001We've still got I think a board member trailing here as we get ourselves organized to get the ball rolling here. Alrighty. Item four is our reconvene in uh open session and we're going to quickly review the close session items that uh were discussed and take some further action before we move on to item five. So item 3.2 conference with legal counsel regarded anticipated litigation case number one. uh board unanimously provided direction to staff uh and council. Case number two, uh the board provided unanimous uh actually I'm going to read out our motion. We had a rejection of a claim. Motion was by Trusty Jeff, second by Trusty Duncan, and the vote was 50. Item 3.3, public employee evaluation. The board performed an evaluation of our employee. Item 3.4.1 stipulated expulsion 0910F2425. Do I have a
002motion? Move to approve. Second. We have a motion by Trusty Jeff and a second by Trustee Duncan. All in favor say I. I. I. All oppose. Hearing none. Motion passes unanimously. Item 3.4.2 2 readmission of expelled student 019 Ycusd 2324. Do I have a motion? Move to approve. Second. We have a motion by Trusty Jeff and a second by Trusty Duncan uh to approve item 3.42. All in favor say I. I. I. All oppose. Motion passes unanimously. 3.4.3 readmission of expelled student 129C 23 through 24. Do I have a motion? Motion to approve. We have a motion by Trusty Duncan. I'll second and a second by Trusty Jeff. All in favor say I. I. I. All oppose. Motion passes unanimously. Item 3.4.4 readmission of expelled student 01102425. I have a motion. I move. Second. We
003have a motion by Trusty Underwood and a second by Trusty Duncan. All in favor say I. I. I. All oppose. Hearing. None. Motion passes unanimously. Item 3.5, conference with labor a labor negotiator pursuant to government code section 54947.6. On the first item, the board provided unanimous direction to staff. On the second item, staff uh the board also provided unanimous direction to staff. 3.6 Six, conference with legal counsel regarding existing litigation. There is no official report out at this time. The board will reconvene in close session to give further uh direction to staff and council following our open session. Now that we got all that out of the way, alrighty, we're going to go ahead and move to item five. Uh welcome. Glad to see you guys. Sorry, a second one in summer already. But thank
004you for joining us and taking this time to to be here with us. So with that, uh we will start with our pledge of allegiance. Um just as a quick reminder, this meeting is being video and audio recorded and just wanted to apologize for those who did tune in last time. We did have some audio issues. I have been told that it has been resolved. Are we looking and sounding all right? Thank you, Carlos and team. We are good. two thumbs up from the back. So, thank you for your efforts to resolve that issue prior to this meeting. Uh, Trusty Underwood, would you please lead us in the pledge? All right. I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands, one nation under God, indivisibley
005andice for all. All right. We're going to go ahead and move to item 5.2, approval of the agenda. Do we have any changes to the agenda other than the one I will bring up prior to consent? I move approval. Perfect. Second. We've got a motion by Trusty Underwood and a second by Trusty Jeff. Any questions or comments? Excuse me, Duncan. Thank you. Other than that, obvious amendment to my speech. Um, all in favor say I. I. I. I. All oppose. Hearing none. Motion passes unanimously. All right. Item six, reports and communications. We will begin with our board reports. This is a time that we all lot for our members of our board to conduct to conduct discussions on events in which they've participated in correspondence related to district programs they wish to share. Do I
006have a taker to get us kicked off tonight? It's like the game of not it. Jeff, you're up. Thank you. All right. And uh well, I don't really have anything to report in the last uh two weeks since we had our last meeting. So perfect. It's been a beautiful start to the summer. Awesome. Trusty Underwood. Would you turn on your mic? I have some good news to report. Turn your mic. Microphone. The plastic part. Yeah, there you go. I have some good news to report. uh as a member of the uh investment committee uh I had a long discussion with uh Matt Natoli our financial uh advisor where we have invested scholarship money and uh when we began this two about two years ago I think we hit the dip in the market and we
007were down 20% within two months and that was very discouraging but We have an excellent financial advisor. So, an update uh for you guys uh to know that made me quite happy is currently we are $487,000 up from our original investment of $3 million. And currently in terms of how well we are performing this year, we're outperforming the S&P. The S&P is at 3.2% and we are performing under his guidance 3.8%. So that's really exciting because uh this is for our kids and it looks like our principal is quite solid and the money that we're beginning to earn uh should sustain us quite well. So that that was very exciting. We did not have our June meeting uh but we will be meeting again in July. So, uh, that's good news in this fiscal downturn
008where we're struggling with the budget. It's nice to hear some positive news in terms of our monetary investments for kids. So, that's it, Jessica. Awesome. I love hearing that. Thank you for that report. Yeah. Yeah. You're welcome. Uh, so in two weeks, I I was busy uh with a few things. Uh I had an opportunity to sit on two panels uh for hiring at Deloro High School. Uh it was a great experience. Uh I was really impressed with uh the folks in the panel. Um of course we have set questions we have to ask, but the thoughtful nature to the way that they dissected those questions and we talked as a group. Um it was uh I was I felt good walking away from those two meetings with um staff and and their decision-making process
009when it comes to to hiring. So I was appreciative to be a part of those those two panels. Uh also I had spent some time over the last two weeks uh speaking to members of the community um about uh title nine uh agenda item from last week. Uh very positive. Uh it was good to have some clarification out there as well on uh on my thoughts. Uh and anytime you pick up the phone or you have a conversation, I think it it's disarming and it and it allows both people to both sides to really understand each other and that's the key to all this is seeking to understand. Uh secondly, uh another agenda item from LA, uh two weeks ago is the grading system and I spent time talking to several teachers uh and getting
010different points of view and again um uh that I've spent a lot more time with obviously uh but again was good to to provide some clarification. So that's it. Excellent. Thank you Trusty Link. Um not too much has changed in the last two weeks. I do want to uh update on I guess the newest thing regarding it's it's been brought to our attention that we have the potential as a district to start a chapter for a math honor society um known as MU Alpha Theta. It's got the little math acronym going on there. But uh this is a um it's a it's a math honor society that in the state of California I think there's like 270 different sites that uh that are members that participate and there's a lot of uh there's a lot
011of positive um energy that this could help promote within our district uh fostering like a greater deeper love for math and uh greater involvement and a place for those students who excel or have a high interest or uh I know that there's I've talked to some students uh one in particular Deloro where the guy doesn't really have to do any homework. He just kind of cruises through his like high level math classes and uh you know there are brains out there who really excel at mathematics and it'd be nice to have like a landing uh for these students. Um there are there are competitions, there are um scholarship opportunities um you know not to mention just the Well, I'll say in in our immediate area, there's other school districts that have chapters. Um I think
012Roseville's one. Um Rocklin, Oakidge. So anyway, um we have a uh in credit to uh Jerry Jackson, we have a faculty willing to to to sponsor, but there also needs to be a minimum requirement of students to uh to be able to qualify because you basically have to apply to become a member and meet some u minimum uh requirements. So it's kind of a call out to all the the math departments and math teachers in our district. uh if if you have interest in um uh in participating and we need an idea of how many students would be would be interested in um in having regular meetings and and uh engaging in different uh challenges and um anyway I think it's a it's a it's a move in the right direction and I'm uh I
013was excited to learn more about um that possibility within our district. So, um, aside from that, uh, that's all I got. That's awesome. Um, and thank you for bringing that up. I was going to touch on it, but you just summarized that so beautifully. And I, um, as we're in declining enrollment, like I'm always thinking like marketing, like we may not be able to build a lot of new homes, even though we do have some homes being built in the area, but what what's going to draw more people to our area? Our schools are amazing, and I feel like it's an opportunity to really highlight it. Um Jerry also shared that there's nothing like we have different seals that we can award to our students. We've talked at length about the state seal which is
014new to our district but we also have the seal of bi literacy. They don't have anything specific for for math achievement but um but we have discretion to create something chords or we could create our own seal some way to really uh drive some momentum and excitement around math. Um and I think that that's awesome. Um my my son is studying he's a math major. He's um studying astronautical engineering right now and I that could look really great on a resume for college and maybe we'll offer some kids um uh open a door to scholarships. Um but but I hope that we have some takers at different sites and let's see what we can do to build some energy and excitement around math. So, thank you, Jerry. Um, and others um as you're hearing and
015and I just have a good feeling we're going to have some other takers and so um please connect connect with us, connect with Jerry. Um it does need to be it cannot be student driven. It has to be the teacher uh does the application process and so I'm sure Jerry has some additional information that he could share if you're interested to um initiate that um at your site. I received many emails from constituents following our meeting. Um and just regarding students um uh regarding our title N resolution and um a lot of positive feedback um we did have some negative feedback as well but uh overwhelmingly the emails were positive and support of the action that we took and I just wanted to give a quick update on uh next steps post uh resolution. Um,
016I've had conversations with staff, with Steve regarding the next steps that our staff will be taking, which will be to begin compiling our policies and procedures associated with the investigation that's going to occur. Um, and that information will be turned over to our legal counsel, who will uh provide legal analysis about our compliance with both Title 9 and equal protections in regards to uh the the resolution. Um, and also um submitted and wrote a letter to the Department of Justice. um they had, you know, demanded a an answer by Friday of last week. I think it was June 9th. Um but just shared the steps that we've taken and that we have an ongoing investigation so that at least we have some eyes dotted and tees crossed uh that while we couldn't certify at this
017time that we're in a process to to review what policies and procedures we have um going on within our district right now. I also received emails um from constituents regarding supporting students with autism and preventing bullying. And I just wanted to acknowledge um that um you know, we all have interesting family dynamics and I wanted to share that I have two nephews and a niece with autism. I'm very familiar with autism. Um I've participated in fundraisers for Autism Speaks and three out of my five children had sensory processing disorders and received services when they were very young. And um and so I just wanted you to know that that we do take um your thoughts and concerns seriously and uh and as we do in every uh complaint or comment that our district receives. Um
018so I just wanted to share that on a personal level. And uh we also received uh let me make sure um I just wanted to do a quick followup on uh the CIF bylaw 303D. I did have a community member reach out some time ago regarding the multischool membership which we were unable to get to to this month to have a discussion. But basically um the request is that the school or one of our schools would accept um potentially a charter or a home school so that their children can participate in sports. I believe all children should participate in sports if it's if it's possible. And um but there are some pros and cons that we've got to discuss as a board. Um and we we cannot do this at this time because it's not
019agendaized. But I just wanted if the parent is listening uh to know that I haven't forgotten about you and we will uh be discussing this and and figuring out where the board stands on it and what steps we can take. We don't want to penalize the school that accepts if we move in that direction. Um and so there may be some action that would um or advocacy that would have to happen through CIF. Um I also just wanted to thank the Auburn Journal for their most recent articles portraying recent actions. um and that I just appreciated and and a story that they ran about Trusty Jeff over the weekend. I we value our local press and uh appreciate journalistic integrity and I felt like they were very fair. Um and I also in conclusion just
020wanted to discuss the California state budget because it's impacting education and Prop 98. The newly approved legislative budget from the governor again is withholding$ 1.3 billion dollars with a B in Proposition 98 funding for our public schools. And I just wanted to acknowledge um Assemblyman Joe Patterson as I advocated prior to their vote. Uh he was the only Assembly member that responded to my email and I do appreciate that. Um, you know, he also voted against the budget that did not honor several uh of the voters's wishes on several different issues, but including his advocacy for Prop 98. And I just wanted to share if any of our legislators are listening or our governor, um, your actions speak louder than your words. When you say you're advocating for education and then you withhold this money
021and and potentially violate the Constitution of California, you're hurting the children. So, please rethink this uh reconsider. CSBA sued the legislature last year for this unconstitutional act, and I have every belief that they will be suing the state again. Again, your actions speak louder than your words. Um, and you can't say you support it if you're not funding it properly. With that, huge thanks to Dr. Camonetti. This is his last meeting for the the time being in the in the super hot seat. You'll get to cool it down slightly at our next meeting. And uh we just wanted to thank you. Um I wanted to personally thank you for your humility, kindness, humor. Um and I have sincerely appreciated working with you um um as a board president, my first time with you. So, thank
022you very much. Okay, with that um update on 6.2 ad hoc committees. I have no further report outs um on our committee. Is there any other report out or update on the bylaw that was being reviewed? I think it was by both uh Trusty Lake and Jeff was the um communications. You're good. This has been a crazy time of year. Next regular meeting. So, we'll we'll try to have an update on that in August. Okay. Item 6.3, superintendent report to the board. Okay. Um though, summer is here. Uh your event calendars are probably filling up. The board calendars, lots of events already populating for the fall. Um you get a week to think about graduation and it's over. Um so, board meetings, back to school events, all of those items are already populating in the
023board calendar. there's too many to send personal uh invites with emails. So, please please check and um RSVP on those and making sure you're accepting or declining would be great. Um today, uh Mr. E will probably be presenting on facilities. Yes. And uh Don won't be able to join us, but um lots of summer programs happening. They'll go through all those, but um pop up to KFax if you get a chance to see the field in in action, and I'm sure Peter is going to talk about that. Um some just preliminary I these aren't official but um as we look through the end of this year uh and our student outcomes um we're seeing our highest ever uh student completers for CTE roughly about 500 CTE completers and about um 45 46% of our student
024body has participated in either dual enrollment AP or an IB and those some of those data points are mentioned in our LCAP tonight but I just Wanted to call those out of um the data that we um are looking for in growth areas. We're we're seeing those numbers happen. It's really exciting. Um 72, we have a special board meeting that's already on your calendar. And then our next one is 8:19. That's August. And this concludes my final um acting superintendent report. Feel like we need like clap. Thank you. All right. Item 6.4, Associated Teachers of Placer, President's Report. Welcome back. Yeah. Having a really good time while you guys. Good for you. I did one of yours. Um, so the only thing I have is just some updates in terms of information that people have
025sent me in regards to the grading policy. So there was some overlap in terms of that um I believe sent all of you guys a message and me and Jacob um on the availability of the 4.0 grading scale and that came from our small sites specifically with um they were wanting an assurance of flexibility. Um the small sites as you saw the data that we collected were disproportionately and and not across the board but disproportionately in favor of the 4.0 whereas our bigger sites are disproportionately in favor of percentagebased. And so the ask is that we honor both um and that we allow that the um that the continuity is by the subject that is taught ideally department um at the sites. The other piece that came up and I was cracking up because the
026person's like don't quote me don't quote me and I'm like the temptation is great. Um and this came up from another person too was a request for clarity. So um within the grading policy as presented right now um there was some concern expressed about how do we have mastery which sounds like it's going to be um similar to the all students all scales and there was um there was concern expressed about that in the past um and now ELO's now we have the ELOs's instead of the scales that we're looking at how do we interplay that with um an overall grade if it's of a C is passing. And so there was a request for clarity uh along those lines. So any questions for me in terms of what those are? I think when we
027uh when Trusty Duncan and I get to that section, I think we're going to be get it taken care of, right? Provide some clarity. Okay. Thank you so much. And I know you guys put a lot of time and effort into all of this and that this was a reason that the board meeting went for a very long time last time. It's very much appreciated by us. Thank you. Thank you. Awesome. I appreciate that update and look forward to having some conversation about clarifying some of these parameters. All right. Item seven, our consent agenda items. Um, I do have a change to the consent agenda items. I'm going to be moving item 7.10, adoption of our textbook, to our first action item. Are there any other changes to the consent agenda? I would like to
028pull um 7.15 7.5 7.15. What am I missing on page four? Oh, 1515. Hello. I'm there. Thank you. Yep. So, aside from 7.10 and 7.15, are there any other changes? If not, do I have a motion? Motion. Second. We have a motion by Trusty Duncan and a second by Trustee Lake to approve the consent agenda um with the removal of 7.10 and 7.15. Any questions or comments? All in favor say I. I. I. I. I. All oppose. Motion passes. 50. All right. 7.10. Adoption of our textbook, Ways of the World for Delero High School dual enrollment. All right. Madame President, uh, obviously I brought my resident expert, Mrs. Michelle Lisham. She's going to be speaking about it. Just a reminder, this is a dual enrollment course with uh you know, it's an elective course, so
029it's not a required course. Um, and also I think Mrs. Dunle is here as well, the person who's requesting the book. So, um, appreciate them two being here and being able to speak about it. Thank you. Hi. So, I am so happy that, um, Rebecca is here tonight so that she can answer any questions. It's our understanding that you had some questions about the text. It's me now. I turned off my mic. Um, yeah. No, so I have received some community feedback with with some concerns. And so I wanted to um offer you a moment to just kind of give us a a brief update about why we need to uh move forward with the adoption of this book and um potentially if you saw anything that could be um problematic. So I um so
030the reason why I went for an adoption of the textbook is quite honestly my students really wanted a hard copy of a book. We were using an online um uh textbook through open stacks which was a free textbook that you approved last year. Um and my students really found it difficult to read online. they really wanted a hard copy and some of my kids went to the the bookstore and bought a purchased a hard copy on their own. Um, but I I decided I really wanted I wanted a textbook that I could hand to them that I chose. Um, I looked at a variety of different options and this one was very affordable, very informative, uh, very portable, um, easy to read, had a lot of really great resources that went with it. Uh, and
031so I chose this one out of looking after looking at a few others. Plus, a lot of Sierra College professors use this for their history 51 courses and that's actually where I found it. I went and looked at other textbooks that um other professors were using and went ahead and started looking at those and then chose this one for a variety of reasons. Um, but my kids really like at the end of the school year, uh, this last semester was the first semester I taught the 51 class and they really said, "Yeah, like we really want to book Mrs. Duncle." Um, and some have their this does have an online option because some of the kids like the portability of that. Um, but they really wanted a something that they had in their hands. So,
032not sure if I What was your second question? I don't remember if you found anything that was concerning in the text. No, I didn't. I mean, it's very informative. Um, it's from it's a survey course. Um, it looks at it fairly matterofactly and so no, I didn't see anything that goes right along with the curriculum. Again, Sierra College uses it. Right. So, if our students were to enroll in a Sierra College course not at Deloro High School, um they probably will get this textbook. Yeah. Okay. Um thank you for that. And I the wanting to hold the book in your hand resonates with me. I totally get that. And it's compact and it's not huge for a backpack. So, there's also a lot of science uh in cognition um that students retain information a lot
033better when they're looking at a text. Yeah. Versus on the screen. Well, I do have um I I'll go ahead and open it up to the board if the board had any questions on on the textbook. Um, I'm just going to share that, you know, as as I've heard some feedback and and I obviously I haven't had the opportunity to read the book in such a short time frame. Um, that that I feel a little bit hesitant without potentially having a little bit more time to to look through it. Um, and I have has anyone from the community reached out to try to look at the book? Okay. So, I worry sometimes with a I definitely want us to hit it so that we could have this conversation um to hopefully to approve for the
034for the fall. Um I have a little right now just based on the information, the limited information I have um and only two weeks time to kind of turn it around. I have a little bit concern that maybe I might feel uncomfortable moving forward with an adoption tonight. Can I just say I' I've been trying for a year to get a textbook. I tried last year um and there wasn't funding available um and then I started my search a year ago uh and I've been actively looking for textbooks for this class. So it's not something that just came out of the blue the last couple weeks. Um I actually had this picked out in January. Oh no. Yeah. And I've been trying we were waiting to see if there were spending available and and so
035I have been working on this for a year. Oh man. So, and I teach this class in the fall. Yeah. Um, not in the spring. So, can I ask a clarifying question, Miss Munle? Sure. So, you said you brought this to uh brought this up last year and you were told by the district that there was not any funding at this time. Yeah. There was no funding because I've been assured that that's what the the district remaining taking of the stipens. That's what it was for was for teachers that needed yearbook needed textbook already spent. Yeah. I Yeah. Um, so I can can talk about that and I just would like to toot my horn a little bit. And Karen Garcia, we just received word on Friday that we received a million dollars in grant
036funding. Yay. Because we needed money, right? So, um, some of that goes to textbooks. Um, some of it's going to go to field trips to see our college, but I digress. I'm talking off the topic. No, that's perfect. But that it the the uh grant is specifically associated with dual enrollment. Yes. All things dual enrollment. key cap grant money at some of our sites has been spent. Um is it the smaller sites that still have money? I don't remember. I thought so. They haven't spent all of theirs, but our larger sites have. Um and so that's why it was so important to get the funding for this particular next series of grants um to ensure that teachers do have that access. Um and I don't do finances, honestly. That's not my forte. Um, Trent holds
037the checkbook. I see any I'm just curious. The reason I asked that question is I'm I'm just curious why that didn't get funded last year. If this was brought up last year, I uh we talked about this, Jeremy, in in a meeting over here and I explained that all that money that doesn't go to the teachers and the stipens goes to the bottom line of doing a lot of different things within within that dual enrollment. Textbooks. It was I mean it was it's textbooks. It's paying for staff members who um are on our you know like uh our college and career techs that money gets funneled to them through that um as well. So yeah and it I mean it just goes to the bottom line. Uh I get that but I mean like the
038it should be a kind of a no-brainer if a dual enrollment teacher needs textbooks and that's what the money see our college is giving us the money for. That's what should happen right? it it was in like March, April when I got so I mean possibly it was at the end of the year. I mean we tried our best to get those funds and we analyze it and look at it um and when we were able to find those funds we we bought it. So, but um it is a uh with her in particular in this one, I think the conversation was we didn't know where Sierra College was coming with this coming year in their funding, which I spoke about last time that they were talking about maybe some other funding options. So, um
039before committing to something like a textbook, um I wanted to make sure that we had adequate funding. Okay. Thank you for that. Yeah, we we're waiting and then I had another question for Michelle. So, the last two weeks, have you had the opportunity to look through this book? And I've touched every single page. And um yeah, and I will tell you um there only one page really stood out to me that could be concerning to the public and that was um at the beginning right after the preface. It does have a quote from a mayor in Columbus, Ohio that talks about this um statue of Columbus and how some members of the public were offended by it. They called him, you know, a murderer, a theft, a thief, all those kind. That is literally the
040only passage that I could find. If you're asking me my opinion, which I hope you are, um, I love this book and I'll tell you why. It provides a survey of what was happening in the world at the time. Because oftent times some of the crit uh, criticism you find is America's bad. Our founding fathers are bad. But what this book does is talk about the trends that are happening in the world. And specifically, I'll just give you an example. And when we're talking about colonization um of wherever in the in the the world, it does talk in the book about how factually um and in my opinion without any moral judgment, how when new people come into a land that they bring with them pathogens. And so um American Indians did get very very
041ill and many of them died from smallox simply because they did not have any immunity to it. But in the very next paragraph they talk about how and I didn't even know this. Um how when the Japanese colonized Malaysia and Vietnam, the very same thing happened and this was all during the same time. So what they do in the book is say hey colonization was happening across the globe. that was what was happening in the world at that time literally without I don't think any judgment that was my personal view and I was looking for stuff that could be really um inflammatory to the public um I can give you other examples of how they handle things like slavery for example um I want I thought this was really really interesting they talk about that
042in the period of the time but they talk about the fact that slavery wasn't just happening in the Americas and in fact they provide this beautiful graph um that shows that um the vast majority majority of slaves were going to the Caribbean and to Brazil and in fact the United States had the smallest number um of North American mainland North American slaves. So it gives you an idea of hey this is wasn't just us this was everybody. And again it's very factual. It is very factual. Again, it's it doesn't say you're bad or we're bad or, you know, it literally says this was what was happening in the world and the implications of that, both good and bad. It talks about how um the colonization of the Americas brought forth a lot of great things
043that happened, not just here, but also in Europe where a lot of our forefathers came from. That's just my personal opinion on it. I'm not advocating for it. I don't do that as a district librarian, but I did look through this very closely. Madam I was like who president over here just curious what what was uh discussed with you about concerns. Yeah. Some of that the ideological like pusher leaning or potentially unfairly you know representing uh the United States. And so, you know, I always just think about, you know, balance and because I haven't had, you know, the text in my hand and it's only been through feedback and as I've tried to gather some information online, I just didn't feel like this has been a crazy few weeks and a month. Um, so to
044be able to to really review that, but but that was some of the concern there. And so, how what's what's the biggest difference between aside from the fact you're wanting to have a book in your hands, what what did you see? And did you read the previous texts as well, Michelle? I did not. I could I tried to find a copy in our district, but they had all been surplused. Okay. So, that's my other question is what's the biggest change with this update? Um and and some of that as I I was doing some research. Um yeah, so there's an talks about how had the content changed from the fifth edition. Um and they do talk about expanding viewpoints. And again, I don't need to beat a dead horse, but I really feel like they
045just it was just the facts. Just the facts, ma'am. Okay. Um it wasn't you're bad. Um you know, or America, you know, was built on the backs of, you know, nothing like that. It was simply showing the trends that were happening in the world were happening everywhere, not just here. Right. It's global history. It's not American history. Yeah. Yeah. It's global. I have a question. Yeah. Is it um because if I understand right there's a there's a paperback copy that's available to the students now. No. No. We don't have there's this book does not is not available in soft or hard cover. Okay. We can't have it in classrooms until it's approved by the board. No. Got it. I I have no idea I mean how they would get it. Yeah. I may excuse me.
