Mt. Diablo USD Board Meeting 11/13/2024 Part 2

001I'll call this meeting to order welcome everyone good evening quiet coyote um okay so um we will start with our land acknowledgement we recognize that the Mount Diablo Unified School District sits on the territory of The confederated Villages of thejan the ancestral and unseated land of the bwok and Northern yokut the successors of The Sovereign brona band of contracosta County as members of the mdsd community it is vitally important that that we not only recognize the history on of the land on which we learn but also we recognized that the land we inhabit and learn on is the ancestor land of these people who are alive and flourishing members of mdsd and broader Bay Area communities today you may stand for the pledge okay okay so we move on to um to 6.3 review and

002um potential approval of the minutes for regular board meeting held October 23rd 2024 Madam president I move to approve the minutes for the regular board meeting October 23rd 2024 I'll second that motion by trusty count and the second by trusty Mason um trusty Ooa how do you vote Yes that motion passes 5- Z with concurrence from our student board member so we move to 6.4 review and potential approval of the agenda Dr Clark are you asking for any changes this evening yeah I have a couple changes here first of all I'd like to move item 12.3 to item 8.0 and then I would like to move item 15.11 to to item 11.0 and I would like to move 15.15 to 11.1 and I would like to move 15.6 to 11.2 Madam president I make a

003motion that we approve the agenda with the suggest changes by the superintendent second motion by trusty mayo and a second or sorry trusty Mason and a second by trusty and um trusty Ooa how do you vote Yes e there was four items it was um well the ones that are coming off of consent that is uh 1511 1516 and uh 1515 and 156 so that's three items off of consent and then um item 123 12 yeah 12. 3 to 8.0 yeah it's going to be e phone trusty Mason made the motion and trusty and say we seconded e and that motion passes 5 Z with concurrence from our student board member so we move to um 7.0 the report out of action in Clos section um for 7.1 negotiations um the board may discuss negotiations

004or provide direction to its Representatives regarding represented employees government code section 54957.6 the board received information for um 7.2 discipline dismissal release or reassignment of Public Employee in close session by vote of 5 to Z the board took action to approve the resignation of two employees for the separation agreements for 7.3 public employee performance evaluation superintendent um pursuant to government code 54957 we developed goals um for the superintendent for item 7.4 confidential student matter um uh see sorry um uh in one confidential student matter the board by a vote of five to zero decided um I'm sorry um to not hear an appeal of complaint against a district employee pursuant to board policy administrative regulation um 13121 for item um 7.5 conference legal council anticipated litigation um in a vote of 5 Z the board

005voted to accept the settlement agreement as presented and then item 7.6 conference with legal council by in a vote of 5 to Zer the board voted to approve the settlement agreement as presented so that should move us to um public are we moving to public comment we made some changes 8.0 the presentation okay thank you so trustees I amum in first week of October we received our official cast data back and so um I've been committed to this board of bringing back our data and sharing it publicly and um and discussing it um you know again my primary goal here is to ensure that all students um are College and Career ready after they exit our organization one way that the State um monitors us is through our standardized testing that takes place in the

006spring of every year and so what I have for you today is some slides about about our performance so as I've shared these with you before you can see that calf shows how well students are meeting grade level standards in Smarter Balance summative Assessments in English language arts um mathematics and also this year the California science test um in sbac students just so everyone's aware students in grades three through eight and grade 11 take the smarter balanced assessment um and English Learners who have been enrolled in a school in the United States less than 12 months Ela only and students enrolled um students enrolled in or assigned to grades 3 through eight and 11 um whose IEP team designates the use of the California alternative assessments and then like I said the science test was

007given for the first time so I've shared many times before this is our lcap goals we have goal one I'm not going to go not going to go through them but I will just read the first sentence of it is that all students will receive a high quality education and a safe and welcoming environment with Equitable high expectations and then goal two I'll just read the first half of it and that's high quality culturally proficient and responsive staff will create a safe and supporting and engaging learning environment ironment respectful of all students backgrounds and then in goal four we have a special goal that was required by the state about our focal Scholars because these are students who over the years have continued to not achieve successful levels within our district and so those focal

008Scholars would be specifically our black and African-American students our foster youth uh mcken vento students experiencing homelessness students with disabilities and our multilingual students will experience a culturally responsive uh practices and instruction and high expectation and equal access to educational opportunities so our district as a whole um this is this is where our students have met um districtwide and so as we look at these different bands if you look at the Blue Band Here those are our students who have exceeded um grade level standards so again when you um you know just just for um common people's terms blue would equivalent to an a in a course green would um blue would be an a green would be equivalent to a b um the yellow would be equivalent to a c and the orange would

009be equivalent to to a d if we're not we're not giving s so as you can see in in English language Arch um out of our entire out of the entire students that took this exam 45. 52% of those students met or exceeded so received an A or a B in English language arts so that's a little less than half of our students um who took the test are are at or above grade level and in mathematics these numbers are a little bit more challenging um 37% of our students um met or exceeded and so you can see 18.2 2% um exceeded 19.12% met and our biggest ban there is the students who um where standard was not met and we at 39% there as we break that down and kind of show where we

010compare um to the state of California and to contracosta County um students exceeding you can see at the state level 21% at the state level 24% in contracosta County and in Mount Diablo um 19% so we're we're trailing the state and the county um and exceed it as we go to the next one um standards Mets the state is at 26% 26.0 2 confra Casta county is 26.5 three and Mount Diablo is 25.6 n again um a little bit little bit behind there and then um nearly met so that would be in the average a c range State of California 211% contracosta County 20% and mount Alo 22% um again these are students who who almost met standards but weren't quite there and then not meeting standards at the state level there's 31% of students

011that that don't meet standards um in the state 29 in the in the county and in Mount Diablo um 31.9% so again this is is this is the work that that I'm committed to doing this is the work that our principles are working on of course our our teachers and staff this is this is our um charge here so as we look at our math um 17 in the state 21 in in contracosta County 18 in um Mount diabo so we are we are ahead of the state average um in in students exceeding in math and um and 177% in the standard met at the state level 18 in contracosta county and 19% in um Mount diao so in math we actually are outperforming the state but um but but not the county and then

012um you can see at students not meeting standards it's 40% Statewide and we're at 39% so a little bit a little bit behind there so if we look at our if we look at the um changes over over time the results have showed that there has not been a difference in percentage of students meeting or exceeding standards in ela um in 2324 compared to 2223 and there was a 1% more more students meeting or exceeding in math so we did have a 1% growth overall in math this last year to the previous year as we look at as we break this down to some of our student groups if we look at our African-American students throughout the district um 28% of our African-American students um have have met have exceeded or met standards and if

013we break that down um 10% of our African-American students districtwide who've taken the exam have exceeded standards um 18% of our African-American students students districtwide um have met standards and if you look at the band of African-American students that have not met standards almost 50% so half of our African-American students in the district who take the test have not met the standard grade level standards in English language arts then as we go over to math numbers are a little bit more dire um we have 6 uh 85% of africanamerican American students have exceeded the standards in math and in in um standards met you can see in green it's 11% however even even something that I would like to note 59% of our African-American students in mathematics um have not met grade level standards so

014this would be this is why you see African-American students on the focal scholar list um on our cap goals this is a huge priority of the state this is our our priority that we have to address this as we look at um our multilingual students these are students who are um who are learning the language um you see of students who have exceeded standards multi-lingual students that is uh 0.8% have exceeded in our multilingual students and I know we're doing a presentation um uh later on in this meeting from our multilingual dep department and in the green there I see 3.4% of our multilingual students and then as we look in the orange 78% of our multilingual students have not met grade level standards again that's why you see them on the focal list of

015being a high priority as we get to math um it's a little higher than than Ela but I think we can all see 80% of our multilingual students are not meeting standards in math and um again Point not 083 but 093 have exceeded those standards if we look at students with disabilities you can see 15 um we have 15% of our students with IEPs have exceeded or met standards and um 14% of our students with IEPs um have have met or exceeded standards in in mathematics and again um you know as I've said many times to this board all all these numbers I know we're looking at statistics right now it's all it's all people it's kids families um you know these are these are people I don't want us to get so locked into

016the numbers that we not humanizing if we look at our foster youth these are students who are in the Foster system and don't have homes to go to or or with their parents but you can see 7 7.14% of those students um have met or exceeded um it's actually all in met there are no students there are no Foster students who exceeded standards um if we go over to math um no Foster students in our district have have met or exceeded standards in math so again at the very beginning of our lcap we have that group of students who we've highlighted and targeted and that's why we're specifically calling them out so as we look at mckin vento these are students who are homeless this is a different a different format here but um but

017unfortunately the numbers are are similar similar we have 9% of our of our students who are technically homeless doesn't necessarily mean it means that they're couch surfing um staying with relatives things like that but only 9% of those students um have exceeded or met standards and you look and see when you see that 91% of of ones that nearly met or haven't um that's an area of concern and then you have your 6% vers vers 9% and again our difference there is no significant difference with any of these groups I think we've shown a 1% growth in in some of these areas so we still have much work to do in um in that area this is just another another another um chart but this breaks it down by by grade level and again this

018is districtwide so it does show know within our grade levels it is um you can see at least in math you can see a trend where um you know where the green is is you know is larger in the in grade three but as you get up to grade 11 it it shrinks in math and in in ela very very little change in ela you can see slight increase um but really lots lots of work to be done in in this area as well and then this is um our science test that we gave this year and you can see in science this is districtwide um there is um we have 99.89% um have exceeded standards and um and 20% have met standards but you can see um the not met is at 15 and

019the nearly Mets at 53 so the 53 is almost there we can just get them over the get them over the we we could have more students to our meeting standards but still work to do in that area and then it's it's broken down by grade level so you can see districtwide is at 30% fifth grade it's at 32% 8th grade down to 28% and um and in and in high school um we're at 30% so so again this is the science test um individuals individual student scores are available and um and we do do have School site scores are also available can I have the other um the other presentation now to the to the general population who goes to the cast scores websites this is what you're going to get so this is

020what I'm encouraging our families to look up um so this is the this is um the state of California so this is what it looks like for the state 4735 I shared that in the previous slide this is Mount Diablo um 45 37 if you look under report options it has the year it has the grades and then it has the different student groups and under the student groups there's all the ways that the state has broken up student groups and then you can go over to the school type and I have all schools loaded in there but you can load up the individual schools to see how how those how those students perform so let's look at how some of our students did again we have uh disabilities I went over this in the

021in the pre previous slide but again this is what I'm directing parents to look at so all students with disabilities this is how they performed these are um the economic status of students so if you look at students who are come from a disadvantage a economically disadvantaged background they're at 26% 17 if I go back districtwide you see it's 4737 so if you just look at students who are Financial who have Financial challenges you see that they perform a lot lower than just our our general population of students so let's compare this to students who are not significantly dis uh economically disadvantaged so students who who who have more resources you can see they're at 60% at uh met or exceeded in ela 52% in met or exceeded in mathematics let's take it back one

022and so you see the you see the difference there I'm at in ela it's it's 34 um well 33% and in math we have uh 17 and 52 so so you see those those um you know those learning differences amongst those um student groups so then if we look at parent education if we look at parents who do not possess a high school um diploma so when we talk about the importance of our students graduating high school and earning that diploma and reducing dropouts um we can see how how those students who have parents who don't have a high school degree they're at 18% um and 6% in math and if we break down um I I think if we look at students who have exceeded standards we're at 2% in ela and for um

023for exceeding standards in math I think that's 1.1% so and then if we compare that with parents who are College graduates um you can you can see the you can see the difference you can see it's 53% versus 18% and 6% vers 46% so a 40 40% difference between those those parent education there is one more that I didn't include here but there's also post college that that's even obviously even it's going to be even higher than than the 53% if we look at um again American Indian this is how these are our race and ethnicity groups um you can see where they are they are at at 28 28.5% 15.3% again this is not the language I'm using but this is the language that the state puts American Indian and Alaska Alaskan native if

024we look at our Asian students within the district 60% um and 53% can see um what do we have 30 32 % exceeded standards so that's that's the number we're all to look at when we look at students who who um did not meet standards I think that's 20 23% if we look at again I think we've already gone over our African-American students so we have 28 to to 18 Again the state requires us to compare student groups together so we can see the difference between um some of our student groups we look at our Filipino students St 62% um and 54% look at our Hispanic students 28% again not not my language Hispanic or Latino but 28% to six to 19% and if we look at our native Hawaiian uh Pacific Islander we have

02520% versus 19% so um these are our white students um 61% 61.7 2% if if you look at exceeded standards I think that say 36% that have exceeded standards in ela and in math you see it um 28% I believe have exceeded standard but again you got 61 to 54 so I think as you as you compare our different student groups that's why you know as a district we have to come up with programs that Target these students to provide more resources more support um you know I think mindset is a big thing about expectations that is part of our that is part of our lcap goals is to make sure that we have high expectations for all students um you know again we only can we only control when students come through our doors

026and so that's why we want to make sure that grade level standards are being taught in every classro while we want to make sure that we're giving our students realtime feedback and we want to make sure that we're supporting them at at every Junction every single student group that I that I popped up here deserves our 100% support and um and as we look at uh uh mixed rate students students who are two or more races 57% um and 49% and again when you look at the um at the student groups there's all sorts of ways that anyone can go to these websites and to to break them down so um again my commitment to this board was that I was going to be transparent with this data and I was not going to manipulate

027it in any way I would take responsibility all of this data is on me I'm the superintendent it's my responsibility to to um support our students and so I take responsibility for this um I'm not I'm not happy with with all of this and I would like to continue to see us allocate resources um continue to support our students any way that we can support our families support those who support our students so that um so that we can continue to increase this I do understand that standardized testing is just one slice of the pie we have lots of other ways that we also measure our students um students receive grades students receive progress on meeting standards um students have have activities in class whether it's you know Behavior citizenship all of those things play

028into developing the whole child these standardized test scores are just one slice that we use however these are the ones that will end up in the paper these are the ones that will um will have us um um under some sort of State assistance program which we are under when I came into this District um close to 5 years ago we were under different differentiated assistance by State because of our data and so we're still trying to work out we're trying to work out from that so um I'm open up to questions from the board if you have any questions regarding my uh presentation um yes first I just want to say thank you so much for sharing this information it's so important for all of us to see and understand and like you were

029saying for families to be able to look at it for their own child in their own schools as well um just a few things came to mind as I was looking at the data one when you talked about um economic disadvantage um and it just has me immediately thinking about the um the results of the election and the possibility of our federal funding um tital One funds going away and that is one of the things that is supposed to be helping us um at least deal with those economic inequities to some degree um so that um we'll see what happens there but uh for us to be looking at the title $1 dolls that we do have and how how we can best um be allocating those and spending those at each School site to

