Regular Meeting of the Board of Education for Martinez Unified SD - 05/06/2019

001let's see alright number six is Pledge of Allegiance would you like to candy would you like to lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance all right do we have any changes to our agenda tonight there are no changes to the agenda all right usually I before I get started I'd like to remind everybody that we are being audio and video recorded tonight we're also live streaming we have the availability of Spanish interpretation if anyone needs a device there are devices in the back that are available to you if you are here to speak on a particular item or would like to make a comment comment under public comments please grab a card in the back fill it out and there's a basket here at the end of the table if you could put that in

002there we will call your name prior to your time to speak we're at line number 8 which is approval of the minutes of the regular meeting of April 22nd 2019 are there any board questions any public comment seeing none we'll bring it back to the board for action motion to approve student vote aye all in favor aye abstentions Oh any noes sorry motion carried there's just so few of us up here it's just a little little audit okay number nine is comments from student representative welcome back tonight so here your school reports for may 6 2019 starting off with John Muir Cinco DeMayo was celebrated with an awesome multicultural assembly mr. Pooh Sulu has been working tirelessly with students to make this fabulous production it was the first grade enjoyed a trip to the Lindsay

003Wildlife Museum the second grade student Annabelle carbo will be principal of the day on Friday May 10 the PTA is hosting an ice cream social on May 8th the first grade music performance will be held on May 9th at 8:30 a.m. join us for the PTA meeting on May 9th at 5:30 in the staff lounge next we have John sweat PTA had a hugely successful Western auction with Very's created rated student items that parents had fun bidding on the second grade teachers performed surgery with their students during a room transformation in math making the classroom look like a doctor's office the s back testing is a hundred percent completed at all grade levels the second graders had a field trip on Thursday to see a play at the lusher pier tansu elementary measure our advisory

004group is meeting for the second time on may 8 13 the PTA is meeting on May 14th at 7 p.m. the 4th graders had a field trip to the Oakland Museum on may 16th an open house is on May 23rd next we have Murillo Park mirela has been busy taking the s backtest second graders learned about Guide Dogs we celebrated administrative assistance day in honored Lisa and Susan TJ came to our coffee with the principal and we had a great turnout DJ Radke spun tunes for the school two weeks ago and last Friday DJ Clarissa spun tunes for the school several classes earned an eagle party with the principal for showing great character our character trait this month is citizenship this week is staff appreciation week and harvest of the month the elac will meet

005on May 14th at 3:00 and the PTA will meet on May 14th at 7:00 p.m. and a talent show will be held on Friday May 10 at 6 p.m. next we have Martinez junior high our eighth graders completed the S pack science test cast this week mrs. Crump Asst accompany our seventh grade cjf members on a field trip to UC Davis the eighth grade si JSF members took a field trip to UC Berkeley the final bull pup of the month were selected by staff members for the character trait of kindness our teacher extraordinaire Kate Collins Katie Collins was awarded a grant from the Martinez kiwannis to purchase a whole class set of jelly printing blocks Congrats mrs. Collins and Thank You kiwannis all of our students are taking the ela and math s Pap tests

006this week of May 6th through the 10th our spring music concert is Wednesday May 8th at 7 p.m. in the auditorium happy staff appreciation week next we have all hambar high school last Friday on May 3rd alhambra have the senior fiesta dinner just our 12th graders approach to graduation season we are very proud of our 11th and 12th graders who completed the great caaspp to testing turnout we had 99.5% science testing participation 99.6% English language arts testing participation and a hundred percent math testing participation over the next two weeks 220 all hambar students will be taking approximately 410 AP exams this Thursday May 9th the Alhambra sportsmed and leadership class students will be attending the Health Careers and Leadership Conference at the Oakland Coliseum students will hear from various healthcare professionals Oakland A's teens doctors

007athletic trainers and physical therapists they will also get to hear from sports management professionals marketing ticket sales and stadium management on how their job impacts professional sports and on May 17 through the 18th our senior seniors will travel to Disneyland for the annual senior trip next we have by sensei Martinez and Briones independent study makeup testing took place the week of April 22nd the co PE Family Services provided a workshop to buy sente students on how to get motivated on April 12 24th and a workshop on how to deal with anxiety on May 1st a dvc field trip took place on April 26 several bye sent to ambriano students attended the Hamburg all prom on April 27 mrs. Spector and three students attended the California Department of Education mental health advisory workgroup on May 3rd

008they shared a 30-minute presentation on the best practices and mental health services at the Vice enta in briones on May 6th a representative from DBC will be on campus to present about their yo peace Summer Bridge Institute PE testing for seventh and eighth ninth graders will take place on May 7 students will participate in a strength finders workshop on May 9th caps and gowns have arrived and all ready for the big day on June 5th next we have Martinez Adult School the ESL students are preparing are busy preparing for their 25th annual international fair the new networking hosted health leads and learned about a summer paid internship Chis students applied new networking hosted Marta Goff and Isabella Hirsch from Contra Costa County HR for an instructional workshop in how to apply online for the clerk

009position open at the county for students attended and plan to apply mark mock interviews were held in the introduction to Medical Careers course for our ESL students new networking hosted Nelson staffing and three students had their resumes evaluated and submitted to them new student can new students continue to enroll for our courses the 25th annual International Fair is to be held on Wednesday May 22nd at 10:30 a.m. in the auditorium the second annual careers for the trades night is on May 16th from 4:30 p.m. and 6:30 p.m. in the auditorium for all students teachers and family members are invited the HS d / HS e and the CTE graduation is on Tuesday June 4th at 6:30 p.m. in the auditorium and this concludes the school reports for May 629 teen great thank you the next

010line item is number 10 which is employee organization reports do we have any reports tonight Brenda so I want to start by thinking cj4 grossly overpaying for a cake at the auction it turns out that I made that cake and I am now gonna owe him a cake every month for the rest of my life that's how much she paid so thank you for coming CJ it was wonderful to spend the evening and you're very supportive of our PTA and thank you so much um it's a busy busy busy busy time of year and we just finished s back-testing and now there's AP testing next week at alhambra they're gonna have we're gonna have final exams we have report cards do we have open houses award assemblies graduations and so on and you know we're

011down to the last five weeks of school so um I'm not sure how anybody does all of that but it gets done and our teachers are amazing people to do all of that the next thing I want to talk about is that it's wonderful to see the promotion from within for our administrators we have had some fine applicants and really excited to work with Stacey with HR and seeing people be promoted from within is wonderful I'm hoping that we will also extend that to our teachers we have many many teachers with administrative credentials and I think it would be great if as we are going forward we really encourage them to throw their hat in the ring it used to be that they would get an interview because they were one of our employees so

012they would at least have the chance to be on the interview committee so hopefully I don't know that that's not how I don't know who applied but it would be great to continue to promote from within because I think that that's what really builds community and that's what builds familiarity with our principles and really a cohesive stuff and and the last thing I want to talk about is that I think we have six new administrators three principals we've got HR we've got CNI and at least one VP and that's today so there may be more promotion from within who knows and I just want to let the board know that it tends to be stressful for for teachers I'm sure it's stressful for the VP's as well I mean for the administrators as well but

013it tends to be very very stressful for teachers even teachers such as myself which is kind of amazing if you think about it that I would be stressed out with a new administrator haven't had one for a while but I've been through about seven administrators and that first year is tough it's always tough you can have the greatest administrator on the face of the earth and it's just tough it's kind of getting to know you kind of a year kind of not really sure what to expect those kinds of things it's a year where we should really be focusing on building trust and it's a wonderful year because it's a year of opportunity for change it's a year of opportunity to create connections within the school and so I'm looking forward to it I'm looking

014forward to working with the new administrators and I talked to CJ about this I think we need to start start a dialogue with so many new administrators how can we ensure success what can we do what can MEA do what can the district do I'd like to sit down and figure that out because it is in all of our best interests to make sure that all of our new administrators succeed we want them to succeed we want everybody to be their personal best so I'm looking forward to doing that with the district as well hopefully soon hopefully soon okay thank you so much thank you any other employee report no okay we will move on to the next item which are comments from the PTA great good evening my name is Tom Navarro and I

015am the treasurer for the Marella Park PTA and incoming president for next school year one of the things I just want to highlight and we're gonna actually report it as part of our tina's councils to the council 32nd district council tonight is highlighting the community that we've I think rebuilt with the particularly the junior high school this year Martinez or excuse me umbrella Park has been able to meet and are on target to exceed our incoming dollars goals for the year and none of that would have been possible without us building a very strong and rebuilding a very strong volunteer base with the help of Martinez Junior High School that includes the very strong partnership with the leadership class nicole Hansen's class as well as si JSF and Carol Crump assist support we were able

016to double attendance at multiple events this year including our gingerbread night which we generally have to turn away approximately forty families we were able to double the capacity of that event this year and give back to everybody that wanted to participate rather than having to turn families away with our Harvest Festival same thing we didn't have to cut it back we were actually able to grow the event and support more of our families that wanted to participate students also helped set up for our extremely successful auction that came out I think eight nine o'clock in the morning to the venue and helped unload cars get tables set up and then they went off and families were able to come in and enjoy the evening so I think it's important that we continue to build that

017community support it has been hugely advantageous to us this year and I know that they support every school throughout the district but for us it was a opportunity for us to tap into a resource pool that we hadn't been tapping into for years so that we could continue to deliver the programs and services that the PTA should be delivering to our community so thank you great thank you for your report all right we're moving on to number 12 which is staff board acknowledgments announcement reports are there any staff or board reports any any board members that have any announcements Kathy Van tema John no that's fine Jonathan DJ not at this time all right well I I wanted to this is our part where we can do some acknowledgement so I just wanted to acknowledge

018a couple things that I wanted to congratulate the Martinez Junior High School on the singing in the rain was fantastic it was incredibly well attended as well I was very lucky to get those hot tickets when I did so congratulations to them it was it was just really exciting to be a part of a part of the audience I also wanted to congratulate John Muir Elementary I was lucky enough to get an invitation to celebrate they call it was a multicultural festival and it was it was such an amazing event it really highlighted some of the new music program that they've been working on and I'm really excited that we're rolling that program out we were able to hear the musicians were the the children of course and we heard they sang a song from

019Haiti they did ukuleles there were Native American flutes and music and some amazing African drumming so kudos to them it was just really exciting to be there and my guess is it will be standing room only next year because everyone there was very very impressed and then finally on a personal note I at the school is that my kids are at it is staff and teacher appreciation and we have a lot of those folks with us today and so thank you as a member of the community and on behalf of my kids we've got great staff and great teachers and one week isn't enough but I'd like to acknowledge that no thank you alright anyone else I wanted to I'm sorry I thought I was gonna add this at the end of the meeting but

