March 17, 2026 - 10am Committee of the Whole

001Good morning everyone. I would like to call to order this meeting the Committee of the Whole here on today, March 17th. Happy St. Patrick's Day for all those who recognize this wonderful day. Um, hope you're wearing your green. I see some green. I see a lot of green here. That's awesome. I have green in my earrings, so just, you know, right there. Um, I want to welcome my colleagues, Acting Superintendent Tate, and our staff, uh, members of the public. Thank you all for being here and for the work behind today's presentations. Today's agenda reflects work that is central to our responsibility as a board, ensuring that students graduate prepared with tangible opportunities, on-demand skills, and a clear path forward. We will hear about efforts that connect learning to real-world outcomes from hands-on career pathways and

002inclusive programs for students with disabilities to expand access to college and access expanded access and college credit and investments in systems like school nutrition that directly impact students' daily life experience. As we engage in today's discussion, I want to keep a few questions in mind. Um, first, how are we ensuring that access to these opportunities is consistent across all communities, especially for students who have been historically underserved? How are we measuring impact in a way that reflects real outcomes for students beyond participation? And lastly, and how are we building programs that are not only strong in design, but sustainable and scalable across the district? These presentations give us an opportunity to better understand how this work is taking shape across the district and where we can continue to strengthen it. With that, uh I want

003to open the floor with remarks from any of our labor partners who are here present, who would like to speak. Okay, Yvette, I see UTL A come on forward. Ms. Julie Van Winkel. And guests. Mhm. Yes, we brought a guest today. Um two guests, yes. Hi everybody, my name is Julie Van Winkel. I am the AFT Vice President for United Teachers Los Angeles. We're going to start out I wanted to seed some of my time to a parent, Ashley, from Valley Academy Arts and of Arts and Sciences to talk a little bit about some charter issues that are going on at that school. So. Good morning. Uh my name is Ashley. I am a public school teacher, a mom of past, present, and future students of Valley Academy of Arts and Sciences. Um my husband

004and I have eight minor children still in school. Um and two that have graduated from LAUSD. So, decisions made about this campus aren't um some abstract thing. Uh they'll shape our daily lives um and those of families like ours for years to come. Uh I am not someone who um um might be able to tell by looking at me at the moment. I'm not someone who goes to speak um anywhere besides reciting the clean your room song from the hallway at home. Um I don't even have the time to be here right now. Uh the busy in our house beats all. To give you a picture, I have never once been to a movie theater with my husband, and I should be washing the dishes piled up high above the counter at home, um topped

005only by the mountain of socks, large enough to climb on top of top of the um, couch. Uh, my 5-year-old patiently awaits my renewed efforts to find his left green shoe, but I am here this morning, um, hoping to protect our school's unique little atmosphere. I believe that it's worth rearranging all of that and more. Uh, my 16-year-old son, currently is a straight A student at Voss. He is genuinely thriving there. Uh, his older brother graduated last year and actually built a small business, uh, stemming from an idea that he developed through a real project-based, uh, set of assignments at the school. His younger sister, uh, will attend next year and several sisters and brothers will follow, um, after that. Families like mine choose Voss very intentionally. The arts and science focus and the rigorous

006program offer a special big school feel uh, on a smaller, more personal campus and level that, um, students can reach their teachers. They trust the adults there at school and feel encouraged and comfortable to push themselves. They have access to AP classes, project-based learning, robotics, dance, school leadership programs and sports. These opportunities prepare them for pathways into things like engineering, forensic science, um, visual arts and, um, it's just endless. Uh, students feel safe and supported at Voss armed with the information and motivation to succeed in the futures of their choosing and design. My concern about, uh, colocation of Magnolia's, uh, charter school on this campus is a very real loss of instructional and program space, um, and access for students who are already here and including students with special needs. Uh, if our dance team

007leaves, um, loses consistent studio space, or practices get shortened or pushed uh to add hours, and kids who um kids who stay engaged because of that program may uh sort of pull away. Robotics isn't something you can pack into a backpack and take with you. If they lose their building space or have to share it, rush in and out, um they lose real hands-on learning time that prepares them for um careers in engineering and elsewhere. When two schools share one library, one computer lab, it doesn't just get busy. Students end up waiting or rushing or missing out on the focus time that they need in those spaces. Um and if the gym and field time gets squeezed, student athletes end up losing chances to stay active, the motivation to try out for teams, and take

008on leadership roles that keep them connected to school. These types of changes chip away at the engagement and opportunities available to them as of now. Our school community has worked incredibly hard over the years to make this campus function well. Families, staff, and administrators have adjusted school schedules, moved classrooms, and reworked programs again and again to get to a place where things finally run smoothly. Adding a second independent school onto a campus that's already carefully balanced would disrupt the stability and make it very difficult for the foreseeable future, um increasing stress for both the students and the staff. There are also real safety concerns. More students and more cars on the street, small campus uh means more chaos chaos at drop-off and pick-up, and that's where accidents are more likely to happen. Students coming and

009going in the morning, um when you suddenly mix two separate student populations in tight locker areas and hallways, tensions and misunderstandings can also rise before staff members um have a chance to step And in an emergency on this campus, having two schools can slow communication and accountability where seconds would really count. I tried to think of everything. Um but it's hard to imagine. Uh beyond logistics, this proposal will change uh how Voss students feel about their school um and their efforts amidst so much disruption and distraction. So um many changes in operating so many changes in operating procedures, bell schedules to accommodate different programs um and things like that just really don't make sense. More students means counselors and administrators administrators are also stretched thinner. Kids will begin to feel overlooked at a place that's

010really special. Um having had kids at different schools, I can recognize the uniqueness of Voss's atmosphere. When students feel that they have to compete to share their classrooms, it feels unfair and frustration begins to replace pride. I've seen that um amongst the kids, my student and his friends, um already. Rotating spaces, adjusting schedules adds stress, um frustration, and takes uh hours away from learning. I believe that this is especially true for students with special needs. Um last week, I heard that 200 parents came to speak out for Voss and Holmes. Students are emotional and deeply invested because they feel their school is being changed without their voice, um and that is not the norm of what they expect uh being at Valley Academy. Oh my goodness. Um they feel like forgive me, but they feel

011like these things are being addressed and changed by people who are old and disconnected, who care more about funding than about them. Shh. They want to help protect what they helped build. Closeknit campus where students, staff, and families feel connected and committed to one another. Uh the campus is simply not designed to house two separate school communities. Trying to force that reality will not bring harmony. Um rather stressed, division, and resentment. Um I hope that Magnolia finds a place to grow and serve its students. Um but I do believe that the district has a deep responsibility and duty to the students already here. Um and thriving. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thanks. Um and I just Yeah, so we're concerned about um charter encroachment in Voss and other schools, and we know that a

012lot of you on the board have been advocates to help us protect our public schools, and we're asking that you continue to do that um for for Voss. Um I wanted to shift gears also a little bit and talk about our bargaining. Um the district has been posting on social media that we already um that the district already gave the teachers health care. They got a big raise a few years ago. And now the teachers have the audacity to ask for more. So, I'm here to tell you today that yes, we do have that audacity. Um and the reason is that even though we got a significant raise a few years ago, our wages have not kept pace with inflation. Our members aren't trying to buy one house in San Pedro and six houses in

013Florida. They're just trying to afford rent in the district in which they teach. We're being priced out of the district we serve, and so yeah, we do have the audacity to ask that our salaries are enough to allow us to live where we work. And yes, we are going to keep demanding more resources for our students. Now more than ever, um our students' mental health and attendance are really worrying us between the ICE raids and the horrible wars and destruction going on in our world, our students need trusted adults on campus that are checking on them, um, and that we need to support them. That's why we keep insisting on more mental health staff. So, school board, you can see that amid all this chaos in the top district offices, your district bargaining team does

014not feel the urgency to settle the contract. They're doubling and tripling down and that we are being ridiculous in our demands, despite the fact that this district is projecting a budget that puts LAUSD billions of dollars over the state reserved caps in the next couple of years, despite the fact that the current district administration has taken 10 billion dollars in public funds and rerouted it to contracts with private companies since 2022. To us, UTLA members who pay taxes to public schools, that is what's ridiculous. It's not a question of money, it's a question of priorities. Your district bargaining team seems intent on dragging this out and putting our schools through even more conflict and instability than we've experienced over the past couple years. Board members, you have the power to settle this contract. And so,

015I want to leave you with a question. A lot of you have kids. What What if your kid decides they want to be an LA Unified teacher? Now, there might be a little part of you that is like cringing cuz you're like, "Oh, man, I'm going to have to like keep supporting them even after they're adults cuz teachers don't make enough money." And you know that it's really hard and you know that our schools are under-resourced, but there's probably also a part of you that's like, "Yeah, I hope you do be a teacher." And I think that's because, in part, you know that UTLA is going to be there defending your kid when they try to be a teacher so that they can keep affording to live in this city. So, I'm asking you, we

016can do this together. We can settle this contract before we have to go on strike if you all are active in that process, but if that doesn't happen, then we're still ready to go because we need to be able to afford to live in our cities, and we need our schools to have basic resources. So, thank you so much for your time. I appreciate it. Thank you, Ms. Van Winkle. Um and thank you to our our parent who spoke from Voss. Thank you for coming and and little baby. Um uh do we have any other labor partners who would like to speak? Very well, seeing none. Um we will move on now to our first presentation, which is Project Reconnect at Berres Special Education Center. Um do we have our presenters? Here they are. Um

017so I want to take a moment to recognize a team at Berres, which is in Board District 2. I've had the opportunity to see the impact of their work, and it's a strong example of what's possible when we create meaningful hands-on opportunities for our students. We're joined here today by Mr. Anthony Aguilar, Chief of Special Education and Specialized Programs, David Cooper, Senior Director of Information Technology, my uh Principal Manuela Hernandez of Berres Career and Transition Center, Jorge Cardoza, Teacher, Alfredo Garcia, Special Special Education Assistant, Nic- uh Nicole Douglas, Specialist with the Adult Transition Division of Special Education, and students Damian um Chavez, Matthew Galavis, and Ms. Ellen Mora. I hope I would need I was able to name everyone that's here. If not, please let me know if I missed anyone. So, Mr. Anthony, uh

018Mr. um Aguilar, here the floor is yours. Thank you. Thank you, Board Vice President, and good morning, Board Members. Good morning, Acting Superintendent Shade. Today, I am very pleased to introduce Project Reconnect, an innovative program that combines technology repair, career education, and inclusive learning environments for students with disabilities. This program focuses on transforming students in technology into from technology users to into technology creators and technicians. Project This project brings together ITS, our information technology services, the Division of Special Education, and Perez, our Career Transition Center, which is where the project is currently located. The program was designed around the strengths and interests of students with disabilities who want real-world technical experience. To make this possible, several divisions across the district came together to design the instructional and operational modes. First, Perez CTC identify students interested

019in the program and provides them with that learning environment. Next, our ITS team supplies equipment, repair tools, and devices that need repair. They also provide our on-site technical guidance. Support also comes from the Division of Special Education to develop the instructional curriculum, pacing, and learning supports aligned to device repair. The future has us working with the Division of Adult and Career Education to provide career preparation court courses and workforce readiness for our training for our students. Together, this collaboration creates a career pathway that really blends the technical skill development with the industry preparation that they need. To help bring this program to life, we'd like to share a short video showing the work of hap- what's happening in the lab. Every year, thousands of devices break. Chromebooks, laptops, screens, keyboards. Most of them could end

020up in storage or discarded as e-waste. But what if broken technology could become an opportunity? Project Reconnect is built on a simple idea. With the right tools and guidance, students will turn curiosity into capability. At Perez Career Transition Center, students are doing exactly that. They diagnose devices, repair components, restore technology that can return to classrooms across the district. But, this program is about more than fixing hardware. It's about building confidence. Students are gaining real technical skills that can translate into employment opportunities. They learn diagnostics. They prepare for certification. They gain hands-on experience using the same systems used in real IT environments. Each device repaired saves money. Each repair reduces e-waste. And each student gains a pathway into the workforce. Project Reconnect connects two worlds, education and information technology. Together, they create something powerful. Students move

021from consumers of technology to creators, technicians, and problem solvers. Because this work is not just about fixing devices. It's about fixing gaps between systems and sustainability, between education and careers, and most importantly, between students and their potential. When students learn to repair technology, they also strengthen their confidence in their own abilities. Project Reconnect, repairing technology, creating futures. So, beyond the student experience, the program creates a broad a broader ecosystem of shared value. For our students, they transition from passive technology users to creators, innovators, and technicians. They build technical skills, agency, and confidence. For our teachers, they gain the instructional design tools that integrate computer science standards with real world world learning. For our administrators and partners, the program supports the district eco sustainability goals by repairing devices internally while training students. It creates a scalable

022model that can expand across additional sites. This is an example of how innovation can both support student learning and operational efficiency. Let me Let me now introduce our senior director in ITS, David Cooper, to take you inside the Reconnect Lab where the work happens. David? Thank you, members of the board, acting superintendent. Uh All right. Uh this is our actual repair lab uh where our students work every day at Perez CTC. We built it to look and feel like a a real professional repair uh repair lab. We have 15 workstations each with uh the proper lighting, magnification tools, and the same equipment that you'll find in a professional lab. The environment is designed to accommodate a range of physical and cognitive needs, and the goal was never just to simulate a job. It was to

023give them actual experience doing one. Students are learning the full repair cycle, diagnosing what's wrong, replacing the actual components, screens, trackpads, motherboards, and documenting their work. We're building towards our students using a real ticketing system just like our own IT support department. We engineered this program around student needs. Every station has access to visual step-by-step instructions, so a student with no prior tech experience can still do real work from day one. None of what you've seen today happens without the right leadership at the school level. I want to introduce you to Principal Manuela Hernandez of Perez uh CTC. She and the amazing staff at Perez CTC pushed for their students, secured their support, and made sure the lab you just saw was built for the students that actually walk through the halls. These students have

024unlimited potential and are working with curiosity and real aptitude toward their newly developed skill. Thank you for helping me introduce Principal Hernandez. All right. So, when we were first invited to uh Project Reconnect partnership, of course, we said yes. Uh not because we had every detail figured out, but because we believed in something bigger. We believe in our students, and we believe in the credible staff who support them every day. Our district's vision challenges us to create real opportunities for students and this project represents this exactly. An opportunity for students to gain technical skills, explore careers in the tech field and begin to see themselves not just as students, but as future professionals and leaders. At the beginning of this journey, we didn't fully know the how, but we know the why. And it is

025our students. Our students and staff embrace the challenge. Through dedication, patience and a lot of learning, Mr. Cardoza and his three paraeducators and the students built something truly special. They didn't just participate in a program. They proved what we have always believed about our students. When our students are given the right tools, the right training and people who believe in them, they don't just meet expectations, they exceed them. Today, these students have shown us something powerful. They are capable, they are prepared and most importantly, they are hireable. And this is exactly what happens when a school system believes in potential, invests in opportunity and refuses to place limits on what our students can achieve. It is now my honor to introduce the incredible team who made this possible. Please join me in welcoming Mr. Cardoza.

