academics and push to challenge yourself more. I see a lot of people just staying where they are and not really taking advantage of the great opportunities like AP classes. As well as a sophomore saying, I believe some direct impact uh, some direct impacts that JUSD can improve on are challenges in inclusion and diversity of events. highlights of other ethnicities, other nationalities, and other special events of certain groups and individuals. And a sophomore from Oceanana also says, "I think so because there are a lot of opportunities to do things independently because everything in my old school was in partners." Okay. And then some more student responses from Westmore regarding student community are I guess greater social media presence of lesserk known clubs would
084be good because we all know about the bigger clubs at each school but not but some clubs are doing great work and not achieving the same recognition as well as well as I have found personal connection and friendships within programs and clubs. I believe some ways to include people in clubs and programs is to have more encouragement of student led activities and events. Make surveys of what peers would like to see or organize districtwide. Yeah. So going back to ASB president, he says about more student community involvement. He says students part of a certificated program at Oceanana High School are able to join ASB. The present of this program allows students from all dis from all backgrounds to engage in a leadership opportunity giving students a chance for giving a chance for student for their
085voices to be heard. Another senior from Oceanana also says there should also be an emphasis on the fact that school is not everything. I've I've known far too many people who have been stuck stressing over assignments and tests causing a decline in their overall mental health and overall academic performance. So, while keeping students engaged is important, it is is equally, if not more important to make sure that they understand that there is more to life outside of school, especially since school is all students have ever really known. All righty. And I'm going to just really quickly summarize um everything that was said and I'm going to go over the areas for improvement in the three categories. First up, we have the academic categories. Um, students in our district found that there were limited offerings of
086both AP classes and resource classes such as adult life preparation. Um, what's fundamental with these AP classes is that many students want to try to learn more in certain categories. And with the limited amount that we have, it's kind of hard to do that without concurrent enrollment and also enrolling in other colleges such as BYU. We also have limited um honors classes. And honors classes are basically classes that give credit um but don't require students to take AP exams. And this is important because it allows for more accessible it's more accessible to students who want to take a step towards taking a more rigorous course such as the AP classes. in the culture um category. Many students at JHSD feels like they're not academically challenged enough in the atmospheres. Um and this is by their
087teachers and sometimes counselors as well. Um many students feel like they're in this medium zone where they feel that they're doing good but they're not very pushed um to do better. And um also we could also continue to sorry we could continue building on our diverse school events. such as highlighting different ethnicities and special religious holidays. And finally, in our student community, um many students again feel like there isn't enough encouragement for taking rigorous courses as well as the limited amount of options which also um take into that. And um highlighting and promoting various clubs within schools can also help our student community and find their community as well. and making the process of establishing and creating clubs accessible to everyone. Yeah. So, after we looked at these possible areas of improvement, our entire team
088got together to brainstorm some possible solutions that we think we as students and the JUH HSD board could take. So, in the academic side, we we saw a lot of student interest in higher level coursework and so we are thinking of adding more diversity in curriculum. So it could be honors classes along with additional AP classes since we have a lot of students who engage in out of school activities such as sports who don't really want to commit themselves to a rigorous exam but want to explore more outside the curriculum as well as other opportunities such as middle college which allows students to take college classes while in high school. Um, a second possible point is eliminating class rank, which I believe is already being discussed at the JHSC board, but we found that it's
089really um sort of like encouraging competition instead of collaboration, which we think would be a great addition to the school culture. So for example um in the last point we talked about peer and teacher tutoring which um let students learn from their peers without like the presence of a teacher since a lot of them have um a huge workload. So maybe having a study room after school where students could learn from each other would be a great improvement. So next in environment and culture want to encourage students to take more rigorous courses. So, this kind of goes hand inhand with the peer support, but we want to make sure that students have the support system they need to take a rigorous course without feeling like they're going to be left behind by their peers or
090teachers. So, fostering an environment that allows students to take various courses of rigor will provide them the opportunity for students to explore and grow without having to overwhelm themselves. And lastly, um this also goes with the um culture factor that oven mentioned earlier, but at Oceanana class are allowed to be customized with their own personalized culture. And at Westmore, we have the Filipino Barca Club, but it's only one of our cultural clubs at Westmore. And we think there's a lot we can improve on there. And lastly, for community, we wanted to support students more directly postgraduation. So better preparation in a college application process especially for private schools would be um beneficial to a student body as well as students who are interested in other options such as trade schools. And the last two points
091are primarily about communication. So at the time or at least at Westmore a lot of our clubs sort of had to fight for themselves for um advertisement to the student body. So having um ASB and the JHSD account to promote these clubs as well would help grow your community. And other ways to reach students could be through videos and classes such as PSAs and student shoutouts and highlight and bulletin boards around your school so that the general student population can see upcoming events without being on social media. Now I'll pass it back to Chloe for our final conclusion. Okay. So um this is what we concluded that goss does well. We have a good variety of CTE classes. So for example, Westma students like the varying levels of construction, automotive, and business classes offered. And
092I'm sure that's the case at a lot of our other schools out as well. Um we also have active student involvement. So we have a wide variety of studentike clubs and activities. Students often enjoy the straightforward application process for new clubs and a chance to discuss ideas with teachers and students afterwards. We also have good performances and enrichment opportunities. So students can enjoy the opportunity to see their peers perform at events such as school plays and island fiesta at Westmore. And here's what JHSD can improve on. Um in terms of academics, we hope for a more diverse and academically rigorous curriculum. So um that means a wider breath of classes in different subjects and at different levels. So standard honors/enriged AP. And we think that this will lead to better student preparedness for college and
093career. And this also goes kind of handinhand with what we said earlier about preparing students for private colleges or trade schools or starting a career straight out of high school as well. Um in addition we wanted to bring up environment and culture. So this means spotlighting lesserk known clubs and new clubs for students to join. Um this also means giving students opportunities to feel empowered in choosing their own academic path which ties into the more diverse curriculum mentioned above. And lastly, for student community, we hope for better outreach for all students. So, we hope to effectively utilize social media to recognize students from all schools, especially those who are often overlooked, like students who aren't necessarily loud and outgoing, athletic, etc. We also want to continue making an effort to include and provide communities for
094all students such as um students who are learning English as a second language, special education, and the other various cultures that exist. That's it. Thank you. More questions or comment? Mr. Presa, hello. I just wanted to say that I really appreciate your guys's points about how to like actively like looking towards the future on like ways that we can kind of improve in on this topic and I really appreciate that kind of looking forward uh perspective. Yeah, great presentation. Uh, and some of you I recognize your faces now, so it's kind of weird to see you on that side, not on this side. So, um, but couple of comments/ questions. Um, you got mentioned that you don't feel and I and I and I really appreciate the disclaimer you had in the beginning. So, that's
095very good etiquette and presentation. Good job there. Um, you mentioned that your program or your your classes you don't feel they're rigorous enough, but I have a question about the math scores which Miss Karine I'm not my mind is not serving me well what math scores are like the passing rates um like just overall it's about 30% um of our 11th graders meet or exceed standards right so if it's not rigorous enough. I'm just curious what what you guys think about that as a score just overall comments. Okay. Um I feel like the people that we interviewed and the voices that were um that spoke out about this um I don't think it was about the class itself being rigorous enough, but that there aren't enough opportunities of classes themselves. I don't know if that
096makes sense. like diver like more classes essentially. I see say like more classes instead of like the content in the class like of course the content matters as well but I feel like many of the students that are um above that 80%. Um I feel some of them feel kind of stuck in the class that they are in right now. I see. And even if it's a smaller percent um I think hopefully if we can get more rigorous classes maybe that percent can grow as well right because then you have more people kind of being a peer to each other essentially. Okay. and building each other up. Awesome. And then there was a comment about post-graduation preparation. What did you mean by that? If you can just elaborate. Oh yeah. So one of our students
097mentioned about more life resource classes. So I think um one of our presenters mentioned that it could be like managing money, but post high school we feel like there could be more support for students learning how to like navigate to careers and like like manage their money. And we think that the current curriculum doesn't really allow for a lot of exploration in those fields. I see. And so, and you but those classes will be offered while you're still enrolled in the school before you graduate. Essentially, basically like saying, "Hey, when you graduate, this is what life is waiting for you when you become an adult and move out your parents house essentially, right?" Yeah. Exactly. Got it. Okay. trust. So, it's it's actually pretty convenient that some of the stuff you address is actually going
098to be addressed later in the agenda, specifically like personal finance, which will be a state requirement shortly, and we're discussing that tonight, as well as ch potential changes to the graduation requirements, which I think will address some some of the things that you're talking about tonight. But I just want to say that incredible again incredible research and work that you did to come up to to come up with to to look at the different problems and to come up with potential solutions. Some of which were obviously going to address today, but I think there's some longer term items that I think we should probably be looking at definitely. So, thank you so much for the great work all of you. Yeah, definitely. Thank you for all of your hard work. Um, I do wish, thank
099you for the disclaimer because I do wish uh there would have been more input from the other high schools because their priorities may may be different. Um, but I think that um the things that you touch upon are very important. I mean, building community. Um, I like that you really search for better outreach for all students and provide communities for all students, including students learning English, special education, uh, various cultures, ethnicities, and religions. Um, you know, we have such a diverse, um, school district. Uh, and actually I was at um I was at the movies and someone working behind the counter went to Westmore. She saw my Jefferson Grizzlies shirt on and um she had told me that she she wishes there were more um culturally diverse clubs at Westmore, which I was surprised by
