State Board of Education Meeting November 5, 2020

001will you please call the role to establish a quorum number president darlene hammond here member patal here member glover woods here member mcquillen here i'm bernavo here member patel brownson here remember rodriguez here remember rucker member strauss here member son here all right i hereby call the november 2020 meeting of the state board of education to order at 8 33 a.m and i'd like to commence by saluting the flag member idea rodriguez will you please lead us in the pledge of allegiance absolutely please stand and 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 indivisible with liberty and justice for all very poignant words in this week of voting this is a big week for civic engagement and

002i'm sure we'll have a lot of opportunities to reflect on that thank you i am going to start with announcements i'm delighted to announce that rigel massaro has joined the sbe team last week she had worked as a senior legislative council of public advocates since 2013 prior to that she was a staff attorney for advocates for children of new york incorporated a law clerk for the arizona court of appeals a law clerk at consumers union and an educator in the littleton elementary school district in cash in arizona and please join me in welcoming rigel are we able to put rigel on the screen maybe not we'll have to probably see her a little bit later uh she's going to be a great addition and many of us know her from her work in sacramento uh

003on issues that we care about so she'll be picking right up there are four items on the agenda that have agenda item one the sbe screening committee recommendations for appointments to the advisory commission on charter schools the advisory commission on special education the california practitioners advisory group and the instructional quality commission item two is the sbe screening committee recommendations for three finalists for the 2021-22 student board member item 3 the 2020 student advisory board on education report item 4 approval of the criteria to define verified data and the list of valid and reliable assessments and measures of post-secondary outcomes as required by california education code section 47607.2 uh on consent calendars the proposed waiver consent items are uh w01 through w06 and w08 the proposed regular consent items are items 6 through 8 and item

00411. we will take up both the waiver consent items and the regular consent items later this afternoon um in terms of public input members of the public who are wishing to call in for public comment should view the live stream of the meeting to know what time public comment will occur for each item public comment may be provided by dialing the phone number entering a participant access code and then following each of the operators prompts 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 college to please turn down the speaker volume of their computers if they are following the live webcast to avoid an echoing effect public comment will be limited to one minute for

005each speaker item 12 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 agenda board members please mute your microphones when you're not speaking and keep your cameras on at all times except during schedule breaks to ensure that we maintain a quorum throughout today's virtual meeting and for each item on the agenda there there will be an opportunity for you board members to raise your hands using the zoom participant window if you would like to ask a question or make a comment and brooks will help me keep track of that um so we're going to start with agenda item one first i'm going to welcome patricia rucker who has just arrived welcome cat um so our state board priorities item

006uh the state superintendent would be giving his report this but he is here [Music] i'm back uh hopefully there we go can you see me give me a thumbs up again all right thanks fingers crossed that we all get through this with our internet intact um this is a time as you know great social disruption we've been experiencing not only a public health crisis but also an economic crisis a civil rights crisis stemming from long overdue reckoning with systemic racism climate crisis and during these times of great social upheaval we also have opportunities for great social transformation and we're experiencing that as well in california as we've seen this week 160 million americans determinedly voted across this country more than ever before in our history it is a time for civic engagement around these issues

007and around other issues as well to guide the course of our country in our state [Music] together and appreciate each other safely and productively at our november meeting last with ravaged communities in butte county and in ventura county i'm hoping my internet will hold last november we honored students and teachers for schools for climate action a sonoma county organization formed after the pubs fire in 2017 to enable students to advocate for climate solutions we thank them for their advocacy which have resulted in more than 100 educational organizations adopting climate change resolutions at that time we noted that six of the ten most destructive fires in california's history had occurred since october 2017. a year later we have experienced the worst wildfire season in our state history over 9 000 fires burned 4.3 million acres of

008our state this year a year ago i noted that california that climate change is not only an existential threat it's a threat to our ability to provide a safe and healthy learning environment for students and it is something that we can address recently i was asked to join the national k-12 action climate action commission it's an initiative the aspen institute uh has an impressive list of partners the national education association the american federation of teachers the pta the education trust the sierra club and many others and that commission issued a report examining how states and districts can adopt policies help america's 98 000 public schools reduce energy reduce plus emissions and reduce food weights i hadn't realized and probably many others don't know that schools are among the largest energy consumers among public sector buildings

009schools serve over 7 billion meals annually with related food waste schools use about 480 000 school buses transportation largest fast transit fleet in the country and the report highlighted local districts that have policies to support sustainable practices that can be replicated statewide many california districts were highlighted los angeles unified the nation's second largest district made progress on its commitment to reach 100 clean renewable energy by 2040. the twin rivers district in sacramento was called out as having the largest electric school bus fleet in the entire nation when rivers began converting to electric buses in 2017 using funds from california's cap and trade program the buses have reduced the district's fuel costs by 80 percent oakland unified was highlighted for its goal of establishing a garden at every school site and for its work in food

010waste reduction the district has provided 50 percent of its waste from reaching a landfill these districts are showing that california can confront huge challenges and work and serve and work to surmount them and we are not shying away from the global challenges on climate change governor newsom and the california volunteers announced the creation of the california climate action corps this summer it's just getting started but teens and teachers can visit www.climateactioncore.ca.gov to learn about what is envisioned there will be opportunities for high school and college students to spend summers and extracurricular time engaged in climate volunteering and service activities these activities will help students earn the new seal of civic engagement a recognition that we want to encourage for all of our students as they and we commit to commuting to supporting work in our

011communities they can also apply to become climate action core fellows and those applications are currently being accepted more than 250 fellowships will be awarded the state will help to pay for college for these fellows and they'll be deployed for seven months to a year in front line communities with various state and local government committees nonprofit organizations universities and colleges developing and implementing climate action projects for our young people this is part of what they will be living through and with all their lives and enabling them and us to take more action to preserve and protect the quality of californian of their lives is essential of course it's only one of the many challenges we're facing and i want to talk just a little bit more about the progress being made in reopening schools another challenge

012that we are meeting and learning to surmount although more than 90 percent of california students started school in online learning as the end of october there were about three quarters of a million students attending in-person classes in 21 counties mostly rural but also suburban orange and san diego counties 20 counties have a mix of districts that are open to varying extents in person and hybrid learning they serve about 1.7 million students and include a mix of urban and semi-urban counties like fresno sacramento ventura santa barbara and then in 17 counties where all or most districts are serving students through distance learning only there are plans underway for many schools to reopen in january and these counties serve 3.6 million students and they include l.a bay area inland empire riverside san bernadino many creative strategies to

013finding space and strategies for serving students are being developed for example partnering with community colleges use their classrooms while they're in online learning to create social distancing for high school students so there are lots of ways that people are solving the many problems associated with physical opening of schools many of these districts have brought back students in small groups often students with disabilities english learners those with other needs a number of districts sometimes working with community partners have also created learning hubs to offer spaces for digital learning uh with adult assistance with meals with more with a variety of supports for children who are not able to engage in distance learning from home we are learning how to open school safely with appropriate physical distancing face coverings attention to hygiene attention to creating small cohorts

014of teachers and students who stay together throughout the day our department of public health notes that there have been almost no cases of transmission associated with these school openings thus far in addition to the guidance provided by the california department of public health both the department of education and the california collaborative for educational excellence have developed guides and toolkits for schools to use when planning how to return to campus the state is supporting these efforts by providing two months worth of free personal protective equipment to schools at no cost and helping schools procure ppe in bulk and at discounted rates as we know the budget the governor's budget this past year this great year drawing in part on the federal cares act funds has provided schools with over 5 billion dollars to be spent on

015closing the digital divide sanitation supplies ppe testing and then tutoring and other services to address learning loss the state is supporting reopening efforts with new testing partnerships stepping up contact tracing efforts helping with the supply chain and issuing the guidance the state's new contract with perk and elmer for example will double the state's profit testing capacity and drive down costs and will be made available to many school districts we all know that reopening schools is a huge challenge and but we are learning to do it safely it is especially important that we get our youngest learners back to school in person so that they don't use the precious in-person learning needed to learn the fundamental skills on which they will build the rest of their school careers and many most counties most countries that have

016returned to school as some districts are doing did so by using their available space to bring the youngest learners back full time and then gradually phasing in older learners as solutions to scheduling and space were worked out because these young students are the most necessary and the safest to bring back in person california has offered an elementary school waiver to all districts across the state regardless of what tier they're in i worked out of course with the local public health department to ensure safe procedures and i just want to note that california's educators have worked to creatively address so many challenges this year i am optimistic that we'll continue to do so as we meet the many ongoing issues we face and that we will not just restart schools but reinvent them to be more

017socially and emotionally supportive of all students more relationship centered more connected to families more focused on enabling civic engagement as well as academic competencies and i think that is really part of what we're going to see on the state board's agenda over the coming year i think many of us have really understood that we don't want to return to the status quo uh with many of the inequities that have plagued the system of education in every state for many years but we want to return to a new normal to a new new deal in which the work that we've been engaged in over the last decade uh really does uh come into fruition with the opportunity to think differently about how we organize schools about how we support our educators and about how we support

018our students and with that i'm going to turn it over to the spe screening committee's recommendations for accs for acsc for cpag and for iqc um and we're going to first take up the screening committee's recommendations for those appointments um the public comments slide should be put up now i'm hoping that that will appear we're going to open the phone line for public comment hopefully the public comments slide will will appear so that will be easy to do and the public members will have the instructions i will read them but i hope you'll also see them because this is a lot to take in auditorially members of the public wishing to provide comment on this item may do so by calling 712-432-0075 and entering access code 651 905. found there we go there's the public

019comments slide and while we're waiting for any members of the public to call in i want to ask vice president strauss who shared this year's process to share the recommendations from the screening committee regarding appointments to the advisory commission of church schools the advisory commission on special education the california practitioners advisory group and the instructional qualification well good morning um i was joined this year by members ting tsung and member cynthia glover woods um and um who worked really really hard um through this process and we're a great team together for each of our advisory commissions a state board staff member and a cde staff member joined us as well so for the advisory commission on charter schools we have 15 applications i'll just say we have an additional opening we'll be posting next week

020we're going to be interviewing for a charter school administrator for the advisory commission on special ed we have 27 applications for the california practitioners advisory group we had nine and for the instructional quality commission students uh we had nine so it is my pleasure to give um the state board the recommendations we're recommending a reappointment for a two-year position to wesley for the um advisory commission on charter schools for wesley sieber who's currently superintendent in kingsburg elementary charter school district who represents uh district superintendents and erica jones a teacher in los angeles unified representing teacher that's for the advisory commission on charter schools these are reappointments for two years for um we're also recommending um an appointment for two years for andrea fazel she's a teacher downtown college prep representing teachers um and we're recommending

021that for a two-year term there's an addendum that was just posted on this for the um advisory commission on special education we're recommending that the following individuals be appointed stacey adler superintendent of mono county office of education representing three categories a parent of student with disability state and local official or administrator and also representative charter schools marie alvarado gill regional director of rocket ship education she's a parent of a disability individual disability and represents charter schools and sarah notch who's the executive director special education and instructor for san mateo county office of education i'm a parent of a student disability and a state or local official or administrator um for the advisory commission recommendation to the california practitioners advisory group we're recommending three reappointments for a two-year term jessie levin um an educational researcher working

022for american institute for research ed masala the superintendent of el dorado county representing superintendents or other administrators and nancy corteo chief of staff for the archdiocese of los angeles representing private school children for the appointment to the california practitioner advisory group we're recommending a three-year term for mia cooper she's representing the specialized instructional support personnel uh she works in san bernardino city unified school district for the instructional quality commission um we are recommending so um you might know that as a result of students appearing in front of the school state board a couple of years ago and then going to the legislature we have the authority to appoint one of our iqc members as a student instead of an adult and so this year actually the first year a student is serving during their senior

023year on the instructional commission so this appointment will be for next year's ford's senior she's a junior now and she'll be serving in her senior year this is juliana garcia she's a junior at john f kennedy middle college high school including narco unified school district and she will be appointed to the iq those are the recommendations of the of these four screening committees and i would just ask i would just say we interviewed amazing candidates with incredible experience and willingness to serve the state of california and support our students um it was a pleasure to meet them and we did it on zoom issues we actually got to see them rather than just talk on the telephone um and it was a really thoughtful really engaging conversation i just would ask if member glover woods

024or member sung wanted to make any comments about the screening process um and then i would move approval of these recommendations thank you good morning and thank you member strauss i will just echo what you said as far as the pleasure it was to serve on the screening committee and meet such phenomenal people also again just to underscore the phenomenal nature of the students that we had opportunity to meet during the interviewing process our future is indeed bright and again quite excited to see the young people that are coming through awesome yeah and i i would also echo um all of the comments made by my colleagues it was uh the first time that i served on the screening committee and i was too was very just amazed by the educators and the parents who

025who applied for the positions and it was really difficult through the paper screening as well as through the interviews so um really appreciated the opportunity to be able to talk and meet with all these people and i would also echo a member of glover woods comments about the students oh so inspiring just made our day yes i think that the governor is going to have a hard time making a selection and i'm glad that we're going to honor all of those finalists um we're open for public comment and then we'll come back for any more discussion on this item before we take a question now is there any public comment yes we have one person in this queue caller welcome to the state board of education meeting uh please state your name and affiliation for

026the record your time starts now my name is lindsey nofelt i'm a parent with a second grader at berkeley unified school district i'm calling to express my concerns about the statewide literacy plan as you continue to review caller uh pardon me um this is only for item two we would ask you to or i'm very sorry for item one we would ask you to call back during public general public comment later this afternoon thank you is there any other public comment on this item uh no there are no other callers at this time all right um we're now open for board discussion and maybe we can take the um screen down on the screen share down so it's easier to see all the board members uh is there any uh board discussion feel free to

027raise your hand in the participant um list or i can watch for you to raise it in in in person as well any further any discussion from the board i am seeing none so uh at this point i think uh we're ready for a motion so i move approval of um the recommendations for the screening committee for accs acse cpeg and iqc student all right thank you uh and uh do i have a second i'll second thank you very much any further board discussion all right uh we're going to ask you to raise your hand in the participant panel of zoom let's see if we can all do this this is a performance task [Music] i think we need to call the role which i can do okay yeah the script said raising hands and

028that was a new one uh okay hold the roll call vote brooks please call the wrong yes but i will note that some people successfully accomplished the performance task that i want to recognize duly noted and now on the public record uh member burr hi president darling hammond hi member fatah hi member glover woods hi member mcquillen yes member navo hi member patel burnson yes member rodriguez i remember rucker yes remember strauss yes member son hi it's unanimous all right thank you very much uh we'll move on to the draft preliminary report of actions in minutes for the september 10th 2020 board meeting while we're waiting for any members of the public to call in uh maybe we should put that public comment um call in slide up again do i have a motion from

029a board member to approve the september 10 2020 state board of education draft preliminary report of action meeting minutes i remove approval thank you very much do i have a second a second thank you very much uh are there any public comments no we do not have any public comment all right any further discussion all right uh brooks will you please call the roll for the roll call vote remember burr hi president darling hammond hi president fattah member photographer i elevated you [Laughter] he will be present it's all about student voice of something remember glover woods i remember mcquillen yes member nava aye member patel brownson yes remember rodriguez yes member rucker yes vice president strauss yes remember son aye anonymous all right uh and i'm not yet seeing our state superintendent so we're going

030to go ahead and launch into the liaison reports i want to invite you to report on any liaison activities that were not related to items in our november agenda we'll begin by calling on board members in reverse alphabetical order um based on last name and i'm going to start with sent hi um so the california um workforce pathways advisory committee is meeting in a couple weeks on the 20th we'll be getting an update on the ct grant and the k12 workforce grant the applications have come the uh sorry the selections have been made and so we'll get an update on that um and uh just an update on the work that we're doing with the statewide um the career technical education plan and that's really all i have to report all right uh vice president

031strauss um thanks on september 16th the um uh instructional quality commission met um and then the state literacy grant um they reviewed and they reviewed it and it went out for public comment also um the ethnic studies uh model curriculum the public comment period has now ended and we'll be meeting on the 18th and 19th um and going over the next round of edits and i'll be joined by member glover woods and member rutger on september 17th the science collaboration committee met that's the effort to continue to implement next generation science standards throughout the state they're doing a lot of work to help teach with distance learning and providing um really wonderful opportunities for assessments and benchmarks and lots of promising practices so it's a great support network i think a lot of our countries

032are doing that and i just really am honored to be part of it and to watch how they connected the work to equity and social justice on the 21st of october the advisory commission on special education mess and um they did an update on the state performance plan um and looked at the system of support and how we're supporting school district particularly for students with special needs um i just have to say it was just wonderful to listen to the report if you have some time to look at that um commission meeting and to see the kind of work we're doing with distance learning to support special needs students particularly the um the support of inclusive practices uh presentation that we heard was really heartwarming to see the wonderful practices during the pandemic to address

033distance learning and the barriers to inclusion we also got a report from the state special schools and how they're working on instruction um during code 19 and i think we just have we know everybody's working so hard but these were highlights particularly serving our students with challenging learning situations and learning needs um we had a report on the california special education funding report it's a study that was done by west ed i'm talking about the challenges in special ed funding particularly around um what is um equal practice what is how do we align our funding systems and what is the role of selflessness i think we'll be hearing a lot more about this but it was really quite um important to listen to again it's all on the advisor christmas special ed website from that

034meeting i think you'd be interested in hearing more about that and then we have a new special ed director heather calamis um coming to us from illinois and she did an update um on the activities of the division um and then we ended had to wish and thank um summer harding and sarawak who served for eight year years on the um commission they had two terms they both served on the commission and were really wonderful of members as well um california is part of the national association of state school boards of education um state boards of education and they had a western regional meeting on friday october 23rd so i was really interested to know that our western area includes um islands including american samoa guam the northern mariana islands and so it was really

035interesting to see it was all done obviously remotely but to hear what other states are doing i would say they did highlight our work in advancing social emotional learning in california for the western area and also discussed what different states are looking at during covert particularly around student support accountability and policy so very interesting first time i've been part of naspe and i think we will look forward to continuing collaboration with them as well um the new uh president of nazbe comes from utah state board of education and um is part of the western group um and then um the california state universities um has two advisory boards one that remember darlene hammond i serve on will meeting next week on quantitative reasoning yeah looking at fourth year of math preparation in high school for

036students so they're ready for college but they're opening another one a new initiative starting on tuesday calling the advisor the center to close the opportunity gap i think this really addresses a lot of what we've been talking about in california about getting our students repeat and so they're looking at looking at evidence evidence-based strategies to eliminate opportunity gaps so they'll be looking at joint initiatives um to increase academic success success that the center opens next week and i'll have more information once it opens that concludes my report all right member rucker well good morning um i work with board member song on the um career technical education panel and as uh board members uh strauss already pointed out we work together on the iqc issue so i won't repeat any of those reports i'm also

037working with uh with nasby on the whole child study group we have been meeting every other month since the group was in was created back in the spring uh we're continuing to expand our discussion about what it means to support students and schools in this environment as more schools attempt to open and make the transition the full-time face-to-face instruction in the midst of this pandemic there's a lot of work being done to collect and develop guidance and collect models of good practice from schools across and uh districts across the states uh california models is several of the ones that dr darlingham had already mentioned are are being included and being looked at by nazbe our next meeting is coming later on this month i believe it's on november 7th i'm also involved as the liaison

038to the state council of support for military-involved children these are dependents of military parents and we have been meeting with our new support commissioner kai jackson on a very regular basis the one of the primary goals this year includes expanding the involvement of other military communities including the coast guard in the as representatives on this state council to discuss matters for transition and engagement of students who are trans transfer into our schools are currently at legislative liaison as assemblymember todd gloria and with the changeover with the election we are hope waiting for the legislature to identify who our next legislative liaison will be appointed for this activity for that position uh finally the last thing that i will briefly report on is i am the liaison for the math curriculum framework committee the curriculum framework

039committee has had a meeting two meetings since our state of this meeting in september we met in september in october and we just completed incentives in november the committee has made some recommendations to the board asking particularly about board policy and the criteria and policy that the board created for guidance for the framework and the development of the framework for the committee rather than presenting those recommendations to the board today because we couldn't take action on their request at this point anyway there is going to be a scheduled meeting with the writers and department and state board of ed staff on monday and i'll be facilitating that discussion we'll be taking a look at not only the board's current recommendation current recommendations the guidance for the development of the framework but also take a look

040at how we will take an in-depth question on the development of chapter 12 the criteria for the publishers as well as looking at and understanding what the recommendations will be for course development uh whether they we're looking at the integrated courses or the recommendations that districts may consider in creating course pathways through the high school program as well as the assignment on algebra one for students beginning in eighth grade and i'll be ready to report that information back to the board at the september meeting so this monday's meeting is unusual it's a it's a unique opportunity for us to have some very in-depth discussion at a point in time where made multiple decision points important decision points um that will revolutionize and really change the intent and purpose of the framework will be considered and

041developed so i'm looking forward to being able to come back and make a presentation to the board about that at the january meet that's the end of my report awesome remember rodriguez yes good morning uh so i attended the um october 8th and 9th ctc meeting as a liaison and there is a new student liaison but i'm going to come back um to her in just a minute uh because i want to go over some of the data that was covered um regarding teacher prep programs we had uh the annual report card was presented and the uh dashboards this the ctc dashboards are just uh they do not disappoint if you have not been on ctc's website please go on there and search and dig and you'll get lost in uh just tremendous amount of

042uh depth and breadth of information so some of the highlights from that report are um you know that more uh more teachers um it appears are being instructed by k-12 staff than institutions of higher learning um and for a more traditional route 15 000 k-12 staff uh provided survived supervised clinical experience and for the alternative ihe-based route 6000 k2 k-12 staff provided supervised clinical experience um there was also you know the uh highlights on stiffs and pips right which are some of the the waivers that are provided by the ctc four districts uh you know and they have tips are for acute staffing need due to unforeseen circumstances uh in the 2018-19 report steps were issued right you know and again the concern is having a qualified highly qualified teacher in front of all of

043our all of our students here in california um and then the pips um 2 500 pips were issued in the year 2018-19 um there are limited assignment teaching permits these are for credentialed teachers who are working outside of their credential area while working for an authorization a supplement i day i think you have a an internet problem we'll give it a there she is you're back oh wow like it got cut off disappeared all right so i hope that you heard all the way up to the variable term variable term waivers and so these are the final option for employers to meet staffing needs uh when a suitable fully qualified candidate cannot be found and there were 400 new waivers issued in 2008 to 19. um the commissioners really emphasized how much they want for

044communication to exist between the leads and the educator preparation programs and for there to be a uh are am i still here okay you're still here um and so you know and and as part of the teacher candidate program there's an individual development plan um that guarantees the continual improvement of the candidate as they're going through the process right so that um as they go through the process with the supervised mentor uh or you know the qualified teacher they become uh they're fully prepared to take on the challenges of the classroom um there was there were a few examples within some of the accreditation reports of uh where some of these programs are working beautifully right and that's what we to really strengthen so that uh the quality of our teachers that are coming into

045the workforce um are being able to meet the needs of our students and especially right now that we're having such challenging uh times especially for our teacher our current students that are in teacher prep programs given the environment that we're all in um i'd like to highlight a teacher residency program la usd uh conducted uh collaborative meetings with the residency partners they discussed program components and uh really highlighted their exemplary partnership and that's something that uh you know would it is important to highlight and recognize and continue so that there is uh strong partnerships between the teachers the ihes the districts and they're working together to build better prepared teachers so the additionally you know the ctc is also responsible for teacher discipline and the number of cases that are that have been open have

046gone down considerably and the the staff that works in this uh in this department has just worked arduously to continue uh processing the cases uh you know there there have been uh funds that have been dedicated making sure that the that the the legal staffing is there and that these are getting worked out and um and carried through uh in you know in a way that's beneficial to all parties and that there's due process uh but i'd like to come back um and highlight uh the beginning of the meeting you know when commissioner commissioners uh do their reports it was very emotional and it has been very emotional for the the last few meetings as we're talking about um the the racial inequities uh right that we're just um uh it seems like uh confronting

047a lot of commitment in california and um and having these discussions about what our students are going through and what our teachers are going through and you know some of my my colleagues on that uh on that commission counselors teachers just feeling like you know they they're having a hard time with everything that's that's happening right whether it's the civil discourse or being online and not being able to be there for our students the way we are when we're face to face and um we brought in a new or there's a new student liaison her name is corey jones i keep saying we because it feels like i just left the ctc um but corey jones she's a new student liaison and she was just she was captivating in her um in her commitment in

048her uh in her voice very powerful and thoughtful and and and she just broke through this digital environment um and i just really felt her her desire to um humanize right and bring that that thing that we can't really put a label on in teaching um that you know being able to to embrace our students and carry them on to learning and uh and to continue and so um one of the things that she said is that trying to become a teacher right she's a student teacher right now um in this ambiguous time is uh is so challenging and anybody who is either teaching or teaching teachers or working with teachers or students it just shout out resilience and um and so it was very powerful to hear that because it's true and i want

049to um you know acknowledge everybody all of us in education who are confronting this and if commissioner martin from san diego unified who is actually her district i think is mentioned in the report that we're going to be looking at in a bit um she she read a poem um by maya angelou and uh and it was incredibly that they were you could see everybody we were all crying and um and i'd like to share that with you because it it really it took corey jones our new student liaison's words and everything that all of the teachers and counselors were feeling about the social emotional component students and teachers just feeling like they're at the end of their rope and so without further ado if you'll indulge me um the poem is continue my wish

050for you is that you continue continue to be who and how you are to astonish a mean world with your acts of kindness continue to allow humor to lighten the burden of your tender heart continue in a society dark with cruelty to let the people hear the grandeur of god in the peels of your laughter continue to let your eloquence elevate the people to heights they had only imagined continue to remind the people that each is as good as the other and that no one is beneath nor above you continue remember your own young years and look with favor upon the loss and the least and the lonely continue to put the mantle of your protection around the bodies of the young and defenseless continue to take the hand of the despised and diseased and

