State Board of Education Meeting February 24, 2021

001all right good morning everyone um seeing that we have a a large set of board members present brooks will you please call the role to establish our quorum member president darling hammond here member fatah here remember glover woods here member mcquillen here member nava here member patel brownson here member rodriguez here member rucker here vice president strauss here member son here we have a quorum terrific thank you very much i hereby call the february 2021 meeting of the state board of education to order at 8 32 a.m i'd like to commence by saluting the flag remember fatah will you please lead us in the pledge of allegiance of course ready begin i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god

002indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you so much and at this point i want to and the oath to eileen strauss and when sue is here who's here yes oh there you are very good and two members subur excellent uh this is perfect timing so i'd like to ask you both to please raise your right hand and repeat after me um i um and then eileen you say your name and sue do solemnly spare i i do solemnly swear i swear that i will support and defend the constitution of the united states against all enemies foreign and domestic that i will bear true faith and allegiance to the constitution of the united states and the constitution of the state of california that i will bear true faith allegiance to the constitution of the

003united states and the constitution of california and i take this obligation freely without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion obligation freely without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion and that i will well and faithfully discharge the duties upon which i am about to enter and that i will well and faithfully discharge the duties upon which i'm about to enter thank you eileen thank you sue we know that you will do all of those things because you've been doing them for us for so many years and we are thrilled that you will be able to spend another year guiding this state board of education and so now i'm going to give our general announcements um the following item on the agenda has an addendum on item two the every student's deceased act authorization to

004pursue flexibility on or in waiver of assessment accountability and school identification and federal funding flexibility requirements members of the public to call in for public comment to 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 our participant access code and then following each of the operators prompts we will post that number and the code at each moment where comments are invited 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're following the live webcast to avoid an echoing effect public a comma will

005be limited to one minute for each speaker and item three 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 board members please mute your microphones when not speaking uh keep your cameras on at all times except during the schedule breaks uh and ensure that we maintain a quorum throughout today's virtual meeting for each item on the agenda there will be an opportunity for you to raise your hand using the zoom participant window if you would like to ask a question or make a comment and at this point item one is the um state board priorities item uh and i'm going to um make a few comments just about kind of where we are in the process of

006things i've got a um kind of manage my technology here for a second so give me a moment please so i just want to launch us into this meeting by uh thanking i'm hearing an echo if people could mute their lines um in case that's causing the echo that'd be great i want to of course start by acknowledging where we are in the school year in california thanking all of the educators uh throughout our state and all of the nutrition support staff and custodians and bus drivers and everyone else who has been engaged in trying to figure out how to manage our way through this pandemic we've had an extraordinary year we've had all kinds of outreach from schools to communities for everything from meals to making sure that households have connectivity and students have

007devices inventing ways to engage in distance learning where that is necessary and working hard as we are doing now to try to get more and more districts back for in-person instruction even as we've kind of negotiated this multiple spikes in the pandemic that have influenced our ability to offer instruction in the ways we would normally want to do it there are efforts underway now of course with billions of dollars being appropriated by both the legislature and through federal funding for schools that has recently arrived to implement safety measures including funding for you know personal protective equipment safety supplies ventilation over a thousand schools in 41 counties are implementing school-centered cobin 19 testing now with the state valencia branch laboratory the state testing capacity and supported schools is the most robust in the nation and you

008know continues a pace with uh growth in uh access uh and successful piloting of school-based uh real-time testing in districts up and down the state urban suburban rural districts we have new transparency and accountability measures including data reporting directives and corresponding maps that empower families and school staff to know about their school reopening status over 300 school districts have received direct technical assistance from the state safe schools team and that engagement from that team with dozens of districts has been in response to reports received from thousands of parents and school staff uh we've launched the safe schools for all hub as a one-stop shop for school leaders staff and families the hub includes playbooks and guidance and everything from privacy issues related to testing to establishing safe and stable groups in high school settings uh

009we uh are uh hopeful that we will be seeing um you know much more substantial school reopenings of course vaccinations are increasing all across the state as well but with all of that and with all of these efforts it is still the case that 95 of our students are in districts that are in the purple fear of infection rates that about 80 percent of students are still in remote learning in some fashion and that we have a very intense and long road to go to reopen schools fully in the state of california so it is in the context of that set of both initiatives and variables that we contend with that we will be taking up the question about how to understand and act on our students learning and progress of course our districts have

010been developing and have used instructional continuity plans to work toward a way to be sure that all kids are engaged in learning where to the greatest extent possible using online capacity where that is necessary uh and uh using uh formative and and um summative assessments to support and monitor their progress uh so we're proud of all of the extraordinary efforts that have gone on in the state we want to tackle today the question of how to both continue our progress meet the needs of students those who have experienced significant trauma those who are in need of accelerated learning opportunities both during the school year and into the summer and into the next school year and i look forward to working with the board with the members of the public uh who have been uh sharing

011their thoughts and views with us about the path forward as we work through the issues that we face today which are about both our own plans and the ways in which we will communicate with the federal government about the requirements that are in law in the every student succeeds act with that i want to take up action on the draft minutes of our january 2021 meeting and we will also open the phone line for the public comment queue while we're doing that members of the public wishing to provide comment on this item can do so by calling the numbers shown on the public comments slide and we'll see if that slide is coming up while we are waiting for any members of the public to call in do i have a motion from a board

012member to approve the january 13th 14th 2021 state board of education draft preliminary report of action many meeting minutes i move approval thank you very much uh do i have a content thank you very much um so with that um we don't have the slide up yet for public comments i want to ask whoever is in charge of that to get the slide up for public comments so that when we turn to that people will have been able to dial in we're working on that right now thank you very much uh and so meanwhile we'll call a roll call vote on the approval of the minutes that's great there's the public comments side uh and brooks will you uh please call the roll for the vote on the minutes member here or yes oh president

013darling yes yes member fatah yes remember glover woods yes remember mcquillen yes member nava yes member patel brownson yes remember rodriguez yes number rucker yes vice president strauss yes number son yes passes unanimously all right um item two is the every student succeed act authorization to pursue flexibility on or a waiver of assessment accountability and school identification and federal funding flexibility requirements and this item does have an addendum the cde recommendation is to request the state board of education to take action as deemed necessary and appropriate and i think chief deputy superintendent gregson will provide some opening comments which will be followed by deputy superintendent maeves and assessment director vang yes good morning president darling hammond members of the state board i'm stephanie gregson chief deputy superintendent of public instruction uh our president darling said

014many ways this past year has so credit changing for us all and as we turn the discussion to assessment there will be many points to discuss on all the different aspects of this assessment in this unique year and as the discussion progresses we ask that you keep students at the forefront of your conversation our students are resilient strong and courageous they have experienced a year like no other we would love to pursue a general waiver and at the same time we understand the importance of collecting data to measure the impact of distance learning we also know the most valuable metrics we can use to understand a student's academic process will always remain the ones that are collected by educators and schools on a regular ongoing basis in classrooms even virtual where individual relationships with students

015are fostered and supports are provided in real time we recommend the state board take action on providing full flexibility and choices for our local education agencies including looking at extending timelines and approving submitting a waiver for the participation rate the pandemic has afforded us the opportunity to reflect on our systems in many ways specifically how we measure student learning this is an opportunity for us to take steps on an assessment approach that represents a system that lifts up lifts up educates and cares for every student our presentations today will provide the necessary background and context information to help inform your discussion and so now i'd like to hand off to dr mal vang director of the assessment development and administration division dr veg thank you dr grayson i will begin by sharing my presentation first

016foreign okay i believe you can see the slide now um thank you dr gregson deputies gregson president darling hammond and board members again i am mal vang director of the assessment development and administration division the item before you is both an action and information item later in my presentation i will be joined with um with um joined by rachel maeves our deputy superintendent of public instruction of the instruction and measurement branch at the universe at the california department of education and in addition we have cindy kazanas director of the assessment measurement accountability and reporting division jerry winkler a director of the educational data management division and our other guests of marianne arcella who is an executive director at ets our testing contractor and tony albert executive director of the smarter balanced assessment consortium they will

017be available to assist with questions so this presentation will include the following topics federal and state requirements of preparations that we have made for spring testing and stakeholder feedback we've gathered along the way and flexibilities offered by the us department of education since this letter is so new i will begin with a quick overview um as dark nun president darling hammond alluded to earlier but i will just do a quick overview of the flexibilities offer from the u.s department of education so on february 22nd two days ago the u.s department of education did send a letter to states indicating that they can request a waiver to take advantage of the flexibilities offered by the us department of education for the 20 20 21 school year of the accountability and school identification requirements in the average

018students elementary and secondary education act or esea as amended in the every student succeeds act or essa states receiving this waiver would not be required to implement and report the results of its accountability system that includes calculating progress toward long-term goals and measurements of interim progress or indicators and annually meaningfully differentiate among its public schools using the data from the 2020-2021 school year in addition the states that are granted the waiver would also not be required to identify schools for comprehensive support and improvement targeted support and improvement and additional targeted support and improvement based on data from the 2020-2021 school year it would be required to continue to support previously identified schools in the 2020 21 and 22 school year resume school identification in the fall of 2022 and ensure transparency to parents and the

019public as a con so as a condition of receiving the waiver states will continue to publicly report uh disaggregated chronic absenteeism data for the 20 20 21 school year furthermore the u.s department of education is recommending that states implement assessment flexibility including administering a shortened version of its statewide assessments offering remote administration where feasible and or extending the testing window to the greatest extent practicable so um of the flexibilities that the u.s department of education has recommended regarding assessments uh california has already taken the following steps administering a shortened version of the smarter balance summative assessments for english language arts literacy or ela and mathematics which the state board of education approved for the implementation at their november 2020 meeting and the second component offering remote administration which is already available um to california local

020educational agencies for all of the california assess for the california assessment of student performance so in progress or casp and the elpac which is the english language proficiency assessments for california so on the following slides i will cover the federal and state requirements so summative assessments overall are a necessary component of comprehensive of a comprehensive assessment system and the results that are provided they provide important academic data at the state level for decision making regarding reporting policies or reporting policies and programs as well as identifying professional development needs so the primary purpose of statewide assessments assessment testing statewide summative testing overall is to provide data on student learning in schools and local educational agencies to inform their continuous improvement efforts as well as create actionable change essa requires states to administer annual summative assessments as

021a condition of an approved federal essa plan and the receipt of federal essa funds so under federal the every student succeeds act states must administer annual statewide assessments in reading language arts and mathematics to all students in grades three through eight and once in high school as well as in science at least once in grades three through five once in 6 through 9 and once in 10 through 12. so stay in federal law require that local educational agencies administer a state test of english language proficiency to eligible students in grades in kindergarten through grade 12. essa also require that a state annually and meaningfully differentiate all public schools and the requirements to identify schools for comprehensive and targeted support and improvement and additional targeted support and improvement based on data from the current school year

022and then furthermore essa also requires additional report card provisions related to certain assessment and accountability in sections 1-1-1 h based on data from the current school year following up with state requirements so to meet federal and state requirements we have the in terms of our assessments we have the california assessment of student performance in progress or casp as defined in california education code section 60601 through 60649 include which include the following we have the smarter balance summative assessments and the california alternate assessments for english language arts and mathematics in grades three through eight and eleven and the california science test and the california alternate assessments for science in grades five and eight and once in high school all first-time grade 12 students who have not yet taken the science assessment in high school are required

023to take the cast or the california science test or the california alternate assessment for science for those eligible students and then we also offer the california spanish assessment for spanish reading language arts as an optional test furthermore the um the english language proficiency assessments for california or elpac as defined in education code sections 313 and zero eight one zero include the initial l pack the summative l pack and the alternate alpac which is still in development and um on this slide we have uh state requirements uh regarding the california school dashboard that's uh pursuant to education code section 52064.5 and with that um we need to with states need to adopt and with the adoption and reporting of performance on state and local indicators on the california school dashboard for each local educational agency and

024performance criteria for those local educational agencies for assistance and intervention so this um for the 20 20 21 uh 2021 initial and summative assessments testing windows this displays the initial and um summative assessment timelines that we have the statewide testing windows here are how we typically launch our assessment programs and one uh change this year is the california the um the casp a smarter balance summative assessments for ela and mathematics so in order to change to the adjusted blueprints and approved by the state board of education during the november meeting these assessments did not launch until february 22nd uh two days ago as provided in this table our uh assessment system operates year-round with pretty much minimal down times so local educational agencies select their own testing window within the available statewide testing window although

025california has been preparing adjusting and learning how to administer assessments during the pandemic we know that there are varying circumstances across the state and really for some it will be very difficult to administer assessments if it is not safe to do so at all in person so at this time um i just want to share a little information with you about there are about 79 local educational agencies that have opened up their uh casp uh testing windows and all leas can administer the summative alpac so i'm pleased to report that students are taking the tests uh the following tests have been started there's been uh two smarter balance summative assessments for mathematics started two uh cast or science assessments uh four uh california alternate assessments for english language arts and mathematics and 207 california alternate

026assessments for science performance tasks started and over 451 000 summative lpac assessments have started so since the summative alpac just opened on the first people are on february 1st they are moving forward with that one so there are no tests started yet for the smarter balance summative ela or english language arts literacy or the california spanish assessment so this is a reflection of the tremendous amount of work and preparation on the part of the local educational agencies our test site coordinators are our lea coordinators and staff that they continue to and by every means possible california students and their learning so i will highlight some key events um some events that brought us to where we are today um just to quickly reflect back that in march 2020 california request requested and received approval from

027the u.s department of education to waive that the testing requirement along with reporting and accountability as well but i'll focus on that um in this slide also in june 2020 uh senate bill uh 98 was passed that provided funds for an extension of the 2019-2020 summit of alpaca as an optional test for the purpose of reclassification and covid related activities along with that um it required local educational agencies and schools to provide valid and reliable data for their improvement plans and the public to inform student progress it prohibits the california department of education from publishing state and local indicators on the 2020 california school dashboard and required cde or california department of education to report incalpads valid and reliable data collected in the 20 2019-2020 school year that would have been included in the 2020

028dashboard coinciding with these activities was the approval of sb 820 that extended the initial alpac testing window of 30 calendar days from enrollment by an additional 45 calendar days so during this time local educational agencies rallied and ensured that ninety percent of eligible students were assessed sixty percent doing so remotely so san diego unified school district served as a model example assessing 97 percent of their students through 100 remote administration and in october um 2020 the u.s department of education advise states that assessment waivers will not be considered for spring 2020 test administration at that time including until today so to address and lessen the tests and burden on local educational agencies in november our california state board of education did approve the adjusted blueprints for the smarter balance summative assessments in english language arts

029literacy and mathematics so in order to be responsive to the field and to ensure that safe assessment options when in person was not available and continue to provide leas with flexible options within our control in december 2020 through january the following spring administration considerations were made we have in-person and remote computer-based english language arts assessments mathematics science and summative alpaca and for in-person administration only for the california alternate assessments for english language arts mathematics science and continue the locally determined english language proficiency assessments as we made the decision to postpone the alternate elpac operational field test until the 2021-22 school year and that leads us to two days ago when we received the guidance from the us department of education on the following of topics of accountability and school identification transparency and public reporting along

030with the assessment flexibilities and with that i will um turn it over to rachel maeves to continue presenting rachel thank you mao i appreciate that introduction part of our hope during that time was one to situate assessments um correctly within the comprehensive um assessment package that you see within districts and understanding the necessity of those pieces but then also to level that with what our state and federal requirements are as we consider on the flexibilities that are being offered so i have the distinct pleasure and thank you mal for giving me the space to share this part of discussing some of the preparations for spring assessments this year has presented and i would argue continues to present unfathomable challenges yet in the midst of contexts that often feel chaotic we continue to see some bright

031spots engaging with the field with our states dedicated and committed testing coordinators calpads directors assessment directors teachers and administrators an iterative improvement processes to ensure to the best of our ability readiness for spring testing has been an unbelievable bright spot on the following slides i will cover a summary of some of these preparations next slide mao or alex next slide get in there sorry sometimes when i'm not presenting it sticks so first we're going to look at the implementation of the adjusted blueprints testing time has been a key concern among all stakeholders in november of 2020 the state board of education approved the use of adjusted blueprints for the smarter balanced summative ela and mathis tests the timing of the approval which was in advance of the formal ede guidance was required to allow sufficient

032time for development and administration with the sve approval in place the cde directed the state assessment contractor ets to implement the adjusted blueprint in the california assessment system mal could you go to the next side please we estimate that the adjusted blueprints will reduce testing time in ela and mathematics by one and a half to two hours depending on the grade we focused on adjusting the ela and mathematics summative tests because these tests impacted the most students and also are the longer tests compared to the other casp assessments now could you go to the next side please the other non-smarter balanced blueprints have not changed as many of them are already much shorter the caas for ela and math csa and cast are one to two hours long the caa for science is an online

033assessment administered to students with the most significant cognitive disabilities whose individualized education program indicates the use of an alternate assessment test examiners administer the assessment to students one-on-one eligible students take the caa for science in grades five and eight and one time in high school next slide the caa for science consists of four embedded pts administered to students as close to instruction as possible throughout the school the table displays the estimated testing times for summative alpac again this assessment is already much shorter in terms of estimated total testing time summative elpac is less than two hours for the lower grades and up to three hours for the upper grades now next slide in fall of 2020 cde committed to ensuring flexible options for assessment administration when it became clear some lease would be unable to

034provide in-person instruction for institut for students we heard overwhelmingly from the field the importance and the need to allow additional time to administer the optional summative lpac for reclassification purposes additionally the flexible options allowed leas to administer the elpac initial and smarter balanced interim assessments whether students were in person or remote leas had the option of testing students in person following their local health and safety guidelines or testing students remotely using the electronic devices and tools they used for distance learning next slide these fall administrations led to multiple opportunities to lease cde and ets to engage in collaborative discussions regarding the assessment experience using the feedback from the field we further refined and adjusted our processes in preparation for the spring assessment window this included integrating a remote administration feature directly into the ets delivery

035system having a clear understanding that students must use the secure browser to take the assessments whether it is in person or remotely administered which provides the appropriate appropriate level of test security that will allow us to maintain the assessment's validity and reliability and it also prompted active engagement with leas and with technology companies such as google apple and microsoft in the development and testing of the embedded remote administration features the remote testing functionality includes video monitoring video calling and messaging somebody will have to give you a live demonstration because it's pretty neat what we've been able to develop test administrators or test examiners can view students testing in real time by video while also monitoring each student's progress through the tests the video feed is similar to the grid or thumbnail view of an outline

036meeting application as in previous administrations the test administrator can pause the student's test at any time whether they are conducting a remote or in-person administration the test administrator and the student can communicate directly with each other through the test delivery system by a one-to-one video call or a text message the test administrator can also send out a broadcast message to all students in the testing system videos showing the remote administration process are available at cast slash el sorry slash lpac youtube channel next slide so over the course of this time the cde held monthly assessment stakeholder meetings to continue to gather feedback from our stakeholder groups ets joined cde and presentations at the regional assessment network meetings which included statewide meetings in january 13 regional meetings january through february and 5 training sessions we received

037feedback directly from stakeholders including the california information technology and education association association of california school administrators the california parent teacher association california bilingual educators association californians together and the california small schools association during our discussions with stakeholders and regional assessment network members we shared information about the proposed plans and asked them to share their members experiences with the fall administration as well as suggestions for improving the spring plans earlier this year we asked leas to provide input on their technology readiness and their preferences for testing window options the technology readiness survey was targeted to lea technology managers and lea testing coordinators we asked about the types and the number of devices that their students use for distance learning and for taking the assessment as well as their instructional plans for the remainder of the school

038year we distributed the survey in january and received 510 responses for the survey respondents indicated that the majority of their students 80 percent are using devices provided by the lea most 71 percent plan to continue their current instructional approach for the remainder of the school year approximately two-thirds indicator currently in distance learning in february we asked lea superintendents and test coordinators to respond to a survey on testing window options i'll talk about the results of that survey later on next slide next slide from our discussions we place the input on the spring plans into two categories the process and testing with regard to process they asked have an easier process to notify parents and guardians add more communications and support for students parents and guardians and educators reduce or eliminate handling of paper test materials

039and keep remote administration features like existing instructional tools with regard to testing they recommended wave testing or make it optional as an example eliminate accountability and participation requirements resolve equity concerns for students to receive instruction attendance engagement and technology as examples next slide we we also used our learnings from the fall administration to improve our training and communications for the spring 2021 administration we simplified the parent guardian notification process that was noted on the previous slide we used feedback from parents guardians educators and administrators to simplify the communication tools and processes for notifying parents about the test administration we developed a solution for the summative lpac k2 writing as it requires students to show their writing skills on paper or physical format we worked with test examiners and assessment design experts to allow students to

040show their work while reducing the test security concerns of having parents and student students manage the paper test materials we developed additional training materials and created a spring administration web pages i'll show you some of the additional training materials in the upcoming slides next slide please communication has been a key component of our iterative processes it was important to provide as much information as possible to leas educators parents students and stakeholders so that they too could make informed decisions at the local level building on the communications and training opportunities from the fall administration ets our assessment contractor held a series of pre-test workshops to ready the lea testing coordinators for the spring 2021 administration prior to each workshop the lea testing coordinators completed prerequisite online courses to learn about elpac casp and the california assessment

041system participants then completed three pre-test workshop sessions we offered three pre-test workshop sessions in december and three pre-test workshop sessions in january participants could choose sessions from january and december that best met their schedules each works shop was tailored to provide the most up-to-date information on the test operations management system components of casp and elpac and managing testing and reporting we held question and answer sessions in january as a follow-up to the pre-test workshop increment about 4 300 participants attended these pre-test workshops in early january we released a cde assessment update webinar the assessment update included updates and decisions since the december pretest it was also video recorded and released on january 11th furthermore ets and cde scheduled weekly office hours and coffee sessions to provide two-way communication between cde and lea staff which i'll

042explain in more detail later ets continued to provide support and training at local regional assessment network meetings the county offices of education rand members represent a subcommittee of the curriculum and instruction steering committee of the california county superintendent educational services association the purpose of ran is to develop knowledge and understanding about california's assessment and accountability systems by facilitating communication between the california department of education and county offices which represent the schools districts and county offices in the region next slide now in response to input from stakeholders and leas we launched a spring administration website specifically for educators the site includes all admit spring administration information in a centrally located place and is geared specifically for educators the site includes detailed browser and technology requirements training videos quick reference guides parent and guardian notification letters that

043we have made available in eight languages and all of our questions and answers from all office hours and coffee sessions next slide in addition we also developed a site for parents guardians and students this site includes again testing information flyer that's available in eight languages instructions for the secure browser videos and quick reference guides in english and spanish and questions and answers that we've received from parents and guardians this continues to be a work in progress over the coming weeks and months we are committed to continuing to develop clear guidance and supports as it continues to be clear that parents guardians and students have a strong desire to know and understand this year's academic progress next slide here you will see the link tree list of resources again this is a very quick place to

044access any of the resources that we have available in the um multiple pages next slide cde supported eta supported by ets launched weekly office hours and coffee sessions the office hours were developed in response to the field's request for increased two-way communication every thursday for the past month and a half myself dr vain and additional cde and ets staff provide updates bringing guest speakers to share best practices and resources and open up a live question and answer session for lea staff to provide feedback and ask questions guest speakers included various leas that not only shared their learning experience from the fall elpac administration but freely shared their resources as well ed trust west and california pta provided suggestions and best practices in regards to communication with parents and community members on average each session engages

045about 300 to 300 50 participants next slide please in order to provide additional data to districts the sbe approved the lexile and quantile hub to integrate through our test operations management system lexiles measure a student's reading levels and quantiles measure of students mathematical levels additionally leas have access to free premium access resources for california educators and have the opportunity to use the hub with locally available assessments and products that report lexile and frontile measures i share all this information with you for a few reasons first i think it is invite it is vitally important to share with you our state board the commitment of our team at cde to the field and the students of california while i have only been in this position for nine months i continue to be inspired by and grow