100because, you know, when my son went to high school there, it was it felt really diverse. But I know Wesmore has a lot of clubs. Um, you know, so um and my my nephew is a freshman at Oceanana. He felt he feels very welcome there. So many opportunities um you know uh of belonging, you know, which I think is great that this is still something that um like the students like a lot of this you said is studentled. um cuz students definitely run these clubs. Um and I know that we are going to do touching upon I'm glad you brought up some of those points. Um, and that uh especially I I'm I'm gratified to know that the students that you spoke to and that you yourselves are searching for um more adult life prep,
101you know, like life skills and uh because that's Yeah, there's a lot you don't learn there's a lot you don't learn in high school and um about life and um especially financial literacy. So, I just want to say great great job on this presentation. Thank you for this presentation. I didn't realize I would be so interested in everything uh even after previewing it. So, so nice job. Uh I have a question about class rank. Uh I think Ryan mentioned eliminating class rank. One reason is because it emphasizes competition rather than collaboration which I understand. Is there any other reason that you came up with? Um, for us primarily that was the main reason, but I could see um how other students could also feel like if they're like at sort of like a lower number,
102how that could be kind of demotivating to their future success, right? Thank you. Um, actually I have a question for I have a question for Miss Baka. Do we have honors classes and enriched classes or just certain I know we used to. We have a couple of enriched classes and we used to have honors classes but what ended up happening is that it created a lot of singletons and tracking students and so right now there's um more less and less enriched classes and honors classes and um but we do offer more AP than in the past. Okay. So what is the reason for not having honors classes? Um again it master schedule conflict and also it just tracks a group of students where it's you know they're basically together in one track. Uh explain explain
103to them what singletons. Singleton is like there's only one class being offered in the whole entire like school day. And so if you have too many singletons like you can't take some of the classes because you can only be placed in that one class and students would have to choose are you in honors English or are you in AP calculus and so it becomes very difficult to schedule students. Okay thank you. I wanted to comment on that. This may be a mistake, but I'm going to make it anyway. Um, is it possible to take an AP class and not take the test? Does that does that meet what you're looking for when you talk about honors and enrichment classes that have no test pressure? Um, I think when we're talking about having or providing honors
104classes, it's more of like a step between having a regular class and an AP class because we know that the rigor is like so much higher, but people are afraid to take that step. So, we want to have some classes where it could help them to take baby steps to push themselves rather than to feeling just uh complacent into their standard classes. Yeah, essentially a bridge class. Yes, I I really like that answer. Thank you. I would encourage you to think of it not as a bridge class of step between a regular class and an AP class, but a different step AP and enriched, not a baby step. Just my two cents. Uh thank you all of you. Thank you. Yeah, thanks. Thanks. Um, I just again want to tell you how proud I am
105of you and really most of what I would have said has already been said, but I really in really like the way you set up your presentation. Nice presentation skills, how you had it all organized. Um, thank you. I know all of the hard work that you've done and you've done a really nice presentation. about the presentation. I like that there's kind of a color theme going on and I appreciate that. Nice work. Thank you. Okay. Wellness Good job. Hi everybody. Um my name is Hannah Rosoff and I'm a senior at Tteranova High School. Um this is the wellness improvement committee. Hi, my name is Summer Simpson and I'm also a senior at Tteranova. Um I'm Eva Empro. I'm a junior at Oceanana. I'm Angela Chin and I'm a junior at Jefferson High School. Hi,
106I'm Fernanda Mura and I'm a sophomore at Jefferson High School. Hi, I'm Eden Magang and I am a senior at Jefferson High School. Hi, I'm Sophia Urebe and I'm a junior at Thornton High School. Hi, I'm Danny Gervasio and I'm a senior at Thornon High School. Hi, I'm Dominic Preston. I'm a junior at Oceanan High School. Um, so we just wanted to start with some overall issues within our district that we've noticed in terms of wellness. Um, we will go into more detail at each campus. Um, but this is just kind of overall things we've noticed. Um, first would be the Stop it app. Um we've just we'll go into this in more detail, but we've noticed just a lack overall within our district of student awareness and just usage of um this you know
107in theory really helpful resource um but it's just something that can be improved on. Um also we've noticed that among our um campuses there's kind of a mental health stigma. Um some students we've noticed feel very scared to speak up about their struggles and seek help despite um the multitude of resources we might have within our um district. Um we've also noticed that there could be an improvement on mental health advocacy on campus. Um we've noticed that um things like speakers um role models and um you know just overall different things like that to spread awareness of mental health can kind of help to destigmatize mental health issues and make students more likely to seek out help and utilize the resources that we already have. So at Jefferson High School um we have several um
108resources for mental health. The first one is the beach, which is an area in um in our counseling center that offers like a space for students to like relax and de-stress if they're having a bad day or if they're, you know, not mentally stable at the moment. They're able to get excused from class um and hang out in this area like completely distressed for 15 minutes until they are sent back to class. We also have several wellness counselors and a starve vista therapist on site. um you just make an appointment and they'll call you out of class and you're free to go to them. Um we also have several social workers and we are closely connected to the Daily City Youth Health Center. Um and we also have a club called to bring change to
109mind which helps advocate for student wellness. Um, all of our wellness counselors are listed there, first and last name along with our StarVista therapist and all of these counselors can be accessed through our wellness website. Um, so some main issues that we have right now is that the beach is not very well advertised and not many people know about it. Um, the mental health counseling only happens during class and some teachers prevent participation. to stop it up is ineffective and when it comes to when it comes to vaping or smoking in bathrooms and I would say like the main issue or to like to conclude here it would be that um the resources that we have right now are not people do not know about it and they cannot reach it or they cannot use
110it and when it comes to mental health and counseling by preventing the participation it only makes student like students that more scared to seek um help. Uh so for Thoron High School, our school offers 1-hour sessions with wellness counselors. Um and it's the counselor of the student's choice. So out of the options, students are able to choose which counselor they're more comfortable to talk to and they're allowed to be out of class for an hour at a time. We also do um have the stop it app, but as said previously, not a lot of students know about it. Um it could become useful though. And then we also do have connections to the Daily City Youth Health Center. Um if any student needs to have to talk to somebody from there, they're allowed to and
111they're able to do that. Um, our wellness counselors are our very own Miss Yam Bao, Miss Lopez, and Miss Carla Talov. Um, our first issue is with all of our different varieties of culture at our school, there are many different beliefs about student wellness/ mental health, such as not taking mental health seriously or even believing that mental health is a thing. Um, also in addition to that, some students may also be embarrassed or unsure how to communicate about their mental health, which can lead to never opening up or seeking for help. And this kind of connects to the Stop it app, how a lot of students don't use that because they don't really like know about it or they also don't take it seriously. But for those students who may be unsure on how to
112communicate or embarrassed on how to talk about their feelings, the Stop app is anonymous. So they could definitely use that if it were out there more. I would feel like I think we might have skipped over. We're just going to click back to see. Oh no. Oh, it's after. Okay. Sorry. Okay. So for Teranova, our school offers a few things a lot like the other schools that that also offer them. So we have our wellness counselors, our peer helpers, which is a student led committee on campus. And it's a class where they are always available as a like if you want to talk to someone your own age about your issues. And there's a peer helper room where you can reserve a class period with someone of your choice to just discuss the issue. And
113then around like the end of the fall winter semester, we usually do presentations from them that are about a period long per presentation and they're oftent times about a wellness concern and they have their own testimonials and things like that that provide resources. And also like all the other schools in the district, we're really close with the Daily City Youth Health Center, which also has our sex ed squad, which is also there to educate about safe relationships and mental health uh support that they offer. Our wellness counselors include Miss Mika and Mr. Marsh, who's our social worker, who are like our two main ones, and then Miss Corwin and Miss Zang, who are interns. And our issues are also like the other schools that our mental health tools are not too not well advertised. Whereas
114the stop it posters or posters to meet with a counselor and things like that are just printed out and put randomly amongst campus and they're often times torn down, get ruined in the rain, tape just wears out. So they aren't often times advertised and there isn't a lot of social media resources that advertise that either. And also because of the way that they do advertise them, some students may feel embarrassed to utilize them because the only way to scan the QR code to meet with them is through stopping in the middle of a busy hallway and taking out their phones and people will see, oh, they're utilizing that and they're they might feel embarrassed to do that. And also just working on time. Once our problems were told to somebody or we want to speak
115to somebody, there's oftentimes like a two or three day delay to meet with a counselor about that. And so that's something we definitely want to work on. Okay, I'll be presenting some of this stuff and then Eva will continue with the issues at Oceanana. So first off, our wellness counselors. Uh Miss Janette, she's our wellness counselor. She's been there for a long time. She's kind of an institution at Oceanana. Uh, Miss Kahayan, she's on the newer end, but a lot of Oceanana students really enjoy talking to her. Um, and then Miss Jen, she's the specific mental health counselor at um, our site. Uh, so similarly to Teranova and similarly to what Summer was saying and um, a lot of the other schools, uh, stop it is advertised our school but not widely used. Um, we've
116had presentations that our admin have created um through advisories, but that's oftentimes not really a guaranteed way to have the presentation delivered um uniformly across um to all advisories. Um and then also we have info posters around school, but again it can be a little embarrassing to scan the QR code in front of the whole whole hallway, but that's where we're trying to kind of break that stigma. um around that. So the big issue here is that uh stop us from not really used ocean. So name no no name calling week as well on it's from January 6th to 10th at Oceanana. Um its role is to help students kind of settle back into school post winter break because it's two weeks off and it's difficult to kind of ease back into the whatever the
