May 14 , 2026 - 1:00pm Charter School Committee

001Good afternoon everyone. I want to welcome you all to today's final charter school committee meeting for the 2526 school year. Over the course of this year, this committee has continued important conversations around charter oversight, accountability, student outcomes, facilities innovation, uh the broader role of charter schools play in our public education and also highlighting the wonderful work that um some of our high charter schools are conducting. So this it has been um a very fruitful and um informative uh charter committee. And I also want to thank the charter schools division for working with our office as we said um presentations um scheduling the presentations and also my colleagues uh Miss Tanya Franklin who is joining us remotely there she is um and also for our my other colleague uh Miss Handy Newell uh for also working

002in in highlighting some charter schools in their board districts as well. also are very appreciative of the collaboration. Uh today's agenda gives us an opportunity to reflect both on operational planning and on promising practices. We have two charter schools that we're highlighting today. We will begin with an update on the charter schools division on the 2627 Proposition 39 collocation cycle and an overview of the upcoming charter renewals. We will also hear from two charter school spotlights, ISF View Park Preparatory High School and Alliance Judy Ivy Burton Tech Technology Academy High School. These presentations provide an opportunity to learn more about arts education, community school strategy, student supports, and the work uh charter schools are doing to create strong learning environments for students and families that they serve. Uh so we'll start right ahead with our

003first presentation. Uh we have the status update on 2627 Prop 39 cycle collocation process and the overview of upcoming renewals. We have Miss uh Mara Wilmont here, the director of the charter schools division who will be presenting this alongside um um >> Dan Wong. >> Yeah, >> Dan Wong. Okay, wonderful. So, thank you both for being here and floor is yours. Thank you. >> Perfect. Thank you. Daniel for stepping in. Unfortunately, there was a last minute emergency for Janette Bordon. We wish her well, but um thank you so much for Daniel and I'll turn it over to him. >> Thank you, Marl. >> Uh good afternoon, Dr. Rivas. Uh committee members, my name is Daniel Hong. I am one of the operations coordinators in the charter schools division and and I'll be providing a brief

004update on the Prop 39 cycle for the 2627 school year. Clicker. Oh, okay. Okay. So, this first slide uh provides a uh an overview of the Prop 39 timeline, which is set by the state regulations. So, I'll kind of go through them. Um charter schools that are interested in being colllocated on a district campus in the upcoming school year must submit a legally sufficient Prop 39 facilities request to the district by November 1st. that uh that request among other things must include the geographic area in which the charter school wishes to locate and reasonable projections of the charter school's average daily attendance or ADA uh which is the basis for the Prop 39 facilities allocation. Then by December 1st, the district responds to the charter school's ADA projection either accepting or objecting to the projection.

005Uh if the district disagrees with the charter school's uh ADA projection, the the December one letter would include an ADA projection that the district considered reasonable. And then by January 2nd, the charter school has an opportunity to respond to the district's counterp projection and to any objections expressed by the district in its December 1 response. And then by March 1st, the charter school has an opportunity to respond to the preliminary proposal with any questions or uh feedback regarding regarding the process. And then on April 1st, LUSD issues final offers of space to charter schools. Charter schools then have until May 1st to either accept or reject the final offer. If the charter school accepts the final offer, the charter school is then able to occupy the site 10 working days prior to its first day

006of instruction. Okay. Slide. Okay. So, the space allocation process. Uh throughout the space allocation process, uh charter schools division collaborates with other district divisions and region offices to review the status of each facilities request. Uh this involves a review of district space inventory and recommend recommendations for space allocations. Additionally, prior to the issuance of final offers, regions select the spe spe spe spe spe spe spe spe spe spe spe spe spe spe spe spe spe spe spe spe specific spaces to be offered to charter schools and also assess any campus rec reconigurations if necessary. Uh regions also weigh in on the assessment of possible alternative agreement concepts which I'll explain a little bit more about later. and then regions along with the CSD communicate with respective board member offices and school communities as appropriate uh

007directed by each region. Okay, so here's uh status update of the program as of May 1st. Um, out of the 37 facilities requests received for the 2627 school year, uh, two charter schools withdrew their facilities request, four were ineligible, two declined their final offer, uh, one did not respond to the final offer, and nine ended up accepting the final offer. Uh, there are also 19 charter schools that entered into alternative agreements with the district. Now uh for your understanding, alternative agreements happen when the district and charter school both agree to step outside of the normal regulatory process and agree to a space arrangement that is mutually beneficial to both the district and the charter school. So uh the total number of charter schools that will be colllocated in the 26 26 27 school year as

008of today is 28. Okay. So, here's a breakdown of uh the number of charter schools and collocations for the 26 27th school year by board, district, and region. Um, now you'll see when you're looking at the table, you'll see that the the number of charter schools is different in the board district table as compared to the the region table. And that's because um there's one charter school that could not be accommodated on a single site. And it's so it's it's accommodated on two sites that span across two different regions uh two different board districts and that's why you see a 29 there and then a 28 in the region table. Okay. Uh for the 262 27th school year, there will be no new collocations and of the existing collocations 17 will remain in the existing

009space that they're currently in. So no change. Uh 10 will be growing in space and then six uh will be reducing in space. And then there are also five charter schools that could not be accommodated on a single site like the one I explained earlier. and as a result will occupy multiple school sites and additional alternative agreement concepts continue to be assessed. Okay, so this slide uh kind of just shows the number of facilities requests and collocations have substantially decreased over time. Um with a peak of 101 in 20 I think it's 1718 and then coming down to 37 this or for this upcoming school year uh with 72 collocations at its peak and with 33 uh expected for the 267 26 27th school year. Okay. So, in May and continuing through the summer, uh

010CSD staff supports regions in communicating with the district principles regarding next steps in the collocation process. uh staff will prepare the campuses for charter school occupancy and the district will host an operations meeting on 20 uh May 21st for colllocated district and charter administrators uh which will include information on district policies that are applicable to charter schools best practices for a successful collocation shared use agreement negotiations operational planning for the new school year and safe school plan integration uh and as I mentioned before charter schools that accepted a final offer or executed an alternative agreement will be granted access to the site uh 10 business days prior to the charter school's first day of instruction. Okay. Overallocation. Uh so overallocation is when uh a charter school is overallocated more space in a particular school year

011than its actual ADA supports. Um now if a charter school is overallocated the state regulations provide a mechanism uh for the district to collect reimbursement um for the overallocated space. Um to date over 12.6 million of overallocation reimbursements have been directed back to 71 district host sites. All active charter schools are current on payments for the 2425 school year. 12 charter schools were determined to be overallocated and the district will issue invoices no later than August 15th to charter schools that were overallocated in the 2526 school year. >> Okay. Uh so that concludes my update. Um and I'll be happy to answer any questions you may have. We'll go ahead and see um look at the other um presentation on renewals and then we'll ask some questions. That's okay. >> Great. Thank you. Good afternoon

012everyone. Um and good afternoon members of the charter committee. I'm Mara Wilmont. I'm the director of the charter schools division and I'm here to talk about charter school uh renewals. So this uh we'll first talk about the recap of this year. Uh we had a total of 69 charter schools uh renewals submitted in 2526 which was 61 independent and eight affiliated. And then as you can see by the board meeting date when they went for action the independent and affiliated. And so we will be winding up um the last June board meeting with four affiliated renewals. Now we'll look at uh forecast of the future. And so we from 2526 to 20 3031. Um as you can see we are uh for next year we're looking at 83 total renewals. We'll get more in the

013details of those and further slides. Um and then 2728 we have uh 57 looking at and then 2829 at this time it's projected for zero and then 2930 31 303 31 I do want to note this is a result of the um extensions that were given during the pandemic. So I this numbers are subject to change depending on potential charter school closures or for example in 2829 if we have a renewal um in 26 27 next year let's say for a low performing school and they get two years then they would be coming up for renewal in 28 29. So right now that's as it stands our projected numbers but as I said this could change depending on different factors and so we'll talk about the timeline. So as we know um once a charter

014school petition is submitted for review we need to have a public hearing within 60 days uh that considers the level of support. Then within 90 days we need a public hearing that we call it public hearing in action which can either grant or deny the renewal petition. And also there could be a mutual agreement signed to extend these date to extend the 90-day date by additional 30 days. And so let's go over the criteria. Okay, so we have criterion 1, criterion 2, and criterion 3. So we'll start with criterion one. This is all established by ed code. And criterion one um is looking at there's three parts to criterion one. You have sound educational program, reasonably comprehensive description of 15 elements and affirmations and then not dram. called it's a double negative but not dramatly

015unlikely to successfully implement the program which means it should be dramatly likely to implement the program if it was a recommendation for approval. So some examples for criterion one um we look at the charting school governing board members and staff uh and to make sure they successfully implement a program address deficiencies demonstrated capacity to do so in the future. And this is really based on past performance and we look at the uh there's four key areas that we look at and that's governance student achievement educational performance organ and organizational management operation programs and operations. So it's government's academics uh organizational management and fiscal and so I want to note that those are also the four areas that we assess on an annual basis as part of oversight. Okay. And that's essentially the assessment of criterion

016one. Um, including but not limited to criterion two. I'll get more into this later, but this is really based on the performance categories of high, middle, and low. And I said, I'll break that down more in later slides. And then we have criterion three. And this looks at discriminatory practices in enrollment and dismissal, meaning they're not serving all students who wish to attend, and substantial governance and/or fiscal fast factors. And these can include substantial fiscal factors could include fiscal solveny, mismanagement of funds, cash flow concerns. Those are just some examples. And some when you talk about substantial governance concern um it could include issues around um retention of fact faculty which would which ends up disrupting the educational program conflicts of interest or violations of Brown Act. That is just uh some small some a

017few examples of what substantial governance could look like. I do want to note when we're making a criterion three finding, we do have to um prior to making a nonrenewal determination using this criterion, we do need to provide notice to the charter school. So we need to provide at least 30 days notice of the alleged violation and then provide an opportunity to cure um and including their the providing the charter school to give us a proposed correction plan. Um then after providing this notice we have to assess it and we still may deny if one we determine the corrective action plan proposed by the charter school has been unsuccessful or two the violations were so severe or pervasive to pervasive that the we render the correction action plan unviable. Um so that's an important part

018of criterion three that notice. Um, and we call those notice of alleged violations when they're issued prior to um re uh any time we're going to potentially consider this as a finding. Other uh other things I want to note around charter renewals, they are governed by law, specifically ed code 47605. um we must consider the charter school's performance on the California school dashboard including comparison to the state and then we'll talk about the um mi high middle and low. So on an annual basis charter schools are given a performance category of high middle or low or low assigned by the state. If a school is not identified as low or high, then it's placed in the middle performance category. And I'll get into this in more detail in further further slides, but a high-erforming school

019is considered a presumptive presumptive approval and it be can be considered for an approval recommendation for a five, six, sevenyear term. And we'll get more in specific that later. Low performing schools are considered a presumptive denial and if it is recommended for approval it can only be for 2-year term. Middle performing schools if recommended for approval it's for five years only. There is no allowability to offer a different term length for a middle performing school. So it's either five years or of course a non potential nonrenewal. So, in looking ahead at our charter school renewals for the 2627 school year, as I said, we have 83 total with 76 independent and 70 I'm sorry, and seven affiliated. And this is the summary uh based on we call it the 2026 performance categories. So, that's the

020mo the most recent performance categories that were released January 2026. We have 12 high-erforming, one low performing and 70 middle performing. In the high-erforming, eight are independent and four are affiliated. The one low performing is an independent charter school. And in middle performing category, we have 67 independent and three affiliated. I do want to note uh per state law, the 2026 dashboard data will be released October 15th. and moving forward that will be the release date. So most likely the state will release performance categories because they're it's based on the dashboard data which I'll talk about in a little bit but they'll release new performance categories in and probably around December or January. Uh this last year it was released in they were released in January. So let's talk about high performing schools. As I

021said, it's a presumptive approval. And how does a school become a high-erforming school? Well, there's two two ways basically. Either the school is blue and green across all the state indicators. And we're looking and they look at the prior two years. And when I say all indicators, this includes um non-academic indicators such as chronic absenteeism and suspension rates. So if a school is blue or green across the board for two years, they can be a high performing. We call that high performing one. Um and then the second way that you can potentially be considered for high per as a high performing school is you're looking just at the academic indicators and they're same or higher than the state average for the majority of student groups. Um I will note the academic indicators uh for student

022for schools that serve K8 are ELA math science and English learner progress indicator which we also call LP. Uh for high school it's the same ELA math science LP and then we also have college and career indicator also called CCI. And so that's and as I said we can consider a recommendation for a five, six or sevenyear term. And so this is our current and I want to emphasize current consideration sheet for high-erforming schools. Uh we develop this to and it is on our website for transparency. So when we're looking at a high performing school, what kind of things do we want to consider if we want to recommend a six or a sevenyear term? And so some of the things that we look at is we want to make sure we look at the