030try to overcome that economic disadvantage um and then um in terms of thinking about how how are we helping kids how are we addressing this um I I did get a chance to view the um math curriculum materials um last week or the week before um that are available for the whole public to view and for our staff to take a look at um and it was great to be able to see all the possibilities for for elementary and middle school math um one uh thought that I had from that looking at that whole process um was that there were Criterion four different criterian that um they were looking for feedback um from everybody on each of those um types of curricula um and so just going forward in that process one thing that I'm

031thinking about is do we have we had a discussion districtwide and and maybe it would be helpful to have it at the board level or a board Workshop going forward at some point um do we have a complete understanding of what are the evidence-based practices um the best practices where we where we have seen schools and districts um actually achieve that math uh understanding and the growth that we want to achieve um what are those best practices and then how are we um evaluating our curriculum choices based on that so like some of the things with the new math framework that they talk about are um do students have a um growth of number fluency um the ability to use strategies that are flexible and accurate and um the value of things like math talks

032and games um encouraging students to do mental problem solving and communication as well as playful exploration and skill practice so just it might be helpful going forward for us to have a full discussion about what all of those areas are and then how how do how are we making decisions on our on our curriculum and our professional development in terms of math um and then similarly um today I was really excited to attend the California reading Summit with um a number of other I know there were some teachers um from our district there um as well as administrators and even parents um and that similarly um I think it will help for us all to get on the same page including our parents and families to understand what are those best practices um what was

033great about that the reading Summit was that they actually showed examples of school districts from California and across the US that have been able to move that needle for literacy um and what types of um supports and plans did they put into place um one of the biggest things that um they emphasized there was that you need a comprehensive plan not just a curriculum um which I think we've talked about um but they they were talking about how it's most important to have a plan that's created together by everyone so you've got you know your teachers your reading specialist students parents kind of developing that road map together that we're all going to move along um for the next couple of years um and that they also talked about how adult Learners are motivated to

034do deep work when they have a clear understanding of expectations so the more that we get onto the same page and are rowing that boat in the same direction um uh the the better that will go and then lastly um one other takeaway that I had from the summit um was the recommendation to lean into your assets um look at those things that are going well in your District and success breeds more success so I would like to say um just for for all of our our teachers and Educators and and and school sites just take that this as an open invitation please invite us as our as board members um to come and visit and see you in action where are those shining stars how can we help Elevate the successes that you are

035having out there and share them across the district and breed that success thank you and we do um during our Friday letter we do try to highlight many of our wonderful Educators and staff employees throughout the district and different programs and highlight that so absolutely I thank you for your comments thank you as always for your transparency um so let's say we do all this have the best curriculum the best practices and whatnot I know that over the four years that since we've been under say um c i call say I make up name CIS [Music] um let me back up I've brought up multiple times this fall especially as I've learned at Casa at the equity conference I went to in September that um not only black students but every student does better under

036a black educator and black Educators is something we have few and far between in this District yet we saw the numbers um of black children we saw the data from black children and our other focal Scholars I also recalled over the four years that we've met we've been met with resistance um from um in implementing the cace plan um what have we done or what can we do to build buyin with our current School sites so that every child has adults on campus that believe that they can learn that believe that they can be taught and that and believe that they're worth it well that's something we continue to work on we um you know we we had to really modify our um you know our focal scholar program because of some of the resistance

037that we that we received and so but we are still doing parent Outreach we're doing tutoring for students we're um working with with uh mental health of of our students and trying to provide that counseling form and things of that nature so I believe that um you know that we are making progress in some areas but to make it systemic so it's not just you you're at this one school and at this school they do XYZ and are really supportive all that but then you're at another school and maybe that same support isn't there so how do we make it systemic so regardless of where a student comes from and what their background is that they are going to be exposed and have the expectations that um this student is worthy and if the students

038falling behind that we as the educated adults are doing everything possible to help that student reach his or her goals and so that's what we're going to continue to strive for and work towards and continue to support continue to support support our Educators who come in to to work in our district and serve our students I would just say kind of sadly that having been born and raised in this District the numbers haven't changed a lot from when I went to school or my kids went to school the first time I ran for the school board it was the Common Core was the thing and at that time I'm like why are you trying to do that across the country when you can't assure a kid in conquer is getting the same education as a

039kid in Pleasant Hill as a kid in Bayo I think that's something that we've started to formalize so it's more you could feel like whatever school you go to you're going to get some kind of consistency with the programs we're bringing on I thank you for that and I hope we can like you say start tightening it up and looking at what's really making a difference and provide it for all of our kids even though I don't think we'll ever get around the number one indicator being social economics we can certainly do do more things to even the playing fields for all of our students everywhere so thank you thank you so again this is just an information report for the board um I post it on the agenda so families and employees can look

040at it and of course I'm always open to discussing this and we'll continue to talk about our data throughout the years thank you Dr CL okay so that should move us to public comment um and this is the the time in the meeting where the public May address the board on any item that's not on the agenda um and then public comment will also be allowed on each specific agenda item um prior to board action it looks like we have many public comments many speakers 20 cards okay um this is a lot of speakers so I'm going to ask that each speaker speaks for two minutes um so that we can um it's for for two minutes so please um be concise with your comments we um look forward to hearing from all of you

041and are glad that you're here so thank you for coming um and if I mispronounce your name please um correct me um our first speaker is Karina um cam my hi thank you for listening this is about sexual harassment allegation against a high school teacher I want to ask you um if you suspect unsafe behavior in a you know in a student are you going to follow the student from the field where there's a rally into the bathroom wait um until the student goes into the bathroom sto help his genital areas out and the teacher would be looking through the broken lock and then enter the store and ask him to get out and let me check your pockets so if it's a safety true safety issue why would the teacher follow the student to

042the bathroom it would have been too late if he had to gone if he had a knife yes uh there was a bapon I found my student did not have a history of caring or using vaping devices in the past so and the the allegation was found not not sub sorry not substantiated and it was based the based on the Mr shason for decision finding sexual harassment case not substantiated because I have detect detected incorrect subjective respond report that led to a procedure error that took the investigation outside of Title 9 I believe and that's my appeal I believe it was a there was no sexual conduct per se but he was absorbing he was looking he was following my student to the restroom and coming close to him and directing him to leave the

043restroom that's all and that's what I'm I'm appealing thank you thank you for your comment Brett hopped Dr Clark members of the board hello again um I do want to talk to you tonight about the election now there are many different Avenues of which I can speak to you at this but the first thing that I would like to say is that as Educators I think we did a really really good job in the lead up to this election promoting Civic engagement in our students uh for example at seoa and several other middle schools had an initiative where we had our students vote on the same things that all of us adults vote on for uh Pleasant Hill for Contra Casta nationally and for the state and I was so excited at the engagement that

044we had and the way as teachers that we are able to present this information in a nonpartisan way give students the resources to go and explore and figure these things out for their own I am so proud of that now with the election with the presidential election and the incoming Administration this is an Administration that has been hostile to education I know that the anxieties of our teachers are at an all-time high with this and I know know the anxieties of many of my students many of some in the last week who have confided in me and who have spoke to their peers about they don't know if they'll be here in the coming years they don't know what's going to happen to them so when we as teachers we experience this every day we

045live this with our stud students and so the best thing that I can say is that in the coming years when we have this tough time in education value US hear us when we say to you what we need value us when we say we know what these these students need because our students deserve the best and if anything this is the time to reach commit and double now not to be cautious about the budget it is time to give everything to our students thank you for your comment our next speaker is Amanda good evening um I'm here to support my fellow teachers and ask for the upcoming bargaining or about the upcoming bargaining that you please listen to our wants and needs teachers are told at many district meetings that our students are a

046North star to help our children here are some things that I think are important one counselors one of the items um one of the items that my teachers discussed excuse me at a recent meeting was hiring more counselors for elementary school we have one counselor for one and a half days a week we have 688 students at my School site 688 no vice principal and one counselor for barely two days a week I have asked for students to see counselors parents have emailed me asking for counselors to see their child we have been told no their case load is already maxed it's too high how does this support our students if the district can afford a full-time counselor at elementary can we at least start with maybe three days a week our count our students

047need their help they deserve more um a side note shout out to the middle school counselors um especially Miss Stewart at sequ middle she's amazing and she's a gift to students um the second thing Librarians and secondary when you bargain can you please hear our plea that secondary Librarians need to be brought back my own two children that are in middle school and high school don't have Librarians and I think that needs to change the next is salary surprise surprise consent agenda 1515 tonight you're voting to change the cbo's annual salary to $235,400 this is an important job I'm not saying that the CBO doesn't deserve a decent pay a competitive salary but everyone's job that works in the school district is important I think it would be nice if the adults that are in

048the classroom every day teaching our students our no star were paid a livable wage teachers are leaving our district due to salary so if you can adjust the CBO salary I'm asking if you could consider the same for teachers I'm going to skip really quickly HVAC heating air if we could please fix that thank you for the comment it is freezing in my room and my eight-year-old students have to like get jackets mittens it's freezing the next classroom is a sauna we can't turn it off so please help thank you thank you Roberto Mario Rob Roberto Mar good evening board and superintendent my name is Roberto Moro and I have been a special education teacher at El Dorado for six years sorry my notes I come today to address a challenge that we're having with

049private school assessments the current language in our contract states that a priv private school student who is reciting our School boundaries can request an i or assessment and we we must respond accordingly this has become a great burden on us as case managers because it distracts us from working with our Mount diao students being a resource teacher is challenging work and with a full case load meeting deadlines takes a lot of time and coordination we teach assess students progress monitor observe and collaborate write IEPs but most importantly we must be present for our students with social emotional needs we're receiving more assessments than we tradition Al have we started off the year with a couple of requests pending we were asked to promptly begin working on them the beginning of the year is a vital

050time for us to prepare our timelines for the year weild Report with our students review IPS and teach private school assessments typically come up at the beginning and end of the school year when we are establishing our classes and trans transitioning students to the new case manager completing one assessment can take three to eight hours this is a time we're being pulled away from our students which puts us in a precarious situation of not servicing them as written in their IEPs our prep periods are spent working on these assessments and reports and we need time to prepare for supporting students on our case load in our school to make matters worse the private school deadlines can interfere with our Mount Diablo student deadlines but we're pressured to figure it out and many of these assessments

051can become litigious and we're pressured to please these parents therefore we're asking the district to support us with taking on private school cases this this way we can give our full attention and care to our case load we don't feel that this current policy allows us to to give our best effort for our Mount diaa students thank you thank you for your comment our our next speaker is Heather Hollis good evening board members and community members I'm coach Heather I'm the cheer Co CH mountel High School sorry this year we weren't able to go to every single away game because we couldn't fundraise enough for our school buses it's difficult having to explain to my parents not only do you have to pay for your uniforms but we also have to pay for our transportation

052to get there we do not schedule the gam so parents were confused at how they're expected to play pay for not only their uniforms but for the buses as well and since CIF recently added Regional and state events for cheer we would have to fundraise for that as well the girls work just as hard as the other sports they follow the same academic guidelines and are heavily involved within their Community but still do not receive the same recognition as the other sports while we do receive so much support from our own athletic directors and our office manager we know that this issue is beyond their control other schools in our state provide uniforms for their cheerleaders they provide the buses and everything that they need to compete into their regionals and State competitions we do

053not get that from our district because we do not receive a budget like every other sport does I hope a conversation can happen and that the district can provide a budget for all the cheer teams at all of our high schools because these girls work just as hard and boys sorry they work just as hard as every other Sport and they deserve to not have to pay for their own uniforms or Transportation thank you thank you for your comment our next speaker is Audrey danil hello my name is Audrey Den Leo and I'm a cheer leer at Mount Diablo High School cheer has made me more confident and taught me how to be a team player cheer helps people develop social skills and service within the community our cheer team gives back to the community

054in creating food drives toy drives and making donations unfortunately cheer is not acknowledged as a traditional sport this results in not us not receiving our own funds we create fundraisers to cover our transportation to games and our uniforms the companies we use to fund raise charge us about 25 to 50% leaving us only a portion of the money we raised We believe We we should be funded because of our cheer team helps believes in ourselves per promotes school spirit instills our service to the community and Inspire our sports teams to do the same thank you thank you Audrey our next speaker is um Danielle a good evening um I'm actually here speaking on behalf of another teacher who could not make it um Brenda DZ from Belair Elementary she's been there for 10 years now

055and she teaches kindergarten um she would like to make a plea for this bargaining time to ask that students deserve the best because of our educational environment every grade should have no more than 24 students but Kindergarten especially needs to be limited in daycare the ratio for 5-year-olds is 1 to 14 our data shows that with smaller class sizes reading proficiency increases and in addition more and more students with special needs such as autism are being placed in general classrooms these students are often undiagnosed in kindergarten and struggle to function as teachers cannot devote sufficient time to them I urge you to limit class sizes to 24 and to please eliminate all combo classes especially K1 it's time to focus on what's best for our students thank you thank you our next speaker is Michelle

056Housey hello uh my name is Michelle howis and I'm a third grade teacher at Mount Diablo Elementary as you know we are one of the three schools um undergoing the modernization projects right now last year when we found out we were selected I was hopeful and optimistic not anymore um from the start there has been a complete lack of communication and transparency um I want to know who's making the decisions an actual classroom teacher or somebody from media been involved in any of this because I think our perspective should be included because the teacher is the closest thing to our students and we know what's best for them being in the classroom every day to clarify because I think this is important my classroom hasn't even been worked on yet and actually I don't even

057know when it's supposed to occur because these phases have not been explained or shared with staff and families I actually was not planning on speaking tonight but our staff meeting today consisted of a modernization update with this personnel and contractors and now here I am compelled to speak out and make sure that you all are aware of what is going on today they told us that they are sending the furniture proposal to you guys to be approved in December at your December meeting I I'm kind of a little I'm a little mind blown right now so here are the biggest takeaways I believe that are coming out of my site this is just Mount Diablo Elementary student desks where is the district adopted curriculum materials going to go there's a suggested plastic drawer okay and

058we think it might fit the social studies workbook and a couple pencils and that's it one solution was that they have like two drawers one in their desk one over here and then they do like a Switcheroo halfway through the day and waste instructional time I know this feedback has been given at three meetings that were offered to four or five teachers I never got this option in third grade so I started if maybe the furniture company didn't have desks with storage well I went online went on their catalog and I found desks Pages 348 to 352 so they do exist I've also seen teacher desks in our nine modernes classrooms that are basically little tables I found teacher desks in the catalog as well and the big thing of all you guys is bookshelves

