001All right, welcome. Good morning. I see that 10 of our 11 members are present in person here this morning and member Lewis is participating from a remote location. We can see her on our screen. Welcome, Brenda. Consistent with the laws in uh governing our meetings, I must ask member Lewis, will you confirm that you are present? Yes, I am present. that there is no other adult with you in the room. There is no other adult with me in the room. If your grandchild comes running in, that's okay. Uh, seeing that board members are now present, I hereby call the May 2025 meeting of the state board of education to order at 10:06 a.m. And I'd like to commence by saluting the flag. Member Oaken, can you please lead us in the pledge? United States of
002America stands nation. Okay. I'd like to welcome board members, staff, and members of the public who are attending this board meeting in person. Uh the proposed uh waiver consent items are W12 and 4 through W8. The proposed regular consent items are items 5 through 8. Uh in terms of changes in the agenda, items 11 and 12 were withdrawn from the agenda on Thursday, May 1st. Those items concern the consideration of a notice of intent to revoke and revocation of academia events charter. Staff from the CDE will be in contact with the uh school regarding the scheduling of any uh further meetings on those items. We will reopen item one later today to take action on the preliminary report of actions draft March 2025 meeting minutes. And there will be no closed session today. Uh public
003comment will be accepted either in person or by phone. Members of the public wishing to call in for public comment should view the live stream of the meeting to know at what time public comment will occur for each item. Public comment may be provided by dialing the phone number, entering a participant access code, and following each of the operators prompts. Those will be shown on a slide. Upon dialing in, callers will be added to a caller queue. The operator will notify callers when it is their turn to provide public comment. We will also ask callers to please turn down the speaker volume of their computers if they are following the live webcast to avoid an echoing effect. Members of the public wishing to provide public comment in person should sign in using the binder at
004the table uh just outside the room. The binder is on the table with separate pages for each item number. This will help ensure that staff is able to track the inperson speakers for a particular item. Public comment is limited to one minute per speaker. Where speakers require interpretation, two minutes will be provided. Item 13 is the general public comment item during which members of the public may provide comment on matters that are not specifically listed on the board's agenda. Uh I now will open item one and turn it over to state superintendent Tony Thurman to provide his report. Superintendent. Thank you, Madam President, board members. to the public. Um, I want to start by acknowledging that May is a month of celebrations. Um, it is, um, Asian-American Pacific Islander Heritage Month, and we're grateful uh
005to the members of this board and to our public and our educators and the many public servants in AAPI community who have served us in our schools, not the least of which is our attorney general and our state treasurer. um and all of our educators across uh our 10,000 schools. Uh the California Department of Education will host an AAPI Heritage Month celebration on May 27th at 11:00 a.m. that is open to the public. It will be a Zoom streaming across uh school sites so that students can hear from speakers and hear about um the contributions of those in the AAPI community. In the month of May, we also celebrate Jewish American Heritage Month. And on yesterday and uh last week uh for the official Yam Hashoa uh ceremony recognizing uh the 6 million Jews who
006were killed in the Holocaust. There were a number of ceremonies that took place to promote Holocaust awareness and genocide awareness in our schools. Um, I've had the good fortune of serving on the governor's council on Holocaust and Genocide Awareness. And, uh, that council has, uh, commissioned a study to help us pinpoint where we can get better in what we teach our students and how we teach our students and how we provide professional development to our educators to be able to teach our students about the Holocaust and about genocide. I'm pleased to tell you that the council and efforts of legislation have led to what we call uh the California Teachers Collaborative on uh teaching Holocaust and genocide education. And to date, that collaborative has provided training for more than 3,000 educators all across the state
007and it'll be hosting its next training um this summer. So anyone who's interested in a chance at professional development um please uh reach out to uh the California Teachers Collaborative on Holocaust Education. I also want to share that last week I had the opportunity to celebrate uh National Apprenticeship Day um by visiting a school that has created a hands-on lab where students learn about all of the trades and construction as well as robotics. And I want to thank the folks at the Sanontelia Union High School District uh for hosting us uh for National Apprenticeship Day. and we had the chance to host uh the California SULPA Association, 300 uh SULPA directors here in the Capitol representing more than 136 SULPAS and 796,000 students with disabilities in our state, advocating for ways for us to get
008more teachers and one-on-one aids and um to create more opportunities to serve the students with disabilities uh in our state. Um, I want to call out many of those who help uh to support our students with disabilities like one-on-one aids. Um, as we are celebrating the classified employees of the year on May 22nd, nine heralded individuals who were nominated by their peers from districts all across the state. These are the uh staff who keep our schools clean, who provide our food services, who provide school security and maintenance, and of course the one-on-one aids who work with students with disabilities. We're excited to recognize them next week. And uh we're excited that on the end of the month uh on May 30th, we will recognize uh the California Distinguished Schools, more than 336 schools that have
009been recognized and selected for excellence and academic achievement and for positive school climate. Uh, additionally in this month we celebrated the Green Ribbon Schools awards and last week I had the honor uh to uh celebrate with the 29 school districts of seven um uh I'm sorry 29 schools, seven LEAs and three county officers of education who were recognized for their efforts around resource conservation, environmental literacy uh and health promotion. Uh I want to extend some other good news. Obviously, these are very difficult times u with decisions coming out of the federal government that threatened funding um threatened to close the department of education um in Washington DC. And as many of you know um we have joined with many other states through our attorney general and others in lawsuits to push back on many misguided
010policies. And on yesterday, we received notice that um the courts have upheld our injunction um to preserve funding for our schools that they have received for COVID relief and that they're given more time um to um complete the allocation of what would be billions of dollars uh all across the country. And so while these are difficult times and we've seen challenges like homeland security officers showing up at elementary schools in LA Unified School District, uh we continue to push back and support California students. We continue to provide messages to California educators and administrators and students and families that our students will receive a quality education despite any of the consternation coming from um the federal government. and that the courts have upheld our calls to protect and preserve funding. Um, and that we have legislation
011like SB48 that continues to move through the legislature that says that there is no room for targeted uh immigration on our school campuses because of the disruption that it creates for our students and the potential loss for ADA revenue in our schools. And so happy to provide that good news uh uh from the court and to let you know that we are just continuing to march forward on our efforts to promote student proficiency. As I shared with you in previous meetings, we continue with our work with what we call the cohort to move the needle uh in math and and uh literacy proficiency. These are the 250 school districts that have received grants like reading coaches, expanded learning grants, educator effectiveness, and the learning recovery block grant. And they are braiding these grants and leveraging
012them together to create ways to help our students improve their proficiency in math and literacy. Uh recently the cohort met and had a focus on neuroscience and how the brain affects how we learn around literacy. Um we had distinguished uh panelists like Dr. Mary Lou Gorno Tampini from UCSF and others share more about the neurosciences and of how our students learn. I note that today the uh board will um hear the presentation uh for the literacy roadmap and we hope that you will find it helpful in our conversations as we continue to help students improve their literacy proficiency throughout the state. We also continued our conversation on how to expand dual language immersion programs uh for our students and uh convened our fifth webinar uh in a series where we talk about how learning another
013language helps our students um how it develops brain uh the bra brains of our students and creates global thinkers of the word uh world. We have set an aspirational goal that eventually every California student will learn another language. And we know that we have a uh um a multi-ingual literacy goal of students learning another language or two by the year 2030. And we will continue to work with the legislature and the governor and the state board and others to expand dual language immersion programs because we know that they're beneficial for our students. And in a time when our districts experience declining enrollment, it is something that many of our families are deeply interested in. We see it as a path to helping many Californians to reinvest and reconnect with California schools and give districts a
014way to offset the declining enrollment that they experience. Finally, I want to acknowledge that today the board will be voting to approve um community schools grants. Um, I want to thank um, President Darling Hammond, the members of the board, the governor, and the legislature for this latest $618 million to support 458 school sites. Um, contingent on the board's action today, that would bring us to a total of 2500 community schools in our state, nearly 1/4 of the highnee schools um, in our state. I want to thank you for your commitment to this program uh to the schools that are uh implementing it um and providing the deep wraparound supports that help our students to um have their needs met so that they can have academic success um and uh be on great career pathways towards
015the future. With that, Madam President, this concludes my report and I'd be happy to take any questions from you or members of the board. Thank you so much. You know, I really want to thank you and all of our colleagues at CDE for the enormous amount of work that's gone into all of those areas of progress. It's um it's a lot to um uh take stock of and you know, we see ourselves making continuous progress even in the face of the challenges that you uh outlined. I just want to reinforce the point that Superintendent Thurman made about the challenges that we're um encountering from the federal um government at this point and note that um uh there are now three courts in the last couple of weeks that have declared the effort to eliminate diversity,
016e equity, and inclusion uh illegal. uh and uh California was one of the first states to uh provide guidance to districts uh in that regard and to reinforce the commitments we have in this state. Uh and uh as those court decisions um come down, it becomes clear that the path that we're on is um you know continues to be not only viable but uh you know really um inspired and and um expanding. So, um I also want to note that uh it's been about four months uh since fires destroyed or significantly damaged about eight schools in uh in Southern California. Uh and all eight are now open again. The eighth one reopened just this last month. Uh Palisad's Charter High School uh is inside a former Sears building in Santa Monica. uh it's a temporary
017location for them. But we have in just four months time the state has managed to rebuild uh the capacity for education in that in that u uh part of the state. And it's a great example of what can happen when uh the the uh state officials, the local officials, the school community work together to get things done um you know in safely and efficiently in an extraordinarily rapid amount of time. and hopefully we'll soon see everyone in their traditional regular school sites. Uh we're aware of the fastmoving fire in Tari right now and keeping the community in our thoughts and thankful for the first responders who are working to um address that fire and protect the nearby structures. Right now it's about 50% contained as of last night. We're hopeful that it will be under
018control soon and that uh there will not need to be, you know, loss of um opportunity for students to be in school. Um also in the last month, in addition to all of the wonderful um accomplishments that uh our superintendent just listed, the governor officially announced the cradle to career data system. If you are a data geek, this is exciting. Uh it's anformational tool to help students and families better understand their options for career career planning and education. It will allow the public, educators, researchers, and policy makers to access detailed information on education and career outcomes, workforce trends uh broken down by region of the state and by the demographics of students to address areas of strength and needed growth. I am sure some of that data will find its way into our deliberations soon.
019uh and by linking data from multiple sources, the system illuminates the gaps and identifies the opportunities throughout students education experiences so they can ultimately re you know achieve their goals for their life and careers. So we look forward to seeing the positives that come from this new tool. Um uh moving on to all the other things in May in addition to the celebrations which I I really appreciate us um celebrating. This is the month when we learn a bit more about the state's fiscal projections and how that impacts the proposed budget for the next fiscal year and beyond. And we know that they are not as rosy as we would want them to be. Uh but the governor has been a strong and steady advocate for um education programs. We'll see them budget revision shortly.
020uh and we'll uh you know be uh looking at uh how the continued uh support uh is made. We do expect uh an ongoing commitment to the major milestone items that are happening this year. This is the year when all four-year-olds will be able to attend universal transitional kindergarten. Uh this is the year when full implementation of the expanded learning opportunities program uh providing before, after, and summer school opportunities will occur. It's the year when, as uh superintendent said, implementation grants for the California Community Schools Partnership Program will be fully dispersed. Uh and we'll be hearing a lot more about this later today. Uh and you know, those schools are supported for at least five years each and then with extension grants. So our task in the coming years will be to take advantage of
021the successes that are going on in the field and there's some wonderful um uh stories of how the community schools are making a difference and be sure that that becomes instantiated and becomes part of our system. uh all educators will have access to the literacy roadmap um that's uh that the department has been working very hard on that will be exciting and I think very very helpful in our work in literacy all kindergarten through second grade students will be screened for risk of reading difficulties including dyslexia uh ensuring that they get early identification and support if needed. So, it's quite a basket of accomplishments over these last couple of years that are all coming to fruition now and uh we want to be sure that we uh support the uh strong implementation uh of all
022of those uh and um we expect the continued support from the state for for those initiatives. Uh, I want to thank the governor for his continued work to protect the key education investments that are helping our schools become places of deep learning for all of our students. Uh, I also want to add my thanks to our teachers and our classified staff. I'm so glad that there's a recognition opportunity for classified staff as well. uh while we take uh time to appreciate the hard work and dedication and impact that teachers have on students and families and communities. I think it was Henry Adams who said a teacher affects eternity. He can never tell where his or her influence stops. Teachers of course work long hours. They invest their personal resources. They go beyond their job descriptions
023to support students academically, emotionally and socially. Uh the job as we know is en enormously rewarding and I would want to acknowledge the teachers sitting on our board right now Gabriella and Iay who are doing this work day by day. Uh and [Applause] yes and of course many others who've done this work over the course of their careers. Uh but we do need to recognize and invest in our teachers. Uh teaching is the profession on which all other professions depend. uh and we need to recognize that um this administration has worked hard to try to be sure that there's a smoother pathway into teaching with supports from Golden State teacher grants and residency programs and classified staff supports and to recognize teachers through their career with supports for national board certification uh for teachers in
024uh um highne schools. Um, we just want to uh continue and deepen those appreciations and supports for teachers and of course I know we all join in uh expressing our sincere appreciation for all our educators um and um uh appreciating this the trying conditions in which they often do this heroic work. So, uh, speaking of, uh, the wonderful work that teachers do, over the next several weeks, we will get to see our wonderful seniors, uh, Don Ro robes and caps for graduation ceremonies, including member Clausen, who, uh, is um, to be congratulated along with the class of 2025. And we've heard that you've made that tough decision and you'll be going to Yale in the fall. [Applause] That is my alma mater. And so I'm particularly uh pleased that you've made that choice. No pressure.
025There was no pressure. They're so lucky to have you. And uh while we're celebrating our current student board member, u the government did make a key appointment to the board last month in our next student board member, uh Vanessa GK, and her term will begin on August 1st, 2025. Vanessa is from Cerritos. She's currently at Whitney High School. Uh she uh has a very impressive resume, as do all of our student board members, which includes service as the national partnership director for the High School Democrats of America and the local affairs director for the California High School Democrats. She was an intern for Assembly Member Sharon Cork Silva in the California State Assembly in 2024. She is the sole student representative in the ABC Unified School District's Legislative Policy Committee, the president of her school's
026key club and National Honor Society, and vice president of the Black Student Union. So, we are looking forward to seeing Vanessa join us for her first uh official meeting in September. And we look forward to meeting her. And with that, we have a busy day. We got a leisurely start to the day. And now uh I want to say we need to pick up the pace. and we are going to lose at least one of our board members shortly after four. So, we're going to dive in and take up all of our business uh and go on to item two uh which is the update on the implementation of the integrated local, state, and federal accountability and continuous improvement system. Uh and we are uh really here this month to provide guidance on the work
027of the accountability work plan which is ginormous if I could use a technical term. uh and uh we are going to take this in in chunks. Uh so there are six chunks that we will hear about uh stop and ask clarifying questions about uh be sure we're deeply understanding them, make notes uh so that when we come back for discussion, we'll be able to provide guidance on all of those areas. And Cindy Kazanas, please take it away. Good morning, uh, members of the board, Superintendent Thurman, and, um, Chief Deputy, uh, Wilson. I'm Cindy Kazanis, the director of the analysis, measurement, and accountability reporting division. I'm happy to welcome you, uh, here today and, uh, lead you to to the board item that we're going to present. I'm going to be joined in just a moment
028by Kimberly Munhank, who's going to cover the first couple of topics. But just to get us started, um, in May, we typically would say like, who's your favorite recognize a teacher and um currently it's my middle school teacher, my daughter's middle school teacher who is um guiding her through those formative years and uh getting her to love math and do a play and all those other things that you get to do in middle school before you really um have to dive into um more serious things like getting ready to go to college. So, congratulations on that as well. We have um quite a bit of things before you um and we're going to walk through each of the attachments as um President Darling Hammond mentioned individually, stop for clarifying questions and then um turn it
029back over to President Darling Hammond on how to proceed. Uh so again um six different topics and um with that uh know that today you are not making any formal decisions. You are providing guidance. We are um uh this is the third um iteration of this work plan um that we have worked on with you this year um in an effort to be as transparent as possible with the public and give them an opportunity to see um your deliberations firsthand. Um this meeting is really uh a lot of of digging into analyses that you've asked us to do, policy considerations that you have asked um us to complete this year and then um all in an effort to come back to you yet again for a fourth time in July for a series of decisions.
030So with that, I will turn it over to Kim. Good morning, uh, Chief Deputy Roersonson, board president, Darling Hammond, and board. Um, I have a stack of papers here. I'm sure you have a stack of papers on your computer or other thing. Um, or printed out as I like to do. Um, however, we have a lot to get through today. Um, first I will share my teacher shout out. It is behalf of my um freshman daughter who wanted to um shout out to her kindergarten teacher, Miss Ingram um at Bridgeway Island K8 in West Sacramento um for being inspirational even through today. So um that is the direct quote from um my phone. So thank you so much um for that and for um instilling a love of reading that has a Kindle list um
031that just keeps going. Um she was reading this morning um before she left for school. So that's a great thing to be doing. Um we are going to start out uh with our most robust indicator, the college career indicator. Um and as we um started looking at this this year and added this um uh task to our work plan, we wanted to review both the existing features and functions of the college career indicator along with the addition um that the board has been looking at since back really in 2018 of career measures. So, we're going to go through all of those. Um, and I would request that you look through the item because it is a much more robust section than the slides provide today. Um, but next month in July or next board meeting
032um, in July, you'll be able to um, walk through and consider formally the following um, decisions with regards to the college career indicator. Um, it will be an action to um, modify existing college career measures if you so choose. specifically the removal of course code 9227 college credit other from consideration and the uh of the list of approved college credit course codes within the college career indicator um modifying the advanced placement um and international baloria measures to include the completion of course work with a C minus or better in addition to um passing the uh uh the exams um and then also removing the regional occupation center uh program or ROCP participation from the state and federal jobs program measure of the college career indicator. Additionally, we would request um at this time your feedback
033so that we could pursue action um in July with regards to the continued review and collection of proposed career measure data. So that's what we'll uh consider at the end. Uh through our various meetings, we did not talk about this at the last meeting. Um so uh that is why you've seen a robust set of data in front of you because we've been spending all of our months preparing and getting to this place so that we can have this conversation today. We will also be seeking feedback on these same measures uh with the CPAG um in June next month. Um and so they'll be able to provide that feedback and we will share that with you when the July meeting comes around. So for those of you who are not familiar with the various components
034of the college career indicator um there are very lots of ways that eleas can show us that they have prepared students for college or career through um various avenues. One of those is through the uh completion of college credit courses and the current criteria lists um uh that you need to have a offer a course in a designated course code uh area. students take that course and in within that course they receive a C minus or better or a pass. Um that is the designation for us that an LEA has accurately prepared a student um with with regards to these stateboard adopted criteria. However, what we've shared with you in January is that this by far and my inbox this morning, I sometimes I feel like I'm talking to another being um because I I
035I put something out in the universe and then the emails just come in. Um and just this morning um five emails um at the top of our dashboard inbox with regards and questions around what counts for college credit courses. So um for uh you know within the state um uh we consider at CDE five different categories of um college course taking within um uh our course preparation. So different grant opportunities right and different classifications of opportunities for students to take things and we call them all different things across the state. um they are listed um with a various terminology um and they mean different things to different people if you're talking to them in the north state or the central valley or the south. The terminology is um really really wide and varied. So when
036we talk about college credit, we really are just talking about again courses offered um through an opportunity for students to receive college credit. Um, and so that's what we were trying to do in looking at the data and evaluations that we shared with you was to clarify some of these questions. Um, and what we happened upon within our review of this data is that we found that the most robust um, offering of college course credits falls into this bucket of other um, within our academic course codes. Um, and when examining the local course code names within that larger bucket, we found that um, there were a lot of courses that um, don't fit under what we would consider a robust academic college credit course such as career and life planning, public speaking, other other um,
037elements of public speaking, nutrition. There were also many physical education courses here which are exempt from us providing credit. However, they were guised under this course code. So, moving forward, we are going to um with the additional data provided and continued looks um and questions with the field um we are going to be encouraging the board to modify the state course codes being permitted to use um within the CCI. We also think this might just be a data entry problem. Um a lot of these courses should be labeled as mathematics courses, right? Um and this might just be a data entry that um these courses are um ones that should be in the other course codes. So um we've provided those numbers and that course taking um for the 2020 uh 324 year for your
038review within the item. The next robust section that we decided to look at was um assessments within the college career indicator and assessments take up a very large portion of the current um ways that eleas can show that their students have been prepared. So um the first is obviously through our CASP and through um a demonstration of achievement on both the English language arts and mathematics smarter balance assessments. And the reason for this is that the CCI was approved by the board um to include the components and test taking um activities of all of our high school students in 2017. And then in 2018, the um uh ESSA state plan went through approval process. And ESSA came back and said that you also needed to include state test scores within your academic indicator because they
039weren't in our original state plan. We were only going to look at the academic indicator for grades three through eight and then our high school test scores were going to be in our college career indicator. We thought we'd created this really cool new way to to measure academic progress. It turns out that didn't fit with the guidelines passed by Congress. So, we needed to add them and that's why they're duplicative within our system. Um, and that's why they show up there. But it is by far the most um the reason why most eleas do show progress um and achievement within the college career indicator is through the the test achievement of their students. In addition to those smarter balance tests being included, we also look at test performance on the advanced placement and international back
040balora tests and exams. So presently we're using those outputs that we get and we receive directly from the test funders. So we're not asking schools to submit that information. We actually receive it direct from um the source and from that that the course taking. And what we wanted to look at is to see if we could provide an actual um a more equity based lens because we knew anecdotally from the field that more students take courses both AP and IB than actually go through and pursue taking the tests and the assessments at the end. And that can be for various reasons, but one of the largest ones we know about again is through funding mechanisms, right? And students who are unable to um even through test waiverss and uh fee wavers and such unable to
041pay for all of those exams. So we wanted to look and see what was this spread, right? Um and our new uh the new course data that we've received since uh 2000 2020 really allows us that vision that we didn't have prior when we were developing this measure. and we went in and found out that it's quite a difference of almost 50,000 students who take and pass two AP courses um uh versus the students who we've received pass a um pass the AP score of three or better. It's a pretty wide variance. Um and so in looking at um and and speaking to the field, you know, we've heard a lot about this. So, we wanted to make sure we could prov provide that evidence to you to see if that is a modification in
042the criteria for the CCI that you would consider including the passage of those classes again with a C minus or better similar to our college course taking requirements um versus just the passage on the test. We could definitely include both of them. We have that data or it could we could replace them. So, that is um an opportunity that the board could consider for uh affirmation in July. We also did the same for IB um and there are um fewer students who engage um in the IB curriculum in the state of California versus the AP um uh but and fewer students again who we see passing um with the requirements that we currently have um with a score of four or higher. So um there's only around 3,000 students who do that in the state.
043However, if we looked at course taking, we um triple that number and get um over 9,000 students. Uh however, IB course taking and AP course taking are not synony synonymous. Um you do um students engage in IB course taking prior to um actually engaging in the tests. So um there are many courses that are completed and taken um and that are not directly associated with a test. So it's not the same parallels there. Um so while we've provided that information, we consider to look at that and see if the course taking patterns that we've applied with the AP and the understanding of that mechanism um are the same for IB or if there would be a different um way we could look at things moving forward. Um so that information is also provided for your
044review. The final um current method that we were looking at was for um our uh ROCP programs. Um and we walked through this um this was a measure that the board adopted in 2020 as part of um an expansion of career measures for our dashboard alternative school status schools. Um and we suggested the removal of this specifically because of the redundancy in Kalpads. And this is really a technical change that we're requesting for the board to make um because uh the collection for data has changed with regards to these programs. Um they're act the programs are now embedded within um the collection course taking. However, the lovely flags that we utilize on our end have disappeared from the program collection. Um and they did so in the 2324 school year. So as of this year
045in the 2024 25 collection which I do believe opened yesterday for our folks there's no way for them to tell us or indicate directly in a way that we would know that these programs are happening. Um so that is why we are requesting the technical change for the removal for that um in the uh from the CCI beginning with the 2025 dashboard. All right. Now for the new data you were able to see for the very first time and all of us were able to see student level data from the seal of civic engagement. So um we have been offering seals and awarding seals to students throughout the state. However, that process was simply schools telling us how many seals do you need and we sent them out right and we recorded the number of
046seals that were given per school. In the 2023 324 school year we changed that process. They still request the seals and go through, but in addition to that request process, we asked them to through a separate um data process, not in kelpads, um to tell us who those students were so that we would know their SSIDs and we could link up that achievement with the rest of the record that we have um within our data collection process and to learn more about who these students are who are completing the state seal of civic engagement. We were able to learn in the 2023 24 school year that 14,552 students completed um the state seal. Um and we've provided breakdowns of what those students look like per their um demographics. And we also wanted to look at
047specifically as this has been mentioned as a possible new um component for um the college career indicator what other things those students have done because I mean this is a pretty impressive uh collection of activities that are necessary to complete the state seal. Are these students already showing that they are prepared or is this a new cohort of students and perhaps a new slice of students that would be able to be um that this activity or achievement would assist uh us in showing that eleas have robustly prepared these students. Um and we were able to see through the data that 3,298 students are not being shown as prepared by their LEA. Um so that's an important new number and new cohort of of students and we will continue to monitor that um number uh through
048the collection that also opened recently um with regards to um how those students can um you know if there are more students this year um that are also going through. We welcome your comments and feedback on um how and or if you would like to include um and and or ask CDE to include the state seal within the college career indicator. And finally, we have been collecting a lot of career data based on um feedback from um and uh robust community feedback from creating additional career measures. And I believe the ask came from the board specifically in 2018. So this is another one of those things we've been working on for a long time. Um and specifically the areas of data that we were requested to collect information on from eleas are internships, student led
049enterprises, simulated workbased learning as well as armed services vocational aptitude battery assessment results or as um and we have provided for you in tables 8 through 12 in the May item the number of students that have completed all of those things from the 202021 school year through the 2022 uh 2324 four school years. I will note the largest participation um within these programs was seen in the 2021-22 school year. We've continued to collect the data because we thought that the 20202122 school years were anomalies based on um as these are all career measures. We thought that the low data collection points were due to um lack of participation or opportunities to participate due to the ongoing pandemic. Um however, we are not seeing increased participation andor data submitted by eleas with regards to these four
050pro uh these programs. So I do want to make sure that we note that as the board has requested we continue to collect it. um we are seeing obviously as I said dips and downturns in the data that's being submitted um by eleas. So, as we wrap up with all of those questions that I've provided to you, the final questions we have are if there is an interest in continuing the collection of this data beyond the 2425 year. We we've opened the collection. We're getting it this year. Um and or if there is um interest in looking into creating um and adding career measures um specifically these four that we've been collecting data on for future dashboards. So, with that, I will turn it back to President Darling Hammond for discussion. Thank you so much.
