State Board of Education Meeting July 9, 2020

001okay good morning Linda we're live good morning all right good morning everyone um we are going to uh reopen the uh July 2020 board meeting and Karen can you take the role yes Linda darling Hammond here Cynthia Glover Woods here Jim mcquillin here Brena pen here Kim patio brownson here iday Rodriguez here Eileen Strauss here okay we have a here m is here Matt in Matt Welcome Matt here okay we miss you we're still working the problem for ting and for Patricia but hopefully they'll join us shortly right so we've had some tech technology problems and uh a couple of our board members couldn't get in we have a couple more who will come but we are going to begin this morning by reopening item one which is our state board priorities item and hopefully

002our other board members will join us uh before we get to the end of that item uh we're going to take action on the draft May 2020 meeting minutes and report on our liaison assignments um so there should be a um a public comment um slide that will go up no yes we're putting that up now there we go uh so uh this is on the draft preliminary report of action minutes for the May 7th 2020 meeting uh we'll open the phone line for public comments members of the public wishing to provide comment on this item may do so by calling 712432075 entering the access code uh and following the instructions on this uh slide and while we are waiting for any members of the public to call in do I have a motion from

003a board member to approve the May 7th 2020 State Board of Education draft preliminary report of action meaning minutes all motion I hear member navoo and is there a second second was that um who was that tiller brownson thank you very much I can't see everyone at once uh great uh tiller brownson and are there um any public comments no we we have public comment but they're for the charter items okay so there there's no public comment is there any further discussion of the board meeting minutes okay um board members please raise your hand in the participant panel of Zoom Karen will keep track of the raised hands and I believe our new board members will abstain from voting on this item correct okay and Karen can you please call the role okay see no

004one's raising their no one's raising their hand did you want them to raise it in the participant list that's what it says in the script why don't we just do the roll call do the roll call it's easier yeah yes uh Matt is Matt yes thank you Matt okay Brena yes Kim yes Eileen yes and Ting has has Ting joined us no Ting should be in let's see if she's Ting are you there hello Ting okay hi I can't see anything or anyone though we can hear you that's a step in the right direction we see you do you see us King I don't I can't see and my camera is well let's see uh okay there you are we see you okay you look great okay so K we're voting on the minutes okay

005uh I need you to say yes yes okay thank I approve but no pressure no pressure what about I'm gonna hang up Rucker us okay and then I need to okay Patricia we're voting on the minute welcome oh my gosh Patricia can you say yes yes okay good all right so the minutes have been approved all right that was quite an accomplishment I'll get it we'll see how the rest of the day goes now I want to invite the state board members to report out on any liaison activities that are not related to any items on our July agenda and because of our three new board members who were just sworn in this morning uh they have not yet received uh liais on assignments but we'll be working together after the board meeting to discuss

006the various opportunities they may wish to be involved in so let's begin by calling on other board members um based on their last name I'm going to start with member navoo in the middle there we go can you hear me y okay I think I speak for everyone uh Ting that was the most stress that took years off my life right there oh my God trying to get on that took years off my life so I got a couple of computers trying to work this thing and uh we'll see how we do here yeah so the system of support uh to say the least has been uh very busy and uh just for those in the audience that um when I say system of support I mean California Department of AD the California collaborative for

007educational Excellence the State Board the county offices the leas the geographic leads the sca leads so it's it's a composite of many uh entities across the state that are doing the work of supporting schools um I'm going to highlight there's a lot to share but I'm going to highlight very quickly a couple of big items that I think are important um CDE and CCE have just awarded the 21st century California school Leadership Academy grants I think that's um very important it's going to be providing training across the state um to eight awardees to do that training and those awardees uh to provide administrative and other school leaders throughout the state training and support is University of California Berkeley Los Angeles County Office of EDS Sacramento County Office of Ed Los Angeles education partnership Chico State

008Madera County Superintendent of Schools and Sonoma County Office of Ed um they represent U seven of the of the county offices and local entities that are going to be providing this training of uh providing highquality professional development and I think this is a a huge um move in the right direction for the system of support training our leaders and providing supports to upand cominging leaders in the State uh how best to serve students and meet their needs in addition C CCE and CDE uh are jointly charged with selecting uh both the County Office of Education to administer the new dyslexia initiative by September 1st and a County Office of Education to serve as a lead expert in literacy within the system of support by December 1st so that I think that's going to be that's

009another joint project between the CCE and CDE um that ex is a great example of the system of support working together and providing resources across the state for the CCE uh highlighting the distance learning that's went on uh CT CCE has uh provided um technical assistance with regards to dis distance learning they've done that with a multitude of collaboration between CD state board and county offices as long as as well as Community organizations and they've done 318 uh virtual sessions that were completed with the system of support uh regarding hybrid learning distance learning with over 16,000 views to the website and a rating of 4.5 or higher on the value of the the training so I think that says a lot about the quality of the training and support that's going out across the state

010in addition to that you had the continuity of learning Playbook that was highlighted uh that was um uh that has 19,000 over 19,000 views and helps the uh the system of support to support students and with their social motion learning and building capacity of English Learners supporting students with special needs as well as resources about how to return so I think that that's going to be um incredibly helpful and has been incredibly helpful um and last but not least the system of support has engaged in the community engagement initiative uh the community engagement initiative is um uh part of the support that's expanding the professional learning networks and those were awarded to Chino Valley Unified Marino Valley Pajaro Valley Riverside Upper Lake and Valverde Unified School District so there's a lot going on in the

011system of support right now as it pertains to awarding uh entities across the state to do the good work there's also a lot going on around distance learning how do we how do we return and CCE CDE County Office of EDS are right back right in the middle of all that and and I think to go into the details board President we could talk about an hour about it but I think that highlights the most um high level things that are happening across the state at this point all right thank you thank you so much and welcome we're glad you're here glad you got in me too um we're gonna go to uh board member pengal hi um nothing really I'm just excited to support the next student board member once um they join in

012any way that I can terrific we will uh look forward to uh your doing that and to your checking back in with us regularly uh member PTI Bronson good morning um so there's a couple things I was going to um provide an update on one is uh the Early Childhood policy Council has had a couple of meetings um since uh we have last um been all together um and much of the conversation has been around the master plan for early learning and Care um uh that is a master plan that is due to for its public debut on October 1st um there is a research team comprised of westad child Trends um Stanford School of Ed Rand LIF air nean collaborative and uh social policy Partners um all of whom have been working together um

013to both assess the current state of the system um of early care um and education and then also to make recommendations uh for the plan moving forward they've broken it out into a couple of meta categories that they're making recommendations around um in finance in expansion of access around facilities quality improvement and Universal prek um also in this last year's budget um that was just recently uh signed um there's been some movement of programs across various uh departments and so the four-year-old programs are staying with the Department of Education um and the younger Child Care um wraparound programs um and a number of other sort of more health related programs are going to stay um under Health and Human Services with uh the Department of Social Services um but obviously CDE having um State preschool

014um is is a I think signaling and an opportunity to create more cohesion um and sort of alignment and articulation between the Early Learning and K to2 systems um which is is um I think something for for us as a board to continue tracking um in addition um I also wanted to report out on the early math Symposium um which I was able to attend part of um which was really fantastic um and it was both um I think very much geared towards Educators and actually informing um classroom practice um but also you know sort of went between the 30,000 foot level as well as the sort of individual adult to child interaction levels um and very much addressing this idea um of how to integrate um and make uh early math skills applied learning

015opportunities in the early years um everything from business planning for four-year-olds for how to host a lemonade stand and bake sale um as well as physical education integration with PE and Counting of steps and such um but to essentially make the learning active integrated um and Project based which obviously is um something that many of us are thinking about not just for the early years but wanting um the the math curriculum to be something that lives in children's Minds in their sort of pencil and papers but also in their activities um and how they they understand and absorb um all of the learning uh there's also a really clear focus on making sure um that children with disabilities would also be brought into um this um format um and I think maybe the the top

016line where I should have started is that we often times I think um one focusing on early years in the sort of initial year of testing focus on third grade reading as the year where uh the achievement graph is most uh readily apparent in the beginning um but third grade math scores also show some significant need for improvement um and those are are achievement gaps that that once settled as early as age8 are really difficult to get around um there's also interesting gender implications where um girls tend to do better or as well as boys in the early years and then there's a flip around fourth and fifth grade um which need not be um so in any case it was it was um great learning and I heard from a number of participants um

017about how beneficial it was great great we we just and you just taught us a lot thank you very much um member Rucker Patricia are you there can you uh unmute yourself yes can you hear me yes okay I'm on my phone so this is going to be a different kind of uh this will be an interesting interaction for the whole day um and I'm with board member novel this was this took a few this took a few minutes off my life getting in on the call today um I want to thank you all first of all for taking the time to be with us today it would be a mistake to imagine that the impacts of our separate and Collective works on this board absent and acknowledgment that something fundamentally has taken place in

018our world as well as the controversies and traumas that have interrupted life and schooling for millions of California students and their households so as we talk about all the work that we've done it's important for us to understand that the opening of school this year is going to be like any other school year in our careers um I also along with member PTI Bronson and board member Strauss I'm sure you'll hear from her as well participated in the early math Symposium I had the honor of giving giving the opening address to welcome the conference participants and it has always been a wonderful session I've had the opportunity and the the thrill of supporting this conference from its Inception and its U beginning conference activities um I also sir speaking of math I also am the

019leaz on for the math curriculum framework committee they had a virtual meeting a two-day video conference on June 24th and 25th the agenda covered new content in chapter four exploring and discovering and reasoning within about mathematics chapter five data science and chapter 10 assess in the 21st century there's a great deal of interest about what California is doing in developing this new content the reasoning and Discovery chapter gives a new frame and interpretation to the instructional shifts for teaching math the data science is literally the expression of what's happening in the world and it lets students become the discoverers of knowledge and then finally the concerns and ideas expressed by the members as they discuss the assessment chapter and state assessment policies will have far-reaching impact on the understanding in the field on what it

020means to build a more holistic system systemic approach to assessment it was really important at this meeting to hear feedback from stakeholders during the public comment section about the importance of culturally relevant instruction asset-based instruction and assessment opportunities where students can show what they know um clearly what they were asking for is culture is uh was pla culturally relevant content not about watering down the presentation of content or creating artifice in scaffolding lessons for English Learners it's what the Stak it's about the background the context and the relevance of the materials stakeholders are looking for in the learning experiences the play materials and the activities that will be provided to students I'm also looking forward to the significantly disproportionality stakeholder meeting it will be a virtual meeting on July 15th this has been a longstanding

021concern of the State of California we are in compliance and doing our reporting on Ser providing services to students with exceptional or special needs as required by federal mandate but in the area of how we make reports or make referrals for special education there is we are out of compliance because there is a significant over reporting or over referral of students of color particularly African-American students and so this stakeholder work group Works to address not only what the standards or criteria are for significant that Define significant disproportionality but also providing guidance in developing plans to address this over identification at the local level there was an iqc meeting held on May 13 this was in the week right after the May state board meeting as you know yesterday the State Board took action to adopt

022two Frameworks recommended by the iqc the world languages framework and the Arts framework at the May meeting the iqc subject matter committees began the work of a instruction materials adoption both the world languages committee and the Arts committee looked at the content maps the standards maps and the evaluation criteria so as excited as we were to see the framework come to yesterday uh their work is laid out in front of them to begin the process of guiding the uh adoption of content and then finally I had the opportunity to apply for and I was accepted into a national work group that's being sponsored by the National Association of state boards of Education they selected 20 state board members from across the country to participate in a whole child policy study work group it's being launched

023and the first meeting will be first virtual meeting will be July 17 there will be one meeting a month through the end of the year the purpose of this work group is to provide um support and the development of policies and strategies and Leadership for the State Board to meet the social emotional behavioral and mental health needs of students and school Personnel in the wake of and recovery from covid-19 so I'm looking forward to being able to share with my colleagues on the board the things that I learned from participating in this work group with each of our successive meetings I'm going to close my report by taking just a moment of personal privilege we all witnessed with great pain and horror the murder of an African-American man named George Floyd every black leader and

024in fact every black person I know from LeBron James to my own brother has tried to give some rationality or explain this cause and this problem I will use this Pulpit to add their words because they said it better than I could to the public record there's this thing called the black tax it's not an IRS thing it's the added burden that comes with being black in America it's routinely paid no matter how much education you have how much money you make or how much success you've earned the black tax is more than the added stares Whispers And suspicions when you're out and about it's about the many instances of disrespect and incivility your color seems to engender and being expected to somewhat somehow always restrain yourself lest you not be what white Americans are

025never asked to be aedit for the race that experience includes not being afforded the same privileges as others as well as not being treated the same in the eyes of the law it's about living a life that included both of your parents growing up in rural Mississippi and recounting childhood memories of lynchings the Klux Clan the four jobs their parents work to send them to private schools in another state it's about the fears that lead to decisions not to let me their child out of their sight or the issues they had to think through and deciding whether whether or not we could go away to college and then not being surprised when the campus police stopped and fris my brothers for walking or driving on campus while black it's the day in and day out

026fatigue of trying to explain the obvious to the clueless it's about being asked to overlook blue failings and white failings so they can conveniently be viewed as black issues it's about being asked by so many what they should do or say about race when the easy answer lies in the privacy of each person's heart it's the black tax it's paid by me and every person of color on this panel and across the country and frankly I have been paying that tax long enough that I shouldn't have to ask others to Simply accept one basic reality that black lives matter thank you thank you very much Pat um vice president Strauss um well let me um just say that um these have been incredibly and are incredibly challenging times for uh students for their families for

027teachers and leaders and everybody I know um in the field is working really really hard and everyone's tired um and trying their best to do for students what students need to be connected so the theme and all the Layon work that I did um that I've done in since the last board meeting in May really had a whole theme of really connecting to students trying to help teachers um trying to build community and a lot of collaboration that's the theme of all of the work and I I think that this is our opportunity to do things differently um and really make it better and um not to just tweak it but to really shake it up and so um I just want to say that I think that is in all the lison work um

028I do lison to the credentialing commission and as part of that I'm invited to attend the CSU California Center for advancement of instruction and quantitative reasoning and while um member recer is the lison for the math framework um the work that CSU is doing with um K12 um school district is to try to help students in their math Pathways and try to get students to be successful in a fourth year of math and so um they convened on uh Friday May 8th right after our board meeting and they highlighted some of the projects that are going on in the state that I think will be really helpful and and could be included in some of the strategies in the new math framework but there's some exciting ways they're rethinking the fourth year of math for

029students in high school um in quantitative reasonings they're also looking at new courses that would help students who struggle with algebra 2 which is really a challenging course for many students or what we call integrated math 3 depending on which district you're in um and so the collaboration from CSU campuses and school districts um they're also looking um at ways to help teachers get supplemental authorization in computer science which you know we really need especially as we've adopted our um computer science standards um so I think that their resources will be really helpful and I've ask them to make sure they connect with CDE and the iqc as far as the framework um work um also um the core school districts um which are Fresno Garden Grove La UniFi Long Beach Oakland Sacramento City San

030Francisco and Santa Ana um those districts have been together um working on trying to improve school and District practice and their core advisory meets twice a year um they were meeting they met on May 21st um they have um two things one they're looking at night freshman on track program um to help students be successful those of us who worked in high schools realize that you've got to really focus on ninth and 10th graders if you're you're going to make sure they don't get lost in the process to make sure they complete high school so they've been working um with a uh a breakthrough success community Through um Improvement science and they're also looking at back to school analytics um getting students back to school so I think um the core districts have been very

031helpful to us in helping to advise some of our work in around accountability and Improvement of practic and so I felt um that their um data tools are available and um was it was a really collaborative um collaborative time then um the the California collaborative for district reform um that's a group that meets three times a year with school districts and researchers Mike kirst is part of that bill honing many of the um some Stanford faculty and they've been working for 15 or 16 years now I think Matt's part of it as well and they worked on June 15th and 16th on the issues of reopening schools which is obviously a real priority for all of of us and they um talked about um distance learning social emotional and relationship issues leading through crisis and

032what the big picture presentation and several districts presented um Long Beach Unified was actually quite impactful and their stakeholder group and what they're sharing and they they offer lots of resources and thoughts so I just think everyone is trying to put their best thoughts together um you might know that we have um and sponsored through um I see the beel foundation that's sponsor Math and Science collaboration in the state the California partnership for um Science and Mathematics the science collaboration meeting uh group met on June 8th and they're working on professional learning how to integrate Next Generation science standards and help to build alignment so the CDE has reached out to the um science collaboration committee and they are helping to run some of the remote and webinars that we're offering so our communities of

033practice around the state of math and science are really helpful in trying to improve improv practice and in in these really challenging times um let's see then the special ed advisory commission that's not normally a lison a position for me at all but um the position is vacant um and so I did attend on June 17th to make sure that we had state board representation there um we have two a new chair and a new Vice chair David totson and Hava Hayes white are selected as our chair and our vice chair um they had updates on state assessment um the annual report for special ed um they um the special ed division did an update on what's happening during the Corona virus pandemic and really a shout out to Mar Marin County Office of Education

034they brought students back um and um they presented um how they're dealing with on-site instruction during the pandemic they really um collaborated with Community agencies um they just been doing really quite um sharing the successes and Lessons Learned they also at the speci special advisory commission um talked about the parent and family perspective on distance learning and what that's meant and then a very very hardfill um thank you to Kristen Wright for all of her service as the state director of special ed um when I first met Kristen um almost 10 years ago she was on The Advisory Commission of special ed so she really has served us well and as you know she's moved on to Sacramento County office so not too far away and still a resource for us in special ed um

035two more um the the credentialing commission met on June 18th and 19th and iday you actually probably IID was sitting there because she's a commissioner um but basically there's a lot of updates that credentialing commission has tried to do in light of the pandemic to make sure that teachers can teach in the fall if they didn't finish their hours because the school was closed or if they couldn't take their test that was required because the testing center was closed so along with what the credentialing commission could do and along with what governor n to do with executive orders um they did everything they could so that we would have teachers available to teach in the fall for where our needs are and um the the credential commission's also looking um at their accreditation system um

036they have four years of implementation of the current system and they believe that there's some changes and edits that need to be made so we'll probably be hearing more about that and then they're also looking at the teacher performance assessment um and comparability study between the all the different assessments we used to assess um teacher performance TP Cal TPA Ed TPA and F fast so there's lots of them and um I might want to add up any more context to this um they also um we have a bilingual authorization workg group that began in late May to analyze and look at program standards a really important issue as we continue to implement more and more dual language programs um and then a lot of discussion of teacher preparation programs and then handing off to induction

037programs and how to support mentors with new teachers and there's continuing work on Child Development permit which I'm sure um probably aware of as well um so you might want to add to that um I'll just add just to support the early math Symposium was amazing um Kim did such a great job describing it but I believe there were over 5,000 attendees because it was remote and it was free we had people from all over the country and a credit to um Carolyn Fister from state board and Fresno County office for an amazing remote conference with full sessions breakout rooms it was amazing and that re those resources are available but I just was so proud of and the opportunity that was provided and then this is my last one um the concurrence commission is

038the commission that is the subject matter projects the subject matter projects have been very important to us in California in providing teacher professional development and many of the heads of the subject matter projects actually are the writers on our Frameworks um like the Arts writers um that we had for the Arts framework that we adopted yesterday so we had our update remotely on what the subject matter projects are um doing and what they've been doing during the pandemic and they are going to be a great resource for us going forward with I think president baring hamton share but just some highlights they're um talking about you know subject matter projects are based at different universities but because things are remote they're actually able to reach teachers and um in remote areas that didn't have access

039to some of the training before um and so that's been an actual plus and so they've also done things like lunch groups that every an hour once a week at lunch time they've been doing remote trainings they've been doing conferences and um so I think they're going to really help us a lot in our professional development going forward um and um there are book talks um and they have some new budget um to address some of the learning loss which I'll let um president darling Hammond share so that does end my lays on report thank you thank you very much uh member Sun thank you all right always a pleasure to follow um member stra here all right so the um only item I really uh want to report on is the the Career Technical

040education I'm beon to that and the um California Workforce Pathways um advisory joint advisory committee is meeting to tomorrow so we always meet for another day after the board meetings uh we are in um we do need an additional State Board of Education representative um to take the place that uh member uh or clisa Ortiz laone had occupied so we now that we have some new board members uh we may hopefully have someone to replace her very soon uh so we are meeting tomorrow as this board coordinat we had um approved the Perkins five Federal applications and uh in May and that has gone through its rounds and gone through the governor's office and has been submitted to the um education department um in Washington and they have from what I've heard they have provided

041some feedback and so there's a little bit of an itera iterative process going on right now um in the meantime we are working on the local application for the federal um for the Perkins now that we have the Perkins F application done what the committee will now be focusing on is a couple things one um streamlining the different funding sources we have for Career Technical education and uh we have the C Grant um as some of you are aware of we also have are working with our um Community Cal California Community College Partners on the K12 um a grant for um uh for schools as well and uh we also have now the Perkins Grant so we're hoping to look at different funding sources and streamline this for leas the other piece is aligning the

042different um applications and grants towards our uh guiding principles we have developed the guiding principles to support students centered k14 plus Pathways um and that uh is going to be our foundation from which to um look at applications look at quality programs and uh and and actually also collecting data as along those elements and and whether um our programs are making progress with student achievement along those elements so um that's essentially mve moving forward and we are also looking at developing more of a California plan for uh career Pathways so the Perkins application was only a Federal Grant application uh it in that process a lot of additional um uh issues and topics we need to continue to explore has come up and so one of which is credentialing around um CTE uh teachers and

043um Educators so we'll continue working on those issues as well so much going on um I'll just add I'll add a brief uh couple of additions to all of that uh amazing reporting um as you might imagine it's been very busy uh over the last few months legislatively as we finally got to a negotiated budget um and a lot of questions come to the State Board staff during that time I just want to give a special shout out to Judy cias and Deborah Brown and Karen staff Walters for all of the uh ball catching that they did and contributions that they made to their process um we um together were involved with sort of um helping the various um offices figure out how we could get from here to there in terms of uh uh

044the kinds of um strategies that will support the schools in this very complicated time um I gave um testimony before the assembly on learning loss and U as you saw in the budget there's quite a bit of leg legislative language about how and we heard about that over the last day or so about how um districts are expected to think about a continuity plan how to um put in place formative assessments we now have some guidance on that to figure out what kind of learning strategies are needed uh and um then how to support um more accelerated um I'm G to get rid of the thank you there's little things popping up on the screen um more accelerated learning I think it's really important as we think about the questions and the fears that people

045have about learning loss to remember a few things one is that kids are always learning every minute of every day as we are as adults and so the question is how do we organize what they're learning uh in a way that will move them forward in the curriculum but there's clearly huge inequalities that emerged during this time uh because some kids were in contexts where there was just a great deal more ready support than than was available for other kids and uh it'll be very important to pick up the phrase that remember Rucker used around asset-based instruction which is you know one of the ways that our math Frameworks folks are thinking about it that we go into the school year with asset based instruction in mind rather than identifying deficits and labeling kids as

046below and behind and sticking them off into remedial courses where they do drill and kill you know around you know um getting ready for test scores in the spring uh we really need to figure out where they are uh in their you know along the learning progressions in reading and writing and Mathematics and quantitative reasoning and so on using good formative assessments uh activating the learning resources that are available to them helping them see what they can do what Their strengths are using those strengths uh to move them um with accelerated progress we will get much much further that way uh than we will if we go into the school year with a deficit orientation about the kids so uh we've been working hard on trying to put the tools together and the framework together

047that help people think think about coming back to school uh welcoming students uh also piggybacking on member Rucker's um comment about the National Association of state boards of Education social emotional learning workg group um which I'm uh working with uh nasby on uh the social emotional uh elements of this are going to be very very important so that's been a very big theme in the work that the Department's been doing the CCE uh and the State Board is uh figuring out how to provide the tools and resources for that uh way of coming back to school I hope everyone will spend the first couple of weeks really welcoming kids um helping them create a community whether it's online or in person um enabling them to share what their experiences have been in private ways as

048well as in you know communitarian ways uh and then figuring out how to help help each of them uh move forward and I finally would like to just close by also thanking uh member Rucker for uh calling us in to the conversation about what's been happening in the Civil Rights Arena um George Floyd was not the only uh African-American man uh murdered by police uh just in that little window of time Brianna Taylor Tony McDade rard Brooks we go on with the naming uh the broader Equity issues have been focusing uh particularly on issues of policing and we've had a lot of conversation about policing in schools uh but we do also have to take up the ways in which systemic racism has led to tracking in schools uh a lack of qualified teachers in

049the school serving uh students of color uh which by the way about four times as many uncredentialed teachers are in schools serving uh predominantly students of color uh the weaker curriculum that's often available so those are on our plate uh as members of the State Board and while we think about the issues of uh policing and of of safety and of uh the treatment of um adults and children in our society we should also be thinking about the ways in which we can uh dismantle U the systemic racism that still exists in our systems so on that note um I will uh close out this part of our agenda uh and I would like to ask uh there's there's some screen that keeps coming up I'm g i uh whoever's uh inadvertently sharing their screen

050to try to be alert to that so that we can continue to see each other um with that we're going to go into our public hearings um and we're uh going to have three three public hearings today items 192 and 21 uh Spanish translators are available for these items during the public comment period if the comments you would like to make are in Spanish for items 1920 and 21 please use the same phone number and access code provided on the PowerPoint slide and inform the phone operator that you need a Spanish English translator so that your comments can be translated members of the public wishing to dial in for public comment should view the live stream of the meeting to know at what time we'll be asking for public comment for each item on the

051agenda a public comment may be provided by dialing the phone number and participant access code and then following each of the prompts um and then 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 uh we will also ask the public calling in for public comment to please turn down the speaker volume of their computers if they're following the live feed to avoid an echoing effect there is a delay between the live feed uh between what we're doing and the live feed and what people receive so we're trying to accommodate for that delay also in the way that we uh get people into the queue and um able to comment public comment will be limited to one minute for each

052speaker um for board members please mute your microphones when you're not speaking and keep your cameras on at all times except the scheduled breaks to ensure that we maintain a quorum throughout today's virtual meeting I saw that yesterday when people had to leave for a few minutes uh they put that notice in the chat box um thank you for doing that I think that's a good practice to continue if you need to excuse yourself for a couple of minutes from the meeting for each item on the agenda there will be an opportunity for you to raise your hand using the zoom participant window if you'd like to ask a question or make a comment I think pretty much everybody figured that out yesterday so congratulations to you we'll uh continue to build on our success

053and take an assets based approach to our board meeting this morning um so item uh 19 is a public hearing regarding the petition for the establishment of a charter school Under the oversight of the State Board of Education the T Community School which was denied by the Monte Bell Unified School District and the Los Angeles County Office of Education the CDE recommends that the State Board hold a public hearing to deny the time Community School petition this item will be presented by Stephanie Farland of the CDE um Stephanie um please begin we don't see you yet but I'm hoping you're there so Linda they're changing out computers up here so you need to give us a minute okay this is a day for technology OB apparently so it is a technology day today so we

054will take a few minutes why don't we uh why don't we take a five minute break and let people kind of get their coffee and whatever and we'll come back at uh around 9:50 and hope that everything is ready to roll great thank you okay well but I announced the break so we'll take the break get your coffee finally ready for takeoff um okay okay so good morning uh president darling Hammond board members Chief Deputy Gregson um today we are uh right now we are going through item nine which is a petition for the establishment of time Community School um time Stephanie you meant item 19 correct did I say nine I'm sorry item number 19 um time Community School time is an acronym teamwork individualization Mass and extension Community School is seeking authorization from

055the state board to establish a grade n through grade 12 Charter School within the boundaries of the montabello Unified School District the petitioners previously saw authorization through montabello and LA county office County Board of Education they were denied by monabell unified on October 23rd 2019 they went on to Los Angeles County Board of Education where they were denied on January 14 2020 and they appeal to the state board on March 6th 2020 the CDE recommends that the State Board hold a public hearing to deny the request to establish TCS a Grade 9 through grade 12 Charter School under the oversight of SBE uh the time petition was considered at the June 9th 2020 advisory Commission on Charter Schools the accs moved to approve the TCS petition with a delay in opening for one year and

056with the understanding that TC s would be in operation for 4 years uh they move that vote on a vote of 7 to two the Department's basis for recommendation um of denial is that the petitioner is demonstrably unlikely to successfully implement the intended program and the petition does not provide reasonably comprehensive descriptions of all required 15 Charter elements a little background on this school their mission is to develop pupils academic social and political skill sets necessary for lifelong learning critical thinking and positive contributions to the community in which they live they intend to open in 2021 2020 to 2021 that always messes me up a little with 110 pupils in grade nine and grow to serve 600 pupils in grades 9 through 12 uh by 20242 it is a college preparatory program so State uh

057so the findings the findings um from the California Department of Ed um I would like to um you'll see this similar slide in all of uh our appeals as we mentioned yesterday because of the impact of the covid-19 pandemic and the variations um in the governor's proposed January budget the proposed May revision and what we finally um what we finally uh got in the actual budget that he signed in uh this month so I just want to reiterate sort of after yesterday's conversation um I want to review how we analyze budgets in the charter schools division petitioners send in their budgets with their appeal we take their budget numbers and their projections and we do our own analysis of it to determine if a school will be fiscally viable and remain so this is what

058you see in the items so we do take their numbers we do our own analysis um and what you see in our item is our anal analysis of that you can see their own budget numbers through the petition that they submitted and any other U materials that they've submit um up to uh the meeting day we are consistent with how we re we review budgets and fiscal projections to ensure we are being fair it is understandably confusing right now because of everything going on and its effect on our state budget so just as a little background so we're not confused as when we have conversations and when Charters are having their uh time um their 10-minute time um we did ask all of the schools for a new budget after the May Revis was was

059released this was before the accs meeting we did an analysis of that budget um we did an analysis of the May revise budget you don't see that in the State Board items because the May Revis uh projected budget no longer exists and it's not what we ended up with with the state budget that was signed um so that is why you don't see that and that's why there was some confusion yesterday um we did do an analysis of the time budget um after the May revise and we found uh that they were fiscally unviable since then as you know the state budget has been approved without the immediate budget cuts but with deferrals we went back to the original budget time submitted as we did for all of the charter appeals before you yesterday and

060today we went back to their original budget submitted with their appeal petition um and while and I'll move on a little bit so while they um are uh viable um for the first year not with the reserves that the State Board recommends or requires but they are viable for the first year um and their viability is predicated on a lot of borrow borrowing and no startup costs when we originally um reviewed their budget uh there was uh they had no startup costs um that they uh that they projected to to have and so that was a big issue for us um to be fiscally sol solvent the petitioner needs to rely upon heavy borrowing um which can be exacerbated by the new budget deferrals um and as I said a minute ago they do not

061maintain the appropriate level of reserves for their first year of operation um so while we understand that many Charters start off this way with heavy borrowing um it seemed um responsible to recommend for approval with the information we had and with the with the um with the knowledge that we don't know where we're going to go um in the next year or two in terms of State budgeting and what districts and Charter Schools um will be receiving from the state budget also the petition does not provide a reasonably comprehensive description of the following measurable uh element two measurable pupil outcomes 10 suspension and expulsion procedures and 14 dispute resolution procedures with measurable pupil outcomes they do plan to reside within the Montello Unified School District which is comprised of 25,000 pupils 85% identify as socioeconomically

062disadvantaged 33% identify as English Learners and 8% identify as Foster youth the petition does not outline measurable pupil outcomes that address increases in pupil academic achievement both schoolwide and for all groups of pupils which is a requirement suspension and expulsion procedures and dispute resolu solution procedures the petition does not include all the necessary language required for each of the charter elements that we uh traditionally um recommend and require so the CDE recommends that the SBE deny the petition to establish time as they are demonstrably unlikely to successfully implement the program and does not they do not provide reasonably comprehensive descriptions of all required elements so in this particular case which um this next uh bullet is a little different than what what we have seen in the past with the State Board of Education if

063the State Board decides and after their deliberation to approve the time uh Community School petition the Los Angeles County board of education has agreed to be its authorizer under Ed code section 47605 K1 um which is the Ed code section which allows for the State Board to request that a local agency uh take over the oversight of a state board approv school um in the LA County we we had we did ask the LA County Office of Education and they have agreed to that and that is the conclusion and I will put up the the uh screen for Callin public comment thank you very much Stephanie okay um so we are going to now I'm going to open the public hearing at 10 o'clock amm first we'll hear from the petitioners the petitioners will have

06412 minutes then we'll hear from the district and County that are opposing the petition they'll also have a total of 12 minutes after the presentation from both sides there will be an opportunity for public comment from any individual who is not already presented for one minute each uh so I'll invite the uh petitioners uh to um come to the podium and maybe we could take the public comment slide down so they can show whatever slides they want to [Music] good morning president darling Hammond members of the board superintendent Thurman my name is Dr Gabriel Ramirez and I am honored to have this opportunity to speak with you about time Community Schools the highly qualified team that created and will lead it the students of monabell who will benefit from the school and the Innovative elements

065of our petition time Community Schools has one fundamental goal to educate the historically underserved high school students by providing an Innovative model of learning and a culture of social justice I'd like to begin by sharing a little bit about my background and that of my board I am a first generation Latino college graduate committed to improving my community Through education I have been in education for 20 years as a nationally board certified teacher an administrator and a director at the University level as a teacher I delivered culturally relevant and engaging lessons maintained high standards for my students that resulted in their ability to perform above school and District averages to scale my efforts I decided to develop a charter school designed to address the inequities in education for me my involvement in education is not

066simply a career choice it is my life's work to provide what I believe is a fundamental right to all children a quality education that leads them to achieve their dream and life goals the TCS board is comprised of Highly Successful individuals every member of the team overcame systems of race gender and or Inc inequality we can each personally attest to inequity Injustice and lack of access resulting in a difficult and challenging road to success fortunately each member can point to a mentor and or teacher who inspired and guided them a gift they intend to pay forward to TCS students each board member individually and collectively is adept at deconstructing problems and offering thoughtful and practical Solutions most importantly they are able to transfer their undeniable professional talent and skill to education L Lamar Brown TCS

067board president is an expert in marketing and community outreach he chose to leave a Fortune 500 company so he could use his skills at the University to help recruit students of color so they too could benefit from higher education in addition to his broad oversight as a board member he will lead the monitoring and evaluation of our Outreach and recruitment initiatives as a teacher administrator and lawyer Brandy Price TCS board vice president and founding board president has devoted her life to those who have been marginalized and disenfranchised she will bring her vast experience to educational leadership policy curriculum and instruction Adrian Enriquez TCS Bo Treasurer owns a mortgage company and is a co-owner of united trust escrow he is committed to developing and supporting TCS to ensure that the school has the fiscal resources needed

068to operate its innovative model Alexander SoDo TCS board secretary is a second generation monabell business owner who has been highly engaged in revitalizing the monabell community with a focus on business and education her status in monabell will continue to support the development of partners for our student internships lastly Dr Jor Moreno has been practicing integrative medicine for 20 years and is chief medical officer of the center for wellness located in monabell Dr Moreno's science background and connections throughout the community provide leadership that will support our holistic culture of social justice that will be rooted and educating the Mind by body and spirit clearly this team is exceptional we know that our backgrounds and stories will matter to our students and combined with a high quality education can be used to guide them to achieving their

069dreams TCS will prepare students by providing meaningful choices that reflect real interests and that lead to fulfilling lives our Target population resides within the boundaries of monabella unified and is 95% Hispanic only 30% of musd students graduate meeting University of California a through G requirements this means that only one in three monabell District students are even eligible to apply to a CSU or UC after finish in high school only 44% of musd high school students meet Ela standards and only 13% meet the math standards on Casp and to fur to further add context according to Census Data only 10% of adults within the monabell community over 25 have earned a bachelor's degree this means that if TCS is approved most of our graduates will be the first and their families to go to college our

070mission is to provide a college preparatory program to students in grades 9 through 12 that will develop the academic social and political skill sets necessary for lifelong learning critical thinking and positive contributions to the communities in which students live our vision is to positively impact all facets of society research from the past 20 plus years overwhelmingly attests that students need an engaging and rigorous curriculum instruction that is individualized a positive socially just School culture qualified and caring staff and a sense of belonging we will use Project based learning because studies repeatedly show its benefits our project-based curriculum is designed to encourage students to become passionate about learning by taking CTE courses that help prepare them for college while exploring career pass making them both College ready and career ready we will use career-based classes and

071internships because we know that real world scenarios not only help students better Master content but also Fosters the intrinsic motivation needed to become successful at Learning in addition our courses are all UCA through G approved and our graduation requirements ensure that students are ucsu eligible at the time of graduation briefly the time learning model has four components supported by research and best practices these components are teamwork individualization Mastery and extension combined they support a student um a student's development towards Mastery of content and the ability to problem solve they develop the right habits of mind essential to being successful in any environment whether a student is gifted an English learner or has an IEP the time learning model provides for differentiated instruction maintains rigor and individualizes The Learning Experience TCS is prepared to provide all

072students a free and appropriate public education on a personal note my son had an IEP throughout his k 12 education and so I have personal experience as a teacher administrator and a parent my son is now 22 years old in college and a success story as the Ed and principal I am well informed and positioned to provide appropriate leadership and support to my team to benefit students and to work effectively with families and providers TCS is working with the Lac Charter Sela to ensure that students are identified and served fully and has developed a budget that supports a special education teacher /c coordinator and contracted Services approximately 95% of our students will be Hispanic and approximately 20% will be English Learners after enrollment TCS will conduct initial and annual identification and assessment of primary second

