4.24.25 Special Board Meeting

001We're ready? Okay. I'll just, okay, you're good. Good morning. Welcome to our special board workshop. We're going to begin with our flag salute and Trustee Bueno is gonna lead that for us. Allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. As everyone knows, this is a special board meeting, the Board of Education for the Livermore Valley Joint Unified School District, where the primary focus is the education of students in this district. We are going to begin with our discussion items. We have three school site reports. We'll begin with Sunset Elementary with Mr. Tom Fletcher, the principal of Sunset. We're gonna welcome you up. Good morning, Board President Prusso, members of the board, Superintendent Gibson,

002members of our cabinet and members of our community. I am Tom Fletcher, principal of Sunset Elementary. And I'd like to start just by saying thank you for giving me the opportunity to come talk about Sunset, a school that I love. And I really feel like sometimes we get stuck on an island and just to be able to come and share some of the really good things that we're doing has really been something I appreciate. So thank you for giving me this opportunity. As you know, starting with demographics, we're a little over 750 students. We're growing slightly next year with the addition of a TK. We have 420 white, which is 55%, got 18% Hispanic, 25% Asian, which is our largest growing population, 1.2 African-American. We have one Pacific Islander, two American Indians, 28 ELs. About

0038% of our students have disabilities and then about 15% socioeconomically disadvantaged. From the California dashboard, we were all green across those five categories. There's actually four categories. We didn't get a color for our English learning progress, partly just because our numbers of ELs are low enough that the state of California doesn't actually give us a color indicator on that, but we do have some data on our ELs. It just doesn't show up on the dashboard. So with those green colors on the other four categories, it gives us some room for improvement on all four of those areas. As you compare us to other similar districts, this was updated March 13th, but I had already submitted my PowerPoint. So the new slide looks a little bit different, but you can still get an idea there with

004the green if we're looking at our ELAs compared to other schools, a little bit lower than the blue, as blue is the top color on that dashboard. We are blue when this came out for math. Our chronic absenteeism was yellow, which as we look at this year's data, we have increased that category, which there's some information later in the slides that we are excited about. And then our suspension rate has been pretty much 1% across the board. So as you compare that to other districts, you can get an idea on similar schools and how we're doing there. If you look at our scoreboard for school success data, we look at ELA proficient for our CASP, which as I think you know, is third, fourth and fifth graders at our school. So we've gone from 75%

005to 76% to 73% last year. So that was a 3% drop in ELA percentage for those proficient. And then for math, we went from 72 to 74 to 69%. So we're hovering right in that mid slow 70% range, which is 5% down last year. And so we do have some information about that. And I imagine you may have some questions as well. Average daily attendance has gone up just a little bit every single year from 93%, 94%, 95%. As I look at this year's data, we're pretty close to 96%. So we've shown a steady increase in that category, which we're excited about. And then our panorama data, percentage of students reporting positive student, teacher relationships from 74% down to 68%, down to 64%, which is down. And I've had some side conversations, even with some

006of you as board members about not dismissing that data because I feel like I have great relationships. Sometimes I need to drill a little bit deeper into that data. So we have some information that I will share with you about that as well. Percentage of English learners progressing at least one LPAC level with the smaller number of ELs. I think at the beginning, some of our staff, myself included, have wrestled with ways to improve those numbers because I think there's pros and cons to smaller numbers. And so having EL sections and things like that are a little bit tough. We've seen an increase last year by 5%, which is really only a couple of students have a big impact on that overall percentage. So it's hard sometimes when you look at the percentages versus the

007actual students as individuals. So from 63% down to 33% and then back up to 38% last year. Percentage of students with two or more major referrals. When I got there, we didn't track referrals. We didn't and still don't have massive discipline concerns. And so that was a little bit of an oversight. And so that's gone up to 0.7% to 1.4, because we really have drilled down on collecting that data. Just because a student may not be in a suspension category doesn't mean going down the slide backwards doesn't matter. So we really have focused on collecting that data on major referrals. That wouldn't be a major referral for the slide, but you get the idea. And so that data is now effectively put into EduClimber and PowerSchool. And so with the increase, I'm actually impressed with

008that because now we can do something with that data and we can drill down and figure out where our areas of needs are. Our fourth grade math percentage of low risk went from 83 to 87 to 85. We've kind of been hovering. We were down 1.3% last year. We've got some things in progress for our math focus at sunset. And then first grade reading percentage went from 64 to 86, which is a massive jump, but we really do believe that the year before 21, 22, those first graders were in COVID. They weren't getting some of that direct hands-on instruction. So while that increase is awesome and great to celebrate, it's just a by-product of getting kids back in front of their teachers, I think, in the classroom. And then another 2% increase last year. It

009was nice to see some progress in that area. As we look at data for our ELs and our students with disabilities, this was an area for our ILT team in August that we wanted to focus on across the board school-wide because of this data. So percentage of proficient in ELA, which again was for third, fourth, and fifth graders was 0% for ELs and 25% for students with disabilities. Our math proficient was 18% in both of those categories. Our average daily attendance was 95%, which mirrors our school. But our daily attendance, we work closely with the CWA. We do have issues with taking vacations at certain times of the year that extend beyond the independent study. And so it's just across the board, 95 and 96% is where our school has kind of been hovering. Percentage

010of EL progressing, at least one LPAC level has been in focus, was 33% for our ELs. We had zero with students with disabilities. Two or more major referrals, the 4% for ELs and 3% for student disabilities is about double what our regular student population reflects on that data. So it is higher in those two categories. And then students at fourth grade math, low risk was 50% in both, and then 75% and 50% for reading at first grade for low risk. If you look at our suspensions, they've stayed pretty low, seven, four, and five, which is less than 1%, even down to less to a half a percent now. That percentage doesn't reflect in the number of suspensions with nine, seven, and six, but those are just the students that were suspended multiple times. So that's

011why that looks a little bit different. Our celebrations, as we look at our PBIS supports, we went from a silver award to a gold award. Primarily due to the implementation of our cost program, which is a coordination of student services, or services team. When I came to Sunset, I was used to a cost program at the high school and the middle school that was a little bit more robust and a little bit more dialed in. Now, I think four years later, it's really, really good. I don't get credit for that. That was Lisa Hannan-Danner, that was Mallory Rachel, that was Sherry Johnson and her team that really put an effort towards the elementary schools so that if we have students who are at risk and they get returned, turned into the cost program, we do

012have SSTs, we bring the nurse, we bring the CWA, we bring our Kid Connect person, we bring our school psychologist, we bring a lot of folks around the table to see what we can do to help that student that was identified as a teacher, as a concern. So that in and of itself took us from a silver to a gold award. So we're really, really pleased with the direction that our cost team is taking. Our positive behavior, social-emotional growth, I think those of you that know me, that's just the culture, the climate, the community, sharing your aloha every day with some chakras and some smiles, some high fives, some waves, being on the announcements in the morning, connecting with kids through silly dad jokes and those kinds of things I think have just really grown

013just a climate of just connectivity and people feeling like they are bigger than something than just themselves. So when the kids see me, at least I want them to feel like they can come in to my office and not be in trouble if they have concerns, they wanna make sure they can feel comfortable with that. So just that overall social-emotional growth piece where I'm trying to connect with the kids in that level has been something that we're definitely proud of at Sunset and the teachers are following and I think they were already there before I got there because they really do love their job and they enjoy their kids. So the PTO parent support and school spirit is amazing. The financial support is ridiculous and I do not take that for granted, it's not lost

014on me, but we get parents that show up for fun runners, we get parents that show up and do the valet program, we get parents that show up and volunteer in the classroom, we get bingo nights, we get movie nights, we get just a huge support from a school spirit and I feel like they appreciate being included and they definitely celebrate that elementary experience that we all know goes away when you leave and go to the secondary level because it's just hard to capture that when they get older. So we have a great amount of support and school spirit there. As I had mentioned, the IELTS, two number one priorities this year, one of them here was students with special needs, the data I went over, but our goal by May of 2025 was to

015have 50% of our students with special needs meet or exceed standards on the CASP. And so I reached out to Michel Pichette, Chris Connor, his team to see if we conclude our resource teacher and our IELTS because I feel like if you are working with the teachers at really the grassroots level on our Wednesday PD times, on our universal access intervention times, they've been invited to the data analysis protocol that Chris has been running through the math programs for fourth and fifth grade. My resource teacher knows that a lot of those students that may be struggling at the end of unit assessments are her students and so working with those teachers to try and come up with a plan to be able to help them grow is one of the things that she wanted to