117the heavy classes. Um, and it's about kind of educating students about wellness as well as giving them kind their mindfulness um, opportunities and their meditative paintings, oftentimes rocks and shells and stuff like that and also snacks. This is usually happens during lunch or breaks and it's honestly just um, a really positive way to kind of change the um, for lack of a better word the vibe at school. Um uh coming straight back from a break as well as chill rooms. We have two chill rooms in the counseling hall as well as four overflow spaces in the dark hall at Oceanana. Uh these chill rooms are kind of a place for students to decompress if they are having personal or academic issues. And um if they're having those issues, they can it's a 20-minute session in
118each chill room. I think it's kind of similar to what they were talking about the beach at Jefferson. Um, but it's kind of a it's more of a solitary experience rather than talking with a a counselor because sometimes I think we all need just some time to decompress and reset before we go back into our academic setting. Um, and then some issues like Dom and Summer were saying that the Stop it app is not widely used on our campus. Um, and there's kind of a stigma around reporting issues and bullying. And I think also a lot of students just don't feel that the stop it app is like a functional way to address their issues or that their complaints are being addressed. Um and then also counselor visits are not really being taken seriously by
119teachers. Um and they kind of have been dissuading students from asking for help. And then also students who are particularly academic might not want to miss their classes just to go to the counselor. So it kind of could discourage them from prioritizing their mental health. And then the chill rooms like Dom said um are also not advertised enough and we believe that the process of entry needs to be streamlined and presented to the student body again. Yeah. So we didn't have a representative from Westmore, but we did ask um a few of the student trustees about Westmore's wellness. So they have um peer assistance, bring change to mind club, and a wellness room. and they have two wellness counselors and one social worker. The students fill out forms for an appointment. However, many students feel
120uncomfortable speaking to wellness counselors due to gender preferences and unhelpful feedback. And there are also long waits times for appointments and it takes about 2 to three days to get in contact with counselors. All right. So, um the chart that you see right there is a representation of a survey that we did to um analyze um how useful the stop it app is. So here we can see that 23.7% of to of students um surveyed AC across the district and agreed that they do not find the stop it app to be effective and 68% of students are not sure because they have not used it leaving us with only 8.3% of students that actually agree that it's usable which is a really low number. Yes. So, we created a few things that we just kind
121of wanted to propose as what we think can help fix more the broad issues on campus when it comes to wellness. And our first like goal or mission is the May mission, uh, which is kind of just a name we created for it. So, May is the mental health month. And we figured a way that we could help promote wellness on campuses across the district is creating a week in May um to spread awareness about mental health. So these can consist of presentations from mental health advocates within the Bay Area since we have such a rich area of people with knowledge about this field and so many local like companies that have people that could have things to say about this and that's super low cost. So we could easily g like reach out to
122local advocates and they could come do presentations and we kind of thought this would be helpful because like the Teranova peer helper presentations they're really sitting down in the in a room with all of your peers and just hearing it and not really having a choice to like just go walk around or like leave a class like actually being there and learning about it. It it comes more direct and it's easier to actually like absorb the knowledge as a student perspective. So, we think that those presentations would be really helpful. And also, local mental health organizations such as like Coast Pride or Daily City Youth Health Center, and I'm sure there's more also in the city area, um could hold tablelings promoting mental health tools. So, this could even be a specific table about just
123stop it or a table about another resource like Daily City Youth Health Center. And so our goals with the May mission would to help prevent bullying and misbehavior just by kind of getting that more of like a story like oh this is how people feel when they're treated that way and stuff like that. But we also hope it will spread mental health awareness and aid in the dstigmatizing of mental health challenges across our schools and also promote resources our district already has to offer just so they can be utilized. Uh so from this graph about um have students use the stop it app 96.6% of students that were JHSC students that were surveyed have not used the stop it app. We thought that this was a large issue because it's a really beautiful resource if
124used properly. But because of the stigmatization and the lack of education or advertisement of this it's 96.6% of students have not utilized this resource. And on the topic of advertisement, only 22.9% of surveyed students believe that Stop it is well advertised on campus. Um, however, if you look at that, that is actually a far larger percentage than the students who have actually used Stop it. So, um, that kind of means that maybe it's not an issue with the fact that students aren't aware of it, but it's a way that the information is being presented to them. So most students know that it's there because it is advertised, but it's not being advertised perhaps as correctly as it could be and that's dissuading students from um utilizing it. So for the future of stop it, we
125want improved posters posted in less conspicuous locations, social media post to pres spread awareness, presentations and announcements so students know it is available and provide students with a clear idea of how their issues will be addressed. Uh about 39.7% of high school students in the US experience persistent feelings of sadness and hopelessness. about 28.5% of high school students in the US experience poor mental health and about 20% of students um I mean adolescence ages 12 to 17 reported having unmet mental health care needs. So with all these statistics, and these are just nationwide statistics, but knowing that such like a common amount of high schooler students suffer through this, I think it's really important that we just continue to put out not new resources, but putting out ways that we can utilize the resources that
126we already are have like that we already have just so that way that these numbers, they may not be completely equal to how those students at each school feel, but just that we just so that people can feel seen with these struggles. Um, and then our final message is basically that we hope that with the implementation of the main mission and the improvement of the stop it app that JUHSD students are going to be able to feel more seen and feel as though they can seek support with their wellness. Um, and then questions. Um first of all really really amazing presentation. Um proud of you guys and huge advocate for your work. Big support and you know health is not just the physical body. There's so much that we don't know about the neurological body
127that is it's just it gives me chills that your generation is facing this head on. And I really hope that most of you will see this burden that we that humanity is facing as a motivation to not just advocate for it now cuz when you guys graduate, you're not really dealing with the issue here, but that issue is not going to stop, right? So I really hope and wish that this would be motivation for some of you to choose a career path that leads you to solve this problem because it's not just affecting our school is not just affecting our country is affecting the world right so kudos and I'm man I couldn't be I couldn't be more proud you know and huge advocate whatever I can do to help I'm a I'm well connected
128in the healthcare space not to violate any laws or whatever but uh Tony happy to chat if we need to put some resources together um to help with this mission cuz I'm all in. Now, the one question I do have for you guys though is what is the one place where you feel you have the most privacy on campus. Um for me, and I've seen it at Jefferson, I would say it's bathrooms. They put it inside a stall and so whenever you're like doing your stuff you can see the cure code and I feel like it's very like nice cuz it's really private and also in like um lockers near the lockers but like the locker room for the to change. I feel like that's also a really good place. Okay. So maybe then I'm
129sorry. Can you repeat the first place you said that was safe? Um the bathroom stalls. So inside of the like Yeah. Yeah. Okay. a bathroom itself. That was exactly going to be my comment cuz actually when we did a tour of the adult school, there was a fly in the hallway for the Stop it app. And my first instinct when you guys go, "Oh yeah, I don't want to be if I'm already somebody that feels insecure. I'm not sure if I should what I'm feeling is what is mental health." Because I think there's such an umbrella term that we're just saying mental health. What does that actually mean? What does it feel like? Right? What does anxiety feel like? Please. I also just had this thought that um for the juniors here, um we're going
130to be having whatever new student orientation soon for the next year of students and I think it would be interesting if I'm going to move this up. Um I think it would be interesting if we could like put flyers or stop it in the packets that the freshman get so then they can use it at their discretion instead of having just to have that resource at school. I think that's a point that we should maybe investigate. Yeah. Brilliant. And I think you're also highlighting something about a software. This is an app, right? This is great feedback to give it back to a developer to the person that build this app. This really should be a problem that they should be looking to also solve, right? So happy to collaborate with them in that regard as
131well. I was trying not to jump in, but I'm going to part of it, I think, is and I I loved I was going to ask a question about um how to better utilize Stop it, but I loved your slide about the future of Stop It. So, you give us some ideas. Part of it, I think, is um us getting better at our school sites just teaching you guys about the Stop It app because you don't have to just scan it. if you download it onto your phone, you never you you can use it at any point. So, the app is capable of being fully I don't know, secret, that's not the right word, you know, confidential, private. Um, but you have to download the OP the Stop it app. But that is the school
132sites um coming up with ways so that every student has that communication. And it was our intent to have you guys actually download it all in the class, you know, in your flex time, have it all downloaded so that whenever you want to use it. But I think, you know, it's the implementation of that. Yeah, I agree with you about that. It's the implementation, but it's really a utilization of your phone. Like it's stop it app. I told you it was a new chat app. People will be downloading it, no problem. But you say it's a stop it app and people are like, "Oh, I got to scan it." But that's not true. Stop using the phone properly. The other thing is we're going to be talking about cell phones in schools over the course
133of the next year and this is a very cell phone specific um solution to this problem. So that's something to keep in the back of our minds as we move forward. Eden, sorry, Eden, that is something I would like to add like what you said about the phones. Yeah. Um, usually teachers whenever whenever they see you using your phone, they don't like it or they take it away from them. And for example, like that part of like you um downloading the um uh stop it app was part of one advisory class and I remember um we wanted to download it but the teacher took away our phone. So how are we going to you know what I'm saying? Yeah, I do. Um, I just wanted to comment on I forgot who said it, but it
134was like like, oh, if they know it's like the stop it app and that might like, you know, dissuade people from using it. And part of me is kind of like this is just an idea I had. What if like you take it and you combine it with something else? Like, you know, like how you always have to go to the same website every time to do like flex time. Like what if you made it just kind of like a general app that had different sections to it and Stop it was one of those. It's like, oh, you have the Stop it app on your phone. you have this like some something that has all the resources. That's an idea. Yeah. Yeah. And I think it's also Isn't it prepopulated on all of our Chromebooks?