026Good morning. Uh my name is Jorge Cardoza and I teach the Project Reconnect class program at Perez ETC. Um this project program began at the start of the school year and has been a valuable learning experience for both staff and students. At first, we focused on demonstrating the repair process, reviewing procedures, and introducing key terms before students began working on devices. By mid-September, students began getting hands-on experience and started making repairs. Since then, they have been confidently replacing screens, batteries, keyboards, and trackpads. It's been great to watch their confidence grow. I'm very proud of their dedication and the pride they take in learning to troubleshoot and repair devices. I want to thank our instructional team and the ITS team for their ongoing support in making this program possible. I'd also like to thank our principal,

027Ms. Hernandez, for her leadership and vision in this program and for providing our team with the support to create meaningful opportunities. Programs like this help our students build real-world skills, confidence, and independence that can enhance their employability skills. Thank you. And I'll bring up Mr. Alfredo. Hello. My name is Alfredo Garcia, and I participate in Project Reconnect to provide students with meaningful exposure to computer repair beginning with Chromebooks. Many students entered the program with limited technical experience. Some had never used basic tools such as a screwdriver. Initially, this led to hesitation and anxiety around disman- disassembling the devices. Through structured instruction, patience, and consistent encouragement, students gradually develop both technical skills and confidence. And to Instruction progressed from direct modeling to guided hands-on practice, and ultimately, independent work with minimal prompting. Students now complete repairs

028independently, while staff observe and provide support as needed. This growth demonstrates the program's effectiveness in building practical, transferable skills. Several students are now prepared to pursue internships or advanced training programs, positioning them for continued career development in technology-related fields. And now, I would like to do introduce Helen Mora. And what's your name? My name is Helen Mora. I'm 21 years old. I came to Perez from months. >> 3 years. Okay. Why did you choose this class? I'm working computers. >> Working on computers? And what do you repair in the class? Chromebooks. Chromebooks? And what what parts of the Chromebook? Batteries and screens. Okay. And then, what do you Why do you like fixing these Chromebooks? I like fixing Chromebooks to people use them. Okay, they get to use them again? And again. Okay, thank you

029so much. Thank you. And now, we Now, we have Damian Chavez. All right. Um hi, my name is Damian Chavez. I'm 21 years old, and I have been at Perez CTC for 3 years. I chose Project Reconnect because I want to help out the school fix the Chromebooks. I I like this class because it teaches me how to fix Chromebooks. I have learned to I've I have learned how to remove the screen and take out the battery. And also, I have learned how to I have I have learned to remove the keyboards. Some of my favorite things to repair are the screens. I am also learning how to replace the motherboard and speakers. In the future, I would like to have an internship at Google or or tech-related companies. I hope to use these skills

030to get a job in a career where I can repair technology. And also, I would like to introduce you, uh, Matthew. Hi. Good morning. My name is Matthew Galavis. I am 18 years old. This is my first year at Perez CTC. I chose Project Reconnect because I heard about this class around December of last year. The class had my interest once I heard about the things that they do. Starting in January of this year, I have really liked the class. Over the past month, I have learned a lot. The things I have learned are how to replace a screen, replace the trackpad, replace the battery, and the keyboard. One thing I have really liked repairing is the screen. The hardest part to take apart is the bezel. The reason is because there's glue underneath the

031bezel. In the future, I would like to work as a computer technician. I chose computer technician because Project Reconnect has really taught me about repairing and diagnosing a Chromebook. I hope these skills will help me get that computer technician job. Thank you. Good morning, members of the board, acting superintendent. My name is Nicole Douglas, and I am a school support administrator for the Division of Special Education and the specialist that supports our career and transition centers. Um I am so proud to share how the Project Reconnect program supports our students as they integrate into the workforce and into the community. The program creates meaningful opportunities for collaboration with internal partners and community partners to explore those career and employment pathways. Project Reconnect works closely with partners to identify internship options and entry-level job opportunities. Through

032job shadowing and real-world work experiences, students gain valuable exposure to the IT industry. The program also strengthens the intradistrict relationships, including our partnership with the Division of Adult Education, to connect students with training courses that will expand their educational and technical skills in the IT field. In addition, collaborations with agencies that support individuals with disabilities, such as the Department of Rehabilitation and regional centers, all play a vital role. These partners offer programs that provide paid internships and supported employment services, thus increasing direct-hire opportunities for our students within the community as they leave LAUSD to become more productive, engaged members of the workforce and their communities. Thank you, and now introducing Dr. Jose Soto. Good morning, members of the board, acting superintendent. >> for education, for career. The goal of Project Reconnect is to provide an

033additional program for our students that offers technical job skills and hands-on work experience to support future employment opportunities. It is well documented that adults with disabilities face significant challenges in securing employment. Research indicates that only approximately 30% of adults with disabilities are employed full-time, with this percentage decreasing significantly for adults with developmental disabilities. This is why expanding and creating new opportunities for our students is so important. This aligns with the why of this work. The why of Project Reconnect is to continue expanding opportunities for skill-building and work experience for students attending our CTCs in preparation for life after LAUSD. Project Reconnect is one of several programs offered across the district to our CTCs to support student transition outcomes. These include Project SEARCH, which provides students with internships opportunities at medical facilities, and the Center for

034Advanced Transition Skills, the CATS program, where students receive job skills training and work experience at community colleges throughout the district. These programs are available in all regions and in most board districts. These initiatives, and now with Project Reconnect, we are expanding meaningful opportunity for our students. In closing, I would like to thank Information Technology Services, the Division of Adult and Career Education, and the Division of Special Education for their collaboration and shared vision in bringing Project Reconnect to fruition. Most importantly, I like to extend my sincere appreciation to our students, teachers, support staff, and Principal Hernandez for opening the doors of Perez Career and Transition Center and helping make this idea a reality. We are excited in replicating this program at additional CTCs across the district to continue our students and supporting them for life

035after LAUSD. Thank you. We will now take questions. Yes, thank you, Dr. Soto. Appreciate that. What a beautiful, beautiful, beautiful way to start today. Thank you so much for everyone. The students, so proud of you. You have um gone beyond what I feel that you expected out of this course when you first took it. And now you've surpassed um so many expectations, and I love that. I love that you reached higher, and thank you, Principal Hernandez, for just saying yes. Yes to more opportunities for your students and being that example that other CTCs now are able to also explore and um and, you know, eliminate those limits that, you know, we impose on some of our students with uh special needs. So, thank you, Mr. Cardoso, too, and Mr. Garcia, for um just, you know,

036doing this, you know, this course and being the example and just just having those wonderful high expectations for your students. And really, and Ms. Douglas as well. Everyone, thank you so much. Sorry. So, now um I will open up the floor for my colleagues. Are there any questions? Who would like to start? Mr. Schmelson. Yes. Sure, and then I'm going to pass and let other people ask questions first, but I just have to say how proud I am of the students here and what you have accomplished. And how proud I am of our two teachers over there, Mr. Cardoso, Mr. Garcia, for having the patience and the skill to work with kids to be so successful. Of course, to you, Principal um Hernandez, also. Just so proud. I have a school similar. I have Miller.

037And every time I go to Miller, I I I see so many different things, but I've never seen this. So, here's something new we're going to be adding to Miller very soon. I'm just Yeah, I'm going to push. This is really really a wonderful program. So, I'll let others ask questions. Thank you so much. Well, I'll echo those sentiments to the students. You all did an amazing job presenting that it takes a lot of bravery to speak in front of the board and I think you did a wonderful job. So, just wanted to appreciate all of you and to the whole team from Vades for your amazing work on this program. It's really exciting and I I know that the why was clear from the get-go. I am interested in the how and sort of

038how this project was funded, how it how it came about as well as partnership opportunities that you all are looking into to help ensure that the learning and success continues for the students who are involved in this wonderful program. I love the how. So, the how was we had an idea. We heard from a teacher. The teacher wanted to start a repair studio, a general education setting and then we went to Bodry down to the cafeteria and we saw the students there selling the CTC students selling their products. Mary Lou Camacho, Jose Somuano that's back there immediately thought of the opportunity for our students. For our students in the CTC programs. So, that that that was the the how it how it became. We immediately involved as many of our vendors, asked for some technical

039support, making sure they had the right tools to do the job and we started a collaborative effort with division of special education and the school about building out this program. So, I feel like we're almost done with project reconnect and I think we're just probably almost at ready for for connect. But, I think one of the things that we're very excited about is we built it to be scalable. So, we know what we need to do in order to go to number two, number three, number four. So, coming soon. I wanted to add the program costs are minimal. The devices used I'm sorry. The devices used for hands-on practice are sourced from LAUSD's existing stock. And the students So, it's turning the district into similar an opportunity to to fix devices that have been submitted

040for refurbishment or that case, but the cost is minimal for for this program. Fantastic. And since you talked about scalability and I'm with Mr. Schmelson, I have an amazing special education and career transitional center in my district Lowman and I would also love to see this program there. What are what are your plans for scaling? Are there are there any plans in the works and do you have a sense of where project reconnect may go next? Leading question. I'm hoping you have a good answer for me. I I appreciate that question. I appreciate actually the energy of wanting to get this going. I think what we want to do from here is connect with our leadership team. I think what you you guys definitely noticed with Principal Hernandez was really just an early adopter to

041this. I mean it went from like mentioning it to her and she wanted to run with it. So, I think it was finding that leadership. So, whether it's working I know we have great leadership at Lowman and Miller and at other CTCs to be able to expand this. And once we get that, we need space, right? We need to allocate some space to make sure it's there. Our division of special education would then support in in planning those instructional pacing plans to get everything going, but yeah, at this point it's about connecting with our leaders and seeing who else it wants to be this early adopter. Maybe even taking them on a field trip to actually come and see it. Great idea. Thank you. I'll pause there. I also wanted to just appreciate the presentation

042and ask if there are similar programs at other schools. I have Wilmington in San Pedro and we do a building and grounds training program where students are then, you know, potentially eligible for employment. So, it's great that we have tech, we have buildings and grounds. Are there other programs we have? And then also, what does that employment process look like? Are there any barriers? I know for the buildings and grounds, we collaborated to reduce the reading test that was required for B&G workers. So, just curious about, you know, the expansion across the district. So, there are opportunities that the Division of Special Education has been working closely with Personnel Commission to provide opportunities for our students. You mentioned the building and grounds. Yes, we have also worked with Personnel Commission to um revise the the

043job code. Not Not actually the job code, I'm sorry. The educational requirements for the early ed childhood education position in which it actually accepts our students having work experience hours to meet that requirement. And with that, we already have had two of our students hired into those positions. And we we are so grateful, and we are looking forward to working more with Personnel Commission on removing any barriers that may exist. I know one barrier was the diploma requirement. But now our students are able to work toward earning their diploma, so that actually removes that barrier for them to be qualified to apply for positions within our district. That's great. That's really exciting, and it's also helpful to hear the systemic approach because it's so awesome when it starts with one staff member, but we want

044to make sure it's sustainable beyond the one person, and that the system is really set up to support programs like this. So, anything the board can do now or later, let us know cuz I think you've got big fans up here. Thank you. And I know there's also the culinary right industry. There's some At Lisa and Betances, we have culinary, gardening, warehouse, right? And there's a cafe where the students make the coffee and serve it and it's it's there's a lot there's a lot going on at Betances and I'm sure at other CTCs, so. Yes, we would also like to work more with uh personnel commission and food services division um to provide or open up some opportunities. Um our students are very interested in culinary arts. That is one of our most um requested

045programs by our students. Um and so um any barriers to our students being able to actually have opportunities to apply for those cafeteria worker positions, we would definitely appreciate that consideration. And I know for um I know there's I did a I shadowed the work-based learning program at Betances and um I did go to the infant center and Ramona and we had our student there from from Betances who was taking care of the babies and you know, it was just beautiful to see. I also went and shadowed a student who building and grounds. He was a you know, an assistant plant manager and he was helping he had such pride in the work and what I loved is it provided the students confidence even taking the bus on their own to to their jobs and

046just you know, I remember hearing from the the power professionals how they first started and they were scared and where they are now is just a whole different person. It's like the whole world has just opened up for them and also the parents so are to see that their their child, you know, is able to you know, to um have the opportunities and the skills to have a live an independent life, which something the parents didn't feel. They were also very scared, right? But out of this program comes beautiful beautiful opportunities and >> Absolutely. >> Yes, so thank you so much. >> Thank you. >> Um any other questions over here, Ms. Just wanted to make a comment and say thank you again for presenting and just appreciate our young people coming and sharing what

047we have in the district, which often I said it's a hidden gem. There's so many things that this district will provide for us if we just continue to speak it and uh flash a light on it because there's so many things there that many of our families in the community do not know exist. And so I just appreciate you championing this and to my colleague there that we can put it in the system that it can happen anywhere, no matter who is there and that it can be duplicated. So really appreciate the work that you guys are doing. Well, congratulations. Sounds like you're all doing great work in such a high-need area. I've spoken to teachers and to IT folks, and one of the highest needs is replacing those keys, those letters on the keyboard

048and the Chromebooks. And it's So you're doing something that is really helping a lot and it's going to help our teachers, it's going to help our students. So thank you. I'm glad that we're doing this work. I want to congratulate the educators uh for supporting our students. I can see through your way of communicating with them how you're right for this job. And thank you principal for being so open and welcoming. I'm wondering um regarding the uh jobs. One of the things that was shared was that we have partnerships with some folks that can connect our students to some paid internships. So I'm wondering what are some of these paid internships that our kids are already connected to or any other jobs that already they're already doing like they come out of Pedez into what

049kind of work if you can share some of that info. Yes. So one of the partnerships that we have right now is our partnerships through project search. This is a partnership among Regional Center LAUSD a support agency in which it provides our students with a paid internship. We also partner with host businesses such as like right now are one of our host business is Kaiser Permanente and we are also partnered with Children's Hospital of LA. So students are provided with a 10-week internships where they are actually rotating through the different departments of the hospital and they're learning all of those hard skills, soft skills, all of those technical skills. Again this partnership or this opportunity is a 10-week opportunity for our students and it occurs during their last year with the school district in hopes

050that they will continue on into what we call the job development phase in which they are supported in job search, job coaching, job development until they actually find competitive integrated employment. So that that is one internship that we currently offer. We are actually working again with Regional Center who is a one of our biggest supporters, one of our biggest partners, and we are working with them to explore different internship opportunities for the device repair program, in which one of they offer a program called the paid internship program, which will actually fund the internship hours for students. They are funded for 1,040 hours, and the employer does not pay anything. All of the funding comes from the Regional Center for our students to actually be in that business, do the job shadowing, actually do the work.