051And I'm gonna see if there are any clarifying questions now uh that people would like to ask about this basket or Yeah, let's just leave it at that. Clarifying questions now. And just FYI, I'm going to try to take maybe about 15 minutes on each of the six um so that we don't um and then we'll have we'll have public comment, then we'll have our discussion. And so lunch will be when we finish all of that. Just Keeping that in mind, clarifying questions. Yes, Vice President Glover Woods. Thank you, Kim. Uh, just two clarifying questions. First, uh, regarding the college course codes, I just wanted to be sure that I understood, um, that the English and math courses that were being coded under that other, I believe it was 9227 or something along that line,
052that those courses in just kind of the review of the data are probably courses that should have been coded with either the English or math. They're not something different that wouldn't have been coded under those. Correct. So, I mean, for for instance, we had um you know, so you can look on table two, I believe it's page three of attachment one. Um it lists a lovely table of all of the um academic college course codes. So, there's college credit courses in visual arts, dance, theater, English, world language, history, social science, other, mathematics, music, and science. So if we think of courses offered by colleges, we can pretty much figure, you know, if they're academic courses, they're fitting under these categories. Um they're just they've been mislabeled, right? So we we saw a lot of social
053science courses um that were uh within other, you know, so people just they saw history, maybe they didn't see the slash social science, um you know, so political science courses and other things were not labeled appropriately. Um so I think that's a data entry problem that we can resolve. Again, this would be a future year's solution. This isn't we're not backwards mapping, but people would be able to go in and be able to adjust their um you know, make sure that they appropriately labeled things. Okay. Question number two, as it relates to the AP courses, AP IB courses, are there students that take the AP and IB exams that do not take the corresponding course? Yes, there are. Did I turn it off? There are certainly students who take the course and don't take the
054exam. So, correct. Correct. So, there are students who take the exam. I don't know if I asked the question correctly that I did. Okay. That do that take the exam but do not actually take the course. That is correct. Okay. Thank you. And my last clarifying question, I said two, but there really are three. Uh so my my last clarifying question is in relation to do we collect any career in care career data related to military preparation similar to the ASVAB or is the ASVAB does that kind of serve as that career major determination? No. So we we do collect data I'm just gonna talk really loud. Um we do collect data on um for military science um preparation. So um for ROC uh for um my gosh uh JOTC. Thank you so much. Here
055we go. So we do take um leadership military science. That is actually a um an offering that is available to show um participation. So um that is um uh one year of that along with other um like A throughG completion that shows that LEA has prepared student. So there is leadership military science already incorporated within our criteria. Other questions? I have a couple. Um one is back to the courses that you were talking about like public speaking, nutrition. Um, you know, those are legitimate potential courses, right? But are you saying that they should be fitting under like public speaking should be under English and nutrition should be under science or are you saying that they would be eliminated from consideration? I just want to understand. So we the when the board adopted the measure, it
056was with regards specifically to dual enrollment, right? and opportunities for students to achieve um you know course robust course information that would um logically fit under with an A through G and or through right um and to be um synonymous with that. The most frequently asked question that we receive and this it it it hurts my soul but it is the most frequently asked question is what's the minimum number of units that a student needs to com the course needs to complete. We have been requested um someone submitted that a one-hour CPR course be submitted as a college credit course because it was being offered by a college. So the clarity of the robust opportunities offering for students um we would really welcome that from the board to to as as was adopted in 2018.
057um and have that opportunity for the board to signal that um any courses you know if other were to continue that those courses are of robust offerings a minimum course code um level as such. Um this other has been you know as we are seeing through like I said the data walking is a course code um we saw at least 15 different courses that included walking in the title. Um there there seems to be, as I said, um folks in entering information in that college course code that are not college credit courses that we would see or expect to be evident of an LEA preparing a student for college or career. So there's two questions that you're asking. One is about the minimum number of credits or uh the sub substantialness of the endeavor itself
058to sort of rise to the level of a course as opposed to a one-hour CPR or something. And then the other has to do with titles. I don't know that we'd want to be restricted to just A through G silos because you could be taking a course for example in nutrition on your way to becoming a nutritionist, you know, to becoming a health in a health professions academy. And as we're thinking about careermies and pathways, we don't want to so so CTE courses, all CTE credit courses that are offered dual enrollment, they all count. All the point I'm making is we need to figure out a way to allow for titles that may be legitimate areas of study that might not be obvious to A throughG. Um, while also being sure that it's substantive and
059and so on. So that that's just what I'm trying to um and there's two issues it sounds like for us. One is the degree of substantiveness that it's a deep enough dive and to the content area and then that we uh see a a rationale for that area of study. Right. Uh did you want to speak to that member escabo? I won't. Okay. Uh and then the other question I have is on the um career measures and there were four of them and I caught three. There was the internships, there was simulated work-based learning. I don't know what that is. There was uh anyway, if you could help me with those four again because I think the question on the table for us is um do we continue with that category and if so, what
060is in the category? Is that is that right? Um correct with the data collection of that. So um page 11 of attachment one um walks through studentled enterprises. Um so that's the development and operation of a revenue generated business operating from the classroom. Um so goodness gracious for those students. Um a lot of those are like web- based opportunities right and where uh students have the opportunity to learn and walk through um that very legitimate business that we you know all see um uh working through as far as student led enterprises. And then simulated work-based learning is another one of those opportunities um that are presented on campus andor through um you know partnershipmies that allows for students to um engage in a simulation of work that is not necessarily perhaps a direct internship. So
061those are three right? Yep. and then ASFAB the the battery retest the others. And so if we decide we want to continue that category, we might adjust what's falling in that category or you're the question we're being asked is do we continue the category and then if we continue the category are we also um being invited to say what should be in the category? I I would say that is if are there any if any of these four areas that we've been requesting eleas to submit data on on an annual basis if there are some that you do not think we should continue to pursue because you don't see a likelihood of incorporation in the CCI in the future um we would welcome that response to assist in lightening their their data burden um in
062submission moving forward. Thank you. Um and so who else has any clarifying questions? Okay, Vice President Glover Woods, you're you're you're allowed to have questions regarding the ASVAB. This is a question similar to what I asked about AP and IB courses. Are there students that take the ASVAB that do not take the leadership military science course? Do we know? I do not know that, but I'm happy to do that to to um include that information for the July item. Thank you. That would be helpful. And just so that we're tracking your thinking, uh can you um unpack that? Like what are you getting at? So what I'm getting at I believe is ensuring that we don't leave students out by eliminating one measure um thinking that it incorporates both. Um so I'm trying not to
063leave students out by leaving out a measure that may capture students. That's helpful. Yes. Member Batillaa Bronson, could you actually just um do maybe help refresh a little on the seal of civic engagement? I remember we had lots of conversations around sort of what would count as in scope and out of scope, but could you um refresh a little on how much for example of like government class uh gets connected into that? And I'm thinking of it in in terms of um it's it's hard to think about a learning project for example that's about learning about separation of powers for example um or or whatever structural pieces um we would want to make sure that students have a strong foundation in in the learning side of the ledger as opposed to activity based projects. So,
064we are not the program, right? Um, who assisted with the criteria for approving the state seal? Um, but could I ask if there was some analogous data that you would want to um see that we didn't present within the seal information, you know, that we could we could assist with in helping out because as the board's adopted um criteria for the seal, right? Um, I don't believe that's up for reflection or change moving forward, but we could again assist by bringing in other data to to um help see that within the CCI. If there is anything else you'd like to see, if that helps. I I I don't have a concrete suggestion as to what um additional types of data might count for that, but obviously I'm just thinking as as many of us are
065about what robust civics's education might look like um to make sure that that is um built into the fabric of how we think about that seal of civic engagement. having a base level of understanding of the Constitution, of um how the different branches of government work and and making sure that civic engagement is grounded in a something textual about uh how how our constitution operates as well. and and that may be just the types of projects that students can work on that reflect that base of understanding, but I'm just maybe I'm raising it as a flag as we think about additional considerations for how um how civic engagement might be measured um to incorporate an understanding of our source documents. And we do have a required course in government that does require all of that
066content. So it's kind of, you know, how do we make sure that those are speaking to each other is the other thing. Any other clarifying questions? All right, let's move on to part two. And thank you, Kim. This is like a marathon for you. I I only I only have two and then Cindy gets the rest. So we we flip-flopped it today. So I get to take time and then Cindy gets to rush. No, we're good. So, attachment two is the incorporation of growth data for grades four through eight in English language arts and mathematics into the dashboard. Um, we have one meeting to go. Um, and I can consider this fully past the finish line. Um, so in July of 2025, you will consider the following. Um, setting performance standards for student level growth
067results. um that will be inclusive of the total number of categories that you would like for these performance standards as well as the names and labels for those performance categories. Um and additionally you will consider whether or not to incorporate the growth growth results into LCFF eligibility criteria. Now um this is a very recent memory, right? We just spoke about um the growth um data in March. um it seems like a long time ago. Um but um you know the opportunities for us to be able to release that data were um precient. Um I've seen the growth data shared by so many schools um already. It's um it makes me smile. Um and I'm really excited um that we get to get um uh over the finish line um as we have a lot of
068in between questions right now coming from the field like what does it mean? What's it going to go? And I'm like I don't know yet either. Stay tuned to July. Um, and so we'll all get to be um, present um, to find that out. Um, we did have, and I printed it out here, the robust April memo with um, let me just make sure I get through how many tables we provided for you. Um, 28 tables um, all uh, presented and prepared um, sharing the information from the release of um, the dashboard. Um, so this memo in April was our opportunity separately from the item to give you, you know, we didn't want an 80page item. Um, but separately to be able to really show what is in that growth um, results that we shared
069on the dashboard. What does growth look like? Um, and the various ways um, that it's presented. Um, so if you do have any questions and you're clarifying questions about the memo, I have that here so I can answer that as well. Um and then again, CPAC will also review um we'll have a robust presentation for them. They haven't been caught up. Um so the last time we talked to them was December. So um we have a lot of information to help assist with them and prepare with them so that they can provide feedback in preparation for your decision in July. So again, we did release that information on January 31st, 2025, updating the dashboard um to provide visualizations and growth score data for all schools, districts, and student groups with students and grades four through
070eight that had enough um students to be able to show a growth score. Um, and we also provided for general reference for folks because the last time we released a preliminary set of growth data, we just released numbers and people were really confused by the numbers. And so this time around, we decided prior to, you know, the board adopting things, we'd provide a general bit of clarity to to make um sure that people could bucket um the scores that they received. And those three categories were below typical growth. And what that meant was the overall growth score for the school LEA or student group um and the precision range aka the range of error around that score. Um if it felt entirely below typical meaning that the score the range of the score never passed
071zero. If it was typical and that just meant it was inclusive of typical range um for a student. and then above typical growth which meant that this growth score in the precision range was entirely above zero or typical. Um we provided a robust memo for everyone to read um you know during spring break um for um all of your information on how um uh both the students per uh rather schools, districts um and student groups performed on the dashboard. In addition to how those metrics on growth compared to our existing academic metrics that we released for the academic indicators on both status change as well as performance levels or colors. So we wanted to provide that look into um the data. If you um are able to, you know, dig through all of those tables
072and understand them or ask me a clarifying question about them, um you'll see that um overall there's a lot of agreement in our system presently with regards to how student growth is measured um as well as how we are measuring um achievement, specifically with regards to change in our performance levels. Um and that's unique in California. I do want to note that um because no other all the other states when they're presenting and um on how um schools and districts are doing um they're sharing information about what happened this last year. We have this giant system where we equally value status as well as improvement or change, right? And that provides us this unique vision and we encourage it right throughout the state that moving up even if it's a small move up right is
073valued in our system and rewarded within our performance levels. Um and uh we see that um parallels significantly in the data that we see for growth. Um so there's a lot of agreement. Now there is some small disagreement right and we're happy to um be able to use the growth measure to be able to highlight that and shine that as well. um uh to walk through. And before I walk through everything else, I just want to this is my disclaimer language. We're going to try it here as I continue to talk about growth. We are measuring typical growth. So what we are measuring throughout our system remember is how much growth is I don't want to say normal but typical. Um and so uh what zero it doesn't mean zero growth. Zero means typical growth.
074Um and um even if you are below typical growth, your students still grew. It's just their growth wasn't typical to what the state of California saw in the last year or it's above typical from what the state of California saw last year. Um and that measure of growth will change year-over-year because every year we're going to measure and see what typical was this year. Um so that's a really important um thing for us to look at and think about, especially with regards to clarifying questions. We had a lovely discussion um in March with regards to the options to incorporate growth and we provided a little bit of additional information for your assistance and making determinations and discussions um around how we would be able to incorporate growth moving forward specifically with regards to differentiated assistance
075criteria. So throughout the um course of our conversations around growth, we had identified the following options for incorporating it. Um we could make the ELA and mathematic growth scores into full indicators on the dashboard. We could modify the components of the existing academic indicators to include growth scores. Um we could modify differentiated assistance criteria in order to include ELA and math growth scores. or we could adopt performance standards and continue to publish growth score data as additional information on the dashboard with no accountability implement implications. And finally, we could modify ESSER criteria to include ELA and math growth scores. So we asterised a few of these and the reason why was bec um and previously we shared that these options aren't feasible due to the timing of the release of the dashboard and this additional
076information we've provided both in the item as well as today's presentation hopes to clarify that a little bit more. So um per statute um and modifications in education code, the dashboard will be required in 2026 to be published on October 15. Um and due to the flexibility of the instructional calendars in California, this does not align so precisely with that flexibility we provide to to students to take the test. So eleas have flexibility on when they would like to administer the assessments. Um we have recently shifted that opportunity uh the uh window for when um students can take tests by two weeks. Previously it was July 15th. We were able to test and assess students in the current year through July 15th. That's been modified and changed and moved up by two weeks up to
077June 30th. So all students stop testing in the state by June 30th. Um the close of the student level data system however though from kelpads which we utilize to get all of our demographic information about students in the past year has also been moved up to accommodate this new October 15 change. So this year it closes on August 8th 2025. Um and we continue goodness gracious do we to evaluate whatever additional adjustments in the system we can to add efficiency to this process. Um it we have been doing this for the past two years. We continue to do it right now as we look forward to 2026. Um I feel like poor 2025 is the dashboard that we're all going to forget because we're looking right we're looking forward and over. Um and really creating
078um a robust systems within the department to be able to facilitate this information to be um you know as uh Cindy mentioned back in uh March as valid and reliable as possible when we get that back out to everyone. So this is our timeline that assists you in seeing what all of this lovely um magic that we do um here at CDE looks like. um and the conversations that different data systems and different processes need to have with each other for us to end up at the dashboard and now to end up with a growth indicator. So as you can see while testing concludes by June 30th um there's an additional process and um our friends from ADAD are here to answer any questions with regards to that um around validation for um from CDE
079and ETSs of those scores and of that testing process, right? Um they look through all of those results, walk through test questions, make sure things were operating the way they were supposed to and they're not unable to begin that process until all students have tested. um you know in June 30th they can't look at everything until all of that is complete. Simultaneously we are collecting all of that data in the end ofear submission from eleas um as again specifically with regards um for our needs in the academic indicator around um their program variables um and how those students um have been enrolled and where they've been enrolled throughout the school year. So that process completes as I said um right this current year is August 8th. we'll see in future years as well. Once we
080receive all of that information, then only then can we begin processing the demographics that are necessary for the academic indicator. Um, we try our best to get that done as quickly as possible. Um, every year there has been a hiccup of some sort. So that's why we say, you know, I I'd love to say it would take a week, two weeks. Um, we're going to cross our fingers, but data has fun hiccups and data collection has fun hiccups. So um we anticipate that this process gets concluded and complete by September. Then our academic team with the information from ETSs and the information from the Kalpads um data collection begin their task um and it is a multi-week process involving many programmers and different programming teams that are able to combine that information and walk through
081and per their deadline right from 2026 they need to complete that process by October 15. So their process for completing things is sometime in September through October 15. Um only when that process is complete are we able to hand the data that ETSs needs to calculate the growth model. So it is when that final step of the academic indicator processing when that is complete that the handoff can occur. And again, as we see here, even if we were looking at a, you know, a fast timeline for that process of say for I would say as fast timeline as four to six weeks, we're still landing after October 15th. Um, and so for any opportunities to um move things forward or up, we have to scoot that bottom line backwards. Um, and as you can see,
082there's a lot of processes that are dependent um as we move forward. So I hope that helps answer the questions that folks had um in March and happy to answer any other questions too. Um so again to recap next month you will be charged with providing a decision on the total number of performance categories that are available, the names and labels for those performance categories um and the performance standards aka cut scores that are assigned to each of those performance categories. Um and then additionally we will just in case you're like whoa that's a lot to do. We'll provide you with um some suggestions for those um and then you're a able to talk amongst yourselves as to whether those suggestions are something that you would like to go with or you'd like to have
083something else. So with that President Darling Hammond growth it's like a mic drop. Uh yeah, are there clarifying questions? Remember, we'll come back and discuss this further, but do you have any clarifying questions for Kim? I think that was very clear. So, thank you. I will turn it back over to Cindy. All right, hand the baton for the rest of the marathon. Thanks, Kim. All right, we're going to move on to attachment three, which is differentiated assistance options for long-term English learners. And uh for your July meeting, uh the task at hand is looking at modifying the assigned 5x5 for the long-term English learner student group on our suspension rate indicator for elementary schools. And then we are seeking um today additional suggestions from the board around the long-term English learner student group. uh this
084was not discussed at our pre your previous meeting rather um we are going to share with you today a little bit of the analysis you see that in the item already um and then we will take this to CPAC which we're taking all of these items to CPAC and then again with um determinations in July so uh going back to the beginning of the the year um you asked us to to look at the reasons that districts and county offices of education were eligible for differentiated assistance based on the results of the long-term English student group. This was a student group that was added by statute. It has a different end size than u most of our student groups. It's uh 15 at the district level like homeless and foster. And uh when we presented
085to you in January that they have now um uh are the main reason why districts and county offices are being are met are eligible for differentiated assistance. This is how the discussion um came to look into this a little bit more. So specifically um there is a table uh in your item uh that has the full uh combinations of priority areas. This is a table that we do um at a of a larger scale um every time we release the differentiated assistance determinations. We do that through a memo to the state board. So this is um the top category and the combinations. So again, in order to look at um how a district or county office may be eligible, you're looking at the same student group over two different priority areas. So the top one
086is uh is priority four and uh five, excuse me, four and six. So four being pupil achievement and six being school climate, which is that 89 um in the middle of this uh table. uh followed by uh priority four again pupil achievement and five which is pupil engagement. So I just wanted to give you a glimpse into the data. Um there is a lot here but overwhelmingly parody 4 is the constant um throughout each of these combinations. In terms of the suspension rate indicator in long-term English learners, the suspension rate is an indicator that um has acted differently because we know about um first there are limitations on the categories you can suspend kids for in in K in in our younger grades. Uh and so we do see when when we brought forward uh
087back in 2017 before this makeup of the board existed uh just the variation between our high school settings, our middle school settings and our elementary settings. So, we have um different uh 5x5s depending on the school type. So, we um uh have been thinking about and and actually dug into the suspension rate to see um where LELS landed because uh you will not see an ELTEL student show up. Of course, if you're a K8 until they're um probably, you know, fifth sixth or sixth grade or or or even um depending on whether or not they were enrolled as a TK student back then, you know, fifth grade. So with that in mind, um we noted that uh the student group may be falling into a 5x5 grid that was meant really for a true elementary
088grades as opposed to el students that are falling into those middle grades. That's the earliest that they can be identified. Um and that is really um the uh the just of of this slide is is what I just said. So looking at um that specifically that LTEL definition because of we're looking at they needed to be an LTEL student for um a minimum number of years they're falling into grades six through 12. So uh we do sometimes see and you need I think this was provided in a chart um students that are lower grades and that may be to retention um in a prior grade um or potentially a data reporting error on when the first the student first enrolled or or many other things. Um and so in looking at the data we do
089see that our ELELS are primarily enrolled in elementary schools, elementary and unified districts. We did quite a bit of analysis um around this and um we took that initial analysis to the technical design group who found that the analysis needed more analysis, right? It was inconclusive and sometimes that happens, right? you go through iterations, you you think out loud and um that is really the role of technical design group is to make sure we can pass go. If we don't have um you know if we we can't get it on on the technical means, we're not going to bring it to you because then it's not um something that you can act on and that we can feel comfortable about the validity um of of the whatever proposal we're bringing to you. So we will
090bring this back again in July. um we will have this information um for CPAG in June. So that'll get its first um public airing as to um the intent, but I think that you know that there is support in the field about getting this right. We don't want to have um our ELTELS um show up um especially in the red on something that um we have, you know, uh a decision that was made long before this uh student group ever existed in the dashboard. So, just to give you um a bit of an overview, uh we look at um our long-term English learners um similar to our English learners um for cumulative enrollment. So, it's at any point during the year, and this is similar to all of our our other um program student groups
091is uh we look at them at any point during the year. So, cumulatively enrolled um uh students. And then we also look at um for for cohort, they're they act the same as our our English learners. And then I just wanted to offer up um for for academic um for our demographics, our English learners um of course because of our SSAT plan um we are able to keep in students who were classified within the past four years within that student group. So that is one student group that acts a little differently. The same metrics don't apply for our long-term English learners. And so with that, I know there's a couple more slides and I wanted to turn it over to President Darling Hammond because I think she has um something she wants to share. Yeah,
092thank you. uh as we've been looking and learning uh from our team uh about these data uh there's a clear dilemma that we have to face that I wanted to raise for us. So if you could put the next slide up uh Cindy that would be great. I don't think I have a clicker to do that. Do you see it? Yep. There it is. Okay. Thank you. So um if we have a hypothetical district that has a set of students let's say they have eight LTEL students and we look at their scores in one year and the next year and every one of these students increases their score by one level on the four level process you know the all the ones go to two the twos go to three the threes go to four
093uh their average goes up you know they get a gold star everyone is progressing uh so that's what we want to See, this is what we want districts to be doing. But the way that the the uh averages are calculated is different than that. So the next slide shows uh what happens when the reclassified students no longer get counted. So they leave the group. Uh so those those scores are not going to be in the in the average because ELELLS like ELS are a changing group every year. PE kids come in, kids go out. So, we're not looking at the cohort score when we do the accountability. And this gets to the point that Cindy was making about why you see a four the uh achievement area in all of the differentiated assistants. They also
094get some new students. They get four new students. You can see my great artwork here. I'm limited in limited in my capacities, but you know, they've got four new students and they're all coming in at a level one. Then you've got last year's students who have the scores that they had progressed to and then you've lost the reclassified students. So now their average score in 2024 was two, but their average score in 2025 is 1.25. So their average has gone down and they're now in the red. But actually every one of their students that they had for the year went up. But the the way that the group is constituted and this was inherited from No Child Left Behind, you know, um edicts from the feds about how we constitute the English learner group, but
095you know, as as you get reclassified, uh you move out and you know, as new kids come in, they get counted. So the challenge we have is that for differentiated assistance, we want to help districts that have needs get help that addresses those needs. If we look at what they've actually been doing with their English learners, they've been succeeding in in progress. But if they're placed in differentiated assistance and they have to do something to avoid this outcome, one thing they could do to avoid the outcome is to not reclassify students. But then that has other negative effects for students because they may not get access to the academic curriculum uh you know and other things that you know they they should be recognized for and have the other thing they could do is try
096to prevent new students from coming in. I mean there's you know who knows whether that's you know even uh plausible but certainly at the school level that becomes an issue and you we've seen that in in some cases where people don't want to have that newcomer program because in that at the school level that's going to have this effect. So uh it's a dilemma we've kind of inherited by the the way the groups have been constituted and I think when we tackle the question of how to do appropriate designation for differentiated assistance we might want to think about something uh more like the LP. If you go back to the previous slides and if you don't mind moving us back. Uh basically what the LP is doing is asking how many kids are making progress.