073Lang U second language fluency provide classroom supports and employ effective communication strategies with parents/guardians of VLS lastly TS TCS is committed to serving Foster and homeless Youth and lgbtq students through support built in through the time learning model accompanied with thorough and comprehensive training for administrators and teachers in alignment with the mckin vento act in ab49 allowing teachers and students to develop close interpersonal relationships during which students individual needs and challenges challenges can be addressed the environment that we have designed does not allow students to slip through the cracks because of academic or um emotional issues rather we have created an educational system that ensures that all students are acknowledged and supported so that they may develop the strength of character to advocate for their own success at the accs commission meeting the CDE staff

074stated they would have recommended approval had it not been for the Governor's May revised proposal in its report to you the CD CDE expresses some concern now about pre-opening funding and the effects of deferrals so let me explain our plan that addresses those concerns clearly we as does the accs believe that it is ill advised to open this year at this late date and with the insurgencies of covid-19 but had timing permitted we would have responded to the impact of deferrals and reopening costs through um requesting uh a deferral exemption uh through utilizing charter school loans and through resal through receivables which are common practices in the charter world if we are approved for opening in 2021 we would use the coming year as a development year to pursue startup grants the walson grant invited

075TCS to apply as a result of a recommend ation by great public schools now which gave us a $50,000 development Grant recently we have submitted the walson Grant application also we were awarded the PCS GP Grant in 2018 but but was unable to access due to District denial we will apply for the pcsp grants again during its next cycle lastly the TCS board is actively pursuing private grants and currently is speaking with several organizations who are interested in donating academic services and our funds upon approval our fiscal approaches conservative and we will maintain this approach to ensure our long-term viability we approach the budget as we have approached all components of school design with great intentionality and purpose Consulting with our back office provider and establishing full TCS board approval we are thankful that the

076CDE finds our Innovative academic program to be educationally sound our budget to be viable and sustainable and our team to be successful at implementing the program monabell students need TCS the challenges facing our Hispanic students have impeded them for Generations every day that we do not address inequity another dream is dismissed and squandered the pandemic has highlighted and exacerbated these disparities this crisis has made it clearer than ever that our students need Innovative schools to help reform and reimagine a system that currently does not serve them well the accs voted 7 to2 to recommend approval of eight of TCS we ask today that the SBE vote to approve time Community Schools thank you thank you very much uh we now want to hear from the district and County good morning I'm representing the county um

077I can go or I can yeld to the district to go first go ahead since since you're up okay let me uh share up here really quickly okay am I projecting yes okay great uh good morning honorable board president uh board members SBE SBE staff and Community my name is darl brown and I will be presenting the Los Angeles County Office of Education findings on time Community School the County Board found that the petitioners are demonstrably unlikely to successfully implement the proposed educational program while the staff report included additional findings the County Board took action based solely on finding two in the area of Finance the California code of regulations identifies four indicators to determine whether a petitioner is able to successfully Implement instructional design signed as stated in the charter petition the Los Angeles

078County Board based its finding Of Denial on one of the four indicators the County Board found that the petitioners presented an unrealistic operational and financial plan for the proposed Charter School uh during the time of submission at the time of submission uh the school uh only had $190 um in their Bank um they also submitted a letter of intent to sell receivables however that letter did not include an annual percentage rate which um impacted our fiscal analysis um and lastly the petition calls for a very unique facilities design um and at the time of submission the petitioner had not yet identified a facility to meet that particular design um our fiscal analysis concluded that to be solvent the budget plan will require the school to one secure facility that does not exceed the school's budget

079uh two to meet its average daily ATT attendance which would be 94% and three to meet its enrollment projections um which projected at 110 students in year one um and growing to 600 students by year five in conclusion the County Board found that the petitioners are demonstrably unlikely to successfully implement the proposed educational program thank you Leo staff is available for comment all right good morning can you see my screen yes thank you well thank you to the State Board of Education and the state superintendent of Public Instruction for giving us uh some time to share our findings regarding the time Community School petition my name is C Yun I'm the assistant superintendent of educational services with the monabell Unified School District and we are uh recommending to the State Board uh to deny the

080time Community School petition so the district evaluated the time community school and firmly believes that it fails to meet the criteria set forth under Education Code there are two areas that the district is highly concerned about uh in the petition number one is the support for the English Learners in compliance with state laws for English Learners and two support for students with disabilities and compliance with state laws for students with disabilities English Learners and students with disabilities are two of the most vulnerable populations student groups in the monabell Unified School District as well as uh in California and this presentation just SLS shows a timeline of the events that took place with the time Community petition so summary of findings um in in the area of English learner instruction there are concerns the monabell Unified

081School District has about 33% English Learners and their needs are great uh in the review of times POS petition we found one that it does not meet the legal requirement for monitoring reclassified fluent English proficient students the petition States uh reclassified students progress will be monitored for two years but rfep students should be monitored for four years in addition it does not include metrics for the redesignation of English ERS uh while the petition does State the types of Assessments to be administered it does lack the scores and or performance levels that would constitute redesignation uh and three there's no clear delineation of when designated and integrated English language development is provided and how it was also not clear how students will be provided designated English language development during the school day that is aligned to

082the ELD standards and elac scores and we know that in um California English Learners must receive both designated and integrated ELD until reclassification and this petition does not make that clear in the area of special uh special education um the petition's description regarding the Charter services to the students with disabilities is insufficient it does not explain how the charter school will provide special education and related services to its students in the event the Sela does not accept it as a member uh there is no reference to extended school year um and whether it will be available there's also no discussion of transition requirements for special education students and it also improperly asserts that low achieving students will undergo the Student Success team uh within the framework of the response to intervention process prior to requiring

083the charter school to assess them in addition for our most vulnerable student groups uh who are English Learners and with this disability the description of the individualized education plan uh Team fails to include a participant who possesses the requisite exp expertise in language acquisition for students duly identified as both a student with special need and an English learner the special education plan included in the position does not in indicate how the charter will meet the needs of students with disability who have moderate to severe disabilities or who require an alternative curriculum and finally the petition is also flawed with uh respects to discussion of measurable pupil outcomes of the three goals listed in the petition two cannot be measured and one does not relate to educational pupil outcomes at all the suspension exposion plan does

084not address alternative methods of Correction or restorative justice uh there is also no mention of physical education which is a two-year requirement in California so overall there are numerous issues with the petition justifying its denial more than the district could identify here and now in that light monell Unified School District urges the State Board of Education to deny the time Community Charter School petition uh so we conclude with that presentation thank you for your time thank you very much um at this point I think we're going to go to um public comment so we want to open the phone line for the public comment queue and we should put the public comment slide back up there members of the public wishing to provide comment on this item May do so by calling and is somebody

085putting the slide back up yes they're putting the slide back up okay there we go uh and then entering access code 65195 pound wait for the operator prompts to press star six then another prompt to press one to enter the Q q and do we have any public comments we have several public comments right now all right um thank you we I guess I should say that we encourage you to state your name and affiliation for the record turn down your volume on your computer if you're listening to the live feed uh speakers will be limited to one minute each and um is the translator there to provide the instructions in Spanish for callers needing translation of their input yes the translators are on okay this is Oran Vargas I will be the translator taking

086the first question I am ready can you guys hear me okay yes we can very well all right are we ready for our first public call can we please get the Spanish translation of the public comments before we start do you want to hear the instructions uh in Spanish yes yes translator can you please read the instructions for callers in Spanish absolutely okay let's resume public comment okay first color um please state your name and affiliation for the record and begin speaking your time starts now hi my name is cor vanderver I am a founder of Tom Community Schools hello your your time starts go ahead sorry good day Board of course Vander we're win filmmaker with the LA based production company known for Sundance winter the birth of nation I'm currently a writer producer

087director for our latest film Project based on the killing of 12-year-old t ring by the Cleveland Police working with the t r Foundation I reside in Atlanta teaching screenwriting and partnership with morehous human rights film festival and morous college I'm original time uh Community Schools founder and I worked with the youth policy Institute in Cino noo schools I have to stress that time addresses a great need in the educational school system touching the underserved communities of color to provide lasting impact that is so important especially in these times of racial unrest and racial reconciliation in conjunction with the global pandemic and this school is just beginning as we have verbal Financial donor commitments with over 12 new established Partners in the area of steam I will support time with my resources art with film and

088screenwriting thank you please recommend time Community Schools thank you so much next caller please state your name and affiliation for the record and begin speaking your time starts now hi my name is j Moreno I am a parent this position board member of time Community Schools a business owner and a monabella resident for over three decades my wife and I have raised our seven children in montabello we have had the privilege of enrolling our children in private schools this choice is not available to the majority of our community in montabello for whom school choice is just unrealistic time Community Schools offer school choice to families regardless of their income as a 30-year resident and monabell business owner our our network is vast and solid our team is well equipped with a broad array of resources

089uh we have connections to uh Rio Community College and just a vast array of individuals and businesses and I'm thrilled to know that P Community Schools is here to make a positive difference in our community I urge you to vote in favor of our Charter petition thank you so much next caller please state your name and affiliation for the record your time starts now um I'm sorry I'm on the queue for item 20 okay we'll need you to call back when um we're accepting public comment for item 20 sorry thank you thank you next caller please state your name and affiliation for the record and begin speaking your time starts now is I'll also send the list that Jackie I believe or Candace sent out or or was it Sandra of What insurances do accept

090that we have which contracts we have with insurance companies that do accept hospice patients next caller please state your name and affiliation for the record and begin speaking your time starts now and board president of the center for elders Independence um they they're a PACE program and and they caller you have the wrong number please we need you to hang up caller you have the wrong number next caller please state your name and affiliation for the record and begin speaking your time starts now next caller please state your name and affiliation for the record and begin speaking your time starts now hello we can hear you pleasee begin your comments yeah I'm also for item number 20 okay we will need you to call in when we are accepting public comment when it is announced

091that we are accepting public comment for item 20 thank you next caller please state your name and affiliation for the record and begin speaking for item 19 your time starts now good morning my name is Doug patkowski I'm here for the the monabell Teachers Association I do want to thank you for your hard work supporting our students and I do recommend that you follow the CDE recommendation to deny this Charter appeal we do have Alternatives in our district we have the Advanced Technology Center which provides Pathways for students there are some major problems with the time Charter first of all it did apply two years ago as well they have never found a location they do uh consider uh locating with the Advanced Technology Center which would be a problem because they only have space

092in the foyes um they also have some major problems with finances as this Leo said they had $190 in the bank and uh they were recommended by the commission just because they promised that they were going to fill out an application for a grant that's not enough they don't have the funding to start a school they don't have a place to start a school and they're not uh ready to get a school started thank you so much next caller please state your name and affiliation for the record and begin speaking your time starts now next caller please state your name and affiliation for the record to provide public comment for item 19 your time starts now next caller please state your name and affiliation for the record and begin speaking your time starts now Lorraine

093Richards Community parent hello we can hear you please provide your comments okay Lorraine Richards Community parent I'm speaking to deny the applicant I attended monabell High School which gave me an opportunity as a first generation Latina to a four-year College then continued to earn my teaching credential and obtain a masters I attended musd from kinder to through 12th grade which did not hinder my education I'm a parent of musd children my daughter a second generation of monel high school graduate with the 504 currently completed her first year at a four-year College who earned two semesters of Straight A's at the University and my son beginning 8th grade the current applicant time claims to be a better solution for students although the poor financial stability of charter is not acceptable claiming to apply for a grant

094that has not been earned is not enough a quality 21st education has a large budget time gives the whole family the whole Community a false hope musd is overcoming previous Financial mismanagement the whole family and whole Comm cannot end another education model that is stricken by by Financial Strife please deny this petition thank you next caller please state your name and affiliation for the record and begin speaking your time starts now hi um can you hear me yes we can hear you please begin your public comment hi my name is tavina Gana I am an employee of monabell Unified School District and I'm just calling in because of listening to the gentleman from time Charter um we do not need any more schools in our district we have plenty of options our graduates are doing

095amazing things all the employees are are happy with what we have we don't need any Charter Schools coming in and trying to take more of our funds and our students which we're struggling with now um I just want to uh say that I hope you guys deny the petition thank you next caller please state your name and affiliation for the record and begin speaking your time starts now hello did you wish to provide public comment for item 19 my name is Val Hernandez DeLuna and I'm representing today's s dark charter school I attended tsss for three years this school has change me academically for the best I'm sorry excuse me we're taking public comment for item 19 at this time we'll need you to call back when we're accepting public comment for item 20 thank

096you for today's Fresh Start thank you next caller please state your name and affiliation for the record and begin speaking your time starts now good morning my name is elizette Romero and I'm here to lend my support for time community schools 16 years ago I was a senior in Dr Ramirez's English class he was an amazing teacher who created a student centered class that validated the voices and experiences of his students some of my best memories of high school come from the assignments Community projects and activities he spearheaded Dr Ramirez has had an impact a direct impact on who I am today I'm proud to say that I'm this year I'm receiving my credential in special education I've committed myself to helping those students who need the most support as I know Dr RZ has

097committed himself as well also I'm a parent and I'm excited to say that I want my child to attend time Community Schools because I know he will receive the kind of education that I'm looking for rigorous engaging and student censored I ask the State Board of Education to vote Yes because the monabell community needs this school thank you for your time next caller please state your name and affiliation for the record and begin speaking your time starts now hi my name is Lamar Brown co-founder of time Community Schools and president of the board I'm currently a change management and Communications lead at the top UC school as a board member I will work to ensure the school's success particularly in the areas of student enrollment and community outreach areas in which I have developed expertise

098in these unprecedented times it is more important than ever to find safe and innovative ways to connect and build relationship with families I will continue to provide Dr remeras with strategies and best practices to engage all families with the goal of ensuring that TCS School population is a reflection of the of the diversity of monello community I am honored to be a part of this highly capable team that is intent on equity and outstanding results today is a clear sign of our dedication and Relentless Focus bringing to bring monabell an Innovative School mat to ensure Student Success I urge you to approve our petition thank you next caller please state your name and affiliation for the record and begin speaking your time starts now hi RL anine for the California Charter Schools Association calling to

099speak in support of time charter school we want to say that this petition is a high quality petition theyve worked with the with our staff at the the turue association to ensure that they're implementing best practices and have a high quality uh document that will that meet the that meets the legal requirements we also want to state that um the the cve did say at the accf that they were uh would have likely recommended approval uh if it weren't for the budget uh projected budget cuts but instead um now are are concerned with the projected startup funds um with sb98 that would allow them uh more time um to plan and they would have uh more than ample time to to to raise the funds additionally they have uh found suitable facilities that would um

100house the school U once they're able to open um and we want to say we want recommend our support for time school thank you next caller please state your name and affiliation for the record and begin speaking your time starts now hello can you hear me hello yes we can hear you your time has started thank carosan I'm urging you to please reest the time commun School application Mr Ramirez and his associates have offered a very poorly developed educational program that would greatly AFF the very that sir can can you please get can you please get closer to your um to your phone or microphone yes is that better that's much better thank you we'll rest your time oh thank you so my name is Carlos San good morning I'm urging you to please reject

101the time Community School application Mr Ramirez and his associates have offered a very poorly develop educational program that would greatly hurt the very same students they say they want to help it was abundantly clear that time Community Schools rushed together a poorly developed academic plan to open up a school with very little awareness of the community or how to properly run a school and more importantly how to educate students their plan from the GetGo has had many flaws and it failed to need 9 out of 15 original educational guidelines to open a charter school they have no expertise in their educational program they have no experience in managing a charter school they presented an incomplete academic program to the Mello School Board they had no answer to how to address students with special needs or

102English learn Learners leaving behind vulnerable populations please consider the best interest as the mon unified community and reject their application thank you next caller please state your name and affiliation for the record and begin speaking your time starts now hi this is Angela der R representing the California Teachers Association um CPA recommends that the State Board of Education vote to deny the petition for the establishment of time the association opposes times's petition for the following reasons they are un fiscally unable um unsustainable given their lack of startup funds and the current state budget uncertainties secondly the petition does not contain reasonably comprehensive description of most of the required elements including the the the item on people outcomes on suspension and expulsion procedures as well as dispute resolution procedures we urge you to deny this petition

103thank you next caller please state your name and affiliation for the record and begin speaking your time starts now caller did you wish to make a public comment for item 19 hello yes we can hear you please state your name and affiliation and begin speaking okay I'm waiting for item 21 I think one moment and we'll get you a translator okay thank you translator can you please announce when you're on the line SE I don't know if he can hear me hello am I on the quebe my name is Christine Deus is our call manager here did you hear that hi well my name is Christine Deus I am a stakeholder in the monabella Unified School District I'm recommending the I'm recommending that you deny uh time Charter um they sound very well-meaning um however

104the financial aspect of the this particular Charter is not in place for our community our community is already suffered enough uh corruption based on um what's been happening in the news with regards to measur GS Bond money we're still uh recovering we do not need another uh organization or entity coming into our district ill prepared to not just uh financially but uh to teach our children thank you we have no additional callers in the queue at this time we do have an additional 17 callers that are on the line that it appears may not have entered the queue we're going to check with them to see if they would like to provide public comments thank you hello caller please state your name um I'm sorry would you like to provide a public comment for item

105hello caller would you like to provide a comment for item 19 callers in the skew please understand this is for item 19 if you've called in for another item we uh respectfully ask that you hang up at this time and call back following the Autumn um uh when it's presented this is only for item 19 and callers should only be on the line for item 19 thank you hello caller did you wish to make a comment for item 19 hello caller would you like to make an comment for item hello colle you like to provide a comment for item 19 next caller would you like to provide a public comment for item 19 good morning can you hear me yes we can hear you would you like to permit a comment for item 19 yes

106yes I'm calling in support of time Charter Schools U good morning my name is Gabby Hernandez and I am a monabella resident and a mother of two um and based on my experiences and what I have U witnessed with my own children um and based on the data that I have read the city of monello is in need of an alternative Innovative High School option for our families and students um one that is more career-based hands on that's based on our students interest um I believe time Charter will provide a more College focused preparation program where students can actually begin to explore their interest and put their skills and strengths to use time Charter's Innovative teaching approach which will better prepare our students for their future careers and will allow them to work in collaboration

107with teachers and other professionals within our community our students deserve this opportunity to be a to be better prepared for their futures um they deserve this opportunity to have access to uh better um support systems I fully support time charter school please vote in favor of time charter school thank you for your time thank you next call caller did you wish to provide a public comment for item 19 hello caller did you wish to provide a public comment for item 19 hello caller would you like to provide a public comment for item 19 I already provided my comment okay we're going to disconnect you from the line at this time okay okay thank you thank you hello caller would you like to provide a public comment for item 19 hello yes we can hear you

108did you want to provide a comment for item 19 for time Community School translator we need to [Music] I just wanted to say a few words about the school I don't know how it worked but just wanted to say a couple of a couple of things [Music] I just wanted to say that I really don't want this school to be closed my son goes to this school he's in 10th grade is is a good school he has learned here more than I have noticed in other schools so from my heart I just wanted to say that I don't want this school to be closed that was all translator can you please ask what item he's called what school my name is alas what school are you calling [Music] for Henry John Henry thank you we

109will meet him to call back for John Henry that is the next item on the agenda to the same number you mean yes what time would that happen we we don't know it will be at the conclusion of this public comment and [Music] hearing okay very well thank you I just want to um be sure that everyone who's on the phone line understands that we are only taking comment for item 19 which is the time Charter School in case there are others who might be queed up for a later item they would call back translator could you repeat that in Spanish that everyone on the phone line should be for item 19 only absolutely time Charter School great and I don't know uh if you could clarify that people should hang up and call back

110if they are for another school okay we'll resume with callers in the participant Queue at this time next caller would you like to make a public comment for item 19 next caller would you like to make a public comment for item 19 hello caller would you like to provide a public comment for item 19 hello caller would you like to provide a public comment for item 19 hello caller did you wish to provide a public comment for item 19 no thank you but I would like to remain on the on the call thank you I'm sorry we have to disconnect you right now you'll need to call in for the item that you're providing public comments on I'm not providing any comment I just want to listen in okay hello caller did you wish to

111provide a public comment for item 19 yeah please state your name and affiliation for the record and begin speaking hello hi my my name is Aiden I am speaking on behalf of my SCH today's let toal Academy I would like to request that my scho stay open the benefits of keeping our our the School site open in my opinion will outr outlay the risk of closing our school it is my belief that I'm sorry caller you you'll need to call back when we're hearing your item right now we are accepting public comment for item 19 time Community School okay have they done for today's press start yet no we are not on today's fresh start yet that is um we're we got one more item to go after this one we'll okay sorry about that

112no problem thank you do we have to call back yes we will need you to call back when we are hearing public comment for item 21 okay thank you thank you next caller did you wish to provide public comment for item [Music] 19 for time Community School hello caller did you wish to provide comment for item hello caller would you like to provide public comment for item 19 time Community School okay you will be disconnected at this time thank you next caller did you wish to provide public comment for item 19 time Community School okay we will disconnect you at this time thank you are we are we done with public comment then okay Linda we're finished with public comment this item didn't didn't hear that uh confirmation all right so we are now going

113to close public comment at uh 10:51 a.m. and um commence board discussion and action first I want to ask Ting son as our state board liaison if she has any initial comments then we'll ask board members if they have any clarifying questions or comments as part of our board discussion hi so yeah a couple of things I um in looking at the um the the documentation around this particular Charter it while there have been um certain comments around um lack of detail in some of the areas I do believe that they do have a strong educational program and it um from looking at the documents it's feels like both CDE as well as the other um as the county uh also felt that they had provided a strong program um it in this presentation the

114the presenter or the petitioner seem to focus more on the background of the um of the people on the board um and I think that was way to uh help us understand more of the folks who are part of the operations and startup of this school uh I hope that they have an opportunity to maybe go a little bit more into their educational program uh because I did find that it was very Innovative and that it was um uh very much a a rigorous and um program that supports the student population that they are targeting the um financial piece as well we had some discussion on the budgets um as well yesterday uh in looking at um some of the comments and the additional information that has been brought forth around the the budget I

115also feel that the petitioners have um the means and the resources to start up the school so I will have my fellow board members ask their questions um but I do feel that this is a a this petition and the petitioners are in a good place um on this particular uh school and we also have heard that the Los Angeles County uh board of education is also willing to take on the uh oversight of the school all right thank you very much so we are now open for board discussion um and let me see if I can track our participants here Patricia Rucker is having some technology problems so she is going to text us and let us know if she has her hand up okay I know iay also had technology problems this is

116a day for those problems I have um uh requests to speak from Member Strauss and member navoo so we'll start with them Eileen elen are you with us there we go great yes I was trying to lower my hand down to not confuse you I apologize I have a couple questions I um I'm sure um I wanted to clarify um so I'm wondering what the um and maybe members sung and you tell me if we need the petitioner there was a question about the facility um did that get discussed um and clarified um that was a question about would they be using prop 39 in requesting facility in the monabell Unified School District or how will they how they plan to address the facility issue we should I guess ask the petitioner to clarify that

117clarify that Dr Ramirez um how are you planning to um find a facility have you identified one what's your plan yes ma'am thank you for the question uhuh um so we did apply for prop 39 to to monello and made the request in time when monob belloo um did send um their response to that the the rate that monabell was um attempting to charge us for use of facilities was way above market value and so for us in terms of our of our desire to be fiscally sound um we decided um that we had to absolutely look for private um private facilities to lease because it just made most sense um so right now we are in negotiations with two facilities to um to lease them for the upcoming school year upon approval um my

118next question um Dr R say um I know there was a question about your the plan by the way I think um the college ready college preparatory Mission really hits the target of what the state's goals are for students and I appreciate the commitment I didn't hear as much specifics about your English learner plans and your students with disabilities plans so I wonder if you could at least highlight for us what I know a member Sun said there was more there but we didn't hear it in the presentation today and I'd appreciate you addressing those absolutely thank you so um yes so you know again I appreciate you acknowledging our program um we are happy that it's a CTE program because we believe that that in itself is very engaging in and and really puts

119that energy and motivation to students to want to invest themselves um in this curriculum particularly for special education and Els um of course we're very committed to serving all of our students in terms of our special education um we are um of course working with the Lac Sela um we are um committed to providing a robust Continuum of Partnerships to ensure that all the needs of our population are addressed um within the um the program itself the way that the time learning model works there is absolutely time for the teachers to differentiate instruction for we will be hiring a special education teacher year one to support students um also we will have um instructional AIDS available year one as well that will'll be supporting students in the classrooms um in terms of our our e

120program we're very excited about our El program as well um 20% of the um population with within the high school population is El um our time learning model also um very much um integrates El standards within the program um teachers will be provided um sadai training glad training to ensure that students has have access to content um we will um we will have our um counselor who will be our coordinator of el um of our El students who will work alongside me to monitor student growth of course we'll utilize um our formative and summative assessment some and utilize um all our different resources to ensure that students are um making progress we will use the you know the state designations to ensure that that students are working towards proficiency thank you any other questions you're

121good Eileen I'll go to member navoo thank you um yeah I have a couple of questions for the petitioner uh first so and I appreciate uh board member Strauss your question that helped took some things off of the list but can you address the measurable pupil outcomes the concern around Staffing addressing students with disabilities I know you talked about it briefly but what your Staffing for the year look like for 110 students and then can you address element 10 the concern CDE had around suspension and expulsions and the placement of students and alternative set settings yes sir um well in terms of I'm trying to remember the first part of the question was um Staffing correct for special ed um for the whole school for 110 in your first year all all Staffing for year

122one yeah for 110 students yes so I'm All Staffing for year one um we will have I believe um I'm looking at theet right now the we we will have I believe five full-time teachers three part-time teachers a sped uh a SP a full-time sped teacher um we will also have um instructional Aid year one and a school counselor in addition to our support staff okay and your budget that you're that you project covers that Staffing absolutely sir and talk to me about the measurable outcome the element 10 suspension expulsion procedures the finding CD has there yes sir so we we do so what the finding says my my understanding of the finance is saying that we do not address um growth for the subgroups but the way that it was written I think it's

123just a matter of clarification what we wrote is that all subgroups will increase 2% annually and our rationale behind that was that we we feel that all subgroups every student within the school should have the same expectation of growth and so the claric a would really be that we would just need to like instead of saying all subgroups the way that we listed it that all sub groups were increase by 2% just to list them out I think that was the the point of clarification okay thank you that's helpful but I was talking about uh suspension expulsion where they where the finding is that there's an automatic placement of pupils in an in alternative educational setting and that's contrary to head code yes so I'll answer that the best I can and then um John

124LMO who is also on the line can help clarify for me so my understanding is that when we submitted the petition um the language was submitted for um was submitted for the county and so that that language wasn't wasn't changed when it was submitted to the state so it's my understanding that it's just a technical it's a tech a technical correction that needs to be to be made to reflect the state languaging okay and then uh I have a question for CDE maybe it's for Stephanie um Stephanie the petitioner made a statement that in the accs meeting CDE would have approved the school if the budget issues weren't a result of I guess you know covid-19 and and and the May Revis and all of the implications that you mentioned is that true so the

125only um the only decision we ever had with this uh particular school was for denial um yes we had some serious issues with um and concerns obviously about their ability to fiscally Implement um the program and to stay fiscally viable but if you look at our summary of required Charter elements in the A1 we did also have several NOS there um in terms of um uh as you mentioned a minute ago the pupil outcomes the suspension expulsion procedures the dis Ute resolution procedures there are goals to address the eight State priorities so there were other there were other issues um um but I I I will state that their their design their educational program design was not was not an issue okay so that that that thank you Stephanie and then last last question okay

126there are over in the correspondence folder there are over 20 letters to deny this Charter and many of them call out a $3.2 million deficit they're the they're they're essentially the same letter and I'm trying to figure out as I look through the documents where that's coming from and I'm assuming um these are not these are incorrect the the the amount is incorrect um we did not we did not see anything about a 3 .2 million deficit um when we did our analysis of their of their fiscal okay that's that's what I needed to know thank you uh okay member uh Glover Woods thank you uh this question is either for Stephanie from CDE and possibly for the representative from Los Angeles County Office of Education Stephanie when you were providing the overview M um

127you closed by mentioning that the Los Angeles County Board of Education was willing to authorize I wanted to get a little bit more clarification as to why they are willing to authorize when uh the Los Angeles County Board of Education had recommended to deny just to get some clarification on what may have changed from the time the petition was submitted to the time we're hearing the information now so so just to clarify the LA County Board is willing to take over the oversight of the school not authorize the school the State Board would still be authorizing the school if they chose to move in that direction if they chose to approve this this appeal um and uh so in in that sense they're not actually authorizing um you know we can we can definitely ask

128the county as to why they agreed to do this um my guess is that the law has changed and the school will need to go back to the local level to be approved the next time around and and it often helps if if it's already at the local level and they have the the benefit of being the oversight provider when that renewal comes up again um but I we can definitely uh ask the county as well um if there are any other reasons why they why they agreed uh to take the oversight of the school thank you that would be helpful and I appreciate the clarification so if the representative from um Lake could also speak to why the decision to do the oversight that would be helpful absolutely um and thank you for the

129question and I think it does it it yields from the change in law in which oversight would go back to a local level um either the county or the district um and I know my director had conversations with the State Board of Education regarding that um but that was the intent is that knowing that the law is going to have the school come back to local um more just a [Music] um about what what could for us in terms of oversight thank you all right um Matt your hand is still up are you do you have another question no okay hand is now down uh I don't see any other board questions at this all member Strauss there you go um I just wanted step any um star I don't go away yet um so

130I just wanted to the issue of the budget came up I actually think the 3.5 million from the letters is probably the monabell problem because the district itself has had some budget trouble but I want to know from the CDE analysis now is the budget fiscally sound if if we recommend going forward do you believe the budget plan is solid Stephanie yes yes yes um I would say that the budget plan that their that the the plan that they submitted with their original petition is solid in terms of if they if they get all of the startup money that they hope to get um none of that as I could see is is finalized yet so if they get all the startup money and if the deferrals Do Not impact them greatly in repaying all

131of the receivables they have to sell in order to stay uh solvent for the first couple of years um so if that all works out for them yes I I think that that they could be viable but you know those are big ifs and we're trying to be responsible here at the department with um with the fiscal Outlook because it's so there's so much uncertainty over the next couple of years but I would put those ifs in before before the viability that um raises a question for me and I see Brena that you also have your hand up I'll come right to you in a moment there was some conversation here about 2021 versus 2020 um and I want to understand whether the questions of I one understand I guess from the petitioner whether they

132were um proactively uh preferring to be considered for 2021 as opposed to 2020 or whether uh you were feeling feeling like the uh finances were Etc were going to be adequate sooner than 2021 and then I'd love to hear from Stephanie on that as well yes in response to a couple things um in our budget that we submitted um that we submitted we do not include any grants in that so our viability is just based on um as not is not based on those outside resources those those things to come in like our viability is based on on what we submitted and we do have a cash Reserve um the adequate crash Clash Reserve um cash reserve for all three years so I do want to make that part clear in regards to the um

133the delayed opening um the reason why we were actively seeking a delayed opening was because um our our instructional calendar year is very unique our school was slated to open July 1st 2020 so as of as of right now we're already a week past our school start time and so our our instructional counter is so is so Keen to the way that we provide instruction the way that we do PD the way that we look at data and so we really thought that it was an important element that we would like to have opportunity to start the way that we had planned for it um within our petition um obviously the other part of it is the co part that did make other elements uh um challenging in terms of being able to open up

134this year so with all that said you know we we would really um appreciate and um that opportunity to have the delayed opening that would be a preference yes ma'am okay Stephanie do you want to have do you have any further comment on that no I I believe that um hope can get this right s sp98 allows uh new CH sorry Judy's waving at me sorry um this is Judy scus with the State Board of Education the education trailer Bill allows a charter school that had a scheduled opening of the 209 2020 2021 school year to delay opening for one year without a material revision they just need to notify the authorizer by July 15th so it would be up to the Charter School whether or not they want to delay opening for a year

135thank you that's that's very helpful um Brena you are waiting yes so I have a question um so we just heard something a little different I'm not sure if that messes with the question I was going to ask but if we were to agree kind of like yesterday to the onee waiting one year to open up and the petitioner wasn't financially stal by that time and there was still what ifs would that make this would the school not open or would it be different than different than that this is Judy S again it depends on the conditions that you all put asde if you do decide to vote to approve it and the conditions that you okay all right um I am not seeing any more um board um hands raised uh do we have

136a motion I'll go ahead and make the motion to approve the charter uh for a term of five years and so I need a little assistance here do we designate this to start or will they just have a choice as we did I I think this is Judy again you can designate them to start if that's your preference um but I believe they said that they want to delay starting so I don't I don't think it's an issue yeah I I think given that um that their school calendar would have started already last week uh so I will I will make the motion to approve the time Community Charter for a term of five years uh with the effect of July 1st 2020 uh with the beginning of instruction and this is similar to yesterday's

137between July 1st and September 30th 2021 gives them that option uh we will want them to produce evidence by May of 2021 of their um that they are meeting their their uh prospective enrollment for ninth graders of 110 or it could be a little bit more um for the 21 22 school year um and then that they will to address the making sure that we have a corrected budget based on current information at that time of their startup that they would uh submit to the Department of Education a revised budget um with the updated information um so that they are able to start up for that 2020 21 school year 2122 school year so I would simply remind us that we had um some information from Judy S yesterday that the enrollment projections have a

138standard sort of um confidence interval around them yes so whatever I think that should be the same as what we discussed yesterday yes I agree to that uh is there a uh second for that motion Ting do you have those um conditions you just read in writing that you could screen share I I cannot because I had to switch to my iPad you know so I did have so many people with technology problems I know um so I I don't unless we want to take a great break I could try I mean I could maybe send something to staff or something along those lines lines to to project but uh I had originally intended to do that I just am not able to because I had to switch can I ask a clarifying question is

139there anything in the listing that has facility on it it does I did not include facilities uh it sounded like they had facilities um but we do want to make sure that the facilities would still be in place a year from now so we could add that to the condition this is Judy sias I think what we had yesterday was something where they would have to have a facility in place by May um in order to allow time for CDE to conduct a pre-site inspection like they do for all the charters in time especially since they're opening July 1st um or their calendar started July 1 I believe I heard him say so we could add something that they will um provide necessary facility information to CDE in in order to allow time for a

140pre-opening inspection um can I read back what I wrote regarding the conditions just to make sure we have them correctly team that would be very helpful thank you please so you would move to approve the charter for a term of five years it would be effective July 1 2020 however they would start instruction for the 2122 school year to be a 5-year term with a delayed opening they need to produce evidence by May 2021 of their prospective enrollment for the 2122 school year plus or minus the 25% as we discussed yesterday they will need to submit to CDE a revised budget with updated information um I think I heard May 2021 um to show that it is current for the 2122 school year is that corre we just make a consistent May 2021 yeah may

141may 2020 just as they would be for their yeah be May 2021 so that they have a for 2122 school year is that correct yes okay that's correct and and evidence that um will add an evidence that the that their facilities will be ready yes and to be occupied yes they would provide evidence regarding occupation of facilities including I believe they have um the occupancy permits and all of the information that is necessary for CDE to conduct a pre-opening site visit is that it yeah or the facility inspection yes yes and oh yes and if they could also correct any of the deficiencies that were identified in the petition by CDE yeah that similar to yesterday yes and then if we could set um do we want to set a date of I don't know

142May 1st or May 15th just so everything's consistent for all of these that would May 15th and yeah assuming that's a weekday especially if they're going to open July 1 yeah maybe May first since they're opening July 1 yes works okay um so Linda we still need a second on that ask a second can I also can I also ask if we should make that under the oversight of the count or will this just happen with the County's agreement after we make the approval we don't need to put that the motion no I think I think it would be good to put that into the motion since that is something the board has never done so I think that's a good point to delegate oversight to Los Angeles County Office of Education and Patricia tells

143me May 1st is a Saturday so we will adjust it to the appropriate Friday 30 days has 30 30 days 30 days September April June November I 30 days have no I was trying to sing it too thank you all right so we're adjusting to April 30th and then we were approving with those conditions and that the school will be uh under the oversight of the Los Angeles County Board of Education okay so assuming folks have now followed that exchange about the various conditions is there a second that motion I'll second I'll second oh Jim go ahead Jim did it okay Jim has seconded the motion Is there further discussion um Patricia Rucker had a question okay how are we gonna get that from her can she can she come on Patricia you need to

144unmute try again he you Patricia we can't hear you I can hear her oh you can we can't how many people are hearing Patricia the board members can hear everybody the zoom call can hear but we can't hear in this CDE room so I don't know does that mean the public can hear or not I do not know we need a technologist well maybe Patricia could ask her question and one of us could repeat it and then yeah why don't we do that okay go that way Patricia go ahead with your question and then I I just want to acknowledge that I see s that and you after Patricia I'm getting texts from friends that people cannot hear her on the live stream she would like to have the conditions written down so that she

145knows exactly what she's voting for um well she also would like to make sure that the conditions address all the areas that CDE identified in the petition that were not appropriately addressed um right so I think we're going to need to get this in some way in into writing um I don't know uh if J or someone can I CH do you know how to like send a screenshot or something to someone there Judy or someone The Ting if you ting if you will email to Chad Owens here I'll give you his email address and then we can put it up on the screen okay okay um so give me a minute to do that okay meanwhile we have some more conversation we have a couple of other board members so take your time to

