001e e e okay I'm ready to call the regular meeting of the board of education for Martinez Unified School District to order and do we have any public comment for closed session we do not okay we will adjourn to close session e e e okay we're ready to reconvene from our closed session we do have one item to report out in closed session the board considered the recommendation for a stipulated suspended expulsion for student number 2024-25 d8 is there a motion to approve the stipulated suspension expulsion i' like to make the motion I'll second okay um trusty Marcel O'Brien I trusty horic Martin I trusty Campbell I trusty AA I and myself I motion passes and now we have the Pledge of Allegiance do we have any changes to the agenda no changes tonight um
002any public comment to the agenda um motion for the agenda I'll move to approve the agenda second trustee um student rep I all those in favor pass and then we have organization of the board procedural item Helen Rossy okay so um tonight we have to take a look at the committee openings that we left from December and we have just sorry a little technical difficulty here we have um trusty Ayala cannot do the curriculum advisory Council where we have the open seat so we are looking for another um board member to take that open seat that is a board uh Brown act um seat and we need representation on that committee can you remind us when those meetings are I was just gonna ask am the meetings are at uh 3:45 to wait hold on
003sorry they're on Wednesdays four times a year and sometimes we have an additional meeting they're 3:15 to 4:15 there's only one meeting left for the year which is on May 7th I can fill it if no one else is available thank you okay and um truste Ayala will be the alternate on the delac and the second um fill the second spot on the Dei committee um with Courtney Masala O'Brien great okay do we need to vote on that yeah okay yes do I have a motion so moved second student rep I all those in favor I I so moved now what was the fun part um highlights and recognition we have uh leadership students Helen will introduce so tonight we have um Luciano dulio and Isabella okay Izzy is that better uh both eighth grade
004students from the junior high here to tell us a little bit about leadership correct come on up to the podium you can both go up go ahead oh we have three how come I only have two names oh okay so why don't you go ahead and give you your name when you get up there you want to pull the mic down towards your mouth there you go is it on um yeah I think it's on right okay perfect hi everyone my name is Penny Kanan and I am the ASB vice president at Martinez Junior High School um I wanted to take a moment to introduce myself and share some things that the leadership class has been working on at our school so one of the first things that we noticed was that the bathrooms on
005campus uh never had any pads available even though we had a big Supply sitting in storage from from a past donation drive so we started restocking uh the ba bathrooms to make sure students always have what they need we also gave some of the teachers uh some to the teachers for students in case they needed them it's a small change but it makes a big difference another project we do is making handmade birthday cards for every student during their birth month we wanted to make sure that everyone feels included and celebrated it's just a way to a simple way to spread kindness and make people feel special and finally every month we make special cards or small gifts for our teachers and staff to show how much we appreciate them they do so much for
006us and we want them to know that their hard work does not go un unnoticed we're really passionate about making our school a better place more welcoming for everyone thank you for letting me share and I look forward to continuing to make a positive impact hello hello my name is Isabella GES and I'm the ASB treasur at mjhs today I will talk about campus activities and how our students stay involved in the community in leadership we do lunch activities to connect with the kids and develop fun activities they can engage in during the Lunch Period a recent example we've done is Valentine cards where they wrote A Kind message to a friend and then it was attached to a sweet tree we also do games and crafts to ensure there is something for everyone throughout
007the year lunch activities are all inclusive being free easy to find and you can participate with a group of friends or even by yourself another campus activity we do is spirit days spirit days add a positive atmosphere for the students to connect plan outfits together and engage in building school pride alongside the spirit days we have Home Room competitions seeing which home room has the most participants our campus activities provide students an exciting activity to take part in spirit days to compete in and a place of unity and creating a strong School Community thank [Applause] you hello everybody my name is luchano dulio and I'm the ASB president of mjhs today I'll be talking about some of the major activities leadership works on throughout the year just last Wednesday we hosted an all-inclusive after school
008hangout called The Sweetheart social placed right in the quad students left their sixth period class into the event it was free to attend and there was a DJ free photo booth and games and crafts led by leadership students in addition students who had a sweet tooth could head over to the immensely popular cjsf bake sale or the famously long line to an ice cream truck serving soft serve milkshakes and floats the energy was great and our class was able to leave proud in December leadership hosted a used toy drive to be recycled or reused with other families these toys went to an organization called uh Second Chance toys while researching the website I decided that we couldn't pass it up in total we collected over 250 individual toys and all were successfully donated and redistributed
009to a better place last but not least of the larger things we plann for the student body we have our dances while they're not free we keep our ticket prices absolutely affordable so that students can come and enjoy what the dance has to offer at our dances leadership students put up decorations acoss Ross the cafeteria to add to the atmosphere and immerse our students in the theme when a student wants a break from the music they can head to the gym for a quiet and relaxing place to hang out with their friends if the students want a lifelong treasure they could go to the photo gruth and take pictures with fun props and multiple strips to be purchased and of course we can't forget the snacks in addition or sorry we make sure to have
010a full free snack table for the students students to come and enjoy throughout the dance to keep up with the excitement and enjoy treat our last dance was in October and we are definitely looking forward to planning our next dance in May while these events seem big on the outside it is only a small part of what leadership is constantly working on throughout the year our hope is that with these events we give students something big to look forward to and a way for them to make memories thank you [Applause] thank you very much that was wonderful and I love all the projects and things you guys are doing um just curious how do you get some of your funds do you guys just get donations how do you for some of the things that
011you oh can you go to the microphone sorry thank you hi Nicole Hansen here um we've been doing the same fundraiser now for about say eight or nine years years um I don't know the name of the company off hand but it's an Otis um the cookie drive and we do that early in the school year and then we raise enough and I we budget then for to kind of take our way through so most of the activities we're doing throughout the year we're trying to keep um where we sometimes make some of a profit the goal is actually to keep it as low as possible so everyone can come and participate and then also helps fund our end of year events that's great thank you very much I think that's wonderful and I love
012all the um ideas you guys do with the cards for birthdays and making everyone feel feel special and included that's awesome any other comments from the board any public comment okay um student rep report good evening everybody at L hunus Elementary families got to enjoy the fourth and fifth grade musical this past Friday thank you to all of the families who were able to attend the fifth graders enjoyed their Delta Voyage field trip and the third graders took their kids for the bay walking field trip thank you to all of the families who supported the dine and donate at JP's beastro this past Thursday on Friday the fifth graders will put on the MLK musical Los hunus Elementary will start elpac testing next week we will celebrate read Across America and Los hunus Spirit Week
013starting March 3rd at John sweat Elementary fourth graders are currently on their overnight field trip in Coloma and experiencing California history firsthand students across all grade levels put on a stunning performance of Hansel and gredle the MEF readathon is March 3rd to 7th and the John SWAT Elementary Book Fair will be March 3rd to 7th at Mela Park Elementary on Thursday February 20th we held our annual stem fair there were about two dozen students completing and displaying stem projects and they had several STEM related Community Partners presenting as well on Tuesday Mela Park Elementary held an assembly to refresh behavioral expectations get students excited about incentives and introduce some new restorative approaches to the students Walk and Roll Wednesdays has been a resounding success at Mela Park and there has been a notable effect on
014traffic coffee with the principal is February 28th color Wars will also be on February 28th and walk through California for fourth grade is February 27th to 28th last week Martinez Junior High School in parti in partnership with PTSA and Leadership rolled out the annual fund run the leadership team worked to develop a corresponding spirit week and kickoff event with an after school sweetheart social for all congratulations to the martinus junior high school and alhamra high school musicians who had an Inspire amazing night of Music at the annual musd area Festival it was so inspiring to see the beginning through advanced level students performing the Bullpup basketball season is coming to a close this week with the teams participating in the league tournaments martinis junior high is hosting the eighth grade tournament with the first game
015tonight go bull pups spirit week is this week February 24th to 28th the PTSA FR Fun Run is February 28th the PTSA Car Wash is March 3 March 8th the lpac testing will be the week of March 10th from alhamra high school the musd area Music Festival was a resounding success showcasing remarkable growth in the skill of all participating bands and orchestras from martinis Jor high and alhamra high the event drew a Full House underscoring the community's strong support of The Talented musicians HS has a local public speaker coming on Friday February 28th to celebrate Black History Month the Multicultural assembly is scheduled for March 6th during third period save the date for the open house scheduled for April 1st from 5:30 to 8:00 more details will will be available in mid-march at Vicente Martinez
016and bion's independent study the District Attorney's Office started their nine week educational lessons that will take place every other Wednesday during study hall for all students a Kaiser representative came from vmhs and bonies to present some great career opportunities that students can start as soon as they graduate students had many questions and there was a lot of interest in pursuing a career at Kaiser the vmhs zology club podcast led by m burner and vmhs students was highlighted in the Contra Costa County Office of Education wellness and schools programs monthly newsletter each month the psychology Club interviews a special guest who joins the podcast this newsletter is sent out to all the schools in Contra Costa County Contra Costa County Office of educ education Roop representatives are visiting Ms rago's digital photo class on February 26th