016at least be part of that discussion. So I think that has paid some dividends. We obviously will see with the CASP assessments that are gonna be coming up for us in a couple of weeks, but we felt like just including everybody in that discussion was gonna be one step towards helping our SPED students really get over the hump when it comes to being at the efficient standard levels. And then our second area were ELs, which was a big concern and some people say, well, you only got 28 ELs and I feel like, yes, we can get all of them. Like we should be at 100%. And so as I went through that data, our goal is to have 50% of our ELs increase on one of the LPAC levels when we do that and work

017towards reclassification. And so I asked Stacey Carroll, who's our EL liaison, who's a fifth grade teacher, if she was comfortable getting trained in administering the LPAC. So Matt Hart and Elizabeth Freitas has worked with her. So she's gone through the training. We've had Elizabeth and her team come to Sunset in the past, which is great, but they picked the time, which has been in February. And so we decided with Stacey being able to do that, we're gonna move that to May. So we're doing that May 5th and May 6th. And through the course of her learning how the LPAC is administered and what's involved in it, our eyes were opened because I've never given the LPAC assessment. And she's like, oh my gosh, I bet 50% of our native speakers probably wouldn't even pass the

018LPAC, but she can see where they're struggling and then she can do some targeted intervention. And so we do practice LPAC tests a couple of times throughout the year already for our ELs. So they've actually been through the process. And I think through that process, they get to be a little bit of a development and a connection with Stacey. And so they know her, even though she's a fifth grade teacher, she's working with the Kinders in the first and the second and the third. So now when we do the assessment, we think maybe some of that anxiety that they might feel from who's the stranger coming in, giving me a test that I've never taken before and I know nothing about, we hope not just by default, but that is one area where we really

019feel like that might help get them a little bit more comfortable. So we will know soon when those tests are given on May 5th and May 6th. And then we do have Alexia, which we really do like. It is self-contained and we have some pairs who are helping provide individual time throughout the day where those students really can with fidelity jump on, put on their headphones, it's interactive, they're communicating, they're talking with the program and doing that with more fidelity this year than we have in the past. And so we are seeing, because we can log into that and look, we are seeing growth within our students on that program and it has been pretty successful. So we're excited about the potential outcome when we see these results from this LPAC assessment. Thank you. You're

020welcome. I have no blue cards. So, Trustee Vanden Heuvel, do you wanna begin? Sure. Thank you, Mr. Fletcher. Great presentation. You're welcome. I really like how you're honest with yourself and the data that you get. Cause it's not, sometimes you just go, hey, this is not my lived experience as a principal. And so then to look at that and go, hmm, maybe there's something we can improve there. Yeah, what would you say is maybe behind some of the decline in that student-teacher relationship rating, the panorama? Not to give you too much of an insight. I mean, and truthfully to your point, and I know we've talked a little bit about this before, I do feel like I have great relationships. So I'm like, this is the status, not right. Like kids must, they must feel

021connected to their teachers cause obviously I feel connected to my campus and everything else. Then to be like, wait a minute, I can't dismiss that. I need to talk to kids. I need to figure out what we can do. So Sherry and Matt did redo the panorama data. I do feel like there were some double negatives. I had teachers coming to me and go, kids are asking me what this means. Like they don't understand what this question means, but I can't help them cause it's a test. So I'm like, well, that's valid, but I don't want to dismiss that and be like, you don't have that connection. So with the fall data, it's closer to 80 something percent, but I'm saving that for next year so that I can, you know, there'll be in there.

022But the point is, is we still have discussions as staff to be like, how are we doing some things for student council? Are we doing friendship clubs at lunch? Are we doing things when, are we fist bumping when you come in the door? That doesn't, it doesn't solve every problem, but you know, at the LMA banquet yesterday, we jumped there and kids come in just a little fist bump sometimes gets a connection with people. So what kind of things are you doing? So we've made an effort to try and be like, oh, I don't want to assume kids are happy just because we're sunset. It's like, what can we do? And so I feel like kids walk around with a smile. I see them, they give me high fives, they give me hugs. I just

023want to make sure that when I go into the classroom, they're feeling that same rapport with their teacher and that same level of support. So as I walk through, I mean, it feels good. I don't know exactly why the numbers were what they were, but I know we can control a little bit in the future just to make sure that we are, you know, supporting kids in ways that they might need some help. Yeah. Based on the reputation of sunset, I was a little surprised to see that number like that as well. English learners, you're putting a lot of focus on that. I love that. How is the school addressing the barriers that they are experiencing beyond, you know, you're checking Lexia, you are changing the time when you're testing. What else are you thinking

024about? I feel like there's been no pushback. There hasn't been pushback. Sometimes we started discussing this earlier. It's like, I get it, we've got only 28, but we want like, why couldn't we get all 28 to move, right? Like we've got so many things on our plate. We've got 17 things that we need to complete, got this other kind of stuff. And like, then let's Stacey take the lead, right? And she, you know, I can delegate to her. And so she's a great communicator. So just what can we do to get your kids on Lexia more often? What's the time that works for you? So she's been going into grade levels with teachers and saying, when does this make the most sense? Second grade only have two BLs, right? Like when they're both in different

025classes, right? So coordinating with those teachers. And so just trying to be like, hey, is this a common goal? Like, this is what I want. Now I can tell you this is something that we need to do, but if you guys are owning it, then obviously it makes it a little bit more, you know, buy-in on their part. So you're like, no, this absolutely makes sense. We definitely want to do it. Honestly, maybe we just really haven't made it a priority in the past because ELS hasn't been our biggest population. So having that discussion early in August and them going, no, you're right, like we can do this. Like, let's celebrate this at the end of the year. So then they're not getting pushed back when Stacey comes up with different routines and ways to

026be able to, hey, I'm gonna pull your kid, when's a good time, right? Can we do it during, you know, this time of the day or whatever? So everybody's at least been on board and we've been talking about and everybody is excited to see the outcome. So I think that alone has just opened some doors to be like, hey, whatever you need to do, do it, take the kids and see what we can do. So, cause they're getting pulled out for practice assessments and things like that at times that need to be coordinated too. So, so far, at least we haven't gotten resistance. So if the results don't prove, then we just come back and be like, okay, let's do something different. Let's tap other people around the district and see what they're doing and

027see how they've had some success and see if we can implement that at sunset. I like that. I like that collaboration. Speaking of collaboration, in reading your presentation last night, I saw that there's collaboration between the teachers and the special ed teachers. What does that look like and how do you monitor that? I'm in a lot of the meetings as the resource teacher is now on ILT. So that's our instructional leadership team, right? So we have one at each grade level. So with them at the table and I'm running that ILT sessions, we're just talking openly about what, how do we use our parents? Because we have six parents because we have the learning center model. And so they're pushing into classrooms, finding time for them to be able to give one-on-one support or they're

028helping during the UA time. So it's literally just bringing her to the table, bringing the rest of the teachers to the table and they're just saying, here's all the things that we can do. So the results will come. It's not just testing. I know that's not the only thing that shows we're being successful, but that is one metric that we use. And so it's just been a little bit of a paradigm shift, I think, for folks to figure out how to use this resource model because we had a different system in the past. And so there was more pullout versus the push in and being open to having both the parents and the resource teacher come in. So it comes with collaboration. It comes with some trial and error. And I think as we get

029to the end of these test results, I can't imagine we're gonna have to zero. Right. I mean, but if so, then we won't use that as condemnation. We'll just use it as some motivation to try and get better moving forward. Yep. Thank you. Thank you so much. Keep it up. Thank you. Trustee Bueno. I appreciate the presentation. I look forward to these from all the schools. As Trustee Vanden Heuvel mentioned, that panorama, that one, I mean, I know the numbers are still relatively good, but in other presentations we've seen from other schools, that's kind of been a focal point because the connection between the adults and the kids kind of goes to the performance. Right. I'm a little concerned when you say that you feel one way, but the kids report another way, because that's