046in admiration for the large group of talented individuals that work quietly behind the scenes to serve our students under the vision direction and guidance of our state superintendent second the support from our partners at svac and ets has allowed us to continue to explore innovated options to support the field and students in in an unprecedented year and finally to express a deep sense of gratitude to the field for your partnership your candor and your perseverance everything that i shared is a collaboration of the effort of your feedback with that next slide now having explored the preparation for the spring assessment we will now discuss the feedback we have received regarding spring assessments from stakeholders next slide the cde has received written correspondence from leas and stakeholder groups the majority of feedback was received reveals overwhelming

047support of submitting a waiver for relief of assessment requirements citing varying degrees of student access to technology and the internet across the state varying degrees of home testing environments for students complying with the requirement that a secure browser must be used is difficult to implement some parents and guardians do not allow their children to have the camera on during the testing session next slide now there's support for postponing for a fall administration rather than canceling the summative assessments if it came to that concerns over extended testing window as well as testing and in fall 2021 each option would further reduce time with students for extended learning we've heard requests to submit for a waiver of assessment requirements and we've heard concerns over the validity of assessment results next slide please we've also heard requests to

048more quickly make the data available if should we move forward with assessments we've heard that assessment data are greatly needed to best meet the needs of students and we've also heard that the majority of parents nationwide and locally support moving forward with assessments our local conversations in the summary of the feedback mirrors what we are hearing nationally as well next slide now in december ccsso did a survey of states to get a sense of what their plans are for this spring ccsso heard back from 39 states they found that most states are planning to do some form of the state summative assessments with that states are exploring different approaches including things like 19 states reporting they plan to extend their testing window eight states reporting they plan to shorten assessments for those states that have

049students who are remote about half of the state's 23 intend to try to bring students to a school site to take the summative assessment next slide please for english learners and students with disabilities that number is even higher with 31 states indicating they will try to bring students to a school site for the assessment a handful of states five at least at this time that were exploring the option of remote administration of the summative assessment most states that responded at least 29 will be pursuing the addendum that we previously brought to the board that was offered by uscd seeking some relief from the accountability requirements that was the addendum we had already brought to the board and approved relieving us from the identification of csi as of february 19th we believe that seven states have

050submitted a waiver to uscd to waive assessment requirements this was prior to the guidance being released on the 22nd next slide in order to provide flexibility in the midst of these unprecedented times the cde proposes the following flexibilities offered by the u.s department of education now we're going to move into what was outlined within the guidance release from the us department of education on monday the first flexibility is underneath the accountability and school identification and transparency of public reporting we wanted to highlight here because this has been a question repeatedly that this pertains specifically to and includes the 95 participation requirement the ed is offering a waiver to the accountability tie to the academic indicator but not the requirement to assess 95 of the schools students in essence the 95 participation requirement still stands but

051there is no penalty if the 95 participation requirement is not met we have also received in the letter that ed will follow up with an optional state accountability waiver template similar to what you saw before that would outline what we've discussed today as a way for us to check the box and submit back to ed of our intentions next slide additionally we have flexibility within the implement to implement assessments flexibilities for assessments the first is administering a shortened version of the smarter balance summative assessments for ela and math the second one is offering remote administration and the third is considering that to extend the casp and elpac test administration windows beyond the test windows as outlined in our current regulations next slide at the november 2020 board meeting the sbe approved the implementation of administering

052a shortened version of the smarter balanced ela and math math assessments we were ahead of the game these shortened versions became available in two leas on february 22nd 2021. next slide please additionally california has made remote administrations available to california leas for all cast and elpac assessments which we were able to field test and learn from as i shared previously with the elpac initial and the optional elpac summative next slide please so that brings us to the two possibilities we would like to discuss today regarding the extension of the testing window what we are exploring is first to extend the window to july 30th for caspen elpac our current regulations state that an lea must administer the assessment by their last day of instruction or july 15th whichever comes sooner this would in essence allow

053every lea to extend their window to july 30th or not an and or the other potential possibility for for extending the testing window would be to end the testing window per current assessment regulations so by the last day of instruction or july 15th whichever comes sooner and add a new fall summative caspin l pack testing window that could be made available roughly around august 15th through october 29th or october 31st next slide please we'd like to share some of what we're exploring as pros and cons to each of these options regarding the window to ex to extend the window to july 30th this offers additional opportunities for instruction through some summer extended year and expanded learning for those students that participate it provides flexibility for schools and additional time to communicate with families and stakeholders

054there would be no delay for student level results it allows for more adults to be vaccinated potentially increasing the opportunity for in-person assessments and there's no added cost to extend the window from july to july 30th from 2021 next slide some of the cons or the consequences that we are exploring is one that the window extends beyond the traditional year this is something that we've heard from many stakeholders that schools may not be able to provide students with transportation in the infrastructure to support in-person assessments in the summer especially if they are not attending extended year or expanded learning we've heard often high levels of coveted fatigue people are tired and it would also provide a delay in the aggregated reporting to lea state and federal levels there is also potential impact on calpads and

055lea student information systems although this would be minimal for example if a an lea typically ends their school year on july 5th or june 15th they would have to hold enrolling over their enrollment data to the next year until they have finished assessments so they their sis would not be able to roll over their data until july 30th additionally the same for cow pads we would have to hold enrolling over our data until july 30th and then once that hits then we could roll over our data which potentially may delay our reporting of end-of-year data next slide so some pros for the adding a fall administration window again this offers additional opportunities for instruction through summer extended year or expanded learning the possibility to assess students afterwards have if they partake of that opportunity it

056provides flexibilities for schools and again additional time to communicate with families and stakeholders it allows significantly more time for adults to be vaccinated potentially increasing the opportunity again for in-person assessments next slide some of the cons for this or the consequences for this option there would be a significant delay in aggregate reporting to lea state and federal levels we would not be able to close our calpads information for fall until the assessment window is complete it has an impact on cal pet lea student information systems one example of this is over the past few months cde has been working to update the post process which allows data to be pushed into the cloud at a much faster rate this work would have to be postponed also the standard decal pads data collections would be delayed

057which includes course course completion enrollment disciplinary incidents it would delay our graduation on report requirements and then data used to calculate the adjusted cohort graduation rate it would also impact the enrollment counts frpm special education etc additionally i just want to make it clear as with many things this year we would be attempting a fall assessment window at a very large scale rather than that has never been done before in california with very little time to adjust not insurmountable but it is a risk as many of you know calpads is a dated system that has been stitched together over the course of a decade to meet our ever evolving data needs which is fantastic and it needs an upgrade this is uncertain there is uncertainty about the impact that this may have on our system

058there are lingering questions about tracking students that transition from a grade that would also include transitioning into another school as an example an 8th grader moving to 9th grade they would in essence be moving from potentially their middle school into a high school they would be tested as a 9th grader in their with an 8th grade assessment but we would have to link back that 8th grade assessment to their previous school finally it is important to note that leas would have to submit and update their student information systems with the most current data immediately in the fall to ensure calpads information is correct for ets to use and contrast from the previous year's data typically leas have until december to certify their fall one data this again not an insurmountable change but it would require

059a lot of technical assistance for this process and i think the the final con to point out is that there would be an additional cost to add a new fall administration window roughly estimated it would be about close to 74 million dollars next slide finally i want to just note that while edie is allowing flexibilities and extending the assessment window we have also heard from stakeholder groups and leas a desire to leave the window as it is there is general expression among some to assess this year and move forward with a clean fresh slate in the fall and that brings us to the testing window extension survey of the lea assessment coordinators that we recently conducted in february we asked lea superintendents and testing coordinators to rank order their preference for testing window options assuming

060we would need to move forward with assessments the three testing window options included no changes to the current testing windows extend both the caaspp and the summative lpac testing windows to july 30th or provide an additional testing window in fall for both cast and elpac we also asked what benchmark assessments that that had they had that could be administered to all students in the same grade level not district-wide but in the same grade level next slide as of friday february 19th 2021 and i i have to just say thank you to the field 1200 um people submitted out of the 2 000 unique lease 61 in a two-day turnaround so thank you for your participation um and being willing to provide us with this extremely important feedback for leas with multiple submissions the responses from

061the lea superintendent were included in the preliminary results next slide this slide represents a summary of the rankings approximately 33 percent selected no change to the testing window as their first choice 21 selected the july 30th extension as their first choice and 47 selected a fall administration as their first choice if you look at the weighted average so factoring in the combination of the first second and third choices or the average rank you will see pretty clearly that across the board it was a pretty close vote next slide 24 of the 25 largest leas responded to the survey the largest leas include eight of our core districts the largest leas as you can see were evenly split in their preference of testing window options 10 selected no change as their first choice and 10 selected

062the fall administration as their first choice the core districts were also evenly split with with three selecting no change and three selecting the fall administration one core district declined to rank their first choice next slide please 1235 leas indicated that they had at least one benchmark assessment that they could administer across grade levels to their students the most frequently listed benchmark assessments available to the leas in order of the most mentions include 559 for star 337 for iready 304 for nwea 173 for dibbles and 131 for renaissance next slide please with that i come to our recommendation the california department of education requests the california state board of education to take action as deemed necessary and appropriate and with that i include conclude my presentation and hand it back to you president um darlene hammond

063thank you so much um i just want to um start by thanking the staff of the department of education this is um such a highly professional highly competent highly committed team that has not only done all the work of preparing us as as we normally do for assessments and for improvements in those assessments but this extraordinary work of surveys um outreach to the field outreach to the stakeholders giving us as much information as we could possibly have to make good decisions in this moment so um just we're deeply deeply in your debt we appreciate it um very very very much i want to note that there was a delay with posting the addendum earlier this morning uh and so i want to just announce the public that it has been posted on the spe website

064if you went to look for it earlier and didn't find it it is there now and uh at this point um we want to uh post the public comments slide once again so that those who want to call in can get in a queue to offer their comments we can take only clarifying questions from the board members if there are about specific um things that that you need to understand in order to take in the public comment i want to be sure that we retain our discussion until after the public comment but are there any clarifying questions from members of the board i see a member burr and member strauss with their hands up remember um i just have two yeah thank you i just have two clarifying questions um when we took action in

065november to shorten the smarter balance test at my recollections that only related to the english language arts and mathematics and we did we take any action to shorten the science test that's my first question and then the second question i think relates to something i believe rachel talked about which was test turnaround time meaning when the results are available to leas and if you could um let me know what that test turnaround time is under a shortened administration construct i'd appreciate it thank you so i'll answer your first question that you are correct we in the november meeting we approved a adjusted blueprint for the ela and math assessment we explored the possibility of other assessments but they were already much shorter than the ela and math that it it didn't seem one that there

066would be a huge need to do that into a question if we shortened it much more how much that might compromise the validity and reliability so we only did an adjusted blueprint for the ela in math as far as the turnaround for assessments i i would like to hand that over to our ets contractor marianne marianne would you be able to provide a little bit of information about how that a shortened test administration may impact the data coming back good morning president darling hammond vice president styles is team members of board deputy superintendent gregson my name is marianne arcilla executive director at ets the state's testing contractor with regard to the question um one of the things that definitely we are are very committed to is making sure that the assessments are are fair and

067valid um and reliable and so uh we we are as part of the work that we're doing uh for the spring administration is to conduct analysis um with the data especially the early data as they come in to determine how well the assessments are measuring and how how reliable and especially as it pertains to remote administration versus in-person administration where we can compare those and and that is information that we'll share with the cde as well as with smarter balance and the technical advisory group so that we can vet through the data and then make recommendations as to the impact of the shortened form thank you um i have a number of hands up i'm going i have neglected to ask our liaison tang son if she would like to make any framing comments uh

068then i'll come back to the queue of uh clarifying questions and i do want to just ask people to be mindful that we are asking clarifying questions at this point so we don't delay getting to public comment too long uh remember son thank you president darling hammond so i yeah and i want to wholeheartedly echo your words for um the uh for uh superintendent deputy superintendent maeve's and the work that director vong has done um the staff work has been amazing on this in a very short time and turn around and i also appreciate the context and background that that you president darling hammond and chief deputy gregson provided to provide us a context for this conversation here so and of course we've also received a number of public comments and letters many of which

069are asking us not to administer assessments at all this at all for this year because of the focus and need to focus their attention on the reopening of schools and re-engaging our students and getting our students physically back onto campuses which i completely understand and absolutely support and yet i think it would be irresponsible of us as a state not to have an assessment um and certainly with the federal guidelines you know that's uh not necessarily a choice you will have um however um we do need to be look at this purposefully i mean for one we want to take the um we have to have assessments you look at the example of a middle schooler who's in seventh grade right now the last time we took pulse of where that student was academically at

070the state level was when that student was in fifth grade so we've missed sixth grade and if we don't seventh grade and then if we don't test until 2022 then the the student would not be tested until eighth grade which means that we've missed out on the entire school entire middle school years for that student so i think it is of utmost importance and it would be irresponsible for us as a state not to provide get some sort of an assessment of pulse and data on where our students are so then that leads us to how purposeful we will be in looking at the administration and for what purpose are we doing these assessments and as deputy director mao said that we do assessments because we want to collect data on where our students are

071academically and we want to co do assessment for actionable change so for me that means that what we want to ensure um the success if the collecting data and and using it for xml change then we need to look at the timing for the most success and i do think that the most successes will be when we would have the majority of students back onto campus again i know that um and and for me i was looking at the fall and i know there's technical difficulty difficulties and also a huge expense but i will say i'm also very encouraged by the number of reopening plans that we're seeing across the state and if we are able to get a vast majority of our students back on campuses in the spring then i think spring administration

072would might may be feasible and ensure the success of both collection of data and to be able to for us to assess actionable change my biggest concern is for the students who have dropped out of our system during this time of distance learning our english language students our immigrant students our special education students those are the ones who have suffered the most through this distance learning time and for us to be able to collect data for actionable change for those students most at risk we want to administer at a time where we can best collect the data from these students and if they're not in the system for us to even test then i don't think we'll be successful so thank you for that time allowing my comments thank you i'm going to move now

073to member strauss then member rodriguez and member navo member glover woods and again keep these two clarifying questions thank you member strauss i have a couple of clarifying questions and i have three so um the first is um to be clear that if we were to go and recommend a small administration and the cost at 74 million dollars i i just want to clarify i believe that would take legislative and governor approval for budget allocation i just want to clarify that the second thing is i believe that there's a there's a recommendation that elpac be done in person i just want to clarify that recommendation for english learners to get the best valid results um because that would affect what we do with the testing window or whether we look at a second administration for

074them so that's the and then the third one is all the flexibilities i believe that mao and rachel presented are there other flexibilities i believe the federal guidance says that you can explore additional flexibilities based on the context of your state and i think we're obviously a huge state very diverse majority are still remote a year later in contrast to smaller states that may have opened or don't have the kind of covet spread that we've had so just the clarification the 74 million the elpac in person and the additional flexibilities of federal governments allowing under their guidance i think those are all coming to you rachel and mao yup we're ready thank you all right um so for the first one uh regarding the fall administration and the 74 million and your question about um

075approval from the state and i apologize i should have made that clear very at the very beginning what we are bringing forward to you today would relieve our federal requirements it's not just the 74 million it would be everything that we bring before you that would also have to be approved through a legislative vote or an executive order because we also have our own state accountability and assessment requirements so pending the board's decision here whatever you vote to move forward and approve it would waive the federal requirements and then we would move forward with presenting this to the legislature or the governor's office and then they would decide to either vote or provide an executive order to continue the the decoupling to the second question the lpac recommended in person i think from the very

076beginning we we have been very clear on all the assessments first and foremost if you can safely it it should be done in person for all of the assessments and if for some reason you're unable to do that we've provided an additional option and that stands for the elpac and all assessments the only one that we would say you absolutely cannot assess remotely is our alternate assessments in part because the alternate assessments require within our regulations that only a test coordinator be the test administrator be the one to provide support with the administration of the test that often requires manipulatives and other tools outside of just the assessment parents cannot do that at home so that one is the only one we were unable to provide a flexible option for um to your third question

077eileen regarding um additional flexibilities yes the the letter did outline and the state board may direct the cde and or the executive director of the state board to explore additional options as needed based on our state's context all right thank you very much appreciate that um let's see remember rodriguez you are up next thank you and thank you so much for the amazing thorough presentation and all of the work that you've uh the thoughtful work that you've put into this so you answered one of my questions thank you member strauss and the other is i teach at a high school and so um i was just wondering if if we went with a fall assessment would the the it's the 11th graders who take the cast 10th graders who take science would it would the

078seniors this year's 11th graders take the casp and would would they be juniors taking science if you could just clarify that yeah yes that would be correct um and that would be correct for all students as they come into their the grade at which they are in in the fall they would take the assessment for their previous grade all right uh then i guess we'll go to is that did did you get everything answered that you wanted to remember rodriguez yes thank you so much remember nava just want to echo um my fellow board members and commending the department on your preparation and the information you shared now and rachel very impressive and thank you um were the when you did the surveys with the field and they had the choices that were in front

079of them my question is were they also shared the pros and cons of those potential choices so did they understand that by asking for an extension of a fall which seems to be much more complicated and much more expensive were they aware of that that's a great question member nava no we did not outline that in the survey the um what the repercussions of that potentially might be we have shared in some of our stakeholder meetings some of the pros and cons but it was not outlined in the survey okay and it is and it is extensive and complicated i'm not sure you would have been able to give all of the detail adequately thank you member glover woods good morning and again i echo comments from my fellow board member on just the extensive

080preparation for today's presentation as well as all of the work that has been done to communicate and work with the field on this very important topic my question for clarification is in relation to the impact on calpads and the student information system i just wanted to get clarification regarding the impact of extending the administration window or adding a fall administration is the impact to calpads and student information the same so i i am going to um defer this question to jerry um winkler our director for the education data management division just to make sure that i i don't miss something jerry are you available to answer that question yes and thank you for that question we believe that the impact decal pads for the july extension would be far less than the impact for the

081fall administration far less yeah if i could add a point of color i think in one conversation we had with staff there was a potential crash and burn metaphor that was put forward as a as a fear for moving to the to the for the data system if we move to the fall um so i appreciate getting the data on on that uh remember rodriguez your hand is still up and i'm assuming maybe it's just left up by mistake okay great um i have just one more clarifying question before we um moved to uh public comments and i think that what we may want to do by the way is just take a five minute bio break for getting a cup of coffee and getting back before we hear public comments so we don't have

082to disrupt commenting but i did want to ask about the possibilities as we're looking at all the ways in which we can make testing more feasible shorten the extent of the assessments etc i understand from the folks at the smarter balanced assessment consortium that there is consideration being given to allowing a way to move performance tasks out of the very long sit-down test into classroom administration and i just want to ask whether that's a possible option we might be able to provide to school districts that were interested in that way of managing the assessments i i um thank you for that question linda i'll hand that over and invite tony alpert the executive director of the smarter balanced assessment court consortium to provide you an answer to that question tony would you like to join

083hi tony hello um and uh for the record my name is tony albert executive director for smarter balance um thank you president darling hammond for the question uh yes we are uh interested in investigating that option and uh looking for opportunities to for innovation and to collaborate with the department of education and with the state board on how to make the logistics of the assessment easier and and opportunities to find ways to enhance the validity thank you i also just want to note since we have you on the camera for a moment how much we appreciate the ways in which the spider balance consortium has been so responsive to looking at ways to shorten the test to find remote testing options where they can work and you know to helping everyone both do the best

084job we can and to do it in the most efficient way possible so lots of work has gone on there as well we appreciate it uh darlene hammond could i just really quickly go back to um member navas question regarding um whether or not uh districts or leas understood the the different um impacts of the options we didn't provide it with the summary but i did also and i didn't want to fail to note this we were able to meet with about 10 districts and their assessment coordinators cow pads coordinators and representatives from the curriculum and instruction side of the house last friday and went over all of these with them as well and they provided pretty significant and i think helpful feedback for the discussion today so i just wanted to acknowledge the feedback

085that they provided in the time that they were able to spend with us um and sharing some of their thoughts as well terrific thank you lots of people in the boat rowing together to try to get to solutions to these naughty problems and we really do appreciate it i want to give us a five minute bio break because we're going to have quite extensive public comment i believe so it is 1001 and at 1006 if you could try to be back grab a cup of coffee and be comfortable we'll see you then turn off your video and microphone but do not leave the room all right thank you welcome back thank you for the break yeah i know i think we were all feeling a momentary need i don't want to miss any of the

086public comments so we will be able to hopefully all be there for all of that if you do need to take a break uh later uh just send a note in the chat that you're going to be right back you know and turn off your camera and microphone if you need a couple of minutes for any kind of a break we're going to try to forge forge ahead now we're scheduled to try to complete by noon i'm going to uh ask um brooks to please call the role and reestablish the quorum okay remember here president darlene hammond here member here remember glover woods here member mcquillen here member nava here member patil brownson here remember rodriguez here member rucker vice president strauss here number son here we have a quorum all right thank you very

087much at this point uh i think we're going to open the phone line for public comment are there any public comments yes we do have currently uh 40 people in public comment uh callers good morning this is for item number two first caller please state your name and affiliation for the record your time starts now good morning i'm deb cuban superintendent for ukiah unified school district located in rural northern california i'm excited to share the ukiah unified just reopened to in-person instruction last week for preschool through grade 12 after 11 long months of distance learning instructional minutes in person with students are coveted and limited it has been challenging to keep students connected with school and excited about learning during distance learning now that we are seeing students back on campus we must preserve our

088in-person time with them to help re-engage them with school and with each other time spent assessing students beyond a district's interim assessments will only add to the learning loss they have experienced and the social emotional toll this pandemic has taken we must prioritize our in-person time with our students to address their needs statewide testing will take many hours of instruction away from our students who have already lost to so much during this pandemic i respectfully urge the state board of education to pursue a blanket waiver for standardized testing for the 2021 school year thank you so much thank you caller next caller please state your name and affiliation for the record your time starts now good morning my name is catherine strzok and i am the data and assessment coordinator for the memo park city

089school district i would like to advocate that california pursues a waiver to suspend state testing for the 2020-2021 school year we have a solid benchmark assessment system in place at every grade level and we've been administering them each trimester to identify student instructional needs plan instruction and intervention as well as report out to our community the impact that the pandemic and distance hybrid instruction has had on student learning our schools have been open with in-person hybrid instructions that since september with in-person instruction every other week and at home asynchronous learning the alternating weeks while we value the data provided by state assessments we are very aware of the limited and precious in-person instructional time we have with our students we're concerned about the amount of time and energy to both prepare teachers and students as

090well as administer the cast assessments this spring thank you caller next caller please state your name and affiliation for the record your time starts now good morning board president doctor am i live yes you're live i apologize please go ahead i'm so sorry good morning board president dr darlene hammond board members and superintendent thurman my name is dr gina potter and i'm the superintendent for the san ysidro school district and the chair of access legislative policy committee i respectfully urge the state board to pursue a blanket waiver for standardized tests given the vast majority of schools in california are providing distance learning there are significant challenges with online standardized testing such as lack of equitable student access to the internet and computers lack of home technology support to students lack of in-person teacher supervision to

091proctor the exam and issues with the academic integrity of the exam as an educational leader i support the importance of standardized assessments however the pandemic has caused significant trauma for students families and staff testing during this crisis will exacerbate the fragile balance california is seeking to prioritize the safe reopening of schools thank you thank you caller next caller please state your name and affiliation for the record your time starts now good morning president darling hammond and members eric primack on behalf of charter schools development center and our hundreds of charter school members we're generally supportive of granting flexibility here and we appreciate the efforts of cde staff and the contractors to address the many logistical and practical issues but we're also deeply concerned about the lack of information or even discussion as to the impact

