001all right good evening and welcome to the regular meeting of the board of education for November 27th 2023 we are about to adjourn to closed session but first we will take any public comments regarding agendized closed session items are there any public comments all right seeing then we will adjourn to close session we will return for the regular meeting at 6:30 p.m. good evening and welcome to the regular meeting of the board of education for November 27th 2023 we are reconvening for a regular meeting after closed session and we do have a report out we actually have a vote to take uh from closed session so this is to approve the stipulated expulsion of student number 2023-24 d01 is there a motion move to approve all second all in favor I I opposed abstentions motion
002carries okay uh so we're on item six for for those of you following along which is a pledge of allegiance we have a nice Full House tonight so if everyone could stand and join me ready to begin I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all seven is approval of the agenda are there any changes to the agenda all right thank you any discussion on the agenda public comments okay we'll bring that back for action and move to approve the amended agenda seconded all in F oh sorry student vote I all in favor opposed abstentions motion carries all right which brings us to that number in question 8.1 and I'll let superintendent Rossy
003present okay so for tonight's highlights and recognition we're going to start with our second and third grade students for American from the American oh let it say this who participate in the American Indian culture and education program so tonight we have Dalia dykman from fourth grade John Mir Edward Dyan second grade John Mir you're GNA come up at the same time can you all stand up together and Bowie Henry second grade Mela Park Bowie oh I'm sorry it's Bowie I stand corrected um hello my name is dollia dykman I'm in the fourth grade at johnm elementary I'm a citizen of the Mogi Creek Nation my favorite part of the American Indian culture and education program is summer camp I loved helping Nick play the drum and learning traditions of other tribes I also made the
004drums that you may see on the wall back back there my cousin really likes his tutor too we currently have Native American artifacts from the golden eagle parent committee displayed in our library at johnm elementary and that makes me [Applause] proud Hy my name is Bowie danger Henry and a member of the Mogi Creek tribe dear Clan I go to morelo Park Elementary and am a second grade wait know in the second grade my favorite part of Camp was getting to know Nick and making new friends who are native American my favorite Native American God is [Applause] Raven thank you um Janelle will you take a picture if I have them come up can the can the three of you come up here and I'm G to have um assistant superintendent aat take a picture
005okay that's all right if he doesn't want to he doesn't have to if he doesn't want to thank you our next highlight and recognition um is uh representatives from the alhamra high school yearbook honor students who just recently attended the National High School journalism convention in Boston Massachusetts I believe on a very quick whirlwind trip we have um we have two we have three do you want to introduce yourselves when and come up thanks um hi I'm Mick McDow I'm Angelina Garcia and we went to the National High School journalism convention in Boston um and it was extreme ex short it was a short live trip we got there Friday morning and then we left Sunday morning we were only there for about 48 Hours um but this trip it little bit so at this
006conference it it's a different location in the US every year last year we were lucky and it was an SF so we were able to go there this quick Transportation um but at these conferences it's just High School kids that are from all around the country and then some high school kids they actually like host their own like class there and you decide what like sessions you want to go to depending on what you're interested in they have classes ranging from like photography photography journalism or just even like uh there was one class we attended it was about Bann books and talking about like the importance of not Banning books and uh restricting books for children in teaching books um there was one class that really stuck out to us uh we've been in yearbook
007for the past two years and we've been trying to really promote Publications at our school um this class that we attended was F focusing focused on broadcasting and it's something that we've been trying to do this year we have the the dog Watcher it's her online newspaper it's called the it's AHS dog Watcher um last year it began we started it but it didn't really take off but this year we have right club and we have like a group of like about like five six kids that are helping us out and then we also have the yearbook class that's also writing articles for a dog Watcher and this broadcasting class really helped us because they introduced like a new aspect where they did um they did like short videos it was like five minute long
008videos five to 10 and it would just be about like um it's just like news going around school around campus that something it talked about things that you wouldn't really hear just like in your your normal school day it involved the more about like what's going on in the community besides s just school um this trip also showed a lot of our like newer students in yearbook about like leadership and how they can use those um like aspects in the upcoming school year um as seniors we will be leaving but there are there were two Juniors one sophomore and one freshman who went with us and we have heard from multiple of them that they are they've learned more leadership skills and that they're ready to use them next year and they want to be
009able to use them next year which helps a lot with determining you know the yearbook and everything with that and we also it was more it was also bonding to with our yearbook Community to be there with all of each other and stay in the same place and you know do all these activ activities together to like just kind of create a stronger Bond within each other because these are new kids returning kids people who have never even like done yearbook and it was just it was really eye opening for a lot of us I would just like to thank you guys for giving us this opportunity to go over to a conference this isn't an opportunity that many people have but thank you guys for letting us go and we really learned a lot
010from it and we will be using what we learned to further develop our Publications at our school um and I hope our Publications will go even further next year hopefully having a public Publications class that will focus on the dog Watcher um and anything oh yeah um we also have some pins and stickers to hand out if you guys would like some yeah okay um there's not much else to add other than that this was a really cool experience for all of us to be able to do and to be able to like go to Boston and experience these classes with other high schoolers who also were teaching these classes and get insight from people from all over I mean there were schools from Louisiana from Illinois so it was it was really cool to
011understand the perspective of a lot of other schools and um it was it was just it was cool well great thank thank you so much and from someone who knows what it's like to go to the east coast and back in 48 hours I've done it for the past 32 years a lot um it's a lot it's a huge undertaking and I'm sure you bounce back a heck of a lot faster than I do we're gonna go ahead and take your picture as well so you stand in front of the podium can I ask two questions U do you have a mailing list for your uh Watchdog publication this is our adviser hi um we we have a website and we we're GNA send it out we're going to do a late December Edition so
012we have assignments everyone has assignments coming in by December 1st so in about two weeks we'll send all that out to the parent Comm so can I can you add me to the email list and also I've been watching your uh your I think it's Instagram um publication that the school lets out it's it's really good you're doing a really good job on that I I I found it because of my kids who are at the high school so good job with that social media account question Joe is that something that could be tied to or connected with parents Square the school website yeah we can work with Administration to put a link up on the par great onto the and when they when they send out the publication they can send it out a
013link across parent square and every parent will get it thank you thank [Applause] you all right so if you um are a student and you were here we already had our our little ones head out so don't feel obligated to stay but of course you are very welcome to stay and join us for our meeting nine is our comments from our student representative so at lasas elementary our Kinder and third grade teams made Stone Soup as part of our thankful celebration where students also got to identify three things that they are grateful to have PTA provided lasas Elementary staff with a wonderful Thanksgiving lunch on Friday November 7 17th thank you we are so proud of our five lasas elementary students that were reclassified this year it was so wonderful to see our students and
014families at the celebration lunch with a loved one is on December 1st holiday gift fair is December 2nd from 10: to 1 p.m. and there is a PTA meeting on December 5th at johnm elementary our TK class made Stone Soup for their Thanksgiving holiday John Mir element John Mir Elementary's character of the month was respect we had so many tickets that we gave out double the prizes the fifth graders went to the marsh for an outdoor field trip we will have a presentation on November 29th from ebrpd East Bay Regional Park District this program talks about the ol olone culture as part of our Native American Awareness Month celebration our after school enrichment classes are going strong theater on on Thursdays and coding on Fridays congrats to our John Mir elementary students who were recognized
015at the reclassification ceremony Mrs gle's class learned about Northern Lights today in our science session we took notes watched a video and created an art project it was great fun on December 15th there there will be a family math night December 13th 4th graders are going to the John Mir house December 20th the ters will be carolling in downtown Martinez at John sweat elementary students are focusing on the character trait of gratitude this month and did a can food dry for Thanksgiving kindergarten and TK made the book stone soup come to life by making their batch of delicious Stone Soup fifth grade had a visit from a technician in robotics who was able to show a real robot he built teachers start to move into their new classrooms on December 11th and there is a
016site Council on December 4th at Melo Park Elementary two of our fifth grade two of our fifth grade classes were able to participate in walk through the revolution the final class will participate in the spring this is an awesome experience where the students put on a performance from that time we are thankful to our PTA for sponsoring this event each year our Turkey Trot was a raving success we beat our original goal of $25,000 and then surpassed our next goal of $30,000 with a final total of $33,000 wow thank you to the amazing Melo Park Community for supporting our students and school and participating in a fun Turkey Trot run our PTA worked very hard to organize this and we are so grateful for their NeverEnding support of our school our fourth grade had an
017in-class presentation by the Contra Costa Water District we appreciate this partnership and opportunity to share information about our water systems with with our students our fifth grade students were also able to participate in a field trip to the Contra Costa Water Treatment Plant which is always a fun one eagle reading minutes are due December 1st through December 7th coffee with the principal is on December 1st at 8:30 a.m. in the cafeteria Opera together assembly is December 6th and Buddy day is December 8th at Martinez Jor High congratulations to our 19 bull pups who are recognized at the mus D reclassification ceremony thank you to all of our thank you to all our mjhs and Martinez Community who came out as either a vendor or shopper at our second annual mjhs PTSA holiday bank or yeah