146do that while we hear from um Cynthia and Matt Cynthia you're next and then thank you thank you uh it was uh a clarification question which actually might get clarified from the written portion of the motion that we're going to see but I wanted to ensure that in the motion if there are still fiscal concerns once the budget is submitted to CDE that that would come back to the board before moving forward and I'm wondering if these conditions are very much like what we looked at yesterday whether we could uh simply amend those conditions um and have someone put it up I think Judy's been keeping careful track of the I do think member Recker is asking for additional um president darling Hammond because she wants may once we once we get it up on

147the screen we can do a checklist right um I believe that that that that list did Cover virtually everything but if there's something left out we could talk about it while we see it um okay uh Matt you're next I tried to lower my hand um oh thank you board member Glover answered my asked my question and I appreciate that I guess I will say that you know I I understanding the initial proposal from board member Ting I appreciate it I'm I reluctantly will support it but I think that the um that there's the concern for me is the volume of community members that are that have made the effort to say they don't support the school right now I and I think that's the challenge for me I'm just putting that out there and

148I appreciate the the um the proposal Ting yeah I I I understand and I have to say that this is serving a specific community and I felt um badly that I I believe that there would be more community support if we were in in in face-to-face meeting because uh there is a large number of Hispanic and um Second Language um support and it is very difficult on this type of um this type of public comment um for a population to come in and understand when they're supposed to call in what numbers they're supposed to press I I I and I was going to actually ask the petitioners of you know were there other there additional um members from the public who would have called in um but for the the some of the technical um

149issues with this and I felt the same way with the ACs meeting this is Judy scas I I think we can't presume um okay well who who would or would not have called in or who would not have traveled up to Sacramento um I I I don't just I would like to clarify that for the record I I don't think we can that it it was a Wonder for me uh Brena did you want to your hand went up and down yeah I had the same question um so it's yeah I I I think what might make sense would be for us to take a a brief break I think so and allow uh the staff to work together to get the condition I conditions on a piece of paper that everyone agrees to that

150yeah at least not we don't know whether the board will agree but that at least the uh motion maker and the staff agree represents the intention and we can come back and look at that and then make our vote now I was thinking if we went to 11:30 which was when I was estimating we might finish I would simply call the lunch break at that time uh until about noon and then we would you know go on to the other two hearings um so I guess the question is how quickly do we think we can um do that should we just call the 30 minute lunch break now and come back and and do our vote um I think we need that Clarity we need the opportunity to talk about whether conditions meet the concerns

151agree that people have raised and I think we might need a minute to you know really be clear about that rather than um I I agree and I think rather than waiting for me to try to type something up i' would rather have staff assist with with putting together um the I feel the motion as Judy had yeah Lind I would suggest we take our lunch break and then we'll bring this back up right after lunch can I just before we take the Break um there was a clarification that the oversight would be by the LA County Office of Education not the LA County board so just oh Excuse me yes I'm sorry yes yeah okay thanks Office of Education I'm sorry so we're going to take our 30 minute lunch break let's come back

152at noon going give you 33 minutes take uh don't don't uh get too excited but we'll come back and we'll have it written and we can uh consider and vote at that time and don't leave the room because you might not get back in just stop your video and your um audio all right document on the screen which had the uh the motion um Chad we want to go back to the previous document that was on the screen one minute who was it was saying how smoothly things went yesterday I think that was Kim I think she jinxed [Laughter] us technology has been challenging today Chad can we change the screen do we we yeah we want to get back to the conditions that we're on yes they're bringing up what was previously up there

153do we still have the petitioners on the yes I think I saw um they're on yeah yes I'm on okay wondered um if if you would wanted address a support that you have from the community on your Charter yes absolutely so um we do have 133 um intent um intent Ro forms that we've gathered also we have over 180 letters of support we that we did include in the charter um petition that was sent to CDE so those interest forms and and those letters were sent to to the CDE as part of the um the overall package because that's that was what um we were asked to send what was sent to Leo and that's what we sent to Leo to show the support of the community so we do have quite a bit of

154Community Support okay now have the conditions here was somebody else who wanted to be recognized I'm sorry um is that Eileen yeah I just had a clarifying question um this is supposed to start as a ninth grade so I'm assuming that the students that you had had interest in were entering ninth graders and if you wait a year and you still start with ninth grade won't you have to identify different students to start the program or will you plan to start with 10th graders that identified as ninth graders um unfortunately we would have to to recruit again um new students to start in the n9th period if if we to follow the petitions opening plan but I do believe with um the that we have that we would um very much be able to reach

155our enrollment goals okay thank you um T would you like to uh restate the motion yes so now we have it on the screen I also want to make sure that member Rucker is able to see this as well uh yes she is with us she can see it she can hear great all right so uh so move to approve um the time Charter School petition for a term of five years effective July 1 2020 uh the school would delay opening the start of instruction in the 2021-22 school year time will produce evidence that they have met the perspective enrollment for 2021-22 school year plus or minus 25% uh time will submit to CDE a revised budget with updated information to show that time is fiscally Solen and able to open in the 2122 school

156year time will submit to CDE evidence of their facilities lease and appropriate permits and submit to facilities inspection that is required for all sve authorizer Charter Schools time will correct the deficiencies in the petition identified by CDE in the A1 in the A1 and item all of the all corrected documentation will be submitted to CDE by April 29 2020 and if there are any questions whether these conditions have been satisfied time will and I can't see my screen time will sorry thank you time uh will Evans sorry you have to go down a little bit you're in number eight te okay thank you okay if there are questions with these conditions have been satisfied time we'll come back to the SBE for resolution and uh the board delegates oversight to uh Los Angeles County offices

157of Education okay uh and do we have a second for this motion as stated I second that Jim Jim thank you Jim is there any further discussion I'm not seeing any hands raised uh all right we'll take a vote and Karen I think you need to manage the roll call vote okay uh Linda yes Cynthia yes Jim yes Matt yes Brena yes I yes Eileen yes Ting yes and Patricia Rucker Patricia you have to call back in the phone line oh my and while we're waiting for Patricia you see her she's up she's on the screen yeah Patricia do you have a where she has to call into a different line because her Zoom line isn't working so we're going to have to wait a minute for her to call back in I guess so

158while we're waiting for her to call in I have a question about the next item Karen uh do we need a break between these items for people to set up on your end or can we move right ahead I couldn't read and I I was trying to send you a message on the chat and the chat seems to be disabled oh what a day you're having uh do you vote Yes on this um set of um to on this motion with this set of conditions what is your vote no we can't hear her can you hear me Pat we can't hear you oh dear no Linda I don't think we need a break again you're muted uh let me see if I can unmute you all right say it again try again still not hearing

159you oh Linda yes she's she's we can't hear her so she's going to try a different line let's see if this works well so she's going to call into a different line and Karen the other question I was asking is whether we need a break for the staff after this keep on moving okay just need to get that last vote recorded they're working the problem on this end she's talking to somebody here just not we can't hear oh my can she just can can she talk to you and tell you her vote and you can yeah has to be recorded as part of the L roll call okay we can see you we just can't hear you did she do like a thumbs up or a thumbs down no it has to be a roll

160call vote okay for e yes she can hear so Linda here's what we we can do we're going to hold the vote open all right hang on one second maybe we solved it I'm waiting for uh item 20 thank you we'll return to item we we'll start item 20 shortly you'll need to call back in at that time okay okay so Linda what we can do is we can hold the roll call open and when they get Patricia so she can talk to us and we can hear her then we'll register her vote we'll go back when we can but we can proceed with item okay it's a day for creativity um we will then move ahead to item 20 which is a public hearing regarding the petition for the renewal of a charter school

161Under the oversight of the State Board of Education consideration of John Henry High which was denied by the West Contra Casta Unified School District and not acted on by the Contra Casta County Office of Education the CDE recommends that the State Board hold a public hearing to deny the request to renew John Henry High the item will be presented by Stephanie Farland of the CDE uh Stephanie um you can now I guess change this slide and begin uh item 20 Stephanie are you with us yes I am sorry I was just can you see the item 20 petition for the can you see the right slide up on your screen not yet okay we are working on that very quickly there we go got it we got it okay [Laughter] okay okay so item 20

162John Henry High School is seeking authorization from the State Board of Ed to renew its grade n through grade 12 Charter School within the boundaries of the West Contra Costa Unified School District the petitioners previously sought renewal through West Contra Costa unified and the Contra Costa County Board of Education they were denied by West Contra Costa on December 18th 2019 it then went on to the Contra Costa County Board of Education on March 11th 2020 and the board chose not to act on it they then appealed to the state board on March 25th 2020 the California Department of Education recommends that the SBE hold a public hearing to deny the request to renew John Henry High a Grade 9 through grade 12 Charter School under the oversight of the SBE The Advisory commission considered the

163appeal at their June 9th 2020 meeting and they moved to approve the J the John Henry High School renewal petition by a vote of 7 to2 the basis for recommendation of denial is the petitioner is significantly is demonstrably unlikely to successfully implement the intended program they have significant declines in academic progress of their English learner pupils and admission requirements and enrollment process prohibit the school from reaching demographics reflective of West Contra Costa unified and the petition does not provide reasonably comprehensive descriptions of all required 15 Charter elements a little background on the school their mission is to provide a rigorous college preparatory education and character development program that will prepare students from underserved communities to succeed in college and beyond their uh pupil popul population primarily comes from Richmond and San Pablo and consists of

164predominantly lowincome and immigrant students they are operated by a method Public Schools a California non-profit benefit Corporation amps as it's known is Curr currently operates three School schools in Alam County and three schools in Contra Costa County academic criteria under 47607 one was the author is the authority that granted the charter shall consider increases in pupil academic achievement for all groups of pupils served by the charter school as the most important factor The Entity that granted the charter determines that the academic performance of the charter school is at least equal to the academic performance of the public schools that the other that the charter school pupil would otherwise have been required to attend the population that is served under uh John Henry high is 95% um Latino and 91% socioeconomically disadvantaged so here are cast

165results um for uh John Henry High as compared to the other high schools um in West Contra Costa Unified School District as you can see they have uh met our threshold criteria for academic uh renewal the academic renewal criteria and you can see that uh there there's been some variation over the years and they've um definitely have uh gone down in their math scores uh significantly from two or three years ago here are cast results by uh pup subgroup for socioeconomically disadvantaged peoples is that is their largest subgroup um and again uh some significant declines in their math scores their Ela uh goes back and forth but from the last couple years is on the rise we did look at Al alternative measures as uh allowed under Section Ed code section 5 2052 um and

166one of the things that we looked at that they provided us were their increase in advanced placement course offerings um they did uh increase to five offerings in 201819 we've included some of the dashboard uh colors on here for you to see um this is from the 2019 California school dashboard and you can see there yellow for ELA and orange for math here are some of the subgroup uh totals um English Learners are in orange socioeconomically disadvantaged yellow and Latino Hispanic green no in blue some more specifics in terms of the dashboard and English Learners uh they are in Orange for the English Learners as a subgroup and in red for math as a subgroup with significant declines uh in math and small decline um in English Learners uh for ELA uh ability to implement

167in terms of their budget as I mentioned earlier we did look at the original budget that they had submitted um and according to the original budget uh they um they uh seemed to be fiscally viable um it looked different for the accs because we were basing that one on May revise which is no longer an effect and under that budget they were not fiscally viable so we went back to their original budget and they are with the um uh appropriate reserves we are not looking at this in terms because they are already they are an established school so we will um we were not looking at it we did not have time to look at it in terms of deferrals but that really is a question um hopefully that we can have the school itself

168answer in terms of how they plan to um uh deal with the deferrals that will be coming to them um and and how they're going to do that and so that's something that they can they can discuss during their their time there were insufficient descriptions of many of the charter elements that are listed there um employee qualifications they do not specifically identify which position um they regard as key in each category they do not identify the general qualifications of all their positions um including the general qualifications of their non-certificated staff and the petition does not contain job descriptions for for any of the positions um element seven racial and ethnic balance you can see by the slide on the screen that their demographic data does not uh is not reflective of the West contracosta Unified

169School District um and I this has this was an important uh point for us when we were reviewing uh their petition and their data uh you know the concept of choice is is one that is the CDE values and part of that choice includes the ability for all students to enroll in a school um when it it opens in a district um obviously it's one of the elements so it was something that the leg felt was important to include we understand that Charters don't always have control over who applies to their school however they do have control over the preferences that they use um in terms of their admission requirements and part of the issue and the concern that we had with this particular school is they do not reflect the ethnic balance racial and

170ethnic balance of um of West contra cost is you can see uh they don't reflect them in their English Learners or special education um or their African-American population and we feel that the preferences they've put in place and these were not I don't believe in place in their first petition um so these are preferences that they're putting in place for this petition will really limit any new students from outside the pool of the amps organization from from from getting into the school um you can see that residents of West Contra Costas number five on their preference list their first preference is Siblings their second preference are pupils who are already enrolled in another amps charter school then you go to pupils of founding families and then you go to Children of amps teachers and staff

171and then you finally get to all of the other kids in the district um and then all the other pupils obviously in the state because they're Charters are open um to everyone and so we did have um a very uh a very big concern about whether or not uh they were open to uh expanding the types of kids they enroll in their school there was nothing in their petition that specifically addressed the issue of of expanding enrollment in their school to kids outside of their organization and so that was uh an issue for us suspension and expulsion procedures the petition does not present a reasonably comprehensive description of suspension and exposion procedures in terms of placement of pupils in an interim alternative education setting um the family handbook contains language that could be interpreted as

172an additional offense for expulsion that is not listed in the petition and that is that um in the handbook they talk about their student attendance review board and some of the issues that they take on and one of the things they state is that students can be dismissed possibly from the school from amps um Andor referred to the DA for student attendance issues and that was an issue because really students should not be dismissed the only way students should be dismissed is if they voluntarily disenroll or if they're expelled so there were some uh language discrepancies between what was in the petition and what is uh uh currently in their handbook that we had some concerns with um Charter Elements 11 and 14 retirement coverage uh petition does not specify who will be responsible for

173ensuring that appropriate arrangements for their employees retirement have been made and the dispute resolution procedures did not include a reasonably comprehensive description of this Charter element so the CDE recommends that the SB Deni the petition to establish John Henry High School the petitioner is demonstrably unlikely to successfully implement the intendent program and the petition does not provide reasonably reasonably comprehensive descriptions of all required elements oops I'm G to not do that one yet okay and that's the conclusion um president darling Hammond thank you very much uh at this point uh we will hear uh I hereby open the public hearing at 12:27 p.m. and we will hear first from the petitioners they will have 12 minutes then we'll hear from The District in County that are opposing the renewal petition or at least in this

174case the district um they will also have a total of 12 minutes after the presentations from both sides there will then be an opportunity for public comment from any individual who has not already presented for one minute each uh so we'll take the practitioner presentation hi uh let me share my screen here okay thank you good afternoon my name is Sylvia Flores and I'm the side director at John Henry High School uh John Henry opened its doors in 2015 and were a small school serving a total student population of 315 students in grades 9 through 12 um as a small school we're able to create a community where all members of our school we know each other by name we are able to care for one another and support one another as you can see

17591% of our students are socioeconomically disadvantaged uh 21% are English Learners and 8% are receiving special education services um since we opened the school in 2015 we've seen a consistently growing waiting list of hopeful families looking to enroll at our school this past year uh for the 2020 2021 school year we had the largest weight list we've ever seen with over 300 applications for this upcoming school year so John Henry High School is one of the most coveted schools in the city this slide shows you um we broke down based on current families addresses we see that over 90% of our students would be required to enroll at Kennedy Richmond High or Dean with the majority of our students uh being assigned to Kennedy High School based on their home address as you notice in

176this next slide uh John Henry is outperforming their peers at all three of these high schools on the Casp Ela sbac exam 68% of our students are meeting or exceeding standards in English and um as mentioned our English scores have increased annually over the all the testing years that that have taken place place since our founding this next slide shows you the math comparisons for the asbag exam once again you can see that John Henry is outperforming all high schools uh that our students would otherwise be required to attend we know that we have room for improvements we don't like this 21% so we have invested in new curriculum and restructured the way that we support math instruction now um the esbc only shows you one year of student data but at the datadriven school

177this is our PSAT uh data which is growth data for this uh past senior year class so the class of 2020 this cohort of students has taken or took the PSAT over three consecutive years and I'm proud to report that the class of 2020 did increase their scores by 188 points during their time with us at John Henry High School we see improvements in both English and math and the increase can be attributed to our targeted support and intervention programs such as learning lab um interm assessments so we are seeing growth and um I'm going to show you in terms of advanced placement um we have increased AP participation by 300% over the past few years the AP course offerings as you saw in the CDE uh presentation we weren't offering anything in the first

178few years because we only had 9 and 10th graders so as we added more classes uh we began offering more AP courses and now we're offering math English foreign language and we're planning to add science and other electives uh in the next few years so uh as you can see here our passing rate our AP passing rate Grew From 12% to 40% uh between one year to the next now I do want to address some of the concerns that were raised in the CD staff report uh beginning with recruitment our entire Community the John Henry Community is committed to achieving the demographic distribution that is reflective of our district students are accepted through a randomized lottery which is operated by a third party called enroll West cont Costa we partnered with them three years ago

179and we've seen progress already so over the years our lottery numbers have grown exponentially uh for this upcoming year we received 231 applications for only 90 spots for the incoming nth grade class so in order to reach the demographics that resemble those of West Contra Costa we plan to improve our Recruitment and Outreach efforts um and diversify our applicant pool so we plan to Target middle schools both district and Charter who have large numbers of English language Learners sped students African-American students and we want to collaborate with the leadership teams at those schools to do annual events where we can make sure that families are aware of the opportunities enrichment um and we want to help them with the enrollment process we are also planning to hire a consultant who uh will be interviewing and

180surveying African-American students fed and El families to provide recommendations for improving both uh the cultural responsiveness of our educational program but also our recruitment and Outreach efforts now that uh West Contra Costa is breaking up into five district boundaries uh we have security partnership with kdi Charter Zone which we're going to be able to use a GPS demographic tool that captures School aged populations and breaks it up into free and reduced lunch ethnicities language status in order for us to identify areas to Target and we have all also established family captains within our schools uh so that we can Target those areas and host uh like blog parties or right now virtual blog meetings to distribute recruitment materials and answer questions we don't only want to diversify John Henry but also our other uh Elementary

181and Middle School here in Richmond moving on to English Learners uh we have seen success John Henry is succeeding in terms of English our English learner program in looking through the California dashboard data John Henry has the highest percentage of English language Learners making progress towards Proficiency in the entire District at a rate of 56.3% this is the highest rate of any school traditional or Charter in our district our students do receive designated and integrated El instruction that is aligned to the California ELD standards this next graph shows you our this is our total student body broken down by English language proficiency as you can see 21.5% of our student body is classified as English Learners this is for this year that just passed so 1920 71% of our students were English Learners and have

182been reclassified um so in total 92% of our total student body have been have been classified as English Learners at some point in their educational trajectory and um 71% have been reclassified in that trajectory in terms of our lpac proficiency levels 50% of our current English Learners are in levels one and two we saw a huge influx of uh newcomers into our school this past year so we have been able to provide uh the support and the the rigorous instruction that they need in order to succeed I'm going to uh transition into math this past year we adopted CPM which is uh college preparatory math uh as our new math curriculum as I told you before we're not happy with that 21% we want to improve and uh we have increased professional development opportunities for

183our Math teachers and our support staff we also hired par professional tutors uh in order to be in every algebra one section along with the credential teacher this past year our geometry and Algebra 2 classes had no more than 20 students per section and this has proven effective in increasing students conceptual understanding of math which is uh one of the things that we noticed uh in the summer that was that was an area of concern I'm gonna turn it over to Mike bar who is going to be talking about the revised Financial projections for our school hi good afternoon uh as as discussed by the CD earlier our financials are solid uh there's there's two sets of numbers on this Slide the numbers at the top reflect what we shared with the accs last month

184those were based on the governor's May revision which had a much lower funding scenario than what we currently know the bottom set of numbers reflect the latest guidance we got from Sacramento we've done a couple things conservatively we've assumed uh that enrollment is only 280 kids next year we think it's going to be higher than that based on weight list and based on the uh excitement around the school uh We've also conservatively assumed that we do not benefit from any of the hold harmless uh calculations that are made in other words we'd assume that if we have 280 kids next year that's what we'll get funded on uh because we feel that's more conservative uh there's a slide that talks about how we're going to mitigate through the external internal factors that will affect our

185abilities to be successful knowing that this is a multi-year economic uh crisis that we need navigate through so uh with that I'm going to turn it over to Janelle from Young mini core and then we'll come back to so thank you and good afternoon board members Janelle Ry with young mini and core I wanted to highlight for you again that even the CDE found that John Henry's Academic Program meets the renewal criteria and provides a sound educational program as to the other points that CDE um rais the staff report suggested that these are fairly easily remedied with amendments to the Charter when it comes to governance um there was a question about the meeting location but the charter school has complied with new law and will agree to a condition on employee qualifications they really

186just need to add the word key and move qualifications from the appendix into the charter we heard about racial and ethic balance um on admission the charter school is willing to work with the CDE to reorder those preferences on suspension expulsion they're already complying with the law and I would add that the law was changed in 2018 to allow for involuntary removal as an additional um reason that a student may be removed from a school on retirement they just need to identify who the person is responsible for ensuring arrangements are made and on dispute resolution we couldn't have made those changes because no changes can be made to the Charter but the charter school promised to make those changes so ultimately these things do not rise to the level of closing a nationally recognized Charter

187School uh John Henry was named a 2020 best high school by US News and MOB report they certainly don't rise to the level of closing a school that outperforms all of the schools that students would otherwise attend the law simply does not permit this closure and I'll go back to miss Flores thank you in terms of our distance learning plan uh we're proud to share that 92% of our students were engaged in Daily assignments during uh last semester's distance learning model so we are working uh with the community and stakeholders to be able to um continue that rigorous instruction and learning for every student that is at our school we are College Prep we've sent over 90% of our graduating seniors to four-year colleges since we were founded and you can see some other stats

188here in terms of highlights uh we are the third best high school in West KRA Costa so we ask that you re our school thank you thank you very much and at this point we'll move to the um District presenters potentially with the county I don't know the district there we go all right good afternoon thank you very much for hearing our appeal um I would like to thank you all also for your work my name is Dr Linda Delgado I performed Charter Charter School oversight for the District of West Contra Costa and I will be joined as needed in this presentation with the folks listed below the school found the school findings for West Contra against John Henry include that there is an inadequate English language development and special education programs and the amethod

189organization provides inadequate governance and management background preliminarily test scores are considered the most important factor in reviewing Charter petition test scores are impacted however by student populations who traditionally underperform underperform on the Casp for example English language learner percentages impact test results as the test is not in the students's primary language test score comparisons are legitimate only when student populations subgroups are similar the claim of equal to or better than district schools cannot factually be made in a review of the data will make this clear subgroups include English language Learners special education Foster and homeless Youth and students living in poverty a comparative review of all district high schools and John Henry will follow in this table you'll find highlighted um John Henry as in the yellow First Column followed by all district high schools

190each school's data is presented presented in column form and subgroup headings are noted along the leftand axis the highest percentage for each row is bolded and underlined in no case does John Henry lead the schools most frequently used in the petition for comparison are immediately to the right Kennedy and Richmond high schools and they serve considerably different populations please note the following rows in particular for English language Learners Kennedy and Richmond have great greater than three times the El's for special education all schools with the exception of Middle College have higher uh special education numbers Kennedy and Richmond serve the greatest numbers of socioeconomically disadvantaged students John Henry is not serving a representative population and further the organization has changed the lottery to further submit this disparity on this Slide the leftand column compares the

191district and John Henry for El percentages over a 4-year period illustrating disparity in percentages and there is a dramatically falling trend line the district average is orange and John Henry is gray the table on the right shows the overall School percentage of Els in the First Data column the second data column has the percentage of that group who are English language learners levels one and two for example at John Henry uh this the overall percentage during the years of evaluation was 12.5 of the total population and of that 12.5 two 23.8 about a quarter are levels one and two contrasted with Richmond High with an overall percentage of 39 basically 40% and half of that group El's one and two now we'll go on to the program itself Staffing and scheduling issues over the 201920

192year five different teachers were one after the other tasked with leading the school's single EL course during this class period each teacher attempted to provide instruction for four grade levels four El levels and four four language domains in one classroom the petition was silent on how this might be achieved there was a failure to provide adequate curriculum although the organization stated that ELD was curriculum was in place from inception the board did not adopt curriculum until this last Academic Year the reclassification process was just recently drafted and put into place in the school's fifth year we don't know what it contains or if it is effective the performance Gap from the dashboard focusing on Statewide data to demonstrate the effect of subgroup membership on C scores a review of Statewide data is provided the first

193row shows percentages of students at or above grade level for English only and fluent English speakers this would be students with a firm command of English the second row shows elel students at or above grade level obviously you've got English language arts on the left and math on the right data are clear that John Henry is not serving the same student populations as other schools and this demonstrates why it matters note in particular the gaps which are presented here in red the gaps show the Statewide difference between eel's and those with a command of the language the gap between the two groups is significant illustrating the effect of el designation on test scores greater numbers of el students have a greater impact on scores overall John Henry has fewer Els than most district schools and

194scores are less impacted next to comparison of these Statewide performance data differences versus the John Henry Gap performance gaps the first row brings the Statewide difference in scores between El's and fluent English students only from the prior slide that's the 4568 the second row are the same data for John Henry ideally that score would be smaller than the Statewide Gap rather it is larger and the difference is once again in red along the bottom compared with Statewide averages John Henry is underperforming in this review the presentation has shown that the ELD program is has serious and long-term flaws and this data demonstrates the problem now on to special education issues this table Compares district and John Henry enrollment percentages for special education from 2015 through 2020 over the five years of operation John Henry has

195served significantly fewer specialed students and has never served a student with moderate or severe needs there are no Casp data that are publicly available for sped students throughout the five years of operation because the numbers have always been too low the district requested that John Henry share the data in their possession and they refused inadequate special education program per former staff and Leadership two former amethod site Leaders with extensive special education experience submitted whistleblower complaints detailing faulty special education provision five teachers from the school submitted statements with concerns about special education program and organizational leadership and quotes are provided in the appendix four teachers reported receiving direction from leadership to change grades for special education students to report that they were passing when in fact they were not and three teachers reported direction to Mark

196a student present who had not attended class Additionally the school failed to provide the required minutes to a number of students um they were uh noticed for that and they did make up the minutes but they made them up in the last two or three minutes of each class period raising serious questions as to the seriousness of the organization's focus on special education students inadequate special education per Community benefit organization in 2019 the district received a letter from the disability rights education and defense fund an advocacy rights organization funded by the US Department of Education that supports parents of students with disabilities that letter stated amps Administration V violated the law by directing special education and site leadership to hold SST meetings in lie of parent requests to assessments to determine whether or not a

197child needed services in violation of the law amps leadership directed families to return to the district for accommodations and services the charter petition references obligatory child fine procedures however it does not explicitly reference RTI respon to intervention as a fundamental aspect of child Find meaning a child may go through the whole ILP individualized learning program or RTI response to intervention process and the site director May deem them unqualified for an SST creating further barriers to uh specialized academic instruction the petition stated process could take an entire year for a child to receive services in order re to review data illustrating the gap between those in special ed again and those who are not staff look at staff looked at Statewide data to try and get a sense of what the impact on test scores might

198be and here you have once again presented the Gap and red of course the higher the special ed population served the greater the impact on scores overall all other district schools SCH have higher percentages of special education except middle college high and all see the expected impact on scores this data challenges the legitimacy of the school's data by demonstrating the impact of equivalent special ed enrollment governance issues since 2015 the amethod central office has lost at least 20 individuals out of 20 central office leaders six special education directors two directors of talent director of it the COO the CAO the CF three regional superintendents directors of Finance systems and assorted others seven central office staff were laid off or fired in June of 2020 that included two Regional superintendents two out of two compliance coordinators

199Talent Communications specialed coordinators Director of Finance and accounting since 2015 the organization has lost 28 site leaders including Deans and directors of these four were from John Henry six from RCA and six from BJ those of the two other a method schools in West Contra Casta John Henry lost 13 teachers and two front office staff between 2016 and 18 sorry uh time is up okay would you like me to stop or shall I press on stop time you should finish your sentence yeah that's okay um basically we're seeing a great deal of turnover there are two more slides but you do have them in your deck thank you very much thank you very much um at this point uh we want to put up the public comments slide and we want to open the phone

200line for public comment we hope that people who were trying to speak earlier have returned pleas speak at the proper time members of the public wishing to provide comment on this item um I wonder if we can remove that uh can you remove that uh thing from the computer great can call 712432075 enter access code 6519 9005b wait for the operator prompts to press star six and then another prompt to press one to enter the queue um and could we have the translator read the instructions in Spanish please absolutely ma'am represent thank you very much uh we encourage you to please state your name and affiliation for the record um remember to turn down the volume on your computers if you are following the live feed and speakers are limited to one minute each let's

201see if we have public comment speakers on the line please ensure that this is only for item 20 for John Henry if you're on the line for another item we ask that you please hang up at this time and call back at the next item again only speakers for item 20 John Henry should be in the queue at this time all other callers should hang up at this time and call back in at your scheduled item thank you we have approximately 30 public commenters in the queue so we will start with our first caller right now caller please state your name and affiliation for the record to provide public comment for John Henry High your time starts now my name is Emma herbach can you hear me yes okay I am the executive director for

202United teachers of Richmond I'm asking that you deny the renewal of John Henry High because the school does not have qualified staff at key levels to ensure students success a method John Henry's parent organization recently fired or laid off their Richmond Regional superintendent Richmond Regional compliance coordinator and special education director Additionally the current John Henry site director Sylvia Flores has never taught has a 30-day substitute permit and does not have an admin credential Natalie Garcia the John Henry dean of instruction does not appear to have an administrative credential or clear credential either John Henry is currently recruiting for 10 teaching positions and it is not clear from the posting that a credential is required despite state law John Henry averages only 6% retention of teachers and the majority of teachers who work there do not

203have clear credentials John Henry and their parent organization do not have the necessary staff credentialing or expertise to successfully educate students this fall WCC USC teachers are ready and willing to welcome students back into the district schools this fall where they will be taught by qualifi teachers with credentials and thank you next caller please state your name and affiliation for the record to provide public comment for John Henry High your time starts now hi I'm Joseph glatzer a teacher in the West Contra Costa Unified School District and I'm asking that you deny John Henry High School's appeal we have many great opportunities in our district and would welcome John Henry students back with open arms including with AP courses Visual and Performing Arts opportunities Sports exciting electives and more so the demographic Mak up of

204John Henry is not reflective of the community with 95% Latin X they have a lower number of specialed English Learners homeless Foster Youth and African-American students compared to Public District Schools so comparing their test scores with those of ours district schools is comparing apples and oranges in the 1920 school year there was only one ELD class which had five different teachers and there is a lack of progress for English Learners overall it is an unstable learning environment there is a largely large yearly turnover of teachers and administration despite having many opportunities to fix these issues they have not they do not need more chances please deny their appeal thank you next caller please state your name and affiliation for the record to provide public comment for John Henry your time starts now hi my name

205is Jamie zamansky I'm a parent for uh one graduating student and one student who's still at John Henry I ask that you leave this school open you want to give children of color a better education John Henry is doing that Miss Delgado has given information that is based on the whole organization not John Henry John Henry's numbers are much lower also miss Elgato should be disqualified for the way she has treated John Henry she's given data that she did not get from John Henry she never visited the school this school has given my children a better education than any of those public schools have in Richmond and I know because I moved them from Public Schools public schools here in Richmond do not give safe environments for our children John Henry has done nothing but

206provide safe environment and a loving family environment that lets and helps children succeed they really live by their motto honor hard work please please approve this school we need them thank you next caller please state your name and affiliation for the record to provide public comment for John Henry your time starts now hi um my name is beis verden I actually have a sister who goes to the school um I am calling in to please ask you guys to give them another chance um all the schools we have in the area are already overcrowded as it is and we would really appreciate having a school in our color community that actually provides them a good education and is not just overcrowded and doesn't have um the attention that the students need both for their mental

207health and for their education so I just ask you guys to please think with your hearts when you vote for this today thank you for your time next caller please state your name and affiliation for the record to provide public comment for John Henry your time starts now hi my name is Gabriela Rodriguez I am a founding parent and a Community member I am a um good afternoon board members I would like to express my support for John Henry High School John Henry is one of the top performing high schools in West Sosa I don't understand why school is this school is being penalized for serving our Latino Community our students have achieved so much with the high level of academics offered at John Henry they offer a safe environment for our students and promote

208a pathway for college it is very disturbing for our families and Community to hear that utr the teachers union sent out a message message request to its members to vote against John Henry but it does not encourage its members to close that learning Gap our district schools has please keep the John Henry open next caller please state your name and affiliation for the record to provide public comment for John Henry your time starts now good afternoon my name is Philip Ellenberg I'm speaking uh on behalf of uh ministers in Richmond I'm a pastor in the city of Richmond and I'd like to speak uh on behalf of uh not only uh our congregation but my colleagues and uh at least 40 uh parishioners um we um have at least five African-American uh students who are

209on the list on the waiting list for John Henry and we'd love to have them there I've worked extensively with the school in our area which is Kennedy High and our students are traumatized from the gang violence as well as the heavy drug presence and we wrestle with uh how best to educate our children some thrive in these Zone schools but it's not true for every child I work again with several of these students who are going through uh heavy trauma um and I ask that we please renew John Henry don't take that choice away parents should have the ability to choose what works best for their child and one's economic situation should not be a bar to exercising that choice the bottom line is this in my opinion I thank you so much please

210renew John Henry next caller please state your name and affiliation for the record to provide public comment for John Henry your time starts now uh good afternoon everyone my name is Claudia Lee I am the site director for down Charter School in Oakland As a member of the AMS Community I have worked closely with the staff members at J Henry High School for two years now I have witnessed their professionalism dedication and commitment to their students I have seen 100% of joh Henry High School teachers and administrators and hundreds of parents and students going to meeting after meeting of this long and arious renewal process pars and teachers say that they appreciate the learning that is happening in the classrooms and the opportunity that having another High School en Regional has created for the community

211I hope that the Relentless support and advocacy of hundreds of richmon spines mean something to you they just want to choose the school for their children I hope that you grant them the right to choose Thank you very much next caller please state your name and affiliation for the record to provide public comment for John Henry your time starts now hello my name is Marissa gliden I'm a proud West Contra educator before teaching at West Contra Costa I was hired to teach a method beginning a teacher orientation it became clear to me that something was seriously wrong Not only was every teacher un credential that a method I was also explicitly taught by the leadership to participate in the legal and problematic disciplinary processes including making students wear tissue boxes on their feet if they

212didn't wear shoes and Met dress code taking students Des away through their for sits it on the floor withholding lunch from students who misbehaved and threatening expulsion for minor misbehaviors and then dismissing students from the school without official documentation I was also told that a method encouraged special education students not to apply to the school and purposefully did not recruit students in predominantly African-American areas this is what I was explicitly taught by a method leadership when I spoke out about these policies they threatened to fire me after I resigned Teach for America did their own internal investigation and had the same findings they now refuse to place teachers at that school please protect our students and do not allow John Henry to open thank you next caller please state your name and affiliation for the

213record to provide public comment for John Henry your time starts now hi my name is Kevin Dorian we work with John Henry High School along with many other schools and youth programs in conut County I personally have coached to youth in our community and I can recognize valuable influences teachers and institutions can have on them John Henry High School their teachers administrators and staff tiously work to provide quality opportunities and values for the Youth in the community they otherwise would not have so for the sake of our community's future we cannot afford to let quality free public schools like John Henry High School be eliminated please vote in favor of John Henry High School thank you for your time next caller please state your name and affiliation for the record to provide public comment for

214John Henry your time starts now uh good morning uh good afternoon afternoon board members my name is Eric Becker and I come to you today to show my support for John Henry High School I am currently the assistant principal at John Henry sister School in Oakland uh I'd like to address the argument that aod public schools is unable to operate a school that successfully serves under privileg communities Oakland Charter High School was established by aod public schools Network in 2007 it is an exemplary school that serves over 85% socioeconomically disadvantaged students and 99% minority students according to us news and World Report it is currently the number one high school in Oakland OCS is also a California gold ribbon school and was ranked as high as number four in the state for its API scores

215again this is the sister School of John Henry operated by the same Charter management organization that West Contra Costa says is demonstrably unlikely to fulfill its education program um I'm also a parent in West Contra Costa I have three children in uh wccusd public schools and I would like you to keep John Henry open as an option for them Kennedy uh John Henry has outperformed um all of the local schools especially for so socioeconomically disadvantaged students past five years thank you next caller please state your name and affiliation for the record to provide public comment for John Henry High your time starts now my name is pH buay and I'm a credential hry teacher advocating for the school because it's time to put students first we of growth but the dashboard shows we have the

216high percentage of elll students progressing towards Proficiency in the district and 71% of our student body are former Els we designated as proficient the former spoke not work under our current leadership he likely does not know that we were granted a letter of good in the district old grievances need to be set aside so we can focus on the future compared our data with Statewide averages instead of the local schools that our students would otherwise the only kept at local was when looking at demographics we do not have a SEL admissions process but we are notoriously rigorous and we who come to us who but over 90% so socioeconomically disadvantaged minority students low African-American enrollment is a Charters issue not a John Henry specific issue and Miss BL is fighting tooth and nail to make

