Broadcast of the Lancaster School District Board Meeting

001thank you foreign okay foreign thank you foreign okay foreign thank you though oh good Obama I used to but I don't know better than that um foreign this is foreign no get some coffee out of that thing so you scored okay everything works all right did I put enough water in it I don't know how much you need it okay speaking of that microphone Greg so we can hear you yeah you guys ready let's do it I'm going to the meeting of the Lancaster School District Board of Trustees we're going to reconvene to open session at 603 and there was no action taken during closed session uh we're going to start with items eight student discipline uh we have approval of expulsions of student 7103 6407 and student number 7102-3222 do we have a motion

002it's all moved so moved second key second by Diane all in favor say aye aye post motion carries 4-0 next we have the Pledge of Allegiance led by Bart Kaufman please stand right hand over your heart ready begin I pledge allegiance to the blood of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands foreign turn that thing thank you next we have our enrollment report by Rebecca Cooksey assistant superintendent of innovation and Technology good evening board as of today we have in utk through 8th grade 14 090 students in ECE we have 559 for a grand total of 14 649 students this is a gain of 42 students from our last board report and a gain of 273 from the same time last year we have 919 homeless students enrolled and

003558 Foster students hey thank you very much and also an announcement we're going to have a community Forum immediately following the meeting so please stick around for that and do we have any other informational items with that we're going to move on to presentations requests proposals and reports uh font exchange Dr Bob Marley thank you trustees I came here this afternoon or this evening to talk to you about our thought exchange uh survey that we send out to our community uh last month uh you know part of my work in coming on board over the last three months is to really ask a lot of questions um observe listen and learn um and seek to understand and so that's why we put out the thought exchange to our community um the other reason is that

004we have a strategic plan uh most school districts have a three-year strategic plan and that three-year strategic plan creates goals and those goals drive all of our other plans both at the district level and at the site level and so um due to the pandemic uh the the Strategic plan was set down and uh obviously every every District in California set that plan down and moved in a different direction due to the pandemic and so now uh that we are coming back to a sense of not Channel we need to revisit our strategic plan that expired in 2020 and we begin to think about those goals we have for the next three years in the future right now um in our present uh three-year strategic plan our goals Focus around academic Excellence safe and supportive

005environments family and Community Partnerships and Equitable practices and positive learning environments and you'll see that as I go through this presentation that that's really pretty pretty spot on on where we're at and where we need to be and so in um moving forward with the thought exchange we ask the question as we develop our new three-year strategic plan to guide us what are the important things we should consider in developing our priorities for the next three years and we were lucky enough to get over a thousand participants on our survey which was a very nice number uh through this thought Exchange program that you approved a few a month ago we had 763 thoughts people uh chiming in people putting in and putting their information out there and then we had um over 36 000

006ratings of those thoughts so a lot of exchange a lot of back and forth a lot of talking a lot of communicating about areas in which we can do better and improve um our survey uh found that by primarily our language was English but we did have a couple Russian speakers take uh which I thought was interesting um and we had 35 percent of our staff members and I believe it was 68 65 of our our parents our community members who took part in the in the survey um it said you know if you look at the words that are up here you'll see words like safety security um learning gaps mental health those are really things that stood out to us in the survey uh in the thought exchange uh this is award cloud

007and you see once again the bigger words are the ones that are more emphasized involvement support um mental health uh programs so these are things that we have to look at and consider as we move forward as an organization the top themes oh I do want to mention one thing the number one theme for the thought exchange I'd be remiss if I didn't mention this was to pay teachers to give teachers a raise uh and so I want to say that because I I don't want I want to be completely transparent in that um and so uh I know we're working through our negotiations right now and I'm sure that will be resolved but the top theme that we saw safe parents mental health staff safety um academics children learning and grade level and so

008really quickly you know talking about class size class size was a topic they came up and there is an emphasis on making sure that our class sizes are manageable um and that we have a classroom in which we can support children not only social emotionally but academically as well and so that was a theme that arose uh in addition when we're talking about children trying to enrich the children through field trips uh extracurricular activities uh making sure our children are safe safety's a a term that comes up quite red often and student engagement so we're looking at how we're engaging children in the classroom are we looking at the whole child are we providing um those enrichment opportunities for children as well and of course keeping our children safe feeling safe once again if students

009aren't safe they can't learn um keep doing what we can to keep everyone safe on our campuses uh parents when in the uh uh idea of parents um wanting to make sure that we have a um more activities for parents and children so going back to the uh to the before the pandemic and talking about things like lunch on the lawn or uh parent conferences which we're going to be engaging in this week places where we can connect our school our organization and partner with our parents getting our our parent volunteers back on our campus and so really coming back together because we know that we are not doing this alone that without the support and encouragement with our parents and our community we cannot do this work and so really engaging with our parents

010and our community in addition to that we also know that the pandemic took a toll on our social emotional learning for our children so talking about health both mental and physical health of our children on our campuses uh and the mental and physical health of our staff um and just making sure that that we're providing those support mechanisms and those support systems for our children and our staff members uh throughout the day to make sure they they feel that our school is a warm welcome inviting safe place to be once again stop safety and making sure that that we have a lot of activity in our community but we want to make sure that when we come through those those School Gates and those School doors that our our campuses are safe and they're a

011place where students can focus on learning academics uh one of the things that came up was the enrichment programs like our art and music programs we had our our bands our bands are in the middle of starting their concerts this year and we celebrate that but we want to make sure that we continue to put in place more enrichment opportunities for our children so that when they go they go to school not only for the literacy and the numeracy for the learning uh the academics but also to enrich them and to create a whole child that is um strong and ready for the world so in addition to that academics making sure that we have rigorous academics for our children and that we're addressing also the learning loss that has occurred over over the course

012of the pandemic and providing tutoring like we do online tutoring and and live tutoring for our students I think I'm stuck oh kids uh once again bringing back Arts programs for our kids after the pandemic focusing like I said on on reading comprehension we have a strong focus on on making sure that we're focusing on early literacy and getting kids caught up from the learning loss that was missed during the pandemic was also also came out through our surveys um we do know that we are focusing on student discipline we are challenged right now because we have seen um this pandemic that the behaviors of children throughout the state of California and and the nation has been um different uh we're seeing uh children acting out in ways that we haven't seen before so really

013focusing on what we can do um through other means of Correction um through um um coming up Bart pop pres uh things we can do to help children to change their behavior you know we don't like to throw children away we don't want to expel and suspend children that is our last resort but we want to change the child's behavior and provide the supports they need so that they can do better so um um you know as far as learning uh trying to get at that disruptive behavior side we can focus more and more on our learning um and then um obviously we just talked about um making sure kids are back on grade level so focusing on um on provide programs focusing on tutoring programs focusing on first teach um tier one intervention in

014the classroom and really um doing our best and and you know I want to commend the work that our teachers do every day in the classroom and all of us all of our support staff and our our our leadership on our school sites because we are facing uh in this time period the biggest struggle I think education has seen in the past 30 years and really um the work we do now is so impactful on children's lives coming back from you know um a pandemic and mixing on so much School uh the work we're doing right now is so vitally important to our kids they really want to commend the job everyone is doing so making sure that we're getting them all caught up on their learning so um our next steps this is you

015know talking about the three-year strategic plan and and getting input and trying to develop the new goals for the coming uh the coming years obviously we see that uh we we want uh to feel mentally and physically safe we want to address the whole child in in the sense of not only academics but of Arts and Music uh we want our parents to be active Partners we're the student with our schools and with our district and we want um our schools to address this disruptive behavior and continue to find intervention programs where we can uh change the behavior and also address the learning gaps that have occurred from the pandemic and so these are things that you know this is a kind of a blueprint for moving forward as we move forward and continue to

016talk uh to Our Community Partners and we continue to talk to our students and we continue to talk to our leaders and our staffs and try to begin to develop new goals uh moving forward these are the types of things we need to consider and think about and so I look forward to continuing to speak with you on this topic as we move move forward to develop our new three-year strategic plan so thank you very much so it's great to see all the participation in that process and how much input we got from people across our district so I thank you to everyone who participated in that and also look forward to all the work we can do to implement this in with our strategic plan so great job with that all right next we

017have individual action items superintendent the first one um I have to step out on it so go ahead all right we have item two girls we have adoption of resolution 2022 20 23 13 board Compensation Board compensation for missed meeting for Greg TP on October 4th anybody want a motion motion moved by Mrs grooms all in favor [Music] get the new you get the new guy back welcome item 13. it was fun okay thank you all right next item 13 individual action items business adoption of resolution 2022 uh 2314 resolution of the Board of Trustees of the Lancaster School District authorizing issuance and sale of its General obligation bonds election of 2012 Series 2022e in an aggregate principle amount not to exceed seven million 305 092 and approving certain other matters relating to said bonds

018do we have a motion so moved second Mr Giles second by Mrs grooms any discussion Mr TV we have here this evening uh Emilio Flores from CFW if you have any questions about the sale of this particular series of bonds as you know this is the last in the series for the 2012 election and uh Mr Flores is here tonight to entertain any questions you might have to give him a question it came all the way [Laughter] maybe we can ask um why don't you come on up and just give us a little rundown on the maybe the timing uh certainly uh certainly I can do that uh so in terms of the overall timing schedule uh following tonight's adoption uh of these documents uh we will then move through the rating agency process uh

