April 22, 2025 - 10am Committee of the Whole

001Good afternoon everyone. Um, good afternoon. What am I talking about? It's 10 in the morning. Good morning everyone. It feels like afternoon. Good morning everyone. Uh, welcome to the committee of the whole. I'm Dr. Rivas, the chair of this committee. And uh today we have um two great presentations. But first of all, I want to say happy Earth Day. April 22nd. Earth Day today. Um Earth Day is a global day of action first celebrated in 1970 and recognized every April 22nd. Uh mobilizing millions across the world to fight for a cleaner, healthier Earth, our wonderful planet. And that spirit, our district reaffirms its long-standing commitment to environmental education, sustainability, and climate justice. Uh, this board has a history of standing behind Earth Day resolutions. Uh, most recently with our 2025 Earth Month resolution, which uplifts

002the importance of climate resilience, environmental education, and green investments for our school communities. We recognize that climate change continues to disproportionately impact uh black and brown and low-income students through extreme heat, poor air quality, and neighborhood disinvestment. That's why our work must remain focused on equity, student health, and green learning environments. As we continue this work, we remain committed to growing green spaces, advancing clean energy, and ensuring that every student learns and thrives in a safe, sustainable, and climate resilient school. Uh so we have an important agenda today that begins with remarks from our labor partners. Following that um those remarks from our labor partners, we will transition into two important presentations that highlight how the district is investing in both the physical infrastructure of our schools and also the academic success of students through

003meaningful partnerships with our families, guardians, and parents. First, we'll hear a presentation entitled Measure US overview and prioritization from Christina Tes, Chief Facilities Executive. And this presentation will provide an update on how we are implementing the 9 billion measure US bond approved by our wonderful voters to modernize school facilities, expand green infrastructure, and prioritize investments in in the schools and communities that need them the most. Then we will turn our second presentation, supporting academic achievement through parent and family engagement, led by Dr. Francis Bayz, Chief Academic Officer, and Mr. Dr. Anthony Agalar, chief of special education and specialized programs. This presentation will highlight the district's efforts to deepen family school partnerships through cultural responsive educ um culturally responsive and inclusive practices. And the focus is how intentional engagement supports academic achievement and builds stronger school

004communities. These presentations speak to two pillars of our strategic plan. creating safe, sustainable schools and advancing academic outcomes by centering equity and family voice. Now with that said, we will begin with um any remarks from our labor partners if any are here present. Seeing none, then um then then that means we will move on to our first presentation, measure US overview um and prioritization presented by Miss Christina Tes. This presentation will provide the overview of the measure US bond and how the district is prioritizing investments in school modernization, climate resilience, and enhanced learning environments. So, as Miss Tes is coming up to the podium, we will hear um her presentation followed by any questions uh from our um any of our board members. Thank you, Miss Stokes. And and as as Christina begins, the one

005thing that I just wanted to, you know, hearken back to the recent retreat that we had when we talked about some of the capital um outlay trade-offs that we have in the district. Um the presentation today is a continuation of that retreat topic. um really thinking about how do we kind of hone in on some of the trade-offs prior priorities that we're actually making in our bond programs to make sure that we meet the needs of our students, our families, and staff as well as balancing the need to modernize and meet the climate resilience commitments that we've made as a district. and also come from a perspective of modernizing in a way that actually reduces some of the burden on the maintenance side um and maintenance staff needs that are um sometimes a challenge especially

006at facilities that need additional upgrading um as well as when we look at 100-year-old buildings thinking about the upkeep of those buildings. It's very much a complimentary set of investments that really allows us to leverage our general fund RMA contributions and marrying that with our bond contributions from a district perspective. And so, um, we'll talk a lot about the priorities, but it's very much, I would say, a marriage in funds that supports our, uh, school upkeep and our school modernization efforts. Thank you. Uh, good morning, board vice president, Dr. Rivas and members of the board. Christina Toes, chief facilities executive. So, I wanted to frame this presentation with a little history of uh before we got to passing Measure US and start to highlight just the overall facilities key facts. Um, as you know, we

007are a very large um school district and our school buildings reflect um our size as well. We have over 13,650 school buildings. 60% are over 50 years old. We know that we have approximately $80 billion of unfunded school facilities needs that remain. And that is a data-driven number provided by our facilities condition assessment that shows how many of our building components are past their useful life. We also know besides just the wear and tear of our buildings, our facilities, there's seismic upgrades that are needed. There are greening upgrades that are needed. And as we look to climate resiliency and disaster resiliency, it's more than just fixing what we already have, but building better and smarter. So, while I talk about what we um are planning to do with Measure US, I just wanted to remind

008everyone that we have approximately $9 billion of projects that are currently underway. These are projects that all have been approved by the board. They're either in design or construction. You'll see pre-construction is 4.4 billion. Under construction is 4.6. I will say that had we not passed Measure US, we would have probably been already have committed almost all of our funds. And so thankfully with Measure US passing, we're able to continue the work that we have underway. And I also wanted to highlight for those um who are interested in getting more information about these approved projects, if you go to the facilities website that is at the bottom of that last slide deck, you can look by board office and this is what that um dashboard looks like. You can look by um region, by type

009of project, um by amount to determine or understand exactly what projects are at what school sites or what type of projects. and um you can see when they'll be completed, when their construction started, and what the total value of that budget is. So, a lot of good information there if you're interested. Okay, next slide. So, just a brief recap on measure US. Um thankfully passed with 68% of approval. These are the board priorities um that the board approved and included in measure US. Enhancing school safety, modernizing school facilities, upgrading school sites, enhancing accessibility, addressing facilities inequities, updating technology, supporting the health and well-being of students, promoting efficiency in regards to both energy efficiency and sustainability. And then they also approved um as part of that August 7th board action to place Measure US on the

010ballot, the bond priorities and funding targets and implementation strategies. So what this pie chart shows is just a graphic of what those amounts are that the board approved. And I'm going to walk you through each of these amounts. You'll see the largest one is approximately 4.9 billion for major modernizations. it decreases from there. I did just want to highlight this is only the facilities portion. It does not include the amounts for its transportation and the IG. This is what we um refer to as the facility school upgrade program. So let's go through each of these categories. You saw these in the board retreat and I'll get into a little more detail. Under this largest category of major modernizations, we have seven um subcategories and you'll see the amounts in each of them. The ones in

011gray are the ones that we have already um are undertaking and will now be able to continue to do at more campuses as part of having these more funds and the ones in yellow are new programs that were identified in the measure US implementation policy. You can see the green highlight captures numbers five, six, and seven, which equals about 1.2 billion to support greening at our campuses with greening schoolyards, playground, and campus exterior upgrades and shade shelters. And then also number four is uh UTK upgrades to support the expanding UTK enrollment. I'll emphasize again that measure us allows us to continue the good work that we have done with previous bonds and then it allows us to also undertake some new priorities that the board identified. So let's go through each of these in a

012little more detail. So when you'll see in these charts I'm highlighting the program and then the prioritization methodology, the anticipated projects that we plan to be able to bring in that amount. um when we'll be sharing that prioritization plan with the board and then after that plan is shared with the board we would be start to bring phases of projects depending on the type of projects um we would look to either bring them all at once or in different phases and that depends on the size of projects the contract capacity um and other marketplace conditions. So if we look at the first one, this is replacing modernizing buildings for seismic safety. That is the largest one. You're probably familiar with comprehensive modernizations and major modernizations where seismic upgrades was the driver for ending up at

013the campuses that we did. We're anticipating that we would be able to bring approximately 20 projects. We will have more detail. We're working very closely with um a uh renowned structural engineering firm to update seismic um performances based on new information that we received from the state and we know that there is need throughout the district to make sure we address this important safety concern. We're looking at bringing first projects in the winter of 2025. I do want to caveat that when we say up to each of these projects is going to need to be especially regarding seismic safety. We need to do due diligence at each of these sites. So these types of projects are the ones where we would not bring all 20 at the same time. There's not a marketplace to absorb

014those types of projects in the marketplace for contractors. They also require us to do very um careful due diligence at the school sites considering not just the structural components of these whether or not they can be retrofitted or demolished but we also look at things like enrollment whether or not we can just remove a building rather than replace it rightsize the campus and then uh the instructional opportunities if we are to replace um what those campuses need. So, that one is probably one of the more um complicated due diligences that we do when we undertake these projects. Replace portable buildings is also a program that we're continuing. Um you're probably familiar with the portable replacement projects that I think each of you have in your uh board district. This allows us to remove uncertified portables

015and replace only those are that are needed. We target campuses that have the highest reliance of portables versus permanent. the highest reliance on on certified portables targeting middle schools that actually have the highest enrollment in each of the board districts. Looking to bring those in the fall of 2026. Then I'll highlight the yellow ones that have to do with greening. I think you're all familiar with those. Um the greening schoolyards. This is a new program. Prior to measure us, we did greening as part of other projects. um but we didn't have a specific category that just targeted schools with the least percent of greening. This program allows us to do that. We'll be using the greening index um that came out of the board resolution where we're targeting elementary schools with less than 10% greening.

016We'll be able to bring up to 45 projects. That index is already established and we're working to bring the first projects in this fall. That's part of accelerating the $700 million of greening projects that we're doing this year. Also, PASA projects. This is where we address the worst asphalt conditions um that are unsafe for our students at elementary schools. Also looking to bring those by the fall of 2025. A new program is adding shade shelters over playground equipment. Um, this one we won't have enough funding to do all of our schools at once, but we'll be able to start and we're bringing um a prioritization to you in late summer of 2025. UTK upgrades. We know that there are schools that are seeing increase in UTK and this will allow us to do um new

017furniture or bathrooms as needed. It's a small amount, but it will help us um where we see pinches in UTK enrollment increases. And then campus upgrades, alterations, and improvements. Um, this one is to reconfigure campuses. This is not a topdown. This is typically when we work with instruction where there's a need to reconfigure a campus for a new type of program. Um, then in a facilities uh um alteration is required, we use this bucket for that. So, it's not something that's master planned um from facilities. The next two categories are critical replacements and accessibility enhancements. This just allows us to continue the important work of replacing HVAC roofing and paving upgrades. We're also able to do secure entrances now at our middle schools and high schools. We completed all of our elementary schools with our

018previous bond measures. Now we have the funding to take those funds and do that at middle schools and high schools and also continue to do the ADA transition plan implementation. So when we talk about those, again, these are um fairly um uh routine prioritizations um and something that we continue to do looking at our FCA data and also our um ADA transition plan, the secure entrances, we're planning to bring that before the board recesses for the summer. Um so you'll be seeing that at our middle schools and high schools. The next category is a catchall for a lot of different programs. It's to support wellness, health, athletics, learning, and efficiency. So, you'll see the largest category is for athletics. This is to continue our athletic upgrades. Um, solar and electrical is new. School library and

019furnishings is new. And then the rest are the continuations of programs that we already have underway. You'll see on the athletics um we're looking at uh improving the data and input that we use to identify athletic facilities projects. Um this one is challenging because we know there's both athletics that need to be repaired and replaced that are existing, but there's also schools that don't have athletics and would like to see new um infrastructure and facilities. So, we're working closely with the athletics departments and then we'll be bringing to you a proposal of how we can prioritize these funds. The first action that uh this board took that used exclusive measure US funds was installing PV and electrical infrastructure. The board approved $122 million for that earlier this year. Um that expended most of the money

020for PVs. We are planning on including PVs on any project where we're building new roofs. That is now a requirement of DSA and something that we're including so that can we can really make progress in regards to our sustainability goals. Student-based wellness um that was a small amount. So, we'll be working with student health and human services to determine where we continue to make a upgrades on our community health um offerings, library furnishings and alterations. This is a new one as well. So, we're working closely with library services to see what we can do in both in terms of what their priorities are. Is it furniture? Is it painting? Is it technology in the libraries? We know that this is a small amount so we won't be able to get to all of our libraries

021for 10 million but we hope that we'll be able to start and with further bonds we'd be able to continue that to all libraries. Seeds is a continuation and the last two partner funded projects and board member region priorities are something that um like campus alterations when they're made known to facilities were able to support um by using bond dollars in these categories. And then we have these categories that we call um our client categories for facilities. Facilities designs and execute these projects for food services, early education, adult education. And then we also continue to do charter improvements um to support the charter school facilities. So under school categories, you'll see in the three boxes uh new uh programs. One is for a regional kitchen at 300 million. also combi ovens and electrical infrastructure as

022we move from gas to electric in our kitchen equipments and service kiosks and electrical infrastructure. And then we're continuing to do upgrades for our walk-in freezers. On charter schools, we continue to support the Prop 39 make ready so that we don't need to use general funds and we could use bond funds. There's also a small grant program for new collocations where we identify a facilities improvement that benefits both schools. And then we are also undertaking the replacement and upgrades to school buildings and infrastructure for charter schools that are located at district property. Early childhood education, I know many of you are familiar with the wonderful outdoor classroom program. This $200 million allow amount allows us to almost complete all EEC programs as well as do the necessary upgrades and building system components. And then under

023adulthood, we continue to do the upgrades um working closely with them to replace deficient buildings. Um there's funding to upgrade their IT systems. Um and also they wanted to have some greening opportunities at the adult ed site. So, we have $8 million to undertake that. So, I want to just talk a little bit about the data we use since we don't have enough funding to do everything um and we have a lot of need throughout this district. So, essentially when I we present to you information, we're always looking to address the greatest need. The greatest need may be a facility's greatest need, like what is the roofing that needs to be replaced or the air conditioning. It could also be in regards to greening where is there the highest need for greening in regards to

024wellness is where is there a lack of wellness. So looking at what is the project meant to solve for. We then look at the data that drives that decision-making. When we look at just pure facilities, we know that we have um older buildings and components in poor condition. Then we have critical condition where the systems are barely functioning um and we have to do a lot of repairs. And then when we have broken systems, there really cannot be repaired anymore and they need to be replaced. So when Mr. Salceto talks about augmenting and making sure that we're addressing where there's general fund, we know when there's issues of like roof leaks or uh heat waves, we want to make sure that we're expending bond dollars to replace systems so that we're not using general fund

025to um continue to fix systems that really need to be replaced. If we didn't have this bond, we would be in a much more challenging s um condition because our repairs would not be able to fix everything that we have and we would have to look at general fund to um target those things that actually need to be replaced. So other secondary considerations when we have everything kind of in a worst condition obviously we look to address worst and critical first is we look at issues of equity geographic distribution or socioeconomic factors. So, for example, using greening again, we're uh using the Cal Envirro screen as part of that prioritization of schools that have less than 10% green, which allows us to factor in issues like climate resiliency, which communities are most impacted by climate

026change. We're not just looking at raw data of uh schoolyard greening. We also look at geographic distribution when we know that we have uh worst conditions at all of our schools. So for example, when we look at issues like PASPs, we have broken and deteriorated asphalt at many of our schools. We then take the worst conditions and then we look at geographic distribution um across our district knowing that those conditions exist everywhere. Where we have less opportunity for equity factors is when we look at issues like seismic because there are specific structures that we know are more vulnerable than others. Um, and often those are not equally geographically distributed. They could be determined by the years that the school was built. We're seeing that schools built in the 60s and 70s have a type of

027structure that is more vulnerable than others and also their location to fault lines is also a driver as well. So, in terms of the data that we use in facilities, just briefly touching on those, we have building information records where we're able to track um every physical space and how it is used um with site maps of all of our facilities so that we have up-to-date information. That's updated every year um and feeds in from the next database which is ECAR and ECAST which talks about how our spaces are used. We use this um whenever we're doing a project that looks at school capacity. Any opportunity that we have to rightsize our campuses, remove portables that aren't needed, um not make upgrades to classrooms that are not being used, we use e-car and ecas for

028that. We also have probably one of the best facilities condition assessments of any school district I would say in the nation. That's um very much upto-date. It gives the condition and assessment of every building component. So, we're able to determine which ones are really past their useful life and then also layer on service calls that M does to make sure that we're not just looking at uh years of use, but also what is the condition of those. And then Colin is the system that we use to capture every single project that we've done bond work at. Um so we're able to see where investments have been made in the past um and ensure that we're not duplicating efforts or that we're not going to be um providing projects that might be um conflicting with each

029other. When you look at that facilities website that I mentioned, all of that data is pulled from the Colin database. So in terms of next steps I just wanted to give an overview of when we talk about the program development process what does that mean? So you'll see uh the needs assessment essentially what we need are going to be doing is using the data analysis and then what is the criteria and goals of each of those categories. So, when I talk about let's say there's a um a category for seismic modernizations, we're going to be looking at what is the criteria to determine what's most seismically vulnerable and how do we accomplish that goal. And then we're going to come to the board with a prioritization methodology of what sites and projects we would be

030doing. Once we've completed that, then we have to determine two things. How are we implementing that project? That goes to are we going to execute it by our own in-house labor if it's a small enough project or what type of contracts can we use and what is the marketplace condition for our contracting community to absorb that work and then we also have to do the scope development and budgeting. So we go to each site, we come up with what is the scope, the schedule and the budget and that's what's presented to the board so that you understand what you're approving in terms of the funding required and that when we bring the project definition proposals to the board. So I'll give you just two different um examples. When we bring the secure systems which highlight

031every middle school and high school, that is a very known uh scope of work. We're going to be adding a camera and a buzzer at every entrance way. We know what the cost of those are more or less. We've already done them at Elfy Elementary School. There's not a lot of unknown conditions to those. So, we'll be bringing them all at once. They're going to be implemented by M because the scale is relatively small. It's about 50,000 per project. And if we don't have the capacity with our own M in um in-house labor, we can supplement that by A or B letter or jocks to be able to do that work. On the other side of the scale, we have our seismic uh modernizations, which are our largest projects. Those we do not know what

032the size of the projects are at each individual school site. It will depend on each campus. It's not a one-sizefits-all like the uh buzzer systems. So then we have to work with the principal at the school, determine the phasing, determine the capacity, determine what the seismic retrofits are, whether we can demolish or retrofit. those are done um at each school site and we'll be bringing each of those projects individually. We also know that our contracting community is limited in in terms of taking on um projects at this time. So, we have to sparse those out um so that we make sure that we get competitive bids from our contractors and subcontractors. So in summary, Measure US allows us to continue to do the existing efforts to update and modernize our aging and deteriorating school facilities.

