001[Music] good evening we are calling back to order our regular meeting of the martinez unified school district uh board of education for our april 11th 2020 meeting the board has been in closed session and i would like to uh report out that on motion by trustee jannelli seconded by trustee horak martin that the board unanimously moved to approve ian pio as vice principal of martinez junior high school with no opposition and no extensions [Applause] a little bit later on the meeting as we move forward we would like to have you join us in the pledge of allegiance and mr kia would you do us the honors of america into the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all are there any changes to our agenda this evening
002uh we need to approve our agenda do i have a motion [Music] uh item number nine is approval of minutes in the regular board meeting of march 28 2022 are there any board questions any public comments i will bring it back for a board approval loop to approve the minutes [Music] as promised uh we have the introduction of our newest member of virginia high school districts i will turn that over to dr carol cohen all right it is my great pleasure to introduce our new vice principal at martinez junior high school in kyo ian recently moved to pleasant hill from elsa bronte and he's eager to make connections with the community he comes to us with 12 years of teaching coaching and instructional leadership experience he's been actively involved and passionate about data-driven instruction technology
003implementation and social emotional learning he's a proud graduate of the university of california at santa barbara where he earned a bachelor's degree in sociology and sports management he completed his teaching and administration credentials closer to home at cal state east bay ian will join us for the 2022-23 school year and we believe that he will be a great fit at njhs and in the martinez unified school district thank you would you like to come up and introduce yourself [Music] for this extraordinary opportunity i'm here today supported by my lovely wife erica and my beautiful son julian say hi julian [Music] community we love um about it and we're excited we're excited to continue to establish our groups here um i can't tell you how much and how important it is and special it is to
004share this moment with my son and my my beautiful wife and i'm excited to collaborate and work with all of you guys on some level um to ensure enriching and memorable school experience for all students so thank you very much and i'm really excited to get started [Applause] great thank you so much we welcome you and your family to our community i also want to make sure to thank all the folks who were part of our selection process um are there any comments by the board jeremiah [Music] i'm only slightly less excited than julian that you're here so i'm looking forward to getting to know you and i hope you have a great experience at the middle school we're happy to have you thank you so much all right well julie will uh thank you
005so much for coming here and introducing your family and we look forward to having you join us next year [Music] all right our next item number is number 11 which are comments from our student representative to school reports for the april 11 2022 regular board meetings are as follows john sweats highlights movie jsc had a successful community scavenger hunt event where students were able to show their parents what they do around campus this great is keeping off its life science unit this week students will watch as fertile eggs grow wonderful fluffy chicks over the next 21 days with the price of fresh eggs chiropractic these little ones will be arriving on the scene soon short after supply chain students were celebrated for being student of the month and showing responsibility throughout their school day upcoming
006events pta meeting tomorrow at 7 pm as pac testing begins on april 25th pta dinner and auction is saturday april 30th martinez junior high is highlighted for the week mjhs web leaders and 6th grade 6th graders joined together after school to plan build and test their creations with the first annual web egg drop competition there were so many innovative ideas and not too many splats our sixth grade science classes have all enjoyed a visit to the community garden pro workshop students have or will be returning the garden for another lesson this month upcoming event events april 13th is the eighth grade panoramic picture april 14th is the digital safety parents webinar at 7pm via zoo april 15th is the spring dance sixth graders from 4 to 5 30 pm 7th and 8th graders from 6
007to 7 30 pm april 19th is the c-a-a-s-p-p pass testing begins april 19th is also the there is a ptsa meeting april 23rd is the ptsa color burst one april 21st through the 23rd is the nhs friend musical and it's fabulous this year so i'm very excited for it and i think everybody comes and sees it and then martinez adults education highlights from the week all staff and students returned today after a nice spring break representatives from diablo valley college came today to talk to our students about registration and financial aid and scheduling tours for students to visit abc upcoming events high set testing this saturday april 16 cpr classes offered in person this saturday april 16th and every third saturday of the month thank you thank you item number 12 is our employee organization
008reports do you have any reports this evening [Music] um i just wanted to say congratulations to the classified employees of the year without the dedication of classified staff in the classrooms supporting the education of our students working outside the classroom managing front offices preparing and serving lunches keeping buildings and school grounds maintained and making sure classroom technology continues to function and so much more our schools would not function properly and we could not provide the best education experience for our students it truly takes all employees working together and classified employees played an integral part in our school community so today and every day we say thank you thank you uh are there any comments tonight from the pta scene none we'll move on to item 14 which are special preview uh presentations uh 14.1 is
009classified employees of the year recognition by dr coda all right so another exciting moment we have eight wonderful classified employees of the year and unfortunately some of them are unable to be here tonight but since we i believe we have um principles who really put a lot of thought into what they want to say about their employees so i'll take just a few minutes to read over those so the first person unable to attend today is lisa greenwood from morale park elementary lisa is the office manager at marlo park she exemplifies the meaning of true commitment and dedication she is the absolute master of multitasking on any given day she fields questions and requests from teachers parents principals and students seamlessly often juggling multiple demands at the same time without ever seeming to be flustered
010or challenged lisa provides a sense of calm and order in the school office and everyone at the school benefits from her positive attitude her great sense of humor and her professional demeanor in addition she never hesitates to lend a hand when needed for assistance in the cafeteria the drop-off and pick-up line or the classroom she builds strong and supportive relationships with students and their parents lisa works tirelessly dedicates herself to those around her and most of all works from the heart the morello park community is indebted to lisa for all she gives of herself every day congratulations lisa i'm being selected as the moral part elementary school classified employee of the year next up is kathleen marion chief from vicente martinez high school in greenwich school kathleen is the office manager at the nhs she
011is a consummate professional she arrives at school before everyone and ensures that not only are all of her all of her work is completed for the day but make sure that everyone else is able to complete their work she's ridiculous with all student data often completes reports and tasks prior to deadlines and ensures that her work is without air more importantly kathleen is the face of vicente martinez high school in riona's school she treats students parents and staff with respect and is always kind and caring kathleen is willing to do whatever it takes to create the best possible environment for all students she works tirelessly and goes above and beyond for all students on a daily basis she has lived in the community for her entire life and has a great deal of pride in
012the community and ensuring it is a welcoming place for all she has worked in the martins unified school district for more than 20 years and has been a friend mentor and advocate for hundreds of students throughout the years congratulations kathleen on being selected as the mhs classified employee of the year and the martinez unified school district classified employee of the year all right next up we have dylan miller from john sweat elementary school dylan serves as a paraprofessional at jse he is extremely dedicated and ensures students behave well he arrives to the classroom early and stays late to make sure things are cleaned up he never complains and is incredibly kind to all students and staff everyone who has stepped into the room this year has commented on how wonderful he is his principle says