023oversight scores for the past two years, any notices that were issued, current benchmarks and student group performance, equity and access, school culture and climate. I do want to note we are this is under review. Um so we last year we did take a look at it and since we had only utilized it one year we decided to move forward and continue to implement it. Um but we are cons we are looking at potential updates to this criteria sheet and I'll give you an example potentially instead of we are seeing that a lot of schools are not meeting high performing criterion one meaning the blue and green across every indicator. There's certain reasons for that. Um, but majority are really getting in through the being higher in in the student groups. And so we may we're

024looking at potentially considering maybe what's your history of high performance? How long have you been high performing? That type of consideration plus other things we're looking at. So if there's any updates to this, um, we will of course we'll manage it up. And if you remember last year, every year we take a look at our practices, anything um just to ensure that we're being consistent and that uh what we've developed seems to be appropriate and working. Um and we issued a memo that identified certain areas that we looked at and certain what we were what we did and that what we wanted to change. uh we had mentioned this that we looked at it and we determined to leave keep it the same and so that would be the mechanism to communicate um any updates

025potentially to this particular consideration sheet. Now we can talk about lowerforming schools. So you'll see this is just the flip of high performing. So if the charter school once again you can be found to be low performing either one of two ways either you receive the two lowest performance levels and that's red and orange on all the state indicators or um or for academic indicators you are same or lower than the state average and for the majority of student groups. Um, and so as of this time, once again, as of current, because there's some um things in play which I'll mention, when you're looking to recommend an approval for a low performing school with the district must make findings that the charter school is taking meaningful step steps and address those steps in a reflected

026in a plan that's adopted by their governing board. Uh what I do want to note though and we've mentioned this a few times there is pending legislation in the as it's it's part of the trailer bill that will uh is proposing to incorporate verify data back into the renewal criteria for low performing schools and also for middle and it would be applied as it was applied prior to the end date of June 30th 2026. So, the current legislation ended it June 30th, 2026, sorry, 2025, 2025. June 30th, 2025 for low performing schools. Um, and so we'll see. We're expecting potentially that trailer bill to be passed by June 30th, 2026. So, we should have know then if it uh passes through and what the next steps will be uh as to that. Okay. Now, we'll

027talk about middle performing schools. This is our biggest chunk of schools as we as you saw. Um if they don't meet the criteria for high and they don't meet it for low, they are classified as middle. And as I said, uh the consideration can only be for a five-year term or denial. And the consideration includes schoolwide performance and performance of student groups on both the state and local indicators and dashboard. and we need to provide greater weight to the academic indicators or the academic performance on the dashboard. Okay, once again I want to note this is also potentially where verified data may come back into consideration as part of the trailer bill. Um and as a reminder for reminder for middle performing schools, it actually ended January 1, 2026 per current legislation. So this would

028also if um so we're watching that trailer bill to see the impact for low and middle performing schools and it would be applied in the same way as it was applied prior. And that is the end of my presentation and so um we'll go ahead and uh you can ask any questions. Thank you uh for the presentation. I'll open up to my colleague Tanya Ortiz Franklin if she has any questions. Um I don't immediately let me let me continue thinking if that's okay. >> Okay, sure. No problem. Um I have one for Mr. um Danny Wong. >> Yes. >> Um you share that there will be no new collocations for 2627 while some existing collocations are projected for growth or reduction. Pardon your presentation. Um, as these adjustments move forward, how is the district working

029to ensure school communities, especially um the students and families at the host campuses are informed um and supported throughout the transition. >> Uh the the team provides resources to the to each region uh for the region to provide um letter or template letters for the so the school principal can communicate that to the to the communities. And also uh what are the supports for the charter the co the charter schools who who are leaving? What sort of supports do you provide? Um the charter school >> charter schools that are leaving they uh we do an assessment of the space that they occupied u making sure that everything's u clean and in order uh before they leave. um do an exit ex exit inspection and if they need additional time to to for like move out

030then uh then an amendment to their agreement could be made so that they can kind of extend um until they're able to move out of there. >> Have you faced any challenges on both sides on the host school or the charter school any in in the transition any sort of challenges that you've encountered or it's always been pretty >> smoothly? Nothing that comes to the top of my head right now. >> Great. Thank you. Uh my next question um the the presentation notes that 12 charters were determined to be overallocated. Oh, sorry. It's for you too as well. Sorry, sorry. The other part of your presentation. Um with the reimbursements redirected back to the district's host sites. Beyond reimbursement, are there lessons the district is drawing from these overallocation cases that could help improve um

031the forecasting, transparency or communication earlier um for you know for the charter school um so to reduce any disruption to their fiscal solveny and also towards any disruption to the school communities. I would say a lot of the overallocation is dictated by state law. Um as far as um them and you you're the expert here, so don't you you keep me on track here. As far as their um you know their projected ADA are evaluating that AEA sending it back that is a lot of that is dictated by state law, previous cases, policy and such. Um and so I do think the it's going down. I do do know that there's less overallocation. But as far as um the fiscal piece which which side of it explain that question a little more the fiscal like

032this the charter the chart because we know the charter schools have all they're all current right and we just issue >> so think um for instance if they're they're notified that last year they were overallocated now they owe this you know certain amount and um how greatly will that impact their um budget knowing doing that now they have this sort of um they have to pay back. So how is that impact them and how we how do we help them? Got it. Well, we provide notifications throughout the year that they potentially could be overallocated. That at least is if at least three times. >> Um so if we're looking at the data and saying look you look like you're going to be overallocated. They are provided at least three notices through the year. And so

033that's that lets that that lets them know that this is a potentiality and they can plan for it. >> Okay, great. So it's not like a surprise like all of a sudden you owe this money, they've been notified, you've been having communications as to this could, you know, >> absolutely >> taking place. >> Yes. And you want to add something? The regulations also uh permit the charter school to if they think that they're going to be overallocated to offer space back to the district and if the district would to accept it back then their prora share uh charge will be adjusted accordingly as well as their overallocation reimbursement uh obligations. >> That's good to know. Thank you. And let's see uh any other questions, Miss Ortiz Franklin, that popped up for you? >> Yeah, thanks.

034I was trying to organize them because I probably had a few notes in different places. Um, I guess generally I'm concerned about what we're learning and so maybe Marlo, this is for you. Um, you know, one of the things that's come up a lot is uh academic growth rather than just overall performance. I mean, it's something that I'd mentioned. Um, so that's a specific example, but to what extent are we um taking what we're learning from the year, what you're hearing from the board, from the public to uh potentially revise the policy for next year? >> That's a good question. Well, as I said, every year we uh we re-evaluate any of our um operate any way that we operationalize a policies a policy. So, for example, like we talked about last year providing um

035we relooked at the HP performance uh sheet, but we ended up not making changes, but we also re-evaluated the identifying magnet schools, right, as part of the resident school list. That was part of the changes that we made last year. So we'll be looking at um all of the pieces and make any recommendations for changes as to um and your concern is around looking at uh more particular around the growth piece like if they if the change factor let's say on the dashboard. I do want to note too though um you know with verified data you know it potentially coming back into uh the renewal criteria that is really looking at growth right one year's growth um and so you know hope you know we'll we'll see what happens but that is will be the

036is the main mechanism to look at one year's growth >> and when will we know that >> I we're thinking probably June 30th um by June 30th we'll know the where the trailer bill is at and and and if it go passes. So I that that will be an important factor to look at growth. >> I'll let >> Yeah. And then if there are any revisions, does it come back to the board for approval? >> Well, any policy revisions will have to come back to the board for approval. Yes. >> Yes. If it's a if it's a policy um update. Um last time we made some revisions to the way we just more communications. That was more how we communicate things or maybe add things to our data set. that was done through that memo.

037I'll call it the memo, but it was a board informative with a memo and a chart. Um, but those were more um communication transparency pieces. >> Okay. Well, that's actually fitting for, you know, Mr. McClean and Dr. Eva's here. The three of us are working on uh revising the board rules and the policies under a larger umbrella of work. Um, so it sounds like this might fit into that and and can help us distinguish between what's a policy versus a memo versus a reference guide. um and sort of who is the final uh decision maker or approval signer on each of those levels. So I'm just making a nod to my my colleagues here on the deis. Um >> but I can also add um um board member Franklin, we are looking at our policy.

038So the board approved policy it was updated I want to say in 2020 June 2020 I think I have it here somewhere. Um we are taking a look at that um and and working with office of general counsel on that and so but that is something and any changes as I said to the board approved policy would come back to the board. Um so that is also part of our review as well right now. >> Okay. Um and then another kind of lesson learned is you know I think we've voted to close a couple of schools that disproportionately served black students. And so I'd love for us to do an analysis of a where do those students go? Did they come back to us? Um or district schools I should say. Um and then also,

039you know, how does that compare um to maybe other authorizers uh if if there is an ability to look at um what was approved by LEO after we denied it. Um just sort of learning those lessons, right? because as we're not only thinking about revising the policy but also like our equitable lens for looking at these things and I don't know if we have um gathered that data but I would be particularly um interested in it and not to say that you know we're using race as the only reason to keep a school open or close it. But I do think the board and the public need to be made aware when we're making decisions that disproportionately harm any group of students. And just a um sort of qualitative trend I've noticed is the uh

040schools that have served more predominantly black students have been the ones that we have closed. And then in some cases um I guess I'm not actually sure have they been approved by LEO have they not or are there other reasons for which we denied a school that LEO ultimately approved because I I would also like to learn in that regard why did they approve it and we didn't? what was the factor they were leaning on that our um current policy or practice you know didn't uh have the same result. So more in the the category of learning. No, and I appreciate that feedback. And so, no, we haven't assessed that looking at through that lens. Um, as far as our recommendations for denial, that's something uh we can take a look at and also consider

041also our recommendations for approval, right? It's that you have to look at the whole the whole picture. Um, I think would be important. I also want to say as for LEO, um, we do track that very closely when a charter school appeals to LEO and we send those communications to the board. I would say this this year the the majority of uh the ones that were appealed to LEO, the LEO staff also recommended denial and ultimately their board decided um the majority, not all of them. I will note there was a recent one that did go on appeal to LEO. The staff recommended approval. The board also agreed with their staff recommendations and they did consider verified data which we know uh had ended um January 1, 2026, but that's their their prerogative in their

042review. But we look at that and um we we monitor that very closely. Uh so we can we we can take a look at some of these pieces um as we as we are uh reviewing our processes and procedures. And I just I think it's important. We're in the business of teaching and learning and so we got to be learners ourselves. Absolutely. Thank you. That's >> just a couple notes. Thank you, board member Ortiz Franklin. Just two notes to add to Miss Wilmont's responses. First on trailer bill, we are working very closely also with the office of governmental relations in terms of any updates. Uh at this point, our understanding is that language would still be included. Um so we're tracking that very closely and with their support. And in terms of your uh la

043last point in terms of the factors for approval or denial u just underscore we will take that back for further conversation with our council. U certainly are aligned with the ed code in terms of the determinations. Um take very seriously any recommendations especially for denaw. We understand those those uh impacts uh to students. Um but certainly you know follow what is prescribed in uh ed code and policy to make those decisions as consistent as fair as possible um in accordance to district policy as well. Thank you. >> Wonderful. So no further questions from me. Um I don't know if you have any question. No. So thank you so much uh for your presentation and updates it. >> Thank you so much. >> Thank you. >> Yes. Um so now we will move on to our

044second presentation. We have um on spot charter school spotlight ISF View Park Preparatory High School is here and as they come up to the podium um they will share more um some um information or highlights on their arts education program and the opportunities students are receiving through arts instruction and performant-based learning. So joining us today we have Sharon Owens Lincoln. Yes. Uh chief of schools and principal and Jamie Hareggi, director of arts. Is he here? >> We actually have a a replacement for Jamie, our our director of student services. Dr. Stamps. >> Oh, well welcome. Thank you. And also we have Mr. Jud Fish, performing arts coordinator and VPHs drama teacher. Correct. Awesome. Wonderful. Well, thank you. We appreciate you for uh joining us today and look forward to learning all about ISF. >> Right.