033Approximately 65% of measure US programs, those are those gray buckets are existing and the other ones, the yellow ones are new. And each program is designed to address specific areas of need and meet certain goals that align with the board's adopted uh priorities. And then the physical conditions and needs must drive prioritization. And when we can include other geographic distribution or enrollment um we consider those when all other things are considered equal. Okay, that was a lot to cover. So I'm uh happy to take any questions you might have. This is quite an undertaking. You make it seem very simple, but it's not. I know there's so many factors and elements and dynamics and and staffing. There's so much that goes into it, but uh thank you for um explaining it as as you know

034as as quickly as or you know um bringing a quick synopsis of um what it what it takes to modernize and use these measure US uh funds um efficiently and effectively. So now I will open the um the floor for any questions from our board members. Mr. Smelson, you want to start it off? I would love to. Yes. So on slide 12, can you tell me exactly what exactly are partnerfunded projects? Who's the partner? Sure. Let me um give you an example of that. We um I think the board just approved a partner funded project where we received um state funds from an assembly member who was able to get grant funds to do a playground equipment. They provided approximately I might not have this number right but I think it was something like up

035to $500,000 for playground equipment and matting. There were some they provided us with those funds um and then we completed the other components of the project in order to realize um this playground improvement project. So, it's typically when a partner provides capital to the district um and then we are able to undertake the entirety of the of the project. Got that. Thank you. Let me just ask you um due to the ongoing situation with the federal government's uncertainty regarding tariffs and all those other good things. Uh are we monitoring changes in price for material and potentially for labor? And what what things what we may have to reconsider? uh due to these issues. Thank you. Yes, that's something very much um on everyone's mind when you talk to um anyone involved in construction. So what

036um we know as of now is that we expect there to be more significant cost inflation um due to the tariffs even though the condition with tariffs seems to change on a weekly um basis but especially with so many of our products um coming from abroad. We've already heard from contractors um that there may be uh cost escalation and delays to getting that um equipment. Um we also know that there's a potential limitation of construction workforce in the region that's compounded with the fires and the amount of construction that's going to be happening to rebuild over the next couple of years. Also with the um immigration and constraints that are being placed around that label workforce, we also might see impacts as well. Um so we are now revisiting what our cost escalation is and

037um putting in a higher cost escalation. We're being very conservative about the program reserve that we are holding for our bond program. Typically, you want to keep a reserve around 10 to 15% of your overall program total. Um, we are definitely keeping that because um, we have never had to cancel a project due to lack of funding that the board has already approved. We want to keep the integrity of that program. We don't want to have to go to communities where we've already worked with them to explain that we're doing a project and say that because of budget shortfalls, we now have to cancel that project. That was something that happened very earlier in the bond program. Um, but we have now processes in place where we're able to manage our reserve very effectively um

038to make sure that we're not in that condition and only approve what we're able to actually construct. I know that cancellation is really a a harsh thing, but if you see drastic price changes, really drastic price changes, maybe is a delay possible in certain projects, do you think? Um, no. Right at this point in time, we're not looking at delaying any project that has already been approved by the board. Um what we are doing is we're working very closely with our contracting community. In fact, um myself, my deputy and head of construction have a meeting with the association of general contractors tomorrow to explain what we're doing so that we can make sure we're the best owners of choice and also hear from them as to what we're hearing. Um, we are going to have

039to be very thoughtful about the amount of projects we put out on the street. Make sure that there's a good participation, especially from our subcontractors, our electrical, HVAC, um, so that we are getting competitive prices, but we do know that prices are probably going to escalate and we've already seen 30% escalation over the last several years, and unfortunately, we don't see that changing. So, thank you for those uh answers and uh I'll save a question so everyone else is finished. And I'll just add it's not a in a delay in an existing project. What we will generally do is manage for outyear planned uh projects that we intend to bring to the board. Sometimes we may delay that based off availability of contractors just so that we manage those dollars effectively. We are um just

040to add as well, we are looking at uh when I talk about implementation strategy um what we're seeing is that some of our procurement strategies that put more risk on our um contractors such as design build um are maybe not as favorable right now because they do have to place um kind of an assumption of what things are going to cost in two to three years. And that's very hard for them to determine at this time. over to my left. Any board members? Um, thank you so much, Miss Tes, for the presentation and the overview and um agree with Dr. Rivas. It's a it's a huge undertaking the the bond program and largest school construction and facilities program in the country and um appreciate very much all of your work. Um, I think it's also

041good that we started with the unmet needs piece because the reality is we could probably spend the entire 4.9 billion on any number of like any single category and it would be um a very justifiable thing to do and yet we have to make um these hard decisions. I was hoping uh you might speak about equity factors in more detail and how um because I I would imagine that in a number of these categories we are in a place where there are poor conditions throughout the school district and how are we considering um investments in our highest need schools and and putting a greater weight on those especially given increasing costs and and limited ability to do projects. Thanks. So we look at equity factors in certain categories of the uh bond program. So I'll

042speak to a couple of them as just highlights. So when we look at things like um the greening one that I mentioned before um we could take a very um datadriven approach of just looking at schools that have less than 10% greening. As I mentioned, we have a very detailed now assessment that captures the percentage of playground space versus uh the percentage of playground space that is not green versus green. Um and we have a detailed assessment and percentage of each of those. Um we factored on other criteria so that we could address equity knowing that some communities are more impacted by climate change than others. And so that's an example of looking at beyond just the equity of uh addressing the greatest need for greening of also looking at socioeconomic and climate resiliency. Um

043so those you'll see are prioritized. Some schools that may have a little less or a little more greening actually appear higher on that because they're in communities that are more impacted um by climate change which also factors in Cal Envirro health issues adjacency to parks um increased um consequences of heat in that area um pollution in that area that will only get worse as climate change um continues. So those are factors of equity as well. When we look at um the other issues of portable replacements, we're looking at not only the issue of percentage of portables to classrooms, but we wanted to address middle schools. Um we know that we've invested money in our elementary schools predominantly for greening. So most of our elementary schools or a lot of them are seeing upgrades. A lot

044of our high schools receive seismic upgrades through the comp mods and major mods. We know that our middle schools are typically where we lose enrollment in the district after elementary schools. We looked at a regional equitable distribution of middle schools that had the highest enrollment of students knowing that these projects are much higher in value and that we wanted to target kind of the biggest impact to the most students. So that was another one where we were able to look at a geographic equitable distribution rather than just using facilities data. So it really depends on what we're trying to solve for. When we invested in wellness clinics, we used criteria that really had nothing to do with facilities and was really driven by where were there communities that had um very little access to health

045and where were there opportunities for us to have partners who were able to utilize those clinics. um and we made investments targeted at those kinds of criteria and not looked at facilities data at all other than did the site have room for a clinic. So it really depends on what is that we're trying to solve for. There are other items like um HVAC where we don't look at H um at equity issues. We're just looking at is this a school where the HVAC is, as I described in my presentation, is now broken, where the amount of expense to continue to repair it is really not effective and actually unfeasible. And so that students are impacted sitting in hot um spaces or they have to be relocated or there's a real operational impact at that school

046because of a broken system. And then we target those dollars at fixing that critical repair. knowing that safety and um uh implications to the operation of the school is kind of our our highest urgency. Makes sense. And um I appreciate the nuanced approach of considering a variety of factors depending on what we're trying to achieve in a particular program. I wonder for the new because it's noted that 65% of the programs are existing, 35% then are new. um how are we thinking about the applicability of those equity factors um to those new programs. One I might note I know it's a small amount is the new library line item which was something that I push for investment in our school libraries. We know that well what I have observed in my district is there's need

047for investment in our libraries in general but um there is probably an overriding need to invest in our highest need schools in their libraries um more so than in more affluent communities. Um can you just speak to the initial thinking of applying those equity factors to the newer programs? Um that's a great point. So libraries is a TBD as you saw in my chart. That is a prioritization methodology that we haven't yet determined because we're getting input from our school sites from library services. But I think there is an opportunity to layer in that kind of equity standpoint if we can understand from schools or if there's other data that the district has about kids access to libraries or where there's the greatest need for reading um looking working closely with unstruction so that there

048may be a tie-in. Again, that might be not data that facilities has in terms of our facilities condition, but I'm sure that there's good data outside of facilities that we could use to make sure that we're using those dollars for the greatest impact, which is not just to paint walls, but also make sure that kids have access to reading. Just to affirm, I think that's a perfect opportunity, new program, new way of looking at kind of the application of equity based uh reallocation of resources. And so, you know, that'll be something that we take back. I think we we're leveraging our early literacy conversations, our priority school uh investments and thinking about how do we emerge strategy there. Um and then layering on the investments that we are making in textbooks and more recently we

049made a significant investment in kind of restocking many of our libraries. And so we want to make sure that they're restocked on quality shelves and in uh you know pleasant spaces that students can you know really kind of leverage their their time and reading and um taking opportunity within a library. Um but know that that's something that the team always does. I I know from personal experience on working on the wellness blueprint. Um we looked more broadly beyond just access to um medical services. We actually looked at the condition of our students. you know, number of students with asthma, number of students that were showing, you know, preconditions for diabetes or diabetes in the community. Um, and so know that that's kind of how we approach each project. Um, it takes time and but that'll

050be something that we bring back to the board. Good to know. Kelly, just let me add one thing. You're talking about elementary libraries, too. I I Yeah. Well, yes, I am. Well, let me tell you that I don't care how much you stock the libraries. if you still allow principles to close the elementary school library. I don't care how many books you put in there, that's a bad idea. So, I just wanted to add on to your comment. I'm with you on that one. Um, and I I agree that our facilities investments can align and accelerate um student learning and and where we can do that, that makes a lot of sense. I also in terms of the newer programs like the elementary um EEC and sped shade shelters also ring as one where an

051equity based investment makes a lot of sense. I think in general a lot of schools lack shade on their playgrounds but we know that extreme heat is not equally distributed throughout the school district. It is deeply aligned with our highest needs communities. Um so I would just I know we have a strong track record but I would just advocate that we would put that top of mind as much as possible. Um, and then since you mentioned HBAC, that's um that's another area of of focus for me. You know, in the fall when we saw um the the heat waves um at the start of the school year, there were I think like really systemwide breakdowns at least in in the valley in response to the extreme heat. Um recognizing that I think the number is

05250,000 units that need replacing. um how are we accelerating that body of work in recognition of everinccreasing days of extreme heat especially in particular neighborhoods in our school district. Um so we were tasked by the superintendent to look at how we can accelerate uh climate and disaster resiliency in 2025. We are bringing a number of projects forward um to address things like air conditioning um and other climate kind of hardening uh type of projects also greening as well. Um we aren't going to be able to solve all of our HVAC um replacements that are needed. Um but we are working very quickly to identify projects, continue to bring them to the board. We've made a lot of investments in HVAC and need to continue to do that. Um though it is not, you know, the

053ideal, we do have now um in a very large inventory of mobile HVAC units that we put in classrooms when they're not. We're very quick to move classrooms into other classrooms um and bring contractors in when repairs are needed. But to your point, we need to make sure that we're making the investments in the infrastructure because those are really a band-aid and they have operational impacts to our school that we know are not ideal and our um we're not able to get to entirely solve the problem because of the not having sufficient funding because of the labor not having the labor force as etc. Um, no. I think it's it's one if I, you know, go to the first slide that just talks about our overall need. When we look at Oh, let me get

054to that slide. So, when we look at um the total inventory of HVAC units that we have districtwide, we have 80,000. when we look at um how many are past their useful life, we have 50,000. So, like you were saying, we could probably, you know, spend a majority of these funds just replacing HVAC, but then we wouldn't get to the roofs that need to be done, the seismic that needs to be done, the greening that needs to be done. So, they're really tough choices. Um we're looking at again addressing kind of the worst in each of these categories. And then you know what um to me is hopeful is that our bond program is over 20 years. If you look at the progress of where we started, we've made very very solid um improvements and

055differences. We know that hopefully this is not the last bond and that we'll be able to continue the good work if we pass another bond that allows us to continue to go down that line. So, um, like I use the example of just something as simple as secure entryways, buzzers, and cameras at every elementary school. We made the decision to start with our youngest students first. Um, and now we're going to be able with Measure US to take that to all of our middle schools and high schools. Similar, we're going to try to address the worst air conditioning. Um, when we pass another bond, we'll be able to get to the next worst air conditioning. But yes, we could easily spend um much more than what's allocated for just air conditioning. I have more, but

056I'll I'll hold them until later. Over to my This is my right. Any questions on my right? Go ahead. Thank you, Miss Tes. Um just a few clarifying questions. Um one, regional kitchens, just defining what that is. Sure. Um that was working with food services to identify one regional kitchen and where food would be prepared and then distributed to schools um rather than how they prepare um food now at school sites. We're working with food services to identify kind of what their operational model is and then we would determine what is the requirements for that regional kitchen. So it would be four kitchens are what we're talking about. Just one just one regional kitchen. Just one large regional kitchen that would distribute throughout the district. Yes. And I think food services is working to determine

057how that model would work. The intention is as we're looking at uh opportunity. It may be regional and then we may start with one kitchen to kind of begin the operations but the intent is to kind of shift away from you know product being delivered to a place like the Newman Center which is also needed um where it's more product that comes in and it gets repackaged to be sent to schools. Here you're actually producing cooking and making more scratchbased product for our schools higher quality. it's an opportunity to actually own a lot of that process as well as be able to distribute in a more efficient manner. Um, we know that for for the most part the district needs to shift there. Um, we know that also there's probably an opportunity to think about

058a regional model. That's why it's noted that way. As of right now, what's in this bond is dollars that are sufficient enough to build one of the reg regional uh kitchens. And so the location for this would be where? Has not been determined. Yes, sir. Yeah. And in detail, I know you you mentioned the need. So can you give a little bit more background where the where the premise came for as this is a need to move in that direction? When you look at just overall quality product in in the district, we know that we have shifted away from kind of the scratch kitchenbased cafeterias in our schools. Um, currently our Newman Center supports 180 sites where we pre-prepare product and then deliver. We think that with a regional kitchen, you can actually scale up

059food production, scratch, you know, based uh uh cooking. uh that allows us to actually do that in-house as a district and deliver it to more sites in in the school district. Um we have a preliminary report that kind of looks at what are different opportunities. I said some some districts have taken a central kitchen approach, others have taken a kind of regionalbased kitchen approach. Um it may be a tweener as we look at what facilities are available to us. What property do we have inhouse to repurpose for the purposes of building a central kitchen? That's all part of kind of the needs assessment. When you look at that kind of sequence that Christina talked about, when we're looking at initial needs assessment and then going into kind of the scoping phase, we have to do

060that needs assessment first. And so the report for that, is that available for us to review? It's it it'll be available soon. It's actually part of the ongoing work product that we've been doing as a district whether we're looking at construction, transportation, other efficiencies in our systems and so that should be finalized fairly soon. Thank you. Um the other question was um you mentioned some of the schools that are in the 60s and the 70s and the fault line. Now, are those schools prioritized that are along that fault line that are built 60s and 70s to receive those upgrades as we don't know when that day is coming? Yeah. So um we will be uh looking to bring a presentation probably to the board uh with our structural engineer in the fall to share with

061you um this nuanced and complicated data. Seismic evaluation is um something that is uh best done by structural engineers. um and I think they would be good to explain. Basically, every opportunity um every earthquake provides an opportunity to learn more about structures. We also have received new information from the state about a specific type of structure called a lift slab structure um that may pose more vulnerabilities than the district um and basically the state were aware of. We've done our due diligence of where those structures in um are in the district. Um, we're looking at basically more details as to what those structures may pose in terms of vulnerabilities to safety. Um, and we plan to once that report is done make a presentation to the board that will explain that type of information of

062how do we determine and calculate vulnerability, what is, you know, the risk and then where are the locations of these structures throughout the district. So, that information is forthcoming. Thank you. And to Scott's point where we talk about um obviously these structures once this report is reviewed, would that mean that some of our funding would have to shift if this would become a priority higher than some of the other needs that we do have? No, we're looking at, you know, again to um Miss Gonz's point, we could spend probably any money, all of our money on any of these categories. So, we did allocate $2.8 billion, which is the largest amount um in all of our categories to replacing, modernizing buildings for seismic safety. Um these projects, we allocated that amount because they also tend