051walk proudly with them in the high street some might see you and be encouraged to do likewise continue to plant a public kiss of concern on the cheek of the sick and the aged and the infirm and count that as natural action to be expected continue to let the gratitude the pillow upon which you kneel to say your nightly prayer and let faith be the bridge you build to overcome evil and welcome good continue to ignore no vision which comes to enlarge your range and increase your spirit continue dare to love deeply and risk everything or the good thing continue to float happily in the sea of infinite substance which set aside riches for you before you had a name continue and by so doing you and your work will be able to continue eternally

052thank you ij that is a wonderful sentiment on which we can be reflecting uh today um i see that uh state superintendent tony thurman is here welcome tony uh we are um in the midst of liaison reports but we're gonna come back to those and let you make your remarks uh at this point good to see you good morning madam president and i'm happy to wait until the exam reports are complete all right that we will continue um and so uh remember patio bronson um you are next up great um so i wanted to give an update um on some of the liaison work on early childhood early learning um as you all might recall back in 2019 the governor and the legislature approved two new bodies um one was the early childhood policy council

053to provide advice and counsel on early learning policy issues and it also commissioned the master plan for learning and care which was modeled on the higher ed master plan to create a long-term planning effort in order to ensure that it is a thoughtful systemic rollout of how the system grows and supports early learning for our youngest students the major tenets that they were looking to address were around funding reform around workforce development preschool expansion mixed delivery encompassing both family child cares center-based programs and school district programs shared services um and data sharing so that eventually we can link the early learning data with the k-12 data and actually provide a path towards longitudinal tracking to figure out how kids are progressing and what services and dosages of services they're receiving what's exciting i think is

054that the master plan committee which is being led largely by wested has frontlined a number of themes around equity for the most vulnerable partnerships with families developing the workforce and a whole child approach which in sort of the parlance of of k to 12 oftentimes tracks to social emotional learning but also is encompassing of health mental health developmental screenings ieps um so the original plan was to um have a master plan by october 1st but for very reasonable reasons related to covid the date has been moved back but there has been quite a bit of outreach and stakeholder feedback there were two large meetings with the parent advisory committee and with the workforce advisory committee in september and the expectation is that it will be made public uh before the end of the year um

055and the date will be announced soon we have a our preview meeting as the early childhood policy council to see some of the early recommendations coming up later this month on november 16th and i think maybe just it's it's it's helpful to put a shine a light on how the two systems are working together many family child cares have not closed during the pandemic at all and have moved from the traditional role of serving younger children but also now serving younger children and school-age children and oftentimes playing the role of ensuring that when parents are essential workers and kids need help getting online um that they are playing that parent support role for so many kids um in order to make sure that they can participate for virtual learning um and i think i'll stop

056there because i think we're we're running a little bit tight on time so um i i look forward to being able to share the recommendations as they come out um and by january we should have um lots more specificity to share with this group linda i i think you're on mute did you call me yes i called you i'm mute that's great hello everyone yeah and board president i apologize for my for not being able to do my background in complete transparency i have three teenagers in this house so if they walk by mostly boy teenagers are unaware of their surroundings so i'm just going to say it right now you are freezing can you hear me now okay so i'll update i'll be brief great i'll update on uh we have four goals related

057to the cce i'll be brief and highlight uh two of those goals so what we can hear from our state superintendent uh goal one is related to direct uh technical assistance and cce has been working on developing the progress monitoring for receiving direct technical assistance and they're currently working on producing a public facing visualization that conveys the progress of leas receiving direct technology technical assistance and that work is primarily the learning that's coming from alameda county office vet and oakland unified school district and that work will produce an impact report at the end of the 2021 school year that will be produced annually to to show the impact of direct technical assistance across the state uh goal three is the facilitation and development and implementation of structures and relationships and processes to support the expansion

058of the system of support and i'd like to thank board member strauss for highlighting the axi presentation on the system of support that was done october 21st so dr carla estrada as well as our self-a content leads participated in that presentation the self-a content lead for evidence-based practices uh self-a content lead for english learners and the self-a content lead for universal design for learning and i would agree with board member strauss incredibly appreciative and also the cce received some good feedback about promoting those resources to engage more general education practitioners and lastly the hashtag comeback california cce has been working on sharing tools and resources and practices to facilitate dialogue among leas as they navigate the challenges and returning students to school all of this information can be found on the cce website which has

059had a makeover and it looks really easy to navigate so cce ca.org and again thank you to sue burr for the found laying the foundation for the cce she contributed many years of service to the cceee and uh all of the good work that's coming out now is it's part of her leadership and so just thank you sue and that will do it for me great remember mccullen thank you um this past month i had the pleasure and the honor of participating on the superintendent's roundtable on native american studies i was impressed it was a it was a rather short meeting but a great turnout and the number of folks listening and participating was was quite large it covered you know accuracy in studies of native americans some of the challenges are that there are

060so many tribes in california over 120 federally recognized tribes and trying to select curriculum that covers and accurately covers all the tribes throughout california will be a challenge and then our diversity in the state you know what happens in northern california compared to southern california very different but i'm really looking forward to that this process and and continuation of it and again a very big turnout of folks who were on the call the second thing you're going to hear later today so my participation in the student advisory board on education helping those students prepare for their later presentations today that you'll be hearing but it was a fantastic process and very impressed with the students and their preparation for what they'll be presenting later today it was it was a fun process that's all i

061have thank you all right thank you very much remember glover woods thank you and most of my comments i i gave during item one i did have opportunity of course to be part of this screening committee i did share my comments for that and vice president strauss did cover the information for the upcoming iqc work around the ethnic studies model curriculum so i have nothing further to add there i will just share i did have opportunity to participate in the nasbe convening that took place last month and in particular the session that was held for new state board members was quite informative a great orientation and if there are any uh newer state foreign to see what was discussed i think they are going to archive that particular presentation and that's all i have to

062share this time thank you thank you uh member fatah thank you president darling hammond um this past weekend i had the honor of attending the student advisory board of education hosted by the california association of student councils from october 30th to november 2nd um as board member mcquillen already echoed we're going to be hearing from them a little bit later today but my role at that conference was just um facilitating the election process for next year student member on the state board of education and so the student delegation at the conference narrowed down the 12 semi-finalists that the screening committee selected to six finalists after hearing them deliver speeches and speaking with them directly and um i also stopped the borders strauss son and mcquillen on the interview committee to select the top three candidates

063who we will be recommending and i believe it's item two to the governor we will also be meeting shortly and i think i speak on behalf of all all four of us when i say that it was an incredibly difficult decision probably one of the most difficult decisions i've ever had to make to narrow down the six candidates to three and um that concludes my liaison report all right thank you remember burr good morning all of the issues that i worked on will be coming up either today or tomorrow so i'm anxious to hear from superintendent thurman that completes my report [Laughter] thank you uh and i'm going to give one item for us and then move straight to our state superintendent um this has been a month of many many meetings of all the

064education groups uh we do belong to the national association of state boards of education as we mentioned earlier i served on a nazbe panel on how state boards can promote equity and spoke about a lot of things that are already on route in california but also heard from some other state board leaders about what they're doing around equity in their states so that's a very interesting conversation and one that you may want to tune into the video and audio from that are available and will be sent to you with a link not only from that session but from the whole conference a lot of uh talk about the importance of in this moment of really humanizing education so we'll link to remember rodriguez's comments that i think is coming out a lot of discourse in

065education uh i'm going to with that uh turn the uh floor over to state superintendent tony um tony great to see you too madam president good morning good morning board members and good morning to everyone who's following today we hope that wherever you are you continue to be safe and well today i get to join you from the california school for the deaf in fremont i have been having the opportunity to work here and work at the california school for the deaf in riverside and i can tell you that both of our schools offer incredible preschool programs to help many students who have no exposure to language until they start school i also want to mention the california school for the blind also in fremont we have three incredible schools serving incredible students with great

066educators doing great things even in the pandemic i also want to just thank all the board members many of you have had a chance to either be on phone calls with or zooms it feels like we're in regular communication always with the state we're present on issues on a regular sometimes on the daily uh i'm grateful for the opportunity to speak with board members rucker and i think i've been on at least a handful of zooms with board member fatah and his great leadership and advocacy for students in ethnic and racial justice in the state thank you board member mcquillen for joining uh our virtual uh teach-in conversation about how we teach correct and culturally competent um learnings about native american history in california schools uh thank you board member dr glover woods for the

067wonderful introduction of school board members in san bernardino and riverside counties it's an honor to see you all madam president madam vice president i want to start off by again just acknowledging the resilience of our students our our educators administrators and their families we've been at this since march addressing the impacts of the pandemic addressing the impacts of racism addressing the impacts of fire and now something i never knew existed election anxiety and hearing people say that anxiety even from the election can create physical manifestations for people and so we want to encourage those who need it to reach out to your provider if you need support to reach out to support wherever you can get it the biggest conversation continues to be school reopening many of our schools have open many of our school

068districts have set opening plans that lead them in the run-up from now to january many have used the small learning pods model to figure out how to get open and our schools still continue to have conversations about how to open safely that continues to be the key conversation and our staff is leaning in with many of our school district leaders to ask the question what's the impact of distance learning what are you seeing what is your experience how are you measuring learning in real time we're happy to share some reports with you um as we go uh our chief deputy dr stephanie redson has been in conversation with many of our large districts to hear some of their lessons learned already just months in to this next round of distance learning which we're happy to

069share with you we're grateful to our partnership with the office of emergency services to help us get personal protective equipment to school districts this is among the top priorities in order for our schools to be able to safely open and remain open is is ppe and access to robust um testing and there's still many conversations going on the governor and his team are announcing a new way to augment testing for schools we've been in conversation with school districts mayors of our largest cities all who are coming together to say how can we open on the subject of ppe i want to thank general motors who's come forward in a new partnership and donated 500 000 mask that we can distribute to school districts across our state we've prioritized in the delivery of those mass our

070tribal communities where we know there is disproportionate impact as it relates to the pandemic we've prioritized communities where there are higher risks and underlying health issues we've even been able to send some mass and we're working with oas to get child size mass for children of farm workers many of whom do not have access to ppe many of whom both children and their parents are often working outside where air conditions are not good again thank you to oes and others who helped us to send mass to make sure that they are protected again this is a very tough time i everyone is leaning in to make this work i give our our students and our educators and their families a plus for effort um i want to let you know that we have some great

071teachers everywhere but i want to acknowledge a handful today who have been selected to be the teachers of the year in 2021. the pandemic has caused many celebrations to end but we've decided it is important to continue to recognize excellence in the teaching profession and in education for our classified workers in spite of the pandemic so allow me just to share these names of these teachers and where they serve so that you may be aware of them the first is jim klipfeld who's a ninth grade high school teacher in social studies at saugus high school in the william s hart union high school district he not only will be one of our teachers of the year but he is my nominee to be a national teacher of the year and he'll be competing against teachers

072of the year candidates from all the 50 states i'd like to also introduce you to allison sear who's a third grade multiple subject teacher at lyndon b johnson elementary in the desert sands unified school district we had a wonderful conversation she couldn't believe it that the state superintendent was calling her to tell her that she had been uh had been selected i told her to honor his hours to be able to lift up teachers during this time i want to acknowledge keisa brown who's a seventh and eighth grade introduction to spanish and avid eight teacher at university heights middle school in the riverside unified school district another fabulous example of what our educators are doing and laura e gomez contreras who i've asked to become i've asked all of our teachers of the year to

073become advisors to us lara was sharing so many great examples of how we close the digital divide she is also a third grade multiple subject teacher at martin elementary school in the santa ana unified school district and finally noor nguyen a 6th through 8th grade spanish teacher at mckinleysville in the mckinleysville union school district in humboldt county salutes to all your wonderful educators thank you for what you do and congratulations on being named as our teacher of the year for 2021. as you've heard from board member mcquillen we've made our focus our continuing focus how do we use education to address hate we're looking forward to the iqc meeting later this month tomorrow we'll be posting some updates places where we made adjustments to the curriculum and what we see is a very robust conversation

074about how to strengthen the curriculum how to strengthen the model and how to create a model that school districts can use in the future to continue to have important conversations as our students ask to see representations of people of color and their in their contributions to california to our nation and to our world as we prepare to run up to the ethnic studies conversation i want to come back to the conversation that i share with you that we have selected 11 school districts to receive many grants to have professional development to do what we call education to end hate this means that we've awarded grants to districts to allow them to have anti-racism anti-bias training and we've connected them with trainers world-class trainers who can help them in doing that there's more than 11 school

075districts we're happy to share that with you i do want to also share with you that we will be holding a handful of professional developments hosted by cde virtual professional developments where we continue to delve into conversations about how education can counter hate following up on the wonderful conversation we had with educators about culturally competent pedagogy as it relates to native american history and what we teach our students and how we offset things that get taught that sometimes aren't even in our standards and sometimes cause harm to our students we will be hosting this month uh on the week of november 16th a first conversation a professional development a virtual professional development on teaching native american history and native american studies stay tuned for details there that will be followed on december 8th by a

076professional development webinar on countering anti-semitism we've seen a rise in acts of anti-semitism around the world we've seen many of our students across the country being tracked with anti-semitic hate and and then on january the 12th we will begin a conversation about how we counter islamophobia in our classrooms we know that many of our students are impacted by misperceptions and stereotypes and the things that they sometimes hear even in school and bullying and things of that nature and so on january 12th we will begin a conversation for educators professional development on how to counter and islamophobia one quick update on our efforts to close the digital divide just want to thank some donors who've come forward uh in what is now a 420 000 donation of technology to communities in the san diego area with

077a priority on tribal communities that have been without access to computers and the internet i want to thank san diego gas and electric company and southern california gas and the san diego community foundation for making this work we continue our efforts to ensure that the internet will flow like electricity and myself chief deputy and others have participated in the in the legislative hearings on how to close the digital divide we're preparing to make an announcement of a new innovation competition we're inviting californians who are innovators who have access to research and development to help us identify the next big solution to close the broadband gap focusing on those communities in our state that don't even have the infrastructure to have broadband i want to thank dr gary michaelson and genentech who've already made donations uh

078that have taken us to upwards of five hundred thousand dollars uh for a cash prize for for this competition stay tuned for more updates my final announcement is really a thank you to the staff at the california department of education and the staff of the state board of education for their endless work to continue to support a thousand school districts uh and to support six million students i have to call out a tsd uh i lost track we've done 90 plus webinars since the pandemic has started but i've lost count i'm sure we're upwards of a hundred we haven't had a single break in knock on wood we've been able to deliver the messages to school districts without interruption i gotta thank our communications team who continue to help us get the word out about

079devices and grants that we've made available our teams that work in special education and nutrition services many of you know that at the top of the pandemic we were serving meals at 5 000 different locations our schools are really getting it done our early learning and education teams there's a big transition taking place where many of our child care subsidized child care programs will be moved into the department of social services this is very difficult for us uh but we're we're taking it on faith that there's the opportunity to streamline and maximize what families get in our subsidized child care programs when all the programs live together in one agency but i have to acknowledge everyone who works in child care and everyone who works in early education and of course expanded learning what people

080forget is that during the pandemic after school programs do a lot of great things to augment what students learn during the day and they have safe and structured places i know i'm going to get in trouble because there are other divisions that i have not mentioned all of our division directors are great all of our exec team members are great but i gotta shout these folks out who've been doing incredible work to support an entire education sector during the pandemic madam president this concludes my report and i would submit to any questions from you or any of the members of it thank you so much we really appreciate it um and with that we're going to move on ahead to item number two and we'll get that one done before we take a little break

081um item two is the 2021-22 state board of education student member recommendation of three finalists for submission to the governor for consideration and appointment these are the students i was thinking about earlier and that member fatah identified in his comments the state board of education screening committee recommends that we approve the three finalists for the position of student member as is identified in the addendum the issue will be the item will be presented by screening committee chair vice president strauss uh vice president strauss please begin oh and um as as um i do my presentation you see that the finalists have joined us so you'll actually get to see the students in person of the ones we're talking about so let me just say we had 74 students apply to be the next student board

082member for next year's amazing number reading those applications we had to narrow to 12 and it was tough um amazing um and then we and this is the process we use every year the 12 students then present their platforms and what they want to do to the student committee um which you're going to hear from the students then narrow that 12 to 6. so then we have the pleasure remember sung um member mccullen myself member fatah and patricia to cosmo state board we got to interview it was as as they said the hardest decision we ever had to make so for all of you who are going to represent today let me just say it was our highest point it was so amazing the future of california is in great hands for the next generation

083based on the students i'm going to introduce you to now so the students that we are recommending in alphabetical order as our free finalists these will be presented to the governor i i he's going to have a really hard time picking but let me introduce them to you now rana banaca she's from modesto high school within the modesto city school district in stanislaus county zachary patterson at university city high school within the san diego unified school district in san diego county and jaden stewart north hollywood high highly gifted magnet within the los angeles unified school district in los angeles county those are our three finalists um but we have to name our semi-finalists so let me tell you who they are um stephanie who from tesoro high school within the capistrano unified school district in

084orange county jeffrey o from south pasadena high school within the south pacific unified school district in lake county and catherine sue at west lake high school was in the conejo valley unified school district in ventura county these were the semi-finalists um that were um presented to the students and i want to recognize them and we will be mailing them all a certificate normally they get to come in front we give them a certificate we take their picture we're gonna have to do the best we can remotely but i just want to let all the students know that we will be sending you a certificate in recognition of your fever michael blairett from james edx high school within modesto city schools in stanislaus county paula escobar evergreen valley high school within the east side union high

085school district in santa clara county alexander fan from centennial high school within kern high school district kern county emma jocrae turlock high school within the turlock unified school district in stanislaus county benjamin soloq oakland technical high school within the oakland unified school district in alameda county and jennifer tran balsa grande high school within the garden grove unified schools in orange county so i present to you those are our semi-finalists our and our finalists um what an amazing group of students um and when we're ready i'll be most happy to make a recommendation to the board for approval of awesome and congratulations to all of you it's wonderful to get a chance to see you you look fabulous and we just appreciate so much uh all that you are doing and all that you will do

086uh in the careers that you have to come i want to put the public comments light up if we can and while we are waiting for members of the public to call in um can we get that slide up i want to invite other board members who participated in this year's student selection process if they have any other initial conference and then we will um yeah i just want to echo members rouse's comments as well zachary stephanie reyna jeffrey jaden catherine you guys were amazing and it was so difficult um in our decision i you inspired me and i feel so much better about our future so thank you so much for your time and the work that you did in putting into the interview and the application process and congratulations to the three that

087will be going on thanks wonderful and jim yes i just wanted to echo the same thing i i was so impressed with all the students their preparation uh reading their applications and the letters of recommendations that were so strong i'm also very uh hopeful about our future after hearing from these students and their leadership qualities i'm just so impressed with them so thank you for allowing me to participate terrific any other comments at this moment we do want to see if there's any public comment is there any public comments there are no public comment speakers at this time all right uh we're open for any uh board discussion and you can raise your hand in the participant uh or you can just wave your hand at me any other board comments so i'll i will

088i will make a motion to approve the three finalists um to send to the governor's office um for states student board member for the following school year sounds great do i have a second second no go ahead go ahead say oh uh i will second all right that seems very appropriate uh we'll now have a roll call vote brooks will you please call the roll remember burr hi president darling hammond aye aye member fattah hi member glover woods i remember mcquillen hi member nava hi member patillo bronson hi member rodriguez hi remember rucker yes vice president strauss i remember son aye unanimous all right terrific uh at this point we'll take a 10-minute break i'm going to also hand the gavel to vice president strauss for the next item when we return because i have

089to be in another meeting for a short time we'll see you back it is now 9 57. we'll see you back at 10 10. we'll try to build those in today just so you know this is this item is an annual item for us um it is presented by the student representatives of the 2020 student advisory board on education better known as sabe um so um and actually i have to just say it's a highlight of our work and what you're going to hear today from the students could impact practice going forward so let me just say um we really listen carefully and we are very excited to hear this presentation eileen i apologize we need to re-establish the quorum oh sorry uh brooks would you please call the roll of course remember president darling

090hammond member fattah here remember glover woods here member mcquillen here member navo here member of killer brownson sorry yeah here remember rodriguez here remember rucker here vice president strauss here member son here thank you okay thank you actually i thought we might have to do that so um i appreciate you correcting me and we'll do that in the future after our breaks um so now we're going to hear from the 2020 student advisory board on education and i'm going to ask elijah sai president of the california association of student councils and diego bustamante the 2020 savvy director and cask education policy director to provide introductory remarks and they will then introduce all of our individual student presenters for the seven topic areas that we're going to hear elijah and diego please begin good morning state

091superintendent thurmond president darling hammond vice president strauss esteemed members of the state board of education and honored guests my name is elijah sai and i am a senior at lincoln high school in san joaquin county and the current state president of the california association of student councils since its inception in 1947 cask has amplified the student voice providing avenues for young leaders to be heard during key moments in history this year has been like no other facing a tumultuous world california students have experienced tremendous adversity each unique to themselves this year's student advisory board on education has brought students together from all over california combining their experiences to represent the student voice an integral part of this conference and our delegation has been an election process for the 2021-2022 student board member on the state

092board of education i'd like to commend many of the people who have made this conference an election process possible the 12 semi-finalists who have taken an active role in our candidacy and their respective proposals the board of education staff and the current student board member zaid fatah for conducting the elections he went through only a year ago our consistent platform of presentations to the state board of education is an utmost honor once again it's cast privilege to represent this california department of education's emphasis on the inclusion of student voice in the development of education policy without further ado i welcome the cask education policy director diego bustamante for more details on the conference thank you for the introduction elijah good morning and thank you superintendent tony thurman president darling hammond vice president strauss and esteemed

093board members for allowing us this amazing opportunity once again my name is diego bustamante and i'm a senior at lincoln high school in stockton's lincoln unified school district i am the current education policy director to the california association of student councils and the 2020 student advisory board on education conference director for over 50 years students from all over california have come to critique assess and evaluate the state of their public education and their school systems at the annual student advisory board on education conference this year's conference took place from saturday october 31st to monday november 2nd and was composed of 72 delegates representing all of cass 12 regions it is important important to acknowledge the significance of this year's save during a normal year we would all be in sacramento right now and the delegation

094of students would be sitting behind me filling every available seat and adjusting their business professional attire however as with the majority of everyday tasks and events the kobin 19 pandemic has forced us to adapt this year's conference took place virtually with each student connecting from their own home through their personal or school issued computer in light of the shift to distance and hybrid learning this year in specific has seen the amplification of many of the negative patterns and faults in our education system in addition to bringing forth a whole host of new issues and discrepancies the student voice has and will always be a critical perspective in the decision-making process but student feedback within education has never before been of greater consequence as we strive towards a more equitable education system in the age of

095covid the students who made up this year's delegation are intelligent show exceptional initiative and are open to both feedback and change their passion for their own education their willingness to be flexible and their drive to enact positive change in the systems around them inspires not only me but the rest of my staff as well our qualifications are this we are the ones who wake up early in the morning and attend school in whatever fashion that that may be this year we are the ones who experience the california education system these delegates here are have proven themselves to be competent in advising the state board of education with this in mind this year's delegates have had to had complete control over the topics presented to you today with no bias from staff members delegates debated voted

096and decided upon seven topics that truly embody what the what the delegation views to be areas of concern in the california education system over the course of three days they took it upon themselves to compress all of our different experiences ideas passions wants and needs into seven thorough proposals the seven issues that the student advisory board on education has decided are areas of concern that need to be addressed in our education system are in order student representation civic engagement racial equity school safety mental health distance learning environmentals and environmental sustainability if you would like to view our packet of proposals you can check out the agenda item on the cde website or also go to tinyurl.com save2020 that's tinyurl.com sabe 2020. our first presentation will be on the topic of student representation presented by benjamin

097uh saleh thank you very much good morning it's the members of the california state board of education my name is benjamin saylop and i attend oakland technical high school on behalf of the student advisory board in education we recommended the state board of education encourage local district governing boards to appoint students district-wide subcommittees and create statewide guidelines outlining the rights and roles of leaders promoting this change by appointing youth to all statewide commissions and creating a state svm advisory board from a young age we as youth are told our voices don't matter our teachers our families even our friends reinforce that we are powerless in our decisions election representatives actively discourage youth from advocating for equality and change eliminating accountability and activism in oakland our schools began to reduce the general budget in 2018 without

098consulting our lcap student directors one which was me during this time our entire restorative justice team our foster case workers and the school breakfast team are reduced to total budget of zero dollars students consistently and tirelessly protested these cuts but without representation and discussions we were powerless hundreds of students lost crucial support services that they relied on without these programs imagine what would have changed if students had been centered in this discussion and if we had students at the table on budget cuts the district would not eliminate these services throughout our research and development process on local representation we identified the systematic effects of lack of leadership elected student board members from turlock repeatedly ignored by their colleagues on the board and these youths elected by student body were not allowed to attend their board

099meeting relegated to sitting on zoom while their adult peers spoke freely similarly in palo alto in oakland superintendent advisory councils and other leadership groups were canceled to cover 19 with outlets between the ramifications of student leadership or the viable options of hosting virtual meetings many districts create a series of hurdles to prevent you from speaking their mind and creating change in their communities only exacerbated by the lack of any precedent or institutionalized support for youth to combat this we must expand these pre-existing governing bodies to all district decision-making groups allowing youth to serve in local positions of leadership like their district subcommittees we recommend these opportunities are protected by a clear set of rights for youth officials overseeing their roles and responsibilities creating guidelines for your legal partnerships we believe the exemplary leadership demonstrated by