135I'm looking over at Miss Baka. Isn't it pre-popul? I think the Stop it link is prepopulated on every Chromebook. So, but anyway, we're kind of getting into the details here, but it's not. Okay. I was told that it was. It is. It's right there. Yeah, I was told that it was. No, it's on mine. It is on yours. Yeah. So, yeah. Anyhow, but I do think that the bigger theme I really appreciate you guys calling this out. One of the themes that I heard in your presentation was it's not necessarily that we need to go out and find a bunch of new resources. You guys know that there are all these resources. It's that they're not easily accessible. And so that's what I'm hearing. If Are you nodding? Am I hearing sort of the right
136theme? Yeah. Thank you. Can I just add on real quick? Yeah. Um so I know for Teranova at least. So, our freshman and sophomore year were required to take a physical education class. And I know my freshman year was when they brought us into like a room and they just kind of told us about like all the general like knowledge of what the school has to offer. And at the time we were still using Tiger Tip line which was kind of like what was there before Stop it. And we got like we got like a whole lesson about it and like we put the phone number into our phones obviously and I know for the Teranova people on this committee were upper classmen so this might be a little biased but we never heard like
137we never had a sit down about stop it. We knew about Tiger tip line and then sophomore year went away and then it just kind of all of a sudden there started to be stop it posters. Um, I'm not sure if obviously I'm sure freshman and sophomore are also getting that, but I know for us a lot of the upper classmen weren't aware of it because they never actually sat down and kind of like told us, but that might also just be like a Terteranova specific problem. But yeah, that was one thing we realized at Teranova when we were interviewing people. Um, yeah. So, I'm hearing a lot from like other schools that like I don't know, we're having like little meetings and stuff or like I don't know just like um or like to
138like I don't know talk about how the app actually works and stuff or like introduce it to students, but since Jordan is like a super salt small school, um there hasn't really been like a lot of like you know telling the students like how it works or like our options on how to use it or how to download it and everything. It's kind of just like we'll put posters up either in a window or in the bathroom, but it will never be like an announcement to students and yeah, I just feel like that's why a lot of people are not really using it because they're not explaining it well. So, especially in the smaller schools, I think it needs to be a little bit more of a big deal because they're not doing a lot
139about it. So, yeah. Thank you. Yeah. Oh, I'll go ahead. Um, incredible, incredible presentation. Thank you so much. Um, I love May Mission. I love it. I'm totally behind that. Um, what a great idea. Who's whispering over here? I'm trying to talk. Um, okay. I'm on my stop it up. Tony is talking during my presentation. Yeah. Um but I think I think um all your suggestions are fantastic. I don't actually I I've never opened the Stop it app. I've heard about it. I don't know what it is fully because I've never gone into it. I've heard for years how it needs to be utilized more, but it's the education piece like you're saying. Um, but you know what happens at the orientation night when you have a freshman and all their parents in there and
140you tell them to download the Stop it app because in case your kids get bullied, there's this um it's Yeah, I think um I just love all of your solutions and um all the takeaways and that you even did a survey and got 266 responses. and and then bringing up the the percentages for um the national percentages. I think you're right. Um that says it about the nation, but it could easily be us. I mean, for our students. So, I just want to thank you for all of your hard work. Very, very thoughtful. Really did really well done, well researched. Kudos to all of you for for such great work in doing this. And also a reminder to us that mental wellness continues to be needs to continue to be a priority here for for
141us no matter no matter what because if you're struggling with it, you're not going to do your best in school. It's really just that simple. So, this is about the whole student being being healthy both up here and physically. and and and thank you for continuing to shine the light on this. Well done. Oh, I have one more um question and that's um you know really bothers me when you tell me that a wellness counselor sends a note to the classroom to get the student out and the teacher won't let them out. Um what do we do about that? I don't know. I know specifically that happened to Oceanana and it's like I'm not sure if there's been any formal response to it, but it's kind of like it's a little bit of an issue.
142And so I think that's worth looking into because obviously I think we've all kind of agreed here that mental health is a really important thing and when a teacher's denying that from a student, it's a big issue in my opinion. Um I do have to add on to that because um yeah so technically like at Thoron how it works is the counselor will call the teacher but it even has happened to me personally when a teacher will kind of just be like no you can't leave you can leave in like 30 minutes or this and that and it's just not fair for the student because students usually only have like one time a week and only that one hour. So it's when a teacher takes that 1 hour away and you only have like 30
143minutes for the whole week to talk to the counselor. That's not really fair. So I just think that there has to be a little bit of reminders towards the teachers to just let them know that when the counselor calls, you know, that should just mean you should just let that student go because there are certain things that is probably going on with that student and teachers may not know exactly what's going on. But, you know, if a counselor is calling to let them know that they should get out of class, then it must be pretty important. So, yeah. Yeah. Um, that's actually happened to me before twice from the same teacher where um I asked to get called out of her class and um she got the call and then my therapist sends me a
144text like a message because she has because I have her work number saying, "Oh, sorry. your teacher said that you're in something very important right now and I wasn't. Um, yeah. And it's just like really important that the teachers are aware of this because like even if I'm not showing it or even if I am showing it, like I'm not able to work properly if I'm being denied the services that I need and it's just like really hurtful especially cuz it feels like the teacher just doesn't care about my wellbeing at all. At least that's how I felt. Um, if I may give a solution or something I think might work is rather than having the students talk to counselors, uh, oh, well, I came up with this cuz I was actually talking to some
145teachers and some students that were like facing these problems. And I had one teacher tell me that when they went to Jefferson, there was like a class that you could take and it was for all students who were suffering or like were having problems with mental health. And the class basically was for you to talk to your peers rather than talk to a teacher, which first of all makes it easier for you to open up to someone who's your age and is going through something similar to you. And also it gives you like that time period that no one can interrupt or tell you not to go to cuz it's this designated for that. So, um I would say like having a class or like a period to um talk about mental health or have
146someone listen to you would be really helpful. I have a question or two. I'm looking at your May mission and is it May because mental health is a big deal in May beyond just the district? Yeah, great. Good answer. Um, and regarding your main mission, are there any types of students that you've identified that are more vulnerable than other types of students? Um, I'm I feel like kind of like what our goal was is just I know a lot like just at Teranova at least there's a lot of students who are already kind of aware about the mental health issues and things like that whereas some students like they know that they exist but they don't directly know the impacts of their actions and they don't know like the the full like the feelings and
147stuff like that. And so we think that just like having just all students be able to hear from people who can like help educate them on why we should utilize these resources or why you should like make sure you're treating people in a certain way and just stuff like that just because I feel like everyone's vulnerable when it comes to their emotions and like their mental health. And even if they like aren't exactly struggling, they should definitely know that there are resources in case they ever get into a situation where they are struggling and stuff like that. I don't know if that really answers the question, but yeah. Thank you. And my last question is, can anyone tell me what Stop it does? Well, if you need to get in contact with somebody in your
148school's admin, it does a good job within 3 days of it. I does not immediate. I don't I mean like when I've utilized it, it's not immediate. And so I think that's where a lot of the problems lie. But if you need to get in contact for something in the next in the in the near future, it's pretty good at doing that. Great job. Uh, I also like the thematic consistency of your presentation. Anything else? Great. Congratulations. Just going to allow our students to migrate a little bit. It's a little late for them. Um the next item 16B, review of proposed graduation requirement and academic recognition revisions. I believe this is Miss Baka. Yes, thank you. Good evening, Vice President Walker. Good evening, members of the board. This evening, we will be discussing proposals to
149revise three board policies. one on graduation requirements, um another one on grade evaluation of student achievement, and the last one on graduation ceremonies on activities. And just as a reminder, tonight is just a discussion and I will take your guidance on how to move forward with revising these policy. Um and it will be submitted for action on May 13th. So as I mentioned we will be discussing these three items and I will stop at each section to seek feedback and direction from you. So why are we proposing these updates to our graduation requirements and academic honors? So, first we're responding to a new state law, Assembly Bill 2927, which makes personal finance a required course for graduation starting with the class of 2031. Even though that graduating class is a few years away, the law
150says that we need to start offering this course by 2728. So, we want to give our schools and teachers time to prepare. In addition, this class has been a very popular request from students, parents, guardians in the community. So, we would like to pilot these courses sooner than later. Um, next, Jefferson and Westmore High School have already adopted new bell schedules and Teranova and Oceanana are looking at similar changes. So, these shifts open up the possibility for students to earn more credits that um could support a broader and more well-rounded education. Thus, the committee recommended an increase of five credits to the current 225 credits. Um, in addition, we're looking at how these changes can support improving our college and career readiness. For example, requiring both world language and visual and performing arts separately helps
151more students move towards meeting the A throughG eligibility for the UC and CSU system. Proposition 28 is another factor. This gives us about $500,000 annually to expand arts education. And by formally requiring a visual and performing arts course, we're showing our commitment to expanding the arts program and fully utilizing the funds. We've also considered how to boost our college and career rate indicator. And so by keeping career technical education as its own requirement, we're not only exposing students to relevant career pathways, but we're also offering an initial path to meeting one of the college and career indicators. The CAST performance is also another way to meet the CCI indicator and incorporating them in the Latin honors criteria encourages students to take the exams more seriously. Furthermore, requiring at least one year of world language might
152inspire more students to continue learning a second language and possibly earning a state seal of biiteracy. Finally, we're recommending the updates um to recognize um academic achievement of students. For instance, moving away from class rank and the traditional validictorian and slowatoran model allows us to disrupt long-standing systems that tend to reproduce inequitable outcomes. Removing class ranking from the transcript and substituting the val criteria to Latin honors gives more students a chance to be recognized and encourages a healthier school culture. So here is a snapshot of our district's graduation rate, A3 rate, and college and career indicator rate. What stands out the most is a significant gap between our multilingual learners, students with disabilities, and their peers. This tells us that we need to strengthen the systems that support these students so they're not just expected