030kind of like a reflection kind of thing. Right. Why are you feeling that way, but the kids aren't? And that we kind of look, well, if the adults feel that way, will future results just be skewed so that it's more positive? Right. I don't know. My kids went to that school. I picked that school 35 years ago because of some newspaper ads and there's good API scores. Just in my opinion, it's probably the easiest school just because of the socioeconomic, lack of socioeconomic challenges. It's inherent that there's high performance there and there's a lot of parental involvement. So when you see numbers going down at a school that's otherwise not as challenging as a school that has those challenges, I'm concerned with that. Yeah. No, I share that sentiment. I mean, I could elaborate. I

031don't know if there was a question there or if you were just thinking, but I mean, I'm a relationship guy. Like I've just like written a lot that I've basically leaned on in the past and I feel like it's really positive and I don't see a lot of stress or concern or things, you know, that would necessarily say they don't feel a connection with their teacher, but I share that. Definitely think about that a lot. Is the goal realistic in the SPED sector where we have 18% and then we're gonna say we're gonna go to 50% in May, is that realistic? Or is that just a big number that we're looking at? I mean, May is next month. Right. No, I don't know if you take too big of a bite and you don't make

032the goal, then you feel like maybe you came up short. I still feel like we need to have high expectations and if we really see that the data didn't really prove out that that was achievable, then at least we may adjust that moving forward. We just talked as a team, we just felt like if that's our effort with 60 something of our kids, that's half of them. And so we just felt like it was doable, but I see your point. It's like you wanna make sure it is something that's attainable and not over the top, but we still felt like we're gonna swing for it and see what happens. Okay, so a 32% increase or 32% we're gonna go up? I guess we'll find, I mean, that was our goal. That was our goal. Okay.

033All right. Okay. Sure. A couple, I guess, well, we'll see how it goes. I've got four things. So first, I think one of the things that I wanna kind of find a nuance balance here about something like panorama data, because I assume panorama is, they do it once. In the past we did it, well, we did it in the fall and then again in the spring. Okay. Yeah. Okay, well, even still numbers don't lie, but they're a reflection of the reality of the assessment. And so if it's a cold day like today and you're coming in, you're having, that can kind of skew things. So not to say that it doesn't mean anything and that we shouldn't pay attention to it, but that I think having a balance of what are the things that you're

034experiencing and seeing and thinking, I don't want this number to overshadow the experience that you have on a day-to-day basis. So I think it's important to kind of share that with us, but that it does seem to indicate and paying attention to it is important. We're gonna have Mr. Hart come up after and explain why we moved onto the panorama and away from the core SEL as well. Okay. Yeah, just so you know. And then a couple of comments. So pulling the resource teacher into the conversations I think is a fantastic move. I think resource teachers are really connected between lots of different people. So having them at the table to participate in those conversations is probably fantastic. And then second, thirdly, I appreciate the professional learning around LPAC. I think that again, testing is

035not, LPAC can't magically look into our students' brains. There's things like stress and the interface of the student and the computer that all of those, the test can pick up those factors as well as just their knowledge of English language proficiency. So I'm pleased that you're taking those steps. I think those are gonna be beneficial for everybody. I think the real only question that I had was you had mentioned about TK's influx of TK students. And I'm just curious about space on campus. And if you wanna kind of comment, how are you, are you finding broom closets? Or what does that look like? Because I think us as a board, as TK becomes a reality, this is something that we're all gonna have to grapple with. So I would just, to the extent that you

036can, if you wanna comment on how are you making space and what does that look like for other faculty and staff? Yeah, well, we are glass half full. So we're obviously trying to make the most of any situation. Going to four TKs, I mean, 96, if we're full at 24, we could potentially stay at 20 per classroom. We might be at 80, but we do have one less second grade classroom this year. So we're going from five down to four. Figuring out where that is on campus is a little bit of strategy. So we've been talking about that with the TK team, with some of the other teachers. So we do feel like with the three classrooms we have at the bottom of the hill that have a built-in playground, each one of those have

037a bathroom. The fourth classroom, we have some spaces that are literally adjacent to a restroom. And there'll be a TK instructional assistant in there that can help when that's needed. So we feel like that's doable if we went up to five, I mean, that's another year down the road. That would be like, give me some help. But Glenn's been on campus, looking at if there's any funds that are going to be needed for some bathroom renovation or fix up. We do have some portables that were down in the bottom of our blacktop area that we could use, may not be ideal, but Sherry and I literally just walked campus again on Tuesday just to bounce some ideas off of her. And the district has been super supportive. So we're feeling like with this one, we're

038like, we're okay. We've got your duty supervision. We've got a couple that will eat, a couple that will play, and then we'll reverse, because literally opening milk cartons and things like that at four years old is a little bit tough. So we feel like we have a plan in place moving forward for 25, 26. Feeling pretty optimistic about it. And we were able to hire somebody. In the past, we've lost a grade level and then had somebody move, which they were willing to do, but it wasn't their first choice. This year, we have somebody coming in that's their first choice. They wanted the position. So there's some excitement there for that staff member. So overall, I feel really good about 25, 26. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you for your presentation. I actually enjoyed my site

039visit with you. And I saw a lot of the highlights that you were sharing firsthand, the chakras on campus. And I was happy to be able to experience your guys a talent show with the parents involved and the staff rocking out. It was really, really pleasant. So I just had a quick question though about the math proficiency. So being a part of the math task force and seeing some of the live lessons and experience one at the elementary level, I just wanted to know if you feel like the implementation that they're using at your school site, how it's been effective, because I know it's been around for a little bit of time, but with the 5% drop, I just wanted to know what happened there. Yeah. Two of our grade levels last year and this

040year with our UA time decided to focus on math versus the reading intervention, because a lot of our reading success scores have been pretty good. So the first grade team did some of that and the fifth grade team did some of that. And then the whole essential standards committee and the fifth grade approach. So Katie Johnson came to us from Granada High School. She was a math teacher, right? So she's now teaching fifth grade. So she was open and welcome to sharing some of her ideas about just the scope and sequence of how we approach certain things. If you're doing fractions, but you haven't gotten to other fundamental basis yet, maybe we should look about reversing some of that. So she sat down with Chris. So then Chris Connor met with the whole fifth grade

041team about our fifth grade, the way that they're set up right now doesn't flow as well. So we spent a lot of time this year, even just starting from just a different place and trying to build on those foundational steps. Fourth grade has come in online with the data assessment protocols now too. They're planning their units together. In the past, we haven't had all four of our fourth grade teachers planning their units together because you do have that autonomy as a teacher. So they saw the scores and they were like, we wanna see if we can at least address this together. So there's a lot more collaboration, a lot more planning and a lot more intentionality on what they're doing. So we feel like that is going to help offset some of that scores as

042we come up with this next week and a half when we do our CASP testing. So a lot more discussion around that. Yes. Well, then I'll look forward to next year's data for that. Great. Thank you. You're welcome. Just a few comments before we let you go. I had a couple of notice, many of the trustees already touched on a lot of the things that I noticed. I just wanted to ask, this was just seemed like an outlier to me is in the scoreboard data for the English learners and students with disability, the easy CBM first grade reading was at 75%. Is that for English learners? Is that because there's, I'm just like trying to figure out how they're doing so well. Is that because they're so young? I don't know. Is that a weird

043question to ask? No, it's not. It's not a weird question. I just wonder because I know, sorry. They're laughing at me back there. That's fine. I took from that. I was excited with that because then I saw some success at the younger levels. Right. And so I'm assuming that that is going to continue to carry through second, third, fourth, and fifth. And that's going to help, right? Not that, you know, the fifth graders are on there, you know, but that to me, I thought was exciting. I mean, and I've seen the work that they're doing at the end you fly coming in with the kinder and first grade, the whole Sunday phonemic awareness and all the things that we really have focused on hard after COVID. I feel like just those scores in general are

044going to help as those kids get older. Yeah. No, that was great. I was like, wow. And then also, I just wanted to echo what Trustee Druane was talking about the OPEC administration, because I know that other schools in the district have moved towards administrating that within their classes and they've seen success. So I think it'll be interesting to see how that plays out next year. Thank you. You're welcome. Yeah, go ahead. One quick question. And maybe it, you may not be able to answer it. Maybe Mr. Hard or one of the curriculum folks might be able to answer it. But I know that sometimes there's assumptions made when we look at demographics and then we look at English language learners. You know, you get a kid who might come from Ukraine. I'm not sure

045what nationality might be, what ethnicity might be. But when you look at this, I mean, we have 758 kids and only 28 of them are English language learners. Are we under identifying them? Because just demographically, how can we extrapolate that? I mean, how are we identifying English language learners? Is it self-identified or do we look at the teachers identify it? From what I understand, Matt, we'll give you a little bit more of it is self-identified because we have some of those 28 that when they were in kindergarten and they checked the box that they actually are native speaking, but they still are in that category. So I'm not sure exactly if there's another way to identify, but I'm 99% sure it's self-identified. Okay, I'm just wondering if when we compare data from one school to

046the next, because that is a challenge. It's an English language learner. Right, because it affects everything. You know, your math scores and everything else, but it's such a low number. Unlike SPED, you don't like move into it. It's like at the start, there's an initial assessment. Correct, but is it self-identified or the teachers? I mean, are we doing it the same across? Like how could that number, it's only 3.7%. It just seems like a really low number compared to all the other schools. You know, I mean, I'm just wondering if the input at whatever point that is beginning is the same or if socioeconomics has something to do with it. So families fill out a language survey when they enter school and they identify themselves as non-English speakers or English is not their first language.