017Thursday February 13th martinus adult education had a meeting to discuss and share ideas for the new adult education facility meeting attendees included community members students staff teachers board members district office staff and the superintendent there were robust discussions on what the needs and wants are that best support the community and the students three students were awarded grants through the workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act two will be participating in the cad with Revit fundamentals program and one in the off Office Professional program total $1,925 in grant funding Monday March 3rd there will be high set testing for several of the students this will be their final test and they will learn earn their high school equivalency March 12th and 13th at 700 p.m. there is or orientation for the pharmacy technician training program students must pre-register
018to attend spring quarter classes start on Monday March 10th and finally a friendly reminder there will be no school on Monday March 10th for all students thank you anything else no that's it okay you did a great job by the way in the area Festival so awesome job congratulations do we have any um organ employee organizational reports no okay comments from the PTA staff reports superintendent Rossy okay um so sometimes sometimes it takes a village and sometimes it takes a high school senior with a little extra heart the administration and staff at alhamra high school are proud to recognize the exceptional efforts of pton radkey a graduating senior who has exemplified true leadership and compassion Payton has gone above and beyond to ensure her peers could enjoy one of the most important experiences of a
019high school career through her initiative and dedication she successfully raised over $4,000 providing scholarships for 25 students to attend their High School prom her actions reflect a deep commitment to inclusive excuse me inclusivity and Community Spirit ensuring that Financial barriers do not prevent any student from participating in this Milestone event her selflessness and Leadership exemplify the values we cherish and promote within our district making her a true role model for her peers and Community I am so very proud to be a part of a district where students like Payton go above and beyond to help ensure their classmates and community members have access to the many opportunities that are offered not only here in our district but in our community as well there have been many students families businesses and community members who have over
020the years sponsored individual student athletes Scholars and clubs and an occasional prom or Disney ticket here or there but I have never in my 31 plus years have seen the likes of an individual student raising this kind of money for a single event congratulations to Payton for setting an example of kindness inclusion and heart for our school Community superintendent search the RFP has been out since our last meeting and we have heard so far from two firms all the responses are due tomorrow on Saturday March 1st the know your rights Workshop uh will begin at 10:00 a.m. it is a webinar presented by the law offices of Daniela R rosant I can't even talk anymore today Daniela r razawi she is an immigration attorney from um Roseville Rockland area uh all information about that has
021been sent home to families it's also on our District web page if you need information please contact the district office or your school site that's it great thank you Helen all right public comments under government code 5495 4.3 members of the public have the right to address the board on any matter within the board jurisdiction however the board may not take action on any non-agenda item individual speakers will be allowed three minutes to address the board 20 minutes have been allocated for this portion of the agenda additional time is allowed at the end of the meeting if there was not enough time to speak during public comments our first public comment is Craig lazaretti thank you it is sad and disappointing to hear that amid an ongoing budget crisis a petition has been submitted to
022force a special election out of spite over the board's choice to fill the area 3 vacancy an election that will cost the district money that it can't afford and ultimately hurt our students and staff I received confirmation from the elections office today that the signatures have been verified in a special election will be called at a cost to the district of between 50 and 63,000 this is the first time election officials are aware that a special election has been called in the county in response to a school board appointment there have been many appointments to fill board vacancies over the years and many choices that have been that have disappointed certain members of the community I recall the disappointment I and others felt with an appointment to fill a vacancy in 2019 at a time
023when the district was facing a major bullying epidemic at the junior high school that the board then had been slow to respond to several candidates including Miss buer buer addressed that issue head-on in their candidate interviews but the board that night chose a candidate who did not address it head on as a parent I felt a sense of betrayal that night as did other parents compounded by the fact that some in the community were trying to downplay The Bullying situation is not that bad of course it's never not that bad when it's you or your loved one when it's not you or your loved one experiencing the trauma and abuse but we respected the process and didn't try to take out our frustration on the district's Financial Health and we worked in the years that
024followed to elect during regular elections board members who would exhibit the empathy we found lacking then and we succeeded as evidenced by the trustees who sit before me tonight musd went from a board that focused on special interests narrow agendas and cheerleading the accomplishments of the privileged over the persistent struggles of the disadvantaged and marginalized to one that truly fights for the well-being of all our students and celebrates the value of all our students and you showed that again in your appointment to the area 3 vacancy an appointment that showed also that representation and diversity matter at a time when those values are under tremendous and disgusting assault in this country there are not specific answers to pafic questions that determine who is most qualified to sit among you we all have attributes as community
025members that we bring to the table and as constituents we all value certain attributes above others for me I value core empathy and lived experience higher than I do Mastery of the alphabet soup of educational bureaucracies bureaucracies whose endless acronyms like l cap lcff IEP have not solved the crisis of public education I value board members who will use their own lived experience to not only shape their own values but to also empathize with and respect to lived experiences that are different from their own I value board members who are independent of any interest group that has business before this board and will display the independence of thought to make tough decisions based on core values and facts and not relationships and political tribalism that pretends some groups and interests are always right by those
026standards I think you made an excellent choice in missa thank you thank you Craig next we have Linda Ola thank you very much and good evening um I'm here for the same reason that Craig lazaretti is here to address the special elections he settled lot a lot of what of how I feel so one has to wonder what is going on here okay Britney Ayala was unanimously voted by the board there is going to be an election in November of 2026 okay you have to wonder at what cost this is to our children okay Okay and like Craig said there's there's some there's some kind of bias going on here and I wonder all those signatures that were turned in to have a special election how many of those signatures were minorities that composes a
027large section of District 3 what's going on here is this all about raising the the the teacher salaries that have already been raised who is this group I just want people to think about who it is that turned in all these signatures which I understand was about 127 when there was only maybe about 30 that were required there's some big Force going on here and let me tell you it's not to have a minority on the board which this board as you can see does not have except for Britany now any minorities I believe the Spanish speak not the Spanish speaking but the Latino student population in the Unified School District is about 35% in that District at Las hunas it's 45% so come on something's going on here and I don't like [Applause] it
028thank you okay next we have Megan I'm sorry if I butcher this last name KZ deor I'm sorry C cat's dver and it's totally fine it happens all the time guys oh geez okay I'm here for the same reason and I do believe that I know the group or at least some of the members of the group that have um proposed this special election and um with respect to the professionalism here and to keep things unanimous I won't say who but I do have experience with some of these folks as fellow parents and um um I heard them say in a meeting out loud that they feel that Dei is silencing white people they feel that by starting a Dei committee at John SWAT Elementary we were going to be teaching their kids about sexuality
029in a way that was going to be harmful and when we worked really hard to get um the some of the PTA events in line with Title 9 policy they called me and the person who put that together Karen's which obviously shows that they don't know what that term means um so I know that's what's going on here and it is it's upjust to do something um Also let's just remember I'm on the curriculum advisory Council and the Zite council at my school and I do see some of the numbers and I see how much our budget has been cut and to think that we would spend $60,000 of our budget when so much has been cut already and there's things coming down from the state that are going to force us to spend money
030in certain places is just absolutely abhorent um also um Lynn Mackey uh has not actually called the election yet so even though the um votes have been turned in and it looks like it's going that way um there's still time there's still time for you guys to call her office and say you're outraged with this and you're not okay with it so I hope you guys choose to do that thank you okay next we have the consent calendar any changes there are no changes to the consent calendar any discussion do you have any public comment I would just like to recognize the donations specifically the ones um pertaining to the prom scholarships that superintendent Rossy mentioned earlier um and in addition the ones that went to our John SWAT elementary students and to viente Martinez
031high school thank you for remembering that Carlos always did that um do we have a motion I'll move to approve I'll second student rep I all those in favor I so moved next up we have Ed Ed Trust West blueprint principal um Dr Kesha idorf good evening superintendent Rossy and board members before I move into the presentation I want to take uh thank you for making the chust West systemic Equity review possible I'll also want to take a moment to thank the members of the working committee some of whom are here tonight as well as my co-presenters um Sam gross our English Department co-chair and our District's teacher of the year and Sarah Stafford our music director and Visual and Performing Arts um department chair also want to thank neamb clay and jam Espinosa um