051The transitional. Do you have any data? Do we follow students after they leave these internship programs to see if they did get connected to a job, if they are able to sustain that job? Do we have any information on that? So, what we do each year is we actually conduct the indicator 14, and that's follow-up calls to our students who have currently matriculated out of the system, and we ask them all about their experiences in that moment. So, we're asking about them furthering their educational opportunities, whether or not they were still employed or seeking employment, or and what of their future plans. So, we actually collect that data, and Dr. Jose Soto may be able to speak more to it. To our results. Yeah, so we we do collect data for a year after our

052students matriculate out of LAUSD. A lot of times it's hard to get a hold of students once they leave cuz we do try to contact them at the best contact information. As far as data and jobs, I know that I asked that question to my team because I was curious to know, what are we finding out? Um, right now students with developmental disabilities are averaging about 15% of the job force. LAUSD has that has definitely placed higher percentage of our students leaving uh the district in jobs. Uh, I'm not sure exactly quite the percentage, but it but it is higher than 15%, which is the national the average in California. Um so that's some of the data that we collect as far as the the number of students that have stated yes, I have a

053job as we move forward. And the regarding this program, the Chromebooks that they're receiving, are they from our schools? So there are Yes, they're from the LAUSD inventory. Okay, and then they do do they get sent back to the to the district once they're fixed? Yeah, this is a this is a real repair studio. We're going to take them back. We're going to give them back to our to our schools that need them. Yeah, that is a real need. It kids are like, I can't the eye doesn't work, you know, they have to figure out how to make the eye work. I don't know. Um, and then let me see here. Are there prior to getting to this program, are is there any coursework that the students have to take at their high school before

054they transition into this program to get them ready for it? The uh so one of the the key pathways is the pathway towards certification. I'm going to ask Jose Samano to please come up here and talk about uh general generally there's a certification required in the industry for certifications. I'll have him talk about what that certification is. Good morning, board members, acting superintendent. Um, yes, so industry standard um the CompTIA A+ certification is what we essentially look for when we're hiring um technicians. Um, so what this course um, is really entry-level to see if they're interested, if um, if they're engaging with kind of with the right components, seeing if uh, how capable and how they can expand those those skills uh, just to be able to go into the workforce. So this is the

055this is the first time they do it. And I have a question for the students because a few of them couple of them said that they love to change the screens. I'm curious why. Why is that so so interesting and why do you like changing screens? Because um, it's something I first started on in uh, that class so I picked it up right away once you know, I started that class sec uh, the second semester in January. Yes. All right, thank you. What what about you? Why do you like changing screens? So the reason why I like changing the screens because it satisfies me the way how the screen looks clean and the way how the the screen is fresh. That's why I like the the screen. Love to see your end product, all your

056work. Thank you. And what do you like to do? What's your favorite part of doing the work? I like to fix the the screen, the the battery, the bezel. I fix them and works and I fix them, connect them and fix it fix them. Yeah, you make it work again. You bring it back to life. Yeah. Awesome. Thank you so much. >> Thank you for uh, presenting. Thank you so much. I'll just say most of my uh, all my questions have been um, asked and answered about internships and placements and expansion. I I don't love how vague the response was to expansion. I think we all want more of these. I've got Leachman which I inherited from Mr. Schmelson um, which uh, we'd love to see it there. So I do hope there's actual follow-up

057about uh, expanding the program but um, again, thank you to our student presenters and our faculty and uh just a a wonderful way to start the morning. Thank you. Um I have Oh, go ahead, Miss Mr. Schmolsen. >> I have some questions for the teachers. If I may ask you. Because the students couldn't do this without you guys, right? They couldn't do that. So, I have a and like in slide four, it says instruction is tailored to students' unique skills. So, can you expand on um how you determine what the students actually need to work on? How do you determine that? What do they actually need to work on? It was trial and error. I think we all are learning as we go. Uh so, sometimes we do have broken bezels and it's okay. We're

058learning. Um and then I see they get really strong at it. Other students were stripping screws at the very beginning. Um now that's not a problem whatsoever. So, it's trial and error as we go. Um because uh they never like Mr. Garcia touched on earlier, most of our students have never held any tools in their hands. So, this is the first time they ever do it. Uh but they yeah, they've picked it up so far. It's been pretty good. I think >> Yeah, I I was watching in the video. You have to have some kind of a dexterity to operate a It's not so easy. It's not so easy, right? But you do learn that. So, it also you have virtual guides. So, um what is your role in the classroom as far as working

059in conjunction with the virtual guides? How do you do that? Do you observe what they do? How do you do that? Well, we're just we're guiding them as they're going on. Um of course, it was hands-on with them, showing them there, sometimes hand over hand, showing them the complexities just opening up uh the Chromebook with a pick. I was watching that, yeah. Yes, exactly. >> I was watching that. >> Yeah, sometimes they didn't loosen up a screw just enough so they have to go back and un-loosen that screw to make sure it actually pops up. So, it's just little details that at times that they just progress to find out that how to do that properly. So, when you see that one of the students really has the dexterity either to use a tool or

060open the screen or or put on the bezel as you said, do students help each other in the classroom too or is it strictly you and one-on-one students? How's that work? So, recently, yes, it's been the students helping each other, which is really promising work to see them helping each other. It's like yeah, what like Matthew was saying, the bezel is the most difficult part to take off where you have to before you get to the monitor. So, you have to take this what they call a jimmy, slide it. It takes a little bit of force, but eventually if you do it just steady enough and just have some uh patience >> patience. Yeah, patience. Some force, but not too much force because you don't want to bust it, right? Yeah, so it's really nice

061and you must be very proud of yourselves. Very proud. Okay. Thank you, Rocío. Yeah, so sorry. I'll I'll I'll finish up with my questions. Um I I also wanted to know just kind of what are the outcomes we're tracking in terms of determining whether or not the the program is a success. I know everyone spoke kind of anecdotally to you know, increased confidence and leadership skills for the students, the technical skills they're building, but in terms of knowing you know, we we met the goals that we laid out, what what outcomes are we are we tracking for Project Reconnect? So, we definitely want to ensure that we're providing opportunity for our students with disabilities, particularly our students with developmental disabilities. Uh one of the things that we're working towards is creating certification for our students

062to receive A+ certification. We're working with the Division of Adult and Career Education for that. We're hoping we're anticipating that in the fall our students will be able to get the the practice the training and then eventually sit for the test to receive certification. So those are things that we're working for looking at. In addition to that, I know that our goal is to be able to fix devices that come in and get them back out to schools. I'm not sure I'll let Mr. Cooper speak on how they're tracking that data, but the goal would be to really start utilizing our students to support with those minor repairs and hopefully build build their knowledge so they can sit and actually get a certification for life after LAUSD. Yeah, I think the the right answer is

063the outcomes that have to come with it, right? So we are tracking the number of devices that are repaired. They're still in the learning phase. So our goal by the end of this program is you know, a couple hundred devices, but really it's the practice necessary for the education that they're going to have. I'm going to invite Pia Sedacotmal up here to talk about what that partnership with Division of Adult Education is going to look like for this program. Thank you. So one of the key programs or pathways that we have that we offer through our Division of Adult Ed is the A+ certification. So we're working with our Division of Special Education to really look at getting these students to get their A+ certification one. There's also two, three, and even an upgrade. At

064this time one of the courses that we've been working with is the Intro to IT Support Technician, which is the entrance qualification for the IT Support Technician position to work in ITS. So more to come. Great, super helpful. And I the final question I think maybe to Ms. Douglas I believe you mentioned that work with the Regional Center on a paid paid internship program. It was one of the things I'm really interested in is as our students in our CCTC programs are doing labor that they be compensated for that labor because we know that our students are economic providers for their family in many instances. Can you just share like is that is that applicable to this program or is that something that we're looking to do in the future a paid opportunity for students?

065Yes, this is very applicable in this program. Like I mentioned, Regional Center is offering that particular program that supports the paid internship program. So actually how it works is that student has to be a client of Regional Center. So and that is one of our big goals at our CCTCs is to ensure that students and families are connected to Regional Center because they will be their biggest source of support after the students matriculate from LAUSD. With the paid internship partnership program, Regional Center actually collaborates with the family, collaborates with us to find a an internship opportunity. Regional Center comes in, they work with that business or organization, and they actually fund the the 1,040 hours that students receive each year. They receive this. So it could be the same internship opportunity at the same business

066or organization or they can find another internship opportunity somewhere else. But regardless, Regional Center will fund up to 1,040 hours each year for each internship. Got it. So it's sort of like after maybe after completing this class, they might be able to find a a related internship. So, in terms of paid work-based learning as part of this program, that that does not yet exist. I I might ask that we we contemplate whether or not that's possible and and whether there might be funding sources we can tap into. Perhaps not at the very beginning level, but maybe when students are more independent and and doing the work on their own, um there could be an opportunity for compensation. Yes, we are we are exploring um opportunities for students to be paid through our work-based learning program.

067Um more to come on that. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. Um two of my questions have already been asked and answered, so I appreciate >> on to that really quickly? >> go ahead. >> We're also working with some of our vendors who have seen our students firsthand and would they're they're they're looking for all of the potential and talent of our students and there is the potential for them to have uh direct employment with the vendors as well. So, that's one of our goals. And then I know that Dr. Soto also wanted to discuss if possible some of the what we're doing right now to get ready for the expansion of the plan. Is that Is this a good time? Yeah, sure, go ahead. And as you as uh um maybe one question one of

068my questions um you can probably answer or in what you're going to say right now. How I just wanted to know how students um are are if you're incorporating feedback from the students um in or you know, as your as this program is evolving or is going to expand, how are you incorporating feedback from them? Um from our first um graduating class right there. That is something that we'll definitely uh make sure happens so that we can see what are some of the things that are working well, what are some areas of opportunity. I think it's important to hear from our students as they are the ones that are participating in the work. So, we'll work with Principal Mendez to ensure that that happens. Just wanted to to share a little bit about expansion. We

069are in the process of exploring additional CTC sites. There are some uh uh limitations about space when we open the lab, so we're trying to find locations that will be amenable to opening additional labs. So, it's not that we're trying to be vague in the answers, just that at this point we're still exploring, but the goal is to find additional sites throughout the the district to replicate this program because it is scalable. And my last question before we um uh move to uh acting superintendent Chan wants to say some words, is I want to ask uh the students um if Matthew, Damien, and Helen can come up. My question is, what would you say to another student or some of your classmates who might be a little unsure about taking the course and joining the

070program like this? What would you say to them to encourage them to take the course? Uh first, I would explain like how the class uh goes and how process you start with and then middle to the end. Like you know, uh processing the class. And I would let them know how the class works, what they do, and um help I'll probably would help them if I was in that class again, I would help the student figure out um where everything goes. You'd help them out. Thank you. Thank you so much. >> Damien, did you want to add or yeah? Um basically, if I if I see a new student in our class, I will basically um teach them how to um fix the Chromebooks and I would also teach them how to remove the bezel,

071the cream the screen, and also I will I will teach them how to um remove the battery and and the trackpad. That is good. >> mentor. Be a mentors here also. >> Yes. And Helen, do you know what would you say to one of your classmates about taking the course? Um I would help them help them take the the bezel, put the battery, and help them put take the keyboard for them, and they do by themselves, and also season, you connect them, charge them, and they works. Great, wonderful. So, we have some future instructors right here. You can also teach their classmates. Thank you, Helen. I appreciate that. Um I just want to say that this is an area that is very close to my heart and an essential part of my policy priorities, which

072is expanding opportunities for all of our students. Uh what we're seeing here reflects what's possible when we are intentional about designing programs that meet students where they are and connect them to real opportunities and expanding the world. So, I want to thank all of you for your presentation, all the work, and I love that this was in a intra-district collaboration. We're all working and building on our own strengths and knowledge to provide these opportunities. So, Acting Superintendent Chang, do you want to say something? Thank you, Dr. Rivas. Just very briefly wanted to really just commend the Perez CTC leadership team, Principal Hernandez, our teachers. Thank you for the work you do. I know it can be hard sometimes even with great opportunities to be the first one out the gate. So, thank you for taking

073that leap of faith with us. But primarily, I just want to commend, you know, Helen, Damian, and Matthew as the last question from Dr. Rivas really highlighted, not only are you amazing students, but you are leaders. You are future leaders in this space and leaders among your fellow students. So, kudos to you. Thank you. So, we're very proud of you. Congratulations. Much success to you. Thank you to all. Well, on that, we are going now to move to our second presentation. Um dream it, achieve it. This work is central to how we expand access to college and career pathways for our students, helping them see what's possible and take concrete steps towards their goals. We're joined today by Dr. Frances Baez, Chief Academic Officer, and Ms. Pia S. Adachmal, Chief of Transitional Programs. Thank you

074both for being here. We're excited to learn more about Dream It Achieve It. Thank you. Good morning, Acting Superintendent Shay and board members. We're really thrilled to be here to share information about Dream It Achieve It. One key priority in our strategic plan is around championing multiple pathways for college and career readiness for all students. This matters because we want all our students to take advantage of all the opportunities available for them. In alignment with the strategic plan, Dream It Achieve It is an initiative that shares the multiple pathways available to students. In today's presentation, you'll hear more about the options for students to take college courses while in high school, opportunities to earn industry certifications, applying for internships, and exploring a career in a trade through our Division of Adult and Career Education. What

075better way to share these opportunities than to hear from our very own student board member, Jerry Yang? Throughout the month of March, we're featuring a student each day who's either taking a college course, a career training program, or both to promote the multiple pathways. Now, let's hear from a student board member, Jerry Yang. Hey everyone. Did you know that you can literally start college while you're still in high school? I'm serious. You can even earn industry certifications in fields like healthcare, tech, or business. Through LAUSD's Dream It Achieve It, you can take college-level classes that count towards your degree. Which means less time and money spent after graduation. Whether you're thinking about a university, community college, or jump straight into a career, this program has options for you. Check out dreamit.lausd.org to see what's available.