047That's how it's initiated. Then we can give those students the initial LPAC, which will then determine if they are indeed English learners. But there is a gaming of the system. If you are sociopolitically, educationally savvy enough to know that if I click this box, it is going to begin that process, there are some families that know that because they've either have, I don't know, they have knowledge of that so they don't check that box. But- There's a stigma with it. Yeah, so I think that you're not wrong in thinking, wondering if there are some that slip through, but I think that it's an imperfect process for filtering for English, because again, it's based upon whether the family checks is, they essentially have to check a box that says another language is spoken at home. And

048if they do that, it begins the process. And if they don't, then it doesn't begin the process of assessing them for, if they are not, because they could check that box and then do the initial assessment. They're like, nope, you're fine. Your English proficiency is fine. So- Correct. Yeah. You're absolutely 100% correct. Then as we start to do evaluations, when we're looking at that, it would just seem like that data is skewed, like in terms of outcome, because if the input is skewed, the output will be skewed. It just doesn't, it doesn't sound like we're gonna get the same outputs in terms of achievement and conversion and things like that. It's just, I don't know, it just seems like something's off right there. And I'm not sure exactly if we can correct that or if

049there's, but 3.7% just seems really low in terms of English language learners. I mean, I'm just, in my gut, it tells me it's higher than that. But I understand that it's- But I think it goes with, I think it's, if you think of where Sunset is, and if you think of social class, right? I think that there's a link between class and education. And so I think that it is likely that there are more families that know how to manipulate, not manipulate, to use the system or to make a decision to say that we may speak some other language at home, but not enough, or we don't wanna check that. So I think that, I don't know, it's complex and imperfect. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Fletcher. You're welcome. We're gonna invite Mr. Hart to come

050down and give us a tutorial in. Oh, the panorama. Good morning. Yeah, it seems like a good time to discuss a shift that we did in our social-emotional survey over the past year. That was actually, you may not notice, is in response partially to you. In spring of last year, you had raised some questions at a nighttime meeting about the validity, I guess, of the panorama survey. And that's one we had used for years for this purpose. Your concerns paralleled some concerns that we were having behind the scenes about that assessment. One issue was that they weren't sharing all of their data with us, which was very frustrating to us because we put a high stock in those numbers and then we couldn't get out student-level data for everything, for some things but not others.

051No matter how much I pled and argued with them, they would not share that. We also had some concerns about the nature of some of the questions. Honestly, from my angle, I thought that there was a kind of bias against secondary in there. You could see the way that some questions would lead to really, I guess, more negative data than you would necessarily expect. So your concerns were largely about the size of the assessment, like it was too big, right? And also some questions about it. So anyway, all of that combined to us deciding at the end of last year, us in Ed Services, deciding to shift away from panorama to do something that gave ourselves more local control. Sherry Johnston did amazing work and was able to locate the core SEL survey. We were

052actually able to, because we had access to that through our data system, we were actually able to take that and modify it and make it even shorter and smaller, which we think increases the validity of the results. I won't go through all the little details of making sure, but basically we ran that in the fall. We're gonna run it again now in the spring in the next couple of weeks. The information that we got in the fall was very, very encouraging in terms of just feeling better about the way that the numbers were presenting and seeming like sort of more in line and also giving us actionable feedback, right? And we'll get that from the spring as well. So that did change and that changed as a result of what you were saying kind of

053in line with what we were noticing. Just wanted to let you know. Any questions? Thank you. You're welcome. Oh yeah, Dina has a question. I have a quick question, Mr. Hart. Come back, Rhett. So with the, I guess, maybe redoing a little bit of the survey, is it possible that we would move the survey to spring so that the students are there a little bit longer? May give you some more valid responses. Also like a happier time of the year. Sunshine. Close to the end of the year. Yeah, sorry. I apologize if I was unclear. We actually give it twice a year. So we give it both in the fall and in the spring. Yeah. All right, that's good. Thank you. I'm very happy in October too. So I don't know, but you're right. May

054is a really wonderful time of year. Yeah. Okay, thank you. We're gonna invite principal Marnie Angelo to come forward. She's the principal of MSC Smith Elementary School for her presentation. All right. Good morning, President Prusso, members of the board, Superintendent Gibson, cabinet and community. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to share our school's performance data and also to talk you through some of the steps that we're doing to ensure student success and growth as we continue. Oh, good grief. What did I do? There we go. Okay. Our demographics. So pretty self-explanatory. We have 648 students last year and our rising population is in our Asian section. So we went, we now have 33% of our students are Asian. So that's a very big growing population for us where white is decreasing a bit over

055time. Our English learners are still relatively low. And as you mentioned, that is self-assessment by the parents, but we do identify students throughout the year as well. If we notice that they're coming in and they're struggling with English, we will pull them aside and do some extra lessons with them during the school day. Students with disabilities remaining pretty stable around 13% and our socioeconomically disadvantages around 8%. So our dashboard's looking pretty good, not great. So we do have some room for improvement and I'll talk to you a little bit later about some of our strategies and what we plan to do going forward. We're working really closely with our CWA for chronic absenteeism. Our suspension rate is sticking around yellow. So we want to increase that and we have steps in place for that as

056well. And working really closely with our TOSAs and curriculum department to increase our scores for ELA and math. We're doing pretty well compared to schools that have similar demographics to us. Again, this has changed just recently. So, but you can see we are in the blue with rising scores and we have some green in there as well and suspensions are looking pretty good. I'll let Matt defer to him to better explain this slide to you if you have more questions. Okay, our school board's school success data. So overall we're looking pretty good. We had a dip slightly in our ELA proficiency and math is staying pretty consistent and we have really high expectations for our students and we know that there's room for growth there and we're really trying to get back on track. So

057this year we've really been focusing on how to get back on track to increase that ELA score again and even to increase our math scores. Again, something else I'll talk to you about a little bit later when we talk about our priorities. We do have designated PLC collaboration time monthly. So we're really focusing on these scores and all of our data on a monthly basis and not waiting until the end of the school year or at the beginning of the school year just to look at data one time. So it's a continuous process for us. Our school board for student progress data. So overall we're looking pretty good here. Our English learners are progressing even though our numbers are going down for English learner students, we're still managing to show some progress in those levels.

