March 12, 2026 - 2:00pm Charter School Committee

001Good afternoon, everyone. I am Dr. Rocio Rivas and I welcome you all to today's meeting of the Charter Schools Committee co- Charter Schools Committee. Um this committee plays an important role in ensuring transparency, accountability, and thoughtful oversight over charter schools operating within LAUSD. Uh our responsibility is to ensure that all schools serving LAUSD students are held to clear standards while maintaining a focus on equity, student success, and strong partnerships with our school communities. Today's agenda includes remarks from our labor partners, if they are here present, uh followed by presentations from district staff including an update on Proposition 39 co-location process for the 2026 27 cycle, uh and a legislative update affecting charter schools and public education, and the Charter School Spotlight highlighting work uh of of Isana Academies. After these presentations, we will open the

002floor for public comment before adjourning the meeting. Uh if there are any labor partners present who want to come forward? No, seeing none, we will um now move on to our first presentation, update from the Charter Schools Division on the 26-27 Prop 39 co-location cycle. Prop 39 requires school districts to provide reasonable equi- equiva- equivalent facilities for charter schools when space is available. Each year, this process involves detailed analysis of enrollment projections, campus capacity, and programmatic needs across our district schools. Today's presentation will provide an overview of the timeline, key update key updates for this cycle, and how the district is working to manage shared space arrangements effectively. Joining us is Ms. Janet Bor- Borden, operations manager for the Charter Schools Division. Thank you and then the floor is yours, Ms. Borden. Welcome, uh committee

003members. Um so yeah, my name is Janet Borden. I'm the Charter Schools Operations Manager in the Charter Schools Division, um overseeing the district's Prop 39 process. Um so I'd like to start out today um with a brief overview of the regulatory timeline. Um Proposition 39 is a state law and the district's compliance with Prop 39 is driven by regulations set forth by the California Department of Education. Um there are key milestones that charter schools and districts adhere to in the process, and um this slide provides a quick refresher on that. And I'll share kind of where we're the process right now. Um so for charter schools that wish uh wanted to have space on district campuses during the 26-27 school year coming up, they were required to submit facilities requests to the district by November

0041st, 2025. Um those facilities requests include key information including um the area of geographic interest where the charter school wishes to locate, um and projections of their average daily attendance. Um as a reminder, average daily attendance is a function of a charter school's enrollment and their attendance rate, and it's basically a projection of the number of students that they anticipate having in the following year. Um and per the regulations from the state, ADA, average daily attendance, is the basis for the facilities allocation in Proposition 39. So, um in we review that process in the month of November, and then by December 1st, the district either accepts or objects to the charter school's in-district classroom projection of average daily attendance. We send a letter to each charter school December 1st, and then the charter school has

005the opportunity to respond to that by January 2nd um with any responses they have to that. Um then once the ADA is kind of set at that time, the district sends um on February 1st or by February 1st a preliminary proposal to the charter school which includes the location and that average daily attendance um projection, and uh the allocation they'll have for the upcoming school year. Uh charter schools have an opportunity to respond to the district's preliminary proposal by March 1st, and that's kind of where we're at today. We've received those responses from charter schools, we're reviewing those, and staff is preparing uh for April 1st, which is when the district sends the um the legally binding final offers of space to charter schools. Um after that, by May 1st, charter schools either accept or

006decline the final offer. And then for those who uh have accepted, they are able to take occupancy of those spaces 10 working days prior to the charter school's first day of instruction. Okay, so. Throughout this process um that we've engaged in since November, um CSD has been coordinating with extensive involvement from each region. Um so following with that regulatory process, um CSD has collaborated with other district divisions and the regions to review the status of each charter school's facilities request. This involves a review of the annual district space inventory, and then recommendations for charter school space allocations. In addition, prior to the issuance of final offers, regions are selecting the individual specific spaces at proposed campuses where the charter school would be assigned space, um and then also assessing any campus reconfigurations, if necessary, that

007might support more optimal site operations should there be a co-location. Um in addition, regions are weighing in on the assessment of possible alternative agreement concepts. I'll talk a little bit more about that in on a later slide. Um and in addition, uh regions along with uh the CSD and others are communicating with respective board member offices and school communities as appropriate, directed by each region. Um so that was a general overview of the process. Um now I'll share a more specific update on the 26-27 portfolio. So, we received 37 facilities requests for the 26-27 school year, and of those 37 requests, 32 were from charter schools that are currently occupying district facilities pursuant to Proposition 39. Three were from existing charter schools that are not currently occupying district facilities at all, and two were from

008existing charter schools that are currently co-located under other agreement types, not Prop 39. And to date, the status of each of those facilities requests is as follows. We have 16 alternative agreements. Again, I'll give a little more info on that in a moment. And we issued 18 preliminary proposals on February 1st or before February 1st, and one facilities request was withdrawn by the charter school operator. Um three facilities requests were denied by the district based on ineligibility and/or legal insufficiency of the facilities request as part of that review. So, I'd like to pause for a moment to discuss the concept of an alternative agreement, um so that everyone can have an understanding of what that term means and kind of how that happens. Um so what is meant by an alternative agreement is that both

009the district and the charter school have agreed to step outside of that standard regulatory process, which was the timeline that I shared on the first slide, and agree to an alternative. And that's where the the term alternative agreement comes from. Um and this is permitted by the state regulations, and it it's something that happens when a mutual benefit is identified and both parties desire to enter into such an agreement. So that's a key piece there that um these only happen when both parties agree, the district and the charter school. Um and district policy that exists now outlines the process for the consideration of alternative agreements. Um they can be proposed by either the district or the charter school and for consideration by the other party, and um there's always the region weighing in to give

010a recommendation before any concept proceeds any further. Um in addition, before uh any formal offer is made for an alternative agreement, the board office is consulted and um gives their advisement per district policy. Um so that's kind of what uh an alternative agreement is. So, everyone every facilities request starts out on that regulatory process following through those timelines that we followed, and it's only when both parties agree to step outside of that process that we end up in an alternative agreement process. Okay, a little more detail about the 26-27 portfolio. Um before you now is a breakdown of the facilities requests by board district and region. Um so you'll see that we have 33 total here. That's because there were 37 facilities requests with that one withdrawal, three ineligible, so 33 total facilities requests that

011are still um active and in the mix right now. Um and this is the breakdown. Of those uh 33, eight charter schools are proposed to occupy multiple district school sites. Again, that's called a multi-site and that's you know, whenever a charter school cannot be accommodated on a single site, um that goes before the Board of Education to make findings in the month of January. So that already took place. So there are eight such um potential multi-site and of the 41 proposed co-locations, so again 33 facilities requests, 33 charter schools, eight multi-sites gives us 41 proposed co-locations as of today. And 90% of those are existing co-locations. Of those that are existing the allocations are projected to change as follows. 18 of them would have the same amount of space. 11 are growth. Eight are reductions.

012So in in that case all the charter schools are either staying in the same amount of space, they're growing, or they're reducing. And then as we go through this process additional potential alternative agreements continue to be assessed and so there could be some changes in in these numbers as we continue. Communication, very important part of this process so that various stakeholders are aware of what's going on at different stages of the process. So going back to December 2025, that's really the very beginning of the process after we've assessed the facilities requests. And preliminary space matches are shared with board offices and labor partners at region advisory meetings in the month of December to give an idea of following that regulatory process what what we're anticipating the portfolio looking like at that time. In addition regions

013engage with site administrators. It's a bit more informal at that stage and then by January and February as we're getting closer to preliminary proposals, that's when a more formal written communication is sent from regions to district principals where there is a potential co-location for the following year. And then community engagement resources are also provided to the region and and they are able to use those as they deem appropriate for each particular situation. Staff communicates with board offices about potential alternative agreements on a rolling basis. Those can happen at any time as they come up, that's when the communication to the board offices takes place. And then in addition to that the CSD website is updated regularly throughout the process and so I'm going to take a moment to just share a little bit about our

014website. As you may be aware the charter schools division website was recently revamped and it contains a host of information about all things charter schools including prop 39. And so this is the the the main page on the CSD website and you'll see that in the quick links at the bottom there is something called the information clearinghouse. And if you click on the information clearinghouse it takes you to these six buttons and each of those has a whole lot of resources behind it. The second one with the red star is the prop 39 resources. And what we have here by school year we have a all of the actual source documents. So the facilities requests that were received by the charter schools for any given year are viewable there. As are the preliminary proposals that

015the district issues to the charter schools. The final offers that the district issues to the charter schools by April 1st will be posted there. And any fully executed alternative agreements are also posted in this section of the clearinghouse. In addition there are there's information about over allocation. I'll talk more about that in a few minutes. But you'll be able to find the prior years letters and invoices that went out regarding over allocation in this location. Staff updates these pages as soon as practical after each of the key milestones ensuring that the board of education is fully apprised first. So sometimes there's a little bit of a a delay but the information is posted as soon as able. And just for the public that website to find all of this is charter.lausd.org. Okay, so going into

016some next steps for the 26-27 school year. So right now we're in March and the charter schools division is working with the region offices to finalize the proposed charter school room assignments for the 26-27 school year. And then by April 1st we will be submitting those final notifications or final offers to the charter schools. Staff will work with the region offices to support communication to district principals regarding the next steps in the process. And then on or before May 1st as previously mentioned the charter schools will respond as to whether they intend to occupy the offered space. And if they don't respond then the offer expires. Also in the month of May there will be a an operations meeting that the CSD hosts for co-located district and charter principals to get key information about co-location.