018o Boutique sorry our PBIS team or organized daily Raffles leading up to Thanksgiving break to celebrate all the positive and Community focused actions of our students a shout out to the CGS Club who organized successful food drive for the Contra Costa food bank before the Thanksgiving holiday thank you to all our bullpups families who donated there is a PTSA meeting um November 28th from 5: to 6:00 pm in the MJS staff Lounge elac meeting on December 1st and there will be a PTSA online Seas candy fundraiser that ends this Friday December 1st at alhamra high congratulations to our track CSI cross country State finalist Renee surles for placing ninth in the state congratulations to our varsity football team for an amazing season they made their first playoff appearance since 2015 and a semifinal appearance since
0192009 their final game against maramani was a tough fight but they made us proud now that our entire fall season is over fall Sports surveys have gone out for individual sports we ask that students students and families involved in Fall Athletics complete the surveys by Sunday December 3rd there is still time to support the PTSA they are selling the pi company pies now through December 4th School site council meeting this Thursday from 4: to 5: via Google meet please check the bulletin for the final exam schedule for both fall and spring semesters and they have been posted since September 10th counselors will be visiting the junior high on December 5th to discuss course selections with current eighth graders for next year's master schedule planning at vienta Martinez bion's independent study he sent the students attended
020an assembly by a representative of the trades Union where students were encouraged to sign up for classes starting in June after graduation if students attended the 12-week program they will be paid for attending and placed in a job after 12 weeks students were engaged and excited about this opportunity the counselors are continuing the dream it be it series on Thursdays Bion are get bronies are getting new students every day at Martina's adult education today was the first day of the Winter quarter five new students who completed the medical skills and job Readiness pre apprenticeship program received their completion certificates and moved on to the optical assistant Apprenticeship Training Program Wednesday November 29th the optical assistance orientation will take place on Zoom from 5: to 6m four students will complete the optical assistance Apprenticeship Training Program
021on Wednesday November 29th and will be taking the certification exam in December highet testing will take place on Monday December 4th from 4: to 8 PM all right thank you sounds like we've got lots going on for these four weeks between breaks 10 is employee organization reports do we have any reports this evening okay 11 is comments from the PTA do we have any PTA okay 12 is correspondents and I do think we have some tonight yes we have two letters both from the county office of Ed the first one it pertains to the um un audited actuals um which we presented September after we present to the board we upload to the state to the county and then the county uploads to the state and the state the county verifies and validates that um
022all balances um fund balances and borrowing and long-term debt everything is in place and reasonable and we passed on all accounts thank you to our business department and um So based on their review we met the reporting requirements established under Ed code 42100 that's our first piece our second piece has to do with our uh Williams act in inspection today will Williams settle settlement site visits and Martinez junior high was selected again for the second year in a row and I'm happy to say that they passed in all categories instructional materials school facilities um sarc their school account accountability report card their teacher misassignments and vacancies and uniform complaints so we did get a letter from the county Thanking us for our participation and for doing such a good job and for passing so that's
023all for correspondence all right thank you we'll stay with you for our first staff report okay so um tonight's superintendent staff report has to do with our attendance in Ada from the beginning of the school year until today um so uh welcome back to everyone I hope you all had a restful and relaxing Thanksgiving break tonight I'm providing a report on the the district's Ada or average daily attendance which is the number on which school districts are funded as you may be aware we do not receive funding for every student enrolled in our schools but for each day a student is present in their classroom for instance if we had a 100 students enrolled in a school and only 80% attended regularly we would be we we would receive only 80% of our intended funding
024the last report we did on Ada was provided at the second meeting in September and covered the period from the first day of school through September 15th at that time as a district we had an attendance rate of approximately 96.33% this morning I calculated the same rate for the district as we have gone down by almost 1% we currently stand at 95.5% this translate to the following number of absences by grade span so at alhamra high school there are approximately or an average of 53 students per day absent at the junior high that would be 30 students at our elementary schools there are approximately 20 students absent per day per Elementary as as both a sight level leader and a district administrator I have often heard from parents that we just care about the money
025yes the funding is really important as we hire staff based on enrollment not Ada therefore our expenses tend to be more than our revenues but funding alone is not the only issue according to research and studies done Nationwide and provided to districts through attendance Works a nonprofit whose mission is to reduce chronic attent chronic absenteeism in schools Nationwide research backs up the common sense belief that children suffer academically if they aren't in class to learn an analysis of a national meally absent kindergarten students revealed lower academic performance when they reached first grade reading scores for Latino children were most affected among poor children who lacked the resources to make up for lost time on task chronic kindergarten absence translated into lower fifth grade achievement a study of Baltimore students showed that by sixth grade chronic
026absence begins to predict higher Dropout rates by nth grade missing 20% of a school year can be can be a better predictor of Dropout rates than an eighth grade test score test score along with behavior problems and failure in core academic courses poor student attendance is critical is a critical early warning warning sign of a Dropout as a side note all schools in the Martinez Unified School District offer short-term independent study for those students whose family find it families find it necessary to take their students out of school for a 3 week or less period of time please contact your school um main office uh manager or your principal for any more information right thank you um I think good reminder right now between between breaks and hopefully people are staying healthy too so take
027care of yourself uh 13.2 is an adult school update and we have director Suzanne Murphy here along with I think lots of students you I do have a fact sheet well thank you for having me here this evening to the board and the cabinet I appreciate the time to update you on Martina adult education I did pass out a fact sheet for our school I'll be referencing a little bit of the information on it throughout the presentation but this gives you a lot more information and I want to thank Patricia Garcia our data registar for putting together that beautiful fact sheet so before I get started I wanted to acknowledge the students and teachers behind me these are our evening ESL classes and this is the first day of winter quarter and I didn't know
028how many we would expect to show up and and come out here to this board meeting but very happy they did and thank you thank you all for coming this is a this is important because it's about their school and their community so I'm glad they're here so I'll go ahead and get started um I wanted to go ahead and let you know about our uh mission statement and this presentation will really speak to this mission statement and right now the last part of it is about making sure that our students are active Community participants attending a board meeting we think is a great Community um activity and for them to learn about the school district and what a public meeting is all about so again thank you for coming all right so I wanted
029to I know some of the board members here were not here maybe for my last presentation in November and some of the new um cabinet members so I just wanted to kind of show you over the last few few years um we are seeing increasing enrollment which is fantastic um and we also are seeing um a little bit of a shift and um some very um different or increased diversity in our ethnicity of who we serve at the adult school and also as you notice on the slide possibly it's a little hard to read but our largest population that we serve at Martinez adult education is our Hispanic population at 39% and it's been pretty steadily increasing over the years also as far as our demographics for age we serve a slightly younger population over
030the last several years 22 to about 44 um we have seen our numbers increasing getting close to our 1819 pre-pandemic numbers this year year to date we've had 9910 participants at the adult school and I say participants because because the numbers that we include in our data are not only students taking advantage of a class which we have lots in classes right now but anyone who comes to an orientation to get help with a resume um help meeting with one of our career coaches for job placement and they can also attend any one of the events that we have so we do include that in the numbers that we serve so thank you all of you that came this year I wanted to highlight our high school diploma and high school equivalency programs and you'll
031notice also that data shows that we are increasing our graduates which is fantastic each year it's been about a 16% increase so far year to date we have eight graduates five in high school diploma and three in our high school equivalency uh just um not sure if you're aware the credits that are required at martinus adult education are 180 credits to graduate uate 10 College and Career credits we have all of our graduates CPR certified before they graduate and we also you use Edgenuity we've been using it for about eight years for continuity for anyone who comes from nusd to finish their diploma and I just wanted to put up our graduation date just to put it on your save the date because we'd love to have you all again which is going to be
032Tuesday June 25th our SL programs which we have many students here tonight our evening students ESL programs are some of the largest programs at the adult school and um we serve the students to of course help them improve their um language skills and writing skills in English but we do a lot more than that and our Focus really for our ESL and for all of our students is really recognizing which career opportunities they're interested in and also introducing them to higher education so um this last year we had what was called an IET which is integrated Education and Training which is a Career Technical education teacher and an ESL instructor and they taught a starting a small business class to our ESL students interested in entrepreneurship so the teachers co- te and the career teacher
033teaches the content based on the career and the ESL teacher supports those students in the terminology they did a business plan they learned how to Market their business about branding and they all did a presentation we're going to continue that with an intro to Healthcare careers class and also an administrative both with that IET model higher education like I said for our ESL students and for all students so we do two tours a year at Diablo Valley College this picture has our students visiting the culinary program um we bust them over in the spring we had about 50 this fall we had about 30 and we actually have somebody at the college that works directly with our students I didn't have this data anywhere but she told me last year she met with 55 students
034and 22 of them enrolled at Diablo Valley College so from all program areas um Career Training is another big area at the adult school um we have a large uh career training programs and I wanted to just highlight a couple of our newest ones which is you did get some funding for that sorry I'm losing my voice this will help there I'm back and so we had some funding to help us with that and we just wanted to highlight those two programs along with our other programs I'll speak a little bit about so if you have career programs Career Technical education you have to have employer partners and we are so lucky to have all of these and more as partners that not only hire our students but come and do presentations about employment opportunities