092of these changes on the high-stakes new renewal laws that govern charter schools we believe that these issues need to be addressed concurrently and immediately not only with respect to the caste tests but also with regard to the list of 11 odd alternative assessments that you approved earlier this year as well as the impact on any delay and implementation of the federal intervention laws on charter renewal and we hope that you will address all of those so that we can all avoid a tidal wave of hotly contested appeals coming your way thank you caller next caller please state your name and affiliation for the record your time starts now good morning president darling hammond and members of the board my name is dave debrosky and i'm the assistant superintendent of education services in harupa unified school

093district in riverside county i'm calling to urge you to continue forward in the process of pursuing a waiver for standardized testing requirements for this year we remain in purple tier today and in my district like most others in my county we're engaged in remote instruction the administration of the testing is problematic and will only serve to exacerbate the inequities highlighted during the pandemic our students come from a wide variety of backgrounds and many will experience a difficult at best testing environment and as such the data we receive is going to be inaccurate our focus really needs to be on diagnostic and formative assessments that will serve our teachers in determining the best path forward for student success as we move towards reopening schools not on a remotely administered high stakes test that will take instructional

094time and focus away from the important work ahead regardless of whether that happens in spring summer or fall thank you thank you caller next caller please state your name and affiliation for the record your time starts now yes good morning president darlene hammond and fellow board members my name is rico tamayo and i'm president of the early childhood tk 12 council for cft and i'm here representing 85 000 cst members now that the u.s department of ads released a letter allowing waivers flexibilities we ask that you consider submitting a wide waiver to allow our focus to be on safe schools and much needed mental and emotional health for our students at this time summative assessments will not provide any useful information from our students especially when schools are dealing with different rates of covid and

095we're seeing high covert rates correlated with the same economic and social disadvantages that our tests always show we do recommend however that you allow leas to be able to utilize local assessments instead of state summative assessments and furthermore we ask the board to obtain a waiver for the 2021 school year and not extend testing to the fall thank you for your consideration thank you caller next caller please state your name and affiliation for the record your time starts now hello good morning my name is daryl camp and i'm the superintendent of the san lorenzo unified school district on behalf of our board i share with you a resolution that was passed last saturday opposing state standardized testing for the 2021 school year and we request a blanket waiver as it pertains to all statewide testing

096the reasons are simple for us we when we did our assessment the cons of testing far outweighs the pros of testing once again the board had a lot of questions about the utility and the validity associated with testing and had extreme concerns about the anxiety that's placed on our students and and staff during this covet 19 time once again we thank you for your time and effort and thank you again president darling hammond and members of the state board of education superintendent thurman thank you thank you caller next caller please state your name and affiliation for the record your time starts now caller you're live can you hear me next caller please state your name and affiliation for the record your time starts now good morning president darlene hammond and board members my name is

097andriy carrocco and i'm representing the san diego unified school district and i would just i'm calling to ask for a waiver to suspend testing for the 2021 school year for all assessments and that would include the summit of elpac thank you thank you caller next caller please state your name and affiliation for the record your time starts now good morning board of education my name is mercedes levion i'm the associate superintendent of educational support services for oceanside unified school district we serve over 16 500 students including military connected students we urge you to focus on a blanket waiver for standardized testing we are eager to return to in-person instruction and will be doing so on the 15th of march due to the california department of public health guidance for physical distancing our students will have

098limited time with their teachers and we would want that time to be focused on building their connections and addressing the trauma that they've already experienced during this pandemic rather than on a standardized testing we have a robust local assessment system that we will continue to use and monitor so that we can provide targeted services for our students thank you thank you next call or please state your name and affiliation for the record your time starts now good morning my name is katie summer assistant superintendent for ukiah unified school district in our rural areas we struggle with technology issues that will extend the time casp assessments will take and will deem many of the results unusable due to time limit requirements these challenges include internet access as many of our students have hot spots that are

099not always stable in rural areas in addition the new system requirements for caaspp have made many of our chromebooks unusable for these assessments this too creates logistical challenges that will extend the time it is going to take for the casp assessments the training of staff to be able to give the assessments in person and remotely will take up precious time instead of focusing on improving instruction and reopening secondary schools it will also take additional instructional time to train students on the platform especially for students who will be taking it remotely we only have 12 week weeks left of school to focus on instruction and we have our own district-wide interim assessments in ela and math that can be used to address and finish learning thus i respectfully urge the state board of education to pursue

100a blanket waiver for standardized testing thank you for your time next call or please state your name and affiliation for the record your time starts now good morning state board members marcos aguilar my name is marcos aguilar and i'm a member of the indigenous resurgence education network across the country and here locally and the co-head of school at wakanda world school the county of los angeles is only community-based indigenous people's k-12 school i urge that the state board of education superintendent of instruction in california pursue a blanket waiver of all federal mandates for student testing in 2021 as well as the waiving of additional state mandates our students staff and parents have maintained a committed and disciplined approach to living through this pandemic and maintaining a strong learning community through online platforms that we've had

101through great difficulty negotiated and presented with our community but adding state testing does not help us get back to school irreconcilable problems abound with high-stakes standardized testing in general particularly regarding validity reliability fairness and bias and with the way these tools are used against schools like ours as a charter school these and other inequities have been exacerbated during the pandemics the state should determine instead how historic rates of height of high rates of child hunger housing insecurity and a lack of accident next caller please state your name and affiliation for the record your time starts now hello yes caller you may proceed hello yes caller can you hear me hello next caller please state your name and affiliation for the record your time starts now uh good morning board members i'm carlos michelle with california

102school boards association csva supports seeking a waiver of standardized testing requirements this year we appreciate the department's outreach efforts to stakeholders to identify modifications in an effort to address concerns outlined in the presentation however the way for the waiver represents the best option to help reduce the significant burdens that the assessments will place on students their families and on teachers as districts and schools focus on reopening and accelerating learning opportunities for this reason we asked the board to pursue the blanket waiver option afforded by the department of education thank you thank you caller next caller please state your name and affiliation for the record your time starts now good morning dr darling hammond board members dynavous representing the association of california school administrators respectfully requesting the state board of education pursue a blanket labor for

103standardized testing even without statewide assessments our districts can and will use other tools that are available to gauge student learning and learning and needs we believe that is paramount that we prioritize students right now and use this valuable time to celebrate learning and support students and staff social emotional mental health thank you thank you caller next caller please state your name and affiliation for the record your time starts now good morning thank you for the opportunity to comment on viviana martin california policy analyst at omnivores previously known as the national council of la raza were the nation's largest latino civil rights and advocacy organization and we strongly believe that administering annual assessments for the 2020-2021 academic academic year ideally in screen is critical to have a more accurate read on where latino and english learner

104students stand on their path to success and in light of the us department of education your colleague letter on assessment to recently released we recommend that the board one provide lease the necessary flexibilities either to safely administer annual assessments to ensure appropriate accommodations are offered for students with disabilities and english learners as required under federal law for statewide assessments three exercise transparency and reporting data on student learning for parents educators and the public and lastly use assessments to inform systemic decisions from an equity line including how the state will charge your resources and make investments to support students of the greatest needs thank you for your time and consideration thank you caller next caller please state your name and affiliation for the record your time starts now hello good morning state board and community that

105are online today my name is tracy noriega assistant superintendent of educational services serving the students of san lorenzo unified school district with superintendent dr darrell camp who spoke earlier we are in alameda county which is still in the purple tier and our district is still in distance learning last saturday february 21st our amazing board trustees passed resolution number opposing state standardized testing i pulled out two lines to read for all of you whereas the process of remote testing from student homes will most likely increase the current heightened levels of anxiety that both students and parents and guardians will have to experience whereas slv usd is committed to supporting the social emotional well-being of our students and believes actions needs to be taken to mitigate any negative impact of state testing with that we are requesting

106the state pass a blanket waiver for standardized tests i hope as a state we can be committed to supporting our students social emotional well-being as well thank you for your time and consideration thank you caller next caller please state your name and affiliation for the record your time starts now hi i'm jennifer hicks assistant superintendent of educational services at foster county office of education and the 2021 swiss chair i'm sharing these comments on behalf of fifth amc cessa while we're thankful that the recent letter from the u.s department of ed provides waiver options for accountability this does not provide the relief that schools and parents need the flexibilities offered for consideration are limiting and will negatively impact critical valuable instructional and learning time whether it's the spring or later in the fall the data we

107will receive will not be useful nor timely to inform learning acceleration plans instead local formative assessment plans are far more critical in terms of quickly assessing student progress identifying needs and addressing inequities we ask that the board first request an accountability waiver and second actively explore and pursue the maximum additional flexibilities including a blanket waiver based on our state's specific circumstances and individual needs we would welcome the opportunity to be part of this conversation about what this might look like thank you thank you caller next caller please state your name and affiliation for the record your time starts now hi this is stacy stansberry good morning i'm the director of curriculum and instruction for the taft union high school district i would like the board to consider the detriment versus benefit for our students perspective

108as we and apply for the blanket waiver for standardized tests our students test once in high school and these test scores will follow them to college this year we're asking the students to test in a different environment and many will need to test remotely due to the pandemic health concerns and our county being in deep purple tier this means that some of our students will be trying to use hot spots in rural areas or find a quiet location in a home with young siblings and family interruptions outside of anyone's control this along with the intimidation of being on camera while testing and having to work through technical issues remotely is less than an ideal setting for our students to accurately show us what they have learned this standardized test will not be standardized due to

109the numerous variables during testing testing data and trend comparisons from this year will not be accurate or usable by the school or state while our students have been resilient flexible and flexible please consider the mental health and stress that students have during testing and what they have been through this year testing this in this way or when we first return to school in the fall is not in the best interest of our students and there's one more thing that they will have to endure this year thank you for your time next caller please state your name and affiliation for the record your time starts now my name is bill lucia that voice edward supports moving forward with the uniform statewide shortened assessments with extra testing time extended testing window to july or august at the

110latest and flexibility on participation rates so focus can be on logistics and turning around results as soon as possible waiting to the fall means getting results late fall or winter such a delay from time of instruction is inconsistent with generally accepted assessment practice and delays needed extra help for students with an eye on equity of opportunity it's important to have comparable data on learning lots and achievement gaps amplified by the pandemic as being practical this data is needed to best invest in students with accelerated learning opportunities this summer and immediately in the next school year thank you thank you next caller please state your name and affiliation for the record your time starts now good morning my name is michael juba speaking on behalf of the california teachers association cta believes that the sbe should

111look back at the last time the usdoe provided guidance on assessment waivers that did not make sense for california in 2013 dr kirst superintendent torlikson and governor brown pushed back on the usdoe and ultimately made the right decision for the students parents and educators of california over 46 000 teachers have signed our petition to waive state tests and cta believe that the concerns outlined in our letter regarding the feasibility of administration the usability of the data and the cruelty of putting our students families and educators through a high-stakes summative assessment make the choice clear and appropriate in closing the sbe should aggressively pursue a blanket assessment waiver for the 2020-2021 school year thank you caller next caller please state your name and affiliation for the record your time starts now hi my name is jeff

112frost i'm representing the long beach unified school district san jose unified school district the central valley education coalition and all of the superintendents in orange county i am contacting you regarding the blanket waiver and to urge you to consider that as the most reasonable option given the level of stress and lack of accommodations for special ed and el students in a remote environment for testing thank you very much thank you caller next caller please state your name and affiliation for the record your time starts now hi my name is joanna french and i'm senior manager of research and policy at innovate public schools we work with over a thousand parents statewide we're low income parents of color parents of english learners and parents of students with special needs the most important thing we can do

113for our students right now is to understand student progress and the extent of learning loss so we can target resources to those students who meet them most we believe we need spring assessments in order to do this even if the window is extended to july 30th given the survey presented this morning that showed leas across the state are split evenly in ranking the three options and the edtrust west poll that 55 of parents are in favor of resuming assessments this spring we recommend the state board of education vote to move forward with the spring assessments rather than waiting thank you thank you caller plea next caller please state your name and affiliation for the record your time starts now good morning president darling hammond and members of the state board my name is holly eads

114and i'm the superintendent of the orkut union school district which is located in santa barbara county i'm calling you today to urge the state board to pursue a blanket assessment waiver for standardized tests from the u.s department of education for this school year the social emotional effect of the pandemic is devastating for a number of our students we remain concerned that requiring them to perform on a standardized test will place unnecessary stress on students when our primary concern is for their safety including their mental health as a district we rely heavily on data to guide our instruction and to inform our practice data is only as good as its validity and reliability neither of which can be assured when you have students participating in a variety of settings and variables we cannot control the fact

115is students in distance learning will not have the same level of support as students that are in person we have local measures we continue to rely on to monitor student performance many of these are criterion and norm referenced assessment such as nwea acadians or dibbles and and the peace app thank you for your time and doing what's right for the 6.3 million students in california thank you caller next caller please state your name and affiliation for the record your time starts now caller next caller please state your name and affiliation for the record your time starts now good morning uh president darling hammond and board members this is liz gian with public advocates if the cast spring administration is waived the federal waiver request itself should condition the waiver on leas administering a diagnostic assessment

116of some kind in the spring this has to provide information about students learning their status and needs these assessments should be publicly available by site and lea and they should be actionable for decisions about services and resource allocations for extended learning in the summer and for the lcaps for 2021-22 lea should also be required to use their local data to identify particular student groups whose needs they should focus on in extended learning and elf caps for example kindergarten and first grade students who did not enroll in tk or kindergarten for 2020 and 21 students who either receive these are fs or incompletes or no past grades thank you call lastly all right thank you thank you next caller please state your name and affiliation for the record your time starts now caller you're live next

117caller please state your name and affiliation for the record your time starts now caller you're live can you hear me good morning i'm cheryl jordan superintendent of milpitas unified representing the santa clara county superintendents association santa clara county has persistently been in the purple tier for covert 19 and currently only 15 percent of our districts have some grade levels on campus for in-person learning while the majority of our districts are providing in-person learning support it is not enough to assure equitable access to testing conditions for students the cde team has worked diligently to provide a shortened testing system with suggestions for in-person online testing the requirements for students to have cameras on with speakers is one example for equitable testing environments however we have parents who will not allow their children to be watched by

118a camera and will opt out in california there is a backlog of digital devices on order that have needed requirements for the secure testing browser musd is one example we have had 2500 chromebooks on order since the fall and only have received 158. we urge you to request a blanket waiver for standardized testing in california the investment of time and resources is better spent redesigning your education system next caller please state your name and affiliation for the record your time starts now good morning sarah baches with the california association of schools association school business officials we requested the state board and cd pursue the waiver for the required administration of the state standardized testing for the 20-20-21 school year our organization is committed to supporting our students and staff and so we're eager to bring

119them back and focus on what we need to do to ensure their safety and as we continue to navigate the merit of considerations and decisions that go into this work we must reiterate the importance of prioritizing instructional time thank you so much thank you caller next caller please state your name and affiliation for the record your time starts now good morning my name is brian hopps director of instructional support representing roland unified school district i respectfully urge a blanket waiver for standardized testing this year the cde says the purpose of casp is to promote high quality teaching and learning through the use of a variety of assessment approaches the test administration in this environment will face uneven applications the data will not be reliable and our stakeholders will not trust the data without trust what

120is the purpose of this data the earlier presentation said it would be irresponsible to not test at this time because we need a state level pulse on students this assumes leas are not already collecting and using local formative actionable data we continue to use local benchmarks informative assessments to guide instruction form summer learning opportunities and provide small group intervention a state standardized assessment with significant challenges to validity or reliability would not provide this kind of information to leas and parents much less an accurate statewide snapshot of student progress thank you we request the cde to allow us to focus on what is most important next caller please state your name and affiliation for the record your time starts now hello this is robert manwaring from children now we co-authored with colleagues in the equity community

121the school reform community parent groups and business groups a letter that would oppose a blanket waiver we believe that now is an important time especially given the lack of testing last spring for parents to know how their students are doing relative to other students in the state while many districts do administer other interim assessments those results are rarely shared with parents to inform them about their child's progress especially relative to the state standard benchmarks in terms of the options in front of you we would prefer either option one or two administering the test either this spring or through an extended window rather than the fall and would support the accountability waiver as well as the waiver of the 95 percent test finally we would suggest that there really isn't a strong need for a communication

122plans with parents especially if assessments are going to be administered in a distance learning setting so that they can be uh supportive of their children as they take these assessments thank you caller next call or please state your name and affiliation for the record your time starts now hi my name is anne runge and i am an employee of san diego unified school district having administered the initial and optional summative elpac last fall and being required to prep and train to administer the operational field tests for the alternate the collusion of these three assessments was overwhelming and should be looked at as lessons learned i would like it noted that many of our sites are currently administering the summit of elpac and a waiver is unfair at this point for that elpac looking forward to

123this year i'm completely opposed to the extending testing window for this year with the postponement of the operational field test until this fall and the initial will only cause a collision of testing during the fall season which will create undue stress for both staff and students the extension into summer will create hardships on school districts to have children present themselves in person therefore i implore this board not to vote for an extension of the summit of elpac thank you for your time thank you next caller please state your name and affiliation for the record your time starts now good morning president darling hammond and members of the board angelina gutierrez representing the l.a county office of education i just want to echo the comments of my colleagues and respectfully urge the board and cde to

124pursue a blanket waiver for the required administration of the state standardized test for the 20-20-21 school year the statewide assessment is not necessary in our current climate to properly measure the progress of our of our students have made this year and the data to be collected from any assessments will be unreliable in comparison to other testing years we strongly support and need flexibility to allow our leas the discretion in selecting and administering local assessments they need to reliably evaluate student learning progress needs and gaps thank you thank you next caller please state your name and affiliation for the record your time starts now good afternoon kristin power with the alliance for children's rights i wanted to be sure that the board and the california department of education clarify to local education agencies and the public

125that any waiver of state assessments does not include assessments administered to students for the purposes of determining what if any services and supports are needed to provide the child with a free appropriate public education in other words individual education program iep assessments required under the idea these iep assessments should cover all areas related to a student's suspected need or disability and we would encourage the board and department of education to clarify that this waiver if enacted does not include those assessments thank you thank you next call or please state your name and affiliation for the record your time starts now lorraine richards speaking as a parent good morning i'm a parent asking for testing to not continue remotely i decided to ask my eighth grade son last night what do you think about doing state

126testing at home he quickly came back with an odd expression expression to a company home is not an environment for instruction and now testing the test will be used for potential placement in next year's classes that's not fair it is stressful interruptions that cannot be controlled like my dog barking the kids playing outside next door and my sister in the kitchen i the parents feel that there is limited time for instruction i support the current instruction that is currently going on and how the time is being utilized teachers are using real time assessment to monitor progress the preparation and setup for online at home testing would truly be a waste of time the valuable time for instruction would be robbed from students for the sake of adhering to the federal government's requirements the bottom line

127not time for testing for the homes california is better than this when it comes to students coming first thank you thank you next call or please state your name and affiliation for the record your time starts now hi this is angela gerwellmost i'm speaking as an individual and i'm speaking on behalf of my fifth grade students because i'm a fifth grade teacher um as an educator there's so many other assessments that would be useful and relevant um the data from this is going to be useless it's the conditions um i can already anticipate my kids are going to have struggle getting on um logging in and navigating um but the data is not going to help me as an educator at all and moreover even in regular times testing is sort of uh um anxiety

128inducing for the kids so i kind of consider this torture for my students and i really hope that we can do whatever we can to mitigate um the the impact on students they they're not going to feel great about doing this test and if we're really looking out for our kids we'll do everything we can to protect them thank you thank you next call or please state your name and affiliation for the record your time starts now cammy yes please go ahead paula thank you good morning my name is christina valentine director of curriculum instruction assessment and laa test coordinator in sunnyvale school district located in the bear area thank you board for your ability to be warm demanders as divine defined by zaretta hammond on behalf of the students in sunnyvale i encourage you

129to pursue a blanket assessment waiver for standardized tests during the pandemic we've been laser focused on ensuring that our students have continued to learn and grow social emotionally physically and academically we have robust valid and reliable local measures to measure student academic progress and have been utilizing these diagnostic tools in order to create recovery plans for our students in collaboration with our parents we are currently preparing for a hybrid reopening and surrounding infection rates drop this spring we would value using the time for instruction rather than administering the state assessments i would be remiss if i didn't mention that our assessments do not measure how our students have grown in resilience maturity and capacity for empathy and self-care during the pandemic thank you for your consideration and thoughtful decision making that positively impacts the students

130of california thank you caller next caller please state your name and affiliation for the record your time starts now hello this is lee uh good morning president uh darling hammond and members of the state board this is lee angela reed on behalf of dr marianne dewan the county superintendent of schools from santa clara county superintendent dejuan appreciates the board's discussion of this item and the efforts from the federal government to provide some guidance flexibility however she would ask that we continue to press forward for as much flexibility as possible for our districts and schools and to ask the board to continue advocating for for a blanket waiver from the federal department of ed thank you and thank you for your time thank you caller next call or please state your name and affiliation for the

131record your time starts now hi my name is stacy selecta i'm a lausc parent and stakeholder in public education i'm calling to ask the board to um apply for a blanket assessment waiver for california at this time um i'm i'm a little bit concerned because there seems to be someone missing in this in this dialogue which is the 6.3 million voices the children um the choices on your survey did not get the option for a blanket waiver therefore you had such a an equal split within the lei in asking what what they would rather choose for the state assessment and also to look at the local level the local income interim testing has been very robust especially in the lausd school system and children have been tested more now than ever before let's think of

132our children the children's mental health they should be first and foremost on this and not be discussing the time and the money as parents and stakeholders that it would cost to do something that would only increase the anxiety and stress on these children that have had to deal with this pandemic for the last next caller please state your name and affiliation for the record your time starts now caller are you available next caller please state your name and affiliation for the record your time starts now hi there can you hear me yes thank you caller perfect hi my name is kevin trummer i'm calling you on behalf of the compton unified school district as well as the california association of black school educators i'd like to urge the state board to embrace a blanket waiver

133for standardized testing the 2021 school year we believe that due to the learning conditions as a result of the cloven 19 pandemic convention conducting standardized state tests will simply not be fair to students nor will they provide any meaningful data associated with student achievement outcomes we believe that any tests administered under circumstances will have little of any of validity and we believe that the student's time will be better served by continuing to focus on learning and not anxiety and inducing assessments we're concerned about the impact on equity and student mental health i look forward to pursuing a robust testing regime when students are safely back in the classroom and can focus on learning next year thank you thank you next caller please state your name and affiliation for the record your time starts now hello

134this is mary perry from the california state pta and we believe that testing is provides important information and parents need to understand how their children's academic status compares to others in the state that said the concerns about testing this spring are valid as well for that reason we believe that the postponement of testing and or the extension of the testing window until the vast majority of students are back in school is the appropriate middle ground perhaps with further adjustments to testing format if that's a reasonable alternative thank you thank you next caller please state your name and affiliation for the record your time starts now madam president and members this is brian rivas calling in on behalf of the education trust west our view of federal guidance on this matter is that blanket waivers will

135not be granted and the reason for that is the federal government has indicated we need to be able to see the full impact of the pandemic and we agree with that we think we need data to guide the recovery and the recovery will be more effective for low-income students and students of color if we have data that can guide the allocation of resources we're asking that you proceed with the current testing window because we think the results should be available as soon as possible and i also want to lift up that in our polling of parents parents have repeatedly indicated they want to know how is my son or daughter doing and should i be advocating for expanded learning opportunities we also think it's important to provide testing for those purposes and we agree with

136the desire to seek a waiver from accountability we think that's appropriate in the current circumstance thank you thank you next call or please state your name and affiliation for the record your time starts now good morning state board of education my name is stephanie gambrell and i'm the assessment coordinator for alder grove charter school in eureka california i implore you to put it through a blanket waiver for statewide assessments or at the very least provide flexibility when it comes to accountability if you've heard from as you've heard from the majority of the school and district leaders who've called in today so surveyed included choice for a waiver i have no doubt this would have been an overwhelming preference furthermore the requirements that alternate assessments be administered in person unfairly targets students who are often more