017This will include details about district policies applicable to charter schools best practices for successful co-location more information about shared use agreements and beginning those discussions to make sure that things are in place for the new school year. Operational planning for that new school year and then also details about integrating the charter school into the safe school plan which is an essential piece of making sure we're ready to start the school year. Also in May and continuing throughout the summer CSD will continue to work with region offices and communicating with principals regarding the next steps in the co-location process including resources that are available for community engagement as appropriate. District staff will also undertake the preparations to make campuses ready for charter school occupancy following approval by the board for you know the the make ready

018renovation effort. That's when we come to the board with the facilities services division in May to authorize the budget for making sites ready. And then finally the 10 days prior that's when charter schools are able to take occupancy and have access to their schools to the school site would be 10 days prior to their first day of instruction. One additional update regarding over allocation. Over allocation is another regulatory mechanism so it's part of what is set forth by the CDE to address potential inaccuracies in charter school ADA projections. Since the ADA projections are the basis for the facilities allocation and the amount of space the charter schools get, over allocation is again that mechanism that helps to provide a check on that. So if a charter school is allocated space and they do not meet

019the projections that that they made in their facilities request within a certain threshold again set forth by the regulations then they're deemed to be over allocated and the regulations outline a timeline and process for determining that and also the amount of the reimbursement that a charter school would owe to the district if they are determined to be over allocated. And so within that process as a status update all active charter schools that were previously determined to be over allocated in prior years have either fully paid or are current on their payment plans if they had a payment plan with the district. For the 24-25 school year the most recently completed school year there were 12 charter schools over allocated space and the reimbursement the total reimbursements for those 12 charter schools was 1 million 60,400

020and all of that money has been collected by the district. Pursuant to district policy that's in place over allocated space reimbursements are directed back to the district host school sites. That takes place in approximately July and January each year. And and then for the 25-26 school year that we're currently in the determination of any over allocation will take place at the end of the school year. And if if any charter schools are determined to be over allocated they will receive an invoice from the district no later than August 15th of 2026. And then through the process the the money that's redirected back to those host sites would be expected in January 2027. Okay. And I think that closes out my prepared remarks. Thank you for the opportunity to present today and I'm happy to answer

021any questions. Yes, thank you for your presentation. I don't know if Miss Tanya Ortiz Franklin has any questions. Sure, thanks. Thanks for the presentation. I was [clears throat] just looking at the number of schools and BD7 only has two. I think I have two LAUSD authorized but I also have a LACO authorized that's co-located on one of our schools. So it made me wonder how many non-LAUSD authorized charters also participate in some sort of co-location? Is that outside of this process or you know what's similar or different about those? Sure. So schools that are authorized by LACO but service students that are in district LA Unified students meaning they would otherwise attend an LAUSD school, those LACO authorized charter schools are eligible under proposition 39 and so they're able to submit facilities requests to the

022district, and we process those in the same manner that we process other facilities requests for LAUSD authorized charter schools. We do have a handful of those. We can get you the exact number of authorized charter schools that are co-located. But those wouldn't count in the 33 you gave us. >> No, they would. Yeah, that's the full portfolio for Prop 39. Okay, so then but then there maybe it's an alternate agreement cuz I have three co-located schools. But maybe the third one is not Prop 39. What would it be? There could be other schools that have different agreement types with the district. So for example, there could be leases, there could be schools that might have other agreement types. I think that it might make sense for us to give you a list breakdown for each

023of the schools in BD7. We could prepare that for you. Yeah, that'd be helpful. I would love that. It's not very many, but it did make me wonder how many outside of you know BD7 cuz I I have a a fewer number, and I wondered if there were many other you know in practicality that feel like a co-located even though it's like a different kind of mechanism. So yeah, if you can share with that, you know, not just Board District 7, I'd be curious for the whole district just to understand like the the scope of you know how we have these various relationships. Thanks. And I think that's it for now cuz I appreciate the new website is is great. So thanks for that. I really like the map. And that everything is on there.

024So appreciate the responsiveness to that. Thanks, Dr. Rubess. Yes, the website is the you know all the information is great. So it's really user-friendly. So I really appreciate all the work that went into that. I have a question. So it appears that we're seeing a relatively high number of alternative agreements in this cycle. From the district's perspective, what are the key policy considerations when deciding whether an alternative agreement is preferable to a traditional Prop 39 offer, and how do we ensure that these those agreements remain consistent and transparent across charter operators? Great, thank you so much for that question. So the key feature of of alternative agreements is there has to be a mutual benefit. So in the assessment of any of the concepts that have turned into a fully executed alternative agreement, the region

025leadership and then ultimately authorized district leadership has determined there is a benefit for the district, and those benefits can be various. One of the key benefits that we see with early alternative agreements is the elimination of a potential multi-site where a charter school cannot be located on a single site, and they would be going to two sites. The charter school might say we we don't want that type of arrangement. We would rather stay in our you know in a specific footprint at just the one site we're currently at, and so then we're able to enter into an agreement that eliminates that second site. We can't do that without an alternative agreement because they have a legal entitlement based on Prop 39 regulations. And so the only way out of it is to to do that

026alternative agreement. There are other sites where maybe it's a reduction in space or shared use space arrangements that maybe there's already a campus where things are working okay, and there's a desire to continue things just the way they are. Sometimes we enter into an early alternative agreement to kind of make sure that that's in place, and and then we don't have to renegotiate everything again through that regulatory process. So these are some of the key reasons that we would enter into an alternative agreement. And we do so as I mentioned, the region leadership is the one ultimately that makes that recommendation, and then authorized district leadership is able to then determine whether to move that forward. They will consult with each board office to kind of describe what that is and what that determination of

027the benefit to the district is of entering into such agreements, and then pursuant to board policy, the board office has that opportunity to advise, and if they do not object, then we proceed forward. If they do object, then staff can reassess, and and we can kind of you know circle back through or just stick with the regulatory process. And a little bit more on the multi um site placement. What criteria does a district use to determine when a multi-site placement is appropriate, and how do we evaluate operational impact on host campuses when a charter program is split split across across schools? Sure. So a key part of Prop 39 is that it is an annual process. And so what we do before November 1st is the district engages in that comprehensive space analysis that we

028know as ECAR, the electronic capacity assessment review that our master planning and demographics team engages each district principal to take a snapshot in time of of how space is utilized on that campus. They also are layering in what the projected needs might be. So along with that snapshot, we're also saying what does the district know is going to be happening at the school site in the subsequent year or years. For example, facilities projects might be happening that could impact space. There could be programmatic changes, you know, expansion of programs. And so there's an opportunity to then kind of bake that in to a data set that we can look at. And then when we receive those facilities requests, we're looking we're comparing it with what the space availability is or the space utilization so that

029regions in their kind of overview of their of the region and then the district school needs, they're able to assess then can this entire charter school still fit at this site, or if there's a new one, where is there a single site where we could accommodate on a single site. And if they're not able to find that, that's when we look to another site. For charter schools that are already co-located on a single site, there is also a part of the law that we we cannot move them unnecessarily. And so sometimes that means that we have to look at a second site. And so operationally then you know we're working with both schools to to figure out you know what how to operationalize that and make sure that there's you know adequate measures in place

030for to prepare for the the new co-location. Very thorough answer. Thank you, appreciate that. And last question, as we move toward final offers for April 1st, what are the most common operational challenges that you continue to see as co-located campuses at co-located campuses, and what additional steps could the district take to improve support both for host schools and the charter schools in making those arrangements work for students and their their school communities? Yeah, absolutely. In a word, communication. That's always kind of I think the it's the the most important best practice, and it's one that sometimes doesn't happen in the most efficient way at school sites. And so the more we can encourage the co-located administrators to be closely in contact, to be coordinating throughout the week, you know, they've got their co-location meetings that

031take place on a certain cadence, but then that regular communication among the programs to raise concerns so that if someone on either side is seeing something happening on a day-to-day basis that's not working, addressing it right away, and figuring out how to collaborate on that so that problems don't fester and then perhaps get out of hand. And so I would really encourage that at all levels of leadership that we we you know presume the best intentions of the other parties, and then also just regularly communicate. And who is involved in those communications? Is it you mentioned the regions and your office or um Yeah, the the the support definitely is coming from the region and from CSD, but it's the most important relationship is the administrators on the campus cuz they're the ones there day-to-day.

032They're the ones troubleshooting, addressing, you know, their staff concerns that they might have. That principal is the leader of the site, and so you know the more that communication is taking place the better. And then whenever they have problems that they're not able to address directly at the site, then engaging the region, region operations, CSD operations, that's where we can come in, and you know, we're proactively out at the sites checking in to say, "Hey, how are things going? Do you have any problems that need some support?" But then they also do reach out to us and to the regions for support at different times, and and we you know provide that support to them. Thank you. I don't have any more questions, and yeah. I think we're good. Thank you so much. Appreciate >>

033Thank you. Have a great day. So I wanted to see I don't think Miss Martha Martha Alvarez is here yet. She may be running a little late. So I want to bring up our charter school spotlight. If you want to come up forward and I know it's a little sooner than when what you expected, but if you're ready, we'd love to hear and from Isana Academies. So the charter school spotlight provides an opportunity for the community and the public to learn more about what the work happening within charter schools across the district, including instructional programs, student supports, and community partnerships. Today we'll hear from the leadership of Am I saying that correctly, Isana? Isana, yeah. >> Isana, okay. Isana Academies who will share an overview of their school model, student programs, the ways and the

034ways that they're working to support student achievement and well-being. Today we have Ms. Nadia Shaikh, Mhm. CEO, Raul Alarcon, CAO, John Vargas, COO, Hedako Brown, principal, Ian Eddy, principal, Patrick Stickley, principal, and Rob J. Thrash, the fourth director of pupil services. So, thank you for being here and looking forward to learning more about Isana Academies. Thank you so much. Just a logistical question, do I click these buttons to do the slides? Okay. >> [laughter] >> I just didn't know what the button Yeah, and they're going to load your they're going to load your PowerPoint. >> it and then I push the right and left. Got it. Okay. And yes, you do push those little buttons and it will Got it. >> [laughter] >> All right. Well, good afternoon, Dr. Rivas. Good afternoon, board member Ortiz

