001close the session. So, welcome Carlos. Are we we good? We've got sound roll. Awesome. Thank you. Um just as a a note, this meeting is being audio and video recorded recorded. Um housekeeping, restrooms are available during our in session in the Gold Country meeting room which is across the parking lot. So just over over there and we're go ahead and do our close session session report on items during.1. And we will start with clerk Duncan on item B.2. 3.2. Uh so for three uh item 3.2 to in close session. Uh we met with the legal council uh regarding antic anticipated litigation uh and we gave uh direction of that legal counsel uh to continue to move forward. Item 3.3 conference with legal counsel regarding existing litigation. Uh we discussed and gave unan direction to staff
002and council as well. While items 3.41 and 3.42 42 were held and we will back to close session after open session. All righty. Okay. We're going to go ahead and move for forward with um item four be five organization. Welcome and pledge of allegiance. Um, Cler Duncan, will you please please lead us in to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands one nation with all. All right, go ahead. Item 5.2, approval of agenda. Agenda. I'll second. We have a first by trustee Underwood, a second by by Trustee Freeze. All in favor say I. I. All oppose. Motion passes unanimously. We have a public hearing at this this time for item 6.1. We said approximately 6:303. We're pretty close close at excuse me 5535 533 at this time.
003So we go ahead and begin item 6.1 public hearing for Plaster Union High School District a virtual charter academy the the LCAP local control and accountability pan plan and proposed budget for 25 to 20226. Thank you. Thank you madam president. Uh so this is our annual review the LCAP. Um and then we do have staff here to present any that you might have. Trump Wilson and um Robert Lemon are here as well to any questions you have regard regarding budget. I did uh want to to point out one thing in the beginning just to to be clear on the LCAP cap. Um goal goal two obviously um includes uh language about about C. Um we realize you uh the board is going to be making some possible changes of our policy regard guarding that in
004our work with uh plaster county office of of ed trying to determine what the best way to go about present presenting at the time period. They said it would be be to make a change at the midsight cycle um review which will happen whatever whatever you guys as a board policywise um will will you know trump the LCAP wording if it were. Sure. Um um if we did it the other way, it would um considerable more steps to do it. We'd have to do another run through and hearing um on it. If we changed the wording now, uh we just that was our recommendation was to go go with it. Go with it and make the change after you you guys take on whatever the board policy was um and bring it new at the
005midcycle review. And just for the record, what um can you give us the time timeline midcycle review? Uh the midcycle review typically happens happens around February, but like I said that the um the board the board policy what's going to be the key factor. Okay. Not the the wording of the LCAP as as much. Y okay. All right. Any comments or questions regarding item 6.1.1? Okay. Item 6.2 notice of public hearing for Plaster Union High District initial purple California school employees association and its plaster union high school school district chapter number number 49 2025 to 2026. and and we're going to close the other one and open a new one. All righty. Do we have a staff report on this public hearing? Yes, m president. So, this is uh the initial proposal for um plaster
006union high school district for um in our proposal for openers for negot negotiation with our CSEA partners. Do we have any public comment or questions from the board? This time it looks like we're clear. So I'm going to go ahead and close that public hearing. Open another public hearing for item 6.33. This is the sunshine proposal of California school employee association. Uh Ca chapter number for 444 initial proposal for the 2025 to 2026 school year and it is 5337. We just crushed that one. Good job guys. Do we have any uh feedback or public comment on this? Hearing none. We're going to close that hearing that hearing as well. All right, let's go ahead and move to item seven. Pull up my notes here. All righty. Thank you so much for having having that available.
007So we wanted to have have an information discussion iteming a board board policy 4,000 con concept roles and um I want to draw your attention to paragraph three and and um and I'm read it out loud just just for those who are not following along um it it reads superintendent has responsibility for overse system to support this effort the board shall appra for sound hiring practices the shall nominate nominate personel for employment and and the board approve only those persons. So recommended um so I just want to give a little a little bit I'd like to throw it it to our assistant assistant over uh human resources um for to provide a little bit of context for uh the work um if if so now yes madam president like I'm really close today um anyways
008uh the work is based on of course all the um education code labor laws federal and state um calosa part in what we put into place for our employees um safety practice those type types of things. Uh um then what we also have tried to adopt over the years is best practices um individuals um everything from screening of of the individuals to all the way at the end of them and having appropriate paperwork and on process. All of those pieces is a piece of the the high process for PHS. Thank you so much. So, so as we have have dug into some um recent recent and reviewed policy and understanding the different roles of the superintendent tenant and the um regarding uh you know person and hiring we felt that it was important to review
009a framework and um understanding that it's complicated um and mostly dictated by state law or education code um and and then practices, but we we hadn't had anything outlined. And so we kind of discussed that that as we've been approaching some uh events. And so those conversations and a conversation uh with with with one other trustee um we felt we felt like in order for us for us to provide proper feedback back uh to approve a framework that it would be beneficial for for um trust trustees invited to participate in hiring pan panel and um whether as an observer or panel um but to be offered cons consistently an invitation to sit as we're we're creating some of of this framework together and so that we can and adopt and approve approve a framework because
010at this time time I'm aware other than what's in law that the board has is ever ever a framework and so with that in mind that's why I open up this this discussion um we we have different practices in place now we do have trustees involved in in certain hiring channels at at at different but but just feel that it would be bene benefit for us to participate on some level so that that we can um for the time being and and out what we think is think is working um and how how we address that as the staff uh prepares a framework for us us to approve form. Do you guys have any thoughts or feeling feelings one I agree with our perspective completely? Um um yeah absolutely totally. Okay. Turn on that phone.
011Trusty Link. Trusty Underwood. I'm I'm good on this. Okay. I'm fine with that. Okay. So at this time we'll go ahead and this is an action item item. So we'll staff to begin uh for forming some type of framework work that we can um you know down the line uh prove and then for the time being that invitations will be sended to personnel hires for for trustees on the panel to um to gather insight on what we feel is important for our framework. May I ask a clarification? So, so for every CSA certificated classified as maintenance all the above slightly just clarify that's a great question. I think for the time being um I mean how do you how do you guys feel opposition? Yeah, the the difficulty would be there. I mean if we
012can't if we can't make it we can't but the invitation will be there. Yeah, I feel good. Feel good about that. Okay, I think we're in agreement. We just have have an invitation extended. Whether or not can can be there, we shall see. The other aspect of that is is having more than two in one one location. Agreed. Agreed. So I think um for purposes of making sure violating Brown Act and we don't have than two board member members in given space at any given time. Um we guys agree that based on our trusty bound boundaries where school districts are most uh uh close to us those invitations would be extended first at the district office maybe it goes rotation um and if if board member unable to attend that maybe we invite um another
013trustee to attend. Is that all all of that makes sense? So trustee area and then at the district office district office just a rotation and and our expertise too. Yeah. No, I I appreciate that chat too. Did you guys hear that? Or bas based on expertise expertise. I like that. Okay. So I I do have an additional question question. So are we we're only talking about about interviews because like I said said there's a whole including screening all the that come even before we get to the to the interview panels that one and then I want to clarify that the expertise part that would add a whole another de dimension to so I just need some clar I think we begin with with with boundaries boundaries and and and and then we go from there.
014But I agree agree. I think it's certainly not just a panel. It's the systems and the processes before and after. Uh and I think that potentially I'm not sure how you you guys operate or invest in system might might be to out an email to all the board beconding back to everyone and for you know two borders or so that you know that that say they they can that event then then that event. Okay. That would be the easiest way to do it. Yeah. Agreed. That sounds good to me as well. Does that make sense? Yes. Yes. What I heard say is that you want us to send an email to you guys BC and the and the first two reply get to be a part of the interview. No boundaries first then. So am
015I those are competing? Yeah. No, that that is I I would personally probably just because Yeah, it's a tough tough one. Well, I I think another thing to examine would be if we send send it out to every everybody everybody the district office office and one person says says yes another person says no then do we just work work our way till we get to is the expectation that two we need to be a part of it or one one satisfy I I think even if zero can attend I think it's just about about the attention so start with start with boundaries let's start with the boundaries district office. Let's do first come first serve and if you know unable um and I think this is just this is an as we're gathering some information
016and we we figure out what we need what we need in order to approve approve a framework. All right. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. We're going to go ahead and move to item eight reports and this is time for our board reports. uh this time has allowed members of the board to conduct conduct discuss on events in which they participated in correspondence from the district programs which they would they would like to do I I have any volunteers to start us volunteer all right thank you so I was I was able to attend uh last week week the my neutral charter academy graduation as well as the Kofax tax discretion uh and both those events went went out really really well um it's always really nice to see that those culminating events um they're really
017special for those students that are participating. So, I thought both went really well and I was excited to participate. Yeah. Okay. Uh it's only been a couple weeks, so but but we've done a lot. Uh first of all, uh PL school for adult gradu graduation seeing in the in the crowd. Uh that was a really really cool experience. Uh I uh got to hear some pretty cool stories. Uh and I wish I could hear more because everybody on that stage had a very interesting story and and a very ancient journey. Um and uh when I was walking back to my car, I had a chance to to meet one of those students. uh and she was a student who uh uh had family carpet cleaning business and uh she was so awesome. The light in
018her eye, you can tell she was so excited for what was ne next and the accomplishment that that she had u that she'd achieved. Um so uh uh Steve great great job. It was wonderful to be part of it and thank you for invitation. um deuation. Uh it's my first uh deuation actually. Uh I had a graduate uh Anastasia who's a Ukrainian girl that's that's been live with us for nearly three years. Um and uh I had to had the chance I didn't realize I was going to be hand out diplomas until closer to that week. Um which were cool experience. Uh uh Nick fantastic job for graduation. uh will be ever ever forever remembered. So great stories. So I thought that was pretty pretty cool. Uh and uh it was really really cool just
019you know see kids that I knew knew and be able to hand them that that diploma. Uh what a cool experience uh that was was. Uh and then uh later that night um I went to do grad grad night and volunteered there. And um a shout out to the do parent club. Uh they're just awesome. um and Edwards, I know there's a lot there's a a lot of people um she uh yeah, she helped me get get connected there there and just there's so many people Dad um Lindsay uh there was just amazing how people putting in their time and effort uh to support these kids kid and uh they had a they had a great time. So I didn't stay till 3:00 a.m. though. Um but uh it was fun. So trusty Hi everyone.
020Uh I was able to attend attend the uh the mighty graduation and the confluence graduation and uh I have never it was the first time I've seen a a uh the student uh giving the address. She actually did an inter dance instead of a uh formal speech. She had narrator kind of read her message while she performed this dance which was um it was it was really cool and it kind of speaks to uh the fit of that program where it gives the ability to pursue their their interest and their education. Um if you could have felt the enter in the room for the for the uh the confluence group uh it was impressive. It was it was like man I felt like I was at a concert at at some point. It was very
021loud loud and um tons of energy and I and I and I loved it. Loved being a part of that. Um and uh I tended to force for seal graduate and and there was 40ome graduates and uh because it was a smaller group each student was to have a a a narrative of uh hiding their their teachers and and the the offering gratitude and thanks for those that helped them. So uh I thought that was very well done. And um other than the uh staring in the east east sun like dead on, I didn't know what to expect and so I didn't have sunglasses either. So it was it was uh it was it was warm. Um it was awesome. Uh still kind of learning the position and um I'm grateful for the experience and
022um I feel like the the district is just heading the right direction. uh to reiterate remarks from last last time. I'm very excited for uh uh um Mr. Mi to to to begin with our district and to see what that transition is going to look like. I'm for uh Dr. Cavanetti foretti for for uh for his support uh through that process. I think it's going to be I think it's going to be great. I I do I think at each site uh he'll be well received. So we're pursuing uh we're looking to this um this AI math tutor. Um just to reiterate uh I've made made com about the Alex system. My my my perception is that it's not it's not utilized to its full capacity and as as a result most students are not
023not a fan of the Alex system. most t teachers are fan. Uh there are a few teachers who have really uh done work to to to to draw out out the the capabilities of the system and if that could could uh if that can be shared with other teachers then that then that you could find some real headway progress. Um and so you guys are aware in serving math in different places in the district a lot of them are already using using AI on phones. They take a picture of a math problem and an app on their phone will spit out uh step by step how how to solve problems. Um the problem is a lot of these students students are not learning because they're getting the answers. They're able to regurgitate the answers and
024they might even be able to regurgitate it on a test. Uh it also helps facilitate if if teachers teachers are more willing to allow cell phones in the classroom then you know students are using these to kind of to get by but are they learning? Uh the difference with an intuitive uh AI tutor is it will be able to without directly answering the question help them understand the why and the building block and at their own pace and at their own time. And so though there are some major benefits, it it is the direction and I'm I'm I'm well aware that technology is not the answer to everything. Uh but the foreseeable future is it's already here to here here and uh and more if you if you are paying attention to to the direction
025that education is going uh more and more AI is being uh is being utilized. So, um it'd be nice to nice to we should engage in this trial. Um so, we'll be working on that number to see if uh you know to look to look at that and put that put that together. Um that's all I got. Super. Trusty Link, Trusty Underwood, would you like would you like to go or [Music] turn will you please turn on your mic? Most exciting. Perfect. Thank you. The most most exciting time is the graduation. You can see the success stories the kids and you can see their eyes and and um their back and where they're getting a great payoff and and so graduation I went to and compliments to principal Steve. He did did a great great
026job. Uh I love class schools. I love I love seeing adults um have the commitment and the discipline um they're working and all these issues going on in their lives have succeeded and the featured speaker that talked about speaking no English she came and here she was and work working full-time and uh getting her graduation uh excellent speaker by the way English your grammar and it's very impress impressive and I love seeing people with the belief that life is a continual pro process of education it never stops when you see the adults you know wanting to achieve that goal and work hard it just warms my my heart and second uh grad graduate I went to is is usually always my favorite favorite is Confluence because because conflence such a wonder community. And when you
027take a look at these people coming from so many life stories of either neglect or abuse or drugs or lack of love um acting together, they're creating their own family. Really feel that this is my this is our family here and that does and giving them support and and encouragement and success um is just wonderful. I think it's it's best u things things district has done in my 10 years on the board you know seeing these students that are highly at risk um finding them themselves finding their family finding their community succeeding support each other it's wonderful and green and gold has has been my work I I uh was classroom for 30 years and I love teaching calling I love plaster high school and and and going to plaster high graduation is always special
028for me for me. Although everyone's gone by now, all the years, you know, it's it's wonderful to see and uh sitting on the football field uh with my jacket on. It was it was kind of warm. I'm looking I'm excited and the first thing that I know noticed there were no volleyballs. This is the first question I've gone to where there were there wasn't one volleyball in the air in the air. I didn't see a volleyball um and uh well run. I love the breakfast me that you did. I really did. I took it to how working in the kitchen and it was like a process of education and of giving and loving and and connecting and and that was a wonderful uh metaphor. At least it res resonated with me. So I'm sitting there
029and I'm looking at all our valid Victorians at PL. I've seen so many. It was wonderful. It must have been been valor. How many were there? Jamie, do you remember 15? Anyways, it was wonderful. And there speech features. And then then I had a lesson that I learned for the for the first time. You never know when something's going to happen happens. It's going to happen. You never know. We we none of us know. And so I'm standing there uh hands and all of a sudden I started watering and uh whoa taken out by by sausage. All of a sudden my legs started getting a little weaker and I'm going this is crazy crazy. And then my vision started getting narrowed in focus and I felt I've never known this. Athletics has been my I'm
030going what's what's going on here? Then all of a sudden I fell a heat stroke. Um so uh it's not the time or anticipated that uh all of a sudden be laying on the ground in the middle of graduation was still coming to shake so I could shake their hand and compliments to the first responders. They cool me down and got through it. I wish I could have seen it whole graduation and because I really enjoy it. So uh uh statement about this board this this working really hard you know I have to I give compliments to uh uh especially the Emerson night uh some of your in insights and and time that that you spend and and reading documents and so so on. I appreciate that. So thank you thank you very much. So
031I I think this is a working board and uh I like that. So, uh, I guess that's it. But it was a special time. Um, because we are still in transition right now and we've got a big issue tonight on GRA we're going to be discussing and, uh, that's something very dear to my dear to my heart and I have a lot of issues and and concerns and and thoughts on that that so we're a good district and and everyone is uh, I think I think working hard to make it even even better. So, so thank you so much and I probably just say did move on. So, but same sentiments. This is just an awesome time of year to celebrate our kids kids and their accomplishment. And I think that that came to me
032like throughout especially that really had to grind it out and and the kids that just went above and beyond to ask courses that you know I wouldn't have have taken when in high school or otherwise. and um um these kids is but the word that kept kept coming to me was hope and uh we provide a lot of um through our schools um where it's a school for adults and uh trusty Duncan mentioned I mean it's it's incredible everyone had an amazing story where there was at the inmate graduation they all all have a story all and um and it's beautiful it's just a beautiful beautiful time time so much of what we do is a lot of reading or dealing with things that things that may not always be fun when I'm at the
033school site or at a graduate graduation. This is why I'm on the board. This is like the the best, you know, to get to celebrate and connect. Um, but it's a privilege to serve. Um, and so again, I attended a class for adult grad graduation. Again, kudos to the staff. Kudos to all of our our staff. Whether I was at your graduation or not or not, you are crushing it. There's there's so so much so many wonderful things going on in our district right right now. Sat on a state seal of civic engagement interview panel. This is the first year that our district has implemented launched this this program. We had seven students apply and earned this. Um um and shout out to Forest Hill who took the with three and our smallest school in
034the district. They had the most kids that in that state seal. Um and the projects uh ranged um being a student board member Deloro to a mural in KF back uh and a blood drive um um to start political service club um and one student even wrote an alma mater um just really cool stuff. These kids are they're active and they're they're they're giving back to their their community and that's really what civic engagement is all about about see need fill the need and uh uh proud of them. Um, and I believe believe it's the only state seal of civic engagement in our county that that maybe ever. Is that right, Robert? One in three years. Well, we just crushed that. Okay, good job, Robert and team and kids and hope more people will apply
035next year. I sat on the plaster assistant principal interview pan panel. Um, attended the inmate graduation which I love so much. And for for the first year ever, I I attended the the tall aging out ceremony. Um so our transition to adult living. So our special special educ keep um Alicia runs an incredible program. It was a really celebration and they they had your books and Alicia handed me a yearbook and are you sure like there's somebody else that probably you know needs that or deserves? She goes no I have I have an extra and I had the coolest picture drawn in from the kids. They signed my yearbook from Tom tall. I just felt social and um super fun. Um I've been on CSBSBA gets calls, board president calls, a treasure G meeting. Um
036just just a side note, any business owners in Auburn, we're still still looking for a business owner to fulfill that category for our committee GG. Um and so if you're interested, please call our assistant tenant, uh Peter E. Um or contact the board and we'll direct in the right direction. He would be your contact for that. uh also attend the West End end of year event. Again, staff are are wonderful. Um and and they that's a family over there, too. The confes do it right. They love those kids and those kids in such incredible ways and they're accomplishing things I believe they never thought they would other otherwise. Um might do virtual charter academy. Thank Thank you for highlighting the dance. I was I was going to do that. Won't but. But but that was
037super cool. Cool. Nobody's coming. and uh and she's so brave to just start dancing and in front of all peers and a full packed house. It was beautiful and heartfelt and when I had the pleasure of hand handing her diploma like she she was just lit, you know. I I just love opportunity to see our students shine. It was super super super cool and emotional. Um Plaster graduation. Um I for a third year consecutive I've been at Plaster. Um my son graduate last year and I and I also had a son graduate this year and and again always such a privilege and Dave you that was scary and I'm so glad that you're okay. It was scary staff immediately you know hunkered down. We had had, you know, one of the APS run into the,
038you know, first responder and everybody gathered gathered around and I was proud of the team to just diplomat. Um, our counselor Adrien Hernandez just stepped right in there, smiley, calm, and the it never stopped. And once David was was doing doing better, I went back to the table. Yeah. And one of um the the kids came to house for gradu graduation part and she goes I didn't get to shake your hand. I was there when everything you know went sideways and I go will you shake my hand now? Super proud of these kids. We've got wonderful kids in our community. So um last night I attended I serve on the on the county as well. Um and and that the elect body that that approves maps maps in the area trustee boundary and school district
039boundary and we review our bylaws. um interested parties may be um you know may want to to hear a handbook is being drafted so that as future districts are going through going through the process that we went through for the by trustee area that in addition to their maps and obviously um abiding by all the laws that they know exactly what we want to see when it comes to us because we have noted a pattern recently that that would would their uh recommended maps. So that is all on my board report. We're going to go ahead uh to item 8.2 ad hoc committee things going with uh board policy right now. One which we pulled uh electronic communications um any feedback back on that yet? Not yet. Not yet. Okay. And we've formed another ad
040hoc uh uh to audit and go through our policies but but as you heard it's been a busy month. So we'll pick it back back up um here short shortly. All right. superintendent, our acting superintendent. I report to the board to the board. Item three, Dr. Cametti. Thank you. Uh just a couple couple um first of all, again, just congratulations to our principles. I remember being in their shoes and um that day of graduation uh being done and taking a really long nap and then you get up on Monday morning and you start all over again. Um, so I know know they've been at work in in prepar for next year, but each of those ceremonies um met the community needs and honor honoring our students on very very hot hot day. Um, and I
041and I think that uh they they to get through get through as fast possibly could still recognizing kids. So So um yesterday a handful of us were down at PCOE with capital advisers on the budget update. um as not a surprise they weren't handing out million-dollar bills to school districts. Um so we are still watching that and following along with the final final come June July and this will be more information on that provide you by our our business office. Uh um next we have our our annual admin summit for all of our principles and assistables and and office staff directors of professional development de development leadership training um forecast forecast planning. Trent's giving giving us a lot of homework on a book that we're supposed to be reading. Um um just a great time
042to gather together. We have made some pretty drastic changes in terms of just based on budgetary constraints. Uh uh we're meeting one day at at the Elmac. Um bring bring your own food. Um and uh a great time to to to connect each of our leaders for next year and that includes my report port. Thank you so much so much. as you were you were me our staff sometimes don't talk about all our our facilities and and other people that you know are the ninjas of the district who just just sneak in and out and hold down on the and I just wanted wanted to give a shout to all of you like secret heroes that were our district it's so much work so much work and we value you and I know you're not
043you're not always getting kudos but but our campuses are beautiful and they're safe safe because of all the wonderful uh people there great great reminder special to the Don Manning pl got hit pretty hard hard by endalism on on graduation day practice practice um and the team came in force and and got it and span most folks even have noticed so thank you Don and team awesome all right we're going to move to item nine excuse me um eight board associated data teachers of CTA NAP presence report do we have a report this evening okay thank Thank you. She told me told me you were coming. Welcome. All righty. We'll go ahead and move to item nine. Oh, side note while we're here. So, Mr. Seable's wife was my my son's kindergarten kindergarten teacher. And
044so, as we were partying and celebrating, I had all these pictures that your your wife took kindergarten year and it was so so awesome. So this family, the seable family, um um so much beautiful work in this area and and I vow I got to have all these gems from your sweet wife. So yeah, please do. Okay. Item nine, consent agenda. [Music] I would I would like to three and seven. Seven. Right. Pulling item three and seven. Do we have any other changes or a motion? M. We have a first by Steve Underwood and a second by Steve Lake, excuse me, Duncan Duncan and Lake. First motion by Duncan, second by Lake uh to add to a consent agenda item moving item three and sent out. All in favor say I. I. I. I. Oppos.