097And we've used uh we in fact asked the federal government at one point to use for federal purposes the LP plus reclassification as a way of understanding whether kids are making progress which is what we're asking districts to do is to make sure that every student is making progress. So I just wanted to frame this and I wanted to use this little picture because it's a hard concept to uh imagine in your head but when you kind of look at it u you can see that we kind of need to think about as we make these decisions you know uh by July you know what's the right way to identify districts or schools for differentiated assistance you know obviously it's districts that get identified but then you know we work with schools they work with
098schools within the district. Um, and uh, you know, how do we make this a rational system that does not have counterproductive incentives built into it. So that's my little presentation. Thank you Cindy for sharing the uh PowerPoint with me. Uh, and we can move on to the the next topic. Um, absolutely. So I just wanted to pause and see if there was clarifying questions um on this piece. But again, we are ready uh I think for for July definitely on the suspension rate indicator getting that 5x5 right and then uh furthering this conversation as needed. So clarifying questions on the ELTEL um I'm I'm seeing none. Were you raising your hand or you were just saying no? That was helpful. Okay, good. like my little avatars. Um, everybody's okay. Okay. Yeah. Member Esco, just a
099clarification. So, what we're looking at is the formula we're currently using is not coherent to what occurs or we're not measuring actual growth depending on the redesated changes. Yeah. Well, when when we get the scores for students um either um on the uh sort of average ELPAC or on average math or average re uh reading or ELA, uh we're seeing we're getting the average scores for kids who are in that group, but the reclassified kids are leaving and the new kids are coming in. So that I think the questions that is the way we we do do report the averages. I think we will want to continue to report the data we report. But I think the question about all these accountability indicators is which ones ought to trigger differentiated assistance. Uh and differentiated assistance
100has a purpose uh you know to be sure that we are both supporting dis schools or districts that need to improve and not creating disincentives for them to improve. So we may want to consider, you know, whether for that purpose we use something more like the LP uh progress measure rather than the measure that has this feature to it. And uh seeing no other clarification questions, are there any others for this topic? We can move on ahead. Thank you, Cindy. Absolutely. Great. So let's move on to attachment four. And uh we're again talking about differentiated assistance but this time we're talking about it in the context of the science indicator. So for science in July we are asking the board to consider where science science will show up on the dashboard where will it live
101right now uh for 2024 of course it had beenformational. We had a teal color uh and then determining the path forward for science uh regarding again differentiated assistance eligibility criteria. Uh you have heard this item um three meetings in a row now. So in March um just as a refresher you adopted the science cut scores and status and change uh as well as the color scheme for the 5x5 grids. We are talking about the incorporation or options to incorporate um the indicator into the LCFF criteria uh that that'll be taken to CPAC and then in July you will make um your determination. Uh so in terms of um again uh the indicator itself uh first appeared uh forformational purposes in 2024 uh in 2025 you adopted cut scores using science points um for status and
102change and a 5x5 color grid and we're talking about um the eligibility criteria. Uh just a quick refresher and I have Josh Strong in the audience, our um subject matter expert and uh LCFF extraordinaire on DA eligibility criteria as well as um if you have questions around the LCAP process. Uh so these are um priority areas one through three. Uh again covering um local indicators uh for uh basics or your know your Williams criteria, implementation of state academic standards being two and number three parent and family engagement where we pick up four what we just talked about the bulk of um our academic pieces is our in language language English language arts scores as well as mathematic um we also have the LP lives in this priority area uh for pupil engagement priority of five
103that's for gradu rate and chronic absence is we just talked about suspension rate that's priority area six as well as um the school climate piece um as a local indicator seven and eight are around our broad course of studies one is access one is outcomes and then nine and 10 is limited to our county offices of education so with that in mind um we have developed uh three options for you to consider for uh science adding the science indicator um as a state indicator for one of the eight state priority areas. So one through eight. Uh number two would be option two rather adding it as a local indicator for one of the state um eight um priority areas or doing nothing simply just reporting out on it forformational purposes having a color there um
104at least in terms of accountability. We've seen a lot of different letters come through on this over the years and um I can tell still tell you that they're inconclusive. There is not agreement in the field on how this should be handled. Uh, and the department does does defer to the board on where you want this to land. Right. We've I think we've given you all of the analysis and policy implications. Um, and we look to you for for guidance on next steps. Any clarifying questions? Yes, Vice President Glover Woods. Cindy, does a state indicator have to trigger differentiated assistance eligibility? No, this would be the first time. Um, you know, you have developed a set of accountability or rather yeah, accountability principles. We're calling them account. It's been so it's been a little bit
105um uh but you you have there there is nothing that that dictates that you have to treat them a particular way. Um yeah, the followup to that is is there anything that prohibits requiring something to be addressed in the LCAP if it is not an area that triggers differentiated assistance? I'm gonna call my friend Josh to come up and respond to that. [Music] Good morning, uh, President um, Darlingham and members of the board. Joshua Strong, administrator of the local agency system support office. Um, in answer to your question, um, under education code section 52064, you all as the state board of education have the authority to adopt uh, a template and instructions for the LCAP. uh within that there's nothing that prohibits you all from going above and beyond the requirements that are explicitly laid
106out in that section of ed code about what must be included in the LCAP template and instructions. So it's completely possible for the board to make a decision to include um science or or other indicators as things that have to be addressed within the LCAP. Um whereas it's not something that's considered for a determination in terms of differentiated assistance eligibility clarifying questions. All right, moving on ahead. All right, let's move on to attachment five, the review of the dashboard alternative school status application renewal criteria. So the SBE action for July on um DAS is how we refer to um these schools uh is that we are asking the board to consider modifications to strengthen the validation of the DAS criteria. We did not bring this to you in March. This is something that um you
107are um exploring uh in May. we will take uh the this same information to the June CPAG meeting and then potentially for a decision in July. So according to um education code 52052G um the state superintendent with the approval of the board has the ability to develop an alternative accountability system for schools that serve a large percentage of high-risisk students. Uh we refer to this as DAS. Uh this program existed in the prior accountability system but was called ASAM. And don't tell don't ask me to remember what the letters stand for. I didn't I have not um I actually never uh was was part of that system. I came in as this um new system was being implemented. But that um uh code education code section has existed in some form um now then for
108over over two decades. Uh currently the dashboard alternative school status we have two different categories. First, we have alternative schools that are defined in ED code. Uh again, same section 52052. Uh and these um look at school types. So for every single public school in California, the California school directory collects a school type for those schools, for every school rather. Um so continuation county or district community day opportunity county community community juvenile court um CA um so the California education authority division of juvenile justice and then county run special education schools are defined in education code and the department um is able to um look at that information and there's not an application that's required so they're automatically part of the DAS system when we um what we're talking about today though is category number
109two applicationbased dashboard alternative school status and this is primarily for alternative schools of choice and charter schools. So, in order to bring you up to today, because um we did get some some letters around this and I want to make sure that you have an idea of the um what what what it actually looks like. Um as of 2024 in category one for the stat statutoily defined alternative schools, we have 778 schools in operation for uh our special education schools in which we're looking at um the uh taking of the California alternate assessments and we're able to then automatically bring them in. we have 32 schools. The remainder are using the application, which is our schools of choice, 30 schools. And for charter schools, we're at 121. And just to go back to 2017, because
110I've been revisiting 2017 a lot already today, um when we first looked at this criteria and presented an item to you in May of that year, we noted that there was 36 schools of choice that would be eligible and 69 charter schools. So actually we are looking at a a larger representation um that have come under DAS in the recent years. The number just coincidentally for category 1 that 778 was actually over a thousand schools. So we have seen school closures or we have seen our counties um uh not operate as many um in that statutoily defined alternative school space um over the years. So in 2017 um the this was July so moving from May to July um the board then adopted the criteria for the applicationbased DAS um status for charter schools and
111alternative schools of choice. They leveraged the existing definition from ASAM which was the 70% uh and wanted to make sure that there was a process to verify over time that schools continued to receive that. It wasn't a point in time. It was over that they continue to um uh serve our high-risisk um students. Uh the board also adopted at that time a requirement that DAS schools um that weren't that were again in this this second category be required to resertify every three years for the alternative school status um information. And I pulled the July item because I thought that it was also important to revisit that we had a very robust um work group that um was actually uh co-led by um the Gartner Center at Stamford and Jorge um Velasquez had um a lot
112of not only time but he was able to get um funding um from philanthropy to bring this group together. And one of the things that they provided feedback on was that when they were looking at the current accountability system, they saw the DAS program as removing schools from the current accountability system and that um that is really high stakes and removing schools should be limited that schools that only serve a large high-risisk population um to be accountable at that time. We were able to have alternative indicators. The task force also um supported maintaining the percent of the high-risisk students to be 70%. So that was really where um this was the basis of the decision that was made back in 2017. For the last um five or six years from 2017 to 2023 we have
113asked um charter schools and alternative schools of choice to go through an application process. Um and it is multi-step. So it's not the most um uh efficient or um userfriendly application process. We asked them to submit a survey sharing the unduplicated percentage of students um as of the date of application that met the high-risisk status. We then said that the survey had to be presented at the board hearing and shared with the department. Um and then um the information that was used, we added them to the DAS list um for the three-year period and we indicated that they needed to maintain documentation. They were that they were continuing to serve the criteria every year they were on the list. In response to concerns and questions from the field, we updated our process in 2024. We
114wanted to make sure that um what we were um uh able to do is actually start to verify what schools were applying under. Um and so in looking at um the survey requirements, um one of the things we asked is that we that that schools look at cumulatively enrolled students. So if a student was enrolled at any point in time um in that particular school and this modification um to the process I think we we we believe adds integrity to a system that you said from the get-go needed to be it was high risk or was high um high stakes and so we wanted to make sure again that um that that the validity and uh the credibility of the system remained in place. So with that um we are able to look at um
115the data some of these data through the validation process and I'll um show a slide in just a moment of of those pieces of data. In 2025 um this last month we also uh again set to look at this requirement to make sure that DAS schools continue to serve a large percentage of high-risisk students meeting that 70%. So we redesigned the process to make it more user friendly and for the department to take on and use data we were already receiving from districts. Uh and so the process is now that um the charter school alternative school of choice if they're hitting their renewal period they'd submit an intent to reply to DAS and with an assumption that they have they were already serving 70% 70% of their students rather meaning that high-risisk status um they
116would present that intent at a board meeting and share that documentation or minutes with the department. Charter schools would also need to inform their authorizers because this puts them on a different track for renewal. So, in making these um improvements to the dashboard alternative school status application process, we've removed that data burden from schools to have to calculate or submit the percentage of students meeting the DAS criteria. Uh we believe this will accelerate the identification process, will minimize the need for technical assistance on how to walk um districts or rather schools through um how to look at their their student level data and relieves that um calculation um burden and potential external costs because some schools were actually hiring consultants to do this work for them. We also are able to leverage existing data within
117cowpads which has been certified by that school that is accurate and valid so that we can make sure that we're leveraging cumulative enrollment which we look at uh for again all of our student groups um from the prior year to evaluate and confirm that they're serving that 70% threshold. Once that um all those different steps take um take take take effect, the the school would then receive approval of the DAS status um and the three-year classification. The department would look annually to make sure that the school is continuing to meet the minimum thresholds of high risk students. So in keeping um all that in mind, the data elements that are currently collected in CalPADS um are on the lefth hand side of this table and the data elements that are not collected in cowpads are
118the uh two of them wards of the court and students who are credit deficient. And the credit deficient um uh discussion took place back in July of 2017 again. So looking back at um at at the item from that time um the task force on alternative schools provided feedback on the definition uh of students labeled as credit deficient being behind one year or more in credits was too late and that students struggle to graduate on time even if they are one semester behind schedule. Therefore the uh task force on alternative schools recommended reducing the time frame for the definition to be one semester. So that is um partially what has been applied. We are in conversations um with other agencies that do collect information about um how many credits are needed to graduate which is
119um the California uh college guidance initiative which is um ramping up to receive data from every single school in the state um under the cradle to career expansion. Um so that is one area where we're going to continue to explore. But in terms of um the modifications that we're asking you to consider is to um allow the department to leverage again the data that we are already collecting in the student level data system to validate um that these schools um can be eligible for DAS questions. That was not a mic drop. It could have been No, it wasn't. And we want to take a one minute break because uh Brenda's Zoom has gone down and we need to get her back on the Zoom. Uh so we're just we're gonna we're not going to get
120up. We're just going to wait for the Zoom. Oh, there I see Brenda moving. No, I see. So she needs to see us. Okay. So we're just going to talk amongst ourselves for a minute here and uh see if we can get Brenda counting down. All right, we are resumed. I hope Brenda is able to get in. There she is. Brenda, we're glad to see you. All right, Cindy, you can go on to the sixth um component. Was there any question? Let me just maybe just finish a thought on the DAS piece. Um that these schools are set up by design to serve high-risisk schools. You don't have students that just fall into high-risisk status. Uh we see schools that are set up to target these populations. Of course, um there's school in Los Angeles,
121for example, that it only serves pregnant and parenting teens. That is that is it's 100% female. They have a a child care piece. So there is um some schools that have been developed as a result of the DAS program um that are doing some very very great work. We also see some schools that have changed their population since 2017. And I think that's where you see some of the letters that come in um one of those schools uh lists on their website that that they serve students who have fallen behind but they also serve students who want to get ahead and students who simply want a non-traditional environment. So, uh, we know and I I know the superintendent started today talking about declining enrollment. We know there are pressures, um, not only for districts and,
122um, our alternative schools of choice, but also for charter schools in this space. So, just wanted to leave you with, um, with those thoughts and happy to respond to any questions around DAS before moving to the final attachment. So, are there clarifying questions about DAS before we move on? Member open. I'm debating whether my mine's clarifying. I think it is. If it's Go ahead. Okay. So, clarify your clarify. I just want to make sure this is clear broadly. Um so the the um the on slide 56 u it talks about the prior process prevented CDE from verifying or validating data submitted by the charter schools or alternative schools of choice on their applications. Um, and I just wanted to make sure I understood that we all understood why the new process would change that and
123make it so that it can be verified. Part of the the new process um that would allow us to do that is the next bullet that we're looking at cumulatively enrolled students at any um at any time which would should in theory only benefit a school because you're expanding the population from one day to the entire 180 days or however many days that that school is in operation. Uh so that is um the piece the the prior process because the um school determined what that point in time was. It was at that time of application. It wasn't like it was on census day, which is our other um piece where we have the one, you know, the one day that we look at enrollment for all of our schools in in the state. That's by
124education code. So, this allows us um again, I think it it should should benefit in theory um schools because you're looking at the accumulation of the enrollment of students even if they were there for a short period of time. And just again to I think this is the answer is it um because that data would then be what's reflected in cowpads. Yes. So we have every single entrance and exit for a student in that system. That's what districts and schools are required to provide us. So we can see exits and entrances. Thank you. So, so when you look at your uh new process of validation, uh would would that increase those numbers you just shared um in the one of the first slides? Will that increase the number of schools or decrease or about the
125same or I have no idea. I have no idea. Just wondering. Thank you. I I can tell you we have talked to um a couple of schools who thought that they were eligible for DAS and when talking with them they are serving students who may be new arrivals to this country which does not meet the definition of al alternative school space right so uh so there has been some misinformation I think in the field about what this program is intended to do and then it's coupled with um this is now uh puts a charter on an alternative path for renewal and so there's also been um you you know, legislation that was passed in in 2020 that did that. So, there's been things that have happened to this program since 2017 that um are beyond
126the control of the program. Any other clarifying questions? Okay, let's go on to the last component. All right, so we're looking at um uh attachment six and this is priority one. Uh and what we are asking the board to consider for July is the adoption of modifications. Uh just like everything you've heard today, um you know, one of the things that the accountability system set out to do uh back under LCF is we're committed to continuous improvement. And so this is an area that um uh we have uh heard from the field uh time and time again that there's interest in expanding what is currently captured in priority area one for teacher assignment data. Um this is the first time actually I shouldn't have an NA for May. I apologize that's a mistake. Um but
127for June we will take this information to CPAG and then for July um we will adopt um priority area one or rather bring forward an adoption um for you. Uh and in terms of um uh what we're looking at is under education code section 52064.5. Um and this is the language that um was added um several years back. Uh so when the state uh has access to reliable stu school level data for all schools statewide. Um the uh this particular code section says that um to the extent a practical goal uh be based on objective criteria which may but are not necessarily limited to the extent of disparities across school sites. And so that's what we're going to be looking at today. Just to give you like a flashback to what um actions you've taken
128in the past for 2022. Priority priority area one reporting for the teacher piece was done um through uh this narrative box in the middle. You're not meant to read any of these words in this image, but just know that there was a lot of narrative text and a link to our um teacher assignment monitoring outcome uh reports on DataQuest. In 2023 and 2024, we shifted to this um table where we brought in data from those teacher assignment monitoring outcome reports. We provided uh really that that clear um information about LEAs versus counties versus statewide. So you could look at um those three data points um for any given district and then we can also see a percent of teaching FTE that are clear that and then compare that to the state. So the state is
129the foundation of what this comparison would be. In looking at um expanding this out to schools um for priority error one uh one of the considerations is to actually add a tile onto the front page of the dashboard for the school and call it teachers. So don't call it priority area one, call it teachers because this is really a component within um that particular priority area. You would then um be able to move into view more details on the second page. We could look at the count of schools. We could look at clear um highest clear, lowest clear percentage and then percentage point gap is one thing that's been um discussed. Uh when I think about, you know, schools and listing schools, we always look at LUSD. How do you see LUSD schools on one
130page? You don't, right? It's it's it's a lot of scrolling and so the count of schools is something that um came to us even locally with Elkrove. I think we have over 60 schools um and of course Sacramento City as well quite large. So, in terms of um next steps, we did start um we were able to get um some of this going before um May. And so, that is why um uh we were able to sort of add in the May conversation with you today because we did have um a couple of different sessions with educational partners and um the initial feedback um some of them really liked it, others um have requested that we add an optional narrative box for this data set. So, we currently have an optional narrative box just on
131the homepage, but this data set, especially for county run schools, thinking of port community schools where we have um lower percentages of clear teachers, that they'd be able to talk about their local context. We also um heard concerns that this data is duplicate or redundant of the teacher assignment monitoring outcome data, which has richer information beyond clear. You can look at out of field, you can look at interns and such. Um and then to to that point, these data are only limited to clear. So you don't get to see the full breadth of um what a school u or district may have. So we will spend um the next uh six weeks or so continuing to engage bringing this to CPA and then um we'll bring forward to you um some options for decisions in
132July. So open for clarifying questions and then I can um move it over to public comment. Terrific. Um I have one clarifying question on that last point. Uh when you say clear, does that include preliminary and clear? No, it's only just clear. So that's a challenge too because fully prepared beginning teachers are not being shown. That's accurate as it stands now. Any other clarifying questions? So we're going to uh go to public comment. I'm going to first thank Cindy for all of her I'll just I'll just run through the last uh we did have one last attachment. There is no action on it but it's always our way to just shout out the work of the team. Um you see Kim up here a lot. You don't see my the other counterpart which is Ryan
133Lamb and his team that do all the data work but we've engaged a lot over the last couple months. We continue to this is not a six-month um project. This is a a a 12-month project that we're working on every single day. So I hope I hope you see that and you'll see that through um our outreach activities if you are able to ever come to one. Um but you did ask us to um I think the leazison asked us to summarize. So I do have some summary slides about the actions just in case you want to revisit them and then this is our recommendation and I'm happy to turn it over to public comment. All right. Thank you so much and for all the work. It's really more than a 12-month basket of work.
134It's really been 10 years of work on this. Has been 10 years. Yes. Um, so, uh, I do want to, um, uh, invite people to queue up for public comment on the phone. Uh, the, uh, phone line is open. If you want to, uh, provide comment, please call the phone number and use the public, uh, participant access code that is shown there. Uh while we're waiting for that, I'm going to ask our leas and vice president Glover Woods if she has any initial comments before me. I will then um after that turn us to um uh public comment. So, thank you, President Darling Hammond. Uh my comments, initial comments are actually very brief. Um just again looking at the many decision points that are in front of us. uh and just trying to be sure
135that we are looking at each of these areas in such a way that it provides eleas with the information they need to support students, help them grow uh without having unintended consequences on the other end where in a sense we're really not helping them. So I thank Cindy and her team for everything that they've done thus far. We've gotten a lot of data. I look forward to our conversation. Yeah, I want to just reiterate the thanks. I mean, the team has been doing incredible work and we asked them for extra analyses and they produced those analyses and we get a chance to really think about it and it's a critical moment. It's an inflection point for us. You know, we've had a system uh that was coupled with the federal system. We've understood that that
136may be this may be a moment to think differently about that aspect of it. We've been adding indicators that are very important for information. We've been adding uh student subgroups that are also very important for information. At the same time, we want to uh think carefully about how we use all of this data, how we use these different indicators so that they are supportive. Uh when we started with the federal um you know uh the federal requirements, it really was about um identifying the bottom 5% of stu schools for comprehensive school improvement. California's had an idea that we want to think about districts because that's really where the management of the schools happens. So differentiated assistance was developed. But we instead of 5% we are now at some moments we've been up to 60% of
137districts in differentiated assistance when we had the chronic absenteeism indicator because of the um uh pandemic. Uh and now I think we're at about 40%. So uh that makes it then difficult to actually provide meaningful assistance to those districts in a way that is helpful. So we're at a moment of thinking about as we add indicators, as we add student subgroups, how do we frame this in the way that we get the most thoughtful, supportive work done for the right reasons with the right districts uh so that the system is working well. So that's another part of why all of these decisions are very very um deep and important for us to be thinking through. Uh with that I think we want to open up to public comment both in the room and then uh
138on the phone. We have nine individuals signed up in the room. We can have folks line up at the back. Um, starting with Melissa Robersonson, Matthew K, Brian Rivas, Nicholas Watson, Eric Primac, Rachel Murphy, Jessica Sako, Manuel Benstero, and Leangelie. Please state your name and uh uh identification for the record. Okay. Good afternoon. My name is Melissa Robertson. I'm the director of accountability and assessments for Highlands Community Charter School. And the reason I'm here today is to talk about the DOSs. Um Highlands has been an alternative school for 10 years. So we first qualified as an ASAM school before qualifying for DOSS. Um our students qualified under 70% pregnant and parenting and actually far more students than 70%. So based on the new requirements um for alternative schools, our students do not qualify. Our students
139are 98% English language learners. We serve immigrants and refugees. They absolutely are high-risisk students. When we met with CDE, we were told that we had no path forward and no option to appeal. Um, unfortunately, CowPads does not provide an opportunity for all adult serving schools to uh document pregnant and parenting students who are over the age of 19. My request is that you please carefully consider and review the alignment of cowpads to do. This is going to largely disallow adult serving schools to qualify for DOSs. It's also going to pro Is it time? Yes, that's it. Okay. Okay. Thank you, Madame President. U I'm Brian Rivas speaking on behalf of the Education Trust West. Want to make a recommendation to you about student growth. We appreciate the movement and all the work that has gone
140into getting us to this point. But we'd really like to get you or we would like to see the board get to a point where growth is used to identify eleasiated assistance. We think that we know that you face some barriers with regard to data availability and a statutory deadline for release of the dashboard. Our colleagues in the LCFF Equity Coalition have made some recommendations to you for how to overcome those barriers and uh go about building a standalone indicator for growth. We think it's one of the most important things you can do for equity. It tells us whether we're getting the accelerated achievement for students who lag behind their peers. And really that's fundamental for closing opportunity and achievement gaps. Thank you. Uh President Darling Hammond and members of the state board. My name
141is Matthew K and I'm here today as part of Cambridge North America. As part of the University of Cambridge, we represent a community of learners worldwide that serves over 100 million learners in over 170 countries. The first high school in California to implement our Cambridge Advanced program did so in 2020. And since then, participation across the high schools that are doing it has grown uh rapidly year-over-year. Our uh students engage in college uh preparedness examinations that are recognized by over a thousand institutions in the United States. and our performance-based assessments blend critical thinking and rigorous uh uh innovative application of knowledge. Uh I'm here today to uh recognize and send appreciation for continued work on the college of career indicator and to express um gratitude and also partnership with Cambridge as we move forward in
142that. Thank you. Good afternoon, President Darling Hammond, members of the board. I'm Nicholas Watson speaking on behalf of the California Charter Schools Association. We respectfully urge the state board to include the growth measure on the dashboard as a standalone academic indicator with a color designation. Given that the growth measure only covers grades four through eight, we recognize that this is only a partial solution in evaluating school performance. But where it exists, it is a crucial metric for assessing whether schools are accelerating student learning gains. This is important evidence that should inform charter school renewal track placement, which will only happen if it is an academic indicator on the dashboard. If the state board were to publish growth data on the dashboard as an information only item, some authorizers might choose to ignore this crucial evidence
143in making renewal determinations. We firmly believe that this data, even if only a partial solution, needs to be included in evaluating school performance in service of California's students. Thank you. Good morning, Jessica Sako. On behalf of Children Now um and the California STEM network, I want to thank you first of all for all the support you've demonstrated in returning science to our accountability system as well as for increasing transparency and improving access to teaching assignment monitoring outcome or TAMO data. The inclusion of this information on the 2024 dashboard has already had an impact on local conversations and decision-makings to increase and improve equitable access to science and fully prepared and properly assigned teachers. More should be done to ensure that these nent conversations continue over the next coming years and not fizzle out. Today, I
144urge the state board to take the next step forward in advancing these two equity issues by directing CDE to provide data and options for the 25 dashboard to include science as a state level indicator in priority areas four or eight. And relative to the TAMO data, we ask that the board consider reporting data at the school level, report inequities across schools within districts, and options for improved data visibility and accessibility. Thank you. Good morning. Rachel Murphy, senior legislative counsel with public advocates on behalf of the LCFF Equity Coalition. As explained in our letter, we request that the board support amendments to the statutory dashboard timelines in order to fully integrate the student growth indicator into the dashboard and into the identification of students in in of districts in need of differentiated assistance. Growth scores are
145the gold standard for determining which districts are or are not continuously improving and closing achievement gaps. And we should not let timing issues be a barrier to improving our accountability system. We appreciate the department's analysis of additional measures for the college career indicator, including the potential replacement of AP and IB exam scores with successful course completion to demonstrate college readiness. However, we still recommend that the board and the department reframe the CCI to measure both college and career readiness for all students in order to assess the ability of our schools to prepare students for multiple avenues of post-secary life. Thank you. Good afternoon, uh, President Darling Hammond and State Board of Education members, uh, Manuel Bonostro with Californians together, and we align with the comments that we submitted in a letter, uh, and with the
146comments submitted in the LCFF Equity Coalition letter. Uh we want to thank the department for the insightful data on long-term English learners um and strongly support revisiting the suspension rate indicator calculation uh especially considering grades 6 to 12 that's where we have most of our ELTELS uh we also request opportunity to be part of the deliberations regarding the ELTEL data uh before it comes to CPAC in the board in July uh we also support uh adding uh the growth model uh to the accountability system as a dashboard indicator Uh in the meantime, as we think about growth data, we uh we would like uh to encourage LEAs to use and anal an analyze the growth data that's available when they're developing their LCAPS. Uh to make this analysis meaningful, uh we reiterate our request for
147growth model outcomes to be uh provided uh for English learners uh and to be provided in time for ALCAP development. Thank you, Madame President, members. Eric Primac with the Charter School Center. We support the inclusion of the growth data, but we also would urge you to move as quickly as possible to address the fact that we don't have any growth data for about half or more of the grades. Uh perhaps including uh allowing uh inclusion of verified data that we've been using in the charter sector for a while. Uh second, we have a lot of concerns about the fact that the DOSS entry criteria were changed almost a year ago with and you're only hearing about it today. The implications for a number of our members are quite profound and this process of changing the
148methodology without any vetting or discussion is uh profoundly disturbing to us. As much as we uh respect the work of CDE staff and the concerns that they have, we think there are some counterveiling concerns that need to be vetted and discussed before this implementation uh before these changes are implemented. Thank you. embatting cleanup. Um, uh, good afternoon, Leangela Reed, on behalf of the Small School Districts Association. Um, want to thank you for this, uh, very robust conversation and appreciate the the thoroughess and the the work of the CDE staff to lay it out. We on behalf of LEAs and you have our coalition letter, I just want to reiterate that we would we would ask you to look at what's already possible. You can already add science into the LCAP. don't need to have you
149don't need to change the alcap. Um you can conversations are already occurring about growth. We we would ask you to move forward slowly because that DA is an awful big ornament to put on the Christmas tree. And so when you add that in, you can topple the whole thing over. So we would ask that we just move forward cautiously that we be really deliberate about what we think about adding in and we stand ready to help and support um the work as you move forward. Thank you. There are 10 callers in the queue. I will open the phone line now. Caller, caller with the last four digits 4369, you are now live. Please start your public comment. You have one minute. Hello, I'm Sally Fox calling from San Diego on behalf of Cababe, the California
150Association for Bilingual Education and as part of the LCFF Equity Coalition. Along with bringing attention to the written comments submitted by the coalition, Cababe reiterates appreciation for the important work achieved thus far to improve our California K12 schools through a carefully designed authentic assessment and accountability system. I'd like to add when we keep in mind the needs of multilingual learners who are acquiring and developing English at school, we actually benefit all types of students, including those with special needs because well-designed bilingual programs result in higher academic achievement overall by grade 5. Although our state has many more dual language immersion programs than 15 years ago, English learners are less likely than native English speakers to be enrolled in these programs. Please continue to find ways to offer these world-class programs to all, especially our English
151learners. Thank you. Thank you. Next caller with the last four digits 7732. You are now live. Please start your public comment. You have one minute. Good afternoon. This is Elizabeth Arona speaking on behalf of Alta Schools. At Altus Schools, our eight hybrid classroom optional DOSS charter schools in San Diego, Riverside, and San Bernino County have supported more than 18,000 students over the past 30 years, the majority of whom enrolled credit deficient from their prior schools to successfully graduate. We support the work of the state board of education in continuing the DOS status criteria maintaining a threshold of 70% of students served and importantly continuing with the current criteria including students who are credit deficient as this of all the DOS criteria best reflects high-risisk students served by DOS schools such as ours as well as
152those not required to verify their status such as district continuation schools. Thank you. Thank you. Next caller with the last four digits 2362. Oh, sorry. 2363. You are now live. Please start your public comment. You have one minute. Good afternoon. I'm Patty Herrera on behalf of the Association of California School Administrators regarding the college career indicator access supports efforts to provide the greatest opportunities for students to demonstrate preparedness including through obtaining the seal of civic engagement and successfully passing at least two AP or IB courses. We start regarding student growth data. AXA supports displaying the data forformational purposes and relative to the science indicator. AXA continues to explore ways to meaningfully incorporate science results into our accountability assist system. We along with our colleagues will be prepared to share our recommendations at the July meeting.
153Finally, with respect to teacher assignment data, AXA believes the information currently available on the dashboard is sufficient as these data are already reported on local SARS and available in dataquest. Including school level data about teacher assignments on the dashboard without appropriate context can cause confusion and complicate local discussions. Thank you. Thank you. Next caller with the last four digits 4301. You are now live. Please start your public comment. You have one minute. Good morning, President Darling Hammond, Vice President Gloverwoods, and members of the board. Lindseay Tornatori. On behalf of the California County Superintendent, I want to uplift the letters we submitted which outline our outline our positions on each element of this item and spend my time elaborating on science. We recognize there are a myriad of approaches available to the board. Our coalition is
154in deep discussion as to which option we think will best support student achievement and capacity and will share our positions at June CPAC and July board meetings. Regarding Dr. Glover Woods' question related to science in the LCAP. We would like to build off Josh Strong's response and add that currently nothing prevents an LEA from including science in the LCAP within the current template instructions adopted by the board. Finally, county offices do not wait for eleas to qualify for DA to offer support. Through the Cal MSPS partnership, we are actively building capacity to deliver robust science instruction across grades in all schools regardless of DA status. Thank you. Thank you. Next caller with the last four digits 8256. You are now live. Please start your public comment. You have one minute. Hello, this is Robert Manor
155from Children Now. Children Now strongly supports the inclusion of a student growth indicator on the dashboard. According to the education commission for the states, student growth is the highest weighted indicator in a majority of other states and for good reason. Growth is the fairest measure of education quality of a school. Every year, each student has an opportunity to succeed on growth, regardless of where that student starts. At the same time, for all of the student groups, the equity coalition focuses it its attention on, a larger percentage of schools score below typical growth. Targeted student groups of third graders are behind, and this growth data shows that they're falling further behind. Adding growth to the dashboard will lead to districts focusing on growth and closing achievement gaps. To this end, we recommend adopting a 5x5 color
156matrix for growth, designating as a state indicator, and working with the administration and legislature to amend the budget trailer bill statutory deadline to allow a supplemental release of growth data on the dashboard. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Next caller with the last four digits one25. You are now live. Please start your public comment. You have one minute. Good afternoon. Michelle Hulcom, executive director for California Association of Science Educators. On behalf of Statewide Science Education Organization, thank you for your continued support, especially for adding science to the California School Dashboard. I urge you to take the next step and adopt option one under agenda item two, making science a state indicator under priority four or eight. Without this, science remains optional and inequities and access continue to grow. I also strongly urge you to
157include science in the criteria for differentiated assistance in 2025. Waiting only delays progress. Including science now allows the system to evolve with science embedded from the start, ensuring that students in undeserved communities are no longer left behind in a subject so critical to their future. And lastly, just as a reminder that case submitted a letter signed by over 800 individuals and organizations through our make science matter campaign urging full inclusion of science and accountability. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Uh next caller with the last four digits 9052. You are now live. Please start your public comment. You have one minute. Hi, my name is Emma Shimojo and thank you for the board for all the support you have given to science. I am the representative of Logos Education System, an education consultant firm
158that partners with school districts, county offices, and CB initiatives. I'm here today to strongly urge the implementation of differentiated assistance or DA for science. Science is not a luxury. It is a necessity. It builds critical thinking, language development, and problem solving skills essential for student success. Math and language are abstract construct, but they take on meaning and relevance to science. Including DA4 science on the dashboard along with the dedicated funding ensures accountability and equitable access to rigorous and real world science instruction. This is how we can close the learning gaps and prepare students for the demands of the future. The time to act is now. Let's give a students access to the power of science. Thank you. Thank you. Caller with the last four digits. Um 8945. You are now live. Please start your public
159comment. You have one minute. This is Suzanne Kuy of the Charter Schools Development Center. The full 2019 and 2024 growth data sets show that agreement of change and growth falls apart the smaller the school or group size. An example of this clear pattern is Lazier Charter School with 2024 change of zero but 2024 growth of 26. That's 26 scale score points above average in the top 1% of growth scores of over 3,000 similar schools. Yet their color is orange and status is below the state counting toward the so-called low performing renewal category and different changes assistance. The current indicators do not reflect school effectiveness. We've heard about past data processing, but not how to tighten the timeline, including a new contract with ETSs. It's important. Growth data are key to a dashboard based on school
160effectiveness. This sends clear signals to teachers. We've heard of teachers who have quit because they can't see their effectiveness on the dashboard. So, we encourage the board to prioritize this very important data. Thanks so much. Thank you. Next caller with the last four digits, 4120. You are now live. Please start your public comment. You have one minute. Good afternooning. Good afternoon. Ben Murphy, legislative coordinator with public advocates. We have appreciated engaging with the department on its plans to modify the priority one teacher indicator. We reiterate our recommendations that the legally required school level data on the number of clear teachers should be integrated into the dashboard school pages alongside other school level data from statewide databases like test scores and absenteeism rates. We are excited to see that improvement come to the board for approval
161in July. The indicator should also include an equity component that reports as per ED code the extent of any disparities across school sites within school districts to identify disparities and access to fully prepared and properly assigned teachers between school sites in the same district. Finally, the dashboard should provide greater clarity on a district performance by expanding the range for at state average to plus or minus 5% of the state average and by adding whether the district is well above or well below the state average of clear teachers. These improvements will significantly enhance transparenc and improve quality of local ELAP conversations around ensuring all students have equitable access to qualified teachers. Thank you for your consideration. Thank you. Uh, next caller with the last four digits 1162. You are now live. Please start your public comment.