035Franklin. I don't know if Ms. Nubela is here, but good afternoon. Mr. Cole Gutierrez, Mr. McLean. My name is Nadia Shaikh. I'm honored to be the CEO of Isana. Here today with my team to share with you about Isana Nascent Academy. First, I want to thank you for the invitation to speak about the work we've been doing for the past 21 years. My connection to the school is personal. I started as a first grade teacher there 20 years ago and I now live half a block half a mile from the school. So, it's a school that's affectionately known as the mothership at Isana because it was the first of our six schools. Our other schools are Isana Himalaya Academy in South LA, Isana Octavia Academy in Glassell Park, Isana Palm Academy in North Hollywood, Isana

036Cardinal Academy in Sun Valley, and Isana Acorn Academy in Compton. So, let's try this button. Yes, okay. >> [laughter] >> So, Isana Nascent Academy is a TK through eighth grade school of 484 students located in BD1. We're split across two campuses. So, we have a private site at Jefferson Park and a a co-located site at 42nd Elementary in Leimert Park. We've been proudly serving the Jefferson Park and Leimert Park Park neighborhoods since 2005. Our mascot is the Nighthawks and as you walk our campuses, you will see reminders to soar, to be safe, optimistic, accountable, and respectful. All right. In terms of our population, it mirrors the surrounding community. 92% of our students are socioeconomically disadvantaged. 75% are Latino, 22% are African-American, 32% are English learners, and 20% are students with disabilities. We also have a

037large number of foster and homeless youth. And as I present today, I'm going to be joined by our two co-principals at Isana Nascent Academy. And with us in the audience, we have our CAO Raul Raul Alarcon, COO John Vargas, our director of the arts April Thomas, and communications team Itzel Magana and Liz Akim Linares. We travel in packs. >> [laughter] >> But at Isana, we do say that every adult in a school is an educator because every interaction we have with a child is an opportunity to progress them forward. So, today as we present to you about our school, one thing I hope you'll glean is that our success comes from all of the educators, all of the students, all of the families, no matter our role, working together rather than in silos to do

038what's right by our students. So, for that reason, all Isana schools work closely to align best practices. So, we're talking about Nascent today, but it's similar to what you'll hear about in other Isana schools. So, our running thread you'll see throughout our presentation today is our equity and justice focus at Isana. And then you'll see these blue boxes whenever we're connecting what we're doing to equity and justice objectives. We will break our presentation today into the three areas that we consider the big three at Isana. School climate of belonging, academic excellence, and culturally responsive and sustaining pedagogy. These are the same big three across Isana schools. So, let's start with school climate. So, we define school climate using the CDE's definition. The categories being belonging in relationships, safety and wellness, and the learning environment. School

039climate ties into our two LCAP goals, ensuring all of our students are educated in culturally relevant and safe environments, and ensuring that we will involve and engage our families and communities as visible and valuable partners in the education of our students. It also connects to our two equity and justice focuses, which is well-being and inclusive partnerships for student support. So, in school climate starting with the need. After the pandemic, we faced a large chronic absenteeism percentage, which impacted how much our students were learning. We made the decision to approach chronic absenteeism as a systems challenge rather than an individual student deficit. So, we leaned in um and and considered how could we strengthen our practices and leverage new opportunities to ensure students would want to be at school each day and that families were able

040to navigate the barriers that prevented them from bringing their children to school each day. So, I'm going to bring forward our co-principal Ian Eddy to share a little bit about the social emotional work we've been doing at Isana Nascent Academy. Which one? That one. The rest left and right. All right. Good afternoon. Sorry, [clears throat] got a frog in my throat. Good afternoon. All right. So, social emotional learning is a part of how we support our students each day. At our school, we believe students learn best when they feel safe, connected, and confident in themselves. Our theme at Isana is together we shine. And that idea guides how we build community across our campuses. We work intentionally to create a rich and welcoming environment where students see themselves reflected in the imagery and messages throughout

041our school that celebrate who they are and who they can become. Uh-oh. All right, here we go. All right. In our classrooms, teachers create space for students to develop important skills such as self-awareness, empathy, and responsible decision-making. We build strong classroom communities through morning meetings, collaborative learning, and opportunities for students to share their thoughts and feelings in a respectful and supportive environment. Each child is greeted at the door when they enter the classroom, which is known as threshold greetings. You see a picture here of a class doing tai chi in their morning meeting and another example of a class gathering in a circle for their social emotional learning lesson. You also see an example of students' morning check-ins of how they are feeling. They're posted, has their number on the back, so the teacher can

042check in with those who need it. We spend time modeling kindness, practicing problem-solving conversations, and helping each other understand how our actions impact others. Our soar mantra that was mentioned earlier helps guide student behavior and expectations. And each week, we reinforce positive mindsets through weekly affirmations that encourage students to believe in themselves and support one another. We also recognize students displaying positive behavior in our weekly assemblies. Each classroom has a calm corner or zen den with their room within their room and students are taught how to access that space and use the tools within them to self-regulate if they need a break. Part of our efforts are centered around welcoming families into the school and providing support. We host a different series of parent workshops and events that engage the children. And we offer TAP

043cards for transportation. We have new laundry machines to wash clothes for for those who need it. We do food giveaways, book giveaways, and we have a bookshelf with resources for families as you enter our campus. We also have formed deep partnerships. Hold on. We also have formed deep partnerships with the community. We host monthly meetings with our Jefferson Park Crime Coalition and we have worked with organizations such as Heart of America and the LA Clippers to redesign our play spaces so our students are engaged and excited. And we would like to invite you to our new mural unveiling on April 10th at our Jefferson campus. If you have time. All right. When when students feel seen, heard, and supported, they are more engaged in their learning and they are better prepared for success both inside

044and outside of the classroom. When we create a strong community of care, our students truly begin to shine together. We have seen amazing results of our school climate work at Nascent. In the past two and a half years, our chronic absentee rates have fallen almost 15%. 93% of our families chose agree or strongly agree on a survey about Nascent school climate. And about the community resources and the support that the school has provided to those families. Our suspension rate is 0% and is outperforming the state on the California dashboard. All right. Thanks, Mr. Eddy. Moving on to our next a in our big three which is academic excellence. Um so with our LCAP goal, we wanted to ensure all students had access to high quality and culturally affirming learning experiences in order to show continuous

045growth and perform at high levels. We weave that into our equity and justice objectives around professional development, curriculum, and instruction, both the what and the how that we were teaching. The need for this was clear. Two years ago, we saw a decrease in proficiency rates in CAS for our students in ELA and math, putting us under the state. We also were seeing opportunity gaps uh between our school-wide population and our some statistically significant student groups. So, we tackled this need with urgency and with collaboration. To share with you how we did that, I'm going to turn it over to our co-principal, Dr. Hidako Brown, to talk about our academic plan. Hello everyone. At Isana Nascent Academy, we are focusing on strong tier one instruction with supportive tier two and tier three instruction. Within ELA, this

046means implementing knowledge-building curriculum that integrates content areas, enjoying authentic high-interest novels, providing equitable conferencing to increase supports for the most at-need students, and monitoring consistently students' reading levels. It also means ensuring we are doing systematic and explicit foundational skill instruction both within our classrooms and through our use of interventionist. We have had a particular focus on writing this year through a partnership that has resulted in students writing more, being more engaged in writing, and enjoying what they are doing. Finally, in math, we have focused on high-level math discourse through a five-year initiative that has had both teachers and students explore and celebrate their math identity and connect math to culture and family. One of the pieces that has led to our growth is our systematic and ongoing data analysis. >> [snorts] >> Each school site

047has an instructional coach who meets with educators regularly to review student data and conduct classroom observations. Educators receive feedback and participate in a debrief to reflect on instructional practices and the next steps. We have data chats at all levels of our organization between the network leader and school leader, the school leader and teacher, and the teacher and student. One of the most exciting instructional practices we have implemented is an organization-wide initiative, co-teaching, which is now in its fifth year. We have co-teaching pairings of GE and RST teachers, as well as one of the first in the nation pairings of GE and visual and performing arts VAPA teachers. Co-teaching is an instructional model based on the premise that if educators with varying areas of expertise and frames of reference are able to come together and collaborate

048on a daily basis in the same classroom, all students will benefit more socially, behaviorally, and academically. Through the partnership of two teachers, instruction is differentiated and delivered to smaller groups of students with shared responsibility for planning, instruction, and assessment. This collaborative model integrates specialized instructional strategies such as UDL to support students in meeting their goals. As a result of our work in the area of academic excellence, Nascent has seen tremendous accelerated growth. On our California dashboard, we are seeing just about all of our student groups increase or increase significantly in their DFS from last year. In the new growth metric on Sorry, in the new growth metric on the dashboard, in ELA nation Nascent showed exceptional growth overall. The highest level of growth possible of seven student groups, three showed exceptional growth, including homeless students,

049socioeconomically disadvantaged students, and students with disabilities. And four showed accelerated growth, African American students, English learners, Latino students, and long-term English learners. We are still working to surpass to surpass the state and plan to continue working with urgency in order to do that. In our co-taught classrooms, the growth is even more accelerated. Our school-wide population showed 15% more growth in co-taught classes than in non-co-taught classes. Students with disabilities and socioeconomically disadvantaged students showed 10% more growth. English learners showed 12% more growth, and African American students showed a whopping 191% more growth. Thank you, Dr. Brown. Second invitation for everyone on March 18th, we're hosting a co-teaching professional development uh where we invite other charter schools in our LAUSD SELPA to join us, and I'd like to extend that invite to to you and any other