045passes unanimously. Item three three district warrants Jeff. Uh yes, if we get the report from Thank you. If we can the report from 29th 9th. I just had one question in there. Um you can scroll scroll down. Where is it? Sorry, I'm trying to remember where where it was. Um, there was a a fee for legal services and I was cur curious what those in general were for. They were relative substantial Joel. Natasha Washington was on the wrong one. Okay. It's on page what? Yeah. Yeah. Page one went about almost twothirds of the way down. Sorry, I had the wrong the wrong dot. So, I'm just curious in general terms what services they provided. Okay. Law offices of Washington. the same page two page one. Let's double check that here. Check stated 52925 to re
046reimburse it reimbursement to to a special settlement and and so for the summit we pay the family's attorney fees. So that's what that is. Thank you. item. So, so I'm looking at at this uh request for for renewal for um legal legal services with this particular attorney's uh um I want to reiterate we this district spends a ton of money on legal fees almost to the point point where um if the board could get some information about how these what these legal fees are being used for and there's so much um you guys can correct me if I'm wrong. Um that that it sounded that would be impractical for the board to understand exactly what all these legal fees are fees are for. Um so that so that's why it was so that spade would
047be the one that would actually have that information. Um so I'm concerned concerned about how much we're actually spend spending fees because we're spending a lot of money on legal fees and then to look at this this agreement agreement and they're wanting to raise their rates on us. our our money income is not improving in this situation in the district. Why would we approve uh you know their rate rates increased for this particular law firm? That does not not make sense. I would urge the board to vote no on the approving reapproving this newing this this firm. for for context could we um so different firms just just I I will give we'll give brief um different firms are charging us different hourly rates depending on on what we're dealing historically courier and Hudson has
048our lowest cheapest cheap brutal um could you give us just kind a a brief, you know, what what we're paying potentially some of our others and and um and it's negotiable. I mean, I guess that's the other question in order to keep them currently current Hudson is what ed services use often then for uh discipline special ed specifically two areas um where we we do most of our work. There's some others but um you know it's a challenge. I Jeremy I mean I I wish we didn't didn't have to call them so often. Um but uh the religious nature of our culture right now and the things things that happen it it uh it we're trying to protect our liability strict if we may make a misstep in some some of the claims that are
049being that are being made whether to the state whether to federal authorities and other things like that. Um there's a lot and um some students some of the issues is they own legal representation. So we're trying to to make sure that we're not doing doing anything correct in the law and following the law. So we spend a lot of time when those questions come up making sure that we are we are following the right practice that would prevent us from bigger issue in the long run. Um, so some of these issues issues, you know, nothing's ever black and white, especially in the discipline area and some of the other pieces where it takes uh you you have have to walk through and and figure out exactly what right course of action and and make sure
050that you're giving due process and all those things things. um it's very very specific kinds of information that uh uh and we get legal realm it's it's hard for us not to and feel like feel like we're not going to cost the the district their side of a potential potential lawsuit. So essentially what we a lot of our our time talking to those about. So if our district is spending hundreds of thousands of dollars every year in case in fact in fact this agreement is for not see $200,000 dollars for the next just for this one law firm. Wouldn't it a lot cheaper to just hire attorney and have the attorney work for the trick? Well, the only with that is that um like one of the examples that's on our DW case attorney will
051also I use for construction a lot of those litigation matter um courier Hudson would not be able to provide that when it comes to home council things like that even if we're just looking just looking at services courier and Hudson has provided even if we're we're just looking at wouldn't it be cheaper to hire an attorney and have our attorney in in house working full-time for us to to answer these question you guys have I district. Some districts do have um district count um the large districts. So, I don't I don't know um what that going going hiring a full-time lawyer would be for the district. Um but again, I think it all all depends on some years there's a lot more uh uh issues than than there are in other uh than other years.
052I'm just coming from the perspective that every single dollar that we can can save at our our level is going to go right back to those kids in the classroom. Um and and if we're about, you know, all the know all the difficulty talked about a little while back with master scheduling at lower and then we're talking about $14,000,000 per shin and if we $16,000 then that's a whole another section that can that could be added, you know, that group of kids, right? So every dollar that we save is actually actually going to help the kids in the classroom. Um that's that's the perspective I'm from and I don't I don't I don't agree with um paying paying the soft even more than we're already paying. I I don't dis disagree with the comment that
053um we don't want to to pay lawyers all all the money that we're paying by by any means. We'd rather set the be able to to settle thoseies. I don't know if you've seen some of some of the recent suits and and money that have been paid paid out by districts to uh uh families and other things that have not not done some according to the law um is in the millions of dollars. Um so that's I I think that would be our fear as staff of not not making that right decision if if the us looking at the cost of a lawyer for on staff. I think that's something that you know Mr. and us we could we work through and see if that's a a better option investig I have a question if
054um how much are we leaning on the our DA plaster county da not at all I've uh I've had a conversation with uh she's the district attorney for plaster county and and actually interested in in uh kind of meeting with district to see see if there's a way that they can can I mean I I I fully 100% agree you guys are in a very difficult position in negotiating with you know challenging cases in the district and you know it's not like we're all all trained professionals on how to negotiate you know with with dispute but we can lean on the district on on the county and so and they've actually offered uh so I think I think it's worth conversation and uh to see if there's a possibility there collaborating with them to see
055if there's they could they could kind of load a little bit whether it's offering coaching or having a better understanding when lean uh on the county versus how take this all head on and hire attorneys it's anyway it's a thought so I think worth looking into yeah I mean if you have name name in Mary white okay and figure out how to how that would work yeah yeah happy to look into that Yeah, some some type of just an ROI. It was like, well, what's our what has our volume volume? Do we anticipate that volume to continue to trend either neutral or up I've been I've been it and sharing it with president whenever staff reaching out it it does become fairly cumbersome as as it's every conversation multiple multiple times day multiple cases. Um
056so that it's a heavy heavy load load. I don't know if all of all of those are consider billable hours putting them in there. So staff is staff is um tracking that with so able to see it as a as a document trying to see how often that's happening. Can you give us a ballpark, Steve? As of this time this point in the year, we're in June. We're halfway through the year. How how much money have we so far on the attorney's fees just this year? I'll have to defer to all of the attorneys attorneys, man. Oh, well for me it's hard it's hard to predict because DWK there are some things like example PG gener so you see the money on here but the reimbursement would be later but I mean I just think
057one case more than that I come back and and get more of a figure but I'd say well to $400,000 because case alone right here cost us 80 89 just one you know and so without going into detail or confidentiality is a lot more in the with that divulge vulging words. You know, I'm personally going to say it's not we're not asking asking for it. Yeah. And and and you you mentioned going with a because because we've reached this doesn't even count the attorneys working through SIG who work are paid through that that way. We're not even seeing money that way and realizing that these things according according to law investigated and ends up going favor but something else comes up. So I don't know five I've six eight times before somebody else outside steps
058in and says stop but we are told every time we have to keep keep what we're doing and that that costs money unfortunately. Well speaking from the cost costing money go this first referral look basically they want to raise their rates by $25 an hour for the goal fees at the same time when we're telling them teachers you're you're not raise at all you're getting zero raise right potentially for some time to come. Yeah, I I agree agree that I'd rather not not and we spend time uh as a team looking through to see if we actually need legal counsel on things, but as I think was mentioned earlier, some of the complexities of ED code, complexities of civil rights, all of the the different shoots, federal and rural and state, um we just aren't
059experts in all of those pieces and uh especially when there's another uh you know, the the represent resive representative for the the other side. Um we we just don't want to put ourselves in a situ situation we're in a five million $6 lawsuits or something. So we would definitely love it if we didn't have to contact our lawyers. Jeff, I just I appreciate you pulling this um for us to have this conversation. And you and I and I have talked about attorney's fees and ask and we've been kind piloting a a system where the staff has been in inputting all this um um time and Eddie mentioned and I I agree. I think they're they're egregious as we went through the board um you know preparation for the meeting you know we discussed it like
060we're like a really high now like like and um and it's not not ideal. I I'm I'm wondering if while we're looking at potential alternative options or supports, you know, obviously we've worked with Ker and Hudson for for a very long time. Can we can we can it say, you know, you know, we just don't have an extra extra $25 an hour for you. We we have x amount of billable hours per year. Is there any chance you would stay at your rate right now? We're not in a position to renegotiate. Um I just I have this this gut feeling they're still gonna want want to get paid and and maybe they're they're going to give give us a little rope um you know for the time the time being. Do you think think it's
061possible? I don't know. But I think right now what I'm going to be uh looking is reaching out to to some of my at other district districts to where where they're at in terms of their their legal fees and and what what kind of they're doing because uh I'm certain it's not just us but we get an idea idea ballpark of what what some some other and um I don't I I I have heard heard of sites having having legal and see what those those costs are. I know that CSBA has um their legal alliance group that you know so we were part of the CC CSB membership and that I believe it's at a lesser rate to get recommendations from CSBA. My my only concern with hesites approving this contract. So if we not
062approve approve this expires it expires and so we could not contact them from today forward. Does the contract I believe it's June 30th, Peter Sue, we have another another meeting on June 17th. Is is there a have a conversation with and just try to renegotiate that for the time being? Um I mean what what are your on that guys? Guys, the the one last last thing I would say with Curry and you know we do with them they have of institutional knowledge. Sure. Sure. um of who we are are what and past and all the things. So, it's nice to have that ability to know who they are and what's going on on but um we could certainly reach out. Yeah, let's let's let's have aim to keep them per what you just said. Let's
063just negotiate. It's okay with that. Question was asked about hiring legal counsel in house San Unified pays their legal legal counsel $60,000 a year. Yeah. 245 days of work. And that's that's how days of work. Well, 245. So our normal without no Yeah. And no benefits, not including the benefits. But real realistic potential. Now we have have a that's not an employee. So sees that's all you pay hour anything else with with it. women were paying almost you know at this point maybe 400,000 and I realize this general counsel like we hired one for this there's other council that we have other things you can find a general counsel who can do special ed law counseling construction lab we just tackle one issue like like what which areas do we do we most need in
064as far as legal services go look for someone in that area um where the spice is in that area that could save us, you know, ultimately, you know, we we should look at this as a potential cost measure. Yeah. And do the math, talk to some people, do the math, figure out like what how this could this save us fiscally because we're going into some time in the next couple years where we're going to be needing to create pennies together. Um, and again, I just just don't that I don't feel like this is the time the time to be raising amount of money, the money that we're actually paying for our attorney attorney's fees. could look at a partner to partner too with a neighboring district. Yeah. Or partnerships, split one. I do think Rose
065will join. Yeah. I think to Peter's point though, I think it is important to look at the totality ROI that that if if we did have an in-house council, there would be times that they'd have to to call out for help. Right. Right. And so that should be taken into account as well. I'm interested interested in gathering information. guys are if we're in agreement to direct staff have to look into what our alternatives be and and for for the time being to to table item and see if we can't get them to to their hourly rate for the time being. I know staff would appreciate having an an attorney go right next door and speak immediately. But um um and sorry to interject but did we get a get a vote on three? Excellent question.
066I don't think we did. No, we did not. Okay. Well, we'll just Right. Right. Yeah. Sorry. Okay. No, no, no. Thank you. Okay. So, we're we're gonna table seven and direct staff to gather some more information about our legal legal uh options, legal counsel. Um and then and then we should be back about the career at our next next board meeting. Let's move back item 9.3. Do I do I have a motion? Move to approve. Motion by trusty Steve Jeff and a second by trustee Steve Duncan. Do we have any further comments on that item? Hearing none. All in favor say I. I. All oppose. Motion passes unanimously. Thank you. Thank you for bringing that to and I think that that was a wise move. Appreciate you. Okay. Action items. Item 101 certificated person number
06711 20251. Yes, madam president. So I think I might have the shortest one of the year, but obviously our teachers are still working at doing um training for dual dual enrollment and we have some movement within the district and again we do have a couple retirees of long longstanding within Union High School District both Redmond Redmond Jesse Weinberger. We do want to thank them for their service to the district district. We appreciate it and wish them the best in retirement. On the behalf of the the superintendent, I would would recommend the approval of the certificate of personnel order. I move approval. Have a motion by trusty Underwood. Underwood. I'll second. Second. Trusty Jeff. Question. All in favor say I. I. I. I. All oppose. Opposed. Motion passes. You unanimously. Item 10. Classified personnel report number
06811 24425. Yes madam. president on this um personnel report. We have quite a few instructional assistance um for our extended school year, our special education students as as well as all the summer activities that are going on. We're always to see all the all the activities and our students students keep getting busy. Our our volunteers always want to thank them for their services and we do have some resignations of um some long-term employees employees as well. Um um we do appreciate understand Laura Zepar is going up the road a little bit Tim Placer as well as um appreciate the retire retirement of Eileen Brown Garcia and the resignation of Akala. We appreciate your service to our district on the assist acting superintendent. I run the approval of the classified personnel report. All right, we have
069a motion. Motion to motion to approve. Second. Motion by Trusty Duncan, second by Trusty Jeff. Any comments or questions. All All in favor say I. I. I. All right. Sorry. Motion pass unanimously. Item 10.33 sidelled letter between the PHSD and associated teachers of Placer ATP regarding regarding hiring of employee at MBBCA virtual charter academy Academy. Yes, President. Um, we are in the midst of negotiations with our ATP partners and excuse me, there is language language in the CBA that uh ability to replace a personalized learning learning um am I saying learning program individual with a part-time per person only and um our partners came with in agreement with us change that language for the service of stu students and the financial is that my mighty virtual charter academy can afford to do this. They they
070have own separate um financial um so therefore um we went to agreement it and this is the result of that agreement to allow MVCA to hire a full-time replacement Hannah. So on the behalf of the acting superintendent I would amend the approval of theou or the letter. Thank you. I move approval second. We have a motion by trusty Underwood and a second by trustee Duncan. Do we have any com comments or questions? I just want to say thank you to the TP with bargaining still open. I I appreciate you guys being willing willing to this role. Um it's important important to have somebody place for mighty virtual charter account. So thank you. Right. Um hearing no others. All in favor say favor say. I all oppose. Motion passes unanimous. Item 10 10.4 4 memorandum of
071understanding OU between the PHSD and the county school employees association CES addressing non-discrimination with driver's licenses between between the and which addresses updated job descriptions within the license requirement removed by SB 1100. Thank Thank you, M. As you can see, this has been a long time and waiting to for it to be ratified. this SSB 1100 was um was um signed to law quite quite a while and and we've been working with our partner to do this. Um we went through through all of our job descriptions both and classified. It didn't require require the requirements for driver's license. We have been been removed that language. We also have a certificated one on agenda agenda as well today and these are the positions that uh needed that that length removed and our partners agreed and it
072ratified. So on behalf of that the acting superenant I would recommend the approval of thisou our cs partners. Thank you. Move move to approve and second. We have a motion by trusty lake second by trusty Jeff. Any comments comments or questions? All in favor say I. I hearing none. Motion passes. Item 10.5 updated a job descript for the inter intervention. Similar to the last one due to up with SPL 1100. Yes, same uh in the sense that we were just remove remove that piece of the driver's license from this job description and um we were we're waiting all on the same the same board agenda at the same time. So um this the only only change is moving that that driver's license as per the the law SP 1100. Thank you. Perfect. Trusty Jeff. We
073have trusty Jeff and I go to Lake on that uh who approve the the up job description for the intervention coordinator item 105. Any questions, comments? All in favor say I. I. I. I. All All oppose. The motion should pass unanimously. 10.6. Plaster Union High School District initial proposal to California school employees association and its plaster union high school district chapter number 449 2025 to 2020 to government code section 544. The plaster union high district hereby presents its initial proposal for the 2025 to 26 school year. Thank you, Madam President. Um, these are our proposals for negotiation for re reopeners. Um, we uh we we went through through our we looked at language that needed to be updated based on well one holiday of Junth being added as a legal legal holiday to the state
074as well as looking at what what um the leave um area that article article was brought administrators and managers as as areas that we improved on. and the salary and benefits were automatic reopeners. Thank you. Do I have a motion? Move approval. I'll I'll second. We have a motion. Motion Trusty Underwood and a second. Second by Jeff to approve item 10 points. Any questions or comments? All in favor say I. I. I. All opposed. Motion passes unanimously. Item 10.7 sunshine proposal of California school employees association CA chapter number 49 inal for the 2025 2026 initial proposal from the California school employees association and its plaster union chapter number 449 to the plaster union high school district for the 2025 to 2026 school year. Thank you madam president. These are these are their um requested both
075allowed two articles include and then additionally benefits and salary were autumn reopeners. Great. Great. Do I have a motion approve? Second um a motion by trusty Jeff and a second by Underwood to approve item 10.77 Sun proposal of CSH chapter 4499. Any questions or comments? Hearing none. All in favor say I. I. I. I. All oppose. Motion is unanimously. Item 108 installation of the new PA bell system for the plaster high school staff recommend recommends purchase and installation of a new PA intercom bell system for high school. Yes, madam president has mentioned facility reports and so we've been I say myself school sites the IT team and maintenance been looking into this for the last almost two years um started started with about five groups got down to two we're recommending team one most because
076of the cost cost no pun pun intended we were looking for bells and whistles we were looking for looking for reliability something that works with our our current systems will improve our IT systems systems. Um and we'll we'll work more in conjunction with actually the phone systems where we're updating all the phone systems at the school sites we're still and I do believe coax schools will beating phone summer so that the phones and the intercom systems will working seamlessly on behalf of this superintendent recommend approval. I move approval second. We have a motion by trust trusty under second by trustee to item 10.8. Do we have any any or comments on on this item? Yes. So uh Peter, so this is for plaster high. I know KFA is having the same issue. Are we still
077working with trying to figure that one out? Yeah. Yeah. We actually installed speakers um because the beauty of the system it works with the cat six lines that we installed cameras and we did the surveillance cameras. We specifically ran two two lines to each location knowing we we would need again and so for very middle about 10 grand. We were able to put 10 speakers in areas to help help out temporarily. Um we do do have have a big Kofax came in about I don't know the number 74 but we don't have have the wire yet because it does require one to all the classrooms similar to what you you see well similar exactly what you'll see for plaster. So so I wasn't able to buy coax on the same time. Um the beautiful working
078with this company they work after hours. They don't consider that overtime. That's that's just part of you. So, so we'll install last time, but my intent to have the cool fact one at at the June 7th meeting and then August we'll see do and still Thank you. Awesome. Any other questions? I know that this has taken a couple of years to get all the ducks around here and I I really do appreciate it. I this is has been a safety of mine at all our campuses especially with self self policies and we're hoping that they're put away or even better if they weren't there there at all um that have a way for our staff to get especially in emergencies. So I appreciate you you guys putting in. I know I know know it was
079a Yeah, I do want a little shout out to Carlos's team and also Chassity who help me very very stupid things. Good. Um but no in all honesty was very good and also we picked team is they were the one the ones who said hey if you have cat lines we can can put us they were able to do this on temporary I say tempics will add on what they've done but um so it wasn't a fullon but at least it pro provided them the system they didn't did not have where at least specific so at least could do an alert or have so it wasn't wasn't perfect but better Peter's coming say we'll have to wait till we get a summer, but this group Carlos Carlos and they found a way to do something
080temporarily. So, right. Awesome. Awesome. Thank you, Carlos. And everybody had had a hand in. We look forward to approving KFaxis until we all right. Uh we have a first and a second. All in favor say I. I. I. Opposed. Motion passes unanimously. Item 10.9 schedule of the PHSD board of 2020 2526. Uh Pursuant to board bylaw 930, the board meeting schedule for the upcoming 202525 to 26 school year is before the board for approval following a review and discussion of the dates um at the at the May 25 rig board meeting. So the schedule is before for you on your screen right now. Do we have you have any potential conflicts or are we looking good? What are the what are the two the two um special board study sess sessions for in the past?