058That's also a priority I'll talk to you about a little bit later because even though they're high, there's that slight dip that we had in first grade reading which was we identified the two students that were at risk that created that dip there or not unless they created, that's not a positive word, but we have that little dip because of two students and we have really provided extra supports for them this year. So they were identified early on and then we put in a lot of supports throughout the day just to help raise their scores. So it's just like for every student, we wanna give them what they need when they need it, which is what we do during our when time, which is our universal access, what I need now time. Okay, so our

059school board data for ELs and students with disabilities. So, sorry, let me look it over really quickly. See if there's one part I wanted to speak specifically to you on. Overall, we're doing pretty well. Again, always room for improvement like I mentioned before. So when we talk about our priorities later on, I'll get into that a little bit more with them. With our students with disabilities, our learning center teachers are very active in all of our PLC meetings and not only our learning center teachers, but resource and also our instructional assistants for intervention. So they're sitting in on all those meetings when we're looking at our data and they're also helping us during that support time. So when our students are moving to their intervention for 40 minutes or 50 minutes a day, those teachers

060and paras are very involved in that as well so that we can really focus in on what the students are needing. So we're hoping to see some more improvement in these areas, because like I said, always room for improvement. But you can see we have in our English learners, we have 75% who are at low risk for math. So, but we wanna work on those 25% that still need to meet standards. Our suspension data is holding steady for the past couple of years. We're still less than 1%, but we have put some steps into place this year to hopefully decrease that going forward. So we have teen esteem that's coming in and doing presentations on social media, which is where some of these suspensions came from. So they were addressing that with our fifth graders

061and we have behavior plans in place for the students who need them. So we're hoping to really decrease that number of suspensions. We also have an extremely strong PBIS team at school, and they are reporting monthly on the data that they're collecting. And we're talking a lot about the referrals that we have and identifying the areas of needs. So if we're finding that most of them are hopping on the playground at 10 o'clock, then we're trying to really drill down and see what we can do to address that. And our PBIS team has created slideshows and videos, well, the whole staff has, we've had a lot of fun doing that, but the teachers really go through those with the students and talk about their expectations. And there's also a lot of that positive praise built

062in every single day that the students are really responsive to. Our celebrations. So I mentioned already that we have our, what I need now time, which is our 40 minutes a day where the students are shuffled around to different classrooms and the teachers are really focusing in on what the students need. We have found that we have a decrease in our numbers of students who are being identified for special ed because of the interventions that we're putting in place and really strengthening our tier one and tier two instruction within the classroom so that they don't need to receive those extra services through special ed. Our PBIS team, as I mentioned, has those monthly updates with staff and a newsletter that they share out. And we are just constantly refreshing as needed. We work really closely

063also with our yard duty staff that's there in the afternoons that we can make sure that any things that they're seeing at lunchtime that we're also addressing and practicing with our students the correct and correct modeling things during the school day to relieve some of those referrals. We have a very strong PTA monthly events and a lot of teachers that are supporting that as well because they're also parents. But we also have the ones that are not parents and they just like to be out there and really be engaged with our community. So that's been fun to see. And we just concluded our one school, one book program. Some of you remember that when I was at Croche, I brought that in and what we do is we select one title and every student in

064the school and every staff member receives the same copy of that book and we read it on a daily basis together. So the idea is for them to take it home. They read with their families. And then the following day we have lunchtime trivia and they earn prizes. The teachers were doing activities with their students. This year we read Beatrice Zinker, upside down thinker about a little girl who just thinks outside the box and how we celebrate that and we work on our friendships and being accepting of others. And there were just a lot of really fun activities and dress up days that we had for the past couple of weeks. The teachers were also recording themselves reading a chapter every night and I was pushing those out to families so that they can really

065see and identify with some of those teachers too. And they were all dressed up and having a good time. So that was a really fun time for us. Our priority number one, as I mentioned before is our emergent bilinguals. So we have 25% of our emergent bilinguals are proficient on this CASP right now and we do want to increase that by at least 10% this year. We're really looking at the data that we have. So when we're having our PLC meetings every... Well, they're supposed to be meeting every month. We have designated time within our grade levels for them to meet to look at any data that they have. And we're looking at Lexia data and making sure we're using that and using our designated ELD time during the day. We have 16 of our...

066No, let me read. 14 of our teachers that are trained in GLAD strategies and 16, surprisingly, teachers that are using GLAD strategies during the day. And one of the things that I've been doing this year is in my weekly newsletter to the teachers is I will include GLAD strategies and directions and videos for the teachers to watch so that they can then implement them in their classroom. So I think that's why we're seeing some of those teachers who are not necessarily trained, but they're using it now and building those strategies into their lessons. I know they're also being highly encouraged to register for the GLAD strategy trainings that are gonna be coming up shortly throughout the district. We also have a focus on vocabulary development. So we have slideshows that we're being created. Specifically, right

067now, we have one in math where the teachers are able to share some of that academic language with the students and they're all hearing the same thing. Again, during my peak of the week bulletin, I'm also sharing different ideas for vocabulary development that kind of go with GLAD anyway, but things like using vocabulary squares and a cognitive content dictionary, which is also a GLAD strategy. And a lot of them use word of the day for transitions. So if they're moving their students from the carpet to their desks, they might say, wait for the transition word. And that would be a word like metacognition or photosynthesis, but they're really practicing those words and learning what they mean as well. So it's the word and the definition are going together. So a lot of the teachers are

068starting to do that more often. So we noticed that vocabulary development is really important. In our Sunday program, which our teachers are using, also builds in a lot of that vocabulary development because they're talking about prefixes and suffixes and base words. So the students are learning more that way as well. Our second priority is in math. So we've been spending a lot of time focused on literacy over the past few years with our easy CBM and our wind time interventions, but now we are really pulling in time to work with math and designated math time. Our fifth grade in particular has been doing a hybrid of what I need now time. So some of the students are going to get support with literacy and some are going to get support for math. We're also very

069thankful for our curriculum department for bringing us the PLC cycles and training and unit planning protocols for how to look at that data and what interventions to use, putting together pacing guides and just working together as a team. Yesterday we met with the fourth grade for the day and it was just really exciting to see like the entire district coming together and everybody sharing their ideas and strategies for math. So there's a higher level of excitement now and they're feeling a little more confident in this area. So I'm expecting to see some improvement in the math area as well. I think that does it. Thank you. Okay, thank you. Anyone wanna go first? Trustee Bueno. Thanks. I wanna thank you for the presentation. And also I noticed that, and it's nice when you have schools

070that are relatively similar because they're in the same neighborhood. So it's sometimes it's easier to compare as we go, even though that's not the intent I look at it that way. I think your goals are realistic on your converting the emergent bilingual students proficiency level. You're going from 25% gonna try to kick it up 10%. And goals aren't dreams, they're realities. And I think that that sounds attainable and it sounds like the way you discussed it, it's attainable and that's the goal. I also find it interesting and it's not directly due maybe to Mr. Hart or in the back. And I don't know that it's a question, it's just sometimes we use, like we're changing the methodology on the panorama. And so that might affect our outcomes. But at the exact same time, two very

071similar schools that are a mile apart, one's tracking downward using that system and one's tracking upward. So I'm not sure if that makes you even more exceptional because I don't know if one's going down when the data's, when the input's changing. I don't know, something's going on there, but I think you're doing a good job. I mean, I know how long you've been at the school and it sounds like everything you're doing over there is good. The people I see in the neighborhood and seem to think you're doing a nice job over there and your numbers are good. And so I appreciate the presentation. Okay, thank you. Thank you. Trustee Capaldes. Thank you for your presentation and the good work you are doing at Smith. I enjoyed my school site visit with you as well.

072I just had a quick question. So for the English learners percentage going down, is that because they are testing out of the category or just the number of students in this population is decreasing at your school site? Oh, for the number that we have total, overall total, some of them are testing out. So when they take that LPAC, the initial one, once they're identified as an English learner and they take the LPAC, they could be considered initially fluent English, yeah, initially fluent as Mr. Gruen had mentioned. But this year, I do know going forward, like 24, 25, we now have 22 students who are identified. So we have more students that's gonna increase. Yeah, it went down for a little bit, but it'll go back up. Okay. But we also had a lot coming in

073that were strong in both languages already, which is why they're considered initially fluent. So it'll change with the school year. And then just a real quick positive feedback. I really like the win, how you named it win for your universal access time and how you guys are utilizing that. It's just awesome. What I need now is perfect. So thank you so much. Yeah, you're welcome. Thank you. Trustee Druane. Thank you for your presentation and thank you for coming and speaking to us. I know it's not a stress-free circumstance to sit in front of us, but we love hearing about what's happening in the school sites. And I just wanted to appreciate all of the, I don't know, purposeful leading into creating school culture. You take something like one school, one book, and there's finite resources.