032who are the facil facilitators of Ed Trust West who took us through this process and Amy Espinosa for her support this transformative Journey began in the fall of 2023 after the board agreed to enter into a partnership with Ed Trust West um they administered a comprehensive Equity review that was taken which was done in two parts phase one was a mixed methods analysis of several areas of our educational programs including academics College career Readiness climate and culture student Support Services professional development Staffing community and family engagement the second phase which we just finalized in mid January was the process that was co- facilitated with jamaa and Miami's help to develop a road map to build on our strengths and to address inequities identified in the systemic Equity review the blueprint working committee was comprised of
033our district level staff which included Amy Espinosa me as a site administrator teachers across the subject areas counselors and support staff there was also a a feedback loop where we obtained information and feedback from the community as we continue through our blueprint planning as I mentioned the systemic Equity review was a qualitative and quantitative study the quantitative data data that we looked at was the transcript analysis to identify choke holds in subject areas where students were not progressing or matriculating through the curriculum um publicly accessible data as well as stakeholder surveys the qualitative data that we looked at was focus groups interviews classroom observations and Community conversations specifically the qualitative data that we looked at were 12 classroom observations five interviews of Administrators the focus groups which translate which we had a Spanish speaking translator
034for our students and our parents and caregivers as well as support staff and faal focus group we also had surveys administered in English and Spanish for our parent and caregivers there were 586 student surveys 17 Spanish surveys 41 staff and then3 parent and caregiver English surveys and 16 Spanish surveys for parents and caregivers there were several areas that the systemic Equity review looked at but we focused only on three of those um during a report in June the board received a full report of this but I'm going to just go over some of the highlights there three areas that we focused on as a group academics was the first one where one of the findings was that emergent multilingual students and students with disabilities lack Equitable and meaningful access to grade level standards and College
035Prep courses so in other words our a3g completion rate for all students was 47% in 2223 but of that that 47% only 133% of those were multilingual Learners which was below the state's average of 19.3% 0% of our students with disab disabilities which specifically those are students in our special day classes or students who went a through G completion the state recognizes all disabilities which was a 15.1 um a a through G completion rate for College and Career Readiness our graduation rates are higher than the stage average for all student groups however the district's graduation requirements are not fully aligned with the minimum course requirements to be eligible to attend a CSU or UC so in other words our graduation requirements for um visual Performing Arts we require two years in any combination of Visual
036and Performing Arts World Language or Career Technical education while CSUS require minimum Le two years of a World Language and one year of a Visual and Performing Arts for climate and culture alhamra High School is the only Comprehensive High School in the district and is a source of pride in the community many families and staff have long lasting Connections in this in the community and the school and the fact that AHS is the only Traditional High School in the district is viewed as a strength for our families um it's also a double-edged sword because some community members feel that the Deep history and connection with the school at times result in resistance to change particularly around creating a more welcoming and inclusive atmosphere for students of color and and students who identify as lgbtqia A+
037as I me mentioned there was a facilitated process um the first phase of the process started in the 2324 school year the second phase which we just ended in mid January was the blueprint planning we had four meetings the first meeting starting in July where we had a deep dive looking at the data and the systemic Equity report that was um reported out or presented to the board in June the second meeting was when we just start when we started doing root cause analysis and started identifying our action steps in between that second and third meeting we paused for some feedback from our community members took that feedback from our community members back to the third meeting where we continued to identify our actions and refine our action plan and then our final meeting was
038in mid January where we looked at Equity guard rails and we wanted to make sure that our action plan was aligned um to our lcap sysa and was which brings us to today before moving forward I want to discuss our working Equity uh working definition of equity which was borrowed from the national Equity project Equity means that each student receives what they need to develop their full academic and social potential that includes eliminating the predictability of student outcomes that currently correlates with any social or cultural Factor so in other words regardless of the students um if they have have a disability or if they're a student learning English we want to eliminate any barrier to them um accessing post-secondary opportunities um the other thing is we want to disrupt inequitable practices examining and counteracting biases
039and creating inclusive and just conditions for all um this is me speaking I can't speak for anybody else um when I think about disrupting the system I think about education as a whole not just Martinez UniFi but all of Education the system is designed and is doing exactly what it was designed to do so we have to acally disrupt those inequities um and then lastly we have to discover and cultivate the unique gifts talents and interests that every human possess and I will turn it over to my co-presenter Sam gross so last spring I along with Mary Written House were our was co-coordinator um and was stands for Western Association of schools and colleges and the main purpose of a was study is for accreditation so it's kind of a big deal uh and it's
040a big process um as you know but not everyone in here may know that um and so we worked with our staff who were amazing through the process and after a lot of self-study and reflection at what worked well and what didn't work so well we came up with three action areas the first one being to improve student performance on our California assessment of student performance and progress otherwise known as cast in English and math and using common assessments to really see what students are learning what they're not learning and what we need to do about it our action plan goal number two was to um improve student performance in College and Career indicators and people who may be not be familiar with what those are um those are indicators such as a tog successful
041a tog completion completion of CTE Pathways performance on advanced placement exams um college credit courses otherwise known as dual enrollment those are just a few um and then our third goal was around creating a positive School climate with evidence-based practices and addressing issues of bias and discrimination um at AHS but also along looking at just the safety and functionality of our school and this slide shows how those three goals align into and with our lcap and sypa goals um which I thought was really nice because we're all really going for the same thing um and then this slide these were the lovely members of our committee and um I believe Janice is here tonight and Tracy and Sarah and Mary Amy yes we're all here um and I want to just share that this committee
042we got very vulnerable we shared things we cried I made them cry sometimes um not on purpose but the older I've gotten I just say what I need to say and uh my own um I guess inspiration for becoming a teacher is grounded in my childhood experience of extreme poverty and adversity and being first generation not knowing what I don't know um not being safe finding school to be my only safe place and having teachers along the way that made me not only feel safe but wanted and smart and I went to UC Berkeley Chancellor scholar um so they did a really great job and this work was grounded in what we can do every day not just in policy but when those students walk through the door and so you know this is a
043big fancy report but it is really grounded in a place of compassion and support and that we want our students to see the gifts the unique gifts that each one of them brings to the world Miss kha Dr kha take thank you and that really is what the work is all about uh Additionally the time that the working committee spent together uh was just invaluable I can't speak to it enough the ideas that came out of the working committee that it was a I think it was quite a sacrifice um for teachers to be away from their classroom because that means that they're developing plans and they're preparing um for their students when they're not in class and then they're missing instruction and so I don't want to like take this lightly that they spent
044the time working with us um or working through this so going into a very drafty draft of the plan um the first thing we looked at well we had three groups but we combined two academics and College and Career Readiness because as we continued to work we realized that there was so much overlap in our work and so we wanted to make sure that we did things well and so we wanted to just hone in our Focus so uh we started with a problem statement or an opportunity um and our opportunity we thought was if we address the educational gaps in a 3G requirements and remove barriers to College and Career rep preparation we have the opportunity to ensure that all students are equipped for their future endeavors strengthening these areas will expand academic success
045enhance access to higher education and Empower students to reach their fullest potential and long-term goals we have three main focus areas one is to conduct an awareness campaign to ensure that all educational partners are well informed about the importance of a through G requirements um when we think of a through G we think of or in the past we've thought about it as just being able to graduate and apply directly to a four-year school but a through G really means more it means that regardless of what the student wants to do whether they want to go directly to work military or career trade um they're ready for it and so we want to make sure that all of our students meet those a through G requirements uh we can't talk about a through G requirements
046without talking about examining our grading practices and I won't even go there I wrote that's what I wrote my dissertation on is grading practices and um how inequitable they are um and then finally to align our graduation requirements and courses with a3g requirements um it's a three-year plan and it's a moving plan it's a living breathing working document um but in the first phase again we if we're going to talk about a through G if we're going to talk about examining practices we have to first think about our own personal grading biases and things like that and we also need to look at what research says about alternative grading uh systems um the next year we need to have those conversations within our departments to align our grading practices and then in the final year
047we would look at adopting grading practices which promote a3g uh Readiness either as a department or school and I'm giving you really high level things because there's really really much more to the plan but I did not want to um go too far into that um and so this is part of like those details um is creating focus groups to include counselors and all educational Partners to discuss um what rebranding or what looking at a3g sounds like looks like um for our community and continuing to share that information um also continuing to share information about what a3g requirements mean as we're um going on throughout each year um and especially starting with our junior high students like we don't want to wait until students enter High School to have those conversations but really make sure