063to be the most expensive because you're looking at removing if we can if they're not historic. Um what we found is to be most cost-effective is to demolish buildings and then replace what the school needs. Um, so that's why we're the that amount is so significant because we're not looking at just doing um a greening or a secure entrance or a um uh one classroom addition project. We yet don't know what sites we're going to target. Obviously, we'd be looking at prioritizing where there's the most vulnerability at our campuses. Um we anticipate that we would get to approximately 20 of those campuses. Um and again we've had over the course of the last 25 years made improvements um in regards to seismic safety. We have a number of um buildings that we're addressing with comp

064mods and major modernizations of making our buildings more seismically strong. Um we also addressed um a type of structure called tiltup structures that were deemed to be um not seismically uh or had some seismic vulnerability. Those have since all been addressed. So like all of these categories, we look to address kind of the highest and worst first and then make progress. There's no one category that we'll be able to address all of them that are as significant as seismic safety. We do try to address those in the smaller programs like buzzers or other types of programs that we can complete with a smaller investment. Got it. Thank you. And then the last question I had when you mentioned the partners um my question was how what is the process for us for partners and is

065there a team that is looking for partnerships to help subsidize some of the cost for our projects? That's a great question. So we have different types of programs where we have partners invested. The most common one is regarding greening. Um we have um a number of partners that have worked with the district on seeds projects where they will do a let's say a day of greening or provide instruction um do volunteer work with our schools and we make the sites essentially garden ready for them or greening ready for them. Um and so those partners are something that have worked with the district for many years. Um we have other ones that kind of just come and fall into the district's lap like the Iavine and Young um school. They brought that partnership to us. There

066was a uh facilities investment that they made. There was um to make upgrades to that school as well as the instructional one as well. Um there is a team that facilities has that is always looking at where there's opportunities to both get grants to subsidize or supplement existing projects. the board has already approved and where there may be new opportunities. And then there's grants that come to us from instructional or wellness that then we use facilities dollars to supplement as well. Thank you. Hey, moving to my left. Yes, Miss Greg. Hi, Christina. Thank you for that report. I always find it so exciting and overwhelming and hopeful and then like, oh man, it's going to be a long time before we see these benefits. But I always love to hear your reports. Um, regarding the

067HVAC, um, is there a schedule for regular maintenance of the HVAC units right now? And is there a way that we can um, do it before August, September, October? Because that's when they all break down. Yes. So, is there regular maintenance? Do we have enough people working on those? Because I heard that in the valley about two years ago, I worked in the valley and our and our system went out and the person who came and worked, he said there were only 10 people doing the work for like the whole valley east area. It seems like not enough because you know of the overwhelming number of HVACs going down. So Sure. So we do um you know we we talk in facilities especially maintenance and operations that we have we used to call it two

068seasons you know heat and then rain and unfortunately now we have fire um but we do um in preparation for the heat events that typically are in place during the start of school before school um ends. So we'll be doing that um probably in the next month or so. We check all of the HVAC systems um while we before folks go on break and then we check them do maintenance over the summer and then we check them again once principles are back um and we turn on all of our systems to make sure they're working um and we spend a good part of resources over the summer maintaining our HVAC's. What we tend to find out and what we learned um every time there is a heat wave is that those systems may be good

069on day one, day two, day three, but like the heat events that we had over the last August, when you're into day five, those systems are beginning to really experience degradation in terms of what they're able to provide. So they don't might not necessarily completely give out, but where they had been able to cool at, let's say, 72 at 72 degrees, you know, they're now only able to get to 76° or 78° because of just their deteriorating in the ability to cool. Their fan coils are wearing out, their systems are wearing out. We do provide and I wanted to assure you that when we have these heat events, we not only have a all hands- on deck for our M who deal with HVAC, but we also have bench contracts that we then utilize so

070that we bring in all of our bench contractors as well who can supplement our forces to deal with HVAC. So there's never should be a condition where, you know, it's just 10 people dealing with a large region. Yeah. And then um let's see here. The other thing is can bond money be used for repairs or be and the reason why I ask is because um I'm sure you all heard that the elevator at E Rock High School went out a year or two ago, right? And it really became um an issue of accessibility for the families there and it was out for quite a few weeks if not months. And I heard that it was that it could not be replaced because it wasn't covered by bond money. This bond had not passed at that

071time. But I'm I'm just worried that the elevator might go out again because it's so old and then it's going to take a while for us to get a replacement and it's going to be months again for people to not have access to the second and third floor building. particularly parents, right, who may need uh to use an elevator uh to go and talk to their kids' teacher or something. So, how can we how can we um uh foresee some of these things and and act ahead of time? Sure. To prevent those things from So, um we cannot use bond dollars on repairs. That's part of the statutes around bond is just as it can't be used for instructional salaries, it can't be used um on repairs, it has to be used for capital replacement.

072So, we can um not use bond dollars to replace a component of the the elevator, but we can use bond dollars to replace the elevator. I I'm trying to recall the specifics of Eagle Rock High School and the elevator there. I think there was a technology um issue with the systems of that elevator. But regardless, we should never have a situation where there isn't accessibility provided, especially if there's people on that campus who need that elevator. Um that should be elevated to this by the plant manager to the CPM with a service call that should be designated as critical. Um, and so I'll look into this issue one, make sure that it's resolved into how we can make sure that when there is an issue like that, it res it gets to what we call

073a critical service repair. Typically, that means we have 24 hours to address it. It's for things like broken um, uh, you know, pipes or flooding bathrooms, but in the case of there not being a way for a student or staff to get to a classroom, that should be critical as well. So, we'll look into that. Thank you so much. And you might want to speak just briefly to especially for elevators, they go through annual certification and sign off. Yeah. So, we do have um on top of the the funding that we have for repairs um is to address not only service calls, but there are a number of things that we have to do routine inspections for. So, all of our fire sprinkler systems, actually, every fire extinguisher has to have an expiration date that's

074checked. Our elevators also have to be annually inspected as well. Um, so unfortunately it sounds like that inspection did not catch that there was then this issue. So we'll again look into that but be assured that all elevators are inspected for safety regarding technology. Um, so I I see that there's uh infrastructure upgrades. I'm wondering is it can bond money be used for us to give our families and our like people in the vicinity of the school sites accessibility to to Wi-Fi to internet access. Um I know that's a huge need right now in in our communities for our families who they no longer have access to hotspots. They can't afford it and yet we're expecting them to use um their their devices at home to access curriculum. So, how can we make that accessible?

075How can we use this bond money and opportunity to give this to our families? So, I would need to defer to it on that question. Um, they have a separate bond account. I know this question came up in in COVID. I'm not sure what information there maybe. Yeah. When when it comes to the utilization of bond dollars, it's pretty limited in being able to directly invest in capital that ends up in the hands of families. But one of the things that we are looking at in partnership with the city and county has been to kind of open up the amplification of our our I would say internet and our broadband. Um, in particular areas, we've actually partnered with third parties to either bring on their equipment to provide communitywide access to Wi-Fi and and connectivity.

076Um, there has been an exploration with the city uh to see if there's a way to actually open up our I would say network for access. There are limitations because sometimes limits how we can utilize that equipment. So most of our network investments are either funded through general fund and bond and then reimbursed by the federal government under FCC to actually uh support that. So when we're talking about the initial investments, it's more about hardware at the school site. After that maintenance, update uh upgrading our ongoing needs from a network perspective. that's all general fund derived and then also supplemented by -ay. Um so it's not so much a bond question. It's more of a question can the district explore that? Yes, we can. Um we have to consider what the implications are from a

077you know security standpoint and what what is the range in which we would do something like that. But we have proof points where we've done it before. Um we've also explored the idea of at points especially during uh the community school parks initiatives you know how do you actually incorporate uh some of the connectivity so that the community can if they're using it as a park they can also connect to to the Wi-Fi there. Um so there there's definitely opportunities there. All right. Thank you. So not a bond issue but something that we we need to deal with. And then this may not be a bond issue, but I'm wondering as we are making these modernizations, is there consideration for o for for making our schools so that they become open spaces so again for

078our students in the community can come and use the school on a weekend or um after school? Are we thinking in that manner? So we have two ways of um addressing that. The first is um we're required to make all of our schools available to the community through civic center permit. Um so we have a civic center permit office. Um entities can make requests to use our facilities for AYSO for um dance classes. Um all of our communities need to be accessible per California statute under the Civic Center permit act. Um and then we have the partnership with the city of LA to do uh community school parks. This is where we make our parks available uh for the city's wreck and parks to utilize for parks during non-school hours. Um we have a couple

079of campuses that we have that they're currently operating as community school parks with the intent that they are looking to um expand that program to other campuses as well. So, those are really the two main ways that we make our campuses accessible to the community during non-school hours, right? Um, let me see. I think that's that's it for right now. Thanks. Thank you. Yes. Thank you for bringing up um the community school parts because it is an initiative that we've been working with our city council members and and our city to help us with that because there's so you know we need funding programming um supervision. So there's a lot. So we are looking to expand to more schools to open up in in during um on the weekends and looking in also into the

080summer. So that's something that we're the district and we're definitely exploring and having conversations with our city council members. So now I'm going move to my right. Mr. Mvoy, thank you. Yes. And good plug. There's more I think um Greg community school parks are also like some of the internet stuff where the district has of our own accord and to serve our constituencies gone, you know, beyond kind of the scope of what our jurisdiction is, whether that's to open the schools as parks or to provide internet. And one of the things we've done whether that was through -ate or now in kind of haggling with the city or the county is just to get reimbursed because you know there was there's legal questions I guess about whether we can use bond dollars but then there's

081also I wouldn't say it's more moral but the policy question about a dollar we're spending on internet is dollar we're spending not on classroom instruction and it's one of those things like you know our stance with the city has been we're going to save you billions of dollars as a park poor city by opening our schools if you just help us pay for the wear and tear and that's much easier said than done. But um I'm glad that we're raising these questions and like Dr. Reeba said, we're having conversations with the elected leadership of the city and the county to try to break the log jam that the bureaucracies have been holding up. Um thank you, Miss Toes. I have more time um with you this afternoon for our facilities and procurement committee, but just

082a few points. You know, one I want to want to say and give credit to the folks on the district's end and others. I was this morning at Pali High's temporary location to welcome students back this morning in Santa Monica. It was very exciting. It was the first time that community was together since December and really I mean a lot of tears of joy as students and staff. It's also a remarkable project that once that lease was signed, it took about four weeks um to get 90 classrooms built temporarily in an old Sears department store. And when I was with the lead architect um actually the head of Gendler's education practice, Gendler, a partner of the district at Times, she said they basically did in one day three weeks of work. Every day they did

083three weeks of work. They did 5 am to 9 pm. Um, and it was really remarkable and everyone deserves credit, but it also and I was talking with um with Kelly, their their head uh um of their education practice about what are the lessons that we can take from this because um yes, this is a crisis of the fires, but we're in multiple crises, whether that's around affordability, around homelessness, or as Miss Gonz was saying, the climate crisis. And so when we are approving greening projects or shade structures and it's going to take four years um you know it's uh and then so in the elementary context a lot of those students won't avail themselves of any of the benefit of that you know that's a crisis that's works fixing too. So I hope and

084and I just to preview kind of some of our meeting this afternoon with the MGT study and others we're looking at how do we expedite projects? How do we stretch our our limited dollars farther? Um but it was just it was a remarkable turnaround of that school welcoming kids back four to five weeks 90 classrooms. It's also um a sign of what's possible when we are a little less reasonable I guess with what we should expect um and in a preview for those who want to join us later um 3:00 uh for the FMP committee that will discuss that stud the comparative study um which also addresses some of the things that you touched on which is like our un our limited contracting universe and and other ways that we can try to get more

085done because in addition to our incredible bond program we also have the Olympics we have the palace stage rebuild. We have the Altadena Pasadena rebuild. We have the World Cup. And so there's going to be limited contractors. We know that with tariffs, supply costs are going up. So anything that we can do to expedite projects and so that we're going to be talking about that later this afternoon. I guess my few questions. One, you mentioned the um the dashboard, but I know prior I think it was to the cyber attack, but um all that the bond program expenditures were up on open data, which is also part of that board resolution, and I'm curious when that will be back up. And also where does this is the bond program but like the cops the elop

086like is there a umbrella facilities like all dollars go into facilities like that's available to the public in one spot. Let me um check to see if we've incorporated the elop or cops funded facilities projects in our dashboard. I want to say that there were some projects that we did. Um, but let me get back to you and if not, I don't see why we couldn't include them. I expect that the cops will be incorporated especially with the recent defecence because it's now bond supported. Um, but from an ELOP perspective that that's something we can follow up on. We can do that. Yeah. Yeah, and I would love to know. I mean, I know there were um IT challenges post attack cyber attack, but it would be great and again per that resolution to get

087this stuff a back up on open data um the bond spending reports as well. And then I guess my a lot of my colleagues asked their questions. I mean um if there are um I don't necessarily know that I would call them out well I'd say outliers if like we've discussed some of this but like you know in one of my the schools that I recently picked up in redistricting Newcastle elementary is one of the few schools in the entire district that doesn't have a um shared space with HVAC you know so they don't have an NPR or a cafeteria or an auditorium and so on hot days in the valley which are getting more common um they have no indoor plays you can do inclement weather in classrooms, but if they want to be

088all together and I think there are only a handful of those. Similarly, I have one elementary school that doesn't have any kindergarten or TK play structure and it's probably maybe there's only a handful, but if the board was interested in kind of correcting those outliers or saying, you know, not a new bucket necessarily, but like, okay, we've got four or five elementary schools that don't have any TK or K play structure. We want to remedy that. What is the way that we would do I know in our my tenure there have been resolutions broader on athletics, but is there a process by which we could identify those again outlier type categories and then see if the board has an interest in remedying them. Um so I think it depends on on what the outlier is.

089When you mention uh that there are schools that don't have any playground apparatus, what comes to my mind is we do have funding for UTK upgrades. that is kind of a standard that every school have at least one playground apparatus. So, we can follow up after the meeting and you can let me know. I I'm aware of only very few handful, probably under five that have no apparatus because they just have very challenging playground spaces um that are tiered or on a slope. But otherwise, that would be an opportunity to ensure that there is a playground apparatus, especially if there's only, you know, such a small number. not like we would need to take all $70 million to provide playground apparatus. So that's that to me would would seem to be um viable under that

090category of UTK upgrades because that is a standard for every school to have a play at least one playground apparatus. Um in regards to your question about schools that the elementary school MP does not have air conditioning, you know, that is a discussion that we are looking at internally. We know that there are um a few schools that have no air conditioning in their MPR. Um but putting new air conditioning in an MPR is not a cheap endeavor. Um especially because they're somewhat large spaces. They need so much large um units to be able to air condition in that large space. And then we have to Miss Gonza's point, you know, a number of existing air conditioning um units in classrooms that are broken and need to be replaced. So we'll look at that balancing

091act of are we prioritizing um classroom space that has failed air conditioning? Should we also look at um NPRs of elementary schools understanding that during a heat event kids should not be out at you know lunch or recess and need to be in one space and they may not be able to use their classrooms. So there's an operational aspect that we need to consider as well. So long story short, we haven't tracked that net. We will be looking at kind of what the cost implications are and we'll bring a recommendation to the board. Right. And we can talk talk offline too about the school the elementary school piece and try to figure those out. Um okay I think that's it for me. Thanks Dr. Just to piggyback on the apparatus conversation. Um, for the ones

092that you mentioned that don't have an apparatus, are you looking into um installing apparatuses or apparat um that have shade already be already installed with the apparatus so we don't have to get a separate shade for them? That's a great question. So when we um when we do a project where we're putting in a new apparatus, so that would be part of like a comprehensive modernization or a classroom replacement, we do include shade as part of that project. We try to include greening and shade as any part of a larger project so that we can undertake that and save money for um campuses that let's say don't have a larger project to do separate in shade. So we do that when we do a new apparatus as part of a larger project. Um we're not

093aware and I think as I mentioned we are aware of only a handful of schools that may not have apparatus. Um when we would bring those we would look at how we could also include shade in those. We also have a number of board funded or regional funded projects um that uh are to add let's say apparatus or expand apparatus. In that case, we look at the client who's funding that and we ask them if they want to spend the amount to include that shade shelter or not. Sometimes those funds are limited and they want to focus on just the apparatus to extend dollars for more schools or they choose to include that shade component um so that they provide shade at that school. And for schools that do have an apparatus but without any

094shade, how will be able to address that? So, that's going to be part of that um number seven on the slide there, that $50 million. Um we know that we're not going to be able to get to every school. We have about 500 elementary schools and only 50 million. But again, we're going to make a start, right? Um and we'll be able to identify kind of where the worst conditions are, look at providing shades at those schools, and hopefully when we pass another bond, we'll be able to continue down the line until all of our shade um all of our apparatus have a shade structure. I will get a list of those schools prior to that. Yes. Great. Thank you. So, I'll move over Miss Miss Franklin if you have any questions. Thanks. Super briefly.