013that dylan has shown a lot of growth since his first year in pals and he is always looking to learn new skills he is the kindest most patient flexible and hardworking person he has extreme patience for students and adults he is very unassuming and humble but he truly has a gift of people he's a role model for everyone congratulations dylan on being selected as the john sweat elementary school classified employee of the year [Applause] next up we have richard riemann from martinez junior high richard is a fair education at njhs he works each day to support the bullpups he supports both teachers and students his principal says that his calm patient and kind demeanor creates positive and productive support for our students in classrooms beyond the school day richard works to support the theater program
014by teaching and mentoring students to operate the sound booth in lights his support and help with productions has been a key component of the theater program success congratulations richard i'm being selected at martinez junior high classified employee of the year all right next up are the people who were able to make it here so first up we have marine french [Applause] [Music] let's see if i'm loud enough if i use my stage voice come on up and do we have representation for me thank you all right so maureen okay i need to put my only glasses on maureen is the exceptional registrar at all member high she always exceeds the call of duty and supports administrators teachers and counselors alike she has a wealth of knowledge that keeps our number running smoothly maureen is one
015of the only people on campus with an in-depth knowledge of the registration computer system family information and is always willing to help explain and run reports it doesn't matter what's in her job description she always works hard to support everyone around her maureen's work product is exceptional with an excellent attention to detail assistant principal melky says that maureen has a personal and caring demeanor that enables her to quickly establish positive and supportive relationships with the students teachers staff and the parent community she's deeply dedicated and passionate about alhambra and this comes through her communication collaboration and decision making we could not be more lucky and privileged to have her working alhamdulillah so congratulations maureen i'll be selected as the alignment of our high school classified employee of the year [Music] yay [Applause] as well all
016right so patty supports the students at martinez adult education in many ways she supports students in the evening in the main office prompters the high set testing twice per month and manages the food pantry she is also an adult education success story herself patty came to the us from guatemala with her husband and small children she started learning and improving her english skills at martinez adult in esl classes she passed the hiset and took several courses in the business training center her principal says patti's genuine care for students for more personality and her professionalism is not unknown to her colleagues she has a strong work ethic he's extremely smart and has a heart of gold she has gone above and beyond for the food pantry and has helped many people in our community patty will
017be taking on more responsibilities as she will be supporting students in registration and enrollment in the esl program where she first started congratulations patty and being selected education class aquatics [Applause] [Music] okay [Music] all right next up we have larry from las vegas [Music] up through 19. larry wrote to the challenge and kept students and staff safe and the classroom is sanitized at the same time this was undergoing instruction larry often had to split his time between the old and new school he learned a new cleaning system for waxing the new campus floors and was mindful of any destruction as the new protocols might cause he did anything that was asked of him as he nominated these challenges his principal said last [Music] no problem i will be right there congratulations larry on being selected
018as a lesbian elementary school [Applause] thank you so much and our guys um classified employee of the year is laura yesterday [Applause] all right laura committed to working as a substitute for the jme office manager four months into the school year she immediately immersed herself into learning and fulfilling the needs of a position she had little experience with an office manager must have the ability to multitask and meet the needs of every stakeholder on and off campus and laura was able to achieve this with fidelity her principal said quote an office manager to an elementary principal is like a vice principal to were high school principals laura joined the office team at jme and created an environment that continued the work that was in place prior to her arrival with little to no changes she
019offered expertise in many areas and made not having an office manager an easy task to endure jamie is thankful to have laura as our substitute office manager congratulations lauren being selected as the john viewer elementary school classified um [Music] no thank you [Music] all right okay uh well thank you everyone it is really just a small token uh and a few minutes to express our gratitude but certainly there are many many people who help keep the district running and i do always love this opportunity every year when we do get to celebrate a few select special people uh who have made this year a little easier or brighter so congratulations to all of our recipients uh and i hope that the ones who are not here uh when you see them out in our community
020that we give them a extra we're still doing elbow bumps um and tell them thank you for everything that they do for us all right so let's keep moving along on our agenda this evening um we have oh yes if you would have other things to do this evening you're free to do those um our next item is our staff board uh acknowledgements and announcements or reports so why don't we start uh with the board and we'll start with acknowledgments i will start this way over this thing i'll come there so you'll get to end us off and i don't have anything today so anything for you yeah i was just gonna say that um i attended the uh community nights two weeks ago at marilla park and john muir elementary and it was so
021awesome to see parents and staff and students on campus so just thank you to everybody that makes this happen [Music] you jeremy carlos um kind of jumping ahead that's on something that's on the consent calendar but it deserves to be acknowledged um we have after i think it's 32 years 33 years uh sabrina amy is on the consent calendar before and that's her retirement and i wanted to just acknowledge her dedication and inspiration her mentorship and the difference that she's made to this district uh she's been a personal friend or since i moved up to martinez almost 22 years ago and um she's just been a great asset to the district so i wanted to recognize her obviously from the consent calendar of announcing her retirement effectively into this year so thank you sabrina [Music]
022i just wanted thank acknowledge all the classified employees of the year one more time so congratulations to everyone so yeah yeah great and thank you um helen do you have any um reports for us this evening just a couple um again uh congratulations to our csva support staff with without whom we could not do our jobs on a daily basis um on thursday evening before spring break which seems like 100 years ago i had the pleasure of attending the community events at all four elementary sites and i have to say i was really impressed with the show of students successes on display um some events were inside some events were outside but each campus was abuzz with the excited students staff and smiling parents and it was really nice to see our families once again
023back on campus so thank you to all of the efforts of everyone for putting those on i know it's no small task to organize and arrange but it was done and it was done well schools will begin their s back in ngss testing next week pretty much at all sites and alhambra and the junior high are both going to host their spring dances next week and one on friday uh on campus on saturday and the junior high will do their community event on the 5th of may but they won't have a half day on the sixth as they already had their half day in march according to the regular schedule so that's an event coming our way and um that's it great thank you 15.1 is student services reports this is on secondary schools and