074And so I know I, as an educator, times were like, am I gonna do this? And it's like, I don't have to do this, but doing it creates school culture. In some ways it can help fill people's buckets and be like, that was good. And they can walk away from that. So I just really appreciate those activities that you don't have to do, but that definitely contribute to school culture. And I'm sure it made people feel happy to come to school. So thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Principal Angelo. I've got a question. First of all, I love they bring teen esteem in there. That's awesome as a former teen esteem presenter. Yeah, it's very cool. I love hearing that. Question, maybe this is a question for Ms. Bichette. Is BeGlad also used on other

075sites or only? Yes. Cause I don't, yeah, I've not seen it in other presentations as much. So thank you for that. I'm gonna read up on that a little bit more. I also have not ever really seen a slide that connects a decrease in number of students with IEPs to win or to universal access. That's pretty, is that a real thing? Is that, is there a causation correlation? Is that what you're seeing? That's what we're seeing. We're seeing that, especially like the K-12 level, we don't have any students that are qualifying for special ed. And that's really because of the work that the teachers are doing within the classroom. And just being much more aware of the data because they are looking at it on a monthly basis, just to really know where their students

076are and having the resources to do something about it. So in addition to win time, they are also using a workshop model within the classroom and they're pulling in some of those extra resources to work with them as well there. We're even sharing students across grade levels too, because we're noticing some of our students who may be second graders are still struggling with some of those phonemic awareness strategies that they need to have those skills down in a first grade level. So they're going to first grade win as well. So because we have it spread out, every win time has its own specific time during the day that we can have that cross grade level support. That's really cool. I really liked that. Thank you for clarifying that. The one school one book thing, I

077love that. And yet, because of my experience in school, the elementary school especially, having some special needs and not, I'm just thinking of the students who go home and don't have anybody reading to them. I'm thinking of students who don't have parents that are there or are literate. So it could, I'm just thinking of that trivia time at lunch that it could be so discouraging for a student to be like, I don't know the book very well. So I'm thinking your teachers probably know who those students are and are able to sit with them and maybe read the book to them or so that everybody has a similar access point. Am I explaining that correctly? That's why we record the stories. So like I did the first two chapters, sent those out the night that

078they were supposed to be read at home. So I send those stories out through Blackboard. So the students receive them, the parents receive them, the teachers, all the staff members receive them. So that way they can still participate even if they don't have a parent at home to read with them. See, you're thinking it through, I love that. Thank you. Thank you so much. I appreciate all you do. Thank you. It's a pleasure. I think you answered me. Oh, sorry, I was just gonna add really quickly that the intervention piece that she's referring to, that's something that happens at a couple of our school sites. Some are doing it really, really well. Some are in the infant stages of implementation. Some don't have any of that implemented. So this is all somewhat rolled into the

079SPED work group work. There's a whole team working on this. So this is the front end of the special education piece. And this is where we begin to build the dam that we talk about once in a while when we have our own conversations around. It's not that we don't wanna provide students the services. We are always legally gonna provide them what they are entitled to. However, if we catch them younger and we provide them, it's like a strainer. And if we start plugging the holes, right, eventually the water doesn't seep through and then kids move on. But the sooner we catch them, the sooner we plug those holes, the better off we are. Now down the road, it doesn't mean that maybe they don't spring a leak here or there. And then, but now

080we have that evidence. And what happens as you go through this process is teachers then have tools in their toolbox to say, this is where this particular intervention is working for these three students, but for these two, it's not. And so then they're able during their collaboration time to sit and have those conversations with their colleagues to say, I'm really struggling with Tori and Kayla. They're just, this isn't working. What have you tried? And then they start collaborating. And as you go through that process, and it's usually about a six week-ish cycle, and it eventually doesn't work. Usually, as you go through two or three rounds of that, you usually can find things that work. Sometimes it's as simple as they need glasses. I've had students in the past who we had no idea needed

081hearing aids. I mean, you name it, but through that process, that's what we learned about our students. And so, and then as they go through that, if you've gone through that cycle three or four times and it's just still not working, that's when they get referred over to the other side of the house, which then becomes the initial assessment for a possible IEP. Usually if the process is done correctly, even if parents are still wanting that done, 99% of kids don't qualify because we've already shored up these other pieces for them. And then the kids who do get tested 100% qualify, and then we have a much clearer picture as to why, if that helps at all. Okay, good. I think if I could just jump in, though, I think that that's built upon the

082philosophical assumption that all kids are our kids. And I think that this, I won't, I don't think I can pin it all on Mr. Connor, but he's the one that coined the phrase of that implementation and convincing people that, because you could look at a student and be like, they have too many challenges for me, they belong in special education, as opposed to what, as was saying, what are some of those strategies that I can use to try to fill the sieve or to keep them here? So, and I think it's rooted in a philosophical assumption of convincing teachers, staff, and everybody that all kids are our kids, that we wanna keep them here as long as possible. I think it's that, and I think the other side of that is that they are all

083our kids and that all kids will and can learn, is another really key component as well, that our staff truly, I think, believes in and we're making that progress. To me, it seems like the universal access time or the what I need now, which I do also like how you say that, because it almost is like an individual education plan for all students. So, hence the need, the no longer need for an IEP as if we're already educating them at an individual level. My question was gonna be, are there kids that go across grades? And it sounds like there are, and I think that's wonderful, whether it's going up or down, whatever their needs are. I think that's great. And then the only other comment I have too was about the one book, one school.

084I really love that idea. I love to read and I feel like I learn a lot from reading and reading with other people is just also great and learning to read, or sorry, not learning to read, but learning things and then be able to discuss it. It's just a great way to learn. So, thank you so much. Yeah, thank you. Okay. We're gonna move on to our final school presentation and invite Ms. Kristi Starcovich, the principal of Lawrence Elementary School to come up with her presentation. Can you hear me? Okay. Good morning, board president Pruso, members of the board, superintendent Gibson, cabinet and community. It is my pleasure to share with you today Lawrence Elementary's accomplishments and areas for growth. Before I start out though, I really want to recognize that I wanna just thank

085the Lawrence Elementary team of students, staff and parents, because in just a moment, you're gonna see some accomplishments and it's their dedication that has enabled us to make this happen. I am a firm believer in it takes a team and we have created an amazing team at Lawrence over the last eight years. The school opened a little over eight years ago. We had to have an identity and I'm just very proud of the school community that we've created and these accomplishments that you're seeing would not be without it being a team. Okay. Our demographics are very diverse. We're close to 500 students, which if you were here when we started eight years ago is growing, we were in the twos and threes the first few months that it opened up to 300. We are adding

086a TK class next year. So we will push that mark over the 500 mark. Seven, approximately 7% of our students are English learners, 8% students with disabilities and 25% socially economically disadvantaged. Looking at the California dashboard, we were pleased with our results. We maintained in the blue for academics with math and English language arts, also maintained in green for suspension, which was an area for growth two years ago. And we were in the yellow for chronic absenteeism. And in just a moment, you'll hear how we have been addressing this and we went to green. So we had growth on our dashboard. When looking at the comparative schools, schools that are in the same demographics and same similarities as Lawrence, we are doing as well and in some cases better than those schools. Our scoreboard for

087success. We maintained an ELA on the cast, which at 77%, which we were happy with. We know there's room for growth there. We celebrate and have been celebrating all year our growth in math from 72% to 79%. We attribute to just developing those math skills, working a lot of our teachers have done some backward design. So they've shared, but we also did during our, we also call it wind time. So during our wind time, we did focus on some math groups last year. And as you'll hear later, our school is very data-driven looking at data. So one of our school wide goals was to increase our math proficiency last year. And I'll speak more to that. We're very proud of that growth that we made in math last year on the CASP. Our attendance went

088up a little bit, which you'll also hear more about. And then here, the panorama data, that was also an area of focus for Lawrence because at one point we were in the 60s also, and it was alarming to our staff. So we talked about how, first of all, the validity of that assessment, and then also, well, what can we do? We started Mystery Teacher Tuesdays a couple years ago. So it's the first 15 minutes of a Tuesday. The students open their door and they have another staff member teacher in their classroom that greets them so that they can get to know each other from kindergarten to fifth grade, building those connections. We also started doing shout outs. And then of course, just some more of our leadership opportunities at schools. We have staff members that

089are working with all age levels, not just their grade levels. Our scoreboard student progress, for those that were here last year, I spoke about LPAC and how we realized that we needed growth in that area. And I'm happy to report we increased 15%. However, we also will continue to focus on this because we know it is an area for growth. And our staff looked at the LPAC assessment last year and this year and how it's worded and also commented. I met with a first grade teacher and she commented on some of her English-only students probably would not be able to pass this assessment. And I said, well, that's where we're going to just continue to grow. And so they've tailored their designated ELD. Our student referrals, two or more major referrals, we categorize those as