035we Kaiser and UCSF Health have done yearly presentations for medical billing and coding pharmacy technician and Optical and actually have hired um many students from our program all of these listed including musd have hired um from martinus adult education people completing programs CVS Pharmacy is our um partner in externships for pharmacy technician and they take every student and will offer an externship opportunity so there's more on your list but you don't have good career programs and left you have great employer Partners So Paid internships something that we've been doing for a while and um we actually try to partner with um try well our goal is to partner with small businesses here in Martinez to offer paid internships we Supply the the portion that pays the student they provide the work um we have funding
036that that helps us with that and then we offer a 60 to 90day internship the company's Martinez Chamber of Commerce which has hosted three interns this year Martinez Yacht Club we're trying to find one for them they've requested someone from our accounting and QuickBooks program um and then computer information station they're actually in San Pablo you can see the other local businesses and the numbers are how many interns that they have um hosted over um since 2122 and actually Martinez Chamber of Commerce offered one of the interns a part-time job so they're working there regularly now so we always are looking for for business to partner with a couple of highlight a couple of events that we hosted um last year in May we had the contracosta county adult education career Expo um we had
037378 students across the county and we had 37 career training programs this was kind of a first of its kind we had all of the adult schools have two or three programs in all of the community colleges plus resources and then in the afternoon we really had just our adult students from all over the county in the morning but in the afternoon we really wanted to focus on high school seniors that wanted to take advantage of a training program at either adult school or Community College so we actually bust in students we actually bust the Vicente students over to the adult school we got a bus Forum I think there was 25 or 30 students that came they came went around the fair um found out great information the alhamra students walked over and then
038we bust in from other areas in the county as well and even today when we have people enter some of the training programs they we ask everyone how did you hear about this and some of them are still saying from the Expo so we're really proud of that event it was really great and it really introduced a lot of people that wouldn't normally know about the resources and opportunities in adult education this fall we just had a a resource Fair small but we focused on resource sources for students we had Contra Costa Library we had the um Rubicon programs that helps with employment we had um home match which actually matches up people who have a room to rent with somebody who's looking for a room to rent and then we also had uh calr
039there so these were all resources that we knew our students could benefit from learning more about and 22 people new people got library cards on that day so it was it was a good event just filled with resources um little bit about funding and highlights um I don't know at the first slide we we saw um martinus adult education is a wasque accredited um school has been for a long time and we had our six-year accreditation we have our midcycle review coming up in 2024 the pre-apprenticeship grant we awarded that actually helped us to establish the medical skills and job Readiness pre-apprenticeship program this is a state of California Department of industrial relations recognized program so when the students finish they get a certificate from the state of California that they completed a pre-apprenticeship and
040they're very excited when they received that and we have that funding continuing a few more years to support in that and then our employment training panel we got our first reimbursement it's a reimbursement grant our pharmacy technician and Optical program are both no cost to students um but of course it costs us to run the program so when student completes and they have been employed for 90 days the employment training planel will reimburse us up to $4,000 per student and we just got a check I think for about 67,000 and that's for students that have completed in the last year so very excited to keep that going and it's all outcome based so um I told you about the overall numbers in Martinez adult education but I really wanted to focus on how many actual
041residents of Martinez because adult education can serve anyone who walks through our door we anyone in the county so we wanted we do pull up data as to how many within our community that we're serving and you can see here that so far this year we have 193 Martinez residents and the majority of them do take our ESL and uh CTE programs but you can see the breakdown over the years and you know we're really like I said really focused on helping whoever comes in but I know for for this board and this group it's important to recognize those in the community that we're serving uh I'm on I'm couple more slides sorry so Diablo Valley College classes we're continuing to offer this um last fall we offered an introduction to business this is actually
042a Diablo Valley College class offered on site at Martinez adult education class is one night a week and then the rest is online um we are offered the intro to business this fall and really to have people be able to access college right here in Martinez we have about five students actually we have five students from alhamra high school that are also taking this class and then Diablo Valley College asked us in the spring to offer business Communications um these are CSU and UC transferable and they do lead to certificates um degree at the college so great way for people to start our class size is smaller and it is a hybrid so the students are with the teacher from DVC one day and then online and um it is open to the high school
043students and like I said I think we have five last year we had five and it's a great opportunity for everyone I wanted to um this well earlier this this year Helen and I met and we talked about what we could do to to support current employees in the district what could The Adult School provide and she asked if we could provide a Spanish class for the office managers so that they could communicate with the Spanish-speaking family members that come in and um so we did we looked into what we could do and we are now starting tomorrow night we're offering a 10-week course I think we have eight people inrolled and it's offered to any classified employees that are looking to communicate better with the families that they serve and we actually tied it
044to professional growth for these employees where they will earn six points by taking the 10-week class and I believe it's um 10 points they can actually get a percentage increase for their salary and this is no cost to them and we are very happy to provide this resource to the employees in Martinez and that's everything thank you very much and thank you for the time and if you have any questions questions I'd be happy to answer I can I just want to make a com thank you it's all it's all them thank you and they're amazing because they take the time out of class to come here and be part of this so they're really amazing for coming suzan yeah can't even say enough it's you always impress me with everything you've got going on
045and and the successes that you are you're you're pulling down um I kind of wondering is there anything that we can do or is the the grant that the $500,000 Grant is that renewable and are there any other grants or things that we can do to help support or you know Garner Moore so so that one is a pre-apprenticeship we have the pre-apprenticeship established now we will be able to continue on um even after the grant that's our plan is sustainability we actually just applied as a Consortium for an English language Learners Health Care pathway Grant which we did receive we are a subrecipient of it so um I just you know our Consortium our adult EG Consortium we look for opportunities and I'm always looking for opportunities as to what can we provide to
046this community what can we provide to the students here but thank you for the offer um you know it's really about sustaining what we get started and I think we'll be able to do that but having that money to get things going really helps but thank you I have a comment I have a comment can you hear me yes I have a comment and then a question um so I just wanted to share first in in English and then I'll repeat it in Spanish when my mom first came to this country she took night classes at adult school and she would bring me with her to these night classes so I think I attended adult night school before I attended kindergarten so I've been where you are sitting in the audience just as a child
047running around a classroom um and now in Spanish um [Music] so welcome and I'm glad you're there and there's a long road of opportunity ahead of you once you master English um and then a question have you made any connections with the the union trades because I know they're looking for people to work in the profession and I know that math p passing the math test for a lot of these trades is a huge deal is there an ability to connect with them and send people that that route so yeah and we actually are very um involved with the trades uh the heat and frost insulators Local 16 which is in benisha and the electricians are actually their apprentices are students of martinus adult and their teachers are teachers of martinus adult and it's interesting
048that you brought up the math because I went to the union meetings I I joined their JATC meetings as their Lea and they were talking about the pass rate being very very low like 34% and they know that people can do the job so we actually have offered to do math um classes when someone applies and the test is coming up in six months and we do that for the electricians too but that we can help prep anyone applying for these apprenticeship programs and at no cost to support them so that they can pass these math assessments it's basic math and and you know if you haven't done math for a while even basic math math is hard and word problems especially and especially if you're a second language learner breaking down those word problems
049so we help with that and so we're hoping to get but we're always willing to support anyone in the trades and um Martinez adult education has a long history of supporting um the local apprenticeship um community so yes and I wish we could do more I mean I wish we could just like pull them all in but you know we we can provide that and offer it it's getting them to come and come to class and get that support but um we are we just worked on that with um The Local 16 and we're looking at I think they're accepting applications and have testing in January and so we've set up classes for them to drop in and just you know get the assistance they need even to reach out to the ones that are
050coming back that didn't pass before because I just said if they haven't done anything send them our way you know before they get in there and you know not pass again because that is every apprenticeship program every un they have a math test yeah that and if that's one of the requirements so thank you for bringing that up and that's something that you know we're looking at helping support thank you right well thank you so much for the presentation and for all that you do you for your time I know I took thank you very much I appreciate it see you next year all right sounds good no those are for you thank [Applause] you all right so 15 uh 13.3 is a discipline update from Martinez junior high school principal krie kusak okay sorry
051I'm okay great so um I wanted to come tonight um I know that superintendent Rossy had shared with you previously that I had taken a group down to a Restort of practices conference um as we as mjhs were looking um a little bit further into how could we um look at our our disciplinary process what were some of the gaps that we had and how could we start to really build um a bridge between what we were trying to implement with our PBIS um process positive behavior intervention system and then those traditional consequences and so with some partnership looking to find what that might look like we did find um a resort of practices conference called transforming traditional consequences into meaningful accountability and that last word there was really important for us accountability because when