048that those conversations are starting much earlier and with that I'm turn it over to Fabulous Sarah thank you my watch just told me my heart rate is too high okay I'm so excited actually to share this I really am excited so um my portion of this evening is about climate and culture um and what we were really focusing on in our group was this opportunity and looking at the data that we were presented by surveys and the interviews and the observations in classrooms um and that so many of our students don't feel safe um or understood on our campus and we want to raise expectations and enhance our support access we feel that we can better equip all students students for their future endeavors this focus on strengthening these key key areas will not only
049broaden their academic success but also expand postsecondary options um big for our discussions this whole time all of these months was the sense of belonging having students feel like they had a place to be where they belong affirming that every student matters our commitment is designed to empower every student particularly those from marginalized backgrounds to achieve their fullest potential and pursue their long-term goals and we broke this down into two Focus areas number one was um looking at the surveys focus groups leadership insights working with our students and our staff not just teachers but all staff looking at clubs looking at successful programs that are working on our campus what is already in place that is working be it leadership be it our Sports be it um our VAP our programs whatever it is what
050different activities are actually working and build upon those strengths um looking even at our Junior High they have the web program what could that be at the high school can we bring back link crew how can we make freshman orientation more meaningful and more inclusive for our students our Focus area number two was to look at for our staff a multifaceted approach again all of our staff not just certificated staff all of our staff a multifaceted approach to develop skills to engage in and Lead conversations about students critical identities including race gender identity and sexual orientation and we have as well the drafty draft of a three-year plan really looking at right now and into next year brainstorming what is working also reaching our marginalized students maybe it's that that very silent middle the quiet
051middle majority students or the students who are serving detention what is working for them at school what is not working for them at school reaching students in Access period through their clubs through their Athletics Gathering data and then also expanding with that knowledge like knowing what is actually working for students the club days are working having the student Congress every month is working for them how could we expand on those programs and then in year three review on that progress and again just keep constantly repeating the other one is developing our staff capacity to lean into students critical identities looking at data about referrals suspensions detentions um look at where staff is in the comfortability the competence um um Etc relating to critical identities also brainstorming and identify most effective resources that we have to
052help with our training um looking at County County Office of Education possibilities what what kind of trainings do they have that they could offer us um also develop that training and action plan and a calendar to implement it in the year and then moving forward implementing that that calendar to the staff and also monitoring those progression the progress of discussions including things like things that we're already doing like the mindful minute um the small groups I'm I'm forgetting what it was called with Missy the circle circle discussions Community circles the circle discussions um just building on that and helping our students feel that they belong at our school and in conclusion our next steps this is the big steps is to set a timeline for revising this this draft based on the feedback collected and
053of course constantly refining those goals um also also assigning specific teams or individuals to lead different parts of the implementation process this is like Kesha and I have been talking about looking at our plc's our plca team a and Team B those two monthly meetings what could we be doing who could be doing the different pieces of this puzzle keep all that all those educational part Partners informed all of our partners our families our students our board um informed about the changes being made develop also clear metrics and timelines for each of those action items so this is not just a oneandone it's constantly evolving and regularly assess the progress being made in each Focus area and then we have a little information from nambi and Jamila just if you want to contact them but
054I think we're open to questions as well you better get up here thank you that was very informative very detailed so thank you um any questions board yes I have a question so in regards to a through G requirements and ensuring that students get the support they need so they are ready by the time they are seniors um just a question does the school have tees or what is called the transcript evaluation service now known as UC Compass so that's who we actually use to help facilitate the transcript analysis uh and so yes we have partnered with them and we use their evaluation Services okay and is there a CA to that partnership I would have to defer to it was on sorry yeah there is a small cost to that partnership but yes we
055did find it very valuable when we began the process um Stephanie Wentz who is our data analyst um supported me with getting all the information they needed um so I do feel that would be something that we would want to ensure that we continue with that partnership great and I say this too because there's a way to offset the the cost right so when schools partner up with UC Affiliated Outreach programs like Messa buente um the early academic outreach program the service then becomes free for the entire school and so now the school has access to this this program and can review all the coursework and assess the the the transcripts of each student from 9th grade to 12th grade to catch early on where the student might be um missing a class um if
056there's a gap in the coursework so that the student is then notified right so I read the entire report and there's a few comments where students made that they were not informed or they were informed less uh than once a year about meeting College requirements and so there was also another comment about preparation doesn't really happen until senior year and so I think this this tool utilizing this to would serve in making sure that students again get the support that they need and they're notified early on because it's it's really detrimental for the student to find out that oh wait no actually you cannot go to a UC or CSU because you're not eligible and not only that it's also helps to to offset the barrier that students face already with the a through G
057courses not being in alignment with the CSU and UC requirements so I just wanted to throw that in there thank you um also o want to mention and thank superintendent rossie uh she spent quite a few hours um making sure that our academic planning was set up in Aries so we now have another tool that we can use to help support that um so before we were just using like course requests and course selection in Aries but there is a different function that we hadn't tapped into um so superintendent Rossy made that possible for us and so we are starting to that was part of the plan also um to start at the very early age uh at the very early stages of course selection and things like that um going over the academic planning
058with students so that they can see themselves their families can also see where they are in terms of our graduation requirements CSU and UC requirements so in addition to seeing it through TS they can see it in eies perfect thank you I think Tristy made a good point about the student comments and the input and I'm just wondering if you could talk a little bit more about about um how this what how the student input factored into this and how how students will be able to contribute going forward so during our blueprint planning process which took place this year we had those four meetings um in between those four meetings we had uh those feedback sessions um it was open to uh all of our educational Partners including students uh every meeting we had one
059student show up um to voice and share with us uh their experience in terms of uh learning at alhamra um but that was something that constantly came up within our working committee is like we need to hear from the students we need to hear from the students like these are our thoughts as the adults and the practitioners but we also need to make sure to leverage the student voices more frequently on that matter of the students um so I noticed that there's focused groups um will there be a committee that compromised of you know parents and community members and maybe like a student advisory committee to continue to funnel that information from students who live this direct experience so as we continue with the planning we do need to think about what those focused groups
060look like and who are the the partners within that um definitely stud students will be part of it and we'll want to make sure that all of the students that are participating also represent the diversity of the school so when I often often when I reach out to ask for focused group participants and from our students I'm asking questions like are you uh do you participate in AP classes are you an athlete are you a student with an IEP are you student learning English and things like that so that I can figure out and make sure that we have a group that represents our student diverse population okay thank you I think this is very timely first because we had our dashboard last at our last meeting we're going to get an lcap review tonight
061and I know that when we I think there's three of us who voted to move forward with this blueprint to begin with and I know we were really hopeful that it would all kind of like come together and make sense and be a part of the work that we're already doing and we saw that with was also so I'm pleased that it does seem like that is happening and I think it's going to really be able to help us set some direction for specifically like alap funding those kinds of things because we're now really looking at not only the dashboard data but this other aggregated data from lots of different sources so I appreciate the three of you coming and for all of the work I do have a question but before I get to
062that I also wanted to say because Sam gross was so vulnerable with us and shared her experience if people in the community do not know this is a person who is walking the walk and talking the talk and anyone who's ever had their kid in her class or has witnessed her teaching knows that she is really doing I wanted to find it because I was like like oh my gosh this is exactly her but this definition of equity here which is that every student is getting what they need to reach their full academic and social potential she's really doing that every single day so I just thank you for coming and for sharing and I wanted to give you that and my question is actually probably not for you um Kesha but is for Helen