081Um the fall has been instructional related usually and spring is facilities or did I get those flip-flopped? I think that right facilities facilities related. So but but that that been past practice do whatever those those workshops are sometimes a facilitator in sometimes it's board governance just it's just a place thank you okay do we have a motion move to approve we have a motion by trust second second by trustee Duncan to approve item item 10 point in our meeting schedule for the PHSD board of treat trustees for for 25 2026 Any further com questions discussion? Hearing none all say I I I I motion passes. Item 10.10 resolution number 182425 supporting title 9 and fairness and girls intercolast uh intercolastic sports. Um, title N passed as a landmark federal law intended to to eliminate discriminatory
082practices based sex and education institutions receive federal funding in such areas of admission admission academics, athletics, ethics, facilities and sports. Sports line particularly as it addressed the disparity in athletic opportunities between men to ensure that women had the same opportunities as men to participate, compete and succeed in educational and athletic programs. Title 9 acknowledged that while there was an inherent uh biological, those differences did not translate unequ equal treatment or lack of access. The goal was to dismantle barriers that kept women from from reaching their full potential in sports and other educational pursuits and to ensure that both male and female athletic programs have equitable access to opportunities, funding, facilities, and resources. The original purposes of title N was never about ensuring that men couldn't compete um against women but to ensure that women had
083equal opportunities in sports remains a significant core value in advocating for women's rights in education and athletics and as should be carried out in original intent. This policy is be or this resol is being brought forward by both myself and uh board clerk Tom Duncan and I'm assuming we're we're going to have conversation on it. Would you like me to read the resolution this time? Resolution number 182425 in the matter of supporting title 9 in fair fair and girls sports sports interact sports. Whereas the plaster Union High School District PHD is committed to holding fair fairness, safety and equal opportunities for all student athletes. And whereas title 9 of federal education amendments of 1972 was enacted to prohibit sexbased discrimination in an education program or activity receiving fin federal financial assistance ensuring that female athletes
084have equal opportunities to compete and excellence in sports. And whereas title 9 has played a critical role role expanding offering opportunity for female female athletes promoting fair competition and increasing access to scholarship and other athletic advancements. And whereas biological differences between male and female athletes can create inherent advantages in competitive sports particularly in categories designated specifically for girls. And whereas the the California inter galactic federation CIF is responsible for governing intercolastic athletics and ensure that the policies align with the principles equal opportunity outlined in title n. And whereas protecting the integrity of girls sports is essential to maintaining an even playing field for female athletes and preserving the intent of title n. Now therefore be it resolved that the plaster union high school district affirms its unwavering support for n and calls on athletic on
085athletic governing bodies to uphold its protections bying fairness sports. And be it for the resolved that copies of this resolution will be forwarded to the governor of California. the California State Legislature and in the California Department of Education and the California Intercol Federation to demonstrate PPHs commitment into protecting female student athletes. Be it further reserved that staff council are directed to investigate uh the district's compliance and I'm going to double check because I've got my my slightly amended version. Go ahead and start that stand in. Further resolve the staff council directed to investigate the district compliance with title nine of the education amendments of 9722 and the equal protection basis of sex and athletics and physical education and provide a report of their findings. With that being said, I certainly have have some thoughts on
086on this, but I'd like to open it up to the mercy. I just did that that we're back. Um to the board to share their thoughts and feelings on theation. We're recommending getting it changed. Last sentence. Yes. So in your board folders further. No, I think I think it's in your your folder. Just kidding. It's just in mine. I will pass it down. Um yeah, it just just added and I'll explain um actually I'll explain it now. Yesterday uh a letter was was sent by the US Department of Justice um uh from assistant attorney attorney general Dylan that addressed California's Enders Scholastic Federation by 300D and uh she opined that CIF bylaw 300 requires California high school schools to allow male participation girls in scholastic athletics and she notes that also should have the opportunity
087to participate. Oh, she quotes she quotes CIF and U which states al should have the the opportunity to participate in CF activities in a manner that is consistent with their gender identity irrespect of the gender list listed students record. Emphasis is added. Uh she notes that section 300 however is face unconstitutional. She she continued, "The equal protection clause of the 14th amendment to the United Constitution prohibits just discrimination on the b basis of sex. Knowingly depriving female students of athletic opportunities and based based of their their sex would constitute unconstitutional sex discrimination under the e protection clause. Scientific evidence shows that upsetting the historical status quo and forcing compete against male would deprive them of athletic opportunities and benefits based um of their sex. Therefore, you cannot cannot not implement policy allow allowing males to
088compete alongside girls because such a policy would deprive girls of opportunities and benefits b based solely on their biological sex in violation of the on that we were providing direction to staff and council to investigate our district's compliance with title nine but she made the argument that we were also violating um protection under the constitution and for that we added that to um um art. So just a line just a line on investment thank you Dez Steve. Yep. Sure. All right. with the board. I I believe we have we have some comments on nine on 10. Okay. All right. We have some comments comments. So we have some have some people would like to discuss um items multiple items. I would let you limit comments on each on each item subject matter there and then
089come back up um for the additional that way we can stay on track. That's all right. One, two. Yep, we've got Oh, let me move this one to 11 and 12. Would you mind? Thank you. I think that they're in there in there. They're just for public comment. So, non-aggenda non agenda is 10 10. Sorry, you guys are not going to be in the in the order that they were handed to me because we're scrambling up here. Okay. Okay. All righty. Um, would you guys like to hear public comment before we have comments? Great. Got another chance. Another chance. They want to talk about Okay. All right. Well, you're up at the top of the list. So, I'm going to go ahead and give you guys the first three three so you just know that
090you're on deck. We're going to start with Morgan Dickerson. Um, and is there also a a public comment and a comment on title N or or it's just the just just public comment and agenda item or not on this item? Okay. Okay. Go ahead and keep that one just for public comment. All right. All right. So, we're gonna start with Emily Mitchum. Um, on on deck we will have uh Mela Sweeney Michaela. And then we we have Mark, right? Emily, Kayla, and then Mark and then we and then we will go from there. Comments. Okay. Okay. Perfect. All right. Hi, thank you. Uh, hi, my name is Emily Mitchum. Um, I teach theater, stage tech, and business at KFX High School school. Uh I'm also parent of a trans child using title 9 which was
091written written to protect sex and gender based discrimination to just to justify discriminating against folks is unconscionable and students are among the most vulnerable of our of our population and our goal should be inclusion not illusion. Let's make one thing clear thing clear not competing against females against females. Trans men and trans women are women. your argument is fairness then the the students students who are biologically better at their sports be able to compete because that is not fair. Um by that logic Michael Phelps shouldn't be able to because his body is is basically designed. Some pe some people are just morally um adaptable to certain sports. Um that would be saying that tall students shouldn't play b basketball. Um it doesn't make make any s any sense. Uh and um I don't don't believe
092that uh it is a issue issue. Uh it is essentially a non issue statistically. Um there aren't there aren't very many uh trans students who compete at those levels. um um at high uh I know at the college level there's fewer than a dozen um and the numbers are really hard to find for the high school level um just because of uh students not wanting to report um school um schools not want for obvious reasons um um but I think at the end of the day our goal should always be include be inclusive um uh we should not exclude trans students from competing competing in the sport um that corresponds to the gender they gender they identify. Thank you. All right, Michaela Kayla Mara Mark and then Good evening. Good evening. Uh uh thank you
093for giving me the opportunity to speak. Uh my name is Michaela Sweeny Swainy and and I am here uh for preserving fairness and in women's sports by supporting resolution 1824 and 25 the legal impacts of this issue under title 9 of the education amendments act of 1972 institutions receiving federal funds cannot deny women equal opportunities uh participate in sports sports federal courtsized ignoring ing fundamental biological truths between the two sexes two sexes drives women's and of meaningful access to educ educational facilities. Therefore, if schools do not amend its current amends current polic that allow partition based on gender identity rather than bi biological sex school will lose federal education funation funding and current policies undermine that safety, privacy and fairness of fairness of ethics for women and girls regard regardless stance on transgender rights. It's
094essential to address to address the luquences and recognize the potential loss of federal funding when schools need it the most. Also, fairness in women's sports is crucial for protecting athletes futures and opportunities to excel including including professional careers. Current laws and policies are altering are altering the landfills growing up and aspiring to compete professionally. Whatever your views are matter, I urge you to consider the legal legal ramifications as they're vital to the future of plaster county high county high schools and to athletic program programs time and consideration today. Thank you Mark Alicia and then Carrie Can you hear me? There you go. Okay. Well, thank you guys for um taking this issue up as a hard issue issue. I know everyone motions on this on both sid sides. It comes down not so much an
095emotional issue but a a fairness issue because even Newsome re it's unfair as we told Charlie Kirk in an interview. It's not fair to have males and female sports and that is the biggest issue biggest issue when we have the women who are injured in sports because the male is so much stronger when he spikes and spikes a ball and causes brain damage to a girl to a girl was that to a girl now she can't do anything the rest of her life she is stuck stuck in in a life being by somebody else you don't see that's don't see that's fair poll um in April 30th said 75% of the people agree with males and women's sports. So that is a poll across the country as by NBC. It's not a it's not a
096right-wing poll. It's a leftwing poll and there's a poll and there's still 75%. This is an issue that we know know and also that men are generally better in sports because you look at Serena Williams, she lost to a player that that was 209th ranked male um player two after he drank all night and had a hangover hangover. Houston, Serena Williams beat Serena Williams time was the best um tennis player in the world. So you can't tell me that there's not there's not a difference. Then also um the the US so um um our lean for the US the US Olympics Olympics under 15 um soccer team when they did a scrimmage to get ready to get ready for a um game in Russia. They went and they went and played a U fifth um
097male I mean boy I mean boys and that's our Olympics women's team. You can't tell me there's not a difference. That's the kind of things we got to look at when we're doing this. So it is not fair to have women I mean in men in women's sports. It's fair and it's unsafe. That's another thing too. These women shouldn't be put up with this and and that's why we need to we need to fight fight for this for this and we need that we keep it safe because otherwise why would we have more than just women's sport sports or fe or male sports once put them all in one big pool let them be cool let them go for it we know women would not get anywhere where and talk about it doesn't happen very
098often we well haven't four women who did their scholarships because they were the third on the podium they they got lost to to a um a male take first place and everyone got pushed got pushed And this week when they had a track down here in um I think it was G. They were talking they were talking about they actually gave awards to the transgender lender last and female athletes separately because there was women who weren't going to make it get their scholarships college because they weren't going to get they weren't going to place and they're still going to lose their spot. So they got the ones that got third now made it. So that's what I want you to do. So I want you to do so it's about this. Thank you. Thank you
099very much, Alicia. Hi, board. Okay, so um years ago, Lee Thomas tried for fifth place with Riley Gaines and the 200yard freestyle at the NCAA championship in 20 in 2022. Gaines never got over it and turned her her resentment in a lucrative career targeting transgender athletes, especially children. Last weekend, Rose tied for fifth place in the high jump at the state championships in Eugene in Oregon. The girls who placed third and fourth pro protest their backs to the podium. Leah Thomas and Leah Rose are among the small number of transgender female athletes facing increasing discrimination and harassment simply because they want to play sports. And these attacks are coming from people who want to make sure that female sports are kept fair. Except sports have never been fair and they never will be. Sports are
100a competition. They will always be someone faster, stronger, more agile or with better stamina. When I played volleyball, I had a teammate who was sign significantly taller and stronger than anyone anyone else girls team. Fair to other teams that our team had some someone with advantage? Probably not. Would it have been fair to to exclate because she had a natural advantage? Definitely not. Sports are fair. Michael felt many physical advantical advantages were needed, including doublejinted elbows and knees. Should he have been excluded from competition to keep things? Yet women with disorders of sex development DSD are discriminated against due to high levels of testosterone. But the same people who want who want to pro women sports conveniently only allow these biological females toed from competition. There is there is no that transgender and a athletes
101put over risks to their cis to their cis teammates. Then said cis athletes already face while while playing competitive sports and female athletes are not only allowed to compete in cis male sporting sporting events are allowed to medal. Maddie Ripley of Maine has Maine has high school boys division wrestling championship two years years in a row. Audrey Jimenez of Arizona Arizona last year's division one title against male high schoolers and losers in that championship. Michaela Hutchinson Decker Heaven Fitch Juliana Ok. The list of cis females dominating cis male wrestling grows every year. And this this isn't the only sport that that sis girls in. Yet the people whining about protecting title n want us to believe sis girls are too weak slow to compete against trans trans. Please stop pushing discrimination and exclusion just because
102the draconian bigot bigots in the house hate queer people. Thank you. [Applause] Carrie. Carrie. Oh, she's coming. All right. Hello. My name is Carrie Fanam. I live in Lumis. Uh, thanks for giving us the opportunity to speak. Um, I'm a parent of students who have already graduated, but but this is still a big issue even though it doesn't affect them right now all of our kids. So, I'm here to my concerns um about the school board enacting this unnecessary. At the April school board meeting, one of our student representatives asked Tom Duncan how many trans students are involved in sports in our district. He he didn't answer. Instead, he went on a tangent and one of Williams sisters thought of it. They're tennis players, not geneticists, not social workers, not not petition. Didn't matter what
103they think of think about it, but did not answer our student representative. I would like to answer her that there are no transgender children in our high schools in this district playing sports. What matters is our students emotional, physical, and academic health which will be ne negatively impacted if you enact resolution. The reason since there are concerns about this is because because of disinformation and inflammatory statement. This this is about protecting girls. This is about exclusion. This boarding to enact this resolution does not make it law. You still have to follow the law that California sets. The only thing this will do is is f further marginalize transgender kids kids. And again and it it will hurt emotionally, mentally and academically is a waste of time, waste of money, a waste of energy and and
104just plain old cruel thing to do. Available evidence indicate trans women who have undergone testosterone suppression have no clear biological advantage over cis women in elite sports. According to the study Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in 2023, only 3.3% of high school students identify any any gender are elite athletes. To quote to quote Kell O'Hare and rights advocate that rhetoric that these just boys and men trying to get into women's spaces is not accurate and so harmful. Transgender students who do play sports are most assuredly looking for teamwork and social connections rather than seeking competitive advantage. When we are talking about Title 9 issues, we should be talking about unequal funding, unequal resources for girls teams, not trying to marginalize transgender girls. As we we all know, this is a very complex issue. There
105needs to be more research before you before you end anyone or or enact new rules or bylaws. These meetings are impacting trans kids mental and emotional health so negatively just up until we know more. I I will quote with with a quote from quiz board. Transgender kids, kids deserve the chance from all that that sport have to offer in an environment that that both and validates their gender identity. Very sorry, but your time is up. Thank you. All righty. All righty. All right. board. One more. One more. Oh, come on down that back. Just so you know, you don't don't have to have to have a to make a public comment to the mic. Thank you, Justin. Thank you so much for that presentation. I appreciate it. Um, I just wanted to clear a few
106things here. Uh, first of all, I am so so kind of announced to you guys. I am perspective student board member. So, uh, while Tom was allegedly not answering that student board member, I want to let you know that you know that, uh, Tom seeks feed feedback for Deloro community. So, uh, um, I it's your time. Thank you. I appreciate you, President Spade. Um, but what they don't say is that Tom did say that we need to care for these students. And that, and that's how I feel like you're saying that this is non-discrimination or you're saying that this is discrimination. I think this is non-discrimination. The the resolution is for fairness. Uh you can look at Riley Gain. You could look at all these willing look at whoever. And even that student board member
107Ruby Muscle who is awesome awesome. I'm in with her. She's great. Um she even said that uh she needs to step up her game. She's playing against a male it's a male athlete. And uh I I view as American society that that that men are protectors. We need to protect those and I feel like that this is doing we as men and I believe Mark stated that as well. We're protecting those who need that protection protection and said um just so you guys know I'm not against like transgender LGBT whatever. Uh I'm not against any of any of that. But as Tom Thompson said, those are the things that we need to care for even more. And that's and you know, they I think that this this is helping for fairness. I think this is
108how they don't get discriminated against on their their team cuz I'm a high schooler. Let me tell you, it's a rough world out there. You you know, like they're going to be the kids that are going to be like that. The outlier are not not included. Cause division on the teams where some girls who don't want to share a locker room are going to change in the bathroom or in their cars before this. And I guess this is a little bit more personal, but I have a I have a sister. She just promoted today. I was away here. I had to had to dash with him. Um but uh she's super involved in her involved in that. And I just know I would hate and I know Tom's daughter too Sue Scarlet was sitting right
109right here. Saw a picture of her playing basketball. I like that Instagram story. And uh I if like Scarlet Scarlet or if my Julia were to get these scholarships taken away from her due due to someone that's face it um um just has a natural advantage and to the point of is an advantage or something like that is an advantage that's something that you can't control control. I feel like that that's kind of the differences here and I really hope that that I'm trying to be as respectful as possible as possible and I'm not upsetting anyone but I do urge the board to pass this resolution because I think I think our district Thank you. Yeah, please come forward. Hi. Hi. My name is Shali Veren. I am a parent of graduates from from Kovix
110High School former employee employee. I'd like answer to that question. How many gender athletes do we have in this district? And then I But what's the answer? I still haven't haven't heard it. This is your comment. Period. Period. Go ahead and share share. Okay. I find it astonishing there isn't a clear answer being sh if we already have one one person saying here and she was at the meeting and this is really seems to me a disproportionate amount of time on this issue and we have so have some more pressing issues. So I'm curious. I'd like to like to know at some point you were spending so much so much time focused on this. Thank you. Thank you. All right. All righty. Peace. Welcome. Thank you. Lills Garrett Garrett. I want to share um I
111was recently at a dance [Music] um a chaperon for the boys dressing room. Um, born in the 70s, early uh I found myself in a room with black, white, Asian, Asian, Polynesian, Polynesian, gay, cisgender, gender, trans, autistic, neuro norm. And one of the things that I noticed throughout this entire this entire was I was by far the most uncomfortable person in the room. The kids the kids loved each other. The kids support each other. Every every child rested in that room with the trans child there. And I was the most uncomfortable personable person in the room. Kids moved forward with the dance. The dance was phenomenal. Every child, every child regard race, color, gender, neural sense, were supporting each supporting each other. Frankly was most uncomfortable with with the neurody child who ran who ran
112an angle consistently consistently all day thinking. He's going to want to hit one of those. We need to stop this kid from running from running back running across the room. And the kids all were just like that's him. That's what he that's what he does. We as he is. And it was the exact same trans person. So So to the last speaker, I reiterate what she said. Why spending so much time on this? The very kids that you think you think you're protecting for the most, you're not focusing on what's truly important to them. your education. Thank you. All right, last call. Anybody else? All right, board. You'd like um you share your thoughts and feedback? I definitely have have some some feedback as well. Let me pull up my notes here. Here. Yeah, I'll
113say something. Sure. Absolutely. Since I um recommend um I think I think I did answer it. Um um even if it's one girl, one biological girl um that is u by playing sports against a biolog biological boy. It's one too many. Um, Ash Reese Hogan who who finished second place logical male Avery Hernandez. She disappointed that she lost to a biological male is Stephanie Turner who knelt in protest a logical male opponent at a competition in Maryland. Was she wrong? Wrong. compete against another biological girl being forced to b to compete against compete against a bale. Absolutely not. I I am these girls are brave for standing standing up. The girls in in in um this last weekend who decided to step off stage in protest are brave. Clint. Um, I was I was at
114a basketball year watch my daughter scar play. Um, and I sat next to gentleman who who went to high school in the 70s and found in fact went to went to high school. His senior year was the was the year that that title N plays. and he was at awe at how how talented the girls girls playing JV basketball. He said he never would have guessed in a million years that this would be the product that he he saw in girls playing in sport sports. It's beautiful for someone who never went to to as as a high schooler to a girls basketball game and he played he played basketball never went never went and did a girls flag game and now those opportunities are here are here for girls and it's had I 9's had
115a huge impact huge impact on women's sports um there's several reports out there that just talk about about whether it's deote or whether it's EY ey so many reports out there that talk about who play youth sport youth sport are going to be more successful in general career in leadership as as mothers there's so many things to learn in in sports president of Lady Eagles basketball pro program. The biggest concern is which is sorry for it which is a feeder program in the in the Delaware High School. Biggest concern is making sure the confidence of girls stay up and that some of I give them the belief to play freshman basketball, right? Not because not because they think that the team going up against against a girl. I don't want them I don't want them
116to ever thought that they're not going to make the team because they're going to have to go up against a biological boy. That's not fair. And in the same token, we need need to love I said in the last last meeting or whenever we need to love love everybody. This isn't about singling anybody out because because those right now that that are biolog girls going up against biological boys, they're not placing they're comfortable in a locker room. They're being being singled out and it's not fair to them about this. I I have three girls, three boys. I have a wonderful view in my in my home of the differences between male males and females. There's eight of us. Eight of us. Used to be nine. Now there's eight. I think I I think I can
117see that living that life. All right. And so look, it's been I'm going to go back and say physical disadvantage, right? There's there's safety concerns. Um, strength, speed, speed, phys physical size, injuries, and unfair competition. I I get it. People have situations here in this room and I understand and it's but we cannot deny deny that these true when biological boys play girls playing field the psychological impact. want to talk about studies we don't know has on on some of the some of these girls are not losing confidence we see the news all the news all the time this is happening more and more so statistically speaking again if it's if it's one girl who who does not have fair an equal playing field another biological because of biological boy boy that's one many Um
118and again I'll finish with finish with I feel that that this is is this is helping to stop the stop the whether it's confusion on on gender whether it's mental illness whatever is happening whatever it is it is whatever it is order in here thank what I what's most I'm so sorry trusty mostant I'm so Sorry. Um, thank you guys for being here tonight. But if you you disrupt or the board's comments, I'm we're going to ask you to leave. This is going to be my warning. If I have to warn again again, I ask you guys to leave the room the room. Thank you. Yeah. Go ahead. What's most important is that we love everybody and we and we figure out what to help everyone. Whatever their situation is, whatever the situation is is
119needs to be loved. That's why we have counselors. That's why I have people that can help. And so that's the case is we can't we can't sing single and we're not going to single out biological women with biological from playing from playing biological boys but but we have to love everyone and that includes includes these kids. I I agree I want them to play sports but they sports but they need against the against their biological they they were born biological born biological they are. And so it's super super important to know this about loving everybody. Everybody. That's all. Thank you. Thank you, Trusty Dun Duncan. Do we have any other comments from board members? Trusty Trusty Underwood. Yeah, you know, it it bothers me that we're spending so so much time on this issue with
120transgender athletes. I don't don't see uh an issue in our district at all that relates to this. Um, I I believe in equity. I believe that everybody needs to have the opportunity to be to be who they are and to be able to have have the most comprehensive education possible in every way. Uh, I see in my life life and in my experience uh is critical that that we to accept every and give everybody an equal chance. Uh I cannot support this support this resol. Thank you. Trusty Underw. I'd like to make a comment. I'd like to make a comment though. Um f first off, I want to say I agree with um trusty Duncan and what trust and what trust their their sentiments uh regarding this resol resolution and I do support the resolution.