045Uh good afternoon. My name is Chiron Owens Lincoln. I am the chief of schools for ISF public schools and also current principal uh at uh ISF View Park High School. Um our um I just want to welcome our our introduce you to our new principal at View Park High School. She's our current principal in residence, Miss uh Sarah Brown. So she'll be taking the helm uh in fall 26. Um so uh I am truly honored to uh be before you today to share information about one our California exemplary arts education award and our overall arts programming at ISV Park Preparatory High School. Um we can change change the slide. Is there a clicker? >> Oh, thank you. >> Perfect. Okay. Um back. Okay. Uh at ISF, we are committed to nurturing genius in every one

046of our scholars through our 3A model, academics, arts, and athletics. We believe that academic success is achieved by providing students with excellent daily teaching and learning experiences that help develop critical the critical transferable skills uh that our scholars need to thrive in college, career, and life. These skills include communication, critical thinking, self-efficacy and confidence, emotional regulation, and curiosity. We believe that arts and athletics are powerful vehicles for helping students develop these skills in meaningful and authentic ways. Through arts, our students learn to express themselves with confidence and creativity. They learn to collaborate, reflect, think critically, and explore the world around them with curiosity and purpose. These uh experiences help our scholars to discover not only their talents but also their identity and their voice. At ISFU Park High School, our arts programming is intentionally designed

047as an advancing sequence um of beginning, intermediate, and advanced coursework across three core disciplines uh film, digital music production and also theater. Our scholars engage in authentic real world experiences that allow them to build technical expertise while also developing confidence, communication skills, and critical thinking that will serve them in high school and beyond. These are our course sequences for each of our um arts disciplines at View Park High School. You see digital music production, film production, and theater. Students start with a beginning class, intermediate course, and then an advanced course. Um, we are incredibly proud of our students, teachers, arts partners, and leadership team whose commitment has made our California Exemplary Arts Education Award possible and just a wonderful, supportive um, and enriching culture around arts uh, at View Park High School. So, now I

048want to turn things over to our director of students or um, I'm sorry, our vice president of student services, Dr. Nicoli Stamps to share more details about our arts programming. Good afternoon. I'm excited to speak about our digital music and film uh film production courses course sequences. As ISF leaders thought through culturally relevant pedagogy, there was a desire for our students to understand the history through the lens of hiphop as an enduring medium that tells the story of society. In these courses, we asked students to adopt a critical lens and utilize frameworks that analyze our lived experiences. This is the overarching goal that our students work towards as they study musical genres and establish their identities as artists. Through their learning experiences, they develop a sense of musicality, engage as thought partners with peers, and

049reflect deeply. We are fortunate that this work is led by passionate educators like Mr. Sebastian Elabe, who is a founding hiphop educator for the state of California. As a leadership team, we understand that our work is to create opportunities to cultivate this passion within our educators. We constantly engage with this idea of how can we showcase their content expert expertise. We want our teachers to create meaningful lessons where our students push themselves to think through song concepts and structures still while maintaining this goal of trying to express themselves. Our students genuinely benefit from Mr. Elabe's expertise as he pushes them to exercise and stretch the voice that exists already exists within them. We'd like to share a moment from one of his classes that we were able to capture where two students engaged in discourse

050regarding song structure and had an opportunity to practice offering constructive feedback. Do I click it again? Now we're going to hear your feedback. Be nice. This is constructive criticism, right? That's why the word is constructive. You're building people up. You're not tearing them down. All right. Uh Jai, let's hear what you got. >> Uh All right. I'm I'm going to answer all. >> All right. >> For the first one, I would give you a three. Um I'm not a heavy person on structure, but I feel like it was just a loop. Like all you have was like a little silence part >> and then there was like a little outro, but there was no intro. And I'm not saying like every beat needs an intro, but >> I don't know. It just felt a little

051repetitive. Yeah, I only um for that I just only looped like a chords, but there was like well from my headphones there were different like it sounded different on the headphones for each part cuz there are if you look at it structurally there is like actual changes but it I was looking at it but that's why I gave you a three. It's developing. So, we chose this clip because you see the student use evidence to talk about his um use evidence and defend his opinion that he shared and the feedback that he gave to his classmate. We were also excited to showcase the final products of the this coursework last semester, which was 10 really thoughtfully structured EPs that our students had a showcase and uh listening party for. Similarly, as the team thought about

052the purpose of film production courses, there was a desire for our students to develop skills that would allow them to analyze pop culture and to understand the lens through which it was crafted. We wanted our students to question, is this the appropriate lens? And if not, should we shift the way the narrative develops? In order to achieve this goal, we recognize that we need to develop our students as storytellers to give them the power to highlight the great things happening in our community and to fully understand the work that needs to be done to ensure we capture that footage. Our students are constantly grappling with questions that ask them to consider how a narrative comes to life in a way that is authentic but reflective of what the author intended to convey. These opportunities require

053our students to immerse themselves in others experiences. And as we've done this work, we've noticed a positive shift in our students ability to take on others perspectives, which is how our students actively live into our ISF core value of empathy. We are fortunate that we have this sequence of courses that encourage students to not only connect to the ISF community, but to also connect to our broader community. Now we will share a clip from View Park High School's nightly news which highlights students introduction to the fundamentals of storytelling as they help us to develop community by capturing what's happening at the high school. This is a brief snippet that we've edited um where the students are focused on showcasing one of our award-winning programs. Hello, I'm Deani. And I'm Annie. And this is Nly News.

054>> High School Musical starring Mahanda Woody, Ty Douly, Miracle Moore, Eva Mri, Aaron Robinson, Jai Crutchfield, Malia Mlin, and more was amazing. Here are some clips from the show. Once again, I'm Dani. >> And I'm Annie. >> And this is Ny News. >> So that clip showcases our students ability to go out, get the footage, but also do the work to string it together, put the music behind it, and really think through how we tell a story. You may have also noticed in that last clip um a few familiar faces standing before you. And I'm excited to introduce one of our passionate educators, Mr. Jud Fish, who has led our theater production program for the past 11 years. >> All right. Hi guys. It's an honor to be here. Um so I teach uh uh

055drama all the way up to theater production at View Park Preparatory Charter High School. in addition to conducting the all ISF performing arts program. Some of the clips that you saw from shows that include students from about uh grades two uh second and up. Um but at the high school um in the drama uh CTE pathway which is arts media entertainment we we have intro to drama where they learn basic public speaking skills including breathing technique physicality um and then we move on to advanced drama where they start generating original material um through playwriting but also um working with scripts everything from Shakespeare to August Wilson which you're going to get a snapshot of from my living artifacts here I'm very proud of and then in theater production which is the the third year course

056or can be the culminating course for the CT pathway. Students get real hand on hands-on experience doing professional simulations at professional theaters. So we produce a winter play which is more kind of catered to a younger audience. So we call it kind of a children's theater unit which in the past has been Shrek um Frozen and then the spring play which is more catered to the the high school scholars. So last year we did of course High School Musical and this year we're working on Newsies which will be um featured at Miracle Theater May 29th and 30th. Um, so we'd love to see you guys come out for that. Um, and uh, we also have a lot of professional partnerships. The LA Opera, the students participate in a opera program every year where they perform

057alongside professional opera singers and we produce that at our K8 for our all of our fifth grade audiences. Um, throughout the course of the year the students I try to develop them into triple threats. So that's actors, singers, and dancers. But there's also a fourth element and that's um preparing them to be professionals in any sort of um workplace or academic institution. So that's working in collaborative learning groups to produce um original material and then produce scripted scenes and monologues. Um we're other than being celebrated on stage, our scholars um do very well at monologue competitions. So we've won the Pasadena and Noise Within Show must go on monologue competition every year for the last four years. Um, and we have one of our winners right here. And we also have won gold in the

058NAACP AXO competition. And we are in the midst of the support black theaters legacy rising monologue competition, which is formerly known as the August Wilson Monologue Competition. Um, and we've also been very successful in placing and going to na uh national finals every year with my uh performing arts scholars. So, um, rather than just showing you guys clips of the kids, I thought I'd bring them in person because, um, they're really, really impressive and I couldn't be more proud of them. Their, uh, next round is actually Saturday and they're going to give you a snippet from some of the monologues we've been working on and they're actually competing with, uh, currently. So, it's still like a living a living work of art with these young people. So, um, should we do ladies first? Miss Jaden

059Hall. >> All right. She'll be pres presenting Bernice from Piano Lesson by August Wilson. Right. The mic. Oh, I have to go on the mic. >> Yeah. >> Okay. Sorry. Hi, my name is Jaden Hall. I will be portraying Bernice in piano lessons. You ain't taking that piano out of my house. Look at this piano. Look at it. Mama Ola polished this piano with her tears for 17 years. 17 years. She rubbed on it till her hands bled. Then she rubbed the blood in, mixed it with the rest of the blood on it. Every day God breathed life into her body. She rubbed and cleaned and polished and prayed over it. Play something for me, Bernice. Every day I cleaned it up real nice for you. Play something for me, Bernice. You always talking about

060your daddy, but you ain't never stopped to see what his foolishness cost your mama. 17 years worth of cold nights and empty bed for what? For a piano, for a piece of wood to get even with somebody. I look at you and you're all the same. You, Crawley, whining boy, darker, you're all alike. All this thieving and killing and thieving and killing it. better lead to more killing and more thieving. I ain't never seen it come to nothing. People getting burned up, people getting shot, people falling DOWN THEIR WELLS. IT AIN'T NEVER stop seen. Thank you. >> Um, hi. Uh, my name is Nikel High Tower and I'll be doing Levy from Marini's Black Bottom. Levy got to be Levy and he don't need nobody mess with him about the WHITE MAN CUZ YOU DON'T

061KNOW NOTHING ABOUT ME. YOU DON'T KNOW LEVY. YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT KIND OF BLOOD I GOT, WHAT KIND OF HEART I GOT BEING IN THERE. I was 8 years old when I seen a gang of white men come to my daddy's house and have to do with my mama any kind of way they wanted. We was living in Jefferson County about 80 miles outside of Nachez. My daddy's name was Memphis. Memphis Lee Green had him nearly 50 acres of good farmland. I'm talking good land. Grow anything you want. It was coming on planting time and my daddy went into Naches to get us some seed and fertilizer for farming. Call me. He say, "Levy, you the man of the house now. Take care of your mama while I'm gone. I wasn't but a little boy

0628 years old. My mom was frying some chicken when the man's coming in our house. She's standing there find that chicken and the man come and take a hold of her. Must have been eight or nine of them. Come and take a hold of her just like you take hold of a mule and make them do what you want. I didn't know what they was doing to her, but I figured whatever it was, they might as well do it to me, too. My daddy had kept a knife around there for hunting and working and whatnot. I knew where he kept it and I went and got it. I'll show you how spooked up I was by the white man. I TOLD MY DARNEST TO COVER ONE IN THE MEN'S throats and I hit him on

063the shoulder with scene. >> So, beautiful. Very powerful. Wow. Thank you. Gave me chills. Really did. Thank you. So today we were privileged to to share how we nurture our students genius through the arts. And we would like to end with a note that we are incredibly enthusiastic not only about these performances and performers but about the fact that we are implementing a quality arts program throughout our TK through 12 network. We fully believe that the skills developed through this program enhance students well-being and lead students to academic success. We'd like to open it up for any questions. But before I do, also one more um introduction. Miss Jamie Hadigi, our director of arts. >> There was um there's one on external partnerships. I don't know if you touched on that. Uh um Oh, you

064did >> for um performing arts. Absolutely. >> Oh, you did. You said the LA opera. Okay, gotcha. >> And then we also um center The theater group through the in the house um program. They allow my scholars free access to go see shows um as an evening audience. And then we also work with the student matinea program over there a partnership with greenway court theater that does a in-house residency with as well and then creative network which provides our dance services. So every Friday is dance Friday and the kids get to learn um various hip-hop styles that um and dances that they perform at Disneyland and Expo Park etc. >> Thank you. Thank you so much. >> Well I again I want to say thank you for bringing live performances here. This is the first

065time we've had um these wonderful monologues and they were beautiful. I really want to say like I said they brought um chills to me. There was it was excellent. So thank you. Thank you for being here. Appreciate that. So I'll open it up um for any questions from my colleagues, Miss uh Hendy. >> Yes. >> Uh again, thank you. Um, I do have a privilege that I got to see y'all perform some some folks that did the High School Musical. So, I was able to see that. Um, and I wanted to ask some questions as far and maybe the students can answer. Um, what is it that draws you to this program that made you want to do this? Was it prior to coming to the school or what was it that made you want

066to pick this and say, "I want to stick with it." Uh, yeah. It's it's on y'all. Um because you know as we want to capture young minds, we want to know what is it that makes this important to you and was it something that you anticipated prior to high school or now that you're in high school because I know the program starts early. So I don't know if you started early. So you could tell us a little bit about your journey. >> Um in fact I ended up getting to Vue Park at my 10th grade year and when I actually came to V Park I never thought about acting prior but I was put into Mr. Fish's um early prep class for advanced theater. And I really loved it because one of the more advanced

067students, the seniors, came into our class actually to perform their monologue. And I fell in love with it. I literally loved how they acted and I loved everything that the program did. At the year I joined, they were actually doing Mean Girls and I loved the movie Mean Girls. So, the fact that they were doing an entire musical based off a movie that I literally loved and I seen someone perform a monologue and I enjoyed it so profusely. I actually wanted to join the program and afterwards I talked like really heavily about getting switched to Mr. Fish's sixth period class for the more advanced students even though I had just joined and never did acting prior. And I ended up being able to get in. Um, I did my monologue and after that I just