024it will be presented this evening by janelle ahead good evening um this evening i'm going to be providing an update um related to our secondary schools and to continue our ongoing um series for the board and [Music] um tonight i first would like to frame this next upcoming series through the lens of pbis which is positive behavior interventions and support and supporting the whole child and there are multiple systems of support within a school environment specifically academic behavior and social emotional and it's critical that each of these systems are integrated and focused on the whole child and when school teams um pbis teams are working together aligned with specific goals these are some of the possible outcomes that research shows are possible through implementing these positive behavior interventions and various support systems including improved student
025outcomes reduced disciplinary outcomes and also improved teacher outcomes so there's a variety of research based evidence related to the success of pdis in schools and many of you have probably seen this triangle before but this is the pbis triangle and period pyramid of supports and this can be applied to [Music] the systems that i mentioned behavior systems academic systems and social emotional and the intent of this is to visually represent um the various systems the various supports that need to be implemented within a school to ensure that all students are supported at the at the bottom of the triangle is the tier one or what we call universal supports and these are the supports that work for all kids um and these are things like behavioral expectations making sure that we recognize students for their
026achievements teaching students pro-social behaviors having our expectations posted around schools and these types of supports are effective for the majority of our students the majority of our students only need these kinds of universal strategies that schools implement and 75 to 85 of students respond just to these universal types of supports but we know that there are students in our schools who need more than universal strategies in order to be successful so the next here is the tier two um and these are more small group strategies and these um are supports that would be provided through for example for social emotional learning so small group social skills programs daily check-ins with an adult assigning a mentor their adult mentor peer-mart mentor to a student and many specific classroom behavior programs these would be considered selected interventions
027um that some students need and at the very top of the triangle or tier three is targeted intensive supports and these are really for a very small portion of our school population three to five percent of the students and these are our targeted intensive supports for individual students these typically are provided through special education services for our students who have the most high risk behaviors and who need much more individualized interventions and i'd like to show an example of a universal strategy um so i know the words are a little bit hard to read but this is an example of um behavioral expectations that would be defined by a school site this is out of martinez junior high school's um student handbook and these are they're behavioral expectations for students they use that for rise
028respect include support and engage and if you could read that you would see that those are all defined in a very positive way so when teams are looking at setting expectations for students it's using positive language in terms of what we expect from students and we also know that we can't expect students to know what these expectations are and what these behaviors look like when they come to our campus and they need to be taught to our students just as we teach um academic skills we teach behavior skills as well and so in parallel with things like behavior defined behavior expectations schools also need um defined discipline matrices and so i'd like to ask kathy frazier to come up for the next couple slides um she has worked really closely with our school teams in
029establishing progressive discipline matrices for our sites so i'll turn it over to kathy for a moment hello can you hear me there we go so what is a progressive discipline matrix it's um our it's a document that provides a thing a framework for student conduct and the disciplinary interventions and consequences to be used in schools throughout the district why is it important consistency and x and uniform behavioral expectations across the district t k through 12. there's a built-in flexibility depending on the situation and circumstances we specifically or i specifically modeled our discipline matrices after um san bernardino unified and west contra costa both of them had what i thought as a school administrator that depth and support needed to be able to to give our administrators some guidelines and options in how to deal with
030specific behavioral incidents this document is go bad sorry um so as you can see here and once again it's really tiny so i apologize um it gives you the structural behavior support framework standard standards it gives you uh tier one tier two and tier three what you want to do when you're looking at discipline discipline behavior is look at the data what is the data telling you so that explains where you would want to pull that data from um tier one behavior supports that is not all that's just some of the options you have tier two and tier three behavior supports so this i took one example we couldn't or we wouldn't want to put this entire document into a board packet it's about 50 pages long and so it's it's got a lot of
031information in it and um and i was told be very short brief so i gave one example of a varied administrative action and intervention opportunities each situation is system unique as to the students so every incident should be assessed and handled based on the specific details this is not all-inclusive and it doesn't give you all the details of a specific incident for example you may have an incident that is a first offense that is so violent but this is a fighting example that you may want to escalate your your disciplinary response um hopefully with this document it gives enough leeway we tried to add enough leeway so that an administrator would have a broad example of what may happen depending on the circumstances so um next i wanted to share some specific data with the
032board um related to our discipline data at our three secondary sites so um this is multi-year data from the last um four years you will see significant differences across these years obviously because of school closures so the first school is all hamper high school and you can see where we are at this point in the school year this data was pulled as at the beginning of april so so far this year we have 58 unique students who have been suspended for a total number of 76 suspensions and there has been one expulsion so far from the high school um the two prior years well especially the 2021 school year is very different um from our typical years of the high school in the 1920s school year of course remember we closed in march 2020 so
033this is not a full school year picture um we had 76 um excuse me 46 students um suspended for a total of 57 suspensions and three explosions um and in 1819 probably gives you the most um accurate picture of what a typical year looks like um so we're about um if we've had fewer expulsions fortunately this year but um our suspensions are about average for our typical year so far at this point in the school year the next school year school is vicente um again of course with the multi-year data with a comment related to these two years in the middle you can see at this point in the year we have had very few suspensions um [Music] as compared to prior years um and um that that doesn't reflect what has been um historical
034discipline data at the center and then finally um is the discipline for martinez junior high school um and you can see at this point in the year 75 students have been suspended for a total of 104 suspensions and one expulsion so far so it's about comparable a little bit less than what where we were at this point in the year for the 1819 school year um with some discipline having occurred during last school year while we were in hybrid and i would like to know that in terms of the expulsions um the board may expel for one or two semesters or one calendar year depending on the end code violation all discipline is issued for specific at code 48 900 violations and our discipline structure as cathy was highlighting within the discipline matrix holds kids
035and students accountable according to ed code violations um which is different than the penal code and the penal code only comes involved with a mandatory expulsion recommendation and then i'd like to provide some information related to kind of the top offenses we've seen across the three school sites um this is for this school year the 2021-22 school year and you can see um there's some significant differences among the three secondary sites um the most frequent um sustainable offenses at alhambra has been for defiance and just disruption of education whereas at the junior high school the most frequent offenses have been related to um fights and battery and threats are have been the most significant disciplinary incidents and then at the next board meeting i'll be sharing elementary data and also giving an update related to