063we and just I know I'm sorry I'm sorry because I didn't even prep I'm not trying to put you on the spot but we have new you know board members who weren't part of this and so when we went through this process at the be at the beginning of hiring and going in getting this contract we had it as an option that we would do this for other schools and so I just want to kind of know what that process would look like where we are on that timeline obviously there's no commitment on our part but I just wanted to right we originally had um thought to do all of our schools and then um budget reductions came and we just did alhamra at this time until we find another funding source so that's where
064we are and I wanted to say um I just really appreciate that you are making sure that you're getting every um from the students perspective that you're getting AP and um all the different Spanish speaking and all the different categories I think that's great um and I really appreciate that because I think that is so important in this process so um thank you for that do we have any other questions from the board I just wanted to make a comment and I I want to thank you all too because I know this isn't easy work to do it's it's difficult um I I do a little bit my day job in for the city of Oakland um and I think one thing you said Dr emendorfer is really important because it's really hard to change
065some of this stuff if you don't understand the history and where it came from um and and I I'm really happy that that's recognized and being discussed and um I'm I you know some of the results I know when we look at the report are in um but I think that I'm I'm hopeful that we're doing this work now and that it is going to make a difference so thank you thank you uh thank you all for making it possible again thank you to the working committee and for nambi and jamaa for facilitating the process um where we started and where we are now um is Leaps and Bounds so um really thank you they're back here so thank you thank you I think that was manyy well spent uh so we have a couple
066of um public comments in regard to this uh Isabelle and then Craig and then Megan hello everyone I'm a senior and I attend alhamra high school um I was I will very proudly say that I was the student representative for this commit change is not going to happen overnight trust has been broken in previous years I understand that there has been changes to the systems um the community circles and honestly my relationship with almost every single teacher while my time at Al hamur has been a very strong relationship and I feel comfortable talking to my teachers and being becoming vulnerable with them and they know that their job is to support me in the best way that they can especially Miss gross I remember sitting in her classroom and when I was really sick uh
067she was an amazing teacher to me but change is not going to happen overnight it's with new practices going in into place it's just not going to happen overnight it's going to take time and it's going to take effort from the students side from families and from all the faculty and staff including um you know people who aren't technically teachers um administrators uh the janitors just those little in between people as well all play a vital role into this big Community picture so I just want to have that said and have you guys keep that in mind that the numbers might not shoot up overnight and that is to be expected because trust has been broken in the past years thank you thank [Applause] you Craig you're up on the theme of uh trust being
068broken I'm just curious It's a a big Focus here is U creating a sense of safety and inclusion for our students and particularly students from marginalized backgrounds I'm curious how how does that work when you have a staff at alhamra high school including some members of the working Committee involved in this Who U endorsed Maga politics two years ago in the 2022 election how does that actually work you know when you put relationships ahead of values and you endorse the politics of stigmatizing people of color of saying that um people who are Haitian immigrants are eating pets to terrorize them um to saying that wildfires are caused by Dei how does that all that work I'm just curious I don't really get it you know because I remember two years ago when the mea who
069I think deserves to be called the Maga Education Association uh had no problem endorsing a board candidate and apparently now they want to overturn our this appointment of our lone minority member of the board we we talk about walking the walk and talking the talk how do that actually work you know when you try to tell students who feel unsafe who feel fearful who feel stigmatized who feel marginalized oh we care about you we want to hear you but don't pay attention when we turn when we go and endorse a maggot candidate for school board knowing what maggot means it's not about political differences no no no it's not about conservative versus liberal it's not about different ideologies it's about basic decency basic human rights you know we we we know what what Magie is
070it's about hate and lies and stigmatizing and there's people on the staff at alhamra high school who Embrace that ideology I know that for a fact they embrac that ideology so how do you in that knowing that's the truth how do you make those students how do you convince them because students are smarter than we give them credit for they can see past words they can see past fancy PowerPoints you know they can see past the acronyms about what we want to do they know what's genuine they know what's in someone's heart and they're not going to trust someone who basically tells them what they want to think but doesn't what they think they want to hear but doesn't walk the walk because you can't say that you care about these issues you can't say
071you care about Equity you care about inclusion when at the end of the day you're tribalist and you put your relationships first it doesn't work that way okay and if the Maga Education Association hasn't figured that out after after two years they clearly haven't then they're not going to solve the problems for our [Applause] students Megan you're up that was amazing and I'm I didn't know this work was going on and um well I did I I I did know it was going on but um I was participating in the Dei District committee last year so I did know that some of this was happening but didn't realize how deep and how how much and I'm just so appreciative like I have a first grader and to know that she's going to enter a system
072that's been reviewed this way even if it's not perfect you know I'm sure it's not perfect my God I dipped my toe into this work last year at the elementary school that I'm at and it um never it changed my entire life it changed me it changed my friendship ship it changed my relationship with my children it change I lost friends I mean I gained new ones that are I'm more aligned with now but I'm just saying I can't even imagine the work that it's been put in and I just I really wonder if we could do something similar at the elementary schools since Helen you know those kind of things happen all the time and I'm not saying it's you know you're against it or have been against it I know we've been in
073a budget crisis but I just would urge you before you go to maybe help our elementary schools get reviewed as well because my experience here in this district is that the inequities that some of our elementary school students are facing right now in accessing their education um is it's immense and then not just that it's that there's inequities across the elementary schools so now that I'm in a different one I'm understanding that and I wish I could just be happy and grateful which I am I wish I could just be only those positive feelings when I see things like the Ruby Bridges walk and celebrating all of the different you know cultural heritage months and things like that um even though we're still learning My Country Tis of Thee which just it's like I don't
074know how to unpack that parents could use support too it's like how do I unpack the patriarchy to my first grader like how do I tell her that that song is only from the perspective of like white men who came here and colonized this country like how how do I do that like can I get some help like explaining that to my child you know because she is asking me why I'm bristling when I hear her singing that song um you know from sea to shining sea our fathers died for our beautiful country they also murdered like thousands of Native Americans so I mean this is the education I I would I really believe our children deserve um especially our littlest ones so please use the 60,000 that you would spend in a special election
075let's get that money to do an equity review for the elementary schools Todd Navaro so I'm not sure that I heard it from the entire board but on behalf of the parents I'd actually like to extend a great deal of thanks to Dr emendorfer Sam gross I can't even do it Sarah stappord Mary all to to sit here and literally disparage the staff of this school district when the presentation opened up with the fact that this is a journey this is not a oneandone situation and the fact that I'm sure you guys did all of this work Monday through Friday 8:30 to 2 you didn't dedicate you didn't dedicate any weekends you didn't dedicate any after hours into the evenings Etc take time away from your families and just a simple thank you and recognizing
076that this is a journey we'll get there together and quite frankly I have a great deal of of trust in Dr em andorfer and the staff across the school district it's not easy these are not easy conversations to have but it is deeply unfair to sit here and discourage the work by disparaging the people who did the work okay next up we have the El cap midyear update am Amy good evening board members and superintendent Rossy um tonight I'm here to go through the midyear lcap update this is an information item um and throughout the presentation you're going to hear information that around our action plan implementation outcome data and expenditures I just wanted to remind you that we're in the first year of our three-year cycle of the lcap and so you will see
077that um we haven't met all criteria and that is a work in progress so here's information regarding um the why for tonight's presentation um tonight you you're really going to hear about our metrics that we are in process of um finding data on as well as our our current expenditures on our action steps here is our budget overview for parents this is just a reminder this table shows what was adopted by the board based on the information we had at that time the state budget is was adopted afterwards and so then you'll also see a column there with the actuals for the budget the metrics will will be given um three different either we know what the progress is we're in progress uh we have finalized the metric and so I'll be giving that information
078on the metrics as well as the expenditures and I'd like to make note now that the expenditures that are listed here are from the first interim that would be the December board meeting where Andy did the presentation on the first interim so you will see that you may question well why is it only that amount at this point in time but that amount is um ever changing so here's our lcap goal one um goal one is a broad goal which is um a goal that is for all for all district and it is for all students and this goal is based on academics our metrics here uh you'll see will be based on academic um outcomes and here we have a metric that outlines um ensuring that our students have access to electronics and that
079one is complete I had a question um wondering well if it's complete do we continue with the metric and the answer is yes this metric um will go all the way out to the 2026 20 27 school year and therefore we would be ensuring that this was something that we were monitoring progress on throughout the three-year cycle below that you'll see the percentage of students um for cast scores Ela math and um where we are um based on what our desired outcome is versus what our midyear update is this currently is in progress next you'll see a metric um looking at what our um our Ela and math assessments for our Benchmark is this would be what um you some people refer to as our inspect or others U it's now called DNA as we