137at risk for health complications than other students in our small lea will be continuing distance learning until the fall the two decided to take the alternate assessments are both highly compromised and will be opting out if required to assess this year the impact this will have on our participation rate is devastating and places an unreasonable amount of pressure on our small school not to mention the stress this will have on students during an already challenging year thank you thank you caller next caller please state your name and affiliation for the record your time starts now good morning marcia zaragoza diaz representing the california association for bilingual education in californians together we believe the option extending the window to july 30th for the cast is the best option at this time in light of the situation

138that we're all in however we are requesting the board to extend the elpac window to the fall the lpac is different from the cast in that it is given in all grades younger children are tested where a larger percentage of our el students are enrolled and an oral component of the test is included many el students minimally participated or didn't participate in distance learning affecting the numbers have tested additionally there were significant problems of connectivity and the lack of secure browsers by extending the alpac window to the fall we believe larger numbers of el students will be given the lpac and elas i mean leas will be better prepared to administer the alpaca thank you thank you next caller please state your name and affiliation for the record your time starts now hello yes please

139can you hear me yes please proceed with your comment my name is susan misman with speak up united parents with over 4 000 parent members in los angeles we strongly support collecting data for actionable change which i believe one of your board members talked about recently and that response is needed sooner than later to begin to recover effective effectively and address learning loss and closing the widened gap more like a continental divide right now that which continues to grow we are california we can do this hybrid in class remotely emphasizing we support a waiver on the accountability element assessments should be used at this point in time are critical for our parents and our communities to understand what tools students are needed for student progress and how to best target resources and programs who need

140it now not tied to accountability but for the purposes of recovering and waiting until fall is far too long thank you very much thank you next caller please state your time your name and affiliation for the record your time starts now caller are you available next caller please state your name and affiliation for the record your time starts now caller are you there hi this is samia yes please go ahead and state your comment good day my name is samuel arias i am a 10 year old student i am here today to speak on behalf of the special education children please do not allow any waivers to assessments as it is special needs children are getting different the service through distant learning today i asked at the california state board of education project special education

141children needs in an effort to um a vote for special education children my family and i created this the youtube movement every student successful more educationalist litigation special education children matter thank you for your time thank you for calling next call or please state your name and affiliation for the record your time starts now hi my name is minnie ferguson i am a member of the indigenous resurgence education network and co-head of anawa kalmekak world school the only indigenous space school k-12 in los angeles i urge the state board of education superintendent to pursue a blanket waiver of all federal mandates for students testing in 2021 as well as the waiver additional state mandates due to the impact of the pandemic our school is located in what became a national at the epicenter of the

142latest surge in the pandemic the state should also determine how historical rates of child hunger housing and security and a lack of access to health care have impacted children and students in the most fundamental ways we have actively assessed our students internally and have ways of knowing how our students are doing and have worked with our families immensely to be able to give them feedback throughout the year to so that they are involved and they're able to work with us on addressing the needs and areas of growth we feel all professionals are capable of doing all schools are capable of doing this and the state of california can continue with its trainings and all the tools that it's been providing us to start administering the iabs which could be a way in which people can

143use them in the classrooms and greatly support students next caller please state your name and affiliation for the record your time starts now caller are you available next caller please state your name and affiliation for the record your time starts now okay that caller dropped last caller please state your name and affiliation for the record your time starts now good morning my name is maria arias i am a parent of three special needs children i would like today to speak on behalf of the special education children and community please do not vote or allow any waivers to come into effect as it is our special needs community and children have been hurt through distance learning many not receiving services as his detail and their ieps today i ask for the california state board of education

144to please protect special needs children and protect their rights their faith in an effort to advocate for special needs children our family created a youtube movement every student successful more education less litigation a special education children matter thank you for the opportunity to provide public comment today have a great day thank you caller this concludes public comment thank you thank you so much we really very much appreciate the testimony today and we know that this is a difficult issue an emotional issue these are difficult circumstances and we have less than perfect choices and that supporting schools and caring for students and our staff and supporting learning has to be our most important priority uh clearly we need to value the time for learning uh reduce and prioritize the time that's needed for assessment so that

145results can be useful and where traditional summative assessments cannot be administered uh safely and reasonably we'll need to identify other ways that student learning and progress data can be provided to students and parents and educators we are going to open up the table for discussion among board members and i see that member rucker has a hand raised if others would please identify yourself if you want to speak i will keep track thank you very much i hope you can hear me we can i want to first begin by thanking the public and the diversity of stakeholders who called in in all of my time on the state board i have been impressed informed and influenced by your assertions and the statements that and advice you have offered to the board i'm so thankful that you

146take the steps that are required for you to participate in this virtual meeting to be engaged as you have been today there's so much to discuss about this item and the action we're asked to contemplate so knowing that we at some point will move to considering emotion i do want to ask my colleagues on the board to consider dividing or splitting the recommendations into more than one motion i held the questions that i wanted to ask about some of the recommendations because i wanted to hear the feedback from the public comment and be informed by that um but so i wanted to be able to ask more about those pros and cons um while so that i'm not sitting here rambling forever and a day which i wouldn't be allowed to do anyway thank you

147let me begin my comments by saying that i'm frankly confused the fact of the matter is whatever assessments are going to be used will be reported republicanly by all schools and districts with the goal of providing actionable data to inform school change the fact is the state has decided that testing must proceed and a blanket waiver is off the table but the fact also is we can do better and we can do more with the options that are actually in front of us dr gregson urged the board at the beginning of this meeting to think about what is in this needs of the students so the national assessment of educational progress the test that is the foundational element of the nation's public school report card has been canceled for this year the us department of

148education in fact requested that nate testing be cancelled this spring and the vendor complied and the reason that the department gained for canceling the nape assessment was because of the pandemic but the burden for the annual testing of every single student from grades three through eight will not be disrupted the staff did a great job of laying out the options as well as the burdens for implementing this requirement all to collect data for actionable change so i'm confused if we want to understand the impact of the coronavirus on american students it's the name test that should go forward the nape assessment has been administered to scientific samples of students since the late 1960s since 1992 it's even provided state-by-state comparisons it disaggregates scores by race gender income english language status disability status and other criteria

149it measures achievement gaps among white students black students hispanic students and asian students it supplies the same valuable information for a score of urban districts that volunteer to be tested and there are no stakes attached to the nape results in short if we're looking for actionable data to inform what's going on in schools and to understand the impact of the pandemic on students nate would have been the ideal gauge for measuring that impact further it meets all the requirements that were outlined in the federal guidance that this that the feds are willing to give states to ensure that their state assessments go forward so i'm confused what we heard from district leadership today is that the state test should be cancelled the state test should be cancelled because and they've given multiple reasons students are

150going to opt out the scores from this test will be meaningless um the mandated test will tell teachers nothing worth knowing since teachers are already doing a battery of local assessments that give them more immediate actionable information about the progress that students are making not only on in you not only on weekly but on over time they do not tell teachers information that can be used to make actionable decisions about school change the results of these tests despite the waiver information will still have high stakes otherwise why are we still posting them in the student report in the school report cards i'm just saying so how are the options that are in front of us that were proposed by the staff with their complete analysis complete and thoughtful analysis about what we can do how

151are all those options truly in the best needs of the students the proposals i saw solve our problem as a state education agency the proposal i saw solves our problem in acquiring a waiver and figuring out some ways to flexibly support the schools but does it actually solve the problems we heard from the district leaders and the parents who spoke about what it is they need to know about their students and be able to support them the polling results that were reported in the presentation from the department doesn't seem to align with the comments we heard from district leadership who testified today every time i see a national poll on cultural attitudes and norms i'm always surprised by the conclusions because i'm clearly certain they didn't ask me but based on the fact that every

152district leader we heard a statement from today there is no agreement or consensus among education leaders about the recommendations proposed for the board's consideration and i'm absolutely positive that i heard clear agreement that the testing should be canceled altogether i lost count at 25 for the number of times i heard a reference to the blanket waiver if the state board wants to decide that a blanket waiver is not in the best interest of students for the purpose of informing schools in the public what other flexibilities can be considered that really would do would really satisfy those needs nothing in the recommendations we heard in my opinion addresses how to assure that districts will not simply find themselves needing to bring students back to the campus for the sole purpose of testing students in order to

153meet the waiver we will ask for currently inside the open assessment window we have 52 of 58 counties are still in purple status what forecast do we have to know that that status will change to allow more districts to be able to provide the assessment supports that were enumerated by district leadership in today's testimony nothing in the recommendation mitigates impact identified by many stakeholders concerning military dependents students in alternative programs and charter schools students in schools with 12 weeks or less of instruction remaining schools whose assessment window will soon close charter schools uh uh a new uh pointed out that current state law statutes enumerate 11 alternative academic assessments for charters to use i read in the plain language of the guidance letter that other assessments can be considered since we already have a statutory

154option for charters to use to report their information their academic performance and progress of students why couldn't we consider asking the feds to allow us to allow all schools to consider using it it's the same assessment it can be reported in a uniform way apparently we've decided that they are valid and reliable for the purpose of doing the student reporting and in order to support not only the concerns that were raised by the charter community but by the school leaders in general who spoke today why don't we look at something at a different level of activity engagement and burden that is but that could be more readily used and implemented by districts and in a way that addresses some of the burdensome concerns that were given so i am confused and i'm just saying thank

155you very much thank you member rutger um i am not seeing other hands yet at the mom member nava member burr so member nava next and then member um i just want to thank board board member um uh patricia that for the uh for her comments because i i really i'm trying to think of what i'm gonna say patricia at the same time acknowledging you um no i appreciate that uh board member rucker i appreciate your comments and i think that there's something to be said about thinking about other options that being said i do have a question about um the ca for rachel or mao and what are the implications in terms of testing should we should we return or flexibilities therein for students with disabilities because if i remember correctly the the last

156conversation we had at the state level that particular assessment was required to be in person or highly encouraged to be in person and if you couldn't then it was they were basically saying it would be problematic so um remember novel can i just make paraphrase back to what i heard you say to make sure that i understood your question so you're asking what or are there additional flexibilities for um the alternate assessments that potentially we could explore is that is that correct yeah what what exists and what could we explore okay um so i i think that there's just a couple things that i want to clarify when we're talking about um the alternate assessments versus the assessments that are requested for um identification of students with disabilities for parents they're two very different assessments

157one falls under idea and one falls underneath our federal requirements for for assessment so the one that we're talking about is the alternative alternate assessments that one is we would only be able to provide in person we there are no other possible flexibilities outside for a remote administration option for that assessment for the for the same reasons that i had mentioned previously that the assessment requires um manipulatives and additional tools to be able to administer the assessment and our regulations state that that must be done by a test coordinator and at home it would have to be done by a parent okay that's helpful and and science as well no science we would be able to administer remote provide a remote administration option i just want to clarify did you mean the california alternate assessment

158for science as well yes yeah that would also be in the alternates group category so it'd be the same as the ela and math alternates as well okay thank you i just wanted to clarify thank you ma'am okay um member burr and then i see member son and member glover woods thank you um so i just experienced what i think many of our callers were concerned about which was i completely lost power and so it was without the computer and without the benefit of your discussion for about the last 15 minutes um and without the benefit of my zoom background which went down when i uh lost power so anyway i apologize so uh president darlingham and can i just clarify are you asking for our general comments about the discussion or just asking for

159additional questions at this point we're open for board discussion okay all right of any kind so okay um so i will say i did have the benefit of hearing the tail end i think of board member rutgers comments which i found very enlightening especially the comment about the cancellation of nape and i do think that if the cancellation of nape is any indicator about what the federal government thinks about um regular testing if you will then i would take our guidance from that um a couple of things that really struck me in the comments from our public commenters and i think i got all of them i was counting them all i got to 38 so i may have missed a couple but um one of the compelling comments to me was administering a test

160does not help with reopening schools and i feel like our number one challenge right now is to try to get the vast majority of our schools open and all of those in our various roles know what those challenges have been and continue to be at least in sacramento i don't think we're going to see many of our largest districts open until april if we're lucky so many of the commenters talked about how much instructional time meaning in-person instructional time would be available and it just seems to me so limited as to make a summative assessment very difficult for any purpose and i want to go back to a couple of opening comments i think both mao and rachel made about what the purpose of the test is and one of them that was repeated a

161number of times is to allow for actionable change which was the reason i asked my original question about what would the response time be in terms of getting results back honestly i'd never heard an answer to that question i'd love to hear it to know what that would be because if the purpose of giving the assessment is not to provide information back for our teachers to allow them to adjust their instruction accordingly then i think we're on a bit of a fool's errand here with trying to impose something that is not really helpful to our school personnel so and i'll just close again with my opening that all of the technical issues that were raised by a number of our comments about not having a secure browser who knows what the home environment is like

162when kids are trying to take tests i do think are really insurmountable i said i was closed but i just had one other thing having lived through our conversation with the federal government in 2013 i am not in any way suggesting that's the kind of conversation we would try to have with this department of education who i think really does want to be helpful so i would suggest that our conversation with them needs to be framed in our context leading with the percent of the students who are not even in in-person instruction have not been are various challenges with the digital divide the way i read the letter was they were inviting us to have that conversation about what additional flexibilities that we might need and so for me i would advocate for the absolute

163maximum flexibility consistent with many of our public commenters thank you thank you very much and uh member you asked an important question that i'd just like to pause and let rachel uh respond to with respect to the turnaround time from our uh traditional state summative assessments sure so um to that question um member burr my understanding and marianne please feel free to jump in if you'd like to add any additional information is that the student score reports um would be available available about four weeks after assessments are provided and if i might add um so when a student completes all components of whatever tests they're taking for their grade level we'd release the results electronically to the uh to the lea and so that uh and that would flow that would go um you know

164all throughout the assessment um there is a period of time before we start releasing the student score reports where we conduct a an analysis and a quality control process and once we have a sign off on that from the cde then all the student score reports just start flowing thank you can i just say let's think about that a little bit if we don't have instruction or people giving no one's given a test if i understand it from what rachel and nelson and i don't know if it's just coincidence that the blueprints allowed for tests to start on the 22nd but it's an interesting coincidence um so if if people really don't start administering the assessments until they get back in person and that's april and then you've got four weeks in theory before results

165get back again i just want us to think about the practical implications and the burdens that we would potentially be placing on our lease in trying to push this through thank you thank you very much um remember son thank you yeah so i i you know i i'm intrigued by the comments with a member from member rucker i i do wonder have we thought outside the box enough you know in this on on this issue and you know all the technical difficulties of administering the test the validity of the data i completely agree and and support and yet i don't know i don't think that we can wait until 2022 of spring to do an assessment and so i wonder if we might be able to ask for maximum flexibility and uh for for us

166to be away from the federal requirements for this year but then as california think about a way that we can assess sometime in the fall when students are back in because i i don't think that we can wait until spring of 2022. we need to have some type of state assessment and yes i completely understand that that districts and schools are doing their own interim assessments and and i think that's wonderful and i appreciate the efforts in doing that but i do think we need to have a statewide assessment even the example that was given about the charter schools are using that but that's after a scrub of a statewide assessment so there's some comparability there so i wonder if there's a way that we might be able to do us irrespective of the state

167for us to do something in the fall because i also think that we need to have data for districts and um least to start looking at their lcaps the following year so um just kind of again kind of thinking out of the box and it feels like the um the stretching the follow me the administration all the way to the fall for this year a lot of it is is because we're still trying to extend this school year into the next one what if we just close the school year and begin the next school year with some type of an initial assessment just throwing that out thank you um i've forgotten my order of cute does anybody remember who i had mentioned next was it glover was remember glover woods i thought so thank you

168and then just to note i see members strauss remember patio browns and i remember fatah with their hands up so i haven't forgotten about you remember glover woods thank you president darling hammond um as has been already stated this is a very complex issue a lot of decisions to be made and just to kind of underscore again two of the competing issues if you will is around the administration and we understand the intent of assessments and how essential assessments are in letting us know how students are learning and how they have been learning but i think we must also recognize the impact of many of the issues even with a varied amount of administration options so when we think about how that impacts the accuracy of the results that would be received we need to

169definitely keep that in mind because whether it is done remotely and i don't have to echo the comment from member burr and already what we know about the issues around some of the remote options for many of the students in our state many of our districts and schools are not able to bring students back in person it's still not quite safe to do so and even extending into the summer so there's just a lot of complexity on how any of these administration options will impact the accuracy of the results for students that are tech we also have to consider that there is a need to have data on how students have been uh able to learn during this past year parents need to know how their children are doing children want to know how they

170are doing as well as communities to know how this is impacting many students from many different student groups so uh one of the things i propose i believe it's kind of been said before is a consideration on how to leverage some of the local assessment options that leas have already had to commit to in their learning continuity and attendance plan how might those local assessments be leveraged and communicated publicly communicate it to parents to give again the indication for what i believe we're all saying is the importance of having the assessments but also keeping it within the context that students are already familiar with as they've been taking many of these interim assessments and formative assessments throughout the school year yet again not having that data be hidden if you will where parents are unaware

171and where the community at large is not aware so i'm wondering as we explore flexibilities with the us department of education if we may be able to explore that flexibility in lieu of administering a state assessment again with all the complexities that are there one last part i'd like to add and i will stop talking president darling hammond is how whatever decision we make will impact charter schools and the requirements that they now have for their renewals and again if there is not a state assessment that is given what does that mean for many of the pieces that they are going to be held accountable for and if we do look and feel that it's necessary to explore the flexibility of local assessments would we suggest and advocate that those local assessments only be looked

172at for those tested grade levels for the state assessment or is there great benefit since i believe in almost all locations in our state those local assessments are being done for students through all grade levels to have that as part of the consideration so we really get a true picture of what all students in the state of california who have been engaged in instruction this year how how they are learning so that we're able to make some determinations on how to best meet their needs as we go into the new year yeah i'm going to before i call on member strauss who's next in my list uh simply respond on this question of the assessments the diagnostic and interim assessments that have been used that it was heartening to see that virtually every district that

173responded to the survey that the department uh put out for the various questions that they asked said that they were giving those assessments we had required that in the instructional continuity plans and we have published a list of assessments in the late summer i believe it was that uh have already been state approved by this board as measuring this you know the state standards um in english language arts and mathematics we did not do that in science but we did do that in english so um just to augment the the point that you are making remember strauss is next in the queue i just wonder i see judy size has her hand up should she go before me oh yes she should i didn't there you are no judy faiz with the state board of

174education i wanted to respond to uh member glover wood's question about the chart impact on charter schools um as we know ab1505 sets some renewal criteria that are based on dashboard results and looking at the last two out of three years and various indicators of the dashboard but that's in legislation so that is not something that's within the purview of the board um so that would take some sort of legislative fix the verified data is within the purview of the board the list that you all adopted back in november but again i think at this point we'd have to see the broader legislative change before we get down to the verified data issue because that the verified data piece is for schools in the middle and low track so we'd have to see how middle

175and low track would be could be adjusted by the legislature before revisiting the verified data piece thank you thank you very much appreciate that that's an important question i think uh member stress is the next and then member patient bronson and then member fatah so again i want to thank president darling hammond and um deputy superintendent chief deputy gregson for the framing of today and just to say that i can't imagine any more steps cde could have done to try to address all the requirements as the situation was evolving i thought the comments that we heard from the public were incredibly articulate and thoughtful uh both in the need for data to inform instruction but also the struggles of remote assessment so i just would go back for some key areas for me that are

176really important which is and i think that the federal guidance says kids should not be brought back just to take the test and i do believe there's benefit of assessment in person so while students are remote i actually think the complications the equity challenges bandwidth family settings the browser all those issues i think um is not going to give us valid and reliable data it's going to be one more hoop and incredibly frustrating so i would just encourage us to look at the maximum flexibilities um while students are in remote obviously um our priority is to get kids back and i know we are starting to get more and more students back i do think there's some research or some recommendations that say students should be back three or four weeks before they take a

177standardized assessment mem president early hammond may know but i don't think we should bring them back i mean we've all talked about the need for social emotional connection community the separation anxiety kids leaving home parents separation anxiety principles i've been working with are talking about needing to create a whole camp to get kids back in again after being out of school a year it's a year since we were together in sacramento and so i think we need to remember that we need time to do that before we do assessment so the amount of flexibility i support continued shorting shortening of the exams when possible including the comment of thinking about taking the performance assessment into a classroom activity so that the state online assessment is shorter um i i do i think we need to

178look at elpac being in person and i would support the recommendation that if we cannot assess elpac in person we extend that window i know that there's budget requirements for the legislature and governor to support but i think for english learners that assessment in person is essential and i want to be sensitive to that issue the other concern i have is if it takes cost 74 million dollars to do a fall assessment i guess as a former school at leader and district leader i could see that 74 million supporting students in a very strong focused way that might make a bigger difference in impact than a single assessment and so i i worry about that and so i want to look at our flexibilities within this school year and then begin the next school year

179hopefully back in person and a fresh start for kids and re-engaging i also i want to reflect the issue of local data we required in the local in the learning continuity plan that districts use local data to inform instruction that was required in sb 98 and i think districts have done that and i think that we need to make sure that that local assessment data is being shared with parents um very clearly and then also being used to inform instructional uh strategies and support for students i i was working with principals this week and looking at videos of classrooms teachers know which kids are struggling they know which kids have not turned their camera on which kids have been absent which kids are not doing assignments we need to make sure that that is transferred

180into support for students so again i support the use of data but not only state data local data into informed practice and i just remember when we were doing online ap testing last spring you might remember those horrible stories of a student finishing the ap exam and then not being able to upload it and not getting credit for doing the ap exam but why would we do that when students have worked so hard i think students have worked hard teachers and leaders they're they're killing themselves to do the most creative teaching in this really challenging situation so we need to look at what this is for to inform instruction and to see what kids know and i just think while we're in remote setting we need to really realize that that we wouldn't be getting

181the valid and reliable data that we need so again i would support as much flexibility as possible and again i like to again hear from the rest of my colleagues who i know share some of these concerns and have others that they would like to add to the conversation thank you all right member patio bronson um i also want to just start by saying thank you to the staff members this has been a two day turnaround it's really quite incredible actually how quickly you all have come together to put this i think very cogent analysis in front of us and offer appreciation for that um i also want to concur with my fellow board members who have raised up the importance of making sure that we have data that is publicly available to both educators

182as well as parents and community members and sort of the the conversation around not having um state level data until spring of 2022 really seems um like too big a sacrifice and certainly one that doesn't seem to be on the table given ongoing conversations with the federal government um i think the other aspect around the data that is going to be made available that is i think a unique um [Music] sort of feature of our california system is that lcff depends on parent and community awareness of data and making sure that we can actually continue to partner with parents and community of active as active participants in driving what el caps look like and driving what local options are responsive to in terms of community need that depends on a notion of local parents and

183local community members having access to the data about disparities about how their children are doing in their local communities in a way that i think really underscores why why we need data and can't afford not can't afford to wait um i do very much also agree though that we need as much flexibility as that we can uh seek under the the federal guidance um i have three very particular and discrete questions just about how implementation and what the space for innovation might look like the first is what happens to the reliability of the data if we go below 95 percent and that's sort of more on the technical question side the second is around what sort of flexibility we can pursue or provide to local districts around who actually proctors the exams um i am

184very much i think um impacted by hearing parents and teachers and school district leaders talk about um precious instructional time right so many kids have been out of school and the remaining time in this school year those are scarce and perfect and precious resources that we want to make sure that we use well and so whether there is the potential for subs to proctor the exam so we don't lose the instructional time whether it's potential for other school district staff and administrators or other instructional leaders to come in and provide the testing time especially as we think about some of the offerings that have been made in terms of the state budget to extend the school year to have summer learning time to also extend into the july time frame for testing so that our