100csba and the state board of education can be replicated in all districts including students in all decisions and therefore achieving performance goals the strategy of inclusion benefits both students and school members allowing both sides to support students and promote leadership we believe that less than five thousand dollars required per school district to implement these positions with an optional cost to appoint a student advisor but regardless of the cost of impacts or initiative there are countless benefits to appointing youth positions of leadership student board members already serve some of the most passionate advocates for youth initiatives and other youth will advocate for their other priorities we observe that students resistances represented in our education are more likely to pursue resources and support and are more prepared for life beyond high school districts without a student board

101member almost exclusively scored failing grades and performance and college readiness demonstrating inequities exacerbated without a student balance and the simple act of instituting this change offers you the opportunity to confront prevalent issues in their communities which drastically increases youth opportunity and certain achievements that most represented districts excel in performance this positive change demonstrated by the effects of san francisco usd in 2018 their district created an sbm position appointing two students in the district and over the course of that first year sf unified achieved significant improvements in student performance finally achieving a rating of green from the cde dashboard i can attest to the fact that representatives on boards lead to lasting performance and disability as sbms effectively identify unnecessary initiatives and successful programs by standing in front of you as a student as a leader

102and as a change maker in my community passionate about representation it is integral for us to serve and uplift students as they are key stakeholders in our education we must assert that every student leader has equal rights and opportunities to support their appearance this is why we recommend that the board of education encourage governing boards and administration to appoint at least one people to each fourth district committee we believe these changes will meaningfully impact student achievement in our schools and through this we hope you lift the voices of our peers thank you we'd be happy to take any questions or comments from from board members now so idea but just to clarify um do you want board members to make comments after each of the seven or do you want to hold till the end

103of the summer uh yes if we could have comments uh after each one that would that would be great okay so um this one is about um student representation on boards and the voice to gain critical perspectives from students do we have any board member comments oh oh should i have raised my hand yeah go ahead go ahead side okay thank you board member strauss and thank you so much benjamin for your passionate speech um i think there was uh a part of your proposal in which you talked about um the possibility of creating a student board member uh student advisory board um for the state svm position and i think that that's um an idea that we should definitely consider on the state board because uh i feel as though the student the student

104board member on the state board uh perspective is currently informed just based on conversations had with members of organizations such as the california association of student councils and gen up and i think that therefore it's kind of more shaped by interactions and independent research rather than kind of working in tandem with individuals who understand uh certain regions of our state better than the student board member can research and so i think that um that's definitely something that uh we should consider as we kind of move forward with this state student board member position uh creating the the student advisory board because i think that that can help the state student board member kind of inform their perspective a lot more um and and yeah thank you thank you member wrecker you have your hand up

105thank you first of all i want to thank all of the students who participated in developing this proposal and having the conversations about it normally at the board meeting if we were sitting at the deus they would be in the room sitting in the audience and we would ask them to stand so they could be recognized for their participation putting the report together and that's not something that can be done today so i just want to make sure that for all the students whose names appear in this report and it's been posted i recognize you and i really do thank you for your thoughtful approach and the ideas that you developed in this project i do have a question concerning the idea of the student board member advisory committee when you think about student voice

106the student voice at this day isn't at this level has come to be represented by the students who come to this annual convening as members of the advisory committee for the state board and my colleague on the state board zayd fattah but i want you all to think about and look back at your own campuses there are many many students on your campus who serve in a leadership capacity in many ways on your campus and while i think your proposal is highly laudable and worth considering for the work that is done to appoint and identify the student member i think that the power of your recommendation and your idea is its ability to expand who the student voices are that can be represented in these type of advisory committees so we're not just looking at

107one type of student voice for setting policy but all of the student leadership voices at your campuses that contribute to community creating the culture and the climate at your school this is an opportunity and a vehicle for expanding and giving a place to those leadership voices as well so i really would like to encourage you to think about that too thank you very much um member mcquillen i believe you have your hand up and you've been part of this process do you want to make any comments about this student representation proposal i would just like to thank the students for all their work and and their flexibility you know that this is an unusual time that our the students have shown a lot of resiliency in attending this conference virtually and i know they've sacrificed

108a lot by not going in person i just wanted to thank the students for this presentation and all of the students for for their good hard work thank you member mcquillen so i would say um just to the rest of the board when we listened in the student interviews about student voice and perspective we heard some amazing ideas besides advisory committee including using social media to make sure they got student perspectives so i do think as the world is changing as technology becomes so much a part of all we do and students do there are really some really great opportunities to make sure in this huge diverse state more than 6.2 million students that we hear from all 58 counties that we hear from the diverse perspectives of urban suburban rural and i think the

109students brought us a lot of really good ideas so for this first presentation i just want to thank benjamin and the team that put it together so articulate oh excuse me member rodriguez i see your hand is up go ahead yes member strauss thank you i wanted to speak earlier but the mail showed up and the dogs were barking anyway i i just want to acknowledge thank you for your your presentation and i have read this report with such delight and um and and as a teacher i value student voice uh and parent voice tremendously um you know and in this environment i've asked you know we've one of the things and this is actually another issue in this report but going back to the representation um you know as as member rutgers said you

110know what would this look like at the local level and it would be this is a great time um to go back to president darlene hammond's comments at the beginning right what is this how are we going to emerge from this and how is it going to be new and i would really like to see student voice and vote right because we have student members in a lot of different capacities but i would like to have you be able to vote to be responsible to your body of peers beyond asb and you know beyond some of these programs that students are selected for because of their academics or what have you but to really um you know i think of the the program mosaic making our schools an inclusive place but actually making california be

111you know where we bring a voice of a lot of different students who have the voting power so thank you for this i this whole item is very exciting to me member glover woods thank you vice president strauss and again i'd just like to say kudos to the idea and the thought of um more increased student representation on student voice is extremely extremely important and um one thing that i just give to all of the phenomenal uh student leaders for ongoing consideration as how to best be sure that in that representation that the voice of all students are heard i'm thinking in particular for students that might be a bit disenfranchised from school might not be as successful in school i'm sure these are conversations you've had in your settings as well but to be

112sure that the voices of all students including those that again might be disenfranchised uh with school or not as connected that their voices are hurt as well thank you member glover woods are there any other board members that would like to make a comment we have um six more areas so we have lots of feedback to give our students as well so at this point diego i'll turn over to the next section great thank you so much next uh we will have uh anusha athreya present on the topic of civic education thank you i stand before you the board of education proposing a policy that would affect over 10 000 schools across california being 16 years old i'm at an age that most adults regard as too young to care about these issues the first

113time that i learned that i could pre-register to vote at 16 was before the 2016 election in sixth grade my history teacher miss nearest used the entire class period to explain the electoral college and the impact on the election on us as students i am lucky to have the opportunity to learn about my civic rights so early on but the reality is that most students in california don't have the opportunity to engage in civic discussions in schools until late in high school an issue that has stigmatized youth expression in civic leadership my name is anusha athrea and i'm a junior attending archbishop media high school in san jose california on behalf of the student advisory board of education we strongly recommend that the state board of education facilitate the creation and distribution of a digital

114student civic learning handbook which would detail the ways in which a student could engage civically with their community with the goal of improving civic engagement among students now more than ever california students seek civic engagement and political discussions on a daily basis and with a desire in young people to engage in their political realities becomes more evident with each passing day so do the vast disparities that lie in regards to civic opportunity accessibility in marginalized communities furthermore in petaluma unified school district when the administration was pressed by students on how to participate civically the district responded coldly and negatively students in districts across california are not aware of the opportunities for civic participation at their disposal which includes organizations like cask and student board members we love having a voice but most of the time

115youth feel alienated from the political discussion because it's assumed that we don't have the knowledge to engage in these conversations especially in our current political climate the presidential election was just two days ago where a little bit more than 12 million californians cast their vote for state ballot propositions and many students are apprehensive about the future of our nation with our entrance to voting approaching faster it's a fundamental necessity that all students have the tools at their disposal to make their voices heard we believe that the student civic learning handbook should include essential information needed to inform students to become a civically engaged member of society with the state board of education creating a digital model handbook this format can be passed down to local school districts and adapted within their specific policies we proposed

116this recommendation to be facilitated by a committee consisting of students parents teachers school district administrators and any other pertinent community members with steps taken towards distribution and accessibility for all students a standardized seo handbook made readily available to all students would create a culture in which students see greater engagement in civic opportunities such as voter registration civic leadership and understanding a policy language this greatly increasing accessibility and allowing previously marginalized communities to effectively use their voice it's imperative to recognize the important role that civic education plays in the lives of students in california and the current lack of quality in civic education has left many students without the tools to properly express and represent themselves as a result local education agencies miss out on the other primary stakeholders students we acknowledge the board's decision to

117pass the state seal of civic engagement which will incentivize high school students to expand their civic literacy the requirements to learn about constitutional policies and democratic principles and the sel handbook will only reinforce these ideals of civic engagement proposed within the state seal and provide students with a set of tools for when participating in political and legislative discussions i'm proud to be an advocate i represent those who don't have the opportunity to be here today and with the necessity of civic engagement in today's political atmosphere everyone deserves an opportunity to be represented for these reasons we strongly suggest that the state board of education facilitate the creation and distribution of a student civic learning handbook so that california can make a significant change in our education system and empower all civically engaged students thank you

118so we'll um go to board member comments on the proposal for civic engagement and a handbook to support student activity um do i have board members who would like let's see um remember rucker i see your hand up uh well i see uh board member mcquillen's hand is up first maybe it might be more appropriate for him to speak before me okay i think he was first i think he'd put his hand up before i did okay thanks sorry i was going on this screen i saw remember mcquillen would you like to make a comment oh just briefly i just want to congratulate the students on their presentation a great job and i think this is a very important handbook recommendation that you're that you've made when you think of the schools all over california

119they're kind of all over the map in terms of defining what civic engagement is and it would be very helpful to to outline that for students especially with the the latest action we took with the the seal of civic engagement that we approved a couple of meetings back but good job and great presentation thank you so member rucker and then after that remember patio bronson uh well miss anusha i can't say your last name so please accept my apology for addressing you by your first name instead but i want to let you know it's interesting yesterday afternoon i had a conversation with a friend of mine she's a high school english teacher in san ramon and we were talking about this very issue and i mentioned to her that the board had approved the state

120seal of a civic engagement uh for recognizing students in the school community in the local school community not only did she not know anything about the state seal not only did she not know that her district could create the policy and craft the criteria for identifying students but she also didn't know that it could include a whole variety of ways that students could be recognized for her civic for their civic engagement so i think your idea is an excellent idea because it would actually make the basic premise that the board approved actually become a living activity and a living document for districts to look at and engage in not only with teachers become more aware that this opportunity exists to recognize a whole lot of ways that students are involved not only in their school

121community but involved in the community in general in civic ways and so i think this is an excellent idea again i want to applaud you as the presenter but also your fellow members on your committee who participated in doing this work and again i see your names and i appreciate the thought that you put into this this is an exciting opportunity for the for the board to see at the local level an idea brought to fruition in very creative and uh relevant ways for students just like you but also as a board member glover woods pointed out for students who do not necessarily see themselves as members on a student council but who do get engaged in other activities like black lives matter or who do voter enrollment voter registration or i know a particular

122young lady who lives in vallejo she actually worked a poll of voting poll on election day and i think it's important to recognize that type of work as well so thank you very much for this very very thoughtful and creative idea remember patio bronson i also wanted to congratulate the group and anusha um on the excellent presentation um clearly you all have thought about this and come up with something that is both actionable um and realistic and i really appreciate uh the presentation as well as as all the hard work that went into it um as some of the our other board members had mentioned we just recently um passed this motion around the seal of civic engagement and it's very much our i think hope that that action will also provide additional sort of

123wind in the sales of exactly this type of effort so that leas so school districts and county offices of ed will know that this is something that is both within their capacity but also something that is encouraged and something that for which students should be rewarded when they take initiative um i think as is often the case sometimes it is it is happening um in sort of pockets of excellence and then there are places where it is not happening at all um but this particularly um two days after the election where we don't actually yet have a declared winner there's there's really no better applied learning experience than right now i can certainly um attest to the fact that i've been watching you know all the electoral boards with my own children and in addition

124to sort of the civics learning part of the electoral college um i think my fifth grader can now pick out michigan wisconsin georgia without the map names which is a new and exciting part of sort of knowing how both the electoral college works but also a little bit of geography um but i just want to again commend you all on and what is an excellent and well thought out idea and i hope that we can find a way um to actually bring that to life thank you member petite bronson so um diego we'll move on now to the racial equity presentation great uh thank you so much for that uh next we will have elie leon presenting a proposal on racial equity good morning esteemed members of the california board of education just this march

125some students from my school joked about staying six feet away from me in fear of contracting kobe 19. the matter of the fact is microaggressions like these aren't micro as a chinese american i felt alienated and humiliated but i invalidated my feelings and chose not to report it because i've been conditioned to think that getting upset over such remarks is overreacting my name is ellie lean and i'm a sophomore from portola high school in orange county i am one of more than four and a half million students of color in the california public school system and i'm one of the countless students affected by discrimination today i'm speaking on behalf of my group covering racial inequity in the california education system in light of recent racial justice movements the urgency of equity has only been

126magnified students such as myself feel uncomfortable and even unsafe speaking upon racial experiences in addition many local educational agencies do not recognize the experiences of discrimination that students who are bipolar black indigenous and people of color have to go through and as a result no effective disciplinary actions are taken we need to create an environment where all students feel safe to learn and thrive regardless of cultural background in recent years there has been an increasing attentiveness to discrimination on campus and there has been legislation passed in efforts to address this matter although this is a step in the right direction fbi data shows that since 2018 hate crimes on campuses have actually increased by 25 percent and due to recent racial justice debates in coba 19 the racial inequity has only been aggravated on our

127campuses we heard stories from tesoro high school where a french teacher called a black girl a monkey with no disciplinary action taken we heard stories from annaleigh high school where a student of color was told by educators she had little chance to attend college despite her strong academic performance these are our students going to school on our campuses whose experiences were largely ignored because they had little confidence in their school's ability to listen or administration fail to follow through with consequences these students reflect a small sample of a large number of bypass students whose experiences are repeatedly invalidated and downplayed and therefore are unheard unknown and underrepresented in response to this we use insight from students of all backgrounds and experiences to create a holistic solution that follows the footsteps of ab9 also known as

128seth's law a legislation passed in 2011 that requires the state superintendent to provide anti-discrimination resources for leas intervention from school staff who witness acts of racism and student accessibility to procedures and policies for handling discrimination our solution calls for the california department of education and the state superintendent of public instruction to develop and encourage the use of a blueprint consisting of effective methods that provide comfortable and accessible ways for students to report racially charged incidents and then encourages the use of restorative disciplinary action the proposal requires superintendent thurman to instruct the task force on safe schools to design a blueprint of practices for reporting incidents of racism and complete subsequent research to formulate this model we also suggest holding surveys for students in regards to this model as well as including student representatives so that

129all stakeholders including students are represented in this task force after development is complete superintendent thurman will distribute it to school districts and local educational agencies along with the other resources he has to provide under ab9 we recognize the great work you all have already done and greatly appreciate the effort that has been taken to make this pressing issue a priority so while there may be some costs required for funding research and expert opinions from the racial equity field the established platform we already have to build off of means that the development for procedures related to racially targeted incidents will require minimal costs this means that the benefits of this policy will greatly outweigh its economic exertion the positive change that ab9 has brought so far also supports the liability to our method since its implementation

130a grand jury report that examined bullying from marin county showed that 25 schools have taken their own initiative to launch various methods such as anonymous tip lines surveys and forums for students to vocalize these incidents for investigation many have even implemented restorative justice practices such as peer courts counseling and peer mediation our proposal is simply an addition to ab9 that increases accessibility and guidelines for school districts by providing students a safe and proper platform to be heard schools will be able to directly gauge the experiences of its bypass students thus instigating a sense of urgency within schools towards racial equity and equality once racial offences hold consequences bipoc students will be validated improving not only the school climate but also actively dismantling the normalization of racism thank you ellie so much um so board members

131don't put your hands up and i just would say to member rodriguez i apologize i think your hand went up just as we were transitioning so i'll call on you first and see if that's and then member record right after that okay and i didn't want to interrupt because the new the presentation elie had started speaking and so i didn't want to jump in there but thank you um and so i'm actually going to speak on what you said and thank you so much um for your uh your your your authentic it wasn't just like a report it was very personal and i appreciated hearing that very much um but going to the civic engagement um that's right up my alley because i've been the mock trial coach and have had mock elections and i

132know that there there are a lot of things in place for civic engagement but a lot of times it's for students who are competitive and so it doesn't really include students who need to learn civic engagement to be able to access their rights and know when their rights are being violated i had the opportunity through street law to meet the founder of mock trial and he moved to washington to work in urban schools because he was really disappointed at the way in california it had become so elitist and so competitive and um and it was missing the point of having all students learn their rights learn how to navigate the court system learn about supreme court cases etc i think with no child left behind when we started looking at math and english language history

133and civics just sort of if it wasn't being tested it was being ignored and i remember having a conversation with former president mike curst about how he wanted to see civics in every single grade at some level every teacher so it brings me back to systemic thing if we're if it's an additive approach it's probably not going to happen because we have so much on our plates already at the practitioner level that it really needs to be woven into everything that we do and um and with that comes teacher preparation and teacher awareness right how to listen without judgment if a student is politically saying something that i disagree with how do i not shut that down right and those are skills that we have to learn because unfortunately um you know it goes into

134the next point about um bipac students and that feeling of because i know what that's like i i absolutely know what it's like to be in a place and to look around and feel powerless feel powerless because of um because of my race because of my language of origin right um so i know what that's like and there are uh as i was reading as i was reading the report and um read about seth's law that you mentioned here i actually asked about 30 teachers that i know excellent teachers throughout california if they were familiar with seth's law nobody was and so it made me wonder like what are we not communicating to the people that are actually um you know working with and it's not because i mean these are these are teachers who

135are on top of policy on top of you know a lot of uh they stay relevant and really care about kids and they're not teachers who bully students either or would accept that so i was surprised to know that that that information isn't in the hands of the practitioner and and that's what we need to do to make make this just so that it's such such of our part of our mindset that we're not um you know that we've that we've uh inculcated and i believe that the the standards for teacher preparation include uh the new standards that you know for the last three four years include a lot of this inclusion um but we still need to do more so i really appreciate your advocacy and um and i want to see this become

136an integral part of our classrooms in our schools so thank you thank you member rodriguez so member wrecker and following member member glover woods uh ms leon i'm going to begin uh with an unusual request and ask if you would please read the names of all of the students who worked with you in your committee on this project would you please read them aloud if you have that information um yes give me a second to pull that up really quickly okay so while you're pulling that up let me just say it's um this is a very personal uh issue for me um for the years in all the years that i have been on the board i have never heard anyone so articulately state the issue of micro aggressions in the way that you and

137your team have done let me say that first of all and i would like to say and i would like to pretend that we live in a world where people grow up and learn not to do that but the same issues of microaggressions that you identified so personally in your story are the same issues that i'm sure all of your peers who are here this week have also dealt with but also we watch as adults engage in the same behaviors i have i personally have encountered and dealt with those same behaviors and being a public figure i am very careful how i choose to enact or react to those things because probably one of the most dangerous microaggressions that i have to deal with is being labeled as an angry black woman so i truly

138do appreciate what you have stated what you have offered here as an idea and it is it has been my personal campaign as a member on this board to address this not just because of the issue of bullying this is a board that has committed itself to addressing the issues of what it means to close the achievement gap this is the one issue that remains unnamed and all of our agenda and all of our activities and all of the things that we have attempted to pay attention to we talk all the time about equity we talk all the time and look at and call attention to the gap in performance among our students in particular with ethnic minority subgroups and with with particular concern to the over identification of african american boys in special being

139referred to special education but the fact of the matter is the issue of microaggressions and the problems that are caused by the students who have to deal with that is a key and significant factor of why there is an achievement gap why many students do feel disenfranchised in their schools and their communities so i want to thank you for being willing and being brave to draw attention to this and that's the reason why i want to make sure i ask you to identify the name of your colleagues who participated um in developing this project so i'll pause here and ask you to read their names aloud if you have it now all right there's catherine shu stephanie who kamiya tofi rad jennifer cruden rana bachnacon max ramirez and the counselor is david ching and the

140research committee is estrella pacheco so thank you very much and i want to give my personal thanks and appreciation to each of the students that you named and i what i can promise you here sitting here today is whether for the entire for the balance of my tenure on the board and even when i leave the board and in all my other in personal and professional endeavors i will do my best to make sure the things that you proposed here are things that we can make a reality thank you so very much um thank you um sorry i really quickly like to mention that the writer of this proposal is air intact sorry i missed her okay thank you so much remember glover woods thank you and ellie i first would like to just applaud

141you for the a very personal way that you started your report and um many of my fellow board members have spoken i'm not going to elongate the time so we can get into some of the other areas but i i just want to underscore how important the recommendation that you have shared with us really is we have ongoing conversations about equity in the field of education in almost any form you go into equity has become the word that is utilized we spend a lot of conversation and time looking at how do we how do we expand our curriculum how do we be sure that the lived experiences of people of color are really told in the various content areas but your proposal and the proposal of your colleagues is so critical because all of that

142conversations about equity diversifying the curriculum all of that falls flat if students are dealing with microaggressions as they are on a regular basis on campus and lu stated it so eloquently when you said microaggressions are not micro they are not they are the things that impact what a student's experience will be on campus from day to day and how they're able to either be set up for success or not set up for success because of the environment that is created for them so to have something convenient to be able to look at what those best practices and model practices are so that when um racial microaggressions are taking place on campus by students by teachers we want to be sure that there is a way that students can communicate what they are experiencing and what

143is happening to them and i really think that again this recommendation helps to put some meat on the bones of all of the other conversations we have in education around equity and diversifying the curriculum so again i applaud you for speaking on behalf of your colleagues um kudos to member rucker for having the names of those students read aloud for this purpose and i do hope we do some further exploration into how this recommendation can come to fruition thank you member glover woods um diego i'll turn it over to you for the next section which follows this thank you okay uh so next up we have uh the topic of school safety presented by william hinn good morning superintendent thurmond president darling hammond and esteemed board members my name is william hinn and i'm a

144senior attending santiago high school in the garden grove unified school district where i proudly serve as a school district student board representative on behalf of the student advisory board on education we strongly advise the state board of education to recommend and set guidelines for local education agencies to establish various methods for students to communicate to local administration their safety concerns such as sexual harassment staff misconduct and possession of dangerous substances and weapons and that these student voices be taken into account when schools execute campus-wide safety initiatives last year on her walk to school my friend's backpack was grabbed by a strange man who asked her where she was going terrified she broke away and ran to her school campus shaken she reported the situation to her other super school administration but instead of being comforted

145she was sent straight to her school resource officer the sro terrified her by questioning and recording her without her permission that day my friend experienced two uncomfortable situations if she was able to express her discomfort the administration would understand how to improve when schools lack student input on school safety the systems in place put the mental and physical safety of students at risk in a discussion between 10 students from distinct and diverse regions of california each person felt that student input was not acknowledged sufficiently in creating and enforcing school safety this was mirrored in the observations we had of school administrators failing to recognize the value of the student perspective one notable example occurred at a school in chula vista where there was an armed robbery at a school nearby yes students were unable to

146enter the school because of premature action and lack of procedures we understand these situations happen but without consideration of the student perspective school safety guidelines can create an uncomfortable and in some cases blatantly unsafe learning environment where the feelings of students are discredited while we recognize that there are pre-existing channels where students can provide their perspective we believe students need more accessible outlets in order to communicate safety concerns to administration at each school site we are not proposing the creation of new measures we are suggesting resources on campus where students are able to voice their safety concerns and have their perspectives taken into account by administration for instance at a school site level we propose the implementation of anonymous tip lines where students can immediately express any pressing issues such as bullying sexual harassment teacher

147misconduct and other potential safety risks at a school in garden grove this type of tip line was established and made easily accessible through the school's website and wasn't printed on every student's id card in one instance this tip one was used after school to inform the administration that a student was threatening to bring a gun on campus the following day which allowed the police to apprehend the student the next morning student voices could also be taken to account at a district level through district board meetings where students have the time to publicly share their concerns or experiences regarding campus safety while these are only some recommendations from our complete proposal based on our research and as a delegation of stakeholders in the system these precautions are what we need to see implemented the proposal we

148provide you with today will give students a multitude of platforms to express their own perspectives to enforce and improve site safety consequently the proposal would promote a greater sense of protection on campus enhancing learning engagement and thus decreasing chronic absenteeism among students that feel unsafe at i stand before you today to alleviate many fears students face within the california education system california embodies more than 6 million students who face distinct situations that need to be addressed immediately in order to provide a safe learning environment because we the students need to be need are the primary stakeholders of the education system our viewpoint will be the most truthful when reflecting the prevailing issues of our system safety measures therefore we advise the state board of education to recommend guidelines for local education agencies to establish various

149methods for students to communicate local safety concerns and that these student voices be taken to account when schools execute campus-wide safety initiatives thank you thank you so much william so i'll look for board members who want to make some feedback comments on the school safety proposal member mcquillen great job william very succinct very good presentation i want to thank you and and your team for the research and and this very valuable presentation you know we know systems that allow a lot of feedback and and return of information within that system are more healthier systems so your recommendations are right on point as well as the last presentation and giving a stronger and additional avenues for students to give feedback to the systems that serve them so very good and thank you so i'll ask if

150there are any other board member comments on the school safety proposal i'm looking at the hands raised trying not to miss anybody um i i do want to um say to the students who presented on this presentation on this topic this is a really um important topic close to our heart especially as school and district leaders and state leaders and i think your suggestions um to make it safe for students to be able to report to feel comfortable when they're really uncomfortable and talking to staff and the suggestions of what some of your districts have done to already address that will really help as we share that in the state um and i just would say if students aren't safe they can't be engaged in learning and um and we know there are so many