052we're talking about our sixth through eth graders when they make a choice oftentimes when we're having the conversation and we're looking at what their actions were there's a lot of learn learning that needs to be done in order to understand what was the impact what is the real world connection to this and so that was something that really stood out to us so um let me back up a little bit to just say we have an amazing team and then our entire school is working together over the last several years to um build a PBIS model for our school to implement and then to work on a daily monthly quarterly basis to really make sure our students know what our expectations are to know um when they are doing something positive to reinforce that behavior
053um that we are working towards our uh tier two interventions where students who continue to make choices that are not safe or um helpful um how could we provide them more intervention but then we also have instances where there are behaviors or choices that are made that need a direct intervention so what we really took away from the conference and I will say I've taken two different groups um to this conference now um and we really did find that there was a Synergy between traditional consequences PBIS and the restorative practices that were put forth and we found that there are some um some uh really important pieces around our students being accountable doing some learning about their actions that we are starting to put in place um as they're they're all working together in conjunction
054um we have agreed as a staff that there are a need for traditional consequences in times but there is surely a very important need for our students to restore when they've done something wrong um and so that's what we've been really been working on so um we have implemented started the implementation process of our resor of practices um as they have been needed um we are looking to grow these things working as a staff to identify um what is working what what do we need more of how do we keep our students in our classroom how do we keep our students at our school getting their education while at the same time holding them accountable having them explore and restoring that that space that they heard um and then um the last piece really making
055sure that that accountability piece is coming back onto our students around their understanding of their impact on um their students on their community and how they can uh move forward and not make the same Choice again so we continue um this work right we just we have just started we um have done a couple of uh sort of test cases and we've had some really good um outcomes of learning of our students um and we again want to just make sure that we are utilizing all of our resources right PBIS traditional consequences as well as Resort practices to really best Su our students in growing and understanding moving forward so all right thank you any questions I was just curious um can you give me example of something that you've learned that you've implemented just
056in you said a couple cases you've done for sure yeah thank you yeah so um I think right every student is an individual right and so that's a really big piece for us is understanding that um it's not going to there's it's not a cookie cutter situation um and so we have really worked to think about um digging into um what we've called Community connections right so that there is a sort of after school time that is given for the students and building that connection one-on-one with the student for them to be able to reflect and have some accountability and then that the project that we are creating for the student to do has to be individualized to them it can't just be one type of project it has to be based on what their
057um incident was or what their responsibility what their what their need is to understand what their impact was so what would a project look like so um for example um a project could be um maybe you were messing around with your friend and you knocked into the fire alarm and it set the fire alarm off um and that we wanted our students to understand like what was the impact that was beyond your s what is the real world impact of the fire department having to come to a school if they had to they they they didn't want would say um and that uh the disruption that happened for the students for the teachers for our campus in general um and so does that help I give you an idea yeah how how receptive have the
058kids been that have been presented this more evolved form of discipline are they is it are the connections being made is the behavior improving yeah I I would say that it was um you know we haven't had many opportunities to put it in place just yet um but in the few that we have I would say that it was really powerful because our students were at school remained in their classroom doing their work and doing the academic part the social piece was eliminated um and then they worked through being uh you know working through the task showing and understanding their impact and really starting to feel like oh I see that it wasn't just me this wasn't about me here's all the other people that were impacted and and reflecting to us like wow like
059I learned a lot in doing this and I don't like want to do this again or having to you know enumerate who are the people who were impacted right my classmates my teachers my parents right and then myself right what what was lost for me so it's more about just not them and that um know when they're at home we don't have any we've lost their connection to their classroom to their learning um and then in this case that they were with us we were watching them through their process having those conversations as they were coming up and so yeah really reflective and really powerful what what role do the parents play like you know we're we're guiding the kids in this restorative practice right and I I imagine that has to kind of spill
060over into the home so that the parents are on the same page and they correct those behaviors at home also do the parents also play a role in this or is there a need for that yeah I think it's a right I think anytime there's a disciplinary action we're always looking for partnership with our parents right to make sure that what's happening that on both ends is that we're supporting our student and making a better choice next time and so as for our job in that communication with parents really making sure that um understanding the point of view and making sure that we're having similar um conversations with the student that what are the expectations at home and what are the expectations here and how those are mirrored yeah I just had one more question
061um so you've taken a couple of um teachers or administrators with you um how are you sharing that with the rest of the teachers and um I guess two-part question uh so if there is a you're doing it after class I guess and you're bringing is it just with the teachers that went down there or are you personally involved in it um just curious how that is looking and what's the reception for the other teachers um that didn't go down there but got the training yeah so our first group um went down in SE early September and we came back and we presented to the whole staff and gave them a real a real good overview and understanding of sort of our takeaways and then we were able to share our first pilot um example
062and it was really really well received um and and I think that there was um you know the the proof of what this the teacher saw the student videos videoed themsel going through their PowerPoint so they were like presenting to the staff almost um and that was a a really good um outcome from our staff and they saw the power of how that student was accountable um those those teachers um who went are definitely were working together as a cohort to see how do we continue to engage all of our staff on this um as well as uh the the two Vice principles myself and then one teacher is working very closely as we're working through these projects yeah thank you very much I think the mechanics are still not clear to me on how
063this is rolled out and I guess if somebody's caught child is caught doing something is it then like a detention and then a individual teacher goes through this analysis with them and walks them through this this scenario of their actions and then how much how much time is it I mean are they doing that on off the cuff or is that no no how does that work yeah so this would this can can come in a lot of different ways right and that's what we're still still building of exactly how we're going to use it in a variety of ways the one way we're using right now would be like an alternative to a suspension um and so that the student would remain at school in doing their academics and then they would be working
064after school um one-on-one with an administrator or this or the teacher Miss Monroe speed in doing a little reflection and then working on their accountability project we the the bigger part of Resort of practices right that there's a lot there's a lot to Resort of practices we're focused on uh this practice right now and seeing how that works for our our site and how we can work as a staff to um build more practices that could be used by our teachers in the future so would it be safe to say that the two teams that went down meet with you on a roll out and you take it to your staff and you're continually reviewing stuff at your staff meeting yes um about the practices but this is still so new implementation on a full
065scale won't be for a year for a while yeah yeah um and not and I want to be really clear like not every instance is appropriate for a resorted practice and I think that's something that's really important for us as a as a team at the junior high to recognize right not everything is going to be a restorative situation if there's a you know a danger situation there's going to be a traditional consequence that might be appropriate can I if if the program is successful and for purposes of continuity is this something that we would look into to shift over to the high school too so that there's a continuity to the practices and the well as Carrie develops the the let's say the program or the the I don't know what you the program
066at the Junior High um John Mir has already sent um a team with tanishia um to the last one and hopefully another crew from there where they can start there and then spread it as long as things are running successfully and and it's working it's it gain gaining all this knowledge is one thing but putting it in place takes a lot of work and we want to be sure before we invest a lot of money and time that this is what we need in this is working and I think we're off to a good start um with the two schools that have started so it could yes move forward thank you all right thank you so much for your time and we'll look forward to hearing more I'm sure that this is not not the
067end for us by any means so we appreciate that 14 is board member reports so each month the board commits that and I think that we've all really been going to things but we commit to at least two of us going to an outside Community event and Reporting back so I have the first report this evening and it feels like forever ago now but I saw our town I guess that was in November um and that was the high school's fall production and Courtney and I went yeah maybe might have been the very first day yeah November 1 um and it was I I felt like what was so impressive about it is the text for those of you are familiar with the script it's very um it's old and it's um very wordy and
068there's lots in lot of monologues and I felt like the students did such a great job really embracing that text and performing it and making it relevant so it was very fun and I just I always love going to the theater and checking out the art gallery and seeing what the students are doing so these are some of my favorite events to go to and definitely um it was it was worth worth the the show so 14.2 is to you Courtney so um I ALS also attended the uh reclassification ceremony that we had at the high school I think about two weeks ago and this was to reclassify the students that were um were English language Learners and are now English proficient and we celebrated approximately 50 students and um from all grade levels I