050school leader you feel is interested in co-teaching. We'd love to have you. I'll be sending an email about that. So, the last strand of our big three uh at Isana is culturally relevant, responsive, and sustaining pedagogy. Um I hope we've noticed that this has been a strand throughout all the areas, social-emotional, academic, um and CR E. Uh but there are two programs in particular I'd like to point out. This year uh Isana Nascent uh and another one of our Isana schools is participating in the Los Angeles County Office of Education's Genius Initiative using improvement science to examine and redesign systems that affect African American student experience and academic engagement. In doing the work for African American students, we realized that the guiding principles that we're working under also apply to all our student groups. Uh

051and I'd like to end with one of our signature programs. This is our visual and performing arts program, which advances student voice, creativity, and academic engagement through the arts. Every single Isana student takes part in dance, acting, and vocal lessons taught by professionals in the field. Students put on two major productions as a school each year, one of which is an original work created by our amazing VAPA educators. For a third invite, our next performances are coming up on April 28th and May 1st at our two sites. Um the performance is called Hidden Stories, and it celebrates the power of reading and storytelling and banned books. So, I invite you to to attend. So, there's a myriad of benefits of the arts in education. Um some of them are listed on this slide, but I'd

052like to mention one we discovered in particular. When we were analyzing ELA and how students were doing in different standards, the one standard in reading comprehension students continually struggled with was point of view. And this uh standard six is something that goes from kindergarten to eighth grade. It hits every every grade and then I think beyond, but we're TK8. Uh to understand why our students were struggling with this, we turned to neuroscience. So, research shows that children or people who have been through trauma have a hard time understanding the point of view of others because literally in times of trauma, your brain is hardwired to make sure that the self-preservation and you're protected. It isn't safe to step outside yourself and think of somebody else's point of view. As a result, to address this, uh

053and and just to say too, I think um all of us are living in traumatic times right now. So, this affects affects everybody. Uh as a result, um students need multiple exposures in safe environments of point of view to rewire, actually physically rewire uh their brains. And this is what arts education does. Within VAPA classes, students can safely take on points of views of characters um within a story or a play. So, we decided as an organization to really dig into the point of view standard within VAPA. >> [gasps] >> After a year of these lessons, the results were staggering. Whereas pre-lessons, students were showing about a 40% pass rate on point of view lessons, by the end of the year, that had risen up to 72% and with more time in VAPA, that is

054continuing to rise. Up and beyond the academic achievement, our VAPA classes help students navigate current day realities. This past winter, our students performed Newsies Jr., uh which is a story of turn of the century children who sold newspapers in New York. Uh in the story, when the rich and powerful publishers raised prices at the newsies' expenses, they united to stand up, speak out, and fight for justice, reminding us that when voices rise together, meaningful change is possible. So, students were exploring these themes, performing this play at a time when the threat of ICE was becoming greater and greater in our communities. Our students struggled with fear and anxiety on a daily basis. This show became their outlet. Um I'm going to show you a clip uh from uh Nascent who performing Newsies uh when the

055Newsies, the kids who are the Newsies, decide to band together for justice. And what I'd like you to pay attention to uh is the emotion the students have. You can tell it's touching something in them. Um from this activity our students actually did podcasts where they talked about their experiences. Um they they wrote about their experiences, they drew about their experience and it was such an amazing way um to talk about it in a way that was safe because it was fictional. So uh with that, let's turn to a 2-minute clip. Oh what the heck, my father's going to kill me anyways. Yeah! Now it's time to seize the Now [music] it's time to seize the day. >> [singing] >> Answer to the call and don't delay. Answer to the call [music] and don't delay.

056Wrong will be righted >> [singing] >> and we are united. Let us seize the day. >> [music] >> Our hands to our >> [singing] >> love. Look what's become. >> [music] >> One for all >> [singing and music] >> Strike! Strike! STRIKE! STRIKE! STRIKE! STRIKE! STRIKE! STRIKE! STRIKE! >> [music] >> STRIKE! ALL STRIKE! >> [music] [music] >> Now it's >> [music] >> time to seize [singing] the day. Now it's time to make a play. >> [music] >> No one can break us. >> [singing] >> No one can break Here we are. >> [music] >> One for all >> [music] >> One for One for >> [music] >> One for >> [laughter] >> I love the choreography. They were so into it. I That's great. That was wonderful. And that particular dance was choreographed Can you

057say that? Actually no, that particular dance was choreographed by Tahia Robbins. Yes. Wonderful. So our our >> Big job. our choreographer teaches dance. One of our teachers at Nascent. Oh, that's wonderful. Thank you for sharing that. That's really great to see. Um well, thank you for your presentation. Definitely did learn a lot about um Asana Nascent and um you know, the core areas um of focus, particularly culturally relevant education that is that is key and you know, always a big support of the arts. So I'm glad that you were able to use that, particularly when you mentioned the um the perspective, right? The point of view and how that is so true and it's um glad that you use the arts to be able to sort of get across that. So that was awesome. So

058I want to open it to Tanya of Artie Franklin if she has any questions. If not, I have some. Go ahead, Tanya. No questions, just appreciate, you know, all that you all are doing. Um kudos on your reduction in chronic absenteeism. That continues to be a challenge across the district, so that's really exciting. And then yeah, just of course, you know, so great to see students um and hearing about all the work that your team is doing. So thank you so much for presenting today. Thank you so much. Um I have a few questions. Um your school serves as you showed here, 20% students with disabilities. >> Yes. So can you share more on how you approach special education services and inclusion and what strategies have been most effective in supporting those students students in

059measuring their progress? >> I'm so glad you asked because I had this in my presentation and 20 minutes I had to cut a [laughter] lot. So I I appreciate that. So yes, we that is Anna we take you know, as all public schools, all students. Um and as they come in, um we are we we fully include them in the GE classroom. Um as we go through their IEP and provide those services, um there those services can look like uh many different things. It might be uh push-in time from an RST teacher, from a different service provider. Um it might be pull-out time. Um uh but a lot of what we do is because for our students the most vast majority of the time is when they're in the GE class, we really work with

060our GE teachers. And we say there um there's not one person who's a special education teacher. We are all special education teachers. And so really let's go into understanding our students, their needs, their um their uh you know, what they do well, uh what their accommodations are, so that in every space uh those accommodations are being provided. So one of the conversations we've been having. So as an organization, we took our different student groups and we really dived into each one. With students with disabilities, one of the pieces we said was if for example a child needs chunking as an accommodation in an academic classroom, they need something chunked uh you know, a large chunk, they need chunked down. Let's also think about when they're in the playground and they're they're interacting, they're problem-solving, chunking

061is probably a strategy that's going to be important for them socially emotionally as well. So let's start taking um those accommodations and not just think about in this, you know, half-hour pull-out, 45-minute pull-out is necessary, but how are we equipping our students to use these accommodations throughout their day? And how are we empowering them to know their IEP and advocate for their IEP? So so important. Um as a mother of a child with a few children with disabilities, that to me is the most um crucial part that we're able to include students. We're all able to see each other um as as we all have strengths, we all have needs um and we're able to create environment in a school that is more inclusive than it was before. You. Um and your presentation shows strong

062growth for English learners. Yes. And you also highlighted your co-teaching model, which I think it's totally on board with co-teaching, very um support advocate for co-teaching. How does that model support English learners in particular and particularly and what other practices have been most effective in helping um our English your English learners succeed? I love it. It's the other part I took out. >> [laughter] >> Um so yes, we have a large population of English learners at all of our schools. Uh and so with our multilingual coordinator at Asana, what we have done is um really talked through both integrated and designated ELD. And just like I was talking with students with disability, integrated ELD should be happening throughout the day. Yes, in the GE classroom, but how are we also thinking about when they're in

063the VAPA room, when they're in after school, how are all those supports being given? Um and so one of the pieces at Asana when I talked about not siloing, but really working together, um the uh our our multilingual learner department works closely with our teaching and learning department. They work closely with our after school department. They work closely with our special education department, uh with our visual and performing arts department. They do those trainings. Um all of our teachers receive those trainings. Uh and uh and so students can expect to get those same levels of supports everywhere they are. Um in the last several years we've had uh even higher numbers of newcomers coming in. Um and those for those students uh our we have a a newcomer plan. Part of that um is first

064uh you know, when they first enter the school having a sit-down conversation with the family and providing uh and and and just listening to them. And we actually do this with all of our students, but just listening, having what's called an intake conference and having them share what's what's a strength of your child? What do you want to see? Um but in particular for a newcomer, if there have been um uh in in their journey um to the country, kind of talking through what have been the challenges here? How can we help provide support? How can we ensure that those supports are happening day one and not day 60 or day day 90? Um we also uh purchased Rosetta Rosetta Stone as an on-ramp for um expedited and accelerated language acquisition for our newcomers. So

065that's been huge. Um so within co-teaching as we do those professional developments, we embed in those um English learner strategies, we embed in those UDL strategies, we embed in those as all of our different departments kind of work together to make that happen. Uh um you shared that the school is seeing strong academic growth, which is amazing across several student groups. While um overall proficiency in ELA and math remains an area of focus, how are you balancing the efforts to accelerate growth while also moving towards students towards proficiency? >> Proficiency. It's a great question. Um and it has to do with uh ensuring that what is being taught is we have effective and strong tier one instruction that's on grade level and rigorous and we're providing supports in tier two and tier three. Um and

066so uh this year a particular focus that Dr. Brown shared um was that strong tier one instruction because what we were seeing uh we in Iready there's a tab where you can see how much growth does students have if they started the year on grade level above grade level but one grade level below two grade levels below. We were seeing huge 200 300% growth in a year two or three grade levels of growth in a year for those who were performing two or three grade levels below. But what we wanted to make sure we were seeing is we were seeing that same level of growth when they're performing at or above grade levels. So the way we could we focus on that is talking through how do you provide that strong tier one instruction and