121But before I expl why I support the resolution, I I want to share story might um surprise a lot of people in this except maybe my wife that's sitting over there. Um so we have two two two children children, a 12 and a soon to be 16-year-old. Eight years ago, um um my daughter came to me and came out as trans. Um she wants to go by Lucas. So she's been going by Lucas for the last eight years. cut his hair, did the surgery, um taking medication. So, I totally totally understand the LGBT community. I love my son more than anything in the world. Um and I want my son to be my son to be who he is. Um, at the same time, I have a I have a daughter that's 16 that's an
122aspiring a athlete and I would I would not want to having to compete compete against logical males who absolutely 100% have a logical advantage over there is no doubt in that in that in that if you have in your mind about whether there's an whether there's an advant ask in in professional athletic Olympic drug testing for test testosterone. If there's no advantage to it, then they wouldn't be doing that during that drug testing thing. Like common sense. So, so, you know, I agree. We agree. We have to love um love the LGBT community and I 100% do. Um as I as I same thing, I see this as a fair not only as a fair as a fairness issue issue, but also as a um I think the federal government has been very been very
123clear here. Um and we need to need to to listen to what those warnings are as they're coming down. That's all I have to say. All I have to say, thank you. Trusty Jeffy Jeff Trusty Lake. I was very surprised to see this on this on the agenda uh because I didn't quite understand the timing or uh the reasoning it and I I I simp I I sympathize that I do feel like feel like we should be focused on primarily education, you know, as a as a school as a school board. And I think we do. Um but we do do see a lot of uh we get a lot of not we get a lot of notice. We get a lot of um information and we have to be aware of of um what's
124going on outside of our district. I 100% this is not a big issue in our our district. Answer your questions on how many how many? Probably zero. Probably zero zero. It's not the point point of bring bringing this resol uh as I sit here and listen to to the to the speakers. The the point is not you know is there a trans athlete athlete in our district. The point is the principle and as out of three daughters would I would I mind if my eighth grade daughter had to play basketball against the biological male? [Music] Um, you know, you know, I think think that there's a compelling reason this issue has has a 70% agreement that hey, this is it's just not not fair. Even Governor Nuome Newsome agreed just not fair. So, Gree, I
125do not want to spend time want to spend time on you. Uh I I would like to to move on and focus on uh rating policy and all these other things things but um I'm on the side of 80% of that feel like it's not fair. It's not fair and uh and so so you know for that reason I reason I really want to emphasize this point point there are some very tender feelings out there out there the with students who are going through transitions and um and I understand that it is a uh it's a touchy subject. It's uncomfortable. It's not like it's not really where we spending our time and energy energy and and it is uh well I'll just say that uh I sympathize with those who uh have feelings about the
126subject but but uh but as far as my position I I'm in favor of uh of females males competing with females. Um, and that's that's that's Rosel. I just want to thank the board for for the thoughtful uh discussion. Um, um, I think we could hear a pin drop in here. I I don't think that that there's any um animosity or or anger or or that this is being done. I I received an email an email over the weekend and and some someone um um accused you know trying to vilify a trans kid and I I think I think anybody who's listening or anyone who's here can see that um that we do care we um this is and I so before I make any I I just I just want to say Jeff you're
127a good dad um um you know I I have a ton of empathy for for any anyone on the plan on the planet strug struggling but who who do feel marginalized or historically historically have been and I think it's I think it's incredibly important that anytime we we touch a subject where it is sensitive and this is sensitive sensitive and we we know that um that it's it's approached with with compassion and and andilities that we're dealing with um in this community. you know, we don't we don't put ourselves up here. We we're placed in this placed in this position from and our community does ask us to come forward. Um, and it may not, you know, be some of you who of you who who against us tonight. You live in our community, you
128you might not be in the majority of community, but we have a we have a responsibility for our constituents to listen and to advocate. Um, we we ab had people approach us to put this on the agenda to have this conversation. So while I understand and I empathize with both Trust Underwood and Lake that nobody want nobody wants to quote waste time talking about an is an issue that that may not a problem in our area. The truth and the the fact remains that um leaders need to lead and and sometimes you know we have to step up step up and have hard conversations and with compassion um and we have to speak the truth. we can have love and comp compassion uh toward toward any group but any group of Pacific in this case
129with our transgender um students and community um um and and also have for our girls and we have to advocate for both for both advocating for the is not vilifying the other the other even though feel that way that's really not what it's about it's about advocating for all and in this case case um there are that um are at a disadvantage based on um bi biological and reality. CIFF this past week piloted a program for anyone who's paying attention to CIF um um they just before the state track and field and field final that permitted biological feological female how they put it displaced by a trans transgender athlete to still compete CIF championships. Um, furthermore, a trans transgender athlete transgender athlete meddled this the CIF would award medal to the highest ranking biological females
130who would have otherwise not place placed. So essentially that wouldn't have qualified for state because they didn't win their section if a transgender athlete athlete bumped them biological females to go. um claim if if they were not awarded a medal all of us they would be awarded a medal medal and we saw that this as um the podium was shared a number of times with the transgender athlete unprecedented move by the the Californiaic federation and it created a scenario where more were more medals to girls uh the girls division than the boys effectively rewriting competition competition rule rules and uh in an effort to just justify by the of a biological maleical male. Right. So I think that through this adif implicitly implicitly acknowledged the inherent unfairness that that our governor has times um that
131there there is an unfaired and so and so when male-bodied athletes compete against females um yet instead of address instead of addressing do they attempted to compensate after the fact the fact with award awarding addition and additional girls to compete Pete instead of to be um um address dressed another right now. I'm not saying I I believe every everyone should play sports. I'm athlete. I support all people to to uh be athletic athletic. Um you compete in your your natal sex or there's another open division division. No, that's not my place as a board member. Our place is to to advocate and to represent our constituents and our students and and issue to say it. That's what leaders do. Um so you know this was an attempt to compensate for that. Um and this is
132equality. Um this was a poly a policy driven inequity dressed dressed um inclusion and I I I believe as as a mother of boys um and I was and I was a sister to all brothers. I have six brothers and I could I told I told I said earlier that I could all my all my brothers in everything except for my twin twins on occasion and testosterone hit and then he got me and then he got me. I was athletic and uh I don't I don't want to have to compete again and I realized that we that we we need to you know you know that the equal treat law and athletics mean preserving competitive integrity safe safety and opportunity bottom line with mine um um you know other trustees shared example shared a story
133you know I do think that safe safety plays a role here u payton McNab a volleyball injury uh that Mark had mentioned obviously an athlete that competed in CIF. Um there was a mass a Massachusetts basketball fitcher in in February of 244 that collegiate charter of a girls basketball team forfeited a game against Kip Academy after a player injured multiple multiple team members and sustained um a back injury during a ball um and a field hockey hockey in Massachusetts in 28 2018. field hockey player from um Wapole, I don't know if I'm pron pronouncing that correctly, high school high school suffered a struck by a shot from from a transgender gender athlete on a team. Uh the injury uh the injury caught miss the freshman uh hockey season season season UN report on metal displacement
134uh for October 24. There was a post post article noted that the United Nations found that female athletes athletes. This just this one get one gets me. They lost nearly 900 medal medals in 400 petitions across 29 to being outperformed by by transgender ident biologically male. The data is there. The is so clear. We have to be able to advocate for for both both people and be able to be able to have lo logical convers about it if we're going to move forward. I I don't I don't want any be alienated. But the truth is truth is the the proof is in the pudding. 900 medals is that fair for our girls? I don't I don't think anybody can fair and CIF admitted essentially that it was it wasn't fair. Changed the rules in the
13511th hour. Um, I just want to say to say in closing that this is not an attempt to vilify as I mentioned previously previously and and I I think that has a ton of compass compassion and love. I don't believe it's a waste believe it's a waste of convers and the community does care about it and as leaders in this community we need to stand up and support and protect our girls in our district like to call it that. um in our district because at some because at some point could be this I'm sure be uh litigated. That's why this resolution um um acknowledges and directs and counsel to investigate it further. Um based on the the letter from the US department uh uh excuse me me um um and they they certify that we
136are not going to follow that uh by bylaw by Friday. Um Tony Thurman, our superintendent often of publican uh emailed all the LEAs today and essentially stated that they stated that they will sponding for the entire California and and our response to that that the timing is is is very interesting that we have two two letters coming out and um on the docket for today today. Um but move forward that we will direct our staff staff to invest in investigate it in compliance uh with with the laws of this land. um not our constitution but also the also the original of title n and provide a report which we will we will share with all whether it's at a board meeting or board meeting or we put elsewhere um so with with that being said
137do I have a motion a motion motion to approve we have a motion by trusty Duncan I'll second we have by trusty any further questions or thank you for and kindness and compassion compassion during and for the community who showed up to who showed up to share I do care glad that you you were all here tonight all in favor oh actually it's it's it's a resolution it's a roll call vote it's a roll call vote roll call vote was trusty underwood no yes spade yes Jeff yes yes yes thank you very much motion passes 41. All right. Next up, and I think we think we have some minutes for um action item 11 as well as as we've funding a number of times this evening. Um um you know, all these things have uh
138there have been threats of losing of losing a full um compensation from our federal government. Um our district our district can afford to lose money from the federal government. Um and the community has also also interest in this policy. Uh we discussed just the orders uh previously and determined um through that that this um could potentially uh be in conflict. We believe that this this policy is in conflict. Go ahead and pull up my notes here. here. I actually, you know, I'll go ahead and go ahead and open it up. Uh based on uh review of this of this policy, I'd like to state one this policy commonly adopted across the state of state of California. Um I I don't have the number in front of in front of me, but many schools across the
139state of California have this policy. Um and it is not required to be in our in our board. It's my recommendation based on uh potential withholding of holding of federal dollars, we eliminate theate this policy. I'm going to open it up to conversation. I'll share I'll share my thoughts and then we if we have a motion and and yes, so let's do that. Thank you. Thank you. Got to keep track up here. All right. Right. Hopefully it's in the order. If I didn't keep you in the same order, my apologies. Uh, we'll start with Emily Mitchum Mitchum and then Michaela. Uh, I'm I'm Emily M. I teach at Kof High School. Uh, I just wanted to point out to point out that this meeting you all talked about how wonderful it was to see all
140our students graduate. Um, um, I was at high school graduation. Um um and it's all wonderful to see students um um it to be a high school um it's bittersweet cuz because kids leave um and your time with them is time with them is social and it helps you um value that time so so much more. Um I did want to point out though that all of those stories that you told of those inspire inspiring students overcame so much um all of those students benefit from diversity, equity, and inclusion. Um they just they just do like the programs that you were talk were talking about that you're so about um the um the Verarter Academy let students attend school school without actually to like be at be at school for whatever reason. Um that that
141is equitable. Um the adult school program is um is equable and inclusive. um all these programs that make our district so great so great um and help our students succeed are diversity diversity equity and inclusion um and somewhere along along the line words became bad words and I'm not entirely sure why um because because they're not we're just ensuring that all of our stu our students can succeed in what they want to succeed in and provide provide them the supports supports to that. I'm incredibly proud to work to work for this and provide students the students the support um to to cross that line, right? To shake your hands. Um I'm incredibly proud to be be a part a part of that. uh and I think think by doing away with these measures um preemptively
142before we ask to uh that that we will be doing a huge disservice uh to both to both uh and our staff and and especially our students. Thanks. Thank you. Thank you very much. We appreciate you serving our schools. Followed by Michaela back again. Okay. Uh affluent straight white cisgender male that was the population was seen as fully human and deserving of rights in this country for generations. People died for the basic human and decency of recognized as human beings deserving rights. And to this day, they still fight and they and they still Now, I want every everyone to observe this board. Make note of make note of how diversity is here. I have to say I have to say I find incredibly ironic that this assault on decency has been brought forward with the
143help of a woman since women are one of the biggest populations that are that are help DEI polic throughout history. But but moving on, where is the other diversity here? Maybe one of you is queer. Maybe one of you is dis is disabled. Maybe one of you is mixed race race. How are our students supposed to know? How are our how are our students look at what appears to be an all cisgender white school board that is discussing the discussing the rim of deis and feel anything but exclude if they don't look like what you you look like merit that is the dog is the dog survive this attack against decence decency that diversity equity and inclusion is is discriminates those with merit because apparently autistic people of color are not are not as neurotypical
144white people. Queer people are not as capable as straight sis pe sis people. Women are in to men. Yeah. Yes. Let's talk about merit here on this school board. School board. One of the new trustees didn't win his seat seat here because of he won his seat through deception deception. A straight white cisgender male who isn't even legally allowed allowed to teach her because of his inappropriate behavior in the classroom took that seat from anat from an experienced capable who ran her campaign solely based merit. Yet the same people who wish people who wish to uh DEI policies welcome this with open arms. The reason DE DEI exists is because USA is still ruled in large large part by affluent cisgender males and anyone doesn't exist in that population to fight to fight to achieve
145in schools, jobs, even politics, biases and bigotry play a huge role in the in the barrier space and its diversity, equity and inclusion that open up a seat at that table that table. Even if these are removed by this board board, they will eventually reinstated but the students and staff and will always remember those who pushed exclusion under the guise of merit. Thank you. Thank you. [Applause] You and this I'd like to comment comment on that. Good evening again. Um, my name is Michaela Sweeney and tonight to support the resolution to remove board policy 0415 and 0 and 045E, the district's equity policy. Uh, this policy does in fact uh conflict with federal executive order 1413, which restores a merit-based standard and bans preferences often disguised as schools. Schools that fail to with this order
146will lose federal funding. federal funding and over the past eight years I've worked closely with equity equity based programs and policies I actually personally de developed equities that were implemented across the across the nation um despite these good intentions I fail uh these these initiatives often cause more harm than good they shifted shifted focus from shared goals personal accountability and individual achievement achievement this resol isn't about denying support support to student help. It's about ending policy policy. Prioritize anything other than individuality effort and fairness. Equity programs often reinforce this very inequal inequality to solve. The district return to a model that honors merit, fairness, and equalities for all students judged by their performance and dedication. Please, please vote yes resolution tonight and I appreciate your time and consideration. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Come
147on down. Come on down. Sure. Come on down. Um, I was not planning on speaking tonight, but it looks like you guys just can't get enough of me. I'm so sorry. Um, I wanted to say equity is is probably great in some things. I just automatically like our culture right now. I'm thinking like gradings and equity equity equitable grading system. I don't know if you have followed San Francisco at all. Uh they implemented an equity based system and partisan received negative. It is no longer being used. I think it lasted 28 hours or something like that. Um so I in my opinion I don't know about I haven't haven't specifically looked at these but uh in my opinion merit is always good. It's the American dream. American dream. And that's we're all here for. That's
148what our anc our ancestors fought. That's what we're here to put in the work and you know hopefully get something out of it. It just is something that totally I think is amplified by one of our board members Trusty Jeff. I think put in the work. He campaigned and not only that but also in the face of critic criticism he is here again he is here and I am so grateful grateful for that. Um I I was talking to talking to someone like oh trusty Jeffy Jeff is like all friends like he's at Deloro in the govern class. We're glad we're glad you're here. Please don't ever think otherwise and and you are not equity. You are here because you fought for that and we are forever grateful for you to be here to be
149here. Welcome. Hi. Um, I was just I was I didn't fill out a blue thing blue thing. Um, I was hoping Okay. Yeah, it's news news to me. I was hoping when it's time it's time for you guys to um chat after this after this um that you have some of the data. Trusty Spade, I you mentioned um losing that that our district can't afford to lose the funding which I don't question at all. Um, I was wondering about what that funding looks like looks like. I mean, I'm teach classes about how to have 40 40 kids in them. Um, in a in a school that have a working PA and desks that are falling that are falling apart. Peter E, he's working on it. Um, roughly roughly 14 IEPs, 504s, and one gened class.
150Six to seven to seven repeats because there's not enough sections. Mhm. When you say things we can't afford the funding, I believe believe you. I just would like to know what know what that looked like because it's already pretty bad. So, so if you get us data on that, that would be really really appreciated. Thanks. Actually, actually you Peter, I mean I I could give you of a rough percentage. Um but title but title one then comes from um which is our our struggling struggling student groups. Um but I think it's only only roughly roughly when I say I believe it's about two 2% of the Peter could you a little more than that. Just kidding. I take it back. It's more than that. The federal money is but I'm looking up right now. While
151you're looking it up looking it up go ahead and have some conversation around this policy. Oh, would you like to come up? Sure. Come on down. Welcome back. I just want to say that uh I don't know how and when DEI became became bad words or bad letters um there's not there's nothing wrong equity inclusion illusion diversity that's what the whole country is all about and we should people and and um equitably it just doesn't make sense make sense to not you don't treat the autistic child the same the same as you would the high ranking 4.7 kid. There's there's differences, but they need equitable equitable outcomes. And so, and so it's it's frustrating to see this being addressed now when it's when it's not executive order isn't going to be happening. It's it's maybe
152if it is, but it's but it's not happen. We're not forced to do anything now now. And just so disheartening to have a board to have a board throw unnecessarily. So, I hope so. I hope that you're maybe waiting on a decision decision like this. Thank you. Thank you very much, Mark. Mark. I like to say one thing I'd like to say about D about DEI. The words are great. Left is great come up with words that sound really good. There's nothing wrong with any of those words. Those words, but what's wrong is that when you have people who do achieve and then people and then people literally say, did you really achieve what you achieve? You achieve because of your skin. That is the part that is the part that really for me. I
153mean, you have you have people a doctor who is is black and someone going to say to that doctor is black. He didn't didn't earn it. Earn it. He's there. We want the best best people in the best places doing the best work ever. Work. I don't care who they are or what sex they are or anything about them physically. I want the smartest, bravest, brightest there doing the work. Dr. um Carson, he's a great neuros great neurosurgeon. Top neurosurgeon. Do we want to start looking at him at him and say oh say oh because he's he maybe didn't achieve it no he no he achieved it he's there but we don't want to start that thing we don't want airline so this whole thing is going through going through the we're going to start
154having things that everything happens we start we start core anomosity between groups and you wouldn't have that wouldn't have that you know that everyone got merit you wouldn't have that issue have that issue issues by saying by merit going to go away from we're going to go based on someone's color their skin their sex or something else about them that doesn't doesn't have to do with the job that they're here to do. That's where DEI hurts the people who people who are on a disadvantage today actually hurts them more and more. Thank you. Quick question. Sure. Didn't fill out the blue thing saying thing didn't use all my time. Clarify one point. Am I allowed? Come on down. Sorry. Sorry. Now you're learning the rules. Um you're good. the the aside from wanting to know
155more of the data, I think that I was I want to clarify and make sure I specify is that um I don't know how long I know how long we this specific board policy and how long it's been been enacted and maybe you can add to that as well. Um, I think that given the present circumstances of of not of not just public education as a whole, but as as our as our district, some of the things that I just mention mentioned, these policies are the only ways that I'm I'm getting some of these kiddos the help that they need given the state that we're in right now. Now, and we can look at that on a national level. We look at that on a on a district district, but when I need kids in
156a class, when those kids struggle in the ways that we see that we see them struggle day, sometimes these policies are all that I have. So, I just wanted to clarify that. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you much. Come on down, please. Please. I urge you to work to work with community schools to clarify education on US history. I've heard I've heard so many here that are just completely irrelevant to the truth of US history. start with first one of the the and best equity program programs in these United States of America is so when the gentleman comes up up and speaks speaks about why have equity it doesn't matter it doesn't matter with all respect ma'am respect ma'am your own athletics which more than likely gave you a sense of confidence which more than
157likely paired you better in the business business world world which more dared you to speak to face to face to deal with the was give out of equity for those who've come up to speak regarding the downfalls of equity just to be clear the first and primary and primary believers of equities United States of America America were men who traveled from Europe from Europe whether it be they were given jobs so that they can they can have rights and opportunities that black blacks did didn't so that they could actually earn dollars so that they could earn the right to be what we call we call white because when they came here they were Italians they were Irish they they were German they were Dutch but they weren't granted the right to be white be white
158they earned that over over time that was the privilege of choice so there's such ignorance in this room right now about what what equity is and and who actually received generation after generation generation and what in terms of wealth and in terms of our education and so sir sir I know I have to address you I am that black man who came from a sing from a single mother underprivileged who worked his way up through university who failed and dropped out out and went United States er back into school outperfor performed years in an all-white environment, not because I was given something because of my work ethic and ethic and that and and so please teach your children in schools that be that because black person showed that because that one that woman showed it
159wasn't that they were given something that men weren't white people weren't you comes of what they deliver at that point in time you can determine whether it was good. But equity is raw sense is what has been given to all of you through generational opportunity. Thank you. Thank you very much. And thank you for your service to our country, our country. And I've appreciate this evening and I'm very very curious. What What do you do? What do you do? I've never seen here before. I advocate for community. Beautiful. I I appreciate that taking the time to advocate. It's good. All right. All right. Ahead and turn this over to the board to have some conversation about you'd like I could kickstart or you can share kind of your thoughts on where we're at. We're at
160I'm going to go ahead and you guys can uh share some additional thoughts. So, um, as I, uh, reviewed this policy, um, there are some things that stood out that stood out to me. Um, and depending on, uh, the will and where you're at. I do think that think that, um, there are some issues uh, potentially in this pol this policy. Um, but before I before before I fully I fully dive acknowledge um there's something I know I know I know that we're all kind of kind of pale up here. Like I get that. I I I totally get that. Um but and I I hate group I hate group anyone anything like it really really bothers me. Um or even even or even a comment about you know you know I was always put
161here here because I'm a woman or it was an equitable bold decision like that. We all have to fight for things in this life and and I don't want to be categorized as a woman woman or as white, you know, or anything that anybody just sees in me in me. I want I want to be judged for who I am beyond the things that you can see can see, right? I think we all want that. Um um pledge of allegiance and we do it every time we're here. We there's a line at the end that talks about talks about indiv and every time we divide each other each other by things that we none of control it drives me crazy crazy. we share is based on all kinds of things. And I I just want
162to want to I would rather on the things that we have in common and common and c differences than be judging one another one another based on things that none control over. And I honor and respect all those. And I and I want to make want to make sure that we're not people differently based on on the color of our color of our skin. You know, we should we shouldn't be doing that. We should not be doing that or or for a disability disability or a reason. Um, you know, we talked about the US Constitution equal protection clause clause earlier. Um, and that we're supposed to treat all individuals individuals equally under equally under the law. This has some is problematic. Prioritizing resources allocation or make staffing decisions based on race, gender or or linguistic
163linguistic diver rather than merit as our friend pointed out can constitute uncon constitutional discrim right and there's there's there's plenty of Supreme Court precedent involved in that racial racial or just hiring or staffing goals um with those intentions which is mentioned in this mentioned in this polic can also v civil rights laws particularly of the civil rights act or any kind of categorical treatment based identity characteristics. There's language language in here that says regard regardless of race, class or personal character characteristics or expression or identity or culturally affirming or racially conscious educator educators, you know, review I just believe, you know, I think that this policy policy aims at inclusivity and I agree that all the words um separately think that the package together has has made it a little bit confusing and I think
164it's that there's a lot a lot of ambiguity and and a lot of people define it a lot of different ways. Any student or staff differently based on their race, gender identity or cultural identity or special treatment or resources or consideration. I do, you know, I'm not a lawyer. I'm not a lawyer. So, I'm not going to all the things. I'm not making a legal decision, but I do believe that it viates the principle individual equality and fairness, racial conscious or cult or culturally. I that anyone can really define these things things or hiring a teacher teacher um on those mandates may pressure um you know students to conform their ideological views and I really want our our space space to be open to different thoughts. There's a lot of different thoughts in this room
165tonight and I welcome that and and I think that and I think that um you know some of these things like racially conscious conscious or culture affirming you know that could potentially raise first amendment um uh concerns as well that you know our students staff may not be feel com feel comfortable to share points based on this board policy. Um you know it al you know also talked there's language in there that uh mentions professional development to strengthen employees knowledge and skills skills for eliminating racial and opportunity gaps supporting supporting knowledge of national global narratives in strategies will be culturally responsive. I'm not I'm not sure what's and I and I would I would argue that most of this community doesn't understand what that means. Um believe our our staff is referring to this as