090the office referrals or the behavior slips because we have a behavior slip that aligns with our PBIS. So if a student gets a behavior slip, it's an opportunity for growth, but the major ones are the ones that actually come to me. So the minors are handled in the classroom. It's a triplicate form. So teachers do turn in the form so that I can put it in our power school system, which also goes to illuminate. So we can track those minors, but the majors are the students that are seen in my office. And you can see we have a declining trend there, which you feel when you're on our campus. I would say more students. No, I'm not saying, I know for every 30 students that come to the office, probably one or two need a

091little pep talk from me about their behavior. And the other 28 are coming to share a project that they want to start, seeing if the therapy dog is in, wanting to play UNO during lunch, building Lego sets. So that's just an area that we're proud of at Lawrence. And then our EZCBM data for math for fourth grade, another great accomplishment. We were at 94.9% of our students at low risk and first grade for reading at 89.1%. This is the slide I think we should all focus on for our areas for growth, because we know all schools have them. And this data is, I wouldn't say disappointing. It's just something that needs to be looked at. And that is that 20% of our English learners were proficient in ELA on the CASC test last year, and

09210% were proficient in math. When looking at those numbers, it's 10 students in third through fifth grade that took that test. This is not an excuse, but just giving you some background. Of those 10%, four of them were newcomers to the United States. And two, it was their second year in the United States. So we're still building that English language. And then our students with disabilities at 57% being proficient. I would like to note down where it says two or more major referrals though, those low percentages. So that shows you that our English language learners and our students with disabilities are feeling connected to the school, are feeling part of the community and are making great role model choices. And 90% of our fourth grade students with disabilities demonstrated low risk in math on the

093EZCBM. Our suspension rates have gone down as to what I spoke to earlier. I also want to recognize because it's not in my PowerPoint slides, that we are one of the elementary schools who has a wellness center, or as we call it, our wellness lab, because we're the Labradors. And we are fortunate to have a full-time counselor on campus and a counselor intern three days a week. And so they have seen over 500 students with check-ins. There's also small group counseling sessions have been focused around self-esteem, being proactive when calming strategies, one-on-one counseling sessions. And all of those referrals and groups come through the cost process, the coordinated services team process. And so that could also be having an impact. Now our celebrations. Just recently, Lawrence Elementary was recognized as the 2025 California Distinguished School.

094In the past, this has been an accomplishment based on a reapply for the recognition. This year, one of our colleagues emailed me and said, congratulations. And it was at 6.30 at night. And I didn't know what she was talking about because the state superintendent sent the email out at 5.05 to the state. And then we did receive something, I think, the next day. So as you can imagine, we had our leadership day two days later, I believe, or the next day. So we celebrated that honor. We've also, we're a leader in the school based on Stephen Covington's seven habits, as everyone knows, when the school opened eight years ago because we do not have many students enrolled at our school based on their address. It was a big priority of our school community, our school

095board, our leadership, that we find an identity of what is going to drive people to come from all over Livermore to Lawrence Elementary on Portola. And so for six years, we've been working hard at getting this recognition as a leader in me, what they call a lighthouse school. And it's based around culture, academics, and learning. There's a rubric, it's 30 pages, self-assessment, and we were far from it when we started. So we got that honor in June, right after school got out last year. And then this year, when our state test scores came out, leader in me reached out with this academic honor roll. So we are a leader in me academic honor roll, lighthouse school, and that's just based on our academic scores from the CASP test. And then we are consistently at a

096silver for California PBIS. Now let's look at what we're doing for our goals and areas of growth. The professional learning communities have been a major area of focus and they tie into the stakeholders or the subgroups that you saw earlier that have room for growth, but they also tie into our students who are far exceeding grade level standards. So our school is very consistent and it's a priority for us to look at data throughout the year. We look at data at the beginning of the year and our students know that the district has their LCFF goals and that the school site has the CPSA goals. And from there, we do grade level goals and classroom goals and student goals. And so the students set their own goals. They set what we call WIGS, wildly important

097goals monthly, and they are determining along with the teacher what they need during their wind time. Some students are pulled out into small groups. Some students are working with pairs in the classroom, but they set their goal. And then we use Mobimax in many cases to progress monitor and then other assessments, how they're doing. Once they set their goal, let's say they set their goal on reading fluency, then they're gonna work with the teacher and other members of their classroom to determine what we call lead measures. What strategies are they gonna practice daily, weekly, during that wind time, possibly at home, to help them meet their goal? So maybe it's practicing sight words, depending on the grade level, or it's just reading fluently with partner reading. And then they do a scoreboard. So just like

098we would if we wanted to exercise and meet our goals, like check it off. Did I go to the gym today? Did I drink my water? So they determine their lead matters. They check off on their scoreboard whether or not they did their lead measures, and then they meet with their accountability partners to see if they've reached their goals. All classrooms have then a scoreboard in their classroom to show how the student's growth contributes to the classroom growth, what ultimately contributes to the grade level growth. And we track that outside. So the PLC is obviously the what I need time. Our staff are working with students who need more tailored instruction. And those are identified during the PLCs and our collaboration meetings and students can be enter or leave throughout the year or throughout the

099sessions too. And then the second priority that we have is average daily attendance, because we know that positive attendance equals a greater connection, as we've talked about today, to school, which equals greater outcomes in academic, social, emotional, and just the overall well-being of students. We were around 95, 96 before the pandemic, then we dipped super low after the pandemic in 92% for our ADA. And so this past year, we decided that we were gonna try to reach our goal from 95.18 to 96%, which doesn't seem like much, but we've done a lot this year and we're just barely making progress on that. So we recognize students for perfect attendance each month, we recognize also that some students, it's beyond their control, whether or not they can get to school on time or get to school.

100So I've worked closely with the CWA and the families. We have, I have gotten kids to school, just picked them up, brought them to school, said, where are you at? And so we do that. And then when the students do show growth and we're working on it, cause that could also be one of their personal goals for their wildly important goals is their attendance. Then we recognize that with a special award or a lot of times I like to send it in the mail because students don't get mail nowadays. So I'll send them a little, hey, great job. I noticed that your attendance, you have an improved attendance. And then another big thing for us, I think that Mr. Fletcher mentioned was the traveling outside of the United States during the school year. So at

101the beginning, we had a very big initiative like initiative to make sure our parents understood what independent study contracts were and how many days students could have. So at back to school night, the teachers presented a slide on independent study contracts. And if they were traveling out of the country, if a family was traveling out of the country that they could get the work. And that counts towards the students ADA and also for our school site. And as of yesterday, we had 485 days of independent study. I had Rebecca give me the data. It's a lot of work on the teachers when we recognize that. But it's, and one teacher had 14 students with an independent study contract. We stick to the guidelines of they have to complete the work or it doesn't count. And

102if they don't, then they try to turn one in again. They've already not met the guidelines, but we've really just focused on that. And sometimes just by sharing the independent study contract language with parents, they realize it's important for them to be at school and they don't take the independent study contract and they'll rearrange their schedules. We also had, well, and so this year we've had six of our eight months have had improved attendance rates from last year to this year. So we get a spreadsheet every month front end. So we're in the green for six of the eight months. We're currently at 95.33% for our average daily attendance. So we're not at 96, but we're not at 95.18. And we also had students decide, fifth grade students decide they wanted to start an emotional

103support buddy system because we had one student who was having a hard time in kindergarten coming to class. And so I connected her with a fifth grader just because we happened to be in the same meeting at the time. And so that fifth grader right at the beginning of the day drops her backpack off, checks in with the kindergartner, gives her a high five. Sometimes she'll sit and listen to the morning announcements with the student and then goes right back to class. So when one student found out that this fifth grader was doing it more, third, fourth and fifth graders wanted to do it. So this was a student led, this is an example of our leadership, a student led process where applications were turned in, the fifth graders interviewed third, fourth and fifth grade

104students. So they now have a list of students that they've hired. I have a list of students recommended from adults because as I tried to explain to the fifth graders that every student on campus is going to want a fifth grade buddy. And so through the cost process or just noticing that students are going to the wellness lab often, we have now linked up third, fourth and fifth graders with younger students or fifth graders with third graders. And there was something else I was gonna say about that. Oh, one of the requirements, which is when the fifth graders interviewed the students, they had their list that they came to me. So then we pulled up the students that they hired and looked at those students' attendance. And there was three of them that their attendance