068joined the class and I felt so happy to be in the class. It felt like the class was actually made for all the students in there and that we grow every single day. And like no matter what we're doing, I feel like the class just helps us so much. Like especially with real world stuff, Mr. Fish always brings in people to help us like learn more acting styles or when he brings in people to come help us in the class. I just feel like the class is really made for the students rather than anything else. >> Thank you. >> Beautiful. >> I joined the theater class in my freshman year actually. Um, but when I first joined high school, I didn't even know it existed, honestly. Um, I got pulled in by Mr. Fish, uh,

069because we had this thing called CTE survey for freshmen. Um, where we spend five weeks in each, uh, extra extracurricular class. Um, and I did an acting thing, and he thought I was pretty talented, so he wanted me to join the play. And, um, I started off as stage crew and I just kind of slowly evolved into an actor. Um this class has definitely contributed a lot to my development. Um in terms of professionalism and and just as a person I feel um our rehearsals, we have rehearsals every Wednesday and every Saturday. I sacrifice my weekends from 12:00 to 6:00. We're there. Um and I think it's a great bonding opportunity for everyone, you know, like I see this man's face six times a week. Um um and you know like there's there's moods but

070all the kids are feeling it and it's just like well we're here we want to be here you know like we're not forced to um and I think that's what's really the what makes us all bond is that we all want to be here you know um I appreciate the exposure like the so many different shows and musicals plays the people that we meet um the different perspectives on acting definitely help too but I think the main thing is definitely the opportunity to have creative freedom. I think if I wasn't so free, I wouldn't be able to develop my talent the way that I have. >> Um, I think that's the main point. >> Yeah, it's just it's a very I'm glad that I have this class. >> Appreciate you sharing. Um, so do you

071guys feel like now you go out and recruit other folks? You know how to identify the talent when you see it? >> Yes. They're like, "Yes." Okay. So, another question for I guess the adults in the room. Um, with the courses, do the students get opportunity to I think you mentioned the pathways. Do they get exposure to everything? Because when I saw the high school musical, I saw, you know, folks singing and I was like, "Oh, wow. Okay, he can sing." I don't know if that ever started at the beginning or they had just been encouraged to take courses to be able to learn that part of it because that's often one of the areas that you're like, uh-uh, I'll act, but that singing part, uh-uh, or the dancing part, uh-uh. But when you're doing

072a musical, you're doing all these pieces. So, is there a pathway for each one? How does that work? >> So, um the the kids can select which path they want to um focus on in the arts. So that theater production, uh, music production or film production. Um, in terms of in my course, they do get singing training. Um, so semester one, the, um, people representatives from the LA opera come and do vocal training with them and then I also hire external vocal coaches to work with them in class and then also at rehearsal. In fact, the funny part is is Nael, who you saw is a talented actor. He was discovered by one of these vocal coaches, Rebecca Growl, who came in and did a um a uh a vocal um re vocal range uh

073class with them, and we realized he had this beautiful singing voice, and he I don't know if he knew, but we didn't know he was such a wonderful singer. And then last semester, he was heartbreaking as Shrek with his um beautiful vocal talent. So, >> uh oh, we're going to have to get Do we get a sample of that, too? >> Yes, we do. We do. We do. But I will say also we've become kind of come a magnet, a community magnet for young folks who are interested in in performing arts. Um so kids sing together at church, they'll be like, "Oh, you should come over to Viewp Park because you'll get this opportunity to perform four times a year on professional stages." So um it's kind of a mixture of kids who come in

074with the embedded talent oftentimes from church or from family experience, but then also discovering new talent, which I would say kind of these two fit into that category. Um, do you guys want to hear a sample of his beautiful singing? Of >> course. >> You good with that? You good with it? >> Um, like I do. >> They say you ain't got to get ready. You stay ready, right? >> Sugarree. >> Okay. Put him on the spot. Put on the spot. But he's so talented and he's so easygoing, too. >> Um, I was out. I wasn't expecting to sing today. Um, >> you can opt out. >> I'll I I'll do it. I'll do it. >> Um, >> I I'll show off my accent, too. My my my shrek. Let me see if I could

075find it. >> Uh, >> DONKEY, WHAT ARE YOU DOING IN MY SWAMP? >> YEAH. But yeah. Okay. Okay. Um, song. Jesus. I'd guess I'd be a hero with sword and h clashing looking semi dashing shield within my grip. Or else I'd be a Viking and live a life of daring smelling like a herring upon a Viking ship. I'd sail away. I'd see the world. I'd reach the farthest reaches. I'd feel the wind. I taste the salt and sea and maybe storms some beaches. That's who I'd be. >> Awesome. >> Amazing. Amazing. So, I'm gonna get the autograph at the end, okay? Because uh I'mma frame it because I know it'll be great. Uh, beautiful. Uh, I I guess the partnerships, how did you guys come about with the partnerships? How does that work? >> Um,

076so I um in um a past life was a professional actor on stage and screen. So some of them kind of came through um that avenue including Miracle Theater was a stage that I performed on. And then just having connections with um friends and associates at the different um theaters um including like LA Opera um with Center Theater Group which is just just up the street which has been a great partnership um just kind of word of mouth um and uh kind of getting the kids involved in that. Um, yeah, and then the just the the kind of opportunities and the partnerships just start coming because, you know, word spreads about how wonderful our kids are and how great they are to work with. And, you know, I'll get emails, you know, every couple weeks

077say somebody that wants to work with our with our um our group because they've just heard good things about them. So, um, and I mean, we're busy. So, um, wherever I can squeeze them in, we'll bring them in. So, >> awesome. Yeah. Awesome. >> I'd like to add to that. I'm Jamie Howig, the director of arts. Um, in addition to Fish's theater partnerships, we're working with the Handy Foundation, which is supporting our film production program to uh produce workshops for our students. We've worked with them for several years now. Uh, we recently signed a linkage agreement to formalize our pre-apprenticeship program and we've been awarded uh division of a part uh apprenticeship standards status uh through the state of California. So, we're very very very proud of this new move. It's it's recent development. and

078it happened last month. Um, and our workshops are happening at the end of the month for this new chapter. Previously, we would do full-blown workshops that were days long um, and they'd be immersed in hair and makeup and different aspects of working cameras. We've recently um fine-tuned that experience so that students are going to work um on our pre-apprenticeship opportunities with through the Handy Foundation, which means we'll do a film editing workshop uh and a production assistant workshop next year. So, we're very very excited about our our new expansion into film industry partnerships as well. >> Awesome. Awesome. One last question. You said editing and as we were looking at the clips, who did the editing on those? I did. >> Okay. Okay. I was asking was the students doing that? Okay. >> Well, actually

079they did originally. >> Okay. >> Um because of the time constraints I tightened them up even more so. >> Okay. Got it. Thank you. Appreciate it again. >> Yes. I I have one question that had and you touched on it. It was on um the partnerships. So wanted to know a little bit more on um you know it's wonderful creative outlet but you mentioned CTE and pre-apprenticeship. So um can you like expand a little bit more on how you're you know encouraging the students to the for this to be a viable career pathway and um particularly for students who may not who are not traditionally have access to this industry. you mentioned now that there would be pre-apprenticeship will help them get into the um >> break into the industry. >> Um so through the

080Handy Foundation, our students who participate in the film editing workshops and the class in general will be able to apply to a pre-apprenticeship program post high school through the Handy Foundation. And so really it's a hopefully a symbiotic relationship where we um ultimately will provide them with students who will fulfill those skills for their pre-apprenticeships where they're placing people in industry um partners like Netflix and um different different production companies. It's n it's really recent. Um we're also partnering with CCLL which you see on the flyer there. Um it's the creative career leadership lab. It's the CTSO for the AM arts media and entertainment pathway. It's also a pilot program through the state. I think we're I want to say we're in the third year. Two of our students serve on the youth advisory council.

081And so they're kind of learning how to be an advocate for their community, advocate for their school, advocate for the industry. They attend uh annually what's called the grid where they attend workshops and hear about career panels. So over time our vision is that our pre-apprenticeship curriculum which was approved by uh our AM program coordinator through the state will give them the skills that they can use to go then apply through apprenticeship pre-apprenticeship opportunities >> and and how about for theater or Yeah. So um the noise within in Pasadena they provide uh summer training in set um sound and um technical design. So Nel got the opportunity to do this set design last uh summer. So that could lead to um internships um once they hit 18 of course. Um Center Theater Group and LA

082Opera also offer summer internships for uh scholars, but that's once they hit a collegiate level. So, and then these young people are already set off to we got uh Cal State San Francisco and UC San Diego bound. >> Yay. Congratulations. >> Yeah, very proud of them. We had a great graduating class this year. But um a lot of the skill sets that they learn can be implied uh can be applied in different um career paths. So like Miss Jaden Hall um is using her like beautiful oratory skills and great stage presence to go into a legal profession. She wants to be a I get this right. Airline uh tell me it's >> Aviation attorney. It's so fancy. >> Okay. >> And then Nikuel, as much as I want him to stay on stage, he's going

083to try to take a shot at acting for film. >> So, but um we also have students, alumni who are working with creative network, which buds our dance services, who are now actually teaching through the creative network at elementary schools. So, um there's all different pathways that the kids can um follow. And then with the monologue competitions, um NAACP Axos competition, they give them an industry mentor at the the end of the program. And then also the support black theater, they um offer uh industry professionals that mentor the the scholars over the summer um and getting agents and um developing well they already have a really strong resume as you can see, but you know, shape making it look uh professional and putting together their real so they can actually go out there and book

084jobs. And I always tell the kids, Hollywood is just up the street. So these are great great jobs that you guys deserve and um are qualified for. >> Wonderful. Yeah, you can do film and theater, you know, you can you know both of them. So you can do both. Uh that's wonderful. And and Miss uh Tanya Franklin, do you have any questions? >> Um just super great. Maybe just really quickly um what skills do you think incoming students most need to be successful? Um because I'd love to think about it for all of our feeder schools. >> Yeah. So I'm I teach um for the students to get in touch with our ancient instincts, right? So I'm very low tech in my class. We don't use tablets. We don't use laptops except say for um

085the black history production um where they have to produce their own um uh segments. But I want to get the the devices out of their hand and put a script in their hand or put a book in their hand or put a prop in their hand. Um, and then get back into that childhood imagination because I don't know what happens to our kids, but we used to play pretend growing up. And I think with all this technology they're bombarded by, a little bit of that like childlike creativity is getting sapped. And I work in my class through improv, through games, through, you know, singing, dancing, acting, um, to bring back that creativity because they have the spark in there and they see everything around them came out of someone's creative mind and I know they

086have it in them. They just need to activate it. >> So, >> love that. Thank you all so much. Really appreciate the presentation. >> And one last question that popped in. Apart from these three areas, you know, music, theater, info production production, are there other um pathways or or that you're um or another sort of uh arm of the of the arts like visual arts or graphic arts that you're maybe thinking of like you know pursuing or expanding on the arts education. Just wondering if there are other areas. I mean, you're doing wonderful in three, right? So wondering if you wanted to expand. >> Yes. Um as a small small charter school um we are you know definitely want to highlight you know and really focus in on our on the three main um pathways

087for arts. Uh but graphic design has been um an area and visual arts that we've had in the past that we are looking to bring back and use to to strengthen uh and make connections between all of the arts. So with like advertising uh the posters for the show or um designing the um with our um digital music production course uh those EPs uh the students the um artists worked with um Miss Jamie who does graphic design and so they worked uh in collaboration with her to design uh their album covers. So um just you trying to be creative with how we are infusing visual arts into our current arts pathways. But you know we are looking to uh expand to more visual arts u courses in the future. >> Yeah I think that would

088be great comp they all like you mentioned they all complement one another can also work across um different sort of genres. So that's great. Well, thank you so much. This has been a wonderful wonderful experience uh particularly being our our last charter school committee of this academic year. And it's you know I really thank I want to thank both of our performers here for just bringing in the chills and and all all the arts right here at our boardroom. So, thank you and the best of luck. I don't think you I don't think it's luck. It's just you're going to do it. It's because it's all within you and we look forward to you never know seeing you in in on stage or in film or or seeing you you know doing your um being

089a lawyer and and then just bringing you know all of that you know all those skills and energy that you have particularly from what you learned here in Isa View Park. So thank you so much. I appreciate your coming here and just um giving us a little glimpse of the wonderful things that you're doing there for the students. Thank you so much. >> So much. >> So with that uh we I'm going to um bring forth our last presenter. Uh we will hear from Alliance Judy Ivy Burton Technology Academy High School regarding their community schools program and broader student support efforts. The presentation materials highlights the school's emphasis on wellness, belonging, integrated supports, family partnership, student leadership, and college and career wellness. So joining us is Roelio Sanchez Jr., the principal, and Mr. Greg Perez,