151things especially some of our schools are really large i know the school i was high school principal had 3 500 students you can't know all that stuff so you have to create safe um avenues and safe ways for a variety of different reporting and also i think sensitivity to staff so they're aware of that both the certificate of staff and the classified the school resource officers so again william you and your team brought up important issues and i know we take those seriously um at the state board level and at the department of end well thank you very very much i'm going to turn it over to diego for the next um report on mental health great yes so the next topic will be mental health uh and it will be presented by karina pam

152good morning superintendent thurman president darling hammond and his team members of the board my name is karina pan and i'm a junior at temple city high school i'm here to speak about the pressing issue of mental health instability in children and youth across california especially given the current situation of coven 19. we propose that schools use informational posters to educate the students about topics regarding mental health including guidelines to approach specific aspects of mental health decline in both nationwide and district specific resources that students can go to for help these posters shall include safe plans in the event of a mental health crisis positive coping mechanisms and the identification of school-based services that students can utilize for social and emotional support we can continue we can continue to invest in services like counseling and peer

153groups but they will be useless unless students are informed about them we recognize that the state has already made efforts to increase the mental well-being of students however the climate mental health is still a very real problem for students in california and across the nation the stark reality is that mental health is one of the most pressing issues that students face today between 2008 and 2018 there was a 38 increase of hospital discharges for mental health issues among california youth ages 5 to 19. the rate of suicide among those aged 10 to 24 increased nearly 60 percent between 2007 and 2018. every one in five teenagers live with a mental health condition even worse during this coven 19 pandemic 29 of children and youth are facing mental health declines many students know someone that has

154suffered from a mental illness and the youth that worked on this proposal are no exception personally i've experienced declining mental health struggle with suicidal thoughts and i was once diagnosed with mild depression unfortunately like most students in california i did not learn of any resources to combat my intense mental health struggles i felt alone in my battle and i didn't know where to reach out to for help this is a situation that no one should ever have to face let alone vulnerable children and teenagers if i had seen resources and information about where to seek help around school like the one we presented today i would have known how to respond to my struggles thankfully through reaching out to my friends and receiving therapy i was able to overcome my mental health obstacle but this

155is not the experience for all students in california which is why we are proposing these posters to help other students get the help that they need in our ideal education system all students have easy access to adequate support and mental health resources all staff and students are educated on how to recognize symptoms of declining mental health and the student body as a whole does not promote negative stigma around asking for mental health support we acknowledge that declining mental health is multifaceted and complicated and that there are important steps that we need to take to combat this issue one significant leap in the right direction would be for the california state board of education to strongly encourage districts to create and publicize informational posters about issues pertaining to mental health when students return to in-person learning

156posters will be put up around campus however if students are continuing online learning a digital version of the poster should be put up on school websites emailed to students and posted on school social media pages like instagram and facebook so students will be encouraged to refer back to them and will regularly review the information our proposal will be effective because these students will educate students make them feel heard and encourage them to reach out for help because posters are engaging and 65 percent of people are visual learners children and youth are more likely to absorb information from them than rather than listening to a long lecture or a speech additionally they are accessible to many students at once and can create a larger impact in a shorter amount of time it is essential for students

157to have easily accessible and appealing information because students long-term academic success is directly affected by their mental health further emphasizing the fact that mental health decline is one of the most pressing issues that students face today increasing sadness or hopelessness among students was related to subsequent declines in gains in test scores in reading language and math high school students who screen positive for psychosocial dysfunction have three times the absentee and tardy rates than those without in high school students with significant symptoms of depression are more than twice as likely to drop out compared to their peers not only does declining mental health impact test scores but it also increases the chance that a student will not attend school if declining mental health is not directly addressed using a proposal like ours it will be impossible

158to increase the success rate of students in california so please prioritize the mental well-being of students by strongly encouraging districts to produce and spread information informational posters regarding mental health thank you for your time and your consideration well karina thank you for the presentation for your committee and for the passion and energy that you gave to giving us some very specific suggestions of what we should think about as we all really focus on the mental health support for all of our students i'll ask um some state board members now if anybody would like to make a comment um member navo yeah i just want to thank you for this um as well as william pryor i didn't have an opportunity to thank you both for speaking on safety and uh karina on the social emotional

159mental health this is a huge issue and one of the striking statistics that you as pointed out in your report is the um that the leading cause of death for students ages 10 to age 34 suicide and i think the the local educators are struggling with this and the idea that students need to be comfortable and we all need to be comfortable asking for support and asking for help is a huge issue so i commend you on this and i would challenge your team to think of um more than the posters and the information that we can do more in this area and i would think i would uh challenge your team to to think to think more be more intrusive and more disruptive with the system when it comes to elevating the the urgency

160around mental health and i think but i thank you for this is incredibly powerful i loved the way you elevated the significance of this as it's dear to my heart i know dear to many board members this is an issue for our youth it's incredibly challenging so thank you thank you member novel member mcquillen i just want to congratulate you on a great presentation very succinct and taking the recommendations that were made earlier this week and integrating those into your presentation very valuable information that we all need to think about right now with the times we're in the crisis of the pandemic and the need to get those resources out to our students you know in in multiple avenues that you you brought up the posters that can be posted on social media or on

161the student id cards i think those are wonderful ideas and we need to we need to follow up on this and and get that out to all districts and all schools so very good and thank you for this presentation thank you very much thank you board member mcquillen um so we have our final area diego environmental sustainability would you introduce our presenter uh we actually have two more uh first we have distance learning presented by david kim and then we'll be moving on inbound oh i'm sorry i apologize oh no worries um just one second um before we present on distance learning um david kim member rodriguez wanted to make a comment on mental health so i apologize i didn't see her hand up so just hold on one second i'll remember thank you so

162much and um also i'd like to echo what's already been said great presentation um this is a a very uh pressing issue as i'm dealing with students who are very depressed right now uh suicidal and and fortunately for me they feel comfortable to reach out to me um but you know i'd like to echo what uh board member navo said that posters are are nice right they they add a level of awareness but we have to go deep into how are we handling um the social the social emotional learning in our classrooms what are we as teachers doing to bring uh those conversations and take the shame away um you know because on the one hand i have students who are very competitive and um and it's great to see them you know go and

163uh participate and but they put so much pressure on themselves that they're in my classroom pulling their hair out literally pulling their hair out because they're struggling so much and then on the other hand my foster students um you know who have so many issues that they uh we need to create spaces at school and i'll bring back mock trial truth and reconciliation things that you know where we can bring bring all of the students in so that they can use those skills and as teachers we can also facilitate um that that closeness is human beings uh so i i do encourage you to push this uh further than the posters and let's make it systemic so that we have a lot of nets in place so that when students are falling we catch them

164along the way and we don't let them slip through thank you member rodriguez so we're going to hear from david kim presenting um the proposal on distance learning so relevant to the work we're doing today for all students so david we're looking forward to hearing from you and your committee uh good morning student board members my name is david kim and i'm a senior at lincoln high school in stockton we the student advisory board on education recommend that the state board of education convene a distance learning task force composed of students teachers administration and parents dedicated to improving distance learning and the transition back to traditional learning models though the california association of student councils meets annually with the board of education in person we are speaking to you today amid one of the largest

165crises in the history of public education covet 19 has drastically changed the way schools across the state of california operate however it hasn't changed the mission of equity dedication to a high quality public education that the state of california promises i'm speaking with you today as i face the challenges that distance learning has brought forth but i'm also speaking with you today with a computer a support system outside of school and the ability to be successful by virtue of the opportunities that i've been given these personal experiences from being able to actively participate in hearings like these to accidentally being kicked out of my zoom meeting for my calculus class have defined my outlook on distance learning and have reminded me that we must ensure the voices of every student are heard the vastly different

166experiences of students across california in the united states are all indicative of an underlying issue in many cases students administration and school boards lack input and communication amongst themselves prompting school districts to bring forth solutions that aren't beneficial for student learning distance learning has emphasized the inequities that many students were faced with in traditional learning models just over half of parents at 54 feel that california schools in general are somewhat or very unprepared to offer distance learning 79 of parents say that keeping children motivated and sustaining their interests are their biggest challenges in turn students report weaker understanding of curriculum as seen as shasta union high school district which has reported a record number of deficiencies given out in the first quarter students watch firsthand as their education falls short to work for them in

167these circumstances yet by implementing student voice this issue could be mitigated in such cases like mental health student inputs essential at fremont unified school district the superintendent instituted a student-oriented task force dedicated to finding solutions to address mental health concerns this initiative was successful in its effective collection and mobilization of student input to create a solution that directly benefited those involved the future is increasingly becoming digital whether covid is going to be present or not and student voice is essential in this new era of education as such the student advisory board on education proposes that the superintendent of public instruction facilitate the creation of a multi-stakeholder task force that serves to voice the opinions of students on multiple aspects of distance learning through the work of the board of education you've helped bridge the digital

168divide now it's the fall and we're halfway into the semester it's time for us to come together check in and work collectively towards future progress a task force can effectively compile the data across the state and recommend participating members to disseminate best practices to local district administration the appointment of members on the identified task force incurs minimal costs due to the accessibility and flexibility of an online platform therefore the actions of the task force may not may produce a financial dependency however the task force itself will not by connecting students from across california with different backgrounds we can bridge the gap between students and problems they face we must ensure the validity of student voice and distances learning so that the next time we undergo a global pandemic we'll be ready thank you david thank

169you so much what a relevant topic in our in these days in our schools so i'll look for board members who would like to make a comment on the distance learning proposal on member mcquillen great job david very good presentation and following the theme of student input of all of our presentations have had that sort of theme to it very good suggestions and i know our superintendent thurman has done a lot of work in this area and trying to bring services and meet the needs of california throughout california on distance learning i think we've learned a lot over this past eight months nine months and i think it would be really important to bring that student voice in to have us validate what we what we've learned and add to what we are learning about

170distance learning and how it's working for students throughout the state of california so some very good suggestions and i appreciate that thank you and good job thank you member mcquillen do we have any other board members who would like to comment on the distance learning proposal remember novo yeah i just wanted to thank you david and i would um i i believe that our cde and cce are doing a tremendous amount of work in this area and it seems to me that that would be a place to get your group plugged into obviously the state superintendent has done a lot of work on the digital divide conversation across the state ccee is doing a lot of work with the distance learning that being said i i agree with you i think student voice needs to

171be present in those um in those arenas probably even more so than they already are so i would encourage you to to seek those two entities and and to put your voice at those tables and conversations because that work is occurring across the state as well but thank you for your presentation it's very informative thank you member nava just checking before we go to our final presentation anybody else want to make a comment on this one so um seeing no hands i'll um turn it over to diego for our presentation on environmental sustainability right uh so our last topic of environmental sustainability will be presented by adalia thank you diego good morning the esteemed members of the california state board of education my name is adalia liu and i'm a junior at newbury park high

172school in newbury park i'm here on behalf of the california association of student councils to discuss the development of environmental sustainability and consciousness in school districts across california now climate change is undeniably the most pressing issue facing our world today despite incessant attempts to politicize it climate change remains the most destructive threat to our existence as a species not as a political agenda it's key that educational systems recognize acknowledge and take action to lead the way towards positive change 2019 was the warmest year in history and global temperatures only continue to rise california students continually fail to receive the same quality of education at the expense of these fires that burn up their fall semesters in northern california alone classes were canceled for more than 260 000 students due to wildfires and those numbers only

173rise kennedy delaney one of our group members affected by the fires every year explained i've been out of school due to evacuations power outages and even unhealthy air quality students are missing out on their full opportunity to learn we need action and we need it now when education systems fail to prioritize climate change citizens fail to as well desensitized to its effects it's our responsibility to improve these conditions as much as we can for our students to give voice to the thousands of california students who rallied for sustainability state capital ensure their future and enable their success in the status quo regulations for environmental sustainability are lacking policies that promote combating climate change in our local school boards either don't exist or fail to be equitably enforced at shasta high school in redding we can

174see that almost no discussion is dedicated to sustainable practices or policy which if implemented would help mitigate the fires that kennedy spoke about however in oak park unified school district the creation of a sustainability group composed of students and teachers has led to many improvements such as replacing toxic cleaning products and guaranteeing environmental literacy for every student through science instruction thus after thorough discussion this weekend at safe we determined that the most effective course of action was for the state board of education to recommend all school districts to develop gdex green district advisory councils focused on leading and implementing a variety of sustainable initiatives at that local non-partisan level allowing for district specific environmental concerns like implementing hand dryers renewable energy tribe and systems and more to be addressed at their own timelines staffed with

175qualified adult volunteers and passionate students these gdax would legitimize the urgency of climate change as members would pragmatically and systematically combat it through the education system locals with a passion for climate justice will be empowered and uplifted given the opportunity to hold their school districts accountable and make this tangible change this measure creates unification across the state and initiative whilst maintaining autonomy within each area allowing them to take transparent action in what equitable effective and efficient manner is possible for each all at their own pace our plan is not solely concerned with the immediate legislative fluidity consistency and continuity designed for the long term are inherent in the creation of these feedbacks which we hope becomes a staple in california school boards the battle against climate change is lengthy it's uphill and it's definitely difficult

176but with the establishment of these advisory councils we take a step in the right direction each district will be poised in a position to cause change environmentally conscious legislation will receive the dedicated continued focus from a number of committed individuals without the loss of valuable time and energy of local school boards ultimately we'll be able to see a dramatic improvement not just for those involved in the education system but for our society as a whole the example that this prioritization would set is irreplaceable and it gives way to a significant improvement in student health success representation and more all at no risk thank you for your time oh thank you adalia so much for you and your committee so we want some board member comments on environmental stability and the proposal of gdax green district

177advisory councils um so let's see uh member president darling hammond i'll call on you first all right first of all thank you and i want to thank the preceding speakers that i was able to hear all really uh amazing wonderful and well spoken and well thought out this is really important and i appreciate you um you know developing a way to think about what districts could be doing um i gave my remarks this morning in part in the same issue of climate change and what those with the gdax i love the fact that you already have an acronym once you have an acronym you have a real thing in education um that these g decks actually might relate in some way to some kind of advisory council we might state level because we really need

178to get the places that are doing good work i flagged some districts this morning that are really leading in some areas of climate conservation uh how we need a way that we can get those ideas out to other districts as well so i really appreciate this um i like your um your idea it might we might think about whether there's a easier acronym but of the content is excellent and i appreciate you putting it out so thoughtfully so look for other board members and while i'm looking for any other hands i'll just make a comment as lia is under the next generation science standards implementation we've been talking about environmental practices and um through the implementation of science and helping students be more aware i do think the suggestions and the examples that you gave

179in dahlia with you and your team really highlight the challenges particularly in california when we saw our entire state full of smoke a few in september and realizing how it impacts our student education i think you bring up some very important examples of what students are learning and experiencing during their learning process and what we really need to think about so i just want to pre-thank your committee and see if there's any other hands-raised um oh member song i see your hand waving thank you i wasn't sure how to raise my hand but um just i had not commented yet on any of the specific um proposals but i just i want to make kind of a summary comment that uh you know we know our schools are microcosms of our society and often and

180often reflect the social and political issues that are happening and i just really want to thank the students who put so much thought all the topics that you raise the environmental concerns distance learning safety dealing with racial inequities bullying civics education and valuing voice all of these are issues that we are facing now in kind of our larger society which you are raising and more than that you have also come up with very solid solutions to these issues and problems and i completely agree that the value of the student voice because you're shaping our future it's a good best impacts you so that um that you really need to have a seat at the tables when we adults have these conversations so i just want to thank um all of you for your work and

181your time and um for presenting to us today so look and see if in summarizing any comments i just want to miss any board members who would like to make a comment this wasn't a really impactful presentation gives us a lot to think about and a lot of ways to look at what we can do to integrate our work and also to take a look at how we can help support counties and districts i'm member mcquillen i want to thank all the students for their great presentations did a great job with the research and working with your teams and taking the feedback in the early planning and taking that feedback and integrating it you all did great in bringing important topics to this board so thank you all any other board member comments i just

182would say so articulate well written and so well researched i'm member rodriguez thank you yes and to echo all of that and thank you students uh for stepping up and uh you know sharing your concerns with us it makes me sad that you're the ones that are um looking at solutions for the environment right you know in in your high school years um however i'm glad that you are speaking up about this and uh and we have to listen because um we are we are at a at a breaking point with a lot of the things you know as we've seen in california with the fire so um the issues of justice and of race that you brought up i i read this report and i was just like so excited turning the pages i

183printed it out um so that i could like see you know because i i just uh my lives have been changed by by the students that i've worked with and uh and today is no different you're not my students but i'm hearing your voices and i hear the voices of of uh you know every child that's that's been in front of me so um thank you and we will do our part to ensure that our schools fit the needs of the students that are in there thank you member rodriguez um so do we have any other board member comments on this item to close it let me just i'm just checking the participant list or look at your picture and put your hand up in the if you want to make a comment okay i'm

184going to turn the board meeting back to mem president darling hammond and we're going to move on to item 4. thank you terrific thank you and thanks again to all the students awesome presentations um now we're going to move to item 4 which is the mega assessment item uh this is the last item before lunch if you're wondering when you'll get a chance to eat it will be right after this we will make it expeditious so everyone can eat soon the california assessment of student performance and progress system the english language proficiency assessments for california uh the um california high school proficiency examination and physical fitness test this is approvable proposed revisions to the smarter bell summative assessments for english language arts literacy and mathematics blueprints approval of the proposed initial and summative alternative english

185language proficiency assessments eleven students score reports and an update on program activities and this item will be presented by mel vang of the cbe i see that the powerpoint is ready to go now please begin we're not hearing you i don't know if you're on mute okay how about that better all right i apologize okay so good morning um superintendent thurman president darling hammond and board members i'm mal vang the director for the assessment development and administration division at the california department of education the item before you today is an action item so for this presentation the california department of education has two recommendations for approval and we will finish with time for questions for both recommendations rachel maeves our deputy superintendent of the instruction and measurement branch will join me to share some opening

186remarks after i cover the recommendations so the california department of education is seeking approval on the proposed revisions to the spring 2021 smarter balance summative assessments for english language arts literacy or ela and mathematics blueprints as described in tables two and four in order to allow for a short test form and propose and the proposed students score reports for the initial and summative alternate english language proficiency assessments for california or alpac as described in attachment two so now i'd like rachel to come and make some opening remarks before i continue on thank you dr bang as we ask you to consider approving the adjusted blueprints or shortened forms for ela and math assessments i would like to situate our discussion in the current context first there are still many unknowns i suppose we should not

187expect anything less from a year that has brought a global pandemic historic fires rolling power outages and i think the only one that madame president darling hammond forgot was murder hornets we do not know what covert cases will look like two months from now when the assessment window opens we do not know how many leas will move forward with their plans to bring students back for in-person instruction in january or how many will be fully engaged in distance learning we are bringing to you our recommendation to approve an adjusted blueprint based on what we do know right now we know that the ed has indicated in a letter to chief state school officers on september third that they will not consider a waiver and that states should prepare to administer tests as required under essa

188we also know that we have leas and varying degrees of reopening across the state we know that we have students with varying degrees of bandwidth and we know that we must continue to provide flexibility and innovative options to support students teachers and families in an ever shifting landscape second timing is imperative consideration of an adjusted blueprint is not a decision we can delay until the next board meeting as you all know california serves 6.2 million students of the 6.2 million 4.5 million tests each year over year california's participation rate and testing is upwards of 95 percent indicating a high value in our ability to understand how we collectively as a state are serving our 6.2 million students if we wait to discuss testing until some of our unknowns are settled we potentially place ourselves in

189a position without options for california to administer a reduced blueprint it requires time for our contractors to revise the test itself it requires time to support the thousands of test administrators and examiners that work diligently to ensure testing is seamlessly executed each year and this year it will require additional time to support and educate parents as they have been and continue to be partners in their children's education if we wait until january to make this decision a reduced blueprint will no longer be an option for leas during this time leas need flexibility options and ongoing support as they collect data across multiple measures to fully understand the impact of the last several months today's recommendation to adopt the adjusted blueprints is one of many steps as we commit to working alongside educational staff stakeholders to

190design a long-term plan to support learning recovery with that i'd like to invite dr bang back to the podium and she'll continue with this item thank you thank you rachel so um before i go on i want to provide a an overview of our california assessment system to bring focus into what our recommendations are about today so on one side of our system we have our suite of california assessment of student performance in progress and under that it includes the smarter balance assessments for english language arts literacy or ela and mathematics which consists of the summative assessments interim assessments and the formative assessments through the tools for teachers system we also have the california science test or cast the california alternate assessments or caas for english language arts mathematics and science the california spanish assessment

191or csa and our grade two diagnostic assessments then on the lpac side of our assessment system are the initial elpac the summative elpac the initial and summative alternate lpac which is in development and i wanted to remind us that in 2018 when the alpaca was integrated into the caaspp system with both programs um it became both programs went under the umbrella of the california assessment system so today's recommendations focus only on the summative assessments let me see if i can right here blueprint summative assessments blueprint and the initial and summative alpac student score reports of this big assessment system so our division also oversees and support the work for several other assessments including the physical fitness test the california high school proficiency examination and high school equivalency tests such as the ged and high set

192and the national assessment of educational progress just to give you a little overview okay as we go into the first recommendation i want to cover some or highlight the key events that brought us to where we are today remember that in march 2020 california requested and received approval from the u.s department of education to waive the testing requirement given the pandemic well in june 2020 the cde issued our stronger together a guidebook for the safe reopening of california's public schools then throughout summer 2020 the cde learned that an overwhelming number of local educational agencies or leas will return to school using distance learning formats so to meet the demands of distance learning cde did explore and transition to offering multiple test administration options for the initial alpac and the optional summative elpac during july and

193august and these options went live on september 3rd and another key event as rachel mentioned was that the u.s department of education sent us a letter advising states that assessment waivers would not be considered for spring 2021 test administrations at this time so knowing that summative testing will not be wave again this year the cde understands the following background um up points so regardless of the mode of instruction in spring there will be more competing demands on our students time than ever before and the city is seeking opportunities to really maximize flexibility for for leas while keeping the critical um elements of our instructure intact so the use of the adjusted short test forms for the smarter balance summative assessments for english language arts and math could provide gathering essential data with less bandwidth and

194student testing time so in order to use the test forms of the short test forms and preserve the maximum flexibility for our lease in spring 2021 the state board of education or the california state board of education would need to approve revised shorter blueprints for both english language arts and mathematics per california education code section 606405 so the cde does not recommend changes to the other non-smarter balance blueprints at this time so the following rationale were made [Music] for the revised blueprints which are referred to really the short test form in the item so the revised reprints are derived from our adopted smarter balance summative assessments for english language arts and mathematics we are proposing that the computer adapted portion be adjusted to about 50 percent for each claim and that it keeps which the

195revised blueprints will keep a comparable proportion of the content across the claims which i will cover more about claims in the upcoming slides so given that the performance tasks are designed to be integrated tasks the blueprints associated with them have not been adjusted we propose to keep the performance tasks intact so continuing on with further rationale the revised blueprints maintain the same proportion of depth and knowledge assessed so in in this option this does not require additional cost to california and finally these revised blueprints are considered temporary for the 2021 spring administration so some pros or benefits with the adoption of the proposed adjusted blueprints is that it reduces the amount of time students spend on the tests it provides more flexibility in scheduling for the appropriate for the adequate monitoring of our administrations it

196reduces the exposure potential exposure of the items from the item bank and minimizes the risk of connectivity or network issues that may arise it allows leas to continue to meet federal testing requirements the individual student overall scores can be reported as i will explain further later and these are the measures that can also be used for federal reporting however there are some cons and drawbacks that i will share on the next slide so in adopting the proposed revised blueprints there is still potential risks of exposure of the items as in any given year and there are scheduling and time impacts on leas for completing the testing and there are less again there are less details that will be reported at the student level again those claims scores will not be reported and at this time

197as rachel mentioned it is unclear um what student data results will be available until all the analysis and test administrations have occurred or has been completed so i would like to go on to share the proposed revised blueprints with you so this table displays the recommended revised ela blueprint the total items by grade for the full form in italics are provided for reference uh the row um this row here let me see if i can get my little pointer again so this row here oh sorry maybe i won't tinker with that so uh the after the italics um full form uh items you'll see the row that indicates the proposed revised blueprint and it has the claims under that claim one is reading claim two is writing claim three is listening claim 4 is research

198inquiry there are other words used for these claims like areas or domains depending on the assessment but for the smarter balance we call them claims for this purpose and the proposed items per claim by grade underneath okay so the difference is that the computer adapted test items right here goes from in grades three through five goes from 36 to 39 items to 20 and then six to eight and then we're maintaining the performance task in grade six uh through eight um it goes from 36 to 4 from 36 to 40 items to down to 22. and then in grade 11 it goes from 37 to 39 items to 22. and then here is the recommended revised mathematics blueprint again the full form here is provided for reference and then for the short form in grades

199three through five it goes from 31 to 34 items to 17 maintaining the pt or performance task grade six it goes from 30 to 34 items down to 16 to 17 and then grade six we have uh only a grade 11 maintain a pt and then the in grade 11 we have 33 to 36 items down to 18. so that um having said that i want to give you a little bit more context and information about estimated testing times for smarter balance summative assessments because that is what we use for our english language arts and mathematics summit assessments and here um i've provided the estimated uh test times uh for the computer adapted tests here for the full form and what it would be reduced to for the short form then we're keeping the performance