076Your future self will thank you. Have wonderful. Thank you, Jerry. Now, along with the video that you just saw, we have shared a robust messaging toolkit with our school teams, which includes posters and flyers promoting our website, sample social media posts, and scripts to promote our programs. Our student advisory groups have also been key in helping us develop these resources. You know, they were the ones who shared the importance of having students tell their stories with other students. In addition, our collaboration with the Los Angeles Community College District has also been very instrumental. The passage of Assembly Bill 288 authorized community college districts to start college and career access pathways with school district. This has led to the expanded collaboration with LAUSD and LACCD and served as the groundwork for Dream It, Achieve It. The

077path to success in college and career varies for every student. After students graduate, options include joining the military, going into college or university, taking courses in adult school, or going directly to a career. To illustrate the pathways available for students, one example of a high-demand career is health care. So, in this particular graphic, you'll see students in high school may decide to take a biotechnology pathway or patient care pathway. Then decide to continue in adult school and complete a certified nursing assistant program or licensed vocational nurse program. At that point, they may join the workforce where the average salary is 63,000 a year with a job growth of 3%. A student can also decide to get their associates of science in nursing or registered nurse licensure from any of our LA community college. They can

078continue to work where the average salary ranges from 93,000 to 125,000 per year with a 5% job growth. A student then continue their education and enroll in CSU or UC to work towards their bachelor's or master's or doctorate then become a nurse practitioner. This has a 35% job growth with the annual average salary ranging from 129 to 157,000. As you can see, there are multiple pathways to career in the health care field. Now to tell us more about the ways towards college and career readiness, please welcome Dr. Frances Baez. Thank you very much, Pia. It's been great collaborating with the Division of Adult Education and Pia and both of our teams have really worked to improve um the access information to our schools and and giving them those opportunities. Greetings board members, uh acting superintendent

079Tate and deputy superintendents. I'll begin by explaining the dual enrollment progress in our district. Dual enrollment allows students to take college courses during the day led by professors uh from the colleges in LA Community College District during the day in a high school setting. Students are able to earn college credit while in high school which could lead to an associate's degree and a high school diploma at an end at the end of high school. Now this is a this is different than concurrent enrollment, which means that students can take courses after school at an LACCD campus, but with the public, and that's often a confusion point for people. So, dual enrollment is on our school campus, and concurrent enrollment is at the college with the public. Any high school student in grades 9th through 12th

080grade can enroll in a college course, including rising 9th graders in the summer. We have a dual enrollment course guide designed to for counselors to provide guidance to students, and we provided an example earlier today. Uh so, our counselors are up-to-date about the courses that the colleges are offering and guide students when they're programming. We currently have 130 schools that offer dual enrollment out of the 180 comprehensive sites. This is a demographic breakdown by region and by board district. Since last year, we have created new student and family outreach materials, a course catalog, a district-wide summer dual enrollment program. We have secured college and career access pathway grants for 143 schools, and a middle school program at three schools, and we've expanded CTE pathways as well. Um and I'm going to show you a poster

081that we've also provided our school sites. So, this poster was Take them out. This poster was provided to our schools along with guidance so that uh students are familiar with our Dream It, Achieve It initiative, and know where to go in terms of the website, and also to go to the counselors to get information about either CTE, dual enrollment, or internships. We have updated the LAUSD and LACCD course guide to better guide our counselors, and we have college and career access pathways and middle college, early college grant support. The current middle college, early college sites consist of the Dr. Richard A. Vladovic Harbor Teacher Prep Academy at Harbor College. We have the Early College Academy at LA Trade-Tech and the Middle College at the Southwest LA College. Now, they're called middle middle college because they're

082a transition between the high school and the college. These are We also established a communication toolkit which has been shared with school teams as well as dual enrollment awareness month resources which has been shared at schools to publicize. And I'm hoping that you're also seeing it in social media. So, we're also highlighting students who are participating in dual enrollment so we can highlight them and continue promoting that opportunity. We recently hosted the annual dual enrollment symposium for school counselors and administrators to deepen their knowledge about dual enrollment. One of the challenges we've worked to solve is the completion of the LACCD enrollment document. Uh it's called so that application process could be a little challenging for families. So, we go the extra mile to help our families with completing that form so people don't become

083intimidated by it. We're also collaborating with LACCD to give them feedback so we can make the application more accessible for our families. The Golden State Pathways Grant will launch 22 new CTE dual enrollment pathways and another 48 fueled by existing CTE grants. Now, I'm going to discuss the CTE program which is part of our Dream It Achieve It initiative. You may be asking yourself, so what is CTE? CTE is a program of study that involves a multi-year sequence of courses that integrates the core academic knowledge with technical and occupational knowledge to provide students with a pathway to career and post-secondary education. And so, the sequence is very important. There's a certain sequence that needs to be taken for a students to reach that mastery and be able to be successful in the exams that they

084need to take. There are 58 types of CTE career pathways in the 15 industry sectors. So the 15 industry sectors, under those industry sectors there are multiple branches that then will compile those 58 pathways. The CTE pathways are offered in 108 schools that serve 9th to 12th grade students. Our goal is to increase the number of schools offering CTE pathways from 108 to 113 schools. And here you see the distribution of schools across the district by region and board district that have a CTE program. While this is baseline data, we are currently working towards increasing the number of schools by five each year until we reach all schools. And you may wonder what we're doing to get to that 180. So when we have our symposiums with our counselors, we provide them information about how

085to open a CTE pathway. There's a memorandum that describes the steps that students schools need to take. We have multiple professional development sessions and also sessions in the summer to guide the schools in developing these pathways. In the 2020 24-25 school year, the 11,129 industry recognized certifications were earned by high school students in the CTE and link learning pathways. This year our goal is to increase to 11,500. And the way that they achieve that is to passing the exams in those in those particular fields. With respect to internships, which is the third branch of our Dream It Achieve It, internships are designed for students 16 until high school graduation. And our goal is for students to have work-based experience to prepare them for a career. In the school year 2024, we had about 1,000 high

086school students enrolled, and our goal is to place 1,500 students interns. And now we're speaking about the students that are in comprehensive high schools. So, the way we collaborate with our Division of Adult and Career Education is they also offer those types of experiences, but for students that are not in the comprehensive high schools. So, now I'm going to pass it back over to Pia to share more about the work. So, career technical education is also available in our adult schools. Our adult schools offer career pathways for students 18 years and older across 15 industry sectors, including health care, construction, and information technology. The training programs are offered training programs that are offered are tuition-free. Let me repeat, tuition-free. There are 36 different pathways, which provides job training opportunities along with newly launched training programs

087for high school seniors through our Career Empowerment Program. We are proud that DACE is the LEA for the largest apprenticeship program in Southern California. The career training programs we offer for adults is across various fields, from allied health to information technology, as you just heard earlier from the Perez team, to the building and construction. Last year, we started a new program for rising high school seniors and graduating seniors through our summer earn and learn program. Through the Career Empowerment Academy, we offered summer career training programs in aviation, logistics, health care, and construction. With 170 students, with 90% plus completion rate, not only did they receive elective credits and certificates, but also earned a $1,000 scholarship for completing the program. We continue to expand this through an after-school career training program for students in our priority

088schools and continuation high schools. We offered 10 classes across all regions and during the first cohort 172 students participated and we're gearing up to start another cohort on April 6th. Days is also proud to offer a pre-apprenticeship program designed as an on-ramp to the world of apprenticeship. It's designed for students 18 years and over and is an apprenticeship preparation program in partnership with LAOC Building and Construction Trades Council with the goal of expanding access to skilled trades especially to members of historically underserved and underrepresented communities. This equity driven program is currently offered at five days sites. In addition, Days is piloting pre-apprenticeship programs to support careers in welders and pharmacy technicians. Registered apprenticeship programs are designed for students 18 years and older. The program combines trade specific academic instruction with paid on-the-job training. Apprenticeships provide

089an opportunity to earn journey level person status in a trade which means that they are placed in a union job with benefits. This is a debt free career pathway. Days is the LAA for 30 state registered apprenticeships serving 8,000 to 10,000 apprentices annually. We offer four multi-craft core apprenticeship preparation programs that lead directly to union apprenticeship programs. We invite you to visit our website as you heard from Jerry Yang dreamit.lausd.org with more information about our dream it achieve it. Now I I'd like to turn back to you Dr. Rivas. >> Thank you and yes and happy uh dual enrollment month. And we'll um definitely be sharing the video and the website on my monthly um dual enrollment webinar that I collaborate with ELAC, East LA College. So, thank you so much. It was wonderful. Um

090thank you for the presentation and for the work you've leading to expand access and make sure students across this district are able to take advantage of these wonderful wonderful uh pathways and these opportunities. So, I'll open up the floor for any board members. Yes, Scott. Just a comment for both uh Francis and Pia. You know, I am so proud that we're actually making students feel good about taking courses and job opportunities other than going to a four-year college. I really believe that we're kind of doing a disservice to many students who were not ready yet for college and who was were interested in the career. And we kind of played that down because if we didn't have all this college enrollment, we weren't doing a good job, but we are doing a good job. Kids

091feel good. They feel good about their job opportunities. I'm really proud that we're making it so available. And for um adult ed, you know, adult ed was like here and then it started fading fading fading. So, we're coming back up again and I appreciate that, too. So, thank you so much. Thank you. >> Thank you. Um thank you so much. Um I know we've been talking a lot. Uh we have a whole town hall on this topic coming up cuz our students elevated that careers were important not only for the students, but for their families. And wanting to know exactly how to go about this. How do we get this information? And so, we are going to host that and you guys are going to speak for us on behalf of many of our families.

092And I think you mentioned it as you were saying um just for some of our underrepresented communities that don't know this information and I think that's the divide is having this information readily available for our families to be able to to to to gain access because many of them would have never gone a certain route had they not received it in school. And so this is such a um a treat for our our communities to know that we are here at at LAUSD is providing this um these avenues. So I had some questions um and uh when you said dual enrollment, which I think often dual enrollment and concurrent enrollment, and I know we have a program with MBD-1 um our NAI program where our students get access to go to USC and they are

093taking classes in the morning at that cool school site at USC. Now, is that considered dual enrollment because they are taking classes but they're going to school. So that is be concurrent enrollment even though it's in the school day. The Neighborhood Academic Initiative stemmed from a collaboration with USC and selected schools in LAUSD. So it it is a like a memorandum of understanding. It's a partnership um uh with specific goals in place. So it's not part of AB 288. It wouldn't be considered dual enrollment. Possibly concurrent if they're taking courses uh that are um at the school site with the public. Um we need to look exactly at the configuration of that but it wouldn't be considered part of our AB 288 and dual enrollment but it's very unique and a very very good opportunity

094for students who are participating in it. Yes, and it's highly um uh thrived after many of our families um and now that they've expanded it, we're really appreciative for USC and that partnership there with them. Um the other question, you mentioned something about exams um and it's for the certification. Are those exams given throughout uh at the community college? The uh exams are for the CTE certifications in the industry sector. Uh so, we provide, for example, Adobe Certified, Microsoft Office, Autodesk, and a number of others at the school site. At the school site. They don't go to the college and take the exams. Our CTE teachers are there to administer those exams. Got it. And then, of course, we're always talking about expanding. Now, if there is a pathway that is not currently existing at

095a school site, what would uh an administrator or someone go about uh to be able to create that particular pathway at their school site? >> We have a a memorandum that just that delineates the process for creating those uh those pathways. Um and, of course, our counselors are our liaisons uh would be able to provide them that information. Of course, we start with what is the student interest. Starting with student interest, and then at that point, if uh it's something they want to add to, then, of course, we provide them that support. Um right now, the most popular ones are production and managerial arts, design, visual and media arts, software and systems development, patient care, and engineering design. So, those are the ones that we're finding are the most prominent and most of interest to

096our schools. Um but, at at this time, uh we if there's schools that want an additional pathway from the 58 that are available statewide, we ask that they provide a course sequence, that there's also um a justification, stakeholder input, um that we have the staffing in place. So, we guide them on all of those pieces to start a pathway. Got it. Thanks. Yeah. Shirlette had one or two of my questions. Uh for the um for slide 12 with the list of um offerings, do we have anywhere on the website the list of every school that offers dual enrollment and like what the partner Dual enroll, pardon me. For dual enrollment, we um I believe we do. Uh Brenda, if you don't mind coming up just to answer that question. We do have a list of

097CTE schools and we have a website, but I need to confirm whether we have all of the schools listed that have the dual enrollment programs. Morning, everyone. We do have the list of the schools, but we do not have the specific programs because those belong to the school site. We work with the school sites to have that on their website because we believe is a really good tool and parents and family should really know what um the schools are offering. But we do have um also ways to um show the schools how to link their website to uh the Dream It Achieve It, but we also have a dual enrollment website within the Division of Instruction. Got it. Okay. Thank you. That's it. I um regarding the dual enrollment um coursework, how many of our

098or what percentage of our 9th through 12th grade students are currently participating in that? Do you know? We don't have the percentage. I can get back to you on that on the percentage of 9th through 12th grade students. Um we don't have that yet. Okay. And then um anybody can can enter these programs, right? So what supports do we have for students with disabilities, any of our English language learners? How do we support them in completing these college courses? >> So we follow the students' IEP if they have students with special needs, we follow the IEP, we inform the instructor about that. We also provide some supports to students if they're English learners. So the same types of supports that we provide them in during the regular school in their regular classes, we provide them

099similar supports uh if they are participating in a dual enrollment program. So a student in RSP would continue getting RSP support for that particular course? >> That's correct. >> Okay. And then what about English language learners? >> type of support. Whatever support they're receiving during their instructional day, we'd be able to provide them like vocabulary, the the front loading of the vocabulary, the SI strategies, any strategies that they they typically have access to in the regular class, they would have access to in the dual enrollment course. >> I'd be curious to know how many of our students complete the courses, the dual enrollment courses with a C or better. Okay. Um because what I've heard is that it can be very challenging even for for students who are generally, you know, getting A's in their

100regular courses, a dual enrollment class can be very It's a college level course and and um in the way it's taught, it's different than a high school teacher would teach a course. So, I've heard those are some of the challenges, so I'd be curious to hear what you all um Yeah, and we have uh frequent um meetings with LACCD and we discuss anything that's bubbling up at the school sites uh in terms of uh maybe an instructional approach that may be a little different than what students are used to. Um but we also have an orientation for parents so that parents understand that their students are about to enter into a college course and this is what the expectation is, this is what the level of rigor is. We want them to be successful because

101at the end of the day, they're earning college credits that goes onto a transcript. And and so we want to make sure they're successful and so we share all of the things that they need to know and be able to do prior to enrolling and of course giving them the supports. And so when we're meeting with LACCD, when things are bubbling up, we do um have conversations so that we can um provide our students access. We want them to be successful. Um despite it being the intention for it to be rigorous and a college level experience, we want them to be successful. So, if a student doesn't pass a course, what happens to their uh GPA? Their high school GPA, does it Does it impact it? >> It would impact their college credits. Okay. Um

102and but that is not very likely. That's not something that happens. >> have to Do they have to report it? Well, no. I mean it it goes on to their transcripts, so it does affect their GPA in particular if they want to apply to college. So, it's very unlikely that our students are failing cuz we give them supports. So, your question about how many students get a C or higher, we will look into that. But also knowing in terms of the participation and the grading, a lot of the data does come from LACCD. So, another project that we're working on with them is for us to receive the data right away to help us make informed decisions about where they're going to be programmed for the following semester because this is LACCD data that we

103would need to get from them. So, we will work with them to get the grades to be able to provide that for you. Okay. And then regarding CTE courses, how do the You mentioned it was the comprehensive schools have a lot of these CTE programs. So, what about option schools, continuation schools? Yeah. What are the their their opportunities? >> So, our option schools have an opportunity to attend the DACE programs. Even if they're under 18 years old? Yes. Do you want to answer that question? Yeah. Yes, with the passage of AB 542, which took effect in January 1st of this year, there's given flexibilities for a continuation high schools to have work-based training programs as part of the school day. So, currently we're piloting different work-based learning programs with the division of adult ed in

104our continuation high schools. If they're interested in other CT pathways, they also follow that same bulletin that Dr. Bias shared. Um And it depends like I said, the interests, you know, what they what would like, but definitely connecting with our team is another way to open up a CT class. Okay, great. And and our schools, our option schools are aware of that because I think that's great that they can access the adult ed. >> Absolutely. Okay. Great. Thank you. That's all I have for right now. Um well, I wanted to thank you both. This is very important work, work that I'm very passionate about and I I want to say firstly, we have amazing work going on in our schools. I know we have a really robust partnership around dual enrollment in my district. You

105know, the Northeast Valley was one of the first areas that I think really built a strong partnership with our community colleges on this front, as well as wonderful CTE programs. I I do feel like in looking at the materials, there's a bit of a disconnect for me. The two-for-one for everyone, which I think is a really like a nice slogan, um kind of setting the goal of every student has an opportunity to graduate with a high school diploma and an associate's degree or complete a career certification, um feels like a really ambitious uh goal or expectation that we're setting out there versus the reality of like we do not have universality of access to these programs across our district. Um so, I And and of course, whenever we're setting uh creating a plan to expand,