185kids get the benefit of as much instructional exposure and time with teachers on instruction as possible and that we also pursue maximum flexibility in terms of what proctoring looks like um the last question or sort of concern that i just wanted to surface is around whether it's possible to bifurcate the timelines um it seems like there is a uh a fairly decent split between proponents of a timeline for s backs happening in the summer versus next fall but i was very much influenced by the public comment around elpac administration in the fall and wondering if there is a possibility of having um a discrete uh timeline that does not actually determine both in the same one-shot board mission thank you very much and i see that rachel is on screen and ready to answer some

186of those questions yes thank you um president darlene hammond so for the 95 question of what happens um if we fall below the 95 to the validity and reliability of the assessment i'm going to turn that over um to tony albert the executive director of spec and marianne to share their initial thoughts tony thank you um so the validity and reliability is an important question uh smarter balance staff and members took a hard look at how we can reduce the length of the assessment and still retain the validity and reliability so at an individual student level the test is reliable will be reliable and valid assuming it's administered consistent with the test administration manual in the aggregate it will be more reliable and consistently valid assuming that the repre there's a representative sample of students

187that participate so to the extent that some students are systematically omitted or overly included then that's going to affect the interpretation of the results so they may have to be qualified in some way but that's an analysis that needs to take place when the data come in and i think marianne can talk a little bit more about that and and uh to uh support or add a little bit more information um as to what tony mentioned and i mentioned it earlier we do plan to do a thorough analysis of the the process data to generate it from the summative assessments um and we'll use that to evaluate whether there are potential threats to the score validity um and more specifically one of the things we are focusing on will be determining whether students experience technology

188challenges or if students received improper assistance during the assessment and we'll we'll take that analysis and and um uh use it to determine make recommendations on um the validity of the of the data i'd just like to add a point on on this question i think it is because there are challenges across the country and the administration of assessments is here that the there's a been a strong consensus and the department's recommendations reflect the decoupling of the aggregate average assessment data from accountability because it's the averages that will um you know vary uh not the individual students results unless there are problems in administration uh be based on who can take the assessment but there are ways to evaluate who does respond and we actually in the government's letter to us need to report non-response

189by uh subpopulation characteristics of students as well so that there's a way to evaluate what kind of information we're getting about which students and we will need to be very analytical about that as will every state uh were there other questions rachel that you were going to answer yeah we have two other ones the second question was um who can proctor the exam um and mao would you like to dr bing would you like to share the regulations around proctoring yes um other than what rachel has mentioned earlier about the in terms of the alternate assessments having the test examiner be someone who the student knows and works with on a regular basis in our casp and elpac regulations the definition is that if you're an employee of the district and you have been trained

190and signed the test security affidavit you may be a proctor for both assessments and then the final question um i believe member patil bronson was in regards to the possibility of bifurcating timelines and what i'm understanding you to ask and please correct me if i'm wrong is that or can we explore the possibility for example of only extending the l pack into the fall and having the rest of the assessments be completed in the spring okay then yes that we if at the board's direction we could explore that as a possibility um my understanding from ets is that that would be significantly less cost possibly somewhere um between 15 to 20 million just for the summit of elpac to have an extension um with a spring administration and then also with the possibility of a

191fall administration thank you um remember fatah you are up next thank you president darling hammond um and i just wanted to echo the i guess the equity challenges and i think the reliability of data um i think it's just going to be too frustrating for leas just to offer a student perspective on test security and the usage of these secure browsers just from my personal experience and the experience of numerous students it's incredibly difficult to utilize secure browsers at home because computers tend to first of all not respond well to opening it up to their firewall um and also different computers like require different um like a ways of installing the secure browser so for example someone might have a macbook pro and might need to take certain steps to be able to implement the

192the i guess um program to be able to to take the test and then someone might have a chromebook someone might have like a razer laptop and so all of these different laptops and kind of the necessities to install the secure browsers i think going to create an incredible headache for least to kind of decipher um how to be able to you know administer testing um just from my experience i just can vividly recall at the beginning of this school year in my economics class we had a similar situation where um we practically spent the first 45 minutes of our first exam um trying to figure out how everyone could take a an exam via a secure browser and at the end of the 45 minutes my teacher just said okay we'll defer the test

193tool another day and um we came and we took it on an unsecured location and so um i think that just the headache that is gonna arise for lease is just going to continue to i guess put everyone in this position that um first of all the trucks from learning and second of all doesn't provide us with the the reliable and the viable data that we want um at school these um are typically pre-loaded onto computers and so um when we hopefully do return to in-person um it will you know be there for us to be able to take the test um and i can just imagine the impact that this will have on on taking away from the learning time because um you know someone will a student will show up to to take

194the test one day um and then while they're kind of there you know in the moment ready to take the test um they'll find out oh you know i don't know how to upload this to my to my firewall and everyone else would have started the test and that student will have to return to class having already had their day interrupted and they will have to return again to be able to take the test and so i think that it just takes away incredibly from the learning experience and opportunities from students and then another point that i wanted to to bring up was regarding um a question that board member rodriguez asked a little bit early on in today's discussion which was regarding um if we went to the fall assessment um the option that

195would require 74 million dollars um would next year's seniors need to take the casp um to which point i believe um rachel rachel responded with yes and so um i think my my question kind of goes back to the overarching um point that we're trying to to decide on um which is making data actionable um and to which point i think when we're assessing seniors and we're assessing students who are in their senior year of high school and we get the data back in december or november i don't think that the data becomes as actionable when they only have six months of of high school left i think it's a lot more actionable if we were to take a different approach to testing and we're not to to do it in the fall um and

196i think that the the 74 million dollar cost just echoing what board members said earlier um can have a lot bigger of an impact than a single assessment and we'll be a lot more actionable if we take a different approach and so for those reasons um i guess that's that's what i have to say thank you it's wonderful to have an expert in our midst we appreciate it member rodriguez and then remember patio bronson did you raise your hand again or is it just still up okay uh so remember rodriguez you may have the last word before we um ask for a moment okay that's a lot of pressure i uh you know it i think uh member strauss and i are sort of like telepathically communicating because everything that you said uh you know

197you you basically cut my comments short um and so i i completely agree with you and i appreciate all of the comments that have uh already been stated and the tech the tech problems with the testing that member fata just talked about uh you know we've been there uh with the ap testing and it has been very difficult um but that said i wanna i uh in in 2001 right uh the day before 9 11 um we opened a school in east palo alto and when we were the teachers were getting ready to talk to the students about 9 11 and try to explain to them the following day uh you know and i was like facilitating a group conversation on terrorism a student looked up at me and said i don't care about what

198happened in new york and i was just like oh and she said somebody just was killed in front of my house yesterday and then i thought yes why that's like so far away and this is happening in her home and and i was reminded of this yesterday when one of my students told me that she's lost four family members in the last month to covid um and this is very real what our students are going through and they're going through a post traumatic stress right which will be posed but they're in the middle of like surviving my students are scared about their parents making sure that their parents stay alive there's they have a lot of pressures right now and i think that testing under these circumstances you know where they're at home uh taking

199taking an exam would just exacerbate the stress a lot of my high school students are actually making sure that their little siblings tune in to their zoom classes and they're watching them and they tell me i'm going to turn my camera off because i have you know my siblings are in the background and they're very conscientious when they lose their technology they get super stressed out and send me over my message like i'm sorry i you know just like remember burr did right now right you know the stress i got i i'm letting somebody down is how they feel and i just i don't want to add to their stress and i and i fear that that um having them test under these circumstances right now would uh you know i'm all in favor of

200collecting data um with you know what we have on school what we've committed to at the at our school sites and uh producing in a way that we can we can know where our students are and where we need to uh get them right and where where where we may have some gaps and um you know help them help them achieve and and be able to fill those gaps so um i will close with that thank you thank you very much and i see member strauss's hand is raised i'm hoping you might be ready to make a motion i am so um what i'd like to do really is to summarize first some main themes that we've heard today that i've been taking notes on um from both the presentation and the comments from board

201members and then after that um i've asked staff to type up some recommended motions and appreciate what member portia bronson said is there's five separate motions so you'll be able to see those as well so for some areas of consensus that i think we're hearing which is that california should pursue a waiver of accountability provisions and the 95 participation rate the purpose of assessments is to gather data to guide teaching and learning and improving instructions that's the first thing no student should be required to come to school on just solely for the purpose of in-person testing and the as for the federal guidance that was released on monday the 22nd and it's preferred that students take the annual summative assessment in person to ensure that the results are valid and reliable and as the u.s

202department of education acknowledges some schools and some school districts may face circumstances in which they are not able to safely administer statewide summative assessments in person so while the districts are beginning to come back for in-person instruction and we're working intently as a state to facilitate that occurring some districts may not be back for in-person instruction until close to the end of the school year or even later and um and even as districts are able to get back to school in person there are some complex issues that they're working on ranging from managing new routines required by mitigation strategies to supporting students who are experienced trauma in their lives and also seeking to understand and address the learning gaps so we need to prioritize the use of time for assessments focusing first on ela and

203math and ensuring that english language learners can be assessed in the elpac the board has already approved a shortened assessment for math and english language arts so we'd like cde to explore with the test contractor other options to shorten the assessment such as providing the option to locally administer the performance tasks in the classroom which would really shorten testing time further for districts that might want to or need to pursue that option we should also take up the us department of education's offer to work with us to meet our needs and conditions as they have recognized that individual states like california may need additional assessment flexibility based on state-specific circumstances such as substantial majority of students who've engaged in remote learning throughout the entire 2021 school year so because of some of these options are

204going to require approval by the legislature and or the governor the goal is for the board to provide decision rules and options and to get delegate authority to staff so we can move expeditiously so with that that's my background i have five separate motions and i'm going to ask staff to share so you can see these have been tweaked based on the comments that we've heard um and i think address um the issues that we want to address each motion separately there'll be five separate motions um and then i will read it once you can see it so motion one is to direct everybody see that i hope to direct cde to prepare a waiver consistent with the federal template regarding flexibilities offered by ed for accountability and school identification which includes decoupling accountability from

205this year's assessments and waiving the requirement that the academic achievement indicator to be adjusted to account for a petition participation rate below 95 percent so that's motion one i'm uh president early on i'll read all five and then we'll take them up individually if that's okay okay motion two is to extend the 2021 test administration window for both the cast and elpac from july 15th to july 30th if it proves necessary and add a second fall test administration window for the 2021 school year for the elpac from august 15 to october 30th but that'll be contingent on the authorization of resources provided by the legislature and the governor motion three directs cde to prepare a general waiver of the california science test for 2021 school year recognizing that students have mostly been remote and not

206in school working on our new science standards with aligned materials and how hard it's been to teach science remotely motion 4 direct ce to pursue the option for districts that would like to do so of locally administering the cast math and ela performance tests in the classroom so they can reduce the testing time for the 2021 school year and finally motion 5 delegate the authority to the sbe executive director in collaboration with cde staff to develop guidelines to ensure the use of data from state approved assessments measuring california standards to provide valid and reliable information to parents about their calif their children's progress and to inform instructional decisions and targeting of resources to support student learning in local education agencies this is important where pupils have not been in person instructional settings long enough to

207appropriately assess them using the state summative assessments so those are the five separate motions i'll turn it back to president darling hammond for clarification on each and maybe we take them up one at a time wow so that's a that's quite a mouthful i'm sure people need to i'd adjust all that for a moment uh may i ask a couple of questions about um intent in some of these just so that everyone will have a shared understanding of what your uh idea is and then i see that there's a member of rutgers hands us up and there'll be some other hands that come up i'm sure um with respect to the um uh it seems to me that an underlying assumption behind this is that while some districts might be able to do some remote

208testing that we should not be relying on that as a primary way to do assessment is that am i correct in that assumption yeah that's correct we would assume that students come back to school and have several weeks before being given an assessment in person that that would then be valid and reliable so motion five addresses if students are not able to have a valid an assessment situation then this is the back up for those leas that aren't able to and i'm assuming that the diagnostic and benchmark assessments that districts have been using that uh were mapped to our standards that we approved are the ones that you're thinking about there yeah number five is for the local continuity learning continuity plan that districts already um had approved by their county office that they would

209use that data providing parent support and information if they are unable to provide a valid and reliable in-person assessment just to make a comment um i did hear other board members saying how important it is for whatever data we're making available to be publicly available beyond the parents so that may be another piece of that question um and you asked earlier uh who was it that said that kids should be back in school for three or four weeks before assessment and i didn't answer it then but um scott marion is the head of the center for assessment and um yeah they they make that recommendation so that's where that came from another question i have just for clarification uh on the science test is is it your assumption that because we don't have a shorter

210version of that uh or a uh a backup uh version of that that that's why you would make that motion yeah that's a really hard motion i i'm one of the liaisons for ngss and the science implementation and we've worked so hard since 2014 to get our new standards and implementation but districts didn't even fully purchase their aligned science materials before the shutdown happened and teachers have worked really struggled to try to provide science in a limited instructional minutes and so it seems like that one might be worth just delaying a year to get a real valid experience once students are back in class and i assume uh so the thank you i just i'm sure that other people will ask questions about other ones that they need to understand more fully so um in

211terms of who i have here on the screen i remember rucker and then member novel and then member burr okay so um eileen first of all i want to thank you for working paying attention to the conversation that happened and especially listen hearing my request first to try to divide these motions to take them up one at a time i would also like to request if possible for that the board members receive an email of these motions so that i can actually have them to hold on to and read as we go through and do the voting so i have a few questions starting with can i just ask quickly before you launch into the other questions is that possible to do i think i'm probably asking the staff yes linda we'll make sure it's

212done right now okay thank you go ahead member wrecker okay so i'm starting with the link between motion one and motion five so motion one is contemplating um using the state assessments in the cast uh to be consistent with the application that we would be submitting for the federal template is that correct um my comment uh member wrecker is to deal with the 95 issue that's what that's for okay but that's not my question my question is are the tests that you're talking about that would be reported that states would be the districts would be allowed to ignore the 95 participation rate are the tests the students would be participating in taking the tests that are in the cast yes okay so go ahead go ahead doctor i i think i i just learned that

213rachel may have a comment on one of these questions is that right i can't um president darling hammond i can save my comment um it's just a clarifying piece for motion too and i can wait until we get to that place thank you very much go ahead member record okay so then as it relates to the linkage between motion one and motion five the way the guidance letter says whatever statewide assessment we give that information has to be posted as well so it seems to me you're giving some duplicate reporting responsibilities as it relates to the purpose of this waiver the states they are all re districts are already supposed to be collecting the information related to these local assessments and using that to inform how they frame revise or update their lcap for the

214learning continuity plan so i'm not sure where the reporting as it's related to what you discussed in item 5 where that actually is going are you only reporting it for the local purposes or is this reporting in any way related to the waiver itself promotion number five so as part of your question remember rucker whether the uh use of those uh assessments um for providing data to parents would also be reported to at the district or state level that's what i'm asking yes okay i just want to be sure i understood the question yeah that's what i'm asking and thank you for asking it bet putting it in a better way i appreciate that like i said follow the conversation here i'm not kidding when i tell you i'm a little confused yeah so i'll

215answer and then i think um president darling avador um dr mays might be able to answer but the intent on number five is if you're not able to give the state assessment in person in a reasonable way to get valid information then you revert to the assessments that you've already gotten approved in your learning continuity plan now those i don't believe would be reported but they would report it to parents on how students were doing but not in the state of data system so okay so i'm going to restate i mean i'm going to rephrase what i think i heard you say so this is so with this collection of five waivers the link between waiver one and waiver two is this you're creating some flexibility for districts that are say the 52 of the

21658 districts that are in purple and currently closed and cannot give in-person assessments you're giving them an option to use something other than the statewide assessments to collect information about the performance of students on english language arts and mathematics is that correct if they are unable to return in person in enough time to administer prior to um july okay so but if the but for the districts that do uh return for in-person assessments in-person instruction in time to give this within the window that we're contemplating extending they would give the state assessments the casp assessments is that correct is that correct board members that is correct so that would mean if i voted yes on motion one and yes on motion five there's a possibility that we could have districts um as a result of

217this testing window this year giving two different types of assessments to their students uh to address the waiver that we've asked the feds to approve is that is that correct i don't understand that oh no it's my understanding under this proposal and again president early hammock can clarify our executive director can is that if students are back in person in enough time to give a reliable test that's what they give if they aren't able to return in enough time to give the valid and reliable tests then they use the local the data that was already approved in their local learning continuity plan so they if they gave the assessment during the spring window all the way to july they wouldn't um they that would be what they would be reporting and again i would ask

218staff to follow up on member records clarification question okay yeah see that's why i'm confused because yeah so i'll stop and see if somebody else can ask the question better because it seems to me for example if and if i have anybody on this listening to this who's from the districts i'm about to name please don't get bad with me so if elk grove unified school district has returned fully to in-person instruction motion one would require them to give the cast the s assessment is that correct is that correct board member strauss that that is what the motion states okay but if so dealing with the 90 reducing the um participation rate below 95 that's what the intent of motion one is okay so that's my that's where i'm confused so i live in placer

219county so if the district where i live in placer county is not able to return the full-time in-person instruction they would have this flexibility on how they administ administer the state assessment that a district like elk grove would not have because they're going to be using the state assessment and they will not be able to use it in the way that elk grove will that's why i'm confused it seems like these two different motions are creating two different sets of permissions for districts and i'm not sure that's what we're trying to do that's why i'm confused um i i don't know all the details of what is um possible in this context but i know that rachel was waiting to give some clarification on at least one point so i would suggest that we should

220get that clarification uh i i think um and eileen you can clarify the intent the intent is as i read it was that in the law there's a requirement to get information every year to parents about their children and their progress and if it's not possible to give that information from the state summative test because the conditions for giving that test are not appropriate uh for for the you know context of that the use of other assessment data would be to uh meet that aspect of the law is what would be recommended and am i um on track with that eileen and then there's the question of whether you report it beyond that and i think that's a separate question that we need to take up you know after we get the first question straight

221president darwin hammond can i clarify one piece um so in the letter it makes it pretty clear that it has not waived the requirement to report out your data in the sarc so regardless if you use a local assessment or you use the summative that requirement still stands that you would report that information within the sarc and also to parents the second piece that i just wanted to clarify quickly for motion two and i and i apologize if i didn't make this clear earlier um we we cannot offer for the um assessments to go through july 30th for the the lpac and for the um and offer a fall administration window as well there there's not enough time for um our contractor to be able to turn over the assessment information with a new year

222of data because remember they have to close out the school year um from from 2021 and then have another school year with new student information from 2122 so to go from july 30th and then only have potentially a 15 day window isn't enough time so it can't be an and both it has to be an either or okay that's an important point for us to clarify so then that clarifies the information i was asking for so as it relates to motion one and motion five why i would like to ask is why can't we for both motion allow the ask the feds to give us the flexibility to use the local assessments that all districts already have to use as part of their lcap because because those are considered those are have been adopted by

223the board those are valid and reliable all districts including charter schools use those alternative assessments and those local assessments regularly now and can administer them whether we are using them virtually or for in-person instruction and it seems like those assessments as a class of assessments would solve the burden issues and the timeline and delivery issues both for motion one and motion five so that's a very uh deep question uh which i want to put a pin in and come back around to i just want to ask that question thank you very much because it it would imply having no statewide data so that that would be the question about that uh it's so i'm going to move i think next we have did i call who was going to come next i can't recall i

224don't think so all right i'm just going to go across my uh list here um member patio bronson member son member navo member burr and then member of glover woods um so i have a couple questions just about how this would work mechanically because there are cada or tk to 12 districts that um may open for elementary and have in-person instruction um but i think it's a eventuality or at least a possibility that some of those same districts may not open for um upper grade middle school and high school in person um i'm very much hoping that we get there anyway um but just trying to figure out how would would that essentially give rise to the um situation that board member rucker was describing where elementary students might be required to do the casp

225but their junior high or middle school and high school students might not i also wanted to pick up on the thread that board president darling hammond described of parent-facing data as distinct from public-facing data and whether there's state-level data that would not just be available to parents who i think are are absolutely a critical audience um but also whether the data that is made available to parents is something that they would have to actually hunt around for in the sarc to find or whether it would go um directly to parents as is the case um with us back data um also on the state level uh question and this is maybe more of a descriptive question for the existing um validated data sources that the sbe has already approved previously around a sort of data

226collection that's short of casp data would there be an effort under motion 5 for there to be some almost preferred data sources that are more consistently used across lea so that you could actually see trend and differentiation between leas i think a lot of the audience that we think about is sometimes local and sometimes it is our state legislative partners who want to know if um if across the board a school school districts are seeing big gaps or whether it's just one district using one data source that looks pretty good so that you can have some comparability across districts and then the last question on motion five i'm just assuming um but would love to have it named explicitly that the data that would be provided at the district or lea level would be disaggregated

227data um so you can see racial trends and socioeconomic trends um so that once we get to the stage of thinking about learning acceleration um into 2022 that we know where to be laser focused and targeted there's a lot of questions i'm going to just make one comment then if uh rachel or others want to or eileen wants to clarify anything in her motion which is that um we have recently received the aggregated reports from the core districts that used a number of those assessments some of you may have seen one version of the study that pasted using those data but other reports have come in since then that have been able to show the aggregated data at the district level because it's in their student data set uh presumably every student is identified with

228the with the score that they received so it's conceivable and would seem to me likely that you could report that certainly at the district level in a disaggregated way and they were able to report across districts because they had assembled that data set i'm not sure whether that would be routinely possible because that was available only because of the core consortium but reporting in a disaggregated way at the district level should be possible when you have a district-wide test they were able to report that by grade level by you know socioeconomically disadvantaged by race and ethnicity by language background and that is something that is um routine in a data set where you would locate test scores with student records just to clarify that one piece that i understood um rachel did you want to

229add anything to any of those questions no i don't think so not at this time okay um i'm going to go to uh is that okay remember pto bronson that's what we've got it right now i think um about to go to members son thank you uh so yeah just i'm pursuing a bit the trend that uh member rucker was going down with motion one and five and the potential bifurcation of schools that open earlier being required to take the full casp and then allowing schools districts that open later to use the local assessments and i just i think we set up a situation where we're disincentivizing in some ways schools from opening earlier because then they would have to be under this onus of taking the full cast or the cast exam and i

230just don't think that is how we want to set this up so i think we have to face that if we are that we're either going to have state data or we're going to have local data and i don't think we can try to the to separate the two or try to bifurcate this i don't think it would set up a system that is fair and equitable across so i'm really i'm i'm frustrated not with anyone just the situation that we are in and i do find it unacceptable not to have statewide data until 2022. so i'm not quite sure i can go through each of these motions and there are aspects of it that that i would go for but i um i i feel we haven't had enough time to explore all the

231options um and what the what some of the technical aspects would be for administering or having some kind of a statewide assessment pulse before spring of 2022 if we were to wave spring of 21. yeah thank you i don't know if anyone wants to respond to that or we'll just we'll get we'll keep all the comments going and then we'll come back around to them remember the wrong button i apologize um so i i'm probably as confused as i hear other people being um and so i i guess i'm gonna i'm gonna try the let's kick the can down the road approach uh we have another meeting in three weeks we just got the federal guidance two days ago and as everyone has said and i neglected to say the department staff and the board

232staff have done a herculean effort in pulling together what they have in two days but i think as comments um that have been shared by all of my colleagues indicate this is an unbelievably complex problem it's very hard to unravel everything i think it's very hard to come up with a solution on the fly which is what we're trying to do i don't i think you have know from my comments i'm not supportive of having a test administration a state level test administration given all of the issues that many of us have already identified and so i can't support some of these motions for that reason number two motion two for example honestly i think motion five is written in such a way as to be almost incomprehensible it doesn't clearly state what i heard