059bookshelves we have no bookshelves in our new classrooms there's bookshelves in the catalog we would love them please I implore you to come to our school come when during school hours for an extended period of time please come I invite all of you to come come see our classrooms that have been modernized while you're there would love for you to use toilet that takes three flushes for liquid waste thank you for your comment system that doesn't work the gates that are installed backwards all right our next speaker is Scarlet r or Roa Let's test oh cool all right hi good evening I am Scarlet RIT I am a fourth year teacher at Pine Hollow Middle School I wanted to say um if we are really focused on impr improving our El Cap scores I think

060we can start by lowering class sizes because there's so many um research and data informed studies out there that demonstrate lower class sizes not only increase test course they also eliminate a lot of um redundant disciplinary issues it also lets teachers give more Equitable one-on-one instruction especially for our marginalized groups such as students with disability students of color for us to be a truly Equity focused institution we must take action visible in the resources we allocate and not just give it mere lip service some of the numerous benefits of small class sizes we know that corresponds to improve academic performance this is critical for closing the achievement gaps across gender and racial lines it low the school dropout rates it also low public costs for um Health and Social Services improves healthier outcomes for students

061um for the rest of their lives our students are the future leaving them with higher quality education means they're more likely to vote volunte and enhance their communities so basically smaller class sizes offer immense Returns on investment benefiting the entire classroom our community benefits by fostering a more educated healthy and economically stable Society thank you thank you for your comment our next speaker is Craig Yan good evening board members superintendent public thank you for so much for waiting this point it's now 7:15 about an hour and 15 minutes after that we have started this is just a s just a small portion of the type of respect that we have been given from this District again my name is Craig Yan I'm from Valley ver Elementary this is my 22nd year within the district our

062other speakers tonight have made have voiced just been very articulate in voicing their concerns we have been listening I'm also an executive board member to our members about what it is that our students need it's World kindness day so I just wanted to go ahead and wish you happy world kindness day please take that under consideration as we enter negotiations our last contract Cycles sure we settled one year without impass this past year however the three previous contract Cycles were protracted where it is that we went into impath each and every single year it just doesn't work that is not kind that's not how it is that we teachers treat our students we expect to be treated with kindness and respect the teachers's working conditions are our students learning conditions you dropped all of this

063data on us have we not seen it before this is not new to us is it new to us so again as we head into negotiations with a $200 million Reserve that you have built up that you could have been using for our students take that into account thank you thank you our next speaker speaker is kit penovich a couple years ago I stood before you and said there it it that one of the biggest attractors for you to get teachers in here is compensation you know uh there there are all other kinds of issues but in the end people are going to say I I need to pay bills you know that's what's going to attract me so um you know in the mean I I mentioned that there are three things that surrounding

064districts have done one they've they've enhanced their salary schedule uh they have improved their benefits and then the third thing for more veteran teachers who may have come in and lost years of service they' have gone back and said you know what we we need to make you whole not necessarily retroactively but from here forward you know you and and and I'm going to give you my example this is my 30 first year teaching I think I'm on step 19 because I actually worked in this District 20 years and I was at Clayton Valley and there was no place for me to come here that and so I stayed there until a job opened up and I have been here ever since so I actually taught in the district for 27 years and I'm getting

065paid as a 19-year teacher so I can easily tell you I probably lost over a hundred grand based on that so uh so far there have been some improvements the salary schedule got enhanced I'm not sure that was a Goodwill gesture that was desperation because I sent you my charts that showed you as of the end of last year we were the worst salary schedule in the area so it was great that we got this 9% because now we're kind of in the middle but there are five districts above us and there are seven just behind us who are bargaining this year and if they get substantial you know not even substantial uh increases they're going to pass Us by again so I hope that we'll be able to get a fair settlement from our

066negotiations this time to keep us strong thank you thank you than our next speaker is Dan Reynolds good evening my name is Dan Reynolds I the executive director of the mount di Education Association this is your first board meeting after the general election America elected a fascist to the presidency our democracy is under threat we will spend the coming years suffering from his hateful toxic bile many will suffer physically many will have their families attacked and torn apart many will have their identities vilified and legislators will attempt to erase them and their contributions to our society and our history in California we have some buffer our state has a government that values education that values democracy and that values a pluralistic society they will take steps to protect and defend everyone in our state but

067that buffer of being in California will only help so much across this state right-wing politicians ran and won seats in elected office and they will seek to bring that same Trump brand of hatred Division and violence with them that includes this very room because sadly it looks like the voters elected a right- ring Republican to sit on this board Thomas McDougall in his own words does not value Equity he wants to endanger the safety of our transgender students and he will be a voice on your board weighing in on decisions for our children he has failed to show a basic understanding of school finance and of the District's fiscal position he has also made racist comments at public forums now is the time for people of good faith and a commitment to Progressive ideals to

068recommit ourselves to the work of educating our children supporting them and ensuring that they are safe in our schools and to do this we need to map a path forward where we work together to make our schools the best they can be to educate to support to protect to Foster our students all our students our students of color our undocumented students our lgbtqia students especially our transgender students and that collaborative work fundamentally depends on you to listen to the Educators who work every day with our students to listen to them as they share with you the steps we need to take to improve our schools we must get through this together collectively remaining steadfast in our commitment to education to making our schools welcoming safe learning spaces for every student to doing all we can

069in our time here to struggle onward for racial justice social justice and democracy thank you thank you our next speaker is Claire Beckner good evening board members and superintendent Clark my name is Claire Beckner and I'm speaking to tonight to address an unacceptable change in the way retired substitute classified employees are compensated compensated by the district without any notification from the district We Now find our paychecks being calculated in a completely new and frankly troubling manner I was one of the few retirees who received an email from payroll dated October 2nd with an attached Memo from Mr sheii dated August 28th outlining these changes this memo however was sent to my district email which I rarely check unless I am actively working I happened to be subbing at home in hospital in early October when

070I saw it I thought it was intended for like new retirees or something and I didn't think much of it but then I received a call from a colleague who noticed a significant discrepancy in her paycheck she was paid far less than expected and asked if I had noticed a difference here's what I don't understand why were we not informed about this change before it was implemented this oversight is more than a simple mstep it is an outrage is it even legal it is hard not to feel dismissed and undervalued especially after the years of dedicated service I've given 30 years to the district but now if I work any job other than office manager the position I retired from I being paid at step one essentially as if I am a brand new hire

071with no experience what's even more perplexing and upsetting is that retired teachers who substitute can be paid at a higher rate than a substitute teacher who's not retired why is that because a retired teacher can bring years of classroom management skills when they walk in shouldn't experience skill dedication be valued regardless whether you're teacher or classified shouldn't everyone who contributes to the success of our students be compensated fairly thank you for your comment thank you Ian Maslin and Janelle Banks um I'm speaking in half uh on behalf of Gina Arnold who had a family emergency and wasn't able to be here um I and all all my colleagues including Gina uh work at Eldorado Middle School I apologize this is from a text message If I Stumble over some of the words okay um and

072these uh this is from Gina Arnold in addition to the multitude of jobs that special day class learning handicapped teachers have to do throughout the day the district has increased our workload the district dismantled the deaf and heart of her ing program at the end of last year four students from the dhh program were placed on the SDC teachers Cas load and in our classes they did not provide any training to meet the diverse needs of dhh students causing the SDC classroom to exceed the state's maximum class size of 15 students the dhh program has a case load and a classroom maximum of 11 students which is lower than the SDC classroom and case load maximum of 15 students the district is not prioritizing the best interest of students focusing instead on cost-saving measures this

073situation has increased the workload for the SDC teachers who are responsible for coordinating all dhh interpreters service providers and special education assistants furthermore we are not part of the Deaf culture we do not sign or have knowledge of the service and materials that would best support these students these students should have a dhh teacher and case manager they have a dhh teacher both in Elementary and high school but not in the Middle School not having this program at the middle school is a disservice to our students we respectfully ask the board to remove the dhh students from the SDC case loads and reinstate the dhh program so we can continue to provide our students with the highquality education and services we have done in the past sincerely Gina Arnold and Janelle Banks thank you our

074next speaker is Bria Torres hello my name is R Torres I'm a Cheerleader at Mano high school and this is my first year doing cheer here not only has this sport helped me gain confidence but now I have an amazing coach and wonderful girls around me to support me not only not only are we as physically and emotionally pushed as other sports but we follow the same academic rules yet our district does not fund us we are aware of other schools around us getting funded while ours are not which is very unfair I hope this can come up in a conversation hoping this will help more girls try out who don't have the funds for it thank you have a good day thank you um tamarus Ramirez my name okay um hello my name is

075dearis Ramirez I am a senior at Mount Diablo High School I am also a part of the cheer team I'm here to talk about the importance of supporting our sport equally to every other sport especially cheerleading cheerleading is just as physical as any other sport but the district does not give us funds for uniforms or for buses or for anything that we need we are treated equally as every other sport we constantly are being treated differently like we are not appreciated at our own school we understand that there's a lot of other schools that are being funded but we deserve to be funded as well um we oh sorry excuse me we just wanted you to understand and help us and we want you to have a conversation about this because not only are we

076not the only Cher team being funded but there's plenty of more that are not I have um I have been on this team for four years and I am a senior so I will be gone next year but I am also here to speak on for every other person who wants to join this team and any other sport who deserve it because I hope I got I hope I got what um I wanted when I was a freshman I wish I got the same opportunity as I have so I want you guys to speak on it to fund our team to fund any other sport that deserves to be funded because I wish I got that and I'm not just here to speak for myself for the past four years I'm here to speak for

077the other people who are going to join this team in the future that I know they will thank you for your time now have a nice day thank you for your comment our next speaker is Beth do hi um I'm a former DEA and heart of hearing teacher here at the District of 17 years but that's not what I have come to share concerns about although I'm floored at what I just heard um that is why I'm here has nothing to do with the reason I left and the reason I left is no longer in this room but she knows who I'm talking about okay um I have a beautiful stepson that graduated recently with honors from conquered High School recently I was at a Schoolboard candidates Forum held at a public school in our

078district on October 27th one that was moderated by two PTA members and newly elected board member McDougall said the following comment in front of the community community family members Educators and most importantly are children were present he said we don't want Chinese or Indians overtaking our country and he said this knowing full well that his opponent May Patel who the principal when I spoke with him didn't even know who she was um he know feel well that may Patel is of Indian descent I was appalled by the comment as it was both racist and xenophobic I was equally appalled that nobody moderating that Forum spoke up at the inappro roess of that comment which could have easily been done by saying something simply to the effect of Mr McDougall that comment is not appropriate and

079we are going to move forward in this forum and stay focused on the issues that matter but no that did not happen no such comment was made pointing out the inappropriateness of that comment nor was May Patel ever apologized to by The Forum moderators or their principal in fact I'm aware that may Patel had sent two correspondences thanking those PTA members graciously for holding the Forum and she never even heard back and this PTA chose not to respond which I also find highly problematic as well as disrespectful we have PBIS in place for our district uh positive behavior interventions and supports and that wasn't even modeled by the adults in front of these children during the Forum at the xenophobic and racist comment was made we also have a moto motto see something say something

080guess what I saw something I heard something I'm saying something okay Mr McDougall who apparently is not here tonight although I'm sure he's listening as most educated voters know has never had children in this District he chose to homeschool his children he's now homeschooling children and five grand grandchildren entirely in a different County he misr represented himself on the ballot referring to himself as an educator volunt volunteering in prisons prizing is not an educator in my view it's in being an indoctrinator nor is he his experience at Cal State Hayward considering an educator not have a credential being an educator requires an extensive education credentialing and multiple death I will say one last thing I'm going to say this I left this District because I fought like hell to get what Wendy agilly had closed

081down at the conquered High School the death program to come in here now after I left three years ago that you Clos down the middle school you haven't heard the end of it and if I have to start a recall effort for McDougall I will be the first to spearhead it and yall have no idea the clout that I have our next speaker is Charlie yenti Charlie yenti maybe in the lobby okay you you're welcome to pick up the microphone too thank you my pleasure I know her she doesn't like to be touched but I'll be here protectively you forgot we'll read your message be kind be kind we're proud of you for coming up here anyway okay thank you good job sweetheart our next speaker is Meredith yenti sign hello my name is Meredith

082oh I should do that I was more worried about my daughter being heard um my name is Meredith yenti and I was a teacher for the district until I had my daughter and then I became a substitute for the district and I'm also the parent of Charlie right over there who just spoke uh who's in third grade at uh bankof Elementary and I wanted to start out uh with a shout out to Mount Diablo teachers for teaching something very important and very uh basic for the continuation of our society education is a big investment in our society and that is teaching kindness I think that's important for society work work that were kind to each other and my master teacher Elizabeth Swanson she said the most important thing you can come out of kindergarten with

083is being kind and I think that's true I think our teachers model that every day I see some benro teachers here they hear the same question 30 times and they respond with kindness because they they uh model the behaviors that they're wishing to teach the children um the comments that I heard Mr Frugal say are not kind that is not uh modeling kindness um I'm I'm very worried um i' I'd like to know what you guys think about uh his statements uh we can't let what we need to not let take over our country is hatred and intolerance my daughters uh goes to bankr elementary she goes to her class she's gotten to know kids with family backgrounds from all over the world and she feels richer be because of it that's what she wanted

084to come up here and say right Charlie do you have friends that have backgrounds all over the world also my best friend is from Taiwan yeah your best friend is from Taiwan and you have friends from all over and teachers from all over too huh yeah and we think her education is richer because of it um so we expect board members to model tolerance and inclusion and kindness yeah thank you for your comment Lauren Merado okay good even U my name is Lauren Marcato I'm a school counselor at Northgate High School and this is my second year working for Mount diao Unified School District um for my students I am the first counselor that came back the next year um that's just how high counselor turnover is in our district um Dr Clark shared earlier

085standardized testing data um that that's one slice of the pie um he also mentioned that it's his goal for all students to graduate college and career ready um for that College and Career indic indicator on the state dashboard there are 10 other ways that students can demonstrate Readiness including AP exams a through G completion CD pathway completion earning college credits IB exams leadership and Military science pre-apprenticeship programs state and federal job programs like job core state seal of by literacy and uh work-based learning experience most of these indicators fall within the job description of a school counselor in addition to other important roles on our campuses the counselors are currently working hard to develop a comprehensive counseling program for our entire District uh the model we being given follows the American School counseling Association recommendation

086of a ratio of 250 students per one counselor in our district ratios are double triple and sometimes quadruple that recommendation couple this with low pay comparatively as Mr penovich spoke about before this is why good counselors are leaving our district our students do deserve the best they deserve the best teachers they deserve the best counselors uh the way to retain people who best support our student needs and yes get that College and Career indicator higher is to pay us what we're worth because otherwise we will find our worth in other school districts um and that will mean that the revolving door of counselors will continue that hopefully students at our schools won't have to see that because otherwise we won't be able to establish that Rapport we won't be able to get to know all