067then how do you provide just-in-time supports to to accelerate and not spend all your time remediating. Something we learned from pandemic and something we learned from Hurricane Katrina that schools if you just focus on remediation students will never catch up. But if you're focused on acceleration with giving those just-in-time supports and a lot of the we purposely choose curriculum that is strong in that area. And that give our teachers the data they need to make those informed decisions. That's how we kind of balance the two. And last question and great thank you for very thorough answers I appreciate that. Looking ahead what are the most important priorities for your school over the next few years and what lessons from your work might be helpful for other schools serving similar student populations to learn from. >>

068Yeah. Yeah. I think the these three priorities we set are continuing on they've been our big three for the last couple years and and they do continue on. So you know within school climate what one of the pieces so we talked a lot about how we structure our our schools our spaces our day to to work on school climate and now we're responding in particular to to the realities of the day. With things like how does threats of ice how does the flu season and how does COVID whatever it might be how does that impact attendance and then how do you start to form supports in that? How do you provide opportunities for for safe passage to school? How do you provide opportunities if there's a day they need to do learning from home? How

069do you how do you work with the family to make sure that learning doesn't stop and that and that their well-being is is prioritized. So that looking forward to is looking forward in the future is one of our big priorities. Also in working with families we work in areas like I said our population is 92% socioeconomically disadvantaged in a city that is becoming quickly gentrified and becoming families are getting quickly priced out. So in those wrap-around supports it's also how do we help support our families to be able to stay in the neighborhoods they've been in for hundreds of years. And that might be job force training that might be resume work that might be other other things and connections that they may need to do that. So similar for the other two areas just

070continuing to work but then continuing to pivot as the world changes and address and adjust to that. Well thank you so much for being here it's been a pleasure learning all about Isana and Nisan and all the work that you do and and thank you for you know giving us a a small glimpse of the production and all that you do and thank you for the invitations. We'll definitely love to see if we can if I can be able to attend. And also share it with I know Michelle and Handy Newbok can't be here she had another event that she needed to attend but we'll definitely share the your invitations to all to all. Okay. >> Thank you so much for the opportunity. Have a great day. >> [applause] >> And thank you also to

071your co-presenters to your principals. Thank you. Well now we're we're going to our last presentation. I see Ms. Martha Alvarez is here from our our government relations chief of government relations. So stay as she's coming up to the podium. Ms. Martha Alvarez is a chief legislative and affair affairs and government relations. State legislation continues to shape the landscape for public education in California including policies related to charter schools facilities oversight and accountability. Staying informed about these developments is essential to ensuring that the district is prepared to respond effectively and advocate for policies that support all students and in the communities. Joining us Ms. Martha Alvarez will provide an overview of key legislative developments and priorities for the district. Thank you Ms. Alvarez for being here. >> afternoon board board member Dr. Rivas and board member

072Ortiz Franklin and staff. Thank you for accommodating me to be the last speaker. I appreciate being here with you today. I I only have one update regarding legislation in Sacramento around charter schools. At this juncture the state legislature had until the end of February 21st to introduce legislation for this 2026 legislative cycle. And as of now there's no legislation that has been introduced specifically to charter schools although the legislature could have spot bills they're placeholder bills. We're not aware of any at this juncture but they could amend any bills in the coming weeks if they wanted to convert some bill to be about charter schools policy specifically. However even though there's no standalone bill through the regular legislative process there is a proposal from Governor Newsom that was introduced in January as part of the

073January budget proposal. The language became available on February 2nd as part of known as a trailer budget bill. It's a companion bill to the state budget that has a different process and I'll speak about some some of the key provisions of the bill than the regular bill. The governor's trailer budget language introduced in February so it will not be heard by committees through the policy committees from the legislature. It would be discussed or considered as part of the budget process which is different than policy and I'm happy to come back and if you have questions about that. With that said the governor's proposal and maybe to backtrack one one step further last year in 2025 as our board members and and our public and stakeholders here with us watching in person in person or online

074they may be aware that last year there was at least two big major bills competing bills that were introduced last year AB 84 by Senator Suchi and Senate Bill 414 by Senator Ashby. Senator Ashby's bill moved over to the governor. AB 84 did not move forward but SB 414 got vetoed by the governor in October. That bill had major changes reforms to to fiscal auditing and oversight of charter schools and had other key provisions and some of them I'll I'll walk you through them today. Those bills were after a product of the state controller had an independent task force that was commissioned the year before that looking about just how to strengthen fiscal oversight of our charter schools given that there were some charter schools non-classroom based charter schools specifically in California that had been

075they they were seen as doing some fiscal inappropriate actions. So there was a task force and then there was legislation and here that's where we are today. And again that was specifically around non-classroom based charter schools. With that said the governor's veto in October for SB 414 indicated that there needed to be much more substantive work on on finding a common ground a balanced approach and vetoed the legislation and then this proposal from him came out just last month. The bill itself I I will let you know what it has. So it requires authorizers to investigate causes in delays for charter charters that failed to produce audits of financial statements. There was no prior recourse for that if if there was any delays from charter schools that were not providing the the audits of the

076financial statements in a timely manner. This would now authorize authorizers to to investigate why that that delay was happening. It would further require under the governor's proposal requires local educational agencies authorizers to review audit reports at a public meeting within 45 days of the report. It requires the authorizers to provide notification within 60 days of any concerns arising out of the oversight activities. It would also in addition to the fiscal oversight additional requirements it would also extend the use of verified data for renewals until June 30th of 2028. Verified data for low performing and middle performing charter schools was sunsetted last year. There had not been any extension despite some efforts in Sacramento to do that last year and so under the governor's proposal it would extend verified data for renewals for two more years

077to 2028. And then it would further extend the start date of prohibiting on new renewals for two years for those charter schools that are low performance schools to July 1st of 2028. Those were major items that were in the trailer bill that were carried carried over either from AB 84 or SB 414. There are some items that were that are missing in the governor's proposal that were either part of for AB 84 or SB 414. The bills is is a significant bill. So we're just highlighting some of the key areas. Those missing parts that are not in the governor's proposal that were being considered last year's legislation, there's no funding mechanism to compensate for authorizers like LAUSD and others across the state for increased oversight duties. So there would be this additional workload imposed on

078authorizers across the state, but there's no AB 84 at one point had language to authorize increased oversight fees. And then the bill got amended through the process but this point the governor's proposal does not have any funding mechanism for for oversight responsibilities or for increased oversight responsibilities. AB 84 also had a it would have created an office of statewide inspector general at the Department of Education. That was only in AB 84, not in SB 414. The governor's proposal does not have this statewide inspector general. That inspector general was going to have broad responsibilities, not just around charter schools, but being able to examine other from any other whistleblowers or other information that's provided to the state for regular schools too, not just charter schools. But that was not included in in the governor's proposal. AB

07984 had an extension on excuse me, AB 84 would have prohibited the establishment of new non-classroom based charter schools. They would that sunset happened January 1st of 2026. The governor's proposal does not include an extension of a moratorium on establishing new non-classroom based charter schools. So as of now they could be considered again for for establishing new ones since there's no moratorium currently. And then there's also some language that had been negotiated under AB 84 and SB 414 SB 414 that would have clarified some duties and responsibilities over the charter's oversight as part of an audit. Some of that language that was negotiated in those bills was not included in the governor's proposal. There are some new items in the trailer bill that were not included in the bill discussed last year that were added

080by the governor. Three areas of that we thought would be important to note today. It adds virtual board meetings to the requirements that authorizers need to have to visit charter schools and board meetings at least once a year. It requires charter schools to get approval of a governing board to compensate contractors for more than $100,000 in a year. And then it also requires authorizers to review charter school average daily attendance with extra reporting requirements if the ADA increases more than 10%. And then the the other piece to I'll say that that is also not in in the governor's proposal. In the prior version AB 84 last year, there were some provisions that would have required for non-classroom based charter schools, which is how the origin of this fiscal oversight issue came about. importance about greater

081oversight over non-classroom based charter specifically that it would have changed from small authorizers. There's some in throughout the county, some in LA County that are very small authorizers that were authorizing non-classroom based charter schools in their jurisdiction even though the non-classroom based charter school it was bigger in ADA than the small authorizer. They would have been a transfer of those responsibilities of oversight to a larger authorizer. That is not in the governor's proposal. It is something that was of interest to us of particular concern in last year's proposal because there was no definition about the transfer of responsibility from a small authorizer to a larger authorizer if there's a safe for the for the authorizer receiving that non-classroom charter school to be able to say why they cannot have the the the bandwidth or the

082capacity to take that on that work. So we don't know if those items will be brought forward in any discussions or negotiations in Sacramento, but they are areas that that we were of interest to us last year. And then lastly, you know, there's there's a few areas that that we are still weighing whether whether LAUSD would take a position on the bills on the governor's proposal this year or any other bills that would be introduced. There's since we have our own inspector general, there's a question whether the state inspector general would have any what the impact would be to our own inspector general and their responsibilities. There's a question about verified data that the Board of Education some of our board members brought up at the one of the last board meetings. The the benefit

083of leveraging verified data. Should verified data be used only for a two-year extension as proposed by the governor? Should it be used be in a permanent manner? Should it be used only for high schools for example since there's only one assessment that we currently provide in at the 11th grade level, the smarter balance assessment, but we don't have any other academic indicators for high school. So there's questions about the use of verified data and the scope of it. Should it be something that that we should weigh in and and to what extent? So with that I I will pause and turn it for any questions or comments from the board members. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Alvarez. Thank you very much. That was I know you said one item, but that was a lot. So