166they approach all of these situations on on that to ask Dr. Cmini we conversation earlier today you know you know there's a lot of policies or by we we frequent because we're with issues but I asked um Dr. Chemmini question of you know how often he's reference referenced this Paul making decisions because because and I'll let him answer for himself but I I would arg I would argue amazing teachers and amazing kids and I think you're going to teach no matter if this policy exists or exists or not doing incredible things without this policy. It's about being great educators, educators and deeply and know subject matter and being experts experts in your field your field and and I don't think that removing changes of that but it could could potentially losing federal funding funding and
167be responsive to our community. Dr. Cam Aetti. Sure. There was a a question about when was adopted. I think we have some conflict conflicting times. So I uh adopted I believe I believe policy 04 when5 was five was 2018 uh and then the the exhibit exhibit was 21. So, so a you know you know after looking after looking though the policy is is um optional and so when we say optional optional just the public knows as we um receive guidance receive guidance from SBA and policies re recommend it's required not required not required or optional though optional policy what my my you know you know recommendation would just make sure that our other polic policies are in are in compliance ed code 2011 ed code 50 um 07 which kind of talk about some of
168the ed codes that are wrapped up in this and so I'm I'm assuming assuming because it's an optional policy we have other policies in place that are supporting supporting um affirmative obligation to come to combat race sexes and other forms of bias and have respon responsible equal educational opportunities for all students that's edit code 2011 so I'm assuming because CS said it is an optional policy. I'm assuming we have have other policies policies in play. Question about referring to it. It's bates prior to me when it came in came in as acting soup. I have not under this this policy, but um I know that we are consciously making decisions to make sure we're meeting we're meeting title um um policies following fours and IPs and all of those those things in there but in
169there but in terms of the policy it is optional um but I say that making sure that we have that we have all in place to make sure we're meeting the ED code requirements that are required of us part of us very much. So I I will with this I think that uh uh the reason we act um obviously we talked about finances but I als but I also think um legal compliance issues here um I feel like this this policy um you know we have exposure to constitutional challenges um potential lawsuits under title six for for race or title sex or title seven for title seven for inent even potential parental rights rights litigation. I believe that this the remove this would also with district policy for the DOJ guidance guidance that uh yesterday
170from assistant attorney general Har Dylan uh and I and I also believe that this would would uprove fairness um by eliminating you know identity identity bases um protects every student's right to an education free from discrimination and I believe that believe that also includes our staff um and it and it affirm affirms merit-based practices and hiring teaching an academic opportunity. And I also believe so believe um moving with this would incre increase trust and neutrality because our schools have to be a viewpoint point neutral uh neutral neutral institute focused on academic excellence and I and I feel like there the trend in our country and potentially the world really the world but for our country um department of educ there's there's a focus on on all the on all the difference and uh uh we
171need to make it neutral and we you know and we and we we focus on on moving forward um academically um this is not about not about politics this is about um we believe that this policy this policy was enacted or I believe it did based on ideological logical activism there's no here so that being said any board members uh would like to share thoughts and then we have a motion Do I have a motion? Have a motion. What is the uh sense of timeline for this proposal? just to eliminate it because it is not a not a required policy and we would be um potentially out of harm's way from losing federal funding at least on this this why was this this was enacted in 2021 21 updated in 21 and and updated in
17221 and the the exhibit 21 the existing lang language is is from 20 Any further comments or do we have a motion? Read the motion you're you're talking about clearly. Yep. The Yep. The moon would be to move uh board policy and the exhibit uh attached exhibit witty. I move approval of item 11 excuse 10 11 BP and E0415 equity. The second we have a first and a second. First by first by motion by trusty fade second by trusty Duncan Duncan. Any further comments or questions or questions on 0415? No I don't remember. Thank you comments or questions on this one. We are going to go ahead and move to or start our vote. All in favor say I. I I oppose hearing one the motion 41 item uh.12 board policy 121 evaluation of student
173achievement update it is 807 would the would the board like a short recess before we dive into this one to use the use the restroom and come back this one could take a minute be great okay we're going to take a quick recess we'll be right back we'll be right Thank you guys for being here. Thanks for hanging out and sharing your thoughts. Sharing your thoughts tonight. Gear. Um, we're going to go ahead and move to item 10.1.12, board policy 121, grades evalu uh grades evaluation of student achievement update update. And I'm going to turn this over to trustees Jeffrey and Drey and Duncan worked tirelessly to gather information to share with the board tonight. Thank you, President Spade. Uh we can uh uh move the slide. Um I I will say just to kick
174things off, this has been um a wonderful uh getting so many people in the community uh uh and hear thoughts on uh on grading and attention um what that means to each of them individually. Uh so it's been I've learned a ton uh during this and I I appreciate everyone appreciate everyone spoke up and provided um their thoughts on uh on educa on education in this this district. Um the the goal here tonight tonight is to provide information. uh uh we want to report back on on what our committee has been uh and the journey our committee has gone through gone through so that the community here hears um we have been listening to to every category of purse room whether it's a teach a teacher whether student whether it's an admin um whether whether
175it's a parent whether it's just a community community member who just wants to be part of this process process um it's been great in that respect um great uh so So let's talk a little bit about the the timeline here. Um in in January um the board was created um um the board created the the ad hoc committee. Um we can go to the to the next one to the next one. Perfect. Uh um after we after we got through we got through the fall uh and made the decision to augment uh the grading system the CB grading system we had decided to put put this committee committee together committee comprising of the different categories of the community that I just mentioned also in in January and I think is a really important part uh
176a point point here is we sent out a grading grading committee interest committee interest form and over 100 people in it. Um that was was a mayor uh the people that that wanted to be a part of this. Um from January to January to March, Trusty Jeff and I met in individually um with the different stakeholder and stakeholders. Um goal there was to to gain to gain next. What's that? You just have to tell Sarah next. Sarah next. Oh yeah, you're doing great. I thought we were we were we can go to the next one. The next one. uh and we go go to the next one from next one from there. Um and so uh you know from January March we we got together together with several different people in the community. Uh I
177had countless meetings and I know uh trust trustees as well. um on March 29th, an email went out to all those who all those who had sign up um for the grading committee with a survey and information about that um um allowing folks to choose what committee committee meetings they wanted to go to. April was our grading grading committee month which we all met. So we met on the 4th, the 20th, the 21st, 6th, uh, and we had 80 people come and be part of it in it. And some people are in this room that I'm looking over and seeing right now, which is which is awesome. On May 2nd, uh, Trusty Jeff and I met with staff um from neighboring district neighboring district to learn more of their grading system, which was was uh
178a experience. It was great to to hear about their trials and tribulations and what they went what they went through. Uh and then over the last last month and in the month of May, uh Trusty Jeff and I met se several times times again to discuss what we're going to talk talk about today, which is a proposal BP uh 51 512 and and I just really really want to thank Jeff for um all the work all the work that he's he's into this. Before we move on, I just I just want to say that want to say that reiterate the fact that between uh Trusty Duncan and I, we have literally have had hund hundreds of conversations, students with staff members, uh you know, community administrators, like we've been talking to everyone about grading um
179within our district, our district, out our district. Um we've had lots and lots of conversations. We our our intent is to come up with the best system possible for our students moving forward. Um something that our staff will um will get behind uh and we'll feel confident confident and comfortable about um and will suit our students really moving forward. Awesome. We can move to uh next slide. So at our grading committee I'll just press it real quick real quick. So at our committee meetings, one things that we did um for those committee meetings that we did where we had students, staff, parents um all those groups coming in coming in at the end towards the end of the meeting each one of the groups came up with with their top 10 um sessions for with
180respect to grading policies. Uh so what the complaint you're about to see see here in a little bit is that's this that's where from that came came from was um I don't know it was eight or so um people that participated in our our incomittee meetings. Um and so that's where where all this came from. We can go go to the first one one great. Uh so multiple opportunities we heard from people people that said hey we want to want to be able to still multiple opportunities demonstrate mastery but there's got to be some type of conditions around that the unlimited limited model is just just working. Um you know hearing about kids showing up with pieces of paper paper and didn't study last last night we're again next time. Like we have to have
181some type of discipline in there. So we heard from the community we can go to that um uniformity uh among departments um and our our campuses uh that was ranked true that really want really wanted to see that the augmentation of that at least at the sites um individual sites um we we saw that saw that and what's been what happened in this last semester um as far as uniform formity went that was good was good to next one uh is opport opportunities for remediation and growth. And uh this is key because because the stu students and the teachers felt that that this was going to be important for give them an opportunity to continue to grow right the end of the end of the semester. Um and you haven't gotten into let's give them
182a chance and what we what we saw at campuses when kids got to incompletes um and the work by by the administration the work by by the to try to help them get over the line I think was really important. Uh number four, uh grades to reflect what students know um and have demonstrated. And so so I think that's a really important piece that in order to show mastery um you know it's it's important for the student students to know be able to have that reflected and that the way way they actually learn and we heard that loud and clear for teachers um not only students as well as well. Anything on those four that you wanted to hit Trusty Jeff? No, you're doing good. Great. Um, clear district wide learning outcomes. Five clear districtwide
183learning outcomes that are required to pass uh classes with with feedback. Um, I I think this goes to uh the importance of making sure that we're with state standards and which you'll see uh in in this uh and then the make sure that as a district we're all moving together uh in the same direction. Uh uh six is syllabus and clear schedule of term and summit assessments. Heard this one one in every every single uh meeting was the the direction for having a clear understanding um of what the assessments are like and to see that ahead of time on a clear schedule and that was connected to it. Um seven clear communication for parents and students. Uh the parents and were were very adamant about being able to have a better understanding of of the
184relationship between between the teacher the the um curriculum and the expectations and what the what the out look like for for students. Anything there on those last three three? Nope. Okay. Um eight flexibility for department and teachers to implement the grading styles as needed. Um again we saw this with the augmentation that we put put in just talking to the teachers on how that augment augmenting went um was rave reviews being able to go to go to the department and as at the department level decide how best uh to provide curriculum to the the to the students um went really well. Number nine, uh trust teach teachers to be experts. Um they need to be involved that a shift, right? Uh in in the fall it was um a little little less teacher input. Um
185and we tried to have a middle ground going into to the spring. Spring was augmentation put in place. And the last one one is just deadlines is not is not a bad word. Um it's okay. I mean we are teaching these students how to prepare prepare for post high high school that looks like to have a job and to have discipline and to have deadlines in front of themselves that yeah just as a reminder when we were doing these meetings and again it showed the dates on the slide we had three of them um at plus high school where we had uh students students community members staff um from all over the district coming into these meetings um and meetings by the way were not faced by um Trusty Duncan and I these were facilitated
186by um um associated teachers of plaster. So two teachers from plaster I mean two teachers from with district um facilitated these meet these meetings um and Tom and I and I were just there making sure everything was going smoothly and that kind of stuff. So we didn't have a lot of um input during meetings itself. Uh and these 10 uh recommendations again these did not come from trusty Duncan and I and I these came the participants at those meetings like these like these the top 10 things that they were saying that um they want to see or recommend recommendations that they or suggestions that they had they had with the grading. So we wanted to really take all all those to um and if you can move to the next slide there Sarah. Um and
187we at that point started to once that was done done we started to start doing what our options were um with respect to a policy uh uh for um um well I can't speak for for um my goal was not to reinvent the wheel um I think that you know so energy has been put in and so much um different education practices been refined and refined and refined over time um that there was a lot of good stuff that was already out there so there was not I didn't feel like there was an intention for us us to like like re the wheel here here so options that we looked at um Sarah was the traditional grading system something that most of this room are probably probably familiar with um you know typical goal a
188through letter grades everything is done by point points um there's no um specific set sets of skills that that you have to demonstrate ma mastering like that but the traditional grading system is out there and that's what most of us grew up um in you know in school in school with is the traditional grading system um and then if if you go to the next slide Sarah um we also looked at Cbas screen um or standards based grading which are very similar um which require require some very specific specific set of skills um have some um different definition with respect to the the grade letter that kind of thing. Um we looked at some of the issues that that that CCB has um you know rolled out rolled out you know in the year before
189um and we try to try to and we look as well what we landed on after doing all of that work having all of those conversations having all that research that we did we did um you know out and speak to other uh districts as well like all this culminated with with the policy um um that we landed on today Sarah um which is the mastery based grading system um um similar to CBE uh it focuses on um learning over time, right? Right. Not every student has to get to the same place at the same time. That's that's totally understandable, right? uh and encou encourages Eggy um I know that's kind of a hot topic word and means different different things to different people and in fact that actually a point point that got brought
190up all of our committee meetings um is that people different people were debating what that actually what that word that word actually with respect to respect to educ um so so we won't go into too much into that but um mastery also promote promotes a deep understanding of of um the skills that are necessary moving moving forward we'll talk more about about in a second it provides for clear feedback Um and it supports that growth mindset that you know the teachers have been talking about for decades, right? We want all of our students to have that growth mindset. Uh we want their our students to understand that that failure is not a bad thing. Like you can you can fail and you can you can learn from it. Um and you can grow from from
191those failures and that's not necessarily a bad thing. Um so we we want we kind of kept that in mind as well when we're talking about this this master master grading system. Jeremy, I'll just interject object real quick. Um um as far as my goals went it was and people have heard me say say this it were very important to to take the best from one two three four I don't know five whatever it was grading systems as we learned about other great grading systems is we heard heard from the comm community and so some would probably say that this is what what we have today is not truly mastery it's it's got good components of it it's got components of competence base it's got components traditional um and and that was our goal is
192how do we put something together that is going to meet meet the needs of of our our student uh and so that's kind of seging next and this is my not not you know and Tom and I have had this conversation multiple times as well um one of my goals also so was to try to reach some kind of a a good good compromise is we had we had staff on on one end of the staff on the other end other end of the term so we tried to come up with a policy that was kind in the middle to to try to make the most amount of people happy. Um and and all I mean I don't I don't say that flippantly that I'm trying to just let's this is all making the teachers
193happy. uh um that we truly also believe that this this grading system is going to be um very beneficial for our student um at the same time while also you know making that those good compromises in areas are areas where we're make the most amount amount of staff and I know speaking for myself um I know no matter what we decide to do tonight tonight there going to be staff staff going to be happy with this decision and there are going to be staff that are going to be very very unhappy with this decision that's going to there's nothing we can we could do of we I think we went into this knowing that that was going to be the case um so And um we tried to make that good compromise of different types
194of systems, what what differentives different staff staff had, for example. We tried to make those compromises because we understand that the teachers and teachers in the classroom, they are the fe they're the experts. They're like the soldiers on the front line. They know actually happening. They know what's going to well. They know know what's what's not well. They know what's going to work well with their population of students. um we we we got that and we tried to tried to make the most economy and flexibility built into the system that we could um for that reason. So if we can go to the next slide. So um we've gone through this through this this process of of you know thinking about teaching for for more than a decade in the district. Right. Right. So with
195the quality schools um and we had a lot of professional development training. I say we we is the the um that was the staff at the time. Um we had a lot of lot of training on professional schools you know grading grading practices equity for grading with Feldman came out and did a lot of training. Um so throughout threw out lots of good ideas on on the board. So when we had conversations with with teachers for example they were reminded of all this previous professional development they had done things that they like liked about things that they didn't didn't like about it things that they thought we thought worked really well some of some of the other uh grading policies and p practices that were in before and things that um so listen to all
196of those things. Um and again and listening is not the same same the same thing as saying that we're going to make everyone happy because again we knew we were not going to make everyone happy. Um but we listening we were thinking about what what the district has already has already done where we've come from. Um the teachers are already skilled at or strengthened because they've gone through all these different types of professional develop training. Um so all kind of play to factor in into where we're at here tonight. Go to the next slide sir. All right. All right. Want to go to the board philosophy? You got this one on. I'll get the Okay. So, uh what we ended up again with with it was the free learning modeling model which is similar to
197um like a neighboring district like like Rockland Union has a sim a similar system free learning. Um each course will have EL or essential learning objectives assigned orated with the course. Um now that being said, we went went we we as a district created ELO's. We spent probably five years uh creating ELO. Uh and then and then they kind of went and we went in we went into the more of a CBE uh you know you know proficiency scales focus this that kind of thing which I in in my ELOs's and proficiency scales are very different uh and we'll see some apples of that here here shortly but the the key the key with this particular grading system is that we have these objectives uh these objectives and they're clearly defined for there would be
198clearly defined for every course those are mandated mandated by you know mostly state um regulations respect to what we need to be standards and that and that thing. Um but also um within those state standards um there's lots of stuff in there in there. So the teacher the opportunity to will have the opportunity to decide like what what is actually essential when we say essential to be actually essential like you have you have to show mastery in these things right just like like um in you know the where they had to show proficiency in the proficiency scales right um with CBC CBE number two number two um so this the teachers again the teachers help um develop the the ELS that's key they're the ones that are the experts in their own individual fields and
199they're the ones that that know their students better than we we any people on this board will ever know those those their students. So, uh that's an important aspect as well. Um and again three there um the students will will need to demonstrate ma mastery the essential learning of this for each of the courses they that they take. Um and the ELO ELOS so the ELO like uh you know what we've done you know it was actually before CD when we had the you know the rete teaching piece and the reevaluation piece and all that kind of stuff that will continue on with mastery learning right um so students will have more more than one opportunity to show demon demonstrate mastery in these ELOs's and and that has to be the case if you're talking
200about mastery learning because if you're saying these things are are truly essential and you have to have to pass these things we have to get get students multiple opportunities to try to do that um because that's that's only fair, right? Right. And we we want our students students to succeed, want our students to learn. We our goal is to get them to understand those those objectives um um so that prepared for that for that level course, which will make more sense when we talk about the policy a little bit more here in a second. Yeah. Next slide, please. Um we go to the next slide. Um so there's three components of how the ELOs's are going to be determined. Number one, which I alluded to was standards. we have have to follow standards. There's a
201ton of state standards out there and the idea is is to prioritize th those states that that what we need as our for our communities and our district. Um and it's going to be be the teachers are going to have a big part of of making making that decision across the district which goes the next one which is teacher recommendations. Um look as Jeremy passionately said like like the board considers you know you know our team to be the experts uh in in our fields. Um and we have to have to make sure following them uh when it comes to what what the student comes should look like. Um and and this is just the the district decision. So we we have to to come have to make this a districtwide curriculum. It can't be
202sight by sight. The district has to be all all together and it's going to make it make it so much easier for um improving the system because all of the campus sites are on the same page. uh and especially as the examples here when a course feeds into another another for example IM1 IM2 to IM3 so so we have to have be on the same same page there me on that before I get go um so the ELO's actually is that is that the next slide we're going to talk about what those are we'll go to the next slide next slide then so what they should be so number four for four necess necessary potential for student student success. Number two should be be clearly described and defined that's something a ton from from our
203committee meetings should be clearly articulated students parents and administration fourth ELO's for the same course um as example with English ideally be for be the same school or educational site. So, um, the reason why we we have that is you point four there is if you're saying if you're a nth grade English teacher and you're saying, you know, in order my students to be successful at English 10, they have to know they have to master these handful of things, right? Um, that that shouldn't be whether you're at KFax or Plaster or Forest Hill or or you know, it doesn't matter matter like what you're at if if those are what's essential because you're you as a group are saying that's that's essential. It should be essential essential. Now, years ago, I mentioned earlier that the
204district had had gone through this process and we had the teachers had developed eos for their kids. Uh, unfortunately, it didn't really ever go anywhere because those those learning objectives were were never actually essential. They we call we call, but that's not really what they were. They weren't essential. They they you know, student didn't pass past that thing, you know, they're passed along in their grade on their grade average, right? Not not based on on whether they mattered um the individual ELOs's that we were talking about or not. So, if we can go next slide, Sarah. Um so here are samples of some ELO's for integrated math 3. Um so you know for example and um um you know in other sites that have um mastery learn for example um high school is a is
205a perfect example uh in vast majority of all of the classroom rooms when you classroom posters up that show very clearly you know what the eos are for that for that class. So it's on top of top of everybody's mind. All the students know it. This the you know the um the parents will know they come in on on you know backline that kind of kind of thing. So it's very clear on like these are the things that I have to master in this class class. So one of the big big difference between an ELO and a proficiency scale are the proficiency scales are very much detailed. Um and Sarah if you can click on where it says proficiency scales versus ELO's or the hyperlink. It should bring up a document. So this is an
206example of of a proficiency scale. If you keep you just kind of fully scroll through through it, proficiency scale or integrative math uh integrated math 3. Um you're you're going to see it's super super detailed. Um um which is problematic in you know it's it's not clear and concise and the ELO's should be clear and concise. Um if you go to a site that been doing mastery mastery learning for some time um you're going to see their ELO's are effective. They're they're understood. They're clear. They're concise. Those are all all things actually keys because it's not just the teacher that to understand what the ELO are. The students have to understand understand parents should understand what those ELOs's are are so that they're everyone is on the on the same page. We all understand okay
207I have to show that I can master uh you know quadratic equations um you know because I'm not if I don't if I don't going to be you know passing in the class I'm not going to be successful in next level class which is really the point point elos's to have those set of skills. uh you can go back go back to the slides s thank you thank you those those eos that um are identified by by the teachers that are teaching in that predict area that in that next level class these are the things that they have have to have have masteredly to be single now uh about about two months ago um I walk walk through and I walked into a math teacher classroom on one of our sitees heard the math teacher
208talking to a student and he didn't know that I was there when I walked in uh and she was telling the math the math student uh you should I can't remember what the topic was because this is a couple months ago that but she was like I ret teach that whole thing you should learn that learn that two year um and so that's kind kind of the point at low is like like if if you don't know it they're not moving on um and and because they're not they're not moving on moving on because they're not ready to move on we don't we don't want we don't want to set our students up for failure the the whole idea here is to set them up for success not up for failure So setting up them
209up for success means getting them to a point where they need need to be on mastery of of those things super super essential in that next level class. Sorry you can go to that s this you yeah I'll take this uh so what does that look like as far as the um assigning grades? So two things um moving back to back to 100 pale and moving to an A through F um grading system system. um hearing from the the community. The things that that that we that what Jeremy had mentioned mentioned before and I and I I've talked about this a few times times too is that it's okay for students to know that they they failed something haven't completed it to the best of their ability. um the wor worry that we started started
210to see potential for for inflation um with with the uh with what we had in before before and and that's not comprehension with gradation passing kids just to pass them to get to get the grades up and out of them complete and so we still have tenants which you'll see here in a moment but what we loud and clear was we want we want to have a clear understanding on 100 points scale ex exactly where we stand and and how we progress and what what is needed and that goes back to that communication between the students and and the and the teachers. Um we can go to I think slide from Okay. Actually can actually can I say something for the next slide? So, so one of the things that we heard heard over and
211over and over again from um especially especially student parents um was that that the four point scale um that that they were using be was difficult to understand. There was issues with it with like how difficult it was to get that kind of kind of so there's all this confusion and difficulty in interpretation and understanding around that for that four scale. So we we want to get get rid of that for scale. Uh now looking at the the slide here where it says uh you know assoc and f right right so do how however a D grade would not be a grade that a student would get I'll point this out is is not a that a student would get get during the the course elf that would be an end of course grade right