046I may have misheard last two weeks ago. I thought we talked about it and how this was to update a prior version, a prior paperback version. We had this version. We have online pre-approval from the fourth edition that was me before I think it was 2016. I'd have to go back and look. I apologize. Um but it was not adopted by Becky. It was actually adopted by Ed Options, which is of course Confluence and Maidu. Um but we don't have any copies available any longer. um because it was at least 10 years old and probably people stopped using it and so it was surplused out. And I I will just want to throw one other thing in there again dual enrollment class, college level class where they're going to experience a lot of different texts
047at the college level that are way more yes ideological than what this one is. Um you know I believe when I was a history major we read I mean Howard Zen's this is not Howard left. Yeah. Yeah. Um, but we've always uh like in a I know this past year we had some instances where there we weren't comfortable with even at a dual enrollment that we pulled. Yep. Um, so I I mean Michelle's a awesome and I and I think she's done her homework in this. Um, and again dual enrollment texts, they're going to come and I think uh wrestling with ideas that they aren't comfortable with um is a part of being a college level student. No, I thank you for that. Oh, sorry. Go ahead. is an elected class, right? So, students are
048electing to join on. They're not required. So, yeah. And I just would like to echo that. The very first thing I do look is look at a book and I don't know how many times I went over to to Steve and Trent and went, "Uh, this is going to be a problem." Okay. No, thank you for thank you for that and thank you for your feedback. Um, just last last couple thoughts. Well, is there anybody else on the board that would like to ask a question? Yeah, please comment. Another not necessarily a question, but Miss Dunl, so first of all, I want to say I extremely admire you as a teacher. Um, I know you are 100% an expert in your field. Um, and you are very very good at what you do and I
049have complete confidence in you and if you've read through this book and you think it's it's good to go, then that's all that's all I need to hear. Thanks. Yeah, thank you. Awesome. I appreciate that. We have a motion or is there any other questions prior to making a motion? Yeah. No, I I just um Gosh, I I hearing from the public and just making sure we there's any concerns or issues, right, that we address those. Um, just I I meant to get there to go look at the book, but I didn't have a chance. Um, and uh, so that's the only thing like I'm I'm sure to to Jeremy's point like um give credibility to you as a teacher and Oh, I think you just have to get Yeah. Um, and so and I
050want to honor that, but I also feel a little blind not seeing question. Would you would you be meeting your uh your deadline if it were to be approved one month from now or is it July? When's our do it at special meeting? August. It would be August. So we I I don't I don't think that there's a law preventing us from discussing it, but we primarily our special workshop is is not tailored around that. I know that there's there have to be some sort of emergency for for a textbook. The textbook has to be done at a regular meeting. Correct. Is that the law? The special meeting clause about special meetings should be called for a particular agenda topic that is Yeah. Yeah. We can't add to that because there's already So I August
051is our next regular which would probably put us in trouble with with purchasing and and getting it that's two weeks in school. School's already started. Yeah. Starting on August 8th, right? Yeah. So we're starting so early. I feel like we're blinking and we're going to be back in school. Now I respect this is a dual enrollment class. I I understand that um you know it's it's a college level course. Um, but I always I'm not here to represent myself. I'm here to represent, you know, people who bring me feedback. And so it's important to have those types of conversations when when there is and not just about America, but about anything um within your course if you feel like something is and and I I wish I I'm going to read this. That's going to
052be, you know, I'd like to come like to read it. Um, but do you ever supplement if you feel like, you know, it's going down a road in in whatever subject that you're going to supplement to to provide a balanced perspective about? Absolutely. Okay, great. That's what history is. Yeah. I mean, history is not, you know, I said there's events that happened and then there's interpretations, right? So you're always we're always you know having historical discussions with primary source documents supplementing like this is the overview the bird's eye view and then there's you know certain things in here that we do more of a deep dive. We don't have a lot of time because it's there's so much we cover. We go from like 1450 to present day global history. That's a lot. Um but
053there's things Yeah. that we take a deep dive and of course look at multiple perspectives because point of view is one of those historical thinking skills right you have to be able to acknowledge so absolutely 100% yeah I've been teaching in this district this will be my 28th year and and I have a ma two masters and one in history and one in education so yeah I have it's not your first rodeo and I knew that it wasn't and I and I look at that whenever I pick out a textbook I'm aware you know of looking at things and and again this is why I landed on this one very informative survey text talking about globalist is not US history although I do have a US history but I'd love to get approved too um
054but hopefully fingers crossed uh but um but yeah I'm aware of all those things yeah so allighty do we have a motion I'll move to approve second we've got a first by trustee Jeff and a second by trustee Lake. Any further questions or comments? Hopefully it'll pass. Hearing none. All in favor say I. I. I. Thank you so much. All oppose. Hearing none. Motion passes. Yay. Thank you. Okay. All righty. Now your summer can officially start. I know. Okay. Thank you so much. Thank you, Becky. Alrighty. Okay. Item one 7.15 Lozano Smith agreement for legal services 2025 2026 renewal with rate increases limited scope Peter. Yes, Madam President. I know it um we've been working with Lozano Smith for a while in different areas of of legal services for the district and um recently we've
055we've basically cut ties with them on everything. But we've been working on that or I have been working along with Sarah Wrath with trademarking our logos and mascots at the school sites for the past almost 18 months now. So, I requested that um Lozano give me a new agreement where it is literally limited scope just to finish the trademark because we are very close to the end. We're at a point right now where we have seven items, two of the items have been approved and the other five we're now replying back to their argument about, oh, this might be too close to something where they're either going to say yes or no. And we're learning to the end. I don't see us spending 20,000. That's just a number we to put it out there just
056in case it goes somewhere, but it is not my intent to spend the $20,000. Um, we're not going to battle this out if you know it becomes an issue. We were just looking at trademarking because we have um people who like to sell merchandise and can actually go someplace and put our logo on it and not ask us. Um, it also prevents people from putting something on social media and putting our logos on there. Now, we can't stop them per se, but at least we have legal grounds. if they do something like that, we could cease to assist things like that. Um, but it gives us that opportunity. We've never had that before. It came to our attention a couple years ago as we've heard now. You know, there's a school called Delo in Bakersfield
057and they're the Eagles apparently. And so you you have this what are the odds? Um, no one would think about this, but um there's a school a private school in Georgia that has very similar, not exactly the Swiss that you see a plaster on their football field. And so one of the arguments we're pulling for is what's called geographical. No one's going to be selling plaster merchandise in Atlanta, Georgia. Okay? And the same with this private school there. Um if you were to go to our website and go to athletics, you see our logo everywhere for Placer. You go to theirs, it it took me a good couple minutes to like surf through to actually find their logo, and I didn't see it until I had some pictures spinning through. So, it's just little things
058like that to to make sure we have what we want protected. The interlocking DNO, the flames for Forest Hill. We found out with Kfax, we can't do that one. If you're a Cleveland Cavaliers fan, you'll know exactly what I'm talking about. There's no way that one would pass muster. And so, um, it also protects us in that way. We're not going to be pushing anywhere. We're not changing the logo anytime soon, but we also don't use it to, you know, we're not making millions like other people are. Is that is that the intention is so that so by trademarking it like the vendors in our local drugstores could no longer use the logo and there's also a service marking. So they they do a trademark and a service mark. The service mark has to do
059with our educational niches. Anytime we have something out there where we use even you know the school logo and then someone wants to reply back or social media think they can use it without our consent. Now they probably won't stop. Most people think well who's going to come stop? Cops aren't coming to the door. At least we now have legal standing to go to, you know, CVS for a long time, even I was the principal plaster. They'd print up shirts and they'd have the logo on cups and stuff. I mean, they're not making handover fist. But I think it was more about that. And it was also it gives us some leeway with our groups, our booster groups. You know, you should reach out to us first before you're going to do this, you know,
060and provide permission when you're going to sell things at the the stadium for football games because the money they raise does come back to the school. That intense So that was the intent of finishing this and this is why the proposal in front of you guys for the board and um obviously we we didn't enter another contract with this law firm. Um it would have been on our our agenda for last week if we were going to remain um uh with this is strictly with this attorney that you see. Yeah. And for through trademark correct so with that uh and I appreciate you bringing it to me and and appreciate you listening. Thank you. All right, Trusty Jeff, you pulled it. I'll let you take it away. I Yeah. So, thank you, Peter, for giving
061us that uh that feedback and input. Um my concern is in twofold um with this um proposal here. First of all, they're raising their rates yet again. Um which I don't feel like is appropriate. Um as I talked about last meeting, um you we're in declining enrollment. We're deficit spending for the next couple of years. I don't think we should be increasing the amount we're paying to on attorney's fees. Secondly, uh or actually three points. Uh secondly, you know, this agency, this firm, Lozano Smith, we've had some difficulty with in the past providing perhaps inaccurate legal counsel. Um which is why we've paired them back uh to do just about everything. Uh and we're not really using them so much anymore. Um, and I don't think that that's uh necessarily a good thing to uh
062continue paying account legal firm that we're not 100% behind. Uh, and the third concern is the fact that um we're approving up to $20,000 when especially considering you just said that we're nearly wrapped up with this the trademark issue. Um, you know, $20,000 that's, you know, at least a full section at one of our comprehensive high schools uh that students could be taking. Um, you know, if we're talking about $15,000 per section, that's so that's, you know, every dollar that we save can be spent right back in the classroom. Um, it's kind of the way I look at it. Um, and I don't necessarily agree with spending $20,000 um to continue this that, you know, this pursuit of the trademarking piece. Those are my thoughts. Yeah, thank you for that. Any any other trustees have
063feelings on this? To clarify, Peter, we've been in the works with this trademark for how long? almost 18 months. And we're close to being done. Yes. And uh and then compared to the other fees that were playing to other firms, does Lozano Smith, did they come in? This is pretty similar to DWK, but but the only cheaper one, if I say less expensive, was Ker Hudson. The the only issue I would raise is that, you know, I could go looking for firms, but then I would spend money with them talking about this and bring him up to speed. You know, do I feel this is going to be less than 10 grand? Yes. Um, we could change it something. I just didn't want to have it where we make it 10 and for some reason
064finish off it's going to be 11 or ask for five and it comes back at six, I'm coming back for another thousand dollars. I just would look I say petty just unprepared. So, you know, if it starts getting to a number where it's close to 10, that I don't want to do that. I'm just telling you, I I I don't disagree with you. You know, I know I want to finish this. I have a phone call with him today just to verify. And she goes, "It's only going to take me about at most maybe 10 12 more hours to finish this." So, not even close to that amount, right? Because I don't want to spend that kind of money. We literally just reply back to see what they're going to say. And I don't want
065to keep going back and forth. We've already been doing that for the past 18 months where we submit to the trademark agency and they come back and we put our counter argument. We're at the last phase of that almost like the final appeal type of thing. Assuming this would probably be an associate handling this. It is. She's an associate. Yes, she's not. Yeah, it would not be um Mona who is the person is an associate. So anywhere from 275 to 340, not the 350 to 410 and she's the only one working on this right now. Peter, if we chose not to uh support this, do we have any other options? So, it's this or nothing. It would just probably start all again, right? Well, just two of the seven things that were moving forward have
066been approved. So, the interlocking DO and the and the forest flame logo are the only two things that have been approved. It just seems so expensive, Peter. $20,000. That's just a lot of money. It's a buffer. I don't I think it's probably going to be closer to what you're maybe the most. Five to 10 at most. I'm comfortable capping it at 10. Just what' you say? Capping it like cutting that number in half. We've already spent 18 months on this. It's almost done. Let's get it behind us and because it would I mean we're either going to let it go and not pursue this course or we're going to have to reinvent with some other firm. We're not the only schools that do this. I didn't again I didn't do research up and down the
067state but as an example the school I mentioned in Georgia they just trademarked their P back in December. Yeah. Interesting that schools are doing this. It makes I I get it. It makes sense. It just and colleges for sure obviously but Yeah. And and at the time uh Lonzo Smith was who we went through for everything then. We didn't think about I used D well me person I used DWK a lot for the construction bond issues. Yeah. Couer Hudson was great with a lot of the student issues. Um, at the time Lozana was I just reached out and I referred to the person I've been working with is Mona. I did not work with the other attorneys. Okay. You know, I the the the thought that if we if we still wanted to continue to
068pursue this and having to start this kind of almost over with another law firm seems problematic and a waste of time and resources. Um, are are we foreseeing some revenue from this trademark potential or it's more just like protecting? Yeah. No revenue, just protection. Just protection. We already get kind of revenue by the stuff we sell ourselves, right? The athletic departments, things like that, right? You know, we don't make a lot of money. I think it's just more about being able to tell people within the area, could you, you know, cease and desist? And then we would have, you know, a nice template I can have. I just mail out from the business department. We wouldn't need to go to the legal department because I have all the legal documentation already that would be part
069of the process. They provide that to me. So every time I send out a letter, a school needs protection, it's a legal letter saying based off US patent, right, you need to stop selling this stuff. Yeah. And with 10 to 12 hours, I mean, that's going to be less than 5K. Yeah. Yeah. I'm I'm with you, Jeremy. I I'm never stoked to see increases in, you know, in fees. Um certainly not attorneys fees, and I'm with you on wanting as much money as possible to make it back to the kids. And I your argument is sound. Um and I'm with you on that. My again my concern would just be having to restart this with someone else. Um and so for that reason, I'm comfortable moving forward. I don't want it anywhere near 20. I
070would like it around five. Let's just handle this um and and put it behind us. Um would be my recommendation as well. So, um, with that, is there any other questions, comments, or do we have a motion if we did move forward with that with the board's, uh, desire to have it closer to $5,000? Um, Peter, would you be amunable to contacting the board if it looks like it's going to be going over? Well, no. Yeah, that would be if if we get to five and for some reason need more. I don't want to do that. I would basically inform you that either A we're dropping it the other ones because it's gonna be too much or B I need like three more hours or something like that. Yeah. thing. But I, you know, especially
071if I get to, you know, I personally don't see I would not want to go past 10 my in my position, you know, but I'd hate to get to 495 and need a couple hundred bucks and right, we did it five and I have to come back and ask for more technically, right? Because sure I can spend it, but if board already approved a number, I'm not going to go and say, well, it's just a few bucks. No one's going to know. So, you know, I'd like to leave at 20, but if I get once I get to five, I like I did, I can share Friday facts that we've been doing and let you guys know or even just a confidential email to the five of you and let you know where we're at.
072I think that's fair. I think so, too. Would Would that require us at this point to to modify what's before us or we would approve this with the direction that we want it kept? I would say it's not too but I would say with the direction of keeping us conformed once it gets to five and so forth because my own words I don't want to go past 10. Yeah. Yeah. I don't want to be anywhere near 10. Are we comfortable just approving it at 10 and below or below? Well, I think we we approve it as is and we get an update as we're we're approaching five and and what's our closure like how close are we and then we make a because we can always provide direction later. Direction. Yeah. Yes. Yep. I wrote
073it down. Thank you. No. Thank you. All right, y'all. Do we have a motion? Motion to approve. We have a motion by Trusty Duncan. I second. Second by Trusty Underwood. Any other questions or comments? Hearing none. All in favor say I. I. I. All oppose. Motion passes. 5. All right, we're moving along, guys. 6:30 and we're on action. I'm feeling good about this. All right. 8.1 certificated personnel report number 12 24 through 25. Yes, madame president. We have our personnel report that does have some stipen positions that are happening as well as two resignations of employees that we do want to thank them for service to our students in our district. So on the behalf of the acting superintendent, I would make recommend the approval of the certificated personnel order. Have a motion. I move
074approval. Second. We have a motion by Trusty Underwood, a second by Trusty Duncan. Questions or comments? All in favor say I. I. I. All oppose. Motion passes 500. Action item 8.2, classified personnel report number 12 24- 25. As you can see, we're busy again with all of our summer camps, event workers, and some of the fall stuff is starting to show up on our um personnel reports, including all the volunteers that are so willing to spend their time with our students and helping our programs, and we always appreciate that. We do have a number of um resignations, retirements, and um I um sorry, resignations, no retirements. Uh anyways, uh Jacob has been serving this site for years, these past few years, and we do want to thank him for his service and Courtney's service to
075our students. So, on the behalf of the su, uh acting superintendent, I would recommend the approval of the classified personnel report. I have a motion. I move approval. We have a motion by Trusty Underwood and a second by Trusty Jeff. Any comments or questions? All in favor say I. I. I. All oppose. Motion passes. 50. Item 8.3, teaching outside the credential pursuant to education code section 44258.3. Yes, madam president. This is our local board authorizations. U. Um this is a very helpful tool for us to be able to have teachers um who have uh specific knowledge, skills um uh academic um background in these areas to be able to teach outside of their credentialed area into other areas need on these sites. It really supports significantly supports our smaller sites. um the we are um
076we have done some last time we probably will still have some in August again usually sometimes there's a few in November December but these have all been through the process signed by the department chairs administrators that they've reviewed this information so on the behalf of the acting superintendent I would recommend the approval of the local board authorizations do I have a motion Move to approve. Have a motion by Trusty Jeff. Second. We've got a tie of the runner. Uh second with Trustee Underwood. Questions or comments? Uh quick question for you, Elena. Um now this is something that annually is audited right by the CDE. Could you just explain a little bit about how that works? So it's actually um it's a combination. It's called CALSASS and it's a combination of our ARIES which is where
077we document all of our teachers credentials the classes they are teaching and then CalPADS which is the state pulling of information they cross reference all that they to make sure that we don't have misassignments. In the past few years we've had zero misassignments. Um it could happen at any moment to be honest with you. Um, and usually it's a repair of something, not that we've actually really placed a teacher inappropriately. Um, but um, so they want to ensure the state wants to make sure that individuals that are qualified, knowledgeable are teaching our students in the single subject areas that high schools are um, under the guidance for. So this is this is what helps us to support a broad range of offerings at our school sites and to ensure that we're following the guidelines for
078um credentials. But there is it is a process. It's not just me saying, "Yeah, um President Spade, you have the background. Here you go." The department chair looks at it. They discuss those um things. is they look at their history of teaching it, what kind of academic background that they have, what other kind of backgrounds they have that gives them the knowledge and the skill to teach in that area. Thank you for that feedback. I know that um as a community member and as a new board member um navigating this and what that may look like. I appreciate that was a very comprehensive summary and you didn't know I was going to ask it, so thank you for that. I just wanted to acknowledge that um you know people that are foreign to this world
079yeah your kids are in good hands. They've been vetted to to teach these courses and um and so and it was done through a thoughtful process and it is audited to ensure that we don't have too many people outside of their lane and that they were appropriately positioned. So I just wanted to assure y absolutely. All right. Okay. Okay. So, we have a motion and a second. Any other questions or comments? All in favor say I. I. I. All oppose. Motion passes. 50. Item 8.4 employment agreement for grant funded career technical education coordinator. Yes, madam president. This is for um uh our individual that we have an agreement through um so it's Christina Overmiller who is a leazison through the whole county including Nevada County and Plaster County for CTE and Sarah College. We were
080the lucky people that agreed to um sponsor it. We do the money does not come from the district. It is not connected to the the district in except that it goes through our business department. She is housed here. She's been helpful. What was the CTE numbers that um 500? Yeah. Significant. Um so it's always a helpful tool to have her nearby, but she doesn't just serve our district. She serves all the districts in Plaster County, Nevada County to support the ongoing connection with Sierra College, CTE development and growth. And um so this is based on a granted grant funded amount of money. And so, um, this is the agreement that allows us to continue to process and pay her through the district. Awesome. Do I have a motion? Move to approve. Have a motion by
081Trusty Duncan. Second. And a second by Trusty Jeff to approve item 8.4, employment agreement for the grant funded career technical education coordinator. Questions or comments? So Elena, just to just to verify, so so her her entire salary, including the benefits and everything is completely covered. So it's not like the district's not really paying for any of it anyway. No, we're not. Perfect. Just office space. Yeah. Yeah. And she's in the IT office, right? I think we get um an administrative indirect cost out of that. Yeah. Could you I'm sorry. Could you repeat that? An indirect cost item that goes to administrative like for us processing all the paperwork and all of those kinds of things. Great. So, a small amount that allows us to for the cost of our time and I believe a little
082bit for the office space and stuff comes from the grant. Just um for those board members that might might not know, can you kind of explain a little bit about what Christina does? So, that is not my area of expertise. I'm going to let Trent talk to it. So, she uh works basically what's called the North Far North um regional district. It's a community college K16 kind of collaborative that the state has in every section of the state. Um her job is to connect uh work uh industry with uh secondary with K12 education. And so she puts on a lot of meetings uh and just works as a liaison between all of those organizations to provide us with information, sets up uh different meetings and workshops with Sierra College and those kinds of things. So,
083and this is year five. Four. Four or five. Yeah. Yeah. And so, every year we have to agree to to do it or not. And I will just add that she's lovely. Yeah. So, we're glad she's in our space even though and I'm grateful we don't have to pay for it. So, that's great. All right. Uh, we have a first and a second. All in favor say I. I. I. I. All oppose. Hearing none. Motion passes 40. We've had a trustee step out of the room for a moment. Item 8.5, uh, board policy 6146.1, high school graduation requirements update. Yeah, as you know, Madame President, and the rest of the board, we've been talking about this for some time, talking about some potential grad requirement changes coming from the state. Uh, one of those was
084ethnic studies. Another one is personal finance or financial literacy. Uh, they're they're named both of those um that were coming down uh our way. uh we had to offer a course uh per the statutory requirements this year of ethnic studies. However, um ethnic studies has been uh sort of holed up with a an unfunded mandate um uh clause within that legislation. All signs point that it's not going to be funded this year. Um so that was already added uh to our graduation requirements. We're going to pull that until something with the state changes. Uh and then we're taking our life skills graduation requirement off. Um a number of reasons for that is our financial literacy personal finance course is going to cover a lot of those same subjects. We already have a current graduation requirement
085list that includes two CTE courses uh or two dual enrollments or two APs and two uh or IBS. Uh and we also have a third-year math requirement that's added. we have a extra uh foreign language and so that creates a really compacted schedule. Adding life skills there just or taking away will free us up to do some other things. For example, uh we still need to we've been patchworking our health curriculum and we need to do a better job of finding a home for that to uh to where our students are are are getting that actual health. So, um, life skills can still be offered as a, uh, elective, especially at a place like Plaster where Dan Wilson's done such a great job at that class, and I know he'll still get a lot of
086kids in that class, uh, for that. Um, so it really it it's just trying to, you know, make sure that we leave some space for, you know, we have a lot of athletes who or band members who have, you know, blocks that are taken by those courses every year. Um, kids uh just it's just frees up another space if we take that life skills out. Noted. Thank you. And uh thanks for we do have a complicated uh graduation requirement and I do think that the board or the previous board, you know, really tried to to round out what our students were required to do. Um with that being said, I I do want to point out that um the positive well outside of life skills, I think Steve, I don't know if you were going
087to bring it up, but our A to G rates are pretty phenomenal um right now uh at our at our sites. So that scheduling has been designed to get to that level. Um but it's also created some complications for sure. Yeah, I know there's preliminary numbers on that. So um but I look forward to all of it being fully public. All right. Do I have a motion? Motion to approve. Second. We have a motion by Trusty Duncan and a second by Trustee Underwood. Any further questions or comments? All in favor say I. I. I. All oppose. Motion passes 5. 8.6. Courier and Hudson agreement for legal services 2025 2026. This was an item we tabled from our last meeting and requested and and directed staff to see if we could renegotiate the contract that they
088put before us. So in simple terms, Madam President, they did not renegotiate with us. Um, as mentioned before, of the three firms that we use currently, they are the lowest price. Um, I do agree, you know, with everything going on, it seems like everybody else has to raise prices. We don't. Um, and you know, utility rates, anything you think about has gone up and and and we get, I guess, stuck holding the bag. But um I personally have enjoyed working with certain people at Curry Hudson when I needed to along with members of DWK and of course I mentioned earlier at Lozano specifically but uh no they they are not going to budge on their rates. Um I do firmly believe we do need their services but on behalf of the superintendent we recommend approval
089but you guys can discuss it. All right. Thank you. I did reach out to Plaster County like you asked Emerson. She did get back to me, but we're waiting to have conversations. Sometime we just she just emailed me back and so we're just kind of back and forth trying playing phone tag or email tag. All right, let's go ahead and open this up for conversation. again hate to have another increase but given uh the latigious nature of our of our world right now. Um it is and they're the least um expensive of the services that we we require. Um I would be concerned to release them right now. Um appending obviously we we also discussed the option of maybe having someone ired in to save some of that cost. I don't know if that's possible
090down the line, but for the time being, I know that they're working on several uh different situations with our district. Um, and similar, but I think to the extreme end, we're talking trademarking, how long it would take for somebody to get up to speed. I know they're dealing with some complicated things right now. So, I would I would hate to lose that service and have to try to get somebody else up to speed in the 11th hour. I I also spoke with some uh people have in uh in-house counsel and um one of the concerns was that and I think you guys mentioned it last time is that uh some of this uh legal stuff is very specialized and so even with in-house counsel they're still have law firms on retainer that deal with specific
091aspects that that uh in-house counsel can't um and also that uh they end up getting taken away from a lot of the stuff because they're so involved in the district business from day to day is what they mentioned. It's like they still were reaching out to get some of the other work done that uh is getting pulled away from lawyer. So just just some more feedback from Yeah. Thank you. that had in-house counsel Peter. I have a question. It says total uh impact is not to exceed $200,000, right? Yes. What do we usually uh in a typical year? What are our legal fees? Are they that high? I would say David, prior to several years ago was about a half million a year. We've eclipsed that now. Um but a lot of the stuff that
092we did before, like with bond was reimbured by the bond. So if you saw a legal bill from DWK, most of that money is reimbured. You know, currently we're using DWK again for PG& they reimburse all the legal fees. Um I'm using DWK for some cell tower stuff we're doing in Deloro. Part of the deal is to reimburse all the legal fees. There's a funding source for that. So even though you see a big bill, a lot of that stuff is reimbured. There's some items that aren't, but this has gone up because of the latigious part of what's happening. I mean, I I can't speak except maybe anecdotally, but like a lot of the Kate, a lot of the work we do with Kate from Pure Hudson is not work we're looking for. It's brought
093to us because the parents don't like the offer we're we're making. And whether we're right or wrong, when we end up with a settlement, um, you know, Trusty Jeff mentioned last time with the pay warrants, we saw a payment for a lawyer for $10,500, which was a lawyer that we didn't hire, but was the lawyer for the family that we had a settlement with. And part of the deal is we paid their fees. So, hence some of the comments we've had from the board about who can we reach out to, who's who's protecting us from that kind of stuff. That's California law is the way I understand it, you know, and this isn't like watching suits or LA law where, you know, they have all the time in the world to fight everything and it
094costs money. And so we try and watch that budget, but things come up and, you know, thankfully we have things like with the other the claims we're dealing with so forth, those are covered by SIG and the attorneys through there and they're coming out of pocket on our end. That's most I can tell you right now. Any other questions or comments? Or do we have a motion? I move to approve. We have a motion by Trusty Duncan. Second. Second by Trusty Lake. Any other questions or comments? Hearing none. All in favor say I. I. I. I. All oppose. Opposed. We've got a 41 passing of the motion. Item 8.7, resolution number 19 2425 adoption of the 2025 to 2026 preliminary budget. Yes, Madam President. So, I'm going to have our director of budget and accounting,
095Su Kaine, come up and present our preliminary budget. Thank you so much. Hi. Good evening. Good evening, President Spade, members of the board. Um I'm Sue Kane, director of budget and accounting. I'm here tonight to present the 202526 um preliminary budget. Um, and in your folders, you should have had an updated slide sheet. There was um formatting issue, so I fixed that. So, I'm going to go ahead and start. I start with our general fund revenues. What we're projecting next year is $64.2 million. Um, and as you can see, um, our sources of that income, our LCFF, that's basically our state aid, a little bit from federal, that's mostly title one, and some other grants. Um, other state and our other local. Other local could be local grants or it could be donations, things like
096that. On the next slide, you'll see where our dollars are going. most of it to instructional related services. Obviously, we're here to support the kids. Um there's also maintenance and operation, utilities, 8 million. Um there's pupil services, 7.3. Um we have other miscellaneous expenses 2.1, general admin services, 5.2, and athletics and activities almost 2 million. On the next slide are other financing sources that we get transfers in, transfers out. As you can see here, in this next year, we're going to need to transfer in some money from fund 17 to help cover the deficit, which I'll go over in a little bit here. That comes from the tech endowment as well as the state budget and certainties. We also transfer from fund 25 every year. We get a 3% admin fee from that. We also
097transfer out to my do charter uh title one funding that may change. They have applied through the consolidated application for their own title one funding. We haven't received that information yet, but we wanted to make sure to show that they will receive some type of title one funding. Then we have our contributions which comes out of our general fund. our special ed 1.1 million and our actual that's the the the other part 3310 which is a special education from federal then our regular special education which is the AB 602 which is state funded uh 4.1 million um we are part of the SULPA with plaster county off office office of education they are going to a new formula for the bill back next year it's fee for services so it's going to be interesting how
098that plays out. Um I don't see it helping our district. It's helping other districts. Um that was voted on by the Sula board. So we'll see how that unwinds as the year goes on and how many kiddos we have for the fees for services. Yes. Um what is it that you anticipate how it's not going to help our district? I'm just curious. Well, because the fee for services is based on our kiddos. basically they they come up with a a costing for that fee and then it's charged by the number of kiddos. So that fee we maybe can have three kids in there and we're going to be paying for the part of the ones that have the 10 kids in there if that makes sense. So it's they don't look at it as real
099proportionate. The prior funding model was I just want to say it was kind of based on split between everybody. It wasn't it wasn't real proportion either. I don't know if there's really any really right answer how to do how the self was doing it. I know they're working on it. Um I think we had the same funding model for quite a long time. Um I know when I started in school business it was just based on seabeds. You know that's what they did it in Plaster County and I know over time it's changed a little bit. So, it'll be interesting with this fee for service how that how that because we don't I don't think we have a lot of kids um in their programs, but the costs are substantial with Plaster County and the
100and the types of programs that they're offering. And then our routine maintenance, that's a 3% requirement that we have to move into there. Um the state doesn't give us the money for that anymore. So that's like a $ 1.9 million contribution out of our general fund. Then on the next slide, we have our components of our ending fund balance. I'm showing what we're estimating for this current year for 2425. Um we are decreasing our fund balance by almost six 6.1 million. Um which is leaving us um an undesated amount of about $660,000 to start the year off next year. we are able to meet our 3% reserve for economic uncertainties, which is really going to determine if you're qualified or positive for the most part. For fiscal year 2526, um we are showing about a
101$600,000 reduction. Um again, 2425 is pretty much the spending of all our onetime money. That's why it's showing that. Um, I'm showing the ending balance $485,000 for 2526. I'll get to the multi-years towards the end here. Um, our Maidu virtual charter academy. Um, here's their revenues about 1.7. Their expenditures is a little over 1.7. Um, I know they're really trying um to bring in that enrollment and and start that um I believe it's the collegiic program to get kids kiddos really in there. So, they're expecting to spend a little bit more Um, and we did get our funding determination. We will be getting 100% funding for next year. So, which is great. Our other funds, we have our student activity special revenue fund. That's our ASB. Um, it's pretty basic. We're showing legally restricted about
102822,000. Um, again, we're still working on on year end. Um, we've got some invoices out there they need to pay. We keep pretty good tabs on it. We really looked at the balances this year for the different clubs to really make sure that what they're carrying over is really thoughtful of why they're carrying it over because those monies are for the students in those in school right now. Are they allowed to carry that funds over? I thought they weren't allowed to. Yeah, they can carry funds over. It's it has to be determined by the ASB the board and then also by our direction. So this year we we recommended that if you have a carryover, you should provide it to your your administrator of why you want to carry it over. So for instance like
103yearbook, they they always need to carry over because they got to upfront so much for the the yearbook stuff like that. And then athletics sometimes you got your summer camps and things like that. So that's what they fund raise. So those are the two that are mainly. Then we have our adult education fund 11. They're expected uh to end with about a $300,000 ending balance. And our cafeteria fund 13 is still in the black, which is great of 87,000. And we also heard that the kitchen infrastructure grant they might be getting um some more money for for equipment and for things like that. So that'll be good for them because I know Crystal's done a great job really upgrading all the kitchens. Then our fund 17, our special reserve fund. Um because we're having to
104move in some money next year, we're going to end up with only a $2.1 million. We're going to need to move in approximately 3.5 million. Um that's that is concerning and I'll talk about that again later in the in the MYP. Uh for the Sters PERS pension stabilization trust, um we're ending a 780. Luckily, um PERS rate went down. Saved us just a little bit of money. Not much, but everything counts. uh technology endowment. We move some money in and we had to we're projecting to move in all the state budget uncertainty reserve. Now, this could all change come first interim. You know, this is just a projection. The enacted budget hasn't been finalized. So, it'll be interesting. I know President Spade talked about the 1.3 and that is a hot topic right now. So,
105it'll be interesting. And then we have our educational foundation fund 19 as as uh Trusty Underwood spoke to. It's doing great. Um, we had quite a bit of scholarships this year. Um, and we were able to increase some of the scholarships this year, which is really great and very deserving for those students. Um, so again, we'll have our meeting in um, July, end of July, and we'll discuss, but it's it's really brought back, you know, some rewards. Yeah, it's really worked out well. So, and then our building funds, expect those to be done. Our bonds are going to be done next year, right, Peter? So, we're finalizing those, finishing up some some more things over the summer, which should be able to spend down our bonds and we can close them out. So, we're doing