095Um, appreciate all the teams work on this. Um, I had a quick question about schools who want to fund a quick project at their school. Are they allowed to use anything like SENI or um any like general fund for projects for for facilities projects? Um so we we do yes um schools can use their own funds for small type of projects. Those are called uh school requested projects. Um and then we essentially create a job ticket for them. Um and then they can either choose once they have the estimate to fund that project with their school funds or not. They tend to be smaller in scale. Um, so examples are like building a trophy case at a high school or putting in a new school emblem or providing some type of mural. Those could be

096school funded because they don't fall under the eligibility of being bond funded and they don't fall under the rubric of being a repair that repair funds would be um eligible for. I was I was going to add just the general fund nature. It's a lot more flexible with Senny. You know, schools have to have a very clear plan for how they're spending their dollars to address an equity need at the school site. So, think about a mural that tells a story of a community kind of history, an artsbased, you know, effort. You can do it that way, but that comes with some strings attached in terms of tying it to, you know, targeted student population needs at the school site. That makes sense. And and I want to appreciate the comments about equity that have

097already been raised. Um two programs that uh raised a flag for me are the um seeds and the partner matching. Um these are great, but it's about my my prediction is that schools that have more access or relationships are able to actually implement these kinds of programs. And so, um, I think the ask is like where there is maybe a der of these kinds of connections that like the district kind of step in to help make some of those relationships so that we can, um, spread the love to schools who might be too stressed to find a partner or no one's in their neighborhood knocking on their door saying, "Let me give you a couple million dollars for a project." Um, so I see lots of nodding head. Thanks for that. Um, and then my

098last point, and and I know this is because of previous board members who have like raised issues um that are important to them and their community. I know the athletics project came from community members. I know the kitchen came from community and from board members. I'd love for us to to keep considering maybe for the next bond request. Um, arts facilities. we are are putting lots of money into um you know these these big uh facilities that uh kids get to shine on in in terms of like athletics or um uh even I think the kitchen project is a really good one. Um but we have you know all this money for personnel as it relates to the arts and some of our projects but I'm hearing from some of my schools that we don't

099have the space to perform um or to show off any of our visual and performing arts skills. So uh I don't know if it's included in this one. I feel like not exactly. I know we were talking about it at some point here. Um, but maybe this is for the the next voter project, a big uh push for arts facilities. Thanks. Yes, thank you for bringing that up. Very good points. Any lingering questions, Miss Gel? Yes, regarding the seeds um grant, I know we give $100,000, right, to support the seeds projects. Are we looking to increasing that amount since cost is going up? Yes. Yeah. So on seeds, um the grant probably um I use that word incorrectly. The district undertakes $100,000 of infrastructure upgrades. So that's not money that we give to the school,

100but we undertake a project at that school that has basically made a request for a seeds project. We um help them with the design, work with whatever partners they have, make sure that there is a in instructional kind of component. Um and then once we've had the location, we've done the testing, then we execute the work that allows that greening project to come to fruition. Um in regards to cost, we are seeing that there is escalation of costs. Um we also know that there is some uh restrictions around us using our in-house forces to do this work. Um so we have looked at different contract mechanisms. We do anticipate that there may be some increases to cost, but there also may be an opportunity to expedite some of the projects in a more quicker nature

101than we've been able to do because of our limitations of in-house labor. Um so we're looking at that very quickly. We should be able to have more information to the board shortly. But yes, all of our costs are going up. Um, not only for our outside contractors, but we know with the salary increases that we were able to give our in-house folks, also those costs for in-house work is also increased. So, we need to kind of dance a fine line of making sure that we don't trigger a full ADA upgrade with TSA. Um but also recognizing that the costs that we had 10 years ago established are not the same costes today. Mrs. Go ahead. I saved my last question for for the end of the questioning period because I've been asking the same question

102now it makes four five n 10 years the same question. The same question and you're wondering what is that question? Okay, Mr. Melvoy mentioned outliers. So, I have some outliers in my district. I have some schools, not many. I have some schools that are so popular, so popular they have a waiting list and they have no room. So, it's gotten to the point in our schools that are have this giant waiting a giant waiting list that uh the PSA, the PSW, and any other person like that all share the same room. Everybody can hear what everybody's saying. There's no privacy. There's no there's only one room. There's no parent center anymore because there's no room. There's just no room. So in this whole present and I'm not blaming you of course you know that I

103would never blame you but I'm telling you now in this whole presentation I have not seen the idea that a school could request a couple of portables in order to improve enrollment and and my big three things are enrollment safety and achievement but without enrollment you're not going to have any more schools. So, let's face it, we need enrollment. And I have these schools that absolutely need more room. And I'm asking for portables for 10 years without an answer. So, that's my not my question. That's my statement, just so you know. I was going to just I'm glad I was only here for two of the two of the 10 years. Um we're aware um board member Melvinne I mean sorry board uh member Schmolson of the um issue of enrollment um and we look

104at essentially as the highest priority looking at schools to accommodate the resident enrollment which is why we've done additions at Porter Ranch because there was um basically a new community being built where there wasn't a school uh building a school at PIA Vista where there was a new development where there wasn't a school um and a couple of projects where we know that there wasn't an ability to accommodate resident enrollment. We were able to add additional capacity let's say at um a couple of our elementary schools which have a capacity to accommodate residential enrollment. But we continue to work with schools to help them manage their enrollment, whether that's reducing permit students. Um, but I understand especially as we look to grow enrollment across the district where that's a challenge um where schools want to

105grow their enrollment through permits or through magnet programs and they don't have the capacity to do that. And in some cases, you've seen growth even from a resident perspective, but they offer a specialized um robotics program or a magnet program that has a particular theme. And in order to actually offer that specialized learning environment, whether it's arts enrichment, um we do offer and provide portables in that type of scenario. But to Miss T's point, it's managing for just the open enrollment strategy of the district is that, you know, as we look at portables, we're pretty limited in our ability to offer that consistently. At the same time, it's the underlying piece is really to kind of have an open conversation about what our program offerings are like in the district and how are we incentivizing

106growth in those uh resident based programs as well as managing for those uh kind of permitted students into um those resident programs. So besides not having the necessary enrollment that we do need, you're also having schools that cannot have the services that they need. For example, a PSA and a PSW and a parent center like every other school has and they cannot have it because there is no space. There's no space and it's kind of sad. So thank you. I'll ask again next year, but thank you. I appreciate it. Well, um, on that note, I I know that the superintendent has mentioned and you have mentioned as well workshops that, you know, that will be conducted with yourself and each one of us. So, I'm I'm hoping that in in those workshops, you'll be able

107to bring up, you know, these issues like Mr. and I'm sure all of us have um those outliers or those special circumstances um that um that our districts are are facing. So, looking forward to those workshops. So, I don't know what it's going to entail, but um I'm sure those are we'll be able to have those conversations then. So, I look forward to that. So, thank you so much. Um anyone questions before I move on? Yes, Miss Gonzas. I know you had just to that point. Um I had more detailed ones, but I can I can follow up with you later. Um in terms of the board weighing in on you you mentioned in a couple different places like upcoming prioritizations for different programs. Um, beyond the workshop, when will the board have the opportunity

108to weigh in more broadly on prioritization goals and the specifics of these various programs? So those are if you look at the prioritization anticipated column you'll see um when we're looking at bringing u recommendations for let's say shade shelters we plan to bring that to the board um in the late summer when the board returns in August or September however that schedule works out with a uh recommendation of how we plan on prioritizing shade shelters. So that might be in a cow might be in individual briefings but definitely that would be brought to the board before we bring any projects and but that would be program specific so it wouldn't be about the overall bond. So you're speaking to right now we have you know 600 million in greening or 2 you know 8 billion

109in seismic and the idea is when would he have a conversation about is there an opportunity to move certain dollars into either other categories one from another or identify a new category of investment right and I think that's what uh board member Maline I think that the superintendent you know agreed to the idea of kind of workshopping some of that piece you know, and and kind of bringing the board together to have that conversation. And so that'll be part of the ongoing retreats and engagements that we have. Um, we hope to do that sooner rather than later. I know that the calendar's uh tightening up between now and June. Um, but know that that that is something that is very top of mind for the superintendent and the leadership. Um, so our intention is to

110come back sooner rather than later. Yes. and we'll definitely leave room for future um committee of the whole meetings to have those discussions. I'm also interested and curious to know how the district is preparing for the Olympics, how our facilities are going to be used. So, that would be great to have a presentation on that because that's going to be something that's going to be huge for our city and for our district as well. So, thank you so much, Miss Tes, um for answering all of our questions. You did beautifully. I appreciate that. And also, Miss Cceto for weighing in as well. And thank you again um a gratitude to your team, everyone in facilities for everything that they do. It's it's a lot. It's a lot. It's a lot to do in this huge

111district. Thank you so much. Um okay, so now we are moving on to our second presentation uh supporting academic achievement through parent and family engagement led met by um Dr. Francis Bayz who's here, our chief academic officer and Mr. Anthony Agalar, chief of special education and specialized programs. Uh this presentation will explore how the district is building stronger partnerships with families to support student success um in different subject areas especially for multilingual learners um students with disabilities and those who have been historically underserved. Dr. Bias and Mr. Aguilar will share the strategies that they're implementing to engage families in meaningful culturally responsive ways that empower them as key partners in their children's education. Welcome Dr. Bay and Mr. Agular. The floor is yours. Thank you very much. Good morning, uh, board member Rivas, board of

112education, superintendent, uh, deputy superintendent. Today, I will be presenting on the ways that we support academic achievement and engage our parents through different workshops and how we work, uh, very closely with the regions and with schools to provide parents information about how to help their children achieve in our district uh, and be college and career ready. So before providing an overview of the parent and family engagement, I'd like to begin with a quote from Marian Wright Edelman, an American activist for civil rights and children's rights and president Emirita of the Children's Defense Fund. Education is for improving the lives of others and for leaving your community and world better than you found it. And parents are at the core of this transformation. And with that inspiration, we're going to move forward to share about um

113how this is connected to our strategic plan. So our leadership steps begin with a reference to the strategic plan for student achievement. That's pillar 3A, which emphasizes our commitment to strengthening partnerships with our families, communities, and with stakeholders to help our students become college and career ready. LUSD provides opportunities to engage uh families in workshops to strengthen the homeschool connections to ensure that whatever students are learning in the classroom is extended after school and also at the at home uh through language arts, math, graduation, social emotional learning uh with access to English learners, students with disabilities and our specialized populations. Next I will present about the family academy workshops and we work very closely with the um SFACE office the family engagement office uh where uh what workshops are determined by getting parent input um

114providing uh parents providing us input uh through thought exchange which is the platform to gain input from parents and most recently received input from 7,000 submissions where parents rated each of their submissions and prioritized what they wanted to learn from um uh in the workshops and so uh they also the the uh student family and community engagement office also facilitates a zoom poll and that's another way that we get input from our parents. So at the end of every workshop we conduct that zoom poll to find out uh what worked and what uh different workshops they'd like to receive. So we offer a family academy course catalog and webinars that build on famil family's knowledge to support their children from early primary years to college and career success. We've done a lot in the area

115of literacy. So, uh, as a reminder, with respect to curriculum, instruction, and assessment, we use a program called core knowledge language arts. That's what's called CKLA and that is the language arts program that we use in the elementary grades. Um, the science of reading is used to teach the structured literacy where students learn sounds, they decode the words, they learn vocabulary and comprehension, listening and speaking and writing. and the student and family engagement team provides the vehicle to engage parents in this learning. So we've been able to engage many parents in learning about the science of reading and the literacy uh skills that are required for students to become proficient readers. In the 232 24 school year, we offered the following workshops based on parent request. Introduction to English language arts and mathematics. Understanding I

116Ready assessments and interpreting the I Ready family report. Structured literacy uh nurturing young writers and media literacy and mathematics from building fact fluency to applying mathematics in the real world. So those are just a few of the workshops in the 2425 school year. We offered the following we will we have offered the following workshops based on parent request. previewing of the instruction of FOSI for the 24-25 school year. Unlocking the power of IR data so that parents have access and are able to see their their child's uh results. Sora, which is the digital reading app, which has garnered over 1 million books that have been checked out. Uh Steam and and history social science. And then making a reading and writing connection with national author and speaker Joan Sadita. And Joan Sadita has also presented

117to our administrators and to our teachers. But we felt that she provides such a very practical way to demonstrate to uh to participants in the audience how to learn about the science of reading and how to engage students in the science of reading and the science of writing. In May, the family academy and title one conference will feature a viewing party where schools will host live webinars focused on literacy including I Ready and reading in the parent and family uh centers. Based on parent advisory committee input, we will present the upcoming family engagement modules to principles and regions through the principal leadership institute and the region family and community engagement professional development summits uh in the school year 2526. We know the value of instructional leadership walks. Instructional leadership walks are a valuable way for

118teachers, administrators, and parents to agree on the most important aspects of teaching and learning. These walks also help reach agreements on homeschool connections. Some schools already conduct these walks with parents as part of the group. Uh and in the upcoming year, these walks will be an extension uh at schools. It would be an expectation at the schools. For example, we currently offer them at Brooklyn SPAN Manual Arts High School, Florenoy Elementary, Garcetti Learning Academy, Porter Middle School, and quite a number more are actually already in place. But we want to create an ex uh this structure for the upcoming year for all of our schools so that parents have an opportunity to walk into classrooms understand what's happening in the class and how to create that homeschool connection. We provide workshops but when they see

119it in the classroom live they're able to make stronger connections at home. So the next steps based on the input from the parent and community parent advisory committee uh will be to provide learning walk modules uh which is currently under development. So, we'll have powerpoints and facilitator guides, helping parents and guardians make connections between the classroom and the home assignments, understanding what the lesson looks like during the day and why they get the types of homework and how they can extend the learning at home. Learning to feature feature the role of learning walks, assessments, and classroom strategies and then partnering with your school to accelerate achievement at home. The Dibbles data uh in the parent portal will also be shared. So we've added videos on how to access Dibbles reports through the parent portal and

120a video on explaining the Dibbles data and that was based on again parent input uh where they needed to to really understand how to access these reports. So videos have been created to walk through parents on that. Next I will share information on how we collaborate uh with the uh student family and community engagement office the regions and the schools in uh making connections with English language arts and literacy. The family literacy modules provide a central regional and school level training for parents to receive workshops in understanding the science of reading ready reading comprehension and writing. The modules were first presented in the parent academy and then the regions presented them followed then by schools presenting these to parents. So that's what we call the triple track when we present this to uh the schools

121to the regions to the schools and then it lands into the into the hands of the school site the classroom or the teacher. All schools with UTK through 2 grade were allocated expanded learning opportunity funding to support student early literacy and family literacy engagement. In the school year uh 2425 activities included hosting early literacy family workshops or literacy family nights outside the instructional hours. Events model strategies parents can use with their children at home to promote academic success. literacy workshops and family literacy nights were designed to include both students and families and um this the uh this funding and opportunity is designed to support a coherent focus on academic excellence. Next, I will be providing information on the way that we engage parents uh when it comes to numeracy through math workshops and how we've

122been able to create u modules that are engaging for parents where they're using um items that they have at home, practical things that could they can convert into extensions of math lessons. Workshops have been provided to parents to build their confidence in math and to provide their child real world application for example in budgeting, cooking, shopping and more. Uh in the workshops, parents go through the problem solving process that students do in the classroom and they use manipulatives or objects to solve math problems, things that they can find at home easily. Here's an example of a of a family math workshop. It's on money-made fun, and this is a hands-on informative uh the math and financial literacy workshop at the Los Angeles Academy Middle School in Region East. uh in the upcoming year we will

123present to parents the accelerated math pathways early access to algebra 1 and the importance of taking four years of math. So now that parents are understanding ways to make homeschool connection we also want to share with them what are the math pathways available to their children from elementary to middle to high school. Our goal is that our students get access to algebra 1 as early as eighth grade. Uh and that there's an accelerated math uh uh course in seventh grade when students uh enter middle school. And then we're really promoting a fourth year of of math because we know that when students take that fourth year of math, there's a longer there's a retention in high school and college and there's an easier easier transition for students to make into college math. So on that

124note, given that we will be previewing the upcoming grade standards for students in math uh in in the summer school, we really want our students to enroll in summer. So the uh website is www.lausd.org backsummeroflearning. We really want to encourage our students to attend because this summer we will be providing summer programming, but we'll also be doing something different where we'll be previewing the important algebra uh prerequisite standard uh for the upcoming grade. So, not only will they be getting support if there's um gaps in reading and math and writing, but they're also going to get a preview of the algebra prerequisite standard for the upcoming grades. So, we were previewing the grade level that they're about to enter. Of course, we'll also be providing different camps. So, it's important to go on to that

125website to learn what camps are available to our families and students. And next, I will share about the workshops and graduation and graduation access to parents. So, we've presented individual graduation plans uh and graduation progress letters, graduation requirements, and parent portal access to parents. So, we've been doing this all year long. We've um actually start as soon as our students step into the to high school where we're meeting with our students early on to ensure that they understand what are the graduation requirements and also promoting that in different workshops. All secondary uh students need a graduation plan and students who are off track must have two meetings with their counselors. During the conference, the counselor reviews progress towards each graduation requirement, grades in the current classes and post-secary plans. any future course taking which might

126include acceleration and credit recovery and parents are invited to participate in the IGP conference and counselors have workshops to show parents the IGP so while this is uh this IGP is is conducted with the with the student parents are invited but at the same time know that parents can't often attend these meetings we offer workshops as well and ensure that counselors are engaging parents and understanding the IGP and the high school requirements for graduation We currently have the graduation requirements on our website which is lus- a through a-ged dios chol.com. That's edoschool.com and clicking under students and families. And when you click on that link, you'll be able to see the graduation requirements, the financial aid requirements, uh information for students. Uh and so we look forward to creating videos to walk parents through the