212so the way that it would work is as the students are are going going through their um they would be having um assessments and assignments show de demonstr among other stuff that they're going to be doing and we'll talk to that in a um but but they'll demonstrate in their in their in their ELO's. Um if for some reason an ELO was taught and assessed and the didn't pass that ELO um they're going to have opportunity to to to ret relearn it, learn it and get rest on it just like um within CBE and that's those are good teaching practice. the idea at the end of the c course if there's um students that that have not mastered you know one or those ELOs's um within a certain you know grade range engine where you
213need to be reasonable about it um get an incomplete grade just like what what we've been doing uh within the district and can have a period period of up to six weeks just like what we've been um um correct that to to to get reassessed on on those the EO or two or three ELO's maybe that they have not successfully shown mastery in um they'll They'll give additional time to do do that in addition to the time that they would have already gotten in reteing and relearning during the normal class environment during the the normal of the class, right? Um and another reason why we want to um to throw D-grade in in there um is if they they were given that income, they had six weeks weeks to complete. If they they e chose
214not to complete um those that ELO work for some reason didn't then um the students kind of have some opt some flexibility and some some options right they they can either retake the course which is what's typically going to be encouraged which is what what we have been right we've we've been gets a a now in a throughg course and most of our campuses is they're retaking that that class already so it's going to be similar similar the one thing that I was um you know by the way the way and I did this out there throw this out earlier but but there are things in in this policy that I like and there are things in this policy that I don't like um um but this is not about my preferences this is about
215like what we've been hearing from all of different people put together and feel like it's going to work one of the comments that really stuck with me how however when it comes to the incomplete or no credit versus the giving option of giving a D is we heard in in one of grading committee meetings uh one of our um continuation high school teachers that made a comment. I don't even remember remember who the teach what the teacher's name wasn't wasn't and I apologize for that if you're listening. Um but she made a me mention about um how how important it would have been for some of our students to have been able to get a D rather than than a no credit if they were they were truly in the range um before they went
216to the continuation high school and were so far efficient on their credits it was almost almost impossible to graduate. Right? So that's one of the things that we're trying to avoid here and trying to address here as as well is that student that that you know you know we we we don't want falling too far far behind credits if we if we can it and that this is kind of one way of making that compromise on how we can can actually best address the needs of that of that that grade group. Go to the next slide. This summarizes uh what uh Jeff is talking about. So, I'm going to go over it again again because I think it's really really important. Again, um a D will will not be until we get to the end
217of uh end of the course. So, so it'll be complete uh incomplete and it may be temporary because we're going to go through the same situation as before where the students are going to have a chance to show mastery. They're going to have a chance to go and and get that that ELO to a a P grade. Um, but like like Jeremy mentioned, it's important that we we recognize everybody and there are there are some kids in our in our district who want want to be so they can move on and they can gra graduate. Um, and that's okay if that that's the decision that they've made. Um, and and what does when we talk about what does clo look like for a loos mastering. So first mastering all um example. So let's just say
218there's five ELOs and I am I am one um and of those five I have an 85% uh on average on four of them but one one of them I'm below a 64%. 65% I'm sitting at C4 even though even though an average that's right around B I still have to retake the class if I wish to in order to get that grade up uh that EL one ELL up above 65% um and so that's the that's our our number one goal and then another one what close look is overall percent is at 65 or above but missing one one or more and then the la the last piece is uh we're going to give autonomy to the teachers to do this on plus minus grading. Um that's that's something that we heard heard a
219lot over the last few months. Um both the student and the teachers the desire to have uh either an A+ or an A minus etc. We also also heard from flip side of that we heard from some staff that didn't want the a or the plus and um with the because encourages like the point chasing with with students. So we heard both Bectas that which which is exactly we said you know you know this needs to be of the teacher because they're the ones that are going to understand best their group of student students and their curriculum uh how they're teaching and what they're teaching. Go to the next slide next slide. So what's the grade book look like? So um we went and again and again uh when we went to meet with Rockland
220they had se 70% of their their grade was based on assessments 30% of their grade was based on participation was based on homework activities listening again to the community we we felt going at a 50/50 split made the most sense. So 50% of students grade um it will in include placements and the assign assignments. Um and again as we we already mentioned if they've not they've not shed mastery on all EL's taught in the course um they meaning a 60 65% they would they would to have they would have the option to retake retrace period in January uh in between and second seme semester um or or in the similar to what we're already doing now fact the carbon gate what we're already doing now as far as being able to reh grow and be
221able to ret take take that yellow. Um the remaining grading grade uh average or grading grade percentage would include uh home homework include um different standards such as um participate patient and their activities with ease within the class. So, so um stepping back. So, one of the big big deviation here between policy and was CDBE only thing that could be graded were those proficiency scales all did equally and that was the only thing that was actually assessed in course. Um the problem um well so ELO's so talk about ELO. OS the way that work I'll give I'll give you example in the the video production uh courses the CT courses that I taught taught when I was in the so there might be might be might have been 37 or so standards standards the state
222you need to teach these these series of things in your class right which is a lot some other classes say it's a lot than that even even um the problem is we don't want to have 47 things as essential learning objectives because they're not essentials for example one of the state standards in the classes that I taught was the student need to understand understand the and appreciate the historic references to film development or something something like like that doesn't not really really all important to teach it yeah I taught it you know had something some kind of lesson revolving around that that in some way I was required toired to I would never say that's an essential thing for them to understand demonstrate to want to video too um is the whole objective of the
223again of the ELO are those handful of things that are truly essential for them to be successful essful at that next level class that going to be taking. So that's where the other other grade comes in. It's all those other things other than just the ELO's that are assessed um over the course of the of the um over the course of the term. Um things that those other standards that are not part of the ELO's necessarily. I don't know if that makes sense to you explaining that very well or not. Um so that's why we kind have that 5050 split. So 50% are those absolutely percent you got to got to pass these. These are things are essential and the other 50% of the grade is everything else that the teacher teacher deems important but
224not not we can go to the next next slide. I'll take this one and then you've got the three. All right. Great. Um as we talked about re retakes are important to demonstrating that you understand the curriculum. Um we we we heard from again from the community that uh retakes are good but there has to be more of a on it. So if a course offers retakes, there should be a defined and commun communicated stand for require required in prepar uh preparation for a retake. Um and the number of retakes we have unlimited limited re that was not working. Um students weren't uh learning the uh the ability to have more discipline and it's very difficult for the teachers at the same time. Um and then retake versions. Retakes may but not but are are
225not required to include a modified version of an assignment or assessment. Um what reeks you know you know um aren't students will not have unlimited retakes as mentioned. And then last piece is each department um or teaching team um should establish these guidelines for retail similar to what we did for um um with the augmentation of having the department sites coming up what's going to be best for for teachers within their department. So yeah, so each each department department, teacher group, um they need to kind of sit down and decide not not only what those are going to be be, what's our retake policy going to look like? How many offers retake take offers are are we going to provide provide? What are they going to like? Um what preparation are we being going to
226expect of our students prior to doing a ret take take things to avoid here is one fe p pieces of feedback we heard from a lot a lot of different people including some of the student students in the room um where students would be be like you know it'd be coming in on test day like I'm not going to take the test whatever I'll just take it and take it next time not ready for it today I'll take next week or whatever like we want to try to avoid that we want to kind of have them they have to actually actually show that they prepared themselves for that retake they've done they put some effort in um before they can that you know that that again or and or that assignment again that's that's evaluating
227the the ELO. Um it's an important concept here. You want to make sure that this the students are required to put in that effort before them in that retake. And again um you know it's in in my opinion it was ridiculous to have unlimited retakes in the in the first place. Um because even when we said it was unlimited retakes takes it wasn't limited retake takes. And I would argue anybody in you know teachers perhaps perhaps back of the room that want to suggest that there was unlimited retake takes cuz there was not unlimited retakes. Um there would been a thing like whenever the term was in you had to put a grade in right. So so that's not retakes like we use common sense here. Um so we are massaging this as best can
228to address some of these needs that came up and some of the issues that were addressed. the next next. Do you want me to go over this one? Yeah, you got the last one. Okay. So, the the roll plan um you know, obviously we didn't we're not going to as a board we're not going to dictate what this roll out roll out plan look but there's some things that things that we wanted mostly based on the feedback that we got during those um the committee meetings things committee meetings that we held. The first one is was fast. Um so what we mean by that that is one of the neg negative comments that we heard about the CBE roll out was that happened too fast. Um so we we want to make sure whatever the
229roll out looks like like move forward it's slow it's methodical it's thought through teachers are on on board teachers have had time to adapt adapt to it and adjust it super super important um real quick we're not rec being being done before C was put in place as Jeremy mentioned on prior slide Joe Felman grading practices these are things that are already in place yeah um bullet point two there there teach time to develop and agree upon the course ELO's Again, we're not reinventing the wheel. Most courses say the ELO's already exist. Now, this now we're not that go forward with those ELOs's like we want the staff to revisit visit those things. Say, are they truly truly are these are they written well? Are they clear concise? Are they essential for the next level
230class? Which is the whole emphasis we're trying to make is the ELO should be vitally essential for that that success in the next level class. Um the teachers are need professional time. and PLC time. So let me for those of you that don't understand the difference me explain that. So uh um here in the district we have typically at least two sometimes three or more um professional de development days non student days where the teachers and staff are on site but students are not uh and they do professional development meaning um um we typically one in the fall one in spring sometimes we'll have one more um also before before school start beginning of the school year school year uh they need some of that time to do through do the things that we're asking
231them to do to develop those ELOs's the policies not coming um and also So the PLC time uh that PL PLC time refers to that time on the short Mondays. So the students are out at like 2:36 or whatever. So 46 to to you know contract time ends at you know I don't know what time it is 4 2:45. So that so that in there is designed already every Monday for to get together to collaborate to come up come up with you know common common events and those kinds of things. So they need some of that time as well to get together and collaborate on this polic policy that we're rolling out. What the ELO is going to look like, what the retakes policy is going to look like and all that that kind of
232kind of thing. And and and and to make sure that's district, right? Again, we want all we want this is a districtwide initiative. This is not just not just a campus initiative, right? And one of the things that heard the push push backs that we from um heard at least from two different teachers at some of our our smaller sites is that they felt felt like um the the bigger site for example were going to push their will so to speak you know against the rest and we don't want that want that either. We want this to truly be collaborative team effort um for all the teachers within that subject subject area across the the board so that we are all on the same page. kind of all agree to the best of our ability.
233Um and yeah, so so that that's that's important as well. Um we are going to need some time for for um select groups of teachers to kind of kind of pilot some kind of a program um and see kind of like work through that process just piloting curriculum or piling a textbook. You book, you try it out, what works, you tweak things uh you make changes if necessary. Um so so for they might a teacher might pilot um you know you're using u mastery learning with integrated math grade math one and they find toward into that pilot process that this one you know eo wasn't wasn't actually you know you know super essential for the next level or it wasn't written very well or wasn't they just didn't understand it because that was written or
234or kinds of things like like you have this process to to work out the kinks in the system so to speak. So the piling proc process comes in. Um and and lastly there um whatever that role plan ends up ends up looking like um um teachers union is going to have to have anou in place. Um you know agreeing to that this this roll out process going to look. Um so we we understand and acknowledge that that as well. Um but again I want to back get back to that bullet bullet point or slow is fast like we want to be methodical and slow and concise about how how we hold this process out out so it's successful. We don't want to roll out like um like what happened last year we see with CBE.
235Uh we want this want this successful roll out um where we can get the vast majority of people on board. Um again not what not what happened in B. The vast majority of staff was not on board. Um and came it came it came through very by um the surveys that were done by the teachers union u to the to their own teacher. Um so that that was not Tom and I speaking by the way. Um so that's that's kind of what what we're hoping for is kind of a slow methodical thought through roll out that incorporates all these things but teacher it's teachers the teachers are teachers are sensor this process they have to be I think the last three three slides are just really the the beginning as we were build policy out
236um we started to get into how it looks like and best best practices um so we got a little ahead of our ourselves probably and and this is has the the makings of than they are which is not done by us. Uh and so um which is great. I think this is just shows the the forward think thinking and we we we we want to see okay how does this look right and all of a sudden the next slides is what is what you get some of these best practices is from conversations that we had with with you know with um the stakeholder groups uh and also putting in some of the things that we are expecting to see um from these you know this policy policy if if and when it gets implemented things
237like uh grace shall be transparent like we have from pretty much every student and parent that was at any of those meetings. Like they want to be able to understand how the student how the students are being great, why they're being graded on, great on, being great on, you know, they want to be clear on what they need to do to to, you know, you know, succeed, achieve at a high level level. Um, so it needs to be super clear. If we can go to the next slide, Sarah. Um, is there anything you want you want to point out on that? Oh, actually, we can go back to the the first one, Sarah. Sorry. Um, one of the things that we want we wanted to point out things we wanted to point out point out
238here um is and I know this is a you know bone of contention with some staff member members uh and my wife my wife has been having this debate for probably 10 years now extra credit um because she she always raised her mind what I call extra credit is not what other people think of as extra credit um but we had had a policy at one point in this in this district that disallowed extra the use of extra credit uh and we feel that if it's focused you know extra credit extra points If academic focus, there's no problem with that. That that should be encouraged. And I can give you an example of of how I saw that differently than my wife. So, um, in my video classes, um, when I when my video students
239complete a project, um, it it takes a group of students to do it like it's difficult to do to do a almost impossible to do a project completely by yourself, right? So, whenever I would ass you, you have on the other students to to help you and work with you and do their part, complete the project project. And times, it's just just real. Sometimes that doesn't happen. Like sometimes the the group doesn't gel or somebody doesn't show up on a day that they're supposed to show up or whatever the case was and the and the cl and the group just doesn't complete the assignment. I would do then then is I would that you know you those an extra assignment that they could do that was worth the same amount of points. You know I
240would have to call it extra extra credit because it's not something that I would everybody else and it's not points that go against they don't do it do it. Right. That's what that's kind of what the definition of extra credit is. Right. Right. So um it's it's non that's limit focused focused extra it's not nonacadem focused extra credit nonacademic focus focused extra credit is what is what most people that they don't they don't like like I'm going to give you five points for bringing in a box of tissue I'm going to give you 10 10 points for going to the the school school play you know or something like that that's not what we're talking about we want to encourage to you know if they so desire to use academic focused extra credit in their
241classes and I'll just say hey sorry Okay. On on seven um participation I countless conversations I've had with folks that parents that said and students that said gosh you know you know for me I'm just not the best test taker but but I really thrive on the home homework. my homework pro proves that I know the curriculum and I raised my hand in class and I good good at that and that's something that I felt like was innate in me but I knew in order to get my grade grades up I had to be well well and I loved hearing that so that's why I took this in the place to say okay 50 split feels right so that you can see how wellrounded a kid is and all the all the different assets that
242they bring so I thought that was that was important just to kick head on. One of the one of the reasons that um that line item in there in the policy as well is there there were again there was a policy um from previous board at one point that disallowed grading based based on participant and that and that never made sense to me. Um how can you have a class like a PE class or performing arts class or dance class or or choir and not be able to grade on participation? like that's doesn't m um so we open that back back up so that if it's um and we're not talking about necessarily participation like give you five point five points and you raise your hand that's not what we're talking about we're talking about
243like if it's a you know choir class are you stand you standing there you know with your with your hand folded not singing not opening your mouth not doing anything or are you actually participating like are you actually doing what you were asked to do um in some of our courses participation is vital right right for example I'm reflect back my own my video classes that I was teaching um a number of years in the in the district. So um collaboration was super important again for those students working in a group project you know they all be participating and not participating they're hurting the rest of the group right um so we were given the the flexibility to the teachers to kind of think about how they how they they grade on particip or if
244they grade on grade on participation and if they feel they feel like it's necessary to allow them allow them to sorry I'm going to go to the next slide sir um kind of similar with the 21st century soft skills and that participation piece kind of goes along along with that as well. These are skills that um in especially in in our CTE classes um that we are required to teach um but based on how some of our previous board policies these important uh grading practice policies were um um jurers had some real difficulty grading on some some of these things that the state state was telling us we need to be assessing these these um so we want wanted to open that back up and make make sure that they understand these these soft skills
245are something that we can be assessing students on and we should be in especially in CTE classes we should be assessing students on in those career those career technical classes. These are the classes that are supposed to be as part part of the class preparing these these students for that career field. Um and so if your career field is uh you know you know broadcastm and you know you know you need to be able to be able person that's you know that it's you know working with a group and collaborating manage managing time well and all these kinds of things that um otherwise might be difficult um to fit into a great in some way. Did you have anything else on that? No, I I think CT was really important to me on this slide.
246Um, and it and it goes to meeting every student on where they are, giving them the ability to uh know that they trajectory, but also just meeting them where they are. That's all that's and number number 11. Again, this is this is common sense and good teaching practices that we all already know, but um we we heard so much from students and the parents um over the last few months that we we wanted to make sure we elaborated and umed this particular topic again is that the expectation is that we're we're going to be providing clear and reasonable feedback for students in in a that they understand that feedback. Um so that's super important. If we can go to the next layer. Um, and I wanted to reiterate that there's lots of compromises that were
247built built into this policy for for the reasons that explained earlier like there like different groups. We had two different, you know, trains of thought, so to speak. Uh, and and we're trying to bring everybody into this place in a policy that's going to be successful for everyone. Um, so there was lots of compromise in it. Um, um, and it is what it is. you know, it's something that can be, you know, tweaked later on down the road road if we find, you know, like this one aspect of the policy is not working out real well or not working out as a something that's something that's totally tweaked as we move forward. And that's something that we're as we move forward as as this becomes, we're we're going to, you know, continuously get feedback from
248the staff um about what's working well, what's what's not working and that kind of stuff. Um, I just want to throw out there again that this policy as you guys are seeing seeing it here, um, is not, you know, a policy that that Tom 100% agrees with or that I 100% agree because I think both of both of us have here that we don't really like um, but we felt like it was a good compromise based on all all the feed that we got which was a lot of feedback. So, thank you Jeremy. You guys, that was a major lift and um I sincerely appreciate all the work that you guys put in on that. Before we have a board conversation around, I'd like to like to it up. We do have some public comment
249on this. Got a number of public comments. You don't want our discussion. Um I I think Well, it's up to you. You do. Would you guys prefer to have a conversation before or to feedback? Well, I don't like I've got a lot of things I'll say. Okay. Okay. Okay. Start. Yeah. One one second. Sorry. I'm just reminder of it's 9:15. Going to have to have to get a time limit of 10 and make a decision. No. No. Did you? Yep. Well, then go to comments and can just kind of take take a look at what you guys have presented and we can work on this. Okay. Uh outside of here, some things I like, some some things don't like. I got one hands to point to that based on my experience in the classroom. Um
250I'm not ready to vote anything that and that that was the discipline getting right. Maybe there's some things that we can look look at and work on. There's something I like some things I really don't like. Yeah, this is a lot to in one night and I and I think they're mindful of that as well. And and um and it's it's getting late. I don't want to rush rush anyions around this around this is really important you know talk about the reason why we're here it's academic for our babies babies and so we don't we need to rush this um okay so with that in mind we have uh Mark Wright up first followed by Rachel Codingham and then Rea reading and then at that we'll give you the next three you for running the
251the board meeting marathon tonight night with No problem. Well, thank you guys. you guys are taking and and that's not clear to me in this you guys present presented tonight that I hope hope you guys solve is issues heard when CB was first rolled out and the students had to deal with and that was was applying to college applying for scholarships and applying for different things that everyone's based on the ABD you know course grades and kids were saying how they were being held back the one could achieve achieve ones that would have been A+ students they didn't get the A+es because the way that the new one rolled out. I think that really is a detriment to our students who are working hard. We just shouldn't hurt the kids who could could achieve just
252to help bring up some kids who don't achieve as well. I was never achieve a achiever in school. I was always a low one on the thing. So, I would have been the D guy down there. That me um this didn't sit with sit with me. Doesn't mean I didn't still go to a four-year college and get a bachelor's degree and get a minor Bible. So I mean still school and I learned and got an A in English which I never thought I would have done then anyways but I but I through high school that wasn't wasn't it what I hope we hope we solve with this is that we they fix that biggest problem and I'll teach the kids set there are deadlines what job you have that you don't have have a deadline
253to come done you you have to be done at some point point your job you can't drag it on for 10 years and I actually like to see maybe add a little thing I didn't see in your thing that is choose not to take a test you took a test and you didn't do well retake take it. But if you choose not to take take the test, your next time take same take, you can't get 100%. You have you lose 10 points, lose five points, you you lose something, there's a detriment, there's a there's a you just can't get freebies. I mean, so there should be a reason you take take something. So I like to see you add to the policy. That's mine. Thanks. Thank you very much, Rachel, Rebecca, and then Hello. Uh,
254my name is Rottingham. I teach at Forest High School. I first wanted to say say I appreciate all the work that you guys put into it. Obviously, seems like a lot. Um but I also want to mention that it's a whole different animal practice. We required as teachers to get our certificate to actually physically teach in a in a classroom actually can can job earn a job. So in practice we need to need to apply our skills for skills for so in practice for teaching we need to apply our skills. So physically being being there and doing it is so so much different than looking at the theory which is why student teaching exists. Just that point point I wanted to um also a little about myself if you guys don't know me I'm from
255forest hill hopefully hopefully you've heard of it. Um I'm a del grad and uh I was proud to join this district 19 years ago ago at high school school. I have a daughter who just graduated from Forest Hill High School and a son entering next year. um um love my school very very much. Um but over time I' I've had to say bye to a lot of lot of workers and a lot of times what they site the reason why they they leave their spread spread so thin they have so many demands on them just just to paint a picture for you taught leadership drama PE I've taught culinary art photo and ceramics you probably don't even know what degree I hold because I I so talented Speaking of which the teachers that up tonight
256between us have many many many awards many awards myself because I need to mention that um but it adds extra workload to dictate to us what we're doing for grading um four point scale works wonderful for me it's reduced my work workload but it doesn't doesn't work for all myers some of my co-workers really wanted to 100 100 point scale and and I that's Okay. Um, but for the last 5 years, all of our new hires have been trained on on point scale. We're going to ask these people to now switch over to some something different that they're maybe not accustomed to and maybe they learned in theory in their teacher classes. Um, but I probably don't have to tell you that is is dying. We are losing people. Can't find good good people to
257work for us. um they're leaving the profession even the first five years citing burnout we can't keep asking them and micromanaging like this um also a trustee for the forest union school district I I was appointed in 201 I served through co which trusty underwood would probably realize is an important important and I feel that my opinion is very important and I feel like this is my managing this is not something that's within a board's responsib ility. Thank you. Thank you very very much. Becca, Kate, and Emily. Good evening. Thank Thank you for continuing on on I'm going to try this in three minutes. Not sure. I'ming I've been teaching for a very long time since 1997. Started my career at Rockland High School. I have about 10 years of experience at Rockland High School.
258I'm very very familiar how they do grade grading. I've had the pleasure of working at forest cool facts delo and I make it thea I'm gonna go to plaster um my entire career I've I've dealt with with utilized refined mastery grading my entire career there's no way I'm getting through this in three minutes when I joined this district strict inkari in 2007 I was very impressed by ps emphasis this value that it placed upon developing relationships le leveraging trust and actionoriented collaboration we we see that in the historical build professional development efforts that that researchbased not just opinion based this was addressed by comm committees is largely of teacher teacher district administrators such as or curriculum coordinators is seen in the work of glasser's book on quality schools and theory in relationship development getting old.