084thank you for the very a lot of the details. I want to open it to Ms. Ortiz Franklin if she has any questions before I weigh in. Sure, thanks. I guess I'll just start with the last thing you mentioned about verified data. What would our process be to determine whether or not LA Unified weighs in on this? Thank you for the question. In in December when the board approved our guiding principles and priorities, we have a five-page document that's publicly available. We have a section there that talks about charter schools and sort of our our overarching position philosophy around our engagement on the topic. I don't have the language in front of me. I can pull it up in a minute if it's helpful. But my recollection is that it provides some overarching guidelines for

085my office of Governmental Relations that I oversee for my team and I to be able to weigh in on policies that strengthens, you know, makes a strong public education system including for charter schools that we have the responsibility to oversee if we authorize them. So as of now we would be looking at that guiding principle and priority specifically to charter the charter school language. It's not goes into the weeds, doesn't say anything about verified data per se, but in the past in order to allow us to be nimble and be able to take a position and be able to recommend amendments in Sacramento, we've been able to leverage the guiding guiding principle principles and priorities our our guiding philosophy for how we approach legislation. We also work closely with our office of General Counsel and

086with our Charter Schools Division and other divisions that in this case because there's fiscal oversight language that would we would be asking for their feedback professional input to help us understand the implications for us as an authorizer for us as a school district and ultimately how the language would be implemented. So at this point there's no formal request that we would be in our current process that we would be coming back to the board to ask for your vote per se in in authorizing whether we support or oppose or we ask for amendments for particular language. That would be setting a new precedent that we haven't had to come back to the board for for that particular specific action. And understanding and also as I mentioned beforehand, the governor's budget language is very different than

087the regular policy process. Under the regular policy process there's an opportunity to publicly debate this in Sacramento through the policy committees, there's committee analysis that is done on every single bill. The governor's budget language there will be a budget conversation about the governor's budget proposals and likely around this topic as well, but there's no the public can provide public comment, but there's no written record of like LA Unified supports the bill, LA Unified opposes the bill. So it's a very different process for for engaging. Okay. Yeah, that's helpful because I think you know, we were still using it at the end of last year and this is a question that came up just this week with my school and you know, we're not prohibited from using it, but we did as I understand it, but

088we did stop at January 1st. So I think it's a ripe discussion and I would just maybe want to invite you know, OGR to just reconfirm with the board. I know sometimes like there's so many bills you take a position, don't take a position. It it often aligns with what we already approved in December, but just because this is maybe even things have changed since December as it relates to this. It's I I would ask just for me to reconnect before you know, we take a position one way or the other and I imagine some of my colleagues might as well want to weigh into that. And I don't know if this committee is the space for that or if it would need to be the full board, but it's it's something top of mind

089for me. And board member if I may ask for clarification, are you referring specifically to the verified data or overarching about the entire sections of the oversight fiscal responsibilities and whatnot? Particularly about verified data, but there there might be more that I haven't dug enough into, but specifically on the verified data right now. Thank you. And then you said something earlier I just wanted to ask for clarification about renewals for low-performing schools for two years. Could you just share a little bit more what that was about? Yes, so I I myself I mentioned that that the governor's proposal is is quite lengthy as well as what the bills from last year. It appears and I I can go verify but my my colleagues from my team who have reviewed the bill in its entirety, they

090informed me that the governor's proposal has a provision that would extend the prohibition on renewals for two years of low-performing schools to July 1st, 2028. I can go back and take a look at the exact language in the trailer budget language to see, you know, look at the excerpt and see in what context that that is. But unfortunately, I don't have anything else beyond that to share with you right now. Does that cuz right now, you know, a low-performing is presumptive denial, but you can approve for two years. I guess I don't understand what the extent like the prohibition would mean. Yeah, so so let me take it back and just as I don't want to mislead you. I will go back and take a look and see how what it means compared to current

091law and then what's proposed and how what's the difference. So I will return back with an answer. Okay, that would be helpful. And then just, you know, as we've been going through renewals since 1505, I think we have discussed at the dais like lessons that we're learning and best practices and potentially, you know, I'm not sure if it would rise to the level of pitching a bill or offering support of something that's already, you know, in existence or an amendment to something that's already in existence. Sounds like not so much for this cycle, but I I I think I heard from somebody that the charter policy tends to be relooked at maybe over the summer when it's a little quieter. So maybe as I would just put this request out there to the team both

092to to you and to I guess Mr. Cole Gutierrez's team, you know, as we're reflecting on this year and discussions we've had at this board, like what lessons are we learning to revise LA Unified's policy and what lessons are we learning to lift up to to statewide legislation because I think there are some things that that we could fix and and tweak for next year, but also to the extent that, you know, we have seen more charter renewals than probably any other districts in the state, you know, where can we help others if we've learned lessons. So I don't know if that's like a a formal process. Again, I don't know if that's this committee. I don't know if that starts with CSD to kind of think about these lessons learned, but just in the

093spirit of growth, I would welcome a space like that to weigh in, you know, for the board, but potentially also for the public to say, "We've observed this board looking at renewals, you know, here are some things we would like to lift up either as policy changes for the district or statewide changes you know, for the legislature." So I put that to the team and I I welcome you all to think about what that sort of forum might be for us. Board member Ortiz Franklin, thank you. Let me notwithstanding Ms. Alvarez's questions on the legislative process. I won't speak to that at this point, but in response to part of your your point there. First, the CSD team and related parties that in the district offices that work on in the renewal process, for example,

094are taking ongoing notes, reflections in terms of areas that we may need to adjust as we're uh as learning lessons. For example, from last year's to to this year's, the team did so, also worked with leadership and general counsel, and also assessed are any of those adjustments, do they require any board level policy changes. Those that were decided upon at that time did not require that. After that process, the team is also undergoing that ongoing reflection and will be assessing any areas into for next year as appropriate and will communicate as appropriate. Whether those would require board action again will be determined based on the substance of of the recommendations. But so please know that we are continuing to learn from each of the discussions and our own practices, etc. Thank you. Thanks so much.

095Thank you. I think my questions are probably around the same area or focus at Mr. Ortiz Franklin, but I'll just, you know, I'll I'll pose them in case. So this one from Arthur or probably for our CSD staff here. If this policy change change is adopted, um would it apply immediately or do we have to for renewal cycles or would there be a transition period for authorizers or charter schools to adjust the evaluation frameworks or it just depends on what is stipulated in the trailer bill? There are so many different changes that each change would have its own sort of timeline. For example, in some of the additional oversight responsibilities, it also impacts the auditors. And in the in last year's discussion and also part of this discussion, I anticipate a big topic will be

096given enough time for auditors to also retool, reskill themselves, and train themselves for the new provisions. So there it depends and some of the the provisions would be delayed implementation. They would give me a one-year delay for the the auditors to get trained or again be able to understand the law. There's also for the accounting pieces that may not also be modified. There would need to be time for the state to also change its codes, local charter schools for us to So there's a lot of moving pieces that it would not be a July 1st enacted change. It may take some time over the course of the next year. And I think if anything, the discussion in Sacramento last year, there was a lot of interest as I understand from other stakeholders to give enough

097time at least one or two years for delayed implementation just to ensure that there's that it's done right, is not done rushed, and that people are prepared for any changes to the state law. Want to add something? Yes, go ahead, Ms. Marla. I'm Marla Willmont, director of Charter Schools Division. I wanted to add to some of the things we're currently doing, so there won't be a change in practice. I'm going to just give you one example, attending governing board meetings. We already have in play in place attending at at least one governing board meeting. We often attend more and we track that. We've been doing that for at least three years. So some of the pieces are already in place and so there won't be a change or an update needed. Yeah, that actually leads

098to my next question. What practical changes would the verified data or the verified data actually extension create and how the district evaluates charter renewal petitions and how does the district use other sets to evaluate renewal petitions? So based on the all of the analyses that you conduct, how how would this change how would this create a change in what you're doing right now? Well, I will say if it is and I understand it to be when it is enacted almost identical to what it was, it will be similar to what we it would be pretty much similar or the same as we did last year when it was in play for low-performing schools and middle-performing schools and up until January 1 of this year for middle-performing schools. So it would be the kind of we

099call it the second look. We do the state compared to the charter and then we did the verified data assessment and we looked at growth as defined by the publishers. So it would be very similar or almost the same as we had in place because it sounds like it's just going to be almost exactly the same language put back in. Okay, right. Okay, well, thank you. Thank you so much to Ms. Alvarez. I appreciate all the updates and looking forward to what lies ahead in terms of any changes to the trailer bill. So that is our last presentation. So thank you to all of our presenters, Ms. Janet Borden, Ms. Alvarez, and also wonderful uh uh folks from Esana. Thank you so much for being here and sharing, letting us see a little a glimpse

100a small glimpse of all that you do in the Esana Academies and all you do for your students. So thank you so much. I appreciate it. So now we are going to move to the public comment. So we going to hand over the floor to Mr. McLean. All right, thank you. We have a full boat of public comment, so I'll call on the folks who are listed as being in person first and then we will transition to those who are calling in remotely. So and I'll call on three or four folks at a time, so the first person can come to the podium and then the other three can be ready to come down. Keith Dell'Aquila, I see you're here, come on down. You have two minutes to speak. Once you begin, then David Richardson,

101then Carmen Loera, and then Casey Kokenda. Good afternoon. I'm Keith Dell'Aquila with the California Charter Schools Association. Dr. Evilsizor, thank you for inviting and uplifting the Esana team. They're wonderful. They do incredible work and we appreciate the space for them to talk a little bit more about what they do. Nadia was up here just cooking. And she's she's an an incredible educator and we're really really grateful for the chance to to highlight that. Especially because this has been an incredibly hard week. To know that that there's light here today, there'll be more light behind me with additional speakers that we have. There's light with more than 30 charter schools being named California Distinguished Schools this that this week. But Tuesday was heavy. And it was heavy because we saw Locke High School closed or voted