127IGP when they cannot attend the meetings with students and documents will be translated. So those are some of the things that were we have upcoming for them in case parents are not able to attend these IGP meetings. College journals for the class of 2025 and 2026 were printed and digital workbooks were sent to students and families. These can also be accessed through the website I just mentioned. information on finding the best college match, affordability, major for careers, and managing steps in the application, enrollment uh and entry were have all been presented to students. Uh we also held a book study for parents on getting admitted to college by Dr. Dr. uh Coen. Uh at a parent advisory committee meeting, we provided a workshop on A throughG graduation requirements in the financial aid process. Additionally, regions

128and schools hold multiple events and workshops to promote college access. And I'm sure you've been to many of those events, whether it be at the region or at the school sites. These mostly happened in the fall when we're promoting uh college access and information because we know that many of the application deadlines for UC's uh they are in the fall and of course in preparation for the Cal State deadlines which are uh in the winter. And so we really had to provide a lot of information to our families and to our students. On this note, I hope to see you at the commitment college signing day and 5K run on May 10th at the Coliseum where students will declare uh the college they h they plan to attend. This is the first central event ever

129and we know that schools have these events at their school sites, but we want to create a venue for all of our students to be able to declare and of course we'll have partners and organizations there to provide information to students and families about college. Uh we've also provided parents with financial aid and the California dream act application. We held workshops by regions and centrally and organizations helped us with supporting families directly. So uh we held events both at the central level the region level at the school level uh and also invited organizations to help us with promoting the information. During spring break we created that as well. uh we uh during the winter break we create created hubs and in those hubs uh parents and families could walk in to different hubs and get

130information about the application. I'm happy to report that as of April the 6th the FASA completion rate uh uh was 82%. So the completion rate was 82% and the state completion at this point is 59%. 59%. We've actually exceeded last year's completion rate. Last year's completion rate was 80%. So despite, you know, all the the the buzz that's been going around um and just with a lot of support and ensuring that our families had clear information, we were able to still uh reach this rate of completion. But we're not done. We want to make sure that everyone who has submitted completes as well. And at this point, I'm going to hand the uh podium over to uh Tony Agular, my colleague, who will continue with uh sharing more information about parent engagement and our specialized

131populations. Thank you Dr. Bayz and good morning board members and deputy superintendent. Just want to acknowledge the the work that actually Dr. Bayz has mentioned. In addition to all that work which is the core of the work, there's actually our specialized populations when it comes to our English learners and our students with disabilities. So I'll go over some of the engagement opportunities we have for them. So in regards to parent voices for English learners, each year 72 elected DAC representatives partner with us to ensure English learner voices are reflected in our programs. This year they played a pivotal role in co-constructing the new multilingual multicultural master plan. We held a series of hybrid meetings both in person and virtual to ensure accessibility for all our families. Their feedback helped shape the plan's priorities and continues

132to guide the future presentations and training. More importantly, it reflects the broad belief when parents are treated as co-creators, not just participants, they become power powerful advocates for their children's academic success. With empowering our parents to champion multilingual success, throughout the year, we've built training opportunities that directly address what families say they need. One major area was I Ready. Parents told us that they didn't understand how it supported English learners. So, we created a specific training that broke it down into family-friendly terms. Afterwards, parents felt confident that they were feeling more confident that they said they were being able to better support their children's academic growth. In addition to I Ready, we offered sessions on reclassification, the pathway to biiteracy, and key updates from the 2025 master plan. Looking ahead, we are aligning all of

133our ELAC school site trainings with DAX guidance. So families across the district get the same high quality information no matter where they are. Moving on to our students with disabilities. For our families with students with disabilities, we've been intentional about how we train and engage. The special education parent administrator training co-led by our regional special education administrators and the office of student, family, and community engagement focuses on helping families navigate the IEP process, understand their rights, and build strong school partnerships. These are not one-off sessions. They are part of a strategy to build community trust and capacity. We've also launched the APIs academy to strengthen how our school leaders support parent engagement and communication in special education. with parents uh with partnering with parents and empowering student success. The community advisory committee or CAC is

134made up of families, educators, community leader, all and community leaders who help guide our special education work and policies. Based on what we've heard from them and other partners, we've taken action. We are developing onboarding for PAR PA paraprofessionals so they're better prepared to support students on day one. We're offering an introduction to special education workshops at school sites, especially for families new to the system. And we're starting coffee with the regional special education teams, creating informal spaces for families to speak and ask questions and stay informed. We also heard a desire for more inclusive programming. That's why this year along with summer of learning, we're colllocating ESY and summer sites together. And to support general education teachers, we partnered with HR to launch our microcredential microcredential focus on inclusive practices. All this is grounded

135in our commitment to listen, respond, and act in partnership with our families. I'll turn it back to Dr. Bay. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Aguilar. And so the next uh area uh that I would like to address and how we collaborate with parents is through social emotional learning. Uh so as you can see through this presentation we've been um discussing the four the four major areas of the district goals which are the literacy, numeracy, graduation and cell is the last one. And so um these were some of the topics we presented during the parent academy webinars. There will sell restorative themed activities via the rethinked platform available to all schools and families. Activities to promote restorative learning based on Mic's teacher referrals. That means that when um students were referred to the office or there were

136issues that were coming up, we wanted to make sure that that we provided a restorative practice that they had lessons and understood what maybe they could have done better and how to reflect on the behavior or how some of the coping strategies that they could use. We also prep um provided training webinars for families through the family academy. So here you see the announcements and workshops uh participation for social emotional learning topics for caretakers. In addition, we've included information about the social emotional learning portfolios in these workshops. Um so there's been lots of interest. So we continue to provide this at the at the uh district level, at the regional level, and of course at the our school level. We want to make sure that what our teachers are receiving that our parents are also

137receiving again to improve and strengthen that homeschool connection. And that concludes our presentation. Thank you very much for your attention and we're we're open for questions. So thank you Dr. Bias and thank you Mr. Agular for sharing some details of reflecting on the work that the pack especially DAC and CAC shared with us last year. So, you know, at the end of the year, they always give us recommendations and so we've wanted to actionize those. So, we've provided you some examples of how that started. We also know that there is more to be done. And so, you've also heard from the team here today some of the next steps, some opportunities we continue to see grow. Uh, as we've been meeting with uh different student uh parent groups, they've also highlighted some additional opportunities that

138they'd like to see us explore. Uh and I think that's something that as we continue to meet with our parents both at the district level, region level, school level, it's how do we feed that information uh to inform the decisions and ongoing investments. So that's an ongoing next step for us. And so we look forward to continuing to build with our partners, but also recognizing that there's still a lot more to do. When you think about the growth that's needed in literacy, we're at 43% of our students are meeting and exceeding. We have a lot of work to do and our parents are a critical aspect to doing that and so we look forward to continuing to build on that effort. Thank you so much. Um I'll start off with some quick questions just wanting

139to know do you have any numbers on how many parents have participated in the webinars and the modules and the um the familymies? Absolutely. And so uh in uh strong collaboration with the student family and the uh community engagement office, we definitely provide uh many opportunities to capture data on participation on satisfaction rates. So I'll just welcome Mr. Antonio Placencia to provide a little bit more details on that. So one thank you uh Antonio Placencia. I'm senior director of engagement and partnerships. You know within the family academy we have established uh various practices to capture feedback and also the experience overall of participants. not only in terms of satisfaction but families saying is a learning actionable for me to be a link toward my child's education at school and at home. So we have um

140essentially we've borrowed some of the instruments that are available with the office of data and accountability. We have an alchemer survey and in the survey we are able to survey families to give us more substantive data of their experience overall. We also use a Zoom polling feature because many families if they're feeling like they don't feel comfortable with submitting questionnaires, we also gather data. So 94% of our Zoom polls, which um we're looking at currently we had 16,244 parents participating in our region and central office experiences through the family academy. For your awareness, our region is mostly offered in a hybrid format, meaning families are able to attend from the comfort of where they might be or from an in-person location. Especially this year and um as we went into the elections, the number of

141online learning has increased significantly because of the climate. Uh last year, we wrapped up with about um 33,000 participants. Um and so as we get into this next year, uh we'll be offering continued engagement through the end of the year and we'll culminate with our family engagement summit which will be again a hybrid experience at the end of the year. But we do have systems to capture the data and and overall our data shows between 81% and 94% of families are messaging that the experiences are actionable to support their child's learning at home. And do you have a goal of increasing the number of parents? I mean you always want more parents right? Do you have those goals and strategies to increase participation? Absolutely. Um so one mechanism that we have found to be very

142successful and we're trying to tackle the portion of capturing data is because we're hosting watch parties in our parent and family centers. So we're noting that families if you invite them to like a regional space that might be a little intimidating for them and they find most comfort in the parent and family center. So whenever we have hybrid engagement opportunities, we coordinate with our parent and family center personnel at the school sites to offer those watch parties. So for example, on the 16th, we want all families to feel comfortable and engaged so they'll be able to engage in their parent and family center virtually on Zoom or in downtown with us at our former building. So we are looking for more innovative ways to increase participation. And next year we have acquired an instrument to

143create our own version of a um video channel through the parent portal where all of our recorded content will be available to our families by clicking. And what's cool about it is that if a family finishes a presentation on I Ready, it will suggest that they watch next a segment on um literacy or writing or an SEAL presentation. So, we're going to be using that as another mechanism for families to have a to learn what at their own time because we know that we have many working-class families and we want them to have this channel available to watch content at their own time when they're working when they're on their way maneuvering. So, we are working on additional mechanisms to increase participation. If I may, there there's also a goal within our strategic plan where

144we aim to increase the welcome experience of our families on our school sites uh to 94%. And so that says to us that it's not just what we're offering districtwide, but what's happening at the school level. And so we've talked about what are some mandatory um experiences that we want to make sure is happening at every school. So, we're working with our regions to determine what that might be to further build that engagement at the school level because I think there's things we can do regionally and districtwide that are helpful, but to really move that survey data, we're going to need to move it to the school level of support. And this is when our parent reps or community reps are so essential and important because that that is um the space and the individual

145a lot of parents feel very comfortable in approaching and learning from as well. My other question, how are you incorporating um culturally relevant um education for our parents to engage with their children in their own culture, language, um their own histories in literacy and math, right? Um the family academy has included segments on science of reading where we have offered families with guided learning on the science of reading, the how the brain develops and even from the context of being a bi bilingual biliterate student. Um and then families get to culminate with being able to interact and take home instructional content. So those are opportunities that we make available. We also work with other partners. We've had the multilingual multicultural education department that has been on on the journey with us to not only develop

146our ELAC leaders um in the context of the governance of the the council, but to also understand the instructional moves that come in to support our scholars. This year we're very fortunate as well because we work with BAP and for the first year we offered our BAP course catalog to also integrate and offer um hybrid experiences for our families to be able to engage and learn on the big shifts of instruction from that cultural lens. So you'll see that I would say that in my 15 years at the district um the we have done a beautiful array of building bridges like we work with Mr. Aguilar's team very closely with Dr. Bias's team with Lydia Costa Stevens with Mr. Chape because we also have our sequence of engagement for families on school safety. So this

147strategic plan as we get into the end of year three has really built a coherent array of engagement that is not only informed by families but is aligned to the instructional FOSI of the district. And last question for the instructional learning walks. Um, how are we incorporating our parent reps and community reps as well so that they're also, you know, engaging parents and helping them in that? That's a great question. This year, um, working with Dr. Bayas, we offered training for parent and family center personnel to learn the initial two modules that we're making available on, um, the science of reading and its relationship with I Ready. each region um organized with our region family engagement teams for there to be a training so that they can get immersed into the content. Next year we're

148going to be uh integrating the instructional leads and supports of the school sites to help in that arena there. Um going into this summer we're going to be introducing our learning walk content at principal leadership institute highlighting promising practices of school site leaders that are already doing this beautiful work as it is. And then as you all may know we offer our annual uh family engagement professional development summit and that will be another avenue which is beautiful where principles or administrators are parent and family center personnel office personnel and we have people that are now wanting to invite themselves to this experience the learning walks and the instructional content that you've learned about today that will be amplified even further as we go into our fourth year. And do we have hopefully a link on

149schooly where parents can also click on workshops or anything that they can engage? That is our new channel that we're developing. We're going to be developing this like interactive channel. And what I love about it is that it includes a selection for families to change the language in closed captions to the language of their preference. So it's going to eliminate a lot of barriers from engagement which is about come to us at the school site to letting parents know this instructional tool and this technology that is simple will be available for you 24 hours whenever you need to engage with us. And my last question before I open up to the board members. Um I noticed that here the a lot of the modules or family engagement is on math and literacy. What about science

150and and other subject areas that you know we want to make sure that our students are engaged at home um particularly science because you know we need to raise those scores. Absolutely. Um so because we we developed the courses based on parent input um that was those those were one of the areas but nevertheless we definitely should complement their input with our recommendations and absolutely science will be something that will be incorporated. We know that we've been um in including parents in a lot of the science pieces at the school level and at the region level through all of our steam initiatives and steam programs. So, it's been a lot of hands-on. Uh but at the in terms of the parent academy, we will augment the input that's been given to us from parents with

151the science and also history and social science as well. If I may add, there's um a lot of new science opportunities that we're offering our students from things like esports to robotics. And so we know that for some of our families, understanding what that means and what it'll involve is an important aspect of ensuring our kids get engaged. Uh especially because we're offer offering this after school. So that's a great idea for us to further provide those specifics and also some of the certification opportunities that our kids can earn especially at the high school level through CTE and our DACE work. So I think from our days presentation that was also some wonderful feedback that we got that we need to communicate more out there what we have to offer. Yes. Particularly for our STEM

152and our steam schools they have a lot of um exhibits where parents are coming and I I can see the engagement of students. So it' be wonderful to have that engagement as well at home. Um like you mentioned robotics and um um and the esports. I think it's really great to have those connections at school and also at home. So, thank you. Okay, so I will open it up to my right. I mean, my sorry, my left. Any questions, Miss Miss Franklin? Sure. Thanks. I'll be brief. Um, quick question, follow up, Antonio, you said um 33,000 participants in the workshops. Um, is that including early ed and adult or that's K12? We invite the universe of Blackboard. The wonderful infrastructure we have of Blackboard is that it provides like a safe space to be able

153to message out to our families. So coupled with, you know, we are one and other efforts, we send the information to our youngest learners. We work very closely with um Dr. Tagawa's team to integrate engagement as well for our youngest learners. And we are very close. We work very close with uh Dace on connecting families in not only understanding how um adult and career education can amplify your careers but to also um learn about our equity course pathways which is a family engagement course. You all probably know some of our popular family engagement providers. I won't name them but there are a lot many that our school sites will purchase. But through we offer a course for youngest learners. We have a course for English learners, emerging bilingual um science students with special needs and

154um our black African-American family experience. That curriculum was developed with our colleagues and it's a sixclass experience that we offer through DACE because we understand that when you if you hook in a family into a DACE course through the AVA Academy, you know, their um you know um English development courses for families, that is our hook to get them to see family engagement from that one generation of the child to that dual generation of the child and the parent investment. But we do everyone. Yeah, we have we work with everyone. Um I guess so I guess I'm trying to understand like what's our goal? Um, and how far are we from our goal? So, I just did the, you know, K12 number. It's like a sevenish percent of K12, but we're for including everybody, maybe

155that's like 3 to 4% of everyone is like joining one of these workshops, but is it even our goal that like everyone comes to one of these workshops or like what are our our big goals? Like we have a lot of information, a lot of numbers, like we just got a lot, but are we reaching our goals? What are our goals? And not just to put that on you, I maybe Carlo wants too. And I think that's uh an opportunity for us because I think as we think about the strategic plan, we were using the school experience survey as that big umbrella of how we were going to mark um our parents uh interest in being able to feel safe at our schools, feel welcomed at our schools. But now that we've already been looking

156at that, we're finding that we're experiencing at the school level, we need more degree of of involvement. Um, we're also seeing at the region level there's a greater opportunity for involvement. So, I think it's the answer is that we need to come back and think about districtwide when we offer resources, you know, presentations, whatever it may be, um, events for our families to come to, what's the intent and goal there versus one that's at the school level specifically, uh, or at the region level. So we can come back with some more targeted goals at the district, region, and school level because I think all of them look different and it depends on what that, you know, school may need versus a region. I'm visualizing the um strategic plan update that we got sometime last year

157where it had each of our goals and and where we are. And I think a lot of our family engagement goals we were already hitting or exceeding. And so now might be the time to revisit just like we are with student academics. You know, do we grow our numbers? Is it about the survey data or is it about the participation data? Is it both? Is it something else? Um, so would love to see kind of this information in the context of our goals and how far away we are from our goals. Um, or if we're knocking them out of the park, which is great. Um, and then just one idea we've been hearing from families, particularly more recently immigrated families, is using WhatsApp. Um, because a lot of our families from Latin America are using

158it here. Um, and I know we do Blackboard, which is like sending out, but even just like quick questions. Have we ever talked about like having a district WhatsApp? We've explored and I won't just think about talk about one product. We've explored multiple technologies for messaging with families and there's one that school sites use in very that are very popular but we also have to think about the safety of the two-way interaction on technology devices right and who's responding those are factors we can talk to it in greater detail to see how we might explore those avenues. Uh currently we're using um Blackboard Connect and a secondary tool that was able to go through the IT review process that we found had safeguards in place for the data and how the data is used by