233board member strauss and i know in her heart she believes that kids need to be back in person in order to administer the test but that just doesn't work with these other ones where they're kind of interrelated to me so i guess i would like to offer for consideration giving the staff some time to go back and take a deep breath and go okay we've heard what everyone had to say we understand what the input is primarily from the field and from our um our state other stakeholder groups and let us think about this for a week or two i think that there's no rush i was really worried about the rush but if we just open essentially the testing window on monday i don't know that waiting a couple of weeks when 90 of

234our kids are not even back in person is going to make that much difference so i just like to put that out there as an option for us to consider thank you um member nava yeah and i'm sorry i'm going to have to to jump in from here and jump back on but i i wanted to get some thoughts down so with regarding the motion what i i agree with board member burr um you know i i really feel at this point that there's a if we're listening to our constituents we've got to have a motion somewhere in there for a blanket waiver to state testing and i feel like it's maybe a little bit more simple for me um and and certainly not necessarily correct but it seems like we have to give the

235the field some kind of direction so it's either pursue a motion to pursue a blanket waiver from testing that's one option a motion to pursue full flexibilities around testing administration with an extended window of some sort to at least july 30th i think if locals understand the complexities and the cost associated with doing a fall administration i think their opinions might be different um and and to the extent that either one of those come together we anchor to we're going to take our s back and that we do the best we can as a state to complicate it with bifurcated uh systems some using local measures some losing state measures i think yeah we do create a lot more problems so if i was sitting in a local seat and i'm listening to the conversation

236i'm listening to three options i have i have one a motion for a blanket waiver that that the feds are highly likely to not approve two a motion for full extended flexibilities with the best i can do as an extended waiver to july 31st for testing if they don't approve the blanket waiver and three we we all anchor in and take the s back and and and with whatever other motions of flexibility we need but i really feel like at this point that in the best interests of students in the state of california at this at this point in juncture in time where we sit that i can't help but feel that it's not in their best interest to test them it's in other people's best interest to test them because we need data but

237what they're focused on and what families are focused on and what certainly most educators would be focused on is the re-entry and recovery of students as they re-enter school so for me i lean heavily with board member burr and i unless i missed it um board member strauss i didn't see a motion for an option for the blanket waiver and i'd like to at least consider that and and with that uh board member linda darlingham and i'm gonna have to jump and jump back on unfortunately okay we'll ask you more questions when you jump back on uh remember glover woods i just thank member novel as he's jumped off for really um articulating what i was thinking as well um i do have a concern based on the conversations that we've had with um just

238the ambiguity and who would give a state assessment and who would use local assessments i think we open up um just a can of worms for a lot of confusion and trouble um in a time that's already confusing um what we've heard overwhelmingly is the desire for the pursuit of a blanket waiver as a member novel i think again very eloquently said it would seem that it's almost a tiered approach approach um and submit a blanket waiver if that is denied then look at the other option that is available which if it is denied it looks like the only other option would be to administer either extend the testing window or administer in the fall and based on the comments and based upon the information that's been prepared by cde staff it seems that the

239extension of the testing window would be better than trying to do a fall administration i while i appreciate again the complexity of the decisions that need to be made thus the complexity of the motions we have before us i i think it creates a lot of confusion and i would be concerned if we're not able to simplify and be more direct if we are indeed going to take up any of the motions today that we're going to create more confusion in the field and we're going to move away from the original intent of this conversation which is what to do and best for students can i just um inquire um well i'll come back about the the point that you're making i think a question i would have if we were to be asking for

240a blanket waiver at this point and waiting for the response is first of all the department of signal that they're not inviting those waivers so there's not likely to be a positive response would we jeopardize uh districts even further in you know the timeline that they've asked us to get clarity on for them um so i think there's a really important point about the ambiguity of number five but there's other ambiguity created by a a solution that takes us for too far too much further down the road timewise remember patio bronson [Music] remember rucker yes let me just say again i think that uh i agree i absolutely agree with board president darling hammond that um the plain language of the letter states that the feds are not inviting blanket waivers but the language and

241the waiver in the letter also says that they do not want to see states creating a proposal that will simply bring students back to school for the purpose of taking the test that they will consider in the waiver request the conditions that exist in the state in california 52 of 58 schools county office counties in our state are in the purple so rather than just simply saying we need a complete waiver we should state that we need the flexibility to waive the assessment requirement in those counties where it is clearly not recommended that schools should reopen solely for the purpose of bringing school students back to school that falls far short of a blanket waiver but it gives us the ability to maximize the kind of flexibility we can ask for none of these wave

242none of these motions contemplate that as a consideration and i do believe the feds will look seriously at that for us because that with the architecture of designating those colors designating those safety conditions and doing the scenario evaluations for those um for those levels and that status that was scientifically and publicly done to affect all public entities not just schools so i think that that is something that the fed should be asked to consider i think that that will solve some of the flexibility issues we have it will still fall within the confines of addressing definitely the 95 participation rate waiver but i think we need to contemplate how to maximize giving flexibility in the local contact because there are just going to be some schools that can't do this and the letter in the

243plain language of the letter clearly says we can make a case and frame what our state conditions are these motions currently do not do that so thank you member wrecker i actually think that that's probably the intention of number five which is confusing now you've suggested proposing some just objective standards for where that flexibility would be and i think that's a useful idea for us to take up what i think i just heard a voice so i want to be sure if somebody was trying to presidents can i just offer um maybe three thoughts two for consideration um that i may be helpful for the discussion um one is i just for consideration a blanket waiver um if we submit one would take months for us to find out if it was approved or not

244so i i think the time timing of that we would need to consider and to your point it's been made pretty clear that a blanket waiver would not be approved so that's one piece for consideration i think the second piece for consideration um and i think it was member navo that i heard say this the um idea of administering the summatives and everyone just do the best that you can that's where the majority of the states that we are hearing are are moving forward understanding the context and that everyone is just going to do the best that they can um so for what that's worth the the final thing that i thought um as i'm listening to the conversation it sounds like the the majority of the angst or the questions are coming up around

245the ela and the math assessments so i'm wondering if it's possible for us to identify if there's some commonality or agreement in some of the other areas so for example when you look at motion one it really is just express it expressly decoupling any sort of accountability from assessments regardless of what assessments we give so i i think that there might be some from everything i've heard at least a desire to move in that direction and that doesn't necessarily require that we define what that looks like yet the second piece is for the science waiver that's been proposed and i think that that might be something that that you could look at having a motion for um and then the the third piece would be specifically for the elpac is that something that you want

246to potentially explore providing a fall administration option to or going to july 30th so for what it's worth i just thought from everything that i'm hearing maybe we could be able to find some some commonality within those um if we parse it that way um what the remaining then major question is is whether we adopt the approach that as you said many states are taking which is you know just do the best you can and um for states i know i talked to the texas commissioner yesterday you know they're they're also ruling out remote assessment because of all the problems we've heard about um and they're just saying when you're in person do the best you can to give the assessment where it's possible to give it and to the students who are available to

247take it so that's one strategy um another strategy is to have some flexibility around an objective measure as member rucker was suggesting that has to do with availability for in-person education and assessment a third possibility would be to ask for the diagnostic assessments to be used across the board and we would be essentially saying we would not have statewide data so i think those are really as far as i can tell the buckets into which the others fall and maybe what we should just take a break for about 15 minutes uh let us figure out how to frame up the you know the options uh rachel that was extremely helpful to sort of identify where i think we may have some easy things to check off and then look at those other buckets and we

248could make the judgment uh i think the fourth option as member burst said is to wait until a march meeting that is three plus weeks away and i do think that the field wants some direction um and needs some direction um but you know we can decide whether that's a viable option as well um so why don't we take 15 minutes it's um 12 35 or maybe even 20 minutes let's give give ourselves 20 minutes you might even be able to grab half of the sandwich and come back and we'll um you know figure out which options we can take up today and what we need to pond till later don't turn don't leave the room just turn off your camera to um re-establish the quorum first remember president darling hammond here member fatah here

249remember glover woods here member mcquillen your member nava here member patel brownson here remember rodriguez here member rucker here vice president strauss here number son here member here everyone's president account for okay um i would like to um see if rachel would be willing to review since we had some board members who are out for a moment the three things that you felt we should move forward on um immediately or could potentially and then i'll redefine the buckets that are left and then we'll proceed with the conversation okay that sounds great um so from the conversation as i had shared before it sounded like most of the discussion um that needed further exploration was around the math and ela casp assessments so the motion number one is specific to decoupling accountability firm assessments regardless of

250which direction you choose to go in with the assessments piece the first one is truly just about relief from the accountability requirements at the federal level the second option we could put the casp aside for right now and focus on the lpac do you want to provide an extended window for the lpac and if so through july 30th or an optional additional window into the fall pending of course um approval from the legislature for additional funding for that window and then the third motion that i see presented is around the waiver for the science assessment and then uh thank you very much very helpful organizers and then it seems like the other options um that have been placed on the table are whether to pursue a blanket waiver and what would that mean whether to

251adopt the strategy that many states are taking which is do the best you can when you're back in person and you know assess those students that you can with the statewide summative test and then just no data for other students or no particular you know strategy for other students um the third uh is i think what this set of uh motions was intending which was to ask folks who are able to move forward to give the state assessments and then to have some potentially a decision rule as member rutgers suggested for where we need to request flexibilities and then the fourth idea was maybe we punched some of this till march and i think we have to sort out what to be fair to the field can be punted and and what what you know

252they need some uh indications on to be able to to move forward so what i'd like to do is deal with the first three of those that rachel outlined um initially and see if we can get some of the low-hanging fruit off the table if you will and then come back to a discussion of of the other choices that we have so um the first of those is motion one so why don't we see if we have a someone ready to make um and maybe eileen you'd like to do this uh okay we've got a new we've got a new thing coming up here i think it's just highlighted okay so thank you for doing that so motion one direct the cd to prepare a waiver consistent with the federal template regarding flexibilities offered for

253ed by ed for accountability and school identification which includes decoupling accountability from this year's assessments and waiving the requirement um that the academic achievement indicator be adjusted to account for participation below 95 so i move approval of motion one i will second thank you very much is there further discussion of that motion hearing no further discussion yes remember sorry sorry um well i'm just confused about whether the last part of that motion about waiving the requirement related to the academic achievement indicator i think that's related to whether or not we give the statewide assessment is that accurate isn't that what the academic indicator is um the academic achievement indicator in normal times does uh assume that the assessment you're giving is the statewide summative uh test so i i mean i i understand that this

254seems like it's the easy one because we want to get i won't say you know we we don't think the accountability requirements should be in place because of all the challenges we've been talking about but i just don't know if by adopting this motion it presumes some action that we're going to take on the statewide assessment so that that's just my only concern about that one we could go ahead can we just simply say and waiving the requirement uh to account for participation at the rate below 95 waiving the requirement for participation rate of 90 of uh of 95 because it does sound like having that academic achievement indicators just kind of odd when the 95 participation is a the part of the federal law maybe i could provide a clear meaning of the 95

255what the i'm sorry just to be clear what's being invited is this this language is specific to what's being invited i see okay i just want to clarify that and president darling hammond could i just make a clarification um to the 95 piece as well so there are two places in statute where the 95 um rule is discussed one is the requirement for the 95 participation rate and then the other is the linking of the participate participation rate to the academic indicator what the waiver presented the letter presented from the department of education was the waiver the decoupling of the 95 participation rate to the academic indicator the requirement just in general for the participation is still in place there's just no consequence to it that clarify sufficiently maybe not but it that's what it

256is remember did you want to um your head was still up so i mean i think what yours suggested you'd want to be sure that this if we did a vote on this we decouple it from uh if there were uh the use of the state summit of assessments that this would pertain but i will just say that and i saw ting's reaction that rachel's clarification in some ways makes this even more of a conundrum because how on the earth are we going to get a 95 participation rate if we decide to give the state test i mean i don't well no did i misunderstand yeah let me just try another way of articulating and also point it back to rachel for a further explanation um the 95 participation rate is still in the law

257the way in which it has had meaning for states is because it was coupled with accountability requirements this would decouple it from the accountability requirement it does not remove it you know from the from the law so to speak rachel do you want to try another um explanation no what you said is accurate um and and i think to your point um remember whether you give the summative or we use a different assessment i think there's question around meeting that standard and discussions i've heard in some places the goal of having the state summative plus the option for alternatives where necessary in a flexible way is in part intended to help people get to a higher participation rate in assessment so that more parents and more students will have access to assessment data but there

258is not going to be a accountability link to the 95 participation rate if one asks for this flexibility that's what offered in the waiver remember rucker my question was similarly related to board member burrs a question concerning the academic and achievement indicator i'm not sure that there is a way to wordsmith this motion uh to address the guidance to the staff to make the application as it relates to the first waiver enumerated in the guidance letter i think that there is a because this does decouple the assessment itself from the accountability reporting requirements the most important function that this motion serves is to give the staff the guidance that we intend to apply for that flexibility the second piece about the assessment itself is part of that additional consideration for our circumstances the unique the

259circumstances unique to our state that we're going to have to explore in a separate and distinct way so while i do i am very clear that this is related to the assessments identified that the state uses for its academic indicator i believe we're going to have a second different conversation a separate waiver to talk about that assessment and how we're going to try in the most practical way there can we add the two words to this motion as applicable as applicable i think would be a good way to do it yes and then we will make the determination about the applicability shortly with those clarifications any further discussion of this motion uh all in oh we need a roll call vote from brooks can you call the roll of course so on the motion is

260amended remember burr aye president darling hammond hi yes remember rodriguez yes member rucker yes vice president strauss yes member son hi that's the unanimous okay president darlene hammond could i just add one piece as a reminder as well to this um and i'll and i'll probably continue to say this throughout the day just so that we have some um clarification and remember to keep this in the forefront of our minds but the motion that just passed relieves us from the federal requirements it does not relieve us from the state requirements so for all of these things i just want there to be a reminder that we are still held to the state requirements and it will require a vote from the legislature yes i don't know if i'm freezing or if rachel is freezing so

261i'm going to move to another place to see if we get better at wi-fi president darling hammond i don't think it's on your end no it was rachel that froze it's rachel okay so there she's back she's moving again she's speaking again okay oh no did you all hear me we did we did we apologize all of these things require state uh legislative approval as well so thank you for reminding us of that we'll try to hold that in our mind um i actually think that motion two is not as simple as as it might be because we would have to make a judgment about whether we want to extend the administration window for the casp or for the elpac if we're just restricted to the elpac to july 30th or to the fall because

262we can't have both and so i'm not sure that we know the answer to that yet and it might be one of those things that we can make a motion that we want to extend the elpac window and come back in march and say how far we think we can extend it once we have more input but i would be i would welcome rachel your thoughts about that in terms of whether you feel we have enough input from the field to know what kind of extension would be preferable for the automatic well i i think similar and unfortunate to other situations that we've been in with a pandemic in order for us to move any of the assessments to the fallen to provide a fall administration option we would have to make that decision today

263in order for ets to prepare an entirely new fall administration um window they would have to start work on that immediately so it's i and i again i apologize for the timeliness of this but that's that is one that we would have to consider right away i remember i i take your word and i appreciate all the complexity here i do remember last year we had to make that judgment later just because the schools closed you know in march and then we made that judgment but maybe we maybe between us we know enough to know which would be the more desirable window well and just as the clarification for last year as well we offered that um solely for reclassification purposes it wasn't open to all of our english learners throughout this that's right so

264i personally don't feel like i haven't you know a way to make the judgment about what will be more usable and useful to districts in that regard but remember glover woods has an idea oh i don't know if it's an idea it's more of a question and um in relation to the lp fall administration and the funding that would be needed for that um was i correct in understanding earlier in the meeting that that request for funding is something that would need to go to the legislature and if so is that a decision that we would recommend today in light of not having a lot of information around that rachel do you i mean the answer is yes we would have to go to the legislature for the funding um do you want to add

265any other thoughts i see remember strauss says her hand up also i would just i would agree with that one i can president darling hammond i would concur that the we would have to um have approval from the legislature for the funds as well as the administration opening up the administration window it might be that the safest thing is to simply recommend um extension through the 30th so that we know that people can use it um but remember strauss do you have a thought well so i i feel like the um the priority would be to elpac extension and extending to the 30th really it's only two weeks so i'm just wondering it's actually a longer extension for the lpac because the alpaca otherwise closes in may um i think may 31st uh and so

266if we went to july 30th for the alpaca it would be a longer extension so i i just wonder if there's a way to make the motion on the lpac pending um legislative and governor approvals so that that one it sounds like we cannot delay if in fact we want a fall window um and i was that's why i heard rachel say that that and i i guess i just want it to be in person and i don't know that everyone's going to be back in time so i feel like we need to extend so i guess the question is is it better to extend it into july and make that as a motion and then come back in march or may no you can't say rachel said we have to extend for fall now

267if we want it so i guess that'd be my proposal um president darling hammond that that we do we separate out just the extension of the elpac window remember well so i'm i am so confused today um we can't i'm i i sort of understand why you want it to be urgent for ets but if it's contingent upon the authorization of resources provided by the legislature and the governor i'm pretty sure they're not going to do that before our march meeting so if we're trying to figure out do we to to be more comprehensive if you will that we both extend the window and we provide or we provide for a fall window i think it's worth trying to buy some time to figure out how that happens and what makes the most sense and

268my my other point of confusion is whether or not this extension is related to a federal waiver or this is something that we think is a good thing to do just for purposes of test administration and for services to english learners uh you know it is mentioned in the federal letter but i think that it is actually a state decision we do not need federal approval or permission to extend that window as far as i know but i'm going to put that back to rachel to clarify for this piece i'll ask dr bang if she would be able to provide some clarification as far as what the requirements are for the extension of the lpac so if there is a if we want to extend it we are taking emergency regulations to the march um

269board meeting so that we can extend it as then through our emergency ranks process and um that may we were anticipating there may be some interest in that and that is why we worked through that process so through our emergency regs we could extend it well the the mention of this in the federal letter was because um english learner assessments are typically on an earlier time frame than other assessments which is true in our state as well and people across the country were beginning to bring english learners back for uh assessments when schools were not safe to be open in person and there was actually some litigation brought by the lawyers committee for civil rights against about eight of the states saying they'll bring english leaders back in the pandemic to you know when the

270schools aren't safe to be open for testing um because of their earlier windows so there's encouragement in the letter to extend the window for english learners where it is earlier than others which it was also for california we were you know to finish that by may 31st as opposed to by july 15th which is or the close of school whichever comes sooner which is our other date for assessment closures so one way to be sure that we are signaling taking more time to get to english learners would be to simply extend the date now through july 30th which adds two full months to what uh districts would otherwise be thinking they needed to do because anything else we do is contingent on the legislature it's contingent on emergency regulations and we might make a decision

271today to do something that proves uh impossible to do and we will not have extended the timeline meanwhile to meet the need that was originally identified brooks is raising his hand yeah i believe general counsel science has uh some feedback as well um yes so if we wanted to we do not need a federal waiver to extend the testing window for elpac this year as mao said we would need to change regulations and we could do that at the march meeting however if we wanted to do a fall testing window for elpac we would need a federal waiver plus we would need state law change because we would not be administering the elpac in the this current school year the other problem we would have is that just as we heard for fall testing otherwise

272students will have changed schools sometimes they will have changed districts because they've gone from an elementary district to a you know a high school district uh you know there are all the record keeping problems associated with that um so the intention of it is a very good intention and we did it as rachel reminded us for reclassification this year but it is a complicated thing to do and if it if people don't know whether it will be improved approved in time to shift their plans they may still feel the urgency of of testing english learners earlier than they would otherwise have to plan for if we were to extend at least through july 30th which to me seems like maybe the safer thing to do leaving it alone does leave leave people in the the

273situation where they feel they need to bring kids in um in some cases for testing because we've seen the problems of remote testing of english learners in some districts already remember nava did you want to weigh in well i was and then then i decided i wasn't and so now i will why you should yeah go ahead i was just wondering why there wasn't any reason we just couldn't make it make both of those july 30th 2021 and and leave the rest out and should the extent that we need to revisit this in march we can but for now giving the field some direction that at least minimally speaking you have until july 30th to finish your elpac which seems to be the the least complicated and requires the least a number of hoops to

274jump through as a state yeah and uh just to clarify we can't uh the the contractor can't boot up again for a full administration easily if we've gone to july 30th but it is the thing that probably sends the most clear signal to the field in the moment to begin to reduce some of the um you know ambiguity that that people are experiencing matt would you like to make a motion on on that sure um to the extent that there's there's no other conversation i i would make the most of it we could take more conversation after we have a motion sure that we extend the 2020-21 test administration window for both casp and elpac to july 30th 2021. while you were gone there was um more conversation about casp um i guess we could

275also add the word whether you know we would be um some people want to revisit the question about cass so uh we could say as appropriate yes or what was it what we said as applicable as applicable yes all right that makes sense to me we have a motion do we have a second i'll stop all right is there further discussion of the motion all right uh brooks can you call the role remember no president darling hemmed yes member fatah yes remember glover woods no member mcquillen yes member novo yes member patel brownson yes remember rodriguez yes member rucker um not voting vice president strauss yes member son i i wish we had just addressed only the lpac i'm sorry because the casp is what's keeping me i was added as applicable so if we're

276not going to have the casp it won't be applicable okay then yes the motion carries okay um just try to work our way through and then we'll come to the big buckets uh the third one was motion three direct cde to prepare a general waiver of this california science test for the school year per the rationale that remember strauss provided earlier is there further discussion of that motion or do i have a motion to use remember stress do you want to remove that re hyphen move that motion three direct cd to prepare a general waiver of the california science test for the 2021 school year i second all right so we have a motion second is there further discussion of that motion all right we'll call the roll remember i president darling hammond aye member

277fatah i remember glover woods yes member mcquillen yes member nava hi member patil brownson yes remember rodriguez yes remember rucker yes vice president strauss yes remember son aye motion carries unanimously okay so now we get to the fun part we've all been waiting for um which is i think what we sorted out were the various possible ways that one could address the remainder of the testing question uh one is to request a blanket waiver one is to do the best you can you have to ask people to use those state summative assessments uh that remain after the science is removed uh do the best you can when you're back in person and those students who you know i think we have already put a parameter saying you need to be back in person you need

278to be back in person for a number of weeks for kids to be back and then to do as much assessment as is practicable in that period of time and there will just be um something less than a 95 participation rate likely uh that's the strategy that rachel described other states using and it is constant with what i've heard in some places a third is to have the state assessment uh with a decision rule for flexibilities um uh for as member rutgers said if there's some objective criterion that one would use to then look at other ways to provide data where in-person instruction is not happening and safe and appropriate for the use of the state summative tests and then the fourth would be to try to see whether we can come back to this

279question in march um and i think that is based on whether we you know feel the field needs some some um additional uh indications today to be able to figure out how to proceed um let me pause there and say under the blanket waiver that would also i think cover the question that some people have raised about just letting everyone use whatever it is that they've got i mean that's essentially you know one of the ways that one could write for a um a different kind of way um so uh first let me see if anybody sees any other possibilities that i have not named so that we can then take them in an orderly way and just think through the different components uh and i will say that um you know there are uh

280there were a few states that had asked for blanket waivers um most of them are now reconsidering within the parameters of the guidance that's come out but there may be uh you know there may be others who do that there um is uh at least one state that wrote a waiver that would uh require local assessments so that's that bucket um most states are in the category of do the best you can when you're back in person and some are doing the version of we're going to offer the statewide assessment we're also going to work with districts that cannot give that assessment to be sure that there is some assessment data that is made available so all of these represent you know realities in the field in one way or another uh some of them

281much more common than others um i think the first thing i want to ask though of of our staff is uh because i think we need we have not talked about this if we were to ask for a blanket waiver what are the penalties that we would be facing if as is presumed it would be likely denied so my understanding is that in statute the requirement for assessments is tied to our federal funding so that that is a possibility that the um that eed could choose to withhold any or all of our federal funds um we've got a a hand up from member burr i just want to clarify what the penalty my understanding is that the the first step that the feds would take would be to try to limit our administrative funds meaning