020I did want to say a couple thank-yous they were mentioned during the board reports and the student report I do want to thank the John sweat PTA for the invitation to their dinner dance auction was a great night really well attended there was really I think a great time had by all and Brenda the cake that that we had was fantastic I also want to thank the Marella Park PTA for their invitation to their coffee with the principal had a really nice time meeting with some parents from the Marella Park community to talk about a few things one of them being in the process that we're going to engage in for the recruitment in the selection of their new principal and in addition we spent some time at that coffee with the principal also talking

021about Martinez junior high school and I think there was some good dialogue and conversation that was had that morning so thanks to the Marella Park PTA and as Deidre has said it's hard to really quantify staff appreciation but I think it is a fantastic week where we can put some focus on the incredible work that happens for certificated and classified staff within the district I think as you heard Brenda described in the comments in the industry we kind of refer to this as the 90 days of May at least that's how I refer to it and the feats that the educators and the classified staff pull off during the month of May and throughout the rest of the year are phenomenal and would like to extend my appreciation and thanks to them as well I

022also wanted to add in something real quick since it is a staff appreciation week I just wanted to extend the things from all the students for all the staff and teachers especially since we just wrapped up state testing all those involved in helping us Proctor the test and with like technical difficulties thank you for all those who helped in and just took the time out to help us to complete the state testing and supporting us as well and also I know this is the busy time for all teachers and staff at schools we are wrapping up the school year and I just wanted to thank all the teachers for working on every single day and just on the school helping us like complete all the school work and I know like the very last few

023weeks of school are very stressful with all the you have to have everything complete especially on top of that you have testing involved so I just want to take a moment to thank all of you guys thank you all right thank you okay so we'll move on to 12.1 which is the martinez junior high school student climate and culture and this is under a staff report I know where there was some discussion maybe we could have it at the junior high or here I just wanted to let you know it's here tonight because we wanted to make sure that we could have the video the live stream I had a lot of people I know a lot of us get a lot of comments from people who watch it later we weren't quite sure we

024were gonna make that happen at the junior high so so that's why we're here and and I I think we're we're well sized for it tonight do we have any other comment cards on this okay it sounds like we're gonna have any time constraints so with that said I'll turn it over to you Thank You CJ thanks our director of student services Janelle is going to present an overview for the board and members of the audience in regards to the school climate at Martinez junior high school and this will cover a wide range of things from how does the ED code relate to the work that that happens day-to-day and it will relate to the things that we have in place currently some of the things that we're looking for for the future I would

025encourage all of us to consider this as a glance not as a complete and total statement of everything that that can happen in the future it's a glance into where we are right now and I'll turn it over to our director of student services so I want to start this evening with providing some data for the board as well as members of the audience related to school climate across the disturbed and specifically at the junior high school if you recall earlier this year in February we rolled out the say something this reporting line and with that rollout we have been able to collect data related to the tips that have been coming in from our community and our our students and this captures a summary by school of the tips we've received through the say

026something anonymous reporting since February when this initially rolled out you can see the most majority of the tips have come from the junior high school you'll see on future slides as we get into some of the data that the same incident can be reported multiple times so some of these numbers don't reflect unique incidents okay the district I will also note that district team and Martinez PD dispatch or automatically we receive tips related to life safety so those would but the tips that you see reflected is going to the district team in PD the crisis center through say something automatically refers those tips to the district team specifically narrowing down that data from those 68 tips at the junior high school you can see how those tips have been broken down I do want to

027note here in looking at this data in terms of the categories the categories are selected by the tipster so when someone calls in or texts in a tip they categorize the nature of the incident that they are reporting okay whether or not the incident actually truly ends up relating to that that's how the system does categorize this the only exception to that is when the crisis center designates tips as life safety and those that are those would be the ones that are requiring specific actions from local law enforcement and the crisis center does dispatch PD as necessary when they involve life safety as I previously mentioned sometimes tips can be reported by multiple people regarding the same concern so we've had that happen many times where we have multiple students reporting on the same incident

028that have led to investigations but you'll see those reports captured as unique incidents here although they're not necessarily related to multiple incidents by month you can see how the tips have been coming in as expected with initial rollout we did receive the most number of tips in the month of February we did hold a student assembly and on February 6 at the junior high school which is when students were informed of and trained and how to use to say something reporting system and the system became live that first full week of February so since that time you can see how tips have been coming in from the junior high school I want to share some specific information related to discipline data as a comparison you'll see on the left side is data from the 2017-18

029school year and on the right is current school year so year-to-date in specific I brought these for these specific violations given the concerns that were brought forward at the last board meeting so you can see comparison of the types the numbers of suspensions that have happened by Ed code violation the totals at the bottom these reflect the total number of suspend the Belisle asians or incidents not days a suspension the student might have received so for example the the bullying incident the one bullying incident that's been suspended for this year at the junior high that is one incident but there could have been multiple days of suspension as a result of that incident okay so these are unique incidents that have resulted in suspensions you can have the same student may have been suspended in

030multiple categories you'll see there has been an increase in the total number of suspended incidents by comparison from uh from last school year I do you want to go over some of the Education Code and board policies as they relate to how we conduct our processes as a school district the first thing I want to share is our obligation under Ed code as it relates to providing alternatives to suspensions so while we have of course education code that that requires us to administer discipline to students in certain situations our first directive is that we must be looking at other means of Corrections so suspensions shall be imposed only when other means of Correction fail to bring about proper kind of conduct and education code does define what that what that can entail so other means

031of Corrections these are things that stood that administrators are doing with working with families and students and staff prior to suspension in order to bring about change and student behavior things like holding parent conferences referring students just the school counselor the psychologist or other support personnel holding student study team meetings - for students who have behavioral issues and looking at individual action plans there may be times that teams feel it's appropriate to refer a student for comprehensive psycho-educational assessment we can refer students for behavioral or anger management programs participation and restorative justice the positive behavior support with tier 2 interventions after-school programs and community service so those are all things that are called out in education code in terms of strategies that schools are administering as part of the progressive discipline process if once the

032school has gone through a process of other means of Correction and the student is not responding to those kinds of strategies there may be times when a student may be suspended or expelled due to his or her behavior these are the grounds under which a student may be suspended or expelled under Ed code and also our board policy there related to behaviors that occur while on school grounds while going to or from school during the lunch period whether the student is on or off-campus at the time or any going to ordering or coming from any school sponsored activity so sporting events prom those kinds of things those are all activities under which a student can be suspended or expelled due to their behavior and if it's been found to violate education code education code as

033well as our board policy also mandates specific circumstances under which a student must be expelled from the school district due to his or her behavior these are what we call the big five so anything related to a firearm possession selling or otherwise furnishing a firearm brandishing a knife at another person unlawfully selling a controlled substance committing or attempting to commit a sexual assault and possessing it if it's in explosive those are all mandatory referrals for expulsion outside of those there is bandwidth within education code in terms of how we respond to behavior under these specific violations what in and I say that in that these be violations can all result in suspension or possibly expulsion with administrator discretion depending on the the extent of the behavior and the nature of behavior so there are a

034series of education violations that can result in suspension those are all defined under education 48 900 as well as our administrative regulation 51 44.1 so I've listed that listed them all out on us see sequence of slides here but the first one is related to assault and battery cause attempted to cause or threaten to cause physical injury to another person or using force on another person except in self-defense and possessing selling or otherwise furnishing a firearm knife or other dangerous object unlawfully possessing using sold furnished otherwise furnished or the under the influence of any kind substance alcoholic beverage or intoxicant of any kind offering ranging or negotiating to sell any controlled substance alcoholic brother beverage or intoxicant committed or attempted to commit robbery or extortion caused or attempted to cause damage to school property or

035private property stole or attempted to steal school property or private property possess or use tobacco or products containing tobacco or nicotine products including but not limited to cigars cigarettes miniature cigars clove cigarettes to smokeless tobacco snuff to packets in battle committed an obscene act or engage in habitual profanity or vulgarity 48 900 J unlawfully possessed offered arranged or negotiated to sell any drug paraphernalia this next one I want to call out as 4900 K can only be charged against students in grades 4 through 12 and that's disruption to school activities or defiance of school Authority not as a change in the head code knowingly received stolen school property or private property possession of an imitation firearm committed or attempted to commit a sexual assault as defined in Penal Code or committed a sexual battery as

036defined in Penal Code harass threatened or intimidated a student who is a complaining witness or a witness in a school disciplinary proceeding for the purpose of preventing that student from being a witness and or italic retaliating against that student for being a witness unlawfully offered a range giselle negotiated to sell or sold the prescription drug soma engaged in our attempted to gauge in hazing and engage in an act of bullying I'm going to pause here and go into this one a little bit further as the ED code has defined specifically what bullying does entail as it relates to school so there are many layers into the definition of bullying the IDI code does define it as any severe pervasive physical or verbal act or conduct and that can be in writing or through electronic act

037directed toward one or more students that has or can reasonably be predicted to have the effect of one or more of the following and you'll see in these next bullets that each bullet does refer to a reasonable student and in the next slide there is a specific definition and edie code of what is a reasonable considered a reasonable student but placing a student a reasonable student in fear of harm to himself or herself or his or her property causing a student to experience substantially detrimental effect on his or her physical or mental health causing people to experience substantial interferences with his or her academic performance causing a reasonable people to experience substantial interference with his or his ability to participate in or benefit from the services activities or privileges provided by a school so those

038are the effects the ED code defines as it relates to bullying bullying you can also include any act of sexual harassment hate violence harassment threat or intimidation as well bullying can also include any act of cyber sexual bullying and that can can entail a few different things it can be the dissemination of or the solicitation or incitement to disseminate a photograph or other visual recording that depicts a nude semi-nude or sexually explicit photograph or other visual recording of an identifiable manner when such dissemination is to another student or to school personnel by means of an electronic to act and has or can be reasonably predicted to have one or more of the effects of bullying that were identified on the previous slide um a lot of electronic act of course we know our students have

039ready access to a variety of different electronic devices and so education code as well as our administrative regulations do define what an electronic act couldn't look like and oftentimes the student may be engaged in social media communications or texting outside of school if you recall from previous slides our jurisdiction relates to what happens and they're going to to and from school what happens on school campus oftentimes when students are engaged in an electronic communication off outside of school that does sometimes end up on the school grounds in terms of its impact and so that does become an issue for site administrators in terms of investigation and needing to identify whether cyber bullying or any other type of activity may have been occurring as it relates to our jurisdiction through electronic tax so we do look