087of our students and their life goals and what they want to do after high school and there will not be able to get to 100% thank you thank you um and our last speaker is cor Mitchell good evening everybody um I'm here to speak as a parent in this District this is my eighth year as a parent in this District um I've also been a pack Committee Member for most of those years and I want to talk a little bit about my most recent experience um this year the most requested topic to be discussed at pack was libraries um you know we are appointed representatives for our school sites to bring the issues that are important to us at the site level um and again it was requested more than any other topic when that

088topic wasn't on the list of topics to be discussed for the year the question was posed why not and we were told that libraries are not an academic tool um does not seem to coincide with what the IB Program says about libraries they are a requirement of the program um I think most colleges would probably um differ with that opinion that libraries are not an important instructional tool [Music] um but then it was followed with the recommendation that the best thing that we can do for our kids is to have them read for 20 minutes a night agreed um but also have shelves of books available in our home for our students which to me sounds a lot like what a library we should all have a library at home instead of having one at

089school now what does this mean for students who live in their car we've talked a lot about these students who don't have a steady home they're living in foster homes or couch surfing their accessibility to an at home library is pretty limited and with the removal of libraries it's limited at the school site as well so I was very disheartened to hear that number one we're not going to be discussing it because apparently it's not an academic tool but regardless of that it is still the number one requested topic by parents at the parent advisory committee not the district advisory committee the parent advisory committee parents want to know what's going on with the library we could have been told we're taking them out but we weren't so then to hear that the library at

090College Park is being shuttered that the books are being given away they're essentially removing the library from the site is very very concerning to parents in this district and I hope that you see the election of frugal McDougall as a sign that parents are pushing for something different than the direction that it's currently going as scary as that is but we have to start doing something different because the pathway that we're on right now isn't the pathway that parents want to go and it's not helping our students I would really appreciate some concrete feedback about what is happening with the libraries it's what parents want to know about you heard a teacher talk about it today there's plenty of of research that tells us the benefits of libraries in a school district for all students

091but especially those with the least resources please thank you thank you Kaa okay so we move to um 9.0 Communications um do we have a speaker okay all right so first we have Leah o Kelly from CST good evening Dr Clark and esteemed board um my name is Leah o Kelly I'm a child welfare and attendance leaz on and I've been with the district for 20 four years I am starting my first year as the CST first first VP this is latisia cassada and she's second VP um we are here to discuss two issues that have been brought to our attention that we think is important enough to bring to yours one is uh the HVAC units at 13 schools and work sites um we understand that we are trying to transition to a centralized

092system but we have it's unsafe for our students and our staff they are wearing hats scarves gloves at work bringing in their own space heaters um we need to do better for our staff and for our students the second issue is CST retiree substitutes um our understanding is that when CST represented employees sign their personnel action form to finalize the retirement it is slated next to the signature line quote sub inuent paid at step retired from for that range or if working below retiree range paid at retired step of that range if working above range paid 5% higher we are still in the process of gathering some of those Pas I have one copy um there is an internal memo that you heard of re this evening from HR that was dated August 28th 2024

093in regard to mdusd classified employees that states that quote if someone is substituting in a position they did not retire from they will be paid at step one of that position there was no notice given to these substitute employees of the change in pay and working conditions and as we understand this is a violation of state law um we understand that we as CST do not represent our substitute employees but we definitely believe that the district needs to follow follow the law and support them thank you for your time and consideration thank you and our next our next speaker is Linda Ortega president of MAA good evening trustees Dr Clark members of the audience first of all I want to thank my media members who came out tonight I know this is a school night

094but I they needed to tell you their own stories and what they are experiencing as I have been telling you all these months I'm glad they came because you also needed to hear it from them I feel like I'm in the middle of a Groundhog Day movie where I come to you with the same issues and nothing gets resolved as of today we have received over 70 70 adverse working condition forms with very few that have been resolved before this week our classrooms had been too hot but now the classrooms are too cold as many people have spoken and it's not just affecting our our own classrooms but other staff members this is not acceptable how are our students expected to learn when they are either too hot or too cold as you know every

095site and every classroom is different and yet our members are given instructions to try to figure out how to adjust the thermostats so I brought brought you copies here is an example of the instructions that they were sent out just yesterday to some of our teachers they are expected to figure out how to do this when they should be teaching why is it taking so long to share this information and from the many emails I've read today and I I consider myself a very upbeat person I was very depressed today because I was reading all of these um adverse working conditions and the lack of resolve I don't see anything being fixed again this is just not acceptable to expect our students to learn in this environment in regard to the three schools undergoing it

096Renovations I have not received any updates other than our teachers showed me and shared with me that they were to told to embrace the 21 the new 21st Century Furniture Furniture should be functional and appropriate in order to support the age and grade level of of our students pretty is not a word that should be used to describe a classroom Furniture our members at these three sites have been requesting to be part of the discussion Unfortunately they have been told what they will be getting this is not what collaboration looks like and Dr Clark I do appreciate your um when you gave test scores and I just wanted to share with you a personal story for myself in regards to the test scores not everything is recorded in my school site I was the only

097Spanish speaking teacher I would often get the newcomers and because they didn't speak English I got them from zero the level zero to maybe kindergarten level or first grade but I taught second grade is that recorded that was progress but it's not recorded many of our teachers spend many hours working with those students and that's not recorded our counselor spoke about it things that are not recorded a data is data and it's skewed anyway whoever wants to read it but we have a lot of hardworking teachers who spend hours and hours getting our students prepared for tests or and making those progress I appreciate the understanding that you've said that we should provide more reserves or more resources to help our students achieve those positive goals and outcomes we do we do does my members

098all of us want to work together to achieve what's best for our students and Educators and we need to support each other finally I want to thank the two first grade classrooms that I had the privilege of visiting and reading to the students on Halloween it is always a joy to see smiling and happy faces I get my joy from my students and you know this I want to let all my media members know that you are doing a great job and I I appreciate the work that you do each and every day to support our students thank you e all right we'll move to 10.0 um recognitions and resolutions Dr Clark so I have before you um resolution 24 25-32 second revision of regular board meetings for 2024 calendar year so I'll just read

099the opening paragraph um actually if I read the opening paragraph it's probably going to confuse folks so I'm just going to go to the last statement that says the date of the December 2024 board meeting is changed from December 11th 2024 to December 18th 2024 so we will not have a meeting on the 11th instead we will have that meeting on December 18th this item is now in the hands of the board Madame President I move to approve resolution 24 25-32 second revision of the regular board meeting for the 2024 calendar year second a motion by trusty Mason and a second by trusty Mayo trusty Ooa how do you vote on this item yes are we voting on the item it looks like it might be information only me do we need to vote on

100it yeah information okay okay well we were on board so seems like mostly trusty Ooa how do you vote on this item yes do a Voice vote um trusty count yes trusty and zwi yes trusty Mayo yes trusty Mason yes and I will also vote Yes so that motion passes 5- Z with concurrence from our student board member thank you um Madame President our next our next item is resolution 24 25-33 to authoriz local assignment options um I see uh Mr sheii coming up so I'll let him take this item thank you uh the local assignment option allows the board to assign any employee holding a valid teaching credential to teach with their consent a single subject class in which he or she has 18 semester units of course workk or nine upper division or

101graduate coursework of multiple subject class if they hold at least 60 units uh equally distributed among those areas and so with that I leave this uh in your hands Madame President I move that we approve resolution 24- 2533 local assignment second motion by trusty mayo and a second by trusty eni trusty Ooa how do you vote Yes that motion passes 5 Z with concurrence Mar student board member right the next the next item is the review and potential approval of board resolution 2425 d34 for personnel with variable term waivers and variable term waivers provide applicants with additional time to complete certain requirements for their credential that authorizes their service and so for this we do have one individual that needs some additional time I move to approve resolution 2452 25-34 for variable term limits second

102motion by trusty Mason in the second by trusty C trusty Ooa how do you vote Yes and that motion passes 5 Z with concurrence for our student board member right the next item is 10.4 review and potential approval for board resolution 2425 d35 for personnel with provisional internship permits so the CTC is no longer issuing emergency permits however the commission replaced emergency permit with a provisional internship permit otherwise known as the PIP which provides applica applicants additional time to meet their subject subject matter competence requirement to enter before they enter into an internship program and so uh the district May request a pip only after they've searched for a fully credential teacher which we have and so for for this we do have one teacher Madam president I move to approve resolution 2425 d35 provisional

103internship permits second motion by trustee count and the second by trusty and Zi trusty Ooa how do you vote Yes and that motion passes 5 with concurrent SM student board member okay so does this moves us on I know we had some changes in the agendas all right yes so Madame President I have before you item 11.1 this is a um this this item was in consent I moved it over to appointments um but what this is is we had to update the um the job description and um there's a clean version here of the director of strategic supports and interventions and so um we are seeking approval for this position I mean for for this um updated job description Madame President I move to approve the revised job description for certificated director of strategic

104supports and interventions I'll second that motion by trusty count and a second by trusty Mason trusty Ooa how do you vote Yes that motion passes 5- Z with concurr from our student board member Adam president I bring before you um I bring before you an updated um salary schedule for um for management and and essentially our CBO salary schedule this is not an adjustment to our um to the to the cbo's current salary we're just updating the salary schedule and so you have an updated salary schedule for the um CBO for any future CBO because our current CBO was on a contract I move to approve the oh I know I like you were saying that away I'm sorry you were saying it was the um okay thank you okay yeah uh I move to

105approve the the new salary schedule for the chief business officer second motion by trusty Andi and a second by trusty Mayo trusty Ooa how do you vote Yes that motion passes 5 Z with concurrent SM student board member thank you madam president I have I have one more um um job description to to bring forward and this is the updated job description of the Executive Director of Human Resources and risk management um this updated job description is designed to support the Department's current needs enabling us to us to more effectively address the needs of our employees and bargaining units um with that said I ask for a request approval on this um on this job description Madame President I move to approve the revised job description of executive director of human resources and risk management

106second that's a motion by trusty Mason and a second by trusty count trusty Ooa how do you vote Yes that motion passes 5- Z with concurrence from our student board member thank you Madame President we now are very excited to have our public we are now are very excited to have our Public Employee appointment can I please have uh uh Miss Viana please come to the mic and uh present this item good evening trustees and superintendent Clark the human resources department is bringing for the board's review and potential approval for the appointment of Linda Pete as the Director of strategic supports and interventions working in the field of education has been a rewarding experience for Linda Linda finds it so joyous to encounter former students and parents and hear their stories and success the conversations

107and their stories give Linda motivation to continue her work as an educator despite the challenges faced in our world today Linda holds her bachelor's degree in history a master's degree in education with an emphasis on curriculum and instruction and a master's degree in education with an emphasis on administration and policy analysis Linda has spent her life trying to help students see their gifts gifts and provide hope that change can happen and that change is coming with that I leave the appointment in in the hands of the board Madam chair I move to approve the appointment of Linda Pete as the Director of strategic supports and interventions second motion by trusty Mason and the second by trusty Mayo trusty o choa how do you vote Yes good evening superintendent board president and board members and Mount

108Diablo Community thank you so much for this opportunity to continue to serve the students in Mount Diablo Unified School District in this new position as the Director of strategic intervention and supports thank you will you please introduce your uh your your folks back there with me tonight is my family my husband Gilbert my mother-in-law inz and my one of my daughters anayia I also want to thank my Mount Diablo Community most of the back row and all over thank you so much for your support I appreciate so much that's the next item or this item um 11 11.5 and 11.6 so I'm I'm GNA have uh 11.4 I'm gonna have Miss Viana again um oh I'm sorry 11.5 hello again that one we're going for yeah go ahead go ahead and present it we'll do

109the we'll do the um we'll do the public comment after you present the human resources department is bringing for the board's review and potential approval for the appointment of Ryan sheii as the interim chief of Human Resources Ryan began his career with the mount Unified School District in 2006 as a teacher Ryan has taught at the elementary middle and the high school levels Ryan was a vice principal at conquered high school before becoming principal at Highlands Elementary School where he participated on the negotiation team during the pandemic Ryan was then named Director of Human Resources before assuming the current position as Executive Director of Human Resources and risk management Ryan holds both a ma bachelor's and a master's degree in kinesiology with his Graduate Studies focused on education when not at work Ryan enjoys spending

110time with his wife and family Ryan has four children who all attend Mount diao Unified Schools with that I leave the appointment in the hands of the board thank we'll do our public comment Dan Reynolds thank you the wording on this agenda item under fiscal Impact says no change to existing budget I am intrigued and curious about this because you are already employing a chief of Human Resources who is on leave until the end of the year and we haven't heard that that is an unpaid leave so I assume you're still paying that person and if you are paying that person and this person to do the same job that sounds to me like it would have an impact on your budget I would hope that the community would hear from the district that no

111you're not paying two people to do the same job I would hope that you know the answer to that before I have to bring it up because I would hope that somebody talked to you about the fact of whether or not they're paying two people to do the same job especially when you consider this is a quarter of a million dollars a year not responding ation Madam president I move to approve the certificated Personnel appointment of chief of Human Service Human Resources Ryan shei second motion by trusty count and a second by trusty inwi trusty Ooa how do you vote yeah thank you Dr Clark thank you Board of trust I I take this um new position with great responsibility and great joy I've enjoyed the work that we've done here uh the last past

112four and a half years with me in in human resources and I look forward to continuing the work and building the positive relationships with our bargaining units and every employee to better serve our employees to ensure that each one of our students are learning each and every day I want to thank everyone on our MDD team who has helped me and taught me to make me ready for this position and I thoroughly am am excited and Overjoyed to uh to accept this position and move for move the district forward thank you want to introduce Sports and long days at work but uh I want to thank my family if they're watching yes TR to keep you out of trouble now so okay all right let's go to next item we have 11.6 we have a

113public do we have a comment for this we do from from Dan Reynolds thank you uh curious to know again here whether these are new positions or position shuffling around and where the district is choosing to spend its money uh the approval of the uh job description for this which was moved from later in the agenda would have like to have mentioned at that one too that it appeared from the redline version that was published with the agenda that the only thing you changed was to make this job available to someone who doesn't have experience that what it said before was to fill this job you had to be in HR for three to five years but now all it takes is one to three so you have changed the job description to allow somebody

114specific with less experience to fill this job and it is another $2,000 plus a year job uh it is curious uh that all of these changes in HR are happening uh when you have a very topheavy HR department uh that is very recent you did not used to have this many chiefs or executive directors or executive interim Chief director human resource risk management executive director Chiefs thank you now we're g to have uh Mr sheii present this item thank you the human resources department is bringing for the board's review and potential approval the appointment of Kimberly Viana as the executive director human resources and risk management Kimberly's objective is to continue contributing to the mtio Unified School District specifically by supporting the district's elap goals and initiatives to the human resources department she is dedicated