090community schools coordinator. So, thank you for being here and the floor is yours. >> Thank you for giving us the time. Um, like I said, I'm Rah Sanchez, principal of uh Burton Techch High School. uh proud product of LUSD Southgate High School. Go Rams. >> Um Greg Bettz, community schools coordinator of Burden Tech and also former product of LA USD at Southgate High. >> So just to share a little bit about where we're from, we're part of the Alliance College. Um but Alliance we prepare our scholars to we prepare our scholars for college and beyond by providing rigorous and joyful learning experiences instilling pride and confidence in our histories identities and communities and continuously innovating as we live out our core values. The aspiration that we have for all of our students is 75% of

091our scholars graduate college um and through the various supports that's our our overall goal aspirations. We are one of the 25 aligned scoop. There we go. We're one of the 25. Um we we serve anywhere from South LA in the downtown area parking Heights, South LA, Watson, Sun Valley. Um we serve about 1,200 students. We have a 25,000 alumni. Um, as part of Alliance College grade public schools, what we see that we have kids arriving three grade levels behind, 96% of our kids get accepted to college with 85% of those being first gen and we graduate college, we have graduate colleges uh 3.5 times above the national average. And just to talk, you know, talk about the community schools uh program. All of the schools, all of our schools now uh have the community schools

092uh grant. Burden Tech was uh the first school as part of the consortium to lead. I had the opportunity to come on to the team. Um and I was I was a little bit familiar with community schools, but also myself, I was like, what is it, right? What is what is this model that's coming out? And I think, you know, just evident of the slide, we're talking about it's not a program. I think a lot of times just when I've attended conferences, everybody just sees it as a grant or just a just a one-time five-year grant program, but I really it is a way for us to see and redefine. So I the I have the the the fortune I I live in the community too, so Tech is. So, it's been also great to

093see that not only are we strengthening the school itself academically, but we're also helping strengthen the community and what we serve. So, it takes us out of just the silo of a school because it gets busy at a school site. Um, and we'll speak a little bit more on on what that looks like. So, just a couple of the the highlights that we've done as a network, also as a school. You know, obviously as a coordinator, we're always on the the the the lookout for potential partners, but I think more importantly, it's more about like who's already doing that work, who's doing that work in the community, especially in South LA, and we're in council district 8 where that district has has struggled compared to other districts with having um assets in our community. our

094assets are our our parks, our schools, our libraries, our local YMCA's, our Boys and Girls Clubs, um, and also the nonprofits doing some of the work. So, some of the work, some of the partnerships that we saw was it's bigger than us. So, we have a partner with them because they do a lot of resource allocation for families. We saw that in the wildfires. We saw that with families being impacted by uh immigration rates. um baby to baby, we have a a network now partnership to give out free diapers to families quarterly. Um and th and those are free partnerships, right? Those are partnerships that we see the need, we see the value, and we want to ensure that we get ahead of it, right? So, um, we're also working on a no place for

095hate initiative, which is a network, uh, initiative, but we also are partnering with LA County's, uh, LA versus Hate and the Califf, Stop the Hate, and we're actually in the process of doing a mural at the at the outside of the school, um, which is funded by a nonprofit I discover, who does art programming, and it that's a good example of like LA versus hate, the school, the community, um, all coming together to and this mal is going to be centered on solidarity and unity, but it's just the alignment. So, I think that that's kind of that advocacy for our kids because it the mural is going to stay there, right? That's the goal. So, it's I think it's really taking it and also beautifying um our community. So, a little bit about Burton Tech.

096Burton Tech is reimagining what a high school can be in South LA. So with our with our core values of work uh equity and access, student voice and leadership, family partnerships, integrated supports, community calibration, and sustainability. What we've had done in in the years that we've had um is giving access to the kids. Um for us, it's a very proud moment as we start seeing the kids that are coming in and what they have and the resources that we have in the community. Um what we want to know is what is it that our our our students need? We hear their voices out and we kind of go out and reach out to what we need. um ensuring that we remove the barriers for the opportunities that they have that we have access for them

097to go out and and partner up with Marqueis Johnson's office going in with um Shai's office assembly woman sh um being able to go in and have access to community leaders for them to voice their opinions out um has been great being able to have families as partners um as a parent myself I know how important it is to ensure that they're involved they're choosing to come to Burton Tech. And for us, it's what is it that they want and what do they want in the school to ensure that their kids are being taken care of every time a kid comes in and checks in. For me, it's how would I want my own kids being treated in the school and I do that same for them. Um because they're trusting us with their greatest

098treasure that we have. And for me, that's very very very important because we do the same out there. And everything that we do is in partnership and ensuring that the kids are also um they have academic supports, counseling support, health and wellness components to it that's there. Um everything that we start seeing in and that we don't have, we go out and look for the community uh collaboration. We go look for partnerships, nonprofit components to it. With the beauty of the actual grant bringing in Mr. Perez out here. We actually expanded what we had to actually start it before. Um we're seeing how great it it it can be. Um I've had an opportunity to go to Sacramento to kind of advocate for what we're doing for community schools grant not just for Burton Tech

099but all the schools in general. And that's where we want to make sure it's sustainable. The systems that we built, it's not something that we want to make sure that it goes away, but we're able to kind of implement it and have it live and sustain within the school site. So with some of those, we've actually had some of the awards have came out and it's not by accident that hey, they just they're not we we say it's earn not given, but it's because we've been consistent. We also have a high retention of our staff members and we ensure that they have the quality education supports that they need for the classes. they also have extended time to prep those materials that they need and going out and looking for PDs that they feel necessary

100that they're going in because they're the ones that are working with the students in the classrooms based on data to say, "Hey, this is what we want to make adjustments to what we want to do." So, as we start seeing some of our indicators of student success, the demographics that we serve is about 610. It kind of fluctuates from here and there. Um, about 12 uh.5% are eels. Uh we have 12 almost 13% student with disabilities. Um almost 2% of our kids are experiencing homelessness. Um we're primarily uh Hispanic, but we do uh go in and support all of our students. Um as you start seeing um the support of the co college career indicator with the support of Mr. Perez, we actually were able to get a couple of grants to go in with

101our donment. uh and pathways. >> Yeah. So, uh we can move to the next slide and then there's a little bit more of the data. Um I you know and I have the privilege of looking helping looking at the data and doing the needs assessment and asking uh staff and students like really what it is because we obviously we go to a needs assessment go to the surveys but I think it's more powerful when I actually get to talk with students. So being in this role really gives me the opportunity to sit down and talk and not just only look at data. So we can actually move the needle. I think what's powerful I think a good example is about two years ago our we were looking at how are we going to support English

102learners right our so we partnered with elevate ed to do professional development series we've been doing that and we see the growth so being able to go into the classrooms and seeing the professional development that we invest in reflected in the classroom and seeing the the data um but so there's a little bit of that and then yeah stronger together I think with this model what I really appreciate the most with this model that we're doing. Um before when I worked in schools as a school administrator, I feel like you get so busy, right? You're you're really busy. You're at capacity. You might have to do supervision. You might have to cover this role. Now, I still do those things, but I think this role really has the opportunity for me to network with other

103schools. Like a good example, just recently, uh we're only about a mile away from Bret Hart campus. So, we I collaborate a lot with the community school coordinator there. And there was a beautiful 5K at the Algen Sudden and Bret Hart. I got to, you know, I got to be be on the planning committee, but I think it's more because him and I met at the safety committee at Algen Sudden Park. One of our roles is to en ensure that we're at those meetings once a month to ensure that that park is safe because our kids, all of our kids go there. We have different schools, middle schools. So, we sit on those meetings and sometimes those meetings are not highly attended. I also sit on the St. Andrews advisory board. Um, that one's close

104to home. So that's easier, but at the same time, our kids might go there. So this role is really about how do we bring more kids. We're also seeing in LA City Aquatics that there's a shortage of lifeguards. There's like a 200 lifeguard shortage. Just recently, we partnered with LA City Aquatics, uh, Council District 8, and we said, and you know, I'm a swimmer, but I was like, I really want students to swim. There's a there's a job pathway. So we're in the process. We ended up taking about 22 students. We were going to between Vaness and Algen Sudden. There's a need. We're getting students that had never swam before. We're putting them in the water. They're learning how to swim. And just recently, we have two two young ladies that are now eligible and

105are waiting to be cleared to become lifeguard assistants. And I just think that those opportunities that changes the trajectory of a child's life when you actually and I think that we can do better than exposure, right? We got to go deep and let's get in the water and let's see what this pathway looks like. So I think that's a great example and if you if you saw I I believe you were at the 5K so I think you saw the power of community and all of the partners there from the block clubs to the local churches and all the planning that came in and we saw that not as a school but it was a community effort and the community showed up and especially in South LA because you don't see 5Ks in South LA

106especially going down Hoover you don't see that. So I think that's the kind of impact we want to have. Um but like anything to continue to move on. One of our goals is college and career readiness. Um community schools is about how do you sustain funding? So yeah, we we're expanding. We have the CCAP middle college grant. Just recently we're award with the K12 workforce grant that will begin this coming school year. We're partnering with the Los Angeles re regional consortium. Students have asked us we want to get more into medical nursing. Um, so I we've been work working with Charles JW um which was the formerly pipel pipelines programs. Just recently they reached out and said one-third of their applicants are coming from Alliance. So that's powerful because we're putting our students in these

107opportunities where they can get internships or just more awareness. We're partnering well we have students at Google Code Next which is right there in Englewood. Um that's a beautiful facility. Before students would say, "Oh, I want to be an engineer." I think now when I ask them they're saying I want to be a UX designer. So uh or something to that nature and I think what it does is just shows the specity of like the career trae trae tra trajectories of students. Um at the same time we work a lot with the Boys and Girls Club Metro. Um a lot of these partnerships start off conversational or we meet them through another partner. The Boys and Girls Club now it was just like hey let's talk what kind of programs you offer. Today we have

108a partnership where they're on our campus and they have a college and career specialist that helps support and get students access to scholarships that often overlooked in in the South LA Watts area. We also have students that are going to be participating as flag bears in the FIFA World Cup coming soon and this is all through a free program through Boys and Girls Club. Um at the same time we do a lot of work with the W we wineart YMCA there for the court unveiling but more importantly the students there we have kids that work there we have students that are participating in their STEM program and the youth in government and especially at the weine guard that's something we want to increase um our students attendance their involvement in program uh we're also planning

109a youth summit for the students but we're getting feedback for the students this coming fall to just really see what are the needs that they're seeing and how can they impact Um, that's a good photo of there at Algen Sudden. Um, we have a partnership with Center of Collaborative Education and they're helping support um, some of the field trips and the STEM initiatives uh, UCLA. So, I think for us it's really about finding who's already doing that work and investing into that relationship, wellness and safety. um the the I I looked for resources and I had seen that Ali USD had a strong partnership with the family source centers and I wanted to learn more about that. So I had reached out to CIFD and talked to our local family source centers and those the

110resources that they offer from like tax events for families and bringing them on. Those are extremely important and I think and and sometimes school administrators can get really busy and not follow up on those things. But when you do it impacts we were able to serve about 20 about 25 of our families that were uh struggling with some financial difficulties and able to have some of the the senior dues cost or internships through their their family source centers. they're uh they re visit our campus regularly just to do intakes because sometimes families may not they're a little hesitant maybe to go off-site but when we're there there's a there's a little bit more comfort. So definitely uh work with the the children's collective and WLCAC specifically. We also have the LA County um peer health

111advocates which is a student group where they get to earn a stipen for advocate. Right now they're working on substance abuse prevention. they're that it's their job. They have to show some campaigns and I know they had an event today. Um, every Thursday we have LA County U DMH the school-based community access point. They provide uh presentations to our students from right now our seniors are going to like post high school what does that look like? How do I manage the stress that's coming? We also do anxiety um workshops. So, and these are all no cost sustainable uh partnerships especially when we saw with the impacts of um the ICE raids you know near our campus we were we were seeing that. So, uh we are working with LA County Office of Immigration to do

112more of a networkwide but like their public council to to continue to do know your rights but also family preparedness plans. And lastly, student voice and leadership. Um, I think part of this role with community schools coordinator, I enjoy it. I also realize like I'm in a lot of places. I'm at neighborhood council meetings for both both southeast and southwest. I'm at park advisory boards. I think tomorrow there's like three events that I'm going to try to attend and just to see where students are participating. But I think what helps is that these are opportunities and when we put our students, one of our students there um is running for a neighborhood council seat and just to know that and because that board specifically doesn't have a youth seat um he was also a student

113that applied with his club for a neighborhood purpose grant and we and he came to us and was like I want to do this and he had found one of the um right there on Figureroa he's in he's uh working with uh faithful St. Mark and they're doing a U Figurero gives back to the take action uh event tomorrow and he's like I he's already done the clothing distribution but he was like I need food I need to purchase food I I hear the neighborhood council so he attends those me meetings to see that and to see students like leading in their community that is I feel like where it's at now when I ask him I asked him what are you guys going to do after high school you going to go into policy