040at things like nice message text sound video or image that are sent electronically posts on social network internet websites including but not limited to posting to or creating a burn page or creating a credible impersonation or false profile for the purpose of causing a reasonable student any of the effects of bullying as I mentioned before a code does define what a reasonable pupil is and we see this phrase in multiple locations and education code as it relates to discipline because it wants to make sure that we're looking at the the effect of the students behavior on another student or another person so in terms of the ED code definition a reasonable student means a student including but not limited to a student who has been identified as a student with a disability who exercises average

041care skill and judgment and conduct for a person of his or her age or for a person of his or her age with his or her disability so we look at for example at the middle school level of something has being related to a fourteen-year-old what would another 440 won't it be reasonable for another 14 year old student in comparable skill level as the student to also be impacted in the same manner by by behavior so just to finish up the IDI code violations as they related relate to suspension on the forty eight nine hundred are was the last one and that relates to bullying and then this is forty eight nine hundred t8 or about the infliction or attempted infliction of physical injury the remaining ad code violations that can result in suspension are

042called out and can only be applied to students in grades four through 12 and those relate to sexual harassment cause or attempted to cause threatened to cause hate violence intentionally engaged in harassment threats intimidation and made terroristic threats and so those are addition the final ad code violations that may be suspended all or expelled them the Martinez Junior High School has a student handbook which outlines in detail the discipline policies that they have in place and some of the areas that the discipline policies policies highly highlight are specifically the behavior expectations that are in place for students the bullying and harassment policy that is pulled directly from our board policy and an ED code cellphone electronic equipment policy the dress code policies loss of privilege and what can result in a loss of privilege due

043to student behavior expected lunchtime conduct and zero-tolerance policy as it relates to drugs alcohols and weapons also in the handbook it does define a sequence of progressive discipline and calls out that students are placed in the discipline ladder at the appropriate step based on the severity of the violation committed or the multiple offenses or referrals that they acquire these consequences that a student receives through discipline or a progression of possible disciplinary actions but are not inclusive of all possible consequent nor is this an inclusive list of all offensive if we do not see an improvement in behavior we will advance to the next level of consequences and there's a variety of there's a chart in the handbook several pages that defines what this what the sequence of discipline is for a variety of violations and

044I've just pulled out a few here to highlight you'll see on the far left column is the student behavior conduct that results in the violation what that violation looks like and then the first offense second offense and third offense consequence and so I've just called out here what the Junior High School policy or guidelines are they relate to violations of defiance and disrespect fighting and harassment bullying making threats and you can see the progress of discipline policies that are in place as it relates to students who continue to make to exhibit these behaviors and violate rules as it relates to these specific behaviors and at the third offense up to potentially five days of suspension police involvement possible expulsion for these offences I wanted to share a little bit about the school-wide supports that are

045in place currently at the junior high school we and I just talked a little bit about the progressive discipline that is in place as you know we are working with the Sandy Hook promise to implement a few different initiatives to support positive student behavior and climate and that includes start with hello that was at the beginning of the year that that praise program to promote promote connectedness and inclusion of students across campus let's say something and on this reporting system that we rolled out in February and also the safe Club which is a student-led group on campus that students against violence everywhere that's also part of the Sandy Hook promise we have a quite a variety of counseling support services available on campus as well through the school psychologist five days a week a mental

046health counselor five days per week behavior counselor three days a week as well as an academic counselor those those individuals can serve students both individually and in groups through through referral process or through special education needs depending on the student CJ has met with site staff regarding school climate issues as well as the school site Council we've implemented emergency radio systems this year at the junior high as well as all schools and throughout Martinez we've trained on all Martinez administrators on investigations and title nine and we've also established a district-wide State Safety Committee and looking forward to next year there are plans in place to expand the supports at the junior high school the school is already in process of investigating and implementing the where everybody belongs or the web middle school orientation and transition

047program there was an initial training rollout with staff at the April professional development day and their school is currently accepting applications for seventy eighth grade student web leaders so that is to support the incoming sixth grade class next school year related to transition the incoming sixth graders will also be trained on the say something anonymous reporting system and in the fall and we will be of course as a new leadership team will be in place for the fall there will be collaboration for that new team as well as staff and community around further developments for that school year and we are exploring a district network monitoring system for students which you will actually be hearing about later this evening we've talked a little bit about the multi-tiered systems of support that we've been working on

048this year and I thought this would be a good place to highlight some of the work that's been happening as the Junior High School is one of the phase one schools that's been working with us this year we do have a district leadership team in place that has been and participating in a variety of trainings and developing a plan for implementation of behavioral academic and social/emotional supports for our schools and our phase 1 schools at the elementary level we're looking at in terms of social emotional supports either choose love program at John sweat and Los Santos and as well as character counts education programs at the other elementary schools and our in terms of academic support so far we have conducted a full day of UDL training of trainer models for our to elementary teens

049as well Thank You Janelle just a couple of things I wanted to offer as a follow-up and reminder one of the things that I've heard from parents recently and had questions from staff as well as in terms of communication when we are applying the discipline policies or procedures and speaking from my years as a junior high school vice principal I can tell you firsthand that one of the frustrating experiences that parents have is when there is an incident at school and something happens they want to they're informed of the discipline for their child they're not directly informed of a discipline for another child and I wanted to just remind the board that in that process it is the the student privacy rights which prevents us from sharing that information directly I don't take it lightly

050and I certainly don't put it on the responsibility of the children but as the former vice principal at Martinez junior high school years ago I would discuss with parents that it is something that I can't share with you as part of the administrative team or staff at Martinez junior high school but that likely the information will surface at some point in time because the the kids in the community will discuss their consequences with their peer group but I wanted to highlight that because that is one of the areas where I am sometimes contacted from parents in regards to desiring that they know the outcome for the other child or children involved the other piece I just wanted to mention for the board is that as we did talk in this presentation about the social media

051impact of things I want to remind the board in our public that when we are made aware of an issue on social media we have we are made aware of that and we will investigate it the administrators follow up with it but that we are not as a school district organization we don't have the ability to monitor social network sites on a on a frequent regular or even semi-regular basis nor in most cases do we even have access to the accounts in which the students hold where things may be posted so it is an aspect of social media and the electronic communication that we oftentimes don't have the scope to see into until someone brings it to us and I just wanted to remind the board of that as well ok thank you so we're

052gonna do we'll do some board questions and then I'll open it up for public comment and then we'll bring it back for further discussion or the board this is this is just a staff report so there's no action on this particular item tonight Johnathan's you have any questions not a sec exact moment I think excuse me just want to say thank you you know those very informative report and it was on money or latter slides or one of the things about fighting was also in retaliation and I think that's an important thing to note that sometimes it feels like I know because I taught in alternative ed and one of the things I used to tell my students is I don't care which one of you started it both of you are going to get

053consequences if you both fight or if you respond or call names or whatever because there's no way for me to figure out which kids started doing what thing to who and that's kind of what my mom used to do it's like okay Tim Kathy the Balch in trouble no basically we were harassing each other so I think that's it's frustrating when you're a parent but it's also accurate to say no one's without fault usually and I used like I said I've always told my students you know I'm going to respond to what everything that I hear or see not one thing because I can't track it back to the original piece so thank you by the way for doing this is very comprehensive ready okay John so Janelle could you go back to the second

054slide that shows the toll of suspensions sorry so would you say I mean doing my rough math that's a 25 almost a 30 percent jump almost 40 really going through that in my mind is that huge jump in suspensions or is this a normal I'm just talking statistically should we be alarmed when we see you know 50 to 40 percent increase it is a significant increase we are only looking at two years of data here so it's not a multi-year comparison I think as we look at these specific categories you can see the areas and that have changed you know I think there's been drops in certain areas and there have been increases in other areas so I there are as you can see from the presentation a variety of ways a student may be

055suspended and there are obviously not all up here in terms of the data presentation I think that students behavior does certainly change over time there's a variety of reasons why they're being suspended one thing that's not on here because it wasn't necessarily an area of concern that was brought up last time is that one of the pieces where students are being suspended more is related to tobacco and vaping and drug use and so that has certainly been one of the area that we've seen a dramatic increase at the junior high in regards to suspension so it hasn't necessarily been around this type of climate issue but in other areas and then our last board me me heard a lot of different incidents and I think what Kim what I came away with was the level

056of violence I mean it's been a few years I know since my kids were about to junior high but I was kind of surprised at the level of violence I mean where you were hearing concussions and is that a normal pattern or is that something else we should be aware or be concerned as a board so we have looked at the individual discipline incidents and I can't say that there's been a significant increase in the level of violence from what we've looked at and when you look at the administrative response the nature of the investigation that's happened you know both both students or the multiple students who were involved and who who was involved and what you know what was the nature of each of the the students part part and it's I would say

057very similar I can't say that there's been a significant increase in the type of violence as you say as it relates to these incidents from previous years and then do you know of any other school district or any other education that has a model about or a policy about victim rights that out there protections of victim rights well all districts follow laws related to title 9 for example in terms of harassment intimidation and so when there are things that happen on campuses where we are obligated to investigate those to ensure student safety on campuses and that is one of the areas that we did a comprehensive training with our administrators on this year in terms of ensuring that things that are happening on campus or after the incident but there isn't further intimidation or harassment

058for example so that's one piece of it I would say is in regards to title nine that we that we are following do you want to add anything together no I'm not aware either other than the policies that exist within prohibiting retaliation or harassment for a witness or a victim I'm not aware of I think the closest thing that who probably aligns with that concept John is this quotes schools and districts that are fully implementing with fidelity things like restorative justice I don't know that that hits exactly in terms of the victims rights but I think that school districts that are doing that or making attempts to try and address all factors of incidents that take place but I don't know of any specific programs and I I don't want to it's just a question

059of you yeah I don't know that restorative justice is exactly that either but I think it's probably the closer model that most districts might be using all right thank you you know I've got a couple questions you want me just to list them out to you and you can tackle them okay so let me start with I've had a couple people contact me since our last meeting I had a couple questions let's start with there is an investigation that the district does after an incident is reported whether it's something that happens at the site something that happens off-site but might be related or as well as reported on the hotline is that right and is there a period of time that these investigations take because you know people obviously want information as soon as possible

060but is there a reasonable time expectation that people have to find out and of what what next steps are happening I would say it can depend on the nature of the allegation um if there is an incident that's happened on campus there would be an immediate investigation into for example if there was a fight and there'd be an immediate investigation into the report from the administration and parents would be contacted with administrative decisions if they were going to be disciplined sometimes a student may be suspence suspended and an investigation may continue while that student is out and other information may be gathered while that student is out on suspension and there may be a modification to that process as more information is revealed through additional witness reporting or other things that may come to light