080know um companies change the title of their assessments like every other week so inspect DNA Benchmark um those would all um indicate this type of assessment this Contin continues to be in progress and then the one below that is looking at our science test in particular as you know um when I went through the dashboard this um didn't have a performance color but I was able to put how many points below standard reare so this metric um will change because it will turn into a percentage at some point on this page this these metrics continue to be for goal one um um and here we're looking at our College and Career Readiness uh this would seem familiar to you this is also part of our dashboard and information that was just presented by the alhamra
081high school team um here we also are looking at our AP courses and the number of students passing the exam I will say that here you see enrolled only um there's been some in there's been gaps in the information uh that we've received on how many students have actually passed the AP exam so as I receive the correct information then I'll update that accordingly in the lcap implementation of academic standards is one of our local indicators this is where we are ranking ourselves um based on um the dashboard and so here you'll see that we continue to be in progress a five is really full implementation and SU sustainability um I think that's the key word there sustainability um we might have full implementation in many of our academic areas on this indicator but sustainability
082is where we're really looking at can this continue again these metrics are based on academics so monitoring um student engagement through the dropout rate here you'll see um that we're mon monitoring our four-year cohort this is part of data Quest information that can be found as well as our graduation rate as um you heard in the last presentation our graduation rate is uh very high but as we know from my dashboard presentations that's we have some opportunity to increase the number of students who are meeting our a to G and so you'll see that in the um metric right below those all are in progress these metrics continue to be academic based which would be our CTE requirements so this would include um at least one CTE pathway as well as information on a student
083who might um do a CTE pathway and meet the ad to requirements and so here you'll see our um desired outcome as well as our progress that we've been making toward that outcome and then below is a providing a broad course of study for all students um this is including lowincome English Learners Foster youth homeless and students with disabilities and so ensuring uh access to a broad course of study and so status here is final but this is something ongoing as we um have heard tonight we have a lot of opportunity to continue to have these in-depth conversations with our students especially with our marginalized groups moving on to our action steps for our academic um goal uh the first one is access to instructional materials you'll see this is fully implemented this would um
084be when I review the Williams visit and and verify that we have all of our access to instructional materials although this is ongoing going and so you can see that um all the money wasn't spent at the first interm not everyone had everything that's needed and some of this can be because we might have science labs that we are purchasing in the spring because of what's inside the lab like it just can't be stored that long and so this is something um and of course there's always needs that come up we have our um our health education is coming up our unit so we are are purchasing that that um curriculum currently below you'll see collaboration for improved instruction um this has been in place it's partially implemented and one of the reasons um to
085note this is partially implemented is we do have it in place but the action has a very deep description on what should be happening during that collaboration time and that's where we feel there is room for improvement so are we able able to take time to look at data and move forward and so professional development common assessments and parent education are all partially implemented as well continuing in the academic goal we have credit recovery that's fully implemented we have tutoring intervention enrichment fully implemented and then we have two here that are partially implemented with our foundational reading instruction in our algebra Readiness and Mastery there's been changes around algebra Readiness and Mastery and so that's why you would see that zero doar has been spent up to the first interim you'll see the bottom two
086action steps are fully implemented which is our course access that's our broad course um of study and then our College and Career specialist is in place as well our lcab goal two is a focus goal this goal is is focused strictly on English language Learners the metrics here are all based on um English learner metrics so you'll see here the percent of students receiving a level four on the lpac um this is in progress as you know we had a decline when I shared the dashboard information reclassification rate in progress program services for El students to access standards for increased English this is final we do have programs and services in place for students academic benchmarks in ela and math so looking um strictly at again here are the fastbridge um screeners so looking strictly
087at the fast Bridge screener and you can see we have room for growth that's in progress we also have the academic performance which would be our Casp our Smarter Balance here for our um focus goal for e- English Learners this is in progress um and so we are making positive gains um but not at the desired outcome and then percentage of students who are designated as El or rfep earning the Seal of by literacy this is a new Focus area for us um which I shared in the June elcap update here are the action steps here we have have again professional development this is um including integrated and designated ELD and supporting our ltels and our rfap students access to instructional materials those are both partially implemented as well as a tutoring intervention and enrichment
088and then we have parent engagement reclassification celebration and our bilingual Paras as fully implemented the seal by literacy is planned this is something that occurs in the spring and so we don't have uh updated information on this at this time um so I'll be able to give that information when I do the annual update in June and then our newcomer welcome intake pro pro process is fully implemented for our lcap goal three this is our climate and culture goal um where we are thinking about our belonging and connectedness for students and families and um thinking about you'll see our metrics will include things around attendance and suspension rates here our first metric is our chronic absenteeism rate um as you might remember from the dashboard we had a significant decrease in our chronic absenteeism rate
089which is a positive thing um but you can see that I also listed our student groups which continue um there has been an increase um in one of our student groups so that's an area that we want to continue to monitor suspension rates and expulsion rates um and this also is included by student group and to ensure that we are monitoring um our student groups as we think about our suspension rates percentage of students reporting a sense of belonging and for this one we're using the healthy kids survey this is in progress and the grade levels listed here are the grade levels that um participate in the healthy kids survey and so if you had to wondering about why it's not all grade levels those are the grade levels that participate teachers appropriately assigned and
090fully credentialed and so this would um indicate we would want this to be at 100% as you see I wrote 95% or higher for our desired outcome um we are on a positive trend of going up by 5% but this is still something in area um of desire and then our school facilities are maintained and good repair uh our fit that I shared with you during our Williams visit report um showed that seven out of seven schools met are required the FI I think this is our final metric for goal three is also a student survey and so this is looking at uh engagement and supports uh based on on um student feedback and this continues to be in progress oh sorry one more metric maybe uh this is around this is our parents who
091completed the healthy kids survey as well and so this is information on um parent involvement for our action um steps for goal three we have implementation of a multi-tier system of support which is part partially implemented um this includes academic behavioral social emotional support so not just thinking of um of social emotional supports or behavioral but all three of them here uh we also have seal and behavioral monitoring tools uh partially implemented this is um specifically for our Junior High School um who is doing PBIS partially implemented um the next two and the bottom one would be our strategies for effective classroom behavior management our parent engagement and then our Community Partnerships and then we have our counseling support which um the board put as a priority um last year is being fully implemented our
092school and uh facility safety is fully implemented and then um continuing to ensure that we are monitoring our Equity diversity inclusion in in recruitment hiring and retention and then as you may remember from my elap presentation in the summer the uh lcap goal four is strictly for Martinez uh viente Martinez High School this is a uh Equity multiplier goal that is what it's called the money is uh strictly from that fund and it is only a yearlong goal and so this um goal will likely be removed um because we are no longer going to be receiving the equity multiplier in the coming year so vente Martinez High School um received the equity multiplier because of their suspension rate and their student engagement um and it was specifically for social economically disadvantage students this uh goal
093is a mere image of the goal that Vicente Martinez high school has on their sipsa as well and so this their metrics have been chosen by the school site and their School site Council as well as the action steps and this is just an a reflection of that so one of their metrics is the healthy kids survey their suspension rate and their attendance rate which will give you information on the engagement of the students as well as school-based counseling particip ation their student engagement rate based on uh the College and Career indicator and then their graduation rate based on the dashboard as well they have three action steps uh the implementation of a site-based seal program mental health counseling and then professional development all three of them you may note um are partially implemented at
094this point in time in closing I just wanted to highlight again our chronic Asen ISM had a significant decrease and we continue to have conversations about our new performance indicators which include the ltels and the science and I just wanted to say thank you to the staff and students and parents that support um giving advisory information on the elap thank you very much for that report um board questions thank you Amy um How is how's the participation going on your committee do you need more people are you good I always love more people on the Committees but we have a nice um solid group I will say we are um a secondary heavy group so we have a lot of secondary parents and students on the group but okay yes so maybe we can work