036mental health supports and services at all of our schools any questions if you want to start because we're trying to follow along or understand so this is the matrices that you've provided or are a toolbox provided to i'm assuming the administrators on how to maneuver uh or manage behavioral issues it's effectively implemented by the administrative level is that correct correct so this i'm assuming you're referring to this carlos this is an ex one page of the discipline matrix that kathy went over basically um you can see in the left here this is the encode 48 981 violation which is an assault charge essentially for fights usually how this charge is applied and um we within the matrix have outlined possible scenarios of administrative action um at the secondary and elementary level for whether it's a
037first offense for a student second third or fourth offense and as kathy mentioned there's flexibility within this meaning that if it's um such um religious act or it was significantly violent for example even though it's a first offense you may go straight to a recommendation for expulsion it depends on the facts of the cake of the incident so there is that flexibility within the matrix where an administrator has the authority to make those types of decisions but we wanted to provide some guidance for administrators for that first second offense as they're working through that progressive um progressive discipline process with students who might be having multiple offenses of how we work through that process so it's consistent across sites so the question or challenge i have and i think this is great it's a good
038guidance tool it's kind of black and white and it helps you know provide some clarity and uniformity but the obviously these students the students are on campus 25 of the day right rest of the time they're off campus and there seems to be there's obviously these are all behavioral challenges that we're trying to solve there's some you know so we have to show the other day that they're outside of our purview and need to figure out i'm just trying to how do we bridge that gap and affect their behavior and improve their behavior that on while on campus it improves your efforts at home or outside outside the school so the the intent of a discipline matrix is is for discipline so if an incident occurs on our campus or to or from school that
039is our purview as a school site um in terms of how we would make any sort of take disciplinary action um so the intent of this is specifically disciplined but also you can see at the bottom here there are possible interventions that administrator might also apply in certain situations and it may include you know bringing the family in and counseling setting up behavior contracts support plans those kinds of things or referrals outside agencies those are also interventions that we apply but a disciplined matrix typically is not intended um as a support it's in parallel with um support systems that a school might have in place to support positive behavior well that's what this is about this is this specifically is about discipline oh and where then it's to your point um looking at the other
040slide the rise slide right those aren't really discipline issues or behavioral you know expectations expectations right so they are they're problems to play in hand and they said there's a difference between the two this is not a disciplined matrix this is behavior expectations that a school has developed as part of their universal strategies to support positive behaviors on their campus all of our schools have created something like this um and so this is just an example i shared as part of what a universal support looks like that peer line support but this is not a progressive discipline matrix this is outlining behavior expectations because we want to make sure students understand what the expectations are when they're on their campus [Music] that answer your question yes like i said but it's still i think the
041challenge still exists of whether and i understand there are two aspects of this discussion one is the discipline and how to manage it and then two how to establish the behavior and the expectations that they i see them as a working handbag but i still go back to my original point is you know we have the kids in our purview for 25 30 of their day where there is more control more influence more impact outside of school and so there's it's i'm trying to figure out and this is a society problem it's a district problem it's an everything problem how do we encourage manage promote that those expectations that matrix that being those behavioral expectations when they're not in ours in our purdue so that when they show up in in our classrooms on the
042campus they're already they're being complimented rather than being instituted or created um so in the next part of the series i am going to highlight some of the social emotional learning supports that we have across our school sites but um as an extension of what's happening um in terms of the pbis um all of our schools have school counselors on campus that are working with students some of them also work with families but um primarily it's related to school-related issues so families who have more pervasive needs within their family systems we typically are not addressing those as a school system as a school system we're addressing behaviors and mental health needs that are impacting the student's ability to access their learning and be able to access their educational environment that's our focus as a school
043system but if a family has more of a family systems issue unless that student is at the top of the pyramid and has an iep for example um our supports and services that we have available are typically not able to address those kinds of needs that a family might have just to follow do we have the ability to refer out for additional supports for our families and um in those instances and and where would where would families find that information so um we typically if families are looking for outside providers we typically refer them to 211.org which is um the contra costa county um networks resource network that has resources within across contra costa county for mental health housing transportation health and um all that all services can be accessed through two and one dollar
044work so that's typically where we would um have families um connect with um whether or through their private insurance or through mental health they have medical insurance any other comments i just said um i just have two questions janelle on your 12th slide where it lists the top offenses if the student were to bring uh for example a weapon to school is that something that would fit into one of those categories or is that not on there because it's rare um weapon does not fall with an under the specific categories it's a separate category in itself and so these are only the top ones that have occurred um so there's a separate charge for possession of weapon and also a branching of a weapon okay um and thank you to both you and kathy this
045is really informative i i think the question in my mind which i don't necessarily expect you to be able to answer but the question that is when i look at these numbers um some of them seem high but they're also seem like they're pretty consistent um so i guess my my question is just is it working is what we're doing working if it's not are people looking at doing other things and again i don't necessarily expect an answer that's just kind of what i'm thinking of when you present the info any other [Music] um the behavior matrix or that i guess the not [Music] yeah when how long have we been using that that's just for the junior high yeah that's not paper for elementary there's one for secondary um and this was put in
046place this school year um this is a kind of a joint effort with um our administrative team and mea so we um put to kathy drafted something initially administrators went through it and gave feedback and then we um had our school strike site leader teams teacher leaders look at it as well we've been brought back again to administrators so it's been kind of a joint effort over the course of the year so i would say that after the winter holidays um is when this was [Music] and i knew you touched on the difference between what we what we use our discipline under the encode versus the penal code what type of things are mandatory reporting or kind of trigger that for us that it's kind of outside of our ability to not get law enforcement
047involved law enforcement's notified for drugs and weapons and um sometimes fights as well does someone have to does someone have to request that it is raised into the you know it's the discretion of the administrator so no um drugs and weapons have you have to report to the police um i would say the fight it depends kind of on the level of violence um of what was happening um in the for the facts of the nature of the fight between the students um but the drugs and weapons are mandatory we report and then police respond and it is um that that includes alcohol and marijuana and all of those but not tobacco correct okay um any other questions this this might be a legal question so if you can't answer it it's totally understandable but