061through social media are those kinds of things and so investigations can take different lengths of time but certainly excited minister ears work very very diligent we need to get those that communication out this is on issues resolved as soon as possible and um there are certain things that we have to report to the local law enforcement right yes you know off the top of your head what types of events those aren't drugs weapons and so they're just routinely called when yeah and there's an issue there are there times when we have a no-contact contract after incidents and and you know how long are those are in place yes there have been times we've implemented no contact orders and it really has been the ones that I've been in contact with regards in regards to with

062administrators it's been on a case-by-case basis depending on the nature of the incident where potentially one or both of the students have been asked to participate in this because you know they're on the same campus and we want to ensure that you know there's no further involvement between the students and it's clearly communicated to both students that if harassment is on campus or through social media or their friends they're asking their friends to contact that there would be further discipline to occur if incident does occur is ongoing it is there an end date for that they yes there would be an end date that should be specified usually the end of the school year and then do they if if they were in eighth grade does it go with them into that into our high

063school are we keeping our schools aligned and aware of those stay on track I'm sorry it's not touchscreen when you I don't know if you have the data it said the total suspended incidents do you have any idea how many kids are we talking about I mean then obviously the infractions have gone up over the year two year period but are there multiple students that are involved yes and is that I mean we could be talking about the same number students for both years or not and I don't I don't know if that's the case I'm just I was curious on that data [Music] no you're not talking about the same number of students your two year no or this the the amount of students involved are also going up along with the incidents yes

064okay okay two other questions one what is zero-tolerance mean I saw that in one of the slides what does that me that was on the slide that is related to the junior high Handbook in the language in the handbook on the states that there is disciplinary action when there are incidents involving drugs alcohol or weapons on campus so it's still investigated on an individual basics potion it does mean that they are not tolerated on campus they're not allowed on campus there will be discipline that takes place you recall from one of the previous slides there are five things that are an automatic expulsion that would be a referral to the Board of Education to take action to remove a student from the school district but the other but investigations would occur and this site administration

065would decide the extent of the discipline that would be appropriate given the nature of act and when when the district expels a student if there's a certain period of time right it's not indefinitely that's right so what's the maximum amount of time that we can expel us to one calendar year okay my last question was when was the last time that Martinez Unified had a SRO and what was what was that funding model and you may not know that it was before I was here so I've been this is my seventh year I know it was when CJ was here I want to say oh four oh five oh five OH six it was when I was the vice principal at Martinez Junior High School with Helen Rossi as the principal at that time we

066had an SRO and that position too to SROs they were shared between secondary sites and obviously within our elementary sites but the predominant work location was by sente briones Alhambra high school and Martinez Junior High School in terms of sharing time and space between those I believe Helen correct me if I'm wrong the funding model was a grant that was written by the police department to pay for those officers and I think those were the last two years that that we had our sorrows on our campuses and they they were on our campuses but if they were if there was a someone called in sick so to say and the police force they were called out so they were not there every day they were in and out as they weren't made you know as

067staffing allowed let's say okay thank you all right that was all the questions any other board questions before I open it up to public comment one or both of the kids have no contact orders violates that order and we know about it and that is spelled out on that contract that the student and family signs anyone else all right with that said I'm gonna open it up for public comment I've got stock here and all sorry all of our speakers are gonna get three minutes to speak on this I'll call out as they come in we've got Phillips Sargent followed by Craig Lazar ready followed by Cathy Walsh evening board thank you for this presentation it was very informative I'm actually answered a lot of stuff that I was looking into one of my first

068concerns was we have a nurse on-site at the junior high especially after hearing these kind of serious fights and injuries happening and we're you have children waiting around to be picked up that seemed kind of scary to me my next idea was with the school benefit from bringing in like in-school suspension I realized this we would need to have staff there to supervise it it might mean extra work from the teachers having to pull the day's assignment get into the kids that are in in-school suspension and there may actually not even be a place to hold this but I feel that would combat the kind of the view that these two days one two three day suspensions are just a vacation from school kids it's gonna hold them accountable the fact that it took me

069ten years to tell my mom that I had one day of in-school suspension in my career at middle school showed that it had an influence on me I kind of also wondered how it would affect the average daily attendance if that could be a factor in why it would be good to have it back in school the next thing was if a database would be available to the public to the parents oftentimes when I'm hearing things it's it's through rumors it's secondhand it's through social media to see the say something tips broken down by type what's really informative tonight the suspension report based on the types that our suspensions were having to me has been effective because again I'm hearing things secondhand our teachers and administrators in school are really great about getting the positive

070things are happening in schools but to have these a database of these facts available to me would help combat the second-hand information that I'm getting if people are seeing we're having so many fights but you look at the breakdown oh maybe we're not actually having that my last suggestion would be if we could have maybe a voluntary mediation process between parents again I know you'd have to have a staffing for that you'd have to have a mediator but maybe with it being voluntary that could get around some of the privacy parts of it and the reason I bring this up is my student in this year made a wrong choice and it made another student feel threatened through a serendipitous conversation with another parent we realized oh your child is the one that my child

071threatened I was able to tell that parent your child did the right thing your child did the steps that she was supposed to do when she felt threatened the other parent was able to kind of comfort me and just say that you know I understand this suspension was mandatory but you know we we understand how happened and it wasn't meant your student didn't it just helped with some of the closure in the event thank you great thank you all right the next speaker is Craig applause already followed by Kathy Walsh followed by Michelle Gibson just a few observations on the data for suspensions what I found most interesting was the fact the Miller was a sharp increase in suspensions this year compared with last year the number of bullying were latest pensions was actually down

072from 12 last year to 1 this year if I read the data correctly what that says to me is that we're not doing a good enough job of identifying these bullying incidents i'm interdicting early on and that's probably why we're seeing increases in violence and it bites because bullying is often a precursor to violets so I think that would warrant some more research study I think at the heart of this issue however is a youth brain development at this age and how kids this age other brains develop and what that means in terms of their behavior there was a class I took recently from the National Council for behavioral health on Mental Health First Aid and I think this quote kind of sums it up very well emotions develop well emotions develop more quickly contributing

073at times to poor decision-making for this reason youth are more likely to take additional risks the impulsive and look for new ways to have fun without considering consequences I think that in an essence is why we see so many issues and problems at this age level because of the way our kids brains are developing this is not something we can control but I think we need to understand it and we need to develop strategies to identify where children are going to be prone tapped emotionally and impulsively and really kind of get in front of the issue I think that you know what comes to mind is a quote from an old Star Wars movie the other day was may the force be with you so I was thinking about Star Wars the other day there's

074a quote that says this is a dangerous time for you well you will be tempted by the dark side and I think everyone knows Star Wars remembers that line and it really sums up how kids Minds work at this age it's a dangerous time for them they can't control their emotions through gaining power new skills but you're not in control and so we have to understand that and on top of it they're running around with these things that give them all this new powers that little lightsabers could do all kinds of damage and so we have to have our eyes and ears on campus to look out for these types of issues when you do try to explain it to them that this is a feint you're gonna make bad decisions or be tempted to

075make bad decisions and we're here to help you try to prevent those things but I think we really kind of have to get thank you Cathy Walsh followed followed by okay the next speaker is Gibson followed by Sharon Heiner I just wanted to say that the staff at Martinez junior high we're very committed to solving our discipline issues and and finding ways to do that that's it weighs heavy on our hearts and you know we do lose sleep about it I mean discipline to me is the number one if if they're not disciplined in class they're not going to learn so that comes first to me in their mental health and I wanted to say thanks for all the support from our administrators and the district office I had the pleasure of being the first

076person do you have after-school detention last Friday and I used my Catholic school upbringing to help with that and they had to sit there so there were supposed to be four kids who were to come to came willingly from another teacher so I had two more two didn't show up they all had to sit there with their hands folded in front of them for an hour so and they did they were very respectful I thought it was a very successful after-school detention the other thing that I'd like to bring up is I'd really like the board to consider having cameras on campus it will help deter negative behavior or bad behavior hopefully but you know they're gonna make decisions no matter what and not think about the consequence but we want everybody to be safe

077most definitely pointing out sit Thanks great thank you next is Michelle Gibson followed by Sharon Heiner followed by Yasmine Tomas Morales I am so first of all I have to say thank you so much for that report it was really just eye-opening to see it all together I know there's no stuff on the website but it was great just to see it all in the same place I spoke at the last meeting and bringing to your attention my son's assault I told him I come here to speak about it and he was fine with that but he also said the next time I come to speak I need to praise mr. comics for just being a wonderful administrator my son is one of the ones you regularly see at Susanna Park he got into the

078car the other day opened the door and he said that guy is the coolest guy he said he really feels and a lot of his friends feel to that you really see them as individuals you see them as people you get where they're at and I think kids really sense that genuineness about you so he said if he ever has any issues at school he would see you as a safe person to go to so thank you from the bottom of my heart one where that um I just wanted to bring up on one of the slides it mentioned retaliation and that the student who retaliates gets consequences - which I understand I mean if somebody hits someone and they hit back they both hit at that stage what I was blown away by miss

079McLaughlin was your comment when you said you don't care who started it um I don't know if I misheard you did you make that comment I think I did Nate that make that comment if I could clarify it it means that I can't always see who started it so I don't care what you tell me about who started understand both of you did I mean to me as a parent act as a parent if I one of my kids was saying I'm not at fault here okay I don't want this to too much into my time to me as a parent whose child was not in a position to retaliate because he was down on the ground with the concussion even if he had me tally ated I would be fine without whatever consequences were

080measured out to him but to have a school board members say they don't care what started it I think you should care and we might not be in this position at this school if you did care okay the last thing was about suspension rates which was a really high suspension rate do we have a breakdown of how many of those students are repeat offenders okay it's just such a huge number and I think that would be really beneficial so thank you so much thank you Sharon Heiner followed by yes main yamas Morales followed by Anna Maria Frias so I'm just kind of hearing talking about bullying and wanted just to say that I would also consider sexual harassment as a form of bullying and it's a way to bully girls and you know this is

081kind of the first year probably that kids have had kind of social media and are savvy with social media and then in school and then back on social media and back in school and so kind of what is happening at the lunch time right carries over to what's happening at home and then comes back I'll just say that you know I'm not really going to talk about any specifics and I don't ask my daughter specifics and I'm glad to say she still talks to me about all these things which I consider myself very lucky but you know she stopped talking to me she just doesn't mentioned any more because it's not remarkable of someone coming up to her at lunch and asking her for a nude photo there are several girls who have photos being

082circulated of themselves at home and then coming back to lunch and being circulated around the lunch table and so you know I think that there's even though we're not monitoring sexual media and I totally understand that is completely not possible but of course quote snapchat disappears but all you have to do is a screenshot and snapchat stays forever on someone's screen and then you know I don't blackmail it's happening over that I mean in a sophisticated way that surprises me so you know I think that we we kind of separate out harassment but to me it's all part of the same thing it's a way for really girls to be bullied by boys and they do feel that so I just wanted to thank you yes mean Tomas Morales followed by Anna Marie for us