153to succeed but actually given the access and opportunities to do so. As former um trustee Salah Houdin pointed out, it's especially critical that we focus on our underresourced students. Many of them don't have built-in safety nets or second chances. If we don't provide them with strong guidance, access to rigorous learning, and meaningful preparation, we risk reinforcing cycles of pro poverty and holding them back from their potential. So, as a reminder, here is our district's equity statement, which reflects our commitment to um engage, educate, and empower all students, especially those who have been historically underserved and marginalized by educational systems. Our ultimate goal is to eliminate disparities in educ educational outcomes. So even small changes like adjusting our graduation requirements and rethinking how we recognize academic achievement can move us closer to that mission. So to
154help develop these proposals, we form a graduation requirement committee made up of teachers, school counselors, site and district administrators, a school psychologist, a few students, classified staff who are also parents in our district. The committee met several times to learn together and brainstorm ideas. We reviewed the new state requirements, the college and career indicators, the community college roadmap, the graduation requirements and practices from neighboring districts as well. So between meetings, I shared updates, circulated draft recommendations and gathered feedback and by March 26, we had developed draft proposals to share with the broader community for input. So once the drafts were ready, I emailed them to all students, families, and staff with translations available in Spanish, Tagalog, Arabic, Portuguese, and Chinese. The drafts were also included in superintendent prea newsletters. To ensure broad access, I hosted
155both in-person and virtualformational meetings, and we created an online feedback form to gather input. All the materials are also posted on the website. So based on the questions that I received from the feedback that I received, I put together an FAQs which was recently shared in the superintendent's newsletter as well. Um some schools also share this information with their parent organizations. And now this evening, we're here to continue the conversation and discuss these proposals together. So, as of April 21st, I received 37 written feedback um responses. They are broken down by school and role as shown on this slide. And these responses have been shared with you in the weekly recap. So, here's the first proposal which changes the graduation requirements. And please note that this is for Jefferson, Terteranova, Westmore, and there's a separate
156one for Thornton. Oceanana is yet to be determined as they will be seeking input from academic counsel. So here is the current graduation requirements on the left and on the right is a proposal where all students starting with the class of 2031 must graduate with five credits of personal finance. The law currently states that students who complete personal finance may elect to be exempted from economics. Pretty much all the requirements um will stay the same except for the world language and visual performing arts requirements where instead of taking and meeting one or the other, students would have to complete 10 credits of each. Changing this requirement would mean that our graduation requirement would only be one course away from meeting the A throughG requirement. The one course would be um another year of world language.
157Here is the proposal for Thornton where everything remains the same except for the additional of personal finance and they remove the additional credits from the electives. So to give us context about personal finance. Um so just let you know that the state mandates at least one semester of the class or five credits but a school or district can choose to require a full year. So although this requirement begins with the class of 2031, all high schools must start offering the standalone personal finance course by the 2728 school year. And it is important to note that this cannot be embedded or integrated into another subject. It must stand on its own and it could be taught by teachers credentialed in social science, business, math or home economics. So the committee recommends pairing government with personal finance
158instead of economics since students who complete personal finance can wave the economics requirement. This pairing helps avoid redundancy. Students who are genuinely interested in in economics can still take the course. Keeping the traditional economics and government pairing would create an additional course requirement, increasing the workload for all students. But that added burden especially is especially challenging for a newcomer students who are placed in the beginning level of English language development courses. So pairing government with personal finance helps reduce that pressure and makes the path to graduation a little more manageable. So here are the major topics currently covered in economics on the left and personal finance on the right. As you can see there are overlap in themes. In many ways personal finance is the course our students and families have been asking for over
159the years. It is practical, relevant, and directly connected to life beyond high school. That's one of the key reasons why we're proposing this change now, to give schools time to pilot and refine the course ahead of the 2728 school year when it becomes a statewide requirement. Here is a tentative transition plan, knowing that some schools may end up offering the course to all of their students before the class of 2031. So the plan is for some of our um economics teachers to um refine their scope and sequence for economics and slowly transition um from economics to personal finance and the plan is for this work to begin um this summer. The other requirement is separating visual performing arts and world language. So we are recommending um separating the two um with students requiring to be
160um to meet 10 credits of each. So this change significantly increases the chances of students meeting A3G requirements. And again with this adjustment, students would be just one course away from aligning to the A throughg course sequence needed for the UCCSU system. And I want to point out that under special circumstances, um, students may be able to apply for a waiver to meet either subject because we know that some students because of either their IEP or they come in here as, um, needing to take ELD1 may not be able or have room in their schedule to uh, meet both. And so under special circumstance circumstances a waiver um could be submitted for um some students. So across our engagement efforts whether through online surveyformational nights or inform informal conversations there has been a strong support
161for the personal finance course. In fact many of our school counselors have envisioned this class long before it became a state requirement. They refer to it as the adulting class, something um something that students truly need to help them navigate life after high school. Ideally, this course would also guide students through completing um their FAFSA or um kata. With that said, um some concerns have come up. Some have raised valid concerns about making sure that the course is accessible to all students. So as teachers begin developing the curriculum, we need to ensure that appropriate accommodations and supports are built in so that every student has meaningful opportunity to be successful. There are also a few concerns about the proposed increase in total credits. The committee has recommended increasing the graduation requirements from 225 to 230.
162Um but the board could choose to keep it at 225 and it would be the elective credits that is reduced. Um a few folks noted that some students may struggle to complete both VAPA and word language and as I mentioned there will be a waiver process um available. Some have expressed that not all students enjoy the traditional art classes and that this requirement might disengage them and that is one of the reasons why we are broadening our arts offerings. For example, some of our schools now offer jewelry making. There is a potential to include classes like folk art, calligraphy, script writing, songwriting. all those courses would meet the visual and performing arts requirement in a more creative and inclusive ways. And finally, there is a concern about finding enough credential teachers in world language. And
163if we know that this would be a requirement now, then we can really um begin a work with um director Luhan to begin partnering with universities to recruit and prepare qualified teachers in advance. So, here are some board considerations for revising this board policy. So, does the board support requiring 10 credits of visual performing arts and 10 credits of world language as a separate graduation requirement? If so, should this requirement begin with the class of 2031, which is actually our current sixth grade students right now, or would the board prefer to implement um the world language VAPA requirement much earlier, maybe with the incoming class uh nth grade class in class of 2029 or some other year. And the third question is, would the board like to increase the total number of credits required from
164225 to 230 or maintain the 225 credit requirement? And again, the personal finance um whether we like it or not will be part of the graduation requirement. And I will stop there for um guidance discussion. Trusty Lee, thank you for this. this is helpful and I know you gave us a brief overview during the EL trap study session on Saturday. My preference, frankly, my preference would be to go all in A through G to do the two years of world language. That's personally my preference. However, I understand the rationale for wanting to leave it as is to just split it up because I think the way he described it to us on Saturday was if they're required to take one year, there's a higher likelihood they will want to take the second year. And I
165would like to see the data that supports that. You know, in my mind, this is we're probably on a road towards an A throughG grad requirement at some point down the road, but I don't think it's today. I I think that that splitting world language and and VAPA is the right approach. And I'm fine going to the 230 personally, especially when you linked us in the presentation to what nearby districts are showing with their grad requirements and also some of the outcomes based on what what they're reflecting. And I think I think we probably will start to see improvement in outcomes if we do this. I'm I'm fine with with that split at 230. And I'm also okay with the um with with personal finance batching government leaving Eton and Apon available as electives. Oh,
166I second it. I mean, I think uh we did you did a really fine job on Saturday really kind of breaking this down and um and you know, to me it just makes sense that if I'm going to learn something and the only way I can get better at it is to have some continuity and giving me a platform to be able to do that and that kind of really sets me up even for college to take maybe take another language. Um yeah, I think I I support that movement as well. So the 230 and then also keeping the econ under the government and separating it with economics. So personal finance I should say. Um do we can you tell us what the other high school districts are doing? I think as far as personal
167finance or the world language um both. Um, so personal finance, we may be one of the first districts to really um, put this in place. Um, it hasn't been really discussed because um, as I mentioned on Saturday, there is a current um, bill that Governor Newsome is trying to pass because right now it's the pupil that can exempt themselves from taking the course. And so the bill is saying like maybe districts and schools can exempt the students. So it's still kind of it's very very new. Very new. Okay. And so I don't think that they've really discussed this. The impetus for really starting this is our counselors and again like you know hearing from our student trustees today you know they really want this type of class and so we really would like to start
168piloting it. Yeah. I think so too. Um, as far as the world language and visual and performing arts, I know Sato Union High School District requires um 10 credits of world language and 10 credits of visual and performing arts. Um, SEOA Union I believe does not have a world language requirement. Um, however, their A throughG rate is still, you know, pretty high. Mhm. Okay. Okay. And then you said that a waiver of uh the visual performing arts and world language um requirements that there could be a waiver. Um uh it would just be under special circumstances because sometimes we get students that are transfers from out of the country that um we have to place in like an ELD1 class, right? And that they come with like no transcript. And so just having you know