115to assisting all staff both certificated and classified as they work to create positive inclusive and supportive learning environments for all students Kimberly is committed to The Continuous Improvement of systems and processes working collaboratively to enhance the structures to that support our District's Mission Kimberly holds a bachelor's degree in social science and a master's degree focused on social emotional learning Kimberly is devoted to both her family and the community and believes in order to do good work you must be invested in the totality of it Kimberly was raised in the Bay Area raised her children in the East Bay and now is a very proud Nana with that I leave this appointment in the hands of the board Madame President I move to approve the certificated Personnel appointment of executive director human resources and risk management

116um Kimberly Viana thank you second motion by trusty count and second by trusty Mayo trusty Ooa how do you vote yes all right thank you so much I'd like to thank the board and superintendent Clark um as well as like everyone in the audience um I have my husband here who supports me and makes it possible for me to do all this hard work um as well as all of the diff different teams across the district um both classified and certificated that I have the opportunity to work with um and really support our students um that is the whole sole purpose of us being here so um I am honored and privileged to to do this work so thank you very much so um item 11.8 we have the um um we have the amendment

117potential approval of amendment to the employment agreement for Adrien Vargas our chief business officer and I'll have Miss bana oh we have oh what number 117 sorry about that come on yes computer's moving quick oh again okay the human resources department is bringing for the board's review and potential approval for the appointment of jayani Cortez as the operational program specialist African-American student achievement galani comes to mdusd as an educator with over 23 years of experience in intervention literacy coaching teaching Administration and working with baffa programming jayani holds a bachelor's degree in business management and a master's degree in secondary education outside of work jalani is busy as a with a mother as a mother let's try this all over again galani is busy as a mother of three sons in addition she loves swimming and

118gardening and with that I leave this appointment in the hands of the board Madame President I move that the board approved jayani Cortez as uh I'm sorry lost the agenda operational program specialist oper operational program specialist africanamerican student achievement second was worthy of saying motion by trusty mayo and a second by trusty Mason trusty Ooa how do you vote yes thank you superintendent Dr Clark um board president and esteemed board members uh for this immense honor of being appointed to represent our district and support our focal school scholar program I'm deeply humbled by your trust and excited to dedicate myself to advocating for the needs of our students and Community here in Mount Diablo District I pledge to listen attentively work tirelessly and collaborate with all key stakeholders to ensure our district thrives thank you

119thank you all right so the next item is the review and potential approval of the amendment of the employment agreement for Adrienne Vargas as Chief business officer for mounta Unified School District for the three year term 2425 through 26 27 school years this item is is for the board to consider approving an amendment to the employment agreement with Adrien Vargas Chief business officer the this amendment governs a contract was commenced on July 1st 2024 and concludes on June 30th 2027 this amendment clarifies the party's agreement that the chief business officer is waving Education Code 45197 the annual vacations the base salary is based on the positive work year work calendar of 219 days the senior the salary placement of Adrien Vargas is step one on the 2024 2025 annual classified Senior Management salary schedule for

120chief business officer with an annual salary of $234,450 this is not a change in salary but it is a waiver of vacation and placement on a schedule with that I leave this in the hands of the board Madame President I move that the board approve the amendment to the employment agreement for the chief business official Adrien Vargas through the 2026 27 school year second motion by trusty Mason and a second by trusty Mayo trusty Ooa how do you vote Yes all right so so I just want to just take a moment and just thank our um thank our new designated um Team um we have lots of work ahead of us as usual um but the team is is definitely up for it you gonna let your husband Escape now yes he [Laughter] better yes

121thank you thank you Pete family yeah look at that so this this next item I just um as I as I talked about test scores earlier and as we think about the um social emotional mental health as we just think about our our our student well-being in our district there's many things that we can always point to we always we always point to teachers right and then we point to principles and then we point to uh office managers and and things of that nature but groups that are often overlooked would be I would say our custodial staff and our cafeteria staff um we are so fortunate to have um Alex EMT as our director of food service she is um she is well respected in the profession and she is bringing the latest and greatest

122to our students each and every day here in the mount Dela UniFi School School District so I know that this presentation is going to be on like redesigns and things like that but I just you know I just cannot acknowledge the work that she's doing and really providing our students with the foundation for them to be successful and that is a healthy meal whether for breakfast or whether for lunch so um I hope I didn't take what you were going to say is that what you were going to say there Mr I was just thinking like what why did I walk up here but I can add is I I I would say all the same things that Dr Clark shared but he kind of stole my thunder so um but uh I wanted to

123introduce Alex EMT who's the director of food and nutrition services and she's gonna you know do a presentation on the upgrades of what we're doing with our serving areas I just for me when she first shared this with me in our one-on-one check check-ins I was just like wow like when you see you probably already saw the the PowerPoint but we need to share what we're doing out there so Alex good evening superintendent Clark and honorable school board members thank you very much for that wonderful introduction uh this evening um I'm planning to provide an introduction to some exciting work that we have planned to Pilot TR really transforming the student dining experience at Mount Diablo um we'll start out with an introduction to our department vision mission goals and core values just to ground

124Us in the conversation um and then we'll discuss the project at hand the schools and the approximate timeline so first a little bit about our department um in October 2024 we actually cross 25,000 meals per day for the first time so in October we served an average of 2,560 meals every school day this work is carried out by over 180 dining staff at over 55 schools and programs across the district um we last year we served over 4 million meals so 4, 94,00 meals in total which is about 350,000 meals more than we served during the 2223 school year we primarily serve breakfast and lunch through the National School breakfast and lunch program but we also serve After School meals in partnership with the cares program we have these at 24 schools across the district

125in actually launched six new programs in the last year uh the suppers are served through the child and adult care food program so clearly there's a huge student demand for nourishing School meals here in Mount Diablo and Across the Nation so last year my team worked together to develop a clear mission and vision for a department to ground our work and set our priorities our our mission is easy it's what we do every day so every day we nourish students for academic success our vision is our North Star it's where we want to be as a department in the next 10 to 15 years simply put this is what we're working towards so our Mi our vision is food and nutrition services is an industry leader with a thriving and positive team that serves our

126students delicious diverse scratch cooked locally sourced meals in modern and efficient facilities while embodying the values of equity sustainability collaboration and innovation our team also has five core values um these are what must be honored as we pursue our vision they are one great food so scratch cooking local sustainable procurement two a world-class student experience excellent food presentation modernized dignified facilities three fiscal responsibility and sustainability and waste reduction four a positive team culture professional collaborative a and supportive teams robust staff training and growth mindsets and then five diversity equity and inclusion including Universal meals and cultural responsiveness and relevance we also have five goals um these are the specific action steps we will take over the next 10 to 15 years to achieve our vision so our goals are one transform facilities at the schools

127and the Central Kitchen to have modernized efficient equipment that allows scratch cooking to scale and also creates dignified build environments for students and staff to increase scratch cooking at all Sites by again investing in facilities and staff and leveraging the Central Kitchen three invest in our teams by increasing full-time benefited positions increasing hiring especially of historically disadvantaged groups and three creating a robust St staff training program and career growth opportunities for all employees our fourth goal is to invest in the local economy by doubling our procurement of foods from local bipac owned and small medium family businesses and Farms our fifth goal is to reduce waste and improve the student experience by implementing compostable packaging and utensils and reducing packaging wherever possible so you can see from our Mission Vision goals and values um that

128working on facilities and the student experience are really Key to Our Success over the next few years hopefully you also saw MD usd's lcap goals reflected in this work too particularly goal one and two which prioritize safe welcoming and engaging environments for our students this evening's presentation will outline specific plans FNS has to Pilot transforming the dining experience for students at a cohort of 12 initial sites um the presentation is informative for a future consent item to approve the purchase order for the redesign work and also just note that the Board of Education um already approved the purchase of the serving lines discussed in tonight's presentation in February of last school year all right so let's start with the current situation these are a couple of examples of our more outdated serving lines that we

129have on the left here is Fair Oaks Elementary so this is one of three schools across the district that serves out of a rollup window in the MU we also have these at strandwood and Elman um you know this is pretty challenging for our students not a lot of meals fit there it's hard to see what the options are it's hard to have Choice it's also pretty difficult for our staff again because you can't fit a lot of meals on the window and there's no ability to hold the meals hot or cold there right so they're relying on warmers behind the lines and fridges behind the lines and they're having to transfer meals back and forth all the time through the serving line I think you can also see from the picture that you know

130not the best experience for students it's pretty institutional feeling and a little cold with those kind of roll up gated Windows there and then on the right you can see this is El Dorado Middle School um this is called a speed line so the best way I can describe this is it's kind of like um the reachin freezers that you might have seen at the supermarket but a hot version of that essentially and so what the staff have to do there is put metal baskets on the bottom of the unit because you can't put food on the bottom of the unit it it gets too hot and it'll burn and they also have to pre-wrap everything right so it's a ton of extra packaging and it's a lot of Labor to do all of that

131um you know I think also with the El Dorado example you can see that this kind of adds a little bit to that like mystery School food thing that nobody likes right because you know even though we use Clear Lids on containers they get foggy during service and you we have signs to differentiate the different Entre but you know I'm sure you've seen lunch at a middle school right things get switched around and so it's just really not ideal okay shiting gear um here are some updated serving lines so these pictures are from Valley View Middle School which had its kitchen modernized thanks to bond funding and reopened in August and then also at Diablo View Middle School um Diablo view just got a new serving line which was funded by the food nutrition services

132department and then M put in the new electrical required um you know I think that we can agree that there's a really big difference I think we can all agree that there's a big difference between the slides that we saw first and these slides and what I want to point out here is it's not the food actually right um we have the same menu at all of the elementary schools across the district the schools with the windows at the element at the elementary level they serve the same menu we have the same menu at all the middle schools across the district so the difference that you're seeing is really the student experience and the presentation right and I just want to ask you to think about your own experience for a minute you know eating

133in a restaurant or in an institution maybe in a College dining hall or in a hospital we we all eat with our eyes first and I think in a high trust environment you might be willing to overlook the way the kitchen or the dining room looks but think about you know somewhere new where you've never been before How likely would you be willing to try the food you know if the if the dining area or the cafeteria doesn't feel welcoming um the you know in my experience I've been in school nutrition for the past 13 years I think the dining experience is an important part of how we build trust with our students and we get their Buy in we're already making some pretty big investments in high quality food for our students we're currently

134purchasing 60 to 70% of our produce organically we have a lot of incredible menu items we've got a lot of cultural diversity on the menu options like adobo poke BS p and much more um and if we want to ensure that our students take advantage of all of these healthy fresh and delicious and no cost School meals we need to make sure that they want to come into the cafeteria and they want to eat um plus of course the way that our funding works the more students who come in and eat with us the more Federal and State dollars come into the program and the more we can reinvest in great food great facilities great equipment and our staff so it's kind of one of those win-wins right all right so let's take a look

135at some of our specific plans um these these next slides are all excerpts from the design books at several of the schools where we have slated for the redesigns um so this is an excerpt from the design book for Gregory Gardens Elementary you can see the picture on the right is the current serving line they have this like trellis that's seen better days over top of their serving line um and they also the serving line also currently overlooks like an old dishroom that's kind of um converted into an office for the school lead there so this is the plan to redesign into the gator Cafe um it's super cute we have this amazing um fruit loving Gator mascot um and this is just one angle of it so it extends out into the multi-use room

136and you can see that we also have a new line scheduled for Gary Gardens here this one here is from Meadow homes Elementary um you can see at Meadow homes we're actually keeping the existing serving lines which in relatively good condition but we're adding all this fun wall decor and paint to transform the serving area into a multicolored festive space that honors the cultural diversity of that school this one is an example of um bankof Elementary it's called the Bobcat beastro um it'll transform the serving line into this treehouse themed experience with tons of fresh produce peeking out from all the leaves and again we're um using the existing serving line at bankr this one is hot off the press um this is the newest one it's from Rio Vista um it's a Peak at

137the existing exciting plans to transform the Rio Vista mu into the rocket Cafe complete with fruit and vegetable planets and I have a second picture here because I really like the um ceiling work there all right moving into our secondary sites this here is Pleasant Hill Middle School um which will be transformed into a modernized kind of farmers market feeling dining space features plenty of the school colors and dark wood accents for this really cozy and welcoming space and then here's another angle here this one is Northgate Cafe um so at Northgate High School it's the only high school that we don't have a designated cafeteria space so we're working with them to transform the atrium into a dining area for students and then branding the serving serving area as the Northgate Cafe and Miss

138Cooper over at Northgate actually put it out to the students for a vote for two possible facades and this is the one that they chose this is a look at the inside of the Northgate serving line which again it's those like warm wood accents paint and lighting transforms the space into a really cozy and welcoming space for students and then one final example this one is Diablo View Middle School um Diablo View we're we're building on the existing black and white tile um to kind of give it this like vintage Diner effect we don't want to take out the T the tile that's too expensive um but it uses the school colors to bring this really Whimsical fun and kind of intriguing serving line area for the students there all right so I hope the

139preceding slides gave you a window into this exciting work we have planned this year I do just want to talk a little bit about the specifics and the timeline that you can see here these are for our elementary sites um again I want to reiterate that these are our pilot sites so we selected schools for a variety of reasons so that we can learn about the process the time commitment and the cost for all this work um with the ultimate goal of expanding to all of the district schools okay um these are the elementary schools at which we're proposing this this work so you can see on the leand side are sites where we're proposing redesigns and then on the right hand side are the sites that are getting the new serving lines and there's

140some overlap and I just wanted to note that the three sites I called out earlier that are currently serving through a rollup window are all scheduled to get new serving lines this school year which will both improve the student experience and then also the food safety at those sites and the food quality this is our timeline for our secondary sites um and the proposed sites again I mentioned Northgate is our only high school without a cafeteria space um Diablo View cant Hill and El Dorado those are the three sites that have the the only three sites that have the speed lines so we're replacing those again to improve the student experience the food quality and the food safety thank you for this your time this evening I appreciate the opportunity to highlight this exciting work

141and I thank you for your support questions or I just okay I just the gator Cafe everything is Cafe because that's you know those uh roll up Windows yeah that was the dishwasher back in the day you threw your trays in there and there was a kid back there wash them that's why there's two one is out and one is in yeah yeah good to know I just want to say thank you so much I you were saying you know think about your own experiences and I know that uh um you know my kids are almost done with high school now but when they were just starting school um I would go you know see what was at the cafeteria and decide that we were just going to bring our food every day and that