083good evening um I wanted to thank John fuller and Deidre siguen 'aa for the questions that you asked just listening to the questions told me that you were listening to the report that one that was presented by Janelle so thank you for actively listening and having questions and being proactive and seeing how to address this I can't say that about Kathy or Donathan they haven't really provided much insight but I hope that you do start listening to what we're saying and listening to these reports actively today I got home well today when my son got home turmoil apparently there is a girl on campus that's being sexually harassed by another boy my son has been hearing this and so this brought him home in a very frazzled state so obviously this is not happening to

084my son but it's happening to a girl on campus who he cares about and it's affecting my son indirectly through this conversation I found out that the child that is harassing this girl had attempted to rape a girl earlier this year this is obviously rumors hearsay but this is what I'm dealing with at home and this is stuff that's happening on campus how do we fix the climate and the culture of this school I don't know if this girl has gone to her parents to discuss this I'm glad that my son actually told me this before another fight happens or before something else happens at school because the problem that I had before was that he didn't tell me anything he told me this this time but I'm bringing this to you to let you

085know what I'm hearing at home from my child how do you fix the culture at the school how do we fix the don't snitch mentality how do we get kids to change that and come forward to adults and bring this to light at the school the stuff needs to be addressed before it happens this stuff needs to be addressed before somebody is raped this needs to be addressed before a girl goes into depression because she's being sexually harassed by another student and vice versa so what programs are we going to implement at the school to herb and fix the culture at martinis near high school I am a nervous wreck because my son is a nervous wreck I cannot imagine what other families are going through and I'm sure that my energy is feeding up

086on my daughter but these are just problems that compound they keep going until something is done to fix what's happening at the school thank you yes we thank you for sharing the comments I would ask that if you felt comfortable if you could contact me and let me know the names of the students involved so that we can intervene and if that's not comfortable if perhaps you might encourage those involvement utilize that say something out so that an anonymous report can be submitted and we can look at addressing the issues that your son has described all right Annamarie evening board members I apologize again I'm here with my raspy voice and cough that I want to thank you all for being so proactive in providing this data that I think is very critical to the

087public I also want to thank the board members for focusing on this and making this a priority because clearly we are going to continue to come until we see some drastic policy changes CJ I think it's been great that you have been showing there's been a dominant presence there at the junior high now since we've all come to address this so I really appreciate your leadership but I don't want this momentum to kind of stop there the momentum needs to be we really beyond the numbers and the stats we really need to come up with an action plan and what we plan to do in the next 30 90 days and before school starts and I want to emphasize that we need to bring back parent engagement on to campus we need to leverage all

088our resources we need to figure out how we bring help to these kids school should be a safe learning environment for everyone and we are going to advocate until we see that change I also want to thank board member John fuller he met with several of us a week ago and we came up with some really great suggestions and we look forward to meeting with of you guys because the parent community has a lot of talent and skill and experience and we all want to make sure that when we drop off our children that I find them in the same way that I dropped them off so this is important for all of us and as a community we should look for solutions and let's stop with all the talking and let's do some action

089and stop creating some excuses and in particular for you Kathy you've gotten chastised a lot you're not listening so I'm asking you to please listen to what we're saying we have children there and if it's not relevant to you right now we're gonna make it very relevant we have no further public comment cards on this particular item there's one more are there are there any other speakers on this matter that haven't either turned it in a card or meaning to will we'll just run out the next a full three minutes is that okay with the rest of the board it wasn't going to speak till I heard the young lady back here the mother because she speaks from her heart I don't know if you could hear me here we have major issues at the

090junior high school you all know that there's no secrets I'm gonna give you a little history last time I was here facing the board was in the 1990s when title nine by the Alhambra high school wasn't being accepted for a freshman girls basketball presented it to the board here the community pulled together down the phones found the uniforms and the young girls had a lovely experience and they continue to go on now going full circle in the seventh grade at the Martinez Junior High School in the 60s sorry I'm giving away my age it happened there to me the knife was pulled on me so if you think this is all new you all got your head in mud this is for real but I can talk back in the 60s and it happened to

091me and those bullies went on to the high school and continued to do it there back then you had a fight for yourself that's not the way it is today we have some parents that need the support you folks need to give him the support Annamarie brought up a good point talk is cheap gotta do something I have a granddaughter happen to her Dedra CJ I gave my daughter your name thank you you gave her quality time at the junior high school was an embarrassment there wasn't any quality time they didn't want to listen to her they did went through one ear out the other a serious shoulder injury to my granddaughter went to deaf ears what happened to that bully there after he did it again just a month or two months later and

092guess what you finally moved them off campus I hold not the teachers responsible there are educators they take care of their classroom I hold our administrators responsible CJ thank you for showing up and we talked about security at the junior high school I know it may be a union problem may not have any money this community always pulls together they'll find your money I don't know the school bond in my history that's never been passed in this town always get the money we can't talk about security on campus and I can tell you right to your face that it happened to me in the 60s and it's happening right now again it all starts at the elementary schools and I'm sorry to tell you your ministry ters no they are at the elementary schools your

093administrators are allowing those kids those bullies to continue on with their education and pass in a month to the next educator your time time's up time's up thank you oh um would you please leave your leave your name no not your card you sure they need to write it for the minutes you all right um that is the end of our public comments we're gonna bring it back to the board this was an informational action there can be our information item only no action but we can bring it back for discussion if we want to bring it back for another time Fatima you had two comments I mean I just I thank everyone who shared their opinions tonight I apologize it couldn't be at the last meeting but hearing everything today and reflecting back on

094like my time at the Middle School and as a student now I advocate strongly with you guys I do feel like there needs to be change and just as reflecting back and everything that's happened from like my experience to now I request that we don't leave this in the dust and I request that we continue this at the meetings and I am willing to take time out of my life to actually help with programs and figuring out other ways we can solve these problems and implement change I mean just hearing all this stuff now as a student it's like affecting me right now I can't imagine what kids are going through right now especially those who don't have anyone to tell so I mean I know I'm just a student representative but I request that

095we continue this discussion further in the next meeting okay does anyone else have any further discussion items on this if Fatima I I think this isn't you know obviously we're gonna need to when we bring it back we're gonna have to know what we're bringing it back to discuss so I think to bring it back as an information item as an action item that's what we will what we kind of need to talk about right now does John you look like you're ready to yeah so it started you know actually this discussion has been going on for a while as far as safety in our school you've had this continued discussion we talked about bullying I guess it was three four years ago we had the whole campaign posters and everything up but you know

096I'll take you know I'm just one but I'll take responsibility for way up had to junior high what I heard last week was appalling and there was no excuse for it period so where do we go from here you know kids will be kids but the level of violence that was shared last week or last name was just a little bit hard to take I've met and sat down to group of parents and their insight was was amazing and the times are different right now you know Craig talked about the phones this the phones are just it just exponentially elevates everything that happens to the day and it's something we can't really control and I know that a lot of people I or some people I've talked to said well this is a society's issue

097well yeah it is a society's issues but if you don't break you down to your own society it started dressing changes the none of society will change there was um Phil I loved your voluntary parent mediation you know parents could start talking that can start alleviate the stress Craig yeah that frontal lobe especially in boys it doesn't fill up until I'm going on 50 my wife will tell you it's not filled up yet Michelle your retaliation question I think was great and I'm glad you brought it up and Shannon the sexual harassment I mean this is it's a new era with the phones and yeah I know this stuff is happening so I would like us to see now whether it's through the safety committee or whether it's a separate subcommittee but you know there's

098a lot of knowledge and we need to improve the communication we need to figure out way to volunteer implementations I find it funny that one of the biggest issues we have is school administrators or school and entities is that we're finding it hard to communicate with parents but the kids are all communicating among themselves very well we hold a seminar or we hold a lesson I mean we had a vaping I'm forgot what they are they're called that we had a vaping thing for adults and only 40 people came well we need to figure out how to tap these kids and communicate better whether that's just doing because hurts me if I'm wrong parents you guys only know where to turn to with half this problems so maybe we start videoing little educational clips to

099add a resource of meat or we put together our own resource library where parents can at least go on and say alright I'm having a trouble with my son doing this there's a couple of resources that we can direct them on our own site you know one of the things is is the the volunteer Manny Asian just reminded me and this is something me and this just came to me now it's like I went out you know I have breakfast with the friends kids are just going to junior high and we're sitting there I said you ever done the gray out he's like wait mean grey out I go grey out on your phones I go phones are designed with colors are supposed to trigger synopsis that implements delight in the mind which causes this

100addiction where the kids are always looking at if you don't believe me just look at the Instagram logo it's all pretty colors that actually creates the synopsis that creates addiction I said go to your son's phone and there's an actual way to gray out your phone and I got text that night saying my kids hate this gray out and I go they're not they're not supposed to like it but that was just a resource and maybe we do have parents that have kids in high school and junior high maybe they form a volunteer parent group to have sixth graders come in and sit down and talk I mean I told Helena this before she walked us through our sixth grade year because we needed to be held hands but there's a lot of resources and

101there's a lot of ideas and we kept parent mentoring but we do need to start talking Kathy the staff has always been committed to discipline I don't question that for a second question the administration but I think Society has sort of blown up and we sort of had the perfect storm and we failed but we didn't lose the ship it's not sunk so we need to patch up the ship you need to get more staff on both not I'm sorry more people on board to create a wellness I'm not sure if that's a separate subcommittee if it goes to the the safety Kenny I don't know but those are my thoughts because we got too much positive stuff going on right now to just say we can't figure this out and I took a little

102bit time that thank you I'm gonna go next just gotta hate going last all the time so those this you know this appearance the stories that other people have brought things to me none of it is okay violence at our junior high is never okay sexual harassment assault bullying none of it's okay we have we have too many kids who are being suspended and they need to be in their seats so you know my I have an I have a child at the junior high I do take this very seriously I'm very fortunate that it hasn't landed on my front door so I applaud all the hard work that is going there and and there's so you're right there's so many great things that are going there and I I'm not quite sure what the

103next steps are going to be I know I there there's a couple things that I did want to say kind of from the perspective of being a board member one of the hardest things that we do or that I do I'm just gonna speak for myself the hardest part of this job is expelling a student it is awful because a lot of times personally I think the kids who are not going to be in our schools are missing out on you know this this community being a resource for them so we need to figure out a way you know to stop suspensions to stop expulsion but it when I hear things like zero-tolerance we just have to get them out of here it just it's kind of gut-wrenching to me because I know what these