159those third party vendors. But we can come back and give you updates um about our further investigation on those. Yeah, because I know we have the hotlines, right? And and folks might be calling into those, but I know texting can be really comfortable for for more people. Um so happy to follow up on that, but that's it for now. Thanks. I'm moving to my right. Right, Miss Mr. Schmolson. So, um, talking about instructional uh walks, you know, uh, my school at that time was called Mount Vernon Middle School was a 10 school and we did instructional walks and it was very, very valuable. parents always heard about these things, but they never actually walked through the classrooms with us and and with our uh staff and we pointed things out so they had a better

160understanding about what an instructional day looks like. Not a big show, you know, just a regular normal instructional day and what the kids are expected to learn. So that was very important. I just wanted to throw that in. Thank you. Um so what resources are available for parents planning to enroll their kids in LA USD but they haven't yet done so? any resources available for them. And this may sound far-fetched, but how about parents expecting their first child? How are we getting them ready for LA USD in the future? Hard question, I know. Well, uh I do want to share that um uh through a collaboration of you know uh PSA cotmall who oversees our the bookends of the district right of adult education and early education we've started our own street team approach of

161uh being very present and visible in community events that are not your usual spaces where we engage our current district parents like we were at the MLK parade we walked that whole site talking to families handing out postcards sharing about adult education early education we're building that infrastructure and discussing how we work with Dr. Child's team on the enrollment side of the house to make sure that when people see our logo, our brand, they're able to know exactly where they can enroll with us. Good to know. Good to know. I would just if I may add on the enrollment piece, what we're also seeing is if you notice our website, we did revamp the website to ensure there's greater access on the website and information around enrollment. Uh making it easier to navigate and know

162what school options you actually have within the district. You will also see at the school level more and more of our principles have banners out there really, you know, showcasing what we have available within the schools and they're also going out to the community and knocking on doors. That is where you see greater enrollment increase is where the family is able to meet the principal and the school team to see how and what beautiful things can be offered at their school site. So, those are a couple of of different ways that we've continued to examine enrollment and make it easier for our families. Um, and I I agree though that there are still more opportunities I think that we could explore as we're getting our word out there to our families on how to enroll

163quickly into the school district and how make it as seamless as possible. But those office managers in our school say, you know, they are the best ones to welcome our schools into the the the school community, but also to help a parent navigate through the process. And that's true. And I know that when I take the uh beline and the dash to Bodri and I sit in the dash bush, I don't see one LUSD sign. I see some charter schools, but I see no LUSD posters in that dash bus. So, that would be nice to do. Okay. Um go uh going along with Miss Ortiz Franklin's question, I'd like to know how many parents attend thesemies by region. Okay. our community of schools because I meet we all meet with our region directors and our

164region superintendent. I like to make sure that they understand that we understand the number of people attending. And the last question, how does your family engagement program encourage our parents who may not be high school graduates to get that GED? What do we do to help them to get that GED? Because they're helping their kids, but we need to help the parents also. And if they have their GED, if they have their diploma, how do we encourage them to go on to community college or regular college? That's really important for me. I, you know, this is where uh Renie and P have been excellent at making sure that we've expanded opportunities for the GED. Uh this is why Ava being able to do it online is just as important as in person. So we've ex

165this is one of the key areas that Ava has expanded in is being able to ensure that they can do the process online. And so that's one opportunity we've added. Um I think it's one of the things that we're finding with the GED is also our families are navigating the English language. So this is why it comes handinhand being able to leverage our adult education programs because they offer that ESL piece along with the GED support and they help them navigate through the process. But it's an ongoing opportunity and happy to share more data on that one too. I appreciate that. And my point is that you're helping the parents to help their children, but I want you to help their parents to help themselves also to a higher education. So, let's just keep that

166in mind, too. Thank you. Any questions over here to my left, Miss uh Gonz? Um, well, I think everyone's been asking excellent questions, so I'll I'll try not to repeat any. I think one just theme that I uh came back with was like how are we meeting families where they are? Um, I think that the video channel, um, sounds great. Um, and I I think that that will be really responsive. I think it's great that we're offering hybrid. I guess one thing that strikes me as a bit challenging for a lot of working families, I know it's a challenge for me, is just time. And um, the family academy segments that we have tend are typically like an hour, right? And even if you're doing in snippets, you might not have an hour, maybe you

167have five minutes, maybe you have two minutes. Have we thought about like kind of bite-sized um opportunities for families to learn that could be easily accessible and could hit on a wide array of topics? Yes. Um the channel itself, the simplicity of it is that it allows you to make it a multilingual instrument for our families. I would say that the infrastructure that we have built as Dr. Estrada highlighted is we started year one of our family academy thinking about the central course catalog. If families visit um lausd.org/ org/familyacademy, you'll see the central office course catalog which has a webinar experience. You'll also see the region engagement um course cataloges. And as we go deeper into the school site, we're also working in tandem on what are those like vignettes like a public service announcement

168on A throughG, right? The instructional content pieces. It is like a staffing capacity um you know opportunity that we have, but that might be something that we can look into and go deeper in into the new fiscal year. Yeah. And maybe it's not even an S-face necessarily that that you all would need to take on, but maybe there's a great teacher who could do like a five minute vignette on so like you don't know anything about phmic awareness. Here's what phmic awareness is and why you want to teach uh counting collections at home. Here's how you can do that while you're cooking with your kids. I feel like there are ways to to take I think the the content we have is wonderful. I just want to make sure more families can access it. And

169I think just the way that um we utilize technology these days is there's opportunities to to get short and powerful um lessons to to families in in ways that could could help them impact learning. It's a great idea. I think I I've done it before where we've done those little snippets and it'll do for teachers. We've done that, but I think this is something about at the school level. How could we do things differently? This is where a teacher I bet could do something with a parent rep. there'll be a short little snippet doesn't and then say you know tune in tomorrow we'll have the next piece of this and again five minutes something to anchor and continue to build so there are ways for us to be able to so I think that's a

170great idea I think it's little things like that that I feel at the school level we could leverage differently than we have been uh but that's the next phase of our work and we could then you know as you said link them to well you learned about now you do you want to learn about I ready or do you want to learn about this other thing um so I think it's it's an intro but however if we can reach more families with less time. I I think that that would be helpful. Um one other thought is just again with the various different strands, I think that um helping families navigate all that's available to them in terms of family engagement and learning would be helpful. And I think that touch point is at school sites

171and I know I I as a parent like I hear about the familymies via the text on my phone if I have some knowledge of this but if I were just um a parent without that connection to um to being on the board I don't know that I would understand okay so there's this family academy happening at 9 tomorrow like is this something I should do is it relevant to me um so I just wonder like are there ways that we can utilize again our parent reps I think that they're absolutely absolutely essential um our principles, our teachers to help them share that information. So, you're interested in math, like here's a calendar of events like physically that we're giving to you so that you know when when they're happening. Um leveraging things like back

172to school night and um open houses to share that information with families. I just feel like there there's a the content is coherent. The process and delivery of that information is not necessarily. And I think we just want to make it as easy as possible for parents to understand here's the content that exists. How do you access it? Um which is most helpful for me as as a parent based on how my kid is doing. And the person you're going to trust the most to do that is probably your classroom teacher um or your principal or another administrator or the parent rep. Um so how can we um equip those folks with helping to guide our parents through that? That was a lot. Hopefully that hopefully that makes some degree of sense. Um, and then

173I was curious about uh the role of our ambassadors. I know that we have ambassador programs. Um, I know the special education ambassadors was mentioned. There's a couple of um parents in my district who've recently completed that program and um I think they they noted the programming was great, but uh it wasn't clear like what the next steps of their role should be. Other families didn't necessarily know about them being ambassadors. So, I just want to make sure we capitalize on that opportunity because I think parent leadership is super powerful. No. Um, you know, we're really uh proud of the work and the investment uh again working with MED for the our EL um sort of learning experience of our ambassadorship working with the division of special education for our special education pathway and the

174LCAP team. This year we grew our number by a thousand participants. Last year we had about 2400 participants. This year we grew to 3,400 participants. Again, hybrid experience and learning. And the way we introduce it is families to your point about communicating and becoming knowledgeable about the resources and the opportunities for family engagement in the district. Uh you'll notice that in our presentation today there were segments on the topics for each of the three ambassador segments. And it's helping families to understand the resources and then how to interact with them at the school site environment because we understand that to be an ambassador we refer to it as being an advocate for your child's education but also thinking in the light of the promo model that we are all very familiar with in our communities

175is about being a spokesperson and messaging the resources to other parents and saying you need support in this arena. Did you know that the district is able to offer you these other supports around special education or did you know that there were classification process? This is what it looks like for our children of English learners for example. So it's about helping this the families not only to learn but we call it that experiential learning to verbalize and start to interact with that content to apply it. So, it really is about helping those families become navigators of their own kiddos's journey and um education with that direct support from the region offices and our specialized content experts. I think that intent is spoton and and really important. I guess my question is more about the execution

176or like how are we providing a forum for those parents to then do something with with that role. Like is it featuring them at a booth at a regional event? Is it um like I don't know exactly what it is. um I'm not the expert in this area, but I feel like uh we've got to provide a a place for them to apply that that knowledge, right? If that makes sense. Um I had one more. Um just the last one. You know, we we passed the readers to leaders resolution in the fall and I see that we're doing a lot of great work around early literacy um and the science of reading. Um, I know we're looking forward to the family guide that will be coming out and how we ensure that that's an accessible

177uh tool that our parents can really use to help develop those early reading skills. Um, so I look forward to that in the near future. Just wanted to put a a plug in. Thank you. Yes, Miss Hindi or Mr. Melwood. Go ahead. Had a few questions. Um I know we talk about um obviously closing the gap in math and a lot of the family workshops is geared to our primary. What is the goal for our secondary u where we're seeing the larger gap? Yes. So um as uh in the presentation in terms of the next steps for math that's precisely where we need to go is to demonstrate what pathways are available for our students uh in the early grades and sixth seventh the highly accelerated math pathways and in access to algebra 1 and

1788th grade. Uh promoting a fourth year of math in high school. Understanding how to close the gap in uh math achievement in 11th grade which is as you saw in the smarter balance assessment. That's where we had um we have the the uh most work to do. Um when it comes to giving students access to um algebra, we want to make sure that students get access from the early grades and those foundational numerousy skills, uh number sense and operations, expressions and equations. All of those are prerequisite standards to access algebra. And that's the space we've been in. But the where we're going to go next is definitely in that space of what does middle and high school math look like and how to support your children at home. uh with math uh financial literacy for

179example is one of them and financial algebra um that's one of the ways that we've been able to make math more tangible and that real world application is understanding how to do that um introduction to data science for example is another one that I feel is very practical and doable where students can actually use um different types of software to conduct u um uh uh regression analysis um themselves when you know a lot of us have had to learn that much later in life but they're actually able to do that in intro to data science. So that's something that parents can understand more easily. Uh for example like how many uh participants were there in uh the viewing audience of a particular show you know how does Netflix know to show this kind of genre

180and so understanding how to take that data and making that more man more meaningful and manageable. So when we do present this to parents it'll be about the real world application and making it really really tangible. So it's not so much about the algorithm or how to do that expression and equation. It's going to be about how to make it more tangible for them. And now with the data science, are we starting that like you said sixth or seventh grade? Are we looking to expand that into our middle schools or is that just for high school? The intro to data science is the course offered in high school. Okay. Um however, the data science u uh standard now with the new framework starts as early as kindergarten. Uh and there is um there is data

181and analysis in in the standards across the board. Um but um that's an example of how we want we plan to make those parent workshops more tangible, more real world so that it doesn't get lost in the what we're all what we're all I guess many um adults who had who took algebra in the early years are many of them are afraid of math. There's been data and research around that and it's because of their experience with algebra and those complex algebra um equations and we really want to make it more tangible for our parents. Okay. Um the question about the counselors, the individual graduation plan, are they receiving a formal letter? The parents are they receiving a formal letter to know when they have an IGP? you know we do have um the parent

182the counselors do receive uh information about how to how to inform the parents and the families about when the IGP is coming up for example part of orientation so you will be student will be receiving a a meeting with the counselor twice a year uh starting in 9th grade and so that there's that check-in so that's part of the orientation and that's how parents are informed about that um and it's also a goal so we want to make sure that all of our students have their IGP you know starting as early when they when they start their school so that they understand what courses they need to take. That's the goal, but we're not sure if that's actually practically happening. The the goal for is for all of our students to have an IGP and

183we're there. All of our students have their individual graduation plan. You asked the question of do parents know when that's going to happen. So, we provide that in the orientation when the orientation there's no when it's upcoming. So, to our point where you know parents are doing so much and you said they're invited, but would they know when it's happening? Yes, of course. they they they receive an invitation. That's how parents uh that's how we know whether parents are attending or not. We're seeing there's not a lot of participation. Of course, the invitation is for students and for parents because parents can attend the IGP meeting. So, our our um solution is to provide different ways to provide them that information like a video that we mentioned earlier. And I think what I'm hearing from

184you is could we send the actual IGP on an annual basis for example to families to say this is the updated status, this is how to read it, so on and so forth. Correct. there could be an opportunity for that. I think that's a great idea to add to our right so that the parents know because oftent times where we get to this off track student it's often because the parent didn't know where they were and as a high school educator oftent times parents kind of let go at high school because it's like oh you you good now I could let go and that's not the time to let go but if they're not informed of these IGPS or when it's coming then they wouldn't know what to track or find out because they get

185to 11th grade and then they're behind uh credits and not knowing that. So the other question with the um inform information to the parent or foster parent or guardian who gets that information if they're a foster parent? Um, so it would be the caretaker, whoever that caretaker is, and whoever's in the the um the the registration card um at the school site on MSIS, whoever that contact person is on Mises, that's who we send it to. Um and then to the question of reaching out to our families, is it possible uh bridging partnerships with our communities because many of our families may have aversion to coming to school. Um as much as we want them to be at the school site, they may not had a great experience with school sites. And so although we

186want them to be connected, is there a partnership with community-based um maybe it's a park, maybe it's a center that we can host in order for them to make sure they get access. Absolutely. And I'll let Antonio respond to that. So I think the investment the board made through our challenge grant we have 24 partners that are offering services to our students in their community spaces from you know um Watts offering um soccer-based um um sort of enrichment opportunities and athletics outside of the school environment all the way to the valley um where they're offering music u you know variety of different enrichment opportunities. So we do have that challenge grant. This is the first year that we've made this grant available as a year one funding opportunity. We'll be continuing with the board's investment

187into year two. And then partners for student success um is also another opportunity where um our our partners um that are on that bench are able to participate and essentially offer their services and they are matched at our highest need area. So those are two programs at Los Angeles Unifi that fall under our division of communications engagement and collaboration under our chief where we allow our partners to come in and complement the work that we're doing aligned to our strategic plan. And at those spaces are they giving them the information in which we're trying to get feedback from. So, they may not have participated in a webinar, but they come to a music or they come to an athletic. Um, are they getting access at those venues as well? So, they're given the the services

188based on what the provider is making available at the to the school site, but I guess your your inquiry is about leveraging those partners to provide them with our district tools and resources. We can work with the team on that, right? And then you you mentioned and we talked about this 33,000 of those that are being connected. Do we have it disagregated as those first timers or these are repeaters? Are they coming as mentioned Dr. um uh Scott mentioned what board member what board areas these um connections are coming from? Do we have that number where it's separated? So we could kind of see well this area we know we need to work on and 33,000 as mentioned is not that many considering the amount of students that we have right so we are working

189with um the zoom platform does not disagregate the data um in that level of detail right when we're developing our zoom usage reports this is why we're establishing those uh parent and family center watch parties to ensure that there's a space where families can be invited to come in and experience those opportunities but we don't have the the means right now with our current technology to be able to look at in that detail. But we are leveraging um our use of watch party than the parent centers. And so the 33,000 do we know if that's repeaters? How are we collecting that data? So these are families that have attended at least one of our experiences that we've made available through the family academy. Uh we collect our data at the central level through participation numbers

190as well as at the region level. Those that's the data that we're collecting at the moment. Got it. We don't know. Um we have um um a means of finding out what engagement looks like at school sites. It's one of our LCAP um measures of ensuring that all schools offer at least one u family engagement experience a month and that is certified in our principal portal. We also have added that component of school sites offering a course catalog at their school site of family engagement activities. This is the first year where we're collecting those to get a sense of the quantity and the quality of engagement that is happening at school sites. We see family engagement to not supplant what is happening at school sites but to supplement what is happening at school sites. And

191then when we talk about collecting the information from our school sites on our families, obviously there's a number that's missing. How do we get the information to or from them as to why it's missing? to some of the points that were mentioned here. Is it because they don't have byte-size because the you know the message is too long that's why they didn't attend? Obviously they're not attending. So what is our goal to be able to get the message to them to kind of figure out what is it we need to change in order to engage them? No, we'll work on that. Absolutely. I think that's our investment in technology and trying to think about the the mindset of the adult sort of process of the just the androgoi of adult learning is to think about

192how parents are engaging in different ways. Um lots of questions for you. Um so first thank you for your presentation and uh sharing all of the things that you all are doing uh for parent engagement. I participated in the summit as a community school coordinator with my principal and parent rep and I really liked it. Um I also participated in some um community rep coordinator and principal training through community schools. And I don't know if you've attended any of their uh parent engagement trainings, but they're very good. They're very powerful. They do three a year. And at the beginning of the year, they do an assessment of like each team does an assessment of their parent engagement looking at all the data that they have and then they look at a rubric which I think