162You have one minute. Hi, this is Leticia Garcia on behalf of Riverside County Superintendent of Schools. Uh, we are part of an education management coalition letter commenting on student growth and Latell, but I'd like to focus our comments today on the science indicator. uh we continue to have local discussions on the most meaningful and robust way to incorporate the science indicator into the dashboard that we will share with you um for the July meeting. As this conversation moves forward, we also ask that you consider the timing for um triggering uh the uh the accountability piece, the differentiated assistance to allow for the field to plan and prepare and align those changes to the next um three-year um LCAP cycle. Um again, we look forward to being part of this conversation as it moves forward and
163um as you take final considerations uh for the July meeting. Thank you. Thank you. Uh that concludes public comment for item number two. Thank you so much. Um obviously this is an important item with a lot of um good public comment that we appreciate. Uh this is our opportunity to discuss. Uh I think what we may want to do is take these one at a time. Uh so that we kind of can move move through and see if there are particular kind of either additional questions or guidance we would like to offer to the department about what to bring back in July. Okay. Uh so the first of these is the college and career indicator the review of new and existing measures. Uh are there uh either questions or suggestions that we want to make
164at this time about that? Yes, member Escavdo. Ju just just a suggestion. Um are there other other indicators beyond IB? You know here we saw Cambridge and there probably are other perhaps assessments. I know uh microcredentiing it has been increasing significantly for some high school students. Many companies such as Amazon and Apple, Microsoft or have eliminated uh col a college diploma from their applications are looking a specific microcredentiing um certification. So I just wonder you know to what extent can we extend these college and career indicators. It's just just a suggestion. All right. Um Allison member Yosho Tari, thank you. Uh to that point, I I CD is asking for board input on whether or not we would like to continue to review additional measures and I I believe that we should uh just to
165reinforce what uh my colleague is saying here and and I also just wanted to say thank you for including the civic um seal of civic engagement. Uh, other comments or questions? Uh, yes, member Olen. Um, I I think another one of the pieces you were asking for feedback on is related to the um AP coursework um passing AP classes in addition to AP um or IB courses. Um and just having um my experience is that there are lots of students who are successfully completing those classes who um choose not to take the exams whether it's because it's too expensive or because they don't believe it'll be a good assessment of their knowledge because they're not great test takers. Um, so I would support the idea of expanding um what qualifies for students. Uh offer a
166couple of other thoughts um to add to the comments that have been made. I think being open to adding indicators of you know rich coursework is a good idea. I happen to know the Cambridge coursework um because I've reviewed assessment systems. it's very similar to international balorate uh or advanced placement even more similar to international balorate. So I think that's one if we can figure out a way to um verify what we know about it we should be you know open to considering things that can be verifiable. I think to your point um member Escobedo we might down the road want to be thinking about these other indicators. uh we we will I would love some advice from the department about what is a process by which we would be able to really kick the
167tires on you know any other indicators of that sort that we would want to bring into the college and career that's analogous to international balorate or advanced placement etc. uh also appreciate the the move to um think about the uh course taking as opposed to just the exam passage. Um I do think uh Vice President Glover Woods raised some interesting questions about you know will we lose some students who take the exam and should we consider doing both you know as an indicator? I don't know. You're saying yes. Okay. Well, we'll do that. We we'll get to voting in July, but I'm just offering suggestions for Cindy to help us get to some considerations in July. Um there's also the important point about what constitutes a dual credit course that's sufficiently meaningful and we would
168I think benefit from uh some recommendations and information about you know what might be a credit u floor like a three credit or something like that. you know, you guys are looking at the data, so you know better than we do like what might be the right kind of credit floor to consider. Uh, and then how we can um help people who can't figure out how to get it into the categories still get be able to use, you know, reasonable courses, you know, um, and so that's a seems like a little bit of a dilemma that we could use advice on. Um, the other piece is the career piece, the career indicators. you know, we have a career master plan that was just released by the governor in the last few weeks. Um, which does
169emphasize internships and also apprenticeships, which is not in our list. Um, so I'm feeling like this is not a good time to eliminate that um from our consideration, but I'm curious about uh and ASV has been there for a long time along with the military science course. I'm curious about the value of the simulated workbased learning and the um enterprise whether there are really very many people you know doing that and so we could get we could um benefit from some more information about and thinking about those I think in July. Um those are the notes that I had. Anybody else have uh yes questions or comments? Vice President just a comment as it relates to considering additional measures. I know uh we're speaking of Cambridge or any others. Um I think it would be
170important um and well let me let me stop and let me ask a question first Cindy. Did I understand correctly that for IB and AP the department gets the data directly from those companies or did I understand that correctly? The data that is currently being used in the CCI is only exam taking and we get the exam scores from uh directly from IB and directly from the college board for free. Uh we collect course taking. There are students who take the exam who do not take the course. So, that's the other thing to keep in mind is um if this is all about the school and the district helping a student repair when a student does a a one-off, you know, we that's not something we've we've checked or validated or has been a requirement.
171Just just another thought, but we do yes, we do receive that data directly from the vendor. Okay. Thank you for that clarification. And to that point, I think as we consider additional uh additional course and I'm sorry, additional test taking that a similar process should be in place that it's something that should be provided directly to the department and not a requirement of the LEA to gather who's taken the exams. Um again, just thinking of if there is something if there are additional measures added in. got. Yes, we would absolutely reach out to those vendors if that was part of it. Absolutely. Okay. Uh have we heard all that we need to hear about that first area? Uh we're going to move on to the growth model. If there was a horse race for the
172most popular indicator, uh growth model be would be right near the front, but science would be right behind. So, but clearly we have a lot of interest in the growth model. Are there questions or comments that folks want to make about that indicator? Vice President Glover Woods, do you want to No, go ahead. I'll speak after you. I I think the only comment that I have is um I I think it's important for us to elevate the importance of both of these areas, the science as well as the growth. Um and also do so in finding out how we can, for lack of a better way of putting it, ensure that that data is looked at and acted on in a tangible way. which may or may not be adding it to differentiated assistance eligibility
173criteria. So, I'd like to know what other alternatives there might be to not just solely rely on the local um agency to act upon the data because the data is there now. But if the data is showing that there is a need for student growth improvement, what measures or what options we as a board have in front of us to be able to put in place, which may or may not mean adding it to differentiated assistance eligibility criteria. So, okay. I didn't know if Cindy was going to respond, but it sounds like she's just taking notes on it. Okay. Okay. Great. So, uh just to add to the enthusiasm on the growth growth indicator, and I know um Cindy and Kim and the team have been working hard on this for many many years. So,
174it's very exciting to see it coming to fruition. So to help the board make um some decisions around growth in in July, I'd love to ask CDE to present some options that use the five categories for growth to maintain parody with our other indicators and um some options for the labels of the categories such as you know level one, two, three, four, five or minimal, moderate and substantial growth. um so that we can think about the way we want to be presenting this data to the um to the districts and parents in the state um centering the scale you know in a in some way that allows us to understand that all growth is positive um so you the that would be I think more intuitive so appreciate you've kind of suggested that that would
175be possible one of the um commenters talked about is it possible to have a supplemental release of the growth um model metric for some kind of supplemental add-on to the dashboard after the required date. And that would be an interesting idea for us to hear more about um when we when we reconvene in July, whether there's a way for it to be um sort of quote added to the dashboard as an addendum or a supplement, not at the the time that is impossible. I I would argue that's what happened in 2024 without having you know implications that that's exactly what we did is we released it in January. Um so so we we may want to hear more. Thank you. Any other comments on the growth model? Yes, member Essco. very much like Els, you
176know, how do how do we include the growth model and accountability that perhaps utilizing a formula would make sense knowing full well the limitations of the number of students who are involved. So looking at u maybe a couple of options and how it can be used for accountability measures. you're looking at me, but you really you're really directing addressing that city because I'm not going to do that. But they they are full of good and creative ideas and data. So just just to clarify um with regards to LES and growth. So and I know some of the comments regarded displaying um all of the categories for growth. We did had an extra delay um with regards to displaying the breakout categories for our current English learner student group of growth. The dashboard is fully complete
177now. We were able to um catch up with that. So um full data is available on the dashboard for all student groups inclusive of English learners, inclusive of long-term English learners, and inclusive of the breakouts of the English learner student group from the academic indicator, meaning current English learner students, recently reclassified English learner students in the past four year or recently reclassified students who are no longer English learners within the past four years, as well as English only students. So, all of those breakouts are available on the dashboard. All right, moving on to the next category, which is long-term English learners. Um, I'll just maybe start off by saying I hope that we can um consider in July some ways to think about uh a metric that would be useful for differentiated assistance for the
178ELTEL group uh in the way that we talked about that would allow us to measure their progress um and not be um you know inadvertently creating the the you know problematic incentives uh or um identifying the places that are the most successful at reclassifying students as the ones that you know are looking like they're the most problematic. Uh any others on ely any other comments, questions on El? All right, thank you. Um science the neck andneck most popular indicator. Um any comments or questions about science? Yes. Uh, member Orosco Gonzalez, this has been quite um all these choices, right, that we need to do. So, Cindy, just thank you to you and your team. Um, I just think as a classroom teacher, I'm encouraged to see science being recognized as a key part of our
179well-rounded education. I support moving forward with science indicator as a local indicator. This approach gives the districts the opportunity to reflect on their progress while continuing to build the instructional and systematic support needed for meaningful improvement. Across the state, we're seeing growing momentum, especially through professional learning, happening in the county offices and district networks. That momentum needs to be nurtured and not rushed. In my own experience, sustained professional learning, access to high quality instructional materials, a strong sitebased support like science coaches are essential for teachers to feel confident and equipped to teach science well. These systems take time to develop and locally guided approach gives us the space to strengthen the capacity without introducing high stakes pressure too early. You know, I that's something that I came back and forth because I have always been
180a proponent of having science on the dashboard as something that we do need to measure. But I do know that where my district is and that's where I am at as a teacher. I'm happen to be a little bit more advanced only because I have a science background and but I know that my colleagues have need so much support with instructional materials, coaching, professional learning before we get something on the dashboard that now is accountability statewide. So at the same time, we need to make sure that we um we ensure any accountability measured is interpreted in context. Each LEA is navigating different challenges and the data we share should support improvement not oversimplify local reality. So I appreciate the collaborative process so far and look forward to having a system that lifts up strong science
181education and instruction while still staying grounded in the diverse needs of our students, our schools and providing the support that teachers need. All right. Thank you. Anything else on science? One more. Okay. And remember, we don't have to make decisions today. Okay. I just want to um thank you as well for uh such a complete presentation with so much information. Um and as far as science goes, I uh at at the high school level um I do think it's uh very important that it's appears on the dashboard. Um as also you know to acknowledge that there are so many careers in science uh that are essential for our livelihood. I mean just the bio right there it is the words in it but you know we have aerospace industry in California. Um, and this way,
182you know, what we measure gets funded and so it'll become a priority just like many years ago it was only English and math, right? You know, with the No Child Left Behind um and other um uh content sort of uh you know, kind of got pushed uh to to the wayside and I would love to see science at the forefront and leading the way. Thank you. Yes, member Yoshimoto Tari just briefly um on slide 47 it says CD will provide simulations on the impact of options one and two uh for the July meeting and I would like to see if there we could also be provided with a simulation that would show a phase in approach uh from option starting with option two uh and eventually moving to option one as part of the simulation
183or as part of what's presented. Yeah, one of the things that the board that preceded us had tried to do is be sure that we see enough data over a long enough period of time before we make decisions about what indicators would be used in in the dashboard. I think that's in line with that principle of, you know, kind of how to make make decisions over time. Uh ju just to clarify um uh what you just said, you're asking that the department consider uh or rather bring back some information around option two adding the science indicator as a local indicator uh for one of the state priority areas as a phased in and then in future years shift to option one which would add the science indicator as a state indicator as opposed to local.
184So it would it would swap from local to state. It would sort of grow to become a state indicator is another way. Is that what you're looking for? Would that look like over time? And I think it also would help us as a board weigh in on that. And also from an LEA perspective, it's helpful to know if the state has a future vision to change something and when that might be and when the right timing for that might be as opposed to just saying, "Oh, the state went to option two or option three and they're going to stay there forever." I think it's helpful to know that there's an intention to shift at some point. I I want to piggyback on that for a little bit um with a little bit of an adjustment.
185Um, and one of the I I love the phase in idea as far as when the indicator becomes something that's used for um accountability purposes or eligibility criteria. My concern is going from local to a state indicator um based on the criteria that we use now for a local indicator. If my understanding if my memory is correct with the local indicator there is a process the district presents the data to their board as long as that has happened they have met the local indicator I don't think that in in my p opinion is sufficient enough for a science indicator so if there was a way to have the science indicator looked at um as the state indicators are with their 5x5 and being able to look at what the um where the where the LAA
186falls, having something attached where they do need to address it in their LCAP and then phase it into perhaps perhaps I'm just saying at this point um some type of differentiated assistance eligibility criteria down the road. That might be a phasin option as well. I'm just a little concerned about the local indicator part just because of it's um not robust if you will and to be clear I wasn't advocating for that. I was just asking for those adoptions. All right. We're going to have so many options in July and we thank you in advance for all the options you're going to provide us. Um Oh yes, member Lewis. Thank you. I was having trouble trying to find the icon to raise my hand, but I just wanted to to add that and they've already said
187it. Um, I want to support the comments made by uh, member Rosco Gonzalez. And then uh, member uh, Yoshimoto Towerry said the um, what I was going to ask I was going to ask was it possible to start out as a local indicator for science and then do we have the power to move it to a state um, indicator? And so with with the comments that she made, you've already answered my question. I couldn't find my hand quick enough. But thank you. Great to see you. I I just I feel it's important to have science um uh on the we have it on the dashboard and I think as um member Rosco Gonzalez said it's important to provide to go slow and um give uh districts and everyone the the opportunity to uh get it
188right and uh districts to respond to the the science, you know, just respond to the science data and how uh we can move forward with being it a strong indicator just like we have for English language arts and math. So I support um you know bringing back information of what we we could do to start out as a local indicator and move to a state indicator. Thank you. I would just note that another way to think about the decision- making in addition to that is uh having indicators that may appear on the dashboard with colors etc and not necessarily be used for accountability purposes initially. So there's lots of different ways to be thinking about a phasein strategy. Um one other one other point you want to move us along. Sorry. One other point for
1892025 is we'll add in the participation rate penalty that was not in the data for 2020. It was separate. Um it was not included in the calculation. So we will see um you know especially in the high schools um where we didn't see participation as yeah and I think that this what Cindy's saying which goes to the other point is you know seeing what the data looks like as we go along is very important before we you know make a huge leap u potentially I do want to note that we are now about 45 minutes behind our plan schedule for lunch and so you I want to take your comment but I want people to understand we're making decisions in July and just suggesting what we need for those. Now, go ahead, member Patilo Brunson.
190So, my my 15-second addendum is just to um support the idea of a transition and it would be really helpful to have a sense of what the uh expected timeline would be to go from a local indicator to a state one so that there's a a forecasting for eleas to know what's ahead. These will all be our decisions in July. Um, okay. Can I move us to the last uh C? No, we still have two more categories. Uh, we have the uh DOS uh school status criteria. Are there comments or questions on that? Member Yoshimon, you took a breath. You looked like you might want to say something. I just am concerned about some of the public comment that we heard in some of the letters we heard about the single. So I just wondered
191if there's any response to that. Yeah, I had questions about that also the something about the way in which using the calpeds data and the dos count uh you know changes how things get counted obviously. So I I think I'll need more clarification on that and that may be the question you're asking as well. So I I think if anything we're trying to make sure that the data is verifiable and when we take um applications on on face value and then we go to check in calpads that you don't have any parent or pregnant teens um that is a decision that you know that you all asked us to hold up the integrity of this system and as soon as we we walk away from things um like that particular data point you you enter
192into this system a a level of uncertainty and um you can't validate that information. So data in CalPets has been reviewed. It's been submitted by schools and districts and certified as being accurate. So I'm I'm a little I guess I'm I'm not quite sure what the argument would be if you don't if you don't want to use verifiable or valid data and take it on an application basis. Um that would be the alternative. Sounds like this is an area we'll want to more deeply understand by by July. Um the other area that um I was a little um unclear about was whether the new rules will continue to identify credit deficient students as part of the desk count and I think that's something we we'd like to you know get hear more feedback from the
193board on interest around that and um whether there's a phased in approach to looking at the credit deficient piece um or another alternative. Okay. So, that we'll put that we're going to put a put a pin in that for July also. Okay. Um and then moving on to priority one teacher data review. Um are there any questions or concerns about that? I just have a clarification because I misstated something. Um the clear does include preliminary. So, an assignment monitoring outcome of clear indicates all relevant attributes or dimensions of the assignment that were authorized by a clear or preliminary credential. Um, so I apologize for that misstatement, but got a clarification. That's great. Thank you. Uh, any other questions or comments about that data point, everybody? Okay. All right. Well, thank you so much. We want
194to thank Cindy, Kim, and the whole team for all of this work and uh all of um the patience that you have for all of our questions. We're going to resume this in July, but right now we're going to go to lunch and we're going to be back here by 1:30. Let me see. Yes, by 1:30. All right. Ready, set, go. All right. Welcome back from lunch and we are now going to move on to um our consent agenda. Uh I'd like to take up the regular consent items 5 through eight and we'll open the phone line for the queue for public comment. uh and uh invite folks to call in using the phone number and the public participant access code shown on this slide. Are there any speakers signed up to speak to the
195um consent items in person? We have no public commenters in the room. All right, take a minute and see is there anybody who's shown up on the public phone line? There are no callers in the queue. All right. Um, so at this time, um, I'd wonder if I could get a motion on consent items 5 through eight. Member McQuillin. Uh, and a second. Member Yoshimoto Tari. Brooks, can you please call the role? Member Yoshimoto Tari. Thanks. Yes. You know, we go alphabetical. We're flipping it. So, yeah, I know. I know. There we go. Member Rodriguez. Yeah. Do you say yes? I thank you. Appreciate it. Appreciate the clarification. All right, people. Let's take a moment. U member Patila Brownson. Yes. Member Rosco Gonzalez. No. Member Olen. Yes. Member McQuillin. Member Lewis. Yes. Vice President Glover
196Woods. Yes. Member Esco. Yes. President Darlin Hammond. Yes. Member Clawson. Yes. Motion passes. All right. Thank you. Um we're moving on to item three, which is the California Assessment of Student Performance and Progress and the English Language Proficiency Assessments for California. And uh the item is to approve the 202425 aortionment rates and so on. I am going to invite uh Deputy Superintendent Mary Nicely and Mal Vang of the CDE and Tony Albert of Smarter Balance to present. Trying to save time here. It's my only my second time doing this so getting here on these. Uh so good afternoon, President Darling Hammond, Vice President Glover Woods, Chief Deputy uh Ingred Robersonson, and members of the board. I'm Mary Nicely, deputy superintendent of the information and technology branch. Um and I am going to start this off
197by acknowledging my favorite teacher, which was Mr. Mike Weezner, my oceanography teacher when I was in 12th grade, who was the first person to teach me statistics and get me in front of a computer. And here I am today. Uh so you can blame him for uh for that. So um uh so to assist me uh with this item I have Mal Vang, director of the assessment development administration division and Tony Alpert, executive director of Smarterbalanced. The item before you today is an action and an information item. Uh today the presentation topics will be a recommendation. Um, we'll provide a a uh presentation. We'll provide an overview of the California Department of Education's recommendation for approval. Then we will go over the next steps to support student progress document and uh progress document and assessment
198program updates. Finally, we will return to the CD's recommendations to state board of education approval. Now, I will hand the presentation over to Mal Vang. Thank you, Mary. Um, Chief W. Superintendent Robinson, President Darling Hammond, Vice President Glover Woods, and our esteemed board members. Uh, as Mary mentioned, I'm Mal Vang, uh, director of the assessment development and administration division here at the California Department of Education. I can't go on without saying my favorite teacher, too. Um, I remember Mrs. Smith. Shout out to her many years ago. I came to the US as a seven-year-old. I was too old for kindergarten and they placed me in sec first grade. I was too old for first grade, too. But Mrs. Smith helped me introduce me to the English language. So, go Mrs. Smith. I will begin by
199providing an overview of the recommendations that Mary mentioned. The CDE or California Department of Education recommends that the state board of education approved the following. The per pupil of a portionment rates for the 202425 school year contingent on the availability of an appropriation for this purpose for the California assessment of student performance and progress or CASP tests administered as part of the CASP system and as provided in table one of attachment two. And then the per pupil a portionment rates for the 202425 uh school year. Again, contingent on the availability of an appropriation for this purpose for the English language proficiency assessments for California or ALPAC tests administered as provided in table two of attachment two. In addition, um oh sorry, I I forgot one. Excuse me. In addition, uh we are pro uh in
200addition the third action or recommendation is to uh approve the proposed revisions to the level one reporting achievement level descriptor or ALD for the smarter balance summitive assessments for English language arts uh literacy or ELA and the mathematics of as well and the California science test and that is to replace the second use of the word minimal with the word limited. So those are the three actions we're recommendations we're asking for. Um overall the proposed uh 2024 25 a portionment rates for Caspen ALP pack are included um starting on page three of the board item and as well as the attachments I mentioned and then the proposed rates uh these proposed rates remain unchanged from the prior year which was 2023 24 the 23 2023 24 school year excuse me and then Um since they
201and this part really is just quick and concludes our part on the porchman rates I'm going to try to catch you up. So proposed uh again the proposed technical revisions uh that we in addition to the portionment rates uh we are recommending a technical edit as I mentioned to the LEA to the level one excuse me reporting achievement level descriptor. Uh so to reduce the redundancy and improve re readability, uh the CDE recommends that that second use of the word minimal in the level one reporting achievement level descriptor for the smarter balance summitive assessment for English language arts literacy be replaced with the word limited and the it's li it's highlighted in red. what the change is. Please note that um item three was reposted on May 2nd because we noticed and and and it
202is really to uh correct um and reflect what the SBE approved the language um for the reporting achievement level descriptors in March. Uh specifically somehow the word basic was rem was inserted in there. So we removed that from the level one reporting ALD because it was not part of the board's action in March just as background. Um similarly for um the CDE also recommends the second use of the word minimal in the level one of the reporting achievement level descriptors for the smarter balance summitive assessment for mathematics to be play replaced with the word limited again as highlighted in red. And then uh in addition um the CDE recommends that the second use of the word minimal in the level one reporting achievement level descriptor for the California science test be replaced with the word
203limited. So consistently replacing that. Um, I will circle back to ZDE's recommendations toward the end of the presentation, but at this time I'd like to, um, hand the presentation over to Tony Alpert, the executive director for the Smarter Balance Assessment Consortium, and he will cover the, um, support student progress, the steps to support student progress document, excuse me, Tony. Thank you, ma'am. Uh for the record, Anthony Albert, uh executive director for Smarter Balance. So, uh this is an uh item that you've seen a couple of times before and it's just an update to keep you um apprised of the progress on it. Uh as you recall, I'm sure the focus groups and interest holders recommended to uh the CDE that the reporting achievement levels really address two pieces of information. the what uh a description
204of what knowledge and skills students demonstrated on the assessment as well as uh suggestions regarding what actions educators, families, and students may take so that students might learn more. Um and there was an emphasis that there should be a call to action for students who did not demonstrate uh proficiency on the assessment. And so, uh, the following is is a an approach that attempts to provide some guidance while being mindful that each individual students needs should be considered carefully when determining next steps. So uh for level four and level three uh we suggest that uh students uh focus on enrichment and on building on the the strengths that they have available respectively uh as part of continuing their learning journey. For levels two and one, uh, a call to action is is required that students
205need to accelerate their learning towards proficiency so that they may leave high school with a full range of options available to them. That's all I have. Thank you. around just a few more. Um, we did want to share a few uh updates with you. Uh, in terms of the assessment program updates, we will cover uh the timeline of the release of our student uh level data. As students complete um testing, we roll out the data to the LEAs as they become available and we'll give you a timeline of that for the 2425 uh summitive assessment results and then just highlighting the national and international assessments as an update. So uh this month student level results from the CASP and alpac summitive assessments will be start to become available to our local educational agencies in three
206ways. Uh the they go to the California they go through the California educator reporting system. They go in the form of student score reports or SSRs and then uh local educational agencies have student data files that they could download and import into other systems that they have. So the projected availability of scores vary from by assessment. um for the summitative alpac and summitative alternate alpac student results were initially expected to be available next week or miday but um because we were able to speed up the quality control checks and they were completed ahead of schedule we're going to make those results available as early as tomorrow. So u this is the first time I'm announcing this now so that you're aware um the smarter balance assessment uh for English language arts and math and the
207science test will be uh available we are projecting that that will be available sometime next week or or late May a little bit later May but probably as early as next week. So for the um California alternate assessments like for English, math and science those alter uh assessments. Uh the results are projected to be in early September because they're post equated. So it's taking all the testing has to happen before we can roll out the scores. And finally, the California Spanish assessment. Um those student score reports and data files are projected to be available in in December uh and then in the California Educator Reporting System in early uh 2026. So the later release of the California Spanish assessment results is due to the need to um approve for you to approve those threshold scores
208and we are um planning to bring those uh threshold scores to you um for action in September. So that's why there's the delay for that Spanish assessment standing out. And then of course there's the public release, but we'll uh come to that later in the fall. the national and international assessments updates. Just to give you a quick overview, uh the cal the national assessment of educational um progress or NAPE, which is admin uh administered uh long-term trend assessments this school year. So these are agebased as opposed to grade based. So, and they are administered as paper pencil tests and provide national level results only um which can be compared back to as early as the 1970s. So, students age 13 were assessed last fall. Age nine was assessed earlier this calendar year and the age
20917 assess uh assessment planned for this spring was cancelled due to federal spending cuts. So uh the national level results will be expected sometime in 2026. So NAPE um will also administer a field test of its digitally assess digitally based assessments in grades 4 8 and 12 to measure the effects of using schools equipment versus the NAPE equipment. I mean currently NAPE teams go in and they bring their own devices. This year they were field testing uh how we could use the school's devices to administer these online assessments. So results from the NAPE 2024 grade four and 8 math and reading assessments were released late in January. May you may recall that or might recall that and and those results uh for California show no significant changes and remain relatively steady since 2022. So just
210a little blurb um overview. So the program so for national um for international assessments the program for international student assessment or PISA is currently in the field um assessing students at about 20 California public schools. So we are part of that sample uh with 20 schools but they test uh PISA tests students um age 15 on math reading and science literacy. So the national results are expected in 2026. Also we only had national results. There's no uh state specific for that. And I believe that that brings me to the end of the presentation. I'll hand it over to you President Darlin Hammer. Thank you so much. Um, at this point we're going to open the public comment uh queue. So, if you could put the public comment slide up. Anyone wishing to call in for
211public comment can use the phone number and the access code shown on this slide. And while we're waiting for the public comment queue to assemble, I want to um ask my uh our liaison, member Rosco Gonzalez, to offer some comments before me. Thank you. I supported previous notice it wasn't on as we discussed in the previous meetings. This is a just a thoughtful clarification that aligns with the intent and language that was already approved in March um at our board meeting. It's also reflects the careful collaborative work that has gone into making sure that our assessment communications are accurate and clear. I also want to just highlight the addition of the next steps to support student progress resource. As a teacher and a parent, I cannot overstate how important this kind of tool is. Families
212and educators consistently ask for more than just scores. They want to understand what those scores mean and how they can use the information to support their students. This guide helps it to do exactly that. It's pract practical, accessible and actionoriented and it's what makes assessments data truly meaningful for parents and for teachers. So I just want to just thank you for the work for the clarifying language and for creating these supports tools. Thank you. And I will just add that um the first recommendation which is around adding the word limited uh to the um description of the achievement level descriptors. Uh just to recall for you that in the achievement level descriptors each of them um has a an initial label and then it describes what it means using different language than what's in the