019which the board is familiar with which uh just like everyone else the district has a credit rating and depending on that credit rating uh the market will then bid on the uh the overall uh structure of the bonds there is one important step still left after that which is the county of uh Los Angeles uh adopt its documents as well that's occurring on November 15th uh shortly thereafter uh we'll move forward and with pricing the bonds um uh on the on open markets uh one thing to be aware of uh is that there is going to be a a Fed meeting on November 1st and 2nd uh as we've encountered in the last few Cycles uh they continue to increase interest rates uh and so we are cognizant of that we do not believe that

020would be any adverse effects uh to them if they take that action in terms of our ability to issue the full uh sum of remain Authority but just to be aware of that that we aren't paying that announcement on November 1st or 2nd uh regarding an additional increase in interest rates uh across the board thank you very much for everyone at the firm that have helped us with this thank you so much and thank you for your patience and uh uh that you take the heart the comment that we have done an extensive job educating over uh the given time so I appreciate that great thank you very much appreciate that thank you okay with that all in favor say aye aye aye um [Music] it's the wizard okay so we'll start with um Mr

021win hi on myself I Keith hi and Diane hi motion carries four zero why not order she wanted okay next we have uh item 14 individual action items Human Resources approval of assistant principal Jessica PETA [Music] and do we have a motion Say Goodbye Mr Giles any discussion yes thank you we're pleased to present to you tonight for your consideration as the next assistant principal at Paiute Jessica Peta who was taught in the Lancaster School District since 2007. um she's been an educator for 22 years Jessica currently is a special education teacher and she holds two master's degrees one from CSU Long Beach in teaching and learning and one from Concordia University and educational Administration I'm Jessica's bilingual and Spanish and is well versed in District initiatives and programs she served on the PTA School

022site Council special education chair and as an admin intern her principal describes her as organized well planned a proponent of inclusion talented and invaluable resource diligent and collaborative we are excited to present her to you tonight for your consideration as the next assistant principal in our district I um congratulations Jessica I know you've got some very important people with you tonight I met them earlier and they're excited about Cold Stone in a few minutes but for now would you please introduce them to us to us welcome well we're honored to have you Jessica congratulations and to your daughter I just want to say it's it must be a Gotta Have It at least laughs well thank you very much congratulations and next we have approval of assistant principal Joe LaMonica and do we have a

023motion salute second second move by Keith second by Diane any discussion thank you we're excited tonight to bring to you an experienced administrator to serve as our next assistant principal at Endeavor Middle School I'm Joe served as an administrator in Mojave the Palmdale Aerospace Academy and the Antelope Valley Union High School District he has credentials in administration um biology social science and multiple subjects he has a master's degree in educational Administration and supervision from CSU Bakersfield and he's currently completing a master's degree in curriculum and instruction he's been described as being welcoming passionate organized respectful enthusiastic knowledgeable and engaging with students and staff we are pleased to recognize to recommend for your consideration this evening Joe lamonaco is the next assistant principal at endeavor people with that all in favor say aye aye opposed Jim

024Carrey support zero congratulations thank you very much Joe and you might want to have Jessica take you out to Cold Stone congratulations thank you very much we're pleased to have both you on on board and we look forward to working with you throughout this year yeah congratulations thank you all right next we have addressing the board any individuals who wish to address the board May complete a speaker card and present it and any supporting documents to the deputy superintendent or other District official prior to the start of the meeting personal information such as a student parent guardian's name address phone number date of birth email address or other directory information as defined in Edco 49061 may be excluded from the minutes of the meeting by submitting a written request to the superintendent the board president

025shall recognize individuals who wish to speak individuals wishing to present testimony to the board concerning specific items on the agenda may do so once that item has been moved seconded and is on the floor for discussion time limits of three minutes per person and 20 minutes per item shall be allowed board bylaws 9322 and board members may ask questions for clarification purposes however no action may be taken and no discussion may take place on an item not on the posted agenda according to the brown ACT first we have comments from PTA CSEA ciao we have a comment from towel president Gina Whipple it can be with us this evening but she writes good evening everyone I hope all of you are well I apologize for my absence I'm not feeling well after a booster shot

026we are looking forward to our next meeting with the district team on Thursday and we are hopeful that we can come to a resolution that is beneficial for all of us great thank you from and next we have comments from the audience yes our first speaker is Christine Parkinson good evening last school board you mentioned that disciplinary actions cannot be disproportionate to Any Given race what we know is that you give a slap on the hand to the most disturbances giving zero consequences for a student's actions with that a student learns that they can continue to misbehave and be disrupted offer verbal of threats and even unwanted physical advances so if you have one just one student that is repeatedly outbursts having outbursts and trying to express themselves in the name of social emotional learning

027that individual is contributing time and time again for increasing the percentages for that child's Race So in theory a disproportionate percentage of discipline can be attributed to only one student therefore clearly not disproportionate your own survey shows that disciplinary issues are a huge concern for parents and staff alike you may say that those higher than you at the state level have enacted newer laws that restrict your disciplinary procedures such as SB 48 though an education code is clear that just how discipline should be handled but what I want to know is have you voiced your concerns why haven't you said no we won't follow these counterproductive guidelines someone's voice is a powerful tool it can allow you to show your agreement or disagreement on any given topic but by not using your voice you are

028quietly agreeing with every policy that is put in place and I'm speaking to everyone the board the teachers the administration the aides the students the parents we need to stand up to this ridiculous agenda of social emotional learning and positive support thank you thank you okay um Carla Galvan good evening board and everyone here um I wanted to mention on the survey uh that Paul mentioned there was a lot of comments about accountability and um things going on in school in the school that has not been addressed I wasn't going to speak today but I can't stress enough how important accountability is what you're showing these kids is outrageous you have kids that are threatening their peers being disrespectful to teachers to AIDS being rewarded kids that are not completing their class work and homework

029being and homework being called to the counselor's office coming back with us for example this is a paw and they're given at Westwind Elementary and they're like it's fake money that you can buy from apart from the past store like toys anything that the kids like they're give it says here that they're supposed to be given for good behavior for acting responsible working safely showing respect so I want to know why are kids being rewarded for misbehavior they're coming back to the classroom after misbehaving back with this or something else in reward all of you are wrong for rewarding this kind of behavior for being accepting of this kind of behavior not only are you letting these these kids down but you're letting your good teachers that actually care to teach and your staff down

030you are accepting the disrespect rewarding bad conduct shows the kids that are well behaved that do put effort and complete their classwork and homework that their effort is pointless you are going to drive those well-behaved kids those kids that do care about their academics to not care you're going to drive them to do the opposite since it gets well rewarded you're failing this these kids for catering to the ones that should be held accountable for their actions parents need to be informed that instructional time is being robbed from their kids due to constant disruption from the same kids that are not being held accountable for their bad choices parents need to know the potential danger that their children are in for threats that are not being taken serious you have shown my children that speaking

031up on death threats is not the right thing to do that staying silent gets you further you think that by rewarding bad behavior you're doing good but all you're teaching these kids are that when they're adults they can continue the same behavior 30 seconds huh you are a weak man that is not willing to help fix this generation but to keep destroying it you need to go back to the district you came from weed up an individual with a strong character that believes in accountability an individual that's for the children not only for the ones that fit your agenda board members all I have to say to you is fix this thank you Miss Calvin can I ask you a question did you speak to the principal about the pause being given to the student

032no I mean to the student who came back to the classroom children and that I have I understand but did you speak to Dr Wood about that that this is Westwind so was that Westwind Chevrolet oh I'm sorry Michelle Ryan about this so it's the whole the next speaker is Mark Napolitano so I'm pretty sure that when all of you guys attended school as well as myself and probably everybody in the audience there was no such thing as social emotional learning there was no such thing as critical race Theory I truly feel on my behalf you could smirk all you want bro it's garbage you know where kids get social emotional learning the playground uh out out of school activities sports right recess these kids interact with each other on a daily basis just because

033it's nonsense AB 2016 was passed by our government doesn't mean that you need to enact this garbage into your school and just so you know you actually are throwing children in the trash Paul anybody can look up c-a-a-s-p hyphen e l p a c Dot cde.ca.gov Lancaster Elementary District for the year 2018-19 the ELA scores level one for all grades stand or not met anyone want to take a stab 42.69 percent it's almost 50 percent of of uh 9325 students that don't know how to read or have struggling reading right they don't understand the concept of writing okay um standard exceeded was 9.4 percent and level three standard met was only 22.73 percent standard nearly met was 25 you want to take a look at math scores level one again standard not met 55.29 percent

034that's over half of the kids in elementary school do not know arithmetic okay you want to talk about throwing kids away that's wasting precious humans lives if you think about it okay that's creating children that are not strong and ready for the world as you stated right right by doing such you will be creating the generation of failures that will struggle to succeed in life they can struggle with obtaining great careers and being successful adults I highly suggest you utilize after funds or sell off some of that 7.3 million Bond money that you guys have and maybe look into some better tutoring classes and other things of that nature just to touch on uh obviously for covid there was no testing so 1920 was not available and this year or last year 2021 in order