048why is it that we have to refer marijuana and alcohol but not tobacco or vaping or something like that tobacco isn't considered um an illegal drug so it's not we don't report to police for chicago but marijuana isn't either i mean they're all illegal if they're they're 14 or 15 right right but they're treated differently under income students are still not allowed to have tobacco on campus and still in encode violation but the response from law enforcement is different why don't you go without any thoughts or questions for us and i don't want to put you on the spot but i also don't want to leave them out no no okay anyone else i'll open it up for public comments all right seeing none um thank you for bringing this to us i know we've
049asked um to continue to present these kind of series to keep us up to date on where we're at so um we will look forward to hearing some more feedback uh or some more presentations so the next one will be on our elementary elementary the 25th we'll be bringing elementary discipline data as well as talking about mental health services disappointing are you going to be able to do that in one or do you want to do it i was planning to do it in one okay we'll see how the agenda is but that i i wanted everybody to know they refer to this one okay no this was this is great i don't i don't want it to be so brief that we don't get the right kind of information to elicit the questions so
050thank you for uh and thank you for putting the time into to bring this forward to us uh number 16 our public comments uh i didn't announce the beginning um we have a little bit of a like here today but uh there are public comment cards in the back of the room if you haven't uh already filled one out please do so and put that in the basket under government code section 54954.3 members of the public have the right to address the board on any matter within the court's jurisdiction the more they not take action on any non-agenda items uh individual speakers are allowed three minutes to address the board with 20 minutes total for this portion of the agenda and there's additional time available at the end of our meeting if you don't have
051enough time at this point um you know you said we don't have any public comments do you have a couple there are more specific agendas oh and on an agenda do we have any members of the public would like to speak um during this portion all right uh seeing none we will move forward and we won't need the additional item at the end of our meeting is our consent calendar are there any changes from consent calendar this evening no they're not are there any questions from the board regarding the consent counter any public comments then i'll bring it back to the board for action those who agree with the consent calendar second student vote full board all in favor opposed abstentions motion carry uh items under number 18 are items for board consideration or for
052action 18.1 is the survey regarding superintendency and this is an action item and it's been identified under helen rossi it's my understanding uh our board subcommittee is going to do that presentation can i just hand that over to danny carlos yes all right so um what you're seeing is our draft of a superintendent community survey so i did send this link curls and i kind of finalized it right but it's not really i don't want to tell everyone what's their input uh we did share the link with the rest of the board members so you can look at it on your screen at youtube um and i i think from our perspective jump on whenever you want but i um we wanted it to be pretty specific in terms of looking for characteristics and experience
053for our next superintendent so it starts with some you know i think also a goal was we found a lot of really excellent surveys out there and some of them felt really cumbersome so we tried to kind of take the best elements of those surveys without people potentially giving up after 15 minutes we wanted it to be something that people felt like was going to take you know 10 minutes or less of their time and then they were able to give us some valuable feedback and that we weren't you know you don't need to agree to fill this surveil um there are a couple questions do you reside within the martinez unified school district boundaries um and do you have children a child or children attending an musd school these aren't you can take the
054survey we're not collecting names or emails so it's not a requirement but we did feel like obviously that's kind of important information so we will be able to sort that data when we have the responses um i don't know that we need to go through every single thing that maybe you want to jump in kind of as to why we picked the style of the survey and you know where i think he was enough i think a lot of it is uh was motivated just trying to understand the demographic and you know where the information is coming from where the participation is coming from uh so obviously trying to figure out uh school school sites and and uh you know specific interests i mean also just feedback for um involvement in the community how many
055people are aware or paying attention to the things that affect the district and uh and their community and then um a lot of this was um motivated from feedback obviously we've heard from the parents a lot of the community groups of things that are a priority um so we tried to in this this question here is provide you know your top three priorities you can select which which ones are the highest concern but if you scroll down further um it talks about the top top three priorities um for qualities for the superintendent so how they should be able to address and engage the community and then last the next one down is prioritizing um some of the expertises the expertise of the superintendent their ability in human resources or public relations or contract administration so
056giving the community the opportunity to to prioritize you know the area's concern or the focuses of the position to get some feedback there and then i think lastly there's open open spot to oh i think oh this is obviously the other area of uh immediate attention or again addressing some of the specific items that have been pointed out from to the various uh trustees or uh you know things that have come up in discussions in the past you know a few months or a year and [Music] again given this opportunity to focus our attention on the superintendent's attention and then any last you know open open session of of discussion well i wanted to kind of start off by saying thank you for to undertaking this task for us is a board um for the
057subcommittee when i looked at it i thought yeah this is exactly what i was thinking so kudos to that i don't i don't i don't feel like i articulated myself very well as to what it would look like but obviously um we all kind of thought the same thing like that it was broad enough to give us um enough but but with enough information and substance and i would think um finding some of these themes going forward would be very helpful for us in a couple different areas um so thank you for putting putting this together i think it's very consistent with things that i've i've seen as a member of this community before so as a parent uh this says isn't going to jump off the page like it's wildly different um so i
058think that's good so thank you for putting it together i only um i guess my only question was um how are we going to disseminate the information to the stakeholder groups are we just identifying parents are we trying to go broader um and uh is are we trying to and are we trying to elicit um a broader community or is this supposed to be focused just for staff or just for parent community role well the thought in getting it out is um that it can go to all staff and all parents on our email database um but we would also like to have it posted on the website so we've been um talking with janelle and emir about that process so anyone could go to our website i mean if you're not currently a parent
059you might not get the email but certainly um anyone who is in our community would be welcome to respond there is this question there's a question about a stakeholder the type of stakeholder so um you could and you don't have to say but some options are like musd staff current and usd parent a resident without children um a current student i mean potentially some of our high school junior high kids can go onto the website and fill it out uh grandparent guardian other or would rather not say so someone could just fill it out and decide not to disclose that information so i think that's i mean depending on how many responses we get that could be useful information to sort by so we kind of are seeing you know whether there's trends among staff