069think we had kindergarten up to 11th grade there and their families and each student um's name was red and they were given a certificate and um I think it was just a really nice thing to be able to celebrate with them and their families and we also had a performance from the Middle School I think the jazz band and the high school jazz club uh which was really fun too so it was a great event all right great and I know that this month it'll be really easy to get events too with band performances and all kinds of things with the approaching holidays 15 is 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's jurisdiction however the board may not
070take a 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 please see the Google meet public comments protocols listed above that's at the very beginning of the agenda so that I don't have to read this an entire other chunk of text um do we have any public comments okay and if you don't mind you can come up and then if you don't mind filling out a um a comment card oh perfect perfect no problem so uh yeah thank you very short comment um first of all very well- ran meeting I just very informative and very nice
071to see kind of everybody showcase what they're doing here so first time for me and it was very nice um reason I've come tonight is I've got two young kids at Mel um they're super happy with the school and I've been informed that there is currently a negotiation uh around salaries of teachers and there have been a lot of uh concerns raised around the ability of some teachers to stay here based on their salaries and uh just wanted to voice my support for that and that's about it thank you all right thank you uh any other public comment nothing online all right 16 is the consent calendar approval of the consent calendar means that all items listed here under are adopted by a single motion unless a member of the board or the superintendent requests
072that any such item be removed from the consent calendar and voted upon separately do we have any changes to the consent calendar there are no changes okay any discussion or questions public comments we'll bring it back for action move to approve the consent calendar seconded student vote I all in favor I opposed abstentions motion carries 17 are discussion items we have just one discussion item this evening and this is the calendar committee recommendation presented by Dr sco thank you so we uh reconstituted the calendar committee uh this year um and they had a specific goal which was to create a school calendar or I should say recommend a school calendar to the board for 24 25 25 26 and 26 um originally the recommendation decision we wanted to aim for consensus uh whenever you do
073work on consensus you always have to have a fallback decision making strategy we use the majority vote which was our fall back um we asked uh the presidents and leaders of mea CSEA PTA and Massa uh to recommend a representative at the elementary level and a representative at the secondary level um and this is who those leaders chose um the operating Norms they did they did great with the operating Norms uh you know I'd say the the the most successful Norms that they followed were making sure that they granted dignity and respect to each other during the meeting um and that it was okay to disagree uh and they they took some time in exploring the disagreements uh which I thought was very helpful and helped us get to a decision uh these were the
074parameters that we started with uh school year must start must end uh it's got be a winter break spring break federal holidays uh we must honor the barain contracts of MBA and CA uh we needed at least a day of work in June and we needed three emergency makeup days for smoking other other weather related incidents might happen um we talked a little bit about interpace problem solving these were uh the interests of the group uh you know the first one um the district mea and CA were interested in a longer summer break in pure midyear holidays that's this is where we started in um the fifth one student learning uh one of our parents brought this up that they really wanted there to be not so many starts and stops for students um and
075then the last one I kept bringing up Thanksgiving uh you be pleased to know that they kept saying don't touch Thanksgiving uh so they they wanted to make sure we wrote down to keep Thanksgiving as a week uh due to attendance we did a community survey um where we surveyed secondary parents Elementary parents secondary teachers elementary teachers CSA and Massa um what you see up here are the results from the parents down at the bottom you can see the number of respondents uh purple is a longer summer break uh blue is spreading those five days out throughout the year much like our current calendar this year uh you can see for secondary and Elementary parents it was almost a two to1 preference to have a longer summer break when you look at teachers they were
076fairly even the elementary teachers Was Right Down the Line in terms of whether they wanted longer summer or five days spread throughout the year secondary teachers there was a slight preference to having five days spread throughout the year versus a summer break CSA was very similar to the secondary teachers um slight preference to having the five days spread throughout the year rather than a longer summer break uh Massa you know was almost three to one in terms of they all wanted a longer summer break um so we had three calendar options calendar C was basically this year's calendar right which just built off of the work that the previous calendar committee had done calendar A and B were options with um summer break extended by one week and so we had a lot of discussions
077about everyone's interests uh we reviewed the current year calendar and how how it got to be that way we reviewed school calendars from some surrounding school districts um and at the end we realized we couldn't come to consensus which was okay it's pretty hard to come to consensus on the calendar uh so we fell back to the majority vote in terms of what recommendation we were going to give um 83% of the committee wanted to recommend option b 17% uh didn't want to recommend option b but 83% is a super majority in this time Point um so the calendar committee recommends to the board uh trustees calendar B for 24 25 25 26 26 27 and those are the calendars that you see and this is just to bring the information to you at this
078meeting at the next meeting I'll be asking you to approve so the emergency makeup days you've got one at the end of the year um so assuming we don't need it you would just end school then but the two in the middle of the um school year what do you do with those if we don't need them so if you don't need them they are treated like non-school days or holidays okay all right so the students don't come to school the teachers the staff uh that are you know regular school day employees they don't come to school back then okay um and and most most districts have them spread in the spring usually after P2 uh which is what we have done and so we just basically use the same pattern that the previous Cil
079committee ConEd okay just want to clarify that thank you good question and I don't think we've actually we've taken days but not since the state has required that we add these in so should something happen in the fall how soon would families know that this actually is and and this might be getting like into the weed so if you don't have the answer that's okay but I just if you do um like how how soon in would parent would families be you know made aware that this is actually going to be a day that you have to come to school my experience is it's very quickly okay so when I've been in one District that went out on smoke days um and everybody knew uh that we were going to have to be coming to
080school on on the first smoke day so everyone knew it going into it and then within a couple days you know the district waited to make sure the smoke cleared in case they needed a second one and then uh as soon as the smoke had cleared and that for those fires they announced to the district that hey we're going to go in the spring this is the date where we're going to have and they just kept getting that word and just just to confirm this this sticks with the I know it's kind of predicated on the number of instruction minutes so this is predicated on the same bell schedule that's currently in place this is more about the calendar days so it has the same number of instruction days one of one of the balancing
081factors here was uh in order to make the summer longer um we had to adjust the length of the fall and of the of the spring so typically the the entire state has been trying to go to uh you know kind of a balanced 9090 schedule hardly anybody ever achieves it uh because it would mean you'd have to start in the beginning of August um so this current year this current year now we're at uh I believe 87 days the fall 93 in the spring um for the next three years we go to 85 in the fall 95 in the spring uh so we talked about that quite a bit especially with the I want to say Civics and econ if I have those classes correct um we talked about some some options that the
082high school could put into place to address it for the issue for those two classes uh the rest of the classes should be I have a comment question um and it's it's not really about the calendar but it's more about the formation of the committee um I saw the the groups that we reached out to to participate can we try to reach out to delac parents also just for purposes of equity so that we make a more proactive effort to reach out to them to be part of these committees also deac yeah you know in my when this process is done and I'm writing those notes for the next uh committee I'll definitely make that recommendation thank you welcome right so this is just for discussion tonight but are there any public comments on this
083item yeah go ahead and then just make sure you fill out a card after a comment card you can come and make your comment but then just yeah so I participated on the committee this year I think this was my well I've been doing it for about nine years I think Dan was the fourth or fifth facilitator for the district that I've been through this with um one of the things and unfortunately I couldn't attend the last meeting and I didn't get a chance to get any notes out to the committee one of the things that is not clear to me and I have done as consistent I tried to research it I looked across six different school districts is how each school district is demonstrating the emergency days we're the only School District that
084I could find that we demonstrated all three days in our academic calendar and I don't and they had breaks they had the same number of days so I'm not looking to throw a monkey wrench at it but I I don't it makes me wonder if we're all consistently applying what how we believe those days are supposed to be represented in the school calendar do you want me to answer Andy or do you want to answer about the three extra days well if in in the past before the state said have three extra days if we had a smoke day which we had smoke days I would as the CBO fill out a um j13 attendance waiver and I'd apply to the state to get um Ada or our money due that day and for an
085emergency reason for the smoke we did it when there was a lockdown at John Mir for a day and we had to cancel school at John Mir because there was an incident at the tower Mark so there are certain things after so many years of so many smoke days and all the applications they were getting they said stop right there this would be the state um you need to build in just as New England builds in snow days you need to build in fire days or smoke days and when you apply for emergency funding if you haven't built those into your calender you are more than likely not going to be funded is basically what happened so we had a certain I know from talking with other cbos at the time that they have those
086days I don't know how they calendar them or if they publicize them on the regular calendar but they're depend because every school district has a different calendar start date end date and some are um year round and some are partially year round I forget what they call that but it's um they will have them because if there is a smoke day they have to show that they have them when they submit anything to the state okay that's that's we I'm a rule follower when I'm told that's what I got to do that's what I got to do so I'm not yeah I'm not questioning it I think what it those days are not demonstrated in school districts similar to ours Mount Diablo being one of them they're not in their calendar and by default their
087school year is shorter and they're not going as far into June as we are they might be just tacked on to the end maybe Dan would know actually mono opted not to have them in place which means that when they need them they're going to lose a lot ofy it was a decision that the that that committee made and the recommendation to the board I don't I think it was a good decision I think it'll haunt them I do understand them and I and I respect that you are a rule I have one question and I don't know if maybe it's a Dan question maybe it's a Helen question it might be a Todd question since you were on the committee um the only thing that really stood out to me is the the calendar