035to protect student privacy data is suppressed because 10 or few fewer students tested for ELA and math you guys need to take a serious look at what's going on in your in your District I'll be back to inform you about some more horrible things thank you foreign just for clarification purposes Dr marietti was just hired this year okay good and that concludes our speakers okay thank you okay next we have uh consent agenda items superintendent item 16a to 16 f do we have a motion motion by culture seconds second five Mr Wint any discussion yes I'd like to uh full Item B from the uh agenda and vote on it separately okay so we have a motion uh by Mr wind to pull Item B do we have a second oh I'll second it okay

036second bye uh child okay all in favor to Purl Item B for a separate vote say I I post okay so we're gonna be moving that to a look at that you're talking about the advertising one right except for a vote okay any other discussion want to vote on the rest of them okay so we're going to start with um items uh a through F except for Item B so items a through F all in favor say aye aye okay emotions carry four zero all right and now we have Item B upper separate vote approval of agreement with the mar outdoor for advertising um do we have a motion someone what should I got Mr Giles second by Mr Wint okay any discussions so um in regards to the Lamar Outdoor Advertising I was approached

037by Lamar Outdoor Advertising to renew our contract for both the um digital Billboards and the um conventional Billboards that are around our community um Our concern was as we move into a new three-year strategic plan and we we move into addressing um or defining our new goals um we felt as though we should um back off on our conventional Billboards because they require to be produced and to just go with our digital bird boards because they are at a much less cost that can carry continue to carry a message while we develop a new three-year strategic plan and once that new three-year strategic plan is is up and going then to re-address our advertising so that that's kind of where we are but the contract is for like a couple of digital and like the

038sum like three or four regulars that's what I thought four digit on one digital freeway it's just the digitals they're all digital they're all digital I thought like there was like four or five there were standards now that's not I read no we requested just the digital ones to keep our presence while we change over to might be changing into a new message okay so the freeway one's just more expensive is that what yeah the conventional ones they have to be created so no I get that I just I guess I I didn't understand the different costs but I guess the freeway the location I guess yeah okay so would that be uh less expensive it would be less expensive yes my only question is would that affect uh because we do have the um

039student um drug free red ribbon Billboards that are conventional uh each year and I don't believe that's is that connected I don't not sure if that's connected to this yeah just wondering if that was I know they usually donate some of that space But I don't but I don't right but I don't know if they donate all of it that's why I was confused yeah I think the rotating um would work too I think it would work very well um I don't know that they can do the photographs but they um can certainly um be changed more often at different times a year we have different messages to get out like the universal um pre-k program how else can the community really learn about that unless we use more conventional uh communication methods like this

040we don't have the the strength of print media that we had you know 20 years ago so it is really dependent on our social media as well as our our billboards we wanted to keep our presence I will look into the Red Ribbon Week on the digitals um but we also wanted to take a pause and while we reset for the new three-year strategic plan okay okay so uh this will be for just the digital uh advertising breadboards at this time as we read positive for the uh strategic plan Wayne did you have specific questions I have one more question too I'm just uh it's forty thousand dollars that we spend and I have to say that that's a large amount of money for advertising for I have Billboards or six billboards I agree it's

041it's uh it's a large amount and this was something that Lancaster School District has been doing traditionally and so I was trying um to continue the tradition um but in a more cost-effective way as we yeah and and we're looking at uh buying vans we have purchased two yes and and uh I don't know if the Forty thousand dollars could go to uh cover the vans in advertising like uh they definitely we could definitely put advertising on the bands I'm thinking of uh reducing the number of uh Lamar Outdoor Advertising sites the one I think at uh 20th Street West on Avenue J seems to run long enough so you can almost read it while you're stopped at the stoplight um and the other ones if you're not if you're doing a speed limit you're

042not going to be able to see what it says you're just gonna go buy it it's my biggest concern regarding the Billboards is there's no data we don't know what type of impact the Billboards are making um within our community so um I can we can table this if you don't want a table and just yeah the question I had was that's most of them were digital posters and the one that's more expensive is a digital bulletin I guess that's they do something different it's bigger yeah and so I noticed it's at the freeway but that's what confused me I just assume the other ones were just posters but I also think that um our wraps on Vans and and other vehicles um is very wordy it's not fresh education um uh primary uh in

043in color and and I just think we could do every look at that and it would go along with our strategic plan absolutely messaging absolutely absolutely so I'd recommend we table it and I'll get you some more information yeah I'd be interested um I know it's nice to have a presence out there in the community and also as we're recruiting teachers and staff so I know that's uh helpful for that too so it'd be nice to get some feedback on that yeah Red Ribbon Week is being sponsored by Lamar so that would go because we do other advertising yeah yeah so yeah gotta think about that too so maybe just pull this for future board meeting yes okay kind of like a plan all right so uh on favor to pull this for a future

044board meeting okay motion carries four zero foreign agenda items business item 17A to 17 B do we have a motion so moved second motion by dying groups second by Mr Wynn any discussion I guess the question I had was we typically approve exemptions for developer fees for schools and non-profits that's correct I'm assuming we do but there's a code that specifically authorizes the exemption okay and that is for if it's used specifically for religious purposes correct not necessarily it can be any non-profit uh can can apply for the exemption the code and I don't know the specifics of the code but it lays out other exemptions for instance another exemption could be a retirement community right uh as a possible exemption so the code does lay those out and this does meet uh one of

045the elements of that particular code the same apply if it was uh a bingo parlor good question Mr Wayne I I I I I can't I think we could still wave it if we wanted to it's up to us but I don't know if we're you know the board has the power to wave a fee the developer fee for any development yes that's correct and although it's not it's not recommended for attorneys there are specific um developments that are fully authorized for the board to waive that particular fee and this does meet one of those elements um Greg if uh I'd like to pull this uh item on the agenda and uh here we have a separate boat you want to just motion enable it for some more table it until we get I don't

046think it's necessary to table it it we have the information it's being a church is being built I think we can have a separate vote of emotion by Mr Wynn to uh pull item h for a separate vote do we have a second no second okay uh motion by Mr Wynn uh second by Keith Giles all right all in favor to pull item H for a second vote say aye all right [Music] okay so motion carries three one all right so we still have items a through J uh for discussion uh except for item H which has been pulled for a second vote any further discussion on items a through J all in favor of items a through J say I I opposed motions carry four zero items a through J except item eight okay

047next we have item H for a separate vote um do we have any further discussion all in favor of approval of exemption from developer school fees from Sacred Heart Church say aye aye opposed okay item H facets uh 4 2 0. okay next we have uh item 18 consent agenda items Educational Services items 18a to 18 K do we have a motion by 10 seconds Diane grooms any discussion I would I have a question when you get go ahead and key uh item I the the WeChat cloud-based reporting and management system that's separate than what we voted on last time or is it or just part of the part of it no weird tabled that to bring it back oh is that what it is we just table it we didn't vote on it okay

048so because the one we voted on it okay okay what so we just able to got more it's this is the same same item we did right right so separate thing that works with cancer right right it links it with catapult but it's right that's what it was I do had a question but I think that's what it was it links with catapult it links yes religious getting this for more now Let's uh give a mouse a cookie for sure but that's the beauty of it is that it interconnects as long as they don't give me a bill next week but yeah and also I'd uh really like to agree with Item B with uh bringing Jamal Brown back for the black 365 knowledgeable we're excited we can do it offer it in person this

049year we look hopefully will be but that's what the plan is good and that's for the black 365 will he be doing the uh will we be looking at the uh uh Spanish one too uh Alicia was referencing that uh and I don't know where that stands on the Latino uh 365 at this time but but the calendar is coming out for both that and then we're also looking to see about possibly having competition uh with Palmdale at the end too so some good possible extensions of the program yeah it's great to see the programs are being brought back to the kids excellent all right any further discussion well I I appreciate the work being done by your department Bart um I'm worried worried that we're spending a lot of money on uh elevation it

050seems to be uh all pass type thing elevation this elevation is uh it's basically the power school for English learners so we keep all of our data in there to support so I was talking to Nayeli about it today in fact and one of she listed a number of great benefits from having elevations which we've had a number of years now they did get bought up by curriculum Associates so that's the integration piece but our lpac data is in there our i-Ready data is in there so we use that to pull information to support reclassifications we use it for fpm when they're asking for documentation we can go and pull our documentation from there as well so elevation is a a real value-added piece for us in terms of supporting the work with our English

051learners and without that data we don't know that um you know whether a student is progressing or not um so I I've I feel the value in in having the software to support um The Learning advances so that we can progress them yes it's very it's a it's definitely a value-added tool it's on it's green I don't know what to say yeah it's just not very hot okay with the value-added tool that we use um for to support our English Learners across the board both in communication tools for parents it has letters and supports that we can use to communicate information on our English Learners out to families in addition to supporting it when we work with our federal program monitoring and we need documentation pieces we can pull it from there and we also

052have lpac data in there our iready data so it's a it's almost a One-Stop shop to support our English learner work okay any further questions Mr White yeah I guess uh that was a fun that it's the edgespire that uh is a hall pass oh that's just at New Vista that is that's something that Dave uh seen as a tool that they feel that they can use to help monitor logging the and monitoring the time students are out of class in the hallways to have better data on what's happening with the students being away from instruction and seeing and looking for Trends and this is Curtis's in the audience students she could speak more whose responsibility is it to enter this information well seven Mrs Curtis speak to that she's in the back I believe