060or parents or you know if there are differences in those things um i don't know does that answer your question no i think that's good i mean because obviously if we only get you know you know we only get all grandparents that respond you know so um no i appreciate that i think it's it it's broad enough that someone can find a way to check the box i think you do identify the challenge though of getting people that are outside of the immediate district that are not a parent or not a staffer and i don't know if it's a social media post or or something not beyond just the website because unless you're a parent or a teacher you're not really going to the website so it could be uh you know handed enough to
061city council and then having them disseminated you know to the city it really is for anyone within the community because obviously this position are different all of the members of the community so some way of getting beyond just our immediate audience we would be beneficial [Music] any other more questions two questions so for the two first two questions that you have about uh if they live in the usd boundaries and that if they have children attending will those hold more weight if like they have children attending or they are part of the usd families or is this only for a data clinic okay i mean to me i think it's really for data i think um but i think what we do want to know i mean if 75 of these surveys came back with
062people who don't have kids in the district i mean that might tell us okay we maybe need to go target some some more people who really are going to be very directly affected but certainly i think any response we would take into consideration people who say they're not in the boundaries and don't have a child i mean i don't know maybe that i don't know why you're bothering to respond to our survey but maybe you have a you know a reason um and that's actually part of why we added the additional one is we do actually have some staff members that fit under that so those top three questions we try to kind of get at there really is a reason that you don't live in the district whether you don't have kids but you
063still are a really valuable stakeholder to us and you're just a part of the community so i think that was our thought in asking all three of those questions is that hopefully we can kind of start to see so you just trends in who's responding and also see why a person might be interested that makes a lot of sense thank you and my other question is is there a way that we can like post this is just not just on a website but like a way to reach all the students all else alabama high school students because i think it's really nice to have the students input in this what's the best way i think since you figured that out we got a whole lot of stuff [Music] this is all the english teachers or
064maybe like the white send it to the vice principals or the principals i think that would work yeah you probably i think part of it is of course we don't want to burden a staff with doing this since we actually don't have access none of the board members have access to the entire you know surf list email for the community so um but the link is really easy so janelle would that be something if we sent you the link that you can send it to principals at least at the secondary school i don't know that kindergarteners need to believe not that their opinions don't matter um so we could do that and well encoder you can um you can reach out to your especially the curious b leaders and class leaders through the leadership class
065maybe that's something that they could um you know be proponents of on campus like the students encouragement probably is the best way to get your the kids who have uh have a voice want to get them hurt is that something okay um with that said what's the timeline okay so [Music] if this all looks good and i don't know maybe we want to have i don't i don't know if do we have to make any revisions made in public i'm guessing we need to do that now so if you let us know any revisions or any changes that you want made then that can be done relatively quickly um we did discuss the option of having it translated to spanish which we do send our newsletters in spanish i think that's a really good idea
066so i don't know what the timeline would be on our and obviously that would be done by our translator so i don't know how quickly that can happen but we certainly could have this ready to go tomorrow by tomorrow um my thought was we keep it open for about a week so people could expect it in their email and post it on the website and however else maybe students are getting it from their principal um definitely by the end of the week and have it close in another week so that we have some information to discuss at the next court meeting yes so um [Music] i didn't write down all of the information i i would like to get that make sure that we have this translated and available to us so we have enough
067time to do that um and if you need to extend the time a little bit i think it's not it's not a real long survey so i i wouldn't expect that it would delay us too much on that um are there are there any direct questions that we want to modify that anyone has any concerns or wants to add or i don't know how many changes i think it looks good um i was yeah i was very happy with it i'm still like if you're said um yeah yeah i would absolutely provide a spanish language version also so that's important jeremy any thoughts yeah i just want to thank you guys for your work on this this is it's a great survey and it's something that you just complete on your phone in a couple
068minutes and i think you get more response to this so thank you very much thank you okay i agree so um i think we put this we put this for action um we we should probably take some kind of action i'm going to open it up for public comment just that we're going to move forward um and [Music] the timeline we'll leave i mean i'm okay leaving it up to you guys based on how long it's gonna take uh to interpret it and it's obviously it's your guys's schedules for impacting you know getting back to us and then at the next meeting but i'm okay with that as well as everybody else yeah okay um so if there's no further questions for the committee on the national public comment can you put the comment okay
069you're gonna have to come up um so if this is the survey is based just created to capture data and i guess i understand that but if it will influence the decision-making and criteria of the group as opposed to hiring it does seem like it would make more sense to weight parents and staff their comments and their feedback higher than those that aren't a part uh that don't have kids in the system aren't part of the school district so i i understand the want to reach out to folks that are outside of that bubble um to get some information from them but it almost seems like you're looking for pertinent feedback it could probably reside within parents in the school system [Music] two of you have already done it i will uh move to move
070the survey forward as proposed by our subcommittee second vote all in favor opposed sentence all right so that is carrie thank you so much um let us know if uh we'll we'll just add you to the agenda and see where we're at and obviously if we if we need more time it is what it is this is our conversation to have moving forward um so thank you again for that all right 18.2 is the review of resolution 2022-19 recognition of lgbtq pride month this is an information item and it's presented by helen rossi and the last board meeting was that staff look into adopting or putting together a resolution in recognition of lgbtqa private and after what you have here attached to the agenda is a compilation of different other resolutions that were passed by
071different districts in the last in the last year someone from last year some are from this year and i presented to the board tonight for [Music] i think it's a really good start there were a couple of things i had sent in a uh an example which i got from the mount diablo school district a resolution that they passed last may um and there are two things in there that i think are missing from ours that i would like to see added so i'm just going to read two lines that they had just because i think they're really important they say whereas the lack of awareness and understanding of issues facing lgbtq plus children and youth has contributed to higher rates of school dropout academic failure and school of disengagement and whereas lgbtq plus children
072and youth who experience harassment and bullying have a risk three to 13 times higher for a diagnosis of depression anxiety suicidality and other mental illnesses than their heterosexual cisgender peers um and so and that's kind of the reason why i'm bringing all of this up in the first place uh according to the trevor project lgbtq youth especially trans people live with higher rates of mental health issues depression anxiety suicidal ideation and more than 40 percent of lgbtq plus youth report experiencing suicidal ideation in and more than half of trans youth have considered suicide so i just think it's important we acknowledge that that this is why we want this our schools to be a safe place for these students and the second piece that i think is even more important is that i think we