217us a leader in changing this disturbing Trend thank you next caller please state your name and affiliation for the record to provide public comment for John Henry your time starts now hi my name is Mike Parker I'm a retired Community College instructor in industrial electronics and a member of the Richmond's Workforce Development board I have long been concerned about the problems in our education system in preparing underserved communities for skills required in our modern economy I and I assume all of you recognize the institutionalized racism in our society and in our school system jhhs is a good example of this inst institutionalized racism uh it's part of the resegregate of our Public School System although the surrounding Community is about 25% black jhhs has less than 3% black enrollment at the same time jhhs does

218a poor job in developing English language Learners this segregation denies all of our young people the ability to learn and understand other cultures in the society in which we live I urge you to make rooting out institutionalized racism at priority and deny renewal of Henry High School thank you next caller please state your name and affiliation for the record to provide public comment for John Henry your time starts now hi my name is Felix Cabrera and I'm the dean of instruction at open Charter High School this dist School John Henry and the amps organization I've worked for oocs for six years five as a teacher and one as ad ad administrator just a second here me turn that up um the public education system is clearly broken in California I've learned this not only as

219my time working in it as both before I joined Oakland Charter High School um but also through my education program that I've gone through as an administrator as I now have my administrative credential um nowhere is this Gap more important we failed to close achievement grafts across the state and nowhere is this more apparent than in Contra across the county and Richmond in particular John Henry shows consistent Improvement and growth in both latinx and so so economically disadvantaged students and more and more families are looking to them as an answer for their educational needs over the failing public schools that uh resist change at every turn so I highly recommend that you keep John Henry open and allow it to continue to make the improvements that it has been working time and again to make

220sure happen thank you next caller please state your name and affiliation for the record to provide public comment for John Henry your time starts now uh good afternoon I mean good yeah good afternoon my name is Lea quad and I am a student at John Henry High School who will be a senior next upcoming school year and I have grown in more ways than I can count academically all thanks to John Henry with the aid from my teacher staff and my own classman and I would like to ask you to vote in favor of John Henry High School we have fought and worked so hard for so long to build up our community and I'm sure my fellow classmates have hoped for a future with John Henry as well as please votee in favor of

221John Henry thank you for your time next caller please state your name and affiliation for the record to provide public comment for John Henry your time starts now hola Holo for translators are you available right here okay Henry High oh hi my name is Karina Rodriguez and I would like my voice and the voice of my son and the voice of my community to be heard once more High School my son Angel would be enrolled in his last year of high school this year and this would be possible if you guys remain if you guys vote for the school to remain open my son finds himself very worried and a bit depressed at times he's a very active kid and with the current pandemic everything has stopped all of a sudden but what the things

222that wor what the thing that worries us the most is the closing of the school he feels lost in not being certain about his future we have enrolled them in many public schools but not have not heard anything back from any of them no we don't understand why there's so much effort into closing down Henry High School when the school has been shown to surpass the other competitors in contracosta in math and English has been named one of the best schools in the country in 90% of its students get into a fouryear college and advisory commission has reminded thank you next caller please state your name and affiliation for the record to provide public comment for John Henry your time starts now hi I'm Mary Flanigan I'm a retired teacher I taught 4 14 years

223at nram elementary public school in West Richmond and for a few years John Henry High School was in a temporary portable on the other side of Rich of nrom the elementary school it was on the same block and John Henry did not have any visibly African-American students or teachers or parents and at that time the kids at nrom the elementary school were more than 20% African-American and it's a huge insult to our students and their families that John Henry excluded African-American students that segregation is unconstitutional remember Brown versus Topeka Board of Education and our elementary students had witnessed that racist segregation right on the other side of a Cyclone Fence every day I urge you do not renew John Henry high schools Charter even now John Henry only has 2.8% African American students and uh

224Kennedy High School the nearest public high school is 25% and African-American enroll time thank you next caller please state your name and affiliation for the record to provide public comment for John Henry your time starts now hi my name is Forest Bor I'm a teacher well I have been a teacher at John Henry High School for the last two years right now I just found a job with Berkeley unified Public Schools not a transition that I wanted to make I very much wanted to stay with my family at John Henry High School I think that our director Miss Flores is an absolute hero to the community I feel that the biggest problem in the last two years that I've worked at our school has been the constant threats of closure and you want to talk

225about teacher turnover well now you're going to have another one with me because I had to find another job this last year but again I would have absolutely loved to have looped two more years with the 10th graders of this year I'm sourly disappointed that nobody from the educational community ever once came into my classroom and got to see the incredibly profound growth that we were making they I am so blown away that people like the other mother had said from our school that people are putting so much energy into shutting this down instead of just asking us what we need and how they can help us they've constantly treated us poorly and this school absolutely deserves to stay open watch it in five years it'll be the Absol best school in West hter Costa

226thank you next caller please State your name and affiliation for the record to provide public comment for John Henry your time starts now hello my name is Janna Morales and as a junior at John Henry High School I feel anger anger a strong feeling of annoyance displeasure or hostility so answer me this who must I blame for this hostility when I'm stuck in a class anxiety Rising hostility knowing this isn't Healy for me so why must this be all vanish from me my Tranquility I'm told not to blame you so please tell me who I must blame for making my worst fear come true look now I'm not just writing a poem I'm trying to get to you for my words that are broken please don't be like a quot so your nose spreads to

227me and en kicks my hostility and so you must see I will keep my Tranquility I try so darn hard to do my best and if I got my school I'd give it a rest but sadly that's not guaranteed so here I am to plead keep my school open fight for John Henry thank you next caller please your name and affiliation for the record to provide public comment for John Henry your time starts now oh is this me yes please please provide your public uh my name is Debbie Bayer I'm a Richmond resident and I I'm calling to ask you not to renew John hungry's application even though I hear that it causes disruption for the children who are currently attending and does move me but I feel that the sort of seg gate the

228lack of African-American students and the poor performance of disabled students and and English learner students High teacher turnover which happened before um uh the LA the previous two years all make me feel like John Henry the rest of us who pay money into the West counter cost Unified School District budget as subsidizing schools like John Henry who can take the students they want and then go forward with and and Lee out time rest of us who are left next caller please state your name and affiliation for the record to provide public comment for John Henry your time starts now good afternoon my name is Michael Juba and I represent the California Teachers Association BTA recommends that the SBE vote to deny the renewal petition for John Henry high for the following reasons first jhh fails

229to meet the academic requirements for renewal in the charter schools act with significant declines in academic progress of English Learners in ela and math and concerns that the current admission requirements set up an enrollment process that prohibits jhh from reaching demographics that are reflective of West contra cost Unified School District second their enrollment practices are highly suspect and their governance practices fall short and the CDE also found that the petition does not contain a reasonably comprehensive description of all the required elements of four five 7 8 10 11 and 14 so in conclusion the State Board of Education should deny this ual position thank you next caller please state your name and affiliation for the record to provide public comment for John Henry your time starts now hello hello yes we can hear you please

230provide your public comment hi my name is areli m and I'm a proud mother of two students who are attending John Henry high school and I really ask you guys to please keep it open if has been an amazing school it has helped a lot of my students and that's how I'm hearing a lot of comments I don't know why they're focusing a lot in races who attend the school whoever everybody's welcome in that school so I just please ask for you guys to please consider and keep our school open especially now with our distance that kids cannot be overcrowded in other schools our Richmond schools are fully passed they won't be able for them to have them separate six feet off students so please keep our school open John Henry thank you next caller

231please state your name and affiliation for the record to provide public comment for John Henry your time starts now hi hello yes we can hear you please provide your public comment my name is neli Ooa and I am John Henry alumni I graduated in 2019 and am currently attending a 4-year University more than 90% of graduates were accepted into fouryear universities looking to pursue higher education and a lot of that is due to the amazing academic resources provided to us at John Henry it's honestly very devastating that we have to had to fight this hard for a school that has proven themselves numerous times in so many ways that we have the right to remain open this has be become such a political thing please focus on the fact that so many students and parents

232chose to be part of the John Henry High School Community it's very saddening that we have to keep fighting for our school during this pandemic we're all frustrated that so many people try so hard to shut us down families chose to attend the choice lies on us and if so many families are fighting hard to keep the school open that should tell all board members how important this is to us thank you next caller please stay name and affiliation for the record to provide public comment for John Henry your time starts period hello caller would you like to make a public comment for John Henry High yes please state your name and affili name and affiliation your time starts now my name is Philip Chong I reside in the city of Richmond and I a

233teacher at John Henry high school we are a small school and we emphasize that in giving students and families a choice on where they're educated an example of how we use our small size uh to better students experience is just two days after the County Board of Education denied or took no action on our uh uh appeal we received or that was our last day of in-person instruction on last day in order to minimize the impact of the uh digital divide we did a full Ison inspection of every student's uh laptop power supply and Asain that they had a internet connection if they did not we made sure they had that and we maintain their communication with them throughout the instructional period time the school year thank you very much next caller please state your

234name and affiliation for the record to provide public comment for John Henry your time starts now hi I'm uh my name is Sam Ethan and I'm a teacher and inced teacher at ask you to approve John Henry and keep um I want emphasize like many people have been that we are really focused on high achievement I've seen many of my students really grow and get into four year universities and we are a college bounds kind of uh Focus and I also want to mention that many students have been reclassified um a vast majority of my students are El students but they've been re classified and they are still bilingual finally I want to emph the Ripple effects this closure would have not only on these hundreds of students these hundreds of families and the public

235schools in our area people have mentioned the public schools in our area are many times not safe and at the very least are vastly um impacted by the pandemic mic and budget cuts and are overcrowded so again I please uh really urge you to keep our school next caller please state your name and affiliation for the record to provide public comment for John Henry your time starts uh good afternoon uh I'm Dr Su mukari I am a Scientist at Lawrence Borg Creek National Lab and a concerned member of the community I asked the school be allowed to continue operation in my capacity as a scientist and educator for over 15 years I've interacted with hundreds of high school students including those from jhh and have observed firsthand how motivated excited the students are to learn

236especially coming from the background that these students are where no one expects these teenagers to succeed it's amazing that what JJ students have achieved over these past years I mean just look at their college expectance over the last years it's phenomenal so I didn't had a chance to look at all of Miss flores's slides but from what I saw briefly the overall performance far exceeds all the other schools in the area year after year yes their performance declined a little in 201819 but I do not think that Warren jhb denied renewal I'm surprised that only the 201819 is being highlighted when they have had a stellar performance year over year both in English and mathly requires theb members to keep the students future in mind and please vote in FV John Henry high thank you

237next caller please state your name and affiliation for the record to provide public comment for John Henry High your time starts now hello yes we can hear you caller did you need translation h no okay hi good afternoon my name is Christina a parent of a 4.5 GPA student I just want to say that John Henry is one of the best schools in Contra Costa County my daughter is one of the students and I'm proud to say that John Henry John Henry is doing an excellent work the environment in John Henry is very safe you won't see any police watching around or arresting students John Henry has an excellent discipline it is a place where I feel confident to leave my daughter every morning it is a place where my daughter feels safe supportive and

238where where she can accomplish her goals please don't close John Henry or students deserve an excellent quality of tion as young Henry we don't have too many good options in Richmond please take a time to visit our school please don't turn your back to our students and keep John Henry open thank you next caller please state your name and affiliation for the record to provide public comment for John Henry your time starts now good afternoon my name is Sor Wilson I'm a teacher in the West Contra con school district and I'm opposing a renewal of John Henry High because the school is failing to recruit and retain black students or black black teachers during 2016 through 2017 90% of the faculty was first to seconde teachers during 2017 through 2018 80% of the faculty was

239replaced the school is filled to meet the needs of black students special students and English language Learners the lack of consy is damaging to the students of the community thank you next caller please state your name and affiliation for the record to provide public comment for John Henry your time starts now my name is Helen Kang and I'm a teacher in West Contra Casta Unified School District and already I've been working with colleagues to closely to plan for how to make connection with students especially if we are starting the year just in distance learning environment um the general when you look at the data um that the district has provided it paints a picture of a governance or an institution that is generally chaotic um and with such high staff turnover it's going to be

240really hard to meet students needs in addition um I asked that the board please deny the charter renewal as it um it creates a situation where the charter serve some students not all and any institution that takes public funds needs to serve all students so I ask again that you please deny the the Charter's renewal thank you next caller please state your name and affiliation for the record to provide public comment for John Henry High your time starts now this is Catelyn o'herin with the charter schools Development Center the charter schools Development Center has been a strong supporter of the larger a method Public Schools organization since our deep involvement in its humble beginnings over 25 years ago since then AMS has laid a remarkable track record of launching and operating schools that serve the

241bay area's most challenged populations John Henry high is its most recent though John Henry is only in its fifth year and needs to continue to improve to meet ams's organization's high standards it has made significant progress and we believe it will continue to do so we also believe it meets the statutorily mandated standards for Charter renewal and that John Henry is a far better alternative for its students than the schools they would otherwise attend as such we urge you to Grant the appeal to renew the school's Charter thank you next caller please state your name and affiliation for the record to provide public comment for John Henry your time starts now hello there can you hear me yes we can hear you good afternoon my name is anhel zermeno and I'm new to the community

242of community of Richmond um and I'm also new to the EMP Community I'm a former math consultant also worked as a charter authorizer and work for the was oversight committee um I'm I want to First applaud the board um for looking at um deconstructing some of the systematic issues that occur in education and I encourage you to look at what's happening now it seems more political than anything else maybe you might want to um ask the questions of the authorizers if they did their part quality authorizers ensure that they support Charters and help them in prove and I and I all I hear now is just nitpicking so it sounds more political I encourage you to to look at quality Charters and make sure that we're serving our schools because these kids are learning and

243I purposely chose to move to amp Community because they are fighting for all their students they're not selecting um so I just encourage you to keep it open so thank you take care next caller please state your name and affiliation for the record to provide public comment for John Henry your time starts now my name is Brett Robbins I'm calling at a d of instruction at John Henry high school and I request that you renew the charter for another fiveyear term John Henry High School was founded by parents and community members looking for a Dependable Pathway to college and opportunity for Richmond students a pathway that didn't exist for students in this District prior to the school's founding since opening John Henry High School has produced a four-year College acceptance rate above 90% each year

244it has outperformed the schools that its students would otherwise attend by large margins in English math eel progress towards proficiency and by even wider margins when you look at the most vulnerable subgroups these academic proficiency and College acceptance data must be prioritized in making this recommendation the black and brown families of West Contra Costa have been denied a viable Pathway to empowerment for far too long these communities have been disproportionately impacted during Co and this is not an appropriate time to shut down their College Preparatory High School that they've built in Richmond thank you next caller please state your name and affiliation for the record to provide public comment for John Henry your time starts now R an I'm from the California Charter Schools Association speaking in support of John Henry High School I want

245to refocus the conversation to what is actually required by law and that is uh that academics be the most important factor in determining the renewal of a school with Henry meet uh according to the CD's report um I want to point out that ccsa strongly stands behind quality authorization which we believe West pasta has not offered um the first time that the school has been hearing about these uh these pieces of feedback has come in this process uh we believe that if these were issues beforehand there should be a healthy the conversation between the school and their authorizer uh and this should not be the time to to old school's accountable um I ask that you listen to the students that have offered their feelings about um about their school and how much they need

246their school and the last thing I like to talk about is the population growth over time um the numbers that have have been presented are not static in terms of of John Henry's population that theyve made meaningful growth in all of the time the the demographics that that matter please support John Henry thank you next caller please state your name and affiliation for the record to provide public comment for John Henry your time Starts Now good afternoon to the board my name is Edward sclar and I serve as legal counsel for the West contracosta Unified School District and I ask this board to follow the recommendation of the CD staff and not to renew the charter of John Henry High School contrary to John Henry High School statement uh this board May certainly deny the

247renewal under the law the district's decision not to renew comes with some context where a method Public Schools chose not to address what had been go ongoing District concerns about recruiting English Learners particularly English Learners who had less fluency in English about the educational program for English Learners about the lack of Recruitment and program for students with disabilities about a lack of Staffing for these students about high school and administrator um I'm sorry High teacher and administrator turnover that was impacting the educational program and about a lack of transparency and accountability the board should take vote not based on the reputation of a school but take a vote in light of the facts keeping with the intent of the recent changes under ab55 we ask this board honor the concerns of the district and not

248renew the charter thank you next caller please state your name and affiliation for the record to provide public comment for John Henry High your time starts now hello my name is Sarah Butler I'm a trustee on the contra husta County Board of Education I urge you to support the CDE recommendation for denial of John Henry High School um due to the many issues involved specifically I want to call your attention to the West Contra Costa document in your documents folder titled noov which is for notice of violation um the notice of violation includes um that was from November 2018 and I know that's a while ago but some of these violations are still not corrected they included teacher credentialing special education the lottery and admissions process and compliance with the confidential use permit for the

249facility anyway the um admissions process is still a big problem there are nine positions open of the 18 positions for John Henry and special education you've already heard has is not being done adequately for the those students thank you very much next caller please state your name and affiliation for the record to provide public comment for John Henry High your time starts now hola hio translator are you available johry joh Henry John [Music] Henry translator can I uh possibly get you to translate we have about 20 seconds left in her comment period yes of course good afternoon my name is Moren lar and I am calling on behalf of John Henry I'm a citizen and resident of Richmond I am mother of two one that will be graduating this year the other one is attending

250ninth grade we were here from El Salvador and we are so thankful for John Henry 90% my son it's uh 90% now proficient in English thank thanks to the teachers the support they supported him it would be a privilege for him to graduate and we feel confident in the work that they do here at John Henry unlike other schools that are full of uncertainty and problems with the police uh I see that they have this on certainty all the time please give it another opportunity uh we're full of happiness and we're just sad to see what's going on thank you Tom up next caller please state your name and affiliation for the record to provide public comment for John Henry and begin speaking your time starts now hi my name is Tammy Campbell and I'm

251an education Advocate and taxpayer in the west Kosta Unified School District requesting a denial of the John Henry Charter the wccusd staff provided you with an extensive report and the school board denied the renewal of the charter on the following lack of growth for English language Learners in declines in academic achievement lack of transparency and accountability failure of State staff to provide a legal legally act accurate special education program significant teacher turnover promotion of modern-day segregation and as a taxpayer it financially impacts my other public schools in my school district and why would you turn over what the local jurisdictions have already deemed not renewable I urge you not to support the renewal of John Henry thank you next caller please state your name and affiliation for the record to provide public comment for John

252Henry your time starts Nowa translator are you available [Music] VAR [Music] for time translated please provide us translation thank you yeah my name is k Vargas my daughter attends John Henry she's 11 years old I'm happy to be I'm happy that she's at this school the teachers are great teachers call me to let us know if there's homework outstanding and it makes me very sad to know that there's a possibility of school closing um I encourage you to please keep John Henry open thank you next caller please state your name and affiliation for the record to provide public comment for John Henry your time starts now caller did you want to provide public comment for John Henry hi this is esmeral and solid am I on the line yes you are please go ahead and

253we'll start your time okay thank you um yes I work at the front office at John Henry High School and not only do I see the interactions between the students the parents the teachers Etc I see so much care that goes into and so much effort not just on an educational level but also caring for them for their welfare for what's going on with their families and so forth I retired from the University of California Berkeley 37 years there so many students told me how they wish they would have gone to a school like John Henry I wish that I could have raised my kids at this school and they all graduated from West hosta Unified School District I went to Berkeley High School where predominantly their were other ethnicities and Hispanics were not represented

254but I can't blame the school for that I cannot and I strongly urge you to please renew the charter for John Henry High School thank you so much for your time next caller please state your name and affiliation for the record to provide public comment for John Henry your time starts now yes good afternoon my name is Edgar kidos and I'm a homeowner taxpayer and resident of uh West Contra Costa County and I serve as a volunteer board member of amps thank you for the opportunity to express my sincere and strongest support for the renewal of John Henry High School as I sit here to listen to the opposition who is asking not to renew uh I am appalled and saddened at the accusations of this being a segregated um uh model of Education I'm

255a retired diversity and inclusion executive with Kaiser Permanente after 29 years and to divide communities of color the way the opponents are is a disgrace John Henry High School matters the students and teachers of H of John Henry matter and because of the parents and the community support of Richmond Richmond matters thank you very much please vote in favor of John Henry High next caller please state your name and affiliation for the record to provide public comment for John Henry your time starts now may ask question oh my name is John I'm sorry we're not hearing your turn okay my name is John aringer and I'm a a a recently retired teacher West Contra Costa I want to point out that uh the uh our local board rejected John Henry the county rejected John Henry

256uh and uh as of now I know it was July 1 the law changed so uh this definitely violates the spirit of local control thank you next caller please state your name and affiliation for the record and begin uh to provide public comment for John Henry your time starts now hello yes we can hear you please state your name and record I'm sorry please state your name and affiliation my name is Jennifer lap I'm a community Observer John Henry staff is diligent making connections with students and families outside of school time to ensure students uccess which I believe is demonstrated in their test scores their four-year University admission rates and their recent six-year was accreditation though there are issues that John Henry does need to address I would like to urge the board to continue

257John Henry's Charter both to allow for clarification of the wide gap of information presented by both sides today and to allow the school time to remediate the cited is issues particularly because communication of concerns by the district including the reasons for stated non-renewal have disputed timing motiv a and origin I'd also like to recommend that the board note that multiple people have called in on behalf of John Henry earlier and many of our parents don't have the flexibility with work to ask for more hours off today especially on short notice when we talk about barriers to access this is it in real time so i' respectfully ask all board members and IT staff to convene about 30 minutes the public start time which was 8:30 for today Tech happens but we got do better thank

258you next caller please state your name and affiliation for the record to provide public comment for John Henry your time starts now um can you guys hear me yes we can hear you okay U my name is Angel Lopez and I'm going into 12th grade and I say that in theory because John Henry High School has not been approved to continue operating and I have been at every meet I have been to every meeting with the state and district and I've spoken from a school without much understanding of the reasons why people are interested in John Henry high school closing in my school I am listened to my teachers are interested in me and they push me to make an effort every day I I find the support to them to finish my education successfully

259and make it easier and they make it easier for me to get into a four-year college and to actually finish it I am asking to please keep Don Henry open thank you next call please state your name and affiliation for the record to provide public comment for John Henry your time starts [Music] now hi good afternoon my name is ingred Gonzalez and I was calling um because I want the school to remain open I have my child who is currently in Benito harez and I chose this school because of the fact that you guys had the extension all the way to high school and I didn't want my child to go through the process of moving schools and um you know having to meet new friends and all that so I was very excited when

260I found this school in my community um with high stats High test scoring good teachers um safe location near the police station um I am we are Latino parents we are a Latino family and I never have ever felt the uh any type of um race towards um us or even other you know races African-American I heard you guys speak about that I don't believe this was racism races at all um I feel like every school um every child is welcomed so I do uh want you guys to remain uh with the school open thank you next caller please state your name and affiliation for the record to provide public comment for John Henry your time starts now good afternoon my name is Joana Pace I'm the parent of a K12 West cost Unified School

261District graduate and and I urge you to deny the John Henry High School renewal petition thank you for this opportunity to speak as a parent who's attended many many school board meetings I've been appalled by John Henry High School's lack of adherence to the laws regarding abuse and harassment complaints by students please listen to both the local school board and the County School Board deny the John Henry High School petition for Renewal thank you next caller please state your name and affiliation for the record to provide public comment for John Henry your time starts now would you would you like to provide public comment for John Henry one moment and we'll get the translator thank you see Maria Vargas [Music] Henry [Music] um T time translator would you please provide uh a translation for us

262certainly ma'am good afternoon my name is Maria Vargas I am speaking to support John Henry I am a mother of six and I am very happy that my uh children attend the school one is there and one is about to get into ninth grade I am concerned when I heard about the decision to close the school I would like for it to remain open I feel safe I feel happy I see the grades of my daughter who's there at John Henry and uh that makes me happy I would like for to keep it open my uh goal is for all of them to become professionals when you are a mother of six it is never easy I'm just uh uh calling in support for John Henry next caller please state your name and affiliation for

263the record to provide public comment for John Henry your time starts now hello my name is Patricia I'm calling because I want your herry to remain open open because I see how John Henry has helped my daddy in her education and to accomplish her goals also I have a son in seventh grade and I want him to have the same opportunity as my daddy and I'm pretty sure if you close your hairing my son will have the opportunity that my Daddy has please renew joh joh re open to be honest I haven't enrolled my daddy in any school because around my neighbor I don't see any good school for her so please keep John Henry open thank you next caller please state your name and affiliation for the record to provide public comment for John

264Henry your time starts now Uno for translator are you available yes thank you for hello my name is wup midon I have three da daughters one currently at John Henry it is important for me to know that she can stay at John Henry um they have great teachers um there's great security um the teachers Provide support for my daughter to move on to college I hope that they don't close John Henry please I pray that they stay open thank you next caller please state your name and affiliation for the record to provide public comment for John Henry your time starts now good afternoon my name is Demetria Gonzalez and I'm a teacher in West V Costa I am a posing the renewal of John Henry High School currently John Henry High School only serves 10

265students with iips this shockingly low number when compared to their to their to total population they have failed to recruit students with iips and have not supported those students they serve in fact the California Department of Education has already flagged John Henry High School for failing the adequate test the few students they they do have in 20188 wcd investigated a claim that sped students were not receiving their minutes as required in their IPs staff found out that minutes were being made in three minute blocks and at the end of class no one should think that three minutes is enough time to adequately support Student Learning and Development I ask that you please suppose the renewal next caller please state your name and affiliation for the record to provide public comment for John Henry your time

266starts now my name is nicolea Strada and I'm calling as a member of the community in support of John Henry High School as a Latina working in the Bay Area tech industry I see how underrepresented we are in the bay area's largest and most profitable industry and it deeply saddens me John Henry High School Success in graduating its black and around students into four-year colleges at a rate of over 90% gives me hope that this reality is changing and that our next generation will have greater opportunities to participate and Thrive please follow the accs recommendation and renew John Henry High School so that they can continue their great work next caller please state your name and record for the Phil for please state your name and affiliation for the record to provide public comment for

267John Henry your time starts now hello can you hear me yes hello my name is Liam dillow I'm a credential chemistry and Technology thirdy year teacher at John Henry High School and I'd like to express my strong support for the school particularly for its attention to underserved students um I first want to point out what seems to be overlooked today is that shown in the data earlier we have a 91% um low so so socioeconomic status population which is actually higher than the rate at the surrounding Community um in terms of racial Equity I'd like to state that our population is representative of who applies which we do not control I will state that I personally had close relationships with several of our students who happen to be black at least three of which who

268have spoken in support of our school in recent hearings three of my former students recently graduated and are going to fouryear institutions I hardly see how this constitutes segregation or racism um our site leader has stated a plan to recruit a more diverse population I'm personally willing to knock on doors in the community to support this plan um finally our special education population um in my time in public charter schools I have not seen more attention given to elll or sped students I've also seen at least seven of my students with IEP of FAL plans speak in support of the school and recent hearings time John Henry next caller please state your name and affiliation for the record to provide public comment for John Henry your time starts now hello my name is Michelle Cordo

269and I'm calling to tell you to please renew John Henry High School this school has helped me so much by helping me achieve my goal my brother's in seventh grade and I would love it if he goes to John Henry High School that way he could achieve his goals like I am please renew John Henry thank you next caller please state your name and affiliation for the record to provide public comment for John Henry your time starts now hello can you hear me yes hi good afternoon my name is Luis Romo I'm a Richmond resident and graduate of Richmond High School and now an employee at a method Public Schools calling and support of John Henry High despite the current uncertainty we still have more than 120 families on our waiting list for the incoming

270ninth grade class families remain hopeful and committed to Don Henry we want the opportunity to continue building our program we've only we're only 5 years old and you can see the positive impact that John Henry is making in the community we have outperformed all of the surrounding schools in both math English and math since we began esac testing in 2019 John Henry received a six-year wasque accreditation status and a letter of support from Dr David Brown the wasque visiting chair this year we were recognized as one of the best public high schools by the US new news and World Report in 2018 we received a letter of good standing from wccusd superintendent and have not received any complaints letters of concern since and finally the accs recommended that will be renewed by a 7 to2

271vote this past month please keep John Henry open next caller please state your name and affiliation for the record to provide public comment for John Henry your time starts now my name is Don gney and I own an online newspaper Radio free Richmond which attempts to disseminate what goes on at our Charter Schools I hope you all can understand that this isn't about test scores and achievements it's about the school and you cannot divorce John Henry High School from the company that owns and operates it and that would be aod Public Schools I sent you a detailed list of problems that amps has had with disclosure finances staff and administration turnover uncredentialed with the community and the media failure to adhere to their agreements failure to address concerns repeatedly brought up by the wccusd fening

272a d potentially dangerous situation at the wccusd board meeting when the renewal petition was initially denied and some serious difficulty embracing the brown act given that my report didn't resemble any of the hundreds of form letters you may have been sent I hope you had an opportunity to peruse it given that we all want what's best for the kids and their parents it would be nice to issue a renewal conditioned on amps getting their house in order but that not an option for you is it so do you give an a fiveyear license to continue as they have doesn't solve any of the problems that they've got just here thank you next caller please state your name and affiliation for the record to provide public comment for John Henry your time starts now hello can

273you hear he me yes we can hear you please please state your name and affiliation my name is Jane Wong and I am a parent of two boys um one attended John Henry and finished and had so many offers from CSUS um uc's and USC um I'm a proud parent of this community and my second son I hopefully will be in his same footsteps um um my request is please don't shut down John Henry um it will be a disservice to the Bright Futures of our leaders I am also a home owner and I am still continuing to pay Seven bonds for the West Contra Costa Unified School District Seven bonds for the school district so we as parents should have choices for our children to attend what schools they will need to propagate their

274academic achievements and their career goals and they will definitely be strong constituents in our community and they will be loing our community in the next um few years thank you next caller please state your name and affiliation for the record to provide public comment for John Henry your time starts now hello can you hear me yes we can hear you yes good afternoon my name is Veronica Alvarez and I am calling in support for young Henry High School I Am pro parent of two daughters who are part of the young Henry Community my oldest daughter graduated from Young Henry in 2019 and is currently attending a fouryear university my 15-year-old daughter attended Richmond Chad Academy For Middle School and completed her freshman year at John Henry I was decided to keep her in the ANS

275family because of all the help they provided for my the sux for or my daughter my older daughter you are adding unnecessary stress to our students they worry about where they we go to school for the next year please keep that option open to them parents enroll all children but they are the ones who want to stay in the right decision Li in your hands thank you so much next caller please state your name and affiliation for the record to provide public comment for John Henry your time starts now hello yes we can hear you I think you'll probably have some background speaker backgr speaker okay would you like we need you to M the volume on your computer your computer hello hello my name is I'm a retired teacher with 20 years experience in

276our district and I am calling request speaker uh we're receiving Echo uh you need to turn down the volume on your speaker please on your computer your computer comp hello next caller please state your name and affiliation for the record to provide public comment for John Henry your time starts now caller would you like to make a public public comment for John Henry okay we have no additional public comment in the caller Q at this time we do have several other callers that are on the call-in line This call-in line is for callers wishing to make public comment for John Henry High if you are calling to make a public comment on another school we ask that you disconnect from the line right now you'll need to call when we're accepting public comment for that

277item can we please get the Spanish translation of that also that this comment that we're accepting right now is for John Henry Henry John Henry caller would you did you wish to make public comment for John Henry hello hello we can hear you did you want to make public comment for John Henry yes please state your name and affiliation your time starts now my name is DOA Bernal I'm the mother of a um son in John Henry he's on 11th grade he wanted to attend 12th grade for next year I'm asking you please consider to keep John Henry open my son is under a lot of stress because he doesn't know what school he going not 10 and also he receed a letter of interest of um different universities one of the universi that was

278haror but letting you know that that's telling you that young Henry is doing their job by preparing our kids for the universities many universities are looking to our kids and start the interest of 10 maybe those teachers they don't want it to keep John Henry open is because they're doing a very lousy job not preparing their students so I want you to take on consideration what our students our teachers our community as doing so hard all this year for John Henry and they've been doing so much stuff even if they have so much stress so please keep John Henry open at don't don't give more stress to our kids and let them prove and they can do much much better thank you next caller would you do you wish to make public comment for John

279Henry High caller would you like to make public comment for John Henry High next caller do you wish to provide public comment for John Henry High caller do you wish to make public comment for John Henry High yes please state your name and affiliation for the record your time starts now good afternoon board MERS my name is speaker speaker we need you to turn down the volume on your computer we're getting an echo and cannot you thank you thank you for turning down the volume on your computer and you can proceed afterward saying speak my entire senior class has been a challenging year for me and my peers the early dismiss of my PE year next caller please yes I'm here hello hello yes we can hear you please please start your public comments yes

280uh good afternoon board members my name is Jeff robinet I am a proud africanamerican father of a 2020 graduate from John Henry High School I'm speaking on behalf of 15 africanamerican students and their families on a weight list who have selected are committed to attend John Henry high school in the fall uh while not guaranteed these students deserve the right to attend a safe and Progressive school just as my child was able to do if John Henry is closed please know that there will be no viable choices in the West Contra Costa Unified School District for them to attend time doesn't allow for me to list all of the outstanding achievements of this school its permanent closure will devastate hundreds of students and their families as well is having a negative effect on our community

281please vote to keep our school open as far as the claim of lack of diversity where a black family for us it was a matter of choice John Henry High School not only welcomed us with open arms but uh racism just simply doesn't exist this fantastic school please keep it open thank you caller did you wish to make a public comment for John Henry High no at this time we will disconnect you from the call if you're calling for um today's fresh start for the next item we'll need you to call back in when we're taking public comment at that time what time would that be place when this item's public comments is over and the hearing is done okay is uh fresh started up next yes it's the next item but unfortunately we don't

282have an idea what time that will be thank you okay thank you bye-bye caller did you wish to make a public comment for John Henry High yes please state your name and affiliation for the record your time starts now good afternoon my name is Bianca Forester I'm the principal of Oakland Charter High School John Henry sister school I have worked in public education serving the most diverse and deserving students in the Bay Area for over 24 years John Henry High School serves over 90% sees and minority students last year John Henry was awarded a six-year waska Creation in no small part because the schools provides a comprehensive college preparatory curriculum designed to prepare every student to meet the UC CSU a through G requirements over 90% of John Henry graduates have been accepted to a

2834-year college or university additionally John Henry has outperformed all of the surrounding high schools in both English and math for all subgroups since the school began testing in 2017 the success of John Henry High School students in meeting the rigorous Academic Program offered classes that strongly correlate with later success in college and Beyond illustrates why this school should be allowed to continue to equitably serve Richmond students and families I urge you to vote in support of John Henry High School thank you very much next caller did you wish to make a comment for John Henry yes can you hear me yes we can hear you please state your name and affiliation for the record your time starts now hello I am Natalie Garcia one of the Deans of instruction at John Henry High School and

284a Richmond resident amidst the worldwide pandemic and our current Civil Rights Movement we are living in uncertain times and it is precisely why it is crucial to keep John Henry High School a accredited and nationally ranked High School by US News open for our schools and their families it is their Community Hub offering resources support and academics among other things you should not listen to all the naysayers calling in Union teachers and adults who are spending their time to sabotage of school due to political allegiances none of these loud naysayers have one step foot inside our learning community and instead are making false accusations Wiscon Costa continues to dehumanize our students down to dollar bills as they scramble to figure out how to get out of their $50 million deficit and false information is being

285disseminated even today including during public comment to our president stating that I don't have a clear credential please check again because my credential is clear through 2024 let me remind you John Henry's the best in Richmond has received a recommendation from the acss board unfortunately West Contra Costa has only offered failing and unsafe traditionally large public schools in our city of Richmond and our families and students demand that this not be their only option please listen to the students parents and families who have elected John Henry as their choice for the educational experience don't get lost in all the smoke and mirror tactics please vote to renew John Henry High School's Charter thank you next caller did you wish to make public comment for John Henry hi yeah hello can you hear me yes we

286can hear you please state your name and affiliation for the record and begin speaking okay um good afternoon my name is Kimberly Castro a student at John Henry High uh John Henry has provided all the John Henry Community including my myself a safe and positive environment that I know I won't experience at a public school I believe this is an issue between political groups that we students should not be dragged into and taken our education away from John Henry CH challenges you into doing your very best work and to honor that hard work my sister attended a public school and from what I seen she was doing very poorly because of the education given to her and the environment provided at John Henry I've noticed a dramatic change in her studies as well as her

287feeling safe safe at John Henry I feel safe and the education provided is outstanding please don't take that away from all of us vote in favor of John Henry thank you for your time next caller did you wish to provide public comment for John Henry next caller did you wish to provide public comment for John Henry yes please state your name and affiliation for the record your time starts now good evening my name is is I have the opportunity of attending Richmond Charter Academy for all three years in Middle School in my three years at the school I learned so much through expanding my education I experienced greater things than any other school in the area would have ever given me due to some changes in my life I had to move high schools and

288was blessed enough to have landed in another great school unfortunately that meant leaving my friends with what this year has already brought us I'm in shock and fear for the school John Henry even though some of us were lucky enough to get out before all this happened some of my former classmates are still at risk the second option for them would be schools like Richmond High and Kennedy knowing this gives me a very unsettling feeling because so many good kids I know will be thrown into situations we all know of at other schools this organization left me with a greater mindset for my future and left all of us feeling safe and set for what's ahead so to know that this could all possibly go away gives me a great fear for the ones I

289left in love thank you next caller did you wish to provide public comment for John Henry next caller did you wish to provide a public comment for John Henry yes can you hear me yes we can hear you please state your name and affiliation for the record your time starts now my name is Juan aaro and I'm a former student from the grading class of 2020 I have been part of ANS in seventh grade all of the teachers that have taught me have given me their awe to make sure that we all receive a good education my primary language is Spanish and John Henry has done an amazing job in helping me I am currently enrolled at aoria University and receiving $20,000 in scholarships this is all thanks to my amazing English teacher Ken Kake