102to it to to be denied by by this board. And there are lessons to be learned from the two years of renewals that that we've seen. It's important that we learn them we learn them quickly because next year will be 45,000 students will have their schools up for renewal in LA Unified. It will be the largest cohort of schools we've ever seen and there are patterns that have developed and they're deeply concerning on an equity basis. Part of my job is to help look at our our schools and look into the future and see where are the schools that are most at risk. Some of those schools have areas of needed improvement, but I can tell you here that a charter school that is serving a higher percentage of black students, a higher percentage of

103homeless students, a higher percentage of English learners is more likely to be closed by this board. I know it's not intentional. There are good people making decisions. We have laws that pen us in in in what we look at, but right now this board continues to ignore the most important thing and that is our students learning while they're at the school. We're boxed in right now by a a lack of engagement with the most critical issue around student growth and student performance. We know that inequities show up in public systems when we're when we're blind to them, when we make decisions station to station, when we fail to look at the whole. Right now we have an opportunity to look at the whole and to course correct some of the mistakes that I think this

104board has made in closing down schools serving the neediest students among us. Let's take it that advantage of that opportunity. Thank you. Thank you for your time. David Richardson and then Carmen Lueda. Come on up. Thank you. Good evening board members, district staff and community. My name is David Richardson. I'm with the California Charter Schools Association. I come to this work as an LA native, a former educator, ethnic studies scholar, advocate and I spend my days working alongside school leaders, families and students across the city and many of the folks sitting in this room behind me. Like my colleague Keith just noted, this renewal cycle has been heavy for a lot of our communities. Several school closures this year sent real shockwaves through families and neighborhoods that rely on their schools as places of stability

105and opportunity for the children. >> [snorts] >> For many families, these charter schools are trusted spaces where students feel supported and seen. Charter schools and district schools operate in the same ecosystem and the goal should always be the same. Students growing, students improving and students reaching higher levels of opportunity. But at the same time, there is extraordinary work happening across LAUSD. This week, the CDE recognized 408 schools statewide as California Distinguished Schools and 73 of those are right here in LA Unified, including 31 as LAUSD authorized charter schools. And that's for demonstrating strong academic programs, real progress for students. >> [snorts] >> That's something the entire city should be proud of. Today you heard from me SANA, a group of leaders I have the privilege of working closely with. Their work is grounded in the

106equity and justice center model focused on belonging and student voice. And later you'll hear from school leaders, parents, alumni and who will share the impact and innovation of their schools. Across LA, educators are locked in focused on the intentionality and the student achievement. So this is the moment to focus on what's working. Let's strengthen collaboration between charter schools and the district, invite more charter leaders in this room, visit more campuses and create a real space for educators to share the practices that are helping students succeed. Because when LA schools learn from one another, opportunity expands for every student in the city. Thank you for the time. >> [snorts] >> Thank you for your time. Carmen Lueda. Are you here, Carmen? I'm going to see if Miss Lueda is online. She's not. Casey Kokenda. Casey K,

107are you here? I'll check online. Also not here. Berenice Marquez. Come on up. You'll have 2 minutes to speak when you begin. After Miss Marquez, it's Jenna Rosenberg and then Tristan Bravo and then Johanna Parker. So come on up. Miss Marquez. Hello everyone. I'm currently I'm Berenice Marquez. I am both an alumni and a current teacher at Berenice Middle School. I would like to share a little bit about my my upbringing in the Latino community. Hearing all the statistics hit home for sure. I'm the socioeconomic number. So this hits home. Raising growing up in a Latino community, now that I have the privilege to serve, my mom is a typical Latina mom who always reminded me todo se puede con el corazon. In other words, anything is possible when you put your heart into it.

108The belief has stayed with me throughout my journey as a student and continues to guide me today and as an educator. When I was a student at Berenice Charter, I had teachers who believed in me and encouraged me to keep pushing forward. They helped me realize that my voice mattered and that I was capable of achieving many many things, especially my personal goals. After graduating Polytechnic High School, which is a known school in the um Pacoima community, I returned to Berenice and began my journey as an education and education and special education tutor for 7 years. I supported students who needed additional guidance and support. During that time, I had the opportunity to work closely with students and families and those experiences strengthened my passion for helping every student succeed. While working this role role

109at Berenice, they supported my dreams in the educational world. It wasn't easy. There were many long days balancing work and rushing to attend my college classes while becoming a young mom. But the encouragement and the support I received helped me continue pursuing my dreams of becoming a teacher. Returning to Berenice made me realize that it's been a full circle. I choose to remain in the same community that invested so much in me that I can now invest in the next generation of students. I'm also grateful to work under strong leadership. Our leadership team creates a culture of high expectations and support that empowers teachers to help students reach their full potential. This year alone, I was able to support my students in reaching our I-Ready data goals. By January, our class had reached 138% of

110typical growth. I was able to get at least nine students on grade level, which reflects what can happen when students are supported, challenged and someone who believes in them. And that is what the charter schools have done for me. Thank you for your time. Jenna Rosenberg, are you here? Jenna R, come on down. You have 2 minutes to speak when you begin. Hi, my name is Jenna Rosenberg. I'm the principal at New Los Angeles Charter Elementary School in Board District 1. New LA Elementary will be up for renewal this coming school year and I'd love to highlight just one piece of the great work we've been doing by talking about our implementation of Universal Design for Learning and the impact it's had on academic rigor and access for all of our students. In 2024, we

111began a partnership with Open Access, an organization dedicated to professional learning around UDL in California. They have provided our teachers with ongoing learning and tools to build our UDL practices and as we've progressed throughout the school year, they've asked us to become a showcase site for Southern California, meaning other schools can come visit us when they're looking to implement UDL practices and see us and learn alongside us. Even just a year and a half into the work, we've seen this transformation in the levels of learner agency and engagement with all of our students. And at the end of last school year, we had some of the best academic outcomes we've ever had, including a 14.7 increase in DFS in ELA CASP for all students with a 31.3 point increase for students with disabilities and a

11262.3 point increase for African-American students. In math, we saw a 5.2 point increase for all students with a 21.7 point increase for students with disability and a 31.3 point increase for African-American students. We're very proud of how this work has helped us move forward with our equity goals and with closing the gap the achievement gap for student groups at our school and we'd love to invite board members or any stakeholders here today to come visit us this spring and see that great work in action. Thank you very much. Thank you for your time. Tristan Bravo. Come on down, Tristan Bravo. You have 2 minutes to speak when you begin. And then after Tristan is Johanna Parker and after Johanna Parker is Cynthia Ibarra. Hello everyone and good afternoon. My name is Tristan Bravo. I'm with

113Berenice. I'm also a former alumni and current teacher just like my colleague Berenice Marquez. I just want to express my deep gratitude towards Berenice Charter Middle. Coming from a single parent Spanish-speaking household, my schooling has really provided me with the opportunities I was unaware were possible as a child. From receiving my first computer to traveling to New Orleans to present to a room full of scary adults, Berenice has not only given me the tools to succeed in life, but also opened my eyes to all the world has to offer. The teachers and staff at Berenice were so caring and considered about me as a human that I always felt a sense of belonging even when I began my journey into adulthood. After graduating Granada Hills Charter, I began college, a goal that began during my

114middle school journey and I returned to Berenice to see if they had any opportunities for employment. Luckily enough, I became an after school coach and eventually a computer technician working there for 5 years. Afterwards, I decided to make the venture into sales to try to make some money. They wholeheartedly allowed me to take the plunge into that even though they liked what I did for their school. They wanted me to go explore and see what was out there with my life. I worked in sales for about 4 years. I made some decent money, but I was just feeling unfulfilled with my life and I felt like there was a hole missing. It wasn't until afterwards I decided to go back to Berenice once again to speak to my former English teacher, current principal Dr. Myers,

115where I had a long conversation with him about perhaps being a teacher. After school coaching was one of my favorite jobs to date, so I was just open to the possibility and after a very long conversation, he told me about all the joys and definitely all the tribulations a teacher being a teacher comes with and I decided maybe this was it. And I remember talking to my mother and at one point I realized that I need community and Berenice really gave me that community to help me shine and I'm very proud to say I went back to school now and I create that space for all my students to have a holistic and appreciative view on life and whatever we can give them. Thank you for your time. Thank you for your time. Uh Johanna

116Parker, Johanna Parker, come on down. You'll have 2 minutes to speak and then after Ms. Parker is Cynthia Ibarra. Good afternoon, everyone. My name is Johanna Parker. I am the uh current race, diversity, equity, and inclusion lead for STEM Prep Schools as well as our ninth-grade ethnic studies teacher and a proud STEM Prep mom. My son has been um a member of STEM Prep Schools since 2016. He is now currently a 10th-grader at our high school and thriving with a 4.2 grade point average. I'm very proud of him. Um I want to talk to you about how special our school organization is and some of the work that we are doing on behalf of our students and our community. Um it's very rare for schools um at in schools for teachers let alone um people

117in positions of leadership, members like myself who are uh members of also our instructional leadership team and our organizational leadership team to bring our own children into the schools that we work in every day. It says a lot as for myself as a 23-year 23-year educator. Oh, correction, 28-year educator to have so much confidence in the work that we do that I trust my own child to these people. Not only myself but many other our staff members do as well. And so with that work, the rigor, the love, the care, the uplifting that our students receive day-to-day helps to shape these young people into who they could potentially have become. And I'm just ever so grateful for the opportunity to not only give that to my own child but to have my my colleagues give

118that and pour that into my children as well as into every single member of our school community, children, families, staff, and the people who live in our neighborhoods. Thank you for your time. Thank you for your time. Cynthia Ibarra, come on up and then after Ms. Ibarra uh are our remote callers. So, come on up. You'll have 2 minutes to speak once you begin. Good afternoon, Board Vice President Rivas, committee members, and everyone joining us today. My name is Cynthia Ibarra and I'm a product of LAUSD, a proud Garfield High School alum, began my career at LAUSD, and was an administrator for 16 years before taking on my current role as director of advocacy and community engagement for Green Dot Public Schools. So, although Tuesday was difficult um for our lot community following the denial