073need to raise the progress pride plague at the district office mount diablo does it all our community college do it does it it's just a way to acknowledge visibly support for these students so those were the only two things that i that jumped out at me when i saw the resolution but otherwise thank you for putting it on the agenda i think it's a really good start all right any other board questions addition of the two lines if people are okay with that i think that that is you know you do know that these students are at much higher risk for mental health issues and certainly as a timely issue with us talking about social emotional learning and the mental health of our kids and all of our kids coming out of pandemic and so
074i think that's fair to call that out specifically in the resolution so um i mean i'm okay with adopting that specific language obviously that's if everyone is comfortable putting it in here but those two lines to me seem like they'd be valuable all right does anyone else have any issue um with the with the proposed editions okay um and what are the thoughts about um raising the pride flag i think we should do it and show our support for this for the the kind of discussion that we have um are we going to be setting new precedent for different flags uh being raised upon request and that i think that's something and we've only we've never flown other flags other than the state flag and the nation flag so i think that's something um that
075we should discuss as a board to make sure that that this is this is this is what we want to do um are there thoughts on that historically we've not flown any other fights right we've had requests in the past and those requests have been denied correctly i would i would i don't know if there's been a system no one's asking me specifically so i can't answer them [Music] but maybe the groups that might want their flagpole might not be um ones that we want to support and how do we go i think that was the discussion we had last year we may maybe i'm not sure yeah this one is for me personally this one is tough because i have zero opposition to the pride flag at my own house but we are being
076a public entity i think we do have to consider setting a precedent and what happens when someone approaches us with with a you know group or something that we don't necessarily want to do does it then come to the board every time obviously the board makeup changes over time and so um i don't know i am i would say i'm very i'm struggling because this particular cause is something that i feel like is so important and then what about the next cause that i maybe feel completely differently about and how willing are we to pick and choose causes um so i'm so i don't have an answer i'm just saying i'm really i'm personally really struggling with what the right thing to do here would be especially given the history that we've only ever flown
077the national pharmacy flag [Music] administrative equity uh not have to cross you know these lines and blur i think it's the best course of action to stick with the state and [Music] the u.s flag and leave it at that it doesn't it means it's equal to all nobody gets any preferential treatment and it's uh it's fair so my own personal preference is deleted well i think the whole point of it is preferential treatment because we're trying to express support for a group that has been traditionally marginalized and that may not apply now i don't know if we would get any other requests for any from any other groups i haven't heard of that in other districts our own city raises the private lake in the month of june i haven't heard of it being a
078problem there but to me and so let's cross that bridge when we come to it i think i would hate for us to be one of the only local districts that doesn't do this just because we're afraid of what might happen in the future [Music] i don't know and i'm i'm with annie this is this is a tough one um because i can i can see other i can envision other groups or wanting to to request their flag being flown uh at the district office as well um and historically we have not we've not done that for any group it is it is a difficult one i mean i would be inclined to stick with with our preston but not flying flags um but i do understand courtney's point um as well but my my
079inclination would mean to stay with the president [Music] i i'm sort of a stickler for what what is what what have we done and what have we said um in the past and and i think when it comes to access um i think i think it's important um that we also continue to set the example of what we're what we're here to do when we're here here to educate and i i i get concerned um that if we get into things and i i mean symbols are huge and i think it's really important um that we allow a community of kids who and parents who have expressed concerns uh that we recognize it i think it's important that we're i'm taking a step to to bring awareness um so that people don't feel marginalized i
080think the most important thing isn't whether or not we're flying a flag is what we're doing what we're encouraging our our staff to learn new new things um teaching our children how to be more accepting for the you know 25 of the time that they are here in our classrooms um i you know flags or flags are important but they're also i i don't wanna i don't really wanna spend a ton of time worrying about what flags were flying i want people who work at this district office who are kind of woefully understaffed and they'll have to you know field requests about um what we're you know what flag we're flying and when we're doing that so i'm cautious about um adding that type of a portion and committing the district to doing this um
081with maybe without more discussion or input i mean i don't i don't really want to i i'm i think i'm okay with adding the additional changes to the resolution um and making sure that we do pass a resolution timely um but i think based on what i heard from the rest of the board i would i would probably stick with what we've been doing as a district in the um the flags as the nationals do we have some public comment on this um i actually was having a conversation with courtney and i was realizing and bringing me to dr kirkland too that we actually don't have an active gsa chapter right now in high school i believe with just the code of 19 kind of we don't have an active chapter and i'm i'm actually
082kind of dismayed i'm like oh we need to make this happen i know it probably won't happen right now um but definitely for next school year i know i have a lot of students and nice here in the music and theatre sphere that would be more than interested um and it's very important to them and to me um we talked about tolerance a lot we talked about having a safe space um in our classrooms in our space for our students and our families um it's really important that we honor our students and our staff members [Music] uh he she they them you know what they feel is is important to them and i i want to give them that space i want to give them that opportunity and i think this this is very important
083that we do have this discussion um and i would love the students to have a voice as well um definitely next year and them choosing if they would like to apply their flag at their school um that could make it more empowering for them too so that is definitely something i'm working on i would like to partner with our gsa um our local key flag they're in fact having a pride prom on saturday um april 23rd at concord high school from 8 to 11 p.m so i'm gonna shout that out to all my kids let's see if we can get some more kids to be involved in speaking out for themselves too thank you sarah can you just tell everybody what gsa is in case they don't know um well there's there's two there's pastry
084alliances the old kind of title but it's also the gender sexuality alliance um and so just letting the students have a safe space where they can educate sauce and also educate the broader the broader school about safety and [Music] their rightful place in our society and our school thank you [Music] um i would like to i'm really happy with the dialogue of the added amendments to this resolution um by board member martin and brian um i think those are great suggestions i'm a little disappointed to hear that we're still vacillating on whether we should apply the product flag or not in our school district um the state of california implies it um we have numerous examples i kind of feel like we're behind uh and progression here most every district runs it um flies it