213label. So you know we rather than saying proficient means proficient we say you know proficient means you know using it in a more sophisticated way etc. So in our lengthy discussion about the labels in our last meeting we did decide that the first level would be called minimal. We did not really take the time to think about how to describe it in words you know different than what uh the label says. So just so that everyone's remembering uh where we are and why that technical um change but in the discussion the term limited had been used multiple times and uh that is what you are seeing before you um and I want to thank Mao and the team for all of the uh work on uh all of this and and uh the um the
214further descriptions of what can be done for students that uh smarter balanced has uh worked up for us. So I think those are going to be very very helpful. With that I want to see if there's any public comment. We have no public comment in the room. And is there any public comment on the phone? There is one caller in the queue. I will open the phone line now. Okay. Um caller with the last four digits 4301. You are now live. Please start your public comment. You have one minute. Good afternoon President Darling Hammond, Vice President Leverwoods, and members of the board. Lindsay Torniator. On behalf of the California County Superintendent, we support the technical revision to the level one description and we would like to thank Dr. Malvang, Chad Portney, and ETSs for being
215responsive to our feedback related to providing clear guidance and communication tools for parents and educators. In particularly, the regularly held assessment interest holders meetings have been a valuable forum for communication through the Fisk Regional Assessment Network. County offices are actively following this item and are eager to support the CDE in the roll out of the updated descriptors. As resources are developed, we urge the CDE to continue offering meaningful opportunities for input so we can help ensure a smooth and effective implementation of the updated ALDS across the field. Thank you. Thank you. Uh that concludes public comment for item number three. All right, we're now open for board discussion and we're now only a half hour behind. Yes, member Batilla Bronson. Um, so thank you for um the the clarifications and uh the additional um recommendations
216in here. I I wanted to clarify on slides 11 and 12 um around the next steps to support student progress. Is is the suggested next steps language on the right hand part of the charts the actual language that would appear in uh for parents and students reading their score reports on the left column you on the right um next steps no they they are not in included on the student score report but they could be a resource that we could provide uh for them to refer to. Okay. if if we if if it does make sense to go that way, I just would strongly encourage as we're thinking about interacting with parents to not sort of move into more formal um sort of evaluation language. I I'm just reacting to the idea of starting a
217clause with using additional performance information, which I don't think is terribly intuitive for most families. Um, and also on level one, I think the parent focus group really landed on this idea of wanting a call to action to clarify that there's work to be done, not optional, not possible. And I I I worry that the language around students may benefit sounds so um open-ended that it does not register as a call to action um or the severity of what it means in terms of actions required on the part of student, teacher, family all together with the student. Yeah. Tony Tony Alper from Smart Violence. Thank you for the question. Um, so the issue especially around level one is we we want the call to action, but we also need to be humble about what an
218a statewide assessment can do. And a student may achieve a level one because they didn't care about the assessment, as an example. And so by asserting that they definitely need this redirection or removing their electives, whatever the consequence is, it would potentially disadvantage some students. And we at the state level, we can't make that determination, that really has to happen at the local level. So, um, if you if this is a work in progress and by not putting on the SCu student reports, we have that option to to adjust the language and, uh, Mao and her team are going to come back in July with a larger communication plan about how this fits in with the larger process of rolling out the ALDS. Um, but, uh, really interested in your suggestions about how we can
219better achieve that balance if we didn't meet it here. Totally agree that we should not make it punitive, but I I I it needs to convey some level of either consider the following push in supports or take the test more seriously next time, right? Whatever it might be. Well, we but we don't know what it is. That's part of the problem. And we have we've had some legal advice too that if you say something in a sort of more must fashion, then that suggests a commitment and that may raise a liability. Yeah. So there's a lot of there's a lot of um wording issues just to the question about the performance information. I will say I had a similar reaction to that. I don't think parents will know what is that is that another test
220and I think what it means because we've talked about it Tony is you know other classroom information other you know information from their work. So, it might be useful as you're fine-tuning this to find a few examples in there that will immediately speak to the um to the parents. Yeah, that makes perfect sense. So, we could we could clarify that it's grades and and other teacher assignments as an example. Um, and so we'll work on on making that more clear, but the goal is to make sure that uh a student's um entire instructional plan isn't based on a single assessment that was given on a single day. Right. I think I saw a hand over here. Was it member Yoshimono Tari? Just to member Patila Bronson's comment. I think also I would ask for language
221that is more explicit. I understand the legal implications. Um, but where terms like help them make meaningful progress or accelerate their learning journey can be very ambiguous. And I think if we were to find some kind of language that would be at least more explicit about demonstrating achievement of grade level standards perhaps uh would be helpful to families and and educators in general rather than leaving uh somebody's interpretation in the mix. Thank you. Uh thank you. Then I have an additional comment. Yes, please. Just just a overarching comment on the word limited on the technical revision. Um, you know, we've spent years trying to move away from describing students who are learning English as a second language as limited English proficient to recognizing their assets of being multilingual. And last month in our vote, uh,
222we did end up with achievement level two with the term developing uh, and but we did leave achievement level one at minimal. And I feel like the underlying values of our board come out in in discrete decisions like these if we really believe in assetbased approaches. Uh to me the term developing is an assetbased approach and the term minimal is and limited is is not. Uh so I have I do have grave concerns about the the term limited especially when paired with ability. If we look later on in the descriptor, uh because if you just Google limited ability, it refers to like a child's capacity. And then we're talking about success in future coursework. And then we often wonder why aren't more students of color, more students with disabilities in AP and honors classes. And
223these are all connected. So I would just encourage us to really uh you know what to discuss what we can do. Uh in the last most recent assessment 900,000 students almost a million fell into level one and 46% of them were black African-American students. 43% were Native American or Alaskan natives. 67% were English learners and 65% were of students with disabilities that took the test fell into level one. So, as a liazison for English learners and students with disability both, I just feel like these are students that are most likely to be underestimated and the ALD language should never contribute to that. So, I will pause there, but I I just want to say I I do not support the use of the term limited and more importantly would appreciate it if we could have
224uh bring the entire level one descriptor back for discussion and review at some point. Um could you put that um language up on the screen again just so we have it as we're having conversation with the ALD one? Yeah that it I want to encourage other discussion. Uh Vice President Glover Woods the author of the term minimal. Exactly. And and I I promise we're not going to rehash March. um at least I I I won't and I definitely respect um member Yoshimoto's um feelings and and thoughts and definitely can see uh see her point of view. Um I I I will say though um I I think again it's very important uh when a student's scores are showing a level one that it's very clear that this is not okay. And not only is it
225not okay, it is uh a a a score for grave concern. And um I definitely believe in assets assetbased language. I also believe in clarity. And I think for all students um the message that we need to communicate to not just the student but to the parents and to the educators is that a score at this level requires um a score at this level is showing that for whatever reason they made this score it is not at the level where it should be. And so, um, I personally obviously don't have an issue with the word limited, but I really again caution us as a board, um, softpeding language at a level like this that it can come across ambiguous and not be clear that there needs to be immediate action. Scoring at a level one,
226regardless of what student group you're in, is not okay. I'm gonna just make a comment in the middle. which is that I really appreciate the point about assetbased language and you know we are still in a bell curve uh context where we label kids along a continuum and we decide what each you know part of point of the continuum means. said in the um uh studies that were done by in Washington state about what the uh actual levels predicted uh yes 75 80% of those at level three and four went to college successfully without remediation course work but more than half of those at level two did so and a third of those at level one did so. So these are not absolute onetoone corres you know correspondence predictors of what you can do and
227I think uh Tony mentioned being humble about what a test score tells you. I think that's a been a value and smarter balance to be to be humble about the fact that it's a single measure on a single day that does not tell you everything about a child. Um so I I just want to say that I think that uh it is true that scoring at that level uh does show a minimal understanding of or and as we said here a limited understanding of uh the uh knowledge and skills associated with the performance expectation. That's what it shows. Uh if it said limited ability, I would be right there with you uh Ellison because I think that is not what we wanted to signal. it is in the it's in the next line but it
228is applied to the ability to apply. So I I think you know we're we are in a framework where we have to figure out how both to be humble about what the scores mean and also be um supportive of students in their in their efforts. And I I don't think that minimal necessarily uh suggests inability to improve nor does know limited. I think it says you have some you have some understanding of and ability to apply but it is a limited understanding. So myself in the middle I feel comfortable with the way it's framed but welcome others. Yes. Member Oaken. When when we discussed this last time, my my I was largely in the it's hard to be word smithing um with the deadline directly in front of us position. Um and so I'm hesitant
229to jump back in, but I also I I do really believe words matter. And I I um you know to me the difference between minimal understanding and minimal are actually very different because one is des one could be seen as describing a person and the other one could be describing a point in time in their movement towards standards. Um so that's actually not I'm not recommending that we make the thing say limited understanding but I'm I'm But the the the des the type the category itself is minimal which I think for young people could suggest to them that we are considering them minimal. Um I think words and labels matter. Yeah I know right. So that's that's why I was hesitant to jump in. Say that student demonstrates minimal grade level knowledge and skills. It
230does not say that they are in minimal person. Yeah, [Laughter] Francisco, do you want to get back in on this again? You know, my proposal obviously was emerging. I mean, we look at rubrics created by teachers and it just seems more coherent to utilize words that are accurate. By the way, emerging is, I think, more accurate than limited or or minimal because you're actually at a beginning place and you're building up, right? So, um, labels do matter. labels do matter and I think coherence is real important and clarity and and and you get a different connotation when you talk about emerging and limited or minimal. So, and I appreciate your point and we were not able to move that motion last time. So, I'm just member Yoshimoto and then I'm going to ask that we
231you know express our values in our vote just in uh the well a point for clarification. So, you you suggested you were in the middle. My o my opinion is not opposed to what um vice president uh I'm I'm losing my lover woods Glover Woods said um it I firmly 100% believe we should be really clear with what a level one means. Uh so let I don't want my comments to be misinterpreted that I don't believe we should be that we should be somehow soft with language. We need to be very clear uh what a level one means and we also need to be humble. Uh, and when I was thinking about the humility that Tony was referring to, uh, I was wondering too like why don't we put the ALD in a past in
232the past tense? We state it like it's a fact. Like this child has limited ability and it is limited ability. Limited modifies ability in the sentence. Otherwise, ability would have no modifier. Modifies knowledge and skills. Limited knowledge and skills and ability to apply. So anyway, just we should leave it up there so that everybody can see it. And uh I think it's still there. And just this bit that I'll leave it at that just this larger concept that I think we're I I wouldn't state it phrase it exactly that way if I were talking to a nine-year-old and I don't believe state sanctioned paperwork should speak that way a children per in that language that tone. It's a yes limited understanding is what it's modifying. Just so we're all clear. I think at this point
233you know we we did have a long robust discussion about this in the last meeting. So I think we should express our values and our votes and um see where that takes us um particularly since we um had such a long discussion before and I appreciate all of the perspectives that are being voiced. Um do I have a motion? We have multiple things and we could take them one at a time or we can take them together. So let's look at all of them. You want put that up? So the there are three um recommendations for approval. We can uh move them together or we can [Music] um you know take the technical revision to the language by itself if we feel a need to do that. I think that would be desirable since we've
234heard a lot of perspectives that we um start with that and then come back to the others. Can I have a motion? Member Rosco Gonzalez. I was proposing that we start with the third one which is the one about the technical amendments to the language. So I propose that we accept the technical revision to the level one achievement level descriptor. Is there a second? Okay, we have a second. All in favor, do you want to do the roll call? Move Brenda on the line. Member Yosari. No. Member Rodriguez. Member Patil Brown. Yes. Member Rosco Gonzalez. Yes. Member Olen. No. Member McQuillin. Member Lewis. Yes. Vice President Glover Woods. Yes. Member Esco. No. President Darland Hammond. Yes. Member Clawson. Yes. Motion passes. Speaker for us. 74 for those keeping record at home. Thank you very much.
235And these are these are all really important issues. I so appreciate the way that everybody takes them so seriously. It's a very tough one to um to parse. So with that, we'll move on. We have two more uh recommendations to approve uh or to take up in a vote and those are the aortionment recommendations. You want to put them back up? I have them back. I still I think um there there they are. We've got them. So this is the per pupil a portionment rates uh for the 2024-25 school year uh for both Elpac and CASP. Do I have a motion? [Laughter] I have to state the motion, right? I want to state the motion. Thank you very much. I move that we my current favorite teacher. I'm just saying I appreciate it. Yeah. Um,
236I move so forward that we um approve the pure a per pupil aortionate rates for the 2024-25 school year contingent to the availability of an appropriation for this purpose and the per pupil aortionatement rates for the 2024 school year contingent on the availability of course for the English language proficiency assessments and for the California assessments of student prog uh performance and progress. All right. And we have a second from member Patilla Johnson. Patilla Brownson, please call the role. Taking the easy way out. Uh, member Yoshima Modari, yes. Member Rodriguez, yes. Member Patilo Brownson, yes. Member Rosco Gonzalez, yes. Member Olen, yes. Member McQuillin, member Lewis, yes. Vice President Clever Woods, yes. Member Escoto, yes. President Darlin H. Yes. Member Clausen. Yes. Pass unanimously. All right. Thank you. We're going to move on to item four.
237And thank you very much, Mao. Uh this is the comprehensive literacy state development grant uh and uh the literacy plan approval. The department recommends that we approve the revised state literacy plan pending uh direct executive director approval of final revisions requested by the SBE or correction of any typographical errors. And this item will be presented by Monnique. Oh, Cheryl Cotton and and Monique. Okay. I'm just looking around to see who's coming to the to the table. Thank you. We'll start with Cheryl Cotton. Hammond. I'm sorry. Yes. Go, go, go. Okay, I'm trying one more time. Oh, I can hear myself. Good afternoon, President Darling Hammond, Vice President Glover Woods, uh Chief Deputy Robersonson, uh members of the state board. I'm Cheryl Cotton, deputy superintendent of our building educational success together branch. We've changed our name,
238which changes a foot. Uh but we have updated our our name and take a moment and think about what that acronym might mean. Building educational success together branch. There we go. Sorry. I had to I had to uh I'm delighted to be Sorry, everyone. Um I'm delighted to be here today with our professional learning support division director Monnique McWain to present California's updated state updated comprehensive state literacy plan for approval today. Our recommendation today is that the state board of education approve the updated state literacy plan pending correction of any typographical errors. To contextualize this, I'll share the grant objectives and what we've done at CDE for the grant thus far. So, the comprehensive literacy state development grant gives us an opportunity to for states to apply for federal funding to support literacy instruction birth
239through grade 12. It aims to improve student achievement in literacy by funding states to develop, revise, or update comprehensive literacy plans and allow states to provide targeted subgrants to local educational agencies to implement evidence-based programs and highquality literacy instruction based on their states SLPs or state literacy plan. California was awarded this grant in 2019 and again in 2024. So at this point I will hand uh over to Director McWain um for the remainder of this presentation. Thank you. So thank you. Thank you, President Darlene Hammond, Vice President Glover Woods, and Chief Deputy Superintendent Robersonson, and members of the state board for your time as well today. Um, I appreciate the opportunity to provide additional information on this important grant. to pick up where Deputy Superintendent Cotton left. The um CDE is in the final months
240of our successful implementation of the 2019 comprehensive literacy study development grant. We were awarded that grant in August 2019 and it's going to conclude this September 2025. And in September 2024, so last year, we were awarded a new round of the comprehensive literacy state development grant funds in the amount of $38 million to expand and enhance our work. This new grant is anticipated to run through September 30th, 2029. And we have four objectives for the 20 in the 2024 grant. So the first two are on their slide. So projects that incorporate state education agency partnerships with institutions of higher education, projects designed to address the impacts of CO 19 pandemic using evidence-based instructional approaches and supports to meet challenging academic content standards without contributing to tracking or remedial courses. Um, not go. Sorry, I'm trying
241to change your Oh, there we go. Sorry about that. Then the final two priorities are projects designed to promote education equity and adequacy in resources and opportunities for underserved students. Um, we focused this grant work on addressing the literacy needs of underserved students, which includes multilingual learners. Um, and to support screening for reading difficulties and evidence-based instructional approaches. And then the fourth is projects that support students and their families at key transitional stages in their education by ensuring coordinated highquality professional development for educators. in these transitional stages. Sorry, if I can work the computer, we'll move faster. Okay, so now I'm going to disc um discuss the state literacy plan itself. So the state literacy plan the purpose is to line and integrate state literacy initiatives. So, Condan standards and state guidance documents to support
242teachers of students birth through grade 12. Um, it's the supports continuous improvement by connecting essential literacy guidance and focusing on age grade band goals for literacy achievement established in our standards in California and our English language arts English language development framework. Um and then also to provide resources and research to pro to support local literacy plans. On our next slide, um we have the state literacy plan update process. So, just as a remember, as a reminder, the original state literacy plan was approved by this body in March 2021 after several rounds of public comment, a presentation to the state board in January 2021 for feedback, and then presentations to the instructional quality commission. The approved state literacy plan was then disseminated statewide by our department and implemented um via the comprehensive literacy state development subgrantees
243and the subgrants began for the 20209 award in September 2021 when the new grant funding was awarded. So our 2024 funds, a key deliverable was to update and revise the state literacy plan to reflect all that has occurred in literacy um across California since March 2021. And this is includes the work of our subgrantees. The process we have undertaken is reflected in the timeline on the slide. So in January 2025, we disseminated an updated comprehensive statewide literacy needs assessment to California local educational agencies. In February, we convene the state literacy team on two separate dates to review and provide input on the existing state literacy plan. And then in March, the state board of education staff reviewed and updated the state literacy plan draft as well. And so this is the draft plan that we
244are presenting to you today. Okay. Audiences for the state literacy plan. There are several audiences. This plan is intended to provide information on a variety of levels reflecting a systems approach. We have site district and county administrators and they can use the state literacy plan as a resource for implementing statewide literacy guidance and initiatives in a coherent way through what we call a systemwide comprehensive and integrated literacy model. The state literacy plan also provides a model for local literacy continuous improvement processes and a preview of future statewide literacy activities. teachers, pair of professionals of all grades and disciplines, teacher librarians, education specialists, education or English learner development specialists, educator mentors, literacy coaches and reading specialists, and professional um learning providers will also learn about the comprehensive and integrated literacy model. Sorry, did I change our
245slide? Um they'll learn about our model and how each of their roles in a collaborative collaboration with site and district and county administrators and is responsible for student achievement in literacy. The university faculty in teacher preparation programs will find the state literacy plan to be a useful resource for pre-ervice teachers and inservice teachers and then parent and communities can use the state literacy plan as a resource to understanding the big picture of literacy in California um and include which includes of course our resources and guidance needs assessment findings. So we started to update the plan initially with a needs assessment. So the comprehensive literacy needs assessment, we made it available to all local educational agencies across the state from January 6th through February 10th of this year. We sent direct letters to each superintendent and
246principal and we advertised it in the um California Department of Education literacy newsletter, the curricular improvement and support committees sub ELA EL subcommittee um as well as using our um social media available to us. We received 88 unique responses. And of those 88 unique responses, roughly 94% were from public school districts or county offices of education and roughly 6% were from charter schools. We considered the results to be a small representative sample of local educational agencies statewide. We also mapped, which is on the slide, the respondents to make sure and to show the geographic breath of California they represented. We started asking leas to tell us what they were doing. Well, um and the responses showed that over half over half of the respondents um have used grade level or department team co-planning and instruction
247and intervention. They've used common literacy screeners andor assessments. They've used small groupoup literacy instruction. They've used curriculum and instruction aligned to our ELA ELD framework. Um the teaching staff trained were trained in structured literacy and other evidence-based instructional PLA practices. Um and then they used integrated and designated English learner development instruction for English learner students daily. Just under half of the respondents said that their California assessment of student performance and progress scores for English language arts literacy are at or above the statewide average. We also asked respondents about whether they have a literacy plan in place. Just under half say they do. Roughly twothirds of the respondents reported that they have a literacy coach, reading specialist, teacher on special assignment, or other staff member whose role was to coach classroom teachers in evidence-based literacy um
248instructional practices. We also asked about reading and literacy intervention program strategies and models that the eleas are using and these included what they reported walk tolearn model small group instruction by classroom teacher or an instructional support person or aid pushing interventions not special education services pull out intervention not also not special education services before or after school reading intervention zero period interession reading interventions. Um, and the state literacy team spent ex extensive time reviewing the data from the needs assessment to inform their input on the revised state literacy plan. So that leads us to our state literacy plan updates. So what we have updated, we have each section listed on this slide has had or has had updates um to support a better flow of the document overall. So in the section California's approach to
249literacy instruction, each of the listed items has fully has a fully developed explanation of what it does to serve California students with supporting information cited in corresponding appendices. The continuous improvement process section has been updated with links to resources and research in each grade age grade span in the literacy planning toolkit. An explanation of each step of the continuous improvement process at the state and local level, outcomes and evidence-based practices from the 2019 comprehensive literacy state development subgrantees and proposed and proposed updates. but for to the state literacy priorities and I'll talk a little bit more in depth about the priorities in a moment. And then the comprehensive and integrated literacy model section has also been updated significantly and I'll talk about that a little bit later as well. So that brings us to in
250the state literacy plan we updated the logic model. We developed and updated the logic model to build on the success of the 2019 grant work, the subgrant work and let leads towards short-term, midterm and long-term literacy outcomes to guide our work. This logic model guides not just the work of the department but also the forthcoming work of the 2024 comprehensive literacy state development subgrantees which we anticipate awarding in 2025. So later this year in the section um in this section of the state literacy plan each step of the continuous improvement process at the state and local level is now detailed illustrating how the CDE and its partners assess state lit statewide literacy needs and develop plans to leverage the comprehensive literacy state development grant funds to address those needs. We provide tools for local el
251local educational agencies to engage in a local process as well. We have added language and links to the literacy planning toolkit which was reviewed extensively with the state literacy team. We've also moved much of the information that was in this section previously to the appendices um on standards and frameworks to simplify this section. Um so in the 2024 uh 2019 comprehensive literacy state development grant we had seven literacy leads literacy lead agencies is actually what we called them and we awarded them through a competitive grant process. These have the lead agencies have successfully implemented projects based on the statewide literacy priority for which they were awarded and they represent 20 county offices of education and over 80 local educational agencies statewide. All seven of the literacy lead agencies use the existing state literacy plan as
252a foundational document for focusing on their work for educator professional learning, supporting local educational agencies in developing local literacy plans, building statewide capacity around the seven statewide literacy priorities, and highlighting evidence-based practices in literacy. So the work of the literacy lead agencies is now highlighted in the continuous improvement process section of the plan and then our successful application for the 2024 grant funds was also built on the success of this grant work as well. So through the four years of implementation of the state literacy plan and subgrants, we have updated the statewide literacy priorities to streamline their focus and allow for more expansion and enhance enhancement of the work over the next four or five years. So we are recommending in the updated plan to simplify our priorities that we've listed. So we are proposing
253for priority one, we are proposing to update it to say birth to age five programs that support early childhood education to build on their instructional capacity to support early language and literacy skills and promote literacy rich environments and experiences as well as to increase family support by developing knowledge and skills through family centered curriculum and literacy activities with special attention to linguistic diversity. The purpose of updating this or creating this change is so we add have an added focus on educators in the system and instruction also to maintain the age appropriate parent focus and literacy rich environments and experiences. We're proposing as well to update priority two. Um this this is due to over the course of our grant implement previous grant implementation. It became immediately apparent apparent that division of subgroups and the priorities
254on the slide under the 2019 grant was not reflective of what really happens on school campuses. So, we understood that we needed to there was an immediate understanding that we need to focus on building tier one instruction for all students and that attending to the needs of English language learners as well as students with disability were things that all projects would need to focus on. So with extensive input from our literacy team, the ex existing three elementary priorities were combined into one that encompass compasses meeting the needs of all students and educators in the system. And then for priority three, we're proposing updating that similarly to the elementary priority. So, um we're um combining the three secondary priorities into one that calls out the need for continued focus on tier one instruction in middle and
255high school as well as meeting the needs of all students and educators in the system. So the next item that we updated in the state literacy plan is the comprehensive and integrated literacy model. Um the model that we um created is to the intention is to demonstrate how adults in the system use state guidance to support student achievement. Includes universal evidence-based teaching and learning at its heart. It's it's um proposing best first instruction for all students is guided by the California standards frameworks and other foundational documents. Um in it has the ELA EL framework is fundamental to the document for comprehensive literacy instruction. in the visual on the slide, the outermost purple ring of the comprehensive um and integrated literacy model that represents the greater California's greater multi- system of support. The center of the
256model features as I mentioned the ELA ELD framework circles of implementation. The white ring represents the whole child approach that is inclusive and culturally and linguistically affirming and the green and blue rings represent the people who support comprehensive literacy instruction. So our family and community partners, student voice, well-prepared educators. Um and in the plan, each of these section each of these items have their own section located in the appendix that provides more context. As I mentioned previously, there's more detailed information for each section of the state literacy plan in a very um in-depth appendices. And this is our current timeline for our project. So today we're presenting the state literacy plan for your review and approval. Our goal is in June and July to develop and post a request for applications for subrants available. In
257September, we hope to disseminate the subrant awards and then starting October when our goal is to implement the subrant uh provide the funding and allow the subgrantees to begin implementation of their projects. Um this is our link and information to our web page as well instruct instructions for enjoy joining our list serve and of course our email address. And then I just want to recognize um the California Department Education team that led this work and was instrumental in updating this plan and they're with me here today. Julia Gastinelli, Erica San Andre, Jennifer Howarder, and Eve Fabiachi. Um they led not just the update of the state plan, but our successful application to the federal government for the award and um they will lead our future RFA process or request for application process. And then I
258also want to thank Alen Allison Zara who led this work in 2019 and helped develop the original um plan and then she provided much guidance and support on our current plan. So thank you Elen. And then just as a reminder, our recommendation um is that the state board of education approve the updated state literacy plan pending any corrections of any typographical errors. So I thank you for your time and consideration and we are available for questions when the time is appropriate. Thank you. Um and I want to go ahead and put up the public comment slide so that we can allow the public comment to aggregate in the queue. Um I'll just note that uh in our um item the uh there's a slight difference in the wording of the recommendation which included any technical
259amendments or or whatever as well as um typographical errors. So I assume we're voting on on that statement but um we can double check on that. Um meanwhile uh uh let's see if we have any public comment. We don't have a liaison to this effort. I will say on behalf of the board that um it's been exciting to both have the literacy uh grant from the federal government previously. A lot of great work was done under that grant. We have county offices doing literacy work for early learning, for primary grades, for middle school students, for high school students, for English learners, uh, etc. A lot of that work has really paid off. It's exciting to have this, um, you know, coming in again and knock on wood, still, uh, on the way. Uh, and um
260I don't have actual wood, [Laughter] but and and I think and I hope it will really be able to continue some of the great work that's been done before. So, it's uh and we appreciate all the work that went into both securing the grant and developing the plan. So, with that, I want to see if there's any public comment in the room and then any public comment on the phone. We have one person signed up in the room. Manuel Bon Rostro, please step up to the microphone in the back. You have one minute. Manuel Bon Rostro with California's Together and uh we just want to say that we commend the Department of Education and this board for its excellent work on this state literacy plan and we strongly support its adoption. Uh we are particularly
261appreciative of the explicit inclusion of guidance within the plan for supporting the literacy development and multilingualism uh for English learners. This focus is critical for ensuring that all students achieve uh literacy. Uh furthermore, we want to sincerely thank the department staff for their ongoing engagement and their commit and their commitment to soliciting and incorporating feedback from English learner exports experts throughout this plan's development. This collaborative approach has significantly strengthened the plan. We remain committed to our partnership with this with the state board and the department to ensure that equitable and effective educational opportunities for all students especially English learners are available uh throughout their educational careers. Thank you. And there are um two callers in the queue. I will open the phone line now. Caller with the last four digits 5703. You are now live.