106some great things this summer, which Peter will talk about um a little bit when he does his facilities. Then, next we have our capital facilities fund 25. Uh right now we're expecting 1.1 million um at the end, but again that can change as money comes in. Peter works with me and we work with Dawn on projects for that. And then our fund 40 um even though I'm showing expenditures out of like 300 grand. This was before a lot of projects were approved um by this board and we updated those and those are going to be pretty much done during the summer. So this obviously will change come first interim. And then we have our retiree benefit fund 71 which is $570,000 which helps with the PARs. The fund 25 is the developer fees. Yes. Um
107a bulk of that money we're using right now for the Kax track and field and then fund 40 is the facility money we've been using is offsetting costs for the intercom systems like Kfax and then when we start doing the work at Boington Park a couple of items that I brought up with the board before and we'll keep briefing you as things go along. Peter, those uh development fees, what what areas um were being developed where we're getting that money coming in? All the areas any kind of growth any but I mean like specifically it was there some building in Kfax is that yeah they they built a few homes now it's not 2.2 million of it all but a lot of the bulk was also the Delaware area. Okay. You don't get a lot
108before still as much anymore but mostly say the 80 from Kax and then down through and it's not necessarily new constructions. It's a lot of people adding on or you know building an ADU on their property that type of thing. I didn't realize we got developer fees for those kinds of things. Yeah. Anything over 500 square feet. Okay. Yeah. Thank you. Usually in the elementary schools, you know, if uh the Kfax has a couple businesses that were built, the dollars for anything was built, you know, you get only 30 cents a square foot, but it's still something that they pay. Yeah. Then we get into our multi-year assumptions. So on the next slide you can see here's the assumptions I used for the upcoming uh next year and the two years out. Our funding formula
109are COLA next year 2.3 the next year out 3.02 and 3.42. Obviously this is very fluid. We don't know what's going to happen with what the state is our district enrollment. Yes. Um I did 3780. I kept it stagnant for 3760 and 3760 for the next two years out because right now our enrollment it could go it went it went up last year right but it could go down so I want to wait until October when we get our seabeds numbers in to really be able to project out the next year and the year after and with that we have our funded ADA now in the LC LCFF calculation you know there's three ways to fund you can fund on current year ADA prior year ADA or your three month average ADA. It's whichever is
110larger. When I put in the numbers, it comes out to we use our three-year average ADA. That is what we're funded on. So, that's what these three numbers are. 3569, 3,540, and 3501. That is what the calculator is expecting, what we're going to be funded on. Um, just because I'm curious, can you um explain to uh some of the board members how the ADA is actually calculated, like what that number comes from? Well, it's attendance. It's it's your average daily attendance. So when a student shows up that's and it averages at least one block, right? Pardon? For at least one block. At least one block. Yes. Is that the the average for the entire year for every student average? It is as of P2 usually around March or April. That's what we're funded on. It's
111called our P2 ADA. Um and that's usually in March and April. So once we hit that date, it's averaged from the first day of school to then. Got it. And we get fun. So we do a a a period one attendance which is just kind of a gauge and then we do a period two attendance which is what most of our funds come from and grants and then we do an annual attendance which like lottery is funded on your annual attendance. Um some of the special education ESY is funded on an annual attendance. So it's a lot of moving numbers that go into this calculation. So then here's our local control uh funding formula. So, this is what we're expecting in LCFF dollars of 50.6 next year. Note that it's only about $140,000 more than
112this year. And that's because one, our declining enrollment. You got a co you got a cola, but it was only 1%. It went up. Um, so again, it's all in the formula in the local control funding formula spreadsheet. Um, however, when we go out to 2627 because our cola goes up, um, we're going to 1 million and then the year after that 1.1. So, I'm hoping that we can fund these colas in these out years, if not get a bigger one, which would be great and our enrollment increases. That's key. We don't know that, right? No, we don't know that. So, like I said, this is these are all projections. So until you know like I that's why I do a first interim a second interim and then you know I do an estimated actual
113because it's it's it's a moving target with the state you know we always have to get everything done before the state does which makes no sense to me is that the truth yeah and then I'm showing in our transfer for fund 17 in the in the outy years again so in state budget uncertainties and our tech endowment for that 26 27 year. Um, and then on the next page, you'll see what our projections are going to be for our ending fund balance. So, in our 2627 down to 200,000 and into 2728, about $82,000 ending fund balance. So, on the next slide, here is where the concern is, our deficit spending concern, which is a concern for a lot of districts in this state right now. Um, so in order to maintain our fiscal solveny, that's
114why I had to transfer in fund 17. So if we continue the way we're going, I will deplete fund 17 to cover our deficit spending. So our, you know, we have a budget stabilization plan like I talked about at second interim. We're trying to freeze identified positions that we don't need to fill. Non-personnel, you know, we're trying to do everything we can to not hit the classroom. Um but based on the current state budget, revenue losses and declining student enrollment and especially the rising costs of utilities is just crazy. Everything's going up as as you know and the health care compared to the expected cola, we're we're in a negative. I mean, we may be getting a cola of 3% but our costs are rising 5%. It's kind of a no one's situation. And we
115talked about with our def excuse me with our deficit spending are our reserves going to be totally depleted? They could be. Yes. If we continue with the spending just wow because we always had a big reserve. Yeah. We have like that rainy day has come. Exactly. It's really scary. Very scary. Yes. I agree. But we we want to reestablish the budget advisory group probably August, September, Peter. We're thinking of doing that. And that way it'll allow us to really plan and address the budget reductions hopefully for 26 27 to come up with some ideas to really be able to to solve solve the issue and and not hit the classrooms because that's what we're here for. We're trying not to hit the classroom. So, so with that, our current projections, we are able to meet
116our financial obligations for the current subsequent two fiscal years. And so, I do recommend the board approve the adopted budget report as a positive. Any other questions? Not the great news, but just very sobering, right? I um I just want to thank you for your work on this. This is super complicated. Um you really have to be like psychic to know what's coming. Speaking of the moving target, it's just impossible. Um, Peter hears me humming and hawing in my office all day long. So, I think it's Yeah, I actually think it's ridiculous. Um, and I like shoot it back up the up to the legislature who continues to, you know, squeeze our funding. Again, I'm going to step on that soap box. uh to squeeze our funding and then essentially change the the LCFF to
117nearly categorical spending and not give us any flexibility to support the programs that we need to support. So, you know, wagging the finger up up the hill, you know, help us out here there. There are other districts that are not in the same position right now. We have districts here in Plaster County that are growing. you know, we have an established seasoned community which we love so much. Yeah. Um but yeah, this this is rough. Um I'm glad that there was a stabiliz stabilization account that we have been able to access. Um and that was with the help of a lot of the onetime money as well. Yeah. A lot of that one time money because a lot of districts Yep. you know, spent that long time ago. Yeah. So, it's about to get real,
118extra real, and um I think we're all feeling that. And I I uh look forward to hear what the committee is going to come up with. This has been a conversation with our incoming superintendent as well. He's tracking it, watching it, and um I think he's ready to sit at the table and chat about all of this um with you guys and try to come up with some solutions that can keep our district afloat. The the three are out 80, what is it? 81,000 like takes my breath away. Um, but I want to acknowledge your slides, your com comedic slides. Sometimes when life's hard, you just got to laugh and like we're gonna we're gonna figure it out, you know, but thank you for bringing some We'll figure it out. Yeah. A moment for us
119to at least get to reflect. Obviously staying optimistic, Madam President, is remember these are always the snapshot of where we are in time. And um couple advantages that I've um let's see I've enjoyed at least now is like when we go to the school services budget meeting and so forth you've been there other board members come we're hearing the same information and that helps when we have the conversations because you know you can't hide what we're doing it's not it's you know you had the or should we we have auditors that come in twice a year. Yeah. There's no need to look at that way. I think people need to be aware of when when things are flush in the state. We enjoy that and when things get tight, we don't. Um, and the other
120thing to point out is, you know, you you have contention with the Fed and the state having right now. And my analogy, since I love making the analogies, is I'm in a boxing match with Mike Tyson, whoever else, and I'm in the front row, and I'm just getting teeth and blood all over me from that fight. And that's what's happening right now. And so, and unfortunately, again, with our declining enrollment, somebody says, "Well, what if I get 20 new kids?" I said, "We need like a hundred new kids. money will not make a dent because the more kids we get will help offset we are then continue to grow right kind of like replenish the savings and then look at something else and so you know we stay optimistic we have the groups we start
121planning ahead um and we see how it goes but just let people know optimistically this is still a snapshot you know we have we we come back in August September we look at maybe we might make some changes and then we have first interce so and we start all over yay Hey, legislation, you know, SB98. I'm not optimistic that California is going to switch to enrollment versus ADA, but at least they're talking about it. So, let's be positive. We've been talking about so I know I know that's been a conversation with the delegate assembly a lot lately. You know, we we have our full student population, but we're only getting funded for a percentage of it on an average, you know, which is most uh beneficial for us. But I also speaking of attendance, I
122did want to acknowledge um administrators and sites really having an emphasis on that this past year and thank you for that. Um communicating with our community about how we're funded and the more your students are able to be in class. You know, that helps us significantly. Hundreds of thousands of dollars increased by a percentage. And so your attendance does matter. Yeah, I think our um our average this year was about 94%. So it went up. I budget a little conservatively just in the hopes that you know so I did about 92 93%. So in hopes that that comes up because that way there's a little cushion right there. So I like to do that conservatively for us. Awesome. You said our average was 94%. It went up to about 94%. Been higher than that. It's
123been higher than that. It's been 95 plus. Yeah. Precoid 95ish. Yeah. A lot better than the state average of what 82% I think is the state average. Well above the state average. Oh yeah, for sure. Yeah. Okay. Well, thank you again. Any other questions regarding I appreciate your explanations. Thank you very much. Thank you. All right. We This is a resolution, so I'm going to turn it over to our acting superintendent. Okay. Resolution. Uh Underwood. Oh, actually, thank you. We do need a motion. Y I move. We have a motion by Trusty Underwood. Second. Second by Trusty Lake. Now we're ready. Okay. Roll call. Underwood. It's a resolution. Yes. Yes. Duncan, yes. Speed, yes. Jeff, yes. Lake, yes. Motion passes. Thank you very much. Motion passes 50. Excuse me. Resolution passes 50. Okay, we have
124another resolution. Item 8.8. Resolution number 202425 authorizing the recording of a quick claim deed to correct record of title ownership of the Kfax High School campus property and acceptance of grant deed recordation. So, Madam President, this is one of those stories where I wish I had a lot of time. I would love to regail you with my issues of PG. Uh, no. Um, they've been great. Um, as you know, Madam President, um, back in, uh, August, October or September, we had an issue with PG. We went back to the table, they gave us some more money. We had an easement thing come up. Well, um, it's great. They want to do undergrounding and they're doing some undergrounding in the Kfax area and they came to us right around the end of April. And when they
125showed us the map, I told the guy right off the bat, I said, "You're not going to make it. You want to do work in July, it's just not going to work." Well, we're really motivated. I said, "That's great." I said, "But the other Justin who I worked with last year started around April. We didn't get done till September, October." Yeah. Yeah. But and so this is a bigger project. They want to um dig down the driveway at Kolfax and some other stuff. So it's a great project, but it just a lot entailed. And one of the issues was the e they presented said plaster joint union high school. Well, we're not plaster joint. And so they didn't think that would be a big deal. Well, our attorneys disagreed. Um and so we tried to
126get something on there, but it wasn't working. The one thing that we didn't get on there is this quick claim process so that we can show that we are plaster unit high school district. So these old things that happened, this change happened around 1977 when the district decided to to fix the name if you want to call it that. Um I'll be bringing the other ones to the board in August or September as cleanup. We just took care of this one now in case the PG thing was going to start working through fruition, but we won't see anything up until then. I've already set the table with them. They know we're going to want some money out of this and pay our legal fees just based off precedent. And so, um, we'll see how that
127comes fruition. I don't want to stop them from doing what they want to do. I mentioned to them that, hey, I don't have a problem. I don't think we have a problem if you're doing construction during the school year. You know, class run without a cafeteria for a whole year. It's not like we're not used to things being discombobulated, but I don't think they want the pressure of doing work during the school year, having Taylor road really impacted one man's opinion. Um but um when that comes further to the board, you'll have more information. You know, as you remember, it's a two-step process. Um so give the public a chance to talk about it and then approve it. Um they were think we can do it in one. I'm I'm not going to do that
128because like I always remind people when something happens, they don't come yelling about that. They'll come yelling about I didn't do it appropriately and I want to make sure I'm doing appropriately presenting to the board appropriately. So with that, all we're asking for is the approval of just the name change right now, which is very simple to be honest with you. And on behalf of superintendent, we recommend approval. Thank you very much. I move approval. Second. We have a motion by Trusty Underwood and a second by Trusty Duncan. Any questions regarding item 8.8. Are you aware if any other sites have a similar issue with this change? Um, I am not. Um, I have not done any homework to to think about that. I, you know, I look around Forest Hill and I don't know
129about Forest Hill. You know, we're we're planning on putting a generator there eventually. I'll be bringing that to the board hopefully in August. Um, but I do know that PG did um do a micro grid up there for the PSPS type of issue because apparently when the power goes out, a lot of it was underground into Forso because it was newer in 2004 whereas the area surrounding it is not. But I've heard nothing about that or Deloro or or Plaster. Okay. I can inquire if you'd like. I just have not I've not everything else we got going on. You know, I'm assuming they're going to approach us eventually. Plaster will be very interesting where they think they're going to do it. Um if you looked at Kax right now, the power lines they want to
130underground are on someone's property next to the school. And where if I'm following the lines, if it were to go straight down, I think it would like go underneath someone's garage. don't think they want to want to tear up someone's right. So that's why I think they're moving it over to or revessing the easement onto ours because it's just a driveway. So part of the idea is like well are you going to make it look the same or better because once you cut up that drive and pave it, what if it starts sinking a month from now? How do I guarantee that it'll be taken care of? Thank you. So we have a motion and a second for item 8.8 8 resolution number 2024 to 25, authorization um uh the recording of the quick claim
131deed to correct the record of the title ownership of the Kfax High School campus property and acceptance of the grant deed for recordation. And with that, roll call. Uh Underwood, yes. Duncan, yes. Spade, yes. Jeff, yes. Lake, motion passes. Motion passes 5. All right. Okay. Item 8.9, HMC Architects proposal, Delora High School 500 hallway design services. Yes, Madam President. So, um, this is engaging with an architect we've used before um to do well, we need help with designing what we want to do with that hallway with lighting and so forth. I don't predict we're going to get close to the 18,000. But again, um, if things go down that path, you could get there. But that's why it says not to exceed. You have the attachment of what they charge per hour. Um, this is
132not the construction cost. This is just engaging with the architect to develop a plan for us of how to repair those walls, what we're going to be using, what material, and then the lighting and things like that in that hallway in that building. And the funds from this do come from measure D, the bond measure for Del High School. And on behalf of the superintendent, we recommend approval. Do I have a motion? What's your hunch on what it about 10 or 12? It's not, you know, architects, I mean, we have professionals, but I I would feel better, you know, had an architect previously developed the building, and those walls get beat up daily. And so, I really want to make sure that the plan we have in place is something that's durable, you know, almost
133like that diamond plate metal that you've seen some places where, you know, it's I, you know, we we've um allocated 160K for this project, and we're just talking some walls and lights. Um, but it needs to be that if you go down that hallway, it just by the essence of the number of kids going down there. Um, we need something more durable than just like wallpaper and paint. And why HMC? How do they compare? We've used them in the past years ago. Um, we established a group of architects we got a pool, if I may call it that, to to work with. And as long as we keep dipping into the pool, we can just keep doing that. It's not compared to construction. We don't have to go out for bid anymore. No. But um
134I personally have been um enjoying HMC. Their costs are pretty amanable if I architects around which it's the same or more kind of like the lawyers we work with. Um but I've enjoyed working with Carlos is his name um with the service work that he does. And so but when we do bigger projects like the Boington so forth, we are already working with a different architect on that one. So is is Boington happening uh this summer? Well, I still haven't we have a meeting I want to say was this week might be next week where we're meeting with the engineering architect because of the plans. I'll be presenting more to the board in August because we haven't even gotten yet because we don't have defined plans with ADA. Um when I first mentioned to the
135board we were still moving in the direction of what's it going to look like and then getting to DSA and once we get approved plans and show that to you guys then it's we got to go out for bid and there's there's a process to that too as well. So, so I could not give you an idea. I just the upper parking lot took two months. So, I I I really don't want to get into discussion of how we're going to do that parking lot because everybody's going to have an opinion, right? So, Peter, getting back to the 500 hallway. So, all this is coming out of bond money, right? That can't really be spent on anything else, right? True. Okay. It was one of the projects that as we got down near the end,
136we had saved, you know, two things happened. One, some projects didn't come in at the total cost. So, we saved money. And two, you know, when you put 40 million in the bank, you make some interest. Yeah. If you don't spend it right away. And so, we've been spending it appropriately, but we made some interest. And so, allow us to do go back projects. We did the ASB room. We updated the staff room. We did the 100 wing offices that weren't included in the first part. And this is one last piece that allows us to do projects that were not on the original list because of of circumstances when we came in under budget on certain things. Peter, great job. Yeah. Well, it wasn't just me, but thank you. I appreciate you're here. Now, I'm
137looking at item D in the attachment says the proposed schedule. I mean, obviously the proposal is correct and you know, potentially the design review meeting later this week, but it says construction June to August 2025 without us even seeing anything. So, I'm assuming that's an error. Yeah, we'd be moving that. That's why it's proposed. I mean, yeah, proposed schedule to Yeah. complete before we approve what you will not you won't see anything coming forward until around August, obviously. Yeah. So with the scratch of that proposed schedule which is not happening um as far as the construction deadline I am in support of moving this forward. Do we have a motion? Motion to approve. We have a motion by trustee Duncan and a second by who is my Tai Lake? Trustee Lake. Any other questions or
138comments on item 8.9 HMC architects proposal? Hearing none. Um all in favor say I. I. I. All oppose. Motion passes. 50. Item 8.10, installation of new PA intercom system for Kfax High School. This is great. Thank you, Peter. Yes. So, Madam President, this is this is Mr. E nerding out. Um, I've been, ever since being a principal at Plaster High School, I'm looking forward to this. We had a demonstration um at our um admin retreat last week. Um, I think all the principles were there. We're very excited about what's going on. Um, with the new intercom and bell system we're going to be putting into place. As I mentioned when we did plasters, we now have Kofax's bid in August. You should be seeing Forest Hill and Dooros. We're in the middle of working out
139with PSA. They were a smaller number. So, we just been moving forward with that. And I can share more information on PSA later, but it was a much smaller scale. But with this one, we have two pieces to it. Again, we have team one who does the purchase and install of the equipment, and then we have Ultralink that does the wiring. uh two different groups. And so for a total of um I put a little contingency on there, 10% we're requesting $107,000 for this project. And as we mentioned before, we had this from a list of about six people. We didn't go with the cheapest, but we didn't go with the most expensive. And when it got down to the two people, the other group was about twice as much. And again, just going with
140with you want to call it a joke, we want bells and whistles, but we don't want to pay for bells and whistles. And so in the end, the staff wants something reliable, but still fun to play with. And one of the great things about this one is you can play any kind of music you want through the speakers. The bells that go off can be one of those appropriate, but it can be someone's voice saying, "You need to get to class. You need to get to class." Things like that. That's hilarious. Um, the one thing I really like about the safety feature is you're going to have strobe lights in every room that can be different colors. So you can have the light go off and not the alarm, you know. So red, yellow, green,
141you can have multiolor things like that. And then we're still having analog clocks. That was just my piece. I believe every kid should still know how to read a clock. Amen. We're going with analog clocks. Sorry. Delora will still have when we get there. Yes, Delore will still have some digital. We're not going to remove the digital clocks from the new buildings. That makes no sense. So we'll still have that, but the analog is and it the nice thing about these is they will move on their own when it comes to day out savings times. Kofax will tell you their clocks don't even work at all anymore. So that's why we're doing all new wiring and new system. Perfect. Thank you so much. On behalf of Superintendent, we we recommend approval. All right. Do we
142have a motion? Move to approve. We have a motion by Trusty Duncan and a second by Trusty Jeff to approve item 8.10, installation of a new PA intercom bell system for Kfax High School. Any further questions or comments? So when we did the uh student voices meeting at Kfax High School, this was brought up by a number of the different students. Um, and I think this is a great project not just for the convenience of the student but also for school safety. Yeah. Uh, which is a huge issue. U, you know, if there was a lockdown or something like that going on, like the staff needs to know what's going on. Um, so I think it's hugely important. You can use it on the app from your phone as an administrator. It's great. There's a
143lot of thing I I I learned more just sitting there from last week and the whole point was for the principles and their assist principles to hear it because they're the ones like I say boots in the ground type of thing. Yeah. So I think they were I'm hoping very pleased with how we be able to use the functionality in the use of it all. So just to reiterate what you said and make sure I'm tracking properly that all the admin had a training with the intercom people recently. Well, it was a training was more of a like a demo. Okay. And the training will come this all comes with the package when they will do it. Of course just want to make sure that yeah they understand the people we're working with they actually
144do our phones too. So it's they're not going away. There'll be a group that we keep working. Super awesome. Yeah, this is huge and I completely agree. This has come up a number of times and and I just also think that uh you know students they were talking about you know there's no bell and then trying to get to the class like that you know time management just trying to get around campus and not knowing what's going on not having a clock or a bell it's that's kind of rough. So um I hope that this is installed swiftly so that uh they're ready to go when when the bell drops. So, and this is coming from that final 40 facility find restricted facility money. Y super. Okay. Do we have um a motion? We already
145did. Just kidding. I have them both. I just didn't write it down. Um all in favor say I. I. I. All oppose. Motion passes by. Just kidding. Four. Thank you for bringing up count y'all. I appreciate you. Okay. Item 8.11, Meteor Education, Inc. My apologies. I didn't even acknowledge that. Uh Meteor Education, Inc. furniture proposal for KFax High School. It's Kofax's night. It is their night. I like it. Merry Christmas. So, Madam President, um we have been working with Meteor um since back when I was a principal at Foster High School back in 2012, 13, 14. Um we knew about basically 21st century furniture was was the push. Um at the time, we did demo classrooms. In the first classroom was a very good friend of mine, Mr. Faulner, um, God rest his soul, very
146good teacher at Loster High School. Um, he would demo his room and it was a hit with the kids, the tables, what we call the high tables like at a cafe, um, the big screen TVs, the whiteboards and so forth. And so it kind of precipitated working with this. At the time, we'd gone through several groups and media was chosen as the district standard to order furniture from when it came to this bulk size of ordering furniture. We still use um, say walkers and so forth or smaller things, but when it came to big room and school site things. Um it was a determin to go with meteor. We used them for all the furniture we did at Plaster um that we did at Deloro and that we've done at Forest Hill starting from 16
147all the way through the bond and Kofax has always been like the last school to go with but we never really had the funding at the time and now we do. And so we've been working with Meteor and a person named Jen Malor, Jennifer Malor for the past, I'd say six to eight months. We went to a couple of or at least one workshop she had where um it was Chassity and I went downtown. Chassis Ray Buck near the principal at KFax to listen to people talk about furniture and how kids work with it and so forth. It's a lot different than what we were used to where you just sit at a desk with the chair attached to it and and move on. Um and then Chassity worked with her staff in regards to
148what they would want in each room, what they're looking at. Um, if you were to really look down this this the listing here, we have some rooms where it's going to be all desks. Most of the room have some desks and some high desks that they call them. Um, and then some have some tables. Meteor, it pays the costs that you see pay for all the shipping, the tax, they put it together, the warranty, and they do provide, it's it's kind of funny, most teachers are like, I don't need training how to use furniture. But they do provide, hey, you may want to put these three desks together, these two desks together, you know. Um, one the reason we also went this, uh, Sarah Schaefer was one of the teachers that modeled this classroom furniture
149in her classroom. If you've been in her room for English, she has what they call those koi desks, the whiteboard markings, you know, it ranges anywhere from when people there's no tables. Well, you put six of those together, there's your table. Yeah. Type of thing. Or you can have two or three. The nice movable chairs, so it gives kids that flexibility of moving chairs around. They're not attached anymore. Some are on casters, some are not on casters, that kind of thing. So after going through all that, I can on behalf of superintendent, we recommend approval. Question, Peter? Yes. This uh I'm looking at the invoice here and uh the two items, the top two items, you have this uh these two very similar desks. One's two inches wider and two inches um longer. Um Their
150list prices are only $20 apart. There's 35 units on the first one. Are you looking at uh so go by um is item like one, two, three, the items? I'm on the other I'm on the other document. The uh yeah, scroll down. Are you on that one or the other one that lists like all the that one right there? Okay. So, these top two, look at this price difference. There's 35 units for the number one item. The 301 uh the we're paying the 301 price, not the list. Yes. 301. But there's 462 units for the for item two. And that one's coming in at 368. Yeah. 370. That one has casters and it's a larger table size. It's Say again. It has casters. The one up top does not come with wheels. And the desk
151space is larger. The surface area is larger. That's why that one's more expensive. $20 more expensive on a list price, but our price is an extra 60 as you saying it's extra $687 for that many units. I don't know. It's like 30 grand. I can inquire about that, but just that I mean I didn't I know we're paying half of what we're Usually you get a break when you buy Well, yeah. Buying 462 of them. Um Yeah. Yeah, I don't know who who negotiates these things usually. Well, I negotiate with them, but that's why we have the the your price instead of the list price. What I did not catch, what you're seeing right there is the difference between those two compared to what the list price of the other ones were. Yeah, these are
152they're essentially the same except for that little bit difference in size. Uh, and then the casters. Yeah, it wouldn't hurt to ask if we could uh if they can come in at the similar difference in price. That's 720. Um, let's see here. I think they all come with the whiteboard just so you know, laminate finish. I think he's just referring to item one and two. Yeah. Have you looked at different sellers, Peter, or is this the only seller we've looked at? We did years ago. We haven't I have not done that recently. We settled on Meteor as the direct as the district standard. We have not looked at other ones. Just thinking for this kind of an expenditure that's significant like maybe we should have looked at more more than one source. we did year
153again years ago but I I don't have the numbers with me I can tell you kind of like we're looking at the intercoms it's it all it gets very expensive the reason why the meteor one we went with a long time ago is because what they do with the packaging they deliver install and the other part of this is they have no one can guarantee anything if this is approved tonight the desks will be in the classroom before the first day of school that's what they said they can do I have no problem I didn't catch him on Emerson I have no problem inquiring about why is it that way the 301 compared to the 368. It doesn't hurt to ask. And if you just if you just shot this invoice to the nearest competitor
154and just said, "Hey, what do you guys think?" I mean, competition is uh every dollar we can save, right? That's a lot of money. That's quite a significant amount. And and for the record, I'm all for KFax getting this. I mean, I've seen their stuff and it's old and it's dated and it's worn out. So 100% we want to fulfill this order, but we if we can save $100,000, then it's worth asking. Why not? Doesn't hurt to ask. I could ask about the the 300 to the 368. Yeah. In regards to competitors, I didn't blow off talking about competitors. We've gone with them as the district standard because of the prices that they give us. You know, instead of 720, we're paying $300 a desk. Um, you know, I can't speak for our competitors. They're
155going to have a tough time getting that, let alone getting it to us in time, right? for August. So, how would we go about this? So, if you know, obviously we noticed this um differentiation issue here. Um and prior it was only a $20 difference. Can we say y the board moved this forward, but they'd like the same breakdown as the last one? We'd like it only $20 more per unit instead of nearly if if it's a really accurate. Well, they're more comfortable and given a reason why because I I you're right and I know about it's larger size and casters but again as Emerson pointed out the 720 to 740 is not the 301 to 368 and asking about that difference. Right. Right. Exactly. Exactly. So if they can bring it back to 20
156difference versus nearly 70. Yeah. We can't shop it and just I mean this would be easy just to send it to someone and say hey here's the value proposition why we want it is because of the install package. But can you do that and beat the number? My only concern is if we push it off then whoever these you know desks are supposed to be allotted to everything else will go and this you know they'll be short for the fall if we if we I know I mean so don't forget when we work with Meteor they do shop at the vendors that's why you see these prices so Meteor doesn't they go out to people get these furniture pieces and that's one of the reasons we work with them. So they're a middleman. Yeah. Oh
157I didn't realize. Okay. So the place you call especially for this size of quantity they can't deliver the way this group does they won't put it together clarification and so that's why we've used them as a piggyback for all these years because we did that research years ago now mind you yes have I gone back and looked again no does our M do the removal from the classrooms or do they do that also no they remove but M like sometimes what we've done is we gave the desks away right or they our crew takes them out of the classrooms but they they take it out of the classroom oh they do our crew then takes it from where we're going to go that has not what we're going to do with them. Some of the
158schools like to keep it. Yeah. Some places will be like to give it away. I know that Robert Cologne's going to freak out. He has to figure out where to put all these desks for a while. I'll be honest with you. I mean, I know the public doesn't like it, but you know, you're going to see a desk maybe sitting outside, oh my god, what a waste. That desk is 30 years old. Yeah. You know, and the one thing that I have no problem defending publicly is, you know, we always, you know, we always people buy a new desk every couple years, private businesses, but we have kids sitting in desks at 30 years old. Yeah. And then we get mad because the school wants to buy a new desk. the efficiency and use of
159these desks desks. I've seen them firsthand. It's great. It's perfect for learning. So, all right. And just to keep our our schools with the keep our school on an equal playing field. They can share desks with each other now, too, because it's the same. Yeah. There's already competition with the new football field at CFX already, right? With their brand new Yeah. They're going to want to know why we can't have a field that doesn't have any infield like So, these are the same desks between schools. I mean, it's it's a small difference. All the other similar desk are all in the same range. 311 311 300. It's worth the ask, right? I mean, can we So we can app we can Yeah, we can move forward approve it. We challenge their price. Yeah. And then
160look at item five. Same thing. That one shoots up for some reason. Yeah. They're all Yeah. At the end of the day, we want the kids to have these set and ready and the teachers to have them in there prior to the school start. So it's possible to tweak the the invoice a little bit. That' be that might save us quite a bit. Love that. Good night. And I can share that with you guys afterwards. Super. Thanks, Peter. All right. Do I have a motion? Move to approve. Got a motion by Trusty Duncan and a second by Trusty Spade. Any other questions or comments? Now, this is with the direction we're approving, but with direction to challenge that price. I have a comment because I agree with Emerson. what you're saying just like um if
161you can save 20 or $30,000 you know if you can do that then you want to do that instead of just going along with the package when you could have got gotten a better deal so no I'll question number one and number two I'll be I'll be asking about the question regarding number one and number two and number five the disparity and then number five Great. Uh, any other questions or comments? All in favor say I. I. I. I. All oppose. Motion passes unanimously. All right. I'm assuming this is why most of you are here tonight. Item 8.12. And we've got an extra comment card uh to discuss board policy 5121, grades and evaluation of student achievement update. I'm going to go ahead and turn it over to our ad hoc committee which is comprised
162of Trusty Jeff and Duncan and we'll let them present and then we'll have public comment on this item if that's in agreement with the board. Would you like to hear public comment and you might answer questions? I think we should we should uh review this and provide some clarity on some questions that were already asked. Great. Um and then have public comment and then maybe the potential of providing clarity to the board on some of the points that were brought up. Sounds great. Oh no, you're good. you want? No, go ahead. So, on proposed board policy 51-21, just as a couple of uh quick reminders from the things that we discussed uh at our previous meeting two weeks ago, um so the the board tasked Trusty Duncan and I to go out and have meetings
163with our stakeholding stakeholder groups uh to determine how to best proceed forward with a uh a grading policy that best meets meets the needs of our students, parents, and staff. Um, so we held a number of community meetings uh together between the two of us. We've probably spoken to well over a hundred different people um regarding um their thoughts and concerns with respect to the grading policy. Uh ATP went out and did surveys with the staff with the teachers. Um and from uh the quick generalized uh summary of that um that evaluation um or poll uh it seems like threearters of the the teachers either were not in favor of CBE uh or were to some extent neutral with respect to CBE. So that left just a small minority of teachers that were actually in
164favor of it. um even at the uh the smaller sites like uh Kfax and Forest Hill um where we're hearing from uh you know a small vocal group but um the vast majority even at those two sites of the teachers were not really in favor of how uh CBE had been implemented um at the beginning of this last school year. Um that being the case uh Trustee Duncan and I spent quite a bit of time uh meeting talking developing draft after draft and revising draft after draft. Um, and as it was discussed at the last meeting, there's things in here that I certainly I'm not 100% behind and there's things in here I think Mr. uh Duncan is not 100% behind as well. U but we both felt that like this is the the best
165policy that that met the needs of our students, parents, and staff um based on the feedback that we've received from a wide variety of people. Um, and I know this board has heard feedback um by email and by um by public speech um with respect with respect to this um but you know just as a reminder Trusty Duncan and I have been talking about this with people for months and months uh since January really um and even before that even during the election you know while we were still running as candidates we were hearing from people about this particular issue. Uh so it's not something that we haven't heard um quite a bit and thought about quite a bit um over that time. The policy that we derived um is what you're seeing here. Uh
166this is I think draft six actually of this particular policy. So part A here is what we're seeing. This is the general philosophy of what mastery learning is all about and what it intends to address and how it sort of intends to address that issue um with um with mastery learning and how it could be implemented. And if we can move forward a little bit Sarah. Um so part B here just talks about um this we we kind of took most of this from our previous policy um talking about um what authority is given to the school board to make these kinds of decisions and what authority is given to teachers um with respect to grading and grading practices and that kind of stuff. By the way, side note, we did speak um with the