169fitting everything in their schedule and m and allow and give them the opportunity to graduate on time may be a little difficult. So I know that um our counselors and psychologists and our um special education staff would like some kind of way the expectation is that you know students will meet both but just know that there may be circumstances where we wave the requirements. Okay. And what I what I'm um actually looking for is who's going to look out for those students? Who's going to proactively suggest that? Because the students themselves won't they probably won't have um any inkling that this is a requirement. It would be the school counselors, it would be the IEP team, um site administrators. So they would be like the first tier for this waiver and then I'll be like
170the final approval. Okay. Okay. Thank you. I have a couple questions. Uh, has the board or the district um already acted on enabling a seven period day at Teranova? They have slowly begun the discussion um informally. Um, but I know that they're going to use next year to plan for the transition um to a seven period day. Uh, so does Teranova then still need some sort of approval from the district or the board to in enact the seventh period day? It would have to be um anou with our um aft Okay. Um, so is Oceanana having the same discussions as Teranova? The idea came up um during this graduation committee and they will probably bring it up to their academic council to see if this is something that um they would um approve. Um, when
171I bring Oceanana's requirement, they may stay with a 225 credit requirement only because they don't know yet if they're going to transition to the 7 period day because it will be really hard to meet all of these requirement with a traditional 6-day period. Okay. [Music] Um, why can't we offer personal finance in the fall of 2025? Actually, we have Westmore High School that is piloting this next year and they're offering three sections um of personal finance. And so, we're going to, you know, start out slow and kind of try to figure out, you know, what this is really going to look like. Um this is how we rolled out our ethnic studies class where we started it as an elective class where students can opt into the class. Um teachers worked on refining the curriculum
172and then eventually everybody is um will be taking the course. So is it a a Westmore pilot more than it is a district pilot? Um, right now it's only Westmore High School that really expressed strong interest in making this and and they offered it in their course selection sheets and there were enough signups. Okay. Thank you. Um, so I'm in support of all these things that I see on the board right now. I think everyone else kind of said that too, but that's my official statement. Enter. Thank you. All right. Class ranking proposal. This is the second proposal. The committee's proposal is to remove the class ranking starting with the class of 2027. So what is class ranking? It is really the practice of ordering students based on their grade point average. The student with
173the highest GPA is ranked number one and the student with the lowest GPA is placed at the bottom of the list. This rank appears on the students official transcript which is a permanent record and it follows them even after high school. So let me give you a few examples. Imagine being ranked first out of 319. That feels like an achievement. But now imagine being ranked 319th. That number attached to your name becomes a part of your transcript forever. We have people in their 30s and 40s requesting their transcript for job applications. And I often wonder if employers have placed judgment based on this ranking when they were 18 years old. So we have to ask ourselves, is this a kind of the long-term academic labeling we want for our students? Should a single number from
174high school define how they are seen 10, 20, or even 30 years later? And more importantly, what is the emotional toll on students, especially those who might see themselves as 319 out of 319? She's laughing because um she noticed the ranking on one of these um screenshots and it is um it belongs to one of the folks sitting here. She recognized it. Well, I I think that you and I both know someone who went to Oceanana who was the validictorian. So, this is apparently not that person transcript. It is the opposite. I don't know. Marcus and Dorene were uh we're going to all have to wonder. Is it the snicker shambo? Just look at the year though. Graduation. So, yeah. Were you alive then? No. Okay. on YouTube, no less. Oh, Marcus was all right.
175I didn't think we would recognize her own transcript, but clearly we're all getting a little baddy at 9:46 p.m. So, here are some of the key reasons why many districts have moved um why some districts rank. Um, but here are some reasons why our some districts are not ranking. So, our neighboring district, San Mateo Union High School District, no longer includes class rank on its transcripts. And it's the same um it is true also for the several private schools in the area and many more districts across the nation. If actually click on that link for Sacred Heart, it um links to the school profile and you'll see that even though they don't rank their students, their graduates are still accepted into prestigious colleges including Ivy League schools. So according to the survey by the National
176Association for College Admission Counseling, only 5.5% of colleges consider class rank to be a significantly important factor in freshman admissions. Instead, the top factors continue to be grades in college prep classes and overall high school grades. So, feedback on removing class ranking for the 2027 was mixed, but overall lean slightly positive. Many respondents supported the change, highlighting benefits such as reduced student stress, a healthier school culture, and the declining importance of class rank in college admissions. some suggested compromises like delaying the clos the disclosure of rank or offering it privately upon requests. So board considerations for revising this board policy is the board support removing class rank from the students transcript and if so when should this practice start? um class of 2027, which is our current sophomores, and this is what's the committee's proposal.
177Would it be our current 9th grade class, which is class of 2028, or the incoming 9th grade class, which is class of 2029? I would I'm fine with with the uh class of 27, especially after reading Elorado Union's letter where they basically ripped the band-aid off immediately and just jumped ahead and said we're just do it next year for everybody. So doing a phased in component with our current sophomores, I think is perfectly fine. I second it. Yeah, happy to be first. I I agree too. I'm interested a little bit in what happens between now and when we start voting on decisions. Um, but I don't I don't I might be persuaded otherwise, but that's where I am now. Uh I thought this weekend we talked about starting it with next year's class. That is
178the validictorian. Thank you. Okay. Um so then I bring that up. Why not? So we didn't discuss it this weekend. I thought we had but why not remove class rank next year? The current juniors. Um, some folks are just afraid that they may have used their class ranking already as part of applying for some either scholarships um or some other programs. And so, and it's they've already established, you know, taking the freshman year, their sophomore year, and then their junior year and then completely removing it might be more of like a a shock to the system. That's interesting. I wonder did we Sorry, did I cut you off? I wonder because the students want it gone. The students that we've heard from. So, I wonder how if if we hear the students and they want
179it gone, if we contemplate that, do you know what I mean? I'm not sure how many students we actually have heard from but the students in student advisory and the students that they spoke with felt it was it was a kind of like a long discussion actually during the committees you know so they wanted like a a happy medium because some of them are like oh let's just remove it now but then again somebody had brought up again like you know like the current juniors right now may have really used that ranking so yeah I'm just wondering about students if we've listened to students maybe maybe there was a lot of student representation in there. I'm not sure. I just I think I wonder about what the students would like, student voice. Anyway, that's a
180good point that you made, Tony. Um, and so then my question or comment is, is there a way to have it be available upon request? So if people still want it because they've filled out applications to college or scholarships and things like that, then they can have it but have it removed as the default decision that we they're all going to talk. The kids are going to talk. They're going to tell each other. That's a thing. Oh. Mhm. Will it show up on the trans? But yeah, that's the thing. Show on the transcript, but like you know, yes, students will be like, I'm number one. So now you have to talk to your counselor to see where you are. And that's what happens is that they start talking and then they start really calculating and
181they end up you know comparing each other's rank. Um however we do as a district disclose this ranking to the University of California system through the eligibility in local context because they want to know the top 12% of our students. M so we give them that information from like the back end and the student won't have to know that you know you're number one you're number two so if you know uh what I would say is like you know if a school or a scholarship committee do want to know what their ranking is um we can provide them that information but just you know in college applications the question is does your school rank yes or no and if we don't rank They don't even ask. So that's what happens with, you know, all of
182these other districts that do not rank. I still go with 2027. All right, let me rethink this for a sec. Um, you know, ripping off the band-aid is probably not a bad idea. the more I think about this. Um I mean the students were pretty clear and I recognize there were students and parents and frankly the I see it more as a parent issue when they are worried about class rank. I mean that's really more about bragging rights for parents. Let's just be honest. I was I was one of those. So So you know what? Let's just do it. That's that's my take. So, class of 2026. Class of 26. That's my recommendation. So, one class 2026. Oh, second. Rip off the bandit. Well, it can handle it. I' I'd rather go the other way
183right now. I'd rather go to 28 instead of 26 currently if we have to move but I far from a final position on this. Can you explain I'm just curious about if we have to move means you don't maybe think we should. What's your thinking on that? Is there a reason why? [Music] Who are you talking to? Me. Oh, sure. I think that changing this for the class of 2026 is a little bit like pulling the rug out. How's that going to be different though in 2028? They haven't spent three years building expectations. The notable though is that you've got a combination of juniors and seniors who talked about a limiting class rank just now. And if if we've if we've got specifically we've got juniors already okay with it. I suspect they didn't come
184to that conclusion just just because I think I think there was a decent amount of of of classmates that they spoke to that were okay with it. However, I mean, I know we don't have to make the decision tonight, and I think I think this is about as clear as mud for Miss Baka once you've made a final recommendation on May 13th. Um, and maybe each of us will have moved a little bit in some of our thoughts behind it when we come to that final decision. So, I mean, I'm still in favor of ripping off the band-aid, but, you know, we could all wind up changing our minds with a little bit of clar of thought a month from now. Yeah. and and Jerome's not here right now. So, and then I'm looking at
185the committee's proposal with the current sophomores. Um, so I I want to think about it. Okay. All right. Now, the 12th grade academic honors validictorian saludiatoran. So the proposal is that instead of naming a validictorian or saludiatoran which could be one or two students the proposal is to recognize a broader group of high achieving students through Latin honor system. So the Latin honor system would be sumakum laad and they have to be on track to graduate with a GPA of 4.0 O or higher and they had to have um met or exceeded standards in ELA and math for the Smarter Balance and participated in the California science test. The Magna Cumla same thing on track to graduate 3.7 or higher and they had to have met um either ELA or math and participated in science.