053Mrs Curtis could you help answer the questions about how the site plans to implement and use staff to track the e-haul pass this is edgy Spire is that the one this is item 18e okay okay what is your question yeah the uh the the participation in the edge of spire to I guess report somebody in the hallway or log them out of the class or whatever okay his responsibility will that be so the e-hop pass is something we'd like to try at New Vista we have a lot of our students that are roaming the hallways we have in place right now that they use a planner and they get permission to go to the restroom go to the nurse go to the admin office but it's not working for us because they lose their passes

054we don't know exactly who is out and so this is a program that assistant principal Cowan had at his last school site and it was successful there what we're hoping to see with this program is that we're going to be able to track how many educational minutes that they are missing by being out of their classroom what we're finding is a lot of our students are using the restroom or going to the nurse every class period sometimes twice a class period so we really want to be able to track how many educational minutes that they're missing and who whose responsibility is it to enter the information it'll be mine I'll be looking at the information I'll be tracking I'll be able to see another that came up just recently is we'll also be able to

055block meaning that we won't allow a student to have a pass to be out at the same time somebody that they're having conflict with that is something that happens at New Vista and so this is another benefit of that is that we'll be able to see which students are out we'll be able to say if um Tracy cannot be out with Joe because they're having conflict so they can't meet up out in the hallway we will be able to track if the student is always going out during period three and then I'll be able to have a conversation or the counselor will have a conversation asking what's happening in Period three that you need to be out every single day okay is the teacher going to have to put this in the computer so it

056will be we're gonna get trained in it but when I went through the demo it is going to be either on their um computers that most of them are using during their daily lessons or they could have an iPad or they can have one of their Chromebooks and they can easily just tap it all they have to do is tap it we've also had a discussion with the teachers that they could have a bathroom monitor where a student is just kind of monitoring kind of seeing if there's a request for the bathroom pass all it is is a tap okay but it is a task that the teachers will have to do tap the computer if they would like to do it or they could have a bathroom monitor person which they already do a

057lot of our classrooms have a student that monitors when a student is leaving the classroom they make sure that the student writes the time and the date that they're leaving we had a discussion with the teachers and they are on board with it they keep on asking me when is this going through Tracy when can we put this in place and again it's something for us to try out because we really want to make sure that we're protecting our students at instructional minutes and and like I said I appreciate that because I know New Vista is a great School and both my daughters went there so I want to keep it a great school I just I'm just worried that we keep adding on to the teachers right responsibilities and uh well they would have

058to write out Hall Pass anyway this sounds like a little bit easier process right apparently they're writing in the uh student agenda planners and so every single time a student has to go use the restroom the writing in the planner and so this way all it is is a tap okay yeah thank you very much Curtis any other questions no thank you okay yeah thank you sounds like a great program and we look forward to hearing how it's working all right any further questions or discussion about items e through okay all right all in favor say aye aye opposed oceans carry for zero but actually that was items a through k right next we have item 19 consent agenda items Human Resources Services items 19 8 and 19 D do we have motion so move

059move by Mr win second second by Diane groups any discussion all in favor say aye aye opposed motions carry four zero item 20 consent agenda items Innovation and Technology Services items 28 to 20c do we have a motion tonight second if I keep Child seconded by Diane grooms any discussion all in favor say aye aye opposed items ask for zero okay next we have legislative and policy discussion okay any discussion all right that moves us on to comments from the board and we'll start with Mrs grooms all right I want to thank um the district for um helping the children at Fulton Alsbury the seventh grade class to arrive at Edwards Air Force Base on Friday it was a spectacular show they were very engaged I thought the stem building was one of the better

060um presentations that I had seen at an air show and um if if they didn't know anything new about Aerospace just by walking down I mean in the first two minutes that they were at the flight line the sonic boom started right overhead and they were extremely excited the sixth grade class was surrounding uh Dr glatfelter said when can we go when can we go so it was it was it was fun and they were extremely well behaved and um I I just it was a pleasure to be there um I also um want to make this announcement for the public this is our board meeting and we have a right to expect certain behaviors and that includes proper respect for our staff and proper use of their titles or Mr and Mrs and I

061would expect that in the future hey thank you Diane uh Keith okay thank you uh thank you Dr marietti for the presentation about the thought exchange uh I guess that's a Gonna Get Us started on us our three-year plan appreciate that uh thanks to our speakers and uh what they what Diane said I do think we need to be um cordial and uh respectful when we when we're addressing our our people um we can all say our uh views without being disrespectful so uh with that I'm looking forward to uh my um back to school well I'm not back to school what do they call that teacher conferences starting that tomorrow I have four three kids in the district and one not so I get to go and start that tomorrow so I'm looking forward

062to that so hope and see how we're doing all right with that all pass it on thank you key uh Mr White yeah yeah congratulations to uh Miss Tina and Mr yes lamonico for becoming our new assistant principals um Mr lamonico's uh reputation has preceded him and I've heard nothing but good things about him and also about Miss Tita so it's the spectacular an Endeavor will really enjoy having them there thank you for bringing them on board and Lexie it's a good thing and let's see um the thought exchange great over a thousand submissions uh and I can tell who must have written the most if the number one item was give teachers a raise well it's good to know that our that our employees are right up there at probably 50 percent of the

063uh submissions not only for uh what's going on in our school district but what's going on at their schools and it sounds like we've gotten uh quite a few very good suggestions on the thought exchange so let's keep it up um Fulton hillsbury at the air show and also Endeavor at the air show both schools had very good students let me tell you something I was at the air show in the robotics uh event all three days Friday Saturday and Sunday and the number of students that were walking through that air show through the stem tent which included um our schools but schools from as far away as uh San Luis Obispo uh Oceanside Fresno um these students came there enjoyed it and the one thing I can tell you and this was talked about

064by quite a few of the uh attendees Northrop blocking the robotics group because the kids weren't on their cell phones sitting in the corner trying to text people or text this if they were on their cell phones it was taking pictures and uh not not communicating with each other which to me means a we need more of these type of events Indiana Valley it's it's it's it's a strong strong uh argument for keeping the kids active will definitely keep them from just sitting on their cell phones so it was great FNA did great and never did great and uh the fact that they didn't use the cell phones is good and then finally Rebecca keep that attendance doing what we're doing whatever we're doing we're doing great uh increase again of 42. just from the

065last board meeting that's great and uh I can only hope that we continue like that until we reach 16 000. and we're we're almost to the 15 000 level so it's all it all helps with the uh like something Mr Coleman out there yes sir and Mike Davis getting our teachers getting our uh staff firing them on bringing them aboard we need them and you guys are doing a great job of bringing them here thank you thank you Mr Right hey Miss Grims had one yes I'm glad to point out um I went to the literacy fair on Saturday it was a fabulous event um the kids were so engaged and the parents were you know they brought the whole family and you you could see a lot of the younger kids and I think

066that's exactly what the event was designed to do and they were running all over this entire Educational Center here and very very engaging and it was it looked like they were having a lot of fun so thanks team great thank you yeah I'd also like to say it's so uh super exciting to see the air show come back uh to Edwards Air Force Base I know the last one they had was at Fox airport and that was also really well attended and it's great just to um get the families and the kids aware of all the Aerospace we have available here in our Valley um and it's just amazing how much of a Rockwell Lockheed out Edwards Air Force Base and those are great careers uh based in science and um engineering so it's great

067that we get families aware of that and the more we can do that the better uh it was also neat to see that field trips was one of the high points on the thought thing and that we can start doing those again um I would like to look in to see if we can get some field trips out to Edwards Air Force Base and some of these other uh places that were part of the air show that would be great for the kids um yeah great uh input and it's nice to see too that there's a lot of Continuum with uh look at safety uh look at academic rigor and I know I'm coming back from Clearwood those are high areas we are seeing a lot of behavior issues has been mentioned by parents uh

068different things because I know it's not just in our district I know uh hearing things across the country across our state um it's it's everywhere it's not just in our district um and also with the regular there's been a huge drop um because of kids being uh locked up and going virtual school that that third grade and other grades that are normally teaching a certain level are now doing uh makeup and trying to bring these kids up to where they should be at so um I encourage your parents to continue uh giving us input um hopefully we'll start having our community forums but we can start getting even more input for our strategic plan because we did mention that we're going to be taking this information and building our strategic plan so we want to

069uh use that to further up and also um some good points Road made tonight I know one of them with the Paw we do need to make sure that those are given to the student settles and the well-behaved and so uh if we can take a look at that and make sure that those are just given out Hasbro woods and kind of revisit that I know we had to do that at our site because it's it's just a program that's fluid but it can get uh you know where it's not being used properly so we do need to do that and also another thing too that was mentioned tonight and I had noticed in myself is Wendy's um counting figures come out they look at percentages but when um Serenity scores for the percentages but