114what are you going to do a lot of them are like oh I want to go a veterinarian I'm like oh but you guys are doing so good so I know I have to be uh nonpartisan with them but at just think that even when the impacts we were seeing like what can schools do for an alternative to protesting right while we worked with our kids and we brought in the uh the secretary of state's office to show them the demographics of kids their age voting um and they were really surprised you know to see like oh yeah 8 to 18 to 25 that's not always the demographic especially in council district 8 we're not seeing kids vote so after that event um 105 of our students students became uh either pre-registered to vote or

115became registered voters. Um so I think now those are the opportunities we want to shape because we want them to make an impact and difference from we've had a student sit on uh state superintendent uh one of the ad hoc boards um and her focus was on community schooling um and yeah I just want to I think for us this comm this model when we think about whole child it's really about changing your community when I'm driving home which I live like six minutes away and I see a student I'm not seeing like oh I only work with burden tech that's a student that lives in our community, there needs to be opportunities for them. So, if it's connecting them with Urban Scholar, it's connecting them with the Whiteall Academy on on on Slawson, whatever

116it be, we need to make sure that those opportunities are visible for our kids, especially in South LA. So, I think this work is really about passion. It's really about making sure that we give opportunities because I know we're believers of opportunities that changed our trajectory of life. I think I was not going to go into education, but I had strong administrators at in high school that said, "You need to go become a teacher assistant at Gage Middle School when you when you graduate high school." And I did. And that that changed my trajectory. So, I think it's like really understanding and seeing that. >> Yeah. I I think when we start looking at the supports that we provide, not just for the students, but for the community, we also host the neighborhood council meetings

117at our school site. We uh we host uh the annual tree lining ceremony on Broadway through uh Marqueis Dawson's office out there. And it's one of those how can we help support everything else. Um like like Greg said, I live not too far. I live in Southgate and then as I go home, it's the same thing. How do we support? Um because I live in Southgate, uh we're able to help support. So I'm on the schoolside council for my daughter school at uh International Learning Center Middle School. Um and then I also help support uh Southeast High School. So, we've had pieces where we've introduced them to the mayor's office. We've connected them to get their school recognitions. Uh, gladly to say both of those schools ended up getting distinguished school as well. So, we're

118able to kind of celebrate the community because it's not just about us as a charter school, but us as a community. And I like to say that we're here to support all. When I mean me all, I mean all. I've also helped support uh on the board of directors for uh the CIF LA section. So for me it's it's what can we do as a community to support all of us because if it's if if it's not us then who? If not now then when? And and for me it's very important just to listen get what we need to do and make an impact because these students that are coming in are our next leaders. Um just like Greg I started off as a campus aid in Southeast High School. Uh, I I you know,

119I I I didn't know what I wanted to do. Uh, I started coaching football. I've been coaching football on LUZ for like 15 years now. And then here I am 12 years as principal at Burton Tech High School. Couldn't be prouder. Um, but it couldn't been done alone because I had great mentors that helped me support. And for me, it's paying it forward. So, what they did for me is for me to pay it uh over to the kids and that's their job. Next is how can they help support the next generation coming up. Yeah, that that's going to conclude. And if you're ever on Century on Broadway, we have a beautiful mural that was um local artist Mike Norris. Um and we're going to add another one. It's on the it's a smaller wall,

120but yeah, if you're in there's good thing great things happening on Century and Broadway. And I think the goal is to continue to expand that. So yeah, we're open for Yeah. Any questions? Any questions? Well, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Um the presentation is definitely thorough and I just appreciate the the community school model and bringing it full circle and just the fact that you know I'll often say how you know charters began in operation to bring back feedback to our schools and how the autonomy allowed opportunity and for it to display itself and then come back and share and this is an opportunity here just sharing what's happening and I have to Hey, Miss Jay says hello. So, um, so I I knew Burton Tech long long time ago. So, Miss Jay and

121I go way back. Um, but I wanted to say thank you for just your example and want to tap into I mean I don't even want to know your Miss Perez your um your schedule cuz wanting to know how do you make the community model like what's like the first step for someone that wanting to adopt this mindset? What do you need to do first? like what is the first step to making because I mean now you're invested right you're in the neighborhood councils you're you know you're having meetings what is be the first step for someone who has taken on the role that you're taking what would be the first step for them to do >> I think the fir one of one of the first steps that I took was really like like

122an asset mapping right I really wanted to see who was doing what and meet go and visit not and emailing is is good but I when I went to a good example was I went we went to visit the Boys and Girls Club over there close to Magic Johnson Park >> and we walked in there the facilities were amazing. We're just thinking our kids should be participating and they talked about they were struggling more with the the higher the older youth and we thought what that wow this is amazing if our kids saw this I'm sure they're going to want to engage. So when you make that first connection and you see kids then go there and participate and I would say and see their reactions to that and then more importantly you see that

123they're actually now a part of like maybe an a paid internship that's the first step I feel like that draws your inspiration that draws to say like what else can I go and pursue so I definitely would say making sure that you're intentional and really looking at your community from it what assets we have because I think especially in South LA, we can always talk about what we don't have, but I think it's important to say what do we have? How can I as a coordinator help them uplift? Because they work with kids, we work with kids, so we should naturally be working together. So, I think that's powerful. I think another powerful image was uh we had two students in at Algen Sudden Park and they were kayaking and people were saying they're kayaking

124at the park right there on Hoover Street and we're like, "Yeah, they're kayaking." And I think that the the joy that you see it and actually going and visiting this model allows you to get out of the school a little bit, go into the community and actually see the reactions of the kids. And I think being in education for so many years, sometimes you lose that. I think sometimes we can get easily into the just caught up in the desk and just but when you go and visit a school or even a community partner or like like mentioning going to see I think the musical you see what's possible and you're like how do we strengthen that and I feel like that's where the mo uh motivation goes that's where the inspiration goes so starting

125there what are our assets and I think the alignment I think when we talk with staff I think when I first started it was always like oh what is this new initiative what do we have to do. And it was more of like it's not if we care about community and we care about children, this model is enhancing what we already do. It's not >> we're going to do things different. If anything, we want to hear your authentic voice. So, I know I sometimes have to send surveys and I'm like, look, just fill out the survey, please, please. It's for professional development. Like, it's it's a good thing you're going to give some input on that. Like, we want to help you. So, I think there's a little bit of that, too. But it's also,

126I think, when people see it can be elevated. um it just I I don't want to say buy in because I feel like people are bought in. It's just a limited capacity. So I think once they see that it's actually happening, that's where the results at. So I get to work with all the school teams. So ELA is doing we're doing the student success cards for ELA for uh music. We just signed a an agreement with the USC dramatic arts partnership to start doing social uh justice initiatives and teaching. So that's a two-year agreement uh no cost agreement. So we're doing things with different departments. So I get to kind of work with every department and have a different project, but it's a lot. It's a lot of time, but it's it's it's fun. It's

127like it's very fun, but also passionate work. >> Well, I appreciate it. I think we had Tanya had something. >> Yes. >> I want to let her go. I'll come back. >> Franklin, did you want to um ask your question or comment? >> Yeah, thanks. I super appreciate it. Um, I have gotten to visit your school a bunch of times and always get to see such great instruction, such clear care from the adults to the kids. Um, and your new facilities are really exciting. So, I was really happy to um, have you here today to share with my colleagues and the world some of the great things that are happening that have earned you such accolades. Um, you know, one thing I wonder about the um, charter management organization and the relationship with the school

128is like what do they do that supports your leadership or what do they not do that like doesn't get in your way? Um because as much as we want to learn from the school site, I think we also want to learn from like the management level um on how to create more opportunities like what you all are doing. So I don't know if you can speak to that as to like what the Alliance home office does or doesn't do to support what everything is happening here. >> Yeah. Yeah. So I could go on on the school end and then um Greg could kind of go on because we do have a the new support staff at the home office now that supports all schools. Uh well the good thing is that at uh at Burton

129Tech we've kind of we started it before the initiatives came out but when Greg came in well he didn't tell you. Greg's also a former principal. Uh so he kind of has an idea of how heavy the work is. So he's able to kind of support where we're at. So a lot of the stuff that we make sure we do at Burton Tech is we we collaborate, we partner up. And the way I approach things is when we go out to visit or see different places, it's it's for me it's how can we help support you and and and be that helping hand first before we ask for any kind of favors or collaboration because what I start noticing too is it gets a little bit difficult when everybody's going in give me give me

130give me give me but now people are going out to say hey we have this come and and and take what we have and we could share out. um we've opened our doors to say hey what that that was one of the components where we started saying what is it a charter school why was it built and and for me is um being blessed that Judy Burton uh I was one of her last hires and and the vision that she had I continue to kind of push and it's one of those where we're here we were built for a reason and for me is we're here to help support everybody else um and then bringing in Greg to say hey I'm going to protect your time I'm gonna make these things you don't have to

131do. I'll take care of these components to it and the trust in it. It's a big big piece because um there is no time to waste and if I could make if I could take some of the barriers out then I could kind of help you with and we have a great staff at the school site that's able to kind of make some adjustments to it. Um with the grant when we started coming in um we also started working with uh Lego uh partnered with Legos and and then other schools outside of of Alliance. But this year um it's the first year right the deal came in. >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So for like as as far as for me in terms of the community schools work we have a a team. So we have

132a community schools director and managers and they really support us and really making sure that when we look at a partner um it is it networkwide or is it regionwide? So just creating those processes and systems and you know I get really excited about partnerships but we got to go through theou process. we got to go through those process. So they also help codify those processes um with us and work with us and give us time to actually work with regions. So I feel like through this model um I really get to see other campuses and other schools in the in the in the network. And I think when you're just without this model I don't know if we would like I don't know if I would get to visit schools and share best practices

133or um even visit or partner on a good like just like with the Boys and Girls Club over on Metro. one of the schools, Simon Tech, now has that program. So, it's like we there's a there's a lot of um I don't not networking, but just co-planning that we do together and that the network office helps facilitate that. >> I love that. Thank you so much. >> So, thank you for sharing that. And I wanted to ask I mean because some of the things that you mentioned um in the community um like the 5K and I was like, yeah, we haven't seen a 5K in the inner community like that. And I was like, I don't know what it is about 5Ks, but people show up and it's early in the morning and they're ready

134to run. Um, but they were there. The community was there. Um, and so for something you said you were meeting, so did was that a collective process and how long did that take to plan for that event for those schools? >> Yeah. So, over at Elgen Sudden Park through um, dad actually has a community safety partnership program. That's a 5-year grant that is funded with the community safety LAPD bureau and the park and I want to say they had one it might finish at Harvard Park and that's an example like more CD8 but for those to actually function you have uh 10 officers that are assigned to the park right and we have a grid program and because I know Algen said it in the past you know they there's there's data to support why

135there's a CSP there there's monthly meetings for that um and there's a call for community and committee. So, um, as part of the work, I started sitting on the committee that meets every second Tuesday of the month at 6:00 and you have the CDA that gives updates. You have the community safety partnership and we have the grid program and we have anybody stakeholders, parents, families, students that want to come and just participate and sometimes it's hard to get turnout for that, but we've been working to get momentum that sharing that with our local schools, putting flyers out and that's where it started. And I think for like for myself when I get a resource I just blast it out to everybody that I partner with because the more I know we even we're even seeing

136like um opportunities with like Holly Mitchell's office to have kids go to the opera or um anything that comes like resource we just share it out and we promote it. So that really started there. There was a planning committee there and we were just meeting and it organically just talked because the community schools coordinator at that school was like oh we should do it here because they always do they haven't done one here. So everybody there was a lot of already invested people there and that's how that came together because you had the the uh police department, you had the uh district council district office, you have the schools there, you have local churches, your neighborhood council and so it was a perfect place to start something like that. So I always say like um

137when we go to our parks, parks generally have a committee, they have an advisory board like we have to sit on it, we have to participate. I feel like that's the expectation as a constituent. That's an expectation I feel like we have as residents. So I think this model gives us that avenue because now I get to represent the school but at the same time I'm representing the community. I'm representing family, representing home. So that's really where it started and um I know we're trying to really uh pump the pool up. So maybe a splash and dash might eventually come out of that. So we'll keep you posted on that. I've been we're really pushing for that. But I think that's where a lot of that's that happens. um that's where it starts and then

138just making sure that neighborhood councils I feel like there's so much information there and just because I'm in that space there's been like five or six other opportunities that come through that we didn't even know like an awareness on let's say Figuro is doing a lot of work on human trafficking but there are summits so sometimes even something like that where I'm able to attend or share you get more resources so I feel like that's how you continue to evolve this work if you just feel like we just stay at the school instead of those resources are just not going to fall into our lap. Like we have to be active participates participants in a community. I think now it's just balance of time. That's that's the hardest part. >> Yeah. I was like how