290who spent multiple hours of his free time revising my essays and informing me of scholarship I am a first generation student and this type of support will not be achievable in a public school I am deeply sign that people are trying to shut down John Henry high school and have never witnessed the community that is present at John Henry please do not let these people swaye you or blind you from the greatness that is with that the greatness that is within John Henry thank you next caller did you wish to provide public comment for John Henry callard would you like to provide public comment for John Henry no it just a quick reminder those on in the the call line if you are waiting for fresh start please hang up uh once again if you're

291waiting for the next item for a start please hang up these comments if you're on the call line are only for John Henry John Henry thank you next caller did you wish to make a public comment for John Henry yes please state your name and affiliation for the record your time starts now is is this me can you hear me yes we can hear you great thank you uh my name is mateline cronenburg um I was serving on the West Contra Casta School Board as a trustee when John Henry was uh approved and I voted to approve it um I'm I'm calling today because I am truly disappointed in how many violations they have had um since the time of their approval I understand that they have some strong teachers who've uh who've served their

292Community well but they have some very very poor operations and governance procedures and that's why all these violations are out there and left for for uh people to be victims of it's really important that districts and schools not be allowed to treat employees and and treat the rules the way they have done so I please ask you now to look into that and to to not allow the renewal to go forward thank you next caller did you wish to provide public comment for John Henry yes please state your name and affiliation for the record your time starts now hello um uh my name is Eduardo Martinez I'm a Richmond city council member as well as a retired Elementary School teacher I urge you not to renew the John Henry High School charter as a classroom

293teacher I have found that the unspoken policy of calling problematic students from charter schools and casting them back into non-charter schools hinders the abilities of teachers working with students whose parents cannot advocate for their children and who end up in non-charter schools statistics illustrate that this is what is going on at John Henry High School uh by looking at statistics uh we can see that that the um well we can surmise that anecdotic the school may serve some students adequately but fails the community as a whole we need schools that are inclusive and their ability to serve all students this is not happening at John Henry thank you next caller did you wish to provide a public comment on John Henry yes please state your name and affiliation for the record and begin speaking my

294name is Suzanne Bala and I'm asking you to please deny the petition of John Henry I am a parent and a teacher in West condra Casta Don Henry is not providing a strong Academic Program overall their math scores are going down quickly according to the California school dashboard and there are huge gaps between their Hispanic students and all other subgroups their College and Career Readiness scores are also declining even though they supposedly Focus are M at their school John Henry has falsely claimed that they are a top high school in California and according to US News and World Report they are actually number 746 in California several district schools are higher and on the list and have higher graduation rates they do not serve the same population students is our district and they do not

295do a good job of serving the few students from subgroups that they that they have compared to their nearest district schools such as kenned high and Richmond High Time Henry Ser significantly fewer English Learners special ed and homeless fost and social economically disadvantaged please do not renew John Henry and they only have an 84% graduation rates last year thank you next caller did you wish to provide public comment for John Henry yes please state your name and affiliation for the record your time starts now hi I'm Richie perrina and I am going to be a senior next year at John Henry there hasn't been one year of my high school experience that I have not had to fight for my school and yet if I had to pick either Kennedy or rhs High School experience

296I would rather fight for John Henry all over again so please keep my school open and to the lady that said something about our school um being like racist or and such I guarantee you that's the exact opposite and that's all thank you hello please state your name and affiliation and begin speaking hello my name is myy Perez Caro I am a homegrown educator in Richmond California I work at my local WCC High School about a mile from John Henry named Kennedy High School I plead you to hear the voice of the community your students families Educators that are asking you to reinvest into the schools that already exist here I am humbly requesting that you let the students come to schools like Kennedy High Richmond High or deanza high these schools will welcome these

297students and families with open arms we want more students to be a part of programs ories like information technology media law Health theater International many more if they're interested in trades they can work in wood shop or welding if they enjoy electives such as art Kennedy has an amazing silk screening program that they can would be great experience for them they have a promising future at our neighboring schools and I would like to invite them to join and I implore you to deny John Henry High School thank you next caller did you wish to provide public comment for John Henry caller would you like to provide public comment for John Henry next caller would you like to provide public comment for John Henry yes please state your name and affiliation for the record your time

298starts now my name is Miss buay and I'm a credential John Henry teacher and Richmond resident John Henry admits to areas of growth but the dashboard shows we have the highest percent percentage of elll students progressing towards Proficiency in the district and 71% of our student body are former El's redesignated as proficient we were issued a letter of good standing from The District in November 2018 so old grievances need to be set aside so we can focus on these students bright future even today the district compared our academic data with Statewide averages instead of the surrounding schools that our students would otherwise attend the only time the district keeps it local is when looking at demographics because switching these strategically supports their false narrative we do not have a selective admissions process but we are

299a notoriously rigorous college preparatory program and we take the students who come to us who by the way are over 90% socioeconomically disadvantaged minority students low African-American enrollment is a traic Charters issue not a John Henry issue and Miss Florest is fighting tooth and mail to make John Henry a leader and changinging Trend cut through the noise vote John Henry thank you next caller did you wish to provide a public comment for John Henry yes please state your name and affiliation for the record your time starts now hello my name is a Stephanie de Cruz I'm a student at John Henny High School I wanted to say that um the John Henry High School is a very secure place I've been part of a for five years thanks to John Henry I was able to

300get a program uh ENT a program at the University of San Francisco as a as the young oldest sibling I wanted John Henry to stay open so that my younger siblings would be able to attend so please do not uh do not close that close down the school thank you next caller did you wish to provide public comment for John Henry yes please please state your name and affiliation for the record your time starts now hi my name is Ardo rila I'm calling on behalf of defend public education now and we are asking uh the board to deny John Henry's uh application we are asking to respect uh the district's uh denial and the County's denial these denials did not come easy uh there was a lot of hard work put into them and I

301applaud the teachers and the uh uh the members of John Henry for trying to save their school but the facts are the facts and we're asking you to deny John Henry's uh renewal thank you next caller did you wish to provide public comment for John Henry next caller did you wish to provide public comment for John Henry next caller did you wish to provide public comment for John Henry yes please please state your name and affiliation for the record your time starts now my name is Maline Letta I was an ESL student now reclassified as a speaker CL as a speaker of English thanks to John Henry High School I'm so happy to be there and I don't want the school to close because I'm so sad about it and also they have so many

302programs like AB programs and I please I I I really wanted to stay open thank you next caller did you wish to provide public comment for John [Music] Henry one moment caller while we get us while we get the translator on the line translator are you translator are we available did did the caller wish to make public comment on John Henry joh Henry yes please please state your name and affiliation and begin your public comment you have one minute schry rich time translator would you please provide feedback time is up good afternoon yes good afternoon my name is Richard Lada I am the proud father of a daughter attending John Henry uh John Henry is one of the top schools in Richmond it doesn't make sense to close it she just finished learning English thanks

303to this school please consider John Henry the staff education everything is good IEP the classes and uh my daughter is a Straight A Student please give it the opport opportunity to continue with this good school you know that going to a good school makes a difference getting to college or not and especially here in Richman there is a difference uh between schools uh versus other areas please consider John [Music] Henry next caller did you wish to provide public comment for John Henry caller on the line would you like to provide public comment for John Henry next caller would you like to provide public comment for John Henry yes please state your name and affiliation for the record your time one moment we'll get the translator okay com yes my name is alos Selenas my son

304is a student at John Henry he is learning a lot at this school I beg you to please not close this school because he's learning a lot there please don't close it thank you next caller did you wish to provide public comment for John Henry High caller would you like to provide public comment for John Henry next caller would you like to provide public comment for John Henry caller on the line would you like to provide public comment for John Henry yes please state your name and affiliation for the record your time starts now hello my name is Rosa kurel uh good afternoon board members I am here to support John Henry I am a representing six families that were not able to attend the call John Harry is important to our community our Latino

305Community John Henry has provided the students with higher education and has offered a way to go to college and universities our seniors have been accepted to UCLA UC Berkeley UC San Francisco along others our district says that they they're ready for our students but they have a 48 million deficit how do they plan to provide a quality education to our students it's a I'm appalled to hear the teacher Union calling uh to call to close the school they have not provided they have failed our students and they continue to fail our students that's why there's so much uh learning Gap in between we need a quality School John Henry that's what is providing our our families our Latino families you just a quick reminder uh anyone still remaining on the phone line this is only

306for John John Henry again this is for only for item 20 which is John Henry all others need to hang up and call back when that item is read thank you next did did you wish to provide public comment for John Henry hello yes we can hear you did you wish to provide public comments yes ma'am my name is horge Lopez my name is horge Lopez and I the founder of of amps the oldest charter school system in the East Bay and perhaps more importantly I born and raised in Richmond and raised in West Contra Casta schools I became an educator due to my experiences in Richmond schools especially due to being expelled from Richmond High School and without due process simply because my mother did not speak English I agree with that public schools

307need to serve all kids so if we look at West kraasa academic achievement through the history and I mean decades and generations of families you will see that black and brown kids have been severely uh Miss served in the west kasta school so just because kids are in the building does not mean that they are being served black and brown poor students of Richman deserve a shot at better outcomes of college jhhs is one of those Pathways to a better future if you look at the transitions in the west kraasa Unified School District you will see a dis also uh so much turnover with three three associate superintendents terminated two superintendents one a lame duck you will also see uh Chief academic officer resignation two sped directors in three years you will also see a

308HR resource uh associate superintendent also open time so what's good for the goose is good for the gander keep jhhs open for the families of Richmond for family and for equity next caller did you wish to provide public comment for John Henry caller on the line did you wish to provide public comment for John Henry caller on the line did you wish to provide public comment for John Henry did you wish to provide public comments yes did you wish to provide public comment on John Henry yes thank you please state your name and affiliation for the record and begin speaking your time starts now my name is l and I'm ass soon to be ninth grader at John Henry high school I just want to say that um John Henry is a good school that

309supports their students and they want their students to go higher than they already I'm a student that is recently at the University of Art and I really want to support the school thank you next caller did you wish to provide public comment for John Henry hello yes we can hear you did you wish to provide public comment for John Henry yes your time starts now yeah my name is Carlos SAA I'm a retired teacher with 20 years experience in our district and I think I want to request this board not to renew John Henry's uh Charter they have had five years five years and that's enough time they do not deserve another chance they talk a lot about the uh English Learners that they have but they fa to fail to tell you that not

310one student was read design fluent English proficient also they have a tremendously High turn over rate in teachers currently they are trying to recruit 10 teachers and yet in their job description they do not mention the requirement of a teaching credential it's an it's time time that we this community get together and support our democratically controlled system of ucation you must remember that our school board denied the charter time Henry please thank you next caller did you wish to provide public comment for John Henry yes my name is conception and I have a daughter in BL Henry and I really appreciate this call because my daughter have been there in grade a straight A and I really like it because um teachers have been improving a lot and they always focus and they do their

311homework on time so this something that I really love because they care about them and I also the behavior and the environment is really good it's safe so this that why I would like to you keep John Henry open thank you so much next caller did you wish to provide public comment for John Henry yes please state your name and affiliation for the record and begin speaking your time starts now hi my name is aanta De and this is my seventh year at OCS which is the sister School of John Henry um during these years AMS has nothing been much supportive and always been very inclusive of the staff population which is one of the concern which keeps coming I see and I do not understand why John Henry is being closed down because I

312have all a lot of times collaborated with their staff for student support and they have supported their students to the best of their abilities and the leaders work as hard as no other school for last two years this commotion about if it's getting closed or open is creating a lot of problems in our community and I hope that you would take our uh problem underation and think about the student population thank you in support of John Henry at this time we have no additional callers and the caller Q&A and no additional callers for John Henry High on the participant line thank you very much at this point before we get into um public discussion uh among the board members I'm going to um bring a close of uh adjourn the um close the public hearing

313at 2:49 p.m. I'm going to encourage us to take a 10-minute break so that people can be prepared for the next part of the conversation uh get a cup of coffee whatever you need and we'll resume at 3pm all right let's see who we have back here I see Eileen and I day Jim Brena Cynthia Ting him will be back in a little while perhaps all right and I understand um Karen do you need to call the role again yes I will call the Ro again and then we can see if uh Patricia is available to vote so Linda you're obviously here I'm talking to you Cynthia yes here Jim yes here Matt here Brena here Kim here I day here [Music] ien Eileen here okay Ting here okay and then um Patricia Rucker here

314yay [Laughter] Bravo all right so um I think we want to ask you Patricia while we have you and we hope you'll stay with us uh to cast your vote on the previous uh Charter School item on the time Community School Patricia that was item nth but I did receive a written copy of the motion that was proposed by board member son as I understand what was written in the document I received I will vote reluctantly yes okay okay thank you voted yes so the motion passes Linda all right so we will now move on to we can take that off the screen and we will move on to discussion on John Henry um and I'm gonna turn to Ting first as our Lea's on for um framing so just I wanted to thank the

315all the members of the community who called in and uh and spoke on um John Henry both for and uh not for the renewal and I I know that um with these Charter renewals unlike the new Charter petitions we looked at earlier uh these Charters come with history and varying perspectives of that history and often they come with a lot of emotion and passion and so uh again just you know it is it is a it is always um helpful to hear from the public and I just wanted to commend those who called in and especially the students who called in and advocated for their school and then from here I just have the board members address any have any questions they have on the charter all right well we will start our discussion um

316there were a lot of questions raised so I'm sure we will have many we want to explore I did want to be begin the conversation by treating one issue that came up which was the question about um the performance of English Learners at the school uh and just to point out that the English learner category is this unusual category as students um gain proficiency uh they leave the category so having uh your best students reclassified at a high rate often means that the students remaining in that category have lower scores because they're they're reclassifying at a uh at a high rate and we did see that in this in this Charter School the 90 plus percent of students who began as English Learners and the 70 plus percent proficient reclassification rate uh means that English

317Learners are doing well in the school and becoming reclassified those remaining in the English learner category are a smaller number because of the reclassification of others and may have lower scores because those were better scores are moving out of the category so that's um something we could illustrate statistically it's an unusual aspect of that subgroup and understanding their performance but it seems very important to understand that in this particular case there are a lot of other questions that came up that um I think we will want to explore about the um plan the treatment of students in special education the recruitment policies uh and suspension and expulsion policies and I would love to um get back to those uh agenda items at some point uh I do want to open it up to other board

318members who have questions that they'd like to get on the table but I wanted to start with that clarification so that we could move on to the other set of pressing items that are have been raised so do I see any uh board member uh board members ready to I see uh hand one up yes uh vice president Strauss so I have uh several comment uh comments and clarifying questions and excuse me it may be that other board members are wondering some of the same things so I won't do all of them I'll do some and then and see if other board members have some and then come back um first let me just say I I think this was um I think John Henry provides an opportunity for students in uh the community um

319and we heard from the students and the parents that's meeting a need and um I felt that strongly and I believe that um that's important to consider um however I think the concerns that were raised in the denial and in the comments are worth exploring um and I have several concerns so um and I I have an interesting question so first let me ask the petitioner so this If This Were um if this petition is not approved the students will not go to school this fall at John Henry so what plans have you made to support students knowing that we're in July and schools likely to open in a month what what communication and plans have been because at this point it's denied unless it is approved here so I just wonder what you've done

320to think about that are you addressing that to the district or to no to Charter petitioner hi uh thank you yeah thank you for the question so in March when we received um the um decision from the County to not hear our petition and uh when they told us that we had to go straight to the State Board uh I told my families that they needed to have a a plan B an option if John Henry doesn't renew um since then we've been supporting families in trying to uh enroll at other schools most of our families want to enroll at other Charter Schools but by then it was March um most charter schools did not have any space they had very long waiting lists um the the school closest to us leadership Public Schools uh

321they had a waiting list of over I think it was 75 students so uh they told us you know what we're most likely not going to be able to accept any of your transfer students so uh we also helped them with the applications uh for the district schools however at that time the pandemic hit and uh the transfer office was closed for several weeks um at the district um we directed them online and we helped them with the online applications um but our families continue wanting to um enroll at John Henry for next year so they told us that even though uh some of them have found another school uh most of them haven't yet they either haven't received uh an offer from uh school um a lot of them have told us that they're

322going to pursue uh private schools or online schools if John Henry doesn't renew and uh it we've started to make calls after the accs recommended for approval um we began making calls to ask uh what their status was have they found another school and um like I said um some of them had uh but the majority of them said that they were considering online options um some were even told that if they wanted a small School within the district that they could look at um Greenwood Academy which is a continuation school um and in terms of the families wanting to stay here we've had several Town Halls throughout the summer and um you know we started that in May um and they keep wanting to stay at John Henry so um like I said some

323of them have found an option most of them haven't I would say about 70% of them um have have are still in limbo basic basically so let me just follow up with the district um if this Charter is not renewed um what would be the process for supporting these students particularly as the transition and how difficult the times are now hi there this is Dr Linda Delgado I will start to answer that and I may lob the rest of the question to Mr Ruben Aurelio who's also on the line um we did write up a one pager actually the district has been uh engaged in preparation for welcoming the students back um back when the initial petition was refused in the district so we are uh we have prepared well I believe to welcome students

324back um I can clarify too that there is uh another option for students who prefer a small school um and that would be Vista Independent Study High School one of our districts schools and also I'm going to mention that all of our larger comprehensive high schools have a program called ummies which you're probably familiar with linked learning acmy of learning and they enable us to take a high school of 1500 or so students and break those kids into smaller groups so if the students were to say attend Richmond High School they would be in a cohort that's about 150 students and they would move through most of their classwork with that same cohort of students so it's it offers the benefits of a large school but uh the crowd size of a small school thank

325you um and I'm just going to ask the petitioner um my understanding is there was a notice of violation in 2018 so almost two years ago and I um now we're at 2020 and I'm just wondering what you did to address the the notice of violation at that time yeah yeah yeah so um we uh entered into a resolution agreement with the district and in November of 2018 we received a letter from uh Mr uh Matt Duffy who's the superintendent for the district uh a letter of good standing meaning that we had uh addressed these um violations or or these concerns on the the on the resolution agreement so uh ever since then we've had to to submit several documents to the district uh we had to submit our credentialing status every quarter um we

326had to submit um plans for professional development um and we have not received any letter of concern any complaint from the district since we received that letter of good standing um in the resolution it stated that um if there was any concern amps and West Conta would meet and confirm confir if any uh issue Rose and uh so far we haven't had any issue arise we hadn't we haven't had any um requests for a meeting um and we've been uh serving students well um so um Dr Delgado um you and your presentation actually appeared to challenge the viol and listed quite a bit of violations so do you believe that the that John Henry High had addressed the notice of violation and is in good standing or did you believe believe that that wasn't true

327um I believe that they did the very best they could um back when things were due back when various submissions were due as per the agreement um the gentleman who uh LED most of that charge is no longer with the organization so um I think some institutional knowledge was lost uh so far as the concerns that were called out on the notice of viol special education was one and as you heard from the presentation today continues to be a concern with the district they're among our most vulnerable students and they are students who we are keenly attached to protecting um also around credentialing there has continued to be quite a bit of turnover at that organ or at that particular school as well as the other two um schools in the district so I would

328say credentialing continues to be a concern um let's see I think I'll leave it at that for now oh and so far as we there were some Communications with the school um surrounding questions such as provision of free and reduced lunch um apparently there was something in the handbook and uh paper disseminated to parents saying that there would be a penalty if free and reduced lunch were or if um if parents were not current with their lunch bill uh report cards would be withheld and things like that so there there have been some Communications back and forth um of the district endeavoring to notify the school when there are issues and um work with them as best we can thank you so I I have one more question and then I'll leave it to my

329other board members I'm sure there are more um to the petitioner again there was a concern about obviously your demographics not representing the local community and a concern about your admission require um priorities which have been changed from your original petition to give priority to so that doesn't fit with what you said you would do to address the lack of representation of certain groups so how did you how do you address the issue of the mission priori considering that the population is not as reflective as it is supposed to be yeah thank you um we you're right we haven't had uh the preference for students coming from an amp's uh School in the past um the reason why we decided to add that to this petition is because our elementary middle and high school are

330on the same block uh they're right next to each other so um we wanted to have a a K12 system um and right now I mean we we do we've been working on this recruitment Outreach plan because we do want to diversify our school it's not that we that we want to stay the same we do want to diversify um we've been trying to work with um you know many different stakeholders uh with church groups we created uh parent groups in order to support the addition of English language Learners of SP students students of African-American students uh just in one year we increased from 11% to 22% our English learner population and uh this happened from 2019 to 20 um 2018 to 2019 and um we are um we're open to uh working with you

331guys to changing our preferences if that's what's needed um we like I said we added it because we had a a a campus that was right next to each other um but if that uh is going to create an issue we are open to to uh removing it or or changing the priorities could I um follow up on that a little bit yeah and I'll I'll wait after that for my other colleagues to comment I just wanted to follow up on that particular issue um and just get a little more clarity on on some aspects of it um on the English learner population issue if you continue to be as successful in moving kids towards reclassification quickly as you have been in the lower grades that will go down again so I just want people

332to understand that you have to watch think about that population differently than others but I am interested in what your specific recruitment plans are for African-American students um and for um students with special education needs and I know you mentioned that quickly earlier that you have a um consultant working with you as a recruiter but I I couldn't catch it all in the speed with which you had to explain it so could you tell us more about what you will be doing in the um context of recruiting African-American students from the community and um both recruiting and keeping students with special education needs definitely so um right now we just started working with the consultant um it's um kdi Charter Zone and they are allowing us to use this uh GPS uh tracking so they

333do their own um uh breakdown of students who have um special educa um I'm sorry language um that is the ethnicity um race and ethnicity they have um that specific tracker and it helps us as a charter school to target areas uh we haven't right now worked with middle schools in order to go into the middle school and do an Outreach event um I was working at Oakland Charter High School um three years ago um and I was there for for four years on different leadership capacities I was a counselor there and uh when I came to John Henry I'm a I'm a resident of Richmond H that's the reason why I decided to uh transfer over here and um we were seeing that yes the the demographic population wasn't resembling the district so um

334one of the strategies that has worked or that I noted that it worked Inland was going to the middle schools and providing the support for families to apply and also the information because they don't sometimes they don't know what options they have and how to apply so um since this is an online application through enroll West Contra Costa all all um charter schools in Contra Costa have been uh using this um third party system in order to run their lotteries um so we are thinking why don't we go tole school why don't we um you know set up a table and Outreach and maybe uh work with the leadership team at the middle schools who have high percentages of um St students who have high percentages of African-American students in order to be able to

335give the families uh the information and they choose whether they want to apply to our school but we're there to support them and help them with a computer uh with staff who are going to uh help them apply and then the other thing is that we are um some of our students who are currently enrolled some of them have already graduated um specifically African-American students this year we started a partnership uh with other Charter Schools we created the African-American T course and it's a group that we meet um every quarter or every two months I believe in order to um discuss this issue because it's not just an issue at John Henry High School it's an issue at a lot of the charter schools in our community so um we are working to um do

336an independent um basically like a survey and hiring that consultant to come in and talk to them to be able to see what is missing what um how would we be able to attract more African-American students more special education students more English language Learners to our school and also uh in terms of um the task force we are we're seeing that a lot of the work is um very effective through word of mouth so we've been working with pastors um from African-American churches and we've been working with families who are uh connected in the African-American community in order to go to events and in order to pass out that information and let them know that we exist let them know that we're there let them know that we're in the marina that we're a safe

337school and uh and help them apply to our school diversify our our African pool okay that's that's helpful uh let me see if there are others who would like to uh not seeing anyone with their hand up yet ah there we go uh member Nao yeah um I wanted yeah I just want to Echo um board member son and board member Strauss comments and board member Strauss you asked a lot of the questions that were on my mind but one in particular that I don't know that we've had a chance to dive in a little deeper to is the question around credentialing so for the petitioner I know that the district uh raised a number of questions around credentialing there were a number of callers that called in can you tell us what you're doing

338uh how you're addressing that issue yeah definitely um since we receiv received the notice of violation like I told you guys before we had to submit a very detailed credential list every uh one of our teachers the 18 teachers that we had uh we had to provide their credentials we had to provide the number of their credential whether it was preliminary uh clear credential whether they were on a short-term staff permit um we have every single teacher at our school has a credential or a permit in order to be in the classroom we do not allow anybody who doesn't have the appropriate credential to be in the classroom classro with students so um we have been fully staffed um we at the beginning of this class year we did have a substitute teacher in one

339of our classrooms But the teacher was there um for 30 days only they weren't there for any longer than that so we follow the law we follow uh credentialing um requirements um and there hasn't been any like I told you before there hasn't been any um communication from the the district saying that we do not have uh or that we have a problem that we have an issue uh they have not asked us to meet and uh confirm regarding any issue um in terms of credentials and terms of spreed uh nothing like that there have been certain issues brought up that are not related to our school they're not related to John Henry High School um and um that I think is where the confusion is happening would you like to clarify that yeah thank

340you yeah so um there one of the issues that was brought up was that um there was an investigation regarding a lot of different things um and that we did have an investigation um that investigation was I believe um in 2017 um 2017 2018 so basically uh with that investigation it was an independent uh it was um Oracle and they um they came back and uh they told us that the allegations were uh unsubstantiated so there was nothing there um and then after that uh we received um basically that notice of uh violation and uh once again we received the letter of good standing um we have not had any issue um there was someone who brought up uh a sped concern um in regards to a uh a letter from um from D DF

341that was not at our school I I honestly don't have information because that wasn't part of our school we have not had any complaints or any uh letters of concerns since I joined the organization ation in 2018 uh I I think at this point um board president I'm gonna I'm GNA back away and let other board members ask questions okay uh member Rodriguez is waiting um so I had a couple of the questions that came up and another question but I saw that um Miss Elgato I did you raised your hand and I'm not sure if it was in response to the last issue so if she could answer well we we work with board members um at this point in the conversation okay all right I thought she was going to respond to that

342so I I similarly had the question that um Mr novel brought up regarding the credentialing um but also when you said an investigation of things were there could you you be specific about what things and was that at your site during the time that you were there it was not during the time I was there it was before I joined the organization I joined the organization in 20189 um specifically at John Henry High School um I had been working at Oakland Charter High School our sister uh prior to that so um the investigation took place in 20178 and uh like I said that investigation was through a third party um it was through Oracle um and yeah once again the allegations were unsubstantiated I can um we can send you um information on that uh

343I also have our uh board president here who can answer uh to that question in more detail if um if I'm allowed um that's okay I'll go on to my next question uh so somebody made a comment a public comment with regarding uh teachers being encouraged to falsify documents and um and that TFA was no longer sending teachers to your site um can you respond to that please yeah so um the first part of of that it was in the investigation once again it was unsubstantiated uh the second part TFA we haven't worked with TFA Henry started in 2015 uh we have not worked with TFA since we started we didn't have the partnership um so we've never um had TFA say oh well we're gonna investigate you guys and uh we are not going

344to send there um in terms of my dean of instruction Natalie Garcia she was a part of Teach for America and she uh has been here for the past two years um so I don't don't know uh where the TFA investigation um took place but it definitely didn't take place at John Henry high school because we were open since 2015 and I know that um we have't been working with TFA since thank you all right um I'm going to ask um Miss Delgado if she wants to uh add a point here that was uh on the previous matter and then see who else wants to then we'll go to our next board member thank you um regarding the 20178 investigation yes that was conducted and according to um our review of the investigation it was

345uh perplexing in that the items that were investigated had to do with actions that were taking place at John Henry High and of of the people who were interviewed there was not a single interview of a teacher or a staff member at John Henry all of the interviews took place with people who were from the central office and um it in in the words of our attorney it was not a a serious investigation so moving on to the other issues I think we've conflated a couple of uh different things there is the letter of good standing and there is the notice of violation the school was allowed to move on and um attempt to rectify their issues but the letter of good standing was re was related to funding issues and was issued specifically so

346that the school could continue to draw down Federal resources um could I ask there our attorney is uh available to answer these questions that a little more detail are we able to bring him into the call uh if he is not currently here uh I don't think so I think he's standing ready um so and also I just wanted to return really quickly to the issue of reclassification um I pulled up the reclassification data for this particular renewal and students designated last year for John Henry were exactly 0% of a total of 12.5% that's the the um number that connects to the presentation earlier so zero students were reclassified um they did as I mentioned in the presentation just recently redo their reclassification process so uh I think that was put into place this year

347and I think it's it's early to say how effective that is um because there's simply no experience with it yet yeah um I don't know if um the petitioner wants to say anything about that I do want to get to member Glover woods and I just want to frame this to say that at this part of the conversation we're really trying to prioritize the questions that board members have uh we've heard from both the petitioner and the district um so we want to stay you know specific to the questions that are getting raised um and did you want to respond on the reclassification and how that played out this year yeah so the reclassification uh policy was in there um even since before John Henry High School opened because we've only been open for for

348five years um every uh so often we look at our uh English language learner program um we take a look at our reclassification policies uh we take look at uh the state uh or the California Department of Education County all of that and yes last year uh we did um submit a new reclassification policy to the board which was approved um and in terms of uh 0% of our students being reclassified last year that is correct we did not have students who were at that uh threshold yet and uh prior to that the first two years that we opened we saw that there were a lot of students who were uh long-term uh English um Learners and uh we decided to reclassify at that moment because they were proficient so um we last year we

349didn't have many or we didn't have any students um then this year we did reclassify some so it just depends on the year it depends on where our students are at we're not going to reclassify just because we want our numbers to look a certain way uh we want to make sure that our students are ready to succeed and we're college prep school so we definitely want to make sure that our students are uh meeting the proficiency standards in order to be reclassified and you noted that you had recruited in a lot of new English Learners in this last year it's such an unstable category that that's why I just want people to keep the those points in mind um member Glover Woods thank you president darling Hamond um first I'll proceed my question well

350I with saying that um it was encouraging to hear the comments from the students that are being served um and the positive statements from the parents as well um many of the concerns I have have been brought up by my fellow board members but I would like to drill down on a particular topic which is the Recruitment and uh the work that's being done to diversify the student population um it's been mentioned and I believe uh Miss Flores you mentioned that there are a lot of uh efforts planned or either have started as far as working with churches working with students at the middle school level to again increase the population of African-American students and uh students with disabilities my question to you is how long have those efforts been taking place did the start

351of those efforts coincide with the um the decision to revoke the Charter or were those efforts that were put in place before so and I have one other question after that but I'll stop there for that first response okay yeah so um we started these efforts recently and um it wasn't because of the notice it wasn't um due to the the um yeah notice of violation that we had from the district um that um that effort started um this previous year when I came to John Henry I basically saw that we needed to do some work we needed to improve we needed to diversify we needed to uh make sure that our students um that we had a a representative group and um unfortunately in one year uh we you know haven't seen the progress

352that the district uh wants us to have yet we're asking for a little bit more time um we in in 2015 uh 16 which was the first year we only had ninth and 10th graders um and then the following year we included or we you know we we went up n9th 10th and 11th so um we didn't have that many students applying to our school we were a brand new school um we tried uh to recruit from the different Charters that were around from Richmond Charter Academy which was um our Middle School within the amp system uh we went to Richmond College Prep uh we went to caliber um to waves Academy um but where we uh haven't done yet is uh we haven't gone to um District middle schools in order to do that

353Outreach so we definitely want to open up that channel of communication um last year we um joined the district uh enrollment fair that was the first year that Charter Schools were invited to the district uh recruitment Fair which was huge um it was at the Richmond Auditorium so uh we were very happy that we finally had established that um that communication between district and Charters and it wasn't just you know our Charter it was uh Charter all over West Kosta so um since I started at John Henry um yes there there is work to be done and I am committed to doing this work we at John Henry like I told you it's not just me it's our families uh they want to be able to help uh I had one of the parents tell

354me her son was graduating we did a drive-through graduation and uh she told me hey M Flores if you um want me to stay in the task force I'll definitely stay she's an African-American parent her child um had special education and uh she was like I love the program I want to help and I want to help you guys recruit more students um to diversify the school and to be able to achieve the demographics that district is asking for I definitely don't want John Henry to close even though my child doesn't go there anymore he graduated I still want uh that to happen so we definitely have those connections we have been building more and more Community um connections with our Outreach I'm sorry we hired an an Outreach coordinator um it was two and

355a half years ago um and they have also been helping uh with the serving in the African-American task force um through um through West Conta charter schools and uh we've been uh in my opinion we've been making progress um we we're not there yet that's not um you know I'm not trying to stay at the current level I want to improve and I want to make sure that our school is representative of our district numbers and that's why we're open to changing um our preferences if that's what's needed um we we thought that it was good to include um the the neighboring School the Richmond Charter Academy which is right next door but uh if that's not gonna you know give us the results that we that we need then then we're willing to work

356with that Linda just it's been Linda this is me I just wanted when you get a moment to to to respond okay I I do have just a couple of followup uh questions or not necessarily a couple followup questions maybe one more um it seems that it's been fairly recent for the for the school to reach out to the community organizations the faith-based organizations that um May Provide support and services for uh predominantly the African-American Community um maintaining confidentiality of course for students and families at John Henry um of the 3% African-American student population approximately how many families would you say are actually represented in that 3% um what what do you mean how many families are represented in the 3% correct so if you have 3% based on the numbers that have been shared

3573% of your student population uh being africanamerican how many different families make up that 3% yeah we currently don't have any siblings um between African-American families so um out of the 315 uh students that we have if we uh hold on I'm doing the quick math here um it's about um about 10 kids 10 students yes and uh so there are 10 different families um like I said we have um two of the families who are really um strong in terms of um being in the community and helping put the W out there uh this year the lottery we've seen huge uh increase in the amount of students that are applying and we are uh diversifying our our recruit our um applicant uh pool so I do expect us to uh move up in terms

358of that thank you thank you very much um I Heard Stephanie's voice a moment ago um I trying to find you on my um Hollywood Squares but go ahead Stephanie if you would like to make I don't I don't know that I'm on the Hollywood Squares um okay so I just wanted to respond um that I appreciate uh hearing um for for the first time all of the the uh recruitment strategies that um John Henry is putting in place now which which is great um but I I also want to make sure that it's under OD that you can put in great recruitment strategies and you can have a lot of kids on the wait list um going into the lottery but if you don't change the uh preferences you're not really going to see

359much of a difference unless those kids are already in the amps system um so the recruitment strategies are great but but it's not going to make much of a dent if if the the preferences stay the same because all those kids are in the lottery and as you know once you're in the lottery those PR references kick in so I just wanted to clarify that thank you very much and that um I'm not seeing any other board members hands up so that may get us close to the question that we might want to be raising which is uh as we have experienced in other cases um if we want to consider conditions those might include conditions around the preferences uh or other features that um that we've heard concerns about um so uh this is

360uh BR Brena has her hand up and if anyone else wants to get in the conversation this will be the time to flag it so that we can move uh forward towards you know a vote Linda after Brena Patricia Rucker would like to ask a question too great and then I have member Strauss also in the list uh go ahead BR yeah just quickly um hi there um so you know I think the school is already committed to responding positively to the conditions um you know and we're ready to implement whatever it is that the State Board decides as conditions um you know with with Lottery preferences um as director Farland mentioned those those can be a helpful way um to to change up demographics because we of course we can't um we can't have

361any preferences um that discriminate on the basis of race or ethnicity and in terms of the suspension and expulsion I think we want to know about the suspension and expulsion policy um in very specific terms that an area that was raised as an area of concern prev correct so the area of concern that was raised was regarding our handbook um so on the on the petition uh we don't I don't believe that there were any um issues that arose it was related to the family handbook which was um online and it was a an old uh family handbook that we had used uh in previous years we have since uh removed that language um we as you um in the in the presentation uh for for from CDE staff you guys saw that one of

362the blocks was for suspension we are in the green um our suspension rate is very low um in the past five years there has been one expulsion unfortunately uh but we don't we tried um our best to support every single student uh we have uh used um restore Justice practices uh we've been working with uh our previous dean of in of students um it wasn't that he left the organization he transferred to the to the elementary school um so he was uh he he taught us a lot um when he was here and we've been uh instituting those practices we've been systematizing those practices and we definitely don't like to suspend students we don't like to expel students at all um so as you can see our dashboard uh data is in the green for

363suspensions because uh we've been using uh other methods um when there are behavior issues that arise we don't we're not in the in the business of suspending our expelling students we have uh two amazing counselors who have been working uh tirelessly with our students they support them since they're in ninth grade so two counselors for a student body of 315 uh we think that that is H part of the reason why our suspension rate is so low because we are able to serve them and to um you know start working with them in groups and and all of that so hope that answer the question uh if if you need more specifics uh I'm I'm open to to answering that I thought that was clear did did you have anything else Brena Brena did that

364answer your question adequately are you frozen I think brena's frozen Brena are you able to try again yes can you hear me now yeah can you hear yeah yes I was just going to ask what the of Justice practices were a little more specifically okay can we get a succinct rendering on that and then I do want to move to there's a couple other callers waiting um you can move on you can move on I don't think it's working okay um so uh I think uh member Rucker is waiting to get in so I want to acknowledge her because she's had such a hard time today we would we definitely want to hear from her when she's able Patricia can you get in I'm hoping you can hear me we can yes we can hear