106we want it to be realistic. We have to acknowledge there are staffing constraints, there are scheduling constraints, there um there are different barriers that we have to think about we want implementation to be successful. That being said, you know, the goal of of maybe growing the CTE Sorry, I'm trying to look for the the CTE expansion going from 108 schools, I think it was, to 113 schools. Like that is uh marginal growth, I think, especially when we're setting this um this hope and dream that all of our kids will have access and opportunity to be able to do this, um as well as the contemplation that the board has been discussing around how do we uplift career readiness as part of our new strategic plan? Um I'm just feeling like there's a there's a bit

107of a disconnect in terms of ambitiousness and expectations and how do we make this into a reality? So, uh I don't know if that's just commentary or a question, but maybe you all can speak to, you know, if we need to dramatically grow our programs in order to ensure that all kids in our secondary schools or our high schools have access, what's that going to take? Resources, staffing. Absolutely. So, the the two-for-one for what everyone really helped us to focus in on the gaps we need to close and the partnerships we need to strengthen. And so, our partnership with LACCD has been strengthened in the past few years. The collaboration we just have we have a new memorandum of understanding so our middle schools can also have access. It also helped us to see where

108we can partner with others, where we could create CTE hubs. Um so, there are goals that we have and we're working towards developing opportunity and and access where there is not one so that we have a 100% guarantee that there is that two-for-one for everyone, but there is an infrastructure for that. And what we need Yes, we do need additional funding because we do offer the C-CAP grants and those dollars help us with the dual enrollment expansion. We're also working with LACCD with expanding our CTE offering. So, if a school doesn't have a CTE pathway, they can actually access it through the community college as well. So, there's that opportunity to get that sequence the course sequence that's required for them to get that certification. So, while there are opportunities, there and there it also

109has helped us to see that the gaps that exist and what we need to do to close them. It hasn't been as comprehensive as it is now. The partnership, the collaboration, the interest that we're finding from outside organizations to help us strengthen this has really scaled up significantly. So, the fact that we have the two-for-one for everyone, it's a possibility. We have students who graduate with an AA and with their high school diploma and in some cases they've been part of a CTE pathway or even JROTC. So, it's the the visual that Pia showed earlier is that these are all the opportunities available. It's ensuring that every single school has this and and prioritizing it for schools who feel that maybe they're not ready for it, uh but showing them why it's important to offer

110these CTE pathways. So, while it's ambitious, it's important to be ambitious. We need to aim high, and we have a lot of systems in place to do that, and every day it's just getting better and better in terms of the offering and and the publicity and the awareness for our students and ensuring that there's access for them. That makes sense. And I mean, I think it makes uh a lot of sense to work in partnership with LACCD. We know that they they also have an interest, you know, these are future students of future and potentially current students of theirs as well. Um and then I I guess I just wonder in terms of the the CTE work, um for the schools that do not currently have access to a CTE pathway on their campuses, what

111are we what are we doing, like just looking to next school year, to support them in and bringing coursework online? It's uh number one, we had the the recent symposium for the liaisons to show them how to open a CTE pathway. Uh we've publicized the memo. We've met with the counselors. We've had Banked Time Tuesday. We've had um six additional professional developments outside of that to guide them in opening those CTE pathways, to get them prepared for that next year. Um showing them how to use the C-CAP grant. Um in addition to that, while while schools prepare to open those CTE pathways, again encouraging them to take those CTE classes at the community college or even uh at DACE, uh so that they can have immediate access while we open up those pathways at the

112school sites. And and for smaller high schools, like are there um staffing challenges that we might or scheduling challenges that we might anticipate that that might be barriers to schools being able to offer these types of pathways? Yeah, definitely. So, when there is a an interest in opening the pathway, the we definitely examine the viability and support them with identifying staff or hiring staff to teach those those uh classes, right? Because existing staff probably don't have the background in that industry to teach. So we need we need to hire a CTE teacher for that program. So we guide them in doing that and examining their schedules. All of that is supported by our offices so that there that it becomes a reality at their school site despite their the size of their school. Thank you.

113And then in terms of the dual enrollment opportunities, I I think it's great that we're setting a goal to to continue to expand the number of schools offering that. Are the numbers here like comprehensive high schools or does it include middle schools? Like is it an all secondary school number? >> The the dual enrollment, this represents our comprehensive schools. Okay. Comprehensive high schools. Yeah, I think one area that I have heard from principals in my district is around middle school access to dual enrollment coursework and I think some of my schools in board districts had piloted this opportunity but have faced feel like they're faced some recent barriers to continue that work. So I think there's excitement and interest to ensure that our middle schools as well can offer these opportunities to to students. >>

114And we successfully were able to confirm that our MOU has been approved. So our our middle school programs can move forward for the next few years under that MOU. That's fantastic. And then last piece, I mean I think building awareness of what we already offer is really important. I think it's great that we're highlighting that you know these opportunities are available even to incoming ninth graders. I'm curious about our parent engagement and parent outreach efforts and are we starting those at the middle school level so that even before a student enrolls in high school >> they're they're thinking about the paths that are available. So this guide does go out to our middle school families so that they see the pathways that are offered and then they can select the school where the pathways are

115offered for for the CTE programs. And also of course doing a lot of publicity, um, for our counselors so they, the students are aware about dual enrollment. That's great to hear. Sorry, lied one more, I promise. And then I have a great deal of interest in the MC3 pre-apprenticeship coursework. I think it's wonderful that we're offering it at our our occupational centers. I hear a lot of interest from high school students around the trades and wanting to ensure that they have exposure and readiness to be able to enter an apprenticeship upon graduation. Have we considered or are we making any efforts to open up those courses on our comprehensive high schools? Yes, we started off with the summer career empowerment academy. And one of the pathways that we actually opened up as a construction pathway.

116And so in the last summer we we opened Let me just find out the number. Last summer we offered a total of 232 participants actually participated in that. And that was a great opportunity for rising seniors and graduating seniors to get exposure across all the trades. We're continuing to evaluate and figure out how we can continue to expand. We've started to expand with our North Valley Occupational Center and our continuation high schools as well to really see what this may look like from a course offering, from a scheduling perspective in collaboration with our DOI team. Good to know that we've we've piloted some efforts and I think the work around option schools is really exciting. That's those are students who I think can really benefit from these opportunities. I will say like I hope that

117you you don't have to struggle with with credit coursework to the point where you end end up in options before you get access to like we want this exposure to happen early on because students should have awareness and access to all the pathways that are available to them. So I think however we can um expand these opportunities to more of our students um as early on as possible is great. Yeah, and remember going to just to follow up on um the inquiry about the middle school offering of dual enrollment. I definitely want to thank our Chancellor, the LACCD Chancellor, the Deputy Chancellor, Dr. Lancaster. They have been instrumental in helping us to reach um reach our goals. Um our collaboration has really increased and improved significantly through the years. Just wanted to make that point.

118Really quickly. And our the MOU uh for dual enrollment for middle school, that just um obviously was in December. So, when will our middle schoolers begin to take these courses? Is it in for the next following academic year or There were some schools that were ready to go for the spring, and so we're moving forward. And of course, we want to raise awareness so that we can expand this to more. But we're also being very cautious as well because we want our students to succeed. And as mentioned earlier, the level of rigor is pretty high. So, we'll have parent meetings to inform them about what they're going to be uh uh expecting uh because we want them to succeed. We want them to pass these classes. Yeah, thanks. Uh what is Franklin? I'll pick up

119on the middle school as well. I think I have three in my district that are currently doing it and had done it before. A lot of parent advocacy and and gratitude for where we are today. But one concern that came up was about middle schoolers not earning high school credit. So, they earn middle school and college credit, but it didn't count for the high school credit. Is that still a problem or is it something we're working on? I'll ask uh Ms. Brenda Pensamiento to to come up and respond to that question. Dr. Wright, thank you for that question. So, it's not that they're not earning credits. Middle school students don't earn don't earn high school credits. They earn credits for middle school. But in the LOT, which is the languages other than um English and

120in math, those courses actually um help so that they can be placed at a higher uh level when they get to high school, but we haven't we've never had high school numerical credits. And I know it sounds very confusing, but that is, you know, part of high school graduation. You can start your journey for languages and for math, and we want our students to do that, but that doesn't count as numerical credit for high school. So, it's not it doesn't contribute to their A through G either for high school. It does not numerical, meaning that you start at a higher level, but it doesn't give them the actual credit for high school. Okay, that makes sense. And we can tell families you're starting at a higher level, which is exciting for their students, too. So,

121appreciate that. Um I had a couple questions maybe building on what Ms. Gonzalez had asked. On slide 12, that slide we had up earlier with the number of comprehensive high schools offering dual enrollment, does the number on the most right column equate to number of um is it a a full AA pathway, or is it simply if they have one dual enrollment offering, one course, that it counts? >> That's right. It's it's any school that is offering a dual enrollment. So, they won't have like all of the course sequences to offer an AA necessarily, um but it's that they at least offer one course. Could we get that as a follow-up, you know, where there are the full pathways? Um really excited to see, you know, Harbor Teacher Prep shouted out as getting a lot

122of a work, but it's literally on the campus of Harbor College, and those graduations are very exciting because many of the kids do get two, three, and four, but to the point of access, we want to make sure that students who are at all, you know, campuses can complete an AA, um and that we're not just saying two for one, but that we're actually making it possible. Um and then two other quick questions, who pays for the professors um for dual enrollment? That would be the C CAP grant. The the um Does that come to us, or does that go to LACCD? Brenda, would you like to come up and start? I hear her saying the answer from here. I think that. And I wish it were more simple sometimes to explain to Dr. Bias.

123Um, the professors come from LACCD, but you're correct. They also have uh grants for dual enrollment. And then we have separate grants that supports the program itself. It could be textbooks, it could be additional time for our teachers to support the students when the the days that the professors don't come. But the professors are paid by LACCD. Okay, that's helpful. I've one more money question. I'm not sure if this is you or not. Um, but on the pamphlet, which I think is really helpful, there is a note about AP courses. So maybe this is not. It says there's a fee for AP exams, though some schools may cover the cost. But we just did an AP press conference where we said AP exams are free in LAUSD. So I just wanted to clarify, is it

124free or might there be a fee? They're absolutely free for LA Unified. Okay, so I don't know if that means we need to update this booklet so that um people are aware of that. Okay, thank you. Thank you. I have um I have one question Oh, great questions. Thank you, colleagues, for asking all of those great questions. Uh can you say more about how outreach and communication is provided to families and caregivers, particularly in terms of language access, and which language which languages materials and engagement efforts are currently available in? So our materials are in multiple languages um and they are uh offered through our counselors, through our school sites. So for example, the the booklets that we have presented to you, those were mailed to the schools and they're provided to the to the

125parents. Of course, there's parent meetings, there's coffee with the principals. Um counselors are encouraged to meet with parents as well to inform them about these dual enrollments. Um and of course, everything we've been recently promoting as well. Uh so there are ways that we're reaching out to families. Great, thank you. Um, next one last question. Um, although you mentioned training and communication tool kits are available in every region, um, I continue to hear or see that, um, at the site level implementation varies widely. Um, what expectations or accountability structures are in place for schools to ensure students are actively being connected to these opportunities? And where do we, um, see inconsistency or how can we address that? Yes, so we definitely as we're meeting with our our counselors and we uh, meet with the counseling

126coordinators at the regions and they're the ones tailoring the support, the individual support to schools. We also know which schools need a little bit more help and so we send them out to provide that support. Um, there are are many goals that we have in place, so for example, the financial aid, um, application process where we've had success in terms of our, um, application and submission and they've been integral for that. So when we find that maybe schools are not performing at that same rate, we go in there and support and then we ask of course about other initiatives related to counseling, dual enrollment, CTE, um, programming of students. We do a lot of transcript analysis where we're able to see where there may be some inconsistencies or variability in implementation and we go in

127there and support. So our regions support the school sites whenever we're seeing that there may be a gap in the implementation or in the the information. Um, we'll probably go and spot check as well at the central level going to see if the initiatives that we have been implementing are or that we've been, um, providing are implemented at the school site with fidelity. Wonderful. And and now that I remember the, um, a workplace readiness resolution that was recently passed with Mr. Schmosin and myself and who else was Carla? Was it you? Sorry, I forget who all the co- who the other co-sponsor was, but the resolution that was passed for workplace readiness um for students to um be aware of their labor rights, how are we incorporating that into this the CTE program? If you

128can just >> is part of the preparation for students. So, they need to learn about the AB 800, they need to um also receive um training on how to um number one, write the resume, application, but also their their uh work experience as well. So, interns that are going to be placed, they will also learn about their um their rights, and we have the posters that are also um available, and they're posted at the council. Expectations that they're posted at the counseling office as well. So, we have the uh posters at counseling. Any other information that's provided to students for them to take to I mean, is there um Yeah, there's there's a There's a lot of training that comes from the CTE office for our students that are enrolled in those programs. Great, great

129to know. Well, thank you very much um Ms. Adakmalan and Mr. Dr. Baez for um the update on on dual enrollment and CTE pathways, and also our pre-apprenticeship programs and MC3. That's one area that I know our students are really eager to learn more about. I had two career fairs just concentrating all on on our trades, and I'll let you know that students were excited that we were getting all kinds of information. There was a panel that was sharing um their ex- their experience in in in different trades, and want to um also make, you know, commend the work there. It's We need to definitely expand that, so I appreciate that. Thank you so much. Now, we're moving to our last presentation. Um So, as we have our presenters come forward, our presentation is on

130the central manufacturing kitchen. This is an important investment that connects directly to student health and daily experience in our schools, as well as how we think about efficiency and long-term sustainability across this district. We are joined today by Dr. Deborah Bryant, acting chief of school operations, Mr. Issam Dabdoub, a director of facilities planning and development. And I also see Mr. Manesh here as well. So, uh Dr. Bryant, the floor is yours. Thank you and good morning, members of the board and acting superintendent Shade. So, this morning, as was stated, we are presenting on our central manufacturing kitchen. I will discuss the need and purpose. We'll discuss site selection, implement implement implementation plan, and timeline and next steps. So, Do I Oh, is there a clicker? Oh. The clicker. Oh, it's right here. Look at that.