095on but I always would love to recruit yes okay cool um I'm curious like the the um the metrics that are final for instance at the beginning of the report you talked about the access to devices and Wi-Fi what does that mean when it's final do we just stop tracking it or what happens next no we continue to track it because we want to ensure that our students continue to meet the the final level which was 100% of access to those devices and so um although it says final there uh Joe um and cabinet work together because we always are going to have to buy new devices and track or even if they've been um you know dropped or broken or if it's just time for them to cycle out and their lifetime is over
096so that's something we would continue to track it as long as we continue to have espe especially because we have curriculum that is um on the computer and when when um I know every couple of years we revise the lcap goals are those things that um if a goal is met I I don't know how to phrase this but maybe the devices isn't a good example of it but let's say The Chronic AB absenteeism goal is met and so it doesn't it's not a an lcap goal anymore but I assume that we aren't just going to stop looking at it until it is a problem again do you see what I'm trying to say yeah I understand what you're saying um the metrics that are listed in our LC cap are required we would always
097be required to monitor our chronic absenteeism we would just ensure that we had the data point and the desired outcome to be something that was lower so our desired outcome obviously we have very close to 0% right and just because we dropped around 6% this year um that was a good drop but we were we were relatively high and so um the metrics that are listed are required by the state and so they would be something that we would continue to Monitor and then I think rather than um saying we met a goal because our goals are overarching but maybe um if we meet an action step an action step can be Revis um for the needs at that point in time and so yes that's something that we could revise but we we did
098write it for three years and so we could do additional goals if we thought something um became maybe irrelevant or outdated or not as important and think of our rep prioritize okay that makes perfect sense thank you any other questions or comments um I just did have one question um on your metric percentage of students who are designated as elel or RF earning the Seal of biliteracy um I know it said 41 students were designated and six completed the requirements to get that um seal of um by literacy is that being um mentioned to the kids that they know that that's an option for them how yes and um I will I do want to let you know that the seala by literacy requirements just changed last summer and so there were and we knew
099that they were going to change and that was one reason we wanted to make sure this was a focus area because we did feel that we had students that would have been eligible and maybe weren't aware of it um we can track it differently now and some of it can be even based on their um summi of elpac scores that they've had when they were much younger than just looking at the four-year High School cohort and you can also get that um not just Spanish speakers correct correct you can get it so if I took yes four years of a a foreign language and um there is an a test that I can take then yes and that's also for sign language too right yes okay just I want to make sure those kids know
100it too because some are very good at that okay thank you very much let's see here okay we do have a any more questions or comments nope um we do have a public uh comment Craig lazaretti thank you I just want to mention an lcap goal perhaps for the future and I think it's something that all school districts really need to wrestle with and focus on is kind of been uh brushed aside and it can't be anymore and that's the importance of civics and Civics doesn't get discussed anymore we put so much focus on stem and English language arts and we forgot in the building blocks of being a good citizen in this country and we we know from recent experience that millions of adults in this country don't understand Civics they don't understand the
101concepts of democracy what democracy means what voting means what the right to vote means and those things have kind of been lost in our society and you could teach people you know all the career skills in the world and granted you know career SK skills are important you need to be able to make a living and be a productive member our society we all want that but we want people to be good citizens too you know we don't want a bunch of Elon Musk Mark Zuckerberg Tech Bros running around who just care about making money but we're seeing right now the cost to that aren't we and so Civics doesn't get discussed anymore and it should be because there's a crisis right now you know our students um when they take history in government and
102they learn about the Constitution they learn about con constitutional rights they learn about the right to vote they learn about the history of the vote they learn about the ugly history of the suppression of the vote of Jim Crow and they're learned they're taught that that terrible history in our country ended in the 1960s right that finally all of our citizens were granted that sacred right to vote and to have their vote counted and who would have known that four years ago there was an attempt to bring back Jim Crow in this country and the throw out the votes of millions of Americans to overturn elections is that something our students are learning about that's what that was in in 20 that's what January 6 2021 and what led up to it was all about
103an effort to take away the sacred right to vote from our citizens that we took for granted for so long and not just any voters they were targeting black voters and brown voters just the same disgusting ways that was done during Jim CR and people just brushed that aside over the last four years and unfortunately it's sad to say a lot of teachers don't take that right seriously and don't take those values seriously you know when you have a teachers union that endorses magga politics that tries to throw out votes the sacred right to vote and they endorse that and they're supposed to be teaching our students and don't get me wrong I'm not painting a br broad brush I know there's people in this room that care about our kids and are doing everything
104in their power to help our kids I know that okay but let's not pretend that the truth isn't the truth in terms of some people not embracing the values that we take for granted in this country and in this District thank you thank you okay is that related to this topic or no okay um Jen fennel fenel I'm much shorter than everybody else sorry my name is Jen fennel I am a teacher at alhamra I've been a teacher at alhamra for 11 years and most of those years I have taught Civics I have not been teaching Civics this year I've been teaching US history and this year in fact this week actually we are talking about actually last week we spoke about reconstruction this week we were talking about um in fact today I was
105showing a video on The Children's March we have been discussing at length uh voting rights and other things like that my students took a literacy test last week so yes students are taught about voting they are taught about knowing who the representatives are they are taught about um how all of those things are done and how to register because they are we are required by law to give them the opportunity to register to vote vote so uh yes students are informed in this District they are well aware of uh what their rights are they are well aware of the history of everything that has happened in terms of lack of suffrage and for all different populations and for all different groups they are well-versed in the different um amendments and what their rights are and
106this is something that our entire department does cover but again specifically as seniors they are required to take either civics or AP Government um and those are taught extensively in those classes and they are also required to take us history and AP US History which again those are also extensively taught in those classes um and so I just wanted to make sure that was clear thank you thank you very much okay um next item 16.3 um 2025 csb delegate Assembly Election information Helen Rossy okay the the board's being asked to review the 2025 um csba delegate delegate assembly candidate information for our region um there are five candidates on our ballot and I'm asking that each board member please review each candidate's information and be prepared to vote for three at the March 10th meeting
107so you've got a little homework to do okay so this will come back for Action at the next meeting it perfect thank you any comments I just want to comment this happens every year so for our new members um there's no like requirement obviously but we have in the past kind of looked at districts that are similar either in size or makeup as ours so like a unified district that has both high schools and Elementary you know secondary and um primary and then also in size so those are just things to potentially keep in mind okay any public comment all right moving right along action item 17.1 review and Adoption of resolution number 20257 to eliminate and or reduce the number of certified employees Janelle uh good evening um this resolution 2025-the [Music] tonight um
108you can see on the resolution which positions and what particular kinds of service um will be reduced um as part of the resolution thank you board [Music] discussion okay we have a public comment Jen finel again I was gone so long so as mentioned uh my name is Jen fennel um I have two children in this uh School District in at the elementary school level I live in trusty Area 1 um and I have been a teacher here for 11 years I'm speaking tonight on behalf of my department at alhur high school um I currently teach psychology AP Psychology and US History although as you heard I have also taught many other things within our department um right now the social studies department at alhur high school is running 24 courses five modern world two
109AP World six us histories one AP US History four uh economics and Civics three apgov psych AP psych and cultural anthropology that translates to 4.8 FTE required courses would require us to have 4.2 FTE with our current number of enrolled students since right now we only have three electives um one period of each of those that I mentioned the board is currently deciding to cut one FTE of social studies at the secondary level without having a master schedule for next year this cut would likely mean that students would be pulled out of the social studies electives they have signed up for um some of which we have already been told are likely going to be cut applying this full loss of an FTE to social studies at the high school or even a partial one
110would mean that we could not offer the courses required for students to graduate alhur high school cutting electives makes us less competitive as a school and also fails to prepare for the addition of ethnic studies and financial literacy as required courses by the state of California because those are both under the social studies Department without a clear rationale of where or why this cut is taking place this decision sends a ripple of anxiety and uncertainty through the staff of various District sites there is no reason to dictate this cut before having a clear picture of signups and courses needed next year given incoming expansions to Social Studies classes at the secondary level why is this cut being made in social studies in particular there is also a proposal to cut a pair of professional on
111the eve of expanding courses that need PA of professional support due to the collapse of the world history skills classes it's important to ensure that Martina's students have the best and cutting Social Studies to levels where we can potentially not offer required courses for a California diploma will make students not able to compete with other local students and will encourage students to seek educational opportunities elsewhere um I also wanted to point out again on a personal note as a parent in this District I want to make sure that my my children also have the opportunities to take these electives that we have worked very hard to craft and I feel like not only will my personal children be impacted by this but so will other students we were only made aware of this on Friday