365you okay well um first of all I want to thank my fellow board members I think you've been having some psychic moments in reading my mind and asking a number of my questions so my the frustration with the technology really and truly has not hampered my ability to feel that I'm participating in this call um so let me just say I I heard the president uh suggests that maybe we could consider looking at some conditions as a way of looking at how to approve or how to move forward on this particular Charter and let me just give a little perspective from where I'm sitting out here with your inability to speak um in some detail about that there was yesterday you created some conditions for approving a charter and that the conditions on that Charter

366were significant and important primarily because it addressed an opportunity for the development of a new uh program and a and a specific approach to serve a particular community and we just on the previous item also approved a number of conditions to correct a charter application or to correct a a renewal that had problems that through all of the conditions that are happening right now at this exact instance had through the hearing process just there was simply interference for a lot of conditions that were probably unique in different conditions and so I understand why those conditions were added to that Charter especially given the fact that we would have a partner with the local uh Lea that would be doing a lot of the oversight and monitoring and support with the implementation and the work that

367that Charter would be doing as it opened going forward this Charter is different um in listening to the presentation from both sides there obviously is conflicting information there's also um a conflating of a lot of ideas or a lot of uh points of information about whether the charter was substantially out of compliance or had met the compliance requirements from the notice of violation and you know I the district and I found the district's presentation was very compelling in pointing out what the problems of this Charter were these are not new problems these are not problems that have risen in the past couple of months these are problems that have been recurring and occurring throughout the period of the relationship the ELA has had with the charter I'm concerned that there is a teacher recruitment and

368preparation program Teach for America who thrives on not only de Innovative program for uh developing teachers but also look for Innovative opportunities for their Workforce to go into teaching has decided to change or alter their relationship and I'm further concerned that despite what the uh Charter management uh organization is saying about what they have done and what they are now trying to do the district is quite clear that this is not this is something that they the problems are things that they are aware of and that they either have not addressed or have been inadequate to address so I'm not sure how a con a set of conditions for this Charter are going to resolve problems that fall somewhere in the Continuum between you haven't done nothing or you simply haven't done enough so I'm

369concerned not only about the quality of the management of this Charter but I'm concerned that the problems are not simply going to go away with a set of conditions aimed at trying to support the charter as you have with the previous two items and the previous two hearings the conditions are not the same and I do not have faith in the ability of this Charter to address these problems because they clearly have not done so up to this point I'm done I will I will make a small response just to the reason why I um raised that question by law um the primary um metric we uh need to use is the performance of a school in relation to the other schools that students would attend in its absence and it's clear that in this

370particular case uh this students in the school are outperforming those in in surrounding schools in English language arts and math so we have a burden of proof in relation to this particular uh renewal uh and uh it we've heard a lot of the back and forth about different conditions but uh some of those have stayed on the table and some of them have been moved off the table and so I think uh it would seem reasonable to be thinking about that question but I would love to hear from the other board members and member Strauss is next in the queue the only comment that I wanted to make was um I um had some very strong concerns about the turnover the amount of teachers the turnover and the teachers um the you know we know

371it takes teachers a couple of years three to five years to gain confidence and skill set to really make a difference um and so the amount of turnover I was very concerned about and also in the whole management organization it seemed like it was a um there seemed to be at least as I heard from the district presentation um a lot of turnover I don't know that that's a condition we can put in because who knows what the causes are obviously for Recruitment and support for teachers as they develop but I just want to put that on the table that I I am concerned about the constant turnover as it was presented um I have one other factual question I just like to ask uh which is the question about the um role of the

372county offices I believe I understood and maybe Stephanie is the one to answer this question the district um denied and then the county declined to hear the appeal is that right I believe they heard the appeal they declined to take action is that is that correct I yeah not they didn't hear at all okay I'm sorry they didn't hear it at all they declined to hear it at all so they did not re they did not deny the charter somebody said they Deni the and do we know anything I mean I would love a little background about what it means when a county steps aside and says we're not going to hear the appeal should I respond to that yeah this is this is Judy SAS with the chief Council for the State Board under

373the law the county has the option to not hear the appeal so um I don't think we can try to presume what their motives were or were not but if they declin to hear it there's nothing in the record as to their you know their issues or concerns or anything about this Charter School okay so we can just correct the record on that score and um move to to any other questions Linda Matt has his hand up okay member navo I just have um just a few questions for CD just to Stephanie are you can are you there yes I am here sorry okay um I know I saw you walk away I uh I just want to get back to brass tax a bit because I I do sense that there's a struggle between

374what the district um sees and and understands and what the petitioner sees and understand and I I see a petitioner who who by all extensive purposes seems to be willing to try and make whatever adjustments are necessary but I just want to go back to the original um presentation the the charter was academic academically it met the requirement is that correct yes it met the threshold for the academic renewal criteria yes it did yes and okay and it met their requirement fiscally they are they are fiscally yes yes they are so the issues that we're talking about are related to the the program but it sounds like we're also talking about things of the past um what is what has all of this fall under right I I would say that that the the the

375the primary issues would be access um for students to attend the school and that was whether students in the district have access to the school and that was uh a one of the primary issues we also had issues um with some of the uh elements that we had uh um when we had gone over in the presentation um in terms of employee qualifications and in terms of um the suspension expulsion um which they addressed um in terms of retirement coverage dispute resolution um but I would say that it the biggest concern for us um and the and the the issue that we really wanted the board to to um discuss was this issue of access for all students and whether or not um moving forward if if the if they moved forward over the next

376five years students would actually have more students would have access to the school which we found not to be the case because of the preferences they put in to their admission um requirements and so I I I think the the department feels that access um is an important issue when it comes to Charter Schools it's something that we've discussed in other items um in other appeals over the course of um the last year or so and and I'd say that was that is very much uh a concern okay that that that helps a great deal so really what H either the preferences change or the potential that we're going to be continuing to deal with this issue yes yes because recruitment is great but if you don't change preferences then there's no other way for

377other types of students to come in so that becomes the issue and I got a I have a question about 1505 the the charters that the state authorizes right when 15 after July 1 we're passing July 1 so we're where do they fall where does this Charter come back to for Renewal say say they approved for 5 years where do they come back us or the county office they authoriz it they'll after I I think it it they would go back to the local the local yes okay that that okay so that I didn't I didn't qu I didn't phrase the question very well my my my point was that I think this goes to the petitioner at the end of this journey if you can't come to agreement with the district at some point

378you're going to come to a fork in the road where the district is the authorizer and they don't come to us is that correct under 1505 well under under this is Judy C under 1505 at at some point um not for this appeal since this appeal Was Heard by The District in the county before ab55 took effect so start there but in the future when they come up for Renewal again in the future should they be renewed this time then they would be subject to 15505 where they would could eventually come to the board under a different standard though would be under an abuse of discretion standard right okay so it's it's going to be incumbent whatever happens if if if the charter is renewed through us at some point the charter and the district

379and the county are going to have to come to agreement because it's not not going to come to us again in the same way it I'm sorry Matt this is Judy I'd like to correct my answer a little bit um it's been a long day I I I think um for charter school for all of us I know um the first renewal they will come back to us under the current um under a day NOA review um but then eventually you are right there will be a fork in the road where they will have to get authorized locally and be appealed or if it's an appeal it would be under an abusive discretion standard okay thank you all right um any other questions from anyone if not I wonder if we can see if there's

380a motion I don't see anyone else with their hand up oh Brena okay um Can Steph me speak on the governance issues that that um for member recer brought up with management issues just she was concerned and I want to have one more chance for Stephanie do you feel you can respond to that uh the the department didn't have governance issues I think that came from the district okay so that was not an issue that that was not no it was not okay all right um all right do we have uh we have no other hands up do we have a motion yes so I will if I could make a few comments and then I will U make my motions uh appreciate the my fellow board members questions and deliberation in this um topic

381it is not easy as most those of us who've gone through some of these Charter Ral processes before uh I wanted to just say that um although academic performance is the most important part of for Renewal there are other compelling factors that we often need to and should look at and so um I think the questions that is raised by board members and um really spoke to those in the case of John Henry the school has acknowledged that their opening was not perfect and and they have uh very earnestly communicated their openness to making the recommended improvements and knowing that they are in their first renewal their they first startup um it does take a while for your student demographics to to um make that change but I believe that they have um shown lots

382of success with their students um they are accomplishing their mission of sending their students to college and uh I was very impressed too that I think it was something like 92 or 94% of the students or maybe even 96% of their students they during the um campus closures they were able to outreach and connect with their students during this past spring so this is uh I see this as a school that is uh meeting the student needs certainly there are some areas of work and so I am ready to make um areas of work including um repairing some of those relationships with um their their the district and their area so with that I'm I am making a recommendation that we approve the renewal of John Henry uh Charter and and I have some conditions

383that will go with that that's on the screen right now so here we go so recommending approval of the renewal of John Henry high for a term of five years with the following conditions that John Henry High will conduct a root uh cause analysis and develop an academic action plan focused on identifying and improving the school's mathematics performance and its services and performance for students with disabilities this plan will include a description of related staff training and support for utilizing assessment data and targeted instruction and intervention the the amethod uh Public Schools executive board will adopt a plan the plan and provide it to the California Department of Education by October 1st 2020 John Henry's leadership will provide quarterly updates to CDE on their implementation of the academic action plan Don Henry will provide residents

384of West Contra Costa Unified School District enrollment preference above all other preferences categories described in the petion document with the sole exception of siblings of current students um this pre preference is intended to produce a student body that mirrors local eth ethnic English learner and special education demographics John Henry High will provide an annual update to the CDE on or before October 15 2020 on its success in recruiting enrolling and maintaining a student population that matches local demographics the student will the school sorry will submit to the CDE a revised budget and a revised Charter petition that addresses deficiencies and or includes necessary language as outlined in the CDE staff analysis all right uh thanks very much uh is there a second for this motion I will second that motion I uh I appreciate board

385member son uh sign's detail I like the uh the requirements to come back and review admissions uh preferences so I I will second that and I yeah I will second that just simply add that again at some point with this recommendation the petitioner is going to have to mend the relationship with the district and the county based on 1505 all right is there any further discussion seeing No Hands raised uh I think we're ready for a roll call vote Karen can you um conduct the roll call yes Ting yes Eileen yes e yes okay yes um I day I day you might be talking to yourself on mute she was having technology trouble I was I was raising my hand instead yes okay we need a or a vocal vote from everyone ID can you

386repeat your yes okay thank you Kim uh abstaining since I missed most of the presentation okay Brena yes Matt yes Jim yes Cynthia yes yes Linda yes and then Patricia no okay the me measure passes okay wow you guys are in a marathon here we all are uh and we have another uh Charter renewal um which is um the Fresh Start Charter uh we're going to take a 10-minute break so that Stephanie can organize and set up uh and we'll be back at 4 let's say all right are we all reassembled oh man I am having some trouble with my computer now I think it's just over it's exhausted yes all are and I wanna start out by um welcoming everyone back I think uh probably Karen needs to call the role to reestablish the

387Quorum yes I shall call the role okay Linda I'm here Cynthia here Jim here Matt here Brena here Kim with volume here okay hi hi day here Eileen yes here Ting here Patricia Rucker here yay good everyone's present all right uh and I want to say at the beginning uh of this part of the process that I have to leave uh shortly after five for a another meeting and I will come back um so I'll be in and out and vice president Strauss will take the Gabel uh at that point and carry us forward um agenda item 21 is a public hearing regarding petition for the renewal of a charter school Under the oversight of the State Board of Education consideration of today's Fresh Start Charter School Englewood which was denied by the Englewood Unified

388School District and the Los Angeles County Board of Education the CDE recommends that the State Board hold a public hearing to deny the request to renew today's Fresh Start Charter School Englewood a transitional kindergarten kindergarten tkk through grade a charter school and this item will be presented by Stephanie Farland of CDE Stephanie please begin great thank you Linda thank you Stephanie good afternoon everyone um so uh as mentioned we're here today to hear the appeal for today's Fresh Start Charter School Englewood um the charter school is currently authorized by the Englewood Unified School District with a Char term that expired on June 30th 2020 the petitioner sought renewal from iusd and the Los Angeles County Board of Education they were denied on October 11th by iusd and on January 7th 2020 by the LA County

389board at the June 9th 2020 advisory Commission on Charter Schools meeting the accs moved the cde's staff recommend to deny the today's Fresh Start petition to the State Board of Education the motion passed by a vote of 6 to three our as stated our recommendation the Department's recommendation is that the State Board hold a public hearing to deny the request to renew TFS CSI a transitional kindergarten kindergarten through 8th grade Charter School under the oversight of the State Board this is going to be an acronym that I'm going to keep tripping over TFS CSI is demonstrably unlikely to unlikely to successfully implement the intended program the operational history of the today's fresh star organization exhibits ambiguity self- dealings and a lack of transparency conflicts of interest based on related party transaction and in its history

3902000 in 2007 today's Fresh Start countywide was revoked by the LA County Board of Education the petition does not provide a reasonably comprehensive description of the required elements and the petitioner has a past history of involvement in charter schools that the SBE May regard as unsuccessful little background on the school today's Fresh Start Englewood is currently authorized by Englewood un Unified School District and serves 430 tkk through grade 8 pupils on a private facility with a charter term as stated that ended on June 30th TFS Inc operated a countywide charter which was revoked and later closed in June 2015 petitioner also operates today's Fresh Start Compton authorized by the Compton Unified School District with the term that ends in 20123 today's fresh star intends to serve 527 students in tkk through grade A in 2021

391their mission is to educate each scholar individually and personally academically emotionally and socially to achieve their individual academic potential and personal best and you can see um on the graph that projected enrollment um starts at 527 for the next school year and moves up to 727 for 20242 the California Department of education's findings and concerns fiscal and governance concerns current governance concerns and past history of fiscal mismanagement management were critical in cde's recommendation of denial as it has an impact on today's fresh start's ability to serve its pupils operational history of today's Fresh Start exhibits ambiguity self- dealings and a lack of transparency resulting in adverse relationships with its authorizers conflicts of interest based on related party transactions which include transactions with golden day schools Inc Los Angeles School Services Inc and California construction Management

392Services TFS Inc has a long history of mov ment between authorizers as well as negative outcomes in terms of non-renewals and litigation including the 2007 today's Fresh Start countywide Charter revocation by the LA County Board of Ed conflicts of interest today's fresh star Inglewood contracted with California construction Management Services which is run by the petitioner's husband and for which the petitioner served as an officer golden day schools Inc is a related entity and run by a petitioner's husband contracted with with the CDE for child care services today's fresh start to Englewood audit findings which were upheld by the courts included findings of various improper conflicts of interest based on related entities and further note the Department of Education is currently in litigation against the golden Day school's Inc and the petitioner's husband to recover disallowed

393costs of approximately 20 million La School Services Inc an entity owned and operated by the petitioner and husband owns the building today's Fresh Start Compton leases the petitioner also appears to run religious organizations that use the today's Fresh Start address unsuccessful history today's Fresh Start Inc a nonprofit benefit Corporation has been operating Charter Schools since 2003 in 2007 their countywide was revoked by the LA County Board of Ed which resulted in litigation which was settled in 2015 when the revocation was upheld by the California Supreme Court today's Fresh Start Compton to uh in relation to today's Fresh Start Compton TFS Inc dissolved the countywide benefit after the revocation was upheld and filed a single School petition approved by the Compton Unified School District the California state budget impact this is as you will recognize the

394same slide we've been using in all of our uh appeals uh the last couple of days to describe and explain the budget impact um during this covid-19 pandemic and the impact it will have on the state budget to leas um including charter schools in 2021 and the future with the fiscal analysis we do not we did not find that uh today's Fresh Start um would would would have any fiscal issues um during this time or as we uh analyze their their budget and their budget projections would not have any any issues in terms of deferrals however as you can see here uh they have uh a projected enrollment of 527 with positive ending fund balances of 19 million over 19 million uh with reserves of 300% 295 per and 276 per for fiscal years 2020

395through 2023 respectively now that first block there includes their Charter School fa facilities Grant so when we take that out um of of their of their um budget they still are viable and they still have very large um ending fund balances and very large reserves the department of Ed is concerned about the following their High reserves are well above what is normally required by the State Board of Ed which is 5% and if you remember they have over a 100% reserves uh the tfsi um what we're concerned about is that they're not spending money on students being served by the school if they were investing resources in pupes I think you will see when we get to their academic achievement uh they would probably likely yield a more significant gain in academic achievement as well

396as when we noticed that these funding reserves were so high and we questioning whether or not they were spending money on students we did go out and look at the sarks um for some of the schools that we uh used in our comparable School comparisons with um today's Fresh Start Englewood and we did see that there was quite a gap in expenditures uh for 201819 year today's Fresh Start Englewood was spending 9500 $99,500 per pupil where the schools the comparable schools that we were we're comparing them to we spending between 12,000 and $119,000 per pupil so there's quite a large spending Gap um in expenditures at the school academic renewal criteria under Education Code 47607 The Authority that granted the charter shall consider increases in pupil pupil academic achievement for all groups of pupils as

397the most important factor and the entity that granted the charter determines that the academic performance of the charter school is at least equal to the academic performance of the public schools that the charter school pupils would otherwise have been required to attend I'm going to take my mask off just for a second because I have to have to breathe um deep breaths for a second uh the Department of Education findings we selected 11 schools serving similar grade spans where pupils would otherwise attend and that are comparable and that they have similar enrollment for similar significant subgroups the CDE has determined that the cast data demonstrates that TFS CSI does perform at least equal to the schools where the pupils would otherwise be required to tend attend however in general and Statewide this school is still

398academically low performing you will see in our comparable schools that we did use schools in Englewood as comparable schools and schools in La unified as comparable schools as according to our data uh a large uh proportion of their students at Englewood actually would be La unified students moving on to their dashboard uh their dashboard for 201819 and 19 in English language arts you'll see that they were in yellow in 2018 and have gone down in 2019 to Orange so there was a decline in in their in their colors for the dashboard um and Mathematics uh mathematics had a slight increase but stayed in the same color range there were decreases in Casp data um when you look at the ELA and math scores um for the various uh pupil groups um that attend the school

399there were decreases um some some more significant than others um but specifically in uh in ela for the soci economically and um for uh an Ela for Hispanic Latino students um decrease significantly Ed code 5252f allows charter schools to use alternative measures that show increases in pupil academic achievement for all groups of pupil schoolwide and among significant uh subgroups in order to meet renewal requirements the CDE reviewed the alternative measures information provided by today's fr fresh star the data shows that today's fresh star alternative measures reflect some increases in their Casp lpac and rfap I got to among the charter elements uh among the charter elements that uh we reviewed CDE finds that today's Fresh Start Englewood does not provide a reasonably comprehensive description of the following required Charter elements description of their educational program

400the governance structure suspension and expulsion procedures and dispute resolution procedures in terms of their educational program it lacks description of a comprehensive English learner plan projected enrollment does not include the number of TK pupils and special education services do not does not include sufficient information to show a Continuum of services in terms of the governance structure their bylaws reflect non-compliance with the brown act requirement allows regular meetings to be held without notice and no requirement for public notice of special meetings the today's Fresh Start conflict of interest code reflect non-compliance with the political reform act include includes exceptions and definitions that are contrary to government code 1090 incorrectly relies on California corporations code rather than government code section 1090 which is now required in conclusion CDE staff recommends denial of the today's Fresh Start Englewood

401petition the petition is unlikely to successfully imp ment the intended program based on involvement of current governance concerns in past history of fiscal mismanagement the petition does not provide reasonably comprehensive descriptions of all the required elements and that concludes my presentation thank you very much Stephanie uh this uh is the opening of the public hearing I declare the public hearing open as of 4:38 p.m. first we'll hear from the petitioners the petitioners will have 12 minutes then we'll hear from the district and County that are opposing the renewal petition they will also have a total of 12 minutes after the presentations from both sides there will then be an opportunity for public comment from any individual who has not already presented for one minute each um so we'll hear now from the petitioners hi there

402can you hear here and see me I saw some nods um so I guess I'll go ahead and get started so good afternoon board members my name is Janelle ruy I'm an attorney with the losses of youngan Corp another day of first uh speaking to you through a mask um so to kick things off I wanted to First dispense with a couple of the items that are more legal in nature uh first of all the law applicable to this renewal tells us that increases in in subgroup academic achievement is the most important factor again the most important factor in determining whether to Grant renewal uh today's Fresh Start has documented those increases in the past and we'll do so again today for you um in great detail crucially the CDE also found that today's Fresh

403Start met this academic threshold criteria so we're we're in agreement there second you may hear today and have heard already about claims of past performance that was unsuccessful or um or maybe allegations of conflicts of interest ultimately these claims what they boil down to is smoke but without any fire so the district county and the CDE have all stated that the today's Fresh Start Charter the countywide benefit Charter was revoked that's the exact same Charter that the state board approved in 2010 I I was there I personally was there this the State Board cannot renew a charter that was revoked it just can't happen so it wasn't revoked next uh the today's first start Englewood operates at a facility that was constructed with support from the charter school facilities program that's the building where we

404are all today the district has made allegations about a lease that the Compton School a separate Charter School entered into that particular property was acquired by The Parkers in the 1960s and used and it was used to provide free education to socioeconomically disadvantaged students that property is held in a Family Trust and it's leased at or below market rate to a preschool and then eventually sublet to Compton TFS Compton the site ownership has never been concealed and indeed the site was approved by the State Board in 2010 again as part of that countywide renewal and the fair political practices commission made a a determination that that the that the um Arrangement was lawful all of that is documented in your papers last you might hear about a Construction contract that's related to the Englewood site

405this construction project or contract is complete the contract is expired there's no live contract here the construction company employed Dr Parker's husband so there was a financial interest but it was properly disclosed contemporaneously both to the state board and to the Office of Public School construction all of these issues can be explained in a way that really does sound scary however the facts are that no Authority with jurisdiction has actually found a conflict of interest so with that out of the way I want to turn this over to Dr codo who's going to tell you all about the academics good afternoon esteem board allow us to show you a video about how great to today's Fresh Start is the great Maya Angelou said hope is Born Again In the faces of children we see that

406at today's Fresh Start Charter School in Englewood which serves more than 500 predominantly latinx and African-American students with a rich personalized learning experience from the moment children begin at today's Fresh Start they know they're in a special place where they're wrapped in support and learn learning is a joy in safe clean modern classrooms the schools student Scholars rise to meet the expectations of performance TFS academic scores rank well above other schools in the Englewood Unified School District the focus on technology helps prepare students for their Futures all students are provided with laptop computers and instructors use interactive Promethean boards today's Fresh Start welcomes students with special needs they benefit from caring on-site resource Specialists counselors and psychologists who provide patient holistic Services students especially love the state-of-the-art gymnasium on any day of the week you

407can find children playing sports and games engaging in after school activities attending school dances and enjoying other activities when school is not in session the gym is often used by members of the community TFS offers a nurturing environment for students espe and ESL students helping them to face and surmount challenges outside of school rather than using harsh or punitive discipline teachers talk to students about their home lives and take an interest in their future today's Fresh Start Englewood is dedicated to its mission of preparing students as lifelong Learners to participate responsibly in a diverse and changing World hello again my name is Pierre toio and I will be discussing the rest of this presentation to show that today's Fresh Start should remain open for years to come first of all let's talk about our governance

408structure our governance is controlled by five very experienced community-minded people and you see their accomplished names on your screen replete with knowledge and education law finance and government our our board does a great job of making sure that our parents are represented one board over seeing multiple Charters which was something that was discussed is the standard practice in the charter world and yearly our board receives Brown act training and compliance with legal with legal guidelines we're also an awardwinning school look at that screen that you're seeing this is this is not an exhaustive list we've been com we we've see commendations from the National Association of special education teachers for our special education process and how we do as a school we've also been received commendations from innovate Public Schools as a top school of

409choice for children of color we're also a part of National Honor Society fully accit edited by was and our students are sought after by some of the most prestigious high schools in California and quite frankly the country our school is raising the bar and closing the achievement Gap also looking at our dashboard you will see that we have a great school culture tfsi has achieved blue since the Inception of the dashboard or suspension and expulsions because we believe in counseling and mentoring our Scholars and their families with regard to the ability of successfully implementing the program as we stated to you in our April 3D letter our education program undeniably works as it relates to everything that we do because of our cast scores and now I'd like to take this time to discuss our

410authorizer Inglewood and the challenges they themselves are dealing with Englewood has been dealing with many many many many many challenges first of all with the closure of Freeman Elementary in 2013 also with the closure of Monroe and we'll talk about that in a moment in 2018 the closure and the reframing of Woodworth to become Woodworth Monroe at that same time and now they're about to have experienc possibly another closure with Warren Lane Elementary School and of course tfscs Englewood has been a stable consistent High performing School in the Englewood Community as it relates to our Ela scores you see from our 201819 data and you see that trend line of all comparable seventh and eighth grade schools within Inwood and you see very clearly that our scores are outpacing everything that's happening in Englewood Unified

411School District as well as the district as a whole the same story also Bears true for math where you're seeing all the different schools from buan all the way down to Warren Lane how we are performing as an institution we are raising the bar and closing the achievement G for our Scholars when you're looking at comparable un Los Angeles UniFi schools the same story Bears out with today's Fresh Start the third through fifth grade cluster outpacing the third through fifth grade clusters of our comparison schools doing the very same thing for ELA for sixth to eth grade when you look at our math scores again the same story Bears out honorable Ward with tfscs Englewood outpacing our other comparable schools we are indeed the highest performing school from all the comparable schools that we've received

412in middle school as well as Elementary because again we believe in raising the bar and closing the achievement gap for all of our Scholars so again let's go back to talking about how Englewood closures impacted our school Community if you take a look at the dashboard here you will see when Monro closed in 2018 um June 30th to be exact they're one mile north of today's Fresh Start so when they refrain Woodworth Elementary to become Woodworth Monro naturally all their children did not just transfer Monroe over to Woodworth Monroe many of their children over 50 of them enrolled to today's fresh start and because of their performance as you can see clearly identified here with very very very low points from distance from standard you will see that when they came to us they improved

413greatly we were able to take their score from 83.4 points district from standard in the 2018 testing year I'm sorry up to 74 [Music] following year 201 you'll also see as you accurately stated earlier that we were able to make gains within the same population with regard to math so again we are raising a bar and closing the achievement gap for our Scholars so this got us to thinking how are all of our Scholars doing once they transfer to us from other institutions so here's the information here when students transfer from other institutions that weren't doing them well or they weren't serving their their their students well when they came to us you see the trend line of improvement started with 74.7 distance for standard intake when they're with us in one year 53.5 all

414the way to three years plus we're closing the gap for our kids the same issue the same story I'm sorry Bears true for math with our children closing the Gap the longer they're with us so we know for a fact if we had those monre children earlier we would have close that Gap even further because of our process and our program and how excellent our how excellent we do things looking at it from distance from standard for the very same thing in ela the third through 5ifth all of that information Bears the same way with our students outperforming both Englewood unified as well as La unified comparable schools again that's true for our students in ela for sixth through eth grade and you'll see that also true from math third through 5th 6 through 8th

415ccsa at the California Charter Schools Association also stated that our school meets the minimal criteria and as you see it on your screen and we qualify for Renewal support based on academics because again of how we do business we raise the bar we close the achievement Gap we counsel our students we keep our students in classrooms and we do right by our kids now let's discuss continuity of learning because this is a very important piece of what we're doing in terms of moving forward today's Fresh Start is focused on strengthening our academic program in the midst of our covid-19 outbreak following all regulations and guidelines within two weeks and that is not a misprint within two weeks of the National Emergency 97% of our Scholars were engaged in online learning because we provided computers to

416them and had all their classes transition from what's Happening Here the School site into Google classroom and synchronous classes happening daily through Zoom we also again I share provider computer devices and we're not stopping there we're creating Partnerships with T-Mobile we also did a formative assessment in June to see exactly where our students were prior to them leaving and we will repeat that same assessment in the fall to see what happened over the summer so we can plant effectively for our Scholars we're also going to be purchasing new laptops so the students will be able to take their laptops home and also stay with us thank you so much today's Fresh Start should remain open thank you you still talking sorry thank you um we want to move now to the district uh County um

417Representatives let us know when you'd like us to begin when when you're ready okay thank you do you have a slide that you want to be showing because I don't see one yes um I'm sharing my screen we're just seeing a black um black screen at the moment let me try it again maybe unshare and then reshare yeah thank you how about now we can see it excellent so glad Dr Torres are you unmuted okay I'm unmuted can you hear me yes yes good afternoon honorable board members my name is Dr Erica Torres and I serve as the proud County Administrator of the Inglewood Unified School District we at Englewood unified are very passionate about education and putting our students first all students first we have students teachers administrators and parents all seeking to be

418heard today to support our district contrary to what today's Fresh Start has shared Inglewood UniFi is actually on the right students in Inglewood have Choice the district is transforming with amazing outcomes for students and we have many other charter schools within our district we are ensuring that every student regardless of raised ethnicity special needs are treated with care and respect and are able to learn as in a safe and nurt ing environment Inglewood has nine Charter Schools two were not removed both with academic performance issues TFS appealed the decision but children of Promise did not today's Fresh Start is operated by Janette Parker Janette Parker is married to Clark Parker The Parkers also operate other for-profit companies that contract with TFS the state board regulations require consideration of past performance and whether a charter school

419has had an unsuccessful history TFS has an unsuccessful history including misconduct TFS was revoked by Leo for a myriad of violations including the same conduct TFS has continued to pursue under its current Charters violation of conflict of interest laws and self-dealing including violation of governance requirements and brown Act and fiscal mismanagement TFS has pursued unsuccessful litigation against Leo the state and Inglewood Unified this simply shows no regard for compliance which translates into a failure to put students first and ensure them the education that they're entitled to receive our community and students deserve better than TFS we are a district On The Rise and expect Integrity compliance and collaboration with our education partners TFS has repeatedly asserted that it was not revoked it was in fact revoked as confirmed by Chief Council for this board this

420is also confirmed in the Leo board minutes Dr scorza yes thank you so much uh Dr touris and thank you uh August board members uh for listening to us today I am dartan sporza the President of the Eng Unified School District Board of Education and a UC region am Meritus you know I I really really want to thank you all for uh hearing us out as we take the time to share our concerns with you about The Parkers as well as today's fresh start because this the self- dealing concerns we have with their Charter Charter operations is not new as reported by a teacher of today's Fresh Start students go without inter internet adequate supplies or even books and yet rather than invest in students education today's Fresh Start has amassed a multi-million doll reserve

421and The Parkers pay themselves well over a million dollars annually through salary and contracts in fact today's Fresh Start made local and national news with their self dealing including being named by the Washington Post as one of the five most serious Charter School scandals in nationally you know it's not good for students and it's not good for Charter Schools um generally to have Bad actors enriching themselves in the name of charter schools you know as a as a native of Englewood who very much cares about our children who has my own children uh in our schools I want to ensure that all children in our district have access to institutions that are providing a great education for them and are ensuring that we're maintaining Integrity in our operations today's Fresh Start is not a good

422Steward of the sector with a history like TFS we would hope to see Lessons Learned and corrected conduct however the deficiencies with their practices the charter itself are ongoing and extremely serious despite efforts to close their financial benefits one of the TFS School sites is owned by The Parkers who lease the property to Los Angeles School Services Inc who in turn leases to TFS TFS is paying at approximately 800,000 in rent annually The Parkers financially benefit from contract between TFS and a construction management company owned and operated by The Parkers this is not putting the school and its students first cfs's board is not in control and there is a lack of transparency in their governance they skirt the law at every opportunity wrongfully operating a school outside the district and unsuccessfully suing the district

423when it tried to hold them to the requirements of the law these failures are serious and undermine the education for all of our students including those with disability good afternoon my name is Dr bernardet lucus Chief academic officer for the Inglewood Unified School District in reviewing the renewal petition academic performance was considered as the most important factor but critically TFS refused to cooperate with the district even refusing to to provide the 1819 cast data TFS asserted was it was embargoed even though State superintendent Thurman instructed charter schools in writing to share it with their authorizers TFS was trying to hide the serious declines now they claim the district did not consider the performance which is untrue on the day of the decision the data was obtained from the state and was incorporated in the district's

424consideration and decision that data and the county administrator consideration is part of the record the next slide clearly shows doubl digigit declines in nearly every grade the decline in 2018 2019 is shown here but the decline in both Ela and math performance was a trend over the five-year term TFS did not demonstrate increases in academic performance for all students this is a social justice issue for students in our district the declines were in every sub group is indicated on this slide served by TFS with elel and Hispanic pupils declining in the double digits the lakeo board like Englewood found that TFS did not meet the academic requirements for Renewal and unanimously denied the renewal petition my name is Aba andisa and I'm a teacher in Englewood and also the president of the Englewood Teachers Association

425the special education violations the district witnessed were particularly alarming when visiting the school the TFS special education administrator was asked how they address the needs of students with severe disabilities or that enroll with an IEP that requires a special day class she responded that they send them back to their home District a clear violation review of the disaggregated data provided by TFS shows that TFS serves a small smaller number and a smaller percentage of special needs students and primarily students with mild disabilities tsf reported no students with intellectual disabilities the district also found that the TFS numbers were skewed due to identifying the same student under multiple categories so the disaggregated data even skewed favorably to the tsf members after a careful review of all of the information and input I found t FS did

426not provide the requisite information to be eligible for Renewal and the cast uh data did not demonstrate increases and academic performance for all subgroup served Dr scoren yes thank you the leco board which revoked today's Fresh Start Charter in 2009 heard the TFS Englewood appeal board member Alex Johnson was concerned with whether things had changed at the charter school since that time our consideration of all aspects of this appeal uh is because of students because we care for children because we want to see every child succeed every child receive a high quality education and from my perspective as this one board m means that we do not turn an eye to the glaring concerns that are raised in this petition uh so my concerns uh rest as I said at the last I asked the

427question what has changed excuse me so since since you have worked since November which is a reasonable amount of time to make an assessment you can then uh give a perspective on whether or not this has been a board operating in correct I and I would not classify it as a board operating in name only but I also would not classify it as a board that is in so the consultant that spoke on behalf of TFS responded and confirmed that she would not classify the board as in full control and when we look to the change we can see that that Dr um Alex Johnson was looking for we can see that it has not occurred my name is suanne Evans and I am legal counsel for the district The Parkers have enriched themselves there's

428no question through the abuse of Dr Janette Parker's position at TFS now the district has focused on particular transactions one being the leases between the Los Angeles School services and today's fresh start and the construction Management Services agreement with today's Fresh Start these transactions are with companies that are owned and operated by Clark Parker Janette Parker's husband and operate out of property owned by The Parkers at 4508 pra which we will note in a few minutes is a site that today's Fresh Start also pays a lease for or has entered into a lease for um so this has gone on under this board it's been the same board for many many years at least five years and they reelect themselves um so we're we're not seeing any change we're not seeing a change in the

429governance even in the folks who are um stepping up to the plate to to run the program now where do we get this information all smoke no fire not true it comes from their own audits it's the Parker's audits that identify the related party transactions and the property leases with TFS and under these agreements TFS has paid companies again operated by The Parkers okay was that 12 minutes or did you give us 10 cuz my my clock is saying we have a little more time that was 12 minutes okay thank you I'm going to quickly finish um no time sorry I understand I'm just gonna finish my my comment and I'm going I'm not gonna go through all the slides but I do want to point out that the um these the their own tax

430records show that they did not go through any of the procedures for related party transactions they didn't even acknowledge them on their tax forms so I'll stop there but um we're available to answer questions and I know you all have copies of of our presentation thank you so at this juncture we're going to open up for public comment um members of the public wishing to provide comment may do so by calling uh the public comment number which we want to show on the screen we can get that up there uh um and um listen access code 65195 pound listen to the message uh when when prompted dial star six and then when prompted dial one be sure to turn down the volume of your computer uh if you have the live webcast on to avoid

431a background Echoes we did have trouble with that earlier in the day when it's your turn to speak an operator will announce please say your name and affiliation begin public comment and your time begins now uh can we have the translator uh do that same translation with the Spanish version do we still have our translator translator are you available to read the Spanish slide yes ma'am I am right here sorry I was on mute thank you very much much um we will start the public comment now I will personally have to leave for a little bit um in the middle and I'll be back and um if there is a need in that time vice president Strauss will be chairing so let callers On the Line Please be aware that the item is number 21

432for today's Fresh Start please uh if you are calling for another item please hang up now this is today's Fresh Start item 21 caller you are unmuted please state your name and affiliation for the record caller are you there caller Are you a ailable uh hello yes you're on online please please state your name and affiliation for the record I am Carol freeze and I've been on the board of today's Fresh Start for about 10 years uh today's Fresh Start Englewood deserves a renewal of the charter in this underserved Black and Hispanic Community our academics are good and we're always striving to do better we have wonderful people there's no good reason to deny the charter we have a highly professional and competent hardworking dedicated staff we're an asset to the community and a lovely

433facility we have state-of-the-art technology in each classroom our parents have asked to keep the school open with impassioned letters and signed petitions our students have asked to keep the school open with notes and drawings members of our community have asked to keep the school open and letters sent in support of the petition it would be a tragedy to close this school Terri part of thriving learning community and harm the educational and social environment of the deserving students who need every break they can get in the society this wonderful Charter would not should not be shut down for the wrong reasons time thank you speaker next speaker you are unmuted please state your name and affiliation for the record hi this is Deon faul can you hear me yes please go ahead speaker okay thank you