200task intact by grade and then by by yelling math and then by both and then what the full form total hours and minutes are by grade or grade span and then what the totals would be for the short form so the last two columns really show that comparison of estimated testing times for the full form in the short form and as you can see there is significant time savings especially at the upper grades because you're really saving like two hours of testing time there an hour and 45 minutes there in grades six through eight and an hour and a half in the lower grades and then i want to share some background information about our other non-smarter balance casp assessments and the estimated testing time so with those as i mentioned earlier we are not

201recommending changes to these non-smarter balanced uh cast summative assessments as they really are already shorter much shorter as indicated in this uh table okay and then for the owl pack again um they're much shorter like an hour of course the upper grades do have more because there's more writing and reading assessments but again it's much more shorter than the even the smarter balance assessment so um the question is so i wanted to bring some context to the types of reporting that are on a student score report here i have an image of a an english language arts assessment for a student and at the top of the student score report is where the students overall right scale score and achievement level right here are reported along with the school and the state average scale scores

202and achievement levels so the bottom part here are the claims and the claims are the more granular reporting areas that are available on the full form but with the revised blueprint the claim scores are not going to be reported at the student level so i just want to remind us that while summative assessments are useful for districts and schools to identify general areas of improvement they're really not meant to be diagnostic so as rachel mentioned earlier using multiple measures that include diagnostic formative and interim assessments or benchmarks can provide a more holistic picture of the individual students academic progress so the removal of the claim scores from the student score report could be considered a reasonable trade-off given the multiple opportunities to collect other rich student level data throughout the year and with the performance

203tasks intact we will be able to provide writing trait scores at the individual and group level so this image provides a summary of writing trait scores by the categories of evidence or elaboration organization and purpose and conventions through the california educator reporting system at the group level in terms of scores at the group level uh they they can still be reported by mean scale scores and achievement levels such as this sample english language arts summary public report right we can still do the scale scores here oops sorry a little too fast the mean scale scores here and then the performance the achievement levels by each level here as an example and although the claims or the areas cannot be reported at the student level at the group level we can still provide that so furthermore

204these scores at the group level can be reported by a claim and you know such as our reading writing listening research or inquiry again this is from our ela summary public report by grade so the proposed um our proposed timeline for implementation is as follows currently the cde has available under the caf program the california alternate assessment for science is already available since uh september 8th and this is really um the four performance uh tasks that are minister close to instruction they really have the entire school year to work on that so the regular um on january 12 2021 is when our other casp assessments will be available this include the california science test or cast the california alternates for english language arts mathematics and the california spanish assessment and then the summative elpac will

205open or launch on february 1st and the revised blueprints are if they should be approved today we anticipate that the casp launch for the smarter balanced ela mathematics test will be available sometime in january but we are being conservative with late february as the latest they will be available right now we um as rachel mentioned earlier we do have a lot of unknowns and what we do know is that we um had a year without data in spring 2020 and this really puts us on a path um to the possibility of getting more information as a way to check on the system and once the summative testing window opens the cde will monitor the data along with our contractor from the summative assessment throughout the whole entire window and we will provide updates on the

206availability and potential uses of the data as appropriate so we are working on guidance that will allow lea options and flexibility to meet the needs of their unique contacts so at this time before i go to the second recommendation i'd like to stop and see if there are any questions about this first recommendation remember patio bronson has a question talking to myself i'm mute uh any clarification questions uh yes um please kim thank you um i just wanted to confirm as to whether parents will be receiving these scores certainly in the context of my own local district i know parents watch these and although they're not necessarily used as a sole source diagnostic i don't think anyone would propose that it is oftentimes um it's a feedback mechanism and particularly in the context of covid

207and especially in the context of the early years where parents are playing such an important supplemental role especially for early literacy and reading acquisition it's it is a very helpful guide so one do parent will parents receive it um and then two um i pulled out my own kids little scores that you can't see it here with the blue screen but um will will the scaled scores still be a part of the short order form that is provided so you get um you know the 2000 to 3000 range number that's there at the top of the screen that you just had up and still have the child score the school average and the state average um yes if um everything goes according to plan and there are no other natural disasters or emergencies of sorts

208and we could fully implement this this spring you will still receive all the results at the very top your child score the the um scale score and the school averages and the state averages and also it will tell you that the the child's achievement level as well the only thing you're missing out is the the domains here that roll up to be the total score right sorry and i have one follow-up question um because the domains or the claims are also very helpful i think for parents who are trying to supplement and especially catch up kids oftentimes over the summer when there's challenges has there been any conversation about whether for example if if the reliability of the data degrades because of the smaller um sample size of questions going to 50 um what i

209noticed um again just looking at my own kids scores is that in the elementary school years some of these claims are already collapsed so for example for my third and fifth grader problem solving and modeling and data analysis on the math are already combined and does that potentially give us a mechanism by which to provide more information to parents who want to actually do the the supplemental work that's particularly needed in a the context of covid um as you mentioned this is really one source of data so hopefully you have in terms of the reporting if we go to the short form we won't have those at the individual level but you could have your child's scale scores and achievement level to compare to how your school did and how the state did overall however

210the reliability of the test um eric are you here okay i will have uh dr eric zilber come and um share a little bit about the reliability of the assessment going from a full form to a short form let me just note that we have asked all districts in california to be using formative assessment tools diagnostic assessment tools this uh fall and that's actually been part of sort of their continuity planning etc so everyone should have more data about their child available from other assessments the district is using and uh we'll go to this discussion i do want to remind people that we're talking only about clarification questions right now we still have the rest of the item in public comment to go so we'll take a brief discussion of reliability a couple other folks

211have clarifying questions and then we'll i see you and but we will come back for full discussion so go ahead yeah i was just going to say that the smarter balanced full forms have reliabilities all around 0.92 so that basically means that if you gave the test twice you'd have 92 percent agreement between the two tests for the shorter form those go down to about 0.88 or 0.87 depending on the grade and subject so you can see you're getting a little bit more uh error a little bit less precision with the shorter form but it should be adequate for reporting scale scores and performance levels thank you very much in the queue i have ting patricia and matt i think matt was actually first of those list and again let's keep it to clarifying questions

212brief ones so that we can um get through this and then we'll come back and have a full discussion i'm good i had a question about parent uh communication kim covered it okay uh and then we have tayden and then patricia yeah mel can you just clarify you had mentioned that e.d is not will not be entertaining any waivers of assessments can you just clarify that means all the casp the entire clasp or just the smarter balance portions no so all the assessments that are required under essa as i mentioned all those under cast and um alpaca all required assessments under us so okay still have to administer let me let me just say uh because we're getting a little into the um other questions uh that um the this decision does not have to

213do with will will is a separate decision from whether under a new administration or under different pandemic conditions we might ask for a waiver of something having to do with assessment or accountability this is a separate decision about just the short form because we can cross that bridge if and when we get to it yeah that's fine i just wanted to clarify and so that we understand that we're talking about the all of cast when we talk about the the federal requirements and then um the my other question is you know for these two particular blueprints they're part of smarter balanced um the so does this there are other smarter balanced um states also doing something to similar to this well they are exploring the same options as we are i believe that uh hawaii

214already have approval on one of their short forms um that i just learned that they haven't implemented but they have approval on one of them um so they're all in the same boat as we are and a lot of times because we are so big many are kind of waiting to see what we do i don't like to see first but you know sometimes we have to make the hard decisions right yeah and i know that we um share data and there's some kind of data analysis within the consortium so i was kind of curious if there's kind of some consistency across the consortium on how they're handling the shortened form um again i want to ask him quickly well i'm sorry i i just see tony alford sitting here and i thought maybe we

215would ask him oh yes tony you are on the phone and he knows what's happening with the other states so that we could get a quick answer yes uh madam president um so uh i i think mao described it accurately the the states are looking at the the blueprint options this um the states voted on uh the blueprint that is uh that mao has presented uh to the board for its consideration in um and then states have the option of using that blueprint or using the full form or it is their option to deviate and use some other blueprint but uh given that this is one of the blueprints that smarter balance has adopted it would be a blueprint that smarter balance supports as part of its technical manual it's a collection of validity evidence

216and uh the the data that it collects around it thank you that's helpful okay patricia one more clarifying question and then we'll complete the item well i'm glad i was on last on this because i do have a lot i did have a number of questions about the blueprint list itself could you go back to the slide showing the difference in the number of assessment items um because i do have a couple of questions remaining and then we get to the general discussion i'll ask the smarter balance logistical questions there um my first question is i heard that there would be a difference in the error uh that would be given and first of all let me just say i found it amusing when your colleague came up to the podium the camera had to

217make an adjustment because he was so much taller than you i had a hard time not laughing about that but that's separate so i did hear that there was a difference in air and that error is likely to increase with uh giving the test my i have my next question is so does the scale also change with the reduction of items that are on this assessment if we go to this alternative blueprint so i will have uh tony can you assist with that question oh board member wrecker uh so [Music] we uh we do not plan on changing the scale and we will provide evidence as part of the data collection that it is in fact a comparable use or comparable scale from um previous administrations so that's uh that's an evidence that would be

218included as part of the technical analysis okay and then my last question is related to the depth of knowledge with the large number of assessment items on the full assessment both for reading language arts and math there is a great deal of diversity or variability in the depth of knowledge required for the students to explore and actually develop the answers for in their responses for these questions could you go to the math blueprint so i'm concerned when we look at the math blueprint with the reduction of items there would be one or one to two problem solving questions and up to two modeling and data analysis questions i'm especially concerned in mathematics because this is the area that we have a statewide performance issue that mathematics is almost uniformly the lowest test score that students

219are receiving across the grade levels and grade spans that we're testing and across districts and while the state does have separately and uh a priority on providing a new a new uh professional development and new instructional support the teachers to help increase the uh performance of students i'm concerned about what the actual math assessment is going to tell us if two of the areas where we're doing a lot of work to revise the math framework really will not be well explored in this alternative assessment and i and i'm i'm just raising the question knowing that this is just going to be a one-time thing but i'm not sure tony on what the relative value of the math score will be given you know what's actually going to be tested and we're not clear what the

220depth of knowledge of those questions are so could we talk a little bit or think a little bit about giving guidance to the lease about what this score will mean or what they should glean from the data they're going to get from this score because i think that they're going districts are going to need more help with figuring this out even with the diagnostic work they should be doing with the formative assessments i'm not really sure they're going to know what to do with this information knowing that there was only one or two items on what are some what is proven to be some of their most difficult instructional areas i hope that question makes sense yeah i think we're getting into the discussion now um it's a great question i don't know if there's

221a quick answer now and then we can delve back into it when we get to discussion really about the depth of knowledge really respond to the depth of knowledge we can get to the detail of the other part of the question but i really do want to understand what would be the depth of knowledge so if i may um so uh we the the depth of knowledge for problem solving and data analysis is really addressed principally for map in the performance tasks and so those were retained uh the uh and in the aggregate uh i think that the the power of the summative assessment even in the shortened form is retained and to at least start at your question uh smarter balance acknowledges and and uh and and i personally acknowledge our need to augment

222and support the the interpretation of the results in in a new way and and for a variety of reasons not just due to the the shortened blueprint but because of all the context of the data that has to be taken into consideration i certainly appreciate your response to that and thank you so very much great thank you um see no other clarifying questions now why don't you go ahead with the rest of the item okay thank you um so as you know the development as i mentioned earlier the development of the alternate lpac has been ongoing and the initial the development the initial and summative alternate opec student score reports is the most recent step in that process so let's begin it really began last spring so the work began with two parent focus groups

223uh one in april and one in may and the participants were provided with a sample alternate alpaca student score report translated into spanish in mandarin and asked to provide feedback on its readability and usability and these parents at least um have at least one english learner student with an individual lives education plan education program so for the first meeting we focused on spanish-speaking parents and guardians because spanish is the language that is most common for english learners with the significant cognitive disabilities and for the second meeting we um included mandarin-speaking parents and guardians and provided feedback and collective feedback from them as well then in july a focus group was conducted with representatives from a number of california stakeholder groups to provide feedback on the design elements of the alternate lpac student score report's ability

224to communicate the results to parents students and guardians and some of these stakeholder groups included the small school district association the association of school california school administrators the california school boards association the california teachers association the california federation of teachers the california county superintendent's educational services association and the california science teachers association so having the feedback collected from the focus groups uh the first component was to make sure that the graphics would contribute to the test results being easy to understand and the next component was to make sure that terminology and language would be clear and understandable to parents and guardians and then the student score report also needed to identify the skills that are needed to help the child progress along with an explanation of the child's abilities and the last component was that

225the from the parents and guardians and stakeholders they recommended including links to sample test questions and available resources so all in all the feedback was good and provided us with the ability to bring forward the alternate uh lpac student score reports that meet the feedback from these focus groups so on the alternate lpac ssr details um that once approved these student score reports will become available for both uh for use for both the initial alternate alpac and the summative alternate alpac which are planned to be operational uh starting in july 2020. they will be available in five languages english spanish mandarin vietnamese and filipino and finally these student school reports will provide universal access to the information for persons with visual impairments through text-to-speech applications so this screenshot displays the front side of the initial

226alternate out pack student score report the pop-out image displays the overall score and the proficiency level and this is the back side of the report the pop out displays the descriptions of the three different proficiency levels that are reported by the initial alternate alpac and then here's the proposed summative alternate elpac student score report front side and the pop-out image displays the overall score and the proficiency level and then uh on the back um it shows the um the pop-out here displays the overall score the proficiency level in a comparison to previous years if available so i'm nearing the end so just to recap the cde's recommendations for the california state board of education are to approve the proposed revisions to the smarter balanced summative assessments for english language arts literacy or ela and mathematics

227blueprints as described in tables two and four in order to allow for short test forms and the and approve the proposed student score reports for the initial and some summative alternate opec or english language proficiency assessments for california as described in attachment to so i will stop there linda i'm sorry i think you're on mute i've been talking to myself on youtube way too much um we're going to open the phone line for um public comments uh so we want to get the slide up for public comment queue uh members of the public wishing to provide comment on this item they do so by calling the phone number and using the access code on that slide and while we're waiting for members of the public to call in i want to ask member son if

228she has any initial comments before i add mine and then we'll move to the public account yeah i just wanted to say that i think it is really important that we have this conversation around the summative assessments um that we're looking at for the spring of this year um as deputy superintendent um maeve said um in her introductory remarks um but we don't know what um the spring will bring us and what it will take we need to start working on um preparing for uh whatever it might be so i think this would be the first step in um looking at a shortened uh blueprint for the summative assessments yeah and i'll just um echo uh ting's comments and note again that um this gives us an option we may need and uh it has

229to get started now if we're going to have that option but there will be much unpredictable in the coming months and so there i want to be clear that if there are questions as i've heard many about things like waivers that might pertain to assessment or accountability to various tests etc of those we will not be taking up right this minute this is really just about these these items because they are timely and necessary at this moment and we will you know continue to be responsive to the environment around us as we need to be beyond this and with that i think we can open it up for public comment is there any public comment uh yes we currently we have four callers in the uh queue and first caller uh please state your name

230and affiliation affiliation for the record your time starts now good afternoon this is edgar sueta on behalf of the association of california school administrators i just wanted to state that uh we we support the recommendation we think it strikes the right balance on ensuring health and safety of our students and staff while also allowing us to get some information and data that will enable us to support our students from an academic standpoint we do have two requests from the state one is that the state takes the lead uh on the communications front our members our school leaders are gonna be the ones who are gonna have to explain to parents the changes and why we're making these changes so just getting some uniform communications from the state would be helpful and then two as it's

231been stated the system will need support in implementation of the assessments dealing on the issues of security administrating administering the assessments across the different modes of instruction and then it's been stated just how to use the data once we get that information so thank you for the discussion and for the action today thank you next caller please state your name and affiliation for the record your time starts now hello i'm dr ingrid lynez robertson chief of learning and accountability at alameda county office of education on behalf of professor the california county superintendent education services association consisting of 58 county superintendents of schools we appreciate the california department of education for proposing revisions to the english language arts and mathematics blueprint to allow for a short test form the 58 counties look forward to working with

232cde in providing ongoing support to our districts and schools on implementation issues given distance learning such as the need for additional devices for at home administration the need to provide video training in multiple languages for parents and families to be able to administer the short test form at home the need for teachers and parents to know that scores are a reliable measure of student knowledge and understanding of state standards so festa is committed to partnering with cde in the best interest of students thank you caller next caller please state your name and affiliation for the record your time starts now hi my name is angela dear ramos and i am a fifth grade teacher representing california teachers association cta appreciates the cde's efforts to be prepared for a variety of scenarios given covet 19 this

233year and while we understand why there are efforts to develop the short form for the casp in elpac tta strongly employs the state board of education and the cde to pursue a waiver for the required administration of the cash for the spring of 2021 given widespread inequities in student access to technology and the internet as well as concerns about validity and the comparability of any data gathered in from statewide summative testing administered in this conditions because they're unknown in uncontrollable conditions conducting with standardized testing in the spring of 21 would be decremented to students and limited use to teachers schools and school districts cta is supportive of the exclusion of the el paso from the waiver since it's used to reclassify english learners thank you thank you caller next caller please state your name and

234affiliation for the record your time starts now hi i'm robert van wyn calling from children now thank you for bringing this item to the board just wanted to raise a couple of issues to be considered as you make this decision um getting a better sense of uh how this test would this test meet the needs uh in the english learner reclassification process uh generally the the summative test is one of the those indicators one of the four main indicators used in that reclassification decision and then thinking about what are the implications that this might have for the growth model that you'll discuss in the next item will there be the ability to have a com comparability at some point on a student-level basis between a short-form result uh in spring 2021 with a long form

235result in 2022 or will this lead to a further delay of the start of the growth model um and then finally to the extent that um there may be a potential waiver in the future really thinking about how is the stakeholder head around learning lots in the state thank you thank you caller next caller please state your name and affiliation for the record your time starts now good afternoon this is liz guian with public advocates i am speaking to the comments from the lcsf equity coalition i appreciate very much the presentation today and the acknowledgement that so much is unknown and also good to know that the department engaged in parent outreach and and urged the department to take the recommendations of those parents very seriously one question we have is how will the dashboard

236be modified to reflect the changes to the test and echoing the prior speaker's question what will be the impact to the rollout of the student growth model given the changes in the learning modes that students and their families are experiencing in distance learning we know that accommodations and assessments that address students needs especially those with unique needs who are having the greatest struggles they need to be addressed head on and we hope that the department and we urge you to urge the department to plan strongly for remembering that this is done well and equitably thank you thank you next caller please state your name and affiliation for the record your time starts now good afternoon this is sarah lillis executive director for teach plus california uh we just wanted to share some thoughts as you

237consider moving forward with this recommendation about the role of the state in doing this and one to re to reinforce a point that miss gian just made is how do we as a state ensure all students have an equitable and adequate testing environments and so we urge the department to dig even deeper into what we're learning from the administration of the initial lpac where there are leas um that are struggling with that and where there could be additional resources coming from the state in addition we urge uh you to think about how you again as as mr zostwater mentioned how you communicate the the the rollout of these assessments with not only educators but families and students and the role of these moving forward thank you very much thank you caller this concludes public comment

238thank you callers okay now we're ready for discussion um and we'll try to um get to the most meaningful questions as quickly as we can i do want to use the prerogative of the chair to ask the question that several public comment callers did ask about the implications of the short form for the growth model i think that's something that everyone will want to know the answer to and um i know that dr vang has really been looking at the questions of how remote testing you know online testing bringing kids into small groups and other things may work so if you want to say a word about the variable strategies that might end up being activated that would be useful too and others please raise your hands and i will watch for those in the

239past oh so linda that question was for me about our how we implemented the opec well first the first question is the implications for the growth model if we know those and uh the second is just um what a brief word on what we're learning about um assessment in this online environment okay so again like i mentioned earlier we just don't know what kind of results we will get right because of the unknowns of students taking the tests and so as we analyze the data we can't really make a definitive answer uh how it can be used for the growth model or anything else until we go through the process and should we you know learn that we need to decouple it from accountability purposes then we could uh do that at a later time

240when we have more information and data collected um i'm not sure if eric or cindy is here if either one of you want to add on to the accountability questions sure good afternoon cindy cazanes the director of the analysis measurement and accountability reporting division uh we are working directly with educational testing services on the growth model as you you all know and you'll hear in the next item and so if anything um they are closely uh evaluating this as we move along so should the board take action today on shortening the form of the test we will definitely continue contact with them on how this would impact the growth model so as we bring forward uh future considerations of the growth modeling actual adoption in march this will definitely be a part of that conversation

241so i think now is correct it's too early but it's definitely on our radar all right i know that we have questions from sue patricia and cynthia in that order yes we'll do it in that order all right thanks um so just a couple things first i just want to express my appreciation to both rachel and mal for their presentation as somebody who's been around testing for a long long time when i saw this item i thought it needed a lot of background information and i hope especially for our new members that providing the kind of background that mao did about the scope of the testing writ large and the time it takes for testing was helpful so again thank you very much for doing that but to that point i guess i understand the

242short-term need here to try to get on the road with blueprints that will shorten the test for english language arts and mathematics but as i look at the powerpoint and now you might want to put up one of the earlier slides about what again casp entails the umbrella of casp it includes a lot of other assessments and if one of our objectives here is to try to be um planning ahead and thinking about because there are so many unknowns should we also be looking at some of these other assessments and i think especially about caste the science assessment since that's rolling out relatively newly is that something that we should be considerate of because again if one of our our initia our rationales is to try to reduce the amount of time spent on testing

243given all of the other demands that are on our educators at this time i just want to make sure that we're thinking about this whole issue in a broader context and not just because and it's not just because but i feel like we're trying to respond like we do a lot of times to the feds because we think the feds won't give us a waiver i just want us to have a broader discussion about assessment in the context in which we're trying to ask our educators to operate thank you did you want to speak to that um yes well the science test is also required under ss so um i am that is not something that i could just recommend to reduce or take out and uh with the timing it is um it is

244already a much shorter test than the ela and at this point we think the only two that we could reduce in a meaningful way in a timely way is the ela in the math or are the ela in the lab i think the question of um you know what we'll face in the spring and whether um there will be a change in administration which we'll learn in the next few days and what the framework will be for thinking about spring testing will all become clearer in the coming days and weeks than it is right now but i think that's a really good question to keep in front of us um patricia you're next and then cynthia then eileen thank you i want to begin by saying i agree wholeheartedly with what board member burr just

245said so i'm glad that i was called to speak after her because i was going to say many of the same things the questions that i raised during the technical part of the discussion about the scale and about the depth of knowledge and how these would be comparable um and fit overall into what's reported and uh evaluated by schools and ultimately by parents was related to that concern so i was heartened and i'm very grateful that tony alford is on the call today to be able to talk to and recognize that there is a need to change not only what we're doing in how we are doing the assessments because of the circumstances we're in but how we discuss and report and analyze the results we're getting so i'm glad to know that that conversation's

246on the table but again i want to reiterate what board member burr said for the purposes of what we are trying to do as a board and the policy that we're trying to create in a focus on continuous improvement and in particular with the what we're trying to do in addressing our statewide concern about the performance of students in math and what their math learning actually is i think this conversation about assessment is taking on a greater context in that overall big picture so that i i will leave it there okay thank you um cynthia thank you um i first would like to say again and it's kind of been said already before that it is really important that this type of decision is looked at at this time in case it is needed to

247be able to implement spring testing administration at any point in time always requires a lot of logistics on the behalf of school districts and schools and if that is going to indeed need to happen this spring especially in light of the fact that students are primarily in a distance learning environment and maybe transitioning after the winter breaks into perhaps a hybrid type of model um there are a lot of logistical decisions that need to be made so i'm very happy that we are looking at this at this point in time and um really keeping that in mind for everyone in the field as we move forward if it is determined and if the board does vote to utilize the more reduced size blueprint for spring administration it is going to be very important that we

248look at some guidance that can come from cde regarding communication of the shortened format and what that means and perhaps even a communications toolkit that leas can then use to communicate and at their local level to their stakeholders um a uniform communication will be really important with this particular change on the other aspect of consideration where i think there may need to be again some guidance that again leas can use at their local context is in regards to various administration models if this is going to be spring testing is going to take place in a mode that is very different from what we've done before and that's what we are anticipating to have again some kind of guidance document on models that can be utilized in different situations for schools that are smaller schools that

249are larger elementary middle high school that i also feel will be very helpful for those in the field as they make decisions about how to go about ensuring students have a spring testing environment that will best set them up for success it's really important if i could just note that you know some places are operating with very strong um bandwidth and internet you know capacity others not and so it's very hard for kids to you know get get through you know long long assignments on zoom some places are in person others are not some places are bringing students back in small groups that might even be the context for assessment in some places in the spring so having an assessment that can be managed in all of those different contexts in a reasonable way you

250know is is important to consider and then of course the guidance about how contingencies in different circumstances might be handled will be helpful eileen well i just want to build on um previous all the board members comments so far um i appreciate the advanced planning i know we have to do it this month and if we want to be ready for spring testing i think the issues about access to bandwidth i just think about the stories of advanced placement students who took a short form and then couldn't upload their exam and then they had to retake it again and all the anxiety so i i do and i i know that we're continuing to work on this but whether it will be in remote which has its own challenges or in small group in person

251we've never given these tests remotely before um i appreciate the short form and i appreciate the desire to align um and to get some good data feedback on where our students are but i realize that as we look forward and we don't know what spring will look like in our schools i know we're all hoping students will be back at least some of the time i'm assuming that the guidance from cde will include the settings and the options that we will have to administer to get valid and reliable and also to give students a fair chance to show what they know without being cut off the bandwidth or having unable to upload an answer so i just think that's complicated i appreciate the advanced planning so that we're ready in case we have to do

252this um but i i do believe we need some clear benchmark of where our students are but i don't want to overly complicate and make it frustrating for them in the challenges that we're facing right now with remote and hybrid learning yeah i think that's a good point at which too i don't see any other hands up for discussions so i think this is the moment where we can ask for a motion to have a motion uh regarding the cve recommendations all motion matt something second thank you we have a motion we have a second um any further discussion i'll ask uh brooks to call the role member aye president darlene hammond aye member fatah hi member glover woods hi member mcquillen yes member nava hi member patel brownson i remember rodriguez i remember rucker