142was just kind of the plan right um and to go from that to like the the sort of soggy bags of burritos or whatever right um to what we have now is just so incredible um and I love the direction that you and your whole team are going in terms of the the healthier food the organic the the culturally responsive because we do have so many different um dietary needs and things like that as well that I know you've been responsive to um but um but also this whole thing about they do have to come into the cafeteria I do know um I've I've experienced it as a parent at some schools talking to um students who are hungry and I'm like there a cafeteria with free food right there and they go to like

143the wellness center and and find snacks there that were you know somebody fundraised for as opposed to going to the cafeteria so it really does make a big difference when they feel like they can actually walk in and want to be there so I appreciate your efforts um on that along that line as well thanks I also want to thank you for this really thoughtful presentation and I really appreciated the images kind of of what um our different um schol cafeteras could look like and I just think this is really important to students um and I just um really appreciate the thoughtfulness um that you that was put into kind of um designing the ideas for each site so thank you so much thank you I also want to say that the the school principals

144at all the schools except for Rio Vista because it's hot after the the Press have had a chance to have input um and gather input from their school communities so that's been really valuable I expect that your uh staff is excited to work in these new kitchens I hope there's some enthusiasm uh that will uh retain employees and uh because we all know that the cafeteria ladies have a reputation and being special to all of our students so I know that's a um what it's a wonderful term when you hear a student express it uh in a positive manner so um I'm excited for our employees as they're working in these kitchens absolutely you know a lot of times the cafeteria staff are one of the only people in the school that see all the

145students every day right so they they know a lot about our kids um and I'll say you know our dining staff were super excited about this work um but we've also invested a lot in you know the basics around like new ovens and new refrigerators and that kind of thing and if you want to make the cafeteria staff happy replace like a 30-year-old oven and they will love you forever yeah I I well I had one yeah I was trying to I know um thank you so much excellent presentation and excellent work um when we moved into the district I came from a district that was a trailblazing um Child Nutrition um with all of the with scratch made locally sourced um organic blahy blah really creative menu and then we came here and my

146daughter stopped eating lunch at school um and this is like this is this reminds me of what we left um and so I'm really and I've noticed as I noticed like on social media the meals that are shared it's exciting to see how inclusive it is it's exciting to see how um through food we're living our values as a district um that we all have people brought up in public comment earlier I think maybe not realizing who we are and what we've done um and so this is a really concrete example um and also to the um it's so important like the way things look is so important like like our schools are ugly like that that's just a bottom line that they're they're original they're vintage everywhere um and so getting to do what

147we can to make the school actually look nice um without tearing it down and rebuilding it to being a modernized school that you see and in other newer communities um I think goes a long way um to making everyone happy to be a part of that school community so this is really exciting thank you thank I believe the term is midcentury they midcentury vintage they're quirky they're rustic of them are before mid-century so because I like mid-century architecture and what not my kids go to Oakland Unified so trust me we got some nice facilities here that's where we came from for our food and it was so different there were no salad bars here there was yeah it was so different yeah well thank you so much have a wonderful evening so we um we're

148next on the on the agenda we have a presentation from our multilingual um team and I just I just I just want want to um I want to recognize uh Catherine fireman um just a couple years ago we met in in our in my office and she was talking about the need for a a newcomers program and that our current system wasn't working and so today as I was over at Olympic meeting with our our student trustee when we were done I went over to the newcomers classroom and uh spent some time in there and and when I left almost every kid in the class shook my hand um even though I couldn't communicate with them I don't speak I don't speak Spanish or or um any other languages besides English but they were appreciative

149and and not only that they were being taught a lesson um you know we we we have the human trafficking curriculum that we're rolling out to our students and so there was a um there was a social work specialist who was in there teaching the lesson in Spanish and these young people were very attentive and I just you know I just wanted to just I knew Katherine was coming tonight to do this presentation but I just appreciate creating that safe space for students regardless of what the need is if there's a need we're going to adjust to what that need is and so um so anyway just wanted to give you guys kudos for that and and Katherine and Citra are going to do this presentation so this is our multilingual leadership this is the

150department right here so yes yes Dr CL thank you for having us a Board of Trustees we're really excited to um to Jo I are here to just give a little glimpse of um the work that we're doing to just make sure that everybody is um up to date on who we're serving uh we were in the H because we had a packed place this evening um listening to the data um that Dr Clark was sharing and every time we see data I know I think for chitra as well I'm looking at that English learner data and we have a lot of work to do a lot of good work can you hear me um and so we are really excited to be doing this work um and there's a lot a lot of good

151work to do and there are a lot of people in our department who aren't here tonight who also shared this work with us so um we are going to go ahead and just talk a little bit about um our department so um we use an asset spased um vision and so you see the three pillars um this is really what centers the work that we do um we are focused on having high academic achievement bilingualism and biliteracy and a socio cultural competency I love that we just came after fact that um even our food services is going to be more culturally uh relevant to our students um we are really working to ensure that mount D Unified School District not only um has an asset-based um uh attitude towards families and students from all over

152but it also builds a globalism for students who may speak only English and um you know feel that they are very kind of American Centric and don't know as much about other cultures and so it goes both ways which is really um powerful for all of our students so our um Department vision is to inform and Inspire our students and families cultural racial and linguistic assets by providing high quality instruction for all essential for multilingual um learning students grounded in the English language development framework and chra is going to talk a little bit more about that um we feel like these three pillars are very aligned with the lcap goals that we um hear regularly and um specifically tonight we're kind of honing in on lcap goal four that's kind of where our department like

153we're we're go we're all the goals but we really highlight amplify um goal four so I'm not going to read it because I'm sure you guys have it all memorized um but we just wanted to talk a little bit um about why we use the word multilingual you guys know that that's a new name for our department um instead of the English learner Department um then the word multilingual is really an asset based way of looking at our students and not only our students who are learning English multilingual Learners in this category we also have many students who are English dominant and learning other languages and we also have students who speak other languages at home but aren't considered compliance way English Learners so this is much more encompassing of Many Many of um the

154students we I believe we have 40% of students who speak another language at home whether they're considered a quote unquote English learner again compliance language um or not so the multilingual learner term is much more um inclusive and asset based and as you see we think that being multilingual is a superpower M and hopefully more and more students will become multilingual um as we hope to expand some of our language offerings and chitra will also talk a little bit about that so we just wanted to update I know if you had been at our daac meeting in October um I did actually update these numbers um since since then but um this is just an interesting list just to kind of um Orient ourselves to the languages the top 10 languages are over 50 languages

155spoken in the mount D Unified School District from our students which is really exciting we get excited about languages um you see I'm not going to read through them all but that our largest um language spoken by our students is still Spanish um by a large percentage and then next would be um the fary and Dari um and then you can read those other languages um PTO Russian Arabic Mandarin tagala Vietnamese Portuguese and Punjabi and there are a lot more but those are the top 10 and then the next slide um I always think this is interesting so again you saw this if you were at our last but this list of the top 10 are the countries where our students were born um if they were not born in the United States so these

156numbers look really different than this these numbers because if you look at the top number of our Spanish speakers that's 4,397 students and if you look at this slide one Mexico El Salvador Guatemala Peru Colombia and Nicaragua are probably mostly Spanish speaking countries the large very very large majority of our English Learners again the compliance language of of that um are born here in the United States and so that's something that we um we really focus on um because knowing that that is the case and that they're not necessarily newcomers like have come recently um we have a lot of work to do in our classrooms and our schools um in our department to ensure that all those students are reaching high levels of academic achievement um we did just want to have a shout

157out I think possibly at the beginning of this meeting there was a call out that um November is Native American heritage month but we did just want to name that we are you know making sure that in our department we always honor the the various Heritage months that come through the calendar um but that we have 573 students identified as American Indian or Alaskan native and that 55 of those students are qualified as the the compliance language English learner um and that this group contributes valuable cultural heritage um and perspectives enriching our diverse and uh School communities that was a larger number than I would have guessed okay this slide and I love working with my wife my work wife here chra she was like this slide is not as beautiful and she's right it's

158not but the reason why I said H let's leave it because I wanted you all to know that this is exactly what the slide looks like and she did beautify it she added the blue so it is more beautiful than it was and the yellow highlight around the the box but um the reason why I thought it was important for you to see it in this way is because this is a screenshot of um a program that you all approved um two years ago called elevation so this is a really powerful tool that all of our teachers all of our principls all of our um classified staff have access to and so this screen is the view um that's called the um I think it's the teacher view but what's wonderful about all these different

159um they call them tiles is that when you click on them name the pop up so obviously these are large numbers because we're looking from my view which is the district level but if I were let's say a principal of metal homes I would see my 500 students and I'd see all the categories and I could click on that and find everything I need to know about any of those students so we have data at our fingertips really important data that we can make decisions database decisions on so anyway by the numbers um and this was about a week ago these numbers Change Daily so we had to submit this to you'all a week ago so a slight delay but you can see we have um 6,000 English Learners in the whole um throughout uh

160tk12 in our district and then there's 1,942 students that we are fet monitor that means that those students have reclassified but we are required um to monitor their progress for four years after reclassification so in addition to the 6,000 students that we're working towards reclassification with there are 1900 kiddos that we continually Monitor and we're actually in monitoring season right now and we use elevation for that as well the um 1,154 number is our duly qualified students meaning that they are multilingual Learners and they also have an IP and so we work in our continually to build our um collaboration and bonds with the special education department because those students need to um receive their English language development in sometimes in the special realm but also um honing in on making sure that our IEPs

161are very um specific to supporting those students you see the 1800 number those are newcomers so newcomers is uh a group of students defined as being born outside of the United States so that other slide with all the countries um and have been here in the US school system for three years or less so that's a pretty big number that number is growing um the 781 number are are students who are at risk of becoming ltels that means long-term English Learners students who have been in our system any us system for six years or more and Have Not reclassified So ideally best case scenario we get our kiddos and if they happen to come when they're in kindergarten or DK we'd love to reclassify them before they leave our elementary schools that way when they

162get to middle school and high school they are able to take electives they have a strong command of the English language and therefore have more access to their curriculum in all their content areas not all of our kids come in at that age and sadly when we're working on this many of our kids do we have not been um able to reclassify them yet so that's why we're excited about the work that CH is going to share with you in a moment and then the 1600 um 1,679 those are students who are ltels long-term English Learners they mostly they're few in fifth grade but the majority of them are in our sixth through 12th grade and so those are students who are um considered English Learners um I use that language because that's the compliance

163language but um and they have not reclassified um we have many students who graduate at our high schools um who do not reclassify um we could talk about why um at another time um and so I just want to share the number um the 583 number was how many students we reclassified last school year from the 20 um 324 and I just added up um so that was 2324 and then this year between August September and October we've um reclassified 53 students uh we get the larger bump in the spring because that's kind of the season um but I do also want to highlight that we have been working with Dr agile um we're really excited we have just shared new reclassification criteria for students with IEPs um to ensure that more students are not

164being held back maybe perhaps by a learning disability but that we're truly focusing on their language proficiency so that is really an exciting thing that we've been focusing on this year and I am going to pass it to jitra because she's going to talk a little bit about the California English learner roadmap great thank you thank you Katherine and good evening and I'm honored to be here with my director to share with the board our work with the direction as we are heading as a ml department just um following Katherine's presentation I'm pleased to reintroduce myself as assistant director of multilingual education aola Embrace with deep commitment to serving our most valuable students and families as a multilingual learner myself I take pride in sharing with the board our instructional vision and its alignment with

165both the state and District road maps for our English language Learners this work is rooted in the collaboration with our stakeholders as well as we collectively we are always striving for a meaningful outcomes for our students so what you're seeing on this slide this is our California's road map for English Learners our work is Guided by these four principles of the state's English language Learners road map as we see that principle one is is an asset-based approach high quality instructions and Alignment across systems to ensure coherence and impact so with these principles as our foundation and as our new leadership team we are now working towards developing an ambitious vision and a road map for our district which we proudly call Mount Diablo's English Learners road map and for now I will focus on the

166second principle instructional part of it for us educational Equity is first and foremost about pedagogy and we are working diligently in partnership with collaboration across teams to develop instructional and assessment framework based on our current research based practices and keeping our local um our alab goals at the Forefront too so I just wanted to ground us on this California's English Learners road map because these are the four principles that are guiding our work and as Katherine said we have a lot of work to do and with this uh with this one this is the one that we are starting to focus on so I'll just uh I'm going to unpack this slide for us so just as Katherine our director has shared the asset Bas asset based approach with you I would further illustrate what

167we mean by an asset based approach for our system we recognize that all students are language learners and our English language Learners bring the invaluable asset of speaking an additional language Beyond English so this asset based approach is rooted in the belief that the students develop their cultural racial and linguistic identities in the classroom through instructions so our students acquire language only and only through meaningful grade level rigorous and standard-based access across all content areas and that is through science social studies math and art so our vision is clear English is not a prerequisite for accessing grade level content rather it is an outcome of engaging with it so to achieve this Vision we have formed an English language development Advisory Group which includes our principles students tosas directors and program specialist so this Advisory

168Group is going to work to red Define our current designated and integrated language approaches and delivery model and the shift that must happen grounded in research based practices as we just saw the data of about which includes our reclassified students and our long-term ml students so together we aim to build an infrastructure that ensures all students have access to high quality designated and integrated El instructions this will help Define find the role of language in the service of learning the content as this slide says we are all language Learners and can we demystify the role of language language and content integration brings rigor for all while essential for all English language Learners so this is a lot of work and which also with a grounding on the California road map what is going to be

169our alignment of this work so the implementation of this Vision requires alignment and articulation across systems so I will unpack this slide briefly with that uh with that intent as a first step we are actively collaborating to align our language and literacy framework with professional development efforts for our K22 Educators our literacy and language tosas are working in a strategic partnership to deliver professional development for educators grounded in this language and literacy framework and providing access to complex text which supports English language development our goal for this partnership and collaborative approach is content and language integration remains at the heart of our instructional practices through the series of these professional developments we are building our knowledge of integrating the science of reading the science of language acquisition and the science of learning to bring both

170rigor engage engagement and academic English language development for our students this work aligns with our District's language and literacy Vision which is centered on this California's Ela and ELD framework across all disciplines language and literacy all day long additionally with this work we are also collaborating with our math adoption team with the same goal and the same vision so with this is an alignment across the system now through this alignment and partnership and collaboration across Department we are working with this MD usd's language and literacy Vision to centering on a vibrant multilingual Community to ensure that every student is highly literate a critical thinker and an effective Communicator we will eliminate the language and literacy Gap and Empower all students for postsecondary Success through our relentless Comm commitment to rigorous high quality and equity-driven instruction