167representatives from ATP a number of different times about this. And so uh they had opportunities over and over and over again uh to provide feedback uh on what they thought. Um and I thought that myself, I thought that was super super important because, you know, from my perspective, the teachers are the experts in the field. They're the ones that are out there on the front lines, so to speak, with the students. They know their students best. They know their students needs best. Um, and that being the case, we heard from a lot of different teachers um, who had varying um, opinions about how um, CBE had been implemented or the value of it and that, you know, that kind of thing. Um, so if we can move forward just a little bit, Sarah. Um, we
168talked about essential learning objectives. Um, and essential learning objectives are typically different than proficiency scales in a number of different ways. Um, however, the ELO's should be uh, developed by the teachers. uh and they should be again uh we talked about this last meeting but the idea behind it the ELO's is that those are those those key essential skills those essential things that that student needs to understand and master to be successful at the next level. For example, um if I was an integrated math one teacher, um I would think as I'm meeting with my colleagues like what are the things that I know my students have to master to be successful in IM2 and those would be the things that would become ELO's or essential learning objectives for IM1 because those are things that
169we want to make sure that we have mastered in IM1 to to set our students up for success at the next level. That's kind of the idea behind um the ELOs's um which other districts for example um Rockland Unifi calls them essential skills not not ELO's um again talking about ELO's um these are something that has to you know quite a bit of time within the district has already been spent um with teachers developing ELO's I remember when I was a teacher within the district we we spent quite a bit of time meeting in our departments and developing ELO's for each of our courses hopefully that's still around so we're not feeling like we have to go and reinvent the wheel um but I I think those are certainly things that are going to need
170to be looked at and addressed and tweaked and like you know making sure that everybody's on the same page with them and that kind of stuff. Um with respect to the ELOs's the ELO's uh should comprise about um 50% of the students grade. And just real quick if I may interject the important piece is that the ELOs's um need to follow state standards and there's a ton out there. So that's going to be part of the work here is to prioritize which state standards are then going to be connected to the ELOs's derive the ELOs's I should say and the idea be behind an essential learning objective unlike what the district did at some years back when we were developing ELOs and we kind of played with them a little bit in some of our
171classrooms they weren't really essential at the time like we are making the decision if the board moves forward on this particular policy um to make these actually truly essential like the students actually have to show mastery otherwise they will not pass this class. Um that's kind of the key there. We want to set our students up for success and not failure. And we're fe we're determining we as you know as a staff, you know, teachers really are determining what are those things that we are saying are really essential for our students to be successful at that next level. That's kind of what this is about. Um so the ELO's would be comprised of 50% of the student's grade. The other 50% of the student's grade is everything else that's not necessarily pertaining to a specific
172ELO. So, for example, um, in my video classes that I was teaching, um, within the district at the time, I think I had somewhere in the in the low 40s, uh, state standards, the like 40 some odd standards that I was required by the state of California to teach in my class. Now, not all of those standards would I or any other teacher agree were absolutely necessary. Um, for example, one of them was the history of, you know, the students should understand the history of film development. Okay, that's that's a good thing like and and I would certainly teach that. Um, but that's not something I would say was absolutely essential for them to be successful in video two. Um, so so that's kind of exactly what I mean when we're talking about implementing the
173the ELO's. Those were we're talking we're handpicking or we I should say the teachers are handpicking those things that they are saying are super essential for those students to be successful at that next level. That's kind of the point there. Um, with with respect to the grade scale as the prop as it's proposed here, we have an A through F grade scale. Um however um looking at this grade scale that Dgrade um something that we wanted to point out is that D-grade is not a grade that the students would get uh midterm for example that would be a grade that the student would get an initially would get an incomplete like if they're in that D range and when the term is over um they're going to get an incomplete and they're going to be
174given the opportunity um you know six week opportunity to um just like basically what we've done in the in the past within the district to make up you or show mastery in whatever ELO's that they're missing. Um, so that they can get their grade up to a C or better is really the goal. The only time a student would really be given a D-grade is if they were given that six week opportunity to remediate and they failed to do so or um if they couldn't remediate for some reason. So, for example, say this is a springterm senior um in IM3. They need that third-year math to graduate. um they might just say, "Hey, you know, I you know, I'm not going to be able to remediate, but I'll take the D so I can at
175least graduate because it's a graduation requirement." Um and one of the reasons we thought we felt like that was a good compromise was um one of the continuation high school teachers actually brought it to uh to our attention at one of the meetings that we had um that she wished that we were able to give that D-grade on limited circumstances which again this remember this would be limited circumstances for some students that had end up going to the continuation high school and they're so far behind credits because they were only be able to get the A through C they weren't able to get that D so that they could actually get those credits to towards graduation. uh and it put that put the continuation high school teachers kind of at a disadvantage there. And so
176we're trying to remedy that um and give those um those students kind of an out so to speak. Uh and again, this is not a a it would not be a common grade for the students to be getting a D, but that would be an option uh under those limited circumstances that we just talked about. Um and then and the the Fgrade or you know, some some districts call it a no mark, you know, whatever you want to call it. It's really is the same thing. It's like you're not getting credit for the class. Um, so that's kind of what the Fgrade would look like. Um, and that would be, you know, for the students that are, you know, missing a lot of ELO's or they're the overall grade percentage in the class is just
177very low, like they're not going to be able to complete that, you know, catch themselves up in that six week uh, interm time. So, um, they would be given the opportunity typically to retake the class just like a student that would be given, um, an incomplete or D would typically be given the opportunity if they didn't remediate to to retake that A throughG class. Um we heard earlier uh from the superintendent um you know how what great numbers we have as far as A throughg in our district which is amazing. Uh and we don't want to we don't want to fight that. So we will probably continue you know like encouraging students to retake if they got a D and IM2 we're going to probably encourage them to you know well they're actually they would
178need to retake if it was an IM2 for example they would have to retake the class. Um they can't just take the D and then move on. Another that's another thing a point of clarification I want to bring up. I want to make that clearly say that again. So, if a student receives a D in the A throughG class, they are not moving on to that next level, okay? They they are going to be retaking that class. Um, with the exception of it's if it's something like where they can't retake the class like like I said earlier, it's a a springterm senior and you know, then they you know, well, I guess they spring-term senior wouldn't be in that position. Um but yeah, so um you know, there are still going to be situations where
179we're going to be requiring students to retake a class if it's an A throughG class and they need to take that they have to take that next level class for for a graduation requirement. Does anybody not understand that part? Want to make sure that part was not confusing to people. That makes sense. Yeah, makes sense. Okay, if we could scroll down just a little bit, Sarah. Um All right. So here there's a 50-50 breakdown right there. So 50% of the grade comes from the ELO's. Um other districts that have mastery learning have higher percentages. We also talked to some that had a lower percentage with respect to what those essential skills or ELOs's, whatever you want to call them, what what percentage of the grade they are. We thought um coming from CBE where the
180proficiency scales were 100% of the grade and that was the only thing that was evaluated or assessed uh we thought 50% was uh a fair marker in between the two uh that met the needs of our students uh you know on both sides of that um that decision-m point. Um question. Yes. Did you guys get feedback? Was there like did you have any opinions where like hey 70% makes more sense than 50%. We we got feedback on both perspectives. Yes. I'd like to hear like how how that conversation went to land at the 50 with the other potential options. Um, all right. So Tom, you want to take that? Yeah, sure. So we spoke we spoke to Rocklin. So if you look at example Rockman Unified School District, they're at 70% on their ELOs's and
18130% uh on um uh the the homework assignments, quizzes, whatever that might be. Participation. Participation. Yeah. All that. Even attendance. I don't I don't think so. No. And and not behavior either. Um and so when we looked at it and we heard we looked at that we felt that um again I I really liked where they were going with that but there's the feedback we received from teachers the feedback we received from the community parents students was the ability to even even the playing field right 50% of assessments based on ELO's okay great if you if you're able to get you know 70% or better um your your or 65% or better on each of the ELOs's. And that's another important piece. We we moved we slid that to 65% in order to pass an
182ELO so that you could actually pass it. I I I actually the community some community folks I spoke to and some teachers I spoke to slid it from 70 to 65. But yeah, that's an important notation here that pass an ELO, you have to get 65% or better. So, folks I spoke to in the community uh actually had pushed for um and recommended, what if you took an average? So, if there was five ELOs's and I got an 80% on four of those ELOs's and one of them was at 65%. Why don't you just take the average of that and let them pass the class? Can I speak to that part? Yeah. I just want I I and I'll pass it to you. I felt and again um in the spirit of finding the best
183grading system and between comprehension, mastery, standardsbased that this the ability to pass all of those ELOs's was important for comprehension and to move to the next class. I don't personally agree with it. Again, this is I don't personally agree with it, but I do agree that we have to find a middle ground here. And part of that is making sure that every student is able to pass that ELL. And as Trusty Jeff mentioned, the ELO's are not scales. They're not the modules that we have today. We showed an example of that. These are broaderbased mostly. You're going to be learning through most of the semester these essential learning objectives. So sorry. Go ahead. Go ahead. Yeah. So the idea that um you know we was brought to actually brought to brought up to us is
184uh you know averaging the ELOs's together and getting a percentage. If you did that then they're not essential learning objectives because it's not essential because you could fail one and still pass. And if you're failing one that the teachers have already identified that you have to know this to be successful at the next level then we're setting our students up for failure when they get to that next level. And that's what we're trying to avoid here. Um so just like uh you know all the other mastery learning um programs that we've seen in practice um you know essential learning objectives or essential skills or whatever you want to call them are truly essential and to make them essential students have to pass them that I mean that's ultimately that's the bottom that's how mastery learning
185works. Question. Um yes. So in your example, if you had five, say, and you got 80% on four of them, but on one of them, you got a 64, are you saying that you'd be required to retake the whole class? Just that yellow during that grace period, the five fiveweek grace period, not just just during the the uh the following six week term following the term end, but also during the course of the term, like you're you're not going to be getting your all your ELO's tested on the last day on, you know, last day of the course. So, as the course goes, if you're if you miss an ELLO, you're going to have the, you know, opportunity for retaching, relearning, reassessment, all as as as the student goes along all throughout the course of
186the term. Um, so that gives that student that the support that they need constantly throughout the course of the term to reassess, re-evaluate, relearn, you know, all that kind of stuff as they're going. So, it's very similar to the CBE. It's just a little bit sort of. Yeah. There's a differentiation, right, between the ELLL and the scale because that's, you know, community had spoke that they did not want all scales, all students and um this is this is different and so and I still struggled with it but in the spirit of comprehension felt like this was right was right. That was one of the biggest frustrations that I gathered from students uh was that you know it was very clear how to get a C, very clear to how to get a B, but to
187get an A, it seemed almost like arbitrary. You have to do these extra things if you want to get that A where they all took the same test and if you scored higher on that on those on uh on the test, why couldn't that be? That's the traditional method, right? on the 100 point. If you score 90 and above, that's an A. And so a lot of frustrations from students where the teachers weren't even sure what criteria to determine an A. And um so yeah, it's interesting. Uh and the other piece of it because I I started and then I I segueed into this specifics um because I think it's important to understand in yellow passing is 65% But the other piece of the 50% module would be the homework, the participation. And so listening
188to teachers, listening to parents, listening to students, everyone learns differently. And so you're still taking quizzes in in that in that 50%. Participation presentations, and some folks thrive at that, right? And and and so we wanted to that's how we landed just speaking to enough people on the 5050. um grading how much autonomy should be given to teachers to they're the experts in their curriculum how much weight should be added to you know if it's ELO's or if it is quizzes and homework they are they given an autonomy to to customize their their curriculum yeah so if we're looking on the screen here um so 50% of the students grades is based on the essential learning objectives that is them mastering those key things from the class that the teacher says these are things that
189are absolutely essential. Now like I in my demon in my example that I used earlier, you might have a ton of state standards that are not part of the ELO's because they might not necessarily be what the teacher says these are absolutely essential, right? So those other state standards, we're still required to teach those. Um we're still required to assess students on those things. Um that's where the other 50% comes in. It's not just um you know like homework because some some teachers for example might not even you know calculate homework into the grade um but it could be other assignments, projects, assessments, quizzes, anything that not directly related to specifically one of the ELOs's the essential learning objectives. It's everything else that's taught in the class that's assessed or evaluated in the class that's
190not directly related to an ELO. So that's where it gives the teacher that that autonomy back which is what we heard a lot of complaints from a lot of the staff with the CBE roll out is they didn't have the autonomy to do to assess on these other things um that were not prior a part of the proficiency skill. So that's where we're giving that autonomy back to the teachers to say we know that you're the experts in your field that you know your subject better than anybody else does. You know your students better than anybody else does like we're going to give you that other 50% of the grade to assess these other things that you feel like are important in in the class that you teach. Does that make sense? Okay. Um, if
191we could scroll down just a little bit, Sarah, we'll move on to section F. Um, so retakes, we wanted to provide some some clarity with respect to retakes. So, retakes are those things um like the district has been doing for a number of years now that teachers will be doing regularly and throughout the the course of the term. It's not something that this we're not just talking about that six week period falling into the course. Like the students on, you know, the second day of class might take, you know, might take a quiz or a test and not do well on it. They should have the opportunity to relearn, remaster that those skills or those ideas and reassess those uh depending on, you know, how that how that kind of comes together within within the
192curriculum for for the uh as determined by the teacher, right? Um that'll hold on. That'll be determined by the teacher. they'll be able to determine if they want to allow retake or for a particular project or assignment or you know how that how that kind of plays out right uh which is no different than the autonomy the teachers have had up until this point already anyway um we want to give them the opportunity to think so for example um in in my video class right if I had an assignment for the students to do a public service announcement video and you know they they bombed it for one reason or another or couldn't complete it for one reason or another, I would have the opportunity to provide a different project that's worth the same amount
193of points that they they could work on that demonstrates the same types of skills. Um, so that would that's what I would consider in my class to be a retake. Does that make sense? And by doing that, we do away with the theme that's there now that there's unlimited retakes, right? Um, students can't just show up with a white piece of paper and say, "I didn't study. I'll get it next time." We're preparing them for the real world. Uh, and you can't do that, right? You have to have discipline. Um, and there needs to be consistency. And so, we're trying to build integrity through this, too. Uh, which I think was lost um through an unlimited retake. And, and we heard that loud and clear. That was very clear from from both students and teachers,
194parents. Yes. All three. All three. And um with respect to that um it's going to be important too for the teachers to be able to kind of look at how those retakes need take place and if there's a policy they they as a department um or a teaching team need to kind of put in place um for example when I was teaching social science um to do a retake the the policy at the time um for the Delaware social science department was that the the students had to complete their study guide. the study guide had to be fully complete before they could do a retake to show that the student put in effort into preparing for that retake. So uh and I was 100% behind that policy when I was uh teaching social science there.
195Um, and those are the kinds of things that, you know, we're going to leave that to the teacher to to determine, but we those are the kinds of things that we're kind of expecting. Is there some kind of policy that's that's put in place for the the students to be able to kind of prepare themselves and set themselves up for again set themselves up for success, not failure, um, by preparing for that retake rather than some of the comments that we got from even from students u during the meetings that we had where students were like, well, you know, I don't worry I'm not worried about taking the math test today. I'm just going to I'm going to take a zero on it. I'll take it next week. Not a big deal, you know, or
196whatever. and then they'll take it again and again and again hoping that they'll, you know, they'll get a better score on it each time. This way, you know, the students have to have some kind of method of of preparing to show that they've prepared, they study, they're they're ready for for this retake. They put some effort into it. So, it's not some um an unlimited thing. We we want to get away from that altogether. Um we we get a lot of feedback on that on that respect. So, how much feedback did you guys, switching gears a little bit, how much feedback did you guys get in regards to uh the stigma associated with an Fgrade versus like a no credit or just calling it something else? We all understand it's not passing, it's not failing.
197I tend to agree that uh you know there is a stigma associated with it and these are younger people. I know we're preparing for college but it's not college, it's still high school level. Uh did you see opposition or in favor of uh of having some flexibility there? I I think what we heard was more um parents and the students were very much in favor of of Fs, right? Knowing what they got, understanding. I think more of the stigma was around incomplete. What does it mean? No credit. What does it mean? you know, and so an F is very clear, right? You failed the class. I think there was a subset of teachers though that to your point feel like part of this um is providing providing these students with a a positive reinforcement. Like
198it's sure it's an F, but no credit means you have a chance to go and retake this class, right? It's it's more the language was more beneficial more positive environment. Um is was the other side of the coin. I think that's what you're alluding to though. Stands out that uh who was it that said some some kids work really hard to get that F. I mean literally I mean you have to do next to nothing. Yeah. So that's right. But it's interesting. I completely agree with where where you're coming from though in and on on one of at least one of our previous drafts we had it down as a as a no no credit. Yeah. I know I know David feels strongly about that. Yeah. You know, I'm listening to everything you guys are
199saying and I've been in the classroom for 39 years teaching academic classes using competency based education and and at the same time uh seeing kids have no D's or no Fs. They get it. If you don't do your work, you don't meet your ELOs's, you don't meet your standards, okay, you get a no grade, you don't you don't break their self-esteem and shame them. There's so many things that can happen in an adolescent life. Family dynamics, relationship dynamics, whatever, when all of a sudden they could just tank it all in and all of a sudden if they get D F, what's that going to do with their attitude and their aspirations to succeed? and and and to to learn. It's going to destroy them. I know it. I've seen it. I'm the only one in
200here. Well, you you were in the classroom, but I was in the classroom for nearly four decades. Okay? And I know what I know because that was my life's work. There's no way I can The district worked so hard to get rid of D's, to get rid of Fs, ABC, B, C, no grade. I thought what we were working on are we going to do a 100point scale? What kind of a scale are we going to be utilizing to learn not this when you talk about participation that's a subjective evaluation by the teacher? It really is. I know I've been there. That's not objective. That's subjective. I think everything should be based on the ELO's. You guys have worked hard. I think the ELO should be based on state standards. No doubt about that. departmentbased
201and districtwide accepted. There's no doubt about that, you know. So, when I hear that, I say, "Yeah, I agree with that, but I can't agree with the D's. I can't agree with the Fs. I just can't." What's your response to what Trustee uh Duncan said about the feedback that they're getting from students? Was it parents and teachers? Parents and students. Parents and students. They're saying, "Hey, we don't have a problem with these apps." No, I really don't have a problem with that because as long as in my opinion, as long as parents and kids know what they need clearly to achieve an A, a B or a C with clear ELO's and clear standards that are there, that's what's important, you know, um inc encouragement, uh support, uh making kids Their brains aren't developed. My
202god, their frontal loes aren't developed to 26 or 27. You can't look at them as like they're an adult in the adult work world. We can't do that. You know, I think the whole idea is is giving them that support that they need and the encouragement that they need. That that's what Glasser talks about in quality schools, you know, meeting kids five basic needs, you know, power, fun, and so on with clear ELO's. You know, that way education becomes a process of engagement and learning in in a more of a community- like setting. You know, kids know what they have to do, but we don't have to have the D standard and the F standard. We don't need that. I mean, I I I could never accept that. And I know that that's been my
203life's work. I know what I know because I've done it for for 39 years. And I've used classer scale and I taught academic classes, you know. And in fact, I was known as one of the hardest teachers, you know, at Plaster High School. If you don't believe me, ask people, you know, and and they can learn, they can do that, they can succeed. I tend to agree with you, David, about, you know, there can be a stigma associated with it, but I mean, you're not going to make everybody happy. I think if you were to survey everybody in the in in the district and said what's your opinion on D's or Fs or no credit, you know, you probably get more people saying I don't you know, you know, part of what people would say
204was that um just the color and the commentary commentary was no credit was not reality to them, right? It's like, oh, okay, what does that mean? Like an F, you got to make a decision. It's a message. Yeah. And and and the other part of it to the D's what we heard was the concern on grade inflation. So I did some work on this because you know we have the we had the we have a limited opportunity um and I took math because math as you've brought up several times is a concern in our district. So I tried to find as many kids as I could that were in IM1 in in in first semester and then actually did IM2 right it's a smaller percentage of kids that did that and a couple of the
205kids they all were um uh incomplete in fall semester um they were able to get to a C right during the five six week intervention period and then in IM2 I know at least one of that ended up having to take um I guess a retake on the class because they weren't prepared. And so that was some of the feedback we heard was this the the the incompletes and the push to get people to C's it was potential of great inflation. And so when I heard that advancing them without without learning actual actually having the comprehension and I spoke with a couple of these kids and they said they did not understand any better um from December when they received that incomplete to February when they received that C they felt like they didn't have
206any better comprehension. And so that's that was one of the things that was a concern for me is that are we really preparing these kids to have whatever we call it mastery comprehension you know are they really going to be able to succeed and that's why landing on these ELOs's and specific ELOs's that are agreed upon by department throughout the district gives a better center of this what I heard before was the wild wild west out there right everyone they want. This brings it in. This allows everyone to work together. We know what good looks like because everyone's doing the same thing. And how do we learn from each site? Um they're all doing the same thing. So that's some of the the commentary that I heard that said and provided that to to Trusty
207Jeff that we felt moving to an A through F provided reality to these kids and had them at this point make a tough choice and what they want to do. and then pushing on the comprehension piece and making sure that they have to pass all of the ELO's to get there. Again, I don't agree with that. I agree with more of the average, but in the spirit of comprehension, I get it. What do you guys say to uh David's point about there is a subjectivity and you're giving that subjectivity. If you make it a 50/50, then there's a lot of subjectivity on an opinion of a teacher of a student versus if it was a 7030. Maybe they don't want to do that 30%, but they're plenty competent to pass the 70%. I think to
208trusty Underwood, what you said was particularly on the participation that that's subjective. I've I've never taught in a in that I mean, I taught in a classroom, but it was kindergarten, so it was a different completely different. So, I I don't think I'm I'm uh qualified to speak on that, but just generally, logically speaking. Um I know who's participating and who's not, right? And participation is important as you go through life, you have what we try to teach, I'm assuming, I'm hoping, is we're teaching people to be brave and to speak up and to speak their mind. whether they're in the classroom or whether they're out on in at a store, uh they're in a situation where they need to be brave to speak. That's what participation does. It's not the specific class at that
209moment. Sure. But it's teaching them life skills. We're not saying kids I'm just using your example on participation. That's all. Can I can I clarify that participation piece? So, uh to clarify that part, um we're not talking about participation like you get five points for every time you raise your hand, right? Yeah. We're talking about specifically and if we if we go through the policy again um we point out classes like visual performing arts classes like a choir class like if you're not participating in a choir class, how can you get a grade in that class? Like seriously, how how would that happen? Like they should be able to grade for participation not in a in a subjective way. Um although you know to some extent education is subjective. Like that's the truth that the
210truth of the matter. You can try to avoid that if you like. Imagine you're an art teacher and you're trying to to to grade this this cup that one of your students made. That's a subjective thing. Like you can have a rubric that says it needs to have this, it needs to have that. Uh in my video classes, I had a very detailed rubric that said it needs to have this this. You get a five points for this. You get, you know, four points for this. You get three points for this in this area. But then there's all these different categories. Uh and rubrics are great. In fact, we encourage rubrics. That's in the best practices part of the policy here. Um however, we need to be able to number one, we need to be
211able to trust our our teachers. like if we if we're hiring them because they are experts in their field, they are educated, they are trained, they know their curriculum, they know their students, we need to trust our our staff. Um so if we're talking about yeah, you know, 50% of the grade is subjective. Well, maybe, maybe not. But like if we trust our staff, that's not a problem. Like if we trust our teachers to do to do the right thing, then that's not a problem. like if they if we we're already hiring them to do all these million different things and you know do do all this relationship building and all these other pieces like we need to be able to trust our our staff to actually go out and do those things. Uh and
212we need to give them the autonomy that they had um prior to CBE so that they can assess on the things other than you know previously a proficiency scale or in this case now an essential learning objective we need to give them the alternity autonomy to be able to assess on different things. Now, we're not talking about Yeah. You know, that 50% of the grade you're going to get um you know, it's going to be all your homework. Like that's I don't know if I've ever met a teacher that had more than maybe five% of the of the of the grade or maybe 10% at the absolute most that was homework. Uh and that's if the teachers actually provide homework, which a lot of them don't. Um so it's it's not just it's not not
213that's not what we're talking about. We're talking about all the other assignments and assessments and projects and stuff like that that that go on over the course of the term. they're not specifically one of those maybe in the class has seven ELOs's or something like that, right? We're talking about this stuff that's not one of those seven things. It's like all this other stuff that we got to learn. Um that's where the other 50% of the grade comes from. Um and if we could scroll down just a little bit, Sarah. So then we moved on to section G here are some uh suggested educational best practices. These some of these came from uh our previous policy. Some of them came from some of the conversations that we had. We wanted to nail down some of
214the things that uh our students, parents, and staff had some concerns about one way or the other. And Jeremy, this is leading more into what is more probably more of an AR at this point, right? And so more of a what administrative regulation potentially. Yeah. Which is what will come out of this, right? Yeah. Sorry. Yeah. Um do you do do you wanna We can go down this if you want. It's just it's not or do you want to take a a moment to hear from Yeah, I'd love to. That's what I was thinking. It'd be great to hear from uh those that are here to speak on this and then we can continue our discussion. I don't know. I decided to reserve my comments until after we hear the public. Um so we'll go
215ahead and I've got one in my hand so we'll call you up now. So Lem Mills, you'll go first. Follow says agenda item 010. You're right. Just kidding. Stand by. Not you yet. Okay. Okay. So just these two only. Okay. Okay. Perfect. Thank you. So, we're going to start with Emily Mitchum, followed by Sharon McN on action item 12. Thank you for being here. We appreciate public comment. Uh, nope. It is now. No, it is. Um, so first, okay, I'm just really short, so I'm used to having to like So, first wanted to just address really fast. Um, you keep using the example of visual and performing arts classes. If a student's not participating in a visual and performing arts class, um, they don't get credit because they're not demonstrating the visual and performing art
216that they are required to do. Um, so participation in those classes doesn't it doesn't really factor in. Um because if you're not performing, I can't grade your performance. Um and that's that's just I just wanted to clarify that. Um because I would never ever grade participation in a in a visual and performing arts class because if you're not participating, you you just aren't doing the assessment. Um which is what I grade. Um what I am concerned about uh is the cherry-picking of data and the echo chamber that you've surrounded yourselves with regarding this issue. Uh you say that you've spoken to all teachers, but most of us who have been grading with the four-point scale for years were not spoken to. Um you keep saying teachers are the experts, but you won't let us make
217our own decisions um based on our experiences and expertise. You also say that for some reason we need to have the same system across all schools in the district for simplicity um in quotes. So, you propose an extremely complicated system that takes dozens of slides to explain that won't even end up being the same because different teachers can use different percentages and different policies um in their grading. So, it's not going it's going to be very different from classroom to classroom. Um and all you're doing is telling us that we can't use the four-point scale. Uh when we've told you several times that it works really well in our classrooms. Uh the truth is is that you don't actually trust us to be the experts. If you did, you would listen to what we have
218to say, what we all have to say instead of ignoring our emails and our public comments and listening to the same handful of people who tell you what you want to hear. We are professionals. I spoke about this last time. Please treat us as such and let us do what we know is best in our classrooms. Can I ask you a question? I don't think you're supposed to. Well, I think it's part of the discussion. Point of order. I appreciate you being here, but we can have like a a professional dialogue without being disrespectful. Um, you legally can. Um, if if there's a clarifying question so he understands in context of I wasn't being disrespectful. I was just I was No, no, no. I don't believe that at all. I I appreciate where you're vibes.
219No. And I appreciate your passion about this. Yeah. My question is, not all teachers agree. Yeah. You got 160 teachers, not all of them agree, right? It sounds like you're speaking for a majority. When when I've listened to you speak, it sounds like you're speaking for a majority teachers that want what you want. What would you say to teachers who disagree with you that aren't in love with the four points scale? I I genuinely like if the larger school sites want to move to a 100 point scale, that's great. like that's fine. I would like to continue using a four-point scale. Um I would like to use the proficiency scales that we've worked really hard on that I've based all my curriculum on. Um I that's what I want to do. It works really well.
220I talked about it in depth last time. Um that in my my CTE courses that are multilevel, I teach multiple classes at the same time. It simplifies things so much to be able to say, "Here's the proficiency scale. Here's the rubric right next to it. Here's what you need to do." And I tell them exactly what they need to do to get a four. Like, it's spelled out on the rubric next to the proficiency. Thank you. When I listen to you say that, I don't see a big leap to transition from what you have structured to an ELO. It's just calling it something different. That's fine. What I don't Do you agree or disagree? Well, what I don't want to do is I don't want to move to a scale where I'm grading or to
221a system where I'm grading on participation or homework or whatever that's not based on a scale or a rubric. It's just like, oh, you were rehearsing today, so you get 10 points. Like, I don't like that. That makes no sense to me. Can we parse that out? Yeah. It sounds like you you will have the autonomy to determine that. You won't be required to say, "Hey, no, you know what I'm saying? I know there were some comments about micromanaging, but it sounds like we want to give back some autonomy to teachers so that there is more ability to structure your your course and your curriculum the way that you best see fit because I'm being told that I cannot use the four-point scale. No, when I think of four-point scale, just so we're on the
222same page, I I can I can switch the word out for ELO's. We're talking about meeting a certain criteria, meeting a certain threshold of competency. Yeah. So, you know, interchange the words, it's fine, but it's those that are in love with fourpoint, you can you can have those same things, just we're going to call them ELO's. I'm I'm not talking about the ELLO's. I'm talking about the scale on which I grade. So, 100 point scale is very different than a four-point scale. I understand. I understand. But the the concept of meeting an ELO, like if we're if we're taking this into consideration, is that not like a four-point grading system where if you want to get a three, you have to meet this criteria. If you want to get a four, you have to meet
223this criteria. I mean, how is that very different from what we're talking about with with ELO's? Uh because the 100 point scale leaves a lot of room for subjectivity. So, for example, um I spell out exactly what students need to do to get a three or a 3.5 or a four or whatever, right? Whatever they want to shoot for. Um some students, especially in elective classes, are fine, you know, doing, you know, B-level work, which is fine. Um and uh those um they you know, you do B- level work, you get a three. It's not an 80 to a 90 where I'm arguing with students about why they got an 84 instead of an 86 or whatever. Like it's that it eliminates those conversations for me where it I can point and I can say
224you did this this and this and so you get a 3.5. Not like why did I get an 86 and not an 89 which is a conversation that you have a lot on the 100 point scale especially with higher achieving students that are very concerned about their grade point average and not concerned about what they are learning. You're always going to find that right? No I 100% but it's much easier to just say well did you do this and they say no and you say okay then you didn't get the 3.5. Do you see what I'm saying? Question for you on that. Um, are you are you able to are you going to be able to move to a 100 point system and still be successful at teaching the way that you you feel like
225you're gaining comprehension for these students? If we move to a 100 point scale, I am altering it to fit my fourpoint scale. So, I will adjust the percentages um that things are worth so that it it equates to a four-point scale. Exactly. That's exactly what I noticed that like it's totally interchangeable. Can I ask you something? Can you please be clear that if we would like to keep grading on a four-point scale that we can, we just have to change it. We This policy states that it's not a fourpoint scale, but it is a 100 point scale. So, what I'm saying is I would like to keep using the fourpoint scale. Thank you for your feedback. You're welcome. All right, Sharon. Thank you. Come on up. Come on up. Um, yeah, I am curious. I
226don't know if you all have seen this, but um I know everyone here shares this common goal, right? that we want to promote student success and we're all here for the same reasons and this is a public school. So, I'm curious as to why I received an urgent email from the Pler County Republican Party over the weekend on Saturday. Um, it was a call to action to its members and it was regarding this specific BP5121 and it stated, quote, "We need a strong conservative presence at Jessica Spades board meeting this Tuesday. Uh, the left is planning to show up in force to push back hard as the board discusses rolling back their DEI grading policy. And if you'd like to speak during public comment, we are happy to help write something powerful and on point.