253yes vice president strauss i remember son hi unanimous all right thank you very much mal we appreciate the presentation you we have earned ourselves a lunch time uh it's 12 40. we'll come back in a half an hour at 1 10. see you then i think you want to leave stay in the meeting uh but stop your video and put yourself on mute to reestablish a quorum so brooks is going to call the role member here president darling hammond here member fatale here member glover woods here member mcquillen here member navo here member patel bronson here member rodriguez here member rucker present vice president strauss here member here thank you okay so we're gonna start now with uh agenda item number five this is an update on the implementation of the integrated local state and

254federal accountability and continuous improvement system the recommended action on revisions to the student growth model and reporting recommendations of the california advisory task force on alternative schools and i'm going to this item will be presented by cindy cazanis from the cde dr jorge ruiz de velasco of the california advisory task force on alternative schools diana walsh royce of the riverside county office of education and mike ilick of the corona norco unified school district we'll start with cindy please begin thank you good afternoon i'm cindy cazanis the director of the analysis measurement and accountability reporting division very excited to present item 5 to you this afternoon we have a couple of attachments we're going to walk through today and we're going to do them out of order we'll take clarifying questions after each of the attachments

255from board members before moving to public comment at the very end so first just to clarify what the board action is the department of education recommends that the state board of education first confirmed that the empirical best linear prediction prediction or eblip model will only be used we'll only use the same subject area when modeling student growth and number two maintain the current student level methodology which holds the same expectation for growth and for all student groups and allows comparisons of student group data so with that we're going to start with attachment 2 and i'm going to briefly introduce this piece of the presentation to you this is a review of a partnership and really the culmination of a report that was prepared under direction of dr jorge luis de velasco who is at the

256gardner center for youth and their communities at stanford university jorge was introduced to us back in 2017 by then president cursed and what a relationship this has become we have unlike any other subject area that we've participated in we had the benefit from this of dr barista velasco's just extensive national knowledge california specific knowledge of our alternative schools population in addition he was able to uh really persuade i think some of the top experts on practitioners uh in the field of alternative education to participate in this in this task force and accordingly what the department gained from it was such a great capacity and knowledge of students and practices of our most vulnerable schools and uh and also students in doing so i i have to say we learned from a variety of folks on

257this um all the way from our county offices of education uh the advisory commission on special education weighed in for our most vulnerable students with disabilities to the to another end of the spectrum where you have charter schools who really focus on credit recovery which is very unique population and so we had just a wide range of voices we've learned tremendous amount as you can see in this report which again is a culmination of this work um but finally i wanted to just mention as a in my opening remarks is that we've raised the profile of these students the words das now mean something folks know that our in education community and look at educational data we've added this to our standing um reports on our website for dataquest uh the an actual filter for

258alternative schools and so really the lexicon and mission i think has far exceeded what we thought it was going to do about four years ago so with that i'd like to turn it over to um dr dave velasco to begin the conversation uh and really introduce you to the work of this group and you're going to hear from two very practiced practitioners in this area to talk through what we've been doing and where we're headed jorge yes all right um well first of all thank you cindy i've given me an introduction that's going to be a little bit hard to live up to but i i really appreciate it um and a and a valentine to the state board from the task force in in so far as um this work is already in progress

259at the cd the development of the dashboard and the implementation of of measures and two things that are really really uh have already caused a good deal of positive system change is the implementation of the one-year graduation rate um this kind of change is gonna uh this change in the indicator metric is um will be will generate relevant and more actionable information for system leaders about one of the core functions of the alternative schools which is to get kids a second chance to a a standard um diploma the the other the other thing that that the task force has been very uniformly happy about is the work that cindy and the department and the state board has been doing to add new and collect more information about the college and career readiness indicator this is

260important not just for accountability purposes but by adding these indicators and lifting them up in the system it's encouraging school and district leaders to put more of these opportunities in alternative schools the creation of the collection of data on completing state and federal jobs or pre-apprenticeships or student-led enterprises will not only create more opportunities for young people to connect to work and further education and to the diploma but is going to support the and has been implementing the support of cte pathway programs and integrated studies integrated courses of study in alternative schools and we're already seeing places like oakland and san bernardino and los angeles pave the way for this in their alternative schools i want to use just my remaining time to to to do to talk about two points before i hand it

261over to my my co-presenters mike and diana one is in the report there is um the the next stage of work is to articulate um something on the dashboard that would be an important local indicator and one of those the task force thought was super important was the creation of a positive transition rate this rate would measure the percent of those students who age out of alternative schools or otherwise leave alternative schools without a diploma um we know from our data and from data that the cde has run for the for the task force that anywhere from did an average of 60 percent of seniors in alternative schools actually wind up graduating by the end of but um what happens to the rest uh many of those many kids um which is it's a good

262indicator but many kids wind up aging out of the system or otherwise leaving and many of these kids tend to be um foster youth english learners late entering immigrants expelled or incarcerated youth that have re-entered the system but are aging out and alternative schools do an important job of making sure that they don't exit to the street that they exit to positive transitions like for example exiting to to work programs like youthbuild that allow them to continue their path to a high school diploma to community college programs to adult education and to the growing number of charter schools that help with credit recovery um adding this kind of indicator would honor student persistence um in uh in persisting in their education beyond the k-12 system where they are they're turning 19 20 and 21 and

263it would also honor the schools and the principals and teachers who put the shoulder to the wheel to make sure that all their kids are either getting a diploma or if they're aging out that they're making positive transitions to continued education or work and education um we know the system the way it's currently designed signals that these kids are either system failures or losers and but we know that in many schools 80 90 percent of them are actually making positive transitions and we should measure that to know what schools are doing a good job of it and not because we know it makes a big difference whether they make those kinds of transitions or exit to the street two other points that are related is the continuation schools still make up the lion's share and

264students and the lion's share of secondary school students and alternative ed right now as an artifact of an anachronism of an anachronism of history those schools continuation schools are limited to 15 hours of of capture for apportionment rate which is half of the 30 hours per week that traditional high schools get this is a the and the fact is though that most districts continue to offer a full day of programming and they have to pull that money out of their general funds because they're not treated the same and um this is an artifact of the 1950s and it signals that for many that the system has given up on the six percent of secondary school students in these schools and that those students don't merit the same level at least of investment as students in

265those traditional schools that failed them in the first place it's something that that needs to be fixed um the other one is and i i'm hopeful that diana and mike will put a little more meat on this but we also know that and the system will generate better information about the disproportionate number of these alternative schools that wind up in the bottom five percent of performance um right now we do not have either at the cde or in any of the counties or in any other intermediary a locus for best practices and for providing technical assistance and targeted assistance to these leaders of schools in alternative settings that is appropriate to their setting and they would really incentivize continuous learning and improvement it is a big gap in our technical assistance ability to to improve

266make system improvement particularly for for schools at the at the lowest end of performance i'm going to stop there and i'm going to hand it over to uh mike uh ellick who is the administrative director for instructional support at corona norco unified school district and also a leader in access and options council mike good afternoon it's nice to be here i would uh i would like to just uh tail tail off of uh of what organ was talking about and because we do have the uh the new accountability system we have to have the staff that's going to be able to implement uh implement uh programs and procedures that would that would be successful for those schools and not necessarily end up at the bottom of the heap and and what i'm talking about is

267is the the principle the principle is is has to provide effective leadership that is essential in schools so those principles they need to be they need to be at those alternative schools because they want to be there and not because they're at the tail end of their um uh career in some assistant principal role at some other site and this is given to them as a as a as a reward for graduate or for for uh retirement same thing graduation retirement but anyway so um it so that that is a critical piece in that and then having that principal who sets the tone who impacts the school climate and student learning to be able to hire their own teachers and and so that those teachers are there for the specific reason of teaching these kids

268now getting a a teacher from a traditional site doesn't work they don't understand the student they don't they don't understand that piece because it's more than just the just delivering curriculum it's about meeting the student where they are and working with those issues and breaking down the barrier so that that student can can access the curriculum so giving giving principals autonomy is very very very important and we've seen in the past where that that hasn't happened and it still it still doesn't happen but those schools that do very well have strong school leadership strong strong teachers and you know i've been on on many continuation school model continuation school visits and where the kids say this is like family this school is like family students are engaged they want to come to school because of

269the the uh the adult presence there that want to be there so i just i just really want to uh emphasize that because we've seen in data that there's issues with equity you know justice student achievement and and students are over represented in certain areas either with african-american hispanic special education um which is a more restrictive environment so those those things are really really important also usually there is a district person that oversees of the the alternative school and they don't understand necessarily what what happens in those schools and i think it's really important if those schools are given assistance because they're they're in the bottom in the bottom rung that i think the i believe that the district person who oversees it needs to be a part of that of that assistance so that

270they understand what is necessary for the school to be uh to be successful and to and to do the right thing for their kids the for so long we've moved um our ineffective teachers more our most at-risk teachers to teach our most at-risk kids and that's quite simply malpractice we want our at-risk kids to be at promise kids and for that we need the people on on the uh in the schools to be able to do that and uh and those those folks are integral part in having the students move uh a transition transfer to the alternative school from the traditional school when necessary and to have all partners parents district office sending school receiving school all on the same page following best practice to do to do this work so that's that's what i

271wanted to share uh for my from my end and i would like to introduce uh diana walsh royce from uh riverside county office of ed the retired associate superintendent good afternoon president darling hammond superintendent thurman and esteemed members of the board and colleagues and guests it's an honor to be here with you today i hope that you're doing well during these unprecedented uncertain times in my role at the county office of education i serve students in the juvenile court and community schools a re-engagement charter adult jail programs special and migrant education i also served as the past chair for the student programs and services steering committee under the umbrella of the county office superintendents organization currently i serve as a wasp commissioner and continue to work with schools and districts as i said it's an

272honor to be with you today and even more of an honor to be a part of the development of the das alternative accountability model in 2017 a group came to you about the need for relevant transparent accountability system with measures that are appropriate for students in alternative settings you listened and you approved and that this work has moved forward so thank you so much for for that das has allowed alternative programs to enter the realm of accountability using metrics that are more applicable to the students we serve the importance of this can't be overstated in the past models lacked rigor and appropriateness alternative schools can now visibly demonstrate their significant role to the to uh the value added in our school community as a result i believe that many alternative schools are undergoing a transformation

273through improved instructional practices rigorous relevant curriculum individualized student-centered practices using research-based holistic approaches and this dedication has led to thousands of students graduating from high school and realizing their dream for a better life das provides meaningful data to drive student learning growth and achievement and it emphasizes the importance of sharing this information with key stakeholders data on steroids as one of my colleagues said is a very valuable commodity most importantly data can help identify root causes that create barriers for students and this can lead to early intervention and earlier an intervention is absolutely essential there may be a day sometime in the future if we're able to use early warning systems and early intervention to catch kids early where we won't need as many alternative schools i think it's essential that we continue to support

274schools and districts in using all facets of data and cde does an excellent job of this with kelpad's support in addition many county offices provide intensive support through networks trainings and systems of support led by geographic leads i was fortunate to be part of a county office where das accountability updates were provided with follow-through support networks implemented and target assistance provided in other words differentiating support to focus specifically on das schools in addition as cindy mentioned the selfa and system improvement leads have also made great strides in data informed practices for programs serving students with disabilities das has also incentivized the use of high impact strategies to creatively and innovatively ensure that our students graduate from college and career ready and grow academically and socially keeping in mind that building positive relationships and trusts with

275students is foundational many alternative schools have worked to increase their rigor by adding a through g course offerings they have achieved wasc accreditation however we know that many of the students arrive to our schools with gaps in their education and are credit deficient there's a need to continually build capacity to address the academic and programmatic needs of our students it's really all about continuous improvement and there are many outstanding organizations that have been mentioned in networks that focus on best practices but many times these organizations work in isolation but student programs and services steering committee the accident options the gardner center and numerous non-profits have created a repository of best practices but there's a need to lift up these evidence-based practices with a designated lead for more coordination among all of these groups there are

276many outstanding practices that schools scattered throughout pockets of the state and cde recognizes some of these schools through model continuation schools but this recognition doesn't expand to other schools such as opportunity community or court schools i believe there might be value in recognizing these schools as well and the final point that i would like to make is that many students in alternative settings are served by multiple agencies such as probation social services mental health the district attorney's office community colleges and and many more and alternative schools leverage these key partnerships to support student social emotional and academic growth but there's a need to foster a coherent integrated system of support among agencies breaking down silos for unprecedented collaboration getting in the way of this collaboration are policies lack of data sharing separate funding streams and

277just the bureaucracy of large organizations we need to look to streamline services and work together with our sister and brother agencies for seamless services then finally i want to take a moment to acknowledge california department of education cindy kazanis and jenny c and their team and dr de la vasco and milbree mclaughlin from the gardner center at stanford for their vital leadership in creating a system that truly captures and reflects the strengths of our students i also want to give a shout out to the 22 members of the task force we worked with a true spirit of collaboration had many rich spirited discussions but passion always drove our work and lastly i want to take a moment to acknowledge and express gratitude for those educators who work directly with our students in alternative settings each

278and every day they do the heavy lifting we take great pride in our work with the most vulnerable students and believe that we continue to make great progress to help them achieve learn and thrive and i know there's so much going on in the world today with so many challenges and urgent needs but those challenges also have a silver lining to create better opportunities to serve our students so thank you so much again for the opportunity to speak today thank you so at this time i just wanted to touch base briefly on next steps for this ongoing work this of course this this report is a culmination of four years of work but you have also been a part of this work um as the state board in taking action on things that affect our

279alternative schools each year so we've been able to develop out not only the alternative school system the das system we've made corrections where we've needed to so we've had continuous improvement in the system we will bring back to you in march as we do every march our work plan for the year and we will make every effort to include part of the recommendations of this task force where appropriate in that work plan so with that i wanted to open up for any clarifying questions at this time and i'll turn it back over to president darling hammond for that all right i'm gonna start off by just thanking this team and jorge i remember when you started this work uh so many years ago it's wonderful to see it shaping state policy as well as practice

280in these directions i really really really appreciate you and your colleagues um giving us this very both hopeful and useful for our future thinking type of briefing are there any other clarifying questions for this team before we go on to the next item all right so uh please proceed thank you so with that i'm going to turn it over to my colleague jenny singh who you see often associated with the growth model and she's going to walk you through the two part recommendation that we have for you today good afternoon everyone so i am in charge of giving you the information that we've prepared and attachment one the analysis and recommendations for the parameters of our growth model so this is coming in we have two pieces in here so the first piece we're going

281to talk about is how to use the use of same subject test scores in empirical best linear prediction model or ebook and um we're coming back to you regarding this because we've decided to do a slight shift in our business rules for the e-blitz model and we want to make sure that the board is comfortable with that shift and because when we come back in march for an approval we don't want people to be surprised no surprises i'm done with surprises so remember that the e-book methodology actually takes the data from the residual gain scores and rolls it up and aggregates it up and i just wanted to remind everyone that in february we will be doing a memo and the memo will have a full report of everything we've done regarding the new growth

282model and it will have all the data in there for all the student groups all race ethnicity groups and all program groups so that's els homeless students with disabilities and foster youth so at the september board meeting ets and cde staff presented an update on the student level growth model and we shared information about the e-blip again the e-blip is just a methodology for aggregating up the scores the rg scores and in that we indicated that we're using multiple years of aggregate growth information this was going to improve the accuracy and stability of district school and student group growth scores and of course it did a much better job of improving the accuracy and stability for smaller end sizes we also indicated that we were using multiple subjects for each of the growth scores so

283for the ela district school and student group growth scores we would use a weighted average from both prior english language arts ela and mathematics assessments of course most of the weight going to ela but some going to mathematics as well that's true for the mathematics so for for the math growth scores district school and student group we would use a weighted average with scores from both prior english language arts and math and here of course the greater weight would go towards mathematics so during the presentation nobody raised any questions or asked any questions about this but after the meeting there were some concerns that were raised about the challenges of communicating the e-blip scores to schools and districts using multiple subjects in the calculation so we had a couple of conversations with ets staff and

284we thought that that was a really valid point and we thought well we should make this shift to use the single subject only and one of the reasons we can do this of course is because with the residual gain model the calculations at the student level already include prior year scores in both ela and math now that decision was made based on the data from ets and the recommendation by the tdg in 2017. and just to be sure we went back to the tdg had a conversation and they said yes we want to keep both subjects for the residual gain score in order to improve the ability of the score the accuracy of it and then of course in may of 2018 the board approved this methodology so restricting the eblip aggregate scores to only

285include prior your data from the same subject will help with communication to the field it does not significantly change the growth score results and it will not affect the current timeline that we have of delivering this product by april of 2021. okay on to recommendation number two to maintain the current student level methodology and not to incorporate student characteristics in our growth model so i'm going to start by going back to 2017 where i know we have some members of the board who weren't there at the time but in 2017 the board discussed the criteria that we should use in the selection of a student growth model and based on that discussion it was clear that they did not want to include student characteristics such as race social economic status or language status into the

286calculation formula for a growth model and so why did that why was that decision made because when you do include characteristics demographics or other variables it does change growth expectations and results for each student because it's impacting the residual gains score it eliminates the ability to compare results across student groups so you would no longer be able to compare the results from students with disabilities to foster or homeless and it eliminates any measurement of the achievement gap so we don't know if the achievement gap is getting wider or if it's closing and that was a very important point for the board so we shared this we had quite a few conversations with the stakeholder group the growth model stakeholder group and one of the conversations was about demographics and so we did talk a lot

287about growth models and what questions that they can answer so when you're looking at growth really what you want to do is to look at how much did students learn over the last school year that is one of the big purposes that we wanted to reach and that the stakeholder groups wanted and so in order to do that you can't include demographics because that doesn't determine that doesn't tell you how much growth they've had you've adjusted the scores and we did talk about putting in demographics but the question that that answers is how much did students learn over the last year compared to other students with similar personal family and community backgrounds so that answers a very different question so at the september 2020 meeting we received a letter that included a report from dr

288pete goldsmith and the report outlined a suggestion to include the english language proficiency assessment for california elpac achievement levels in the student growth calculation for english learners and at the meeting we were asked to investigate whether this is something that we would want to consider so cde convened a meeting with dr goldsmith along with sbe staff ets staff and two members of the tdg we had some technical questions we wanted to make sure we had the right people at the meeting dr goldsmith was very kind gave us an hour of his time we had a really great conversation and we did come to the conclusion of consensus that is adding lpac levels would not allow for meaningful comparison between els and all other student groups and that's really important because if we're going to put

289the growth model into the dashboard when people come to the dashboard they come thinking that they're they can compare student groups and they would not be able to determine that they couldn't compare on the academic indicator because they would not know that those results reflected different metrics we also reached out to californians together we had a meeting with them to talk about the conversation we had with dr goldsmith and they understood why we didn't want to go down this road and dr goldsmith did say it was not his intent to slow down the progress of the growth model but he just wanted to bring our attention to the fact that the elpac scores shown along with smarter balance scores was really an important thing so we thought that that was probably a really good idea

290and it could be useful to schools and districts so we did commit to coming up with some kind of report where you could see the results of the cast scores by english language by the outback levels i wanted to be very transparent i did say that that's work we cannot do right now we're really busy with the growth model but that that would be one of the next big things that we took on and um dr goldsmith seemed to be okay with that and and it seemed like when we had our conversations with members of california together they were supportive of that as well with that i will take any clarifying questions thank you very much jenny uh are there clarifying questions and thanks by the way for following up and um you know finding

291out more about that proposal and really digging in on it both intellectually and with the stakeholder groups and with dr goldsmith himself so much appreciated i think you gave a clear rendering of the issues um patricia um do you want to ask a clarifying question and then i think i saw one other hand go up matt first of all i also want to thank uh you and the staff for the uh tremendous amount of work that it took to follow up on this request i was the board member who made the request to look at the report and the recommendation or suggestion that came from dr goldsmith so i truly do appreciate the investigation in the research that was done i'm looking here at the slide that you have concerning looking at options for breaking

292down the data when you use that term of art breaking down the data you're talking about disaggregating the information in particular ways as well as giving a larger group kind of report or is that or are you looking at doing something different well there's multiple options that we have for displaying elpac levels with cash scores so we're looking at that um and there was also a request to do a breakout of english learners versus our feb students so we're looking at that as well so those okay okay uh again i certainly appreciate that and i appreciate that pat we've lost your sound oh well [Laughter] we hope you got it in what you uh wanted to say uh i don't see any other hands up for clarifying questions so um cindy is that the last

293part of the item i just wanted to add that you know when we're going to report out the data the alpac data levels with the cast and break them out by ela and rfebep that's consistent with how we're reporting the academic indicator on the dashboard we do break that information out so that people have access to it if they want it okay so is this the point then at which we want to get the public comments light up cindy yes so uh just to to close out this item i just wanted to let you know that in the midst of the pandemic and working remotely we continue to provide technical assistance to the field and stakeholder sessions and so just wanted to highlight that information in this last slide and i will just briefly show

294you the board action before you before moving over to the public comments slide that was very brief but we all have it in our documents thank you uh at this point i want to encourage people to call in for a public comment uh by calling the number on that slide and entering the access code and while we're waiting for members of the public to call in i want to first ask member burr and then vice president spouse if they have any initial comments for us now i would just say i i also express my appreciation to to um cindy and jenny and the whole team for following up both on the residual gain model because questions were raised about it as as jenny explained and also on the concerns that were raised about whether or

295not to include elpac in the model so um after public comment i'd be happy to make a motion on the department's recommendation terrific thank you and vice president strauss i just wanted to say that i just so appreciate the department working so hard on the growth measure to continue to move us forward to get it right for us and to address all the issues i do appreciate um the clarification that cindy that um jenny singh said about the disaggregated data that will be available on all the different subgroups and to remind our stakeholders and those watching that there will be ability to take a look at how the different groups are doing um finally i just want to make a comment about the uh the dash report um and just so appreciate the comments but

296i'm very um i agree with what um corey velasco talked about um the giving us actionable data for students in alternative schools and also what um diana walsh talked about about looking at options with the career indicator so that alternative schools continue to provide workforce pathway options access to a to g so that students leave the alternative setting with pure options um successful options for post-secondary achievement so i really feel like the work is really i'm going to strengthen our work because when you have those on the college and career indicator it does help districts focus and schools focus on offering those opportunities yeah thank you that's a really good point and patricia i see that your hand is up did you want to try again to ask your clarifying question or finish it oh

297we're not hearing you i'm so sorry oh we thought we had solved your technology problems this week something's going on okay i hope you can fix it can she type it in the chat box and then we can take it in the chat it won't come back around to it all right with that being said i think we are ready then to go to public comment uh and are there any member are there any public commanders yes there are good afternoon caller please state your name and affiliation for the record your time begins now good afternoon this is martha hernandez i am the executive director of california's together and former county and district administrator i first want to thank the department for exploring the additional option of breaking down the data reports among the el

298student group with respect to their alpaca level in march in the march meeting of the state board of education the california department of education presented a data run as an example of the application of the proposed growth model for students with disabilities and homeless youth the board requested data runs for the other students subgroups and so we continue to request those data runs for all student groups including english learners with else plus rfets and also of course disaggregating the two core hosts before any final decisions are made on the growth model design having this information is important to be able to see how best to use the new academic indicator for identifying needs programming instructional planning and alcap development thank you very much good afternoon caller please state your name and affiliation for the record

299your time begins now good morning president darling hammond superintendent thurman and members of the board my name is ruth barajas and i'm with californians together while it is great to hear today that the cde will be um looking at disaggregating the two cohorts of els and rfeps um you know we believe this information is gained you know we'll will that that we gain from this will warrant this effort and we hope to see this before march having served as a school principal and an el specialist at both title one schools and large populations uh with large populations of els and and also schools with smaller populations um the where the growth target was very important and we need to be addressed i can tell you after spending countless hours looking at data to drill down

300to see how our els were progressing or not we could have benefited greatly from the state accountability system based on this growth model with special attention to these groups if they're and and if there is an absolute agreement that we cannot increase these numbers of subgroups then we propose that the definition of the english learner subgroup include the current els and only the arclips who reclassified in the second year after the data thank you good afternoon caller please state your name and affiliation for the record your time begins now good afternoon president darling common superintendent thurman and members of the board my name is crystal diaz i was a former preschool teacher and i am here with californians together initially the sbe and cde were concerned about the volatility of the data comparing grade level

301to grade level that would include newcomers and rfps entering and exiting yearly respectively resulting in an unstable group for analysis however with the growth model used matching scores the group would be more stable and with less volatility we would suggest that el to reclassify within the first year of data collection be included in the rfp group and those who are reclassifying the second or subsequent year to be included in the el club group thank you good afternoon caller please state your name and affiliation for the record your time begins now good afternoon president darling hammond superintendent thurman and members of the board my name is ashley aguirre i am a former english foreigner student and i'm here today with californians together i'd like to add that using the same formula aggregating one-year el data and

302four-year rf rpep data and continuing to use the same methodology to determine performance levels when there are clearly unintended negative consequences may be equal but it is not equitable and is counter to the spirit of continuous improvement english learners who come to our school speaking a language other than english require a system of accountability that includes an adjusted formula and methodology that uplifts their successes and highlights their needs within the framework of the state accountability system thank you good afternoon caller please state your name and affiliation for the record your time starts now hello it's eric primack with the charter schools development center good afternoon president madam president and members i support the recommendation from staff with respect to the e-blip and how to handle that i would note however that with respect to the