171we all recognize there's a lot of work we need to do in building the capacity of our system our Educators our key stakeholders teachers and our the biggest key stakeholders are students today we are excited to share where we are heading and where we have started and on the next slide our director is going to share the updates on some of the key initiatives that we are proud to be working towards a linguistically just and system and an alignment thank you and I just really want to reiterate the last slide that chitra was sharing um the work that um I know you've heard a lot about it um at various board meetings and I'm sure in other spaces the work that our uh tosa team has been working on with the science of reading and

172language and literacy that is powerful and we really feel like that is one of the levers that will help move our students forward all of our students students need robust language and literacy and you can't do one without the other whether you're a multilingual learner or not it's just happens to be that many of our English only students come obviously with a lot more English and so when they're learning to read in that language they have that advantage and so we we are really working and it's been a really exciting uh collaboration between the multilingual tosas and the ELA tosas and so that's been a really um huge uh labor of love and we are about to have dat three for the Kinder first and second grade teams and so it's been a really great

173collaboration um just a few other areas that we wanted to let you all know about um maybe you have or maybe you have not heard about optel it's an observational tool that is coming down from the state and we're actually really excited about it um basically we are hoping to be back here in the spring if not before um to um seek your approval for replacing grades as an indicator for reclassification this is an observation tool where our teachers and we're we're piloting it um in some spaces now where our teachers are going to be looking at students language build students language Pro progress of um and the proficiency um in the four domains of Reading Writing speaking and listening um because that is really what we're looking at for reclassification not whether or not

174you have a c in your English class because you happen to find Romeo and Juliet you know that kind of thing so the grades right now that we have may or may not be aligned to your language proficiency so we're really excited um to get that going and um jitra has been doing some work at Mount AV High School U there's a small team there who's about to Pilot it we have um a meeting coming up in the future with some of our Elementary School principles um and what we did was We snuck in some of the optel language into our progress monitoring tool for this round so people are starting to think in a different lens of like what kinds of scaffolds do students need and what are they able to do without scaffolds

175because that's sort of the lens of students are able to do um independently or not quite yet um and that's really how it measures um the language proficiency so we're really excited about that um and we're kind of ahead of a lot of districts so that's exciting um as J mentioned we're also looking at the revision of our mdusd master plan road map um we have some outdated sections and we're giving it a lift and we're talking to groups to get input um we uh are really excited about looking at how um English language development might be um able to be delivered in a different um higher leverage way so um that's coming um funny Dr Clark that you mentioned that you saw um her name is V Vanessa Castillo she happened to be there

176today in the libertad class which is at Olympic our newcomer um SLI classroom and uh she was the one who was teaching that lesson in Spanish um so our newcomer social workers specialist she uh sits at Willow Creek but um she is currently funded by our Cal new Grant which we have uh we applied for a few years ago and um she has been a huge addition to the department um she toggles between student services and and we all share nicely um but she's doing a ton of work um really important work um I just want to add the bullet is not there but today we just had a final meeting with um a lovely woman who hopefully will um accept the position um a different Grant it's called the RC Grant um that you

177know about um specifically targeted supporting Afghan refugees we have a large as you guys saw earlier a large number of Afghan newcomer families coming into our district especially in our Monument Corridor okro yv the elementary schools as well as other areas and so um the grant was received we're in collaboration with the church World services and so we just got to meet the woman who we think will be moving forward with and she will be solely serving the students of Mount d Unified School District Afghan families helping them through enrollment helping them make sure they have the resources that they need and helping their families navigate the US school system because that's not an easy thing to do um in addition to that we are starting to have some listening um sessions about with the

178community to see what other languages we could possibly bring into Mount da Unified School District so um there will be um a meeting um next week right on the 19th I believe at Meadow homes um that's the First Community of schools that has really asked for possibly having Heritage language uh we we are making sure that they realize this could be a few years out possibly but we want to hear what people are hoping for so we can expand the language repertoire that we're offering so we don't have families and students losing their home language when they come to our schools and then they reclassify and whoops we lost the language and now can no longer speak to grandparents or just don't have that home language anymore we don't want to be erasing one language

179to add a new language so we're really excited about that um and so the first listening session um will be next week and then um we chra actually found this organization um with uh what is it C IE I think yes um and they um and our world language teachers got to hear about them um their programs there are a lot of um programs that and with a lot of financial support for our students to be able to study abroad or for um to have exchange I know I saw in one of the Friday newsletters that North Gate had some students from Germany I believe um and so we really want to increase that because again that's all in the socio uh social competency area building language building understanding of culture um and so those

180are just some of the some of the things that we're working on so we're really excited about that and I believe um that is it and if anyone has any questions we do appreciate your time tonight I don't have a question but thank you um and I really appreciate back on slide up top where you acknowledge that all of us are English Learners um when we in our district get children they've only they only have four years of language development and truste mcfar president mcfarren is an English teacher and we do you have vocabulary tests stuff like that yeah and grammar and like all of that like we're always constantly learning English but also we come to school and we learn academic English and so none of us grow up or even speak that outside

181of these School walls so I really appreciate you acknowledging that which kind of um it's more inclusive of like for people who may look down upon like programs like these of which we know there's many in our community who do a third in our County probably um based on the election results um that they're learning English all the time too interesting that you mentioned that a few weeks ago we were doing a presentation to principles and we kind of had that notion and we asked how many of you are language Learners we hope the whole room would raise their hand I'm I'm improving my English and my Spanish daily we all are learning language all the time and so that's exactly what we're trying to get we're all language Learners some of us start in

182a different language than the one used in our school system but yeah thank you for pointing that out I just want to say thank you so much for presenting to the board because um when we were at the uh daac meeting and much of this was presented there I was getting so excited about everything you were presenting and thinking about how how can I help share this out so now you've shared it to the the whole public and and us as a whole board to make sure we're we're all um you know sort of growing in the same direction which is so fantastic and I I love the the Frameworks of it um and um and the way that you've laid it out as a team I'm especially excited about optel and the idea of

183because I think when we look at our numbers and our scores and how many students are or not reclassifying I feel like I've heard for years that part of it is just kind of the P bureaucratic system and the sort of a strange range of requirements that you have to fulfill in order to do that so the fact that you're focusing on that hopefully streamlining it and having it more aligned with what it is that we're actually trying to measure um is just really exciting and I think that that's it'll be so much better for students too to not feel that discouragement and that they have to continue to you know to take that test over and over or to continue to be pulled out and miss the opportunity to take electives I mean it

184just opens up so much really exciting um and then I'm really excited about the um the idea of Heritage languages as well because I remember when I was first um coming on to the board um that um uh Dr poal had reached out um because um the nor Islamic center is right down the street from OSI Valley high school and he was saying we're at nor Islamic Center we're teaching Arabic and farsy you know um and Di and so you know could we figure out a way like like they have done in other places I think in San Jose they have done this where the students take the course there but it could count for Mount Diablo School Credit um and there is also a Japanese American Club right down the street from gas Valley

185High as well that has a Saturday Japanese school that I think had figured out part of that um of of how to get that that partnership in that credit so there's so there's so much possibility here um and the idea that at our International Borat school at yv that they'll be able to even access those things yeah so thank you so much very exciting can't wait to see what what comes next so we should be moving to board reports I think last time I might have started with trusty o choa do you remember did I start with you last time okay and I see that you have your report ready but I think we'll we'll we will'll start maybe over here um with trusty Mason trusty Mason do you have a report this evening that

186I can talk about okay um I went to the daac meeting so that was a good reminder of what went on there I have to say they're having great attendance this year which is really nice seeing some new faces um I went to the Delta View's trunk and treat that they had uh the Friday before Halloween also RI Vista had a huge parade with all the kids um I went to Shore Acres for coffee with the parents I sat in on the tisp meeting went to the very inspiring you make a difference evening which will let trusty Mayo tell you more about that one of the people that were honored for her many many years of supporting that um committee and those kids and all the kids in our district I went to conquer high

187school because they had a holiday uh Boutique this weekend I I met with the Riverview well I went to the Riverview parent meeting that no parents showed up but I had a nice chat with the administrators there and um I had tea with Linda um Ortega and we found out we have a lot of books in common and other things in common so I think we'll be having tea again in the future that's it for me trusty Mayo thank you um for various reasons in my family I haven't been able to attend all of the meetings that the rest of you have but on um Monday November 4th I was able to attend a performance by the California Symphony at uh the Lusher theater in W Creek the Mount Diablo Education Foundation through Grant funds

188and donations uh was able to um work with the California Symphony and the Lesser theater to provide an musical experience for over, 1300 students in the Mount Diablo Unified School District these students were from Baypoint Pittsburgh and Conquer according to the grant requirements um given to the foundation and the students many of them had their first experience in a large theater uh with velvet curtains and all the lights uh and ushers that would seat them and it was the first opportunity that they have heard an orchestra in a live performance and um for me it was just as exciting um to hear the soft melodies the exciting um drama in percussion and uh wind not wind uh brass instruments you could feel the sounds reverberate through your entire body through the performance what was exciting

189about this was there was a video that played during the performance to introduce the music selections and the instrument families to the students so not only were they listening to it they were seeing it and then they would be surprised when the symphony would suddenly uh sound a chord or play a passage with such passion and noise um it was amazing I want to thank Aaron D martini and the elementary division for their coordination with the schools and the faculty and the students I also want to give a shout out to the Mount Diablo Transportation division those folks helped get 1300 students chaperon and faculty to the performances in two sessions uh in one morning's time and that was a day when the freeway was shut down because of accidents on both directions and it

190was absolute C Chaos on our freeways and Roads um it was amazing I was there early enough to hear one of the um trainers of the ushers talked to the student talked to the volunteers um about making the uh wanting to capture the excitement of the students around a field trip she couched it in such terms that she presented these young people to these ushers as adults that they wanted to please and it was just so heartwarming to hear the care that was imparted in her tone and in her comments and about how these ushers would serve and welcome our students um and I want to thank the mount diao Education Foundation and um the grant granters who made this an opportunity for our students um one of the individuals from the Lesser theater said

191they are going to do their best to make it an opportunity again for students and we discovered that we can transport 1300 students in a single morning to a special field trip uh yes it was exciting to attend the community advisory committee you make a difference Awards and I was very humbled by the award that was presented and the um uh words that were spoken about me now I have to live up to my reputation and um I want to also recognize all the award recipients including Janine Payne who serves on the CAC committee um families were there of the recipients of the award as well as their children and uh it's always a wonderful evening like uh Dr Clark shared my original someone had asked me why do I value CAC there are many

192reasons because they support our needy students but my first experience with the CAC committee was back in 1996 1997 and 1998 the moms of our special ed parents came to a home where we had the major a committee phone bank and they set and made phone calls with us from 8:00 in the morning till pickup time for school those phone calls at that time you know um we only had lists of names and phone numbers there was nothing done by computer at that point in time and we had to handell the conversations and everything they did it with a passion the first time measure a failed the second time measure a passed and it was thanks to their Dedication that we uh have 13 multi-use rooms at our elementary schools nine Middle School um multi-use

193rooms Etc across the district and that was one of our first initiatives uh for modernization of the mount dible School District although we need to do it again so thank you um trusty um and zwe do you have a report this evening thank you um I have a lot of thoughts first fellow trustees um one of the first things I learned which was a shift in my own thinking in the training in the fellowship that I participated in at the beginning of my tenure as a board member through school board Partners um was that Schoolboard member school board meetings are for the board um which as a as a really engaged citizen in life like I've spent when I was one month well I didn't know I was less than a month away she was

194early from giving birth to my child at a city council meeting until 3: in the morning before I got my chance to speak um but that that meeting is for the city council to do their business and similarly and exactly the same this meeting is for us to do our business and and I love Civic engagement um to that why I'm saying this is thank you Dr Clark for presenting the data um that is no surprise to any of us but you need to present that to the board um and I'd like to remind us all in case in case our two luckily retired board members ever forget that on this board are three working people um and a student who has school tomorrow morning um two working people who have children at home minor

195children at home one mine I'm sorry I looked at my phone with a child who's hungry cuz this I did not get to cook dinner before I left and she's home Al alone right now so I quickly gave suggestions on what she can prepare for herself and luckily she knows how to cook but like what there is for her to prepare but I just want to know that we all chose this and our Educators chose to be Educators as well um our staff that are still in the audience have to go to work in the morning as well um sometimes this work takes a while and it sucks I mean at the beginning of the pandemic we were on the zoom until after midnight and I'm barely keeping my eyes open so I'm keeping us

196here longer by keeping talking but I still have more to say but I just wanted to remind us that this is our meeting um and I completely support Civ Civic engagement um I'd also like we my election year our election year was the first year of area elections um so we don't we aren't we don't elect our board members at large so no one on this dis got to vote for our uh the successor to um president mcfarren um people who know us should really know our values we demonstrate them every day we saw them in the presentations that we had prior to this moment um that it takes three votes to do anything on this board and we still have four um we clearly area five clearly well I don't know I have no

197idea I know we made decisions in area five that that based on public comment we heard during those decisions don't surprise me about the outcome of of who's going to join us on this dis but I know it's clear that the person who's going to join us on this Das their values do not align with the of this board and so I'm not worried I'm only worried about what will be said the offensive things that can be said but I'm not worried about the decisions that we're going to make and the direction that we're going to continue to push um our district because what while we may disagree we are not always agree we do not always agree but I there is no doubt in my mind how our values align because we've demonstrated for

198the four years I've been here um last week I got to attend this is as in my work as ear in early childhood education a giant the most ginormous conference I've been to since like 2000 1999 which was the American Public Health Association then this time it was the National Association of for the education of young children and I got to hear um Lavar Burton speak and I got to be read to by Lavar Burton on the day after the election um which was a a very hard day to have to travel a very hard day to have to be with people I don't know um but he said in regard to his work um and his life's work what he's done and what he's accomplished he says I have no other choice I have

199no other plan there's nothing to do but to do the work and that's what I feel like we are charged with in these difficult times that we have ahead um we I've I have not I've done well I don't know how to say okay I like to keep my head in the sand because I like to protect my peace I like to protect my sanity I still feel it sitting here today coming walking through these doors today I feel it here I feel um the fear the disappointment a whole lot of anger um that I'm sure is shared by many in this room and many in our community um but the one thing I know we can't do is sit and just let things happen and I know that there is nothing to do but

200to do the work and I look forward to doing that with you all [Music] um yeah I was gonna say one more thing I was gonna read one more thing but I I won't because it is 9:20 I'm I'm I'm so yeah we're going to do the work it's for our District it's going to be all it truly is going to be all right because we are we are elected and for the next two years we got this these four plus we will always have an amazing student chy I'm sorry trusty Ooa every trustee before her and I have no doubt that every trustee that follows her student truste are amazing powerful smart committed um Progressive voices on behalf of our student um population thank you trusty and Zoe trusty Camp Al righty well to