186Kum laudy requires 3.5 um GPA or higher and participation in all three assessments. And just a note that students in the alternative pathway would also qualify, but instead of meeting a certain score, they would only need to meet participation in the California alternate assessment plus the equivalent of the grade point average. So why um change Latin honors? So instead of honoring just one to four students to receive this um honor there will be more students. Um also more and more the calculation of validictorian and saludiatoran has become really more complex due to additional courses taken for instance ASB dual enrollment band and typically the ones that are more resource are the ones who are able to take these courses. Um and finally, this allows students to explore other um interests rather than choosing like an
187AP class so that they can boost their grade point average. So the board policy revision, so the very top is what it currently says right now and it's really calling out our validictorian and saludiatoran. So what it would change is that it would add the sumakum laudy, magnaum laad and kum laad. But I also included other ways to honor students. So for instance, completing the career technical um education, being a completer, golden state seal, reclassification as fluid English proficient, state seal of biiteracy, senior X state seal of civic engagement and there may be more. Um so again this will encompass more and celebrating more students and it's not just specific to just grade point average. So feedback um summary um overall the feedback was largely positive. Many respondents described it as great or much needed
188change appreciating a broader recognition of student achievement and the reduction in stress and competition. Some also valued the alignment with college practices and saw it as a step toward greater equity. However, others expressed specific concerns such as whether standardized test scores should be included. A preference to keep both validictorian, saludiatoran, and Latin honors was also mentioned, and some worried that this would diminish the distinction for high achievers or fail to prepare students for real world competition. So, here's the consideration for revising this board policy. Does the board support the shift away from val and include Latin honors? And um if so, when would this take place? Do we rip off the band-aid or do we have a couple of years where it's a hybrid where we recognize both validictorian and salutatoran and also Latin honors
189and start with class of 2027 or class of 2028. So I would like to um ask for your feedback. Can I can I go first? All right. Thanks. So thank you for this organized research supported presentation. Uh you gave us much of this on Saturday, maybe all of this just without the green background. Um and I apologize to you because I am telling you now mostly because I'm of many minds about it that I'm not very supportive of the testing piece. Everything else I think is fantastic. I am almost there with you, Vice President Walker, with regards to the testing piece. I when I first heard it on Saturday, I was all in on it, but before I made a determination whether I'm okay with the testing as part of it or not. Can we
190see some data relative to GPA versus Smarter Balance scores? I mean, can we get a rough idea of what this whether their passing met or exceeded depending on their GPA? Um, yes. I would have that data that I can share with you in the weekly recap and we actually did review how many students would qualify. I can pull it up right now. Okay. Um districtwide there would be 98 sumakum laad, 139 magna kum laad and 76 kum laad. And just know that this actually would be much higher because there were 40 students from Oceanana High School that were not eligible because they opted out. And it it's actually the higher performing students that opted out of this exam. And so the 40 um if they were to take this most likely will fall under the
191sumakum laad. If we were if we were to eliminate all the testing alto together would those numbers also increase? It would increase if we eliminate the testing. Should we see what those numbers would be? Yes. Okay. This I'm sorry. Those were percentages. No, raw numbers. You mean districtwide? Mhm. Only 78. Suma district what? There would be 98. 98. That's it. Mhm. Wow. That that's I feel like that's really low. Um, and I know that, you know, one of the concerns again why the smarter balance was brought up is because right now currently there's really no reason for students to um take the test seriously. So even if a student does not perform well, but they have the GPA, they would still be able to get the kum laad as long as they participated. Yeah. except
192Latin honors at the collegiate level is usually just based on your GPA and not just we don't attach any they don't attach testing to it and that's where I'm struggling with it. So in my mind I would rather see you know a wider range of students be able to get each of those things based on their GPA. I I I recognize the problem we have with the ESPback testing, but that's really I think I'm not sure that use using honors as the as the hook is the right necessarily the right approach, but I want to see I want to see more data. Yeah. And I also want to bring up like for this is with the CASP testing. So there would be four district-wide in Magda Kum Laad and six kumla for students learning English
193and for students with IEP there'd be one suma one magna and seven kumla. So not based based on this criteria based on this criteria and that's for the current class of 25. This is class of 2024. Oh 24. Okay. The juniors, the ones who graduated last year. Mhm. Okay. Yeah. If we could just kind of see what everything would have looked like for the class of 24, both with testing and without testing and what, you know, cuz I'd be curious, you know, I want to see exactly whether those numbers would be higher for Suma, higher for Magna, etc. I think May I recap a little bit to make sure. I I'm glad you clarified that because I I I kept almost jumping in. So, it sounds like we want to make sure that we're not
194holding kids back because of testing that would have made those honors. Number one, right? So, you want to see both. And then um also I I'm hearing you kind of think grappling with really this was sort of a carrot that we thought of using that the committee thought of using to increase participation rate in in um in standardized testing for the school district because we are judged on those test scores and they're absolutely low stakes and so many students students opt out and just don't take the test or don't don't really try. Um but I do hear you like grappling with is this how you know yes we want to increase participation but is this the right method? Right. I mean as far as I'm concerned they've earned those based on their GPA. Right. Right.
195Yeah. And and then how did how did this get brought up in the committee with the CASP scores? Mhm. One of the districts, I don't remember where, attached this in their board policy. One of the districts, one of the districts, um, in California. Okay. Look exactly where. So, it's not very common. And I've looked at many board policies 5127. Very few have removed the validictorian and salutatoran. They kept this language. A lot of the districts have kept the validictorian saludiatoran and only a handful actually, you know, are doing the Latin honors and then I only saw one that included the CASP scores as part of the um criteria. Okay. And then you you um brought this up to the committee and they just talked about it. Yes, I brought it up and my original proposal
196didn't even include that, but somebody had brought it up and then the committee was like, "Yes, that's probably a great idea." Only because again, right now there's no really reason for students to, you know, take the CASP seriously and there's so many um st there's so many accountability measures tied to the exam. Yeah. I mean, it I don't want it to seem like we're holding their uh Latin honors hostage if they don't even though they probably would have scored um standard MET or above. Even if they probably would have if they tried or opted in to take it that they probably would still with the GPA B Suma or Magna. I mean, but to make that a requirement, yeah, that that's um not to really think about that. I don't know that it's fair. Um,
197I mean, what are what are we who is this serving? Yeah, you don't have to vote on No, the only comment there would be and I agree with you Rosie. I think the um I think we need to have a separate discussion alto together just about about the ESPback and how to improve that because I think we probably need to look at what other districts are doing as well to ensure that their students are taking it. But that's not a discussion for this for this night. Any other discussion? Thank you. Uh, thank you, Miss Paka. All right. 16C, business services. Um, maintenance, operation, and transportation department update. Looks like Mr. Peppers is going to talk. Yeah. Uh, good evening, Vice President Walker, members of the board, and Superintendent Prea. Um, I'm here to do a
198brief update on maintenance operations and um, transportation. Um, so we'll just kind of go over some of our general custodian custodial and maintenance that's going on, an update on the waste diversion and transportation. So at the last update we had started with um assigning our administrator designations at each of the sites. Um this year we only had one change. So that consistency at the sites has been very good. Um it has led to more regular site meetings with both myself and the staff and um brought on a lot better communication. We've also had a lot more stability at both our lead day custodian or lead site um operations and our night custodians. Um so that has really helped out with communication as well. Um we've established walkthrough schedules that are a lot more regular because
199now I'm able to perform them with the site administrator. They are able to perform them without me there. Um and then in progress um here at the district office we've delineated like the job specific duties for each custodian, each person on site. We've started at Oceanana um and this summer I plan on working to have that established for each site. Um campus cleanliness. So, um, from the last update, we were able to identify a lot of areas that were just aging or, you know, we weren't able to clean them effectively just due to the condition and age they were in. Um, so some of those were bathrooms. So, Oceanana, we've done painting. Um, we've resealed the floors. Um, Terteranova, we remodeled the bathroom in the jungle. Um, and now over summer we're looking to do
200um some of the partitions because at a lot of the sites, especially Jefferson, that is kind of holding back the look of the bathrooms. Um, we've also done a lot of flooring over the past year. So, we've done carpets in some of the theaters, the offices, some classrooms. We've done some tiling at um Jefferson and Westmore. Um, so that's really been able to help with the look of the school as well. Um, we've added a painter. Um, and that is showing its benefits. Um, just having someone just constantly on a cycle at the sites. Um, just going around making things nicer. So, um, that's really been showing its benefits and it's also, um, you know, really going to help us over summer when the students aren't there and we're able to get into areas we
201can't and um, really just kind of brighten up the schools. Um and then last time we mentioned improving the routing of work orders which um we have done. So now they're going directly to the site leads. The site leads are able to look at them and then direct them to myself or to the craftsman. Um so that's just made it a lot more efficient in trying to get things handled. Um and then just with the sustainability committee, we're just trying to get student involvement along with our staff. Um and so that'll just be, you know, extra eyes for us and extra help around the sites. Um other areas we've done in the past year, we did a path of travel audits for the entire district. Um so it's a tiered um audit that basically will
202show like high paths of travel, high um cuts that are needed. So, you know, like starting with over a/2 in, that's a big tripping hazard down to like a/4 in and smaller. And so, we have all those reports. We've started to do some of the work, but a lot of it will probably be done over summer as we kind of look at the needs and figure out what it's going to cost to do some of these things. But the higher needs will be done soon. Um, over the last year, we've really improved roofing. So, we had this year, even with the heavier rains, we did not have leaks like we've had in the past. So we did a big roofing project at Oceanana. We've done a lot of roofing work at Teranova and Jefferson. And