119of our petition, we wanted to take a moment to share a few celebrations from Green Dot Public Schools and state our commitment to working together on behalf of students across Los Angeles. This week, the 2026 California Distinguished Schools were announced and we're incredibly proud that six Green Dot schools were recognized. Notably, Animo Jackie Robinson Charter High School in BD5, Animo Ellen Ochoa Charter Middle School in BD2, earned this distinction for the second consecutive cycle. I would especially like to highlight one of our newly recognized schools, Animo South Los Angeles Charter High School located in BD1. Last year, the school achieved remarkable results. In English language arts, students performed 22.1 points above the state standard, earning a green on the California Dashboard. The college and career indicator reached 56.3, outperforming the state by 4.6 percentage points,

120also earning a green. 52.4% of English learners made progress on the English learner progress indicator, again receiving a green. In math, the school improved significantly, increasing 37 points on the dashboard, earning a yellow rating. And perhaps most importantly, the school achieved a 95% graduation rate, well above the seat average of 88%. Animo South LA serves a student population that is 18% African American, more than double LAUSD's rate, and serves a higher proportion of students with disabilities and students experiencing homelessness than the district. These results demonstrate that Green Dot model supports all students in striving for and achieving success. Thank you for your time. All right. Now for folks calling in remotely, uh Justin Gonzalez, I see you're signed up but you're not online. I Are you in the room, Justin? No. All right. Thakur Singh,

121I see you're on the line. Please press star six to unmute yourself and you'll have 2 minutes to speak once you begin. Thakur Singh. Good afternoon. Can you hear me? We sure can. Please go ahead. Great. Uh good afternoon, Board Vice President Dr. Rivas. It's great to see you yesterday, Board Member Franklin, and Board Member Newbill. Happy Thursday. My peers and I spoke yesterday and provided context about the growing calls for an independent graduation for the Leadership Virtual Academy. I just sent an email about an hour or two ago with detailed information to all of you. Right now, I will go over some of the reasons that VA administration might provide to you to justify why this is, quote, impossible and I'll provide our response. First, you might be told that it's impossible in the

122time span. But this is untrue. We already have a school that is willing to host our graduation ceremony. We already have a fundraising mechanism and fundraising resources lined up. We already have student and parent support. Teachers have also signed their name to volunteer for a committee. These teachers have all said that it is possible and has been done previously with less time at some of their former in-person school sites. And also, why is it possible to plan an awards night which has yet to even start in just 2 months but not graduation with more time? This is inconsistent. Furthermore, last year, we organized a prom for all six Virtual Academies in just 2 months. This was without without having a location available from the start. This goes to show that if we put our minds

123together, it can be done and it can be done quickly, especially with a location already found. You might also be told that the senior dinner is a compromise. As I mentioned yesterday morning, VA administration was already planning this a long time ago. How then by definition is it a compromise? Furthermore, students and parents recognize that an awards night is not a graduation as per a survey we conducted. 80% of students feel this way. If 80% of the country agreed on anything, we could get so much done. Why then is it different for our school and district where student voices are ignored despite the supermajority? Now, I see my time is running out. I do include much more information and some other reasons that might be provided in our in our rebuttal in that email. I

124ask that you please, when you get a chance, you know, despite your busy schedules, to take a look at that. And again, we are more than happy to provide answers to any questions that you may have. Thank you so much for your time. Thank you for your time. Okay, the next speaker is Christopher. I see you're on the line. Please press star six to unmute yourself, Christopher, and you'll have 2 minutes to speak once you begin. Christopher. Hello. Can you hear me? We sure can. Please go ahead. Okay. Hello. I hope that you're all having a blessed day. My name is Christopher Stella Torres and 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. In terms

125of our concern, our students like salutatorians have never been able to speak in the past. Now, I am sure that they that you would agree they've earned their spot to speak after their hard work, but Virtual Academy leadership disagrees. We could easily give our salutatorian and even other students a 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 for our school. It also feels incredibly uninviting to be surrounded by other schools than your own. Despite the No, despite this, we've taken the initiative on advocating for this despite the lack of transparency and clear communication from the Virtual Academy leadership. Now, we're being told that the only barrier preventing us

126from having our own ceremony is 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. Thus, this is something we raised to leadership months previously but never heard about. How is it right for us to lose the right to an independent graduation just because we never received follow-up information? Also importantly, how is it right 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 that we want our own ceremony. Now, the ball is in LAUSD's court. We ask that you, the school board, please support the request of us

127as students and our parents for an independent graduation. You will have made made a day a major difference in the lives of so many students who would know that it is thanks to this 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. Briana, I see you're on on line. Briana, please press star six to unmute yourself and you'll have two minutes to speak once you begin. Breanna. Hello, can you hear me? We can. Please go ahead. Okay, wonderful. Good afternoon Board Vice President Dr. Rivas, Board Member Franklin, and Board Member Newball. I'm Breanna Hernandez, a student of the Leadership and Public Service Virtual Academy. I have returned to speak on our petition for an independent graduation ceremony. Please

128imagine time where you have been told something was impossible to do even when it wasn't. Maybe it's someone told you that it would be impossible to run for your very current seat. Despite this, you kept pushing and proved that it wasn't impossible by winning. We're in the same spot today. We know that this can be done. Virtual Academy administrators have claimed that it's too late, but even before then, they kept trying to shoot us down despite the fact that this is what students clearly want. We also kept receiving conflicting messages that kept us running in circles. Why is it our fault that we kept receiving un- unfair and unclear communication? Why are students being penalized for not having their own graduation for the seniors this year? We're told that VA leadership will consider this next

129year. That's great for us juniors, but what about seniors? It isn't right. As board members, you are very familiar with LAUSD support for student voice, parent voice, includes inclusivity, and nurturing our dreams. Why then can students not have their dream of a personal intimate graduation, especially when it is doable? We ask that you please show that it's it's not impossible and that you stand with us and our parents. If you have any questions or need more information, please reach out to us. Thank you so much. Thank you for your time. The next speaker is Sebastian. Sebastian, I see you're on the line. Please press star six to unmute yourself and you'll have two minutes to speak once you begin. Sebastian, I see you're with us. Please press star six to unmute yourself and you'll have

130two minutes to speak once you begin. Hello, can you hear me? We can. Please go ahead. All right. Hello, my name is Sebastian Hernandez. I am a student of the Leadership and Public Service Virtual Academy. Imagine you just finished 12 years of high school and you and your family expect a graduation that feels meaningful, intimate, and personal. Instead, you're seated apart from your friends, have just five minutes with your teacher, and have to wait hours just to hear your name called. On top of that, you're second in the class. That's too bad. You can't speak because your school isn't allowed to have its own graduation. This is what so many students have already experienced in the past and this will happen again this year unless LAUSD gives the green light for the Leadership and Public

131Service Virtual Academy to have its own graduation. Virtual Academy administration has tried to tell us that they've planned the senior awards senior awards night as a quote compromise, but students don't feel that it is a compromise. They still feel disappointed. Virtual Academy leadership has also told us that it is impossible to plan, but we have our but we already have the details figured out. We just need the green light. They also tell us that the cost of our academy leaving the joint ceremony would mean greater cost for the other five academies, but we ran the math and it's only 200 to 400 more per each school. This is far from a valid reason to not allow us to have our own graduation. We ask the school board to instruct Virtual Academy leadership to grant us

132our own graduation. This is what students and parents have clearly indicated that they want. You would also be making a historic step in the right direction for the program that is only growing. Imagine how many virtual programs across the country offer independent in-person gradu- graduation. Not many. LAUSD would be so much more appealing for potential students. We are asking for your help. My name is Renna. Thank you. Thank you for your time. Isabella Tellez, Isabella T, please press star six to unmute yourself and you'll have two minutes to speak once you begin. Isabella. I see you're with us, Isabella. Please press star six to unmute yourself and you'll have two minutes to speak once you begin. Hi. Can you hear me? Yes. Okay. Hello, I'm Isabella Tellez and I am a senior at the Leadership

133Virtual Academy. I recently sent an email to you all sharing my request for an independent graduation ceremony. Now I'm speaking publicly about it. For the past few years, Virtual Academy students have never had a graduation that is personal, inviting, and special. Last year, it lasted six hours including the time it took for students to prepare and then wait on the field for hours. These are just some of the concerns we have. Students have strongly indicated that we would like an independent graduation. Why are our voices being ignored when 80% of us want this? Virtual Academy leadership says it's impossible and it's too late, but it's not. Last year, prom for all six Virtual Academies was planned in way less time. The senior awards night will also be planned in less time. We already have the

134foundation ready because we have a location support, student support, and teacher support. It is possible. Plus, students, parents, and teachers have actually been discussing this since the 2024 to 2025 school year. We knew that the graduating classes in the past were strongly against the current structure with six separate schools combined, but we kept getting unclear messaging. Virtual Academy administration might apologize for this, but what difference does it make? It's not our fault they consider our voices previously, yet we're the ones being punished by being told too late. Besides, it wasn't too late for them to suddenly change the entire date of the graduation for hundreds of students and parents without their consideration. We are asking the school board to please give us a chance. This is a major part of our high school vision. We

135just ask that you give us a chance to do this. Please for us and our family. Thank you for your time. That concludes public comment. Thank you, Mr. McLean, and thank you to all those who provided your public comments. Also, thank you to everyone who participated in today's meeting including our presenters, staff, and members of the public. The work of this committee is strengthened by the engagement of educators, families, and community members who care deeply about the success of their school students and their schools. The next Charter School Committee meeting will be on May 14th and with that, I adjourn this meeting and I wish you all a beautiful day. Thank you.