434so much hi my name is Dion faul and I am a board member of the education of Englewood Unified School District as we do with all of our Charter Schools the district exercise appropriate oversight over today's Fresh Start during its tenure in our district our administrative team ensures that each of our charter schools complies with the law monitors their academic performance and oversees their operations to make certain that students are receiving the education that they deserve and as contemplated by the charter schools act not only did today's Fresh Start fail to meet the academic eligibility requirement for Renewal but other deficiencies as reflected in our Ren findings and as confirmed by Leo compel denial of the renewal we want to make clear that it is the independent analysis of both our District staff and also

435the experts on behalf of Leo that has reached the same conclusion that renewal is not warrant renewal is not time okay thank you thank you speaker next speaker you are unmuted please state your name and affiliation for the record I am Bishop Johnny Young the former in univers School District Board of Education member and president from 2003 to 2015 education of code section [Music] a3a compels authorizers to consider pupil academic achievement as the most important factor for Charter School renewal if deny a r a petition and authorizer is required to independently review the fact and make its own finding based upon specific facts it has examined in the record in the two PR Charter renew approved by Eng UniFi School District the old stale issues were reviewed and determined to be irreverent time we urge

436this on Bo and the church thank you speaker thank you next speaker please state your name and affiliation for the record your time starts now speaker are you available yes I'm Bishop Craig Brown I'm an Inglewood area member um Association ministers Association Executive Board member we all know that when high achieving students are forced to attend lower achieving schools their academic performance significantly declines Stanford University Center for research on education outcomes Credo found that the typical student in a charter school gains more learning in a year than his or her District school Pier amounting to about 50 more days of learning in reading and an additional 79 days of learning in math today's Fresh Start has shown this progress and should not be closed because the regulations and statutes state that academic performance should be

437the highest determination to Grant renewal thank you thank you next speaker speaker please state your name and affiliation for the record your time starts now hello I'm Sicily Binger I'm a kindergarten teacher with Englewood um the operator of tsf have a decades long record of what amounts to robbery of presses and limited State funds to enrich themselves on the backs of thousands of unsuspecting and vulnerable students and families as a mandated reporter I'm compelled to point out that using children to enrich yourself and for your pleasure is T to amount to nothing less than thinly failed child molestation allowing even a single scent of taxpayer money to underwrite child molestation is unconscionable SBE don't allow yourself to be groomed by these Predators you must deny the charter today I see my time thank you thank

438you speaker next speaker next speaker please state your name and affiliation for the record please your time starts now now speaker are you online my name is next speaker please state your name and affiliation for the record hello Board of Education and its members my name is Christina Ramirez I am a parent at today's first star Charter School Englewood first off I would like to say that tfscs has provided my son with an amazing learning experience he has learned Beyond his grade level and his test scor test scores are above the district level he has accomplished so much in the four years he has attended tfscs in Gua it would be very heartbreaking not only to myself but most important to my son to have his school closed especially through these difficult times we are

439living in just to think of the idea of having to look for a new school upsets me we are going through a pandemic that has changed the world and has changed our children's lives why take more away from them why take away a school that not only has provided an excellent education but most important a safe environment for all our children please understand the importance of keeping our school open please keep tfss Englewood open do it for our children now my son is going to speak hello Department of Education and members my name is Sebastian Rodriguez and I am the scholar at today's F starart of school Inglewood I would like to start off by saying that tfss Inglewood is my second home I have learned so much at the school I have had amazing

440teachers that have helped me accomplish some of my goals and I've contributed to the young man I am today it makes me sad just to hear that my school might be closed covid-19 has taken away one of my family members it will break my heart up to also have my school taken away from me please keep my school open give me the right to continue to succeed as they have the most important where I feel comfortable do it for me in my future thank you thank you speaker next speaker please state your name and affiliation for the record your uh time starts now hi my name is Paula Epstein and I am an employee of today's Fresh Start I've been an employee for 10 years I have seen firsthand the care and concern that all

441employees have for all of our students we don't pick and choose who our students are we accept any and all students that come to our doors for enrollment we only use positive methods to reach all of our students it's evident that our procedures are working when you look at our data we have been honored to receive many accolades we're very excited to have many students that are members of the elementary and Junior Honor Society and when we had the initiation ceremony for the Honor Society all the Inglewood board members were invited sadly to say none attended this is unconscionable our School tfscs Englewood does not deserve to be shut down due to political issues over 500 students and their families have chosen tfscs we are a caring High performing school that demands and DED thank

442you speaker ra the bar thank you so much thank you next speaker you are now unmuted please State your uh name and affiliation for the record your time starts now hi I'm yita FES please renew today's Fresh Start Charter School engood charter the school moves forward to reach Excellence at our school we monitor our students progress routinely we have high success rates because we are resourceful and use strategies that work to help each student we have parents and students with us since their child started kindergarten and have finished eighth grade many parents continue to enroll the younger siblings because of the good work we have done done I am also calling on behalf of several English Learners parents who could not call in we provide designated and integrated English language development and teacher support we

443have an active dag we provide parent workshops and reading groups such as La lectura for all of our parents uh so they can continue reading at home please renew today's frar Charter School englewoods charter for the sake of our future thank you thank you speaker next speaker you are in the you please state your name and affiliation for the record your time starts now good afternoon I am Terence banian and I the current music director instructor of today's Fresh Start charter school with steam Academy with a full-time music program today's fresher Charter School established and created a school Mass Choir guidelines these guidelines in accordance with the California music standards are now working as an effective core foundation and basis of our Coral music program the students are more engaged and motivated to learn and

444always looking forward to our music class and choir rehearsals the parents are supportive and grateful that we have the music program that is designed to help their child to enhance their psycho modern effective and cognitive development in addition the students are growing towards good and positive behavior not just in school but also in our community in regard to this I hope that you renew our Charter School to continue our commitment to educate our students and guide them towards brighter future today's fresh to Charter School is committed to our promise of raising the bar and closing the achievement Gap thank you so much thank you next speaker please state your name and affiliation for the record your time starts now speaker hello yes pleasa please go ahead and state your comment hello my name is Dr

445Young from today's frar CH school I have I support this the school renewal the school has cred the uh uh since the news of the the closure of the school many families have been restless and uncomfortable thinking that they they have nowhere else to go the issue has so devastated them that I have received more than 50 calls from my relative parents and Friends who whom their kids are in to this rest ter they were all expressing the heart is going to cause them because they feel they have no hope anywhere since all the schools around them usually have low skulls in tests in fact there is no school you can compare with today's fresh start school that that was why it was difficult for them in my mind I feel the issue of closing

446the school it's merely political if not I wonder why they have not seen the impact of thank you speaker your time is up we appreciate you calling in thank you all right thank you next speaker you are now unmuted please State uh your name and affiliation for the record the time starts now this is catlyn O'er on behalf of the charter schools Development Center today's Fresh Start Englewood is a school with a charter that should be renewed according to C's own analysis today's Fresh Start has a viable budget and may perform academically comparable or higher than the schools around them they are an award-winning School fully accredited by was and they have a great school culture as shown on their dashboard this school is an important option for the students and families in Englewood and

447I urge you to approve their Charter petition thank you thank you next speaker you are now unmuted please state your name and affiliation for for the record your time starts now hello hello can you hear me yes thank you please go ahead and state your comments hi my name is Marie Lesley I'm a teacher of Englewood Unified School District third grade teacher for the past 30 years um I was first introduced to um firstes start Charter when a parent approached me regarding her child failing in school I tested to two this child I tested him and he was like at a second a first grade reader I we conferenced with the teacher to find out what was the problem and what was she doing to facilitate um his learning and she was not able to

448provide anything substantial to show us why or how or what he was doing in school she said he was doing fine he was a well-b behaved student however um she thought that he was doing fine where I thought that he was really below and needed additional support so I I didn't feel that the school genuinely provided the rich enrichment for these um thank you speaker your your time's up uh thank you for calling in next speaker you're unmuted please state your name and affiliation for the record your time starts now miss Mary vau teacher in Englewood Unified School District I calling in support of the Englewood Unified School District Leo and CDE decision to deny the renewal of today's fresh start this public school is not providing the Englewood residents with free and appropriate educational

449programs in elll programming or special day classes this school is located in a p a minority Community where these services are vital this policy is being used to weed out the students with the greatest needs our Inglewood children deserve better all today's Fresh Start students are invited Ed to enroll in Englewood Unified Schools where these services are in place such as woodw mro Warren Lane benit q and all other iusd schools they can visit www. Englewood usd.com for further details on enrollment for the 2021 school year thank you thank you speaker next speaker please state your name and affiliation for the record your time starts now speaker are you on the line hello hi my name is Pastor Deo fishr and as a stakeholder for my membership I am compelled to fight for the renewal

450of today's fresh Charter um I believe that we are facing times like never before in this pandemic and I find it criminal that we would be taking away way a viable option when education is being debated whether it be a hybrid online or face to face I believe that our students in Inglewood need every option that we can provide and today's first Charter based on the academics that have been displayed earlier is a viable option for our students thank you very much thank you next speaker you're um you're now unmuted please state your name and affiliate ation for the record your time starts now uh good afternoon my name is Lena atua instructional coach for Englewood Unified School District uh I'm here today to ask that you deny the renewal of the charter for today's

451Fresh Start um Charter School we're hearing that the charters believe that their students are their top priorities but I believe that the evidence shows that money is their top priority they are self-interested and they have had a history of financial conflicts of interest um number one we've heard about them renting own uh buildings owned by The Parkers we also know that they're paying golden day schools to provide food for their Charter students they spent about $50,000 with State Grant to hire an unaccredited University to recommend ways to improve their Charter this University was founded by Janette Parker more than half of the board has a financial stake in the schools uh additional The Parkers donated $73,000 to State superintendent of instruction Jackal Connell who led the department staff in recommending that the board keep uh

452T tfss open thank you thank you speaker next speaker you are now unmuted please state your name and affiliation for the record your time starts now hello hello yes can you hear me yes we can please go ahead and state your comment comments my name is Pauline Miller I have a board member for today's Fresh Start for over five years and we do not get paid we're there to volunteer to make sure the school is ran in the proper way that it should be run I am also a volunteer at the school have been for 11 last 11 years every day I'm there my three grandchildren and my one nephew are a students they make excellent grades because the teachers are caring and making sure that the students are learning we have an excellent counseling

453and um special education Pro special ed program we have an after school program that is very good that teaches works with the students to do homework and tutoring and uh any wherever they is needed our teachers do also after school tutoring we have a um our all students at the school through 8th grade take the N test on thank you speaker uh your time has expired uh we appreciate you calling in next speaker please state your name and affiliation for the record you're unmuted hello yes your time starts now thank you my name is chuk zulia Buu I am a student of today's Fresh Start charger school please renew the school because it is better than any other school I have been to the teaching system is very good the environment is clean and I

454never experienced buing in this school my name is m chield I am a student of to play F start out of school please renew the school childood because I have lots of friends in the school I do not want to lose the teachers are very good I do not want to go through a new school in this Corona virus time thank you speaker next speaker you are now unmuted please State your affiliation and name for the record your time starts now we have four speakers in this call can we get our own uh time for each yes each speaker will get a minute each thank you okay okay here comes the first speaker hello my name is Falon FY I'm a teacher with today's Fresh Start Charter School I have observed this school heavily invest

455in classroom resources and materials such as laptops for every student that have been recently distributed to the students for distance learning as smartboards and or Promethean boards are in every classroom the school has provided their science teachers with resources such as robots and their software microscopes to investigate the DNA of a strawberry for example laboratory equipment to observe chemical reactions they have also purchased Common Core intervention booklets to prepare our students for the smarter balance tests which of course was not given because of the pandemic test scores outrank those of the surrounding Englewood Unified School District the school has also invested in many professional development programs and webinars for their teachers and their staff thank you thank you next speaker please my name is aness solman on behalf of the student parents community and Educators

456that make up today Fresh Start I call on your support in renewing our shter we have today Fresh Start we support our Scholars academically using multiple academic tools to build strong student teacher relationship we endorse positive character development during the pandemic we have implemented the Oneness program to check on our student and do to do assessment to meet their needs we have counselors psychologists behavioral coach on campus to assist our student to navigate their daily challenges most of all we encourage our student to achieve their educational potential our mission is to provide each student an opportunity for a great public education thank you good afternoon this is Miss baras a teacher here at today's Fresh Start Charter School requesting that you approve the renewal of our Charter I've been blessed to see how our school

457have grown and progress from eight Bungalow to 20 beautiful high-tech classrooms a gymnasium offices and more we have computers for every child from TK to8 smartboards projectors and other tools to use for teaching and learning I've seen the hard work and education of our superintendent our administrators teachers and staff to provide everything that our families and our community needs to raise the bar and close the stent gaps during this time of pandemic our school was able to transition from on-site learning to distance learning days after the school was closed the school was able to provide grab and grow meals to our families to our community in addition our school also provided laptops for all our students work packets login information to online resources and technical support for those who need it tfscs is an important

458part of our community for teachers staff parents and students this is our family and our home the families in the community that we serve rely on us to provide them with good education that we've been doing ever since please Grant a request to renew our Charter our families our students matter we matter thank you for your time thank you and here's the voice of a parent um is there one more speaker or was that our last speaker uh we still have one more okay thank you you may may go ahead please speaker can you move closer to to the mic we're unable to hear you yeah sorry the parent says that uh the teachers were patient and that the help provided to the students um during school and after school with homeworks had they have

459made a big difference in my child's academic performance and for that reason she is very grateful with the teachers and the administrators at the school thank you thank you speakers um do we have one more or has everyone spoken that's all thank you thank you thank thank you very much for calling next speaker please state your name and affiliation for the record you are now unmuted and your time starts now my name is Alex grixby and I am a board member of the Englewood Unified School District I'm here to urge the denial of the renewal petition for today's first start this school has not been a good partner with the district and nothing about their interaction with the district could be characterized as even remotely Cooperative their La of cooperation with the district epitomizes their

460longstanding history of antagonism toward their authorities as well which includes a prior revocation of the Los Angeles County Office of Education the evces has been presented both the Inglewood UniFi School District board and the LA counted board time recommended I urge the denial of today's first start thank you thank you speaker next speaker please state your name and affiliation for the record you are unmuted and your time starts [Applause] now hello my name is Dr Murphy I'm the principal of V school I met a mother of four children M from today fresh those children here with me yes speaker um I believe your computer uh volume is up and we're getting an echo could you please turn it down for us can you hear me now yes perfect thank you and thank you my name

461is Dr Murphy I am the principal of Ben Q school I met a mother and father of four children who were Scholars from today's Fresh Start the parents of these children shared with me that their children's start was not fresh they indicated the school's environment was very chaotic and there were many behavioral issues that were swept under the rough there were no positive behavior supports in place and their son was even injured in class and there was no contact made to them as parents from Administration they also shared that the school's curricular resources were low and even students deaths were limited fast forward they Shar with me that if they knew what they knew about our school district they would have had their children in our school district instead of today's Fresh Start they shared

462with me thank you uh your time has expired uh next speaker please uh state your name and affiliation for the record your time starts now hello my name is Travino Jones and I am a teacher here in Englewood Unified School District I'm here to voice my strong opposition to the renewal of today's Fresh Start Charter School their behavior is particularly egregious in light of the fact that our that our state is entering into to yet another budgetary crisis where each dollar for our Public Schools is invaluable this Charter has had countless opportunities to demonstrate that they are a good partner in education however today's Fresh Starts unethical practices have been going on for years without any accountability and continue to this day I ask that you listen to our voices this is a charter school

463that is being opposed at all levels of the local community from myself as a classroom teacher to our local teachers union to District administr ation to the mayor of Englewood and by unanimous agreement by the Los Angeles County Board of Education the Los Angeles time has several stories on today's Fresh Start Shady dealings today's Fresh Start does not deserve renewal and I ask that you recommend denial of this petition thank you thank you next speaker please state your name and affiliation for the record you are unmuted and your time starts now hello this is Margaret Evans and I'm a board member of the Englewood Unified School District I want to raise to the commission the telling exchange that occurred during the public hearing before the Los Angeles County Board of Education on the chart of

464schools renewal during the public hearing today's Fresh Start was asked a simple question by board member Johnson about what has changed since they were revoked in 2007 by the County Board the board member wanted to know to what extent the charter school learned from its prior M Seasons with respect to its inade governance leading to self-dealing transactions and conflicts of interest the charter school struggled and ultimately failed to provide a satisfactory answer in fact rather than answering the question they appear to defy the concern namely they claim they that they re that the revoked program was a different Charter School than the one previously overseen by the County Board despite having the same name same program same operators and same board today's fresh start simply does not reflect his any intention to change instead the

465renewal documents and and their prior history indicates the intention to continue their problem course thank you please deny them thank you speaker next speaker please state your name and affiliation for the record your uh time starts now and you're unmuted my name is Daniel red I'm a credential teacher for today's Fresh Start charter school and I'm for the renewal of today's fresh star charter school where would your lives be without education teachers and most of all a school of choice attending to the data for the assessment of student performance and progresses website today's Fresh Start charter school has given students and parents an opportunity to access a safe school where students are achieving literacy in English and math at today's Fresh Start charter school students are learning the United States Constitution how to vote and

466the joy of practicing Democracy in America at today's Fresh Start charter school students have shown patterns of never showing up late and having perfect attendance throughout the school year at today's Fresh Start charter school they have helped me to clear my single subject teaching credential that was recommended to the California Commission on teacher credentialing by the Los Angeles County Office of Education at today's Fresh Start charter school we can consistently talk and have professional developments with experts in the field of Education that can help our school stay in existence and possibly build relationships and today's Fresh Start charter school and our community that have never been in existence before on behalf of today's Fresh Start thank you speaker your time is up that you got today's Fresh Start Charter School's license thank you thank you

467next speaker please state your name and affiliation for the record you're unmuted and your time starts now hello my name is Josephine Williams and I was going to say something else but I am really upset because I know for a fact that today's Fresh Start families have been coming to iusd to get breakfast and lunch for their children and I am also highly offended and concerned because was that the same Bishop Young Who allegedly helped lead iusd into consultancy and has been trying to be hired Again by IUSB these are the people today's gra start hang out with it's about money it is not about the children and I'm tired of people coming into Englewood and trying to make money off our children enough is enough to The Parkers the bishop young and everybody else

468and that fake dashboard that you showed with yellow and and yellow and orange of CD showed and yours is all green stop the lying it's about money we need more for our students I am tired time thank thank you speaker next speaker please state your name and affiliation for the rec record you're unmuted and your time starts now hello yes please state your name and affiliation for the record your time starts now is it me it's you you're the next caller all right thank you thank hi there my name is Sanga and I want to celebrate first uh our school with hard work and cooperation of the administration teachers and students families did a fantastic job preparing and training both teachers and students transferred to online education during this unexpected pandemic and I must say

469I am grateful we are grateful for all comments from all involved and be value that now I humbly ask you to please Grant the opportunity to continue to serve our children families and communities all we need is a chance to continue working to make our school better sir Madam we have the ability to ability and the motivation to Sol our many challenges and so do our students we are not a perfect school we are not perfect s and Madam but we need open for Corrections we want to be better and please grant us the opportunity thank you speaker your consideration thank you speaker we appreciate thank you thank you next speaker please state your name and affiliation for the record your time starts now my name is tanra fena I am a parent in Englewood

470unified in regards to today's Fresh Start the court of appeal appaled the finding that golden Day School a prescho operated by Janette Parker wrongfully sought reimbursements from the State Department of Education for 48 employees there were actually employees of today's Fresh Start in other words while TFS was receiving Ada funding the coverage payroll Dr Parker was claiming reimbursement from the state for these same employees including Clark Parker son-in-law under its preschool contract with the State Department of Education the court found as a result the Departments determined that $93,600 in payroll costs relating to today's press Start were inappropriately charged to the child development program for the period July 1 to 26 um 2006 through June 30th 2008 within a month after the Judgment against suay for about three million thank you speaker your time is

471up we appreciate you calling in next speaker please state your name and affiliation for the record your time starts now hi my name Isa Johnson and my son Isaac attends today's Fresh Start I enrolled Isaac at this school because we live in a country where black students are least likely to become proficient readers by third grade be placed in gifted and talented education programs be taught by credential teachers who share their cultural experiences even though this doubles the likelihood they can attend college and they are least likely to feel emotionally safe and valued this school provides these supports exuses to follow the 60-year-old trend of leaving students black students in particular behind lost chains and transitions are realities that students of color know all too well and significantly devastates their life chances please don't introduce

472another disruption to our students by closing the doors of this school my son deserves better I looked around Englewood and South Del La for a school that was free that was clean that had resources and that would value my son I found it in today's Fresh Start thank you so much for your time and thank you for listening thank you caller next caller please state your name and affiliation for the record um you are unmuted and your time starts now hi my name is yel gers and I'm a teacher in Englewood Unified School District I previously taught at laera which is a k a a K8 school that does everything that Fresh Start says that they do there is nothing unique about what fresh start does and and you guys have even shown that their

473test scores are the same as us so they're not doing anything special I would like before you vote to take a look at Anna Phillips Los Angeles Times for March 27th 2019 about and that is one of the reasons why I am so against fresh start because they are making money off of those kids and not giving them all the resources that they need we in Englewood give every resource we can we have after school programs we have tutoring we have all kinds of things we have robotics they are not offering anything that we don't offer and we gave out laptops I even was one of the teachers who gave out laptops when we have to close our doors on March 13th please deny this sham of a CH school thank you thank you speaker

474next speaker uh you are now in the queue please state your name and affiliation for the record your time starts now my name is Al Hernandez DeLuna and I'm representing today's pro charter school I recently graduated from tscs this school has changed me academically for the best I have been able to get a a number of opportunities while attending for example being being a part of the National Junior Honor Society teachers inspired guide Enlighten and motivate Scholars every day when learning new aspects they remind you all the time to believe in yourself and always be the best of you the staff here are incredibly considerate of the scholars when needed you know you can count on them for anything I would really like to see my sister graduate at today's first night charter school thank

475you thank you next speaker you are now unmuted please State your name and affiliation for the record hello can you hear me we can hear you hello yes please yes my name is pette Francis and I'm a teacher for England UniFi school district and I'm urging the board to deny the charter today's fresh Charter today's fresh Charter School represents all the lowest standards of unethical behavior that has been well documented day and in the local media it is important important that all schools whether public or Charter are held to the same high ethical standards of behavior because education our children matters not only does their education matter but who educates educates our children also matters and it's time for the board to stop win blinking and turning a blind eye to unethical behavior of such

476Charters as today's fresh start so I urge you to deny renewal of today's fresh Charter thank you thank you next speaker you are now unmuted please state your name and affiliation for the record hi this is um Diamond Logan and I have three kids that attend Fresh Start charter school I'm a parent and I would be very sad if the school closes my kids are doing well academically and I have a daughter that just graduated 8th grade and she will be attending the viny high which is a prime School charter school in Hawthorne and my second and fourth grader are doing very well and I I assisted them doing the learning and the teachers provided them with so much work as if they were in school and I would be very disappointed if the school

477closed we've tried Inglewood schools and they just did not exceed like they are doing at today's fresh tart thank you thank you next speaker you are now unmuted please state your name and ilation for the record your time starts now good afternoon my name is saana k from good afternoon my name is saana k a student from today's first school I'm calling to plead on behalf of today's first star CH School inle Wood please do not close the school down it is like a home to me and my siblings here we have we have learned and educate achieved because of the school there are amazing teachers who come to work every day to teach us there are beautiful classes and environments here they acceptance for who we are if we close the school down we

478will me and my service will have no school to go to we this is one of the kind and this is a right school for us so for the sake of children and parents please do not call the school down I love the school thank thank you thank you thank you speaker next speaker please state your name and affiliation for the record you are now unmuted and your time starts now asra flowers licensed clinical social worker and parent um I would like to strongly encourage that we keep the school open my daughter has been attending this school since um kindergarten and she absolutely loves it it's a second home for her she has really become a scholar here the administrative the administration is very supportive all her teachers have been supportive towards her growth um

479she's really sared here um you know her learning during covid-19 has been a smooth transition and I really would like to say it's really hard right now trying to find a school during covid-19 um to to find somewhere to take our children and I would really like for you all to consider the parents that are working every day in this current time um also I'd like to keep my child in a community that um teaches them about their Heritage and in Englewood she learns that from the school and so please keep Charter School open thank you speaker next speaker please state your name and affiliation for the record you are unmuted and your your time starts now hello my name's Ariel uh my niece attends today's Fresh Start I'm calling in support of today's Fresh

480Start Charter School in Englewood my niece and our family have all been a part of the today's Fresh Start Community for six plus years um while attending the school she's reached many academic Milestones some of them being on honor rooll and also being inducted into the junior Honors Society outside of academic she's also thrived by gaining uh the skill of public speaking that came from after school programs and cheerleading which she enjoyed which was just one of the many um after school programs she attended this past year transitioning to online learning with Speedy organized seamless um during the covid pandemic that we're all dealing with um the school is not only important to her but to our family and the community do not close the school um it would be a disservice please keep today's

481fr are open not only for the community but for our children thank you thank you speaker next speaker please state your name and affiliation for the record you are unmuted and your time starts now hello yes hello yes we can hear you please proceed with your comments yes my name is Irene green and I am the principal of celil Elementary school and I just wanted to state that the district has properly denied today's Fresh Start renewal petition the charter school fails to meet the academic renewal eliga and Education Code 47607 subdivision B the school has not de is not likely to successfully implement the program presented in the petition the petition failed to provide a reasonably comprehensive description of all required elements of a charter petition and the charter school presents an unsound educational program

482for the pupils to be enrolled in a charter school Dr Torres based upon all the information presented regarding today's Fresh Start history its failure to meet academic performance requirements its lack of cooperation and compliance its ongoing violations of laws laws designed to protect students public funds and thank you speaker your time is your your time is up speaker thank you very much for your call thank you very much next next speaker please state your name and affiliation for the record you are unmuted and your time starts now oh hello uh can you hear me yeah yes we can hear you can my name is Gavin English I'm a special ed teacher with uh Englewood Unified School District and I just wanted to uh point out that that schools like this are are present a a

483a uh real disservice to to the community and for for the sheer uh reason that they they don't accept students with severe disabilities all of these students are turned away and that is a it's a disservice to the community it's a disservice to these students it's discrimination and that's just one of the reasons that this Charter uh Charter needs to be denied thank you thank you speaker next speaker please state your name and affiliation for the record you are unmuted and your time starts now now hello good evening everyone can you hear me yes pleasa please go ahead and begin your comments my name isona I'm a parent of today my daughter attends today fresh start school this school is a very good school I see both academically and uh morally Improvement in the life

484of my two kids I'm also a student I'm a nursy student and the the teachers they work with parents also please it will be a very big stress for me if this school is closed down help me to support my dream as a nor by opening this school because it will be hard for me to look for another school for my kids the school we are doing well even my sister's son is there he has disability he's improving no pee on himself they cooperate with us they they have good teachers that work with kids according to the way they can learn please for the family thank you so much speaker your time's up we appreciate your call next speaker please state your name and affiliation for the record you are unmuted and your time starts

485now Jenice Wallace engood teacher if today's Fresh Start had a 97 to 100% participation in their continuity of learning during covid-19 why did we receive requests from today's Fresh Start students and their families when they came to our benit Q Monroe and hudel Elementary campuses from Englewood UniFi School District to provide them with laptops while receiving the meals we provided our families in need this is because today's fresh Dart families needed assistance from their local public schools that they have not re received from the school that their children is enrolled in of all of the charter schools in Inglewood today's Fresh Start students were the only ones asking for iusd laptops please deny their renewal request thank you thank you next speaker please state your name and affiliation for the record you are unmuted and

486your time starts now hello yes please go ahead okay I'm Dr Charles ofu I'm calling to ur you to please renew the CH for the today's R school I have two kids in that school and before I brought them there I put them in many schools which wasn't good in one of the school districts they were receive they were constantly being bullied I haven't seen any school around this place that is as good as that school for now and I just noticed a lot of people are saying a lot of things but what's on the ground shows that they are having good results so I urge you to please renew that PO thank you thank you next speaker please state your name and affiliation for the record you are unmuted and your time starts now

487hello my name is lenise Porter and I'm calling and I'm calling to support the decision made by the Englewood Unified school district and the CDE to deny the renewal to today's Fresh Start there are several newspaper articles that tell the community about their illegal operations speaker are you still and approving them to remain open in our minority Community we will send a message to you that the state value minority students less than the more of affluent area communities please support our community in removing illegal operated organizations who benefit financially without providing adequate services for our children thank you thank you next speaker please state your name and affiliation for the record you are now unmuted and your time starts now hello my name isono I a student from today's fresh starter school I believe that

488my school should not close or shut down the reason I say this is because at my school the teachers are very nice very and there is also a very good educational system the school is great our T state test have always been good and those are my reasons I say my school should stand because it has made me the person that I am today because I have been at that school since kindergarten and I am now going to the sixth grade for these reasons I beg you all to let my school open to educate other learning Mar thank you next speaker please state your name and affiliation for the record you're now unmuted and your time starts now good afternoon my name is gani Mahala calling on behalf of today's fres CH school I have

489the pleasure of working with this wonderful Organization for more than six years at today's Fresh Start we have a great special education program our special education program has been successful in providing educational opportunities for individuals with disabilities we have effective special education staff who Inspire and encourage our students to achieve success inside and outside outside the classroom please approve our school so we can continue helping our students successfully develop to their fullest potential thank you thank you next speaker please state your name and affiliation for the record you are now unmuted and your time starts now speaker are you hi my name is Dr Ken yes we can you hear me yes we can hear you thank you hi my name is Dr C and I am a parent and an employee in Inglewood Unified

490School District I am asking to deny the charter renewal as a Charter's purpose is to provide services that are unavailable in their home districts this is not the case as Englewood UniFi provides the same programs and a vast amount of programs districtwide as a parent you want what's best for your children that is why my four children have attended is Dent kindergarten with one entering her senior year in college this would not be possible if it were not for the love commitment from our teachers our staff and our community in Englewood UniFi School District so for that I am asking that they deny the charter uh renewal of today's Fresh Start thank you thank you next speaker please state your name and affiliation for the record we are now unmuted and your time starts now

491speaker hello yes hello yes you are now unmuted in your this is Jo this is Joy I just called because um I had a lie that was so Harding to me I had somebody say that this uh people from today's fresh that came to their school to get laptops that's a big lie and it's so hurting because today's fretch they have their own laptop and every student got laptop my children got laptop and when it's not okay we go back to the school and we change it we did not get laptop from anybody and that lie was so bad they shouldn't they shouldn't be lying please thank you th thank you and uh callers please remember that each individual is allowed one minute each um next speaker uh please state your name and affiliation for

492the record your time start you are unmuted and your time starts now hello yes please please state your name and affiliation for the record hi my name is kenu an I'm a teacher from Englewood I am calling to oppose the renewal of today's fresh Stark Charter this school does not deserve to have its Charter renewed evidence is indicat that the school has historically been doing Shady business not putting the students needs be for the gains of their leaders this charter school is not servicing the community's total student population including those students with severe disabilities who are sent away to their home schools in addition erratic academic performances is one more reason enough to deny the renewal of the school instead I would like to invite the current students to attend the Englewood Unified School District

493our caring and dedicated teachers and staff welcome you with open arms we will make sure that you will be careful and your academic needs will be blessed we spend more time money for student speaker speaker thank you for your time your time is up um just a quick reminder each individual is allowed one public comment for one minute unfortunately we'll have to disconnect people who are calling in more than once um next speaker please state your name and affiliation for the record and you are unmuted and your time starts now hello yes pleas please state your name my name is Ike I'm calling on behalf of today's fres school World um I want to say like um the school is a very good school for my case I have two two sons over there the

494learning and the welcoming environment is so lovely especially this time of the pandemic I don't know if the school should be closed what I'm going to do with my kids and they they love it they are looking forward like you know going to school every day so please I'm in support with this T and the students to keep the school open thank you then uh I have my to say something about it thank you um hello my name is hen and I am in for with going to S tfss hard school and I would like to say that tfss is a good school and we have good teachers that teacher for law for laws has a welcoming and good learning environment that no one will resist activing and M everyone wants to participate today they

495do these activities once in the school year to courage students the importance of learning so students can get more educated by the questions they ask I would like youle organizations to keep the single wood open thank you th thank you next speaker please state your name and affiliation for the record you are now unmuted and your time starts now hi my name is Miss Sam I Am the ex parent of today's Fresh Start please listen I put my child in today's Fresh Start three months then I had to pull my child out there were no academic support for my son to be successful they did not come through for my child the grass looked green at today's fresh start but it's some fake grass it's a sale start thank you for your comments speaker NE

496next speaker you are now unmuted um and please state your name and affiliation for the record your time starts now speaker are you there the ground talking hello yes hello you're now live please state your name and affiliation for the record your time starts now can you hear me yes we we can hear you please proceed with your comments hello my name is AAA Carter my son attends today's Fresh Start chared School his name is Aiden Carter first off I would like the power of God to intering any negative remarks towards today's fresh star Charter faith of a mustard SE will um shall Prevail I would like to request that our school Rees their renewal the benefits of keeping our school open in my opinion well our ways the risk of closing our school it

497is my belief that today's Fresh Start Academy inkle wood site will continue top quality service Services helping students to connect with each other teachers staff materials and academics that are schools strive hard to provide thank you speaker your time has now expired we appreciate you calling in next speaker please state your name and affiliation for the record you are now unmuted and your time start next speaker you are now unmuted and your time starts now my name is Julie F I don't know how much longer the Inglewood Community has to be quiet about today's Fresh Start illegal activities one of my children goes to animal Charter and another one is at k so Elementary School in I USD today's Fresh Start is not an educational partner dedicated to students instead the priority is to enrich

498The Parkers their F fiscal misconduct has allowed to be occurred by their board and their failure to put students first is why I did not put my children in that school I am asking that the board does the right thing by the students of Englewood and deny the charger for today's Fresh Start send your child to a school in I USD or even animal Engle thank you speaker next speaker please state your name and affiliation for the record you are now unmuted and your time starts now speaker are you on the line okay thank you next speaker you are now unmuted and please State your uh name and affiliation for the record hello yes please speak uh State an affiliation my name is Glen Sterling I'm a minister in the community and I want to

499support today's Fresh Start Charter and getting their Charter uh renewed um this sounds very political and uh there is no facts to back up anything that I've heard Englewood Unified School District say and I want to see the charter uh get its Charter renewed and hope you have a nice day thank you very much thanks for calling in next speaker please state your name and affiliation for the record your now unmuted and your time starts now hello yes yes we can hear you we we can hear you yeah my name okay my name is Bishop Robert T Douglas Senor I'm the president of the Inglewood area ad ministers Association can you hear that hello yes we we can hear you you can go ahead and proceed with your comments okay yeah I want to uh

500say sh to you thank you for your assessment and uh your time giving us this but I'm I'm extremely hurt I've been a resident of Engle since 73 I'm extremely hurt because fresh today's Fresh Start does matter today's Fresh Start does matter today's Fresh Start does matter we have students and parents and staff and faculty who are major contributors to the academic success of the Inwood Area Community being the president of the Inwood area ministers Association I'm not reading from a script I'm coming from my heart the Bible said in the book of Galatians chapter number 5 verse number 15 but if we bite and bow one another be careful that we do not consume one of another thank you speaker your time has now uh up uh we appreciate the call next speaker please

501state your name and affiliation for the record please um you're unmuted and uh your time starts now good afternoon my name is Sakura koshika teacher at tfscs Compton in the last hearing a gentleman on the board concluded that the school technically meets the criteria for Renewal and for the sake of 500 families it would be unconscionable to close it emotions aside the fact remains that the school meets the academic and financial requirements for Renewal while there's always room for improvement the school must be doing something right to meet those standards furthermore you're evaluating a charter school that has been around for some time while there are voices who speak in opposition there are countless voiceless families who have stayed with the school for years and could use the stability of an established School anduse in

502certain times especially looking forward to the transition to fall all at stake are the jobs of many hardworking teachers and staff who have met expectations but would face a non-existent job market despite meeting standards for the sake of those returning students and families and teachers please renew the charter as it meets the criteria for Renewal thank you thank you speaker for your call next speaker you are now unmuted please state your name and affiliation for the record your time starts now hi my name is Kelly Stewart and I'm a 13-year resident of Englewood and I am an educator I've taught for almost 15 years in similar communities as tfscs and I've seen what underperforming schools look like and today's Fresh Start is far from it they say that the purpose of Education is to open

503the windows of the Mind those windows are open at tfscs and we need more examples of schools that are successfully ran by people of color with intellect and compassion and also by teachers who care closing this school would be just eruptive to the American dream of many families and it is a shame that this school is under unwarranted scrutiny and the biggest casualty is that schools that serve students well like this one are historically denied the chance to uplift and build black and brown and diverse in all students and families I strongly urge the renewal of today's Fresh Start charter school thank you thank you next speaker please state your name and affiliation for the record you are unmuted and your time starts now my name is Destiny and I have two children at today's

504Fresh Start I implore the board to weigh more heavily what has been reported by the actual staff students and parents of today's Fresh Guard not outside parties that have nothing to lose and everything to gain in the form of increased Ada my children were provided with a touchscreen um laptop during covid they have a full Lab they have teachers of color they have black teachers there all fully credential and this is not something that you see at schools um that have over a 40% black population and that may not mean a lot to other people but it means a lot to me my household and my community closing the doors of that school is to send a message message that we don't care about schools that serve black students with that level of Integrity um