070then when you study that percentages and we're doing this tube sometimes those High percentages are from repeat uh students so it might look like a high number but when you look at it's only a few students that are actually doing that so I don't know if there's any way we could talk to the county about that or kind of do a little study on that but sometimes the the numbers look high but they're actually the same students that are doing uh the same same thing repeatedly so that's something we do need to look into to um but great work uh board meeting looking forward to more input and um Dr Marianne thank you I I want everyone to know that Lancaster School District and me personally value people's opinions we care and appreciate all the

071voices we hear whether that be through a survey or sitting down and meeting with individuals and taking the time to hear them you don't always have to agree with each other but we want to understand the person's why and value their opinions we care about that can we seek to understand and we seek to listen and we seek to learn so we're having our animosity towards individuals who criticize us matter of fact we can learn from criticism and we can grow from it but sometimes the voices you hear through the easiest voices and sometimes the voices you hear are one of the loudest voices so tonight I'd like to share with you another voice this is from a parent who came to our family father literacy Festival on Saturdays and this is what she wrote

072we went to this and it was such an awesome event my daughter oh I shouldn't say the name my daughter and I got to engage with one another you know really that we usually don't do at home looking at books reading authors of those books which I appreciate her favorite part was the face painting with the self-portrait part was mine it's definitely definitely removed our bonds stronger I'd like to be part of this event more events like this I think it's really important for parents and their kids to spend time together it's memorable watching her eating her hot dog after the activities I realized that she's grown so much and I don't want to miss sharing her childhood and making it great so thank you so I want to thank um Bart and his Educational

073Services and Krista Thompson and ciao and specifically Tara goings and all the people through every single day come to work because they want to do good things for children and I think every single person in this room can agree that we all want to do good things for children and we may not always agree with how to go about that but until we come together as an educational community and until we push all in the same direction for our children nobody in this room has a bad heart nobody in this room doesn't care about kids is to continue to come together as an educational Community to listen to each other even when listening is hard to learn from each other and grow and to be the great School District that we are and continue to

074be so thank you very much great thank you and with that we are going to uh reconvene or adjourn tax 7 18. bit of emotion so move second portion by Mr wind second by Mr Giles Karen forever say aye aye um [Music] and with that we will be moving into our community Farm what do we do this way we'll be there log out of our yeah go ahead it's the PowerPoint gonna be run by Brandon Brandon's got it he's got the thank you Brandon do you want to open it up am I doing the agenda and then giving it to you guys I'll do that and then you do that okay reply I mean they're gonna vote on it they're gonna watch you want to shut down be a bad idea but I think it's

075well enough people understand that well 22 but I want to believe it happy week you're done all right so welcome to our first of the year um Community forum we're excited to be here so thank you board community everyone online our Focus tonight is to talk about attendance and social emotional learning and social emotional learning is more complex than sometimes we we give credit for it because when we're talking about internet services is really trying to address the whole child and we know that in addressing the whole child we need to consider what are they coming to school with what's what's on their hearts what's on their minds because it sometimes and oftentimes and directly impacts their academics so we have to really look at uh everything that impacts the child coming into the school

076and so today we're going to dig into some of that a little bit further and hope as we talk about seeking we're going to seek to understand better and so today I'm joined with Dr Jordan Goins who is our director of continuous Improvement compliance and accountability uh Miss Kimberly Cochran our director of pupil safety and attendance and Miss Trish Wilson our coordinator of climate culture and counselors you go back one uh okay forward one there you thank you so our learning intentions and success criteria for this evening under learning intentions it's our intent that Lancaster staff and families will learn how Lancaster School District is prioritizing and supporting social motion learning and advancing student well-being and our success criteria for that we know will be successful is when staff and families will be able to

077understand the various pieces of data that help shed light on the current safety efforts in our schools and staff and families will be able to provide informed feedback at the end here today regarding safety for this District to help take some next steps next slide thank you so our agenda we'll do a brief introduction of some uh topics we're going to dig into our youth truth data and uh we'll dig into the responses to that data and then we will Empower our families at the end to go further with that by getting feedback I'm going to turn it over to Dr Goins now to talk about our mission vision okay um so first of all to begin I want to thank you so much for giving us the opportunity I know it's late tonight um

078I'm really looking forward to being able to provide some of this information to you and really get us started on that process we've already started with our strategic planning um with Dr marietti and the thoughts and thought exchange we got to thank thank you for bringing that to the district that's something that's giving us some options and giving us a way to be able to really reach out to our families in ways that we haven't been able to do in the past um so I want to start us off with remembering and reminding us of what our vision what we do in Lancaster School District and why we do what we do in Lancaster School District I want to make sure everybody realizes that we our our mission has not our vision has not changed

079our vision is to provide relevant high quality education with an inclusive and culturally respectful environment preparing all students for personal and professional success and that's what that being our mission and our vision being to create options and excellence in education empowering all students to reach their full potential so those are the pieces that we still subscribe to in Lancaster School District and we continue to ascribe to an Lancaster school district and moving into the I would say the next um I guess the comeback to for for lack of a better term the return uh to to to schools and really being able to do what we've done over the past one of the main pieces that we really know that we've really noticed was the need to have to focus on on the coming of

080on social emotional learning um the reason that we're seeing this you're going to see some of the data that goes and uh discusses why we're looking at this particular area now um and why we really need to focus this area right about now and I'm going to give you some of the ideas and some of the steps that we've taken already to be able to move move this forward um with myself well myself Kim or Miss Cochrane as well as on this um Miss Trish are going to be are going to be providing us all with a good solid uh understanding of all of those pieces that are that are fitting into what we're doing right now so I want to focus this on um in this particular piece we're going to be looking at

081Equitable learning on practices positive learning environments today that is that that big big yellow goal in the in the middle as well as the safe and supportive environment minutes those are going to be the actions that we're really focusing on in terms of our work tonight um and we will be getting into some some significant data so I want to what's up by a little bit about our YouTube survey uh last year 2020 2021 2022 in February 2022 on the last school year we had the opportunity to really reach out to our families and have a deep and stronger understanding of where they come we do this once a year when we provide this date when we provide this survey to our to our families um this accompanies some of the other pieces that we've

082done um that we're that we're currently doing and kind of explained a little bit of where we were and how uh to a degree there was a little bit of a sustain there was a little bit of an understanding as to where where we were going to be heading in 2020 in this school year in the 22-23 school year so I want to make sure that we have this all wrapped in so I'll click um some of this YouTube data that we're gonna be talking about what are we measuring as outcomes we really focused in this particular area on what we would be considering and I say that I don't want to get I don't want to say this wrong but I want to make sure and I want to make sure it's it's understood

083with the the right amount of complexity that actually sits there we talk about some of the pieces that we're measuring as being soft skills but these are not soft skills these are the skills that are going to provide our students with the the true goals or the true uh the true the true tools to be successful in life if those pieces that allow them to be able to do uh to be able to be successful in their job the workplace wherever they happen to be so we are going to be focusing on culture belonging and relationships in terms of our elementary schools um culture means the degree to which students experience an orderly respectful classroom uh belonging means the degree to which students feel welcome at their school so how a student feels welcome at

084their school and relationships mean the degree to which students have strong supportive relationships with their teachers so the reason that we chose these at the elementary level was because these are all pieces that tie right back to that whole idea of student connectedness so research evidence anything that you want to talk about if you read if you read any educational articles on our own State Board of Education and many of the Great authors in terms of educational education educational research educational leadership are Focus back on the idea of connectedness to the school site the student doesn't feel connected to the school site you're going to see more Behavior if you see more Behavior you're going to see more time outside of class you see more time out of class you're going to see less academic

085achievement so that is a huge piece and that's evident because if you look at covid-19 we were all gone from school for so long and one of the pieces that was lacking was that that that connected this piece that we that we can that we can simply talk about so that second piece for um our middle schools we're gonna be focusing on student culture belonging and peer collaboration relationships so the change in the difference and the only real Nuance here and you all have this in front of you but that Nuance here is that belonging and peer collaboration when we start talking about that peer collaboration piece remember students need to it's it's almost like that uh it's some of the great philosophers Foucault and them would say it's like you got to see the

086other it's like once you see the other you have to be able to be able to come back at me and be able to see it may not benefit please don't check me I'm not Dr freeze not yet catch me catch me tomorrow it might be all right so with that said and so I can hurry back before uh Dr freeze Google's my wrong answer um one of the things I wanted to make sure we pointed out some of that significant day that we're talking about I'm not going to go over every piece of this because you have it in front of you but what I am going to do is I'm going to highlight a couple pieces that we found interesting and we we've reviewed this in our district site leadership team just last

087Thursday and have come up with some ideas to how we might be able to respond moving forward so our Middle School students students here was a discipline that they said that 32 so you understand what this is saying when I say 32 I'm saying 32 percent of students responded positively okay so when I say that discipline in this school is fair 32 percent responded positively that they believe that discipline in this school or whatever school they go to happens to be fair so that's very important to understand so these are percent positives so I want to point that one out so when we're talking about this is a measure that speaks to culture 32 of our of our elements of our middle school students would say that discipline in their school is fair and well

088on the bottom where it says students from my school treat adults with respect 24 students 24 of students who reported said that said that students from their school treat adults with respect so if you look at the elementary level we talk about do students behave well in your class 17 of students responded and this is last year the end of last year um 17 of students responded to the affirmative in saying that students behave well in class all right so that's for culture we start talking a little bit about relationships which is a huge piece to the academic uh one of the big pieces to that to the academic um just the academic environment is that ability to relate from one to the next one to another with specific student groups it's extremely important that