303larger issue of demographic adjustments i don't think the state should limit itself to a single model i support the notion of the model that we're currently pursuing but i think that we could also have a second growth metric that is demographically adjusted that would be informative and in many cases more useful for high stakes decision making purposes and would encourage you to pursue both thank you good afternoon caller please state your name and affiliation for the record your time starts now good afternoon caller please state your name and affiliation for the record your time starts now good afternoon uh this is jessica sacco with children now i want to thank the board for our thank uh the team for bringing this item forward today um as we have mentioned previously we strongly encourage the board

304to um take up in january which would be the last opportunity to do so before the march meeting where we're projecting a decision to be made regarding the growth model particularly we'd like the board to discuss the use of and release of individual student growth scores as well as a provide input on a robust communications plan which will be critical to the successful implementation of and release of the data with the growth model finally in regards to the alternative ed schools we find it to be a very interesting idea to measure chronic absence which ranges at about 50 percent and it's likely uh the most uh important measure and provide the most substantive information relative to the performance of alternative schools thank you good afternoon caller please state your name and affiliation for the record

305your time starts now good afternoon board members this is with california together and i am calling to voice support for for the for the for the state to conduct data runs on aggregated scores of english learners and archives and separately for els and rpeps with color performance levels at this point in time we are not requesting any changes to the definition but as that these runs be conducted so that we can better understand the impact for program planning health cap development and accountability it is our hope as well that these runs and analysis be reported before the board meeting in march with additional luxury that covet 19 has afforded the state it is critical that we use this opportunity to determine the best approach to redesigning the academic indicator for growth for the growth model

306and rethink what equity not equality would look like for english learners thank you good afternoon caller please state your name and affiliation for the record your time starts now good afternoon dr darling hammond superintendent thurman and state board of education members my name is lorraine richards i am a classroom teacher representing the california teachers association california teacher association appreciates the cde's continued work on developing a growth model for the state of california while cta has expressed many questions and concern on the growth model in past letters we are supportive of the two main recommendations the cde's recommendation to only use the same subject area when modeling student growth is a sound and an appropriate approach additionally the recommendation to not set different bars for students based on their demographic demographics is in alignment with cta

307stance on equity although it would be appropriate to conduct data simulations and to share those simulations with the growth model stakeholder group and stakeholders prior to any final determination made by the state board of education we look forward to having additional discussions on the issue of student growth model as part of the accountability system for schools and districts to ensure that is not used for teacher evaluation purposes thank you good afternoon caller please state your name and affiliation for the record your time starts now good afternoon martha zaragoza diaz representing the california association for bilingual education and californians together we appreciate cd staff taking the steps of further breaking down data especially regarding the disaggregation of the el and rfi data separately districts require accurate and transmit transparent data for the identification and development of

308appropriate and effective goals actions and services for these students in their lcaps this is essentially critical for eos and rfs not progressing academically however we request that this data be presented to the state board members before its march meeting when they will be approving the growth model thank you good afternoon caller please state your name and affiliation for the record your time starts now good afternoon uh board members and uh president darling hammond this is liz guian with public advocates uh i'm speaking to the letter we submitted on behalf of the equity coalition we don't have a position on the technical changes that the department is proposing today on the student growth model but we are still concerned with the issues that we raised at the july and september meetings and we urge you to

309direct the department to address these concerns in their work plan between now and january so that they can address them prior to the first data release in march this is about releasing historic individual student data in december developing the communication strategy which we know which will be very important disaggregating english learner subgroup data also we appreciate the the report and recommendations from the gardner center and believe that those additional metrics should be explored and we also suggest that the chronic absence indicator is one that is used thank you good afternoon caller please state your name and affiliation for the record your time begins now are you there caller this concludes public comment let me get off mute thank you to all the public commenters um and at this point uh we are open to uh

310further a board discussion um please raise your hand in the chat uh if you i mean in the participant list if you want to make a comment i know that we were having some technical difficulties with kim's uh technology we'll we'll wait in here for uh brooks is checking patricia your hand is up was that question and then i have matt after that thank you uh president hammond i just wanted to verify that we i think my problem has been fixed my question um with jenny was just a just a follow-up in response to her answer about the flexibility to do some data analysis in particular ways about the els and she heard some questions or suggestions during the public comment that came from a number of stakeholders so we have time between now and

311the january board meeting to look into that so i don't need to go into that again but thank you very much all right and matt did you have a question your hand went up and then it disappeared yeah no i i figured i i'll forget to take it down so once you see it no i have two clarifying questions i a couple of callers um that mentioned the chronic uh attendance indicator chronic absence indicator being par considered in the recommendations for alternative schools and i was wondering if jorge was still on the line and if they're considering that and the second one is seems to me that we continue to hear this idea around els and rfs being separated but if i understood correctly and based on what i know districts can do that is

312that correct cindy yes so to answer your your first question unfortunately um jorge did sign off a little early i don't think i asked him to stay around actually so i i apologize no worries separately uh for for the the data runs and i just wanted to clarify this for for everyone we will be providing you an information memorandum in february for all the student groups that appear on the dashboard as well as the further disaggregation as you see it for the academic indicator for the english learner student group so you will see all that information ahead of your meeting in march um so that you will you know have have um enough time to to work through that uh but that that is our anticipated that's that's the work plan that we have with

313um educational testing services to to deliver that great thank you uh kim is on the phone she's having some video tech problems but kim are you there do you want to ask i'm not hearing you i i think uh that was just answered right now so we're all set thank you okay great um terrific and glad you're at least able to be on the phone uh are there any other questions or comments from the board before we look for a motion on this item seeing none um can i have a motion yes i would recommend that the board adopt the department's recommendation per the powerpoint that's up on the screen that we confirm in the model the eblib i don't like that acronym but we'll only use the same subject area when modeling student growth

314and two that we will maintain the current student level methodology which holds the same expectations for growth for all student groups terrific i will second it thank you very much um any further board discussion seeing none uh we'll take a roll call vote brooks please call the wall remember i president darling hi member fatah hi member glover woods i member mcquillen yes member nava hi member patil brownson yes remember rodriguez yes remember rucker yes vice president strauss yes remember son hi he's unanimous terrific um we had hoped we would be taking a break at 2 15 it is precisely 2 15. congratulate yourselves for being right on time we'll see you in 10 minutes at 2 25 remember don't leave the meeting uh just turn off your um mute yourself and turn off your video

315this is going to be a short um consent calendar then we're going to take another break while they set up for public comments for the next consent calendar so a little bit choppy in the next little while let's see if kim is back okay still waiting for a couple of people is i day i think we're waiting for soon well we have a quorum so i think i can go ahead and proceed uh brooks will you please call the roll to re-establish our quorum remember president darling hammond here member fatal here member glover woods here member mcquillen member nava here member patil bronson remember rodriguez here member rucker here vice president strauss europe number zone here okay i know uh member patilla bronson is sharing um bandwidth with several members of her family on most

316days so hopefully somebody else will get it offline so she can come back on at some point soon meanwhile i'll take up our waiver consent calendar which includes waiver items w01 through 06 nw08 we'll now open the phone line for the public comment queue uh that slide is up members of the public wishing to provide comment on any of these items may do so by calling in now to the number on the slide and the access code that is there and i will ask are there any public comments on any waiver items waiver 01 through 06 and 08. and no one has called in for public comment at this time okay uh given that there's no other public comment i'll ask for a motion on waivers w01 through 06 and 08 do i have a

317motion i will move thank you do i have a second second thank you i will now hold a roll call vote and brooks can you please call the roll member i president darling hammond hi member fatah i remember globber woods i remember mcquillen yes member novo hi member patel brownson remember rodriguez yes member rucker yes remember strauss i remember son hi do you want to announce the result brooks we're not hearing you sorry i believe that makes it unanimous of the members present yes yes of the num of the members president uh given uh with that we're going to take a few moments now of additional break to give time for callers to get into the queue for providing public comment for the regular items that are on proposed consent so we're actually going to

318give a few more minutes of break and wait for people to queue up in the queue and we'll give it another minute okay can we move ahead uh i'll now ask board members glover woods and strauss to recuse themselves i think they both have um so that we can proceed with this consent calendar uh and um the consent vote so plus staff please move them into the separate zoom room i think they've gone uh so is there any public comment this is on regular consent items six through eight and eleven no one has called in for public comment at this time all right um seeing that there is no public comment uh i'll ask for a motion on consent for items six through eight and eleven i'll move thank you and do i have a

319second a second okay we'll now hold a roll call vote brooks please call the roll number i president darling hammond aye member fattah hi remember mcquillen yes member nava hi member patel brownson remember rodriguez yes member rucker yes member son yes so it passes with eight votes eight zero um so now the staff can please allow members glover woods and strauss back into the zoo all right we've got one pretty exciting zooming in and out there we go all right now we're going to go to waiver number seven which is not on consent uh and uh this is a waiver request by the coaching we'll just the way california education code sections governing the process for selling or leasing surplus property uh and the cde um i will allow juan morelos from the cde to

320share the cd recommendation and present the item thank you good afternoon president darling hammond chief deputy superintendent gregson board members my name is juan morales i'm the director of the school facilities and transportation services division here at cde and i'm going to be presenting waiver 7 today waiver 7 is a request by the torrance unified school district to waive certain sections of the law that would require them to go through the sealed bid process and select the highest bidder instead the district plans on using the request for proposal process which will provide them greater flexibility in selecting beneficial terms and being able to consider other factors instead of just the highest price cde staff recommends approval of the request to weigh the sealed bid and highest bid sections of the law with the following conditions

321that the proposal we selected within 30 to 60 days of the public meeting where it was received and that the reasons for determination we discussed at a public session included in the minutes of the meeting another condition is that prior into entering negotiations the governing board shall hold a public hearing where members of the public including labor organizations can discuss possible uses of the surplus property and share concerns regarding the impact on the community including the potential relocation of the programs currently operating at the property and then lastly that this approval is just for the lease of the property should the district decide to sell the property then another waiver would be required city staff recognizes that one of the reasons for denial is if the bargaining units were not participants in the development of

322the waiver however cd staff believes that the bargaining units were participants in the development of the waiver given the correspondence and the discussion between the two parties over time now before we get into the specifics of the waiver request we wanted to provide you just a very high level overview of the surplus property process here in california which the districts have to go through at the local level before we get these types of waivers the first step is to identify a property in this case the property in question is known as a hamilton adult center then there's a public engagement process that's specified in law through what's called a 7-eleven committee now the 7-eleven is because it's a minimum of seven members and a maximum of 11. the law also specifies that the membership of

323the committee must be representative of the community by assigning specific representation from different ethnic age groups and social economic composition of the district business community store owners manager supervisors teachers landowners administrators parents persons with expertise environmental impact legal contracts and building codes the committee is charged with looking at current and future facility needs enrollment and any other factors may impact the need to retain the property the consent committee is charged with holding public meetings and to establish a list prioritizing uses for any of the unused property and then finally to submit a report with recommendations to the governing board once the governing board receives the recommendation from the 79 committee then at a regularly scheduled public meeting they can decide if they're going to accept the report and adopt the resolution to declare all or

324some of the property's surplus in this particular case the senate commitment committee began holding public meetings in october of 2017 they had a total of six public meetings through april 2018. the committee issued their final report on july 31st and the district as governing board declared the property surplus on august 6 2016. next we're going to walk you through some background and sequence of events starting with the original waiver that was submitted back in august 2019 then in november of 2019 due to some conflicting information regarding one of the bargaining units positions the item was withdrawn by staff and moved to the january 2020 meeting in december 17th of 2019 the district met with the bargaining units to discuss the waiver on december 30th 2019 the district requested to withdraw the waiver request from the

325january board meeting next march 2nd the district met with the bargaining unit representatives to further discuss the waiver on august 17th the district sent letters via email to all of the four bargaining units on their intent to refile the waiver request and to solicit feedback they also indicate that they had additional conversations with two other bargaining units regarding the waiver and then finally on august 27 of this year the district submitted the current waiver request through our review we confirmed that three of the four bargaining units opposed the waiver the following reasons were for opposition were stated that the district has been less than transparent a refusal by the district to be inclusive in the process poor planning and execution of plans by the district mischaracterization of the position and lack of community support including

326the sports program we received a letter on october 28th from csea urging the board to deny the waiver request the main concerns raised in the letter were as follows that the educational needs of the pupils are not adequately addressed that the pupil or school personnel protections are jeopardized they also mentioned that planned staff reductions of 10 instructional aids and that the exclusive representatives of the employees were not a participant in the development of the waiver we received two letters from the school district one dated november 2nd which stated the following that the district recognized the importance of the hamilton adult center program and that they were fully committed to maintaining the programs in the district that the reductions in adult education funding and the inability to offset the loss were the reasons for staff reductions

327and that the reductions were unrelated to the waiver request the adult education staff rejections were approved at the september 8th 2020 board meeting and that the district work with their local bargaining unit and agreed on a memorandum of understanding specific to the effects of the reductions on november 3rd the district submitted another letter stating that the district will be rescinding the layoffs of the adult education classified employees that the district intends to employ the staff in positions at school sites for distance learning and if the district is unable to find new positions for the affected classified employees through december that the district will consider revisiting staff reductions at that time once again the district is requesting to waive the sealed bid and highest bidder process to lease surplus property cde staff recommends approval of the

328server request with the conditions that i mentioned earlier as cde believes that the bargaining units were afforded an adequate level of involvement through the correspondence and discussion between the two parties over time with that i'd be happy to answer any questions i'm going to call a member rucker for some comments in a moment but first if we have the could have the public comments light up it looks like we do um great we're going to open up the phone line for the public comment queue members of the public wishing to provide comment may do so by calling the number on the slide and entering the access code um and then while we're waiting for members of the public police member rucker um i turn to you for initial comments sure well first of all i

329do want to thank the staff in the department and the state board staff who have worked very diligently on this waiver as you can see the development and for this waiver for presentation and consideration by the board it's a been a long and winding pathway in the timeline that you can see over the course of a year this is an example of something that typically comes to the board and we're familiar with in the run-up to the approval of the local control funding formula we heard from busloads of parents who came to the state board to plead with the board to create metrics and criteria and guidance for districts on what the stakeholder engagement process looks like and what it means to honor and take the time to listen to community stakeholder input in meaningful

330ways and so it's important for the purposes of understanding what we're actually asked to approve in this waiver to separate a number of things this waiver is simply a request by an lea to simplify the process for them to lease this property that they have declared surplus what has arisen in the waiver that is completely unrelated to approving the request that they are making is the manner in which the development and the stakeholder engagement process for related to this waiver unfolded it is it is material to the stakeholders in this community that in making their request uh and giving their input for this waiver that they see connecting approving the waiver in some way tacitly approving the behavior of the district and that's not what we're doing but having said that it is important to

331state that this exemplifies very poor leadership on the part of the district and how they chose to handle the stakeholder engagement process it's not good it's not adequate when you present a waiver to stakeholders and say we really don't need your input we really don't need your approval because we're going to get the waiver anyway it's not adequate input to hold a meeting about the waiver and not have the waiver paperwork available for the participants to see during the course of the meeting that said that is not material to be considering whether or not we're actually going to approve simplifying the process for the district to approve the waiver so when it is time after we hear the comments from stakeholders who are going to explain to you their frustration with the district on how

332they felt not included and disregarded in the stakeholder process to develop this waiver i am going to recommend approval of the waiver but further i think we need to pay attention to and uh dr darling hammond and board member for teo bronson you have worked with the commission on teacher credentialing we approve standards for administrators concerning you know criteria for them to receive their certification one of the most important elements of that criteria is that they understand their role as a leader in working with and supporting the inclusion of stakeholders from the complaints that you're going to hear from these stakeholders that did not occur here and this is not unique it's not an isolated incident this is uh for many in many areas it's the norm not the not an exception i recall sitting

333at a different meeting for the um for uh that's uh concerning student student engagement and school improvement and when the superintendent was asked point blank well what is your conversation been with the stakeholders he says he's not doing that yet so we have a lot of work to do in the area of continuous improvement to also continue to improve what our leaders are doing to support stakeholder engagement and create norms that don't lead us to being confronted with matters like this but again the issue about how the district conducted itself is separate from the issue of approving the waiver itself so i would ask my colleagues on the board to listen carefully and with great concern to what you're going to hear from the stakeholders that at the same time i am going to recommend

334when it is time for us to look at the waiver that we do approve the waiver for the sole purpose of allowing the district to simplify its process to approve the lease and to surplus i hope all that makes sense thank you very much and at this point we do have a number of people lined up for public comment i do want to acknowledge that kim is back with us on the phone um and we'll go on to public comment good afternoon caller please state your name and affiliation for the record your time begins now hi my name is jean alvalar i'm actually the president of the softball league that is at this location um can you hear me because i'm not sure if you can we can hear you okay great okay and i

335can appreciate um what was explained before that we do agree that it wasn't adequate um adequately transparent to us what was going on we don't feel like we were ever included in this decision-making process things tended to just move along without things being considered by our community this place has been here for 40 years and it's just unfortunate that it's gotten to this point i can appreciate that that this is a waiver it's material to you but i think it goes a long way just to be on the record as a part of this community that what she said was true it's very heartfelt and we very we very much feel slighted by the school district and the way they they did this thank you caller thank you good afternoon caller please state your name

336and affiliation for the record your time begins now good afternoon madam chair superintendent german fce members my name is kathy kelly and i'm the president of csca torrance chapter 845. i've been a member of the torrance community for the past 38 years we are opposed to waiver requests from torrent unified the district has refused not only to include us in the development of the waiver and address our concerns but has avoided providing us information which continues today the district still doesn't have any clear consent concise plan is where our programs will be placed additionally it's been a case in recent layoffs with adult ad the district refused to comply with our information request until september 17th after the board approved the layoffs on september 8th nearly a month after our first request the district misled

337us to the board to think that the coming up on september 21st our recent experience with the district does not promote confidence that our staff students and community members will be protected if the state board of education approves this waiver we respectfully request that you deny the waiver at this time thank you good afternoon caller please state your name and affiliation for the record your time starts now my name is dr linda scott and i'm calling for item 10. this is not item 10 please call back later good afternoon caller please state your name and affiliation for the record your time begins now good afternoon members of the board and thank you for this time i am dr keith butler chief business officer for the torrance unified school district since july of this year our

338adult education program has lost significant funding this year from both state and federal sources as a result we conducted multiple negotiation sessions with our local cse resulting in an agreement september 22nd regarding the impacts and effects of these adult education layoffs to hear these layoffs as somehow being tied now to the waiver application is completely incorrect to make the point clear we agreed this week to receive those layoffs and i am working with human resources to find long-term positions for those employees if possible while this action does hurt our general fund in the present i know that the waiver is very important to the fiscal health of our district for the long term i hope this board recognizes that we have been transparent about this process since it began and that this waiver request is

339truly in the best interest of all parties thank you good afternoon caller please state your name and affiliation for the record your time begins now my name is kay peterson and i am the vice president of cse torrance chapter 19. we are opposed to the waiver request from torrance unified we are deeply concerned with the lack of transparency and the inclusion in the development of the waiver at no point in time has the district included us in any meaningful way in the development of the waiver or satisfactorily addressed our concerns regarding the impact of the waiver that would have upon students and staff our members are fearful that the approval of the waiver will result in the elimination of the adult education program they are concerned not only with their own job security but with

340these programs that will be taken away from the compute community where many of our members and their children have benefited directly from these programs we respectfully request that you deny the waiver thank you good afternoon caller please state your name and affiliation for the record your time begins now good afternoon esteem board members superintendent and support staff i'm dr tim stowe tusd interim superintendent since 1975 i've been fully invested in the torrance unified school district as a student a teacher a parent a principal and other administrative roles i live and breathe what is best for our students our staff and our community i've been involved in the potential lease of the hamilton property since our board formed a 7-eleven committee and have been responsible for the outreach to keep the community informed and engaged for

341more than three years what you see before you in the waiver application meets all cde requirements including significant consultation with our labor partners i respect our labor partners but i respectfully disagree with any contention that this has been a closed process what i do know is that a negotiated lease will provide the absolute best possible terms to benefit our students our labor partners and our community thus i respectfully request approval of our waiver request thank you good afternoon caller please state your name and affiliation for the record your time begins now uh good morning madam chair superintendent thurman and sve members my name is robert dewitt and i represent the classified employees in performance chapters 19 and 845. we repost the waiver request from torrance unified this waiver impacts adult education programs the special education

342transition program and the ball field heavily used by the community the district has continued to refuse including us in the development of waiver despite continued promises to provide us a copy of the draft waiver spanning nearly a year the district only provided us with a copy they intended to submit less than five business days to submission the district continues to mischaracterize its meetings with us which have been cursory and superficial today the district has offered no substantial assessment or response of its capacity to protect these vital programs and services instead communicating that while the approval of the waiver may permit it they have no obligation to do so we implore you to make the district's blatant lack of respect and disregard for our involvement of primary consideration in your determination we respectfully request that you

343deny the waiver thank you good afternoon caller please state your name and affiliation for the record your time begins now hi my name is alan glassband and i represent the community of north torrance in general i was a board member at the little league when this began and like many other people including somebody from your own board mentioned the school district handled this we're in a really poor fashion lack of transparency has been always been the problem unlike what the superintendent so mentioned they did not include us in any of the conversations other than duly noted and we'll march on with our own opinion of what has to happen in your community there's a high special needs group that will not be able to go anywhere else there are elderly people who can't take classes

344and they started cutting them a few years ago in preparation to try to sell this property they actually falsified information on your own application when they said that there was no objection from the 7-eleven committee there are actually two nay votes with objections because of community opposition and those were not included on your application or other instances but i only have one minute thank you caller thank you good afternoon caller please state your name and affiliation for the record your time begins now good afternoon my name is michael juba and i am a classroom teacher representing the california teachers association cta is extremely concerned with the waiver request from torrance unified past waivers of this sort have been for properties that are empty lots or empty buildings we are hard pressed to understand how a

345building that houses a significant number of programs with no plan for relocation can be deemed circles cta supports our local association's opposition to this waiver request as well as the opposition from our labor partners at csea ck recommends the state board reject the waiver and ask torrent unified school district to conduct authentic stakeholder engagement with community stakeholders and specifically with the bargaining units of goods safe most importantly torrance unified must ensure that the best interest of the students served in these programs are met by protecting these programs currently housed at the site in question thank you good afternoon caller please state your name and affiliation for the record your time begins now [Music] sorry hello my name is georgia franz i am waiting for general public comment this is not general public comment please call

346back later okay okay thank you good afternoon caller please state your name and affiliation for the record your time begins now madame president board member superintendent thurman my name is dolores duran flores and i represent the california school employees association and we oppose this waiver we urge you to deny it because the district failed to meet three criteria set forth in the reasons for denial first the educational needs of the students are not adequately addressed in fact nobody knows what will happen to the programs and the students because the district hasn't told us secondly school personnel protections are just sized the district approved laying off 10 of our instructional aides at this site only after the superintendent ceremony inquired about the layoffs did the district rescind nine and only until possibly december while we appreciate

347the superintendent's help the district failed to meet this requirement and finally the union was not a participant in the development of the waiver the district had two waiver meetings that didn't provide a copy of the waiver you can't involve us in the development of the waiver when you don't even have a copy of it the district failed to meet this requirement for these reasons we urge you to deny this waiver this concludes public comment thank you very much uh at this point um we want to open up for board discussion board members please you know raise your hands in the participant list if you have a comment or question give it a little wait time all right so seeing um no questions or comments uh i wonder if someone would like to make a motion

348um i would like to ask the staff to put the staff recommended the slide with the staff recommendation on the screen again please thank you okay so the you can see on this recommendation there are basically four parts to this recommendation first of all the the department does recommend approving the waiver the approval of the waiver is approving uh simplifying the process for the district to be able to lease and simplifying the bidding process so that they can have other factors that they can consider in approving a lease of the property in addition to other criteria other than the highest bid as their as the consideration that's the first part of what is being recommended in the waiver and that is the only thing that um is material to uh the waiver itself as it

349relates to the sections of the edcote statute that uh leave it on that section leave it on that slide please that as it relates to the encode sections that the district is seeking but based on the comments that you heard from the stakeholders and a lot of the work that has been done by department staff by state board staff and as you also heard from the superintendent's office we are recommending these additional conditions as part of the approval of the waiver the first recommendation requires a public hearing that um the first recommendation that requires that the governing board determines um what's the most desirable way where the proposal can be received and the reasons for that determination and include that the second recommendation is that prior to entering into negotiations that the governing board hold

350a public hearing with the members of the public including labor organizations to to discuss the issues about the relocation of the programs that are currently operating at the property the most important concern you heard from the stakeholders is that they do not believe the district has actually exercised its due diligence to protect the students or the programs that are involved and figure out a way to maintain the integrity and the continuation of those programs and second and finally this is a waiver that only applies to the lease of the property if the district decides to sell the property they will need to go through this process again and they will need to consider if they're going to support provide another waiver request the department staff believes particularly with the inclusion of the requirement for a

351meaningful stakeholder engagement process in a public hearing that and the fact that we have made clear and put sunshine on what the concerns are that the community has in the way that the district has conducted the process to get to the waiver at this point while it hasn't solved the conflict or the norms of the culture of stakeholder engagement in the district it has it has raised the level of expectation from the department and the board to the district about what should be done going forward to try to clone and and uh calm down some of the concerns that have been raised so because of these three conditions and we do feel that these conditions do uh attempt to try to carve out some way of creating some ways for stakeholders to mediate their concerns

352and at the same time raise some accountability for the district in the ways that they work with their relationship with their stakeholders on this particular project we think that this waiver should be i do recommend approval of the of the waiver for the lease of the property with these with these conditions in place that's my motion thank you is there a second i second thank you very much is there any further discussion from the board seeing no hands um we'll ask brooks to uh do a roll call vote member burr aye president darling hammond aye member fattah hi member glover woods hi member mcquillen yeah member nava hi member patel brownton yes remember rodriguez yes remember rucker yes vice president strauss yes member son i it's approved unanimously thank you very much and uh thank