227So, um I this was not sent to me directly. I should clarify that this was forwarded to me by somebody. Um so I find the language misinformed and inflammatory. And so I'm wondering if you know anything about this because as you know you're charged with being apolitical and nonpartisan here in your role. So, I'm curious as to how what triggered this. Um, and then I'm going through all my notes here. My only other questions are um timing on this. So, if this gets approved, then are teachers expected to implement it in August because they are on recess right now. So, it's seems like a very inconvenient time to be making this decision because if they're going to implement it well rather than this, oh my gosh, you know, last minute classroom thing, what's that roll
228out going to look like? Um, and then also, you know, great leaders know that nobody's good at everything. So, we've got to tap into our resources. And it seems like you've really talked about doing that. And I'd like to know more about how many teachers actually participated in these survey surveys and these discussions and so forth. It's hard for me as somebody who's no longer on a school site to figure that out when I'm hearing very passionate approaches on both sides and I don't know what the numbers are. So there's 160 teachers. How many of them participated? If they didn't participate, why not? For somebody who said she had nothing to say, I'm running out of time. Um let's see. I just think this is a really complex topic and districts all across the country
229are grappling with it. Researchers are dedicating themselves to it. So, I appreciate all the time and thought that's put put into it. It feels like maybe we're not there yet in terms of consensus or I don't know how you're going to make this decision. So, those are things I'd like to hear more about. Thank you. Thank you. Do we have any others on this item before we go into board discussion? Please. Hello. Hi, my name is Jeff James. Um, and I teach social studies and uh sometimes English at Plaster High and I'm a staff leader. I've done curriculum and instruction development and intervention. And I've spent the last two years um teaching CBE, four-point scale, etc. Um actually Miss Spade's um son was in my uh my pilot group. Um and I think that that
230semester went well. I think that um expectations were clearly articulated and um I think that there was very little problem with students or um parents understanding what the grading system was with regular feedback and all of that. Um I know that we're all here um because the way the manner in which CBE was rolled out was rolled out poorly. Um you guys talked about your campaigns and your elections and elections have consequences and and you were given we can assume a mandate to to uh change the grading policy. that the wiping out this grading policy um doesn't just undo the decisions that were made in haste to implement a program too quickly. It also undermines the work that teachers did with Fidelity, I did with Fidelity for two years, folks at KFax did for a
231decade. So when you wipe the slate clean with all of this work, you're not just wiping the slate clean of Jeffrey Tuker and Ron Oats decisions, you're taking out the work of dozens of teachers. And this new policy is going to require a lot of work from your instructional leaders. You need to develop new ELOs's. You need to develop new grade books. And the people that did that heavy lifting last time are going to have a real sour taste in their mouth. I'm not saying that you need to to throw this whole thing out, but the option to use a four-point scale for those who dug into the literature and did the work would at least acknowledge the work they did in fidelity. Um, and not doing that makes it so that those folks that
232really did all the hard work that, you know, stayed after hours with staff and tried to explain everything to them and and built all the professional development. They're not going to be the people that go and do this stuff again because what would the incentive be? Because in the two more years, there's going to be another election. In in four more years, 10 more years. I mean, it would be I've got 20 years left in the district. I mean, it would be remarkable if any of you all are here in 20 years, but if past is precedent, the tenure of a schoolboard member usually isn't that long. So, the only thing I ask is that the option to continue using the four-point scale for those teachers that do want to use it is is upheld.
233Thank you, Mr. James. Is there anybody else that would like to speak on this? to close this out. So, I just want to make sure that I reiterate that the the request for flexibility has to do with us coming back together and focusing on what's most important for our students. And the whole point of grading is for us to be able to reflect what's going on with their learning. And we're spending a great deal of time and thought on trying to come up with an umbrella that fits every school, that fits every subject, that fits in every area. And the reality is the teachers have already figured out how to get grades that are accurate for all of these different things. And shouldn't we be focusing instead on the goals that we want our students
234to learn? Shouldn't we be very conscientious of undermining of of avoiding undermining all of the work that teachers do towards making learning enjoyable and connecting to the students and I think this is a point right here where we have that choice where we can refocus back on what is our goal setting for our students and that's what what is holding our curriculum together and it's it's not the grading system. It's what we want the kids to learn. Thank you. Thank you so much. I appreciate the public comments and my remark regarding, you know, respectful dialogue was not meant at a dig. I just feel like when we can have conversation and um and level with each other and um be respectful, it just we're going to listen to each other better and so and that
235it's not going to be blown out of context. we can focus on the information rather than the emotion. Even though I know that this is emotional, that's why everyone's here. Everybody cares. So, um I have some questions uh regarding the ELO's assessments and I I feel like we're living in the weeds right now. um maybe sometimes so specific probably because of your background and because there's been just been so much overwhelming feedback from the community that that we're required to have this conversation. Um and I so regarding ELOs's and assessments for the ELOs's are these tests are these assignments what what is the indicator for saying that the student has passed the ELO? So that should be determined by the by the classroom teacher. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Essential. Yeah. For example, in my class, maybe
236one of the essential learning objectives might be demonstrate mastery in video editing. So that might be up to the teacher to determine based on what what's taught, how it's taught, what's assessed, like where that mastery lay. You know, that's that's why we have teachers that are subject matter experts. So So it's it's just by demonstration. So, it's on an assignment or are multiple things being assessed simultaneously. Are they having multiple opportunities not to retake it but to show mastery through another assignment that would show the same? Yeah. So, a lot of teachers or I would, you know, venture that probably the vast majority of teachers use spiraling education or spiraling training, right? So, uh they don't just test one subject one time and then move on and we're done, right? Yeah. Um, so for example,
237in my my wife's math classes, she teaches um the same topic multiple times and reassesses that same topic multiple times. And if that topic was an ELO, that gives the students multiple opportunities to show mastery on that ELO. And if they didn't, then that's where at the end of the term, that's where that six week period um kicks in where they are focusing specifically on those ELOs's that they still haven't shown mastery in. If if there are any they haven't shown mastery in. So, regarding retaking and demonstrating those skills and and what that potentially 50% of the rest of their grade like and how that reflects like I I I don't feel like the current model that we we have or I've and I've heard through other uh community members that there's like the students
238that work their tail off and will do the extra things may not always like in an assessment crush it. Um and I but they're showing that they have skills outside Outside of the assessment, I still think that tests are important. As a mom, I still think that like an accurate reflection of what you know matters. And I do worry that um that a that a retake, even if they they've done what they need to do to retake it, that they could get the exact same grade as somebody who studied and prepared and went in and crushed it round one. that that's that that they should have the same grade as somebody who nailed it round one. I I don't think that that um I I I don't think that that's fair. Um and so and
239I'm not sure how to address that, but I'm just I'm going to throw out some of the things that I keep hearing and you guys have probably heard it, maybe you have the answer to that. Um, so demonstrating that, but would would the would the academic who's who's locked it in and has prepared the first round, are they at a disadvantage? Because I saw 12 Valley Victorians. Well, I think that that's wonderful that we have so many high achieving students. Did all of those Valley Victorians have retakes and there was one that crushed it that should have been the number one seat and recognized for that? I don't know. I don't know that for sure. But I'm wondering I I don't want I want the students who who are dialed and to to be recognized
240for for their hard work and preparation because that's life, you know. You know, we do get second chances and opportunities to to show what we've got. But what about the ones that are that are handling business on the day it's supposed to be due? That's like that's meritocracy, right? I think if I can just interject, I think the the the the unlimited uh the unlimited tests or retakes, sorry, lent to them. Yeah. No, I agree. Yeah, that's overwhelming feedback from community was just the unlimited and not like, okay, well, you're going to get X of the the score if you're you're retaking it again. And I understand we're trying to demonstrate, you know, that they that they understand, that they're learning. Can I make a quick comment on that? The uh the feedback that I
241got talking to, you know, safe to say dozens. I know it's easy to say that we've talked to two or three people, but it's a it's a more broader uh it's a more broader umbrella of opinion that we've that we've garnered. But the reality that I've seen is that there were teachers who dug in. They did the hard work. They put in the hundreds of hours to modify their curriculum to to satisfy the four-point grading system. They did the hard work. I would say the vast majority didn't put in that same effort. And as a result, they never really offered a lot of teachers, they didn't really offer the unlimited retesting. And uh and and personally as a parent, I feel like whoever feels strongly about unlimited retakes, I feel like maybe you've never raised
242kids or something. I mean, there's something to be said about students who have unlimited opportunities. I think I I don't think I don't think that I think I'm in the majority. Most people agree it's not feasible. It's not practical. It's not practical. But the teachers that did put in the work and they allowed the the unlimited retakes, it became a logistics nightmare. It that talk about taking the joy out of education. If you become like a logistics, you're basically become a a control tower where you can't even focus on teaching and joy and teaching because you're managing your current students, your past students, your past past students. It just wasn't a system that was sustainable. But Emerson, what excuse me, what we were doing is you only got three retakes. And that's new. That's it.
243I'm just saying. But that was a change that was made. The original roll out was this is what we're doing. It was heavy-handed. They rolled this out. They said, "We're doing it now." They said, "Hey, you probably should go slower." They said, "No, we're going to start. You know, we're doing this. We're rolling this out." And it and it it pissed a lot of people off and it was confusing. and they went through. I mean, if you could gather the amount of hours that went into trying to understand and then explain to students and then to parents. I mean, talk about wasted time. And my hat is off to those who dug in and put in the work. I mean, that's amazing. But the vast majority didn't. And as a result, we have a district
244where we we got splinters going. We've got some doing some things, some doing other things. Some never stopped doing the 100 point. Some fully embrace the fourpoint. And so now we're left here as a board to make sense of this all and to give direction moving forward. I like the idea if you are in love with and it's working and you have joy in your four-point system and it's working with students and everybody's happy. I like the idea of you know continuing that so long as you convert at the end to these letter grades that are universal and that colleges accept. But, uh, I don't think that, uh, you know, I've said my piece. Uh, it we're not in a we're not in a a super pleasant situation here to make sense of this all
245to and to feel strongly that we're making the right decision, but, uh, you know, that's the position we happen to be in. Um, but I do appreciate and I respect those who, uh, who have put in the work and, um, and I don't want to see it all go to waste either. Nobody wants to see that. Nobody wants to just delete this. I mean, that would be back to what was said at the beginning of this was slow is fast. So, if we do anything, I think it should be measured. I think that I think what you're going to see is more is a greater measure of autonomy for teachers and hopefully that can bring back some of the joy and uh and we'll continue to to to make improvements as we can. So, that's
246where I'm coming from. I want to acknowledge the the massive lift and and I and I do think that there are teachers that were able to articulate it very well with families. Like there was some I told you there was confusion at one point where there was an S and an F and and I was like wait anyway I was like wait he's missing this or how does that compute? Um so there's a learning curve in anything new. Um, and I think that speaking of like joy in teaching and from from those who didn't maybe spend as many hours or that it wasn't as conducive to their curriculum, um, it created nightmares. Um, and maybe it was the roll out, maybe it was ideology, maybe it was a lot of different things, but I I
247felt and I feel like I witnessed, and this is anecdotal, I did not survey on this one, but that um there was an incredible amount of time dedicated to figuring out the grading system rather than just focusing on education. That bothers me, you know, when when you when you have something to offer and and you're distracted by a thousand other things and we can't I feel, you know, completely um with integrity measure, you know, what the kids are learning. We've got a problem. We've we've got not just like splinters in the district, but chinks in the system um that that's breaking. and it's why we're all here having this conversation for the upte meeting in a row. Um I'm going to go back to assessments. I more feedback was regarding final exams. I don't know
248how that falls or where that falls in this ELO or the 50 what side of what that would go into or if or um if there's some feedback on that or if they could show mastery uh for an ELO by you know doing well on the final exam. But in the same breath for the kids who don't take tests well but are able and willing to do what it takes to to show it in other ways. Um I feel like that needs to be respected and honored as well. Um this most you know the the the trait the characteristic trait that for those who are most successful is grit. And so that that long time toward, you know, an objective toward that goal and and making little steps repeatedly to show that. And I think
249that we still we have to be able to honor all of our students and teachers and and still streamline something that can be easily communicated. Frankly, I still think explaining the ELO is almost as complicated as explaining the CBE. What's less complicated is people understand percentages. I understand that elementary schools do, you know, a 4 point something like are are you meeting the standard, but we're beyond that. You know, they should be escalating and moving up the ladder. I I I don't think that um that it makes sense to have it in in the high school fear sphere even though I'm hearing, you know, that there are some colleges that have picked this up. I think communicating, you know, with with a 100 points and a percentage, people understand that universally and it's not going
250to you're not going to have to spend a ton of time explaining how that works to your class. I want you to be able to teach. I want our kids to learn. I don't want you to have to spend, you know, hours explaining how this works um to the students. Um and again, I realize it's working better for others. Um but the vast majority it's not working for. Um, I think that again the assessment piece if they're if we're retaking things, the students should be honored who are who are prepared and handling their business round one. And I don't think if we're retaking the students showing it a second time around should be getting the same scores. You know, like it or not, the pointchasers um a plus at the end of a grade or
251or kids who are concerned about, you know, which point or their percentage. I had kids coming to me saying, "Well, out of a 20 point assessment, I had 19 and the person next to me had 17 and we got the same grade or 16 and we got the same grade and felt and they were graduating." They said, "I'm worried about like I I wasn't um given kudos for for having it almost perfect while the person next to me also got an A and they were, you know, two points or whatever less than than uh their score." And so I also think we're taking away some of the achievement of our high achievers by not acknowledging their work and effort straight out of the gate. Um I don't want to do that. I don't want to
252discourage the kids who who are ready to like take education and the bull by the horns and handle their business. And uh so for a lot of different reasons I I'm not sure exactly where we're going right now. Um, I agree that the that we need continuity, especially at each site. That was repeatedly brought up in student engagement that having teachers using a four point or 100 point is confusing. It's still confusing the parents like it or not. It is what it is. And we need to be able to communicate uh clearly and concisely. And I I do believe in meritocracy. I do. And so if we're not, you know, rewarding kids for for demonstrating it round one and giving the same scores to somebody who is demonstrating it down the line, um I also
253don't think that that's fair. Um and I'm not sure how that works into all of this. So those are my feelings. Okay. And on the on the F situation or the D, my son, who just recently graduated before it changed to incomplete or NC received a D in his foreign language. It was a conversation we had with our IEP team about if we were going to push A through G or not. And he was like just getting there by the hair on his chinny chin chin. And in order to not stunt his progress and growth, he met the requirement to graduate. He didn't need the second year to move forward. Um he didn't need a C or better to move forward and he was able to graduate because of the policy that was in place
254prior to the most recent change. Now, if he chooses and he's going to going to Sierra next year, um if he wants to continue on and go to a university, like all power to him. Um, but he was able to graduate because we had these and maybe, you know, maybe it would have been more difficult. I I believe it would have been more difficult for him to meet that standard if he had to have um a C or better in that class. But he survived and we were thankful. For the kids in the alternative education who are extraordinarily credit deficient moving into that space, I don't think that that's fair to them. for the students who are not natural students who are athletes um it's affecting and impacting their ability to participate and maybe the
255one hour or two hours a day where they find success they're not able to participate or play because they have a no credit I don't think that's fair either so I realize not everyone's going to agree I support and honor that I don't want to take away from the hours and hours of work that has been done to prepare this um with the previous roll out my apologies that we didn't I know that this has been a long time coming but it did feel like it happened very quickly um and that we are essentially you know pulling pulling you know portions of this back. The same goal remains that we want our kids to be successful. We want them to be an environment where they're supported where they have incredible teachers and and that remains.
256is just is how you're taking in their performance and and what's computed on the on the back side of it. I do agree with Jeremy um and those of you who spoke the experts in your field, you should be given some autonomy to do what you need to do. But the truth is is a decade ago or whenever this rolled out, the teachers didn't get to choose how it was going. The district chose it at that time as well. The teachers didn't dictate the policy. That's why there's a board. That's why there's an administration and strategic plans to try to figure out how we get there. The teachers didn't choose a decade ago. Um, and right now we're taking all of the input from everyone and trying to make the best of the situation. But
257I wanted to acknowledge that as well. Thank you. That was appreciate that. Um, I also think something that Jeremy said and he said this to me uh about a month ago and I think it's important to re reiterate is that there is flexibility with the 100 point scale, right? There is flexibility that if you're in a math honors class and an 88 is the low bar to get an A, then you have that flexibility. Again, this going back to the teacher. So, um I think that's an important note. Um also going we're not going backwards, right? I that's that's an important piece. What we did is listening to the community feedback, the student feedback, the teacher feedback, and no, we didn't speak to every single teacher, right? Um but we spoke to a majority of
258folks. We heard from ATP. We heard from a majority of people and the numbers stand, you know, speak for themselves on on on why the grading system is the way it it is as far as how what we're presenting. But but we what we did is we is something that was created that's the best of all of these. Even calling it mastery, I don't know if that's the right term for it because it's not necessarily 100% mastery because it does have elements of competency based education, standardsbased and mastery. And so I not because we did the work, but it's important to say that this is not going backwards at all. And the work that folks did on a four-point scale, this is tough. I I completely appreciate, you know, the rigor that's gone into it
259and you guys have spent a lot of time. Um, but we have to have consistency and overwhelmingly what we've heard is going back to 100 point scale is what people want. And I know that you, you know, folks that believe in the four-point scale are spirited, wonderful teachers. And I They're going to find a way to make it work in a 100 point scale and provide that same love and enjoyment to bring that to their to their students and to make their students successful and to set expectations with students that you have an F at that moment in time. Let's work your tail off to go figure out how to get this up. And if you just don't care as a kid, they weren't going to care if it was a no credit or an
260F. And that's the sentiment that we heard from people and the spirit of comprehension or mastery. That's why we kept the intervention period. If you have one ELO that you don't pass at a 65% you're at 64% got to go retake it in the spirit of mastery. And so we didn't go backwards. We just took the the the feedback and we made it better. And that's that's the goal. It's going to take time. Um but you know, and we'll talk about what this AR looks like and how we get there. If we can move fast and that would be great. I mean, you know, as fast as we can move, right? And it's different. The speed to CBE was obviously the roll out was tough because it was hard to understand. Logically speaking, let's remember
261that the EOLO work was done for a long time. they threw out as something that was standard through through everyone that's been a teacher, right? Um and so they know they know what to do there. Turn to turn this back if we go towards that 100 point system is not going to be the same type of roll out as it was to move to a four-point system. And if we can move this and get this done by August, let's do it. Let's let's not keep these students in this purgatory right that they're in right now. A couple things um to address the the timing issue. There's a specific reason why we did not put timing into this policy um because if this policy does get passed tonight, uh it would then be up to the
262superintendent and and ATP to meet together and determine how this is going to be implemented like how what that that timeline is going to look like, how long the training is going to be, how long the piloting is going to be, if there is going to be piloting. All those logistics pieces are something that the the district administration um is going to work with ATP on uh so that the teachers and administration are on the same page. Um, another couple things I wanted to point out is, uh, say you had, uh, you're scoring your, uh, five paragraph essay and you want to score it on a four-point scale. That's completely okay. Just convert it to a letter grade when you put it in the gradebook. We're not preventing teachers from doing that. Um, just make
263sure that it's converted before you put it in there. And the issue that was brought up about the point chasing that's specifically why in the policy we have uh the u one of the lines in the policy talks about not having a percentage uh in Aries gradebook which by the way you can do so all they all they actually see will see is if they have an A or B a C or they won't see 89% um or 89.5% you know or whatever like so these are all options that we're giving to the teachers that that's where this autonomy comes in um to giving the teachers the autonomy to do those kinds of things to address the issues that they see in their classroom. terms. Uh I also think it's completely unfair uh to suggest
264that we were not listening to the teachers because that's anything but true. I myself have talked to probably 40 different teachers uh about grading over the last six months. Um and had multiple conversations with the ATP leadership over and over and each of the six drafts that we did. I those were reviewed by ATP and we talked through them and had ideas and suggestions and things that they thought that we should tweak or change. Um, and again, this this is not a policy that that I 100% agree with every single thing in it. And and Mr. uh Duncan as well, not doesn't agree with everything that's in here, but this is the the the a great policy that we found that that's the best of of all worlds, so to speak. Um, and it's the
265the policy that we thought um met the needs of the many many many people that we spoke to. Uh, students, parents, teachers, administrators, uh, folks from other districts even. Um, like we talked about at our last meeting, uh, we did the research, we did the homework, we brought the receipts. U, we've got it all right here. And this is the policy that we developed, uh, that we think is going to be the best for students. So, that being said, I call for a vote, um, to pass board policy, the amendment to board policy 51-21. If Can I May I speak? Yep. We've had a motion by Trusty Jeff and a second by Trusty Duncan. Go ahead. We try to roll this out right now with this timing. I think it's going to be uh very
266uh much a failure. It's going to cause teachers anxiety, focus. They won't be able to focus. They're going to be worried about how do I do this instead of seeing kids learn and master the assessments. That's what education's all about. Mastering the assessments and learning with fun, belonging, etc. other ideas by Glasser. Um, if you if someone asks me and I I need to say this, what is the best way whether a person what what was just said made sense to me? If you want to use a four-point scale and you can convert that to a 100point scale, fine. Use a four-point scale. It's what you know and it works. To me, what makes the most sense is a B C no grade incomplete. Three opportunities to try to make it up. If you can't
267make it up, you haven't succeeded. Um trying to support the students in learning their assessments. Clear ELO's. Clear ELO's that is department and um uh sitebased without the throughout the district. I think that's real simple. Well, everyone knows what an A is, a B is, a C is. We don't need to read. If you guys have an opportunity, read Glasser. Quality schools, read Glasser, you know, and what D's and Fs tend to do to kids and what I know from my experience. So, if someone say, "What's the best way?" I say, "A B, C." Um, try to learn that. All kids can learn if they they might learn in different ways, but we can all learn and we can succeed. ABC incomplete, no grade. Um, use a four-point scale, convert that to a 100point scale
268if you need to. I mean, if that's what we decide as a district. But to roll this out as I'm hearing right now with all kids aren't education is not doing homework. Homework is to allow you to learn to succeed if you need that to learn your assessments and and to be successful. It's not based on participation. I want kids to participation, but that's not the clear assessment. It's based on here's what we want you to learn. Learn it, show it, and master it. I I think that's what's important. If we roll this out and call for a vote, I can't support it, but I do appreciate you guys working hard and talking to the community. I mean that sincerely, you know, but I can't support that because I know in my heart that's not
269what's best in the classroom. I know that. I have another question since it's discussion question time. Um the other major feedback and that I had um and this is something that I discussed with with the other board is that um that some kids who were gaming the system that it encouraged laziness like literally my my son who is academic uh didn't do anything until the last few weeks of school his senior year uh and then pulled it all together in the 11th hour because he knew he He's like, "Don't worry about it, Mom. I got it." And so he was just grounded just forever. Like I was like, "You can't go anywhere." Um, but he wasn't he wasn't doing it. Um, I was getting phone calls from the teacher, emails from the teacher repeatedly because
270they were allowed to turn things in whenever they wanted to. And and he really it was a disservice to him. He was not fully prepared to get his act together when he entered college. Um, and it reflected in his grades. that reflected in his ability to study his work ethic. Um do you feel that with these changes or guidelines or barrier boundaries that we are going to you know have have enough structure that we we keep everybody moving in the same direction. If our goal is career, you know, college life ready, I don't feel like the other system was preparing them in that way because there was a lack of accountability. They could they could get away with almost anything with some of the teachers. I realize some teachers had some more structure, but it
271was because you created it, not because the policy dictated it or that the district demanded it. So, what what are we doing to do you feel like this addresses that? I do. We do. Absolutely. And not what I think, it's the consensus from folks we talked to believe that this will address that. I have an issue with the 50%. I think that uh 70% makes more sense with uh with my rationale and reasoning. Um I love most of what's in here. You know, I think it addresses a lot of uh it provides a lot of clarity um and direction, but uh I feel like that's like a big deal that that that's a big component. You want more to be put on the ELO's. That was the main complaint that we got from students and
272parents was the was with the CBE was how weighted those those proficiency scales were. Um that being said, um we wanted to give that we set it at 50%. So that it's it is truly essential like you're not going to be able to pass the class if you don't have those ELOs's completed. Uh and it is a big chunk of the grade. However, it gives autonomy to the teachers for all the other things other than the ELOs's that they want to be able to assess and record in their classroom. So Emerson, that was the compromise, right? If if we're gonna if we're taking it down from 70 to 50 made it so that all you had to pass all ELO's and and and that's why we changed Well, 70 you still have to pass all
273the ELOs's. You do, but it's there's just less weight on the so-called subjective areas. Well, it's it's not let's let's be clear like the the um I think Jeremy said it fast, which was the 50% for those ELOs's are the priority ELO's, right? There's so many state standards and the departments by and the district are going to decide which of those ELOs's they're going to make priority there. The other 50% can still be some other ELOs's standards standards sorry yes standards um that they are following right and and that's up to the teacher discretion. So it's again that can be quizzes, that can be tests, that can be participation. It's it's not 50% ELO's and tests and the other 50% is participation in homework. It's a combination of everything. The difference in the split is
274these are the priority ELOs's that we're focusing on and the other 50% are the whatever standards, whatever weight that you're putting behind. Yeah. And so that's why I felt comfortable and again hearing from the community on all scales, all students was a no-go by a majority of people including including some, you know, a lot of teachers. Teachers. Yeah, majority of teachers. Um, so by moving it down to 50%. I felt really comfortable. I still don't agree with it, but I felt more comfortable with you have to f you have to pass all of those ELOs's in order to pass the class. And I say that that other 50% that we're talking about other than the ELO's is not subjective. It's not fluff. It's important content. It's important assessments. It's important evaluation, supporting projects. It's not
275just a bunch of like free points, you know, like No, I understand that. No, but it's it become it does become potentially more subjective, which you made the argument that we're trusting our teachers. They should be able to be subjective where CBE said, "No, we're taking we're removing subjectivity. If you meet this competency, you are awarded a grade, right? where there are students who they're smarter than everybody and they can just nail these competencies and they should get their grade. But having it in this way, you're going to have to participate. You're going to have to do these other things to contribute to your grade. And you're saying that should be essential. That's 50% is the essential, right? the 50%. No, no, no. I'm saying that uh it's just it's a it is a major
276shift from Well, we agree the way it is right now, not everybody's doing 4. You've got a you've got a bunch of uh the majority and maybe ATP could speak to that. Like the majority is doing 100 across the district. Yeah, I like I like I'm I'm in favor of the 100 points. Um Like I said, I mean, I I I vast majority I agree. I there's still some clarity I need um with the 50 or 60 or 70, you know what I'm saying? Like what that looks like. I also like what was said about the timing. This has no time frame on it. So, this does not mean that this is rolling out in August to be clear. Is that clear? I think we have to have a goal, right? And and um because
277you which again you're going to hear from families. Most of the families out there will say fall semester, you know, was difficult because it was CVE. Second semester has been easier, right? Because it's been augmented. Um, and as soon as they could get on something that's going to be the standard going forward, the better, right? And so we don't want this we don't want to roll this out hastily but also this has already been done before right at least the major components of it of 100 point 100 point system sure whereas the fourpoint system in CPE was pioneered and it took a long time. So are we going to stand behind that what was said that this will be the direction this will be uh we will leave it up to the administration to implement
278at the end of the day. Yeah that's what was said. I'm just yeah it's it's certainly not us. I mean we're we're going to provide direction through putting a hard date saying hey we want this August. I think it needs to be negotiated. I think that there has we didn't put any dates. There has to be a conversation about how this rolls out. Dr. Camd, could you speak to that about, you know, policy of this nature? Sorry, I'm put you on the spot here. Like what Well, this is um I have a lot of questions or Yeah, please. Um but I I don't I need to get into all those. I mean, in just in terms of answering your question about a BP, because there's so many specifics in this policy, the AR is done.
279If if this policy were to be adopted tonight, I'm not exactly sure what the AR would look like because there's it's very granular down to the detail of um but then yet the shoulds and shall I feel like are are tough because if we say they should, are we now saying they can't? And that's a that's a that's a clarifying thing we need the board needs to figure out as you read through that policy and you look at all the shoulds and the shalls. What are we really saying behind should and shall. And so that's that's that's where we go in terms of staff to implement implementation. If it's a if it's a should, there really is no implementation because what a should says is you should but you can do what what you want.
280There's the there's the autonomy there. So, I think the we the staff would need more clarification on what are the closedhanded shells that this board is is holding on to. And I've heard I've heard ELOs's, but I I didn't see anywhere in the policies where it said a proficiency scale cannot be used. Right. Again, it's it was it was a should. Same with like extra credit. it shouldn't be given for extra credit outside of an academic but that means you can right so I mean so and I and I provide all the questions to to um um both trusty Jeff and trusty Duncan so in terms of implementation the AR um obviously the current AR5121 would be removed um and then we would we would need to go through this and it would take a
281quite a bit of process and obviously getting Mr. Ali involved in that process and staff with um whether an AR is necessary or not. I I don't know based upon the way based way the policy is currently written in and and potentially approved um the AR doesn't other than when it when this happens the how is already talked about within this policy. Does it have to be this granular? Can we be more specific about the the the larger framework like 100 point A through F. Sarah, would you please pull back up uh the proposed BP? Thank you so much. Well, remember this policy came in great part from feedback from each of the different committee meetings that we had when they provided the top 10 at each at the end of each of those meetings
282with that that group of individual stakeholder groups said these are the 10 suggestions or things that we would like to see. That's a lot of this is built around those those suggest those suggestions or wishes from our stakeholder groups. So that's kind of what we try to codify to some extent. I I hear you Emerson on the 5050. You know, it's something that stands out to me as well. I appreciate the explanation for how we kind of landed there. Um I do kind of lean in to the idea that maybe there should be if if the essentials are the most important piece of that that maybe it should be a larger percentage of the grade. I think the the main like issue at least that I heard heard repeatedly and maybe you guys could speak
283to this was that the the last um or that the CVE grading was a 9010 split um you know assessments um and maybe you know maybe somebody from ATP could speak to that but um you know with this differentiation because I do think if if there's emphasis on what they need to know to be successful important and then also for the students who are getting things easily I they need they need something to you know not busy work but something to keep them on track with their students so that they're not just driving their teachers crazy or missing or not participating in anything the entire semester. So, so I I I see the need for for a percentage on the other side to um demonstrate and keep them locked in to be accountable. Are we
284aware what the BP was prior to uh the CBE roll out? What was it? I don't know that I have a question. We'd have to go back in drafts to look at it. the the BP5121 for the most part is pretty vanilla um in terms of the grading valuation. If you look at that second paragraph, I believe actually third paragraph is the most significant changes between uh 2019 23 and 24 to where it actually specifically calls out frameworks for essential learning outcomes, proficiency scales, um using these ELOs's shall be based on a grades and partial all those things on a competency proficiency through a variety of evaluation methods. It's pretty pretty vague. And then it says um the AR-5121 which was which were the nuts and bolts of basically how um this was to be
285done. So we'd have to go back to the original which I'm sure we can somewhere in our documents. But this was a 51-21 was I believe again 2019 but out of um 51-21 came about through again another stakeholder group with teachers and involvement um and the board and then the AR was an additional group that um was was brought forward se several revisions thanks Sarah I don't I'm not sure go to the end 2019 again so and that one. Yeah. Yeah. Which has the specifics in there of what um that would look like as and the when and the win. Yeah. Yeah. Most updated AR was the win. Right there it says beginning 2425 school year. We're not including that on this policy. This is administrative regulation. Yeah. Right. This is the AR right here.