089they feel that they have a relationship with somebody else at their school extremely important specifically an adult most specifically an adult so the first one I want to point out for middle school students are the only one I want to point out for middle school students is how many of your teachers try to understand what your life is like outside of school 27 said that this is this responded to the affirmative here now I want to point out that and remind everybody here that this is all about perception this is what students perceive at this particular point in their their particular point in their educational career in middle school so I want you to remind yourself what you were like when you were in Middle School I'm not going to remind you what I was

090like in Middle School I was not the guy but let's let's remind us but I want to think about who we were who you were who you were in middle school at this particular time and this is 27 saying that um how many teachers try to understand what their life is like they feel like that there's somebody not doing somebody who may not be doing that for them um Elementary School students we look at um something very similar does your teacher treat you with respect Elementary School check it out this is where families really or where students really do feel that they have that that they feel like they're being respected by their by their they feel that respect back and forth from their teacher and they've therefore give give it back um do you

091think teachers care about you and we said 82 that's any over 80 percent positive is what we're kind of what I'm kind of aiming for here because that means that the majority is like yeah that's that's probably what is happening that's that's definitely a solid perception all the way around foreign so this piece having to do with belonging in pure collaboration describes again describes the degree in the middle schools as to which students feel welcome at their school and have collaborative relationships with their classmates for this one I really feel like a part of my school's community and again this gets to the heart of connectedness um 41 of students in the Middle School say that they feel like they are part of their school's community and then in the elementary schools it jumps up

092to 56 percent which is which makes a lot of sense because remember when kids are young they it's there's a there's a they're valuable I've got my own kits this is the same type of thing they're very they're very malleable they love everything that's going on in their around them at that time so jumping to this one school safety this jumps in this is a um a different one talks about uh I feel safe from harm in the hallways 48 in Middle School say they feel safe from a harm in the hallway so this is at the school level but then look at their and I think one of our colleagues one of my colleagues pointed out at dslt um last week that look at the fact that you have 84 of students who only

09384 of our students feel safe at home and 71 feel do not feel safe in their community so those are some pieces that think about the emotional emotional relationship or the emotional the emotion that gets tagged along to that particular that particular piece in Lancaster right now elementary schools do you feel safe during school 61 say that they feel safe during school and then finally do you feel safe going to school so on your way to school 69 of our students say that they feel safe going to school so suspensions and expulsions um at this particular point in time we're at 2223 there's about 230 out of school or suspensions um in school suspension about 250. um so we've got about 494 total incidences of being separated from the classroom at a particular point in

094time so to say that we aren't working the that part that end of it is would not it is actually true we are doing that work um that's actually happening and if you look at it we've decreased our time our time between 2019-20 we had just a little over um 1 365. um out of school suspensions and then in 2122 um 1200 just just around 1200 and a half so 1233 so so that's there so this is that's the that's in terms of our actual data in terms of um we're hold on take that back it's actually in terms of our data between suspensions and expulsions so the actual idea of being able to separate a student from the academic environment and again we we know what we get when we separate a student from

095the academic environment you can't learn if you're not in school if we if we if our theory of action is that our teachers that are that we can teach and that when a kid is in school they learn if that's our theory of action then we need to understand that we need to have as many kids in school as often as possible which means we have to find some other methods of other means of Correction attendance overview um this is where we're at right now um so this is a week by week comparison so you'll see um in the beginning of the school year we were at like 94 um attendance which was actually pretty respectable considering on where we've been in the past and still understanding covid-19 still lingers we're still like there's still

096those pieces that were in a where we have to do what we have to do here where there's um students having to be separated for specific reasons um these 89 and 88 my friend uh Mr Hume actually um when we this when we looked at this we determined that that time period those two weeks were the where the these those were the two hottest weeks of the school year that we've had so far so understanding that it kind of shows you that when weather kind of hits and again it shows you the vulnerability of the students and for which we serve so we have to really keep that in mind that there's there's external influences that are consistently going to be acting upon them so so our chronic absenteeism rate right now currently looks at

097that we looks as though we have 32 percent of our students who are chronically absent with eight percent nearly chronic so chronically absent means they've missed 10 of the school year today so at the end of the school year if there's 186 days the minute that they've gotten to that 18 to 19 that's when we're running into some some more significant we're running into the problem of them they will be considered chronically absent by the end of the year if that's the case so with that said I'm going to turn this wonderful thing over to miss Cochran and she's going to provide you with some information as to what we're doing to be able to combat the some of the data that we're that we're seeing right now yes speak to them okay thank you

098Dr Goins um so again this first slide really discusses um how we're targeting supporting students um and their attendance supporting families and removing barriers in many cases we're working very closely building up site attendance teams at every single one of our school sites with some strong collaboration administrators are part of that site attendance team we also have counselors and I'll get into that the rest that in just a minute we have an attendance challenge that's continuing this school year and then also attendance interventions there we go so again the campaign is less than five we know that when students are in school there's a strong correlation to reading and Mathematics skills there's been many many studies done not just in California but Across the Nation that when students hit 95 attendance and they hover there

099or greater they have a much stronger chance of reading at grade level and being able to compute math skills at a third grade level at by the end of the third grade school year but again it starts in kindergarten and that's where we need to focus our efforts as well as kindergarten first grade our attendance teams are comprised of our school counselors our family ambassadors the office assistant in charge of attendance our School nurses are also part of these teams because we know that many times there's some sort of a an illness or perhaps asthma or diabetes that students and families need support with to prevent some barriers getting success in terms of reaching out to medical staff that families might not readily be available to connect with where then we have those resources to

100check them our school psychologist and again a site administrator part of this work is also completed by Crystal Rojas our counselor and special assignment with a focus on attendance she's created an attendance team checklist where each member of the team has a great understanding of their role on the team and especially in respect to family contact every single day with a live person yes our Robo calls still go out because there are some cases where we've got um clerical absences counselor absences and they're not able to make those live calls but on the routine the day-to-day everybody in this group is reaching out to our families with a live personalized phone call to check in let families know that we've missed their child today is there anything we can do to help them get back

101to school the next day in addition to that work Crystal's also created a team template an agenda that's been shared out with our attendance teams they complete that agenda weekly and then submit that back to Crystal so she has follow-up with them in case there's any questions before we visit again we started off the school year Crystal and I both going out to the school sites to help establish the attendance teams and then we scheduled six to eight week follow-up times to Circle back to ensure that they're able to follow those processes they've got their attendance conferences scheduled because through this work we also build up to our work with the District Attorney's office which is our act program abolishing chronic truancy we also go to the start process and then eventually the sarb process

102through the school through the school district office with a panel representation we're targeting excused and unexcused absences because we know that as students continue to accrue absences whether they're excused or unexcused it's still hurting their education and so we want to work with our families again to prevent and remove those barriers from their education and getting their students the services that they need in school every day we also utilize a lot of school and home communication again that's live calls it's also home visits when we can't reach parent by phone we invite families in to explore um reasons for attendance and the ways that we can support them to help them get their children to school sometimes it's a gas card sometimes it's a city bus pass for middle school students to help them get

103to school and get to school on time other times it's a connection from the school nurse building that contact with free services in the community to help a student get the medication they need to treat their asthma so they can return to school or helping them to get that doctor's note of services to be provided the School site when we're talking about a student with diabetes there's a long list of examples that I could go on and on about just wanted to share a few of those that we've supported this school year we also have attendance contracts and again parent conferences to address the issues of poor attendance and to help rebuild that student's connection to the school site and to get them back in the seats and again I mentioned we have the process

104of act where we utilize our services through the District Attorney's office sart and also sarb the SAR panel the district level this is an example of an attendance achievement chart that has the direct correlation to students who have great attendance they're proficient and exceeding expectations with the standards and then it begins to dip into like a tier two category for students who are beginning to display a lack of attendance at school right on down to Chronic absenteeism where there's a very difficult chance of that student getting on grade level when they've missed so many days of the school year we're currently utilizing this chart with our school counselors our administrative teams where when they're in their meetings with their parents working with students and parents to remove barriers we can easily check the boxes on

105this particular form in Google and it will show the parent exactly where their student follows to date in terms of are they on target to be proficient by the end of the school year are we looking at tier two strategies or possibly tier three where they're chronic and not going to have the opportunity to reach their grade level proficiency so it's been a great tool to use um in addition to that we also focus on incentives we're trying to to pick up the uh increments of focusing on weekly incentives for our students across the school district also supporting education of parents and students about the grave importance of being at school every day every day that's missed is a day of reading and Mathematics instruction that that child has now fallen behind on my own

106personal children and I had a discussion in high school that when I don't feel good I don't feel good you take the temp there's no temp there's no vomit there's no anything else for bodily fluid you're going to school and then that one day when they were sick and they had to stay home missing one day of school for them in high school made it feel like they'd missed a week and so helping parents to understand even in elementary school missing one day it's very difficult to come back from that the next day feeling unprepared many students are on edge when they return to school after a day of absence because they've missed something and now they feel behind and they just want to escape that so trying to educate our families and helping them