201build on that um I wanted to say that I was also really disheartened by the election results um one of the reasons um that it felt so devastating I think for me was to realize that over half of the nation rejected the morals that we were taught as kids right so um be kind be truthful be ethical be maybe sensible and levelheaded don't be a bully don't be selfish maybe also don't break the law and don't rape you know some things Basics that I thought we had um and then on top of that the notion that it seems that many voters actually want people leading our federal or even our local government who clearly have zero understanding of how government works it's just mind-boggling to me because I work hard every single day to find

202ways to bring people together to improve our community and that takes not only dedication it takes compassion but it also takes a lot of study a lot of learning and just a lot of hard work right and I just expect that every person that our voters UST in roles like this to do the same so that's going to be my expectations of the new person joining us on this Das I'm expecting this person to work work hard study learn how this government works and work with us together to improve it for all kids um and I want to say there is there is still hope there's still some some some good that happened out there I think um even when the world of a lot of sexism racism misogyny for the first time in history

203we have a female majority in the California state senate I think that's a necessary thing in this in this world um for the first time two female black Senators will serve actually at the same time in our nation's capital very exciting um more women than ever before will serve as us Governors um we also have our first transgender congresswoman and our first lgbtq Latina congresswoman and our first Iranian American congresswoman so here in Mount Diablo I think the most important thing for our students is for our students and our staff to know that we will not go back that we will as you were saying we will stand up for every student's right to a safe and quality education regardless of your race your gender identity or your immigration status and we I know as

204you're saying we will not tolerate hate misogyny racism we just won't tolerate it um and we've we've faced this before um even when I was a parent before even being elected to the school board um the first time Trump won I remember being out in this audience with a whole Coalition of people urging the school board to pass a safe haven resolution to ensure that IM immigration officials would be barred from coming to school grounds for students or student information and I remember you Linda Mayo were the board member who stepped up to help write that and make it happen um so I want to thank you for that I still remember that that um and the board approved it uh unanimously unanimously so thank you trusty Mason as well that um so I I

205know we will we will do whatever it takes to stand firm in our values of equality and justice for all so there you go um okay so on to the basics I attended the deac meeting which was fabulous thank you deac um I also did uh get to attend um a conversation with Dr muhamad darwash um he runs um an international borate school in Israel um that I had visited and I think I talked about um when I visited Israel last year um so the United international schools uh groundbreaking pedagogical Innovation is focused on creating a stable and respectful Community framework while creating spaces for dialogue and openness um and that actually in the mid of this horrible horrible war is still proving to be successful um and the school serves as a model for

206education for shared living even in times of Crisis as bad as this um the international school is onethird Jewish onethird Arab and onethird international so when we talk about those International experiences um this is one of those as well and so um one possibility would be for us to connect our International B laor school with this one um and learn and I'm excited about that because sometimes within our own country we look at the kind of you know conflicts that people have between different groups you know that can become violent and um are challenging um and it's hard to figure out how to bring people together in peace um and this school is doing that in some of the most dire circumstances and so I think we have a lot to learn from them and

207our students have a lot to learn from them so I'm excited about that um and lastly there is some fun stuff out there too I didn't make it to the Diablo Symphony but that sounds fabulous um I did since the last board meeting get to go to the um what's called the foothill Band review in Pleasanton it was their 50th Anniversary can you believe these these volunteer you know parent band groups they they um have organized this for 50 years and they have uh school marching bands from all over the region come and compete and March down the main street of Pleasanton and it's just fabulous um Northgate marching band was there among others um and then also the Rossmore big band concert is where I was the night after the election um volunteering as

208well as as well as getting to see our students play and it's just it's such a beautiful thing it's a multigenerational band ages 8 to 88 um and anyone can join it as long as you can any student in the area can join you just have to figure out how to get yourself there every Wednesday night to practice and then you have these magical volunteer mentors um and you can be in their band so that was really cool um and lastly I just want to say congratulations Linda and um uh for your make a difference award um and for all that you've done for so many years here and particularly in that area um and congratulations to all of the awardees um that night um I know one of them was Patty cornado right um

209which is just wonderful because we were just talking about that partnership and how we need to break down those silos and have the partnership between our multilingual Learners and our special ed so there's just I am hopeful there's a lot of good that we are all doing and that we a lot of ways that we're all working together and we're going to keep doing that thank you thank you trusty count trusty Ooa last Wednesday I participated in a zoom meeting for the teaching and inclusive support practice advisory panel the meeting focused on finding ways to better support special needs students in the classroom to help them provide F provide focus and engage during the discussion I suggested that providing students with more tools to help them advocate for themselves could make a big difference those

210tools could include resources to build self advocacy skills tools for organization tasks and to improve Communications with teachers and peers I believe that empowering students to take ownership of their learning can have a positive impact on their academic success and well-being the meeting was a valuable opportunity to brainstorm ideas with other Educators and stakeholders on how to better support special needs students in our classrooms in addition to the advisory meeting I had the chance to visit DVC um for a journalism event the campus hosted several guest speakers who shared the experiences and careers in journalism it was inspiring to see how they got started the challenges they faced and the difference path and the different paths they took to succeed in the field the difference the visit gave me a deeper understanding of the opportunities

211DVC offers for its students especially those interested in publishing journalism it was impressive by the I was impressed by the resources available on campus and it was a great opportunity to see the campuses firsthand and learn more about the journalism program thank you so much um okay so I will um try to be brief in my comments this evening but I do just want to um just um uh just start with um that I I really um I I started my experience in Mount Diablo teaching at Mount diao High School and that was um I've always been really grateful and um really invested um kind of in any kind of school community that I've been a part of um and to witness the incredible dedication um our teachers and School staff you know on that

212level um and so kind of with um with tremendous support and being really grateful for for that support then and also now um it's been just really incredible to be able to be in this role and to see kind of what dedication looks like at this level um and I just really appreciate um my fellow trustees and kind of within the group as a whole and individual people the words that I would probably use to describe um this group are um you know heart um really thoughtful diplomatic um and um things also like being incredibly detail oriented and community-minded um being incredibly courageous and brave um and being incredibly professional um those are the things that I I see in you and more um and so I've just really appreciated being a part of this

213group and also Dr Clark I just really appreciate your commitment to being such um a frequent and strong communicator and answering um all of our questions um and being so incredibly accessible to us and to our community as a whole um and you know it's a it's a really really odd time to be um expecting a daughter and I'm also so I get choked up sometimes but um I'm also like incredibly excited to tell her about um serving along such strong competent um interesting and caring women I I considered and reconsidered but I think that I think of that as a compliment so um you know and I appreciate um just the thoughtfulness um with which like I've seen um every one of you make your decisions um and really just always keeping our students

214and our um Community just at the center um of all of um of all of your thinking and all of the important decisions that you make so I just really want to thank you um it's been an incredible honor to serve alongside you um and I just wish you the best and I just um look forward to staying involved kind of however you know that comes about you know whether it's you know as a parent a few years or whatnot um but I just um wanted to express my deep appreciation um for this group and this opportunity to serve alongside you and that's all I have this evening thank you so um I I don't have a big long presentation but I do I I do just want to acknowledge um you know Aaron you

215brought up just um the professionalism of this board Kisha trust and zwe you know you brought up you know like we've done the work we are committed to to our students we this board has made decisions to benefit our students it's unfortunate that um you know that there are some who um want to blame and point fingers and and and things like that when things may not be going as you know this is tough work as ating young people is the toughest and most rewarding job that's out there and it's unfortunate that every now and then we have to go through these periods where the Integrity the commitment of this board is um is is questioned and um and so I know because I've I've really gotten to know each and every one of you

216very very closely and how much you how serious you take this position as as serving all students here in in the mount daa Unified School District so um so I just want to recognize this board that you know we're going to go through some times and some things are going to be said and things like that but your your commitment we have the receipts for um for for what we do for students what we do for staff what we do for families in this district and that is and that is critical so I just wanted to say that um with that said um president m Fen I have a little something for you and I have a couple couple words so I'm going to go up is this a certificate this is so exciting positivity

217here but um you know you have a very you have a very unique position because you are a sitting teacher and then you get to serve on the school board and so you really get to see the big picture of of sitting at that dis of of of what it entails to make tough decisions you cannot make decisions that's going to please everyone but you get the information you ask questions you get input and then you make the best decisions um the best responsible decisions for the students families and staff of this District um your presidency you have you have served with honor you have served with professionalism you've served with dignity and um and so on behalf of the 29,000 students um in our district the close to 58,000 parents in our district the

218close to 3,800 um employees in our district we want to give you this plaque um with this gavel because I know you really enjoy hitting that gavel you do you do so and um and and we do have um you know a certificate of of appreciation but um but I have thoroughly enjoyed you know getting to know you um you have people may not think but I mean like you're an English teacher and you're quite intimidating but you you you have like the best personality and you're so quick and witty on your feet that um you you really bring the brevity you like that word you bring some Bry to to to maybe some tough conversations that we have to have but so just on behalf of the board I really just wanted to take

219this opportunity to thank you for your service I think what you're doing is Honorable your daughter is um is extremely lucky in the future to have you and your husband as as parents and I know you're going to do a fine job being a mother and we are extremely proud of you so I would like to present this to you I would just say that um when you first got on the board I might how is this quiet person a teacher and gets up in front of the class all the time and then you got the gavel and then I get it I can see how you take control when you have the gavel you're all it's been a pleasure getting to know you um we will miss you and um I hope you'll share

220photos of your child with us or come visit us with once in a while and um the kids that you see every day in the classroom are lucky to have you and we were as well so thank you for giving us four years of your life it's been a great honor to work with you uh I've learned much from you and uh appreciate your presentation and your um um ability to speak well the CAC meeting I think uh you were so appreciative of the families and they felt genuinely um appreciated by your comments um I do have something for you your baby and your husband so later you can open it and enjoy it and everyone's looking we can finally be Facebook friends because on social media we can't be involved because of this brown

221act but now we could be Facebook friends I'm I'm on there under my maiden name so I'll tell you that one soon I was actually I I point I was like now I can be social media friend Aon that's what I look forward to so Aaron mcfarren I'm about to say something that's gonna offend some people but you're gonna love it you are one cool white lady you remember like people get mad when I call people white that we white so um this has been a four-year Journey like we had the crazy idea to run for office during a pandemic um then we never even met in person until the our first imperson board meeting um we were there was a recall effort just a few months after being elected like we were in office

222just I don't know three months four it was we had just gotten here and they wanted to recall us I mean all of us like we were all special but like us especially who had done except say offensive things to people um I mean me it's me who offends I don't care um I speak the truth my truth always um I reflected last night that you are so much like my daughter or she's so much like you in your quick you are quiet I don't and believe it or not so am I like I I am comfortable in silence and um except for when I have a microphone I don't yeah but you remember last spring you told me so one people don't know Aaron remembers everything and everyone so I was so uh I

223was gonna this isn't a good comparison but it's kind of funny you remember last year there was this elephant somewhere that killed a lady and then showed up at its funeral and it's real like because elephants remember things that's not funny except that you pretty like like this animal could find the person who wronged them or whatever um and you remember everything and everyone who emails us and speaks to us at public comment and what they said um what their concerns are how they may have praised them and it's really valuable and I'm going to miss that but but how you're like my daughter is in your quietness people miss AK that for perhaps apathy because in our favorite Facebook group that you you can't go into um in the in the springtime there was

224description of like you be like what do you even do and I'm like if they only knew Eric mcfarren is Savage Eric mcfarren doesn't take sorry from anyone um quietly um I don't know I know my child sits in quiet judgment um but with great values and you know being on the right side of judgment and that also is you um I also appreciate that you as a really cool white lady use that white lady privilege for all who don't have that and you and you've done that before this board and I know you're going to do that after I also reflected as you just did that you get to have a daughter in just like I've thought about I have to send off my child into adulthood in a couple of years in the

225in the same setting and that's daunting but for you I know that you and your husband are going to raise the most amazing child to be the most amazing righteous person who uses their privilege um for fighting what is right and just always um because Aaron mcfarren is their mother so it's been the greatest honor I'm so mad that you're not coming back like mad no now people don't realize we don't get to talk and I'm so looking forward to deepening our friendship Beyond this dis that's what I look forward to the most so I'll be I'll try to be brief this time because I've been talking all meeting but I have a little card for you um and I just wanted to say congratulations on completing such a successful four-year term on this board

226with one excellent year as our board president our fearless leader this whole year um it's just been so wonderful to serve with you um you brought your perspective as a teacher um but you also brought a level head and a boat full of compass passion um I really appreciated our thoughtful brainstorms because you know we can talk to just one one person about something every so often so when we had a chance to do that um you know looking really really thinking through in detailed ways for Solutions on some of our toughest problems um I'm going to miss that um although I guess I can do that now um okay okay I'm G remember that um but you know so I'm just going to miss you some much on this Das and and in this

227role um but at the same time I'm so excited for you and your family um and your next chapter in life and can't wait to meet you uh meet your new baby and see you as a parent um as everyone said you're going to be amazing um and just thank you so much for all you've done to serve Mount Diablo and the Mount Diablo Community um and you've done so much to move us even closer to that vision of of really excellent public education for all so thank you it was great um I'm working with you while I had the chance and I hope one day you could stop by so we can see your little girl you did already tell me that you babysit and do swim lessons and I did I did and

228I did have not forgotten so I will I will be in touch I will I right it was it was it was a excellent metaphor all right consent the consent agenda oh it won't break okay um all right so we move to the consent agenda um are there any items anyone would like to pull for discussion and if not um we can entertain motion Adam president I move to approve the consent agenda I'll second that a motion by trusty count and the second by trusty Mason trusty Ooa how do you vote Yes where did they it we were just talking about my memory okay and that motion passes 5 Z with concurrence from our student board member so we move on to um our business action items um 18.1 yes so 18.1 were requesting approval

229for for Title 9 compliance I know it's Ino action but we're going to ask for Action really appreciate the detailed work on this um I move that the board approve this item as presented second motion by trusty count and the second by trusty en trusty Ooa how do you vote Yes motion passes 5 with concurrent Sumer student board member so we move to um 18.2 review and potential approval of changes to board policies and administrative regulations for California School Board Association csba recommendations September 2024 quarterly update um this is the first time it's been presented and it's here for information this evening any questions or comments no okay so then we can move to um 18.3 um update to the course of study for the academic success course this is also an information item okay

230um so we don't need a meeting extension we don't have any um carryover items from close session um are there any suggestions for future agenda items just bringing baby mcf I've already promised that if she's not a screamer I will bring her in she we'll see um so I will adjourn this meeting good night thank you