353you juan for that clear presentation we appreciate it um we're now up to agenda item nine which is the last one well i'm not sure if it's the last one for today but it is our next one i'm going to hand the gavel to vice president strauss for this item because i have to step out for another meeting short okay um so we are now going to hear um item nine uh which is a retroactive request for funding for three non-classroom-based charter schools this item will be presented by stephanie farland from cde so stephanie would you please begin good afternoon uh vice president strauss board members chief deputy gregson uh we are here today to present items uh nine and ten both on funding determinations uh i'm going to hand it over to mckenna huey

354who is the manager in our division that is the expert on funding determinations and and conducts all the reviews um to go over the item the first item item nine and then we'll both be around uh for questions all right good afternoon state board members uh my name is mckenna huey representing the charter schools division and i will be presenting item nine of today's meeting agenda so prior to jumping into item nine just a brief update on funding determinations so for the next two fiscal years the cde anticipates that the state board will hear fewer funding determination items as a result of the passage of senate bill 820 which modifies the request process for existing non-classroom-based charter schools for fiscal years 2020-21 and 2021-2022 so additional information regarding this bill and its implications on the

355funding determination process will be provided in item 13 of tomorrow's meeting agenda so getting back to item 9 this item consists of retroactive requests for determination of funding for three renewing non-classroom-based charter schools horizon charter oklahoma learning center and aloma vista charter so the cbe uses the term retroactive to refer to determination of funding requests submitted after the regulatory deadline for existing non-classroom-based charter schools this deadline is february 1 of the fiscal year prior to the year the school's current funding determination expires all schools presented in this item failed to submit their funding determination request for renewal by the february 1 deadline as such they were required to obtain a waiver permitting them to submit the request after the deadline and waivers were submitted for all schools and were approved by the state board at

356its july 2020 meeting so upon the state board's approval of the waivers the cde reviewed each school's request for determination of funding in order to receive 100 funding for its non-classroom-based instruction charter schools are required to meet specific criteria which are detailed on this slide and are as follows spend at least 40 percent of its public revenues on instructional certificated salaries and benefits spend at least 80 percent of its total revenues on instruction and instruction related services and maintain a people-to-teacher ratio that does not exceed 25 to 1 or an equivalent people-to-teacher ratio of the largest unified school district and the county or counties in which the charter school operates so based upon cde staff's review horizon charter and wilma vista charter meet the criteria for a 100 determination of funding oklahoma learning center does

357not meet the criteria to be eligible for a 100 funding as it did not spend at least 80 percent of its instruction and instruction related services um rather this school qualifies for an 85 funding level which is the level of funding that the school did end up requesting so each school's exact spending percentages and people teacher ratio information is provided in attachment one of this item and detailed information regarding each school's respective revenues and expenditures can be found in their funding determination forms which are provided as attachments two through four of item one of the october eccs meeting agenda which is um item so for an existing non-classroom-based charter school regulations state that an approved funding determination shall be for a minimum period of two years in a maximum period of five years unless a

358shorter period is requested by the school it is a cd's current practice to propose a funding determination period of three years for charter schools that are seeking renewal of their funding determination for the first time and a period of four years for schools that have gone through this renewal process one or more times so all schools in this item have gone through the renewal process more than one time um their funding determination periods have been recommended accordingly with the exception of guantany learning center which requested a funding determination period of two years so at the october accs meeting it was requested that the cde share the school budgets used to complete the funding determination forms and the cde would like to make it clear that the budget is not required to be submitted as budget

359information is not used to complete the funding determination form for renewing or existing charter schools rather these schools use audited financial data so upon the receipt of a complete funding determination form cde staff compare the information submitted in the form to the school's actual audit and those audits are housed in the school fiscal services division of the department so also at the october accs meeting concerns regarding each of these schools funding determinations requests were brought up the ecs's concerns um primarily focused on the school's high level of reserves expenses paid to other agencies and the terms of the school's board members so the cde notes that maintaining high reserves are not typically a cause for concern or a reason for the cde to grant a lesser amount or deny a funding determination request pursuant to

360regulations if a charter school meets the 40-80 spending criteria and the people-teacher ratio requirements the eccs shall recommend that the state board approve the request at 100 unless there is a reasonable basis to recommend otherwise so after the october eccs meeting cde staff did reach out to all the schools for clarification on the specific points of concern that were raised by the commissioners and all schools were responsive to the cde's request for more information horizon charter cited as reasons for the high reserves as being in the process of restructuring its budget and updating its multi-year production for the first interim report the school also stated that they are setting aside funding to open a resource center in its authorizer's district and regarding its expense to write ingle productions which was something that was also brought

361up by the accs horizon charter provided documentation to support that its contract with right angle productions was for advertising partnerships social media marketing and so on and so forth guacamelee learning center they cited multiple reasons for their high reserves including um they are saving for new facilities um they also plan to use that money to maintain full operations and continue providing all their services to students while being funded at 85 for the next few years and they're also saving for additional uncertainties due to the total pandemic and regarding this charter school's board members and their expired terms the school did provide an updated list of their board members with current terms to the cbe and then uh the last charter school lima vista charter their authorizer provided information to us and cited reasons for their

362high reserves as being that the authorizers are charging the school a little bit less for support services provided um the authorizer has stated though that it will charge the school more in order to spend on the school's reserves if it continues to be deemed an issue so upon the completion of these three funding determination requests review the cde finds that all requests are reasonable and adequately supported and recommends that the state board approve the determination of funding requests for horizon charter and women vista charter at one hundred 100 for four years and the determination of funding request for oklahoma learning center at 85 percent for two years as requested by the charter school and at its october um meeting the eccs moved to approve cd staff's recommendation and that motion passed by a vote of

363eight to one thank you for your consideration of this item and i'm happy to answer any qualifying questions the board will have thank you so much for the presentation and for the follow-up on the questions that were raised at accs um so um would we put up the slide for public comment uh members of the public um can comment on this item by calling two 712-432-0 zero seven five and entering the access code six five one nine o five pound so while we're waiting for members of the public to call in i first want to ask members burn sun who are liaisons um to accs if they have any initial comments then i'll ask board members if they want to ask one clarifying question or make a comment before we go to public comment then

364we'll go to board discussion so raise your hand in the zoom panel if you have a clarifying question and i'll move to remember burn sun for some initial comments i'm going to defer to ting because she attended the accs i was not able to attend yeah i and i just wanted also to thank the staff for following up on the questions from the accs meeting and from the commissioners there these funding requests have become come under more and more scrutiny as you know we have seen over the last few months here um and you know i would just kind of emphasize that these are funding determinations go through real thorough scrutiny by the cde staff having had a school that has gone through this process and that they are following the regulations that have been

365established for the the review of these determinations i do think that these regulations are 20 plus years old and that um i think we might want to re-look at those regs and i'm hoping that we get a opportunity to be able to review funding determinations in the process in the future thank you member son so do we have any clarifying questions before we go to public comment i don't see any hands up um so do we have any public comment available yes from staff go ahead we do have public commenters good afternoon caller state please state your name and affiliation for the record your time begins now dr linda scott i'm affiliated with w.e.b du bois public charter school that is also also up for waivers excuse me there's a delay between the computer and

366the caller that's that is the next item please call back then okay good afternoon caller please state your name and affiliation for the record your time begins now good afternoon everyone my name is kevin humphrey and i'm the superintendent of o'homey schools i oversee the guahoma learning centers which is a small independent study learning program that serves about 100 students in vista california we provide support to families who are looking for a blended learning model for their students many of our high school students utilize our program for credit recovery purposes the wahoo learning center's facility is currently located in one of our lobbies of gohome park academy we are in the process of looking for a facility to better meet the needs of our students a facility that will help us provide more one-on-one support

367and intervention for our students we apologize for missing a non-classroom-based funding determination deadline and we have installed protocols to ensure that it doesn't happen again we hope that we can get past this bump in the road and continue to meet the needs of some of our most vulnerable students within our community and we appreciate you we appreciate your support in doing so thank you for the opportunity to speak good afternoon caller please state your name and affiliation for the record your time starts now hello my name is javis pratt i good afternoon caller please state your name and affiliation for the record your time starts now fbe members sheila whitley classroom teacher speaking for california teachers association cta would like to express our continued concerns with the funding determinations of non-classroom-based charters in our letter

368we called out a variety of issues but i would like to discuss the following they each have very large reserves ranging from 41 percent to 159 these funds should be spent on the classroom for the benefit of students horizon charter has sizable expenses of more than five hundred and forty nine thousand dollars going to a closed ncb that is run by their own administrator and a public relations contract of more than 445 000 at wyoming learning center there appears to be a conflict of interest between glc and wyoming park academy with overlapping board members staff and glc sending 18 of their budget to gpa cta questions the need for 100 funding determination for the ncb's given the lack of transparency and sizable reserves they each have additionally cpa believes that cde must also share the

369ncb budget submitted with the determination of funding request forms to help ensure that another that concludes public comment thank you um we'll open up for board discussion now so board members please remember to raise your hand in the participant panel of zoom if you have a question or a comment are there any comments from board members uh let's see uh member nava i think um patricia rucker board member rucker you had your hand up before me so feel free okay member record oh okay um i was just going to say you know we've had this is not the first time in the conversation uh for a board item on funding determination that i have heard from board member sun that there is a need to revisit the regulations and our criteria because they seem to

370be out of date i i would just like to comment on this item when are we going to do that and what exactly is the step that needs to be taken because there are there is merit to the concerns that are being raised here about these funding determinations especially in a year when we know that there are serious budget concerns for all leas not just charters and so i'm not sure what is the need for 100 funding determination for a school that has a 159 percent reserve yet the but yet the regulations provide the flexibility to approve something like that so i do have some concerns about what we need to do and what steps need to be taken for us to actually as an either as a board action to have a public conversation

371as an agenda item or to do the work with staff updated review update and revise this criteria before we have another set of funding determinations that look questionable like these do to me hi thank you member uh member novel actually um board member rucker that was exactly the question i was going to ask it just was it wasn't the first time that i've heard um the concern around coming back to revisit the these regulations that are 20 plus years old so i wanted to just put us a stamp on the reality that we do need to have that conversation and i think that even though the the reserves are not they're they they're not part of the non-funding determinations in the sense that they're not part of the decision making for that they do create

372questions um and questions that are probably justified when you get with the charters and you have them explain but i i would i would just say that uh if if we were looking at these and they were local school districts with that large of reserves it would generate questions as well thank you member borough just a couple comments um some of the answer about redoing the funding regulations for non-classroom-based schools will be discussed tomorrow when we talk about the major changes that have been made to the charter school law there will be a moratorium on launch classroom-based schools for a period of time and so i think and presumably to examine their relevance their appropriateness their success with students and so a decision will be made about whether or not to continue with that modality

373under charter schools so and i will just say related to the change in legislation we will have lots of work to do around charters and all kinds of regulations around charter so um that's i just put that in the parking lot we'll hear a lot more about that tomorrow but in the meantime we do have very specific criteria and i really want to commend the department on how they put in the presentation that was made about how they come to these decisions um you can tell from our advisory committee on charter schools that there was a compelling recommendations they're acting on them based on the department's best advice so some of these other questions that come up really are not relevant to the decisions that are being made about funding determination so i would just

374like to suggest that we move forward with this and i'd be happy to make a recommendation to adopt the department's recommendation make a motion to adopt the department's recommendation do we have a second remember son you are you seconding it yes okay um so um um our executive director brooks allen now will take the wrong call though member hi president darling hammond what's up member fatah i remember glover woods yes member mcquillen yes member nava hi member patil bronson remember rodriguez was that a nay or a yay i apologize it was an a no thank you remember rucker no remember strauss vice president yes yes remember son yes that passes with a vote of seven to two thank you um so now we're going to move to agenda item 10 which is a retroactive request

375for funding with mitigating circle for one non-classroom-based charter school and so this item will be presented by stephanie farland from cde stephanie um and just um this is actually um specified in attachment one just so everyone's aware stephanie please begin thank you vice president styles i'm going to hand it over again to mckenna healey hello again um again i'm mckenna hearing i'm representing the charter schools division and i will also be presenting this item to you so item 10 consists of a retroactive request for determination of funding with mitigating circumstances for w.e.b dubois public charter so as explained in the last item retroactive requests refer to determination funding requests submitted after the regulatory deadline so this charter school failed to submit its funding determination request by february 1st and they were required to obtain a

376waiver from the state board which was approved at its july 2020 meeting so once the school obtained an approved waiver the cde reviewed the school's funding request and found that it does not meet the criteria for 100 funding the criteria for full funding is detailed on this slide the school's exact spending percentages and people-teacher ratio information can be found in attachment 1 of this item and detailed information regarding the school's revenues and expenditures can be found in its funding determination form which is provided as attachment 2 of item 2 on the october eccs meeting agenda so when the criteria for full funding are not met regulations permit the advisory commission on charter schools to find a reasonable basis also referred to as a mitigating circumstance by which to make a recommendation other than one that

377results from the expenditure criteria um to the state board so if the charter school does not meet the designated spending criteria it can submit mitigating circumstances for consideration and these circumstances may include documented data regarding individual circumstances of the charter school and or one-time expenses or unique or exceptional expenses and without a reason for mitigating circumstances a charter school's funding rate may be reduced from 100 to 85 or 70 percent or may be denied at zero percent so w e b du boy public charter did not meet the criteria for full funding um they submitted mitigating circumstances for consideration and cited as their mitigating circumstance the need to expend a considerable amount of revenues on facilities as well as a decrease in their non-classroom-based ada caused by campus closures resulting from the anderson versus shasta

378court decision so in order to comply with the anderson court decision the school closed two of its three campuses and the school was able to end one week for one of its closed campuses but was still obligated to the lease for its other campus through 2020 to 21 and additional details regarding their request and their reason of mitigating circumstances is provided in this item so as i also previously stated for an existing non-classroom-based charter school regulations state that an approved funding determination shall be for a minimum of two years and a maximum of five years although typically the cd recommends a period of three to four years for renewing charter school when considering requests for mitigating circumstances the cde generally proposes a funding determination period of two fiscal years and this permits the cde to

379timely revisit the school's funding and ensure that the school is meeting the spending requirements outlined in regulations so at the october eccs meeting concerns regarding wb dubois public charters funding determination request were brought up and are detailed on this slide the school provided the cde with additional information to clarify the concerns discussed at the eccs meeting so regarding the leases um the school clarified that it is still using the facility of one of the campuses that they previously closed they previously closed and this facility is being used for back office services as well as for professional development for staff um the school wanted to make it very clear that they are not paying for a facility that they are not using and then regarding the cost of renting um their facilities the school stated that

380the amount that they pay in rent has been the same since 2006 and they have and they have also provided their authorizer with comparisons for other facilities in the area justifying the amount that they're paying rent um the school also clarified that um the gape is a community based organization not a charter management organization and it gave acts as a parent organization over the two charters that they operate under a non-profit status w.e.b dubois being one of them and all board members are volunteers and they do not get paid so the cde has determined that the information about submitted by w.b du bois public charter supports its claim for mitigating circumstances therefore the cde recommends that the state board approve the school's request for consideration of mitigating circumstances and approved the determination of funding request

381for 100 for a time period of two years as outlined in attachment one and at its october meeting the accs move to approve the cds recommendation and that motion passed by a vote of eight to one so thank you again for your consideration of this item and again i'm happy to answer any clarifying questions so thank you for the presentation and for the follow-up to the questions at accs um we're going to put up the slide for public comment members of the public wishing to provide comment on this item may do so by calling area code [Music] 712-432-0075 and enter the access code 651 905 pound so while we're waiting for the members to of the public to call in i'll ask member son if you have any initial comments and then i'll ask board

382members if you want to ask one clarifying question or a comment before we go to public comment after that we'll come back for more discussion no specific items on this i mean no specific comments on this item other than to thank cde staff again for their follow-up so member burn did you want to make a comment no no specific comments thank you um member navajo you're amanda's still i'm just trying i forgot to put my hand down okay remember glover woods i just had a clarifying question and this goes back to the slide on the questions and concerns my my question is the agape ls llc are those school board members from w.b dubois also members of that llc that's my first question and my second question to that is is the agape ellis llc

383the organization that owns any of the buildings that the charter is leasing so that is correct the board members of the charter school are the same as the board members um on or on agape um we i believe um agape owns the facility and they partner with ellis um for that so there's like a joint partnership there do you want to um while we go for public comment do you want to go back at your notes and take a look at that if you have it yes i will definitely do that okay um so let's go to public comment and then we'll come back and clarify member glover woods questions and any other discussion from board members good afternoon caller please state your name and affiliation for the record your time starts now sbe members

384my name is sheila footley and i'm a classroom teacher representing the california teachers association in our letters for item 9 and 10 we called out a variety of issues but i would like to reiterate the following w.e.b dubois public charter is requesting mitigating circumstances to having a move from three sides to one side after the anderson case but still having to pay for two sites for their funding determination form dubois is paying 516 000 to agapi ellis llc this group is described as agape the nonprofit has a partnership with the ellis family for the purposes of partial ownership and the leaking of two facilities of our schools the agape directors have no personal stock or ownership it is unclear if the lease that they cannot renegotiate is with this partnership or another entity the three

385board members of dubai charter are also board members for the agape cmo cta does not believe that these mitigating circumstances are reasonable and therefore wb dubois should not return 100 funding thank you good afternoon caller please state your name and affiliation for the record your time begins now my name is dr linda scott i am the ceo of w.e.b du bois in agape schools the nonprofit did you want to make public comment yes i'm sorry it's a delay between this but um thank you to the state board today for allowing me to speak i was on the call for the commission to clarify some of the questions that the union member had and was not allowed to i would say i was left on hold and was not allowed to provide public comment and rewards

386to our school to clarify the question and so today i wanted to say that agape is not a cmo agape is the parent organization to w be the boys and carter g with some public charter schools which operate under its non-profit our board members are all volunteers um and with that being said agape ellis llc does not have the same um board as far as the lease okay caller go ahead and respond to the question and so i wanted to say i clarify we're not a cmo um and so if the charter was affected it would directly affect the nonprofit itself because they operate under the non-profit and then as far as the agape ls llc they do not have the exact same board members they're a limited liability corporation only formed for the purposes

387of when the school was built in 06. caller your your time concludes now thank you do we have any other public comments yes we have one more public comment hello this is a fresh is this general public comment this is still not general public comment [Music] okay does that conclude the public comments that concludes the public comment okay so um now we'll open up for board discussion and i see member record you have your hand up thank you board member stress uh this this item was confusing to me um i'm still not clear about the relationship between the two entities but that's not what what actually confuses me what really confuses me is the lease of the property and where the relationship is there if the property is owned by one of these two entities

388and the charter is leasing property they no longer use why can't the entity that's overseeing this non-profit charter just simply let them out of the lease so that that is not a con that's not an expense or a contract or consideration for why they're currently seeking mitigation so i'm confused about that and probably my question is either based on a misunderstanding about that relationship or misinformation altogether but to me it seems somebody owns that property who has the authority to let them out of that lease and the millennial lease is a material expense for why they're seeking this mitigation so i don't get why they just simply can't be allowed out of the lease by the entity that is managing them as a non-profit organization so i i i am confused about that thank you

389member wrecker um i i didn't know that cd staff was looking to research on their notes do you have anything more stephanie and your team to add yeah so we um we did do um a deeper dive after the eccs meeting into the kind of the least concerns that were brought up at the eccs meeting and um we did not find really um any thing that was super concerning that would cause us to change our recommendation um what we can do is we can continue to kind of get information from this goal regulations does permit the state board of education to request additional documentation and then later go on and modify you know the funding determination um level as appropriate or as necessary um and in response to the question about the relationship between agape

390and ellis i believe that is described in the funding determination forum um i believe it might be on page five however unfortunately i don't have it in front of me so i can't say for certain but um board members might find some clarification on the actual funding determination format and and also this is stephanie so there there is the option of of the board not approving mitigating circumstances in which the school will then be funded at so that that's an option do we have any more comments from board members i'm just looking for any more hands i don't see any um remember stress i raised my hand again oh sorry i thought it was the same firm before i apologize go ahead no that's no problem i've been trying to be diligent about lowering and

391raising my hand so i understand why um i want to thank the staff stephanie for responding to my question or inquiry about the relationship let me be emphatic when i make this next statement i don't easily get confused about factual information and so i'm going to repeat again i am confused about the relationship between these two entities so i would like to say what is provided to me is not clear or plain or transparent or apparent i can't think of any other adjectives to give you but i don't understand it thank you we have any more comments or clarifying questions from board members vice president strauss can i say something this is stephanie please i did just a second ago give the option of not approving mitigating circumstances but you also can if you want

392us to take an even deeper dive um we're happy to do that and then we could bring this item back to um the december accs in the january state board so it really you know your call um member son can i so i appreciate the questions i appreciate the staffs additional work in reviewing um some and responding to the questions are we starting to move outside of our regulations for this process no regulations do permit um the state board and the department to go back and ask for additional information in order to make a accurate recommendation for funding um this is this is judy science i just want to it won't hurt the school if we delay until january correct that's correct that would be the last the last meeting with it so it won't

393harm them and delay them getting any apportionment or anything like that okay say um remember are you done with your cup that comment or do you want to say any more before i go to the next board member uh no i don't need to say anymore okay remember rodriguez um i just also wanted clarification because i i really don't feel comfortable with the information that we have now so if it's not violating our rules and we can um you know just just get clarity because i i really also feel um like member wrecker uh i i don't have clarity on this i'm i'm hearing you know a lot of disparate information do do i have a motion to continue or a motion to approve do i have some motion member strauss this is judy science

394again we do not need a motion to um recon to delay it unless there is the desire to approve it and make a motion that's fine but if if the desire is to research and get further information if there's a consensus to do that then we're happy to come back again like stephanie described and pull it from this and not take any action at this time so i've heard from two board members that they would like some clarification of additional information before taking action um on our next board agenda um let's see how i do this on zoom um do i have a member yeah i just would suggest that because there are questions that are unanswered and need clarity that we do um delay this until the january the december accs and the january

395board member meeting thank you member glover woods i see your hand up yes i just wanted to clarify and i i would agree it would be very helpful to bring it back i want to clarify specifically what i would like to have more information regarding is the relationship between the llc and the buildings that are leased um that are causing the mitigating circumstances so um i'll i just want to support all these requests um i know stephanie in the past we've actually had a chart which showed who was related to who and who connected and who was in charge and who owned what and i don't know if once you do the research you'd be able to explain that to us but i think there's enough concern on the board that we need more clarifying

396so we'll ask you to follow up on the comments that the board members have asked and to bring it back to accs in december and in january for the state board meeting yes that's what we'll do any more comments from board members or any more clarification you'd like stephanie and her team to do before we end this item okay then i think this ends that item and um thank you cde for a really thoughtful and good presentation to us and look forward to hearing the next steps um at our next meeting so and now we're going to go to item number 12. i hope we haven't lost our public commenter this is general public comment for items that are not included on our printed agenda so we're going to open up the phone line um

397so this is the number that you can't call area code 712 or three two zero zero seven five enter the access code six five one nine oh five pound and i now ask are there any public comments we encourage you to state your name and affiliation for the record and remember to turn down the volume on your computer if you're following the live feed speakers will be limited to one minute so do we have any public comment we do good afternoon caller this is general public comment please state your name and affiliation for the record your time begins now the caller dropped oh they're there but wait they're more okay good afternoon caller this is general public comment please state your name and affiliation for the record your time begins now hello um i called

398earlier this is dr linda scott and it hung up when i was trying to explain the affiliation between the llc and the non-profit caller this is general public comment this is not the time my apologies okay i just i just wanted good afternoon caller this is general public comment please state your name and affiliation for the record your time begins now hello my name is joseph fratz i am a freshman and a ninth grade class cult president from san pedro senior high school i am calling them to support the recommendations made by the student advisory board on education i participated and saved this weekend and i am honored by the presentations made by fellow colleagues and presenters of today's meeting student voice and utilizing student input and making decisions about our schools is most important

399to me as an autistic student i am part of a student population whose input is never solved when it comes to decisions that affect student exceptional needs like myself student voice especially the student populations whose input is not sought or understood is needed so that students can be heard and included in the decision we must we understand the concerns and needs of our communities we must be able to voice our concerns our needs and our recommendations to make our schools better and to make our schools what we need them to be successful and reach their potential thank you good afternoon caller this is general public comment please state your name and affiliation for the record your time starts now good afternoon this is liz guian republic advocates the lcff equity coalition is concerned that the

400board agenda omits an item discussing the department's proposed changes to the local control and accountability plan annual update template and instructions that were made by this year's education budget trailer bills while the trailer bills changed your role in approving the template making the executive director a consultant in the process they did not change the role of the lcap as an accountability tool for local district communities to participate in lcap development in an informed way the revisions are significant they reflect new requirements of the local continuity plans for districts to address learning loss as a condition of receiving millions in state and federal dollars we think this is a big deal and should not have been omitted from your discussion we're very concerned that the revisions will not adequately provide leas with enough guidance we urge

401you to ensure this goes to cpag there is no further public comment so thank you so um before i um announce the end of the meeting um i want to say that we're going to continue our meeting at 8 30 tomorrow morning with closed session to discuss the following legal manners martinez versus newsom today's fresh start versus englewood unified school district los angeles county office of education california department of education and the state board of education we're anticipating that we will come back into public session between 8 45 and 9 00 in the morning and so i hereby end today's meeting at 3 52 p.m and we will see you all tomorrow morning closed session at 8 30 and public sessions starting between 8 45 and 9 o'clock i want to thank staff for all

402the support all the work to help us get to this point so thank you all very much and i will see you in the morning