107understand the grave importance of being in school every single day and the true outcomes that good attendance can have on reading and Mathematics skills um again utilizing into individualized Outreach efforts when we are one-to-one with families or we're either on the phone we're in a WebEx meeting online or we're going to the home to do a home visit we learn a lot about our families we learn a lot about our students and then we're better equipped to help remove barriers to help those kids get to school additionally uh I've I've kind of given the precursor on this that in some of those individualized meetings with families we've learned about children and families who need better access to health care and we're able to provide those those resources to those families and another piece that came

108out of our research with our own families and across the state too is that a lack of safe routes to school and reliable transportation is also another barrier that we want to look at and see what we can do to help get our students who live further away from our school sites transportation to get to school every day and home and then next I would like to ask my colleague Miss Wilson to come on up and talk about social emotional learning okay so um for those of you that don't know me I'm Trish Wilson I'm the coordinator of climate culture counselors for the district and I am so proud to be part of a district that prioritizes social emotional learning um and just to give an overview of what it's all about it's it's not

109only um skills that we're teaching our students to be good students and successful students in school but it also um produces good citizens and good people in in society when they get older students that are able to hold a job and work with people and get along with others and express their um their differences respectfully all of these um skills are part of social emotional learning understanding other people's feelings having empathy for others problem solving and a social sort of um um like group and and be able to um Express their emotions appropriately instead of um just you know reacting um to to situations so all of these things are part of social emotional learning um of course social emotional learning is Under the Umbrella of positive behaviors and positive behavior interventions and supports also

110known as PBIS and um with that is also capturing kids Hearts which are all the strategies that we use to develop a positive School climate as well as relationships with adults and peers at school we promote social emotional learning through Community circles so our teachers use Community circles for not only talking about good things with with capturing kids Hearts but they also use it for academic purposes um giving every student the opportunity to speak and to be heard and to be included in the school community and to have a voice and that's really important also our teachers um for seven years now have been teaching second step and that's our social emotional learning curriculum all of our teachers teach lessons every week in social emotional learning and um in elementary school there are follow-up activities

111that happen every day um to reinforce that lesson of the week they also the teachers also have um supplemental social emotional learning tools so if they see that their their students are struggling with the certain skill such as conflict resolution for example then they can um they can tap into additional videos and near pod lessons and other social emotional learning tools our counselors provide classroom lessons Based on data um and I'll go into to the data that we're using in in many of our schools in a moment but um they look at what what what the office discipline referrals um are for and where the targeted needs are for each classroom and then they provide lessons a district-wide elementary school SEL program that we are using as Kelso's choice and that teaches students conflict resolution

112skills it teaches them options that they are able to use when they are confronted with a difficult situation usually in an unstructured situation um they're also doing bullying prevention lessons which is important for our school climate as well and making sure that students know not only what to do if they feel bullied but what to do if they're watching it and they're they're a bystander and that they have um they have a voice and and choices that they can make instead of standing by watching it happen our counselors also provide small group counseling and that is offered to students who need more support than the classroom level um lessons or the um the lessons from the teachers and from the the counselors and then finally we provide individual counseling um for students that need even

113more support just to make sure that they have that um that that one-on-one support from the counselor and we also refer the students to our school-based mental health agencies this is the second year that we have provided um social emotional learning assessments and they're called cell web assessments at 10 of our schools we are doing the assessments this year and their Paiute ambargosa Creek Mariposa Lincoln Sunnydale Sierra Bonavista Miller and then also the uh the leadership academy and rise um we administered a fall assessment and we will be administering a spring assessment as well um we're looking at students ability to apply their skills in understanding others social problem solving social perspective taking and self-control um with these assessment results we are getting back the results right now from the fall Administration and we're using

114these results to monitor our SEL instruction effective Effectiveness to make sure that what we're teaching the students is making a difference in their ability to um to perform in these areas also we're determining what strength areas or our students are demonstrating so that we can build on those strengths and use those strikes to help compensate for some of the weaknesses and then finally we're we're using those um those assessment results to uh to provide targeted support for students who need um additional support in a specific area um either through another classroom lesson from the um from the counselor or maybe the teacher going back and reteaching a lesson that's relevant to um to the students needs providing um group counseling or even individual counseling so um we're really excited about the the cell web assessments

115and we're hoping to see a lot of growth in the spring so I am going to turn it back to Dr Goins and he's going to finish up the presentation Okay so I want to reiterate there's a lot of work that's being gone that's been going into the what where we're headed what this particular school year the 22 23 school you're not I don't want to um I don't want to go without just even on the safety side of the house really looking at the fact that we've identified we've identified safety concerns and we're starting to take care of safety concerns if you look at some of our front offices things are happening in that particular area in those areas and things are being addressed with are being addressed quickly as we're seeing them come

116about and that's a huge degree to the people who have really seen who have been able to identify the concerns which is huge that's a big deal the amount of time just the idea of having um pop-ups over not pop-ups but uh big uh canopies over at schools like T or at our TLA and ryzen over at Discovery and then over at Linda Verde has been a significant support to the to the schools that we haven't done in the past and it's a pretty it's a it's a pretty it's it's a great op it's a great opportunity for us to show that we are actually when we're seeing the issues we are starting we're listening to them um so what ended up happening was we did have our district site leadership team just recently and

117that was Thursday and this is some of the work that came out of that District site leadership team and some of the the work that we want to we're going to continue to do as we move forward and you're going to see this come back and back and back and back because this is the work that needs to that we that we really feel needs to be happening right now in Lancaster School District full court press here so to address behaviors in schools um one of the pieces that we're looking to try to work through is deep student-centered data dives into identifying root causes um one of the things that was really significant that came about through the work that we did on Thursday last week in our dslt um was that we looked at

118we were looking at individual students and identifying what we were trying to look towards how can we identify root causes or functions of those students behaviors or the reasons as to why they were acting in such a way that they may be at that that they are acting and exhibiting the behaviors that they're exhibiting that doesn't say don't don't discipline and don't do those pieces but what it is saying is how can I how after the discipline has been meted out how do I come back and be able to work with that student so that doesn't happen again that's the focus of that word and other pieces um start small develop systematized preventative and responsive behaviors actions and community and communication methods to keep everyone within the system working with the students informed that we

119really need to at the school site level um really when we see an issue when we see a student exhibiting behaviors and having serious problems we really need to wrap our arms around them we need to figure out how we can support them but not to support them even support those students when things have happened to them to make sure that they're supported as well it goes both ways the last piece is identifying people in training needed to implement the systems we do know that we have a lot of great people doing a lot of good work we want to make sure that we all recognize what that work is be able to move forward to address attendance in schools clarify monitor communicate systems of supporting attendance making sure that we are very clear in

120what we're looking for and how we're looking for it and how we're reading it and really coming back with the data so that we can really understand what the next steps are then we need to need an electronic way to clear absences to shift to spending more time connecting with families and students who are absent so that turns into the idea that what we're really focusing on is we're really looking towards trying to figure out how can we get parents to in a position where they can easily um that where they can easily clear absences be able to work that piece out but then on top of that how can we get that out of the way so we can start supporting the students who are exhibit who are absent and then finally more staff

121are more staff have access to comprehensive Data Systems so years ago um we purchased a a data system we currently call the Lancaster interactive dashboard you might remember it as who knew it so this is something we're going to bring back to you on a consistent basis we're going to bring back to you so that we can show the board as to you know what it is and how to work with it and because you should you should be able to you should see what that data looks like um in fact you saw a piece of that data in the attendance data we were able to monitor attendance on a daily basis weekly basis at least and then behaviors and all those other pieces because on a consistent basis because it's all rolled into our

122our student information system our school that we work with so so the final piece that I want to leave us with tonight and I again I appreciate for you I appreciate your time uh Miss Cochran Miss Wilson uh Mr Hoffman have all worked hard we've all worked hard to try to uh to find solutions to the to the situations that we're that we're seeing this is going to be a question that's going to go out actually it was scheduled to go out tonight at 7 30 but the board meeting went a little long so so what we ended up doing um is we're scheduling it for tomorrow morning to go out to everybody um the question is where should we focus our efforts to ensure students feel connected to the Lancaster schools that they attend

123so what we're going to be doing is we're going to be supporting we're going to be asking that question a thought exchange question this will be going out via text via email to receive information and we'll be reporting that information back to the community and back to to everybody um here obviously the board is as well as the rest of the community our teacher staff um everybody involved in our system so with that said I want to ask um do you have any questions are there any questions so I thought that was for us thank you thank you so um when we receive this data and we develop it and and take some action steps how do we assure that every staff member on campus is is notified of this or made aware of because

124I've often heard of students who say that it was the school secretary who paid them more attention or that they felt more connected to that particular one so how do we assure that we don't keep it at the top level right that we bring it all the way through our system right so what we're working on is and we have been communicate we communicate with our um or a site leadership leadership um because obviously you know we can't get to we're not going to get to every site but we do communicate through our site we're going to be communicating this specific data because this is the first time you're really seeing this but we're going to be really communicating through our site leadership through our um various uh want to say leadership trainings activities that