282the funds that go primarily to the department of education for um for their work not that that's minuscule but it's not but they typically have not in the past even though sometimes they try to threaten it uh take away money from kids they don't take away the money that goes directly to leas but anyway i just wanted to clarify that yeah i'd be happy to clarify that on member and and this is my understanding i i believe you may have participated in this so if if you have a different understanding let me know um but my understanding was that first there was the the statement that they would withhold our federal funds um targeting specifically title 1 during that time and then through multiple negotiations and discussions it was brought down to just our administrative

283funds and they did end up withholding some of that yeah they've withheld funds from two states california and idaho uh in in the past i think by law they could withhold all of our federal funds i think it you know became a negotiation or something at some point in time uh member rucker um so i was going to also weigh in on that same discussion i think that um in looking at and talking about this i i don't think we need to talk speak to this in absolute terms while the waiver contemplates a way for us to do the assessment in a way that would collect statewide data let me suggest that we parse that requirement to say we have a way to ensure that statewide there will be a uniform type of data collection

284from all of the districts but it doesn't it won't necessarily be based on the use of a statewide assessment so if we are uniformly requiring all districts to collect and publicly report information about the progress of students on academic growth on english language arts and math but they're using local assessments we are still requiring a statewide data collection and we are requiring that be done in a uniform and timely way we're just not going to use the state assessment to do it it relieves us of the burden of trying to figure out how to administer a state assessment and allows us to give districts the local flexibility in the context of what's going on in the health pandemic issue to use the local assessment and local assessment practices that's all that they are already doing

285the letter does give us that flexibility to make that case and that would be the recommendation i would suggest we look at and in your version remember rucker it doesn't give us the uh flexibility up front it gives us the as you said the opportunity to make the case um in case but they're clear in cases where there are unusual circumstances right and we're not making up the unused the unusual circumstances are not something that we as the state board have made up this is work that's already been undertaken by multiple stakeholder policy groups in the health community to set a uniform standard for defining these conditions so it's not even going to be conditions that change from location to location it's a uniform set of criteria that's already in place and in your version

286of this member record would the state be offering the statewide assessment for those who found that to be the best way to proceed and and uh accepting other just other assessments where they can meet the standards that you laid out from other districts i think that i i i am open to suggesting that but i think that might be a difficulty for the feds because what they will see is two different types of blocks of assessment data there will be different flags of assessment data be used um i think if i think of the point the feds want to make is that we're making publicly accessible information about the uh about the progress that students are making and we're saying we're going to do this in a uniform way across the state i think we're

287still meeting the intent of preparing a statewide report because districts would be reporting the same kind of data in a uniform way that we define for them if they haven't already chosen something that allows for that and administered it there would need to be a default well i don't see how they would i don't see how they wouldn't have done that since it's a requirement for both for the lcap and the learning continuity plans that already requires it and i know charter schools are already doing it because we identified those 11 alt assessments that they can use for that purpose so i i would be surprised to know based on the requirement to approve the learning continuity plans last fall that there wouldn't be a district that doesn't already have that i'm just suggesting that

288we don't know for sure and we don't know what they will allow in terms of reporting fully so you might need a default in that in that version i'm going to go to member glover woods and then we'll discuss some of the others remember glover woods thank you i just had a question regarding the timeline we if we were to pursue a waiver of any sort be it blanket or similar to what member rucker suggested could you remind me again rachel what is kind of the expected timeline that we would receive a response from ed on whether that waiver is allowed or accepted or from my my understanding from previous practice when we've submitted things like this is that it takes quite some time okay so in in in light of that we'll say quite

289some time would that then mean if the waiver is not approved then we are still required to either administer the state assessment or make a choice not to administer the state assessment and take the consequences that would come from not adhering to that uh and uh i will let um judy science jump in on this too if i'm incorrect but my understanding is that until um we have an approved waiver we would need to continue to move forward to meet the obligations laid down under essa okay that helps so we would be obligated to continue to be assessing okay thank you that helps to clarify thank you i'm looking to see if there's another another hand up um i i don't have the federal letter in front of me which i wanted to get uh

290but there's a um i'm gonna try to get that there's a um statement about the fact that these additional flexibilities that member wrecker was referring to are in addition to um not necessarily in lieu of the flexibilities around giving the state summative assessment so i i thought originally member wrecker what you were proposing was that for places that in it you know are not able to give the state summative assessment that there would be a objective criteria that then leads to the pursuit of those flexibilities okay so i'm reading directly from the letter itself and for staff it's the paragraph i'm looking at is at the bottom of page two of three so forgive me for reading this aloud to everyone it says the intent of these flexibilities and the accountability waivers described above is

291to focus on assessments to provide information to parents educators and the public about student performance and to help target resources and support and i'm going to read that again to focus on assessments to provide information to parents for that reason we are not inviting blanket waivers of assessments we also recognize that individual states may need additional effect assessment flexibility based on the specific circumstances and these are the two prepositions across or within the state and we will work with states to address their individual needs and conditions while ensuring the maximum available statewide data to inform the targeting of resources and supports so if their primary interest is to focus on assessments to inform to provide information to parents educators and the public about student performance that doesn't necessarily mean we are only limited to the

292casper in addition to the cast it says the assessments that will do us that perform a specific service on providing information and it says within or across the state so i think that one way to consider the options is you know on the one hand um a blanket waiver would say there's no assessment obligation whatsoever on the other hand one would say there is an assessment obligation we need to figure out what that assessment obligation is that you know might include the cast might include other assessments that are more uh available and readily used so maybe we need to start with that i've mostly heard members of the board speaking to how do we enact the assessment obligation rather than avoid any assessment obligation but if we can see whether we have a majority on

293one side or the other of that then we could burrow in to the question of how would we um pursue the flexibilities in assessments if in fact that's what we're um agreed we want to do um so the question really is um uh one of maybe i can just ask for sort of a show of hands um how many people would like to see um assessments of some sort occur such that parents and the public have data and then we can work out what's plausible and and uh reasonable excuse me um president darling hammond i don't think we can do a straw poll so please we we need to call the question okay all right so um i i did get a glimpse at the hands went up but we'll we'll do a little motion

294uh uh shall i just try to state it or could somebody else formulate it now it's being typed on the oh okay okay i i didn't hear what it was to type so i'll try to state it again and i'll i guess i'll i'll move it that california create a means a policy means to provide assessment information uh this school year to parents and the public the specifics of which we will then you know further deliberate i don't know if you have to put that last part that was because then we know whether we're talking about a waiver that asks for certain kinds of flexibilities of assessment or a waiver that asks for no assessment so at least we can boil ourselves down to one of those buckets so that's the intention judy were you

295going to say something okay do i have a second on that motion can i ask that we um also include disaggregated information well if we if we end up in that bucket then we can figure out what it that bucket is but first we have to figure out if we're all right um i i take your point uh remember burr yeah i just wanted to um clarify i think it would be important for us to be clear about what our context is and i think board member rucker has been talking about this and others may have while i was off so i apologize if i missed it we in the state as i understand it early on in the pandemic beginning last fall said or last spring you don't have to do an l cap

296because we know that's a big burden but you have to do a learning continuity plan and in that learning continuity plan every lea has to identify what assessments they're using locally to make sure they know how their students are doing i just hope our conversation is kind of nested in what we've already required and i i like you linda i'm not 100 sure or even 50 sure that all leas complied with that although we have a mechanism by which the counties were supposed to approve it etc so for me i'd like to do more um digging around that and have more information to say what's really out there and what is available and what's available to make and what would we want and how would that be reported to the public because i agree with

297you we're all i agree with your intent i guess what i want to make sure is is we're nesting it and what we've already asked ellie is to do exactly well that's that's why i framed it that way that we we do know there's a lot of assessment data that has been collected okay we do know there are some people who are already giving the state tests we do know that there are uh lots of barriers for everyone to do that uh and we've got you know to figure out but uh that would that would then take the next conversation so um any further discussion so the purpose of this motion is to really take the temperature of the pan the board to see if they're willing to look at an alternative to trying to

298focus on just the statewide reporting and look at an optional mean that's basically the intent of this motion and right it's team right to figure out whether we're having the conversation about what are the flexibilities and assessments i will second the motion thank you um any further discussion of the motion all in favor oh nope it would get a roll call vote for brooks yes member i president darling hammond hi number four i remember glover woods yes member mcquillen yes member nava member patel brownton yes remember rodriguez yes member rucker yes vice president strauss yes amber son aye lotion carries okay so now we know what bucket we're in what what lake we're swimming in um and then i think the question that we you know have been trying to figure our way through is

299the question of is there a role for state assessments in this framework is there a state summit of assessments is there a role for local locally selected according to our continuity instructional continuity plans or other because assessments in some localities go beyond what they might have put in that report um you know so we don't want to necessarily limit the possible options um that would be a useful and fair way of ensuring that the progress of students is being assessed against our state standards reported to at minimum parents and educators and potentially to the the public at some level of aggregation potentially two member sun's point also disaggregated by subgroups which i think you know wherever people are doing blanket assessments is possible to do because they have identifiers in the state student database um

300so that's the that's the bucket we're going to work on now and remember rucker you want to kick us off sure um when i when we started this whole conversation this morning you know i remarked and observed on the fact that the nape assessment itself was canceled all together by the us department of education and they have never changed their mind on doing that the nape assessment actually creates the kind of statewide reporting and the type of disaggregated data that we are struggling with trying to figure out how to address under the requirements of this waiver and so while the feds have relieved themselves of the burden of trying to figure out how to do virtual and remote assessments in the pandemic the burden remains here on the state to try to figure out the

301same thing and it is a burden for us because at this exact moment 52 of 58 counties are in that purple designation that's not my designation now you know there are moments when i have these fantasies that if i were in charge of the world and then i have to pause and enjoy that and then keep moving on but this was a uniform set of criteria that was made to evaluate the circumstances that the cur that the pipe pandemic has created so the first piece of this as it relates to looking at how to make this case uh in this waiver is to explain that how the circumstances are different and how they have been established and created looking at the impacts of the pandemic so that's the first piece of making this case the

302second piece is clearly spelled out in the letter as i don't want to read it to you again but if the focus is to look at the types of assessments that will provide information to parents educators and the public districts have been given that flexibility in those learning concentration plans my assumption at the time when the bill that uh created the learning continuity plans was established was it was a mandate and that county offices had the responsibility to ensure that these plans would be in place if they are not in place creating this waiver and doing this proposal would would require us to make sure we know what districts have or have not done this but we are giving them to districts and passing on to the responsibility to understand first there's a there's a

303requirement to do assessing there's a requirement to understand the status and the progress of the that their students are making there's a requirement to report it publicly and there will be a requirement for the state to be able to have access to the assessment information they choose what that assessment information can be could simply be those local assessments that are already identified in those learning continuity plans or those assessments are identified by charter schools because we have already identified valid and reliable alternative assessments to be used it could be the dyslexia assessments that the state has identified for teachers in grades kindergarten through second grade to be able to look at reading language arts progress but the fact of the matter is we've done that work we've identified as a state board what are the

304value in reliable can be used and it doesn't have to take the assessment uh provided by the state off the table because we already know there are 79 leas where that work has is already underway so this gives us not only the broadest flexibility to work in our local context but also the broadest flexibility for local districts to make the decision what is the best assessment program for them to use going forward if we can make the case for this waiver others remember bird did your hand go up and then down i had it up and i was i was slow and take taking it down okay but i'll take the opportunity i guess i i do um i certainly am in favor of trying to use the local assessments as much as possible but

305i'm also willing to consider the idea of i think what we talked about sort of decision rules of if schools if we set as as specific conditions that schools have to be back in place under our health guidelines not that they're bringing people back just to test they have they've provided instruction for some minimal amount of time i think i heard you say that expert advice was four weeks and if the assessments if the state assessment can be made in such a way that it is comparable across all school settings because i think what we heard before was when we were talking about a different um approach was that there would be some districts that are back are giving then others that are not and and i think it it makes the information kind of

306meaningless if you can't really compare it and aggregate it if that's what we're really trying to do so i think if we think carefully and again i'm not sure we're ready to do that on the fly so i'm like taking them off in my head and we might need some more time but i think it is it's it's worth considering and again i just want to restate i don't want to get in a fight with the feds in 2013 i really wanted to fight with the feds i do not pay but i do so i think we can put our best foot forward and to the the language that member rutgers repeated a couple of times i do think they're inviting that they're inviting us to say here are our unique settings and here's what's

307happened in our state we understand what your intent is and we share your intent we want to make sure that we know how our children are doing and how we best can improve but the circumstances are such that they haven't been in a hundred years literally and we're trying to we're trying to survive that and we're trying to make sure that the lease are doing the best they can on behalf of their kids so it's not a case of put this in their face and say too bad we don't like what you came up with it's we understand you're giving us the opportunity and i just i wanted to ask you linda because i i saw an oregon document weeks ago about sort of an approach they were taking and i thought that was their

308approach of saying we understand even this was before the guidance we understand what you want and we want the same thing but given our local circumstances here's what we can do here's a strategic piece with respect to our state assessment and here's what we can do with respect to local assessments and that that's kind of what what i'm hoping we can get to so that we're responsive to what our lease told us loud and clear in my view and letters and in their oral testimony but we're also responsible for providing data to everybody to let them know where we are but in in a responsible way that that recognizes the individual circumstances yeah and i think that what oregon did propose to do is very similar to what uh we're talking about that is well

309what we have been in various ways talking about which is to use the state assessment uh where it's usable and and useful and then to have alternatives uh such that every student is assessed and parents are informed the question about aggregation is you know one of the questions if we want to be able to aggregate all of those data in some unit dimensional way across the state that's not possible to do you can do some equating of tests and things you know like sat and act but if the main goal is to be able to aggregate the statewide summative assessment is the is the way you know statewide assessment is the only way to be able to aggregate um meaningfully across the state but we know that that's not going to be available for everyone

310i need to point out i need to point out that's not what this letter says the letter i'm not saying it does i'm just trying to uh there were other questions about aggregation that came up and so i'm just trying to answer those questions um that um but you know the the uh assessments that districts had to choose uh in the fall uh are uh aggregable at least to the district level and in some cases they're aggregable across districts because we had a limited number that people could choose and many people chose the same ones so again depending on you know all of the purposes one has for assessment which include primarily guiding teaching and learning for individual children and making sure that we are building on what they know and helping them learn the

311next thing and informing parents and teachers to support that but then above that the questions of aggregation and disaggregation leads you to different parameters for what we would want to consider so i just wanted to uh have that set of ideas in on the table members son and then member navajo thank you so uh spring off of what member rucker and member burr had um say had already said so i i you know i i um buy into what member rucker has the dotted line she has drawn between the intent of the federal letter and some of the wording within the federal letter and i think we could make a good case if we are to replace if you will or in lieu of the statewide assessment for the local assessments that are already being

312given out then i think we would need to make a strong case for how these local assessments can as much as possible meet the the the state assessments and i we did this work yes with verified data for charter schools and setting those very clear parameters i'm not sure that currently those those assessments are being given under those same requirement requirements that we're requiring of charters right now so that would be something we need to put in place and um and to remember burr's point i don't think we really kind of thought through all of that and that this will require an additional conversation to make sure that um the data is the the assessments are given to a broad number of students including our special ed students and our el students that they're um

313that they are consistently given according to what the the testing requirements are for those assessments you know all those things that we're saying charter schools have to follow we really need to be we need to make put that in place um remember novel yeah rachel i have a question i may be thinking about this too simple i meant to go back to rachel so i'm glad you're directing rachel roll in any of the other questions you were prepared to answer when you answer member novel's question i can i can wait rachel if you want to respond i was just going to provide a little bit of clarification on the learning continuity plans that might be helpful to the conversation um and i think it goes along with what you're bringing up member son the the

314first clarification is just that um county offices were not required to approve the learning continuity plans they are required to approve el caps um but for this year underneath um sb 98 all they were they were required to receive them they couldn't provide feedback if they would like um but there was no requirement to do so so just a that piece of clarification the other piece that i think is important to keep in mind um with that while the learning continuity plan did ask for data and how um districts or leas plan to monitor progress it did not require that they used anything that had been previously state adopted was valid and reliable aligned to content state or california content standards it wasn't required that it be across a district or school site or even

315within a grade level so i think those are just important pieces to for clarification as you're talking through the learning continuity plan requirements thank you for that question okay remember navajo do you want to ask your question sure just a couple of clarifying questions uh i'm i'm not familiar obviously with the federal waiver process rachel so maybe i'm thinking about it to simplicity it's too simple um if we apply for a waiver from federal assessments and it's approved then we would lose funding correct we don't lose funding just because we're asking for it right only if it's approved if it's disapproved right right right right is it my assumption is that if it is denied and then we are unable to meet the requirements of the law okay so in the in the the request

316is it unreasonable to make two considerations one attending to the the thoughts and points that my fellow board members have already made regarding the complexities of the state of california in relationship to the reality that most of our kids have been out of school for quite considerably longer than many other states and we're quite larger uh generally speaking than any other state um and so there's unique circumstances related to california that complicate our ability to get students back on campus and so could we make the consideration that yes we would like the a waiver from this federal obligation of assessments we have a plan b for local assessments it's probably imperfect but it's it we do have a system and the second consideration is if that is not an option then we have we will

317adhere to the state assessment with the request for federal flexibilities so couldn't is it unreasonable i guess to to put two options in the waiver for the feds to consider because what i'm thinking about if i'm a local and i'm listening to this conversation and and we go for a request for a waiver i have to bank that we get the waiver not knowing what the other outcome is but if i know what the rules are if i know okay we're going to apply for a waiver we are probably likely not going to get it and the other rule of the game is i can i can start my testing now or i can push it off but the end of the the line for testing is july 30th then i as a as a

318local educational agency can make the decision i either hope that we get the waiver and i hedge my bets longer waiting for students to get back on campus or i start now but those that have started know that they're gonna their test will be validated those that have not started have an option to start with the idea that if they wait too long they're going to put themselves up against the wall because what i heard you say was we don't know and we'll get this we don't know when when we'll get an answer from them it's considerably long yeah and i would just um note that there's uh the you the the general treatment of a blanket waiver request which can take a very long time and the language in this letter which i think

319suggests that they're going to try to work much more iteratively with states in this moment but there would still be some delay we don't i don't think it would necessarily be the same delay that we would have if we put in for a general waiver oh gotcha okay okay well that makes that that's a little bit better yeah i just think that i guess i'm struggling with the with the idea that we have to just say it's a or b can we say we'd like we would prefer a and if not we'll we would like b the only thing i would clarify matt and again i would invite um judy to share if i'm incorrect because i'm not a lawyer as i had shared before until we have an approval of the waiver we would

320need to continue to move forward under what the law requires one thing we might consider doing is asking our state board executive director and cde leadership staff to within some parameters that we articulate to come up with what the content of those flexibilities might be we've begun to you know think through what some of those might be and then to take member burr's suggestion i'll come back in um either on march 17th at our next board meeting or at a meeting that is called earlier than that to lay out what those flexibilities would be or what those strategies for assessment would be in the interim as you just said remember navo if districts are in a position and want to just continue to do the assessments that are available to them that's um something they

321can do rather than banking on what's going to come out at the other end remember glover woods is next thank you um i i have to share i'm i'm concerned about time um only because as we consider options and flexibilities or wait for feedback um on what those flexibilities are in the field they need to be able to make decisions and i know some of that's already been said um if i'm understanding our conversation correctly it seems that what what is kind of being proposed is if you want to move forward with administering the statewide assessment um and it's safe to to be able to do so in an in-person setting go forward and do that if you have a situation where that's not safe to do you would not administer the statewide assessment however

322you should use local data in order to be able to communicate to parents and educators and and whatnot that's kind of what i'm hearing and i i guess i'll kind of echo a statement that's been made a few times in the meeting i'm starting to get a little confused um on where we are and i know there's a lot of work being done to try to simplify it so let me try to ask my question more direct if we were to consider allowing those leas that want to uh administer the statewide assessment and it's safe for them to be able to do so um are we able to allow for those who are unable to do it and it's not ever safe to do so to use local assessments so that's my first question and

323then my second question would be if that was an auction does it require does it still require [Music] a website assessment to be written into the wiper or do we need to get permission to even do that i don't think we need permission to do that i'm moving to where i have better wi-fi because i think maybe my wi-fi is the problem right now um we uh but we would need to figure out what our waiver is you know ultimately i think the way you stated it uh is is potentially accurate one of the things that the department has volunteered to do is to work with us on what those flexibilities might be so we could say today that uh we're going to figure out those flexibilities within our parameters does somebody have a guitar

324on [Music] muted linda if you just pause a minute it appears there's a problem with the phone they're trying to fix it meanwhile everyone can enjoy this peaceful musical interlude during this discussion it signals that we are finding harmony exactly we're almost there just have to get in tune we'll be fine it could have been much worse you know in terms of the music that was selected okay we're assured they're working on it it should be any minute okay i like it mmm somebody felt that we needed to chill out and they're they're helping us do that i won't try to talk through it but i will just say i see hands from remember gloverwood's member strauss and member becker which we'll get to in a moment all right that was a nice interlude [Laughter]

325so i was just responding to say yes i think that frankly the way you framed it remember glover woods is is potentially accurate for one path which would be to say we're going to work out and i would i would recommend that we consider asking the staff of cde and us our state board executive director to work out the um a a um an approach within parameters that we would set uh they've been invited by the department of education to as the letter states to work through flexibilities and they could begin that process and then we could bring it back as quickly as possible uh but no later than march 17th for uh a vote on something that's very much more defined but that would you know ensure that we have an expectation for assessment

326and the reporting of results to parents and educators etc so i think that that does uh you know in the next couple of weeks that would mean that people who wanted to proceed with the state assessments could do so those you know in terms of local locally selected assessments they're usually not local assessments per se they're usually national tests that have been locally selected um people are already using them and already have data so it doesn't create a new requirement to do something in the next two weeks you know if it because they it appears uh from the data we've gotten from the survey that most districts are already um using those assessments so it doesn't necessarily propose a new obligation on them in the short run but that would give us a tense to

327also get clearer about what data are available get clearer about the context for giving the statewide assessments which some people may choose to take the options to shorten them you know further etc get the parameters the uh criteria in in a place where we can vote on it remember stress you're next in mind so i want to follow up on what member glover woods said and what you president darling hammond said i would like to be able to give direction to ellie's today which says the state board does not expect you to administer state assessments in a remote setting that we understand that students need to be back in school in a safe way for three to four weeks before the assessment would be given so that would tell people who haven't opened yet like

328you don't have to start assessing the second thing could also be we expect leas to continue with the um guidance that they completed in their learning continuity plan to administer local assessments and provide feedback so we at least tell people you're supposed to keep doing those learning continuity assessments and we don't want you to administer in a remote setting we want you back in school first so that would at least tell people because i think districts were trying to figure out how to do it remotely because we have so many not back yet so i'm just wondering if that's a tweener that we could while we're working on the other options to say we want students back before the state assessment is given in person i i think that just to be clear the uh

329other assessments that people can use and have used are often also delivered online they do not require they typically do not require secure browsers which we heard vividly illustrated by member fatah you know in terms of what the challenges are with that uh they are not uh high stakes uh and so they don't they often don't take uh as much time they don't have uh quite always the bandwidth issues but they could still have issues so i don't know that we can um we can assume that people um can just you know if they're having challenges giving those they they may also have to wait on some of that until there are more bandwidth but i think the point that you're making that we um expect uh people not to um do you know assess

330kids in ways that are untenable or unsafe is the a good point to be making and that we do expect that in this school year districts will find ways to assess all students and that those who can move ahead with assessments that they are doing uh or with the state assessments that are now coming online as of this week are welcome to do so but are not required uh to do so till it is safe and tenable does that capture the intent of your thinking yeah i i think just to reinforce that we understand um that it it something about the same thing that the federal guidance letter said that the student that we i guess the main issues should not be brought back to school in person just for the purpose of testing and