088draft for next year spring break doesn't start till April 7th and I know that spring break being the first week of April is like always something something people can count on and and are very adamant about and I don't know if it's if it's just Courtney we thought the first full week the first Monday is that what it is it's the first full week of April and because the Monday is part of March there's no um we have to go want to be able to answer that question because I know it's coming it's the first full week okay thank you I have a question I don't think I I might just be me because I don't understand fully how emergency makeup days work but let's say we needed alhamra needed or the district need emergency
089makeup day after graduation does that mean school is still in session and after finals what would we do that's a good question one year we had to have uh for some reason um viente um there they someone put an extra minimum day and it was a few years ago and we were short instructional minutes so we had to add an extra day school day after the calendar the teachers came they had curriculum and lessons planned school was open and the students were told to come and they had different activities and stuff to do um from a curricular Point did they sit with a math book no probably not did they do a project or something fun with math probably but did everybody come no um but the day was held yes some people came yeah
090good to know good to know thank you well it makes sense to put them before the end of the year to start them there rather than to tack them all at the end I know I grew up in New England and our snow days were always tacked in June some years we didn't get out till like June 26th depending on how many we had five built in and then any more than five snow days we would have to start staying after [Music] so all right well this is always is a fun conversation people love the calendar discussion so uh we will see this again in December thank you for your hard work and serving on the committee and um and for all of the information I think this is actually the most information since I've
091been on the board anyway that has come back to us about the process so I really appreciate that 18 these are action items so most of these have shown up before and we've discussed and so we will be taking action on them tonight the first is um really the first two have to do oh wait no yeah they have to do with the parcel tax potential par parcel tax at this point so 18.1 is um a procedural item which is a public hearing on proposed qualified special tax and I will let Andy Canon explain that um so tonight before you you are going to be able to vote on whether or not to renew the parcel tax and so that'll be part two um part one is for you to open a public hearing so
092that the public can give comments um towards this resolution so the comments are specific to the resolution and then afterwards we'll talk about the resolution vote all right so at this point we will adjourn the regular meeting and open the public hearing on the proposed qualified special tax are there any public comments okay that was a very quick um public hearing we'll adj adjourn the public hearing and and uh reopen our regular meeting and we'll move on to 18.2 which is the adoption of the parcel tax resolution number 2024 d09 you can go ahead and explain that one well um I'm excited to bring this forward because it's been a long time coming we've been discussing this for several months um it is taken on a lot of work um the board began with authorizing
093a survey to find out the Public's interest in supporting a partial tax renewal um we've gone through a few different uh uh presentations that have described what those um results look like the results look favorable um so we've already gone to the point of of putting out information to our public about what a parcel tax would do and we are now at the point that we have to this evening make a decision on as the board whether you want to approve this um just to kind of speak to the timeline coming forward um if the board chooses to approve the parcel tax renewal then um by December 6th so just a week or two away then we will um put that to the um the county and then we will actually have an official ballot
094measure with a letter that goes along with it and looking ahead to March so March 5th when there is a presidential primary the citizens of Martinez would have the opportunity to vote on this renewal if approved tonight so before you um and what's presented is resolution 20249 and it describes in detail our resolution for the partial tax renewal so tonight I ask the board to review and to approve this measure all right any for discussion or questions so the $75 is for property taxes of residential homes is it for the whole year or per month it's per year for year for paral yeah okay so it's yeah but it's based on go ahead I was just going to say this is just an extension of our existing parcel tax so this will be no new
095tax for anyone this is already what people are being assessed currently is the $75 per parcel and the same rule um 65 and older can apply for an exemption and when they apply for an exemption has to come in before July of the following year so right now you put one in for July and they do not need to reapply for an exemption it's a one-time exemption until that property is sold and someone else is the owner do oh go ahead and how much money do we expect to get per year from this parcel tax um between $750 and $800,000 per year and it goes to fund um counseling um Services uh our music our arts program um and Library so if it doesn't pass we lose all of that that's correct there would be
096people's positions and academic programs that would be lost if uh if you did not vote for this tonight and if the public did not approve it as well thank you any other comments or discussion I don't do I need to take since we did the public hearing do I need to take public comment right well well then I'll go ahead and make a motion to adopt the parcel tax resolution number 20 24-9 second student vote I all in favor I I I oppose extensions motion carries so we'll see we'll be working hard on this and creating committees but we won't be talking about it here anymore as it will become a ballot measure that we're not able to discuss in our meetings but we'll be you know out in the community and getting support and
097and hoping for good um you know voter turnout and support in March 18.3 is the Martinez Unified School District Sunshine proposal for collective bargaining negotiations with California School employee Association CSA chapter 99 presented by Dr sco oh thank you very much whenever we're meeting with one of our bargain units we always uh Sunshine what it is that the district wants to talk about and the bargain unit always sunshines what they want to talk about with us um so this is a chance for both csca and the district to put before the board uh those areas that we plan any board questions or discussion public comments bring it back for Action I'll move to approve the sunshine proposal second St vote oh no so I think not yeah is negotiating on salaries uh okay so board
098all in favor I I opposed abstentions motion carries 17.4 is Google meet pilot results presented by superintendent Rossy so last week I presented the um Google meet um information in in the same format as I presented the zoom from last June can you flip the page for me please okay and here is the list of our County um districts and who's doing what we have inperson only iners in Virtual um public comments in person and email only and then public comments in person and virtual and flip the page please um this was the suggestion I made when we left Zoom about creating an email for public comments those public comments would be provided to the board ahead of time if they were received after 4 o'l on the date of a board meeting they would
099be provided to the board on their um on the DS here before the meeting but they will not be read they don't have to be read before the meeting and um they will not be read aloud at the meeting but they will be entered into the minutes of the meeting okay go ahead so this is um a compilation of of who's on who's doing what so on 9:14 since we went to Google meet in in is that 8:14 sorry 8:14 um we have we have more YouTube viewers than we have participants on the um Google meet um we had three participants there were Joe Joe's iPad and the mea co-president on the 14th the 28th we had of course Joe and Joe's iPad and then we had the co-president so on and so forth we
100actually only had I believe one Community member um make a um a a public comment uh during this time as I said most our YouTube um videos the taking uh going to the another option eliminating the Google meet allows for um us to be able to run the recording When Joe's not here for instance if he was supposed to be at a conference or if he was out sick we wouldn't have to hire someone because we can all make the camera work and It Go on YouTube but when it comes to hooking up and troubleshooting the Google meet as we know has happened because we had about three meetings where it didn't work um it gets to be a little bit more Technical and it's just a little bit of cost savings but um also
101with the area board meetings um either City councils and other committees with the people calling in um that don't live in the area when you get a um controversial um subject matter on your agenda um I know in the past few weeks I've had several emails and several phone calls and I think we blocked one person off of and they were from um I think that was our Alabama friend off of the Google meet but um just for security purposes so it's up to the board um how we want to proceed do we want to continue with Google meet or do we want to go to the email version so and we waited till tonight we did not move it for Action because we were two members down how much does it cost to have
102Google meet only thing it costs is Joe's time so it's it's free Google meet is free for the entire District it's just about Joe's time so I had said last time and I still feel like this I really like the email option I think we're clearly not seeing a lot of participation and before we had this we did a whole thing with zoom and we weren't seeing a a ton of participation but I like the email because it goes actually into the public record it can be attached to um the minutes and so that's actually more robust than what we record when someone speaks in public here that doesn't go in it just goes in the minutes you just record it like their name and maybe the topic that they spoke yeah so then this
103whole email would go so I think this gives a lot of options and people can I assume they can submit a email in any language right yes okay okay so I like that I feel like it um you know we see the participation in YouTube I think this gives people another option to participate remotely but to me it feels a little bit um I I don't like the idea and I know a lot of people a lot of different agencies in the area have had as Helen spoke a lot of people come on and they don't even live in state and so I think weeding that out and having Joe manage that is something that we it doesn't seem like there's really much of a need for it and I think we can easily circumvent
104that by providing people another way to communicate with us I I have mixed emotions because I I I like having you know people having different options for participating in the public process but we've given those options and people just aren't using them um and maybe they will use used the email option um and I I think that um you know we we should try that and I haven't heard from a lot of people saying that they're going to be angry when we take away the Google meet option um so I I think we should maybe give it a try and see how the email goes and we can always you know change back if if we decide that we need to at a later time I'm I'm okay abandoning the the Google meet and I
105think the email option is fine yeah I like the email option A lot um and I think yeah I people haven't been using the Google meets so we can try without and if we get complaints or if there are people that feel it's necessary I think it might be more useful in winter when it's colder you might get more people calling in because they don't want to come out in the cold or the rain so um you know maybe we should have done it at a different time period but again we can always bring it back because it's not going to cost us anything to do that think for purposes of accessibility I think it's important to have all of them um I am seeing noise in like the parent groups of parents stating reach