286So if you on an AR, but as you look at the categories in the AR, you know, it's saying that it's going to be based upon it brings up extra credit. It brings up how grade books will be set up. So this is just a combination and that if that's the board's direction, right? If that's how you're moving forward, then we then we will um adjust. But at this point, there's not an there's not really an AR that's necessary other than the when in my reading through this. Do you guys have feelings on the win? How much time should be given if fast is slow and slow is fast? Are you asking me? No, I'm in general. I'm just throwing this out there. There can be public comment. I don't care. My personal opinion is
287we should take a year, get get the ELOS revised and revisited, pilots pilot once or twice, and you know, give the teachers time to get that professional development training because they have a limited amount of time for professional development. They've got one day in the fall, one day in the spring. They've got some PLC times on some Monday afternoons, not a lot uh because there's a lot of other things that they have to train on as well during that time, but um they're going to need time to Are we going to run into budget issues similar to what happened with this roll out? Well, the biggest one is going to be your ELO's because that um since when we started over 10 years ago, I I don't think we were in 100% agreement with the
288ELO's even moving through the process. So that that took a really long time because um there's just disagreement on those items. And so those would require some time of district PLC's getting together again and reopening that can dusting off those ELOs's that have been created and then having that conversation again. So yes, that will require quite a bit of time. I don't know how many times we met with proficiency scales, but each department met multiple times and still right required um addition and no one's 100% happy usually and that BP reading that BP again it's it's ELO's connected proficiency scales so it's I mean that that obviously was a level of complexity um which I think that level complexity stripped out in in this so but the timeline like I don't like to see it
289sooner than later but how far away are the proficiency scales from DLOS's aren't they very similar? They're very very different things. And so I might defer to Trent on this and he's surpassed me on this, but in an ELO is really a a topic. I would say proficiency scale is the progression of learning of how they meet that topic. And so they're very they're the same and and they might be listed, but the how in which they meet that ELO is the proficiency scale or rubric or however you want to call it trends. Anything you you'd add to that? [Music] It would be a longer conversation, but I I I think short sort of correct. I would I would say that the proficiency scale the the learning target should be the ELO. that should have
290been very similar in in wording. Um it's describing how they that student would meet that topic as as Steve pointed out. So what would be a timeline in your mind to kind of marry this idea of proficiency scales? Honestly, I think um a couple things is there are some things in that policy that I think do require some more clarity for us to really understand and one of them be would be like um you know the all scales all students we we wanted to move away from but you guys are I don't want to say that that policy is saying all ELOs's so that that is sort of similar if a student has to get all ELOs's that's kind kind of the same thing as all scales, all students, you're saying all just different wording
291in my opinion, but that those types of uh conversations I think have to be discussed about what that means, what that looks like depending on departments and the size. Correct. Yeah. So I think I mean just creating the ELO's is a lot of work at least a year to go through and again like um you know I think teachers all have very strong opinions about their content and about what's essential um and they all don't agree um which is my experience over and over again when leading different uh groups of teachers about hey this is the essential learning outcomes um they take a while to get to and so um even if you say these are the standards and we're going to start from there. Um there there's some different differing philosophies. So it would
292take a while to develop full ELO's for each. Now we do have some I I have a whole file of ELOs's that were created back in the day. Um so you know we could start we have a starting point I guess. Um so there's there's a lot to think about. A lot of work that went into those a lot of work. Yeah. Yeah. That's why To your point, there's a starting point, right? So, we're not reinventing the wheel. We're just tweaking. Yeah. Pulling what we have, go through it, tweak it, refine it, make sure it's I'm just more concerned about the timeline, and I want to be sensitive to We have a unique situation. I mean, we see what happens when things were mandated and heavy-handed, you know, mandated. Uh, let's not do that. Let's
293be reasonable and give some autonomy. Is are people happy with what happened this last term where we lightened up and said, "Hey, you know, can we give it a year?" I think no timetable makes sense. I don't I don't want to be like to your point heavy-handed, but also you saw it's apples to oranges a little bit, but um when we augmented the grading policy, uh it was in within four weeks they were back to school. And so um and again, we're not recreating the wheel. So I think once the BP's passed, to Steve's point, decide, you know, what are we actually building as far as an AR? just there and and what what are some of the things that need to be changed on it? Um on the shoulds and the shalls, right, for
294clarity sake. Um and then start building towards uh groups to start working together by by site departments and districts to get to that hard part which is agreement. Right? I think that's what folks are nervous about that have been here long enough to see all this that to get the teachers into agreement is going to take some time. And that's going to be true of any change in education. Oh yeah. It was it was true when when we were getting the Joel Feldman training on grading practices and it's true today. Yeah. And it and as it should be it should be thoughtful. It should be uh you know there should be a lot of consideration but at the end of the day English is still going to be taught, math is still going to be
295taught, writing is still going to be taught. You know what I'm saying? It's like there are some basics that are just going to continue to happen. These are just nuances of how to uh how to move forward. Yep. Yeah. Yeah. There's there's just so much there's so much. I think everybody's exhausted. Um it's 9:22. We have a motion in a second on the floor. I I am hearing staff, you know, and needing for clarification on the the shalls and the shoods. Um I do worry that it's too granular. um that potentially some of these portions could be tabled pending conver you know future conversation without having to be so specific. I think what's important right now is, you know, what, you know, 100 point versus versus versus four. That's a very clear delineated, you know,
296I feel like that's pretty clear right now. Um, on the direction we're moving. Everything else feels a little bit complicated other than wanting to use ELO's. Um, I think that the reassessments and and how those things are done, there's there's so much specificity in here. And I'm wondering if some of this can could be simplified to provide direction to staff to to map out what this is going to look like uh moving forward because this is not happening overnight. Um, and if there's a way for us to just set set the objective, you know, a little bit tighter and then provide direction, you know, based on the information and the content in here that we can get it dialed with our partners in this, you know, business here. Does it make sense to consider simplifying
297this a little bit? Stick to our main points and uh and revisit in one in our next our next meeting. Why we were very specific on the question is if you look at the previous board policy and the AR that went along with it, they like that board policy is very generic and where the district administration went with it was seemingly very different than when you you actually policy. We didn't want that to happen. We wanted to make sure that we were addressing the concerns that were brought up to us by the stakeholder groups. Uh and we tried to address each of those concerns in this policy. That's why it's like very specific. So if the whole of it is in agreement and again put it to a vote for that that's the next step
298is to chisel it down and come back with updated updated policy right so if I'm hearing you if even if we move forward not updated policy updated regulations regulations but but if but if the policy is so specific it doesn't leave room for the regulation to find its way to to to to create the road map how how we're getting there you You know what I mean? Implementation on the implementation side of it. I disagree. Do you? Yeah. Because it doesn't there's no timelines built into this. Like it's it's very much open to like how how are they going to develop the ELO's? How are they going to determine what what the retake policy is going to look like by their department? Like all that's all that's developed by the teachers, right? So is it
299safe to say we're going to provide this direction and we want to slowly move in this direction? These are some guiding these are the guiding principles where we eventually want to get and uh and allow uh you know different sites and to to kind of move in that direction. I have a I have a question. I'm not a legal expert on board policy but if you were to approve this policy that's the policy right? Right. So next year that's the policy. If all of a sudden something is uh a parent let's says you know I don't uh a teacher didn't follow this policy that as it is written that's the policy. So my concern is we go with this policy and you say, "Yeah, we haven't did any timelines." That doesn't matter because the policy
300is going to be written and public to our public of saying this is what the board policy says. Um and if a teacher doesn't follow some of those shall then they could be in in trouble. or if our administrators don't have enough clarity about what their shalls are, what the shoulds are. It just I that's what I would be fearful of is creating a pol voting on a policy right now because it is going to be policy without the timeline. First of all, a policy can be tweak and adopted later. Secondly, the clarification on the should and shs and those kinds of things can come after the policy has been passed like that's going to be part of the administrative regulation can highlight and clarify those pieces, those components. But wouldn't we then have to
301go back to the board policy and amend the policy? If a should became a shall we'd have to we'd have to address both. Yeah. And and and and that has happened. Right. If you look at 2019, there was a big gap to 234 because they started moving. Right. Right. Uh in an implementation direction, right? Um yeah, I just I think if we wait, we are just back to square one and come August 17th. And so if we if we pass if whatever if we if we decide to move forward with it today, as it as it stands right now, we have we have teachers who are doing four point, we have teachers who are doing 100 point right now, even though because we gave that that autonomy uh and by department. By department and what's
302the argument for I just see this as such a unique thing because of the history and the roll out and all of this uh is there a way to make the most people happy? I believe that's what we try to do. That's that's that's that's what you have in front of you. I I believe I I totally honor and respect what you guys have done and I and I do think it's a fair representation of the community. I hear you when you're talking about a policy that that that is what people are going to look back on. The people who are savvy and are going to dig up a policy, they're going to use it. Um and they should because that's what we're supposed to hold ourselves to and our staff to. That that's that's
303you know the mandate that we provide our staff, right? is like this is the law of the land. This policy goes now. This is what we're holding everyone to. That's the standard, right? So, um I think that there's, you know, you know, the 100 point I, you know, potentially, right? I think that that's possible to go fall if that's what we're in agreement with 100 point um and ABCD F and like tightening up the ship and then we go the other pieces of it then are redirected to to formulate what all of the the information and the feedback into the AR um with some timeline information. So it's not in the BP that everyone's holding to the other AR would would be gone. We would we would we don't write that the administrative regulations but
304we can certainly give direction on what that's going to look like based on this. There's a there's a template and here and here's the template and let's let's you know dive down and and and make sure that it's clear. We can put in the timelines but at least for the time being that we can clarify the main objectives on where we're going with all of this important information to recraft and put it into the AR because the AR will I hear Trent and I and I agree that in the BP it's it's standard now and what does that look like for the fall no not at all okay because that's where the administrative regulation comes in that's where they determine how this is going to be implemented and the time frame for which that that
305will well the the how of implementation is is correct I mean the board could implement the implement of the timeline but the how when we're saying the word how I mean just the page of best practices on G that that's where I I think the question is are are those items part of the BP or are those removed from the BP because those are that's where a lot of the kind of the gray area is is in here. I think we've talked about this, right, Jimmy? That I feel like we could separate like this is the beginning of an AR and you can separate starting at G real quick. Sorry, can't think very well. That that I know is there is there harm that G can be removed from the policy and and discussed as
306as potentially um the direction that's one example. I mean there's there G gon G and under. Yeah, that's that's that was Sorry, Steve. No, no, you're good. I mean, other than I mean, and not other than the the first the the board philosophy A explaining what A and B beyond A and B, um that becomes an AR in my opinion. I mean, if that if that's the direction that the board is wanting the district to go in, we would probably just take be or see on um as the AR because it's again it's it's so specific. Um and again, I'm just comparing most BPS and other districts that I've looked at are basic couple couple paragraphs. They're big. So is that I think we can accomplish what we what we uh the work that has
307gone into this by simplifying well and and and if it's you said C C uh below would go into the AR or that that would be that that would be the the basis for for crafting and putting that into C on or do we need I think there's a beauty in having some vague with BP because I agree because it it it really gives the autonomy this doesn't lend a lot of autonomy to those who uh to where something is working and I want to um so just I mean just as a an example on on retakes. Students should not have unlimited opportunities for retakes. They should not. So me as a teacher, not right. I mean those those are the those are the things that we are going to get the questions. That's where
308the parents are going to going to have the questions of those specific examples. If the board is saying um we do not want unlimited retakes, students shall not have unlimited retakes. If that's what we're if that's what we're clear on, those are those are the things that that I feel like we need um more time understanding the board's direction on this. Again, that's building towards the AR. Yeah. And so, Absolutely. So Jeremy, um, to get you caught up, the the idea was take tonight the the the BP being A and B and everything below B is working towards the the actual AR and kind of marching orders. Um, we're right is right in the middle of that discussion. Now inside of inside of that would be the percentages the breakdown when we're talking 5050 that's
309beneath that's all below that that's all that's all when you get into the ELO's and you know I mean at this point it's so granular man and it's like and I I get the reasoning and the I get it you know it totally makes sense either the policy is granular or the administrative regulation but either way there it's a policy that's supposed to be followed right and that's Why I think having having the policy and like setting setting the objective and then the more you know specific items would translate into the AR so that you guys could have these types of shall conversations without it becoming the law of the land you know in tminus however many minutes if that's where we move. Is there any benefit to like parsing this out a little bit,
310separating what could be BP and what could be AR? Well, well, yeah. I mean, because then there's then then we have not start the clock ticking, so to speak, right? I mean, you just I'm understanding in the board philosophy that the governing board believes that students shall reflect student learning and directly measure student knowledge and skills in content area. Grades shall be based on instructional model called mastery learn. We the board has put their stake in the ground and of saying plaster union high school district is going to be mastery learning. That's the that's the pedigogy. That's the philosophy. That's just like the previous policy in the third paragraph says PHSD is going to be CBE. That's the the overriding um the overriding thread of of the direction that the board wants to go. I
311feel like the argument from the community because I don't think it's specifically mastery learning and it's certainly not exactly CBE. The community wasn't asking for that. No, they were just saying we're frustrated with this. I don't Yeah. And and I also think that some would argue that mastery and CBE are like almost the same. I I think that I don't know that we need to label it. Guys, it is getting late. It's not the end of the world if we give this some consideration. give the direction that, hey, we like these things. We want to be very sensitive to these things. Let's at our next board meeting, let's provide a little more clarity without, you know, coming across as heavy-handed here. That's kicking the can pretty far down. I don't think it's heavy-handed at all,
312actually. No, no, no, no. I'm not saying heavy-handed. I'm saying from what they're saying, it is. It's true. This is like this becomes the law. If we vote on this right now as it as it's written, then you're not necessarily giving autonomy to a lot of teachers in our district. I disagree. Who have been No, hold on. who have spent years adapting to this fourpoint. You know what I'm saying? I think there's a way to to provide direction without I think autonomy is the answer and with guidance, but it's You know, I agree. But we've heard so many people say they they they we don't want a mixed system. Yeah. They don't want one teacher doing this and another teacher doing that. But we have a mixed system. We've had a mixed system. We've always
313had a mixed system. There's no way. We haven't always had a mixed system. No. But it is. If you were to go down to the nuts and bolts, math is different than ceramics. There's not. There's education. Well, you see what I'm saying? And so we don't Again, this is like nuance. This is policy wonky stuff. I mean, at the end of the day, I think we all agree that let's bring joy back to education. Let's simplify it for teachers. Let's not overwhelm with, you know, you know what I'm saying? I'm I'm on board with 100 point. I feel like that's kind of a universal thing that's been around forever. Uh A through F, I'm on board with that. that's like universal, been around forever. But I mean, do we want to like we have a
314unique district at this point because of our history? Can we and I think that the majority can agree um you know philosophically um and the values of the community and representing the community in this that you know that you know at this point the prior system did not uh was not fully serving um the community and there was mass confusion. Absolutely. And it took the joy out of education and m in many cases because of the because of all the things. Is this going to return the joy to education? Yeah. So So let's look let's let's let's clear again. This is not Tom and Jeremy's. No, I understand. No, I understand. I understand. But this is the result. What I'm prefacing is that is that if we wait till August, then we'll find a reason
315to wait till September and we'll continue to kick the We already we already agreed that it's going to take at least a year. Sure. But you got to get it. It's got to go get into motion and we need to start building and start building is a perfect time to start working on it over the summer. Otherwise, you're going to run into you're going to run into time constraints with with classroom activities and and so forth. So I I just I think I think a major again this is what the community as students and teachers as a majority this is what they've said in the committee meetings um and the things we talked to to them about I just worry that if we're going to move the can it feels like we're moving the can
316to build something else versus what the board wants to do versus what I want to um reiterate the fact that this board asked trustee Duncan and I to go out and talk to people and come up with a plan based on what those conversations were with our stakeholders. And this is the plan that we came up with based on those conversations with our stakeholders. So, and I honor and respect that. I actually, you know, as I'm thinking about some of but in the same breath we're saying we want to give autonomy to the teachers. So, I think I think that compared to CB, I think that this does give more autonomy to the teachers. I do. Um what I what I want to share is as I'm like thinking about some of the actions that
317other boards that that I'm aware of have taken when they've um taken steps in a you know in a different direction that they that they paused implementation you know um you know pending some additional information. So it didn't go live and effective immediately. I know multiple districts that have done that with other policies. So if we gave the direction that uh we want to you know establish this you know policy and set this direction um and gave direction that we're going to you know talk to our partners and um and potentially redirect this into two both the board policy and and the AR to bring it back. At least we're in motion. Um but it's pending you know future conversation. Is there a benefit to simplifying the BP and having the more granular details in
318the AR from your perspective having gone through the past few years? Well, the the AR has has morphed the most. And when it first came out with grading with um with Feldman's grading, it was far more shall um shoods and then what happened was it was a request by teachers to make it more rigid to to change it. So, I I'll get to your question. So, we we updated the we updated the AR. um we updated the AR as um the requests were made because it wasn't working the way that it was. There was too much flexibility. And so so we're hearing we want autonomy, but we also want consistency. And so that's why I go back to it's it's almost and I haven't seen a board policy like this. It's almost like the policy
319needs to say what you don't want. you know, right? That would almost be more helpful um to help us get our feet under us to figure out what the the direction of the the board is is what we what we don't want. That's that's maybe easier because then we then we go, well, we don't have to put that in the policy. So, um so easier I I don't I don't I don't know. We we haven't operated in this realm like this before um with a with a combo BP AR. So I don't I don't have a there's lots of board policies where the administrative regulation is almost identical. Yeah. I I'm just saying for us how we have not we have not our policies there are many multiple board policies and administrative regulations that are
320almost identical. Sure. Yeah. But at least in in the grading that has granted this is I'm saying we're not we're not out of we're not off the reservation here. No I don't think we're fully off the reservation. I think that um yeah, we're we're semi there. No, I said I don't even think we're supposed to offer reservation. No, no, I don't think so either. Um but speaking of Feldman and and a comment about DEI, I heard earlier like, you know, grading for equity, I think that that there was a mandate by the by the constituents um and mass confusion around even that alone, some of that philosophy um that that is not alignment um you know with the values of the community either. And so taking that into consideration uh you know having more accountability
321and flexibility for teachers who are assessing and what's important I think is is critical right now. Um I don't want to kick the can. I I do want to be thoughtful and I think that that this is going to have to be massaged and so maybe in order to get us to the next step we need to add potentially a timeline here so that it's not like this is happening fall 2025 and maybe and then that's what buys us time to lock it down. We specify a 100 point now. Um you know A through you know the the the goal is you know the the A through F incomplete situation and those things now dealing with the rest of it you know as um on a different timeline. I personally think that's a terrible approach.
322Like the teachers need to know like what are they preparing for? What are they No, I agree. But don't you think that that would prepare them if we say, "Okay, we're going." You didn't mention anything about ELO's for example, right? Are we going away from Elos because that No, I think Elos are just saying if we're saying it's going to potentially take a year to present the ELO's, everyone with what they're using now, you know, 100 point, you know, people have adapted the proficiency scale to the 100 point. That's that's what's going on now. That's not like the end of the world. provides at least there's continuity and consistency there while they're mapping out how to get to the next place. Well, they won't know how what their goal is for getting to that next
323place if we don't have a policy pass. No, I'm saying if we pass the policy, let's put some like what what's the timeline now? And so, you're saying add the add the timeline so that when people are trying to hold us to it, if we're going to pass something, I think we need to potentially differentiate that. And then originally we did have a timeline built into this. I think it was in draft three up through draft three. Um and it was suggested to us that we should probably remove it because ATP needs to have negotiation at the implementation with the superintendent. So that's why we took that put that. So could could something be added a projected timeline would be X because that's not a hammer that's direction pending negotiations. Pass the board policy and
324provide that additional direction to the administration. But do you think it needs to be in the policy with that direction because the policy could potentially be there for 10 years, right? So why would that time why would that timeline for implementation need be in it? That could be something I think I think it's a clarification for community who's trying to hold staff to a standard that is not fully rolled out. Oh, I see what you're saying. Yeah. And and clarification for staff that there's a timeline. Now I understand where you're going with that. Yeah. Okay. I don't think it's kicking the can to to to give this more consideration and uh more consideration means a rewrite, right? Yeah. I mean, decide, hey, do we need to be this granular about this, this, and this or
325can we leave that to the administration? You know what I'm saying? Can we simplify our message from the from the board with direction saying, "Hey, we want these things and we'll leave these things." Is there something in the policy that that you would take out if you had the opportunity? uh the 50% thing I think that you're gonna you know that's like that's that's a big deal because you're saying this is how we're going to grade across the board 5050 and I'm not sure that that's like I'm not sure that's the best I know that that might be the majority maybe but you've also got maybe you got 40% who would disagree with you like do we need to piss off 40% of of the teachers or can we can we find a a policy
326that is adaptive. I still see this as a unique situation where that goes into the AR. Yeah. With direction. Yeah. Strike out the just the percentage piece. That's one that's one example. Is that And then the ELO's. The ELOs's the idea of having to spend another year of massaging ELO's with I mean it's like good grief. It's like how do you how can you bring joy back to teaching? How can you give teachers more time to focus on creating teaching plans instead of like you're not That sounds like a standard. You want to go back to standards based? No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. I'm not. If you're not in favor of the ELO's and that this whole policies basically, what was what existed before CBE? Sorry to interrupt. It's 10 10
327to 10. We need to make a decision extending our meeting. What was it when you were teaching? Hey guys, gentlemen, there were never something like that. No, but what was the what was the what was Gentlemen? I'm just I'm going to interject. Gentlemen, it's 10 to 10. We're going to need to extend the meeting. I don't want I I don't want to cut off this conversation. We're not going to have a regular meeting till August. Um we do have public comments. We've got additional items. We do have a motion and a second on the floor. Um if we're wanting to modify the the motion, you know, we can do that and that motion would uh be taken first. Robert's rules. If we if we amend the motion with some of the things we're talking about
328right now, it could be amended and then that one would be voted on first. Um, if it passed, it would it would knock out the others. So, if if there is direction or an action that could be taken now, we are going to have to extend this meeting. Um, and we can only make one motion to extend it. We still need to go back to close session uh to give direction um regarding one of those items as well. And we have three public comments which I want to respect. They've been and more um who have been here for hours and I respect your time and I'm you're not going to leave without such an important this is such an important conversation and uh and it's going to set a tone and uh and so I
329think that we just need to really consider a lot of things that we might not be considering fully. I feel like a lot a ton of thought has gone into this and it's It's it's very good, but we need to consider the ramifications moving forward with our unique situation. That's that's kind of where my head is and I don't feel comfortable like holding a vote. Yes. Right now it's like I'm not comfortable if we emphasize you guys said in the beginning slow is fast, fast is slow and now it's like oh if we don't hack now we're kicking the can. No, this is a big deal. Let's maybe we can I think that we can come up with something really good. And I'm not saying change this. I'm saying we need to be considered about
330where we are and how we do this. I'm not understanding what you're saying at first. I know, man. That's because we we're cutting this off because of our time constraint. But we we we don't have to have a time constraint. We can be here all night long. I think that um we if we want to table this for a moment, move forward with the agenda and come back to it just so we can let it simmer for a second. Let's do that and step away from it for a second. We'll come back. Uh let's we have to extend and we have to extend it to 952. You're not going to go there. Thank you. All right. That's what we're going to do. Thank you. Okay. So, we need a motion. Um, I'm gonna go big
331or go home because I don't want We can't make it. Yeah, we're just gonna do it, you guys. Yeah. I don't think we're gonna need it. Just We only get to do this once. But we only get to do it once. What are you talking about? Do we We need a motion to extend it and it's time to end it. I thought you were like, "Vote right now on this policy." No, no, no. We're We're tableabling it. We're going to come back. We need a breather. Okay. I will make a motion to extend the meeting to midnight. Second. Let's pray that it doesn't happen. We have a set first and a second to extend the meeting to midnight. All in favor say I. I. I. Uh the first was by me, the second was by
332Trusty Duncan, and that was David. Did you vote? No, I didn't vote. I I I don't know exactly. You're saying we're going to vote on abstaining something? No. No. To extend the time of the meeting. So, the motion until midnight. Yeah. Well, but potentially, but probably not. So, I'm gonna restate the motion even though we already voted on it. The motion was to extend the meeting to midnight or or that the deadline would be the cut off at midnight. I agree. And it just passed 40. All right. It already passed. All right. All right. Moving on. We're going to table 12. We'll come back to it. Thank you for your feedback. Let's breathe. All right. We are not going to be here till midnight. Mark my words. All right, staff report 9.1 local indicators for
333the California school dashboard update. Trent, take it away. I'll be as fast as possible unless you guys have a bunch of questions. Uh these are we have u you know indicators brought to us by the local control funding formula and most of them are on the dashboard. They have all of the nice little graphic pictures. Uh a couple of these indicators however require us to submit a uh sort of a qualitative um answer to whether we're meeting these or not. Those include uh teacher curriculum and facilities uh the implementation of state standards, parent and family engagement, uh school climate and a broad course of study. uh we review this in ad services uh and write up our little narrative and rank it and uh submit it on our dashboard. Thank you very much. I mean,
334does anybody have any questions? It's okay. Like it's pretty straightforward. Thank you, Trent. Excellent report. You're winning award for that one for sure. 9.2 to PHSD summer facilities maintenance and operations report. Greetings board. My name is Don Manning. No, Don could not be here. Yes, I know Don could not be here with us tonight. Um and I know she was um honestly looking forward to doing this because she has not had a chance to present to the board um to be able to do that. We do have a nine slide deck here. Um start with KFax and you can I'm not going to read all of them but you know we have some very big things happen. We have the track and field. if you're out there right now. All the grass is gone. They're
335finding pipes that didn't show up on the plans and so they're trying to figure out those things and looking at valves. Um but that is still on track to finish before the first home football game, which is August 29th, I do believe. Um Don and her team did some great work refreshing up the 100 hallway at Kfax. New paint, new lighting. There's still a few more things to do. They're actually doing the work on the locker rooms right now, which the board, thank you, um approved a while ago. So, they're refurbishing all of those right now. Um and again what was approved before we're looking at doing the air conditioning in the IDF rooms which are all the networking rooms. Um and there's also boiler replacements can be going on but that's people want to
336talk about boiler replacements because they're kind of boring. Um Deloro what you see there is a picture of what a rendering is of what the teachers um Mr. um Dustin Fee wants to do in the Yakakota gym with the mural. He's working together with the maintenance team on that. Uh, Boington, I mentioned we have a meeting tomorrow um at 11:30 at the parking lot with the engineer and the architect and staff um from the school site in regards to next steps and I'll be reporting that back to the board in August. 11:30 if you want to be there right there by the stadium entrance if you can make it. Um and then Yukody Jim we talked about that was the painting the 500 wing we just talked about in my previous action item. Forest hills,
337same thing. Um, if you want to go, the sod's getting put in, all dirt was taken out. Um, they're crowning it over, making it nice and playable again, and the new grass will be going in. That was only going to take a couple of weeks, and so by the end of this month, they should be complete with that. We talked about cleaning the classrooms and some roof leaks. I will be bringing forward the generator. Don has been working with that person to put a generator. There's always been a plan to put a generator um at that site. So, for the board's consideration, I'll be coming to that in August. um plaster. A lot going on or finishing up the Earl Crab Gymnasium. The floor is going in in July. Um as was mentioned before, kind
338of a big deal. That floor's never been replaced. Um I think David can attest to that that uh people who have been there since the 80s don't remember ever being replaced before. So it kind of makes sense. And it's amazing because I don't think they make wood like that anymore. Actually, if you can make wood, but I don't think they grow trees like that anymore. But anyway, um very iconic. I know. I've asked for a piece of the floor. Um I know they're trying to do fundraisers for it, but it's be a big deal. Um I heard they're taking some strips and making counters out and stuff like that. So it's supposed to be obviously a big deal for there. Uh 600 building, we talked about the HVAC they're doing over the summer. Um the
339400 building, the modernization modifications for for Maidu, they should be moving in in July. Very excited about that. We've talked about that. Um welding shop, I'll be following up more with Tom and staff to make sure those lighting upgrades get finished and how they've done the equipment in there. We talked about that before. U the learning comments. I guess the big thing there was the lettering that we put on the outside for those who've seen it. That was kind of like the the piece to resistance as they talk about to finish off that building. Um Confluence Plaster School for adults in Elmech. Um again you can read some we have just some mostly maintenance things there. Some roofing, some HVAC, some siding has to get done. um Confluence in conjunction with doing the 400 offices
340at Placer. We're also going to be painting some rooms at Confluence because those rooms are now being moved around and emptied out. That's taking over the summer. We're talking about Confluence at Placer. Um the annex building is what used to be called the old Maidu building at the Elmech. They're actually having some adult schools paying for this from their fund, but they're putting up some walls to create more classroom space in there. Uh so that'll be happening hopefully over the summer. um may not be done by the end of the summer, but that is the intent. The district campus, it was interesting. We did um have a plan moving forward to put some cameras in, but they gave us a quote where we said, "I'm not taking that quote to the board." Thank you very
341much. We're going to figure out our own game plan. I'm not going to do that. So, um because we're more of a site where there's not really students, we're going to look at something a little bit less expensive, not as as detailed as is required as what we like to have at the school sites. possible. Yes. So, I'll be working with Carlos and the team to figure that out. Um, and making sure we have cameras. We need one in the front of the maintenance building as they come in. We're having homeless people show up and park in the back area. There is a gate there to restricts you from going all the way behind the building, but not around turning left and hiding out behind the trees. And so we are thinking about getting a
342gate in the front right there to close down and also putting a camera so you can see people coming in because they do walk a lot from that building across that little walkway over here and then to our area over here. And then we're going to put a couple cameras here so people you can see who's coming in and out on on half hours. And then again 49 land is still moving forward um which is great. I do want to mention as part of the final project in here we are doing the final resealing and and striping of this main parking lot. That was part of the overall project that's happening this Thursday and Friday, which is great. No one should be here. Um, we got Junth and Friday off because we close on Fridays
343during the summer. Uh, again mentioned the 49 land is still moving forward with the date. Um, so had a few hiccups that we shared, but that was taken care of thankfully. So, still moving forward with that. And then just some information Don wanted to share and I I can't do it justice, but she has made some some good changes coming in um with the with the crew, some custodial standards and classroom cleaning. Um as she mentioned to me, she literally goes through with a white glove before school starts and that is her intent. And um so just looking at those things, we looked at changing some hours. As another example, I'm probably stealing some of her thunder. um she talked to the plan operation supervisors one day a week they'll actually be working from 12
344to 8:30. Usually they work morning hours, right? But it made perfect sense to work from 12:00 to 8:30. So you can actually supervise those night guys or ladies who work in the evenings. And so that's already going to be instituted all starting August 1st. Right now we're in the middle of of summer working hours. And so we're going to maintain that through the summer. I'm very excited about some of these carpet water sucking machines they bought. Actually helped out at Deloro. Um we did share some information a while ago. As you know, we had a flooding issue. They're still working on it. Um the good news, it happened right before school got out, so we have the whole summer to work on it. Um I could share some pictures for you later if you want.