131Okay. So, why a central manufacturing kitchen is needed? The purpose is to elevate nutrition with fresher, healthier, and more appealing options informed by family and student feedback. And in the 2024 food services master plan, we identified the need for a new CMK, which is central manufacturing kitchen, to support fresh, healthy, and appealing meals. So, a new central manufacturing kitchen would modernize operations and align with LA Unified Sustainability goals. And developing one central manufacturing kitchen kitchen is more cost-effective than multiple kitchens. So, the priorities are to transition the 170 schools currently served by Newman Nutrition Centers to the CMK to enable approximately 60,000 students to receive fresh meals. We want to expand the capacity to provide fresh meals and products prepared at the CMK for schools across the district. We want to prepare raw proteins from

132scratch for district recipes, create sauces, dressings, and condiments, and process fresh produce from local farmers, and bake fresh products. We want to provide hands-on training facility for our kitchen and kitchen employees, for culinary students, and adult learners. We also want to maximize our 8-hour work day for more workers to elevate nutrition and menu choices. Again, I have to reiterate that our priorities will be refined based on cost and feasibility. So now, I'd like to turn it over to Issam Daodou, he is our director of facilities and planning, and he will continue with the presentation. Good morning members of the board and acting superintendent Shay. My name is Issam Daodou, I'm the director of facilities, planning, and development. I'm going to walk through, how do I go to the next slide? So thanks to the passage

133of measure US, measure US includes funding for school cafeteria upgrades. And of the funds that were identified, some of those funds, $240 million, are allocated for a project to develop a kitchen to prepare fresh, healthier student meals and support our schools. And so we've been working very closely with the food services division, between facilities and food services, so that we can collaborate on initiating the planning that needs to take place in order to identify where we're going to build a central manufacturing kitchen, what the program and what will it entail, what are the needs of a central manufacturing kitchen, space needs, and then also evaluate potential sites for feasibility, so we can identify where we might be able to build it. And ultimately to develop a project scope that we would be bringing forward to

134the board for project approval. So, the goal in terms of identifying a site is to use district land. So, we did not want to necessarily go out and purchase land. We wanted to see if we could identify existing land within the district that we could utilize. And so, we set criteria and considerations as we went through to identify what sites that the district already owns might be suitable for a central manufacturing kitchen. So, we looked at obviously district owned property within district boundaries. We know that from preliminary analysis that we need approximately 4 acres minimum. So, we looked at that. Um and then obviously when we have a central manufacturing kitchen, you're going to have transportation of food coming in, food coming out. And so, transportation, being close to major corridors are important, as well

135as the proximity to our current facilities where uh we have the Pico Rivera warehouse. And then obviously being centrally located without within the district would obviously be helpful as well. Um as we um have a large uh swath of area to cover. Looked at land use. Um and then one of the big factors we looked at as well as when we identified where we could potentially put um a new a new central kitchen is to minimize the amount of money that we would have to spend on any relocation of existing users in any particular location. We want to use as much of the funding for the actual construction as possible and minimize that. And then last but not least is put uh integration with the division of adult and career ed uh programs. Um and

136you'll see a little bit more about that in a second as well. So, utilizing all those factors that I just mentioned, um we started with district owned property and we layered on all of these. I won't read through all this cuz it's um what I had just um indicated. And ultimately we got down to one particular site that I'd like to share today. So, the site that we're proposing to utilize, It's initiate additional studies is the Richard Slawson Southeast Occupational Center and Bell Storage Yard. This is there's an area and I'll get to it. You'll see an aerial in a second, but it's approximately 4 miles from the Pico Rivera warehouse. The site is close to major transportation corridors. It's got approximately 5 acres of usable space where you additional space in the parking lot

137that we might be able to utilize. And it's within an industrial area already. So we're trying to minimize any disruption to surrounding community members as well. And there's we believe that there's minimum relocation or demolition that would be required as part of this. And the additional benefit of this is being housed adjacent to the Slawson or on the Slawson Southeast Occupational site is an opportunity to work with DACE to expand culinary arts, potential internships, and job opportunities for LAUSD students. We believe there's a great synergy that can be had with educational training, skill development for students. So a little bit more about the Southeast Occupational Center. You can see here was built in 2011. The portion of the site that we're looking to potentially utilize is the area you see dashed in red. There's approximately

1383 acres in the parking lot. And then 2 acres, which is what we call the Bell Storage Yard, which is also part of that same same same property. Which is currently just has some storage uh being used at this time. So the planning considerations we considered and are going to have to continue to consider as school operations and student safety. Obviously, we're going to have to work with adult ed to provide parking spaces for the student continue to provide parking spaces for the students during construction as well as afterwards. And so we'll work together. Truck routing and deliveries and make sure that there's safety for all as trucks are coming in and out cuz obviously we'll be increasing the need for that. So in terms of how we plan to implement this. So the first

139phase of the project is what we call our programming site analysis phase. So we do not build new central manufacturing kitchens every day. So we want to go through a extensive programming effort. So we're next month we'll be bringing to the board a contract with an architect and culinary arts sorry not culinary arts a um kitchen specialist to provide an analysis of the site itself to look at infrastructure to look at programming of what could fit on the site test fit and what the needs of the of it of the programming effort will require. And so we once we get board approval in April we would take about 5 to 7 months to go through that process develop a preliminary project scope cost estimate and then return back to the board for project approval. At

140that point we would then begin the actual design of a new central manufacturing kitchen go through all our environmental reviews any agency approvals as necessary and then once we get agency approvals we can then begin construction. So the timing of all this the the key milestones in 2026 as I mentioned we'll be bringing forward to the board a site analysis contract with an architect to look at programming um it's and once we do that we will then come back in December of we're hoping to come back in December Q4 of 2026 to for project definition for the scope schedule and budget of the new central manufacturing kitchen. Once the board approves the project definition we would then proceed as I mentioned with design environmental reviews etc. Um I would like to go to questions but

141I do want to mention that Manish Singh director of food services, is here if in case there's any questions that are specific to food services. Thank you. Thank you for that preview. Um so, Slauson, um so what will happen with the Newman centers? Any is that's going to be still remain operable for other um sort of food preparation >> Very good question. The plan is to eventually phase out Newman. And so, the plan would be to obviously as during construction Newman will have to continue to run, but the goal for the central manufacturing kitchen is to consolidate the food preparation and the packaging um all in the new central kitchen and then phase out Newman. We will then, obviously as we start to progress, start to identify what other uses Newman might have for the

142district. Cuz I have a school right across the street, Bravo Medical Magnet, and they definitely need some space, so I'll be talking to you about that. So. Okay, just Okay, so questions. Thank you. Why don't you just rehab the Newman center and expand it and modernize it? I mean, what's the purpose? So, we looked into that and one rehabbing an existing building is a very costly and can sometimes cost just as much as building new construction, especially when you're when you're considering something as intricate as a food services building. And I also know that it also impacts operational practices that are happening, you know, if you're doing rehabs, it also limits the ability to actually use the Newman center for daily operations. This allows us to continue with operations at Newman as we build a

143new kitchen. And Mr. Singh, did you want to add anything to the presentation? I know this has been something when I visited Newman, you were letting it you know let me know about sort of this dream of you had of a whole new kitchen um place. Yes, um thank you for asking that question and um um you know, thank you for inviting me to answer some questions. Uh the one thing which I would say is, you know, a long time ago, and I'm talking about more than 5 years ago, this question came up that if there's one thing you'd ask for, what is it that you'd ask for? And I said, if there's one thing you'd say, then I would say, give us a central manufacturing kitchen. We do not have one. You know that

144the Newman Center is not a manufacturing kitchen. It is a packaging facility, which has stood us well. But if you want to elevate meals for students, and if you want to really say, you know, everything we are doing, then we have to have a facility where we can do that. This will not only provide freshly prepared meals for our 170 Newman sites, because those kitchens, if you go and see, you know, some of them are you know, makeshift rooms which are converted into a kitchen at one point of time, and they stay the same way. Or they have very limited uh storage facilities. So, how do we get these students and these schools also to have what everybody else is doing? And the only way to do that is this. Now, when you have a

145central manufacturing kitchen, we can determine what flavor profiles go into our food, which matches the needs and the asks of our students. Um right now, presently, we do have recipes, which we do, but you know that these days uh the thing of cooking everything from scratch is a very different thing. When I went to hotel school, we did all that. We made every sauce from scratch. In today's reality with the expansion of programs and also uh labor, then you have to be realistic about it. So, speed scratch is one of those things, but having one facility where we can even do our own proteins, we cook them from scratch, they can go to schools and be served within 48 to 72 hours. You know, if you need and you make an extra portion, you can

146flash freeze it and then send it to schools. It changes the total dynamic of what we'd be able to serve our students. And parents in our forums that we've talked to them, they've said in addition to food, uh in addition to education, food is a very important thing for us. And you know that about 85% of our kids qualify for free and reduced. So, we have a large percentage of students who belong to families who may be food facing food insecurity. This is one way of solving that. Wonderful. Thank you so much. Questions to my left. Miss Miss Grego. Yes, thank you for this presentation. There's several things that excite me about this. One, that it's going to be in the city of Bell, which is in my district at the Slauson Center. And then

147two, you're right, a lot of parents and students, when I've met with them, they talk about food. And that they want better tasting food. Parents want healthier meals, fresh vegetables and fruits and just better food. So, it's I'm glad that we are addressing that uh that request and that need. Um regarding um you said that you we were going to move folks from the Newman to this new location. So, does that mean that we're not increasing labor, the the number of folks that need to to do this work. So, the idea is that the packaging capability at Newman transfers to the new facility, but the new facility will have a cooking facility, too. So, of course, we need more people for that. So, in addition to the people who move from Newman to support what

148they already do, you'll have added people working to prepare the meals from scratch. That's going to be a totally new part of the business. And as we mentioned, this will also give us the opportunity to give more people the 8-hour workday, which people have been asking for. >> Yes, they have. And it's at the facility, so it's all in one place. Wonderful. Thank you. I'd love to hear that. Um and then, have we reached out to the city of Bell about this proposal? Have we been engaging them in any conversations? We have not at this point, but we definitely can and let them know that the we're planning to expand the current site at Slauson with this new central manufacturing kitchen. Absolutely. >> that would be good to do that. Um then, um let's see

149here. So, can you um Also, have you have you talked to labor partners about this? So, I think at this point of time, we are in the early stages of the thing. Um you know that we had a food truck, and we getting for additional food trucks, so they are aware of that. They probably have a understanding or awareness that this is coming up, but it wasn't time for us to be able to, you know, because we need some more information details of what we'll be able to do. That will come from the study, which we are asking for. And at that point of time, because from the concept to the execution when it's ready, it's going to be a little time. All right. So, yeah, at one point I hope that we can have

150those conversations with labor partners. And then, um regarding the um the quality of food. So, you were mentioning that it's we expect it to be better quality, right? Because it's fresher. Um and then cost regarding um what is the um Is there going to be a Is it going to be costlier for us to have fresher food or not? Or is it going to be about the same? Just So, there is a bit of a price advantage. The reason is For example, if you cook food at home and you go to a restaurant and eat, there is definitely a price differential. So, when we get all the raw product, and you know that for our fruits and vegetables, we are purchasing from local farms, so we are looking to increase that volume. Uh so, that

151will come into play. Uh of course, when we cook from scratch, the cost per meal is going to go down. But there's going to be an added labor cost which will come into play. We think that overall, in the study which was done, there is a price differential which is to the advantage that it'll actually overall come down a little bit. Awesome. And then, I know we have some farms in LAUSD. It would be so nice. I know, that's a big one, but that's another dream to have a big farm that we can have our own crops that we can >> You know, those conversations have come up. You know, Sotomayor has such a beautiful thing. So does um Sylmar. You know, I mean, great gardens developed by a person who works for us now,

152Steve List. Uh so, we definitely are sensitive and we have that in mind. But if we can determine a facility, I would also say on the flip side, given the size that we have, we would have to be strategic in what we grow over there, which can support the whole district because to imagine that we'd have a farm which we'd be able to do everything for us, that's possibly not there, but we're looking at some alternate ways in which we could support the district at large. Thank you. Um, well, this is very exciting. I feel like this is an area I don't know too much about, so I'm I've enjoyed learning a little bit about about the work and um, the benefits and I agree with board member Griego. I think food is one of

153the the top things that I hear from constituents whether it is parents or students, frankly. I hear a lot whenever I ask students like, "What could I do to help make your learning experience better?" They um, frequently mention the food and I know that we've taken steps to to improve quality um, and to bring student voice in as part of this process, but it seems like this is um, important infrastructure that that would really help us advance those goals. Um, I was curious, you know, the the terminology of a central kitchen like seems a bit of a challenge in a district that is so geographically large, so just curious how we how we thought how we think about that concept in a in a district of our size and um, obviously the valley is extremely

154not geographically proximate to this location, which is fine. Um, but I'm just I'm trying to understand um, you know, how we ensure uh, equity of of options for our students um, with this facility. So, a few things I would add on this. You're right that you know, we did have a study done to see is a one kitchen model good for us or should we look at two or even four because we have four regions. And when we looked at the cost structure uh, you know, it was the one kitchen model which was more cost-effective. Also, putting all the resources at one place instead of distributing it around. And also in terms of managing and developing a product and producing a product which can be distributed district wide which is consistent. It pointed to that

155one wreath. Now, if you look at it this at this point of time Pico Rivera from the proposed facility is about 4 miles and right now Pico Rivera supports the whole district in terms of distribution. Uh even the Newman Center while it's there the schools it supports is, you know, district wide. So, yes, it is from one perspective, you know, it's going to be more in one area, but the effect and the benefit is going to be district wide. That's helpful. Maybe at some point you all could share which which schools it's anticipated that this would serve um since I know they're not all necessarily located nearby this this facility. >> Yeah, the idea is it serves every school. Okay. So, it of course helps the schools which are the Newman Center because they get

156packaged food. So, we basically are buying from different vendors, we put it into a package and then it gets packaged and sent to schools. Here, those schools will continue, but now they get fresh food as opposed to packaged. The second one is the bulk that we create, we package it and then we send it to schools. The idea is some of the stuff gets processed and you know, put into the meal within 48 to 72 hours. Certain overages we can flash freeze and send it to schools so they when they need it. I I think Manish hits on on a very important piece around quality control and assurance um when we actually own the baking. So, think about the the breakfast muffin or donut that we provide during breakfast in the classroom. And so do

157or the coffee cake, right? Um but when we talk about the muffin, many of those we actually procure through vendors, right? And they're prepackaged, they're delivered either at Newman or at sites, here we would actually be producing that muffin. And we'll have greater control in terms of what we're actually producing, consistency, as well as how we actually manage for that. So, um one of the opportunities is, yes, it's actually growth in employment opportunities, but also reducing our reliance on kind of contracted services. I know that that's an area of interest on where are we leaning in. Um this is one of those areas that we could actually realize some savings there. That's really exciting. And then I did want to learn more about the uh possible integration with the our district's culinary and district's other

158culinary programs. I don't know if that's I know we are maybe several years away from anything like that happening, but anything you can share on that front. Uh so, you know that we did our first uh student culinary showdown, right? We You know that we went to San Francisco, and we beat San Francisco, right? Uh you do know that we are going to have another culinary showdown this time, four districts in LA uh for Super Bowl 27. Uh so, having said that, we do have a ongoing partnership with CTE. Um also, having said this, this is going to open the pathways for all our students. Because in this facility, we want to have a training facility. And the training facility will also have a kitchen, which is a training kitchen, for our staff, but in

159addition to that, since we are there right on the campus with Slauson, you know, from our perspective, we look upon them as potential um you know, employees for us. Also, secondly, they people who we develop for the real world, because we actually have operations going on. So, can we do internships with them and send them to our schools, so that they experience what the real world is, as opposed to the theory part of it, we can support that as well. Also, I would say to you that many of us have degrees in the culinary arts and all. I am a graduate of hotel school. So, I know how that part of it runs um in addition to other things. So, we have a very experienced chef, Jamie Ginsberg, who is a CIA graduate. Not only