106out to the school board or email the superintendent so I think that the seat has been planted with parents um about reaching out to us if there are issues in the school so I think I would agree to get rid of Google meets for now if we do a a a more concerted effort to be more act not active but visual to parents to let them know that we want them here we want them to email us we want their presence and participation in meetings so if if we get rid of Google meets I'm okay as long as is we are more Visual and we we continuously send the message like you know like we're sending the agenda before every meeting which is wonderful I think we just continuously have to keep doing that to
107encourage parents to participate and community members too so I would agree to get rid of Google if we continue pushing more on the invitation to the parents are there any public comments on this item okay which is also maybe telling so I guess we can take action on this do we have a motion a question sure we have Google meet today right is is anybody on there oh we do have Google meet today and we haven't had a participant for the meeting this evening okay okay I guess it would be to end the Google meet me pilot I move to end the Google meet pilot I will second student vote I all in favor I I opposed extensions motion carries 17.5 is adoption of csba updates from October 2023 and administrative regulation 3551 last week
108I brought forth the um extra set of board policies and administrative reg sent To Us by csba for revision for October 23 most having to deal with um the uh board's ability to ban or get rid of textbooks and pretty much across the board that and then if you had a complaint about them to go through the Williams uniform complaint procedure um library media centers all of that that has to do with instructional materials and and student reading material and the the issues around Banning um materials I reviewed these with um Tanya and Carlos in person and on the phone and uh we uh came up with um the fact that they're good to go as they are and they're back tonight for adoption any board questions on those P let comment bring that back
109for action move to approve the adoption of the csba csba updates second oh go ahead we'll have time to do that one student vote I all in favor I opposed extensions motion carries 18.6 is homework committee and this is bringing being brought back to us with um any ask good evening um our last meeting I reviewed the work of the homework committee and the home and on behalf of the homework committee I'm recommending the board approve administrative regulation 6154 homework which will be an addition to our current board policy 6154 homework okay board questions or discussion okay we do have a public comment on this one so Ryan timy am I getting your name is that how you say timy okay hi my name is Ryan timy I have two kids at Las hunus Elementary
110where I also serve as chair of the school site Council I want to thank uh director Espinosa and the homework committee for their good work in putting together the draft AR um I do want to raise one concern uh that I have related to the language that it uses concerning the grade level based time allotments for homework uh at the last board meeting uh I asked uh if the time allotments listed in the AR meant to be maximums that students should never go over or if they were guidelines as in students should expect to do this amount of homework every night uh we were told that they were maximums which I appreciate but the language in the AR says quote the following is considered to be a reasonable expectation for the average student with an
111average load when I presented that language to a few teachers both inside and outside the district they implicitly took that as a guideline and not a maxim I worry about that uh because as I'm sure the committee discovered in their research on this topic excessive or mandated levels of homework are detrimental to Student Success and mental health especially at the at elementary level quoting from an article published in the Journal of experimental education in 2022 quote these results suggest that increasing the amount of homework past a certain threshold does not increase academic performance and the effective homework might be curval linear end quote uh by which they mean too much homework negatively affects achievement homework achievement depends on an enormous amount of factors including prior knowledge socioeconomic background parental participation food and housing security homework
112therefore becomes an equity issue which requires an equitable response this is different from an equal response the equality focuses on making sure everyone gets the same thing all students are assigned this amount of homework equity on the other hand is about making sure each individual gets what they need to succeed I know that the Genesis for the homework committee was in wanting Equitable outcomes across district schools but the current langu language focuses on equality not Equity so I would ask the board if possible to amend the language of the AR before approving it specifically amending the language of the last sentence before the chart of time allotments to to read something more like the following or considered to be reasonable maximums for the average student with an average L fixing that one sentence will bring
113the AR into better alignment with current research and allow our administrators and teachers the flexibility to meet students where they are rather than imposing a mandate thank you we can bring that back for board discussion if anyone has any I'm I actually kind of like that um what he said and I think we maybe should change that um because I also agree that um you don't want to put too much homework and it is subjective the way it says expectations so do we agree I'm just language no we don't want to we don't want to open a can of worms that we're you know we don't have unintended consequences either so if we changed that to it's a reasonable maximum for Mo for the average student with the average load do we feel like there's
114still flexibility in there that like say a student with AP courses or yeah it's further I know that they specifically call out call that out but like I think that there probably are some cases maybe even outside of honors or AP with students who you know have request like I mean seems crazy to most people but I had it as a teacher like requesting additional work or or extra credit or whatever I don't want it to I don't I don't want any additional language to then exclude us from saying like this is the max and this is the hard stop or I don't want people to necessarily interpret like hit my minutes did the I mean I so I think it's important to call out that we don't want to be excessive and go over
115this these numbers because they're there for a reason but I also feel like we there has to be like it it can't be so spelled out and so mandated so I'm just wondering what people's thoughts are if we change that sentence do we still feel like there's enough flexibility in there that like that there would be cases that maybe it would be more than that or maybe it would be significantly less for than that for some students can can you come back up so so instead of Maximum if we added guideline because we created this committee for exactly what you said exactly what you brought up was the reason why this committee was created so if if instead of Maximum we used a reasonable guideline would that still meet the purposes of equity so the
116the concern that I have and I'm speaking specifically from an elementary standpoint my kids are in elementary I've always worked with elementary kids my my concern is the even with the word guideline if it reads a reasonable guideline um I'm not worried that my current principle would do this I complete trust in Patty crbo she's fantastic um but if she gets hit by a bus tomorrow and we get a new administrator uh who comes in and is like super Draconian about it like the guy it says a reasonable guideline and so is expecting um every fifth grader to have a minimum of or to have 60 Minutes of homework every night that does me doesn't sound either reasonable or Equitable so even the word guideline makes me nervous um that it could be to the
117the exact opposite of what um the board president is saying this is um holding to a standard rather than providing um as director espanosa said last time a maximum reasonable maximum can can I add something okay so if you put a maximum let's say um in first grade that or let's go back to your six grade 60 minutes maximum 60 minutes I've had I've taught a lot of kids over the years and some of them work fast and some of them work slow and some kids it it's like watching paint dry the way they write and they do this they get three problems done in 60 minutes somebody else has 42 problems done in 60 minutes a little exaggeration there but you're getting my dress for sure yeah absolutely so how does that weigh into
118it you when you're saying the average student you're talking about the average student they could be average in their grades what's average I mean you can rip apart this whole thing in 10 seconds sure on on definitions sure so I don't know if that there's a fail safe what I would say is if your child is in first grade and the teacher says this is only a recommendation and they're getting 35 minutes a night of homework you'll be in Patty crespo's office in a heartbeat saying you know this is unreasonable and a conversation will be had with the teacher sure ultimately it will come down here to us sure um I I don't know that we're ever going to find language or a single word that's going to meet every aspect because kids don't come
119and meet Little Boxes sure they they're all over the place and um just my opinion sure absolutely I I think what I'm trying to do is prevent some of those conversations before they even start because just just how I read the AR and based on or the draft AR and based on the the discussion we had last time those two things didn't match for me the the word expectation to me says every night a fifth grader is gonna have an hour ofor and I and I don't I don't find that reasonable and I don't find only if they're average and they have an average load yeah but I think that that's where the equity issue comes in right so so sixth grade a sixth grade student right could have English math History Science sure uh
120not six let's say seven Spanish one sure and PE sure another kid might have English math History Science a Learning Center M PE or um art and a PE where you don't necessarily have homework in in some art classes every night or let's just you know another elective like the PE electives that they have they don't necessarily have homework every night sure so that's different than the other kids so if you're you're putting a maximum you're kind of yes I it's totally I understand your concern with the junior high and high School my concern is with the elementary kids and you're almost there there's somebody else's problem once there once they turn 11 they're not mine but that that specifically for elementary that's that's what my concern is right because because they have one teacher
121because it's so many subjects with one class um and because and I am coming from Las hunas and I know these kids and I know many of these kids have challenges that are different from um you know I taught or I uh worked in larinda for a long time it's a it's a much different population right and so I think what I'm trying to say is from my reading the language currently presented uh it doesn't sound equable doesn't provide the equity that we are hoping for it's for the board to decide whether or not I'm right I mean I'm just a guy but that's that's what my concern is the the language presented right now that word EXP expectation specifically feels like it could be abused in the elementary school what about suggestion by that
122by that logic you're you're throwing in the word maximum is is setting a parameter on it where conversely I could I could appreciate if you want to do minutes per night approximately similar to hours per week is approximately and puts a boundary on it of high and low that is subjective by students subjective by scenario but you're not putting a a a a maximum on it you're not putting a restriction on it I could get behind putting approximately so many hour or so many minutes per night of of homework because to Helen's point my son finished his homework at school and we we're like on can we have some more homework for stay busy so um I I I appreciate what you're saying but I think it's has it has the reverse or it has