345We didn't have any time to put this on the presentation, but it was a little more intensive than we thought in terms of where the water damage creeped up the walls and the floors and things like that. So, He was in the 500 wing in the choir room and some of it leaked into Ben Duncan's office and so forth. Again, all covered by insurance. We have a $5,000 deductible. Um, which is nominal compared to the amount of damage that was done in there. And so, one of the things that we will be doing is when we replace the sink in there, it'll be one of those sinks where it's a push button, so the water turns off automatically. Kids just can't leave the water on anymore because there was a request to keep a sink
346in there. They do use a sink, but we're going to need to put one in. that's um less prone to vandalism or use of vandalism. So, more to come, more to share. So, that's just a little tidbit of what's going on. Any questions? No questions. I'm just I'm thrilled about all the projects going on. A lot of stuff. There's so much going on. And again, I want to thank the board for for being very positive, proactive, and um allowing Peter and team to to present things to you and look at them and really doing stuff for the school sites. I know Kofax is very appreciative. They are very excited. Um I will have the information for you. It was funny just to top this off. The meteor person I'm working with, Jen, was watching the
347meeting. Oh, amazing. So, she's looking into it right now. She seems to think that they may gave us too much of a discount on that one. That's why there's such a difference. Oh, they're not. They're not going to change that now. Exactly. So, but I got the text when I walked. I'm watching the meeting. I'll have that answer for you. We're holding you to that and we'd like the discount on the 11:30 at Boon tomorrow. Yes. Thank you so much. All right, Jennifer. Good one, Jennifer. Yeah, thank you, Jennifer. That's funny. Maybe she is been an entertaining one, right? All right, we're going to go ahead and move forward to our public comment item 10. This is on non-aggendaized items. This is our opportunity for public comments to be received by the board. This is
348the time for members of the public to address the board regarding items not on the agenda. Completing a blue public participation form is preferred but not mandatory. This form can be obtained at the meeting. In the interest of conducting the meeting in a timely manner or not so much tonight, thank you for your patience. Individual speakers will be allowed three minutes to address the board with no more than 20 minutes per topic. Uh this is a comment period only. All right, first up we have LMLs Garrett followed by Sky Hey and then Sharon McN actually. Yes. Okay. Good evening. Good evening. Um, I assume all of you received a letter from me this past week, um, that I wrote in support and seeking your sponsorship of two resolutions. One to protect students from online progressive
349violence and another supporting Title 9 and fairness for neurode divergent student athletes. Um, two weeks ago, you passed a resolution to affirm unwavering support for Title N. And based on your own admission, that resolution um addressed zero known situations where a transgender student in your district sought to compete in a sport or even where you knew of a girl in your district that faced competition from a school or team with a tr with a participating transgender athlete. Um, in that letter I wrote you, I asked you to honor your unwavering commitment to Title 9. The resolution that I proposed should track and report the participation of neurode divergent athletes and allegations of harassment, verbal abuse, intimidation, humiliation or threats and to properly investigate and report those. The importance of this was included in the letter.
350An autistic student is being assigned to your district's Restore program for education for sending unwanted explicit messages and photographs, for touching another student's buttocks and genitals and making unwanted sexually explicit comments. All those actions, every last one of those actions and language and behavior was normalized on Kofax's football team. And if you know anything about neurode divergent students, children, it is very much the case that they have difficulty understanding how to use social language. They also struggle to make inferences from social situations, languages used by others, solve social problems, or to understand how to navigate social situations. And even more importantly than this situation, you had a young man who simply wanted to belong and chose to shift his entire life realm to play football, something that he had never even considered before and had
351never played a sport before. And in that situation, the student had to face another student that brandished a weapon at school, has faced no consequences, but that autistic child is. Another student who sent a social media message of someone with two guns pointing at the head as a threat has received no consequences. But the autistic student has and a student wearing a mask shouting unbelievable, despicable, hateful, threatening language while holding an AR-15 and no consequences. You owe yourselves much better. Thank you very much. And ma'am, you opened up with earlier your actions. Very much. Your time is up. Thank you so much. Thank you very much, sir. The actions are awful right now. Your time is over. Thank you. All right, Sky. And then Sharon. Hello, my name is Sky Hy and I am a
352recent graduate of Kfax High School. I personally am not one to speak out, but as of June 3rd, the last board meeting, the actions of the PUHSD school board have left me and many other students appalled and disgusted. I do not say this with intended rudeness, but your effort in succession to exterminate Title 9 protections is heinous. We the students trust you to speak on our behalf to advocate for the needs and desires of the people when we cannot speak and there is a faith in you to steer us right. But that faith has unfortunately been led to disappointment and a fear for the future. You voiced that PHSD affirms its unwavering support for Title 9 and calls on athletic governing bodies to uphold its protections by ensuring fairness in girls sports. But your motivation
353to protect women's sports is not rooted in good faith. And it is clear to see. I am a female athlete. I've played recreational and competitive soccer for over 12 years now. And you have vowed to ensure the fairness and safety of athletes such as myself. To ensure safety and fairness is to not discriminate. You have made your support for Title N and the basis of equal opportunity for female athletes seem altruistic. You paint your intentions behind the skies of fairness, safety, and equal opportunity when it is far from such. In the matter of supporting Title Nine and fairness in girls intercolastic sports, you use written law prohibiting sex-based discrimination and inclusion to cover up your exclusion of a small and vulnerable population. Although it is a small percentage of players, less than 0.002% making up
354college level sports. I have played against and with transgender athletes and their participation in their gender aligning sports does not promote advantage. They are not winning scholarships over biological women. They are not physically or even emotionally hurting these players either. Trans athletes do not play for an advantage or to create an unsafe space for their cis counterparts. They play for the love of the game, the drive to compete, and for the connections and camaraderie on their teams. Sports are valued to teach players as well as the audience about inclusion, teamwork, and resilience. And the effort to excla to to exclude trans athletes does not promote this message. Arguments to justify the exclusion of trans athletes in the passing of discriminatory legislation are rooted in the blatant spread of misinformation and the parasite that is transphobia.
355The escalation of these fear-mongering concerns are meant to evoke distrust and hatred towards trans players which which ultimately divides the community. Also, there are no men in women's sports. There are only trans women. And thank you so much. Your time is up. I appreciate you being here tonight. Can I Can I just Sky, can can I ask you one question? Um, number one, thank you for getting up. This is very difficult to get up and talk in front of a board and just public speaking in general. So, thank you. And and yes, I really appreciate what you said about, you know, why sports are important for anybody, male or female. Um, you play competitive soccer. Yes. Awesome. That's really cool. Um if your if if you went to tryyous and you were told that um
356the last spot was given to a biological boy and you were cut from the team. How would you feel? I would feel okay with that knowing that um I would feel okay with that knowing that they were clearly a better component or um uh person for the team maybe. I mean it's not all about physical level and um participation in sports. It's about your leadership, your personality, and maybe some of those uh components I did not possess, but um I would be okay with that personally considering they are women as well. And and thank you for that answer. Um one last question. If let's say that you made the competitive team and a biological boy made that team, and I'm asking these questions because I'm trying to understand. Just may I preface that first? Okay.
357Sorry. No worries. Um, you made the team. A biological boy also makes the team. Yes. Um, and you are changing in the in the locker room and that boy is changing in the locker room too. Are you okay with that? Yeah. I mean um like just because this is a trans player does not make them a predator. So I believe that I have no harm uh threatened towards me because they are the same as me. they are my teammate and I will love them for however they come. And I appreciate that and I think we need to to to like I said in the last board meeting, love everybody. Um with that said, um if a if one of your teammates who's a biological girl feels uncomfortable with that, is that her right to feel
358uncomfortable with that? I would further question on why she feels uncomfortable personally because maybe it's not for um the reasons that we're expecting. I mean, I know that in the past I have been very uneducated on um trans people as a whole. And I think throughout my lifetime, I've been able to learn that they are the same as everyone else and that they deserve an equal chance at being seen and recognized as uh women or men or however they may identify. So I would personally take that person aside and try to understand why they feel uncomfortable and maybe we can come to a conclusion. But everyone is going to have their differing opinions and that's not for me to change. but try to understand and communicate and and for the same reasons you want to
359embrace the the biological boy in that locker room um to make everyone feel like we're together. Is it okay to know that maybe that biological girl who is in that locker room is uncomfortable is uncomfortable because that biological boy is changing in front of her and she feels like the the Title N rights that she had in protect and protection from that are being violated. Is that is that I mean that would that be is she okay to have that that feeling? I mean, um, everyone's entitled to their own feelings. So, I personally am not one at liberty to speak on another player. Again, I would try to understand why, and maybe we can come to an understanding of each other, but um, this uh, trans woman who is supposedly in the locker room is
360causing no one harm. I mean, she's not a predator. she's just biologically um male but other than genitalia I feel that has no difference on how she should appear to the team. I mean it does not affect her uh personality whatsoever. So I feel as if in my personal opinion it should not have um a difference on anyone's mind. Again, Sky, thank you so much and for because I truly just want to understand your thoughts on it and I appreciate you um providing those answers. So, thank you so much. Thank you, Sharon. Hello. It's me again. Um and I'm going to speak quickly. I am here because I care deeply about public education and about this district in particular. My intention for speaking tonight is not tethered to or beholden to any particular group. I
361no longer have children attending here. I've retired from the public education profession and I'm a longtime seasoned community member here who has nothing to to lose by speaking honestly. So in that light, I have the luxury of calling out elephants in the room and I don't have any questionable motives or fear of rep. repercussions. My intentions are good. So, the unfortunate situation that we find ourselves in today is that there is a significant trust problem among the community staff and the current board. And this trust breakdown interferes with the effective functioning of the district. I wouldn't bring this up if I um weren't concerned about it and if I hadn't heard about it over and over again from all different segments of the community. So, as any teacher from back in the 90s, it's been
362a minute since I taught would do, I have an assignment for the board for the summer. You can call it food for thought, a challenge, whatever you want. So, here's my suggested homework for you in addition to all of the million other things you're going to be doing in your role as board members. Dedicate yourselves to earning and nurturing trust with all of the stakeholders at PUHSD. How do you do that? Here are some ideas. One, find ways to reach out and listen to your community. I hear you've been doing that. All of the community. Create meaningful, useful, productive opportunities to hear from people you wouldn't normally spend time with, including people who do not live in your neighborhoods, who are not your friends, do not attend your churches, do not participate in the same
363political party. ask good questions and truly listen to their responses and clearly distinguish that you're doing that in your role as a board member, not as a friend. And believe me, I understand that sometimes we have to make that distinction and it can be tricky. Um, create effective tools. Darn it, I'm running out of time. Um, okay. Um, create effective tools and mechanisms for collecting feedback so that future decision- making is thoughtful and well informed. make a concerted effort to treat the people who work in this district at all levels as the professionals they are. We've talked about this a lot, so we can talk about that more another time. Here's another one. Don't shoot the messenger. Be extra mindful about following the Brown Act and make it clear that you were doing so. Whether
364or not it's warranted, there's a notable amount of suspicion that there are a few of you who are like-minded, who are working together behind the scenes. And the last one is consider moving public comment to earlier in the board meetings next year. Um so that it's not designed just to plate tongue it people. Anyway, think about that. I'll talk about that next year. Thank you. And we've got another one. Caitlyn Jenkins. Oh, and I saw a hand raised and then go ahead. Go ahead, Caitlyn. And I don't even know if I can. I I was asking Sarah um because it was just a couple of points to answer some questions on the grading thing, but that was an agenda item. So, I was That is an agenda item. Do you want to wait till we
365bring that back? Whatever. Whatever. Unless you've got something else non-aggendaized to comment about. Okay. Well, then hang tight. Hang tight. Sounds good. And I just real quick, I do want to acknowledge why it's the public comments at the end right now because I can speak to what I know about that. It used to be at the beginning, but we used to start so early that no one was off work and that's when morning that's when our meetings were much shorter when the board didn't discuss much and and just moved right along. So, we were out earlier back in those days. Um, now there's a lot more conversation. Um, and we also pushed our meetings back a little bit. I'm sorry these have been like marathon meetings, but that's that was kind of the catalyst for
366the shift in it um about 18 months ago. Um, I'm always open to reworking that. So, we'll see. We can't discuss it because it's not on the agenda, but I just wanted you to know that that's why. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Gentlemen in the back. Uh, thank you team. Good evening. Good evening. Real quick, Underwood. You're a legend. You're a legend in this atmosphere. So, thank you. You don't know me, but I know you. Thank you. Uh Steve, you're my future role model. I hear a lot about you. Finally meet you. I meant to shake your hand a couple weeks ago when I seen you in public. I didn't. But you're cool guy. Okay. Um uh good evening trustees, superintendents, and members of the public. My name is Boomer Bennett. I'm a father, taxpayer, someone who
367is deeply invested in the future of the lives of youth, young adults, and on school campuses. I'm here tonight to say thank you and speak plainly about uh where our current decision makers. And I I thank you guys for having me. First, uh to those who voted to pass Title 9 resolution and eliminate uh district equity policy, I thank you. Um I'm a father of six. Um I have three girls and three boys. My wife is literally pregnant with our se with our sixth kid right now. She's has a month later. Think about Okay. Um uh thank you guys for that. Uh Trustee uh Spade and Duncan, I want to recognize you as leaders leadership in bringing Title N forward. You stood still firm for the right of girls in the district uh to have
368privacy, to have safety, and to have fair playing fields uh for the sports. Uh that shouldn't be a controversial topic, but sadly it is, and I get why. Um but thank you guys for making that decision um for our girls. I appreciate that. Uh Trusty Jeff, uh your honesty during these meetings have been refreshing. Sincerely, as a father, I know how hard it is, dude, to have those kind of conversations publicly. Um, but you recognize you're a public servant, so thank you for putting your your p your private on public display for us to grasp and understand and grow. I appreciate that. Um, now I want to touch on something that came up in the last board meeting. There was a speaker who repeatedly brought up their skin color uh to make the point. Um,
369I'm not pale either, you guys, obviously. Um, but the truth is it isn't the primary thing in life. Um, for me, uh, personally speaking, you guys, I'm originally from South Central Los Angeles. I spent 17 years of my life in California State Prison. Um, when I chose to adjust my lifestyle, it was people who kind of look like y'all who decided to take me under your wing um, and get me to understand some life principles that I was lacking. Um, so I would say again from being from South Central to Plaster Union, how I got here only God knows. Uh, but I thank you guys for opening up this space and taking time out of y'all personal lives to commit to growing our students and having these tough conversations. Um, what matters is the kind
370of Oh my goodness. Uh, I'mma go down real quick. Um, thank you to the trustees, Jeff, Duncan, Underwood, all you guys. Um, respectfully, Trusty Underwood. Um, I hope you hear the feedback of the community. I I get what you're saying, man, but the community is speaking. I know it goes against what you're saying, but you're really awesome though, bro. All right. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you. Appreciate your all of your time uh this evening and for and for waiting so long to speak. You guys really deserve a snack. There's some back here. Um, blood sugars are low. Yeah. Come on up. Oh, yeah. It Oh, is that the one over there? Oh. Oh, did you write it this on two? Yeah. Oh, sorry. I didn't re I didn't save it. Sorry about
371that. Um, I wanted to take some time to clarify some of the statistics and stories that you shared about trans athletes at the last meeting. I'm not sure where you got your information. Um, and I understand it's really difficult to find the truth out there amongst all the bias. So, I went ahead and found it for you. Uh the report that everyone likes to cite about cisgender athletes losing almost 900 medals to trans athletes that was put out by the United Nations makes it sound like this is a huge issue impacting a large number of athletes. I found that report the report was not actually put out by the UN. It was a report that was given to the UN by a journalist who used as her source a website where anyone can report losing
372any competition at any level to a trans person or a person they believe is trans. These reports are not verified or fact-checked and include competitions that date back to 2001. It includes events like fun runs, poker competitions, and other small community events. Using this statistic as if it represents medals lost in high level competition is misleading at best, and manipulative fear-mongering that tries to create an issue where there simply isn't one. The other story that got told is about the trans volleyball athlete from San Jose State, uh, who could hit the ball harder and jump higher than her teammates. Um, again, checking sources reveals this simply isn't true. Um, her spikes were only clocked at 50 miles per hour according to ESPN, which is pretty average. Her stats are overwhelmingly average, and she's not even
373in the top 150 in hitting percentage in the NCAA. The truth is she accidentally hit another player in the head with a volleyball and gave her a concussion. A serious injury, but not an uncommon one. I can't tell you how many students I've had on concussion protocol um throughout my teaching career. Uh none of them were competing with trans athletes. It's just something that happens um all the time. It's very common. Um I found all this information with a basic internet search and I went to the primary sources of the information. I didn't re rely on interpretation by major news organizations. It took me about an hour. Um, please do better at checking and citing your sources. Thank you very much. I appreciate that. Alrighty. Well, we are going to move back into our grading
374our uh 8.12 8.12. And again, just wanted to thank everybody who uh participated in public comment. And is there anybody else while we're there? I think we're leaving. Oh, we're back. We're back. Come on up. Come on up. Okay. I wasn't going to speak. We're officially uh two and a half hours past my bedtime. If we're being honest, I just want to go back to my summer vacation. Um, just a few points. I really, really, really appreciate the dialogue I'm listening to. Thank you, Trusty Lake, for bringing up points of contention. It's just important that you that we're watching you guys do that in real time. Um, it makes it way more transparent. So, thank you for that. Um, just a couple of uh clarifying things. One, I just want to say meritocracy in theory,
375beautiful. I was that kid. Front row, hand up, highlighters, tried hard, all that. But you meet enough kids with enough problems from enough fragmented homes with substance abuse issues in them or substance abuse issues themselves and you realize that in practice meritocracy is super hard, which is what leads us to the equitable grading that um the district pushed really hard for uh a few years back. Um just to give kids who don't have the chance that chance, right? Um, the next point is that it in terms of taking a minute like you're talking about and not kicking the can, but like taking a minute, why couldn't I mean maybe there's rules about this, but why couldn't the board do like an equitable grading training? It's like three days tops just to see both sides of
376it. Um, and the reason I'm I'm pushing that forward and as a as a suggestion is because within the the BP written itself, there's a lot of contradictory lines that if you've attended those trainings, you you can see how they contradict themselves. And I think part of that is the nitty-gritty that you're talking about because we're so granular in it, it's it's bound to contradict itself. And that's not me coming at your work at all. had a really lovely conversation with Trusty Duncan and I appreciate the time and the effort and the work that went into this. This is not calling out the work at all. It's just that there are lines of it that contradict itself. Um, and then the the only other thing I want to make sure that you know is that
377um one entire site out of four, which is Kfax, obviously we're the vocal ones, um decided twice now um to continue on the four-point scale and and CBE um regardless of whatever the district was doing. And that was 100% 100% of of the departments decided to keep going with the work that we've been doing. And there are four to five teachers on the campus who filled out your Google form who who are not stoked on it. Um, but I really think that that speaks to us as a collaborative force, as a staff. We're just we're trying to hear each other out. So, so that's an entire school site that you will um, you know, cause to be fragmented away from from the other three. Um, and I just wanted to throw that out there and
378I just really hope that you take the time and you don't vote this thing through without maybe seeing some other alternatives. That's it. I have a question. Yeah. Um, how did you guys carry that vote out at KFAX? Um, we since we're so small, um, we're able to go by departments. So, we have, um, two major meetings a week. Quad A, which is our administrative activities, that realm. Um, and then we also have our lead team, which is all of the department chairs. So, Dr. Ray Buck Bonia tasked all of our department chairs to go back to their departments and ask, "What do you guys want to do? Here's what's happening at the board level. Here's what's happening at the district level. What do you guys want to do?" And every single department chair came
379back and said that their department wanted to to see this out and and and specifically on four-point scale wanted to to keep going with it in fall of 2025. That was our last um department chair meeting. I know there was data from and this was December I'm sorry Decemberish um but that data showed there was more of a third a third a third and so from the department heads yes right I don't have any reason not to believe you there but the folks in those departments all didn't share the same sentiment. And so again, it was a third, a third, a third. So it wasn't clear either way. Sure. And so um so I just I I guess do we know did um every single teacher at KFAX fill out the form? Probably not. Right.
380So that data is a little skewed. And the other piece Oh, sorry. No, I don't know how many I know our ATP representative might have that. I don't know. Sure. But but my guess is probably not. I would Yeah. And I was just going to add to that um I'm obviously like not privy to what happens in the in the office with the principal, right? But to my knowledge, Dr. Ray Bonia was having individual conversations with teachers, especially those who are hesitant. Well, I remember when we showed that data, she was visibly thrown back and she said the comment that I need to go talk to some people, which she then followed up and did, which is great. that also concerned me that we're pushing an agenda too, right? And so again, I could be
381wrong, but that was my sentiment. And if you have a third, a third, a third, then there's some underlying folks there that just maybe aren't on board. Sure. And and um I guess the only thing I would be able to add to that is to say, I mean, you're talking about again a very small staff that um we tend to communicate uh in term we tend to communicate really honestly because we're so small. So um for example like I I cannot make it me myself adult undiagnosed ADHD cannot make it through the 85 minute period. So I'll take my kids out for like a quick like a brain break a stretch break right that annoys the be Jesus out of some of my colleagues because I have 38 kids in the quad and we're like
382right for however long it is. Um, and and we're able to have those discussions very candidly like, "Kayen, can you can you do it in your room? Can you you know what I mean? What you're doing is distracting." That's one example. Um, we all chose to come onto campus during COVID and teach from our rooms during COVID, right? We we unanimously decided that because we talked it out. I can't speak to the individual conversations. I know there's four or five that are not not down and on a small staff that percentage is going to be higher, right? But I just wanted to to thank you well for having I like I like to uh to be informed and to really seek to understand, you know, and um and I did talk to some teachers who
383did feel like they really it wasn't worth it to them to speak out. Wasn't worth it. They didn't want to rustle feathers. They didn't want to feel the heat. So, they're just like, "Eh, I'm indifferent." You know what I mean? And so, that's where that comes from, that third, third, third. That probably is the most accurate. And, and the other the other thing that I picked up on was that a lot of teachers have already put in hundreds of hours adapting to 4p. Okay. And the idea of having to change that now, nobody wants to do that. Nobody wanted to do I mean, you know, totally. I get the equity thing and I've studied it. and I've read and I've like and I've listened and it does I mean I went to Highlands High School.
384I don't know if you're familiar with North Highlands, but we spoke like 50 languages at my high school, you know, very diverse. Um and uh I'm one of those guys that barely graduated high school because I didn't care, you know, I was just like, you know, get me by. I didn't learn how to study until after high school. And so, um you know, I I feel that there's like well-meaning when it comes to, you know, equity and education and and and there is disadvantage out there. There's no question that there's disadvantage. Uh, but I feel like there is, you know, it's it's a it's a tricky tricky uh subject because it you do tend to alienate uh a group of people no matter what you do. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. Which to your
385point, I think shows up in the granular nature of the BP. Um, so, so for example, you're going to have teachers like me who's who I mean my the California state standards of teaching English say that that I'm in charge of teaching reading, writing, listening, and speaking. We all know that there's a lot more that goes into that than reading, writing, listening, and speaking. But nowhere in there does it say I'm contractually obligated to teach them deadlines. that I'm contractually obligated to teach them be ready the first time or else do I do those things? Yeah, those are soft skills that need to be taught and talked about, especially with high schoolers, and and I think good teachers across the board are having those conversations, but those aren't standards. And so, it's really hard to
386grade those things. Um, which is one of those granular points, right? So, I think speaking to your to your questions, right? Well, I I do have a question for you. Um because I see this as you know this dynamic of proficiency scales and ELOs's. Did you work with ELO's in the past? Did y do you uh what's your opinion when it comes to you know the idea of having to adapt to ELO's? What does that look like for you? Um well, I'm glad you said that because I did mean to tell you all that while you were having your discussion, I shared with all of you um a rubric that I made that is incorporates the proficiency scale just so that you would have a visual just because you were talking about it. So, I
387wanted to make sure I told you that. Um I loved ELO's. still hold a soft space in my heart because if you've ever read the California Standards of Teaching, Trusty Duncan and I were talking about this, it's really good if you're having trouble falling asleep. Like, it's awful. All of them are terrible, right? And so, the work that this district did to make the language of those things accessible was beautiful. So instead of saying uh California standard for teaching English will the student will be able to instead of doing that the first ELO in a nth grade English classroom is student will be able to write a claim boom done did you do it no do it again because that right there that's how ELO's work is the ability to say I mean every once
388in a while you're going to have a kid who walks into that classroom a master of that thing. They're good at it. They do it on their own time. I was sharing with Trusty Duncan that like you have a kid who walks in in the creative writing unit and nails it because they write stories on their on their free time, right? But then you go to the ELOs's that are for um foundations of literary analysis and they're crash and burn and light on fire. But why would I punish that kid for not knowing something when they come in, right? My job is to teach them reading, writing, listening, and speaking. So using those ELOs's and then on on down the line, the proficiency scales, which are really just a step by step getting you through
389the ELL, if you want to look at it that way, it's like a more detailed EL. Yeah, it's like if if you look at my document later later tonight, which I'm sure you will, uh the way that our department has formatted it is like a checklist. Yeah. Little boxes. I literally check the box. You didn't do it, try it again, right? And and hey man, I'm going to cap this at at twice or I'm gonna cap this at three times because if you don't have it by now, you're not really trying, right? So trying to streamline it. If I had had that in math, I could probably do math now. But I did not because it was so clear. It was if it had been clear, if it was, hey, Caitlyn, here's the checklist. Here's
390what you got to know to get to this assessment. And Trusty Spadey, you were talking about are we are we talking about papers? Are we talking about assessments? Are we talking about, you know, and that's going to depend on the class and the teacher. Again, back to your point about the the granularity. Yep. Right. this idea that if we box it too hard then that autonomy I don't know what to do with autonomy in that situation. Were you you were here before the CBE changes? What was the biggest shift for you if you can think back to where the way you ran your classes before compared to you know when you finished implementing CBE? Um, I think the biggest shift for me was learning about process versus product. Um, guiding kids again through that checklist
391of how to get to that end game. I didn't have that with the ELO's. I had the endgame. The ELO was the endgame, right? like this is where we want to get. But I didn't I felt personally I didn't have the tools to to necessarily get I was making them up or I was lesson planning them or whatever. With proficiency skills, I can say here's what it looks like. It's a progression. Uhhuh. And here's how you get there. And to the kid who's like, "Miss Shay, I'm going I live." This is a actual true life real kid who I just graduated. Um he's like, "I'm going into corrections. And I'm like, thank you for doing that. First of all, second of all, um, your ability to write uh an argumentative essay on the novel Things
392Fall Apart by Chinua Achbe is probably not on the top of your list of things to do. And so that was just a one-on-one conversation with this kid. And I said, "Where do you want to land on this?" And he goes, "Shooting for a two." And I was like, "Great." Right. Why Why would I respect that? You've got to respect that. He knows what he's about. And especially at that age now, the freshman, not so much. It's more of a conversation with the freshman. But I mean that again, that's we're having those conversations. They exist. Can't you have that same conversation with a 100 point scale and say, "What are you shooting for?" And he goes, "I'm shooting to get to 65." Sure, you could. Wherever you land it, right? The only two kuruffles with
393that that I that I've experienced because I I grew up on the 100 point scale. I was taught on the 100point scale. I taught the 100point scale, right? Is that with a fourpoint and again clearly you guys have the data that not everybody agrees with me. So this is just me. But with a four point I can say four, you knocked it out of the park. You killed it. Three, you're right on target. Exactly where you're supposed to be. two not not quite onem not even close and that conversation becomes a lot more streamlined whereas I remember giving back rubrics that would say like 82 and the kids would take it as a B minus and move on with their day there wasn't any dialogue but when the when you when you take it down
394to a four-point there's no place to hide but let me ask a clarifying question then sure 3.25 25 in some classes is an A arbitrarily set. Yes. So, but that's what's going on, right? Like I'm hearing 3.25 or 3.5. It depends, right? There's flexibility. And so, um, you're saying the way you do it is there's no there's four, three, two, and one. I will do halves. I'll do halves. Um, but when you look at my um thing I sent you, my rubric that I sent you, hopefully it's clearer to see how and why I do a half. But yeah, little bit more wiggle room, not a whole lot. And all of a sudden with ELO's and then eventually proficiency scales, I started having kids say, you know, walk ninth graders walk up to me and
395say, "May I go a two on this? What do I do?" and then I tap the rubric that that's what you do. They go back, they fix, they rewrite, they revise, they turn it in. I'm more confident that they have that skill now than giving them a 65. In fact, this the 65, and I need to do a little bit more research on this, but the 65 is is is that idea of just getting good enough to squeak through is making it so that our kiddos in the ninth grade level by the And this is partly co as well. That's a two. Some kids want the two. Some kids want the two. And that's a conversation, right? But like we had it set at a C. So like I was always a fan of the
3962.5 personally. And the cool thing about that was that by the time I sent my kids on to Mitchum or Chaer again very small department I knew that they had reached at least average at least a 75. I felt really good about that. And if they hadn't, we're going back to the drawing board because again, my standards are reading, writing, listening, and speaking, especially in those lower grades. So, those were conversations. It didn't necessarily add a ton of work on on my part. Um, but I think one of the problems with the roll out now that I've been at all these meetings and I' I've been listening is is when you do some of it and not all of it spec with with parts of it. So, for example, the fourpoint scale without allowing retakes,
397what happens to that kid who got a who got a 1.5 or or a two or wherever it landed? You know what I mean? there's no opportunity for them to fix or revise or change or grow. And so you have a lot of really upset kids. No, nobody wants that. No one wants that. But you have to acknowledge, do kids take advantage of the retake system? So in my class, uh, yes, and I have really honest conversations about that. So I'll say, um, again, and this was a conversation Trusty Duncan and I had in English, different beast. I'm looking at content, not necessarily skill or vice versa. I'm looking at skill nec not necessarily content. Right? You get what I'm saying? It's so late, you guys. I know. So that So, and I'll wrap it
398up. I just really appreciate your questions. So, so can they write a claim? Can they can they write a synthesis? Uh, argument, evidence, analysis, argument, evidence, analysis. Right? These are skills I'm looking at, and it doesn't matter what book I'm using to do that with. If if need be, it can be Diary of a Wimpy Kid. It won't, but it could be. And and so that's that's the problem, right? Is that some of these some of these uh kids will say, "Miss Jay, no, I didn't have the essay done on time because I have a crazy test in bio." And why? I'm like, "Okay, you can't judge. I mean, no, be ready for it when I get We're not We're not looking to to do that, but there are I know that there's teachers out
399there who uh are a little more heavy-handed. Sure. And they like that ability to be able to say, "No, you you guys are going to be responsible." And they respect that. Sure. They respect that. And I think a teacher should be able to do that. And I agree with you again on that on the granules. There's different styles, right? Totally. Okay. Work. I want to interject here unless you No, for just real quick, nothing that you've said, I'm trying to find a way that this won't be able to be adapted to 100 point. Um, at this point, everything that you're doing, every style that you're that you're describing, how you teach can be applied to the 100 point. The the problem with the 100 point and the reason I don't want to go back to
400it is because I lose those conversations. But don't you so I'm listening. Don't Why? Well, so this is so this as I'm listening to you, um, what I hear is a really good teacher articulating what they need to do to be successful. And I don't think that that should ever be a secret, like how do we how do we crush this assignment or how how do we show that we're learning something? What I'm hearing that maybe maybe the proficiency skills helped to easily identify like you need to site this, you need to do that. But I what I what I continue to hear is that it's just about clearly articulating what you need to see from them. And I I agree with trustee force the teachers to do that. Force the teacher to have conver
401to to make what they are asking for very clear. It's just forcing good teaching and good listening. Well, that's the common. Yeah. And so I think but and I think we we want that. We just don't all see it in in potentially the proficiency scale or the four. We want excellent teaching. We want the good conversations. We want the teachers to know what they want to see so that the kids know how to produce the type of work that you need to see to for them to earn whatever grade they desire. Sure. And I understand you guys are in a pickle because you don't want to see 19 different grading scales in one school. I get that. You just I would I would caution you to be careful about boxing in teachers based on what
402works for them and what doesn't. That's all. Right. I mean, at KFax, there are five teachers, I'm sure, who are like, "Nope, I would love to go back to the 100 point scale." Okay, that's if that's their prerogative, that works for them. But at the same time, I mean, they're telling their department chairs differently, which means maybe they're interested in like you said, they're not it's not worth it to them to stir the pot. Yeah. So, they'll try something new, right? Yeah. Yeah. And I definitely heard things from from other staff members. Totally. You know, with with the same sense that I'm not privy to and that's fair. Yeah. I just wanted to share with you the the the there is nitty-gritty in what we've all tried to perfect in our own spaces. And I
403get the problem of having it be 19 different things. That's that's so tough as a parent and a student. I just I think you are 100% correct. 100% correct about the uh the the granular nature of this BP. I think it could be just looked at and maybe maybe made a more accessible to different sites. Does that make sense? I think so. Okay. I just I mean number one it's it's a I I love having conversation and listening to you. I appreciate your ability to have conversations with folks that may not Exactly. You know, agree. And we had a great phone conversation. I really appreciate that. Um, and I think that if all teachers had your your your knowledge and your care and just absolute enthusiasm to make kids, you know, as good as they
404can be. Um, I don't know if you could teach in a fourpoint, a sixpoint, you know, 100 point system. Um, and that's the problem. we saw is that it took in a long time and you guys have been working on this a while but in the short amount of time that we had CBE it just didn't go over and a majority of our teachers couldn't do it. And so that's that was the that's the thing for me that that speaks loud and clear that what's wrong with the system that doesn't allow everyone because there isn't just KFax that has you know there's not just a Ka you know there's a bunch of Caitlyn's all over the district right ton of Caitlyn's all over the district and those those Caitlyn's still couldn't figure it out right
405I I don't want to knock everybody else that that didn't figure it out because There are No, I'm not. I know you're not. So, I just want to acknowledge that like I know that there's some phenomenal teachers that this just didn't work for. You know why? Because what they were doing before was working. Well, that's why I'm going back to there's that was working and this was hard. Been teaching for 20, 30 years and they're great teachers and it wasn't broken. And I'll tell you that um I mean I could I could get on my high horse because of the train the endless what feels like endless trainings I went to about parts of it that are broken. That's neither here nor there for now, right? I came into this at first when this discussion
406started. Like, I'mma die on this hill. Everybody should be doing CBE. Everybody should be on the four-point scale. And and I have changed my mind throughout these conversations that really it comes down to what you're good at and what again, what brings you joy in the classroom. The 100 point scale, I floundered in it. It never felt right to me. You were never you never structured CBE forced you to structure a progression ladder that made it easy because you did all the hard work. You designed this progression and now you could easily communicate that to students. There was nothing that kept you from doing that before. You just weren't compelled to do it. Well, I mean I you didn't have the tools and that's why we try to take the best of all the different
407grading systems out there. I Yeah. And I just want you to be careful about picking the best undoing undoing. But I think that there's a direct correlation. Those that have done the work that are happy with the fourpoint, I think that can easily convert over to the ELLO. I mean, it's all Well, and the other thing I will bring up with you is a is an actual like a a software point. When I have Aries set on the four-point scale, it it doesn't give my kids those percentages. It gives them the letter anyway, right? So, I don't even know if we That was that was the biggest backass words thing is all the time that was spent. Let's go to four and then we'll convert back to letters at the end. I mean that I
408mean sorry please. So, okay. So, to refocus here, we're looking at the way I see it. We have four options we as the board. Okay. So, first option is leave the current grading policy that we have in place. That's an option. The section op the section option is to adopt the BP 20 or 5121 draft 6 as it's proposed adopt it. That's an option. Another option a third option is to take that uh draft 6 board policy 5121 and make changes amendments or tweaks to it and then adopt it. So that's a third third option. The fourth option is to throw away board policy 5121 as as uh Tom and I proposed it. Create a new ad hoc committee and start from scratch with in creating a new policy. Those are the four options that
409I see that we have in front of us. Like what where are we going with those four options? Well, strike strike one and four. We're not I think we need to I think we need to appreciate and acknowledge that we we currently have I might ask you another question just because you're but no is we don't what we currently have is we have some doing four point they're happy. We have some doing 100 point they're happy. Is it the end of the world to to to have? Okay, give me an expert opinion. If you force everyone to do 100 point, we we acknowledge that it can be converted to 100 point fairly easily. Fairly easily. The software does it anyway, right? Yeah. I'm just going to plug it into Aries. Right. So it's not we're
410not asking you to move heaven and earth to to to go back to 100 point and you can still teach and do everything else exactly the way that you're doing it. Right. Yeah. Is that I think the sticking points are are 100 point but and if I'm right I'm waiting for anybody to text me back about Aries. Uh because I'm I'm pretty sure that it just it does not give them a percentage. I think that's a button I click and I think it will just give them a letter. It's an option. Yes, that's an option. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So, that shouldn't Shouldn't students be able to see if they're close to an A? Okay. But but then I but then I come back and I say, "What is an 88? What does it mean?"