331that remote assessment is that we expect state assessments to be given once students are back in a safe environment for several weeks before it is administered i think that's i think that's fine i think there are some places that are have been able to do remote administration of different things successfully i don't think we want to cut off the opportunity for people who are successfully doing that but we certainly don't want to put other districts and schools in a situation where they're unable to make the assessment a thoughtful well-supported process and if it's in person after kids have been back long enough to have adjusted and had you know all of the other social emotional supports that they need to be attaching back to school i think we've got member rucker is there any other

332member who wants to be recognized so that we can be sure we can move forward and wrap this up remember rucker okay so to the point that i believe we're beginning to come to some consonants on you know when in reading the my first reaction when i read the guidance letter on monday afternoon was you know this this voice my mother's voice in the back of my head you know the last thing i want to do is hurt you but it's still on my list and so the state is the feds are trying to give states away to figure out how to deal with what is a very difficult set of circumstances and so i think there's a need in contemplating the way we phrase this motion to separate intent from action or activity the

333motion that we need to try to craft right now in giving guidance to the cde staff is to craft our intent to help to help us develop a proposal that clearly states our intent to make sure we create assessment practices as a response to the waiver guidance that will assure public reporting of student assessments with pro about progress on english language arts and mathematics so that public reporting is done in a uniform way and based on uniform activities and lo but local options so that's the intent the activities as specified and looked at more protect with greater particularity by board member glover woods and even board member burr about whether we're talking about state assessments or collection of locally approved assessments or even as the staff has pointed out whether or not districts are even

334using them those are the activities that we would craft in our own guidance to the districts if this waiver is approved so the particularity of what we're trying to do with the district with the state and the feds to express our intent to address that flexibility they're saying we could have is one thing and then as uh board member strauss said what we turn around and say to the state the districts in our state is something else because what districts are still going to hear is that you're still going to need to do assessments there is still an accountability activity called reporting that you still need to do but what the important part is it doesn't have high stakes that's going to be the outcome of this waiver if we get it we're still going

335to be doing assessing we're still going to be doing reporting but we have decoupled the stakes that comes with the high stakes assessment so with the collection of what emotions that we've made in trying to craft this proposal those are the three big takeaways that need to be clearly communicated with districts and again when i finally read that letter what this districts are going to see is well if the shoe fits it's ugly because we're still going to have to test but that's what the three big takeaways in the packet of what we're trying to cobble together for this waiver should be able to to create please don't ask me to try to put that into motion because otherwise i'll just say we want to assess we want to report and take away the high

336stakes and that's my motion so if somebody wants to accept it that way i'm happy to offer it but uh president darling hammond is probably far better at explaining those three points for our motion do you want to clarify again what you see as three points i'm not sure i got exactly the three right bullets okay so with all of the motions that we have put together our goal is to cobble together a proposal in and to give the cde staff guidance to cobble together a waiver proposal that focuses on creating an option for assessment that focuses on providing data to the public about the progress of students on assessments in english language arts and mathematics we have already passed a motion to de-link the high-stakes in accountability and high-stakes testing by de-linking the record

337reporting requirement or the labeling of schools so we're going to still test but we have removed the high stakes and then we're going to look at how to do the reporting what kind of assessments we report and how the reporting is done that is the third piece that we would ask for flexibility to be able to do so we're moving away from statewide aggregate reporting because that is not what the letter clearly requires to requiring statewide reporting in a uniform way based on the guidance we'd be allowed to create so those would be the three parts and we i don't know that we need a motion with that second part because we already passed those motions that right from accountability right now what i hear you saying is that we would um move to ask

338the state board staff and the cd staff to develop a proposal or it may be a set of proposals that will provide assessment ensure that we can provide assessment data to parents of the public in ela and math and that will propose a means for aggregated reporting of those data um yeah uniform reporting but it doesn't necessarily mean that we're aggregating it as a state wide world i i get that i think they've heard that part but i'm just trying to get a clean motion here yes yeah but aggregate is a is a specific term of art so yeah aggregate well i think what we earlier heard um we want to be we want a proposal about how the data could be aggregated and how it could be disaggregated by student group so uh we

339don't need to sit here today and figure out exactly what that is we will ask the staff to come back to us with that um as quickly as possible and no later than march 17. is that so i'm seeing something go up on the screen my eyes are not good enough to track all of this we're about to have a written version of this does that work uh and that will propose a means for yes aggregated uh yeah uniform is fine uh aggregate uniform reporting of that data in both aggregated and disaggregated form just to get both of those terms in there and we'll see what the proposal can be once we've got the additional data um and at some point after this they'll send us a copy of that motion so we have a

340printed copy of what we voted on yes of course i'm just reading again rather than an option for assessment could we say that focuses on a plan for assessments a plan for assessment that provides data for set for assessments i guess assessments plural that provide data to parents educators in the public about the progress of students in ela and math and that will propose a mean for uniform reporting of that data in both aggregated and disaggregated i feel like doing a mic drop yeah that's great um i will uh see if somebody wants to make patricia do you want to make that motion i will move that i will move what's on the screen rather than read it back again and mess it up all right um we're going to still have discussion so i

341saw um remember glover woods i saw your hand go up and down i'll still come back around for discussion is there a second on the motion i i will second thank you uh and then is there discussion of the motion uh remember glover woods and then i think member rodriguez did you have your hand up you know i was just it was about the motion the wordsmithing but um i'm okay thank you remember glover was and then remember so i just want to be sure that in this motion by the use of the term assessments meaning plural that we are [Music] that we are communicating that there is let me think how to best say this that we're communicating that leas may or may not have to administer the s back i'm just missing a

342little clarity i realize it's important for it to be kind of vague into how the proposal may be developed but again i'm wondering are we i think the intention of the conversation has been to say what do we do in situations where there's not a path to safely and appropriately administering the s back i do want to have a noun verb agreement there it should be assessments that provide take off that s my old english teacher um um remember before i go to remember remember glover would say did you get your questions substantially asked you look like you might have something really quick i i believe i have because again as i'm reading it i i i believe i am i just want to be sure that those clearly figure for us that we're clearly

343communicating that what we're looking at um our options if it's an if we're unable if the lea is unable to administer the s back um that's what's being looked at remember bur and then remember rodriguez yeah just a process question i'm sorry i lost connection there again for a while um it is the idea here that the um staff will bring back a waiver proposal that will then vote on from march or this yes is that that's what yes okay thank you we actually referenced you while you were gone your proposal and what i uh suggested is that we would do that as soon as possible but no later than march 17th so that there's um you know uh if if we you know get all the right information sooner we can call another meeting

344for that purpose but if not we will do it by the next coordinator remember rodriguez so i will i will add my wordsmithing suggestion um i'm just wondering if we can say monitor student progress if we can add that in there um because it's you know it's like it's for the public but as educators we want to monitor to uh make sure that we can uh prevent downward spirals for students so that we can intervene um so it's an important word for me as an educator to have monitor in there why don't we just say that monitors instead of will monitor it doesn't necessarily need to be future tense it may be that monitors the progress thank you right i feel like we need the guitar music back while we vote okay i think we

345need to i think it needs to be noted that a number of friendly amendments have been made since the motion was originally interested would you like to remove it would you like to re-hyphen move it remember yes i will move it again i will move to accept the friendly amendments that the board delegate authority to the state board of education executive director in collaboration with department of education staff to develop a waiver proposal to bring back to the board that focuses on a plan for assessments that provide data to parents educators and the public and my english teacher says which monitors the progress of students in english language arts and mathematics and that will propose a mean for uniform a means for uniform reporting of that data in both aggregated and disaggregated forms [Music] uh

346friendly amendments and all the english teachers who are helping here and i will re-second the motion thank you very much is there any further discussion of the motion remember rodriguez is your hand up uh for a reason or it's just okay all right with that we will call the roll brook can you call the roll for a vote remember aye president darling hammond aye number fatah i remember glover woods yes member mcquillen yes hi member patillo brownson yes remember rodriguez yes remember rucker yes vice president strauss yes remember son aye motion passes unanimously we did it and brooks you're going to email motion five to all of us right yes yes all right thank you all i think we actually need to open up the four for public comments sorry did we cover everything we

347needed to cover for we did we we've covered everything we need to cover on this item we do need to open up for general um public comments um why don't i let you take a five-minute break while we get the public comment thing or would you like to just keep going on let's just keep going all right um so we'll uh take up agenda item three general public comment which is invited on any matter that was not included in the printed agenda we'll open the phone line for the public comment queue members of the public wishing to provide comment on this item may do so by calling the number shown on the public comments slide and are there any public comments yes we do have one person for public comment just a reminder this is

348for item three uh anything that was not on the agenda um we have two people in the the queue please state your name uh an affiliation for the record your time starts now my name is dena felix i'm a former san francisco unified high school ethnic lit teacher with the ucla masters in education i supplemented with primary sources to reveal america's true history through lenses of ethnic discrimination and race if my diverse students were to be stereotypically categorized as the critical race theory does their authentic voices would be hindered all races and cultures are valuable to society through their contributions the esmc must not indoctrinate and alienate ethnic groups even castles revise transformative social emotional learning uses the crt framework students learn to critically examine the root causes of inequity upper income white adolescents are

349encouraged to take responsibility for social inequities while exhibiting racial guilt this inhibits inclusive school communities and contradicts the sdl's goal of establishing a trusting environment in collaborative relationships teachers required to take crt training will also encounter a discriminatory agent appropriate tenant you and your time let's build bridges thank you and through shared struggles without the oppress next caller please state your name and affiliation for the record your time starts now my name is joe nalvin i teach cultural anthropology at the university of san diego uh my i affirm what the previous caller said and would add that in terms of teaching about different cultures which is what we're doing here in california that we need a an approach that promotes multiple perspectives and critical race theory actually works against the very goal that's stated in

350the high school social sciences framework that requires representation of multiple points of view or perspectives so we need to revisit that with something that's more positive and open to the variety of students and backgrounds that we have here in california thank you very much thank you caller next caller please state your name and affiliation for the record your time starts now hi my name is rory myers i'm a california teacher who supports ethnic studies courses that address racism and teach our country's true history according to the california constitution i cannot discriminate in my classroom based on my students race yet that is what the ethnic studies model curriculum tells me to do with its key pedagogy critical race theory critical race theory is a pedagogy divides students into groups based on race and then labels

351them because of their skin color i know this because i've seen how it plays out in real classrooms a perfect example are the racial privilege deconstructions that students as young as 3rd grade are doing in school like at meyerholtz and cupertino another example is the model curriculum sample lesson 28 it differentiates based on race telling teachers to ask white students quote what kind of white person they would have been and ask non-white students a completely different question just because of skin color even if this lesson is removed it was a crt pedagogy that allowed it to be included by the iqc in the first place lawsuits have been filed across the country about critical race syrian schools these educators for excellence and ethnic studies comments as a guide to recruiting from the esmc thank you

352for all you're doing for our students next caller please state your name and affiliation for the record your time starts now hi my name is justin feldman i am a ucla graduate i wanted to for my support for the gemena ethnic studies lesson plan and i wanted to advocate that it be included inside of the asian american studies section because jews of all backgrounds as an ethnic and religious identity are part of the middle east which is in the fabric of asia thank you very much thank you next caller please state your name and affiliation for the record your time starts now my name is hideku mukai and i am a student who is advocating for the many students that are relying on the california high school proficiency exam being administered this spring to all

353students in order to move forward with their academic plans we ask that the california department of education makes administering the exam caller i i'm so sorry that had to deal with the last item we're only dealing with items that were not on the agenda um once again we have now 13 people in the queue it please remember that this public comment are for items not on the agenda next caller please state your name and affiliation for the record your time starts now good afternoon my name is barbara shapiro california parent please replace critical ethnic studies with a constructive approach to the ethnic studies model curriculum i look to this board to lead so that an ethnic studies model curriculum promotes listening to each of our shared ethnic minority and immigrant group experiences the current version

354still has an ideological agenda which includes anti-capitalism pro-militancy and support for communist governments and opposes self-determination for jews in israel and berates non-violent u.s civil rights leaders as docile critical ethnic studies leads to brainstorming closed-mindedness and bullying of those with different opinions in contrast a constructive ethnic studies leads to analysis of multiple perspectives in for informed decision making and respectful dialogue please implement the changes recommended by the alliance for constructive ethnic studies california students need this approach thank you so much for your consideration thank you caller next caller please state your name and affiliation for the record your time starts now my name is leah renson i'm a california parent i'm asking you to please replace the critical ethnic studies approach with a constructive ethnic studies approach in the esmc critical ethnic studies promotes violent

355content lessons currently include mumia about abu jamal who often use mel's quote political power grows out of the barrel of a gun and he was convicted of first-degree murder of a police officer yuri kochiyama who was a self-stated admirer of osama bin laden al-qaeda and the shining path oscar lopez rivera a militant leader of the f-a-l-n which carried out more than 130 u.s bombings and many other examples the assignments require students to become these people speaking in the voice of the individual to the whole class forcing students to advocate to their peers the violent or offensive positions from the figures i just mentioned this doesn't belong in k-12 classrooms there are better non-violent alternatives to model reform such as brian stevenson deanna van buren and norm mineta please implement the changes thank you caller next

356caller please state your name and affiliation for the record your time starts now my name is victoria fountain please replace the critical ethnic studies with a constructive approach in the esmc despite the feedback provided to two previous drafts i continue to see a curriculum that encourages people of color to see themselves as victims this approach is shameful it is hurtful to see the vibrant positive latino community characterized as victims the curriculum perpetuates erroneous stereotypes rather than encouraging students to learn about one another as we truly are please modify the curriculum to stop teaching victimhood divisiveness oppression violence and the marxist narrative that is found throughout the curriculum as presented empower students by replacing the critical ethnic studies curriculum with a constructive ethnic studies approach by making the revisions submitted by the alliance for constructive ethnic

357studies our students deserve better thank you for the opportunity to provide comment thank you caller next caller please state your name and affiliation for the record your time starts now my name is noahtinski and i'm a former student of california school system please replace the critical ethnic studies with a constructive approach in the esmc growing up i was raised on the stories of my gran and papa who fled racial violence in jim crow mississippi to california despite pervasive racial discrimination white supremacy and terrorism they achieved greatness my papa was a self-employed businessman owning his own garage as a mechanic and my gran was a self-employed businesswoman who owned her home-based business both were pillars of their community who sent all of their seven children to college knowing the roots that i come from is inspirational

358and gives me the resilience i need to overcome my own obstacles as a black jewish man in the u.s the framework currently present in the critical ethnic studies esmc ignores and degrades this legacy of black independence and autonomy which will re-traumatize an entire generation of young black minds by forcing victimhood upon us most disturbingly this approach does everything ethnic studies is supposed to fight against by centering the whites and their actions rather than focusing on contributions of ethnic groups please implement the changes recommended by alliance for constructive ethnic studies thank you caller next caller please state your name and affiliation for the record your time starts now caller okay that call dropped next caller please state your name and affiliation for the record your time starts now hi my name is brandy schufatinski please replace

359critical ethnic studies with a constructive approach in the esmc i'm a social worker who earned my msw from the university of southern california working with victims and survivors of sexual abuse and family violence for most of my professional life i've also had the opportunity to work with inner city high school students as a black social worker it means the world to me to have been able to work as a professional with students from my own community the esmc is attempting to erase all that my four mothers and forefathers fought for ignoring their blood sweat and tears they did not fight for equity and justice so that their descendants would be categorized as helpless victims that's what the esmc does that is what critical race theory does it not only centers whiteness with all of the

360talk about white privilege and white supremacy it uplifts it displacing everyone and everything else ethnic studies is supposed to be about making space for communities whose knowledge has been erased ignored and excluded not some quack ideology that is based on social vengeance disguised as social justice the erasure of black icons from the esmc in order to force a political narrative masquerading as curriculum is insulting to the black community please implement the changes recommended by the alliance for constructive ethnic studies thank you caller next caller please state your name and affiliation for the record your time starts now i'm jeff carmel a california parent and educator i would like you to replace the critical ethnic studies with a constructive approach in the esmc the esmc draft uses a critical ethnic studies approach which imposes a narrow

361political ideology promotes a militant anti-western agenda polarizes students divides them into victims and oppressors and assumes predetermined answers in contrast constructive ethnic studies focuses on civic responsibility builds inter-ethnic group understanding exposes students to multiple political perspectives and encourages them to develop opinions based on inquiry both approaches address racism but constructive ethnic studies leads to critical analysis of multiple perspectives informed decision making and respectful dialogue of opinions critical ethnic studies leads to doctrine regurgitation close mindedness and bullying of those with different opinions please implement the changes recommended by the alliance for constructive ethnic studies replace thank you caller your uh time is up next caller please state your name and affiliation for the record your time starts now hi my name is bella adegar and i'm a sophomore at brentwood school in los angeles california i

362strongly support a curriculum that represents the experiences of the black latinx asian and native american communities i'm grateful for the work that has been done so far to revise this curriculum but i'm here to share my concerns about some problems that still remain i believe that we need to define anti-semitism in the esmc in a way that covers all forms of this hatred and reflects the real life experiences of jewish students and communities as a first generation american my parents and grandparents faced persecution in iran and were forced to flee from their country due to their religious beliefs they experienced anti-semitism in the classroom and daily life and were forced to live through these horrific experiences this could have been prevented if the other students had a proper education on anti-semitism this is why we

363need to add the ihra definition of anti-semitism which helps to educate about modern-day anti-semitism and put an end to bias starting at a young age also as a middle eastern jew i worry about the discrimination we will continue to face here in california if the curriculum does not include my community in more depth due to the lack of education about our nutrient struggles thank you caller thank you thank you also i have just received notification that we are entertaining comments about the chesapeake exam uh if you have a public comment regarding that particular exam please feel free to call back on our call line next caller please state your name and affiliation for the record your time starts now good afternoon my name is sherry lewis i've been an educator for many decades most recently

364with the los angeles unified school district lausd as an educator i am very concerned about the use of critical race theory in the ethnic studies model curriculum critical race theory divides students into group into groups often based on such superficial characteristics as skin color as a teacher in lausd i've encountered many different groups of students including immigrant students from mongolia egypt venezuela and israel so i know the importance of encouraging and promoting multiple perspectives critical race theory is extremely flawed because it is one-sided and does not provide a balanced approach furthermore this theory is simplistic seems to resemble propaganda more than education if this theory is used in the model curriculum it should be only one of multiple perspectives on ethnic studies not the only perspective thank you for listening thank you caller next caller

365please state your name and affiliation for the record your time starts now i'm joe hi i'm joanne donsky a california educator and parent please replace critical ethnic studies with a constructive approach in the esmc studies show that student benefits occur from ethnic studies courses without a critical ethnic studies approach the asmc cites christine fleeter's report the academic and social value of ethnic studies many of the case studies were about reading literature featuring people of color and written by non-white authors these studies had nothing to do with colonialism critical race theory or critical political ideology it is not necessary to impose narrow critical ethnic studies dogma our sacrifice inquiry to achieve the engagement benefit that we all desire for california's bypass student bi-talk students please make the changes recommended by the alliance for constructive ethnic studies

366thank you thank you caller next caller please state your name and affiliation for the record your time starts now hello my name is claire chaticle and i'm an occupational therapist who has worked in psychiatry and education as well for over 10 years with a k-12 group mainstream students with special needs learning differences and physical disabilities many abused neglected adopted for whom race and ethnicity may be unknown i'm concerned about the crt component of the esmc impact on the population the idea that these students of all hues whom experience oppression as disabled people will be vulnerable and be in put in a place to self-disclose about their privilege based on their skin color alone the esmc tells teachers to be attentive to trauma-informed educational practices and to have school counselors available to potentially induce trauma via

367a curriculum would appear risky endeavor and not appropriate or pedagogically sound as educators and specialists we are appealed to not cause harm to our students and have legal and ed code obligations to protect them please use educators for excellence in epic study submission to the sbe as a guide for removing thank you thank you next caller please state your name and affiliation for the record your time starts now hi i'm barb windham a california parent please replace critical ethnic studies with a constructive approach in esmc we all want ethnic studies to combat racism by helping students understand others and be empowered by studying leaders that look like they do but the critical ethnic studies approach in the esmc doesn't lead there instead it imposes a narrow political agenda on students it focuses on critiquing empire

368building and imperialism rather than on understanding and ethnic groups obstacles and contributions it uses narrow ideological filters to choose examples and role models it assumes answers rather than inviting analysis the only exploration allowed is within the framework of critical ethnic studies ideology never questioning its dogmatic underpinnings if we want to promote inquiry in the classroom we can't force feed predetermined answers please implement the changes recommended by alliance for constructive ethnic studies to replace the critical ethnic studies approach remove ideological indoctrination and revise the lessons to promote inquiry not foregone conclusions thank you so much thank you caller next caller please state your name and affiliation for the record your time starts now hi my name is aryaki singh and i'm a sophomore in high school i have made plans among many of my fellow student

369body to take the chesapeake this year unfortunately because of kovad everything is getting held back but i come to you asking if it would be possible to hold the chesapeake before summer or sooner and have a set date soon so we may know what we should plan for our futures and higher education plans are at risk many tests such as ap exams ged exams and other high school equivalency tests are taking place the chest p is the last option for some of my peers it would be greatly appreciated if we had testing dates and more specific and promising times for the chesapeake 2021 and even more helpful if the chesky were to take place before in the summer thank you for your time thank you and thank you for calling back next caller please state

370your name and affiliation for the record your time starts now hi this is my name is jill silverman as a san francisco parent of two i'm asking you to replace the critical ethnic studies with a constructive approach in the ethnic studies model curriculum this is because the critical ethnic studies approach of the current draft undermines the potential for a robust curriculum which would empower students of color while building empathy and understanding among all students instead the current draft defines and divides students by race creating a hierarchy of victimhood white students are made to feel guilty and students of color are encouraged to focus on their victimhood thus creating a hostile and disempowering educational environment a constructive approach would build understanding and uplift all students to get it to get it right and have its full

371impact please adopt the revisions recommended by the alliance for constructive ethnic studies thank you for your work and consideration thank you caller next caller please state your name and affiliation for the record your time starts now i'm maddie carmel a california parent grandparent and educator please replace critical ethnic studies with a constructive approach in the esmc three out of six guiding principles urge students to critique empire building and colonialist beliefs these principles shift the focus from ethnic studies to foreign policy and from countering racism in all its causes to a focus on colonialism surprisingly despite ab262 stated goal there is no guiding principle to inspire student appreciation for the contributions of ethnic groups or any guiding value about empathy revise the guiding principles to remove the critical ethnic studies dogma and add focus on the

372history struggles and accomplishments of ethnic groups with an emphasis on empathy rather than victimhood please implement the changes recommended by alliance for constructive ethnic studies thank you for your consideration and all your work you're doing on this thank you caller next caller please state your name and affiliation for the record your time starts now my name is hireko mukai and i'm a student who is advocating for the many students that are relying on the california high school proficiency exam being administered this spring to all students in order to move forward with their academic plans we ask that the california department of education makes administering the exam in the spring and communicating with the chesapeake office a priority many students i've been in contact with and myself rely on the exam being administered this spring in

373order to go to community college this year delaying the exam would cause many problems for so many students the chesapeake office has yet to give any clear direct information on when the next test will be administered however they have said to some students that they will only allow new testers to take it during the late summer this could jeopardize many students academic career plans we are urging you to prioritize administering a spring exam for all students thank you thank you and thank you caller for for calling back on the topic this concludes public comment for item three all right thank you very much to all of the callers and commenters and to the board for all of the good work today and i hereby adjourn our february 2021 state board of education meeting at 2

37450 p.m thank you and i look forward to seeing you all at our march 2021 meeting or before see you soon bye everyone thanks