193you presented at your summit this year. community school presented this to us last year and it's a parent and family empowerment rubric which speaks to what Kelly was sharing earlier is how do we get to that level of empowering our parents how do we build leaders among our parents right so that they could be doing that work and um so we at this community school training we looked at this rubric we assessed our work around parent engagement and we made a plan and we set some goals and then we went off to work on those goals and then we came back again looked at how we did a PDSA cycle on parent engagement, right? Done by the principal, the uh parent rep and the community school coordinator. And it was very intentional. It was very

194thoughtful. That's why I love community schools because everything is very intentional. And I'm wondering, I think that this is something that's powerful that can be used at all of our schools. And I think that when we can have those three folks working together, including some classroom teachers, if if they can or other coordinators, but when you have the principal and you have the parent uh rep or community rep, and you have another coordinator who does this work in the same space hearing the same stuff, one, they're all at the same level. They all see themselves as partners, not one doing more than the other. It is everybody's work. It is everybody's goal to make sure that we welcome parents because one of the things that I've heard from parents, not only when I visited school

195sites, um, but even prior to that is that sometimes parents don't feel welcome at our school sites, right? So what you were sharing Carla about making sure that all of these wonderful things get to the school site is very important because if parents don't feel welcome just like Charlotte was sharing about how maybe a parent had a bad experience at the school and they don't want to go back there. That's not what we want in LUSD. So that's why it's vital that our leaders at the school site, our principles and the staff that support the parent engagement are all in the same space and have the same goals. So I encourage you and I want to know can we make these not the big summits because that's a real fancy summit. It's really fancy. But

196can we just have a workshop day three times a year for these teams to get together and do this kind of work? The same kind of energy that we put into I Ready and into math and language arts, we have to put the same energy into parent engagement and into social emotional learning. So can we make this possible so that we have these meetings three times a year we bring these folks to the table these uh you know two or three folks from the school site but I the principal has to be a part of that and they do this plan how are we going to engage our families that's one question can we make that happen next year two um the the topics that you shared for the regional meetings are very good and

197they're they're um offered by our PSWs Right. Which is awesome. I've seen some of their their uh their trainings and their workshops are amazing. Parents like them. Can we bring those to the school site with uh PSW doing the the training? I have called on as a community school coordinator, I would call my SOSA to do these kinds of trainings for our parents. And they were so well attended and so well appreciated. They sat in a circle. The parents sat in a circle and participated in a workshop that made them feel heard, listened, and they got some tools that they could use, right? So, can we make these things happen at the school site more often? Not just, you know, it's important to show parents how to access the parent portal. And it is important

198for parents to know what's going on in the classroom and reading and math, um, but other things as well, right? Some of those topics are very critical. So, can we bring those to the school site? And then um the other thing I want to ask is about the uh learning walks. I know we did those when I was in at Buchanan Street. We did uh learning walks with our parents. Parents love them. They were very excited about it and and felt very much included and valued like their ideas, their feedback. And it also softened that relationship between the teacher and the parent. Sometimes, you know, we we as teachers, we get scared sometimes somebody's going to come and criticize us, right, what we're doing. But it really created a safe space. Um it didn't happen

199just like that. It was developed. So, I'm glad that that's happening. I would hope that the educators are aware that this is in the pipeline. You know, that school sites are already aware that it just doesn't come on, you know, they don't hear about it in August. and um and also that uh the parents and the students are also aware of that um that this is coming. So I'm I appreciate that. Um and then in terms of the CAC um can you explain how parents get involved in the CAC? What is the process? Is there an election? How do people find out about it? Um and just the also the other committees that we have. How are people how are parents aware of these committees and how can they be involved in it? Correct. So

200the committee advisory committee this year they shifted from a paper application to an election process. U the committee in the last few years have been asking for a more transparent process that was not peer-to-peer review necessarily to avoid any conflict of interest. So this year we transitioned through the local SULPA. That document um identifies the selection process for the committee and that now includes an election cycle. We've been working with the Division of Special Education to promote and message to families the region elections that we're hosting for our families with disabilities or families that have an IEP for their kiddo. Um they have been invited to attend our elections in person. We're currently in election cycle. This morning we had the election for the virtual academy families. The election has allowed us, we hosted that

201in a in a um Zoom environment because of the preference of families, but they are they have shifted to an applicate the uh the election cycle. The DAC the DAC the state prescribes how we form our DAC. So at the ELAC level, uh for those of you that might be aware, uh we have an EL delegate that is required by the department, the California Department of Education. The region ELAC delegates attend a regional convening. They're sent a letter, text message, we phone bank to invite them. In many instances, they're um supported to getting to the actual region office or wherever we're hosting the election. And parents self-nominate or are nominated to run and that's how we select them through a in-person election using a paper ballot. Everything is transparent. We review ballots as they're counted

202and we identify the individuals who are awarded a two-year term of service. Are there are there other parent committees besides DAC and CAC parents? The pack the parent advisory committee and what are the requirements for the pack? The pack that u committee is established by the California. So all three committees are established by the California Department of Education as a requirement. The parent advisory committee is also elected regionally. We have vacancies for parents that are free reduced price meal program. We have parents that are um English learners and at large families. For our foster parents, we do work with Dr. Denise Miranda to identify our foster parents. They've communicated in multiple times. They don't feel comfortable coming in to an election self-disclosing like student information. So we have worked with our officers in our bylaws

203to ensure that the the that we offer that additional support for our foster students. So but are those categories that I referenced they come to a region election they are elected by their peers through a paper ballot election process. Do they have to be parents or can they be community members? Are there any seats for community members? The DAC you need to be a parent of an English learner. Um the law requires that the majority of the members need to be e parents. Um they um so for the DAC specifically, they do uh come in and the CDE will review our procedures uh for electing the DAC. This is a federal program monitoring year and and they review our documents every other year to ensure we're following the law. PAC is for parents as well.

204Um there's three categories that you are eligible for. We review MSIs to ensure the parents are either an English learner parent, um free reduced price meal parent or just a general parent at large. The CAC is a little different. Um, you can get the language on that in the local SULPA plan. For the CAC, you can be of a parent with disability, a parent at large, community member with a disability, student representatives, teacher, and administrator representative as well. So, the CAC is a little bit broader and broad inclusive. The other two are parents only. That is correct. Current parents. That is correct. I see. And there's no other mandated parent committees at the district level? No. Only requirements for school sites are the English learner advisory committee and school site council. Yeah. All right. Okay.

205Thank you so much. And um yeah, please can we make that happen? Those three times a year parent I love it. Parent principal uh meetings. Yes. So with uh the principal leadership institute. So what we're doing this year, so you're asking about the instructional is building awareness because it's an opportunity for us to learn who has been doing the instructional walks. What have they learned from the process? what are some tools that we can leverage and use that already been out into the system. It's it's one of the activities that our principles really love too with they when they do it with their own colleagues. So I think it just has a good uh approach to how do you calibrate on instructional quality. So for our principal leadership institute, the plan is to be able

206to invite our principles. We're inviting our ILTs, our instructional leadership team members for day two of our principal leadership institute. And the idea is for them to start working looking at their data, making some plans of actions and we'll be integrating parent engagement, parent and family engagement into the conversations that they're having for their principal leadership institute. So then they can go back and work with the larger ILT including parents. That's our interest to be able to see them take that next step and build what they think is the best way for them to be able to engage in these instructional walks because there's instructional walks, there's instructional rounds, people have preferences and what they like to use. The second piece to that is your three times a year. So, this was the first year

207that we made mandatory that there were certain topics we wanted to make sure that the that the family reps were doing at every school site. This is where Antonio was talking about the certification that principles had to go through this year. So, as we look into next year, let's go back and look at what could potentially be some opportunities for three times a year. What would that action actually look like if we were to require not just a couple of topics, but actual engagement activities that they would have at the school site based on what you described. So, we'll come back to you with some potential ideas for that. I think there are some schools who are already doing this and so it's really leveraging how they can and then how they can articulate it

208in that plan that they're going to be working on at the PLI. Sorry. And just on the topics, um, you know, I think it would be good to also expand it to uh things like race, right? to talk about race, um to talk about LGBTQ plus, to talk about um uh immigration, all these different topics that impact our students. And we're hearing a lot um from our schools. I mean, we heard it at our board meeting where some kids, if you're part of the LGBTQ plus, you may not feel safe in some schools or in some settings or antilack um language that is being thrown around in schools. So I feel like those topics are also things that we need to educate our communities around, right? And and it starts with our families so that

209they can hold their children accountable in terms of the language and behaviors that they express. Thanks. Any other questions, Mr. Roin? Sure. I'll be brief. One, appreciate the presentation and kudos on the FAFSA completion. Um just some data questions on the IGP. Um looking at that slide 15, do we have data on how many parents participate in the IGP conference? Like is it a common thing? We don't have the data but we can get that for you and do we have data on how on completion rate like that you know for our graduates does everyone like what's our completion rate? May I introduce John Ladick our executive director of secondary instruction? Yeah, we can follow up with regard to you're asking for the completion rate of the number of students who um um no excuse

210me the number of schools who complete them or Yes. Yes. Yes. Um I will I don't want to I'll provide that. I'll get those to you. I just want to make sure. And then do we and obviously we would like uh you know deidentify any um personal information but do we track or do we have data on like what our students are saying their post-secary plans are and then like understanding is that something that we're we're supporting them through or like how often I mean know it's relatively new but how often are they following up on that but like you know I would be curious also looking at schools where there's a real CTE push like are the IGPS showing that there's more interest in vocational CTE stuff like do we you know I'd be

211curious to see how we can collect that again with deidentifying information but just trends on what on what we're seeing. Okay. Yeah. We can explore that further. I think with the IGP as we looked at first making sure 100% of our students have one. The next piece was making it sure that it was then accessible quote unquote accessible to families that they know and are beginning to be aware of it. As we've learned here there's some opportunities to further strengthen that. But then I think there's some opportunities to start capturing some additional information. Um, and I I'm pretty sure Esther probably and Carol have some additional data that we could share with you on just what we're seeing as interest and what they are capturing, our counselors are capturing as they're also consulting with the

212kids. Got it. And then finally, I mean, I know we have last week or two weeks ago, we had the digitization reszo, but digitizing these so that they're easier for students to complete, parents potentially to then weigh in on, and also for us to track the data. So, I don't know if there's a pro. Yeah, but plan for this. Got it. We're working on. Got it. And then my the last thing too, just when we think of information that's helpful to parents, because I just noticed our website still doesn't have the finalized instructional calendars for the next three years, it says tenative pending a few things. So, for families who are trying to figure out um you know, the next school year, it says um says the board's adoption is tenative. And so if we

213can update that as soon I think there's a couple steps but we will address that and make sure it gets up there ASAP. It's still tentative because well then we need to make it not tentative and I know I say that as a dissenting vote on it but if there's something that's still tenative about the instructional calendar that needs to be resolved immediately. Yeah. And just to follow up on IGP it was 99% completion last year and this year it's in progress. Great. And we'll follow up on the other questions. Thank you. Thank you for um your questions particularly with the IGT. Um it would be really great to track the students uh particularly as they're you know reaching 11th grade or 12th grade where the opportunities are because you know as you know we

214are enhancing or um expanding um days and the opportunities that students can continue their u trajectory um particularly if it's CTE linked um into different trades. So I I am hearing and I know Mr. Merlson is as well of the interest of you know because there are students who not necessarily want to go directly into college. They may want to have some work experience first before you know to sort of um explore different careers before they go into college. So it's really great to see where are the um areas of expansion for us to provide those opportunities for our graduating um students so to continue their opportunities. Just one quick question. Um um it has to do with the family literacy workshops, the um ELLP funding. Um I was able to um go to Fort

215Street Primary Center. They had their literacy and picnic. So they opened it up on Saturday and the families came in. They um set up, you know, their tents and and their um sort of their canopies and and it was really great. They were passing out books. So I can see how they're really um being very creative in use of those funds and you know welcoming parents in. So and then it's also a community school. So I'm I'm glad uh Miss Grego mentioned about community schools because part of the pillars of community schools is is family engagement. So it' be wonderful to see how our community schools um or elementary right who are use who have UTK and second grade are um using those funds and really you know to engage families in literacy and also

216as math as well and other schools. So maybe you know if you can provide us some of the sort of activities or um engagement that parents are doing and using um their ELOP funding for these types of engagements. So I think that would be really great to understand and also what are we learning from our community schools and how they're engaging their families as well as is one of the key p u pillars. Um so yeah I had another question that but miss um Charlotte miss um Hendy Newell asked that about um engaging parents who are in high school because that's you know like she mentioned parents sort of sort of like check out but that's when we really need to have them continued engagement. So it' be great to see the strategies to really

217get more participation in parents in that level. So thank you so much. I appreciate your presentations and um and answering our questions. So now we will be moving on to our next um area of the meeting which is the public comments. And now I um hand it over to Mr. McClean. Okay, we have a full vote of public comment. I'll call on the folks who are listed as being here who listed themselves as being in here in person first and then I will call on those who are speaking remotely. So let's see Mr. David Tokovski come on up. You'll have two minutes to speak once you begin. And then after Mr. Tokovski are Maria Luis Palma, Monica Razola and then Isabel Gonzalez. Okay. Uh, start. I want to get Mr. Smlson's form. All those schools

218that had problems in the elevator for a year and a half. Somebody at the school just fills out a Williams complaint legally. Thank you, Mr. Jokovski is handing us Williams complaint forms. So, please which you have cleverly put outside in the hallway in a couple different languages. All right. The two minutes is yours. They're in Spanish, too. Uh, thank you for this meeting for setting direction and goals. Um, that was well done. Although the presentations in a datadriven district had very little data to them. You ask the questions for them and uh that is true of facilities which is more about money as data but also the number and equity issues involved. Additionally, you still have not been presented anything from Proposition two and four, which were 10 billion dollars of state money, which is

219roughly 1 billion for greening, energy, environment issues, and one billion for construction. Additionally, on the HVAC question that was raised by Miss Gomez, Proposition BB, the first bond, put only 2.2 2 billion and we pledged and delivered little ineptly I must say but we got air conditioning units through the entire San Frernando Valley in less than $1 billion. The rate question was asked about hotspots. Last board meeting you approved eight I think it was eight or 7 million for hotspot money. Uh that money should go to the questions that were asked about. Additionally, your developer fees are o nearly $200 million. You should oversee that as part of facilities rather than it becoming a slush fund. Huntington Park City Council didn't even pay their uh developer fees. IG found that out. I don't know if

220there's been any follow-up. Additionally, you hit the ELOP monies. Very good. Libraries, you have $500 million of ELOP ongoing. that could take care of more libraries than Thomas Jefferson ever thought of because Thomas Jefferson wasn't focusing on esports at the time. Maybe you would now. Additionally, you have not put much money into language acquisition out of the ELO money. And finally, the wellness uh the the wellness money is still the children youth behavioral health initiative. It is now over hund00 million that have been lost by not having that application up and running. Thank you very much. Thank you for your time. Maria Louis Palma, come on down. You'll have two minutes to speak once you begin. Good afternoon. My name is Marisa Palma. I'm speaking for Oolada, Inc. Your questions on the ambassador program. What

221are the next steps? None. None at all. I've been through it. The IGP parents get no notice. I've never been to a meeting with my son's counselor. I managed the IGP myself, but I had no notice. Let's get back to what I was going to mention. If the level of safety incidents and the dismal level of academic outcomes were a disease like CO 19, you would be calling this a public health emergency. Instead, there's secrecy, silence, and tiny little growth amounts are celebrated. the few academic metrics in the strategic plan. It's obvious you're not going to meet them. So now you're scrambling to revise the targets. Then we get over to my one of my favorite topics, the LCAP metrics. The LCAP has lots of metrics. This is the reality of parent engagement. This is

222what you provided the parents on the parent committees to review the LCAP. Pages and pages of tiny little data, little tiny amounts, no references. What are we supposed to do with it? What are parents supposed to do with this? who are supposed to comment on the LCAP process. This is the reality. Do you review any of this? Do you know if any of these items were effective or ineffective? You never talk about the LCAP here in the public in public meetings. Let's say for example on goal two, joy and wellness. All of the metrics, most of them have to do with results of the school experience survey. Really, you don't measure anything based on incident reporting from AR from school police. Hm, you should think about that. Then we have this little budget for school

223climate personnel resources. I have not seen one of these this year. Maybe I missed it. This one was from April of 2024 presented in Mr. Andres Chates's presentations last year. Where's the update? These are expenses and personnel amounts. Are they effective or not effective? Have these Why aren't these included as target measurements? These are not investments. Expenses are very different. You call everything an investment. Please create a plan that we can hold you all accountable for. That's what parents want, accountability. Thank you. Thank you for your time. Okay, Monica Arzola is coming up. Uh, Miss Arzola is going to speak in Spanish. So, if you'd like to hear what she's saying in English, please put your hands up so we can get you these translation headsets. Okay, gracias. Good afternoon. My name is Monica Rasola,