139does he do all this? But I I know it's important work um that you're doing. And as you were talking about students on those boards is a student at Burton Tech that's a part of that board. >> That's Yeah. Right now they had to change they have to up He's been such a avid participant. He's been on ad hoc committees, but they have to revise their bylaws and it's something that they've stated they're working on because they were like, "We need a youth seat." That's it's the Southeast, so they don't have a youth seat, but they were like, "We need to get a youth seat." >> Some boards do, some don't. >> So, but I think because of his involvement, I think and and they're they saw the need of like we should have a

140youth seat. So, I think that is part of the inspiration. And yeah, tomorrow he'll be or Saturday he's at Faithful St. Mark supporting with a food giveaway and uh and they're they're having an event. So he's they're going to be there. I'll be there for a bit too. So it should be nice. So I think that's the important piece because students get to see how decisions are made and they get to see if like there's street light concerns, they can advocate for that. Um so we're pretty involved in even the 301 campaigns. Um so we're always up there. I think our you know district uh our our neighborhood was uh third place. So we I think Park Mesa beat us. Um, but yeah, we're we're Yeah. So, Park Mesa beat us, but I'm, you know,

141I'm strategizing. We're going to get 600 kids to be putting in 311 ones next year. So, we're going to take that back. >> Yes. Yes. Yes. Well, appreciate that. And, um, just, I mean, the work that is shared here, obviously, the substance abuse, the SEO Thursdays, I think those are so many avenues for our families to be able to connect with students and communities. So, thank you. And we're going to be looking for lifeguards because like I say, swimming it is a life skill. It is not, you know, a luxury to learn how to swim. It is a life skill and we need to continue to push that effort. And as a former athletic director who ended up being the swim coach because there was no coach, um, I push the efforts to try to

142get more of our students in the water because it is a life skill. So, thank you for the work that you're doing. Well, thank you so much for highlighting um some of the you know a just a view of your charter school u your community schools program. So it's a lot of work that you've invested in the community as my colleague has mentioned and thank you definitely learned from your process and how um you've conducted uh the community schools grant and also the entire um sort of the pillars and how they're they're integrated into your school. So I appreciate you very much for coming. Thank >> Thank you so much. So with that um um so thank you to all of our presenters and we will move now one second to public comment. And as

143a reminder each speaker will have up to two minutes to address the committee and we appreciate the members of the public taking time to share their perspectives and experiences with us today. And as we wait for our board secretariat to come, um just want to reiterate that all voices are important. So thank you for um sharing some thoughts. All right, we have a full list of speakers today. I'll call on those listed as uh being here in person and then I'll call on those who listed themselves as speaking remotely. The first speaker is Joseph Areola. Come on down, Joseph. You'll have two minutes to speak. Once you begin and then after Jo after Joseph is Edgar Edgar Mendes and then Yolanda Fuentes come on down to the podium and you'll have two minutes. Is that

144timer working there? It say two minutes on there. >> I see a two-minute mark. >> Perfect. Thank you. Go ahead. >> Sorry I'm not very loud so I'll do my best. Um good afternoon. Um hope you guys are doing well. My name is Joseph Viola. I am currently an administrator at um Burke Charter School and I also have a seventh grader at the school. Um I have been working at uh Berno Charter School for 15 years. Uh when I started working there um I knew I didn't want to be a teacher. Um but I quickly changed my mind while when I started there. Um I went from being a tutor to a BII to working for the autism program as an aid. Uh then to a teacher and now a school administrator. I am the

145coordinator of school culture and climate. Um I have grown on a personal and professional level because of the environment the school creates. In my time at BCCS, I have been a part of and seen the investment in the community, the positive culture, and the endless work from everyone on the team to have uh to have strong academic outcomes. Our students with the highest needs are also being served. Last year, I decided to enroll my son at Buron Charter School uh for sixth grade. He is currently a seventh grader. I enrolled him uh because I trust the Burona team. I know our school provides our students with better opportunities for social growth and leadership, a safe and positive school environment and strong academic and athletics programs. Uh for many years he was behind in math and

146uh this year he has reached grade level uh late 7th. As a parent and as a school leader, I am proud of the work our school does within the community. Uh we have built a welcoming and inclusive culture that strives to meet the needs of all of our students and families. Our staff is collaborative and works hard to provide strong academics and great experiences and opportunities for our students. We recently reviewed our uh final I Ready diagnostic data and we are proud of the results we achieved. Our students hit 100% typical growth in math with all subgroups achieving the same or better typical growth median scores. In reading, our students achieve uh 147% typical growth. And again, students with special needs, English learners, and other student populations achieved equal or higher growth results. I am

147proud of my school, my team, and my community. The environment we have built allows students to learn and grow while feeling safe and supported, and I am proud to continue my work with my team. >> Thank you for your time. >> Thank you. >> Next speaker is Edgar Mendes. Edgar Mendes. >> Good afternoon. My name is Kimberly Oliva. I am a current employee and former student at Berrona Charter School. Today I will be reading a letter on behalf of one of our parents, Edgar Mendes, who has >> Can you just lower the mic a little bit closer to you? There you go. Please go ahead. Thank you. >> who is unable to attend today's meeting due to a work conflict. To the LUSD school board members, my name is Edgar Mendes. I am a former

148Burona Charter School student and a current parent. Although I cannot be there in person today, I appreciate the opportunity to share my experience with you today. My time at Burke Corona was an important time in my life and those experiences helped me for years after I graduated. I was in charter schools all the way from elementary to high school. Charter schools helped me guide helped guide me and support me in our community. Not much was expect of us, but charter schools helped us succeed. The people who worked at my schools, Fenton, Bur Corona, and Discovery were the right people at the right time in our lives. They were always available for us. The school guided us and gave us direction. The teachers always looked out for us. As we got older, we would talk about

149our teachers and the staff at BCCS frequently. We knew what was expected of us. The teachers and staff taught us good behavior and high expectations from when we were little. As we went through school, we remember the lessons they taught us. I put my daughter at Bur Corona even though the drive is far because I want her to be at a place where I know she is known and cared for. I don't want her to be just another number. At a larger schools, the staff often doesn't know who you are. But Bur Corona doesn't turn anyone away. They work with everyone to turn a new leave. And I saw kids who didn't do well in elementary doing better at Bur Corona. At Bur Corona, we had a lot of one-on-one support. The teachers were always

150willing to support and they made learning interesting for us. The teachers added something to my life that is still meaningful to me even as an adult. A lot of stu a lot of us when we came to Burke Corona were first generation immigrants. Our families couldn't teach us much or help us but the school did everything to be a support system and to make sure our work got done. They made sure we knew about college and had the choice to go. I also felt like I had a hand in building the Burke Corona community. I helped beautify the school through service days and projects we would do after school and on the weekends. >> Thank you for your time. Thank you. All right, Yolanda Fuentes, come on up. You have two minutes to speak. Why

151don't you begin? >> Good afternoon, board members and staff. My name is Yolanda Fuentes. I am a administrator at Burke Corona Charter High School, but a proud parent of three alumni of Burke Corona Charter School. um as a single mom back over 15 years ago, my daughter needed a place where it was going to be not only a school but more of a family while her father was deployed. And having worked in the community, I knew of Burke Coron and I said, you know what, I need a school that's going to really be a pillar for our family and Burke Corona Charter School was that she is now currently wrapping up her third year at Cal State Fullerton. So, they prepared her well. moving 10 years forward now. I have two students that had special

152needs and I need they while they attended a LA USD um school, I needed a school that was going to support my children and Burke Corona was that they are now currently here at the high school with me. But Burke Corona is not just a school really. It is a pillar. It helps the families. It supports the families. And if our motto is if the school's not good enough for our kids, it's not good enough for communities. and having been a proud member of a staff, but more so is seeing what they do. The middle school prepared our kids. They're exposing them to things that they've probably couldn't do. They are they took the kids to a field trip up north. Now, my son has his set on UC Santa Cruz because BERT was able

153to allow him that opportunity to visit schools that, you know, other kids would probably just think a local North Valley College would be. But BERT is really Pillars. They're great. I am proud to work for the organization but more so proud to support and continue working with my colleagues at Burke Corona Charter School because I see the benefit that they did to my two kids who are special needs. One of them has Down syndrome and our sped department went to the middle to the elementary school to talk to that kindergartener teacher who was my daughter's teacher till fifth grade and were able to tailor the education for her. I I was concerned sending her to a SDC class. I needed her to be an individual and boy, Bert helped me shape her because she's a

154force to deal with now. So, thank you so much board members for listening to us this afternoon. >> Thank you for your time. John Oedo, John Oo, come on up. You have two minutes to speak. Why don't you begin? >> Good afternoon board members. My name is John Oto and I'm a senior at Burkana Charter High School. I want to take a moment to tell you about my school and Burnt Middle School and what it has meant to me. When I first walked into Burnt Middle, I was searching for somewhere I belonged. I found that place. I found my community. People who believed in me before I even believed in myself. Um, what made that difference was access. Access to teachers and staff who actually knew my name, who made time for me one-on-one, and

155who pushed me when I needed it most. That kind of attention changed me as a student. For example, my principal, uh, Mr. Garcia, has always shown he's available to me and others to ask about college and the workforce and life after high school. Mr. Roth, my AP biology teacher, who always makes his lesson super engaging and always asks me if I ever needed help with the work, and the person who inspired me to pursue science at university. Burke Rona Charter High School has also gave me my voice. I learned to speak up and advocate for myself and actively engage with the world around me and learn skills I've never expected to gain in the classroom. Because of this community, I'm proud to say I will be attending UC Davis this fall where I'll be majoring

156in environmental toxology. Burke Corona didn't just prepare me academically, it shaped who I am. I hope this board continues to invest in schools that do the same for students like me. Thank you for your time and consideration. >> Thank you for your time. All right, Sakura Singh, I see you're out there. Come on up. You'll have two minutes to speak once you begin. Good afternoon, members of the board. Board vice president Dr. Rivas, board member Newil, board member Franklin, I think you're on the Zoom, Mr. McClean, everyone else. Um, great to see you, although unfortunate circumstances. Uh, we're here again speaking, um, on the issue that we raised yesterday and the day prior, um, looking to speak up for the victim um, in the case of Jesus Sangulo and Maria Sotoayor. Again, administrators who covered

157up the rape of this student who came to them seeking help and then they locked her in a room for hours and now they're still retained on by LUSD and were promoted. And now Jesus Enulo works as the director of operations for virtual academy and Maria Sotomayor is in HR and Latasha Buck director of instruction for the virtual academy was questioned like I had mentioned yesterday and the day prior and her response was it justification because it was 20 years ago. That was her response and that's clearly inappropriate. And for you, I've provided a some flyers um that I'll leave here. Um and there's a QR code that will take you to the um article by the Los Angeles Times detailing their case. Um and uh we really object to the fact that these that

158these individuals are still being paid through our tax dollars and also your tax dollars as well since of course you pay taxes too. Um, and of course the district was very proactive with the allegations against Cesar Chavez, which is perfectly, you know, great. But here there is no justice yet. So we ask the board, please, please provide justice for the victim. And uh, we call frankly for the resignation of Jesus Gulo and Maria Sotomayor and Latasha Buck for their inappropriate comments and their conduct in covering up the rape of a student. Um and if they do not resign, we ask that you please terminate them. No golden handshake, please. Um ideally, um because it is very improper and LUSD can show that it stands with the victims in cases like these. Thank you so much.