085uh city of martinez does it and by not acknowledging our lgbtq community um i think sends the wrong message in fact governor houston um was quoted saying in california we celebrate and support our lesbian gay and bisexual transgender and career community the right to live out loud during pride month and every month california the governor announced that he would be flying the over the state capitol i think if we want to embody what you all are saying that you support and let's be proud and raise that flag in our district so um i don't think you need to worry about other we're not promoting hate um so i think you assassin's requests as they come forward but i think case studies are out there the city of martinez has not gotten another request for flags
086or perhaps other districts please show me an example in contra costa county where other flags have been requested to be raised in addition it has not happened so i think that fear is misplaced and i think mr o'brien is correct for i think it was jeremy that said it that you address it as it comes forward that i think you are um have a responsible duty to add that in addition to the friendly amendments that board member o'brien has suggested thank you um we have two that were submitted my name is rebecca barrett and i live at 2531 orange street in martinez i'd like to make a short public comment regarding the prize resolution thank you members of the martinez unified school district board superintendent and staff my name is rebecca barrett and i'm an
087elected community college board of trustee and musd resident i'm in full support of your proud resolution but would also like to strongly encourage you to raise the pride flag at all of your school sites and the district office flying the pride fight is a strong symbol of hope and inclusive inclusivity to all of our lg lbgtq plus students staff and community members the college district did this for the first time last year and i thank nusd for flying the pride flag at some schools in the past years too but i would encourage you to fly it proudly at all of your locations during the prime month thank you and this was an anonymous letter that came in i want to respond to the lgbtq pride month resolution i speak as an ally and a parent
088of a seven-year-old daughter who is transgender i want to clearly voice my support of this resolution as an official affirmation of all kids not just my daughter there is a universal benefit to all students who know that they can learn in an environment that safely supports their whole selves and their developing identities all students deserve a safe climate in which to flourish without being confined by notions of what they should or shouldn't be i support measures that remind me my dog that remind my daughter that she will be safe at school and when she leaves our home each morning even when they are in small increments of course i'm reminded every day about the risks when communities don't affirm their young people the trevor's projects to 2021 national survey on lgbtq youth mental health found
089that 42 percent of lgbtq youth seriously consider attempting suicide in the past year including more than half of transgender and non-binary youth this is up two percent from 2020 and these statistics disproportionately affect youth of color however the same study found that those who had access to spaces that affirmed their sexual orientation and gender identity reported lower rates of attempting suicide i believe that designating june 2022 as pride month is an incremental step in creating an affirmative space for youth in the musd however in order to ensure that the affirming intent of this resolution it needs to be felt and seen in way by our students how will this be accomplished during june when school is out of session one solution is to raise a progress prize flag at each of the school sites during
090the month of june so that the intent of the resolution is seen by the broader musd community involved by students these micro affirmations are appreciated but more intentional programming is critical so i am encouraged to know that the resolution includes supporting policies practices and curricula that respect and support lgbtq students and their families throughout the year this is the most important aspect of the resolution as a member of the pta committee on diversity equity and inclusion for my daughter's school i envision affirming efforts throughout the year but especially during lb lgbtqi plus history month in october when students are back in session we want to make sure that the resolution passed by the board is fully experienced by the musd community through site presentations district events newsletters and marquee messaging and raised flags in closing
091i want to share with my seven-year-old daughter abbott to my response when i told her about the board of education resolution in quotes and the lgbtqinm plus is happy to join my daughter in the mix she added n to include non-binary and she added the m for her name of course i think this is a great example of how young people look for ways to feel included and how enthusiastic they are when we provide space for that thank you so this is an information item um how do we want to bring this back uh for action do we want to bring it back with some proposed language for um both of the editions both for [Music] and i know courtney you can provide us with what you have read for the first part as well
092as do you want to add language for um the flag and we can have further discussion at the next meeting about that whether we will be including that in a resolution i think we could certainly bring the language forward and then we could either you know pass it with or without and that would be an option to just have it on there [Music] all right we will move on to uh the next item which is 18.3 approval of the new job description for special education teacher on special assignment and action i am presented again by janella good evening um this item is coming back for possible action by the board which is for a new job description for a special education teacher on special assignment specifically this special education tosa will be responsible for supporting
093our teachers in that area of literacy through coaching and technical assistance um and supporting the implementation of curriculum instruction through co-teaching model lessons and planning lessons and implementing research-based instructional strategies all right are there any further questions from the board any comments from the public right this is an action item or maybe they get to the board do we have a motion look to approve the approval of a new job description for special education teacher on special assignment student folks i full board all in favor opposed abstentions motion carry thank you um number 19 we didn't need for additional public comments uh number 12 are comments from superintendent board members and future agenda items and helen do you want [Music] i had meant to do that earlier and i forgot i was able to go
094only to one site because it's nice out of sight and he wouldn't let us leave so we stayed at los angeles for an entire hour which was wonderful because it was the first time i actually got to step on the brand new campus and so it was really exciting to see people um see the classrooms for the first time and you saw so many kids who are so excited to show their parents the space so um thank you to the los angeles staff for putting on such a wonderful night great for me i don't have anything okay jeremy carlos oh yeah we're moving okay okay um i don't i'm not gonna have anything um and also let you finish this off so um i just your comments reminded me that we are planning to have
095a groundbreaking ceremony for the john sweat rebuild um sometime during uh the end of may while kids are still in school depending on their um their activity uh schedule i'd like to do it and coincide with their activities to get more students and parents involved in that groundbreaking ceremony so that will be notes will be coming up soon and then we will be having the ribbon cutting for las vegas as soon as we finish the fields in the front we still have tractors on half the canvas and and fencing so we wanted to look all nice and pretty before we shut it off to the world so that'll be some time coinciding with the walk through registration for a lesson just in august great thank you um next um our next board meeting a couple
096things that i would love added to our report just kind of a little briefing is uh all of the end of the year events that are going on on all of our sites um and if we if you don't have time to talk about it maybe we can add it as an attachment to one of our staff reports just so that the republic has a nice easy calendar of uh what are in the open um uh open for events for the community but also for some parents that may not get the filtered information from their students um things that they could be doing um and then we haven't i mean we haven't talked about it too much but i would like to hear a little bit more of where we're at as far as um
097testing what's available what are we needing and what are we what are we what can we anticipate for changes uh as we move through some of these events okay um so thank you everybody for your time and attention and all the good work that's happening and wants to celebrate what's going on our next meeting is going to be on april 25th look forward to seeing you there and with that major you