160is she a CIA graduate, but she's a certified CIA chef. Which means what? Means that she can take a concept from concept to bulk production. She's certified on that. So, there's so many aspects that we can work with them. Um you know, with CTE, we are talking about doing something at Polytechnic for the students over there. We have culinary programs across the districts. We can call them in and we can also train them because we do have relationships with chefs. So, there's so many areas and avenues that we can develop on and you know, as opportunity comes, we will definitely look for it. And I think adding to that, uh the CTC, we just saw present, you know, the reconnect, but I know that a lot of our CTCs also have a culinary pathway. So,

161it'd be also really great to um integrate our CTC programs into that pathway. Thank you. Um so, thank you, Ms. Goniz for that question. I have that question. So, taking notes on that, so appreciate that. Um so, I know Mr. Dadool and and uh Dr. Bryant, you have walked us with some of the timeline and the key uh the key milestones. How when will we the board be um updated again? How How will you engage us and um sort of keep us in the loop and as um this this progresses. Great great question. So, the first step is uh next month we'll be bringing forward a um a request to authorize the site analysis. And so, it's a contract with an architect who's going to then do a full site analysis, feasibility analysis of the

162site. Does it work at that site? Is there enough infrastructure? Can we do a test fit? What can we build? What can we afford? And so, once we get to that, so that's the first step. Once we work with that architect and um consultants, the um uh then we'll figure out what the true project scope, schedule, and budget is and come back to the board at the end of the year with a request for uh moving forward with the project and a project definition. And so, that would happen at the end of this uh 2026. Any other, Mr. Schmelzer and then Nick? So, did you ever think of this, Mr. Singh, as a money-making um proposition where perhaps this kitchen would be able to supply other than LAUSD schools, other entities like Well, no, I

163meant things like um maybe hospitals that don't have that kitchen uh possibility component, or um nursing homes, or uh other events where you may have if you're working 24 hours a day, you may have all those shifts making the food. So, it's maybe something to think about. I don't know if that's possible. I don't know if it's legal. I don't know anything, but I just thought it's a great way of being able to uh make some money for the district. We have definitely thought of that. Not necessarily in the hospital world and that, but other school districts. We had thought of it because there is that possibility. You know that, for example, a coffee cake is extremely popular. Right? Can we package the mix and make it available to others? The answer is yes. So,

164we would look, but first of course, we want to focus on our district and see what we can do for our students. Then, once we've got that stabilized, then we look at what other opportunities and possibilities may exist. Um thank you. Uh this is very exciting. It's something I've been advocating for for years. Um and uh Miss Dr. Bryan, it's nice to see you in yet another role serving the district. Um Um a lot of my questions that kind of the the list of schools directly serviced and regional versus central have been answered. It would be I don't know, do we ever see that study that that um weighed the benefits of um a central kitchen versus the regional ones? Was that something that was shared with the board? Uh we do have the study

165and we can make it available. >> That'd be great. And then also, I mean, you know, um 170 schools and 60,000 students would still be larger than almost every district in the country. So, even though there's I'm excited as this is a first step, um I just want to note that and uh you know, cosign on the great work you're doing. One question is I know that in the presentations as recently as a few months ago to the board, we had a $300 figure. And so, I'm curious, was it that the scope has gone down or and like what are we doing with the other 60 million? So, the $300 is before the indirect So, for all the bond funds, we have indirect funds as well as program reserve. That's That's taken. So, the $300

166is before the indirect costs as well as the program reserve. We So, we say that in layman's terms. Sure. So, when we have $300 that's identified as allocated for a specific project or program, we we reserve some of that money for overall program reserve in case there's cost overruns on the overall bond projects themselves. So, as specific projects go over budget, then there's say a pot of money, which is the reserve that we can dip into. And so, that's why we don't Although we've allocated 300 million, we don't identify that full 300 million to the specific project. We identify 240 million to cover indirect costs throughout for the bond program, as well as reserve in case other projects and this project go over budget. And is a 20% reserve typical? This is standard for all

167of the the bond, yes. >> And then, cuz I know this is a question that's come up when we've talked about shade structures, school modernizations, or what happens when like if that reserve is not Where does the 60 million if we are at costs, and we don't need to tap into the reserve? Where does that money get repurposed? >> would cover all other programs throughout the bond program. So, it would come back for the board to be reallocated, or you would come up Like how does it work in practice? Like That is something I'd have to get back to you on. Okay. I'd be curious, because I think too, I mean, we One of the challenges with the larger I mean, this is This is not where I was going to go with this question,

168but with the larger costs is that when schools are funding things or parent groups are budgeting, they they don't think they have the money, and then when they realize that Oh, there's this 20% reserve, it's always a a question of well, you know, do we have to raise for it, and what if we don't use it, and where does that go? And so, in this instance, just because we've seen a lot of presentations with 300 million, and I see Ms. Stokes is maybe coming down, but if we, you know, if this ends up costing 250, I'm curious like does that 50 go into things that are approved but not funded? Or like does the board because with all these projects on a $9 billion bond, there's We're talking about hundreds of millions that would potentially

169be in these reserves. Like how does that come back to the board for conversation about any reallocation? Sure. So, uh Christina Stokes, chief facilities executive. Let me distinguish between the program reserve and a project reserve. So, within each of the projects that we bring towards the board, we have essentially a project reserve, which is a contingency because we know there might be unforeseen conditions, there might be things that we're unaware of. Um and that essentially diminishes over the time of the project. Um if we go out to bid and there is still some reserve left, we decrease it, it goes back to the pot that it came from. So, if it came from the food services category, it goes back to food services. If it came from the major mod category, it goes back to

170the major mod category. We experienced about a 39% um construction cost escalation over the last 3 years. Many of our projects reserves did not account for that 39% just cost escalation in construction. So, when we have we also have a program reserve. So, that kind of weathers the district when we see these big and flows in districts that are above and beyond just the project reserve. Project reserve is really we found black iron pipe or there was um uh I'm trying to think of the last project. We found that there were um a prehistoric shark shells and we had to excavate that on San Pedro or whatever those are. The big program reserve is for those big ebbs and flows. And so, one example I'll just give is that we know that we're probably hitting

171more volatility in the construction market now that we um are under or experiencing war and that is going to create a level of uncertainty not only because of gas prices, but because of all the petroleum products that are in plastics or asphalt, etc. So, we're expecting to see an uptick as our contractors who are bidding work are going to have to forecast what is the cost of petroleum per barrel in 3 years when we start construction. So, that's what our program reserve is for. Um our program reserve typically you look at an industry standard of how much you have to go out to bid. We have about $8 billion of projects that we have not put out to bid. You want to keep that at about 15 to 20% of what your total uh project

172worth that hasn't gone out to bid yet. If we got to a point where we were closing down this program, we would free up that reserve to undertake new projects. We've done that with the board in the past numbers of years ago about how to reallocate. So, in general, pro project reserve is put back into the category. Program reserve protects like the entire program. And that's why we haven't ever brought to the board a project that you've all approved that we've said, "I'm sorry, we've run out of money for because construction costs are too high. We're going to have to cancel that project." Hope that's all. >> of my responses to mitigate costs is don't start construction in 3 years. Start construction in 3 weeks. Um I mean, what I say only a little facetiously.

173I mean, I think one of the reasons that we have to have that reserve is cuz the board has approved projects as recently as maybe last week that we don't have a construction start date of like 4 or 5 years. So, it just seems like we should either start construction earlier or approve those later for a number of reasons. So, we can talk about that later as I know we will. I also might agendize this for our committee just to understand more of the reserve because I think it on a smaller scale projects, I know school sites and fundraising or or donations, there's always this question of of what do they have to res raise to with the reserve and that could be then prohibitively expensive and so they limit the scope. Uh we're seeing

174this with greening projects, too. Um and then if they don't use their like so just understanding this a bit better and kind of I think what you're saying makes sense in terms of the need for the two reserves and where it goes back with cost escalations, but um I might have more questions. So, but that's helpful in this instance cuz I know until even a few months ago we've been saying 300, I see 240, so. Um okay. Thank you. Um I was also thinking of agenda-izing this for the greening uh schools and climate resilience because I would love for the design to be um incorporating, you know, uh sustainable energy efficiency um electric powered appliances uh waste management, indoor quality all all everything that, you know, that the district is um spearheading in in terms

175of climate resilience and sustainable construction or like a green a green kitchen will be great. So, just would love to um well, you know, we'll we'll connect with you to see where where you are all in design what are you all are thinking, but >> Great. Thank you. Okay. Miss Miss Hendy, yes. New Question. Um, as we were talking, obviously, I was thinking revenue, too. How do we bring revenue? Um, but the other question was, are there other schools or entities within the county that has these CMKs that are operating and functioning that would be at this scale? Not in our county, but they for example uh Sacramento has a full central manufacturing kitchen. Oakland has one. Um there are two smaller districts, I would say, in the greater LA circle which just opened central

176manufacturing kitchens. We'd be happy to provide that information. We actually did provide that information to uh facilities and they actually went and had a look at those facilities, as well. Um, but in our direct LA County I can't think of one as of now. Um, Riverside does have Long Beach does have. Okay. Good good to know. Um, and I know we talked about time frame and I was thinking the same thing. I'm like, you are going to bring it back to us, but before it gets back to us we I noticed that it just boiled down from 46 to one site. In the event that this uh site selection to study does not go in our way of favor, going back to the 46, is there one that ranks higher or how does that go?

177Yeah, sorry. Um yeah, when we've looked at the other sites, there were probably two other sites that we looked at, but there was a lot of relocation that would probably necessary. So, we're the plan is to focus on this particular site, hope that we can um move forward with this site. If for any reason there is um a red flag that does not allow us to move forward, then we'd go back and evaluate um the other two sites that we'd be looking at potentially that rose to the top. Got it. And then um again, the question when, obviously, uh it comes back to us. And to Nick's point, like would it be sooner than later, obviously, and what would time frame be to build something this expansive? A great question. So, a typical uh project

178of this magnitude would take 4 to 5 years from start of design, going through the the approval process um through DSA or in this case potentially the city of Bell. Um more likely actually DSA. Let me backtrack on that. It would be DSA cuz it's on a school site. Um and then getting construction contractors on board and the construction process takes about a couple of years. So, in totality, it's 4 to 5 years. And that would start in December when we've finalized the the project and are moving forward with an actual project definition. Got it. And when I was thinking of revenue, cuz I know there's, you know, folks that are that do ghost kitchens and they use these kitchens, is that something that's feasible looking forward if that would be a use for this

179space as well. So, I you know, as both President Schmelson talked about that we could have shifts around. We definitely are looking at having multiple shifts. It's not going to be a one-shift kitchen. So, definitely two. You know, if we have the need, we could look at a third one as well. Um do remember that in between we have to cleanse, sanitize the kitchen daily cuz food safety is our number one thing. So, we have to provide time for that as well. But, we're going to maximize it to the best opportunities that are available to us. One of the challenges with kind of the revenue generating cuz it is something that is of interest is the majority of our program is run through our cafe program and so there are restrictions on the fund source

180and how that's utilized and so we just have to come up with other fund sources to allow us to um pursue something like that. So, it'll take time. I think uh what um Manish speaks to is, you know, the focus is building competency and effectiveness serving our schools first so that we learn and we get a a system in place and then we would explore these options around revenue generation. Well, thank you. I It just came as you were mentioning that it's also in the city of Bell. And so we would have to go through other processes as well with other cities. Or how does that work? >> the So, it's a school site now. All right, and the district owns the property. We would go through the Division of State Architects for any approval

181of our design on that property. So, we don't have to seek City of Bell's approval for the construction of the site. If there's any off-site improvements, if we have to do, you know, driveway or anything that's in the right-of-way in the in the street or in the sidewalk, then we would go to the city of Bell and ask for approval for something like that. But the building itself and the development goes through the Division of State Architect. Got it. Thanks. Well, thank you again for this uh presentation and a little preview of what's to come in 4 to 5 years, but we're looking forward to it. Um so, this is a significant and promising investment for our students. We're excited about the potential impact on their daily meal experience um in the near future. So,

182we look forward to continuing this engagement as we move forward. Thank you again. Appreciate it. So, now this takes us to a public comment portion of today's meeting. Mr. McLean? Here we go. Uh most of the folks are calling in remotely. Um so, I'll call on the folks who listed themselves as being here in person, and then I will call on those who signed up to speak remotely. Um Monica Arrazola, I see you're signed up to speak in person. I do not see you in the room, and I do not have you online. The next in-person individual is Deanna Guillen, also signed up to speak in person. Uh not here and on the line. Um Mr. David Tokofsky coming up, you'll have 2 minutes to speak. Why don't you begin? Thank you very much for

183an intriguing Committee of the Whole. Of course, the focus right now should be about the May revision, getting the $5.6 billion most of it into the budget to help you with negotiations, and with the one-time money, which is always uh pooped on here, that's the Cola money. That's how you improve your Cola. So, otherwise, let me just say I believe uh the land the great questions on the on the food service, Mr. Smelson. The land is owned by the federal government, and there's an agreement with the LA Unified. We obtained that land when I was on the board for $1. Okay, $1 to build everything and facilities forgot to say something like, "Let's get 40 acres." So, instead, most of the land went to the city of Bell, which we've read about in many newspapers

184before on what they did with their things. So, let's be very clear, you need that report, you need to know what they say in business, the return on investment. Mr. Schmertz is right, Montebello Unified is right there, it's attached on the same land, the same Fort Shelly land. Lynwood, Paramount, and then we heard that there's no other in LA County, then we hear that Long Beach has one. Last time I checked, Long Beach is part of LA County. And in fact, we have a school in Long Beach that they sued us over, but we built it because it's in our district. So, there's a lot of collaboration if it's about return on investment, not another boondoggle. So, let me just move on a little bit more to say that you only get $3 a kid

185or less from the federal government for meals. So, unless you unless you're going to change the eating habits, and we know at the high school level the the number of kids that are eating is really low, okay? Really quite low. Uh also, you also know that um the uh kids of of parents, unless they come to you every morning, Dr. Rivas, and say, "Give me money to buy the meal." Okay? That the kids who have money aren't buying the meal, which tells you a little bit about the market, no matter how much sugar, spice, and all that other thing else nice we put in there. Lastly, great questions on you know, where are our labor partners? In this case, and in the case of the career path, where were the labor partners of HERE? Maria

186Elena Durazo, who leads that and has led everything from Build Back Better from Mr. Biden, is about these things. Why don't we have those things in those career paths? And finally, let me just say a little bit about the dual enrollment. You should have seen the numbers. You should see them by ethnicity and by school areas because you may find some disturbing data that was not presented about who's dual and I'm very glad that over 30% of Asian-Americans are in dual enrollment. But I don't know about the rest of the district, okay? Thank you for your time. >> you for your questions on that, very much. All right, that's all the in-person comments. The next speaker is Thakur Singh. Please press star six to unmute yourself. And you'll have 2 minutes to speak once you

187begin. Thakur Singh. Mr. Singh, I see you're online. Please press star six to unmute yourself and you'll have 2 minutes to speak once you begin. Thakur Singh. Hey Mr. Singh, we will be um coming back to you. All right, Christopher Estella. Christopher Estella, please press star six to unmute yourself and you'll have 2 minutes to speak once you begin. Christopher Estella, I see you're online with us. Please press star six to unmute yourself and you'll have 2 minutes to speak once you begin. Uh hello. Hi. Can you hear me? Yes. Okay. Hello, I hope that you're all having a blessed day. My name is Christopher Estella Torres. I am a student at the Leadership and Public Service Virtual Academy. I am back to speak about how students and parents are increasingly supporting an independent graduation.