411You almost got an A. You're almost there. Yeah. You're almost to an A. So, what is a two? I don't. A two means you're almost to an A. No, sorry. So does Yeah. See, we're still confused on what a two and a four and a all the things are because the numbers have changed like well and that that and that is the entire point. It's too difficult to communicate. Even even you who is an expert in this will drop a you are. And so I think you know to your point everyone knows what 100 is everyone knows what 90 is. I don't I don't want anyone to have to waste time explaining what this is or or sites to be confused about a 2.5 or a 2 whatever. If you guys made a clearing up
412that totally communication. If you guys made a BP that was like you need to get you need to get uh at least what did we decide? You said 65. I'm like 75. I want to know that all of my kids are at least average before I push them on to the next class. But that's just me, right? And if my if my software is doing that on the fourpoint scale, fine. The sticking points for me are more along the lines of of uh I'm not going to give extra credit. I'm not going I'm going to allow retakes. I would like to decide how many retakes I'm going to give. Mhm. I would like to There's a teachers already doing that, right? And not unlimited, right? The word unlimited allows that's gone. That's and I also
413don't think it's fair for the kids who who produce it in a timely manner to have the exact same score as somebody listen I I believe in supporting the kids with that have to do the work to get there. But I don't think that that's fair to the person who did it on time, to the person who showed up prepared for the test. I mean it's not just writing right like we're talking to a lot of other will you please yeah please come on up different kids learn at different rates my my pragmat I know there's some circular conversation my pragmatic counterpoint to the the retakes thing and I and I hear this discussion if you do not allow retakes you this does not work we've been it's any grading system I've been in the
414meetings it's October 15th and you're going to have a teacher say you're mathematically eliminated from this from passing this class. We've no no one is recommending that. Yeah. To be clear, no one's not recommending any retakes at all. Piece says they should be and if teachers do, it's very ambiguous. If I'm reading that and I don't want to give retakes, I'm going to say it as if this class offers retakes. And I'm going to say guess what? This class does not because it says if policies should be determined by the department, the teaching team. There will be departments and teaching teams that will decide that they do not want to give retakes and they will be following board policy. That's a valid point. But here's the thing. There are teachers whose style they get a
415lot of buyin from the students and they put in the work and they're and they're getting the students to focus on that one opportunity to make it count versus, hey guys, you got three retakes. Kind of do what you want to do. Doesn't that mess with your your ability to to teach a a cohesive group of students? I don't know. I move pretty quick and like the No, legitimately. I was going to ask both you guys. No, no, I mean like the benefit for my students to pass is that they don't have to deal with it anymore. Like it's a bummer for the the kids that have to come in during intervention. But but most people procrastinate by nature. And if you give the students the ability to procrastinate, most will take that opportunity. Yes
416or no? I don't know. But then the Yeah. Yeah. But then the question is Okay. Okay. So, so back to my back to my point. Do you lose this is this is this is an important point. Don't leave me. Yeah. Hey, you got up here. Come on back, Mr. Do you lose this is this is really important. Do you lose continuity when you have a group of your class who didn't put in the work? They didn't learn the material because they had opportunities for retakes. So, the way that it works out in in my specific class, right, is I teach uh let's let's do ninth grade. They do a short story unit. They do kill a mockingb bird that's 376 pages long. Then they do of mice and men. Then they do a Romeo and
417Juliet. Each one of those has a summitive assessment tied to it in addition to formative assessments along the way. Right? So, the workload piles up. The trains leaving the station whether you're on it or not. It's intrinsically motivating to get that done, especially if you're running along behind the train. And there are some kids, I would say a small number, who miss the train, miss the train, miss the train. The term is coming to the end and they have three out of the four summitives that they have not turned in. And the the F rate on that is pretty high because the train left the station. So when they get the F and this is not about credit, no credit, whatever. This is about did you meet the standard? No, you didn't. The your colleagues
418did because they got feedback from me. They did it in a in a timely manner and I was able to give them feedback. You gave me three essays in the last two weeks of school which weren't up to par. Now you have an F or an incomplete depending on how many they did. Not a two. No, the and the other piece of it that I think is important when we're talking about the 100 point scale is that it's not as easily convertible as as as you think it might be because a three out of we're not doing straight percentages and good god talking about math is not my strong suit but when I say a three out of four that's not a 75 right that that again these trainings were deep had so much depth
419to you're locked into the skills you're locked into skills and you're locked into steps Right? And when you're saying that you got a like a three out of four, you're not saying you got a C on that assignment. It doesn't convert that way. So it's not So the my issue with the 100 point scale is it's like why did I take off six points? Why did I why did I give them, you know, a 94 or whatever? I can't answer that question. I can use a rubric. I can use a rubric, but the the it's too big, right? A 94 doesn't hold the same meaning as a 2.5 does. That's when I said when I said those questions went away or those conversations went away, it's because they could hide. They can hide in a
42094 the same way they can hide in a 73 in the same way they can hide in an 88 because those numbers become nebulous to them, right? What if you're hiding the percentages in the grade book and so they all they see is an ABC or D? How is that any different? 4 3 2 1. Well, are we talking about D's or are we talking about the four-point scale? Because the four-point scale should not have a D. You're you're right that you're right that this model showing the progression, showing the check boxes is more conducive to conversations. Sure, there's no argument. Sure. But is it convertible to to to 100 point? Not easily. Just because I'm sitting here saying, okay, well, I have to convert it to a four to put it in Aries, right?
421to give it a grade. To give it a a letter grade, I can use my four point scale, my four-point rubric that you're looking at. Would you have a problem just saying a four is an A, a three is a B, a two is a C? That's what it is. Why are we all Why can't it be 100? You can you can continue doing exactly the same thing. Are are you saying are teachers going to have autonomy to pick their range? Like you guys do that. Zero to 25% is 100 points. I mean 0 to 25% is an F and 26 to 50% is a C and then the conversions D in there. So So um I can tell you when conversions get messy with the four-point scale. That's what that's what that's what the
422conversion is going to look at 83% and they're going to have a C because they got they got a couple threes and a couple twos. And like the philosophy behind the fourpoint scale without taking you through the like days of training is that it's not about the number. In fact, part of the thing that freaked me out with Feldman is that so Feldman was big on the four-point scale, but then when we moved to CBE, they were like, "Get rid of the numbers." And I was like, "No, no, no, no, no. You can't tell a room full of teachers to give you, we're not going to get rid of the numbers, right?" But the philosophy behind the four-point scale is is level of learning, right? Which we all thought we were getting with the point
423scale because I got my 82 on my assignment and I guess I have a B minus so I'll go now but but this is above target didn't meet the target not even close easy standards based what standards based grading standards based grading back to the BP again like I just think it would be so cool sorry I just think it would be so cool If if you all were able to I know you said you did the reading and everything but but dip your toe in a little bit more to the philosophy of it before we you're preaching to the choir. I was at the trainings. I know I know I have a master's degree 4,000 student the last 25 years. I know and I I don't want to come at you about your teaching
424philosophies. Yeah. Well, and I want to share that, you know, I I don't think Feldman's philosophies resonate with, you know, some of his philosophies when um resonate with the community. Sure. Like that's the feedback we're hearing, right? Um his book is literally equity grading. Um we just removed an equity policy. Um I, you know, he talks about that grading was systemically racist, right? Like there's there's some theories and concepts inside of that framework that I think that the community is like there's bells and whistles and alarms going off. We're not holding kids accountable. Like these are the things that I'm hearing over and over and over again. As publicly elected officials, we have to represent the the the values of the community while also listening to our students and to our parents. And I'm just
425telling you what I'm hearing and seeing and with our with our teachers that this is not it's not resonating. You know what resonates? Great teaching. You know what resonates? Really good feedback with the kids. A clear a clear path to get there. But but there's certain elements of this that I don't the community is not in agreement with. So then then I would agree with everything that you just said and I would say what did I eat a bug? There are flying around here. Oh god. Yeah, thanks. If I just like smashed one on the table, then I would say um let us Yeah, let us do what we do. That works for us because I I honestly I don't know how you get to a consensus and I understand what you both tried to
426do. I get that the hard work that you put in to try and pick the best of it all. I don't know that it's possible after listening to all the discussions. you know. Yeah, I have to agree with you on that. Yeah. No. Yeah, I know. Really? Yeah. Thank you. Is there anything that you feel like we're missing that we haven't hit or that you would like to like a point that's in the back of your head like I wish they really understood this point? The 50 the 50% floor is bad news. You're going to have teachers that are going to have you're going to have a kid that's got an 88% on all of their tests, all of their ELO assessments, and they didn't build a diarama, and that diarama is worth 50% of
427their grade, and they're going to fail. Yeah, that's what my concern was. And and if we're preparing kids for college, you go to college, you take two midterms, you write two papers, you show your your learning, school district has been doing this for over 20 years, but they're 7030 and they're very successful, but they're but they're 7030. See, I would I would feel more comfortable at 7030. Now, they've changed a couple different times around good reason. Not totally comfortable with the 5050 split of the grade either. I just want you to know that I I think that they need to show that they really understand the material and that the focus needs to be on that. But I don't want to, you know, out of curiosity, where where do you fall because that need a
428some grip? If it was up to you to decide what percentage should be I I 9010 9010 9010 9010 10 10% just as a Don't Don't you think that that lends it don't you think that lends itself to uh students just being completely checked out? There's no incentive to really engage. I mean, I I wind up with 75 assignments in the gradebook and and 16 of them are are assessments and kids that have 15, 20, 30 missing assignments don't do well on the What about the students that are What about those that aren't strong at assessment? If they do all the foundational work, they they will they will pass the assessments. I don't have a kid that doesn't have any missing assignments that doesn't pass my class. Okay? Because it just means they're engaged every
429day. Like I I've heard from math teachers like that that having no homework like there's no incentive to do the the practice is impacting math. Absolutely. So and so how does that work in math? Right. We're not requiring any it's killing us. Elizabeth, can you weigh in? Come up. Will you please come up? Let's get you on record here. So, I I feel like we're splitting hairs right now at this point. I'm I'm dying to I'm like um so as soon as we were given the opportunity of math, we we went away from the 9010 for the younger um grade levels. Um I'm trying to think what we had for one. it. I think it was a 2575 for one and a 2080 for level two and then maybe a maybe went to 15. We
430went down significantly and and I think the that we still had like the very upper levels we um there were the instructors of the very upper levels chose to do um I think almost all assessment if not all. Um, I I think if there is space to go ahead and frankly choose a number, we're going to be doing pilots anyways. Um, I think that there's going to be some variation in the subject material for obvious reasons. Um, right now I am I'm doing summer school chemistry and I could grade that on a rubric and I'd be okay with it. grading math, it's extra work. You're actually like translating over um the percentages into the fourpoint system to put it back in Aries to get it back out. It it's just extra work for that subject
431matter. But we have people that are dialed in on both sides. That's why I'm kind of like, you know, for how we are right now, like what can we do? Can we just keep it to the letter grades? let people do what's been working for them and then make our adjustments moving forward. Um, and granted that means that the policy might have to have some tweaks, but I would be shocked with this amount of information in the policy and all the time and effort that's been put into it. When you test something out, there's tweaks that happen. There's really not any way to get around that. So, I feel like we're worrying maybe a little too much about it being perfect the first go around. Yeah. Y um and I frankly feel quite strongly that
432it would be in everybody's best interest even if we're not all in agreement and everybody has little things we can pick apart to have a starting point point for August now so we can be thinking we can be planning um so we have someplace to go from in the fall. I don't think it's going to go over particularly well for like hey we we still don't know what we're doing. Yeah. No, you know that resonates. So yeah, my thought long summer people feel like that. Well and and most people not us not us but most people probably don't want to be thinking about it. It's going to be that shell shock when they get back if it's Do you know what I mean? Yeah. Most people are checked out at this point. Um summertime very
433tired. not necessarily checked out, but just what can we do at this point and going into August and feeling like all of this has to be discussed again seems seems like a lot. I'm trying to find the the the least path of resistance that can make the most people happy. I think you're there. I think we just jump with it. we captured and yeah I think enough people were talked to Gosh I I know I don't I was doing so much better a singer that's you're eating the mic girl that's a bad thing all right well anyways anything else just math is a different animal than English and but it's not even just math I mean we've been through that it's not just math each each subject and and depending upon how it's taught too
434like what um particular other things people are emphasizing there can be differences in terms of how it's approached but but I don't even think I want to go there right like it's it there's so many facets to this and we could talk about this literally forever we have talked about it oh you do okay well here your turn again please okay anyways yeah um is there anything else that you want to No I appreciate you weighing in and uh and as the president of ATP it it carries because you've seen the numbers, you've seen the feedback. Also, just like you guys have, we spent a lot of time talking, right? We all have. So, yeah, at some point, I think it's just Thank you. Yeah. Yep. You're ripping off the band-aid here. Thank you, guys.
435Thank you, Kate. Um, I appreciate again all the feedback. Um, I I'm in agreement. We've got a motion and a second on the on the floor right now. Um, obviously there's going to be ongoing conversations and communication with our with our labor partners on this one. Um, is there any other uh questions, comments, modifications before we take a vote? Because we're about to. There is some there are some details that would probably be beneficial to leave out. Are we open to the fact? Are we open to that idea? What would you what what's your proposal or what would your motion be? Well, I'm saying it's going to require some time to parse this out, but like by passing this as it stands, it's very prescriptive. Yeah. Yeah. And it's but if we're going to say
436we're going to pass this but we're going to we're going to provide further direction to staff to implement. I mean, I think we agree on the major on the major changes, the major points. There's no disagreement. Yeah. And I don't and I don't think we can put the full deadline on it until we have some further conversations. So, that that would be uh direction to staff. Can I ask please um I don't want to prolong um as I'm just listening and summarizing um and I appreciate Trusty Jeff kind of these are the four options where I think we're I like it too. um what I heard through the conversation and maybe there's more but four in my mind no goss whether or not we all are in agreement but this the four no go the
437four things over the four things that you don't want in any policy regardless if it's this one or another one okay is that okay can I that's what I think that's what I think I thought you were relating to his four thing on list okay no the four no go the four I know the four things that you this board does not want in a policy. Yep. I think no four-point scale, no unlimited retakes, no ABCI or no credit, and not be called CBE. What was the third one? No ABCI or no credit, meaning the policy is going to be traditional. I I was looking I kind of going to back to what I said before of the things that you don't want in a policy. I I think those are the That wouldn't be
438for me. No, I I understand. That's the essence of the of the what you said before. What's the nose? Because you're having an easier time drawing. That's what I'm trying to figure out. Is that accurate? I I think the only thing that's missing is that it look there is space in what they've presented for an eye. Yes. That could be remediated. But the as the way we are oper currently operating standard Yeah. procedure now. No. Okay. I just just for Ryan clarification of what can we pass this but leave room for line item deletions to make it easier because yes you don't want to freaking create a mess. The answer is yes. The answer is yes. This is just the start of getting it going and Miss Lamell's August is the date, right? like at
439least there's there's direction towards and and we'll iron and and chat and negotiate and with that understanding then I think that it's a it's a step in the right direction and I and I just want to reemphasize the the effort that you two have really put into this. I mean it's it's a lot just like the teachers who have put in a lot but uh I think this is going to satisfy the majority so um probably vast majority but anyway all right are there any other questions comments so to be clear there's no well because but no Trent brought up a good point we passed this this is policy is are we saying this is what we're following in August. No, I think I think we're we're passing this that this is this is the
440the direction of the ship. Um and we are going to negotiate and and evaluate. There's nothing that's happening overnight. Aside I would say aside from the grade book I which I would d you know the ABC incomplete DF I would say that should be implemented fall. No, I know you're not. Where's everybody else at on that? because I think the the majority was in alignment on that. Yeah, I'm an agreement with passing it so that we can get started. Oop, sorry. I'm just too far back. Passing it so we can get started and start moving in the direction and as we go there'll be August 17th is going to be some tweaks to it. Absolutely. It's not going to be in the form that we're currently reading. Most likely not because we'll have some changes.
441David, I know that you're not a fan of of some of these main changes, but I I'm not a fan. You know, the only thing I'm I'm in agreement with is the first two that that we read off clear ELO's assessment, none of this homework stuff you're getting on or participation. Just you got to learn and and you will be uh clear you will show that clearly. and either a fourpoint scale or in a 100 point scale. I'd like a 100 point scale. That's what I would like. I just don't want any D's or Fs period. If you get a chance No, no. I I understand and I Glasser is great and everything, but I think I can speak for we didn't feel that same sentiment that you feel so passionately about. We didn't feel
442that coming from teachers, parents, or students. We just didn't feel it. They weren't. It wasn't a hard point for them. They were kind of okay with it. I'll just say on a personal level, I agree with David. If it if I had, you know, my option, I would have incomplete no credit. But that's not like I'm I'm trying to listen to what people were telling me and that's the policy that we put in front of the majority. It really is. I mean, I'm sorry, but that's okay. I just can't go along with what I don't believe in. Say, you know, I've done it. I'm one of the two teachers in the district that's taught an ABC no grade using competency based education 25 years ago. Yeah. I really think that going in this direction is
443going to free up a lot of teachers who were under a lot of stress six months ago because they had to adapt to a system that was in many senses. I know some feel like it's a very proven system, but it really it's it's just the Anyway, I don't want to go there, but I think you're going to make a lot of teachers very happy with giving them some autonomy to re to return back to 100 point letter grades. Don't waste time on explaining four point and then converting it back. Parents, students are going to understand. It's going to be clear again. That's and that's that's why we're doing this. So, there's a lot of I think there's a lot of things that need to be worked out. I don't I think the 50-50 thing
444I agree with uh sorry, this gentleman, Mr. James, I tend to agree that I think it leaves too much room for subjectivity. Um I think that Rocklin might be on to something with 7030. That might be a sweet spot. I don't know. But that's my concern is that like we adopt this and then that that doesn't get changed. That becomes gospel. Yeah. No, I feel I feel the same way. And I'd actually like to um I mean, can we just delete that line? Adjust the 5050. We're still going to prepare. It doesn't change the preparation, right? I mean, no, it's not has nothing to do with that. It's it h it has to do with a directive on this. Yeah. Right. Now, I mean, it really kind of what to what he said. Yeah. But
445again, if if we decide over the next few months that we need to change that, that can that can change. Yeah. But preparation is not going Oh, as far as like everything else, is that what you mean by preparation? You're gonna we're still going to work towards choosing the ELO's, the priority elos. Yeah. I think that it's time. Trent, let me ask you a question. Or not. Let me wake you up and ask you a question. You fall asleep, Bobby, man. No, listen. You know teachers well in this district. you work constantly. I hear these guys saying this is what teachers want. You tell me right now, please. What do the majority of teachers want to see? I I think they would want autonomy um to do what they think is best for their students.
446And I think what Steve said earlier is really accurate. When you want consistency and autonomy at the same time, it's really hard. In fact, they kind of contradict themselves. So, you're going to have departments who a teacher could say, "I want 50% to be assessments, and the guy next door is doing 90% assessments." Um, and you're going to you're just going to have a lot of different systems. Under this current grading board policy, I don't think you're going to have any consistency anywhere at all. I agree. And and so I would just add one little thing. You have a superintendent coming July 1st. This policy isn't going to be, you know, we we've kind of like sheld it in a way, a soft a soft table or you know what, a soft pass. Why don't
447we wait till you guys work with him? You guys collected a lot of information, got a lot of information tonight. um he's going to be the guy that you're giving direction to to direct the rest of us. Um I think him being a part of this conversation will be important, but that would be my recommendation is to say, "Hey, look, we already got this starting point of all all the work that Mr. Duncan and Mr. Jeff did from the from the community and all of those things. How about we take this, give it to him, work it through, and then come up with a a better idea?" I think it's better than trying to come up with a policy at 11 He came up with a policy though. I mean, we can still This is
448my suggestion. You do. I appreciate it, Trent. But I think we can work with Mr. Ali on July one and going forward and make tweaks where needed and I'm sure he's watching this or he will be watching this. I think he had his last board meeting tonight as well. And in just he did say, "Clean this up before I get there." So, um I'm sure he'd appreciate a direction once he arrives. So um so in the spirit of that um you know this is a starting point not an ending point um you know trying to be responsive and uh respectful of of all stakeholders involved in this and um we're going to wait for Jeremy because he'll be right back and then um we'll take while we're waiting for him I I I do have
449some reservations in its current form I love I think smart, but I really I really do. So, I just want to publicly say that like I would change some things for sure. Um I think it would be wise to to to make it more sarative and more uh you know not as detailed. I don't think we I don't think that that's necessary because like you said, education is not uniform. It's very subject dependent. very if it's detail, you're putting teachers in a box. Yeah. Well, they're focused on the box and not the kids. But the but the administrative regulation is putting people in a box, too. Like, let's not pretend that they don't have very specific directions from the the current AR. No, for sure. We absolutely do. It's in a box. Some people like
450the box, some people hate the box. Like, that's where we're at, you That's where we felt between Jeremy and I when we took the the public sentiment right that this was actually there's flexibility in this there's you it's it's not 100 to 90 you know today the teachers what they're going to do so there's I feel like there's more flexibility what we're giving us credit for I don't love the idea of having to go through painstakingly to create ELO's well I mean a lot of those but Emerson Like some I mean there are teachers coming to us saying that their proficiency scales don't match the state standards and have nothing to do with it or that other people at their site wrote their ELOs's who don't or their proficiency scale who don't even work in
451that subject field. It is not this we we haven't landed on the moon and like solved the problems like there things were going to have to be tweaked no matter what. There's some people who are more dialed who have done it longer, but the rest of the the people are wandering in the wilderness and like now is the opportunity to like get them dialed and at least set the direction for where where we're moving. To act like everyone is at the promised land is like not the facts. Okay, we added two more options while you were going. All right. Um, do we have an amendment to this policy or are we moving forward as is and we will plan a future work session and work with with staff um if we need to parse it
452out forward with what policy? So that there's there was a first and a second on the table to approve the current proposal of this BP. We've already voted on that. We haven't voted. There's a motion and a second. Yeah. So now it's time to vote. We're not going to vote on this now. Oh, we're definitely I think we are voting because there's Oh, no. That's okay. And you'll have your opportunity when I call for the nays. Oh, we definitely could, but our our our ATP president said that the the teachers want direction, and I think it's our responsibility after this many months of going through the CBE. This conversation started with the board unpacking it in January. This has not been a knee-jerk. It's been a long, arduous, you know, rough conversation tonight, but this
453has been going on for six months. There's no rushing right now. This has been hours and hours of community feedback, surveys from ATP, surveys from the committee, a ton of site visits, visiting a different district. This is not a knee-jerk response. This has been a thoughtful process. It's not perfect. Neither was the CBE roll out. We're not perfect. and and neither is the system. We're just doing the best we can with the information we have at this time and we're going to move forward. We're meeting August second. We have a we have a workshop, a special meeting that has nothing to do with this on the on the second. Okay. So, we have a first and a second. I don't remember who said it because it's been hours ago. Jeremy was first. I was second.
454I'm sure Desire has it dialed over there. All in favor say I. I. I. All oppose. No. Thank you. Did I with a no? No. I Oh, okay. I was all I was the timing. Motion passes. 41. There's work to be done. Fear not. I want to come back at the next board meeting with recommendations for revision revision. And can we adopt those? Can we agree that we'll we can have a discussion and then vote on those changes? I think we should we should definitely continue to have the conversation whether we I think it's too much time at a regular meeting. I think we need to schedule a special meeting aboard workshop to work through this instead of spending 12 hours on a Tuesday night. Agreed. Okay. All right. Um item 11, board calendar coordinating
455announcements. Obviously, we've got a board meeting on the 2nd. Our next regular meeting is on 8:19. We will likely have some more conversations about this moving forward for workshop for addressing this and after we have further conversations with our labor partners. Um I think that that is all for now. Item 12, adjournment. Just kidding. We're not adjourning. We're going back to close. Thank you. Thank you all. Thank you. and five, four, three, two. Are we good? All right. Alrighty. Our final item from our close session item 3.6 conference with legal counsel regarding existing litigation. Uh this is regarding our pending litigation with uh legal counsel government uh according to government code 54956.9 subdivision D1 we had one case regarding solar plaster county SVScv0044479. We provided uh unanimous consent to uh staff and council and and
456that unanimous was 4. All right. With that being said, we're going to move to item 12 and we are at meeting German. Do I have a motion? Motion to adjurnn. We have a motion by Trusty Duncan, a second by Trusty Lake. All in favor say I. I. I. All oppose. That's a wrap. 300. Good night, everybody. Awesome.