123the inverse um you know uh so I I I I would say approximately on the minutes per night in the Box to you know as a guideline but I I think the wording is fine but if you wanted to add some more clarity I guess yeah I and I think more clarity is always a good thing um I think approximately I don't for me that doesn't hit exactly The Sweet Spot but I understand what you're saying uh I I hear I I think for me coming from you know I have an educational background um and knowing that the homework research is uh inconclusive at best I think the the committee would have found that it's there's so much research out there on uh secondary education and not so much on primary education um that the
124the cons the the ultimate concern I have is equity for families by way of giving teachers and administrators the ability to flex and this to me doesn't feel like it gives teachers and administrators the ability to flex based on student achievement based on home life based on situation if if I could counter that with one of the concerns and I think this was precipitated from the lack of homework that students were getting and I think what's really nice about this is is it puts a requirement on the teachers to engage the parents to engage the family to help promote what what they're trying to do in the classroom at home and it would be commensurate with the level of of effort that they're gonna have to you know perform through life right of doing a
125little bit more doing a little extra and and succeeding and helping it now it it it requires something be sent home so it hopefully hopefully does engage the parents hopefully does get that participation from the home life yep and and that is one of the things that I'm specifically concerned about requiring teachers every day to be able to to send something home to prove that something is happening in the classroom um feels at at best onerous on on the teachers knowing that so my my son one of my older son is in third grade and he has homework she does send homework home every month or every week There's a minimum amount of reading that needs to happen there's a minimum amount of math homework that needs to happen um and the idea that she
126would need to waste her own planning time trying to prove to me what she's doing in the classroom rather than use that planning time to figure out how to get that group of students to learn while they are on campus feels counterproductive to me um I I and I worry to I'm a very involved parent I volunteer every week in both classrooms two master's degrees school I come to Schoolboard meetings right like so I mean you know if my kid brings home a piece of homework I'm gonna make sure to sit down with him um some of the kids some of the families that live in my neighborhood aren't able to do that both parents work uh SS only have one grandparent in the home um there's a lot of child care situations um and
127so I I that's where the equity issue comes in right that every family is different and you can't draft an AR that's going to cover every situation right um and that and that's what I like about most of this AR I love um having read ARS from other districts um Santa Ramon in particular gave me hives when I read it um this is I love the second paragraph um uh the amount of homework uh needs to be uh related to the needs and abilities of the individual student homework should not be used to introduce new skills with Concepts to students brilliant love it give that gives F uh teachers and administrators Flex that paragraph is fantastic it's just that that last sentence before you get to those guy to those times it just makes me
128nervous and so that I mean again like maybe I'm just you know being a worry War but that's that's the one sentence in this AR that makes it feel like it's a mandate rather than um a document that's supposed to help teachers achieve goals okay all right I've got way over my yes yes so and and that and it's you know this is because we had some questions and so it's fine that we had a little bit of the back and forth but we have gone over the three minutes um so I think then any other discussion needs to happen with the board but we do very much appreciate your input um and and I want to point out I don't I don't disagree that it's a brilliant important to have Clarity in this I
129was saying any first of all the committee did a lot of work and I think La at last meeting Amy really explained to us the process and I was really impressed with a lot of the discussions and I think people came with like a real willingness to work and dig into this and so I don't first and foremost want to dishonor the work of the committee by making a change being that no one who was on that committee is here um and second what I was trying to get at is that I think anytime you change something there's potentially an unintended consequence um I will also say that with an education background and as an educator myself I don't read this as not having a lot of flexibility like I actually read this as being
130for teachers to have a lot of ability to sort of cater to the needs of students and I think also to Helen's Point yeah I mean in a lot of cases is the highest achieving kids are finishing class I mean they're like working on homework they're finishing their classwork um and so I just I don't know I there is a lot of conflicting research out there I know you also as a committee dug into to that research I don't know that there's ever going to be an AR that really gets to the heart of is going to be perfect solution for every student but what I do think this offers is if a parent Feels Like This truly isn't being being met it gives them a way to go to the teacher and say hey
131here's what the board thinks so if my student maybe they're struggling maybe they're only getting through 15 math problems and it's taking them well over that a lotted amount of time that's a reasonable conversation they should be having with that teacher and saying what can we do to meet the needs of my child maybe we're selecting you know SE 10 problems instead of 20 and it's going to be the what we think are like the core skills I think there is a lot of flexibility in here and I think that this gives parents um a lot of I guess a lot of weight behind it to say hey if this is what the board says is reasonable and my child's going way over this every night and there really are working hard it's just not
132happening we need to do something um but again I'm really worried about changing anything without the committee being here because we we as a board directed to create a committee and so then we're entrusting them to come back to us with a recommendation and I feel that they really did a good and thorough job and are coming to us with what they believe based on their conversations and the research was the best thing I um I really agree with the comments about Equity um that being said I think that this achieves that I I like I I think it's well written and I like what it says and I think that we all know that I'm pretty uh precise with language when it when I think it's important and I think that this um does
133exactly what it's intended to do my only question about it was some of the the time suggestions to me seemed kind of high so I did some Googling and and looked at what other California districts are doing and this is right on the money with what other districts are doing doing so I'm I'm I like it thank you yeah I think the second paragraph rereading it now really makes it flexible so I'm fine with this so this is an action item if there is not further discussion or questions we don't I mean we don't have to approve it but we can move ahead I'll move to approve the the AR 6154 for the homework um for homework he a second student vote I all in favor I I I opposed extensions motion carries 18.7 is
134sports management course this is also brought back to us by Amy Espinosa all right good evening again um tonight I am asking for approval for the CTE elective course for um sports management in the hospitality and tourism pathway this course will be given as a potential option for students um for next school year is a ful year course and I was asked last time what would possibly be the second course and when speaking to the staff it could be Sports man Advanced Sports Management okay so I did want to make sure I added that in but again this is for um the sports management course which currently CTE elective course for alham high school for next school year can board discuss on this one Amy I remember last time we had a little bit of
135a like we were a little confused why I think you had said that the the pathway was Hospitality management or something like that yes so I did some research and it has to do with Recreation and the oversight of like uh recreation in the sense of parks and recreational Sports and the management and the legal ease around Recreational Sports and Sports in general okay that makes sense thank you any public comment on this one 18.7 then we'll bring this back for Action I'll make a motion to approve the sports management course I'll second student vote I all in favor I I opposed abstentions motion carries we don't need number 19 because we have no um public comments tonight and 20 is comments from the superintendent board members and future agenda so marol we'll start with
136you hi good afternoon um I'd like to say welcome back from Thanksgiving break I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving break with their family and friends and celebrated it um and I also like to say a good luck to all of the seniors who just finished applying to college applications applications end this week so good luck to all of them and hopefully they get a lot of acceptance letters um and yeah I just can't wait to see what the rest of the school year is like very excited so I've actually been thinking a lot about how can we make the district more money and I know that fire safety is a big issue in our area because of overgrown grasses Etc and correct me if I'm wrong but I I think I had heard somewhere
137that Martinez owns farmland or something like that no I'm wrong oh never mind then well if we did if we did own Farmland um I wanted to suggest that we buy goats and teach a course on fire safety and then R rent the goats out to different area so that the goats can e all the grasses and we can make money off the goat rental and teach kids about fire safety and raising goats that was my idea to make more money um I I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving and uh next week I think um December 6th there's going to be at the high school um music performance so Jazz and Orchestra and concert band so um looking forward to attending that and wishing that a lot of people come to [Music] that um
138I do want to shout out to Rene serles who and placing the CIF and uh committing to my alma moer C so was very very excited for her nth State yeah awesome I just wanted to thank our public commenters oh thank our public commenters it's it is really nice to you you sparked a lot of good conversation and it's it is nice to have participation and that was so cool to see all the people from The Adult School here um and I am looking forward to later this week we're attending our caleria school board association annual educ conference in San Francisco and I'm really looking forward to um learning a lot there last year we we we were able to bring back a lot of good um governance things that I think we've been working
139on implementing so it was a really good use of our time and looking forward to that again this year yeah I was actually G to say the same thing looking forward to this week it's always a really great um we were a brand new board all together last year so it was really great bonding experience for us as well to learn to get to work together and and think of new ways that we can make the district better and strengthen our governance team and this year um Helen gets to come with us so we're very excited for that and other than that it's um I know for teachers um you know from experience this is a really really long four weeks but um hang in there and hopefully everyone can stay healthy and our families
140can be you know supportive of getting to Helen's point with the attendance getting our students there as much as possible barring any illness and um you know and make the most of this this fun time where there's lots of activities going on too well going last pretty much everything I wanted to say has been said so have a great evening and thank you for coming those that were here it was great to have the El students here from uh ESL students from the adult school so thank you all right well with that we will adjourn and we will be back on December 11th