104kids are doing can you imagine a 13 year old not being in school for a year probably not the best thing for that student and whatever is is bringing them there so all of these things I I did want to bring that kind of personal perspective because I hear it I don't I don't like it it's it's big work patema I I like that you're willing to roll up your sleeves and help this because I think we do need a we need a student voice we need you know we need the help of a community but we also have to have the type of voices that are willing to listen willing to understand the different perspectives and also you know do it in a way that is respectful to the other voices so that we're

105setting a good example for our students who were trying to help so I would be I would be open to bringing this back for information is what I would suggest and having it you know actually trying to mill a couple different options how we do it I hate committing things you know we have a committee about everything but if you don't have an inflammation plan or you don't have a time frame that it's even realistic it doesn't help so I think that's part of what the information would be what does it look like what kind of support what kind of resources might be out there and maybe just identifying a couple goals initially not only to support what all the good things is going on there but also trying to try to get some positive

106reactions that's my thoughts I was gonna ask if CJ I know this is a long time ago we used to have conflict resolution formalized programs they don't know if that's even still something that's kind of done but we also have something called retaliatory of justice and I know we use some of those but I don't believe that we implement the entire program as you said something with fidelity so what would the cost of that be what would it take to do something like that because those are two concrete possible ways to address some of this ongoing conflict between kids John you're right a lot of this is stuff that used to go on all the time but we didn't see it as much because it wasn't on social media is legend II it's work you

107know it was bad enough when kids were passing notes to me talking to each other in class and out of class but when they're on social media a lot it gets much more difficult to address and follow and change and I also wanted to clarify something that I said those were my ground rules in my classroom it was don't tell me that you did something and he did something I'm gonna treat you both with a consequence the consequence might be something like a timeout or something else like that I am NOT talking about a specific instance where a child was on the ground and I'm saying oh yeah you're just as much at fault I'm sorry if you've heard it that way I certainly didn't intend it that way or I VIPRE taught my class

108that way though thank you I'm pologize if I misspoke but my point was there are times when kids are gonna say oh he started it no she started it and you have to kind of address both of them and say I need to hear what happened but you both have a concept start disrupting the classroom that way but that's where I was what I was talking about but I do think it would be good if we could have something to come back to address what do you do resolve conflict and what do you do to what that is restorative justice how can we restore justice and a good situation at the junior high school I don't think any I don't think that any one of us here have the ultimate solution to solving what we

109know has been a decades-old problem Saracino thank you for sharing your thoughts on that clearly this goes back well before the 1960s but I believe that we're living in a time when obviously access to information has made sharing videos of fights and reports of violence and bullying and harassment that much more accessible doesn't mean that it's happening less in fact I think we are seeing evidence that it is perhaps happening more two years of data may not necessarily be definitive but I think that if we're gonna find an ultimate solution to the violence and bullying in schools you know we would be creating some sort of pilot program that could be used all over the world if we could somehow solve violence and martinas that would be phenomenal I do know that when we listen

110to educators and other district staff and when we listen to our administrators when we listen to our parents we can come up with a better solution I'm open to hearing all of it I've been talking to folks in the community for a long time about this issue I'm going to be meeting with more people in the near future I really applaud the three of you being here tonight thank you it matters to me a lot you know CJ and Helen and Tom the fact that you've been going to the campus taking time away from your already incredibly packed schedules I believe it's made a difference in in as we near the end of the school year I have a lot of hope for next school year Gary look at you sorry it's a lot of

111pressure you know I I got in a fight in seventh grade that was the last time I ever was suspended you know and it was a kid was bullying me and it had been going on for months my mom was a librarian at my middle school as Tom remembers and this was in our science class mrs. shoemaker was the teacher sorry I have a photographic memory I'm not gonna say his name because we ended up being friends by the end of eighth grade this kid and I became pretty good friends but he had it out for me I've always been the taller kid in the class so that always made me a target and he kept saying horrible things about my mom you know being impartial I'll say that everybody loved my mom she was

112really good at her job she's retired now and I for a long time was able to put it aside and ignore him and then it became more incessant more incessant more incessant so finally one day I just clocked him and he fell down and I I immediately felt bad about it I was offended for two days I knew it was my responsibility my parents definitely made sure damn well sure that it was known to me that it was my responsibility for engaging in violent behavior you know but this was in the early 90s and we didn't talk about bullying then the way that we do now and I greatly appreciate the way that as a community we've addressed this issue and that we continue to address it and the fact that we call out bullying

113for the antisocial behavior that it is is only going to lead to more positive solutions but it cuts across all strata and as adults we should be monitoring our own behavior we because what we do mom is a model for our kids and bullying on social media is as much the culpability of adults as it is students students are learning this from other sources they're not learnt they're not coming up with this spontaneously we live in a society where unfortunately violence is glorified in all realms and people use social media for all sorts of negative purposes and have negative intentions for what they're posting on social media and I've written about this on my own page and have pretty strong feelings about it I would love to frankly get phones out of our skulls 100%

114I don't think any of our students should be carrying their phones there's no reason for it if if there's an emergency there are ways that that parents can get and and I know I'm gonna get a backlash for what I'm saying right now but the fact is when I was in school not that long ago when there were emergencies my parents could reach us parents could reach us it's why we have a central office it's an important tool that we utilize in our schools to have central office staff having phones at school just adds to the problem and it's not gonna make it go away because even if we got rid of phones in schools the minute that they step off campus at the end of the day they're gonna whip them out again and

115I'm just as guilty as anybody I'm addicted and glued to my phone with the nature of my work I have a crazy work schedule and I work remotely most of the time and I'm away from my central office and and I conduct all kinds of business on my phone I wish it wasn't that way I hope that someday I can get a cyborg implant and won't have to carry around this device in my hand I'm waiting for that moment I'll be right right up there first in line but I want my daughter to go to school at a district where she won't be subject to this type of harassment and I want all of our parents to feel that their kids are going to school in a safe place and I applaud every single parent

116that has come up over the last few weeks to share their heart-wrenching stories it shouldn't have to be this way I don't think that we're gonna find the solution today I don't think we're going to find the solution at the end of this school year I think we continue to discuss it in an honest way with hard honest discussions these are like real talk about how culpable are each of us for the behavior of our students it's no one person's fault but we all bear responsibility John I appreciate that you want to take the blame but it's not your fault we all share the blame and if we can all work together then I think we'll find some better solution I'm pontificating now but at the end of the day like you you can rail

117against us that's fine we're all volunteers you know we're not administrators we're not in the classroom go right ahead if it makes you feel better but I think that if we all continue to work together with real solutions that respect each other's voices and and each other's positions within a school setting then we'll find a better way alright so thank you everyone who spoke and who've come last meeting and this meeting and for those I know people are watching it I there were there were times where I always wondered who was watching these but apparently people are going back and looking at our meetings because they're stopping me everywhere saying how I watch the meeting so thank you for taking the time this is this is an issue that clearly we here we want to

118keep working on it I also want to thank Helen and CJ for being on the campus I my we see CJ I drop off and and you know I think I think as a district we've we like to pride ourselves in in hearing but your actions are are making us look even better so thank you for that yes I'm sorry to get you up can we kiss one suggestion or since we do have a new principle starting and we do have veterans with junior high experience maybe the next thing we bring back is the new principal and the two veteran administrators sort of maybe draft some different plans that they think could help implement a change in the culture and that way the principal can have her finger print on this and give us a

119starting point my my only my hesitation with that now I probably would deferred it to CJ but I hate putting extra work on people especially who haven't take quite taken on this job yet like she's also doing another job for us right now that is equally important and equally busy I hear you I was actually thinking something in that line but we also have to finish off this school year and as someone suggested we've got only five weeks left with a lot of stuff going on I don't know I don't know what that looks like I mean I think I and maybe that might work we can talk we can ask staff if they can bring that back for information obviously we've got to bring it back for information then we got to do some

120action and I don't I'm not sure we pushed a lot of stuff off this agenda business-wise so that we could allow the public enough time to really have a rich dialogue on this so maybe we can check with Kerry if she has that kind of capacity and and if we can have a little district committee what do you think CJ put something together for us my preference would be to approach this with an information item and my my plan in crafting that I think in in mind with what John is suggesting is sitting down with Helen who has a lot of experience at Martinez junior high school myself as a former assistant principal there was the current administration the new administration but an important aspect of that in developing what I see is some initial

121goals in an action plan for 2019-20 would be to also check in with some of our site classified staff and our site MBA staff and we can work to get those check-ins conducted and I've had a number of conversations with parents via email and face-to-face I'll continue to reflect on that and I think with those parties we can come up with I think is what was described earlier some options for how we're going to build some initial goals and action plans and perhaps we can craft those in a large scale and siphon them down through discussion or perhaps we designed them as few potential options for next year but I think we can gather input from our certificated and classified staff at the site the current administration consulting with carries is the new administrator with

122Helen and and and our in our entire team but I think we can put together some initial goals in an action plan for 1920 not not ignoring the remainder of the current year but I think we have worked with the staff specifically to try and strengthen the end of the year building momentum for next year so we can bring that forward hopefully at the next meeting okay Kathy I mean the reality is after conversations with several police officers and other folks from the City Police Department they don't have the staff and that it's not a matter of whether we can give them money it's a matter of staffing because they just don't have staff available to do that they're running under staff that's my understanding but could we include the police chief on some of

123these discussions because just because we don't have an SRO does it mean that there aren't times when we should call the police to say just so you know something this is going on I'm not saying we don't do that but maybe there should be a procedure in place that makes might make people you're more comfortable doing that if he's if he's open for that if he has the time then I truly understand the limitation that they have on their staff so you know I'm happy to consult with the chief and with the police department I I would be remiss without taking a moment just to compliment sergeant Fred Farrar he has been a constant presence at the junior high school for most of the year whenever he's time permits and especially within the last few

124weeks he's put forward a substantial effort to build relationships with our kids and be present in our community so I want to acknowledge and thank him while I had the time but Kathy I'm happy to consult with the chief and the police department they have been incredibly cooperative any time we've ever called and I wouldn't expect that anything else in this example either okay so we'll bring that back and and you know thanks again for the presentation there were a couple questions or comments during public comment about some flush out of some of the data maybe we can include some of that in our in our next discussion as well that'd be great okay all right well thank you that will end this item and we will keep moving on to the actual part of

125this meeting event is public comments and under government code section 54957.6 right now I have only one card and that is from Craig laws already I wanted to talk a little bit about the importance of hearing the voices of students and making sure that our board and our district leaders are listening to our students and the reason I want to bring this up is first to applaud the Alhambra high students who took the time a few weeks ago to make their voices heard on the issues related to the deaths and bathrooms and the letters that were read by John at that meeting I I personally believe strongly that a school board can only serve the needs of its students it is willing to listen to and respect their concerns and students should be encouraged and