262Please start your public comment. You have one minute. caller with the last four digits. 57. My apologies. No problem. My apologies. Um I was I was looking to comment on I believe it's item number eight. start your public comment. You have one minute. Good afternoon. This is Lindsay Tornator on behalf of the California County Superintendent. I would like to start with a big shout out to Monnique McWain and the professional learning support division for providing many opportunities for many educational partners to provide input on the refined and updated plan. The California County Superintendent have been and continue to be strong supporters of the CLSC program since its inception 2019. County offices have established a regional structure fostering collaborative leadership to provide and enhance high-quality professional learning and system support services. The included this included assisting
263every district and community in the state with the development of local literacy plans. We look forward to continuing our collaboration with the CDE to expand and enhance the great work that the 2019 CLC grant began as we all work toward the shared goal of improving literacy outcomes for every student in California. Thank you. Thank you. Uh that concludes public comment for item number four. We want discussion and then a motion. I'm just going to clarify. I think this is the the language is I'm just we're just clarifying the actual motion so that when we're ready to make it, we have it exactly the way that we were expecting it. Um any discussion? member Patella Bronson. Um, less of a discussion, more of a thank you for continuing to include the 0 to5 as one of
264the pillars. Uh, and also in the the language around priority 2. Um, I was just appreciating the explicit call outs around uh, evidence-based structured literacy instruction. Thank you. Rodriguez. Yes. And I would like to compliment um everyone who's worked on this. This is beautiful. Before I got to the comprehensive and integrated literacy model, I was going through them the slides and thinking this is so integrated and then integrated. I was like, "Yeah." Okay. Thank you. All right. Do I have a motion? Oh, member Osco Gonzalez. I just appreciate your comments because I think that that's exactly what I was thinking as a second grade classroom teacher when I know literacy is at the foundation of what makes students succeed. I just thought um how firsthand foundational literacy is every part of student success. The statewide
265literacy plan reflects the real challenges and strengths we're seeing in schools today. I even wrote about how especially it focuses on equity and early literacy, the inclusion tools like the local literacy planning toolkit and the alignment with MTSS shows deep understanding with educators what they truly need on the ground. So, thank you so much for this report for the work done on this literacy grant. It's very much needed and I can't await what it does and the data that comes back from it. Thank you. Member Rodriguez. motion. Okay. Um I move to uh uh vote or I I move for the recommendation. The CD recommends that we adopt uh approve the updated state literacy plan pending correction of any typographical errors. Yeah, we have a slightly more um elaborated version of that which I think
266uh Vice President Glover Woods can read. It's very similar. I move that the that we approve the revised state literacy plan pending the SBE executive director approval of final revisions requested by the SBE and correction of any typographical errors. Okay. And do we have a second? I'll second. Okay. I don't if you're then you have to you can't first and second. I'm just saying that's somewhere in Robert's rules of orders. such a stickler for Okay, so we have a first and a second and any further discussion? Uh, Brooks, will you call the role? Member Yoshima, yes. Member Rodriguez, yes. Member Patilo Branson, yes. Member Rosco Gonzalez, yes. Member Olen, yes. Member McQuillin, member Lewis, yes. Vice President Gloverwoods, yes. Member Escobedo, yes. President Darling Hem, yes. Member Clawson, yes. Motion carries now. All right. Thank
267you. Thank you so much. We're going to go to item nine. Uh we had expected to be at item nine at two o'clock. It's almost three o'clock. I'm just letting you know because then there will be flights that people need to catch at a certain point. So I just want to uh keep you aware that we are going to move uh with all deliberate speed as they say, maybe even faster. Item nine is the California Community Schools Partnership Program approval of cohort 4 implementation grantees. And I understand that member Escavdo will recuse himself from this item. Uh the CDE recommends that the state board approve the CCSP cohort 4 implementation grant awards. This item will be presented by Deputy Superintendent Erica Torres. How are you? And I'm Ed Rosawi of the CDE. Nice to see
268you both. Please begin. Good afternoon. My name is Oh, I'm sorry. Hi. Good afternoon. My name is Erica Torres and I am proud to serve as a deputy superintendent of the student success and career readiness branch and I am so honored to be here uh with you today. I am joined by Hamemed Razawi, education administrator for the community schools office. And we're really honored to be here in front of our amazing state board of education to present our final cohort 4 um implementation grant um on behalf of our community uh schools office. I do want to take this opportunity to acknowledge and thank our state superintendent of public instruction uh president Dr. Darling Hammond, our entire state board of education, all of our CDE staff, and our community partners, uh, for really joining us in
269this vision to ensure that we work collaboratively to transform schools on behalf of our students, families, and school communities. And so as as we know, we're here today uh because the California Department of Education is requesting approval for the cohort 4 implementation grant awards under the California Community Schools Partnership Program. And so attachment one, which is in our board item, provides the full list of local educational agencies and individual school sites recommended for funding. I also wanted to uh thank each and every one of you for your collaboration, for your support. It is hard to believe that this is our last cohort but indeed it is. So thank you so much. I wanted to give you a quick uh recap of the journey that collectively we have taken so far. Thus far the CD has
270awarded two cohorts of planning grants and planning grants as you recall were for the districts who did not have a community school. two cohorts, one in 2021 2022 school year and one 2022 2023 for a total of 419 grants to local education agencies for a total cost of 82,694,554. We have had three implementation grants so far. the fourth one and the last one being today. The three rounds each one as you recall is for five years. So the first one was for school years 2022 through 27. The next one 23 to 28. The third one 24 through 29. 389 grants have been awarded to local education agencies supporting 2018 schools for a total of 2 billion672 million66,000. Just a very brief overview of our uh process. Our request for application imple implementation grant request for
271application or RFA was released on October 18, 2024. It was due February 7th. We preemptively without their asking give a 30-day extension for fire affected counties, Los Angeles and Ventura. The CD received 359 complete applications. The breakdowns are as the following. 243 school districts, eight counties, office of education, and 108 charter schools. The following uh chart, I'm sure, is very familiar to you. We have six categories from the very small of 10 to 24 students for the first four years. As you could see, they received 75. The 50 are slightly less. And the last column to the right shows the total amount from the very small to the very large of 2001. That is $500,000 per year. So, the California Department of Education recommends awarding implementation grants to 121 LEAs serving 458 school sites for
272a total allocation of 618,214,000. This will bring the total number of schools awarded a community schools um grant and funding to over 2400 which is about a quarter of our schools in California. All of the applicants are planning grantees um alas and each school serves 80% or more unduplicated students. And I do want to uh just remind all of us that in 2024 the legislation was updated to prioritize alas um that have received a planning grant. So the California Department of Education is recommending 121 eleas for funding which include 81 school districts, three county offices of education and 37 charter schools. So this slide provides an overview of the 121 eleas that are recommended for funding by region. And it is important to note that every California community schools partnership program region is represented in
273cohort 4 implementation grants. So here is an overview of our next steps. Our community schools office uh will host a webinar for our implementation grantees and we will distribute the grant award notifications. Our community schools office will also distribute the coordination grants to our county offices of education to support community school implementation for grant recipients in their county. And we're also preparing to collect annual progress reports for cohorts one, two, and three. And throughout uh this work, we have been very intentional and very much focused on measuring student impact. We're also looking forward to our community schools empower summit on June 12th and 13th which will convene parents, students, our grantees, uh families, community members, our regional technical assistance centers, our state technical assistance center. So, the California Department of Education is requesting that our
274state board of education approve the California Community Schools Partnership Program Cohort 4 implementation grant awards. Thank you. All right, those who'd like to call in for public comment using the phone number and the public uh comment access code that is on this slide. And while we're waiting, I want to ask our liaison, member Yoshimono Tarry, if she has any initial comments before me. just to thank CDE uh for your significant effort that it took to calibrate, train all the readers and review hundred hundreds of the lengthy applications on a tight timeline um and especially with extended deadline for the counties that had fires. Congratulations to the new grant recipients and to all those continuing to support community schools through the coordination grants particularly through the county offices the artax uh the high volume of cohort
275or applications demonstrates the need and the interest out there and the strong demand for the program and so I just also want to acknowledge that many eleas that applied were not funded and the $4.1 billion allocated uh doesn't yet come close to meeting the statewide need. However, as we move forward, uh we should continue to lift up what's working and why it's working and how to sustain it. Districts like Fosam Cordova, which spoke to us in November, uh is an example of implementing community schools uh beyond its funded sites, which I think holds some further exploration and opportunity in terms of sustainability. Uh so with that thank you and I will just plus one it's been quite a journey and we are well launched on you know uh a process by which hopefully community schools
276will become part of the way we do school in California and it's really a testament to all the efforts in the department and in the field you know that we are in this place. So with that let's see if we have public comment. We have eight individuals signed up in the room. Please step up to the microphone in the back. Starting with Steve McDougall, Rachel Murphy, Marita Bermudez, Freda Sanchez, Maita Reyes, Lucero Sto, Nora Barza, and Angela Steagel. You have one minute. Uh, President Linda Darling Hammond, uh, Vice President Glover Woods, State Board of Education, Steve McDougall with CFD, a union of educators and classified professionals. just want to um extend appreciation to the continued commitment for this program um by the legislature and the governor and of course implementing it with your staff here.
277Um and as far as the staff here goes, as far as CFT is concerned, we haven't heard any complaints about this process for any of our um employer represented locals that have applied and been awarded grants. And so well done there. Um but I'm going to continue to ask respectfully that the state board provide some direction um through the STAC to the RTA tax to ensure that the ELEAs that are receiving these grants are honoring all the pillars of the community schools as required in the grants including shared leadership. It's still an issue. It's still a concern and I'd ask that you please provide that guidance. Thank you. Uh good afternoon. My name is Marita Bmudez. I am a community organizer with OKO, a parent leader with both Anaheim Union and Anaheim Elementary School Districts
278and a proud partner with the California Partnership. In Anaheim, Oko is working with both districts in different but aligned ways to deepen family engagement and leadership. In Anaheim Union, we've supported families in um learning and participating in the ELCAF process, equipping them with the tools to understand school funding as um ask informed questions and advocate for programs and services that directly impact their children's education. This has helped build a stronger bridge between families and schools, turning parents into informed partners in decision-making. In Anaheim Elementary, we are co-leading dual capacity trainings that bring parents, caregivers, and school staff into shared learning environments. These spaces build trust, foster relationship and uplift parent voices. Families are take taking leadership roles, co-f facilitating sessions and sharing and shaping strategies that create welcoming inclusive school communities. This partnership is transforming
279schools, empowering families to lead, advocate and actively support their children success while building communities of belonging, rooted in trust and strong relationships. Thank you. Okay. Hello, good afternoon. My name is Mter Reyes and I am a sophomore at Anaheim High School and I'm a youth leader with OKO. I participated in both annual ESTAG meetings and art tag convenings and will be attending the SAC summit in Fresno this summer. Being involved in the community schools has helped me step out of my shell and become a stronger advocate for change. Knowing what a community school is and engaging in spaces where others across our region and state are sharing practices has shown me powerful and student voice and partnership. this year receiving the Dole Language Academy student of the year award which reflects how I've been able
280to support my peers finding help that they need. Community schools do more than support us academically. They helped us grow, build the relationships and feel empowered and lead the schools and communities. Lastly, I would like to thank my teacher, Miss Allan, Miss Coach Quay, and as well as my loving parents. Thank you. Hello. Oh, let me move that real quick. Hello. Good afternoon. My name is Freda Sanchez. I'm a junior at Anaheim High School, a youth leader with OK and a proud member of the community school statewide student advisory representing the southern coast arct. Because of the knowledge and leadership skills I've gained through the SSA and spaces has opened up for us, my school leadership recognized the strong connections I was making and the change I wanted to see. Change that reflects what a
281transformative community school can do for our school community. As a result, they created a new position with our associated student body, the community schools liaison. This is the first of its kind at Anaheim High School, and I'm proud that my advocacy has helped bring it to life. Community schools are more are about more than programs. They're about power, belonging, and transform transformation. Youth like me aren't just being supportive, but we're stepping into leadership, shaping our school culture, and helping create schools that truly reflect the needs and dreams of our communities. In honor of teacher appreciation week, I want to shout out Mr. Chong, my physics teacher, and Miss Carol's my English teacher, for always having their classrooms open, especially during lunch and feeling like I can go talk to them for things other than school,
282too. So, this is what a transformative community schools are all about. Thank you. Good afternoon. Rachel Murphy with Public Advocates and on behalf of the California Partnership for the Future of Learning, we thank the department for its work to identify awardees for this final cohort of implementation grant funding so that 458 more schools serving high need students can implement this transformative approach to building inclusive and supportive schools. As described in our letter, we remain concerned that the demand far exceeded the supply, preventing many planning grantees and other schools serving high need students from accessing this opportunity. Additionally, funding for the first cohort will soon either end completely or significantly decrease through a potential extension grant, threatening the progress achieved so far. We request a future update that explores sustainability of the program and how grantees
283are fairing in braiding resources from other grant programs to support existing work. And we also encourage the board to advocate for ongoing funding um in this proven approach. We also recommend that actions and spending related to community school efforts are reflected in LCAPS in order to understand the strategy in the context of a district's broader equity goals. Thank you. Good afternoon. My name is Lucero Sto, community organizer and parent with Sacramento Act in the Elgroveve Unified School District and a member of the California Partnership for the Future of Learning, which is a statewide alliance of over 30 grassroot advocacy, research, and philanthropic partners, advancing a shared vision of community schools as places of joy, belonging, and deep learning for every student across California. I have seen how SAK City Unified has created opportunities for community
284organizations like ours to become partners and creating spaces for families and students and learn how to make decisions together. We have built relationships with the coordinators and I have seen how their role has truly transformed and allowed these relationships to flourish on campus. Thank you. Sacramento. I Conferencia. You have translation. Just taking some notes. Sorry. Oh, good morning. My name is Nora Varasa, leader parent with Sacramento ACT and the district of Sacramento in the community school Luther Burbank. In these last years, I have served as a president of the ELAC in the school. This has been a good opportunity to work in conjunction with the board of community schools. This is how we all together make decisions for the students more impacted like learning English to create a space in ELAC as a coordinator in
285my school was one of my goals this year. This is how we follow the example of community schools to create spaces so that families and students impact the decisions taken in our schools. I'm very excited in June to go to the conference of community schools in Fresno. Good afternoon. I'm Angela Steagel, classroom teacher representing the California Teachers Association. CTA appreciates the work of the CDE and SBE staff in the implementation of community schools. The demand and need for community schools surpasses the availability of funding. And CTA notes that the required methodology to prioritize planning grant awardes for the implementation grants may have led to some unintended consequences for districts that already have an established internal capacity for community schools and as such elected to not apply for planning grants. Schools that have already established the
286conditions and capacity for successful implementation and could benefit from these additional investments are not given a meaningful opportunity to be considered. CTA believes that the demand for and early success of community schools speak to the authentic and deep-seated need for this strategy in our state. Thank you. Um, there are six callers in the queue. I will open the phone line now. Caller with the last four digits. 4301. You are now live. Please start your public comment. You have one minute. Good afternoon, President Darling Kimman, Vice President Glover Woods, members of the board, Lindseay Tornator. On behalf of the California County Superintendent, we'd like to extend our gratitude to the CDE and board for their continued support of the California Community Schools Partnership Program, we concur with member Tower Yoshimoto's comment that the high number of
287applications for the cohort 4 implementation grants is evidence of the importance of this program in communities across the state. We congratulate those who are awarded a grant and maintain our commitment as county offices to serving all grantees in their communities via the coordination grant. Thank you. Thank you. Uh, next caller with the last four digits 6991. You are now live. Please start your public comment. You have one minute. Hello. Good afternoon. My name is Evan Morton. I'm a community organizer with True North organizing network and a member of the California Partnership for the Future of Learning. In Eureka City Schools, the largest district in the rural Tri County area of Humbult, Delnor, and Trinity counties and a recipient of cohort 1 and two implementation grants. Community schools funding is driving real impact. With CCSP support,
288the district hired a chronic absenteeism social worker who overhauled attendance practices through a multi-tered support lens, resulting in a 60% increase in tier 2 attendance at Grant Elementary, the first school in the district to fully implement these changed practices. A transportation specialist now supports McKenna Vento students, providing 800 rides district-wide annually and improving attendance by over 100 or by 100% for over 15 chronic chronically absent students. This progress is made possible through strong partnership between district staff and True North, uplifting student and family leadership to co-create effective communitydriven solutions. Thank you. Thank you. Uh next caller with the last four digits, 5137, you are now live. Please start your public comment. You have one minute. Good afternoon. My name is Katie Nunes Adler and I'm the statewide coordinator with the California Partnership for the Future
289of Learning. As you've heard from students, families, and organizers across the state, the community school's approach is changing the outcomes for students who have so long been denied equal opportunities to learn. That's why we support the award of co cohort 4 grants. Additionally, as education leaders in our state, we urge the state board and the department to continue to communicate the importance of annual progress reports and presentations by shared decision-making teams and to prioritize the capacity building necessary to make sure this happens. Presentations must be co-developed and co-presented by shared decision-making teams at a public meeting at the school site and district levels. This collective process of reflection on learnings and planning through the annual progress report is essential to continuous improvement in schools and across LEAs. Thank you. Thank you. Uh next caller with
290the last four digits 181817. You are now live. Please start your public comment. You have one minute. Good afternoon. My name is Alma Cvantes and I'm the regional education equity and justice director for Building Healthy Communities Monterey County and a member of the California Partnership. In the first year of the cohort 3 implementation grant, uh, Salina's Union High School, one of our biggest districts, has built significant infrastructure for lasting impact work in partnership with our organization to authentically engage in this and shared decision making power with students and families in a community with a high population migrant and immigrant mix students and families that included undocumented individuals. The support system and wellness partnership embedded in a community schools approach has been critical. For example, all community schools coordinators have been trained on child safety plan
291to assist families completing critical documents so their students feel protected and supported and empowered to enhance academic opportunities. Beginning next year, one of the middle schools will have access to dual enrollment courses through a new partnership with Harnell College and integrated one-on-one digital tools for the 21st century learning through a partnership with Verizon innovative learning school program. Youth leadership development collaboration across three community schools. Grantee sites are helping students develop civic engagement skills that we need now more than ever to strengthen our multi-racial democracy. the new grant trees approved in cohort 4 will be able to deeply expand this existing work and co-artner with community organization. Thank you. Thank you. Uh next caller with the last four digits 9860. You are now live. Please start your public comment. You have one minute. Good afternoon uh
292President Darling Hammond, Superintendent Thurman and board. My name is Jose Sahura and I am the coordinator of community schools for the Santa Maria Bonita School District. I want to thank the board and also our state uh uh legislators for their support not only in legislative language but also in funding for community schools in our state. Uh we as a district are very excited to be CCSP grant recipients in this fourth fourth cohort. Uh we're really looking forward to working with all of our educational partners and identifying and removing barriers to success for our over 17,000 students. Finally, I want to thank Dr. Darren McDuffy, superintendent of Family Bonita School District for his continued support and the work that we are doing and the work to come. Thank you very much. Thank you. Uh, next caller
293with the last four digits 8256. You are now live. Please start your public comment. You have one minute. Hi, this is Robert Manoring for Chill Now. uh we want to uh give our voice to follow with our other partners to support the awards for cohort 4 uh and believe in the community schools approach uh and finding whole child solutions to address our students needs. uh as we move forward uh we could probably strengthen the state's role of effective implementation and oversight of this program and also start to look at policy changes that could be made outside of education to make it easier for local governments to actually partner with our schools. we we see some barriers at times um in coordinating that partnership between education partners and other other social services supporting the same student.