112afternoon so we have not had the chance for to have anybody else be aware of this but again the lack of rigor can really impact students abilities to um be competitive at the college level and I really would like you to please consider these cuts and ensure our students have the um education they deserve thank you thank you can can we address some of the concerns and I I'm not I don't really understand the only being made aware of it on Friday because we've been talking about Cuts since last month okay you have to go to the microphone I'm sorry um it had only been listed as a secondary teacher position to my knowledge when I found it on when I looked at the agenda on Friday afternoon it was the first time that anybody
113at our site was aware of it um that it was specific to social studies okay I'm going to trust that we are still going to be graduating students we are still going to be graduating students when we cut a secondary there is more than just one Secondary School in our district and we take into consideration all course requests from all secondary schools we have seen all course requests and all master schedules and that's how we make our reduction list communication has been um through all um of us and that's uh what we come up with and I don't know of one year where we start off with a list that it looks like what it looks like by May due to resignation and um changes that come about after March 15th so it is a
114the we have to make a list it's fiscally irresponsible if we do not go with what we know at this point in time and I can guarantee you this list will not look like what it looks like now in May so that's that's what I can say right here and now so okay thank you any more discussion do I have a motion yeah I mean I'll I I um thank you Helen we as we've been talking about for several meetings nobody wants to make any cuts um we're doing it because we have to because we can't bankr up the district um and as Helen said this could change depending on retirements depending on on things we don't know about with the governor's budget so we're hopeful that things will change and the list will not
115look like this in May and with that I will move to approve the resolution you still want to discuss go ahead I mean it's difficult I need to have a second first and then we can discuss or do you want to take your motion back sure okay the motion has been taken off again all right go ahead Logan I mean like Courtney said it's nobody wants to make cuts and it's unfortunate and at the same time we try to balance that while also compensation and in a very difficult year and with potentially more Cuts coming and hoping that there's going to be onetime funds to pay for these things you know you would think some would be willing to sacrifice to save others so um it's like I said it's not easy either way but
116unfortunately this where we're at so that's all I wanted to say and I'm just going to say that um again what Courtney said was 100% true um we don't want to make Cuts but we have to and um Helen and cabinet usually go through and look and um we want to make sure that we obviously give the seniors graduating seniors the classes that they need to graduate so I'm confident that um everything will work out uh you know we they're the professionals they're looking at at this and we will make sure that it happens and again we usually do get onetime funds and other things come along the way um with that do we any more discussion or okay I'll I'll move to approve the resolution second student rep I don't get to vote for
117this one it's Personnel I it's true she's very happy about that it looks like too um all those in favor I motion passes okay um Janelle you're going to be up again review and Adoption of resolution 2025-the to our classified um uh Personnel resolution 25 20258 um also due to um lack of work or lack of funds we are required to follow the same T timeline as our certificated employees as with our um classified and so the boards being asked to uh consider and approve this resolution um which outlines the reduction for classified employees thank you very much do we have any discussion on this any public comment do I have a motion I'll move to um approve or to adopt resolution 20258 regarding the reduction of classified Services second all those in favor I
118I so moved okay next we have approval of the comprehensive safety plans Janelle okay this item is being brought back for Action tonight um at the last meeting we uh discussed that this is an annual process we do under which our all of our school sites update their school sa safety plans annually um and so this item is being brought forward for board action in order to meet our March 1st approval date um and all the uh individual State safety plans are attached to the agenda thank you and we saw this two weeks ago uh any discussion I was just going to say that um before I was on the board I was on the School site councils at Mel and at the junior high and I know how much work goes into these um
119for everybody involved including the principes um the committee members the teachers the parents so um thank you for these and um I always kind of like to just look and page five is where it's the different numbers of students and all of that and it's kind of just interesting to look and see how the schools change over the years so thank you any public comment I do have a motion I'll make a motion to approve second student rep I all those in favor I I so moved we don't need additional comments from the public so now we have comments from the superintendent board members and future agenda items we can start with um Elizabeth I don't have anything to add tonight so just have a nice evening and enjoy March 10th where you get that
120extra day for this students I'm sorry teachers you don't um so since our last board meeting I've U participated in two activities that were both both of them were really fun one was the facilities meeting at the adult school um and there that was a lot more participant than I expected I don't know if that was normal or but it was great to see all the people that cared about what our new Adult School might look like and hear what their priorities were um so it was fun to be a part of that and thank you to everybody that participated and um then I also went to the lunch and learn at the College and Career Center at El Hamber last Wednesday and talked to the students about the legal profession and um that was
121also really fun and um they got to see my uh not so great PowerPoint skills or I I guess now you're you're supposed to say slides and if you say PowerPoint it means you're old I heard I heard um so guilty as charge but um they I'm always impressed with our students when I get to interact with them they were engaged there was a lot of them that attended they asked good questions so um thank you for letting me be a part of that I'm really looking forward to the know your rights Workshop happening on March 1st I think it's important for families and students to know um that this is going going on and this is a right step a good step in the right direction but I think there's an opportunity for more
122to be done to reaffirm our commitment to our families and students that they know that they are being protected and they're worked on um to to to safeguard them and to make sure that we are we we reaffirm our commitment to our students and our families especially in a time when public education is under threat more so than ever it is super important to be there for our immigrant students and our families for special education for students with IEP 504 plants for um our lgbtqia students and I think that this Workshop will serve again in a good direction but there's an opportunity for more to be done making sure that students are aware that this is taking place making sure that families have the right tools and resources currently there exists a technology Gap where
123a lot of Latino families do not know how to access these computers or um click on the links and I think one way to to mitigate that or reduce that hard ship is to have an in-person workshop and have parents come and talk and also have legal aid on the side so that they know that they're being supported by the community that they come from and at the community that they reside in so I'm really looking forward to this webinar and our families in attendance but I look forward to more opportunities being done in the future to protect all our [Applause] students make mine quick uh so uh over the weekend I was able to go to New Leaf collaborative which is a science nonprofit um they had a free event at the boys and
124girls club uh just right up the road uh I know they're going to be having another one coming up and it's totally free so it was really great experience and I know that they work with us uh with the Community Gardens so just want to be say I'm appreciative of what they do okay my heart is racing so Sarah I'm with you and I thought really hard about not saying this but I think it's really important because I think we are living in a time where our elected off officials are not speaking up and I am not going to be that person so our board made a unanimous decision we appointed Britney IA We Stand by that decision I think she's a qualified candidate who's an asset to this board and I think we can
125see that tonight and there's also been a lot thrown out tonight about voters rights Civics I went to alham high school I took Civics at Al Hamber High School what is happening with a special election is a legal Democratic process that is the right of the citizens of Area 3 that does not mean that I have to have an opinion about it doesn't mean I have to agree with it or disagree with it but what's happening on a national level is our Democratic processes are dissolving in front of our eyes and I can go to bed knowing that at least in our district democracy is Alive and Well we are a board of five people four of us in our current term were not voted by the people of our areas when an appointment happens
126it does have the benefit of not costing the district anything however it is people who are not representing the area that they are appointing a person to it's just one of those things we've done a lot of appointments this is part of the process so I just want to put on the record that I don't think it's fair I don't think it's right to bully people for participating in democracy in the way that they see fit yeah thank you an I appreciate you're saying that um I wanted toh say I went to two two things also um I went to the facilities meeting and that was very interesting and um yeah lots of people came to that it was great really really good and I know um lotss of notes were taken so looking forward
127to that um and also attended the um area Festival uh that was fabulous um there was like an hour and 15 minute intermission between the two and Orchestra did not have they have like 92 people I think but the second group had like 220 students and it was you weren't kidding me you said packed um but every every student did great um even the beginning students I mean they sounded fabulous and they kind of did a different thing this time and it's always funny because um the two teachers Sarah and um Sammy they um dress up and they do fun things and so it was a really fun event but if you haven't had an opportunity to go to one of those um area festivals you're missing out because it's really really fun um and
128Lively and there great music I mean even the beginners the fir you know from the junior high the very I mean they were great Orchestra as well as and you know um I play piano but I would never earn a million years touch a violin and the kids sounded fabulous and it was really it was a nice event so thank you for putting that on and um that's it for me thanks I'm good um with that I believe it is 8:32 and we are adjourned for