188In terms of our concerns, first, students like salutatorians have never been able to speak in the past. I am sure that you would agree they've earned their spot to speak after all their hard work. But Virtual Academy Leadership disagrees. We could easily give our salutatorian and even other students the chance to speak if we had our own ceremony. For a district that values inclusion, isn't this common sense? The ceremony also lasts hours longer than what would be the case if it were just our school. It also feels incredibly uninviting to be surrounded by my schools other than your own. We've taken the initiative on advocating for this despite the lack of transparency and clear communication from Virtual Academy leadership. Now we're being told that the only barrier preventing us from having our own ceremony is

189is that it is quote too late. Clearly it is not too late for the Virtual Academy leadership to change the date of the graduation for hundreds of parents and students when it is convenient for them. Plus, this is something we raised to leadership months previously but never heard back about. How is it right for us to lose the right to an independent graduation just because we were we never received follow-up information. Also importantly, how is it right for us that students and parents were never included in these discussions in the first place? Had they been, this entire situation would have been avoided when we would have made it clear we want our own ceremony. Now the ball is in LAUSD's court. We ask that you, the school board, please help us support the request of

190us as students and our parents for an independent graduation. You will have made a major difference in the lives of so many students who would know that it is thanks to this school board of Ed that we could have our own graduation, a first in LAUSD history. Thank you so much and goodbye. Thank you for your time. Uh Jamila Fantua, are you on the line? Jamila, I see you're signed up to speak remotely. Are you with us? Do not see you in the room. Okay, the next speaker is Briana Hernandez. Briana Hernandez, are you on the line? I do not have Briana Hernandez and there's no Briana Hernandez in the room. All right, the next speaker is Gabriel. Gabriel, are you on the line? Do not see you Gabriel. Is there a Gabriel in the

191room ready to speak? That's a no and then let's see. Next speaker is Johanna Galdamez. I see you are on the line. Please press star six to unmute yourself, Ms. Galdamez, and you'll have two minutes to speak once you begin. Hey. Hi, can you hear me? Yes, we can. Please go ahead. Good afternoon and happy Tuesday. I am Johanna Galdamez. I am a senior from the Leadership and Public Service Virtual Academy. The vast The vast majority of our seniors at the Leadership and Public Service Virtual Academy support an independent graduation for our school. Despite this, our voices are currently being ignored. We've been told that it's impossible to have our own graduation due to logistics and funding, but that's not true. The math has agreed, and we already have much of the details figured out.

192Furthermore, Virtual Academy leadership announced plans for a senior dinner and awards night. Planning for that hasn't even started yet. How does it make sense that the awards night is all good to plan within two months, but we can't have our own graduation because it's, quote, too late, especially when we found a school that will host us. We feel that this is not a matter of listening to student voices, but simply a matter of convenience for Virtual Academy leadership. Also, it's important to question why students and parents weren't included in graduation discussions previously. Virtual Academy leadership and the sixth principal never reached out for our input, yet have still made decisions impacting us. Part of LAUSD's mission is inclusivity and hearing student voices. Why then are we not granted our own graduation despite the overwhelming majority

193of us supporting such? Why then have salutatorians never been permitted to speak at past graduations? Is that inclusive? I hope that you all all understand the injustice we are facing. Every day more and more students and parents at our school are questioning this injustice as well. We hope that you stand with us as students and our parents. Thank you so much for your time. We hope we can get your support. Thank you for your time. The next speaker is Isabella Tayez. I see you're signed up to speak remotely, but I do not have you online in front of me. And Isabella Tayez is not in the room. The next speaker is Maria Daisy Ortiz. Maria Daisy Ortiz, please press star six to unmute yourself, and you'll have 2 minutes to speak once you begin. Miss

194Ortiz is going to speak in Spanish. So, if you'd like to hear what she's saying in English, Good afternoon to all. My name is Maria Daisy Ortiz. And honestly, well, this meeting are just to look good. You should create presentations. Well, you do make presentations that look good in them in person and on paper, but it's not what's happening. The children with special needs and many of the times are the ones who are left behind and they don't get supported with the accommodations or the appropriate accommodations with the transition and the appropriate transition and they should have brought who knows how many children from the district that have graduated or obtained the certification and to see how what their life is is going as an adult and many of them are depressed and they can't

195be they can't be independent and many times the district uh they they use the students don't work adequately and they want them to be productive students because these are intelligent students. They are students that can learn, but they also have a different way of learning. And beginning with an IP, knowing that there are no no there is no interpreter, uh no professional interpreter, but because parents don't know their rights, they place someone else to interpret for them and this is a deviation from the information. Also, all the evaluations aren't even sent to parents or and they are and if they do parents do receive the evaluation, they're not translated. Therefore, we are talking about lives here, but the only people you want you like to bring is the same people that give the same rhetoric

196so that everything could look polished. This is not what should happen. In reality, even the regular students graduate laying at reading at a eighth grade level because the unions and all these labors all these unions that are paid, this is how they negotiate. How will you graduate even those students aren't trained and prepared? Stop lying to people. Stop frustrating the dreams for our children. In reality, be more responsible. Honestly, be more equitable and have justice. Thank you for your time. All right, the next speaker is Alejandra Tejeda. You signed up to speak remotely. I do not have you signed in in front of me, Alejandra Tejeda. All right, Karina Lopez, are you on the line? Karina Lopez. Also not on the line, nor in the room. Let's see, Diana Guillen, I see you are online.

197Please press star six to unmute yourself and you'll have two minutes to speak when you begin, Diana Guillen. You're unmuted, Ms. Guillen. Okay, we'll come back to you, Ms. Guillen. Let's see, the next speaker is Abigail de la Torre. Are you in the room? You are signed up to speak remotely, but I do not have you online. I do not see you in the room. And then we have concerned parent. I see you are on the line, concerned parent. Please press star six to unmute yourself and you'll have two minutes to speak when you begin, concerned parent. Good afternoon, board members. Thank you for the presentations and thank you to some of some of the questions were actually pretty um good this time. So, um I want to point out a a of things. I

198agree that the presentations should have numbers. You are coming into a meeting to see to show how how these programs are working, but you're not showing the numbers. I wonder if that's intentional or if that's just something that was an oversight. But it's pretty common during the presentations that numbers are often not included. And in terms of the breakdown of those numbers, how many of those students are students with disabilities that are able to be uh placed in dual enrollment courses um so that they're able to also be um included in in um in that inclusive environment that the district is claiming to move towards in addition to the equity piece of the district. Um what I what I have a child who is an eighth grader who will be culminating soon. There was no

199mention of dual enrollment classes. Um he also has an IEP. So, there is a fact uh planning sheet that students fill out so that they can choose their courses. So, I wonder if the if that could be included. Dual enrollment classes for students and um that way parents are informed because I myself wasn't. So, I wonder if the professional development that that's being provided to counselors is actually working and that they are in fact implementing with fidelity. So, if you can please look at that. Thank you very much. Thank you for your time. The next caller is Isabel Aguirre. Is she here on the line? Ms. Aguirre, please press star six to unmute yourself and you'll have two minutes to speak once you begin. Isabel Aguirre. Sí, buenas tardes. Good afternoon. >> Hi. Buenas tardes,

200mi nombre es Isabel >> My name Isabel Aguirre. And as far as the presentations, as far as CTE, I have a son who just graduated last year in June. I think it's a stupendous idea to implement this new project because normally uh children with disabilities the first thing people think of putting them in is cleaning. And there's so much more capable of doing so many other things. And they are students that need hands-on activities. So it's wonderful that you guys are implementing these things that expand uh their opportunities. Once students graduate, there's very few activities for them as far as uh work. So it is important that you as a district perhaps with some exceptions can create jobs for these students that unfortunately maybe were not able to graduate with a diploma for high school.

201So it's important that you implement these these courses with fidelity so that the students can have a better life and future. As far as charter schools, I would like if you could visit more schools so that you are not just depending on comments from different people that only want uh selective student um vocal points. So I think it's it would be great if you went yourselves to see all the productive things they do for the students. Thank you very much and have a great day. who I called on have now showed up. Let's go to uh Thakur Singh. Please press star six to unmute yourself. And you'll have two minutes to speak when you begin. Thakur Singh. Can you hear me? We sure can. Please go ahead. Great. Thank you. Good afternoon, members of the

202board and acting superintendent Shite. Um I'm the course sing. I'm a student from the Leadership and Public Service Virtual Academy. Um and I'm here again today to speak in support of an independent graduation for our school. Um one of my peers had something really nice to say in her speech last time. Imagine Um I mean imagine a time in which you were told that you couldn't do something. Maybe, you know, when you were running for election, you were told that you couldn't win. But you ended up doing it because it you knew it was possible. And that's the same position we are in here today. For many months, we reached out to Virtual Academy administration. Director Latasha Buck told us that we couldn't have our own graduation for {quote} tradition, um which of course is

203not a valid reason. So, we and then we we kept being run in circles. Um so we we have been collecting um signatures for a petition, and we have nearly 100 signatures already. We have um I I believe 95 currently. This is from students. This is from parents. This is clearly what uh students and families want. And we can do it. We just need your help. So, we please ask that you reach out to Virtual Academy administration and ask them. And uh I did send an email last week with some things they might provide they might say to you to uh to paint this effort as impossible, but it isn't impossible. And I will make sure to resend that email to all of you, and I ask that you please review it when you get

204a chance because it does have some points that they may bring up, and the response that we have. They may say it's impossible, but we know it is possible. We just ask for your support in this. Thank you so much for your time. Have a great day. Thank you for your time. The next speaker is Jamila Fun Tua. Jamila, please press star six to unmute yourself and you'll have two minutes to speak when you begin. Jamila. I see you're with us, Ms. Fun Tua. Please press star six to unmute yourself and you'll have two minutes to speak when you begin. Hello, can you hear me? Yes, please go ahead. Okay, thank you. Members of the school board and acting and acting and acting superintendent, happy Tuesday. My name is Jamila Fun Tua and I am

205a student of the Leadership and Public Service Virtual Academy and a resident of Ward Member Newbo's District. I'm here again today to speak publicly and vocal support of our school having our own graduation ceremony. We as students have called for an independent graduation since last year, but never received transparent communication sent back to us. Now, Virtual Academy leadership tells us the reason we can't have our own graduation is because it's too late. However, it appears that Virtual Academy administration never attended to to pro to provide us with our own ceremony. Previously, we were told that it was a simple it was something a matter of quote tradition that we can't conduct our own graduation. There are several students who have witnessed this being stated. Graduation is a major milestone for students and their families. Now,

206it's actually being demolished. Each day that Virtual Academy leadership does not grant our school the right to have our own graduation, the voices of students and parents will matter. In fact, there's been talk of a walkout graduation if the current plans continue. We are appealing to the Board of Education because we have nowhere else to go. Every return, we are told that it's it's impossible that we have to oh that we have to agree to a false compromises. But now we know But now we know that this can be done. We already have teachers who signed up for a graduation committee. We already have much of the details figured out, including a location. Students and parents are already Students and Students and parents are already waiting for a sub on graduation. We just need to

207ring flood. We are more than willing to to connect with you if you have any questions. We can provide you with all the information that shows it's possible. You have our email addresses in your inboxes. We hope that we can obtain your support. Thank you and have a good day. Thank you for your time. The next speaker is Gabriel. Gabriel, please press star six to unmute yourself and you'll have two minutes to speak once you begin. Gabriel. Hello. Can you hear me? Yes, I can. Please go ahead. Hello, members of the school board. My name is Gabriel Winnekin. I'm a senior at the Leadership and Public Service Virtual Academy. We'll be graduating with the class of 20 2026. As a student, I've always wanted a graduation ceremony that is personal between me, my family, my

208friends, and my teachers. Instead, Virtual Academy administration has taken away has taken away has taken away from us. Virtual Academy administration has forced Leadership Virtual Academy students and families into a gigantic graduation ceremony with five other schools against the wishes of us and our parents. They never They never even asked for our input, yet now say it's too late to change things. But it isn't too late. Contrary to what Virtual Academy administration claims, this can be done. Their only reason is that it is, quote, final. But we already have a location, teachers who have signed up for the graduation committee, and parents and students are strongly in support of this. Imagine your child in our shoes, not having the right to a special graduation that's special, with strict limits on student speakers and limited time

209between you, your child, and your teacher. Wouldn't you support them having an independent ceremony? We please ask that you instruct Virtual Academy leadership to respect the wishes of students and parents and grant us a chance to have a meaningful graduation. Thank you for your time. The last speaker is Deonna Guillen. We're coming back to you, Ms. Guillen. Please press star six to unmute yourself. And you'll have 2 minutes to speak when she begins. Deonna Guillen. Good afternoon, members of the board. My name is Deonna Guillen. I represent And I was listening to these presentations and I'm in agreement with some of the speakers who were talking about how yes, our students for special education need more support. But I think for this type of careers, the our children that are not going to the university

210also need technical careers. I know when you were selling these things to teachers that all kids are going to university. Well, I don't know how you made that decision. If the statistics are only 1 or 2% that wind up in with a university pathway, but we need resources for all our students, not just um them. So, we're we're failing in special education and the project for the community is an idea that when we were And there's disconnection with the speakers. Um so, when we were working with them, we were hoping that this project I don't know how the other ones are, but there would be transparency and that we have information on the other companies because sometimes there's a lot of questions that parents have and we invent things because we're not provided answers. Like

211the budget, how are things going to be managed? These are things that our community need. They need better food. And of I also implore you to work with the parent community and stop ignoring us since it's us who are the voice of so many other parents that cannot be here today. They don't know that this information exists. And the teachers union don't allow them to steer their children's education because they're just looking for better salaries. And people working, but they don't care about the academic improvement. And that's something you should focus on. Have a Your time that concludes public comment. Mr. Clean. And once again, thank you to all of our presenters, our students especially and teams for the thoughtful presentations and for the work you're leading across the district. What we heard today reflects

212a strong commitment to supporting students in meaningful ways from expanding access to college and career pathways to creating inclusive hands-on learning opportunities to improving the systems that shape their daily life while also reinforcing the importance of ensuring access across all communities, measuring impact through real student outcomes and building efforts that can be sustained and expanded over time. As And as we continue through dual enrollment month, it's a reminder of the importance of expanding access to early college, career, and technical opportunities and making sure students and families are able to take full advantage of them. Our next committee of the whole meeting will take place on Tuesday, April 28th and with that, once again, happy uh St. Patrick's Day to all our Irish-Americans and this meeting is adjourned.