294So, thank you and appreciate you moving ahead with cohort 4. Thank you. Uh that concludes public comment for item number nine. Perfect. Um, at this point I think we want to put up the uh Oh, we're done with what is it that we need to pause for at this point? Okay. Okay. We had to get something in place, but it's in place. So, we're open for um discussion on the community schools and then we need a motion. Any discussion other than yay? Yes. Member Rosco Gonzalez. Um, I just want to express my appreciation for the work that has been going on with the community schools. We have a few in our in the school district that I work in. And I just thought there was a note that I wrote about the overwhelming demand for
295implementation grants in this final round is evident of the strategy of effectiveness and irrelevance. With that being said, I believe we should consider how the current prioriti uh prioritization structure may inadvertently disadvantage highcapacity districts that did not apply for a planning grant but are ready to implement. So, as we move forward, I'd like to for us to explore ways to broaden access to these funds and support both readiness and equity so that the promising programs are not left behind due to some procedural technicalities. I think of some of the schools that already had I should say LEAs that already had a successful community school in place and didn't need that planning grant and then moving forward were not part of the implementation grant because they didn't apply for the first step. So maybe thinking creatively
296for that kind of funding as we move forward. Good idea. Other comments, thank you. I I just wanted to say how um encouraging and exciting it is to hear of the positive impact of the community schools partnership uh program. Um quite excited for the new cohort that is going to be awarded the implementation grants and looking forward again just to hearing updates as to how the implementation is going and um that continued support for the estax and the R tax. But um again overwhelming overwhelming support I'm quite excited for what happens now and beyond. Thank you. Can I get a me? Oh I want to get a motion but please go ahead. member Rodriguez and then member McCullen. Yes. I just want to also thank you for the uh work vetting all of these applicants
297and um a shout out to three schools in my community which is a high needs area um Broly uh Al Central Elementary which feeds into our school and Klexico. Um and I also want to stress the commitment to the shared governance. I think that's incredibly important um because that is the crux of the community schools. And I want to thank the parents also who were here today um uh uh in support of community schools and this model. Member McCullen. Yes. Thank you. I want to say thank you for all the work on this and the support and those who came out to give comment to it. I also wanted to u ask about the comments about strengthening that pillar of shared governance. Do you see ways we can do that to strengthen that? Well, definitely
298that's always on our mind and our work, but we look forward to getting guidance from you. We will have a new STAC. So, with Dr. Torres's leadership that has been number one on our mind as we are transitioning from Alama to Sacramento and working with all our arts. Amazing point. Thank you. Yeah, thank you. And just to add to that that we're really excited uh to work collaboratively with all of our artaxs, our new ESTAC coming on board starting July 1st and all of our grantees really to ensure that you know we identify opportunities for shared governance, collaboration, integration of the work, uh braiding of funds and then also reporting out on student impact and outcomes of these these historic investments. So, we're looking forward to that and to provide future updates to all of
299you. So, thank you for that. All right. Can I get a motion? Rodria, work it out. Motion the recommendation that is on here. Okay. Um, so I would like to move to approve uh the recommendation uh by the CDE requesting that um we approve the uh community schools partnership cohort 4 implementation grant awards. Right. Do I have a second? Member Patillo Branson. Thank you very much. I call the role. Member Yoshima. Member Rodriguez. Member Patillo Brownson. Yes. Member Rosco Gonzalez. Yes. Member Oaken. Yes. Member McQuillin, member Lewis, yes. Vice President Glover Woods, yes. President Darling Hammond, yes. Member Clawson, yes. Motion carries. All right. Uh, at this juncture, um, thank you very much for all of that. Yay. Uh, we might otherwise have taken a break, but I'm going to encourage you to take a
300break as you need one, okay? uh over the next hour or two uh so that we can um continue to make progress on the agenda before we lose people to their flights. Um item 10 is the update on the California Educators Together platform and the impact of the highquality online instructional materials investment. This is uh no specific action is recommended at this time. This is information only. This will be presented by Deputy Superintendent Mary Nicely and Cole Samson and Edward Gonzalez from Kern County. Ask people to please keep it down. Thank you. Ready to go? Yeah, we're ready to go. Hello again. Good afternoon, President Darling Hammond, Vice President Glover Woods, members of the board, and Chief Deputy Robersonson. I am Mary Nicely, deputy superintendent of the information technology branch. I'm excited to be here
301today to give you an update on California Educators Together and the highquality online instructional materials initiative. Uh as uh President Darling Hemmond mentioned, I'm joined today by Cole Dr. Cole Samson and uh Dr. Edward Gonzalez from Curran County Office of Education and Allegra Allesandre from the High School Innovations Office and Initiatives Office from CDE. Uh so for some background I'm going to click this button. Okay. Uh for some background uh at the start of COVID 19 uh pandemic I was tasked by the state superintendent to ensure students had devices and internet to continue their learning remotely and was able to work closely with President Darling Hammond, the administration, internet service providers, philanthropy and temp tech companies to receive resources. Uh but we quickly rediscovered the need for educators to also be connected. Thankfully, with the
302support of AT&T and the Packard Foundation, I was able to leverage a donation to migrate legacy systems uh OAR systems uh to a new platform with the support of one learning community. This was the birth of what I consider one of my babies, California Educators Together, a digital community of practice developed by educators for educators, leading the way nationwide in usage by educators. Uh so uh though this was developed for California educators, educators across the US have access to the platform and to highquality open education resources. Sorry for the little map. Um, but as an example, we have registered users from New York, Texas, Florida, Virginia, Georgia, and many other states. Uh, we have over 117,000 lesson plans in the system, 45,000 collections, 26,000 groups, and 200,000 total resources. And might I add, we have
303never actually had the time to market this system. Yet, we have 235,000 registered users. So in 2021, the education omnibus authorized 15 thou $15 million for a development and curation of highquality online materials. We were able to leverage our existing California Educators Together platform uh so that we did not have to create another website for educators to seek out and we were able to make the platform not only an educator resource but also have now the ability to download any of its lesson plans into any school's learning management system. I would like to now uh hand the presentation over to Dr. Cole Samson and Dr. Gonzalez, Edra Gonzalez from Kern County, our lead county, who have done a wonderful job opening uh leading the um the work over the past two years to um develop
304these statewide standards. And I missed a slide. Okay. What was I can't do these two things. So, um, the omnibus bill, uh, stated that, uh, we would select a county office of education, develop a transparent process for vetting materials, curate easytouse resources for local educational agencies and educators, develop and maintain a repository of identified materials for use by local educational agencies and educators, provide guidance and resources for our local education agencies and educators, and report data to the California Collaborative for Educators. Excellence. And now I will ask Cole and Edward to join us. That you to the next. All right. Good afternoon, uh, President Darlene Hammond, Vice President Lever Wood. My name is Cole Samson. I'm the chief curriculum and instruction officer for uh, Kern County Superintendent Schools. It's a pleasure to be with you
305uh this afternoon to share an update on the high quality instructional materials initiative that's been led by KCSOS in partnership with CDE over the last three years. Um through this process and alignment to AB67, uh this initiative has worked with teachers across the state to develop more than 5,000 vetted lessons um across TK through 12th grade uh content areas and all content areas. So, we are working with math, science, ELA, um, CTE, art, music, um, PE to help develop lesson plans. Um, as well as we've brought in and curated more than 20,000, uh, additional resources to the platform to support instruction in the classroom and providing guide books that are subject specific to teachers on how to actually use these high-quality materials um that are they can now find on our platform, how they can
306actually use them um, in their context. Um through this we've had a a number of series of professional learning opportunities for teachers. We've been recording video lesson demonstrations creating a library of resources of what does this look like in practice so the teachers can see uh teachers like them serving students like they serve um and know that they can do it as well. Right? Looking for those pockets of excellence across our state. Um whenever we had our very first meeting uh with the CD and the CCE to onset this project, we asked what is you know what does success look like three years from now? uh and they said they really wanted a bird's-eye view of the various California's initiatives and grants that are taking place across the state um into one coherent model so
307that they can see uh the progress that's happening as well as a one-stop shop for educators across the state to have access to all those resources in one place. Uh because before this everything lives on a different website and you have to know the magic keys to find where those are. And so the goal of this work is actually create a one-stop shop so educators can come uh and find all the great uh things that are being developed by county offices and eleas across the state. Uh but to do this work, we knew um to meet the cultural and linguistic demands of a diverse California population, we also needed a diverse group of experts to serve as a divided industry committee to make sure um that we had expertise across content areas, but then also
308diverse connections to different organizations and um projects across the state. Uh so for example we worked closely with Dr. Kendall Brown and Dr. Mmani uh who are executive directors of the CSU UC subject matter projects through math and science and really gleaned resources that are already being developed by that those subject matter projects that very hard to find for some of our local educators. Now we're able to get those those resources on the site. um working directly with Sharon Coyle who's helping lead the UDL work across the state because we wanted to make sure that our lesson plans as we were working with teachers we were training them on UDL uh practices but making sure directly to practice what does that look like in instruction um in addition to that partnering with Dr. from Mike
309Torres and Monique McQueen to making sure that we were integrating CD initiatives and grants helping us connect us to other project leads across the state. So this we can say encourage them to make this a home for the resources they're developing. Um and in prior years we've also had partnerships with Dr. Lori Olsen who's really helped us ensure that our resources were um thoughtful and integrated to support multilingual learners across our state. Uh Jennifer Yells really helped with u the inclusive practices um and really gave us a lens around students with special needs. Uh and Sarah Morgan really helped make sure that we were um approaching and uh adapting our resources to meet the needs of our universal pre kindergarten teachers and educator workforce um across the platform. Um we really embodied a continuous improvement
310mindset throughout this work. Um so we knew that if we were going to scale a system that was going to support educators across the state of California, uh we were going to have to think systems and structures. And that's what we did. the first couple years through this work, we started by collecting statewide input from teachers and COE leaders across um eight of the 11 CISK regions in California. What are elements that you find that um most prevalent in H high quality instructional materials? Um and through all that feedback, really three core ideas came out standards aligned uh UDL considerations and informed and supports for multilingual learners. And so from that point forward, working with our advisory committee, we really ensured that we were refining our practice to make sure that teachers had the necessary
311uh training and tools to to build those lessons and then actually go and use those lessons in their classrooms and make them open source so other teachers could find them. We've gone through many iterations and processes um with our rubric and lesson plan tools uh to help teachers and continue to find that practice to make it easy and remove barriers for the educators engaging in our training. Um in addition to that we've also have discovered that you know we still have gaps in the capacity as we are rolling out some of this work um specifically as it comes to supporting some of the multilingual learners um that our teachers are serving. So this has led to the development of additional resources to go alongside our institutes and workshops such as a multilingual math toolkit which
312pulls all of the language um strategies out of the California math framework that just was the 2023 California math framework um leads them through detailed how to take those into practice as well as in designated and integrated time uh and recording and capturing teacher footage across the state of how what do those look like in practice providing full vignettes supporting multilingual learners. Uh we also have a toolkit similar to this to support science teachers. Um just recently in the last few months we've worked with the rails the regional English learner specialists. Um as LTES was designated as a um a demographic or group on the dashboard we've had growing needs of like how do we support these groups when we're working with middle school and high school teachers. They're asking now what other supports can
313I put forward? Uh so we have worked with the rails to build out a toolkit that now accompanies the work that we're doing through our institutes uh with teachers to give them supports and strategies for that student group. Um, and lastly, u, one thing that I'm really, um, proud of is as we were working with math teachers, really trying to get them to think about the big ideas and open tasks that are coming through in the new math framework, um, our team has been working with educators across the state to expand all of the vignettes and snapshots, all 30 of them, in the 2023 California math framework into full lesson plans that have UDL considerations and integrated ELD based on unique class profiles of teachers across the state. And we are now in the process
314of recording all 30 of those vignettes and snapshots um and hope to be done by the middle of June which will be a kind of a launchpad uh for the math professional learning partnership grant that starts in the next month or two. Uh good afternoon President Linda Darling Hammond, Vice President Glover Woods, uh Chief Deputy Robersonson, and the state board. My name is Dr. Edward Gonzalez and I'm the director for the HQIM initiative at the Kern County Superintendent of Schools. And so a lot of the the stage that that Cole has set so far is um the way that we've been able to partner with uh leads, the way that we've been able to cultivate interest by reaching out to different regions in California. Uh but I think that uh for us the most important
315component was when we settled early on with that integrated EL with that UDL component because what that rooted and anchored all of our work in was that we really wanted lesson plans, units, resources that were going to support um our most marginalized learners as well as traditionally underserved learners. And with uh with that in spirit um as we went about this work, we intentionally um reached out to communities and we said we our goal is to build out this contract with you all in it. Um and we don't want to come back here at the end and and invite you all retroactively once you've had no voice. We really want your voices to be a part of this work. So what you see here in um this uh this first image is this is Tanisha
316Cotton. She's a um she's a teacher at the California School for the Deaf and this is in a deaf plus classroom. So that means that it's uh it's kind of similar to what would be the the the mild to moderate classroom because the students have uh an additional an additional disability. So what's exciting for us within the demo video that we have recorded with Tanisha is that she's showing her rich um literacy strategies and um and we also have access to the lessons that she's created and they are on the platform. These are not just Tanisha's lessons. We also have the rest of the the staff from the California School for the Deaf who've added their lessons as well. And so as we as I'm sharing some of these, I want to make sure that
317I first share and showcase from our more marginalized and underserved populations to really anchor that um this is this has been the underlying goal. We want to make sure that we're not leaving anybody behind as we do this work. Um in this next uh example, this has been for us one of the probably the the most beautiful events that that kind of came together serendipitously, but um through a lot of hard work and a lot of uh intentional planning um this was the the great thing that emerged. So this is a TK dual student and um he he created a fantasy drawing at his elementary school and that lesson had integrated ELD and UDL. Then that teacher walked those lessons over to the advanced art classroom at the high school across the street. And then
318after a series of lessons that also had integrated ELD and UDL, those uh advanced high school art students uh created sculptures based off of the artwork. So once we were able to collaborate and coordinate with uh the teachers, we said, you know, how far how far can we push this or how far can this go? And these teachers from there created a gallery night. The gallery night brought in over a hundred parents and community members to showcase, highlight the students. But for us, what this became um was kind of a template for future work where we can showcase and we can highlight to other educators because they all walked away super inspired that these lessons that you all are creating here have the possibility to create this impact and this authentic audience within your local
319community. For us, that was one of the most exciting components because when we were looking at this work, we were really looking at the whole child uh framework through the lens of we're entering here through instruction with the UDL with the integrated ELD components. But then here um through the work of these educators who carried it further um you saw the community and the family aspect and the engagement and it really was a beautiful experience for us. Um here what we have is uh Buffy Schmidt. She's an indigenous teacher in Yukaya, California, and she teaches four sections of Northern Pomo. If you're not aware, Northern Pomo is actually a dormant uh language in California. We had the opportunity to connect with uh Buffy, record a lesson, um start supporting her with how we can amplify
320and showcase her work. And we are proud to say that we also learned um just recently that two of her students um graduated with the state seal of biiteracy as a result of the program. And so for us, again, really centering um our our traditionally underserved, our traditionally marginalized uh populations. For us, it's about using this work to really amplify, showcase not only the beautiful things that are happening in California because there's a lot of great positive things that are happening, but uh events such as this that capture community, that capture cultural, linguistic heritage, and um and and really uh kind of create a call to action. Now, in addition to to these uh inspiring pieces, um stepping back, we also have our our traditional partnerships with uh really great organizations across the state. First
321one that you see there on the at the top left is with uh with KCI, the Cross Center for Innovation. If any of you have been out in the Bay Area, you know that they're kind of the who's who in project-based learning with over 20 years of experience there working with KCI. We've hosted a couple of events that were well attended. We have lesson demos with uh with some of their with one of their teachers. Um, we also have podcast episodes where their um their teachers and their leadership talk about what the HQIM work meant for them as well as what the type the the type of work that they're uh promoting and expanding on in the Bay Area. On the the next image on the right hand side, we have the Global Education Project,
322one of the subject matter projects. We've had multiple events with them. um so much uh so much so that we even had their executive director really buy in and go through and support us as a learning facilitator um at different events across the state. Uh we also have work with LA USDCTTE super inspiring event um where we were able to capture uh what it means to to have that second calling because these are all CTE teachers who had that first initial calling that brought them into the industry. Um but then they they truly had another calling that pulled them from that initial calling to support uh their students and and give them a leg up into being able to get into those industries. Um really inspiring group. Um working with them we've been able to
323refine our process to really support high school especially CTE teachers and create some tools uh such as a UDL and a EL strategy scaffolding crosswalk. Um that was a really big hit uh with the organization. And then uh last but not least here we have uh work with Hi-Tech High. This was one of our biggest and best attended institutes. This was over 110 educators from the San Diego region who um who all came together. I also got to give a big shout out to our um our contract monitor who's sitting back here. Kyle, if you could wave real quick. Um and uh Kyle, he's been amazing and instrumental in and working with us to help some of these crossorganizations partnerships happen within this high-tech high institute. Um we collaborated with Cal Kern to help them
324revamp some of their um lesson plans and then we also collaborated with the SSPs from here at the CDE. So we had SSP mentors, SSP uh mentees and we were able to kind of thread the needle across multiple organizations to make something that was really impactful uh and successful. So I'm going to pass it back to uh to Dr. Samson. And as he showcases and highlight these numbers, I encourage you to to recognize the some of those faces and some of those stories that we mentioned um because the numbers tell one story while the the faces say uh say a little bit more to the work that we're doing. Thank you. Uh prior to us taking on the HQIM initiative three years ago, it was mainly high school CTE lessons that could be found on
325this open resource platform. So we made a really intentional effort to say we want to bring our TK8 educators into this work. And so with that, as you can see on the numbers on the side, we have more than 75% of the lessons that we've created over the last three years have been targeted to support our TK8 educators. Um and um that the go slow to go fast continuous improvement mindset can really be highlighted on the graph there on the right as we are really wanting to make sure we had systems and structures in place early on to help accelerate the lurk as we went forward. Um, and this has included the incorporation of more than 40 additional vets outside of our office across the state to help us vet these high quality lessons. So,
326they've been trained vetstors. They've gone through the institutes a number of times. So, we're really building a statewide infrastructure and support to to live on to let this work live on. Um, we have been just about everywhere uh up and down the state to make sure to get people access. So um we have been uh way down south way up north uh with institutes which are a day and a half intensive um training and lesson creation. So we're asking teachers to leave those institutes with three recording in progress uh UDL integrated DLD that are standard aligned and connected. Um our workshop model which is a one-day intensive but there is some pre-work that happens so teachers are ready for what happens there. Um and our cohort model is an asynchronous opportunity for teachers to engage.
327So if they wanted to engage with the work but they couldn't make it to one of our institutes, they could engage with us asynchronously uh with support. Um and then we've recorded demos um around some of the lessons that have been developed and best pract or research based practices um up and down the state as well because we really wanted to make sure this was a diverse representation of the excellence we have across the state. Um and this last graph that I have here is a heat map of the users um of the resources in California right now. And I just wanted to highlight and kind of call out that there are across these district boundaries, there are very few spots that don't have at least somebody kind of engaged in some way with with
328these resources. And then to um to wrap up our part, u we really want to highlight some of the HQIM participant voices, people who have been through all the work. So this is Donna Leon um from Tmacula Valley Unifi. She said, "I've had over two weeks of training in UDL, and what she did in 45 minutes was better than anything I've ever had. It was absolutely outstanding and I could take it back to my district and do it tomorrow. Um, this was at the educating for career conference, a lot of CTE specific teachers and we were able to, you know, dot those eyes and cross those tees and make sure that we we gave them work that could make an impact. Um, this is Sheree Shapiro up north in the Arcada area and she says,
329"I have harvested lessons, submitted lessons, vetted lessons, and recently led my first workshop in Hanbul County. Through these processes, I have gained a rich understanding of how beneficial this program is. Dr. Jennifer Elements says, "Effectively educators are upskilled and resourced to teach and reach each student to the highest levels of academic achievement with such phenomenal results. It would be a great investment to continue this program." Natalie Wilson um as part of the CDE mental health institute uh that we partnered with says, "I have a completely different understanding of standards now as well as a greater respect for what teachers have done to or what teachers have to create and adhere to as they educate our youth." And then April down in Kern County, our hometown, she says, "I use the platform regularly to supplement my
330core curriculum. It made my job so much easier because I didn't have to create everything from scratch. And then last, but definitely not least, being able to save teachers time without sacrificing quality means they can focus on differentiating, building relationships, and meeting students where they are. Um, this program has provided a place where teachers can go uh that they trust, and it's had a huge impact. Thank you. Thank you. And now we um we turn the the podium over to the amazing Algra, who we've had the pleasure of working with for three years now. Thank you. Thank you, Eddie. Are we still in the afternoon? Almost. Good evening. President Darling Hammond, Vice President Gloverwood, Chief Deputy Robersonson, and Board of Education members. I'm Allegra Allesandre, the education administrator in the career college and career and
331college transition division here at the CDE. And um I just want to acknowledge the hard work and the depth and the breadth of the work that Kerna has done. I think another name for this initiative instead of highquality instructional materials could probably be everything everywhere all at once. It's breathtaking the scope of the work um and the impact they've had around the state. Um, as you heard, high quality instruction material initiative grew out of a need during the pandemic for teaching and learning to pivot online to address address disruptions by providing free online highquality instructional materials. This investment continues to fill a need providing online material when education is disrupted, which seems to be regular and seasonal here in California. High-quality instructional material has been investing in and empowering our teachers. The investment is training
332teachers to create culturally responsive standards aligned materials which are vetted and freely available and ready to use lesson plans online as you heard saving teachers time and effort. and um Kern's LDIS, the lesson design institutes are building capacity and training our teachers in implementing UDL and ELELLL supports embedded in every lesson. This is amazing uh professional development for our teachers and it's impacting teachers in classrooms and serving every student in every classroom. Um the L Oh, not very good at this. Um the LDIS are building confident teachers and stronger classrooms, increasing confidence and instructional excellence. Students across all backgrounds benefit consistently from highquality accessible and inclusive materials. As you saw, very moving the Pomo language lessons, the lessons for from School of the Deaf, which are now freely available throughout the state. In order to
333continue building the system, we need to continue engaging our teachers, continuing to keep this curriculum alive and current through the lesson design institutes and designing highquality instructional material for all educators to access. Another shout out to Kyle Castleman, the consultant here at CDE who supported the work, and to our big team at Kerna who's made this possible. Really breathtaking the depth and um reach of this program. We invite you to connect with us for a virtual tour of the platform to experience all of the amazing material that's been connected uh generated by this endeavor. We thank you for your time um and hope to see you online to experience this material. Rava bravo. I'll say thank you on behalf of the amazing team. That was great. Are we that nobody else is popping up at
334the podium right now? Okay. I just wanted to be sure that was great. Thank you. Some of the most exciting uh work that we have seen. Um so thank you. Thank you. Thank you for that. Uh I know we're going to have some questions, but we're going to put the public comment slide up. I guess uh members of the public who want to comment on this item can do so by calling the phone number and using the participant access code started on uh mentioned on this slide. And um yeah, I just want to reinforce how how exciting the work is that you're doing. I love it. Um I do get to ask our board liaison, member Lewis and then member Glover Woods to uh offer some comment um before we get our public comment. Member
335Lewis. Good afternoon. Uh, first I would like to thank uh Deputy Nicely and Cole and Edward are not strangers to me and I got to sit down with them I believe it was last October and they gave me an introduction to the California Together Educators platform and I just like to say even sitting down listening to them then it was just amazing to hear about all of the things that were going on to provide these highquality instructional materials. for teachers, but seeing it in the presentation, uh, it there's just so much to it. And I think this is a great resource for our teachers. It's, um, it's amazing all of the experts that have come together to make this possible. and appreciate all the intentionality that went into the lessons that were developed to really
336uh focus on our our uh marginalized and students with the greatest needs and just going reaching teachers all over the state uh to be able to have access to these supports for them to use in their classrooms for students. And I think it's equally impressive that there are so many states, other states that are taking advantage and using these resources. So, just a great shout out to um the both of you, the staff at Kerna and all of the experts that have brought their um resources and knowledge to the table, all the teachers and everyone who went into vetting the lessons and really making this possible. all of those testimonials from the the classrooms, the teachers who are actually putting uh the resources to work to improve outcomes for students. And I look forward in
337the future to hear more outcomes uh like the one from uh Miss Schmidt about how the one of her students was able to earn the biiteracy seal by her having access to so many resources. So, I'm sure there are a lot of other uh success stories out there um from uh regarding student achievement as a result of the teachers being able to have access to these lessons. So, I look uh forward to um hearing more about that in the future. Member Glover Woods, do you want to offer a comment? Yes. I'm just going to piggyback off of something Algra said when she came up. everything everywhere all at once for everyone. And I'm I just piggybacking off of member Lewis am just um excited for what this does for everyone, all educators, all students, and
338um just wish more knew about it. And I think as this work continues, it's absolutely phenomenal. Absolutely phenomenal. And as this work continues, it needs to be widespread. Um, we need to see those little purple squares on the heat map throughout the state of California. I wish it was a resource I had when I was a classroom teacher, even as a principal. So, thank you so much for sharing outstanding presentation and outstanding work. I mean, there's so many brilliant parts of it. It's not only the high quality instructional materials platform but the ways in which educators are working together to do all of the design and vetting and you know transmission but also the notion of bringing together UDL and supports for English learners and making that a coherent integrated hole in every classroom is
339uh you know something that we want everyone to be doing but boy you really have to support it and scaffold it. So we appreciate it. Now, we could spend the next two hours saying how much we love this work. We're an hour. We're We're back to being an hour behind. So, I hate to do this to my fellow I know everybody's sitting here saying, "I want to say how great this is." But if you want to do that in one sentence, you may have the floor. Member McQuillin and now I'm trying to limit my words. I appreciate you pointing out uh Miss Schmidt's uh use of this platform. I come from the territory where Talawa language is taught up north, Euro language, and my grandchildren are Pomo right in Miss Schmidt's area. They're pretty they're
340pretty young yet, but thank you for pointing that out. Makes me want to get on the platform and check it out. So, thank you. Think you'll see a big blow up in people on the platform this [Laughter] evening. So, this is uh remember Esco just a quick suggestion. Excellent. by the way. Um ju just wonder if we're there are plans to reach out to our CTA partners because when I go to their website, they have a lesson uh generating platform through AFT. It would be great that we're part of what they, you know, to enhance, you know, the footprint throughout California. Thank you. Yeah. Share your lesson. Yeah, that's that would be great. All right. Well, this is not anything we get to vote on, although I think we'd all vote yes if there were
341If we had a motion, I think we just want to thank you so much. Uh, and we will all go check out the platform and disseminate. Thank [Applause] you. Uh, moving right along to the exciting next um item, which is waiver consent calendar. Woohoo. [Laughter] So, uh, I'd like to reconvene the board and take up the waiver consent items W12 4 through 8. And we'll open the phone line for public comments. So, I need help with the public comment slide. There we go. And if you want to comment on these waivers, the dialin number and the participant access court are on this slide. Uh, and let's find out if there's anybody signed up for comment in the room. President Darling Hammond, we did not do public comment on the last item. Could we do that
342quickly? I'm sorry, we did not. I was so worried about the the Yes. Now, we have to change the public comment slide because the one that's up here is for the waiverss. So, we're going to do public comment on the last item because I didn't neglected to do that. Item is a 10. All right, this is public comment for item 10. Rolling back. If you want to comment on item 10, the dialin number and participant access code are on this slide. Do we have public comment in the room? I don't believe there is any public comment in the room, but we do have a couple callers in the queue. All right, let's let's hear them. Um, caller with the last four digits 1333, you are now live. Please start your public comment for item number
34310. You have one minute. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. My name is Valerie Shay. I'm from Monroia Unified School District in Los Angeles County. And for the past three years, California Educators Together has created a community of practice that empowers educators. I've had the good fortune to be one of them. And the impact that we're seeing the is the ripple effect of this empowerment in our classrooms. Many students are more engaged, more confident, and better supported. The English learners are participating more actively and accessing rigorous content with scaffolds that empowers them to shine. In fact, one teacher shared how a student who rarely spoke in class is now leading small groupoup discussions because the lesson design finally made space for her voice. So, these shifts are real and they start with empowered educators designing with intention.
344Kern County isn't creating a platform or a program. They're developing people and building a statewide culture of collaboration and excellence that's centered around highquality lessons that are directly impacting student success. I thank you CDE for supporting this initiative. Thank you. Uh next caller with the last four digits 4894. You are now live. Please start your public comment. You have one minute. Hi, I'm Shereice Shapiro, a middle school humanities teacher in Arcada School District, Humbult County. I came to this program through my fellowship with the California Global Education Project and have since helped California teachers submit high-quality lessons, many through a global ed lens. And despite how great a teacher is at addressing all the components of good teaching, it takes years to be able to fill a year with high quality curriculum that provides scaffolded
345support to ELD all learners to with UDL components to engage everyone and relevant assessments that ensure clear learning goals are achieved and that the platform helps meet this need efficiently and expertly. My transition from lesson submitter to veter and workshop lead was very smooth because of the expert professional development the current team offered and because of the layered well ststructured supports they built into the program and the platform which was constantly evolving. The program supports teachers supporting teachers with quality vetted inclusive current relevant lessons and the program's impact could deepen through so many avenues and result in an even more inclusively highly educated California. Thank you. Thank you caller. Caller with the last four digits 4301. You are now live. Please start your public comment. You have one minute. Good afternoon. I'm Lindseay Tornator with
346the California County Superintendent. On behalf of the California County Superintendent, we applaud the current county superintendent of schools for their outstanding leadership in advancing the highquality online instructional materials initiative. truly enjoyed the presentation, especially the qualitative and quantitative data that demonstrates how the California Educators Together platform is providing thousands of educators across the state with free access to highquality standards aligned instructional materials and professional learning that supports equity and excellence in every classroom. This is a clear and powerful example of how California's statewide system of support is working as intended, expanding access, breaking down barriers, and building capacity to improve student outcomes across our state. We commend the leadership of Dr. Cole Samson and Dr. Gonzalez along with the state board, CDE, and CCE for this strategic investment and collaborative effort. Thank you. Thank you.