203so this year it really did show and we didn't have the leaks in classrooms that we had last year. Um when with HVAC we ran into a tough issue because we got um our HVAC tech left for a different position and didn't leave us much time in the transition. So, we had a rough area right in winter, but we've um paired with two new companies to have, you know, very fast response from them. We've also brought on our formerly our retired HBAC tech from a couple years ago and he's come back on to work a couple days a week and that's really given us the facetime and been able to react to things much quicker. And so we've we've finally kind of put out the fires now and now we're just building back to having
204things maintained properly. Um so staffing shortages has actually improved greatly this year. Um the skilled trades are under negotiations to better their rate. We're hoping this will help us fill the positions with and get more highquality um applicants. We are still currently looking for our new HBAC. Um, so we're hoping that this will help us find more qualified applicants. Um, we were able to hire outside help when we needed to support the staff. So, this was some of the bathroom floors and some of the carpets and some of those things that we were able to bring in some extra help so the guys could stay free and work on what they needed. Um, and then just overall much better staffing. Right now, we currently only have two open spots in the district. Um, and those
205one will likely be filled at the next board meeting and the other we're hope is the HBAC position. So, we just want to make sure we get someone qualified in that position. But other than that, only two open positions. So, that's a big improvement from past years. Um, and then just ongoing is keeping training up with the staffs and tailgate topics, little quick meetings to go over safety and um, and then trying to bring on hands-on learning um, for all the sites. We continue to monitor attendance. I feel like this year has been a a little better, at least with the communication and being told of when we have absences so we can plan for it better. But that always kind of es and flows. So that'll be something we continue to monitor. Um for
206waste diversion, um this is still it's still a work in progress, but we've we've tried to update our tribins and you know, we're still working on where to place them. We've um readded signage to areas that did not have it. Um the cafeterias are moving to more compostable foods. Um, so that's gonna I think help the the schools be able to know where things go a lot better. Um, and then we're just working with the staff to try to see ways we can prioritize them being able to have the time to split these up. Um, and so that may be like prioritizing that while we have the day crew work on something that will free up more time for them to work with the three bins. Um, so last time we we needed to make
207sure we added um bins to every classroom. We've done that to our best ability. There may be a few that may have gotten misplaced. So, we kind of we have them on hand when we need to do that. Um, with the sustainability committee, we've been working um they're going to start doing their own sightby-sight audits. So, I've sent them the framework that came from the county office and now we have a group in the sustainability committee that's trying to work on doing our own audits so we can not only rely on the county office and we can have them a lot more regularly to see how things are going. Um, the next big step is to incorporate our fields and our rental spaces much better because we're still learning it as a district, but when
208we're having other people come on our sites, it's very hard to get them to fall in line with our tribe stations. Um, so trainings for maintenance and kitchen staff have occurred. Um, they will continue to occur. Um, we're, you know, as I mentioned, we're making sure there's enough time for them to actually do this job. So, that'll be that will be paired with, you know, do the sight specific duties that I mentioned earlier. So, making sure that they have the time to actually separate this and do it properly. And we're still going to use the county office to continue, you know, not as much, but to still have periodic audits through them so they can help support us. For transportation, um, this is just kind of the vehicles we have. We're still at 16 vans.
209We have seven operable buses, two that are slated for disposal, and then our various maintenance vehicles that are around the district. We currently have three bus drivers, 16 van drivers, and two mechanics. The good news is our two mechanics and one of our roving staff um are in training to become a bus bus drivers. They test at the end of the month. That's going to help greatly as long as they pass, which I believe they will. Um that'll help greatly with our reducing um our expenses in chartering buses. Um, and then as you guys know and approved tonight, we have our new transportation director coming on. So, I think with the new SB88 regulations, that was really something we needed with all the training coming and I think it's really going to benefit uh maintenance
210and transportation. We have someone coming in with a lot of experience and it'll free me up to be at the sites and be hands-on and have eyes at the sites and really provide support to the crews. So, I think it's going to be a really good fit. And that was about it. No, no, no questions. Just really great presentation. Thank you for what you do. And um yeah, I can't imagine being a student, you know, having the roof leak. That would be very distracting. I know. I like So, thank you for all you do and, you know, really appreciate your service to the district. Thank you. and try being a school board member when the roof was leaking in the old board boardroom. That was fun. And we had the big trash can out there
211right next to the dis. We all remember that those days. Um, with regards to the buses, the so the two that were disposing are just simply old. We've had them for Yeah. Just Yeah, they're faded. The work that we would need to put into them to get them going is not worth it. And we have our, you know, we have our seven now and with our amounted Okay. So, so, so it's seven buses plus two that were disposing. Got it. I I thought it were going down to net five. So, okay. No, no, no, no. We still have our seven. Do we still have a a a garbage truck? I thought Oh, we do. Okay. Y All right. Thank you. Great presentation. Appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you so much. What a really great presentation.
212Uh I was going to ask about the garbage truck, too. Um, so I wrote in it. I did when it was brand new. Um, so, so, um, because there used to be an issue with Daily City not doing composting, but since it's our own garbage truck, we sort it and we take the compost to So, Daily City doesn't allow us or Daily City um, allows they do all three. Um, so we still pick up, you're able to separate the three. So we still pick up trash in Daily City. Pacifica does not allow you to do the compostable without taking their garbage service. Okay, got it. And Teranova do get their garbage picked up because it's a package deal. Okay. So we use Recology. Yes. For Pacifica schools. Yeah. But we use our garbage truck for
213daily city school. Yes. And Republic for the compost. For the compost. Okay, got it. Um, yeah. Thank you for this very thorough report. Um, uh, path of travel audits. Do we have Well, I know we still have grass fields. Do we have gopher problems? They've gotten better. We do continue to work on them, though. That's They could sprain an ankle and just at PE. I mean, yeah, the the fields we use, we do not have Gopher problems. It's the upper field at Terteranova, which we don't use. And um but yeah, our usable fields, Jefferson, we have no issues with it. It's generally the Pacifica schools. Um but the, you know, the fields we're using for sports are are well taken care of. Okay. And I really applaud you for working very closely with the sustainability
214committee and that we're actually they're actually going to work on our own audit. That's crazy. It's really wonderful. Thank you so much for your report. I I don't have any questions. Thank you very much. Thank you. I just want to say I don't have questions either. Thank you. Um, I am really I want to second that really really happy and grateful that you're so involved with the sustainability committee because it's all connected and you didn't talk about this but um you know this year we moved into this facility and that brought with it a lot of it brings with it beautiful challenges to have but new challenges and I've been grateful for your partnership with that. Um, and I look forward to just keeping on the trajectory with this new director of transportation freeing you
215up to really focus more on our facilities. I'm just really excited for next year and just making our district sparkle. Thank you. I'm excited, too. Yeah. And I also I also want to thank you in advance for I know graduation season is always a big big time to make sure everything is beautiful for the families to come out there usually on a field and watch their kids graduate. So it's a really heavy lift for you guys and I always appreciate it every year. Thank you. Yes, the team's incredible. We're standing out. So yeah. So thank them. Very ready. Thanks. Thank you. Thank you. Uh, so we're pretty close to being done. Everybody going to make it? Are we good? Uh, keep it going, please. Okay. 171. Job description update. Library media technician. I think that
216this is a Miss Sluhan. Good evening, everyone. The first job description I'm bringing before you this evening is an update to the library media technician. This is the last of the job description updates from the CPS HR class and comp study. There was lots of collaboration and input from the library media technicians in this update to really reflect uh what their duties are and I welcome any questions. Move to approve the job description. Second. All in favor? I I 1782 job description assistive technology specialist. Miss Luan, thank you. This is a new position. Um the assistive technology position uh assisted technology specialist would support students who have individual education plans and technology assigned to them. So this may be something like an iPad to assist with communication or something like a screen reader. So this
217would be a specialized support to our students. [Music] Move to approve the assistive technology specialist job description. Second. All in favor? I I uh 1783 job description athletic trainers. Miss Luhan. Thank you again. This job, the athletic trainer job description is also a new position. Uh the athletic trainers would be responsible for supporting our school athletic programs with injury prevention, first aid, emergency care, and things like that to really help ensure that our student athletes can perform at their best. Real quick, how many are we planning to hire? At this time, we're budgeting 3.5. Okay. Thank you. Awesome. Uh I'm really proud that we're doing this. Me, too. Y3 move to approve. Second. All in favor? I I Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Agenda item 18, consider consideration of future agenda items.
218Nope. I have a couple. Uh, one, I'd like to make certain that we um take into account the student advisory presentations tonight and that we do have discussions about them. Uh there are three categories outreach and opportunity, wellness and student body health and new student integration. Uh I also think uh Trusty Lee mentioned this that we should talk about CASP testing. Um and I also think that we should talk about stop it. I second that part. May I ask for clarification? So for a future agenda item, the first thing you said was we should talk about the presentation. So what what specifically? Uh I mean you just want to kind of generally make sure that we are addressing the issues or do you want them to be board agenda items? Uh I'd like for us
219to make sure we're addressing the issues and that's a good question. I don't know how we formalize that. I am hesitant to suggest that we fit it into the LCAP somehow. But I think that we should just discuss, you know, what we want to do about the issues that students raised to us today. Yeah. So, um I would recommend that you guys discuss this in agenda planning, the topics you brought up that you can just clarify those questions in agenda planning. Okay. Thank you. Any other future agenda items? None for me. Agenda item 19. Move to adjurnn. Second. All in favor? I I sorry we're adjourned 1029. Sorry, I'm sorry. [Music]