126celebrated for sharing their points of view whether their points of view are positive or negative in nature and I hope they continue to do so I do want to say however that what I found unfortunately the comments from that meeting from board members was how defensive and dismissive certain board members seemed in their responses and I'm not sure if that was your intention it probably wasn't your intention but that's how it came across to me in particular I found unfortunate here our school board member characterized students is always looking for things to complain about when it comes to school in equate the comments that were made by these students to complaints about having to go to school at all or take tests actually reminded me of the way in which many of our students were

127mocked by some of our some in our own community during last year's walkout the protest gun violence by those who suggested they were lazy or simply looking for an excuse to get out of class I also heard the term gripe session that was used in the comments I thought that was an unfortunate praising particularly it also struck me as hypocritical given the number of gripe sessions this board has held over the past year when it comes to blaming Sacramento for all our budget problems in terms you use there are much more harsh and self-serving in a thoughtful comments these students may they suggest if students want to better be heard we better heard they should come to board meetings so that they can understand the decisions that are being made that's my pain akin to

128our state let our state legislators were to tell you that you should go to Sacramento if you want to be heard when it comes to issues of school funding and understand the decisions that are being made with our tax dollars I just wanted to point these things out because I felt like your comments were tone-deaf and showed a lack of empathy and understanding for our students which I think that's the lack of empathy understanding I feel you've shown on a number of issues as a board over the last year and I think once again tonight I think we heard first hand the importance of hearing the voices of our students and the experiences of our students and what they can share and what we can learn from them it's not always about what we can

129teach our students often is what we can learn from them and their experiences so I hope you will consider that going forward and think about how you responded to those those comments thank you their public comments all right seeing none we'll move on and we won't need the additional time at the end of our meeting we're in line 14 which is the consent calendar are there any changes to the consent calendar there are no changes are there any board questions any public comments on the consent calendar I'm seeing none when we move it back to the board for action a motion to approve student votes aye all in favor aye any opposed any abstentions motion carried items for board consideration and action 15.1 is the appointment of director of educational services this is an action

130item presented by CJ thank you very much I want to begin by thanking the members of MEA and CSEA and our administrative teams that participated in and a board member who participated in the interview process for this position it gives me great pleasure tonight to be recommending Amy black to the position of Director of Educational Services pending your approval Amy will start with us July 1st of 2019 Amy currently serves as the director of teaching and learning for Newark Unified School District a district with about 6,000 students k12 prior to her role in Newark amy served as an elementary principal in Moraga school district and also in San Ramon Valley Unified School District as an elementary principal Amy brings to Martinez a wealth of experience and expertise in this role she has a ton of

131training and expertise around professional development in supporting teachers in their work amy has spent time at the teacher's college and had extensive experience in the readers and writers program they were implementing in Martinez Unified we look forward to her support in those efforts Amy earned her master's degree in educational leadership from Cal State East Bay her teaching credential from st. Mary's College and her Bachelor of Arts in political science from San Jose State along with her job experience and educational background amy is also a certified lead coach for new administrators Amy emerge is our top candidate through multiple rounds of a comprehensive interview process and it's my pleasure to recommend her for your approval tonight we'll get to business are there any questions for the board any public comments we'll bring it back to the

132board for action but before we do I was lucky enough to sit on the panel and I'm I'm really excited to see Amy Black's name for our consideration tonight I I'm just really excited with what she's going to be able to bring to us at our district and clearly she is willing to sit through one of our longer portions of our board meeting and you know she's still here so I think that speaks a lot to her and her willingness to - like I said roll up her sleeves and get to work here so I would actually like to make the motion that we approve the appointment of director of educational services as Amy black I'll second that all in favor aye any opposed any abstentions congratulations and welcome to Martinez Unified you want to

133come up and say a few words so thank you I'm really excited to be a part of Martinez Unified School District and took copious notes during the study session and it was really fantastic to hear all of your voices in perspective and hear from the community it was something that was really important to me to join a community and school district that was really involved and to see that tonight was really exciting so I am anxious and excited to come and join all of you and serve so thank you all right 15.2 is the declaration of need for fully qualified educators for the 2019 2020 school year it's also an action item presented by CJ kamek thank you this is an action item and we go through this process under title 5 every year and

134to give the board and the pub some background we review an estimate of how many staff we think we might need in terms of this process and we submit that to the state and this allows us when needed to utilize emergency credentials or other aspects that we might need in terms of completing our staffing for each year and this process is one that we've gone through each year and the numbers provided on the attachment are similar to the ones that we've submitted to the state each year any board questions any public comment this is an action item so we'll bring it to someone make action motion to approve declaration of need for fully qualified educators for the 2019 20 school year no it's personal yeah okay so all in favor aye any opposed any abstentions

135motion carried 15.3 is student monitoring of Martinez Unified School District Google service this is a an information item presented tonight by David Wiley good evening and thank you as we've already already been mentioned several times tonight I'm here to talk to you about actually it's more of the monitoring of student accounts on Google services basically as we know internet within the classroom has become indispensable it has become an educational tool just as for us a pen and paper were maybe 20 30 years ago and with this tool students have learned to engage in conduct that they consider is private but it's not really private but also in conduct that's detrimental to others and against our Student Code and policies such as cyberbullying and transactions for purchase of an obtaining narcotics or alcohol sexting or transmission

136of mature pornographic images materials and something that's not necessarily falls within the Student Conduct but it does in journaling or social media postings of depression and possible indications of self-harm so just in terms of cyberbullying and I know we've talked about it a lot tonight the CDC says that within nine percent of students in middle school in high school will experience cyberbullying and it jumps up with in high school that 15 percent of high school students within the last year experience some form of cyber bullying fifty five point two percent of LGBTQ identified students have experienced I would have experienced some form of cyber bullying so it's out there but this is also a nationwide problem it's not necessarily a Martinez Unified School District problem for the things that we can do and things that

137we are doing to help curb what's going on so what we're doing now in terms of light speed internet filtering so students who log on to our networks we filter out activities such as visiting social media sites forums sites that have been identified as having mature content having ads that we can't filter items like that and unfortunately new web sites are created every day in every minute so we try to keep up as fast as possible I've already talked with parents of said well what about this one I'm like well that one's new it's not even in our database so we're trying to keep up as quickly as possible teaching Dennis's digital citizenship and so curriculum such as Common Sense Media and this is something that parents can also access to talk with their students

138about responsibilities on the Internet within the digital age you know nothing is ever erased nothing is ever private and also right now we're very reactionary in our survey of student accounts so if we know that something has happened and a student conduct item has occurred we can go back into our networks and take a look at it but we're not being proactive in terms of monitoring what students are doing within our networks and some things we've talked about tonight already what we can't do we cannot monitor all our students social media accounts we have 4,100 students within our within our our Plus within our district of course those are also elementary school students but there's many many many active social media accounts many active personal email accounts that we're not able to monitor which they

139can certainly use for their activities we also cannot monitor what goes on at home and that is really up to the parents to monitor activity but while on campus have we talked about cell phones we can't monitor what's going on on a self-service it's using data and it's not using our network and so we're really hand strung as to what goes on in on their private lives but there are things that I think we can do within our within our network to help identify some activities so one of the one of the programs we looked at is bark embark was put together by one of the lead engineers for Twitter and what it originally started out was is a parent app that can be downloaded onto a phone a student phone it actually monitors what

140the students are doing so if they're going to website sending emails all that it records that data and sends it to the parents but after the parklands shooting they had been working on a product to help schools filter through internet content through emails and things like that and after the parklands shooting they decided that they would make it free of charge to all school districts in perpetuity for them to be able to monitor student behavior so what this does is it basically sits in our Gmail and sits in our Google accounts and looks for emoji use and combinations so I know as a parent I'm always trying to figure out what's going on with which okay what is that emoji mean and you know in the combination with this a little scary but looks for

141those combinations it looks for words and bullying for bullying self-harm threats it also looks for references to alcohol to parties to narcotics and all these different activities it also goes through looking for explicit images and content so basically it's looking through Gmail it's looking through hangout chat it's also looking through through Google Drive and it's also looking for at emails that have been deleted and deleted immediately and it's going through vision is history a revision history on Google Documents so we know that some students are going in they create a Google document they start typing as soon as everyone sees it they delete it and they think that's gone forever well Google has this nice little revision thing that you can you can go back and see everything that's going on and so it actually

142goes through there and then it notifies designated staff and administrative so we would decide who we wanted to be on a do level or a school site level and it brings up indicators and so we could say okay we flagged a we flagged a document because it has relations to alcohol content and so we would be able to go in and review it and to decide on whether it warrants a student conduct issue whether if it's a situation where someone is is making references to self-harm whether we can provide resources to that student make contact with them and really to be able to be more proactive and it allows us to to bring students and parents together have real documents the nice thing is this this program does scrub student names so parents have their

143file it has their kid but it doesn't have the other kids names on it as well and so it's compliant with FERPA and all of our protection acts the other thing is it does it does is it allows us to take a look notifying the world so we can have a situation where where a student is doing a paper on alcohol and that may flag because it has alcohol references to it right or doing a paper on gang related activities and it would flag it we would mark it and we would say okay that's an educational purpose has educational value we move on well what this would allow us to do is to keep an eye on our networks and what our students are doing on that would it push students off of our networks

144and on to other areas it might but in my past history with dealing with title nine issues on the university level and and with conduct on a university level I have students they look up at security cameras they give it a nice little wave and they do exactly what they want to do so things are still gonna happen and we'll be able to monitor it and to protect ourselves with something like this and it shows that when students bark recently did a study for spring semester of 2018 they have over set 1.7 million student accounts and these are the items that they found and the numbers they found and I mean obviously our numbers will be much lower when we're looking at the numbers within our district but for them it has been very very

145effective and it's something I would like - for us - this is an informational and I'd be happy to provide more information for an action item but it's something I'd like to to pursue in order to protect our students David thank you very much for preparing the presentation I just wanted to also share that this was a discussion that came out of some conversation with parents and then a larger conversation within our safety committee that was recently established and we talked about prior years and Martinez Unified where we piloted some programs like this but at the time the artificial intelligence process for these products was not as successful as it is now you know we spend a lot of time talking about it over about one and a half safety committee meetings and I definitely

146felt it was time to look at considering programs and products of this nature and that's what we wanted to bring it forward so this is for all of our all all accounts associated with the school district including staff accounts and write it would only be for student monitoring any other board questions yes I had a question wilderness will this only be when you're connected to the school network would it be at home as well if they're using your accounts as long as they are using a Google one of the Martinez Google accounts so it could be anything within the Google Apps for and their Google and they're in there Martinez email so if they're using their personal email using their personal networks that's not something we can monitor and we will not be wondering I