125we do with them to be able to provide them the understanding as to how they can bleed it back down into the school site so that all of our staffs teachers teachers and certificated in class so find a look together are all well knowledgeable about what's going on and what the perceptions currently are and then on top of that that particular data that we have is actually disaggregated by sight so we do have it down to each each individual School site has that information for their own specific site and and by and by specific demographics by democrats and I've actually shared that data with you in the past um from our English language Learners our foster some of our homeless students and including with all of the other student populations that we work with okay

126yeah yeah I know um in another question um so it's a question and answer if you absolutely thank you this is embedded in every single dollar and everything that we do this is so important it should be yes yes I did from my parents so I would absolutely absolutely it should be in the home if you'd like to have a meeting with Dr Goins I'm sure he would sit down with you which absolutely actually okay Mr Gavin I think I think action was worse than might be able to answer my question she's saying how does accounts how does individual counseling um what does that look like in our schools in regards to counseling students privacy and permission from parents we're allowed to to do counseling with students for crisis situation and the law allows us

127to do that Beyond crisis situations we get parent permission written parent permission and consent in order to do ongoing counseling so we typically see students maybe once and then after that we tell them that we need to have parent consent we're required to keep it confidential for students um that are 12 and older um students that are younger than 12 12 years old were able to discuss it with parents but like I said where we do ongoing counseling with students we we get parent permission that's that's a legal thing that's not a district policy that's a legal confidentiality law well then that they need to talk to the counselor about that and if they don't have a resolution then they can certainly contact me okay thank you uh yeah uh good questions um I had

128a question uh too about the SARP I know um during the covered they kind of disbanded that and so forth um are they starting to bring that back because I know that was a good incentive for families that are struggling with the tenants to kind of get them back on track so I was just wondering if the county is helping now with that and how they're bringing that back absolutely yes the first step is our act program though and that's again through the District Attorney's office we work directly with an assistant district attorney um her name is Francis she is extremely supportive and through the ACT process once a student misses a certain number of school days then that name that information is submitted to her office and then she meets with us she meets

129with our school counselor she meets with the parent with the student and also with our counselor on special assignment in charge of attendance to discuss what the barriers are and it's it's No Holds Barred I mean she is very very serious I do not want to be on the receiving end of that conversation if the ACT process does not get the desired effects then we go to start and after start we move to BART to sarb but all of these pieces have to be in place before we can have sarb [Music] and I know uh before it was kind of an ongoing challenge uh between our different School sites to reach like 95 percent because I know that's a very effective uh tenants rate you know for students so we talked about that to be

130successful um after covet I know it's dropped uh tremendously for around the state around the country uh what's our average now at our school site this is around 84 or because I'm kind of wondering where we could start setting the bar so we can start bringing that back up so actually that like that document that I showed you earlier jumps it from week by week but I believe the last we looked on our um on our uh on Lancaster interactive dashboard it was hovering around 89 to 90 between 89 to 90 percent so that's significantly better than we were um last spring it is better than we were the expert but it's not where we want to be exactly yeah we we're really focusing on trying to get set back to that 95 96 Mr

131Conti's very intent on making sure that we have good to get that taken care of so hold on one second I'm just going to take this back to the back Dr Guardians the demographics of the attendance do we have uh the I think you do have where is the largest number is it uh Foster homeless well specifically with our Foster and homeless we definitely do see a higher rate of of chronic absenteeism or an absence absences a lot of it is due to the um the nature of what's going on in their lives at that particular time spending time in courts um you know things pieces of that kind of or things of those particular uh nature however what we are we are working closely to try to work with with the work to be

132able to build um our attendance in those particular areas but those have always been air low areas for us [Music] let me ask you another question then knowing if if that demographic is homeless I'm sure a lot has to do with that um foster children special education are they all blessed to school um not the subject I mean there would be there are students that are within their home boundaries who live within their home boundaries and they're going to school and they're going to school in their particular area um but there there are they are getting bust they will be they do they are best like all like many of our other students populations as well that and the reason I asked that is because I think when I first got on the board many

133years seven or eight years ago one of the questions was who do the children Trust the most and that I think that remembers it it was the bus drivers that's who the kids believe in the most more than their parents more than the students more than their teachers they liked the bus drivers yeah because they were with them every single day so a lot of good ways a lot of them and also um many of them quoted to say that that was the first smile they received all day and the last one yeah when they got dropped up it's it's that that connection to one adult is actually is one of the biggest indicators of success in terms of being able to build students up and get them passed so you had a question ma'am

134yes the actual curriculum for SEL so the actual curriculum is actually a curriculum called Second Step that is done that is completed daily with our students sometimes they use so hold on sometimes they use sometimes they use um Community circles um generally speaking that's to and Miss Wilson please correct me if I'm wrong um a lot of the time that is to solve questions or to solve uh to solve conflict that might be happening in a particular area but however the the Second Step curriculum is something that is served to our students on a daily basis or given to our students on a daily basis I'm sorry [Music] our students all receive social emotional learning so we look at it does so if it's yeah is that's a lot of times so if I can

135respond just having having been a teacher for 14 years um academics can exist you can't get to academics in the classroom unless you have created an environment in which learning can take place and part of creating great environment which learning takes place means establishing positive behavior supports uh establishing uh routines establishing social emotional supports so that students are prepared to learn and I would argue with you that by providing social emotional Time by providing Community circles and restorative circles will actually increase the amount of time that we can connect and teach kids because we haven't decided which they can learn so teaching is a very difficult profession and if you have to understand that teachers come into around understanding and sometimes there is 35 in the classroom and each one of those children have different

136and we have to deal with them each one of them can make a connection between one of them so I would argue that by using these search martial tools we're actually expanding amount of time that we can instruct children this has been going on since I I started teaching in was back then our test scores right now and test scores across the state and across the United States are there because we were in a pandemic and students yes and they've gone down because of it yeah held in our district um welcome to sit in a classroom and see how it sounded really encourage you to to just take the time experience your conversation's over we're not going to use the language the conversation's over sir can we please ask him to leave because the conversation's

137over we're not going to use profanity in here it's not going to do this profanity in here so we're going to ask you to leave we're going to ask you because we're knocking this before we provided a respectful environment for you um so you're gonna move because he's profound and I apologize for that I'm sorry that that had to happen I think we can have on a dead conversation can you please ask him to leave can we please ask him to move yourself and some of our children don't have those opportunities at home and so sometimes we have to provide them okay if you could ask him to please that'd be great I'm sorry that we have to leave and I'm sorry that we use that language I really am because I think you deserve

138something to say just a point I can understand though they think that's a waste of time but as a classroom teacher myself I have seen that uh taking the time to uh do uh restorative circles or Community circles a lot of times it's just touching base with the kids find out where they're at in the day get to get day started it builds community in the classroom and it helps build a culture where the kids are ready to learn how more receptive to each other and we're open to sharing where they're at they're also used for academics they use restorative circles or Community circles to review uh the main points of the lesson or the main points what was there in the day so I know uh uh you might hear that term it might

139sound like it's not academic as a classroom teacher you do need that cohesiveness in your classroom for the kids to be supportive of each other to be on track and last year um uh I had just amazing success with using their sort of circles uh to the point the kids really built a community and they really needed that after covid because they'd been on their own so much and it really helped build a cohesive classroom at the end of the of the year the kids all came together and they were all crying and and they formed a big circle the last day of school and they're all saying we're gonna miss you so much and those kids are still close even after last year so uh give us a chance look into it do you

140do your research I know I had the same reservations at first when I heard about it but um it is does help build a classroom but it does need to be in cohesion with with rigor and academics so you know I'm totally in favor of all those things thank you um I was an hour USD I had 42 actually in the class I was at LAUSD at Southgate high school and I had 42 students in a class the job of a teacher is a is an amazing job and it's very challenging and we have amazing individuals yeah and I and I hope you're not correlating that to the work our teachers do I hope I hope that's not what we're doing too many kids my child Hood pointless okay without due respect the work figure

141is not poisonous it has an effect though it does and I respect your opinion and we agree with you we have been trying to limit the class sizes in fact we had a class size reduction in the lower elementary grades so we do uh agree with you that is one of our goals of our district to limit the class size so that's a different issue that's but yes so I encourage I encourage you I know Dr Jones having a conversation absolutely because like we can learn from each other absolutely yeah I've got act and if I don't have any cards on me today but I'll give you my I'll give you my um my office number so that you can contact us tomorrow so before we go further I want to make sure that you're

142going to capture your thoughts or any of the thoughts that may be popping up I would love you this the one the what we're using as an information gathering tool today is going to be that thought exchange that's wanted that's going to be available and we'll be sending it out via text and email tomorrow morning for everybody to be able to answer and that's going to be what's going to be the primary piece that's going to provide us with the ability to be able to focus on change so the focus what I'm looking forward to is being able to work with people to work with our teams to be able to support Dr marietti in the building of that of the Strategic plans that we're looking to try to build build into our school district

143because that's going to be what we'll bring about sustainable and sustain sustainable change that will not just be a 2022-23 thing but a 23 24 fourth thing of 25 26 things oh no to provide this information we will use our we will use our principles to be able to our use our principles our site principles to provide targeted site data for them for the for their school sites thank you [Music] thank you Dr avoids excellent antique and with that concludes our community forum thank you so much everybody have a great night