159>> Thank you for your time. I'll come up and get those documents in just a moment. The next speaker is Jason Watts. Are you here? Come on down, Mr. Watts. You have two minutes to speak once you begin. Good afternoon. My name is Jason Watts, executive director for Scholarship Prep South Bay, uh, TK through 8th grade charter school in Wilmington, District 7. I'm also joined here by our awesome principal, Allison Van, and we just want to introduce ourselves because we anticipate, uh, submitting our renewal petition in the coming months and thought it would be nice if you met us in person before reading about us on a piece of paper. Um, our school focuses on providing high quality instructional pro a high quality instructional program with comprehensive wraparound supports from food and clothing 365 days

160a year to free eyeglasses for the most vulnerable student populations including homeless youth. Now, we started our journey in 2020 inheriting a school that had been shut down and then COVID hit that same year. So, yay. Uh, but despite that, our students have excelled and grown uh academically every single year, every single subgroup. This year, our schoolwide ELA growth earned an exceptional rating on the California dashboard, the highest design designation. And our chronic absenteeism rate is 1.4% the states of 17. And we have also maintained a 0% suspension suspension rate for every subgroup four years in a row. >> Hello, my name is Allison Van and I'm the principal at Scholarship Prep South Bay. At the bay, we truly believe in educating and supporting the whole child. While strong academics are important, we also focus

161on students social emotional well-being, confidence, leadership, and overall growth. We want every student to feel seen, supported, and successful both inside and outside the classroom. We are also incredibly proud proud to hold what we believe is the only formal partnership between a public school and the Los Angeles Sparks. This partnership provides our students and families with unique opportunities centered around wellness, teamwork, and community engagement. Next Thursday, May 22nd, we will be hosting our wellness carnival alongside the Sparks at our campus in Wilmington. Invitations have already been sent to each of you and I sincerely hope you can join us. I would love for you to experience what we who we are in person before simply reading about us on paper. Our doors are always open and you are welcome to our campus anytime. Thank you

162for your time today. >> Thank you for your time. >> And I will leave these right here. >> Thank you. I'll come collect them shortly. Uh Keith Delquilla, are you here? I see you're there. Come on down. You have two minutes to speak. Why don't you begin? >> Good afternoon. My name is Keith Deloquilla. I'm the vice president of local advocacy with the California Charter Schools Association. Um, thank you. Our community is hungry for this type of focus on the things we do well. Um, so thank you for creating that space today. Um the reason our schools exist is not to do better than but to lift all boats. Um and so too often the conversation in this room is about above and below. Um some of that's due to state law and the you

163know parameters we have to operate within but a lot of it is due to our own limitations. So I'm going to ask you to help us change that. Um renewal decisions over the past two years it's been about a hundred of them. They have produced inequitable outcomes. Um, to put it bluntly, the board has voted to deny schools that serve a higher than uh expected population of black students, English learners, and students with disabilities, and disproportionately represent schools that are founded by and led by black educators. Um, I don't think that's an intentional decision, but that is how systemic racism works. We don't we make the individual decisions one by one, and then we look at the collective decisions and see that there is a disparity. There are things that we can do about this

164and I'm going to suggest um a few of those solutions that we should look at that I think will produce more equitable outcomes without lowering standards without lowering expectations and then operate within the confines of the law. Uh the first is we should be considering growth metrics. There's a growth metric on the dashboard that we can use and that should be a factor in your analysis of whether schools are actually making adequate progress. We should be using verified data not just as a state policy but as a matter of local policy. Um earlier this week as you heard from Miss Wilmont teach elementary school was approved by the county at LEO on the strength of their verified data. What she told you was it was their prerogative to use it which means it's also your

165prerogative to use it. Um I do think that we should do that. The county has heard um nine has voted on nine charter schools that this district has denied. They've approved four of them so far. Um so uh and then lastly I would say we can look at uh the resident school analysis and weight those uh uh uh schools appropriately. So thank you for your time. Thank you for creating the space. >> Thank you for your time. >> All right. Now we'll go to people who listed themselves as calling in. Amy Burfield, I see you're on the line. Amy Burfield, please press star six to unmute yourself and you have two minutes to speak once you begin. Amy Burfield. >> Hi, I'm Amy Burfield from New Heights Charter School. Can you hear me? >> Yes,

166please go ahead. >> Oh, great. Thank you for your time today. I'm excited to share with you some of the things happening at New Heights. We're entering our 20th year in South Los Angeles and we'll be renewing our charter at the beginning of next year. This year, like last year, we were identified as one of America's healthiest schools all-stars by the Alliance for a Healthier Generation. Our focus is on students and families overall healthy development. One way achieve this, one way we achieve this is through hosting joyful family events that get our students and their families into nature, like our day at the water where 40 families kayaked at Roondo Beach through our partnership with Waterfront Education. Also, for the past two years, we've been working really hard to improve our students literacy scores. We're

167happy to share we saw an increase of almost 7% in the amount of students who scored proficient or above in the 2025 ESPback test. This year we're launching a new approach to writing that integrates writing and self-regulation. We shared the research behind this approach at the LEOC Charter School Collaborative meeting last spring and we'll provide an update when we meet at the end of this month. During the first week of June, our students will engage in our yearly tradition of the New Heights Learning Museum celebration. Each class visibly demonstrates highlights of their learning experience from the past year and other classes come through the host room to see what they've learned and engage with the host class. Miss Newbell, we'd love to invite you to join us on the morning of February, June 5th to

168participate in our learning celebration. A student invitation will be coming your way soon. Thank you so much for your time today. >> Thank you for your time. The next caller is Nenah. I see you're on the line. Nina, please press star six to unmute yourself and you'll have two minutes to speak once you begin. Nina. >> Nina, I see you're on the line. >> Okay. Um, yes. Can you hear me? Yes, please go ahead. >> Okay, great. Good afternoon board members and greetings everyone. My name is Nina New Oak and I'm a parent at Granada Hills Charter. I would like to relay my experience with our school. Our family has had nothing but positive experiences with Granada Hills Charter. Our oldest daughter graduated from Granada in 2021 and we were pleased to have an in-person

169graduation that year. At Granada, she took a full load of AP and honors classes. She managed her time on both her studio and school dance teams, serving as an officer for two years. Prepared her for the rigors of the legal studies undergraduate program at UC Berkeley, and she graduated last year and is now working full-time at a large law firm in San Francisco. Watching her blossom into the woman she is today is one of the greatest joys as a parent. Equally rewarding is to share in the growth of our youngest daughter, a current junior supported by GHC's college and career counselors, as she discovers what she wants to pursue after high school. In fact, both of my children were competitive dancers since they were young. They continued to pursue their passion at Granada and joined

170the varsity dance team where they met friends and found a place to connect. In the case of my younger one, she's currently on the dance team as one of the captains and wants to keep dance in their future plans. Um, GC has a strong parent engagement infrastructure with a wide range of resources that parallels offerings to students, a variety of wellness workshops, college prep resources, and JC specific programming information. I feel informed as a parent and when I have questions I know the names and faces of the support staff to reach out to. In addition to the weekly home newsletters and regular parent post check surveys, the school has a strong partnership with its PTSA of which I am an active member. We work together enable pathways of parent fundraising for the K9 security program

171to pro all the way to providing SC scholarships and senior experiences like RAD night. There's so much more I could say about the school, but the bottom line is that Gronado Hills Charter is an excellent school that helped prepare our daughters for life as they enter adulthood. Between a strong academic culture and the resources of our that our family has had access to, I don't think our family could have seen us being anywhere else. We're right where we're supposed to be. Thank you for your time and attention to listening to my story. >> Thank you for your time. The next speaker is Andrea Flores. Andrea, I see you're on the line. Please press star six to unmute yourself and you'll have two minutes to speak once you begin. Andrea Flores. >> Hello. Good afternoon, board

172members. Can you hear me? >> Sure can. Please go ahead. >> Thank you for the opportunity to share my experience at Granada Hills Charter. My name is Andrea Flores. I am currently a substitute teacher for the past two years and a parent of two children in GHC's high school and the TK through8 program. I actually have one graduating senior and a middle school student entering high school in the fall. As a professional realtor now transitioning into a second career as an educator, I interact with the students and the staff from all walks of life that reinforce my passion for education. I hold education very dear to my heart as I am a minority and the first in my family to graduate from college and pursue a master's degree in education with an emphasis in counseling.

173My involvement as a parent and the time I spend spend in the classroom make GHC a second homeate for my children and over the last four years that they have attended Granada have seen exponential growth in their ability to overcome academic challenges. My son entered GHC from a middle school where he got mediocre grades for years. The support he's received at Granada is a difference between night and day. He's now on the dean list for exemplary grades and received an invitation to the senior awards next Thursday. To watch him graduate with honors after the academic struggles he's overcome, my heart just bursts with pride. He will continue his education at a two-year community college and then transfer to med school to pursue his dream of becoming a physician's assistant. Our daughter attends the middle school

174through the THC TK through 8 program and I can confidently say she has been challenged and taught rigorous sports work that aligns with university preparation. At the same time, the support from the teachers has again proved to be far and above anything we experienced anywhere else. The TK38 program also offers uh continuation to expand student council, clubs, and after hours activities, sports clinics, and more. My son's academic victories and my daughter's progression toward college readiness, even my own career transition and evolution as an educator, would not have been possible without the power of a parent's right to choose the best school for their children or to pursue a career supported and guided by school site mentorship and investment in its workforce. I am proud to be a parent at an employee school community >> that

175strives to educate. >> Thank you. All right, the next speaker is Abigail Deator. I don't I don't have you online. Are you in the room, Abigail? Okay. No, Abigail. Uh Jamila, I see you are on the line. Jamila, please press star six to unmute yourself and you'll have two minutes to speak once you begin. Jamila. >> Hello. Can you hear me? >> Yes, please go ahead. >> All right. Good afternoon, school board members. My name is Jamila Fu and I here and I am here and I am here today to speak on an important issue that has concerning students, parents and faculty since the start of virtual academy. In 2017, Marie Satimar and and Jesus Aguero were administrators at Southeast High School. A 17-year-old girl came to them stressful as adults and report that she

176was raised by a teacher. Instead of following protocol or informing authorities of the accusations, Jus and Maria respond by locking her in their room for hours until she recounted her story. They then put no context to covering up this rape. After this, they were retali after this retired against the student. She wasn't allowed to go to her own graduation. In 2023, Lucy a settlement of 6.5 million for a former student who was abused and then further victimiz further victimized by Maria and his l tried to write it wrongs back in 2008 by letting them go, but they were later but they were then reinstated and have since been promoted. Bo members, I hope you are also paying these people through your taxes. ODC thinks that he wants students to feel safe and respected in school.

177I think you all agree with that mission and have positive intentions. However, it's very questionable that these two administrators put no contest if we're promoted. Roer Roer Academy director Latasha Buck recently was questioned about this and said that it wasn't her concern since it was 20 years ago. Is that appropriate for her to say is that right? As somebody who has a friend who was a victim of grooming, how was she as a student supposed to feel safe to to talk about her experience? How are other students who may be surviving supposed to feel safe? You cannot openly claim to care about her or any other student when you allow people who openly cover up child abuse to continue to work under your district. Many students are scared to speak up about their experience that

178already to continue working on the installs more experience you owe students feel they shouldn't have. I hope that you take rapid action against all three of these indiv individuals and provides those with quick updates. Thank you for your time. >> Thank you for your time. Briana, I see you're on the line. Brianna, please press star six to unmute yourself. And you have two minutes to speak once you begin. Briana, I see you're with us. Brianna, please press star six. >> Oh, actually, >> please go ahead, Brianna. We can hear you. You uh you muted yourself, Briana. That may have been intentional. Can Can you unmute yourself, please? Uh, last call for Briana. >> Hello. >> Hi. You made it. Please go ahead. You have two minutes to speak. Why don't you begin? >> Yes. Okay.

179I'm still sorry. I don't have no clue what was happening. >> Okay. Hello. My name is Brianna Hernandez and I am a high school student. Usually I speak to my peers on lighter topics, but today is regarding a heavy and unfortunate case. This is a case that has been on the minds of students, parents, and faculty for years now. Jesus Angola is currently administrative operations at the virtual academy earning over $200,000 a year. But are you aware of his history? Angola previously paid no contest to covering up the rape of a high school student. He was then promoted by Ali even after Ali paid out a $6 million settlement. Now he's in charge of us. Natasha Buck is director of virtual academy. When Miss Buck was asked about Mr. Lulu's case, which I was a

180witness to. Miss Buck justified it by saying it was not her concern and had occurred 20 years ago. I'm curious to hear what Miss Buck has to say about Desert Travis or the Zodiac Killer. Is the Zodiac Killer now not her concern because it was decades ago? Miss Buck also tries to dodge accountability by saying it is not our business as students. But who pays the value of her along with Tusan Gulo who tried to cover up a literal rape? My family does. So yes, it actually is my business. Buck, I'm asking that the board please pursue real punishment against Agulo, Buck, and Maria, who also received a promotion despite this incident. What if this was your child? How would you react? Would it also not be your concern? What about what both Angula and

181Buck said was highly inappropriate and grounds her removal? We're hoping to hear updates soon, just like we did about Cesar Chavis. Thank you. >> Thank you for your time. Uh, let's see. Isabella T, I see you're signed up to speak remotely, but I don't have you signed in. Are you in the room, Isabella T? No. Isabella T in the room. No Isabella T. That concludes public comment. Well, thank you to all of our public speakers. Um, thank you to also all of our presenters. Thank you to the charter school division. Everyone who has presented throughout this academic year. I thank you so much. Thank you to Mr. Jose Kutierrez for being here as part of our committee members and thank you to my colleagues Miss uh Shaled Hendinel and also Tanya Franklin for being part

182of of this committee and so as we wrap up um our last committee for for this year um just want to say I want to um it's been um very informational um this is what the goal of this charter is just to provide the information on transparency, accountability, all the criteria that goes into the oversight of of charter schools and also a point to highlight all the work that is being um conducted throughout our district um throughout our county um by charter schools and want to be able to also thank the charter schools who have come before this podium and in this boardroom and highlighting all the wonderful work that they're doing. And so with that said, I would love like to adjourn this uh committee meeting for the 2526 school year and we'll see

183you in 2627 school year. So be well everyone. Thank you. >> Thank you.