224mom of two students in the district. And I came here to talk about something else, but I'm hearing and I'm going to speak a bit about what I was listening about with the parents that for them to participate in the schools always in the schools, it's the same parents. Four or five parents in parent centers. They don't want to call other parents because they don't want to have a lot of stress in the parent center and deal with more parents. So, if we just have to deal with four the quiet ones that don't say anything, right? And I'm saying this by experience from experience. That's what I've seen. I was a member of DACA. In the last meeting, I submitted my resignation as a member of DLC because the chairperson there wouldn't permit questions. When

225one asked questions, they took it as one was ignorant, as if one didn't know what they were doing or saying. I've been a member for not just one year, but 14 years. I've worked with six, seven different chairpersons with which I've always worked very well except with this chairperson currently. So not just the chairperson but the vice chair. They make fun of the questions we ask and one kind of loses their desire to participate. So, as a mom who likes to be um involved, I would like that Miss Carla and others that are part of the West, they you should be checking the West because those people don't work. They don't do anything. They don't want to work. Now that we had the safety uh thing, they didn't give us the information regarding safety. And

226thank you, Miss Carla, because you called the superintendent so that they could provide the message from one day to the next. And us parents, we're busy and we can't be doing things from one night to the next morning. So, this was done from one day to the next. And that that that that's bad. So, I ask you that you please focus to work on the west and maybe do some changes overall. And that and the superintendent there does nothing. Thank you for your time. All right. The next three folks will be Maria, Daisy, Ortiz. Come on up. I see her out there. Maria Daisy Ortiz and then um Isabel Gonzalez and Juan Jose Mangandi. Okay, the two minutes is yours. Buenosardes. Good afternoon everybody. My name is Maria Daisy Ortiz and truly I am tired

227of seeing so many lies that they come to say here that parent engagement and I'm going to tell you in a few words. First of all, when you do that convening for DAC that they're talking about 71,000 in the east only 60 parents came for 200 schools. So, how is it that you have 71,000 parents for English learners when there's not even 50% of parents go see the ELAC committees? DELAC is not connected to uh ELAC. So, that's why you're out of compliance. We need for you to send the report of the 20 schools that come to review because these committees will be audited and we want to know the committee how is it developed or is Mr. Placencia just making everything up so that it looks beautiful just as it looks right here. There

228is no lowincome advisory committee because you don't want it because the money you do get it and the law states that if parents requested you need to have it but you don't want it because you don't like parents. You want parents that are just in mediocre workshops just like you because you do it halfway. You have eat, you have do and truly you are an insult. the parent group, the focus group. It is a lie because in nowhere does the law state that it needs to be established by or have UTLA and other people and not parents that are elected by other parents. Any committee, parent committee needs to be elected by parents and that is the law that you have here and inflating numbers just like you inflate other kinds of news. That is

229not possible and it is not acceptable. You need to change it and you need to improve it. Parent engagement is important. It is necessary for the implementation, for transparency and for good achievement. Thank you. Uh Isabel Gonzalez. I hope that this week of spring break has served as a reflection because for us as Catholics we call it holy week that is to reflect upon and celebrate the life of Jesus Christ and it's also a tradition to see the movie the passion of the Christ. But I'm so impressed or amazed to know that humanity with power and am dirty ambitions continues to today. Those same bishops that accused, crucified, and killed Jesus Christ were the same ones that should have protected him to defend him, to help him. Isn't that so? members of the board. However,

230they best chose to save the life of a criminal, of a murder, of a rapist, and to go as freedom or just like the ones that use yellow vest to go as free all around and to be around our schools or just like Mr. George Floyd. Right, Miss Da. Right, Miss Goness. Right, Miss Rosio. The same way free to contraband fentinel to our children. You have become those bishops that are just representing your own interest. You are only interested in your agenda. The life of one student, you are not interested in. you're not interested when they ask and you have the power in your hands to be in agreement and you don't want to do so. The only thing that goes well for you is to instill fear. For example, using the shield as immigration

231for your cheap programs. Listen to our voices. We ask for safety for our students, for students and parents. We want for the school police to be reinstated completely. We want a transparency of how the funds at Alaz are managed and I hope that when you notice that you're not acting in a correct manner. It is not too late. Please return the school funds. Thank you for your time. Uh Mr. Juan Jose Mangandi, come on up. You'll have two minutes to speak once you begin. They took my words away. I don't know if to cry or to laugh. Well, do you like for you to do you like to be lied to? It's so interesting how much you ask. They said, "Let's ask about lies and lies and then we're just going to be dizzy about

232it." And how long did you study the lies that this man came to present here? It's all a lie. It's just something he created that parents really participated. He is a liar, a manipulator that divides parents to keep his own interest and to keep his status. But truly, do you think that what he said is true? I've told Miss Bias that you have a problem and it's c cultural incompetence incompetency for English learners. And I told her directly and you still do the same thing. you don't understand Latinos and you still speaks on our behalf and that we're leading to failure. Look at the numbers. I'm not inventing this. I'm not making it up. M Rosio, I congratulated you asked him two questions and the two times he didn't answer. He just went around in

233circles. And that's the type of of person he is. He never uh faces the things. He just goes around because that's his job. And I want to tell you that I have been a chairperson of this committee when he came in. And I want to tell you this man is the worst that the district has had. And I want to know that if you want to advance in parent in true unification, I do ask you honestly that you transfer the students, fire him or see where you send him just that you send Chicago somewhere else. I don't know because if we don't want to see any more problems because this man is this harming all of the parent engagement and all that unison that we as parents and district has to I don't think that

234the parent is you. I think it's the lies that he come to tell you here and listen Miss Garaga do you know that my my student has been into community schools and they're the worst. So where's the matter? There's two coordinators, but the whole point is business. And you know who's behind all that design that lies again? Mr. Placencia. So if we don't take him away, if we don't, we are not going to advance in something that is truly benefiting us because we're in a moment where the MAGA uh lying and everyone that's a liar is were finding the truth. And I think it's time we can't continue to just play in those lies. Look at all those numbers that he showed you. They're just lies. Okay, Dion again, I see you're out there. come

235on up. You'll have two minutes to speak. Once you begin, good afternoon members of the board. My name is Yanagien and I have been representing the parent network because we need school safety. But today, they spoke about a very important issue. What is parent engagement in the academic? I would like to know how many parents participate. You say that there's 71,000 parents. But you know what? It's 51,000 uh workshops that only three parents go to because to waste money, you are so good. Here you put photos of people that are here. But look, it's just the six that come here because I've been to many that they hold and there's only three, four, five virtually. Who's going to learn? It's just like watching a movie. No one is going to learn that way. And even

236less something academic. There's no time to ask questions and you use a language that parents do not understand. And we have said this that language you don't understand. And sometimes when I get to the level to new parents, other parents that are Mr. Placencia's friends, they tell me, "Oh, well, you have been here for 10 years. Why don't you understand?" It's not a matter that I understand. I It's a matter that everyone else understands what we're talking about. You talk about ELD, ELPA, excelpa. Do you think that parents know about that and they speak in those terms in the U workshops and the family academy and is everything designed so that parents are even more confused because then they have to do other research apart from being those two hours and what will somebody that

237that gets in their three minutes the problems that have resulted in all these programs or parent engagement do not work and who's responsible Antonio Placencia because he's never wanted to support parents and this man has to go now Because if you really want parent engagement, then he needs to go. But if not, leave him because then he is doing a good job for you. You want for parents not to engage. So leave him because he's just creating because if there's three parents that he um likes him, he does special favors for so that they legitimize because these are the parents that are in the photos. All the parents are those parents that he keeps happy. And what he does is he does special favors so that the parents say, "Oh yes, I owe him a

238favor." And when no one owes a favor to another employee because that's your job. That's all your job. There's so many problems in schools that no one wants to talk about. But you do want to shut us up with all those numbers. All right. Maria Duran, I see you're online with us. Maria Duran, please press star six to unmute yourself and you'll have two minutes to speak once you begin. Maria Duran. Maria Duran. Okay. Good afternoon. Good afternoon, members of the board of education. Well, I was listening to all the topics and there's a lot of important things here and the importance of parent engagement in the education of our children is essential for uh academic achievement, emotional achievement. This year I am part of region east and as a parent not just I there's

239other parents who do not feel welcome as partners. We are engaged. Some of us that at the district level following the policies and when we take it to the schools they make fun of us. They make fun of us seeing us that we don't know how to read. The only thing that we want is to take the things based on state and federal laws. And then sometimes they just see us as a threat and they don't want us in school. And the only thing that we want is to be part of our students education so that they can meet their goals. The school police plays a fundamental role in this process. Their presence in schools just as in the surroundings helps to avoid u criminal activities and to respond to emergencies in a fast and

240efficient manner. The school safety is essential so that students are able to concentrate and they can develop their academic potential. When students feel safe, they do better in those areas. And it's important to please have the con consider that police return to the um school so that they feel safe. just from special education students that they are most more uh vulnerable to bullying and in different matters uh personnel and also employees and truly this would help so much and also for students that are typical and as I said before it is fundamental so that or essential so that they can develop those goals and to feel safer time thank you for your Uh, let's see. Norma Gonzalez, are you here in person? Come on up. You have two minutes to speak. Why don't you begin?

241So, Norma Gonzalez. Good afternoon. I'm Norma Gonzalez and I am a mother of two students that are in this district. It is so important parent engagement just like we were seeing and they showed us other numbers as well, but there's no parent engagement. We want and you have seen it. Miss Carla Grigo mentioned it and it you were right on point and you also merosio we are seeing that there is no parent engagement. Why not be more inclusive? Why not push a little bit more? Why not review with uh very closely all of this? Because we're seeing that this is even more stuck this problem with the parents. I have here supporting my partner because in the school that we are in there's a lot of issues in the classes for special education with the

242teachers the teachers for alternative curriculum that lie when they accuse they accuse themselves other students the students are nonverbal and this problem is so big and I would like for her in another at the point can speak about it because it's a big issue to accuse a teacher and to feel the power to take them to a greater uh another level of for the children. I don't think it's fair as a parent or a student with special needs. I am affected. I am hurt. Why? Because we dedicate our time to be with them to give more and to keep them 100% in all their services. And that is not fair. It is not fair. And I think it needs to change. Why? Because it is easy to feel power to feel the power there. But

243it shouldn't be so. It shouldn't be. So, thank you. Thank you for your time. Erinda Morita, are you here? Erinda, she's not online either. Let me double check. Let's see. Alejandra Pñena, are you here? Come on up. You have two minutes to speak once you begin. Buenos. Good afternoon. Well, I'm uh going to talk about the case of my son. He's a child with autism. He has an alternative curriculum and I haven't been helped. The school hasn't helped me. And Mr. Placencia just told me that they're trained. They're not trained. They don't have emotionally. My son is not doing well. He's not going to school now because the only solution that they had was the teacher's safety. But what about my child's safety? My child is not doing good emotionally. Why? Because something is happening

244and they don't want to explain to me what it is. He has issues with his behavior and I'm asking for an emergency IEP. They don't want to give it to me. I haven't had any communication. They don't have any communication with me. Miss Garo, the principal, spoke with me and she said that they were going to change my child from class because the teacher, Mr. Romero, doesn't feel secure or safe with my child. Therefore, he's worried about the teacher's safety. What about my child's safety? You will remove him from that classroom to another one. Then what? I want a change of behavior and I want him to work on my child's behavior because the solution is not to change him from classroom. is to change the plan and prepare him, work with him and prepare

245him because changes for him are very drastic and it is sad that my child likes school but now he's saying no school and I just mentioned the school he says I don't want to go with Mr. Romero and I become really sad because my son is my priority. The only thing that they did was give a social worker to me. They investigating me and and I believe that this is an injustice for my son to suffer and see him this way. Thank you. Thank you for your time. Okay, the next speaker is Marcela Garcia. I see you're online with us, Miss Garcia. Marcela Garcia, please press star six to unmute yourself. And you have two minutes to speak once you begin. Marcela Garcia, good afternoon. My name is Marcela Garcia and I am here because

246of the parent involvement and this is what this is all about today. I was elected about four years ago to be a DAC member. I was elected me by many parents. It went just a few. It was I was elected by many parents for two years. My son reclassified next year. they no one let me know that I wasn't part of it for me to just I was there and they just said no your name is no longer here and this parent involvement that you have and the way it's written it's wrong first and foremost you no one even thanks us for participating previously I get there and they told me you can't participate because your child has been reclassified how do you expect parents to be active inside the schools. We are in parents

247that are interested and we go to where you want us to go and we this is our own time and you push us aside. You humiliate us in front of other parents and in front of all administration that's in front of us. We feel impotent and we feel like we can't do anything. Why? Because it comes from you guys. You guys have written these things to treat parents this way. And the moment that they want to let us go, even being volunteers, they let us go. Just like you removed for example coordinators, principles, you removed many coordinators to hire new people. When we had planned with the coordinators and we recommend for them to buy us books, but you were we we didn't have enough. We don't have the parent education how to read the

248books and how to teach our children knowing that they're learning two languages because you did cut layoffs coordinators layoffs and they hired others that don't even know what we're talking about. Appreciate your time. Okay, let's see. Raquel Diaz, I see you're online. Raquel Diaz, please press star six to unmute yourself and you'll have two minutes to speak once you begin. Raquel Diaz. Hi, good afternoon. Excuse me. My name is Regal Diaz. I'm a mother of two students. Excuse me. Uh I it got it got complicated here. Uh I'm a mother of two students as I mentioned. Two two special need girls. And in this case, in this moment, my priority and as I've always manifested to you, it's the intention to please. It is a necessary for school police to come back to schools. Yesterday

249there was a case where obviously I can't give you names but at Belmont High School they found a 15year-old girl in the school bathroom that was drunk. She was drunk. And please, it is important for school police to come back so that our children, students, teachers, and everyone at the at the schools can be and feel protected. Therefore, we we are asking in every way, in every form, we need safety. We need protection for students and for teachers and for all personnel. Therefore, we are having difficulties with that. It's not the first case. I've heard three, four cases in different schools. And please uh my daughter is 15 years old. I have another daughter that's 11 years old. Unfortunately, it is something sad. This is something bad. And how is it possible that there's a

250child inside the bathroom that's under the influence of alcohol? Therefore, honestly, we need this. This is an urgency. We need more safety. We know that it's not easy. We completely understand. I'm a mother and I understand that it's not easy because they are a bit of rebellious children, but please, please help us. If you don't help us, what will happen with with with this youth? Thank you for your time. And our final speaker is Karina Lopez. Karina Lopez, please press star six to unmute yourself. And you'll have two minutes to speak once you begin. Karina Lopez. Hello. Okay. Hi, good afternoon. My name is Karina Lopez and I am calling because these type of crimes that are happening uh they don't have an expiration date. Let's be careful. Let's be careful about this. And I

251want to say that I'm not saying he's responsible. He's like Judah that he is being utilized for certain for certain things. And in this case, unfortunately, these are for bad things, not for good things. It doesn't benefit the children completely, especially the children. And we need to be safe. We need to be careful with all this. I wouldn't like to be in his place when we have to be accountable and about what we do on this land. Therefore, the only thing I ask for you guys and I ask and I want for you from you guys is for you to respect the parents' rights, the committee's rights. And I tell all the parents and members of the community that personnel is not at fault nor the district. It is us. We need to stop ex

252start executing our own power and our own decision, the authority and the power that we have. But we need to utilize this and come together. Thank you. Time and I apologize. We actually have one more speaker. Erinda Morita, you're on the line. Please press star six to unmute yourself, Miss Morita. And you'll have two minutes to speak once you begin. Morita. Good morning. I am Erinda Morita. We are asking for safe schools from LA USD. We are asking everyone that's present here. As parents, we are asking, we demand that you complete the protocols. We want campaigns against drugs inside the schools. And also I want to speak on the academic side. I would like for you to give me documents explaining that you have credential teachers in each classrooms IP IP physics and universal physics

253AP calculus. We need you to sign and let me know because you have sent me LD send me a document. They want me to sign because I can't pull my child out mid year. Some teachers leave and and this this has happened to me since 9th grade and 10th grade and I will enter 11th grade. My child, this is something that I'm repeating and you are not listening to me. Antonio Blacencia, well, I wrote him a message on Sunday asking him all these questions in regard to AP classes. if you have credentialed teachers in certain classrooms and as of now he hasn't responded. Therefore, I need an answer because I need to sign a document stating that my child will take this class the whole year and I can't pull him out. Therefore, I can't

254sign anything if you don't sign my documents first. I don't believe you all. You've lied to me ever since I enrolled my child at the school ninth grade. You lied to me. You had no teachers. Therefore, I don't trust in you anymore and I don't believe you. Parents, when we speak about our children, certain people at the schools, we are no longer being looked at in the good way. But I always speak with certain parents and I inform them so that they can or they don't fall into the same lies. Sometimes we trust the schools because we believe in you a lot. Therefore, we need within the AC academic area, we need you to be clear and you say that you have uh uh the academic area and the rigorous. This is why my child

255is in LA. We appreciate your time. That concludes public comment. And uh just for the audience, I know sometimes when we have our parents who need immediate support, I want you to know there are folks here who then are sitting here who's they respond with families and make sure that there's a touch point and follow up. Uh and then we also have region and others connect with them. So I just want to make sure folks know. Yes, thank you for uh clarifying that. Um so this concludes our committee of the whole meeting. I want to thank all of our um speakers, our presenters, and everyone that is working towards making building a school system that is rooted in equity, sustainability, and student success. Our next committee of the whole meeting will be on May 20th,

256and we hope to see you all again. Thank you so much. Have a beautiful day.