259Sorry. Sorry. And was seen in the ubiquitous plaques that was was asked how will this improve student achievement. I don't see those so much anymore. Everything was was based upon district took to heart the value of relationships and over many years of targeted and discussion relationships and trust became the guiding light for all enders trust trust trust moving ELO's that were produced through Feldman's work and work of the fours weeded this slowly and organically and when we we talk about bringing them as if and I know you're you're saying it's nothing new I think the whole shakeup is that it was utilized across the distance to its integrity and that that's the problem. So when it was supposed to be evolving toward CBE, however you feel about it, there were definitely large pockets where were
260not being re retakes were not being offered as opportunities to students. And so it wasn't just CBE. It wasn't just for for rubric. It was like like what retakes. I was really really surprised that in some plum places because I thought that's what we were all doing. And so you know some places have have a bigger man than others. That's just the way it works. It's easier to steer a canoe than a ship. Right. Right. And so and so I've had the very amazing opportunity and pleasure work at two of our our smaller sites that have been been nimble and capable of implementing ELO's with integrity and and I guess I definitely got to through like a third of this but please as you have said trust the educators we have been trained not just
261in our craft in our content but how to to Thank you so much. Thank you. And I like to read the rest of that. If you if you if you want to shoot that over, girl, I can I can read it. I promise you that. You sit down and get back and finish. Yeah. Well, we have to honor our three minutes. Trusty Lake, but I appreciate your your soft heart. I mean, all right, Caitlyn, you're you're up. Hey, I'm gonna do a thing. Makes me deeply uncomfortable. Super cringey cringey. And under normal circumstances, I would not do this. Um, two and a two and a half ago, all five of you shook my hand hand as Union High School District District teacher in this room, right? Thank you. Cringy G. It's cringey. Um, it's the
262second time I've been given that honor. Uh, two different districts and I worked in two two districts. I feel really good about that track record. Also a master of education. I have that degree. I have 12 years courses to my name. um and will never ever understand why field of of education is the one where outside professionals can can come in and how to do it when the dentist like um it would like me telling you how to extract a tooth correctly but I need sticky note on the on the room mirror to remember to floss right and I don't mean to be disrespectful but that's what it feels like it gets insect right Um and to the gentleman in the back point high school five students heading to UCLA next year acceptances to Cornell
263Western and Columbia. Um Trusty Jeff mentioned that our ceremony was very nice and you're right it was very nice but he for he forgot to mention our seniors received over 1 million dollars in scholarships this year alone. uh more kids than I can have already secured jobs and internships in the trades and and uh CH proudly touts four new recruit recruit to the United States Marine Corps. What do I know? I know about M. So I'm tired of my own voice on this subject to convince you to leave a system that's 150 years old. Um I can't even get my own area to trust to an email. So, I'm done talking about it. Um, but but what I will say is I'm going to ask as you dive deeper into this um um that you
264us teachers as as the experts which you called us multiple times in that presentation to your own decisions about grading. Trustee Underwood, who was the only one to email me back today, uh, in said, uh, we need unonymity across the district. Unity is literally means agreement by all majority five. And so I think what we need to really consider is what happens when you take professionals in their field and you make make them feel they don't know what know what they're talking and I have as I mentioned earlier the credentials to pro prove that you have told me I know what I'm doing but let me do it please. Thank you. [Applause] real quick. I um I'm looking at this time here. Um I'm glad that you glad that you brought that up. Um I'm
265going to make a brief statement on professionals and why a board exists when they don't have to be to be for field. you know in America um in the United States of America we have have represent government and this is a government institution and and I know that that setting sometimes but I think sometimes um like we talk about echo chamber it's important important to have outsides come in and it's not it's not telling you what to do do it's about a representative of government we're a policym body and under the laws of the state of California that's what we're here here to do um um and I know that's not easy easy times. Um, but we absolutely respect her role as as an expert in field and as a tea teacher which has been
266acknowledged tonight and it's not easy to be a trustee. I'm going to defend defend table here for a minute because they're here to serve their community and and that's the the law of this country. All right. Okay, Emily, you're up. And by the way, I didn't see that you emailed when you said it. I said, "Did did I even have an email?" I must have must have been on me way here, but I but I haven't seen my apologies. Hello. Hello again. Uh it's really hard to find out cuz yes to all all of that. It's amazing. Um Caitlyn is wonderful human being. Um Caitlyn uh masters in education. Um, I have over a decade in uh the classroom. I've taught taught a ton a ton of things. Um, just like Rachel uh right now
267teaching and stage tech and business leadership and IB theater. Um, and multiples of each of those those I do it in two blocks. Uh, so they're they're all together. Um, so it's really difficult to do. The proficiency skills make it insanely easier for for me. Um, and I just want to touch on that. Um, that it it it makes makes it easier for me to run my classes. Um, where where I have multiple classes is multiple levels in one block. Um, it makes it easier for the students because because I I can rubric up up right that proficiency scale and say here's exactly what you needed to do to get this grade. They're very they know they can ask questions, show them examples. It is very clear. The presentation you you just gave was not
268clear at all. When I came to this district, we were grading on the for using ELO's thing completely new to me. Um I had maybe a 15-minute conversation about with my department chair. I understood it immediately. I said, "That sounds great. Great. Let's go. Let's go." It didn't take me 50 minutes and however slides to explain it. It was simple, straightforward, communicative. Please just let us do what we know is is best our stu student in our classrooms. Don't presume to know what what our dayto-day is like because it's different. Colleagues at other campuses don't teach multiple levels and multiple classes at the same time the the way I do. My class class is going to look different. Please, please give me the freedom as an expert to do that to have have my classroom
269look the way it needs to look so so that my students can succeed. Thank you. I have one one more. Do I have I have another? I do. We do. Just just a side. Um board it's 33. Uh we'll have to make a motion to extend uh our time time pass uh 10 if if we did. But we do have close session. As a reminder, we have two more items. Uh good evening. My name is Darren. I'm a teacher at Plaster High School and I've um also like Miss uh read over there. I've taught at KFax Deloro Phil and so um I've been around um I want I'm going to probably be a little r just because that the presentation you guys um made was very large. um um you have a lot of information
270to give us so I understand why it was so big no way I could cover of everything um so I kind of jumped around a little bit we've been using ELO's in the district for a very very long time I think I started using them at forest hill till probably 2012 2013 so they've been um established they've been being used probably changed modified all throughout time but they're not a new concept not a new new idea so we understand them very very well how they work uh the students are familiar with the idea of them maybe they're not always called yellow but they understand that it's a essential learning outcoming. Um, with the four-point scale, I think that it's very very important we allow teachers at what site that they're at use that if they
271want to use it because I know for a fact that it works works well for some teachers. It works very well for them better than the 100 point scale. I know that some just prefer the 100 point scale. I also know that if you're a student in a four point scale in Sarah show present in an English class at plaster who uses a 100 point scale they can get the same education nation they can get the scholarships they can get opportunities it's just a different way to look at the of their grade it's not going to affect the equity equity they're learning and learning in this um there's an issue I I think with the 50% mark for the the EOS and that is it comes back to um the slide uh for where We
272mentioned the new grading policy would encourage equity. Uh if I plaster set my my grade book 50% 50% participation someone does 50% es and that's it. That's not that's not equitable for students between the two different sites is they're going to going to have a different experience in the classroom uh with the different different grading. We also mentioned that um each statement like between say or English different grading policies which would not encourage equity in the in the grade sales. Um and then uh I mentioned that already writing scholarships. I think my my wife saw on a on a a Luminous Facebook group that the Deloro High School graduates this year got over $2 million dollar inship uh which is awesome and fantastic and they did it with CBE 4 point scale. So um the
273idea that they can't get scholarships with four point scale scale is laughable and uh it doesn't warrant listening to. Um lastly I just I would say that my daughter daughter graduated from plastic years ago and she's gone through our programs. She's she's gotten scholarship. She got into one of the hardest schools to get into in California. Um so it's the idea that CBE will hinder that or or the four points hinder that is just not true. I think that um you know we should still keep it open for a for a little bit longer. Thank you very much. And and another calm down. Another sidebar. I believe we have two uh teachers on this board that also have master's degrees. So, we do have some experts in in this field on this board. Go ahead.
274Hi. Um I didn't write anything out so I'm a little worried because sometimes can go off off topic. Um I'm Debbie Jeffrey Jeffrey wife to Jeremy D. Um I've I've been a teacher 28 years. Um I've been in the district 10 years. Um I also have taught at Rockland for three years. So I've been a part of the of the schools. They they didn't call it ELO's. it was essential as a skill. So, it's just embedded in my uh um a lot of things that I can share. Um I want to start by saying that I have seen seen firsthand the amount of hours that people put in and I know it's a lot. I think it was just trying to make sure they covering all their B bases. It was not to overwhelm people.
275Um this guy right here had me every time I'm everything because he knows that I will question everything when it comes to teaching. Um you have a master's. Um, I don't have any awards to accolade. I've never got an award in my 28 years ofQing. But I'd like to to think I'm a really good teacher. I'd like to think that the things that I I hear about my students and my that support me and that that give me accolades and love coming to my classroom. I think I'm a really really good teacher. Um, times it's hard when you don't get those awards, but it doesn't mean that you're not a good teacher when you get them. And and I'm really excited because the three years I spent at Rland has by far in my 28
27628 years teaching been been the most informative in terms of how I want to run run my class and has a lot of freedom and we had freedom when we had it but when I got there it was very scripted. I was like I can't write my own my own test like I give this test does this right? So I was a little hesitant but but after a year I was I was on board because it became being in PLC's where we actually decided if we liked these essential skill skills and did we keep them and how and how to assess them. We went from a check system to um giving score out of four or four point scale but but it's something which is fine. I think ultimately um I think idea this is
277this is great. I on your hands this as please a lot of people there's a lot of people that have very strong opinions on both as a as a I will at the end of the day always revert to a teacher and I still have have a hard time telling anyone anyone at any if they are doing doing the four point scale to me me as long as it can go in the grade book at the end ABC whatever I think it really should matter. I know you guys are trying to take a lot of things like confusion that some some people have um but I think guys can make their own decisions. I feel like it's been since said we haven't client. I don't think that would be a huge problem. I think it
278could still be something incorporated into what you you guys have put together. Um I love that you put put at the forefront and I hope that that still is the case and I think will be um hopefully you're here hearing us but we'll never agree. There's teachers I cannot get behind to scale. It never work for me. Tried I really did it didn't it didn't for me but it works for a lot of other people. And I think think that that's something and and I think that can still work in something that's mastery learning. I don't think it it has to be through the window. I' I'd like to see us find a way to make some compromising. So, thank you. Thank you so much. Come on down. Sarah, you're you're up next. Okay. Um
279that was so hard to follow. First of all, I believe the last student meeting uh sorry, not student board meeting. What are they called? Student voice meeting. And uh uh I want to bring up a a few for that. But first thing is is Mr. Cam Cametti asked an amazing question and it was what what do what should a deal math class look like? I remember that that's what you asked and uh with that I as I asked everybody their icebreaker question. Who's your favorite math teacher? And I want to say Mrs. got the most likes like the entire math department. So, please give it up for her really fast before I get to my point about she's so so I just texted a parent who's asked me about math teacher suggestions and I said
280Miss Jeffrey. So, she's she's awesome. Please please say something on your way out of here. Um I I did just want to thank thank you guys for policy and and uh going back to that student voice meeting a bunch of students I not notice across the district had to totally different opinion and uh because even even in math think about if we're think math in our culture we're thinking about grading systems so I I know we are all all saying no CBE but at the same time I got a chance this is Jback back there and to go to Kfax and I got to see what they do and um I talked to and they loved it loved it. I talked to some students and they're like get me out of this. So it's totally
281fluctuated get that and um to be quite honest I was I was sitting there and I was like trusty I don't know if I agree with that but I'm sure Jay and Cha were doing the same thing and saying about other trusty Dun I don't know I don't know if I agree with and and that's how I think negotiations go. We can't have it perfect. I realize and I recognize and there's not everything that I agree with. I think that this to be beyond is the best comp compromise and uh no but I also want to remind you guys that you guys have had conversations and I'm going to say that I don't know how how present trust trusty late or maybe trusty this because we have haven't had that conversation yet you guys haven't
282but you guys I know have had those conversations I see trusty spade I'm not I went to to plaster and like if if you're not at you're at plaster is like everywhere I tell you. Um, so the last thing is I feel for those teachers who feel like that they're being micromanaged and the part that I've seen at Deloro is teachers are we're were being micromanaged by the old board and the old board were being the ones saying you're doing this you're doing this you're doing this this I'm personally as a student listening to this this presentation I'm Mr. Jeff who like I said has a and you guys are all elect and awesome and I'm going to make this but you guys are are telling us these things and all teacher based so I
283feel you guys but at the same time it's a good compromise. Thank you. Oh hat. Thanks. I wasn't really planning on coming but then I did. So I don't usually dress really dress. It's also summer. Anyway, my timer's going. Um I was I was just making notes as I was listening to to the presentation. Um I'm hoping that if not tonight I know that at um I was formerly a board I know you're not really supposed to address questions um so perhaps at a later time but um there's some interesting interesting point um the 100 point scale um was added after that that 70our post post on Thursday which is sort of interesting me because I look I looked at it immedately on Thursday and and it was there today when I I checked again
284so I'd be curious about that last last minute adden um I'm also concerned concerned as uh Darren said the 50% of the grade not based on on lows that that worries me a bit what will we be grading the kids on is it parties these things like some some of those takeaways on that beautiful list you guys had from the the grading committee are not not represented in in BP and I'm curious about where those those discrep discrepancies are and if you you don't know what they are I'm sure there's some feedback circles myself included that that come out those those predictions that don't really fit. Um you spoke about getting feeding feed and you did but I think that there's a lot of people who were not not talked to I I think the
285risk of the survey was likeund and something feel free to correct me but I know it was not a huge number of people that's good maybe they don't care but I just want to be careful about things we we say out loud because it makes seem like we survey serve everyone when we didn't necessarily survey everyone I know I was not not personally talk to but you but you are how I feel because I show up to everything So, um I'm bummed about the the proficiency scales moving moving back to the ELOs's. Uh like Emily said, the proficiency skills are amazing and they're clear. The ones that you showed, um Jeff, uh I've never se seen those before. We actually have a before that's quite beautiful and I looked up the IM3 ones just now
286now and they don't like that. So, so I'm not sure which ones you guys are looking at. I'd be happy to share the most recent versions there. are much more student friendly friendly and easy to read if that if that helps with the proficiency scale um um clarity and then some of the things about like if you don't complete the ELO's and you get a D I'm worried that uh we're telling students you you were saying uh just now that like we just pass students along but but if I give an incomp complete and they just not to do all the ELO's and they take D I'm just passing them along it's like ELO's are not they're not necessary for them to learn so why are they essential, right? So, that's kind of just like
287one one of those parts that we would probably need to figure out. So, I think that I annotated the board policy very thoroughly did a few of my and I maybe a next step that might be good is that you take some of that that feedback from the teachers of of your thoughts on the board policy and then rewrite potentially. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you much. Um I will point out something regarding the I can't I certainly can't answer all the others um as all processing this information tonight together but regarding the Brown Act 72our posting the agenda has has to be posted and whatever documents um as as technically just the item and a description have to be be posted if there's an amendment to an article as long as the community and
288the board majority receives it at the same time we we are still in with the Brown Act. So just uh for you and for the the board when updated um compliance with the Okay. All right. It is 9:46. Um do you think we need to have conversation while it's fresh um so that there's some feed feedback takeaway before the night ends and we do have uh you know some close sessions to touch. So um trustee I think we should probably do you would you like to like to share your thoughts right now or we extend we only we can only extend per our bylaw with one motion one time time have to set set our end time and so order to facilitate a com conversation plus the um student cases that we need to address
289because I I would oh please please yeah um I just was think about the the 50% that seems to be up for discussion and I think where teachers are the experts in their in their field they'd appreciate appreciate 50% um wiggle room that they can how they see fit especially um hear anyone mention AI um I mean essays signing essays especially English it's like dead dead what do we I mean chat GT writes everything having discussions participation nation in this room has to be a huge portion of the grade now I think it's really important. Thank you. So, thank you. Thank you for for Okay. So, would we like to extend it now or do we we want to a chat chat and then a minute's time we we address the extension? All right. Take
290it away, Trusty Underwood. Well, I have a lot to say and I don't think it's getting late. is probably not the best time to say it, but but what I can say is what I've heard tonight is going to take us many means I think think to res and and come to a consensus. Um we're far far from ready to find a vote. We're not even close. But I I do appreciate all the hard work that has been put into this begin, but We got a lot a long ways to go. you ju just for the committee um perspective because they're they're still the ones you know going to be working on this potentially this could you highlight at least just some some of the areas you feel like like should an area of interest
291interest from I will uh text you and tell you personally all the things that I you uncomfortable if that is what it needs to happen in public I think it needs to happen in public or maybe maybe there um is there a board member can talk to You could definitely tell me saying just using no violation of the how how are Tom and I going to find out about it. So you want me to start going in right now? I want you to I just think a couple key key that you you're concerned about a lot. First of all, I don't believe in failure. failure is a a stigma and I think as GL Glasser said most of my my experience in my classroom after 39 years and I've done CBE in classroom and I've
292worked on glasser tennis class actually so he says grade should be an A or a B he doesn't even believe in a C you know you know until a person person the opportunity to retake to meet those standards seems quite [Music] appropri in this. It's been a lot of work just to get to that point. Uh the the uh point that one of the speakers made about a D I think is quite true. you pass on if it if it's a lower level class and want to move on to a higher level class person, you do them a disservice because they haven't learned enough standards and low to be successful at the next level. I think it's very true. Um to me what I what I most comfortable with whether it's a fourpoint skill someurs
293like it. I think a teacher does need flexibility. I think we have to be united as a district in terms of what we're doing because that's what we are you know to me if someone said what do you think is the best way say 100 point scale ABC up to three no credit it's excuse up to three to three reach if needed you know no more than that because it's got to be the bottom line there uh and he completes with a no grade for the students the the F grade is is really I know what I've seen in my educational career what can do to some student destroy all motivation you know you're going going through for example and I've mentioned other board family problems or stuff and parents seem divorced and and you
294aren't into your study and all of a sudden f all these class you know what's that going to do to your self-esteem what's that going to do in terms of feeling empowered you can succeed So I really believe that there's uh there's really not not a place for or the district district worked hard and long to get rid of that ABC you know standards districtwide you know giving students a chance to reach to to see to learn the standards that's critical and some students because you are going to fine some students say I don't want to do anything okay you got got no grade you know you're not going going to get that stigma then you could discuss that with them. I know I have many students we were plant high school I've mentioned this
295in this time was was using comp education 30 years ago ago you know where we were giving students a chance every day I know what I saw and exper was some students that would have gotten a D or an F of we had gotten rid of these classor we're doing a A incomplete and takes that's what we're doing and for me you know it wasn't districtwide all the sides not doing that but we do do that so there's a lot of things and I appreciate your your heart that you you you guys have done do you know and we want community feedback but if someone said what what are your basics whatever we decide on has got to be districtwide a teacher does need flexibility in this room and some things work really well for
296for one teacher and if you mandate this is what do then you're actually taking away their creativity and their ability to be successful at I think so I'm not sure we're going to handle that you know to have two different process process going on throughout the district I don't think we can do that yet I'm hearing teeth back here clear clearly saying well point scale works for me you know and it works for me really well take that away from them and what do we do in terms of them and their their uh expertise and success last number one I just I always love your question and and from being 30 39 in the classroom right which I don't and so I I listen to you um um the one thing one thing I'll clarify
297is that if if a student doesn't pass the like described if they don't pass it with December semester end right then they get the opportunity at that point to go go retake that that not retake it but bring that grade up from an incomplet simply up to the 65% number. They don't have to ret they have they have to retake class or to move to let's say IM1 in order to move to I am right if if the student was was close to meeting the the standards and and I think policy would would be you have meet all the standards okay if they're close enough but one or two two stands you know you know uh you you don't you don't I would wouldn't want to say we we're going to give him a D
298we're going to give him an you give them an incomplete and clearly let them know what they need to master within a period of time six week period of time okay whatever that's going to be if they they choose not to do do that in time have the opportunity then they would get a no credit and they would retake the class and and and so everyone hears this this was my tough part right as I look looked at the A through C incomplete and no credit to me no credit a nice nice way failed the class and and that was was the hard for me to say say we're just calling it something else than an F and is that really really to help the trajectory of someone do they need need to hit bottom
299times in order to come up and that that that's where I was going back and forth I think when we take a look at the tenure and realize realize that their their frontal loes do not develop until 26 you know um we want to create a mindset or fear or or feeling inadequacy that they can't succeed when we give them an F giving them a no credit hey you haven't done it I wish you could have done that here's where you didn't master it you tried you know let's say they did two or three retakes you're gonna you're gonna have to read the class but I know but I know you're gonna succeed I No, I I see the can't say that. Even if I'm an F, can't we see positive, negative, and I don't
300think so. I think the F if you look at glasses work destroys kids. Just just writing a glass or frame and see what he said. The other the other thing I'm going to pause for just a second because 957. Um I wanted to ask Dr. Kennedy um the staff reports. Are these times sensitive? I realize we have a they're willing to table. They're willing to willing to table. wasn't sure if it needed needed to be approved. This is first read need table it is it compromise the fall schedule if we don't have a first anything we're good well the book adoption option Michelle is it is a second this is the second two process correct correct is this okay so we'll be bringing in at the next meeting and if there's question questions it'll have
301to go to August just so Is that going to be a problem? Well, see this that was my my concern. I was like I this is time sensitive. This is first read move to action. I feel like we need to hit in order to I know. So So with that that in mind um facility can be tabled. God bless you Peter and this and we can definitely table this conversation and bring it back on the 17th as well. I I'd like to pro to provide a couple or ask a couple couple but before I do that we need to extend the the time order to have have brief staff report textbook and also make sure we can hit hit I'd like to finish the agenda that way we don't have to re you know come
302back in five days to meet the agenda public open because we we have we have public comment we have four of four of to extend well we definitely need to extend The the question how long? That won't even cover our Yeah, that'll make it tight tight. I would say 12 minutes for the public. Does that include close session? Yes, it does not. No, no, just it's just our open 10, not not close session. Close session can go till but but you have to come and report out still. So, we're extending. Wouldn't that include the close session extension? I think the last time we did this was before I did but we didn't have to go back into closed. So we we only extended 10 minutes and then got out of out of here and I