147think one thing I would just offer for consideration Kathy I think your perspective is something that may be shared by additional viewpoints or additional people but one thing just to give it context is what this program can do is something that we can do right now but we can only do it after it's identified so anything that this program is doing in terms of read the material that's on our network is something that we can do already it's just that we can only do it once we're notified that there is an issue is that correct David yes that's correct so yeah for this we would be you know something is starting up or something as with initial within the initial planning stages those kinds of things would be brought to our attention much quicker from

148an industry where our emails are been edited monitored since early 90s late 80s actually but early nineties not that old yet now I was trying to think when we had believer and I you say actually monitor these accounts why am i back in the late 90s for Schwab so you know here's the thing I always looked at is yeah I would like to hear the students voice but the fact is is the email is our property so therefore as a locker room as a locker on campus as a desk in the classroom we are allowed to monitor it most kids that frontal-lobe sometimes failing will do stupid things on their email that if we catch and we are able to the only concern I have is when you mentioned we all know a private parties

149going on at houses and everything I think we need some strict guidelines because we keep saying well we can't monitor outside of the high school and yet now we're encroaching on parties and rut so it does need to be very there needs to be some strict standards and and who is gonna react so for me it's not so much the monitoring it's just I really would like to have the policy really defined so we are not over intruding on private private matters outside the school but we're also maintaining our monitoring of what I consider school property I agree any question is Jonathon I mean it's a it's not just a service that's provided to schools correct it's also an app that parents can download and place on their students phones right yeah there's two there's

150two different versions there's the the app that parents can put on their phones and that has a cost to it and then there is the the app the service that that you turn on with Google and that's free of charge what they do is if you're you're a district that has agreed to do this then they will give a 20% discount to any parent within that district who uses the app as well but the app does has a monthly fee that's that's um that's associated with it I mean I'm I'm someone who deals with these types of issues as well when members of my Union get in trouble for using the employers email network for sending inappropriate content which sadly in the year 2019 still happens all too frequently I mean well yeah and the

151fact is that huge people whether they're 12 or 50 to forget that the device that you're holding may be owned by your employer or be property of the school or that the same applies to email accounts where we're I mean this is sort of a more philosophical and political issue but I do believe that students have a right to you know enjoy the freedoms afforded by the First Amendment and I do worry that if we're tracking what students are thinking and writing that we're invading their ability to express themselves and you know obviously people don't have the statutory right to yell fire in a crowded room but you have the right to express themselves as individuals and artistically and you know this just seems to be yet another part of how we as a society

152have adapted to a post 9/11 world and and I have my own personal views about it I really do worry about stifling students creativity and their ability to enquire and research and ask difficult or hard questions or uncomfortable questions or make uncomfortable statements or we don't go down into dark thoughts sometimes I mean we all do it but we're all hyper vigilant now and I think if it's if it's gonna make people feel that much better about what kids are writing and then deleting in a Google Doc sure let's do it it's not gonna change the fact that kids have whatsapp and snapchat and kick and anything else that's gonna allow them to do all kinds of mayhem as we've seen from just reports of parents telling us exactly what their kids have been doing

153so I mean let's let's do it I'm all for it if it allows parents to have free access to a pretty useful tool and a very successful tool I do think parents should be monitoring their students behavior I do think that people should be using things like one blocker it's a very effective blocking app there is a pay version that is even more effective I advise a lot of people to use it but kids are gonna switch to something else they're getting a signal they're gonna keep using whatsapp whatsapp and and others are continuing to protect their own proprietary encryption tools so they're gonna stay one step ahead I'm sorry they just are but if it helps us to protect our own property then absolutely let's do it okay I kind of wanted to go

154back I had one question just for anyone who's listening but also for my own curiosity you said that parents can parents often you know let you know about new things that are coming yes since there's what one or two or ten created every day do we have and and we go through and we we block we go in and specifically block those sites if we can is there is there a way when we just have if a parent knows a one do they just email you would that be the best way to do it or yes well they certainly can okay I look forward to your emails but I mean they certainly can but it is the idea that when we use Lightspeed it is a database and so professionals need to say we have

155one let's put it up there here's the reasons and then when we when we come into a request for unblocking of that website because we do have ones that get we have some Wikipedia ones that get blocked and then they really should be unblocked and so and so we then have to review the reasons why it's very comprehensive and so if a parent wants to come up and and let us know then we can take a look at it but there remember sometimes website web pages are used for absolutely wonderful educational personal use and they can't contain content that it may be objectionable some people and unfortunately we have to block them even though they might be fantastic websites to use well they're just blocked on our devices if you're logged into this network right

156so if you're somewhere else we can't stop you from using with the exception if a student has so if your has a loaner device for like high school Chromebook that device will be locked and so I do get requests at all hours from people asking to be unblocked from home I do have a public comment card initially I think I like this program what it kind of reminds me of is the license plate readers that we're talking we're hearing about where it makes sense we have the technology to read a license plate when you're in a public street public parking lot that needs to be monitor that make sense my curious my curiosity on license plate or readers is how long do we store this information mmm so I guess I kind of have the

157same thing if we come in with this database how long are we keeping it can these reports do they end up on a permanent record for the student or if it's we look at it we made our assessment and then that information is then clear so I guess that would be my only curiosity and on is how long we're gonna keep the information well that would be something we would take into we would take into account when we develop a process so if we were to implement this as John said you know where's our lines and then what's our policy and so is this of being an informational item we can take it back and and develop some policies and to really look at how we're going to implement it so that's something we would

158look at I don't know if this would be we'd attach to the students one or do we need to have a staff one but I also kind of think having that may be monitoring staff as well just kind of filtering aspects make sure that at this time it would only be for students that would be something that would need to be taken up with the the unions I'm sure would be very popular that would be something we would we would we would just throw that hoop at a later time if we needed to Thank You Todd um so I find it extremely unfortunate that this actually addresses several levels of concerns that have been brought forward last couple of weeks and unfortunately the room has cleared and this is one way but it's one way

159right we can start addressing what we believe is problem I'm extremely pleased and would like to highlight let CJ commented this is an action item but unquote from this district Safety Committee so it's one more example of we are trying to make progress in some of the ways that we're trying to commit to our children I I share all the concerns that have been brought forward the bottom line from my perspective I've seen my kids misuse the system not badly thank God but this is education for them and this at the high school level in particular this will follow them as they go into their careers if they go into college these networks if you're using shared networks you don't own it it's proprietary to whoever owns that and you're subject to whatever trafficking or

160filtering that they go through to monitor the content that your lips searching on their network and there are consequences from this so for me this is a positive educational opportunity for our district and all I would ask is as we implement it we consider that get-out-of-jail-free card and everybody understands what we're going from this point forward so that people don't get trapped in it but all right so um this is just for information from what I see what's going to be coming back um I you know I don't I don't like any of the for my discussion point I just I don't like invading other people's privacy just as a general rule but I a hundred percent agree actually Todd you made a great point that this is actually a learning tool for our students

161as they're exiting they need to understand we talked about this digital citizenship you know we've got handbooks and we've got classes and we have all these things but we we need to have a practice in a way to make sure that they're learning it and also using is not just for the safety component but as an educational tool this is our stuff and I think as trustees we have to make sure that it's being used correctly so as hesitant as I always am about people taking three or four different looks at personal thoughts I'd like to see it come back for action there's there's already three districts that are incorporating this yes I will as we start to develop oh I absolutely agree I really would like to you know it's ironic to me that

162we just heard about we don't listen to students and their kind of thing I do think would be appropriate I believe we were called hypocrites well the reality is you know if we want to hear it about things like furniture I think we ought to hear it about something with policy I agree I mean put it but it does go back to that this is district property and if this is a tool to protect property however I think this does open up a much broader conversation around digital citizenship that I mean I I think I've been saying this since I joined the board like the adults in this room we're nowhere near as sophisticated as our students in how to use digital communication I'm sorry we're just not and I do digital communications for a

163living like we're not as good as them and and like if we can have one more tool to help protect to teach our students to protect themselves that's great I'm not sure that's exactly what this tool is but if this opens up a further conversation and let's do that you know one one that doesn't create a big brother-type scenario but again this particular tool ultimately I believe David correct me if I'm wrong it's about ensuring that students and staff are not misusing district owned property and also being able to ensure that there's a safety when using district owned property is that correct yeah well that's definitely correct please well we'll bring it back all right thank you thank you uh 15.4 is that's is that where we're at sorry okay t-mobile tower it's an information

164item presented by Helen Rossi they save all the exciting ones for me quite a well I don't know how many years ago but a few years back metro pcs had a cell tower down by the baseball field it's actually between the batting cage and the low green storage Hut there and it's got a chain-link fence that MetroPCS put up and there was a cell tower there there's also a sprint one over by the bleachers on top of one of those towers well MetroPCS just a couple of years ago took down that tower and can't you know cancel the lease agreement we were all set but then t-mobile took over metro pcs and they want to put it back so they want to put it in the same exact place as the metro pcs one was

165and I did detach the contract and and a drawing and it's it's it's actually no different than what was there before probably just newer technology so I brought that to the board tonight for information we'll come back again for action in a couple of weeks to actually have the tower put up and work begun any more questions sorry I read this or looks at these documents right when we got them um is this tower intended to well transmit at five GE I'm I'm not sure but it's it's not it I just want to take back something it's not a new tower it's just a device put on the top of a light pole that's inside that cage with all the monitors there so your question Jonathan is is it a 5g yeah I'm not sure

166if it's a 5g but I will find out before next week okay and put it in my weekly update thank you okay any other more questions any public comment all right this is just for information so it will come come back later no promises that everything's going on 220 I know I'm trying not to promise that everything's coming on the 20th meeting because we might as well just plan to be here late okay 16 items 16 is not needed number 17 is comments from Superintendent board members and future agenda items fátima do you have any thing you'd like to add Kathy I do have something that I didn't say at the beginning because it didn't seem appropriate at that point but I just wanted to compliment the adult school they put together a new class

167last year and I took it this year just finished it it's an informational class introduction to dispatching so it was created by one of the dispatchers who worked in Martinez for a long time and it was packed it was full it was all day Saturday and three evenings from 6:00 to 10:00 but it was really well done and a good introduction to for people who might be looking at that field and I wanted to compliment them because she had to write the whole class so Robyn Gonzalez did a really lovely job on and if it's appropriate at this time getting that part off I would like to ask that we adjourn our meeting in memory of Paul Craig whose wife Kay Cox was on our board for many many years John anything further Jonathan CJ

168all right well I will my my deepest sympathy goes to Pope Craig's family you're right kay sat on this board for a lot of years and we we send them our our deep consult condolences and we will adjourn our meeting and memory of Paul Craig