105was in the 80%. So then I had a discussion was, we'll put them at the bottom of the list because they need to be here too, but also their buddy is going to rely on this emotional, this older student. And so if their attendance is inconsistent, we don't wanna make sure we link, least likely to link them up to kind of show the importance of attendance too for those students. Questions, discussions? Trustee Capaldes? I like that I get to go first, particularly because of my questions kept getting asked. Thank you for your presentation. Again, I enjoyed my school site visit with you and in particularly a leadership day. I'm so glad I got to attend because I got to hear from students at that time that they love their school. It was interesting to me

106to hear from the fifth graders to say that they're sad that they have to leave Lawrence. So your guys are doing great things. Congratulations on your school awards and your statewide recognitions. I love that you guys let the students set their own goals and have the accountability with their peers for that. I love that they hang up their goals. I saw that your wall of the goals and that they are achieving them. I love that you recognize the students for their attendance monthly, if it is their goal or just recognition in the mail. Some students don't get recognition maybe academically, but I like that they're able to get recognition for attendance. So that's huge. The school buddies is awesome. I think little kids love having an older person on campus. That's their go-to. I think

107that's really special. And aside from that, I just wanted to recognize also the big jump in your math, CASPOR 7%, that's a big deal. And I think that's it. I didn't really have any questions other than that. So thank you for the work you're doing over there. Thank you. Thanks for your support. Trustee Guido. Yeah, thank you. Thanks for the presentation and thanks for the reminder of how fast time flies. I remember when we opened that school mid-year as kind of a lifeboat to some kids that were in a bad way. So I think in building the enrollment, I think it's like about almost a 50% increase in enrollment since we opened that school, no small challenge. And then also a nice job, and I won't belabor the whole point because we've already kind of

108clarified it, but your panorama scores are tracking upward. The connection between teachers and kids are tracking upward as were with Smith. So it's interesting that like data. So nice job on that. And then also thanks for clarifying and bringing out that the days of remote study, because that's kind of interesting. Could you just maybe touch on, is there any financial implications on ADA or do we maintain ADA? Yes. For our district? Independent studies. On the independent study. You know, when you're having the kids out and they're, you said you had 485 days of remote study. Rather than those being unexcused absences because those independent study days are typically for vacations. They're not the typical excused absences, like a death in the family or illness. Rather than those 485 days being counted for our district as

109unexcused absences, they are now considered like excused absences. Present ADA, we get funding for those. Correct. So the public understands the importance of maintaining that connection and doing the work and the due diligence by the teachers and having them do, it's a lot of work, but we maintain the ADA. And you said, you know, a lot of parents would opt to just, well, we'll rearrange our things and leave our kids in school. But it does take a lot of work on behalf of teachers to accomplish that. And that's where you have what I said earlier, and I meant it, our team is just, it's just developing even more. And so it's recognizing the teachers that yes, it is a lot of hard work and we realize it's extra and we appreciate it and how it

110ultimately is impacting our students, our families, our district. You know, it's always nice when you do something and you realize the impact it's having. And so I think our staff realizing the impact it's having makes it, I wouldn't say easier, but it's of importance even more for going above and beyond. I appreciate you bringing that up. It's something that they have to do, but like, yeah. And that's why I appreciate you bringing it up. It's good for kids because they're maintaining the education level. It's difficult on teachers, but the teachers are doing what's right for children and everyone benefits, including the district on the ADA. So it's a full circle and it hadn't been brought up before. So thank you. Thank you, Principal Starcovich. Thanks for your presentation. Congratulations on all the accolades, so good.

111And yeah, your team is awesome. I also was struck with comparing your school to other schools in the district that you have a relatively pretty large population of social economically disadvantaged students, which should on paper translate into lower scores, lower everything. And instead you're just plowing through so that even more, I think, underlines the success of your team. Thank you. And how well they work. And that's why I also love your goal of improving the ADA because I think with social economically disadvantaged population, there's more of a margin there to help grow that. So I really love it. And I guess we have to kind of re-look at that because sometimes we do look at schools and we go, well, one in four of their students falls in that social economically disadvantaged group. So we

112understand the math scores or we understand that. No, Lawrence is trying to break that a little bit. Comes back to Dr. Gibson said of every student can learn. And that's just an example right there. I really love that. What would you say if somebody were to pinpoint you down? The news came to, ABC News came and says, what would you say are some of the reasons why your math scores have ticked up 7%? Well, when we were fortunate to need to have an identity and for the district to train our staff in the leader in me framework, it's there for us. So it's principles that all schools can use. It's principles that adults can use, but we don't have to reinvent the wheel. So it's there. So I would say that is in my 29

113years of education. And if you talk to our staff, they'll say, it's because of the framework of the leader in me and really teaching adults to look at data more deeply, students to know where they're at. And so our math was part of our goal last year and the wind time and the students personal goals were related around math. So every day they were trying to work cause we have that designated time. They were working towards meeting their goals. So I would attribute it a lot to the wind time and just the framework that we have with, it's called the 4DX process by Franklin Covey. Oh yeah, yeah. 4DX. So the students know the 4DX process by Franklin Covey and it's implemented consistently. We miss Morgan who teaches TK has told a story about a

114transitional kindergarten student who is helping his little brother. So we're talking three-year-old set a wildly important goal and what lead measures the student needs to use and what the celebration is gonna be and told the parent, I got it. So that was our story of the week. That is super cool. Thank you to please let your team know. Congratulations. I absolutely will, thank you. I'm a slightly bird walk to a compliment to you and your team. So at Stan State University, the past couple Saturdays, I've helped not just me, a couple of my colleagues who've been doing a pedagogy of innovation certificate that was federally funded to support teachers and innovating, learning how to innovate themselves, their classroom, their school and their community. And the lead, the session that I was leading was on innovating

115your school. And in talking about using data and talking, like I remember walking past the board and math being the focus for your school community and the data was not driving everything, but kind of like glad it was infused in everything. And so I specifically called out Lawrence and the work that you're doing as part of that, of ways of innovating schools to try to lead to success. So I'm not surprised, but I think that going on Lawrence, you can feel the culture. But again, that's not just culture to feel good. It's culture to both feel good, but also, reach those goals that you set for yourself. So congratulations and thanks for coming in and speaking to us. Thank you. Okay. I'm gonna keep this short, but I just wanted to say that, to please,

116as already my colleagues have said, to go back to your school and just thank you to the staff. The culture at Lawrence is amazing. I've experienced it when I've been on campus. My nieces are at school there and my daughter is doing her community service there this year as a senior. She's in a kindergarten class and she has really enjoyed it. And it's been really fun for me to hear about her days. And I got to go, they did a little birthday celebration for her for her 18th birthday. That was really fun. But there are so many great things that you're doing. Just a couple of highlights, things that I'd like to highlight that I think could be helpful in other schools in our district is the Mystery Teacher Tuesdays. What a great idea and

117a great way for teachers to get to know all the students on campus. And then also your buddy system. I mean, so great that that was student driven and came from the students. Of course it's going to work when it comes from the students. So thank you so much for your presentation for all three of you. I know this is not easy. You did great. Thank you very much. And we're gonna take a short break. I've been requested, not by me, by someone else for a bathroom break. It's definitely not me. Are we good? Are we're on? Okay, we're gonna move on to our second agenda item. And I'm going to turn the time over to Ms. Kayla Wasley to explain that one. Yes, I will actually be requesting that we table this item until

118our May 6th board meeting. Part of the reason that we brought it to our special meeting is that our pricing was only guaranteed through April 30th. We've now been able to secure the pricing through May 1st. And we received, sorry, May 6th, through our May 6th board meeting. And then we received some additional information from our legal that when we use our CMAS contracts, we really should have a contract for the contract. And so we're right now working on the terms of that secondary contract. And so I would like to include that with the final documents that we bring forward on May 6th. All right. Thank you. So with that, we will adjourn to our closed session. We will end this meeting at 11, 16 a.m. Do we come back out here? Oh, nevermind. We're

119not adjourning this meeting. We're just adjourning the closed session. Because you have to come back out and report out. Are we on? Okay. Are we good? Okay. Thank you. We are coming back in from closed session at 12, 03 p.m. And we have nothing to report from closed session. And so we will now adjourn our meeting just as an information. The next regularly scheduled board meeting will be held Tuesday, May 6th here at the district office. Open session will begin at 7 p.m. And this meeting is now adjourned at 12, 03 p.m.