347Okay, that concludes public comment for item number 10. And now we will go on to our exciting uh item on wafer consent. All right, let's maintain our enthusiasm. This item is for waiverss one uh two and four through eight. And we will now open up the phone line for the public comment queue. Uh if you want to comment on these items, please use the phone number and the participant access code shown on the slide. Do we have any comment in the room? We have no one signed up for public comment in the room. All right. And do we have any comment on the phone? There are no callers in the queue. All right. Uh then uh at this point, I'd like a motion on consent items one, two, and four through eight. I move that
348we approve consent items 1 12 4 through eight. One two four through eight. That's right. Thank you very much. Member Escobedo. Um can you please call the role, Brooks? Member Yoshima. Yes. Member Rodriguez. Yes. Member Patila Brownson. Yes. Member Rosco Gonzalez. Yes. Member Olen. Member Olen. You made the motion. Yes. Thank you. Member McQuillin. Member Lewis. Yes. Vice President Glover Woods. Yes. Member Escoto. Yes. President Delan Hemmed. Yes. Member Clawson. Yes. Na. Thank you. Uh we're going to move on to um item W3, which is the request by the Los Angeles Unified School District under the authority of California Education Code to wave education code sections 46207B, 46208, and 47612.5, the audit penalties for offering insufficient instructional minutes and days during the 2022 23 school year at Los Angeles Unified School District's non-charter schools and
349four Charter Schools and uh this item will be presented by Elizabeth Deerstein of the CDE. Elizabeth, please begin. Good afternoon, President Darling Hammond, Chief Deputy Shapiro, and fellow members of the board. My name is Elizabeth Dearstein. I'm the director for the school fiscal services division here at the Department of Education. I'm here today to present you the staff recommendation for the request from Los Angeles Unified School District to wave the $98 million instructional time penalty it has incurred for the 2223 fiscal year. Statute permits the state board to wave an instructional time penalty if the local educational agency provides instructional time equal to the amount lost and in addition to the amount otherwise prescribed for twice the number of years that it failed to maintain the prescribed minimum at the effective schools. CD has reviewed
350the waiver request and finds it meets the conditions necessary for the board to approve the request which are outlined on attachment one of the item. Los Angeles Unified uh bargaining units have been consulted and are in supportive of the request. And based on this information, the department recommends approval of the waiver request on the condition that Los Angeles follows through on its plan to offer the required amount of additional instructional time at all effective district sites and four of its charter schools in school years 2324 and 2425. And that compliance is verified by its independent auditor as part of part of the annual audit requirement for those years. For context, instructional time requirements are checked during the annual audit each LEA is required to perform at the conclusion of the school year. If requirements are
351not met, the auditor issues a finding and the associated penalty is calculated in accordance with the statutory formula. There are four ways an instructional time audit penalty may be resolved which are outlined on this slide. As mentioned previously, the Los Angeles Unified School District proposes to resolve the finding through the second method which in which they will make up the time in the 2023, 24, and 2024 25 school years. The reason for the instructional time shortage was due to a 3-day teacher workshop in the spring of 2023. Schools were closed for those three days, leading to a shortfall of instructional days at all K12 school sites in the district and a shortfall of annual instructional minutes at the district's comprehensive high school sites and four of its charter high schools, resulting in an instructional time
352penalty. All Los Angeles Unified K12 schools were short three instructional days and its comprehensive high school sites were also short 631 annual instructional minutes. Additionally, four of its charter high school sites were short in annual instructional minutes ranging from 533 minutes to 631 minutes. The combined cost of these penalties is just as about $98 million accord which was calculated in accordance with statute. The district proactively added the miss time to its bell schedules in the academic calendars at the effective schools for the 2324 and 2425 school years. The district has provided documentation supporting its request and compliance with the conditions of the waiver. If completed at the end of this school year as planned, the district will have provided all the additional instructional time required during the two-year period. I want to briefly touch on
353the impact of the Los Angeles wildfires in January 2025 on meeting the conditions of the instructional time waiver request. The wildfires resulted in all schools in the district closing for two to three instructional days. An approved request for allowance of attendance due to emergency conditions, commonly referred to as the J13A request, will allow the district to claim the emergency day emergency closure days as days of instruction to meet the conditions of the waiver. The department received and on April 21st approved the district's J13A request for the wildfire school closures. As stated previously, the Department of Ed finds that the request meets the statutory requirements and recommends approval of the waiver request submitted by Los Angeles Unified on the condition that they offer the required additional instructional time as specified on attachment one and that the
354offering is verified as part of the annual um compliance audit. I'm available for questions at the appropriate time. There's also a representative from the district available to respond to questions from the board. We'll now open the phone line for public comment. Members of the public wishing to call in on waiver W3 can do so by calling the phone number and using the participant access code shown on this uh slide. And let me just see are there uh any is there anybody signed up for public comment? We have no public commenters in the room. All right, I'll just wait a hot minute here to see if there's anybody commenting on the phone line and all right there are no callers in the queue. All right, in that case um at this point um we want are
355open for board discussion. I know. Um and uh our leazison is member Lewis to give us an initial set of comments. Thank you. Thank you, Elizabeth. Uh and also thank you to the LUSD representative that's in the audience there today. Uh this is a standard waiver with requirements that are set forth in statute. The reason that you we are hearing this today is based on because of the scope and the magnitude of the waiver. It involves a waiver of 98 million penalty due to a district-wide teacher work stoppage of 3 days at the district sites in several of the district's dependent charter schools in the 2022 2023 school year. This penalty is almost double the penalty that was the subject of the waiver the board considered last year for Sacramento City Unified School District, which
356was almost 40 thou $40 million. Statute specifies that the time has to be made up two years in a row. And based on CDE's recommendation, the district has presented information that shows that it made up the time in the 2023, excuse me, in the 2324 school year and it's on track to make up time for the 2425 school year. I support the approval of this waiver with the conditions that are recommended by the CDE. And please keep in mind that without this waiver, the district would face a $98 million penalty which would have devastating impact on the students uh as districts and schools try to navigate in these challenging budget environment. Thank you. Thank you. Um and uh we we have no public comment, right? So, we can move right on ahead to um any
357board discussion and a motion. Discussion. Do I have a motion to approve the recommendation? I move to approve the recommendation set by CDE. Thank you. Any Thank you. We have a motion, a second. Uh Brooks, will you call the role? Member Yoshimoi. Yes. Member Rodriguez. Member Patillo Bronson. Yes. Member Rosco Gonzalez. Yes. Member Oaken. Yes. Member McQuillin. Member Lewis. Yes. Member Escoto. Yes. President Darl Hammond. Yes. Member Clawson. Yes. Motion carries. Thank you so much. Um and we're going to move right on ahead to item W9. Uh this is the request by Hanford Joint Union High School District uh to wave the California code of regulations title 5 section 3051.16c the requirement that educational interpreters for deaf and heart of hearing pupils meet minimum qualifications as of July 1st 2009 to allow Gabriela Lara to
358continue to provide services to students until July 30th 2025 under a remediation plan to complete those minimum requirements. And uh we are recommended by CED to approve this um request. And the item will be presented by Julie Remario. Yes. Hello. I am Dr. Julie Remario from the state special schools and services division here within California Department of Education. I'm an education program consultant focusing on deaf education. I'm here in lie of my supervisor Dr. Nancy Liebuk [Music] Aemon. This subject is a request from Hanford Joint Unified High School District. They want to wave California code for regulation title 5 section 30516C for the interpreter by the name of Gabriella Lara. They want her to continue providing services to students until June 6th, 2025. The summary of the [Music] issue is that Hanford Joint Union School
359District as and Gabriella as an educational interpreter has been hired as their sign language interpreter in August August of 2023. and her interpreter score was a educational interpreter performance assessment of a 3.0. That test was taken in September of 2023. The assessment overview according to the EIPA rating system, Gabriella Lara, her most recent and only score is the 3.0. and she needs continued supervision as she is required to participate in continuing educational interpreting units. Oh, thank you very much. Sorry, it's hard to sign and click on the computer. So, thank you. Thank you very much to Deputy Superintendent Cotton for helping me with that. Hanford Joint Unified School District. Gabrielle Gabriella Lara again started interpreting in August 2023 without an EIPA score. In September of 2023, Gabriella Lara took the EIPA performance assessment and obtained
360the score of a 3.0. the the Hanford Joint Union School District requested a waiver the following year to CDE and that was in September of 2024 and that included a recommendation resolution plan for 2024 2025 that school year. Now, CDE has received limited documentation from Hanford School District to show that Gabriella Lara is in compliance with the recommendations with the remediations and Hanford Unified School District has not provided any other documentation indicating ing that Gabriella Lara has taken another exam since she was hired in August of 2023 because the district did not provide sufficient documentation on how Miss Lara can has made progress as an educational interpreter. CDE originally recommended that well or recommending rather that the state board approve the request by the school district with conditions and those specific conditions are California Department
361of Education as seen on this side on the slide recommends that state board approves the waiver. requested for Gabriella Lara at Hanford with the following conditions. Number one, Gabriella Lara must take one of the assessments described in the regulation by June 30th, 2025. and Hanford Joint Unified School District must provide documentation to CDE of the assessment having been taken by and the the results by June 30th, 2025. No later than August 6th, 2025, Hanford must provide that documentation of Gabriella Lara receiving a weekly mentoring from a qualified educational interpreter beginning in May 12th, 2025 through July 30th, 2025. Number three, Hanford Unified School District must provide Gabriella Lara at least two professional development trainings by the EIPA and by the RIID by July 30th, 2025. and HJUSD must also provide documentation to CDE about those
362trainings by August 6th, 2025. Thank you. Number four, HJUSD must demonstrate that they are actively trying to recruit a qualified educational interpreter. And HJUSD must also provide any support and evidence including documentation of this recruitment effort to CDE by July 30th, 2025. Number five, HJUSD will collect resources and support from the Deaf and Heart of Hearing Services Center, DH HSC, in Fresno, California, and provide them to Gabriella Lara and do that by July 30th, 2025. and HJUSD must provide documentation to CDE to show that they have provided these resources. Sorry, I lost my place. And supported by August 20 and support of that by August 6th, 2025. And last but not least, 5.6 Six. Should HJUSD to submit any future waiver for Gabriella Lara for regulation title 5 section 3116C. They must provide that by
363CDE to CDE by June 30th before the period of request start date. Thank you. That's our recommendation to the board on this item. Thank you. Thank you. Um, at this point Oh, I see you're just translating. I thought he was telling me to stop. At this point, I think we want to post the um public comment slide. Anyone wishing to make a comment on waiver uh W9 uh should call in using the phone number in the public access code shown here. Uh and is there any public comment in the room? We do not have any public comment in the room. I will take a hot minute and give it a pause for the lag. Is there any public comment on the phone? Uh there are no callers in the queue. That concludes public comment for
364item W9. Okay. And then I think uh this is one where member Lewis is our board liaison and may want to make a comment. Right. Thank you CD and thank you uh Julie and Shelby for your presentation. I'll just be very brief with this item. Uh this is the first waiver request uh from the district uh for this type of waiver. And I agree with the CDE's recommendation to approve the waiver along with the recommendated recommended conditions which are focused on ensuring the interpreter skills develop to facilitate her ability to receive the required test score and allow her to complete her assignment through the end of the school year so that we minimize any disruption to the students. Interpreters are necessary for the deaf and heart of hearing students to ensure that they receive accurate
365information in the classroom and can participate with their classmates in discussion with their feedback and that their thoughts are shared accurately with peers and teachers who are not able to use sign language. Thank you. Thank you. Is there any further discussion on the board? Do I have a motion to um approve the recommendations of the department? Member Yoshimano Tari move that we approve the recommendations of the department as stated. And is there a second? Member Rosco Gonzalez, I think it's your turn. Um so we will now um if there's no further discussion, we will take roll call vote. Member Yoshima Maritari. Yes. Member Rodriguez. Yes. Member Rosco Gonzalez. Yes. Member Olen. Yes. Member McQuillin. Member Lewis. Yes. Member Escoto. Yes. President Darlin Hammond. Yes. Member Clawson. Yes. Motion carries. All right. We are reopening item
366one uh which is to take action on the preliminary report of actions and our draft March 2025 meeting minutes and to report on our liaison assignments and if you are able member escabo to stay a little bit I will ask you to do your liaison first. Okay. I just want to but but but wait we have to do the minutes first. Is that okay? Yes. Okay. uh the preliminary report of action minutes for the March 2025 um meeting. We I think we need the public comment slide again. And uh if you have comments on our minutes, you can call that number and use the participant access code on the slide. Is there any public comment in the room? There's no public comment in the room. Any public comment on the line? There are no callers
367in the queue. All right. Now we are going to give our liaison reports. Oh, we do vote. Yeah. Roll call. Do I have a motion? A move. Thank you. Second. Thank you very much. I'll you take the role. Member Yoshima Motari. Yes. Yes. Member Rodriguez. Yes. Member Rosco Gonzalez. Yes. Member Bulan. Yes. Member Quillin. Member Lewis. Yes. Member Scero. Yes. President Hammond. Yes. Member Clawson. Yes. All right. Now, we're going to do our leads on reports and I'm going to start with member Escobedo. Thank you. Um just just also want to recognize this week May through 9th is California Student Mental Health Week and uh just grateful for community schools and all our work right in in supporting mental health uh throughout California. I'm pleased to report my role um with NASBY. Um, I'm now
368the chairperson of the conference that's scheduled for October 27th through 29th in Austin, Texas. It will be held actually at the University of Texas. Uh, they have a hotel and conference center there. And um, uh, our work first is is uh developing the program agenda and selecting session topics. Uh the uh topics of these sessions are going to focus on evidence-based approaches to literacy and math instruction. Huge focus on innovative models for high school transformation. I know President Darling Hammond is is assisting in in the in that effort. strategies for addressing chronic absenteeism and technology integr integration in educational settings especially in the area of AI. My my uh second uh of less responsibility they have is west they're going through significant reorganization due to um some federal uh cuts. Um our we had a
369meeting a board meeting uh just this past month. Uh we're looking at really focusing on on how to how to best um look at the services um we provide. And there some of the implementation measures is maintaining those core operations while scaling back certain uh research initiative and finding alternate funding sources from state and philanthropic partners. Um there will be some reassignments um and they're de in in the process of developing contingency plans and I'll be meeting with the CEO on a one-on-one meeting with every board member will be meeting uh with the CEO uh later. I my me specific meeting is later this month. So any any advice uh I'm very open to hear um to provide some information to the CEO. And that concludes my report. Um student member Clson. Yeah. This past
370month I had the pleasure of furthering my collaboration with the National Association of State Boards of Education on their student advisory council. Uh, I've enjoyed collaborating with fellow state student members to develop policies to innovate secondary school systems, focusing on making high schools more engaging. Um, I was able to virtually present a very brief proposal idea regarding competency based learning to a network convening. Um, and then regarding the statewide model curriculum reporting council, um, at our May meeting later this month, we will hear updates on the Orange County, uh, Department of Education's rollout activities for the three for the three Southeast Asian model curricula. Um, they just hosted event for the Mong model curricula in Fresno last week and a webinar webinar series is taking place this month covering strategies for implementing the three curricula.
371um in late July. They will be hosting a 4-day summer institute on all three curricula in Irvine. They will also host a Vietnamese American experiences event in Garden Grove in September and a Cambodian American studies event in Stockton in October. Um these and more professional development activities are listed on their website through the model curriculums projects landing page and additional information is available on the model curriculum projects web page on the California Department of Education website. Um I would like to acknowledge the governor's appointee to be the next student board member, Vanessa. Not only is Vanessa very impressive, but she's act she is also exceptionally thoughtful and kind. Um, I really look forward to see how she shapes this position that I have had the privilege of having. Um, and I know that she will
372make great contributions to her community and her state. Um, I would also like to briefly um, congratulate my fellow members of the class of 2025 as we are graduating this month and the next month. Um, I know that our class, like those before it and those who will come after us, will enter the world prepared by this state to be innovators, change makers, creators, and advocates. Um, across the state, as seniors are preparing to graduate, many of us are taking part in traditions that remind us of where we came from, such as returning to our kindergarten classrooms. This time of reflection inspires gratitude for the teachers and educators who have shaped us. Um, and so for teacher appreciation week, I would like to acknowledge um my the best math teacher I've ever had. He passed
373away last year, Mr. Sergeant. Um, the best teacher I've ever had. He's amazing. And that concludes my report. Thank you. Appreciate that. Member Lewis. Okay. I'll give a my report on the IQC meeting. Um, the CDE facilitated a one-day meeting for the instructional quality commission on March the 20th. And the main focus at this meeting was the approval of the reviewer and facilitator panel assignments for the upcoming math instructional materials adoption. And those approved individuals participated in a one-week intensive training uh in Sacramento in April. And the training was facilitated by uh this a team from the CDE and all of the very dedicated IQC commissioners. The deadline for publishers and content developers to submit programs for consideration in the math uh materials adoption is actually today, May the 7th. and the panelists will are
374beginning to receive materials in to review their assigned programs and convene again in July for two weeks of deliberations which will again be facilitated by the CDE staff and the IQC commissioners. Uh the IQC will then meet in September to review the panel reports of findings and again in November to recommend programs to the state board for adoption in January 2026. Um, additionally, at the March meeting, the commissioners heard an update on the California Math, Science, and Computer Science Grant as anformational item, which was co-presented by Santa Barbara County Office of Education, who are the math lead and Count Play Explorer, formerly known as the Early Math Initiative leads from the Sanwaqen and Fresno County offices of education. It was a engaging presentation and was appre appreciated by all who heard it. Uh for the
375upcoming ICQ meetings, the meeting for May has been cancelled during due to a lack of agenda items as the focus right now is on the upcoming math instructional materials adoption and preparation for the July deliberations. The IQC will also convene on July 2nd to hear an update and provide input on the personal finance curriculum guide currently under development. And that concludes my report. Perfect. Thank you so much. Um, member McQuillin. All right. Thank you. to continue the uh the report on the statewide model curriculum coordinating council. U we did not meet uh since our our last report, but we did have a chance to review the Orange County Department of Education's guidance that accompanies the supplemental oral histories for the Vietnamese American Experience model curriculum. This guidance will be reviewed by CDE for posting in
376the model curriculum curriculum online respiratory to accompany the Vietnamese model curriculum. This council will meet for the last time later this month and to give in input and updates on the Native American studies model curriculum which will be reviewed over the summer for finalizing and posting in the fall. So, um, since we're shouting out for teachers, uh, this week, I'm thinking of three retired teachers up north. One is Lauren Ballin, who was one of the first, uh, teachers to teach the Talawa language in the public schools up there, and he's retired. Made a big impact on me. A second is Carol Lewis, who was one of the first teachers to teach the Euro language up at Hoopa High School, who's also retired now. And the third is my sibling Barb McQuillin who uh was the
377first teacher at Delnark County High School to teach Urak language who's recently retired. So a shout out to those three warriors who uh doing some great things and are being uh replaced by some newer teachers teaching those same languages now. So great. Thank you. Thank you. It's been a theme in this meeting. It's been very nice. Um member Olen, thank you. Um I am reporting on a variety of topics today. Um but I do want to first start with the shout out to teachers as well. Um you know I guess I would just say that anyone who's spent any time in a school and that means all of us um knows that the real magic um that happens in schools happens in the classroom. And um I love that we at the end of the
378school year um really take this time to honor teachers because it is a hard, incredible, creative, important job. So I just want to thank teachers everywhere for what they do. Um and um okay, so a few things uh to report on. first in the world of charters. Um, I want to make sure that I report out on the fact that the uh CDE has released the request for applications for the 2024 2025 public charter schools grant program which is to support the planning and implementation of new charter schools as well as the replication and expansion of highquality charter schools. Um, this is a significant um grant in our state. Um, and deadlines are coming up quickly. The the intent to apply is due May 16th and the actual applications are due June 24th. So for
379anyone who is um this sounds like a good fit. Um there's information on the CDE website or you can email PCSGP cde.ca.gov. I would just go to the CD website and find it. Um, and along a similar line, um, if that sounds really exciting to you, but you're not in the position to be, um, starting or replicating a high-quality charter school, they are seeking experienced charter school developers, governing board members, operators, and authorizers to evaluate these applications. So, um, if you are interested in reading the applications of potential new schools for our state, um, the application is due May 23rd. Um, and so there you have to be available for a month this summer. Um, but it promises to be very rewarding. Moving on. Um so um member Escobido mentioned that um the in the
380NASBY conference that's coming up this year, one of the focus areas is on um generative AI and education. Um and that's one of the areas I'm focusing on. Um I recently joined the NASBY work group in this area. So, I'm meeting with members of other state boards of education across the country, looking at best practices, looking at um opportunities and risks um related to generative AI in the classroom um or in education as a whole. Um and there's so much out there at this moment. Um California, we are starting a work group ourselves. Um, I recently attended um a really interesting meeting that was co-sponsored by the Stamford Graduate School of Education, the Harvard Graduate School of Education, and Teachers College um called Transforming Education with Generative AI. Um, and the just one piece I'm
381going to pull out of that is thinking about AI as a tool um with at least three distinct purposes. Um, one is around efficiency. How do we give teachers time back? How do we save administrators a few hours each week? Um, two outcomes. How can we improve student outcomes in math? Um, how can we or ELA social emotional learning? um create better opportunities for differentiation etc. And then three um how can we reimagine school more broadly? Um could AI help us change the way the school day looks um how students interact with teachers etc. And all of that is within thinking about what's the I started by saying the importance of um teachers because that's where the real magic happens. And so always thinking about AI as a way to um support teachers um in
382to keep so that they can do the things that really only they can do. Um and so um there's just a lot going on in that area. I look forward to reporting out more um here and elsewhere. And then the third area I'll I'll touch briefly on is um environmental literacy. Um since we last met um we celebrated Earth Day. Um I celebrated Earth Day by going to USF uh University of San Francisco's Earth Day celebration. Um and um but shortly thereafter in the state um we honored 29 schools, seven school districts, and three county offices of education. um with the California Green Ribbon School Award um which de is for those that demonstrate exemplary achievement in resource efficiency, health and wellness and environmental and sustainability education. Um the Green Ribbon Schools award is part
383of our broader effort in California to award schools to reward schools who are doing great work. Um and there were five ELEAS who achieve the highest distinction of green achievers and I just want to give a special cha shout out to those five. Um Laguna Beach Unified School District in Orange County, the San Monteo County Office of Education in San Monteo County. Um Bella Mente Montasauri Academy in the Vista Unified School District, San Diego County. McNeer Elementary School in the Paluma School District. um Sonoma County and St. Francis High School which is a private school in Santa CL County and um I could say a lot more about environmental education but I'll hold for there. Thank you. Okay. Thank you so much. Um member Osco Gonzalez. Well, the work of the assessment committee was thoroughly
384discussed in item three. So there are no additional updates to report, but in celebration of teacher appreciation week and the reflection on the impact of great educators, I want to recognize someone who's truly special to me. It's my colleague, my mentor and fellow second grade teacher at Montabelloo Gardens, Danna Estrada. She is retiring this summer after 38 years of dedicated service. Diana has taught me so much about inclusive practices, meeting the needs of all learners, and what it means to be a true advocate for all students. She's a maven in education, and her legacy will leave a lasting imprint on our school community, and she will be deeply missed, especially by me, because, as you know, if you're a teacher, you know, the bestie at work is the most important person at school. So, um,
385I will truly miss her. She really is a huge asset to our school. That's lovely. Thank you. Um member Patila Brunson. Uh yes. So I will um I'll cover a couple topics. Um the California Summer School for the Arts um had its record high number of applications for the summer program. yet another sign of postcoid recovery that all things are coming back to numbers uh and levels of interest as in the before times. Um they are they just notified applicants last week um and are preparing for the summer program to launch uh July 5th. Um I'll also just flag that uh there are actually now a couple of vacancies on the board of trustees. So, we'll be looking to broaden membership um both geographically as well as in uh different fields of arts. Um on
386the early learning front, um I'll flag two um items. one is um there was a uh webinar with I'm looking around the room for colleagues from the department of education that uh CDE hosted earlier this week um about the importance of diverse educators and particularly the importance of black educators and administrators in early learning settings to both cultivate student success in prek and TK3, but also to create spaces of belonging uh and welcome and acceptance uh particular particularly for families um who have not always felt as welcomed um as as they could uh in our school system. Um the second item I wanted to describe on the early childhood front is the NASBY ECE network meeting which is a learning community um that is bringing together state reps um from a a growing cadre of
387states um and there are a number of common threads around teacher pipeline mixed delivery evidence based reading instruction that very much connects to our earlier conversation around literacy uh and early math and science inclusion in the P3 space. Um, for teacher appreciation week, I will first start with a thank you to Constantina Sappheris who teaches algebra 2 calc AB and BC to my kids um, who has made it accessible, relevant, um, and always really focused on rigor and support together um, and a welcoming environment for everyone to succeed. Um I it is a great pleasure when you have your kids say this this math class feels fun. Um which is an an incredible um feat that he accomplishes year after year. Um and then I'll lastly uh uh name a thank you to my own
388high school English teacher Rannie Draper who introduced me as a kid to the same semester included Beaolf and Tony Morrison. and he taught us that the classics and the canon is a living, breathing, evolving thing that belongs to to all of us. Uh and I continue to to take that with me. So I am thankful for all of those teachers. Awesome. Member Rodriguez. Thank you, President Darlene Hammond. Uh board members and members of the public, I have uh two updates. One from the CTC and the other is a CTE update. Uh first the commission approved the teacher supply report for transmission to the legislature. The report documents an increase in the issuance of credentials in the 2324 school year compared to the two years prior. Increases were documented for multiple subjects single subject and education
389specialist credentials. At the same time there was also an increase in substandard permits and intern credentials. While we may be seeing the state's investment in the educator workforce pay off, there is clearly additional uh work needed to support all students with fully credentialed teachers. Second, the commission reviewed the recommendations of the work group to review the design and implementation of the teaching performance performance assessment. There are five categories of recommendations, including modifications of the current assessment, how to embed the TPA into educator preparation, and how to strengthen CTC's accredititation of programs to support this integration. The final recommendations will come before the commission in June, so stay tuned. Um, and then second, regarding career technical education, the CTE has begun updating the CTE model curriculum standards to better prepare students for today's evolving workforce. The
390work is being done in collaboration with educators and industry leaders across the state. The process is already in motion with the arts, media, and entertainment sector leading the initial phase. We appreciate the AM uh institute's leadership in setting a strong foundation. The CDE will be sharing more details with us with a memo also planned for June. I'm starting to see a theme here. Um, I also want to acknowledge uh not only a teacher who uh was very memorable to me, but also a student, Jackie, who named me her um teacher to throw out the first pitch and wear her jersey yesterday, but I couldn't be here because I was flying here. So, uh Jackie, thank you. That is very touching. Uh she'll be graduating this year and joining the Coast Guard. um she's already signed.
391And uh second, I also I always think about Mrs. Burrow who was my preschool teacher. I was very formative years for me and she caught me being inclusive. Um and and what she did is she re there was a student who was being picked on and laughed at and I just I took the student under my wing and became her friend. And so Mrs. Burrow rewarded me by appointing me. It was kind of like a political position because I was representing I was representing like Dippyduck and going around and telling kids not to swim in canals and I had all of this like swag and um and so she really gave me a a a position of status because I was inclusive. And when I look back on that, uh, when I reflected when I
392was in my teacher prep program, I, you know, I thought about how important it is for us to acknowledge students when they do that and reward them in ways that's important to them because I do believe that that left a lasting well obviously it left a lasting impact. And meanwhile, I just have to say I was preaching, please don't swim in the canals, but my brother was doing it. And I will leave it there. Happy teacher appreciation month and thank you to all the educators who make a difference. That's awesome. Remember Yoshimo Tari. All right. So for our English learner updates, uh Francisco and I are uh the lison for that. our regional English learners uh group across the state recently met and they're continuing to strengthen partnerships with the geographic leads because there's a
393higher now that the ELAS are on the dashboard there's a higher focus uh more visible focus and so I expect that these partnerships will continue to grow and expand um and at the bilingual coordinators network the following day BCN uh the reels shared the El toolkit so if you haven't seen that yet. Uh you might want to we can look at that together. Uh let me know. Um and this is was also focused on the OPTEL the observation um tool implementation as well. And uh CD also has a three-part series on expanding dual language education. So it's been well attended uh called options for today to support opportunities tomorrow. And then in regard to civic learning, uh I just thought it was interesting that since the high school education voter week started in 2016, we've
394registered 1.1 million uh 16 and 17 year olds pre-registered, excuse me, 1.1 million. And so again, that's two full weeks in April and September. And so we look forward to the next one in September. Uh also, the civic learning award recipients were announced in May. So, if you're interested to see the winners, um, go to the Power of Democracy Civic Learning Initiative web page, and that's co-sponsored by our state superintendent Tony Thurman and Chief Justice, uh, Patricia Guerrero. And also, next week, the 12 LEAs for the California Service Program for uh, the 2025 school year will be posted on the California SERS website for more information. And then lastly for special education the at the last AXI meeting uh there continue to be a lot of highlighting of statewide efforts to strengthen inclusive practices uh
395that improve student outcomes and expand supports for students with disabilities and their families. Um in particular Pathways to Partnership is California's lead for the alternative dispute resolution process. So you could visit pathwaystop partnership.org for more information. and our family empowerment centers. Uh you could visit the seedsofp partnership.org website for more information and then cce provided an update on the statewide system of support to all of the AXI members as well. So the last thing I want to highlight is that outside of AXI I'm very excited for the California that we funded uh the California Center for Inclusive College CCIE. And so we have two county office leads, Skoey, Sacramento County Office of Ed and Los Angeles County, and they are working with UC and CSU campuses uh to really uplift what it takes to have
396inclusive pathways uh in college at the university level. And so we're excited to see how that develops as well. And finally, I just want to celebrate Adella Garcia from Alhamra Unified. She was my second grade teacher and she co-authored a book called Read, Write and Publish, making books in the classroom that I used when I was a second grade teacher. Oh, so she was poised, creative, and really understood young children. And I still kept my art projects from her classroom. Uh, and then finally, congratulations to board member Classen U and the entire class of 2025. We wish you all the best and we're so proud of you. Yeah. And I feel like um member Escobedo, if you want to acknowledge one of your teachers, we for we we started doing that right after you spoke.
397So I don't know if you're sitting here thinking, "Oh, did you want to?" Of course, I thought I picked up that vibe. Well, I I think I appreciate my son, Pablo Hernandez, who's a new teacher, second year. And my goodness, the rigors of being a new teacher. We all know it. And I just really appreciate his effort, his love and passion for his kids. My goodness. And of course, I have to go back. Miss Cooper, my second grade teacher. She Okay, this is this is true. Believe it or not, I I Frankie the student was very different than Frankie the board member. par parent teacher conference. She told my mom, "You better do something with this kid because he's going to end up in jail." Turn it turned my life around. So instead of jail,
398went to Yale. I mean, no, but but but but that that that real tough talk really helped my mom get a tutor, work with me, find avenues of my, you know, constant energy. So, Cooper, thank you. Thank you. I owe my life probably and my whole future trajectory because of that singular parent teacher conference. Well, I'm going to round us up with my quick report just to say that a lot of us have been working with National Association of School State Boards of Education. We are uh a team. We are a California team for this high school redesign. As uh Francisco said earlier, we had a meeting last week uh which included uh myself, uh Chief Deputy Ingred Robersonson from CDE, uh Deputy Secretary Abby Snay from Department of Labor, Sonia Christian who heads the
399community colleges, uh and her deputy um James Todd, uh Cynthia Glover Woods was there for part of it, beaming in, Brooks and Katie Hardman came for parts of it. So we were well represented. Um I think we were the star team. We came out of it with an action plan uh which includes you know um completing our um our uh portrait of a learnergraduate um creating an opportunity for um um sort of a a cross- sector partnership of the sort that we took there to really look at the changes we want to make across the higher ed and K12 and and labor sectors. uh developing our career pathways further with experiential learning and dual credit. This is much of this is in the career master plan from the governor. Um establishing uh uh some uh
400pilots and some assessment and accountability reforms with other states that were there that are working on things similar to us with performance assessments and developing uh and communicating some way of recognizing competencies. Uh Julia, to your to your point, uh and so we're now seeking some private funding to get that ball rolling. You may know that we uh had a a a center comprehensive center uh used to be uh Wested and before that it was and after that it was AIR and that money has been discontinued from the federal government. So, but we we've already got a nibble for uh us to be able to continue on and really staff and and do that. I want to recognize Mrs. Bowen, my kindergarten teacher. Uh, I loved kindergarten. It was the happiest thing that had ever
401happened to me. Um, I want to recognize my grandson's teachers, Miss Hannah and Miss Ramarino. I hope they're listening. They're probably busy, but they are just doing incredible work. Uh and then two black teachers that my students had, my children had, FA Freeman in third grade for two of them, who was transformative uh in just setting a table that was so supportive for every student and just uh really helped them uh be able to succeed in school. And both of them had some challenges uh before they met Fay and she was amazing. and Elellanar Jenkins Gun who was a 10th grade teacher who had detracted an entire school um in Westchester County and um that enabled my daughter to have experiences she would not otherwise have had. So on that note, I think we have
402to public comment one more time. And Francisco, I know you've got a plane, so I'm I want to be acknowledging of that. I know you're you're a little anxious, so I want to let you do that. And we're going to put up the public comment slide one more time. This is for general public comment. And this is for any item that has not been on the agenda. So, uh, public comment on matters not included in the printed agenda. Members of the public who wish to provide comment can use the phone number and the access code on this slide. Uh, and is there any public comment in the room? Yes, we have one person signed up. Arjun Kush Kushwana. Thank you. Go right ahead. Staff during January 15th's meeting regarding the use of automation to reduce
403disproportionality through ITAP system used by South County Selper. Uh I repeat, ITAP cannot again um and cannot be used by any LEA to prevent proper and timely identification or be misused in any manner. It rather determines with a very high degree of precision in real time and predicts where an LEA will end up against California school dashboard at the end of the year. Schools using ITAP are trained throughout the year to identify instances where they should reduce over notification using their own local plan or through any other technical assistance provided by the state. In effect, it measures whether any assistance is making any impact at all. Uh, ITAP is being part of the solution which the state seeks uh by creating uh avenues which reduce chronic absentism, suspensions, improves college and career readiness outcomes, graduation
404rates and by predicting CASP and ELPAC levels by informing ELEAs about students who are at risk up to one year in advance so they can take corrective action now rather than being late uh later. Thank you. Cool. Any other public comment? Uh, no. There are no callers in the queue. No callers. No other public comment in the room. That being the case, I will adjourn the May meeting of the state board of education at 50:04. Thank you very much.