505the the um commitment that I'm seeing to um drag um The Parkers seems very personal and political and our children should not be in the middle of that when their benchmarks are being met and they are cared for and being shown that they are valued I thank you time thank you th thank you speaker uh next speaker please state your name and affiliation for the uh record you are unmuted and your time starts now hello yes we can hear you speaker lard towns and I'm a Community member please deny the petition of today's Fresh Start Charter School the school has proven themselves to be completely corrupt and more interested in enriching themselves and falsifying data than educating our children I implore upon you you to expeditiously deny the petition with our reservation and or condition

506thank you thank you next speaker please state your name in affiliation for the record you are unmuted and your time starts now good afternoon my name is Tara Boop and I'm a proud Englewood Unified School District teacher let's give students a fresh start why are the leaders keeping more than 3% in the reserve it was stated earlier that Englewood schools spend $122,000 per pupil while PSS spends $9,000 why don't they use some of that extra money to up their game and for the record Monroe did not close in 2018 Woodworth Monroe merged it was a merger Monroe never closed put that on the record and also iusd serves allent students all students and you need to know that there are different levels of special ed not just rst there are something called SDC that TFS

507does not provide parents please stop by in Englewood School and give your child a fresh start thank you thank you speaker next speaker please state your name and affiliation for the record you are unmuted and your time starts now yes speaker are you there okay um next uh speaker please state your name and affiliation for the record your time starts now yes speaker are you online yes can you hear me we can please uh proceed with your comments thank you my name is Jonathan Chamberlain I'm an iusd school public teacher um it's already been stated but I want to State it again today's Fresh Starts demonstrate the excuse me discriminates against students with moderate and severe disabilities by turning them away simply because the Charter School's parents have expressed that they do not like special

508day classes they are not committed to educating all children like we are and in the and it is the district schools that ultimately bear the disproportionate impact of serving those who require the most need and attention I've also seen children return to district schools from today's fresh start and express that they did not receive the quality education that they deserved or that they have been pushed out of the school for uh wholly illegitimate reasons it is offensive to me as a teacher from a school district that needs all financial support that it can get that the founders of today's Fresh Start have continued to take Public School dollars intended for the children in our community Wren themselves personally thank you speaker your time has now ended um next speaker please state your name and affiliation

509for the record you're unmuted and your time starts now my name is Stephanie Moore and I'm calling on behalf of today's Fresh Start I've been a member of the Charter Community since year one of charters in California longer than any of you calling in or up there I hardly ask you to approve our Charter you want to see resources you want to see special ed you want to see all of those things they say we don't have we have more than any school district or any school in Inglewood certainly during the pandemic we did provide for our students every day lunch every day I remember the lady that called up you and her impassioned plea she was at the last one so apparently they drag her up so she can say we don't serve lunch

510we served lunch even during Easter break which you all didn't do if you cared about our students we wouldn't be here today all of us here fighting for our children listen to the parents of our school 500 plus who want the school to stay open this has been a vetta Against The Parkers um please don't let thank you speaker your your time is now up we appreciate we appreciate your call speakers on the public uh comment line we have a number of uh you still on the line I am going to ask if you do not wish to to make a public comment to please hang up from this line we're about to go through the list one by one and ask if you would like to make public comment hello yes speaker you are

511speaker you are now unmuted would you like to make a public comment is this this me yes it's it's you so sorry hello my name my name is Norberto perz I am the CEO uh Chief Operating Officer for the amazing lwood Unified School District I urge this committee to continue to deny TFS it is not a coincidence that iusd L board and an array of Articles have enriching exposing the disarray and fraud CS has accured physical misconduct on TFS 2017 IRS form 990 they State they have no transactions involving corrent employees no transactions with uh family members no transactions with re uh ality entity which is not only a lie but fraud they should be ashamed to know that they made national news and identified at the top five World wor schools the lies continue

512through this pandemic we have welcomed the our doors to all of TFS students and we continue to do so it is understandable employees from TFS are calling in to support TFS but the reality is they are only fighting for their job no worries we will welcome you ra goal as well has been given out thank you speak your time I urge you to please deny TFS thank you thank you thank you for calling yes you were you are now unmuted uh would you like to provide a public comment hello yes you are now unmuted would you like to provide a public comment please state your name and affiliation good afternoon board members my name is Dr Rangel I'm a middle school teacher at tssds and have been an educator for over 25 years since my

513arrival at the school I have seen incredible work done by today's FR start and what it does for its students since my arrival I have seen how education and instruction is personalized for the students and how the school and the organization offers culturally relevant and responsive education the students not only learn in class but are also encourag to participate in extracurricular activities like sports choir and the French Club the fact that students start as early as TK PK and and in with 8th grade is a testament to the trust and satisfaction of the families we serve the continued enrollment allows parents and teachers to form bonds that are critical important to the students growth and development like any school there are areas for improvement but to rush to close the thank you speaker Your Time

514Is Now up thank you for your call devastating for and disruptive to students and their families thank you thank you th thank you speaker hello yes you are now unmuted please um state your name and affiliation for the record please my name is Lorraine Richards and I represent the California Teachers Association CTA recommends that the State Board of Education vote to deny the renewal petition for TFS as recommended by the CDE and the accs for the following reasons fails to meet the academic requirements of renewal in the charter schools act from 2018 to 2019 the percent of students meeting and exceeding standards in ela declin for nearly every grade assess scores decline for ELA for every subgroup the percent of students meeting and exceeding standards for math declined in half of those grades assess math

515scores declin for sped e and Hispanic students CD staff does acknowledge that the TFS is academically low performing as a whole which is certainly not good enough for Renewal considering the numerous concerns authorized hopping ethics issues non-compliance with the brown act and failure to be held accountable by or even minimally by the authoriz state board should deny TFS thank you speaker you have now reached your time we appreciate your call speaker you are now unmuted would you like to provide a public comment hello yes would you like to provide a public comment oh oh wonderful that's me oh yes I would thank you just please state your name and affiliation for the record yes my name is De just I'm sorry I'm gonna make it so this thing doesn't Echo if you don't mind okay

516there you go yes my name is Deborah Decker and I am a teacher at the Inglewood School District I teach the Arts my uh I'm uh over the years many charter schools have been welcomed into the school district by the Leo School Board therefore there are many schools parents are have uh to choose from therefore only those schools with Stellar records should be able to continue with their Charter Fresh Start is not one of those they have had numerous complaints from both parents and teachers charter schools are publicly funded therefore they need to be highly scrutinized in terms of student achievement which includes resources for students and special to thank you speaker than you very much your time's up thank you speaker you're now unmuted if you'd like to provide public comment please speak uh

517state your name and affiliation for the record your time starts now hi my name is Miguel peris and I am an administrator at dinglewood UniFi School District Oak Street Elementary I am asking uh you to not renew the petion for today's Fresh Start the purpose of charter is was to inspire and innovate model schools and to teach those new strategies and share with with their local districts that was a radical and Innovative idea but today's Fresh Start is not doing any of that we employees will no longer be quiet while while these entities like today's Fresh Start uh use the stud of Englewood to fat in their pockets Charter Schools such as today's Fresh Start no longer are welcomed in our community we demand that our public schools and approved charter schools be committed to

518serving all students the lack of transparency the refusal to require to submit required paperwork the blatant disregard for rules and laws of this charter school is shocking I'm surprised it's taken this long I'm asking today time to please be with us than thank you thank thank you speaker speaker you are now unmuted please State your uh name and affiliation for the record your time starts now hello my name is Gloria Venegas and I am a proud parent volunteer PTA president and a product of schools within the Inglewood Unified School District I am asking you to deny the petition for today's Fresh Start Charter I have four daughters who ATT attended schools within the District Two of which are college graduates and attended schools in Englewood my experience with Englewood district has been amazing I have

519never felt the need to drive my daughters to other districts or Charter Schools despite being recruited as a parent volunteer I have been able to see the dedication and amazing work our teachers and administration do and have towards our students there are a lot of exciting things happening in our schools we have a music program and other academic programs coming we have a strong School Community if it wouldn't have been for my daughter's Inglewood um high school program College Summit they would have never made it to College thank you thank you speaker you are now un I'm sorry speaker you are now unmuted please speak your uh name and affiliation for the record your time starts now speaker are you available speaker you um please state your name and affiliation for the record you're now

520unmuted once again uh callers if you are on the line you will be asked to make a public comment uh please dis connect from the line if you do not wish to make a public comment caller you are now unmuted please speak your name and um affiliation for the record your time starts now no I don't think so yes speaker speaker you're now unmuted please speak your name and affiliation for the record your time starts now hello this is Dina Wilson from Los Angeles County Office of Education I'm pleased to be here today representing the County Board not only did the County Board have ample findings with substantial evidence to deny this Charter we have previous experience with oversight of a TFS Charter and did indeed revoke it in 2007 when reviewing this Charter the

521County Board did review academic Improvement for all groups of pupils as the most important factor and found that the TFS Englewood fails to show increases for all groups of students Additionally the charter continues to show concerns of conflict of interest self-dealing transactions and concerns about Brown act compliance they do not show a commitment to equity as proven in the lcap a review of their most recent lcap shows that they have failed to properly identify actions and services funded by supplemental and concentration funds principally directed to UD student thank you your time we encourage you to uphold recommendations and deny the charter thank you thank you speaker you're now unmuted please speak your name and affiliation for the record hello yes you are now online please speak your name and affiliation for the record so you

522can hear me yes we can hear you please proceed my name is Elizabeth I'm my name is Elizabeth and I'm a parent um I'm actually talking I'll be talking about not my U by articles or anything of how much money they're spending or not but I will talk about my own experience as a parent and as a student I went to Maro and to was worth and they didn't provide it any like I went for a whole year school year with just substitute as a substitute as their substitute and they're not they're not they don't care about their students they um they I actually went to either War Side High School and I had a teacher where she didn't care she let other students ditch and let them do whatever they wanted I had it

523to repeat my class because of the teacher she didn't she didn't here and for my kids right now that he's going that he has been going through speaker thank you your time's up I'm noticing several are calling back in that have already provided uh public comment uh once again ple please disconnect uh from the line speaker please state your name and affiliation for the record you are now unmuted hello my name is Renee Hudson and I have two siblings who attend a fresh start I'm quite satisfied with the academics that are provided by the school I like the teachers I like the support that they give our kids and I'm recommending that you keep the school open thank you speaker you are now unmuted please state your name in affiliation for the record hi this

524is Torah um I have a little girl who's been there for about six years now um I've had experience with a child in the Englewood School District and was not happy none whatsoever um the education was was horrible I've had teachers missing I've had uh you know the safety of the campus there was no safety none whatsoever um so I'm you know I'm definitely in support of them continuing to open it open it I don't think that any school is perfect um today for start uh when my daughter needed her IEP they were on top of it we got it done within a matter of month uh with a within a month with um with the englew school district in order to get my son a 504 plan I actually had to take legal action

525and it took it took months and I had to uh Le take legal action and um was pretty pretty surprised at that so I'm not happy with the Englewood School District I really don't want to send my my child to um an Englewood uh school um I'm okay with today's Fresh Start Charter um I would love to see a little but I'm there we're there okay thank you thank you speaker speaker clarifying that this is a speaker and not the school on the line you are unmuted please state your name and a ilation for the record please confirm this is a speaker and not the school thank you I am deleting you out of the the queue speaker you are now unmuted please speak your name and affiliation for the record good afternoon board members

526and others on the Call My Name Is Judy made and I urge strongly urge the renewal of the charter for today's Fresh Start charter school I'm a former Director of Education for Kaiser Permanente I've been a resource specialist for Compton Unified and I am a taxpayer most of all I can vouch for today's fres starts they are caring they are sincere about affording each and every student with the tools they need it's a safe supportive healthy climate and conducive to learning Englewood UniFi shame on you shame on you we the taxpayers had to bail you out we're not um today's fres Stars we're not bailing them out shame on you we as Educators should be working together not separate this is for the student thank you speaker uh you have now reached your time limit

527next speaker you are now I am now unmuting you please speak your name and affiliation for the record yes yes you are now now online please speak your name and affiliation for the record OB and yes you're you're online please speak your name and Victoria [Music] we obora Victoria hello speaker you are now unmuted please speak your name and an affiliation for the record yes hello can you hear me yes we can hear you wonderful okay um please renew today's Fresh Start um we have everything that need need that is needed to be renewed um everything that they're saying are all lies and just gruntled teaters with biased newspapers and really it's it's um please renew today's Fresh Start we have everything we have fed and accommodated students we have supplied them with the laptops

528during covid um we have high reclassifications of the eels this is what matters we give support to our Eeps with enrichment classes after school tutoring emotional support Behavioral Management um we invest in our students and we Empower our students please renew today's Fresh Start thank you thank you for the call speaker you are now unmuted please speak your name and affiliation for the record speaker you are now un yes um you're now unmute unmuted please speak your name and affiliation for the record this is a call from Senator congresswoman Diane Watson a board member of today's fresh startart charter school I hope the people that are on the call understand a massal job of getting the people that need the help and so many people in our community nck uh their own health and health

529condition and now we're at a time that we need to come together and Fresh Start give them a fresh start to do the things that they need to do they have been super they have been successful and they have served the classes time th thank you speak speaker you are now unmuted please state your name and affiliation for the record speaker you're now yes uh you're we support uh fresh start fresh start school Victoria we support fresh start school th thank you all right yes speaker you are now unmuted please speak your name and affiliation for the record speaker you're online thank you that concludes public comment okay um give that there is no other public comment we'll now close the public hearing and commence with the board discussion and action and first I'd like

530to ask Tings our SB L on if she has any initial comments um yes I'd be happy to I am wondering though if we feel like I don't want to drag this out longer the meeting out longer but um wonder if board members want to take a break if this would be I think people are taking kind of a rolling break when they need a stretch or whatever because we still we have two items after this that we have H okay I'm happy to move forward so uh all right um again want to thank the public um comments and for the speakers to have waited in the queue to make their comments especially so late in the evening afternoon um as I stated in the other um Charter renewal um item you know these I

531know that these issues are very emotional and uh it it is uh very important that we do hear all of the public and their um thoughts on this this issue so we are considering two charters renes today um with both similarities and significant differences both have a loyal group of local supporters both have adequate facilities both have strained relationships with their authorizers and both have varying degrees of um academic performance um and the varing degrees two varing degrees the the academic performance of both schools is better than the academic performance of comparison schools however as I stated earlier um although academic performance is the most important factor for Renewal there are other compelling factors that should not be ignored in a renal decision um um what I see here is two schools and what I

532see is a distinguishing factor is that today's Fresh Start inid has been in operations excuse me John Henry has been uh was seeking its first renewal today's first start Inwood has been in operation since 2009 and uh the the today's first start uh organization has been operating schools since 2003 so a much longer history and track record I will say that uh I have concern I have really deep concerns raised in the CD staff report um particularly for a school that has been operating this long and has had this history uh I am um want to leave it open for uh more discussions I know that it was there was a lot of back and forth at the accs meeting and it is a very very confusing given that the the history of the organization

533and the and the various schools that have been in operations and the county Charter and all that so what I would encourage um board members to do is refer to appendix one in the item I uh the Department of Education has uh provided some clarification in that appendix one I think that might be helpful um in under for to clarify some of the matters that have been um discussed so with that uh I will leave it to my fellow board members to ask questions I'll ask a board members um to raise your hand in the window I'm GNA try to manage this and see I assume all of us listened and we have several areas we may want to comment about um and um I guess I would ask member rer I believe you're on

534did did you want to start with any comments uh can you hear me yes now we can thank you okay um so I do appreciate board member son comments to open this conversation and I do have multiple concerns but my concerns are about this Charter are no different from the concerns concerns that I have expressed in the past concerning previous Charters and the issues related to those Charters so I need to make sure I I really do want to make sure that for all of those parents and teachers and community members who called in to share their concerns and their passions about the schools and these programs it's really important to recognize today of all days why the those passions and those concerns are being expressed um not every child has an opportunity to go

535through school not let me change that not every African-American child not every African-American parent has an opportunity to see a school and to see a school program that they actually feel wants and welcomes their child and they see their child succeeding many times African-American parents when their children go to school and they show show up in school and they come home and they're successful and they like school there's some kind of magic happening so for many of the parents who are who have called in to express their concerns and success and support of the magic that is happening at today's Fresh Start I heard you and I understand that for you you have a great deal of support and you really are vested in the support and the success of your child at the school

536I equally heard from parents of students who didn't feel the same way who found the success that they needed in Englewood so this is not a conversation about where the magic is in public education because there is a Formula or there is a moment a sense of connection that children who are successful and that African-American children who find success and connection can find for many and multiple reasons whether whether it's at Englewood which we clearly heard and clearly understand and the innovations that they are offering both through link learning which I personally have awareness of and had the opportunity to help start as a field and as a area of study here in California or whether it's in the shop classes and the arts classes that are supported through many high schools elementary schools and

537middle schools in Englewood as well as for the parents who found great success for their children at today's Fresh Start we on this panel and we have multiple metrics that have to be considered and that need to be considered to bring balance to this conversation and as board member s pointed out I had great reservation about uh the previous school and the reasons for the problems with that previous school and as she pointed out it is a new school it is a startup and they have a shorter record of time in their relationship both with their Lea and now with the board this school is different this program is different this Charter management organization is different it has evolved it has changed it has gotten Savvy and from and I have concerns about what is

538in the public record I have concerns about what is being conflated or what is being changed or what is not being uh uh sunshin with with the kind of transparency it should have many of my colleagues on the board have h heard we often argue and rail about the importance of the public function about the implication or the application of the brown Act and the need for Clear transparent governance in these Charters and I have objected and voted against charters for that reason many of you have heard me argue about how you balance the consideration about the academic performance of the school over some of the other equally glaring and concerning problems which are parallel and important in uh my mind and under the law and I have voted against those schools so my colleagues

539on the board have heard me talk with great reason and rationality I hope about what my concerns are not just about underperforming Charters but Charters that are being poorly managed or not managed with public interest or having that hint of or Spectre of Scandal and so that has always been my concern and that has been my concern throughout my tenure on this board I have not been inconsistent in that discussion but there's something further that's being raised today and that's the issue of race for a lot of the folks who are having this conversation and having this discussion about race this is not a question about whether or not Public Schools can serve absent American children well and it's also not a question about which one of these Public Schools the charter or the public

540schools in Englewood are serving African-American children better so while race is a double-edged sword that often creeps into these conversations and the needs and Urgent concerns of African-American parents and their children is a Paramount concern to me personally and to this board as we venture into a new frontier to talk about Equity I think that the issues of equity have been discussed and argued about passionately by both sides of this argument by parents who support this Charter as well as by parents who did not find their children were successful in this Charter and those parents were African-American on both sides of this table and the same thing is true for parents who are seeking an alternative because of their dissatisfaction with the Way Englewood is serving African-American children so as the board continues their conversation

541and the discussion here having issues and discussions of race and having a discussion about the about how race is being served in this conversation does not serve us well especially if it becomes politicized and it becomes the hockey puck that's pushed around from one side to the other as the rationale of justification for us to deal with either our discomfort or our self-righteous assertion that we have the answer we have the definitive answer or we know better so that's all I actually want to say thank you eileene for giving me that opportunity I appreciate that thank you member Recker thank you very much for your comments um let me ask our um member novel I'll make a couple of comments here um I'm extremely disappointed how we got here um I think at the end

542of the day because of poor District Charter relationship ship kids get hurt and it it comes down to us to try and sort out this mess and the truth of me is the petition is confusing it's hard to gain Clarity on a multitude of issues I don't see the relationship being repaired between the district and the charter and I quite honestly don't see my ability find the truth in the situation the revocation of the charter that alleged revocation that today's Fresh Start would say is not a revocation the the alleged violations of students with disabilities that I'm sure today's Fresh Start would dispute uh the County's uh description on slide 22 of a conflicted interest that I'm sure today's Fresh Start would dispute um this is a complex request that doesn't promote or allow for

543complete Clarity based on the disputed facts and for me it's impossible to overturn CD's recommendation based on all of this that's all I have to say at this point so I'll just um ask one comment um I'm I'm worried for the kids um this is really challenging times um for all kids and to face I mean obviously the school we're in the the new school year now in the new fiscal year M and um I I just would say I I recognize what the parents said about wanting a safe place for their kids and worried about starting a new school um and I um I'm certainly I I hear that they're beginning to look for new options but I think we have a responsibility from Englewood and Los Angeles to reach out to these students

544and to make their transition should we not approve it safe and supportive I I worry for the students um because I I think the families and the students have chose it for a good reason and I in the end they're the ones that lose um are there any other comments from board members um member son do we have motions um well I I did want to follow up on on your your um concerns and maybe we could ask uh Eng W District uh you had in the prior asked the district uh you know how they would take in the students or if you know if we were to deny this uh petition how would the transition work with something like that are they prepared what they're looking at doing oh thank you so much that

545question and for your comment um we are extremely excited to Welcome All Families to the Inglewood Unified School District um we have 17 schools that we operate we have capacity at each one of our schools uh we have amazing programs we have amazing teachers we have amazing principles and amazing classified staff willing and ready to Welcome All Families to the Inglewood Unified School District what we are planning to do is to host uh virtual meetings with our today's Fresh Start amilies to welcome them we're offering two open houses that will be conducted at each one of our schools um we're planning for one in July and also one in August um these open houses will provide our families with an opportunity to get to know our amazing principles and teachers and staff so that they

546could also learn about the unique program that our District offers we're going to uh provide all of our today's Fresh Start families a welcome packet we we are excited to welcome them and to invite them to openhouse activities and we're planning to send that information to the today's Fresh Start Community um also we will provide opportunities for them to visit the schools of their choice because we are an open enrollment District a district of choice and so we will uh work very closely with each family member through our concierge service where we will contact each family individually and assign a staff member to work with that family individually to welcome them back to the Englewood Unified School District and to talk to them about the programs that we offer to schedule an a tour if

547that's something that our parents are interested in doing and we're actually G to um assign somebody to be the main point of contact for each family member so that they know who to connect with directly in the event um that this Charter School um is closed thank you um member Strauss this is Stephanie Farland um I just wanted to add to that um because we had uh mentioned in my presentation earlier that a good proportion of the students from Englewood um would actually attend La Unified Schools we did reach out to LA unified and they uh uh responded by by saying that they will certainly engage and support all the families and students who wish to enroll um in an LA Unified School be it regular or Charter thank you the charter school resp can's

548resp this is a these are just questions for the school district at this point um to clarify um so um memb Su did we um address the questions that you had yeah the yeah this board did I mean the school did I mean School District did sorry it's getting late yeah um do we have any other clarifying questions from board members before we look for a motion Eileen Linda's hand is up okay um remember darling Hammond oh you're muted and thanks for thanks for stepping in um uh I I was going to ask the question about the re uh the return of the students uh I appreciate the answer that we got it's first time I've heard about coier service for uh school children I like that concept um all children should have coier service

549uh I would just um associate my thoughts with those that were made by memb navoo um given you know the various statements on both sides but also the concerns that were raised about um conflict of interest and uh other concerns I would find it hard to overturn the CDE recommendations thank you any other um Karen do we have any other hands raised no okay um member sun do you have a motion that you'd like introduce yes I I appreciate all my fellow board members comments and especially those of member Rucker This is a very very difficult decision it's heart-wrenching um because I know involves kids um however I um also in agreement with member navoo and um president Linda daring Hammond that these issues are of such severity issues that are um severe enough and

550that have been persisted throughout the uh the life of the charter which has been very long that uh I have to go with the Department of education's recommendation to denial to deny uh the renewal of today's Fresh Start do we have a second second second by member Glover Woods um so um any further discussion um so um Karen will you call roll call Vote Yes Kim Kim yes I day yes Matt yes Cynthia yes Linda yes Eileen yes Ting yes Jim yes Brena yes and Patricia yes okay it's unanimous vote all right do we want to call a break for five minutes or are people okay to continue I think I think we just want to finish the last two items and if people need to stretch or take a quick break let's do a

551rolling break if that's okay okay uh do you want me to take the gabble back okay thank you very much E I appreciate that um so uh at this point uh we're going to move to agenda item 22 which is the request to ratify the California Department of education grant application to the US Department of Education education stabilization fund um which is the rethink K12 education models Grant the CDE recommends that the State Board ratify California's education stabilization fund Grant application to develop a Statewide course Access program for all grade six through grade 12 students in California in order to help students be career in college ready across the state's Regional Dem graphic and economic differences and the item is presented by Joseph SS SS of CDE and Joe here you are you may begin

552hello members of the State Board of Education my name is Joe signs and I'm the federal policy liaison for the California Department of Education government Affairs division I'm proud to bring forward this collaborative proposal that is due to tireless work of staff from the CDE the State Board of Education and the governor's office um also joining me um who will be answering some of your questions if needed is prep kodam Raju who is a director of the career and college transition division within CDE prep and his team worked long hours to complete this grant proposal and I also want to appreciate Leslie Taylor who worked diligently to pull data in regards to the state's Corona virus burden perfect thank you sir our technology knows it's late too even the computers are tired jump over okay

553okay perfect there we go um so thank you everyone to the State Board um I definitely appreciate your long hour spent over the last two days so in saying that I will make sure I get to the heart of the matter um and then whatever questions you have I along with prep will be happy to answer um so our recommendation is that the californ is that California Department of Education recommends that the State Board of Education SB ratify California's education stabilization fund rethink K12 education models Grant um we call it the esfm grant for short um that we ratify this application to develop a Statewide course Access program for all grades 6 through 12 students in California as many of you know um in response to covid-19 Congress passed the coronav virus Aid relief and

554economic security cares Act and it was enacted on March 27th 2020 with a 30.75 billion in emergency education funding to states of a 1% set aside is where the esfm grant comes from the purpose of this grant is meant to support state educational agencies and states with the highest coronav virus burden to address specific educational needs of students their parents and teachers in public and non-public elementary schools in accordance with the cares Act the three absolute priorities for the grant competition are to provide funding through microgrants to develop and or expand highquality course access programs or Statewide virtual school or to demonstrate a rationale to address the specific educational needs of their states as related to remote learning and we are required to um take on one of these absolute priorities in the grant competition

555for our application um these grants are peer-reviewed by um um peer reviewers with a range of experience in education and background uh they would they will independently read score and provide written comments for Grant applications there going to be 12 to 14 awards for states with the highest Corona virus burden estimated funds of $180 million and the range of awards 5 million to 20 million for each award the project approval life cycle is up to 36 months as well and the application required a letter supporting proposal from the governor the due date for this application was June 29 2020 which the CDE met we also sent in on May 19 2020 the intent to apply before that which was uh strongly encouraged as part of the application process through collaboration with the CDE the State

556Board of Education and the governor's office our APP was submitted and the US Department of Education plans to make Awards by August 2020 now we'll go into CD's proposal for the esfm grant for our proposal CDE selected absolute priority number two this priority is to develop and or expand highquality course access programs the impact covid-19 has had on the California educational environment um can most be seen through the digital divide when it came to offering courses and programs in an online online environment proactively the CDE and other partners have undertaken major effort to work with public and private Partners across the state to increase digital resources the second is that covid-19 is Amplified concern around the inability to optimize learning acceleration and the impact this is had on students from under resource populations and third

557postco 19 educ ational environment requires that California expand highquality College and Career ready resources and programs in response to these issues the CDE is proposing the California open education project or Cal oped project for short by building a Statewide learning and teaching Equity platform to increase access to Quality College and Career distance learning education to improve learning outcomes for students grade through students grad 6 through 12 throughout the state the project builds out the College and Career ready infrastructure by developing a Statewide course access platform to increase access to College and Career distance learning curriculum for students and Educators and informs parents about the ways in which Cal oped can provide increased educational access for their students this project is especially important given students in remote and Rural regions that have historically lacked funding Andor

558capacity to better access high quality digital cours work so the three primary objectives are to provide a common platform to all public and non-public schools so teachers and students have access to Quality digital learning resources and enhance instructional materials also an objective is to create a Statewide stakeholder group consisting of parents Community leaders industry partners and educational leaders to identify critical needs to provide input and third the project will convene Regional educator teams to collaboratively write curate and develop a repository of courses curriculum and professional learning modules and we believe these last two objectives are extremely important uh due to the fact that we believe the best outcomes are had when multiple parties and professionals collaborate to provide the best outcome for our state students when coming up with this proposal CDE and SBE staff

559wanted to ensure that it was built with a sustainable Outlook in mind meaning that the project not just be a short-term response the covid-19 pandemic but must also be focused on building on top of long-term foundations in order to guarantee Equitable advancement for all students even after the pandemic has ended with that in mind this project aims to increase access to an inclusive and innovated 21st century education that will prepare students to meet the new demands for distance learning and the jobs for tomorrow Additionally the Cal opad project provides vital offerings to students from underserved and Rural regions it also works to build on and maximize the current CTE online platform which hosts professional learning resources for educators around the state in the application that was submitted to the US Department of Education the CDE

560provided a detailed description of responsibilities timelines and Milestones that the project would require in the interest of respecting the board's time I will Point members to attachment two in the item for the detailed breakdown uh one highlight for this project the CD is requesting over $19 million over three years to fund the project also for note in this application it was required the state demonstrate its Corona virus burden although the US Department of Education assigned California one of the lowest scores for Coronavirus burden this score was based on % of population without access to broadband percent of K12 students in poverty State's percentage share of covid-19 cases per capita and percent of students who live in a rural area through our application we made the case that just looking at percentages alone for scoring does

561not accurately reflect the state's true Corona virus burden Maine which received a top score with over 11.7% of their students without Broadband access equates to 21,000 students in r numbers where California's 8.9% equates to approximately 570,000 students also at the time of The Proposal even though the cases per capita was lower in California the burden score did not reflect the aggressive approach undertaken by Governor Nome and our state's leading officials to flatten the curve through shelter in place and the closing of schools earlier than in other states which increase the time students spent outside the classroom nor did the US Department of educ education score consider the fluid nature of this pandemic which is evolving each day the application made the point that a hugely significant burden has been felt by our state and its

562citizens continually also the proposal required the CDE to sign off on multiple insurances that are detailed in atment attachment three of the item this proposal also received a letter of support from Governor Nome as required by the application so in closing we believe that this is to take a proactive approach for the postco 19 pandemic that it helps our students in both the short and long term as required by the changing educational environment to distance learning the CD recommends that the SB ratify California's esfr Grant application to develop a Statewide course Access program for for all grades 6 through 12 students in California and with that I will open up for questions thank you very much uh we're going to open the public um comment line the phone line for public comment members of the

563public wishing to provide comment on this item may do so by calling 712432075 entering access code 65195 pound wait for the operator prompts to press star six and then another prompt to press one to enter the queue while we're waiting to see if members of the public are calling in I want to ask Patricia Rucker uh first and then Ting Sun as our CTE leaon if they have any initial comments thank you very thank you very much um this is definitely a need in the state and I'm glad for the prospect of some substantial funding to support our overall state plan for developing Career and Technical education in this state now it is worth noting that this project is being led by the CDE cessa and AA so Dr Cod Raj you already know what

564my question is going be so when the Statewide stakeholder group is organized please tell me there will be more than one classroom teacher on this Statewide stakeholder group member Rucker I I can assure you that there will be more than one teacher in fact uh uh the majority of that stakeholder group will be teachers that's what we use in the CT online project that we've done we used uh Perkins funds to develop and they uh the ones who developed the modules for that system are teachers and we will pull we'll be pulling those those individuals in okay so I know that we will we spending some time at tomorrow's meeting talking about this as well so I won't go into detail on that point but I just wanted to make sure for the record as

565we are PR per I are as we are working to approve this that that information is clear I want to also say I appreciate the equity land and I wonder if the majority if of historically marginalized students in California would benefit from a more expansive consideration of equity in the project design and planning and that's something I just want you to make a note about because I know that the grant is a living document and we can talk more about the equity issue especially with uh the superintendent's new Equity officer as we move down the road to implementing the Grant and then finally I just want to say it's really important for us to see as you look at all three of the attachments in the scoping section of the grant it would seem like

566it's three projects but it's really important for us to ticulate to articulate that this is part of the overall program and design for the state plan about career and Tech education and so even though the the community colleges are going to be upper most in a lot of the planning and the work on scoping this out the intent really is to create a clear grade 6 through 12 program so I really appreciate the work the department has done and the effort that was done to as a collaborative project to prepare this Grant and submit it thank you all right Ting did you want to add anything yeah just uh quickly we of course we're ratifying this because there was such a short timeline and CDE really needed to had a short time period to get

567the application done and submitted it is an ambitious project um and so in a lot of details will need to be flushed out as member Rucker indicated so I think there will definitely be much more um we'll see the shape of this if we get approved one thing I did want to clarify however the item said that we were asking for 19 uh [Music] 19,39 and the slide said 19 mil 880 something so there was a discrepancy between the item and what was on the slide so staff can just clarify what that is so we know what we're ratifying it uh memb son it's actually 19394 is the amount that we're ratifying okay so it is what is in the item yeah all right thank you all right uh moving ahead I want to see

568if there's any public comment we do have one person caller you are unmuted would you like to provide comment for item 22 regarding the Grant application no thank you all right that was short and sweet I guess this for another item perhaps um are there any uh other um comments from the um from the uh board let me see if we've got any hands rais has her hand up yeah I'm gonna remove my hand hi day would you uh yes I just want to say that uh this is wonderful and um I also I agree with member Rucker about the importance of having teachers represented well here and um you know I hope this happens great great thank you I see no other hands raised H do I have a motion I will move that

569we ratify the application and I will second all right thank you very much we'll hold a roll call vote Ken Patricia yes Brena yes Jim yes please Ting yes Eileen yes Linda yes Cynthia yes Matt yes aay yes Kim yes unanimous all right thank you very much and thank you Joe uh for both presenting and for your work on this we appreciate it uh we're now going to go to waiver request item 16 a request by PA Brook Union Elementary School District to wave California education come section 5020 and portions of sections 5019 5021 and 5030 that require a districtwide election to establish a trustee a by trustee area method of election uh CDE recommendation is given the unique circumstances of covid-19 pandemic the resulting budget problems for school districts and the fact that District

570kep were looking remotely in the spring that the State Board make a determination that there is a need to take immediate action on the waiver the need for Action came to the attention of CDE and state board after the agenda was posted on June 26 the State Board makes that determination with a two-thirds vote and the CDE recommends the state board approved the waiver uh and this item is presented by Judy cias and sh of C hi it's j Chief council with the State Board Linda thank you for explaining this waiver um this is one of our typical waivers to approve the at large election um by trustee area method of election um districts that have an atlarge system of electing board members have been facing litigation under the California V Voting Rights Act to

571help avoid litigation districts work with their County committee on School District organization to draw are area maps and take action to establish trustee areas and adopt the trustee area method of election in order to establish the trustee area and implement this new method as quickly as possible districts will often request a waiver from the state board that the TR the election method be approved at a districtwide election if the SB approves the waiver then there will be an election in the district to elect the governing board members under the new system this waiver helps districts avoid litigation by moving to the new system quickly the SB has approved over 200 of these waivers so this waiver is not controversial this one is a little bit unique because we received a call from the F Brook

572Union Elementary District last week on July 2nd after the agenda was posted um that they realized that their waiver was not on the July agenda the San Diego County registar of Voters told the district that if they did not put the get a waiver approved in July they would have to have an election on the election method and that would cost them over $300,000 so I would like to thank Larry shy who quickly worked with um worked to develop this item so that we could add it to the agenda um we feel like as Linda stated at the beginning given the unique circumstances with covid and the fact that districts were working remotely and the budget crisis you know we would like to accommodate the district if we could so under since um this came

573to our attention after 10-day posting under Begley Keen we need two votes so the first vote would be for you all to add this item to the agenda so you have to make the determination that there is a need to take immediate action and that the need for Action came to our attention after the agenda was posted like Linda said that's two-thirds vote once you make that vote to add it to the agenda then we will need a quick vote to approve the waiver that is it thank you very much and I think we will uh open the phone line for public comment if there is any uh and it's the same notification that we had before um and I suspect our last caller was calling for this item so um do you wanna well

574oh I wanted to ask Patricia Rucker I'm sorry she's our waiver liais on if she has any initial comments before we turn to well and I do that we have have two votes that we need to take so when we are ready to make those votes I will make the Motions related to both of those votes and for our new board members I do want to explain one other point that's important about this uh particular item only the election to establish the trusty area and the election method will be eliminated by a approving this waiver voters in the district will continue elect to all governing board members and moreover the waiver will not eliminate any existing legal rights for currently seated board members thank you Patricia okay uh is there any public comment uh yes

575we do have have um one person in the queue speaker um would you like to provide public comment okay thank you that's it no more public a comment I guess I guess that was a no uh okay so uh we want to take those motions in order uh so um are there is there any further discussion before we take the first motion seeing none um member Rucker would you like to make the first motion I move that the State Board of Education make a determination that there is a need to take immediate action on this waiver and that the need for action came to the attention of the CDE and the State Board of Education after the agenda was posted on June 26 2020 thank you very much is there a second I'll second thank

576you Brena um Karen you want to call the roll call vote Ting yes eileene yes Patricia yes aay yes Kim yes Brena yes Matt yes Jim yes Cynthia yes Linda yes okay that motion carries unanimously all right and now we need a motion on the waiver itself um and so uh member Rucker did you want to make that motion as well sure I mooved that the State Board approve the waiver request from the Fallbrook School District as recommended in the staff recommendation all right do I have a second I'll second thank you um any further discussion all right let's have a roll call vote okay Patricia yes Brena yes Jim yes ting yes eileene yes Linda yes Cynthia yes Matt yes aay yes Kim yes okay unanimous vote done all right so I now adjourn

577our July 20 state board meeting at 7:37 p.m. I want to assure the new board members that this was one of our easier meetings no we look forward to seeing you again in our September meeting