303feel like we just need to give ourselves a larger time and just expedience say an hour. Okay. We don't have to use it but that way we're safe. Y want to make a motion. We good with that? Okay. Motion toend meeting. Second by how long? Oh, sorry. Motion extend the meeting by by one hour. Second motion by trusty Duncan to extend the meeting by one hour. It is 959. So, so that would be 1059 mercy. And it was seconded by trustee link. Um in favor say I. I. I. All oppose. None. Motion. We're extending for hour but it won't be that long. Okay. All right. Um can I just say one thing? I'm happy to to table this. I want to acknowledge the work and the hours that went went into this and I agree
304that we didn't get feedback feedback from all the stakeholders and I just want to put a word out out to encourage the teachers who I mean if you had to put a number on what is it half of you don't speak uh we're hearing from I feel like we we we heard strong proponents for the point system and uh and there are I know that there's cases that that have strong strong opinions on the side. I think it's really important that we hear hear from everybody. Uh it's going to inform discussion. It's going to inform uh policy changes. So if you're one one that just to not speak up, I I I strongly encourage you to uh whether you you shoot an email or something, uh we'd love to hear from everybody. And uh and
305you're right, we're not we're not we're not the exp in in policy here, but it is our at this time to gather a consensus and to and to really understand the plight plight of alters in our district and to understand what's working and what's not not and uh and then to to to make judgment on the best way forward. So uh I I I mean I can I've felt felt teachers who have painstakingly gone through those few years and that the amount of time time and effort that has gone into like adapt to the four the four point system to adapt to the um the competency based education. it it's it's unbelievable and and so it is like heart-wrenching to say, "Oh, we're going to just lead." I don't think I don't think that that's
306what we're we're trying to accomplish here. Um I love the idea of giving autonomy a economy and I know there's argument to be made that there there's benefits to having, you know, uh uniformity, but at the end of the day, the two teachers are are the X and they should be able to be able to to make those decisions. Um I think this conversation going to be ongoing going. Uh I feel like there was enough frustration which is why a lot of us are are even up here today is because of how this role went several years ago and the frustration that that that caused heavy on students students and on parents and on teachers. So anyway, it's it's ongoing and I and I appreciate everyone's effort and I think that we're we're all we
307all have the same goal. I think we're going to we're going to dive at a good place. That's all I got. And and I I appreciate that. I think a couple key thing things. I'll be quick. I want to want to one thing with with David, but the community back in November um and about the things that we talked about tonight and a major majority of the community agrees with what what we've asked tonight, right, and this discussion about the grading system. So I think that's a really important piece and um not everyone come when comp board meetings but I talk to people you talk people we all talk to people in our community want nothing to do with the setting they don't want to be here um because there's a few a few people
308all the time and I've gotten to know the KFax teachers very well and I really appreciate appreciate everything that you guys bring to the table because I've learned a ton. Um but but to the other point, we can't speak to every teacher. We can't can't speak to every community member. It's just not possible. But I am am pr proud of the sample size we were able to get. Um and that that was represented in what you saw saw today. Number one goal was how simple can we make this at the same time without without taking the integrity of what we're trying to do around student outcomes. Um, and most I spoke to to couldn't explain the past grading system. Their teachers could barely explain the past grading system. And look, the folks, you guys are
309so ahead. So awesome to hear this. But David had said what what German struggled, which was I'll back back up. Majority of during the augmentation January, a majority of of the departments went to a 100 point scale across the district. that that's that's what we saw from ATP. Majority of them did the teachers we talked to did and and that's we given the choice. That's what they went back to for the most part. Most part and as much as we grabbed with I want to be able to give every opportunity. David, you said it and I think you said you said it. We we have to have something districtwide. Yeah. Right. So that's the struggle. If you're going going to do it wide, but you can't give this group four point and this group point,
310that's the tough part about it. If we're all connected districtwide, better decision making from right groups and what what we're to build here. I just just want to touch on a couple of things um and then and then we're going to table this moving forward. I think that obviously have some more conversations about I think that's well established and I think that you know you know the goal with ga gathering all information um and taking this time to kind of assess where we're at um is really really important. We don't want the same the same issues to to happen again and you know I think I think all this agreement that we want what's best for kids and you know there's a lot of different ways that we can that um some of my questions
311um regarding the the proposal um my understanding this gone through legal is that correct? Okay. Okay. Okay. I think obviously not we're not at a final draft, but I I think that um just looking at this um we probably probably we need to send it through legal. I realize that the previous board policy did bring that up really fast. Oops. Trying to touch screen that and I can't can't sorry uh the original not yet not the modified. So at the the bottom of the um word policy which is you know ch changing drastically um you know the grade grading points the superintendent or designate shall determine the methodology to be used in calculating student grade point averages including including the courses used in the GPA and whether extra credit waiting shall be applied uh to
312you know you guys touched all of the things and I was doing some some digging legally. I I I would like sure that that we're in compliance. I I do not believe that that's a California ed code. That's just just a part part of the policy, but I want to make sure that um we're safe in there. Um it is my my understanding I'll repeat it that we're out of compliance compliance California by by presenting uh that. Uh but I would like a clear clar from legal on that. Um and that all it also it is in in the last you know stanza before the grade point average acknowledgement that it also says the superintendent or design shall a uniform and consistent grading system based on the standards with clearly articulated expectation to all the
313all the students get uh and so with those two things things in mind I am 100 100% uh very confident um searching for for cal code that that that actually that that is just board policy that's not California Ed code, but I would like a clarification on on the grade pointage. Um, as we continue to move this forward also um some something that was that um not have parents and students not access to the full grade only seeing the grade. I want to make sure as like specific another bullet bullet um as far as transparency because in grading which is part of Cal Ed code and I I don't think I think I think just someone could probably soften that but I want to make sure we're in compliance legally um those as aspect and
314we're going to talk about this later. So, um I don't I don't I don't believe we can um and as you were you could share it with with me had a conversation with uh Trusty Lake about it. So, at this point they're out and we're out out. So, you're a man on your island or we violate the Brown Act. Um but I would would just communating with Steve. Um um and I and I I would I would would all the all the board members to share their thoughts and feedback with with Steve because um while he can't say say where we're all at, you know, and I think it's both both ways would appreciate opportunity to meet with with see Jeff and Duncan to go over a list of questions that we have that we
315don't go through now but but we have quite a few. Okay, great. Okay, we're going to go ahead to the staff report report 11.1. This is the proposed adoption of textbook and again thank you for everybody who showed up and and and spoke up. Appreciate you. Um this is the adoption of textbook way the world for for Deloro High School District Library. Michelle Isham will be presenting proposed text and this is a first staff report will be taken on this item. Yep. Perfect. Um good evening everybody. So this was a text textbook selection for dual enrollment history 51 which is world history um and uh is is the application is for Becky Dunle at Delero should know this is is a text that is previously adopted and is on our adopted list but we do
316have a new addition which necessitates us go back to the board. Um, I'm hoping that you will think it's prudent prudent to go ahead and do this the first look at it now and then in the next next two weeks uh take action on it simply because allow Becky to have the materials in her hand when she she starts um school in the fall with her with her course. Um we we have another textbook coming up though on um the board meeting in June is probably not gonna gonna it also so is a new addition to a board adop adopted text that we already have have um but you know timing is everything. So can I ask you a couple questions? Absolutely. Um I know you're very thorough in these. So um one has any
317me the the public reached out to to look at this this is the first board meeting so that they would can can come in in the course of those those couple of weeks between um this board meeting and the next one one you feel that that's prudent for the board to make that decision typically we have a little bit of longer time the reason reason why I feel like it's it's fine is just that it's a new addition of an already approved textbook that we have and last question. Um, and I don't know if the other board members have any, but in your uh per through this document, do you feel there's anything problematic that the community is going to flag? I I have actually had the actual um textbook in my hand yet. Okay.
318Um, however, um, having looked at the previous textbook, I didn't see any issues with it. Um and this has been a a decision made by Rebecca in conjunction with the department the history department at this. Yeah. Yeah. Google enrollment. Yeah. Okay. Uh I was trying to research before or even now what what is the biggest difference between in and this new new edition that I cannot tell you because I haven't had the textbook in my hand yet. Um, however, I can certainly work out at our network meaning to anything that's that's highlighted as significant with with regards typ typically um I know the types of things that you're you're going to be looking for um and so I can highlight for you and I can reach out and send that information to the board before
319that. Um I believe book is right over there correct. So, um um we just got our hot hot hand on it because everything was kind of um rushed, but but I will take a thorough look at look at it and contact publisher to find out. They usually generally have some sort of form that tells you what the look like. Um and I know that that this is, you know, a social um text and and so can be problematic at sometimes. I would like you know obviously with with DM it being one of our instructors it is board approved text that has to be processed if it were a Sierra um professor we don't have any any decision in that I have one more question sorry guys um what is what is the cost associated with
320this new textbook thank you it's on the form it's not too bad not too bad as far as textbooks go we do with the local textbooks. So, um old old textbooks, we offer them for them any of the other schools within our district. Um and then that information is provided to you the board. If no one wants to use them, they are surplus and that that can be an an issue. Dual enrollment enrollment that's why we are leaning heavily upon CR staff to use open educational regional resour purchasing textbooks. Yeah, I was I was crossing my for that. I know. And you know, I think that this one's a pretty safe bet because Becky Becky will be using for quite a long time. Okay. Um, but we we typically shy away from textbooks for uh
321Sierra teachers because they can at will and on a whim their textbooks. Okay. Thank you. Any any other questions? Um, so Michelle, what class is this for? It's for history 51. History 51. Are there any other teachers in the district history 51 51? We do have two additional teachers in the district that are teaching history 51. Greg Robin Robinson Esser and Thomas Feck at Maidu. Um both of them use educational oar so open open resources. Okay. So was it Miss Dunle that made the decision that she go the route of textbook and stuff? Yeah, we never the district never makes decisions on textbooks. They're always in the teachers orers. And I want did want to mention one thing I know this is not on the agenda but we talking about a report with textbooks that
322if there are any questions about the very very extensive pilot that we did in over 12 12 month pilot for math and Alex as well as um the process that um was led by Jamie Jackson in the in the decision with math um please reach out to us and let us know because this was a the long pilot I've I've ever been involved in and the most extensive search and uh uh processing for math to make that decision. So, I didn't know know if since you weren't here, you have any questions about it, Jamie? And I can help you. I appreciate you saying that. Thank you. All righty. Well, thank you very much. Um how how long did Becky bring this to your attention that you wanted this text textbook? I think it was was
323initially maybe a month ago. Um it was pretty fast. The other other issue for us is just just as you guys know finances are an issue we had to make sure that we at least had some money to purchase it. Um I'm not sure if you know this but because of because of budget conraints basically our textbook money was funneled out to the sites what what is available um um enrollments a little bit differently because we do have some funds um for dual enrollment and Karen Karen Garcia I have been applying for um money grants to help that cost us as well um plaster just was awarded a grant um and then we're looking at at our early college grant which which hopefully will in quite a bit of money over the next four years.
324Yep. And I'll get out information to you about changes is in the text. Michelle, in her in her description for rationale, it emphasized hard copy. Is the other version not copy? the the older um well open educational rees are generally hard copies just kind of and I think it was an issue with you know these are probably sophomores are taking this um and so um she felt in in her expression to me was is that um it was really challenging for them to read read online text exclusively um we we also have some some physical fees whenever we do an adoption in case there are IEPs or fours withations It's the Indeed musical book Cook. Michelle, um, just clarify the book was adopted by the by the we purchase it after it was adopted or
325did we just adop adopt it? I'd have to look in Destiny, find out where it was used and that I didn't didn't know. I just I just double checked that it was previously adopted. Okay. Um, I was curious. I didn't I didn't know if we those copies uh from the prior edition or if we ever ever purchased. So, I'm going to say no, but I have we'll have to double check cuz I mean I went digging around in these books all the time. So, I don't remember coming across it. Okay. Okay. Any other question comments? Okay. Thank you. Thanks. All right. We are going to we're going to bust through public comments. Yep. Uh right here. Benjamin I think it's Dickinson Der something Morgan as well is on deck by I'm going to pronounce this
326wrong lamis Mills Mills thank you and Alicia walkin you don't have a blue card okay we're we're for my battery guys. I wanted to share those with you guys. Our topic today get to what this is about. So my son attends Kofax school. Um he is autistic has has a um IEP. You know what I love about my son is is that his brain the way it works he doesn't uh he doesn't deal with social stuff right he does he has hair up to here and crazy crazy clothes I love him he decided to go out football team never play sports to stay in his life and excel started the first year he was playing football and the whole time I had no no idea being bullied bullied um just whipped and called names and
327he had no idea that I wasn't normal. He thought these were his friends. And when it was brought brought to my attention, you know, you know, I did the school and the coaches about it and the sad thing is actually his person in charge in charge of me at the school too. So I thought he's in good hands. Uh that being that being said, the investigation done because not only was he physically and brutally assaulted, he was also sexually assaulted by members members. And then the district decided to do downgrade that to sexual argument so they could they could induct a title N investigation to um alert all the members that that filing uh claim against them which gave them time time to lure and um kind of stifled the investigation by the county sheriff
328sheriff's department. So um you know Shane Simbeck was in charge of it as was Ray Be and Tren Wilson. Uh uh you worried about your costs for attorneys? You know, um if anybody was treated the way I I was, I'm not surprised that you guys are being sued as much as you as you are. I haven't sued Guju. I just wanted an apology. I wanted things to be made right. Wanted things to be changed. And every time we we deal with the district, Mr. Wilson in general. Um it's it's a confrontation. You we leave you. I think the thing that was staged to me last time we talked was I had the camera crew pulling my son around son around prove that these things are happening because it's always if this happened here's here's how
329we handle it. I have video pictures all of that was submitted to the district and it's been done. Um Trent Wilson even though the office of education said not move forward with this because your prediction is flawed. He moved forward with it gave us a determination for Christmas that my son son had to do some restore pro program because you know he was the aggressor not these other students he reported it and that picture was them threatening to kill him. There's multiple videos and pictures and threatening to kill him. Kill him. He came forward and and so now we're having to go to this resto program. Thank you for being here followed by La Mills. Hello board. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak this evening. My name is Morgan Dickerson and I'm
330the mother of Gabriel Gabe Gabe Dickerson a student a student at Kfax High School who happens to have autism. When Gabe start high school, he faced tremendous challenges navigating social environment. He he didn't have friends. He had a cell phone. But the only people who ever called were his family. His hair stood a foot and a half high as he refused to cut it for several years. We tried once to get him get him to trim and he cried and had a meltdown at the barber shop. The more we got up cutting his hair, the longer it seemed to grow. In some ways, the amount of courage it took that different was incredible. Then toward the end of freshman year, something unexpected had happened. Over dinner one night, Gabe told us that he wanted to
331join the football team. We were shocked, but we we supported him. At the summer practice schedule, he started lifting weights. He ate protein. He got up, got up for the first time. It felt like like we had a neurotypical teenager. Confident, focused. Sitting up straight, he stood straighter. He spoke more. You could tell could tell he felt like he belonged. And one day he emerged from his bedroom room and his hair gone andly so compared to what it was. He had severed tie ties with seemed like an old to emerge into new. For the first time in high school, Gabe Gabe belonged. He was one of the guys. And then we came to learn that as he he wasing to play to play vars this past season. He was suffering bullying, bullying, harassment, and assaults.
332If you've you've watched Love on the Spectrum, you'll notice the adults living with autism need breaks and support when they get they get overulated as as attacks can quickly follow. You'll also also find regularly repeat language. They don't don't fully comprehend or use forms of speech out of context on that that show their family and and friends and producers to calm the situation redirect and provide proper context. Kfax Gabe was left to suffer and was met with wings from from teammates. A poorly linked threats to his to his life and disgusting pictures and videos were sent to him. Much of this he found on his phone months had occurred. He was dealing with all of this alone. and the the actions of KFax High School and the district have only caused further pain. You lame
333Mills followed by Alicia. uh items of discussion from your consent agenda was regarding the desire to lower the the call legal representation. ironic know knowing that many of the losses is monitor likelihood of litigation of the clients based upon policies then you proceeded to multiple items on your agenda that unnecessarily increases likelihood ofation. So in the case of the family that just spoke, improper and proper investigations, poor execution of policy and laws will definitely increase. The prevalence of autism in various spaces like entertainment, shows, she mentioned love on the spectrum um has allowed community and society to to become aware in that same text. more knowledge is available to the general public and editor should be more aware of the nuance nuances at the very very least they should be seeking more information about about
334autis they're likely to see interact with students that are autistic that that family in an awful way and there's still time to correct it when I get to get to the fact a a child living with autism would face treatment of the family is just a shame the reflection on you and you board comes directly through what's happening at schools. It's also a reflection of the children being raised in your community, what the adult the adults schools will allow. Earlier in your presentation, you mentioned that PUSD affirms unwavering support title 9. Please be advised that title 9 in in its whole is an equity equity fram and disabilities falls under that as well. Um lastly I want to jump on a couple things that you all mentioned. Uh there was a question regarding the academic
335preparation and the grading grading. I just want to all of you to go and take a look at your LCA. All right. All right. That's what I was reading for that 50 plus minutes. Um, and it'll specifically show show you and how you can me measure and things that actually make a difference. I'm sorry to tell you, but those slides in that 50 minute didn't help a single single student that's still struggling on your LCAP. It didn't help your SED, your WD, it didn't help your RFP. It didn't help help any of those groups to actually help you as district increase your overall scores course which is what after which will actually bring opportunities for additional scholarships additional and other things. So focusing on on managing teachers along with not handling things or doing doing
336things to more litigation and ignoring students with autism doesn't reflect very well you as a as a board. I encourage you to think differently. Thank you. Thank you for time. Alicia Bird um I want to start by offering to Mr. Jeff because I did have apparently some misinformation about about your teaching credential and infinitely my source checking credentials it appears is no longer transparent to the public. Maybe I'm mistaken but I'll look into that. So I apologize for that misinformation. I still have questions about the campaign but that for later um scrapping what I was going to say because of the brave parents just shared their situation fullfax high school uh myself I'm a grad graduate of Fax class of last 97 Falcons um I was not allowed to walk for graduation I I did
337graduate I didn't get a diploma but I I wasn't allowed and the reason was um excessive absences and low rates and when I had that that was Sophomore year, I tried tried to kill myself on campus. And of course, Id um but no support. There was no therapy. There was no address addressing the situation. And then my sophomore year, my senior year, excessive drug use, no therapy, no support for that because nobody even asked asked. Um in my senior year, went through a trial to put my father in prison. Succeed. Um but that's why I had low grades. That's why I had excessive absences. At that time, 30 years ago, almost um um old. Um there weren't wellness centers. There weren't really counselors per se. Wasn't really really emotional learning. There wasn't really um that
338kind of support that every kid kid needs. Every kid through different trials and situations. People in family die by people in their abuse and people become homeless. I I I knew easily and people who who were used by their own parents in different ways physical, emotional, sexual, financial um that that's why we take steps forward to support kids. That's why when brave brave kids like come forward forward and this is what's what's happening to my child and I need the full weight and support of the the district and the staff and the and the teachers and everybody everybody everybody should have red flags going up right now. say what can can we do to support this situation and I'll tell you one of the things that you can do and that's because my my son
339has been in in the AU district and now he's in the PUSD district I was site council and PTA for years and um EV Kane before all the chaos has happened and then the one thing that I've noticed and my mom used to be a teacher at a continuation school was that we don't suspend and and we don't because it makes the numbers look had especially if the bullies are on seems that's something that needs to be a priority above above above book ban above everything else we need to accept the fact that that there are toxic stu students that are being allowed to stay on campus because we want our district and we don't want our county to look bad and I understand it but it needs to change thank you for your your
340All righty. Um, that is the that's of our public comment. Just kidding. Oh, I'm sorry. My apologies. I got real stuck on blue card up here. Up here and everybody wants wants home. So, I'm going to be quick again. Sharon Breen, two kids graduated from from Colex, former employee. um clearly a newbie to to this which why I asked as asked a question I wasn't supposed post supposed post supposed post supposed post supposed post supposed to and do a blue card for standing here but I'll know for next time um I wasn't planning to to speak tonight but I wanted to tell you tally moved by what I have seen and I'd like to quickly explain why um I now planning to come to every single board meeting indefinitely and I'm coming as a concerned
341citizen of the world this community and and advocate for children children all children and I'm currently in training Brown Act also in training as an observer and a monitor of public board meetings public school board meetings and I am likely joining forces with a group called school strong and something that uh struck me tonight is it's very interesting to hear different points of view especially ones I agree with that's what our world needs needs. Right. Right. There's too much vision. But it it the enough times I've heard board members say, "I think I believe it's my opinion and concerning to me and I'm getting the sense that there are people here who may have their own own agenda. I'd really like to do is encourage the board to review your job descriptions and have to
342your job descriptions. uh make sure that that every single decision you make and you've worked worked really hard. There's a lot of people here who have worked hard and are very passionate and I'm grateful that make sure that everything that you do relates to job description and represent your communities just your own beliefs your own political aspirations whatever it may be and I'll know more more because I'll know you more as I more as I come into all these meetings like you. Um, there's one question that that I have going way back to the beginning, but this is just for starters because honestly my head is and by the way meetings always so because I' I've committed to coming to every one of these. I'm a little concerned concerned. um back to I think it
343was BP 4000 but I was I don't know what just just happened that but but the idea that trustees are there's going to be one one invited to every interview I'm sure that's a nightmare for a department that's probably already really really stretched but but I'm wondering why why end are you going to have a role in the decision making are you are you representing yourself or your community what's the real intention of doing that is it the best best of your time you're already so busy and you're doing doing all this work I'd like clarification at some point I'm not asking question but why what's your agenda wanting to be involved in those interview interviews you thank you all right um we're going to touch 13 board calendar announcement correspondence obvious obviously we've got
344a board meeting in two week weeks and this board meeting on uh the 2nd and superintendent and Ali first day is on on the 1st. So that would be good opportunity for us to um work on some goal setting and setting the stage for this year. And that being said, thank you. My apologies. This was a long long one. I appreciate your time. We're going to recess back to the closed at this time. So please get home safely, please. And we have to return back for and then we'll return back to back from close session at 101 and uh we will be item 3.4.11 stipulated expulsion 0711P 2425. Do I have I have a motion to approve? I second. We have a motion by by Denon, a second by Trustee Underwood. All in favor? Say
345I I I All oppose. Motion passes 440. Item 44, excuse me, 3.4.2 stipulated at extend 0899 DO 24 2020. Do I have a motion? Motion to approve. Approve. Motion by Duncan. Second by Jeff. All in favor say I. I I oppose. Passes for O. All right, moving to to our final item of the agenda 14. Do I have a I have a motion to adjurnn. Second. Motion by Duncan. Second Underwood. All in favor say I. All oppose. Thank you guys. Thanks. Thanks everyone. We're out of here. It's 7:42. We're getting out of here.