March 26, 2025 - RVSD Board of Trustees Regular Board Meeting

001Instructions for accessing subtitles in a language other than English are included on our board meetings web page as well as in the description below. St. Louis. Good evening and welcome to the Ross Valley School District Board of Trustees regular meeting. Today is March 26, 2025. I'm trustee Chris Landlesc and I'm calling the meeting to order at 6:02 p.m. We have three trustees present in person at the Ross Valley School District office at 100 Shaw Drive in Sano, myself, Daniel Cassidy, and Rachel Litwac. We also have cabinet members present, Superintendent Tyler Grat, Eric Sable, and Chris Carson. The meeting is being livereamed via YouTube and the link is on our website and on the agenda. There will be a 60-second delay between the meeting and the YouTube live stream. An audio recording of the meeting will

002be made available to the public on our district website within 72 hours following the meeting. We have one item on our closed session being conference with legal counsel anticipated litigation significant exposure to litigation pursuant to government code 54956.9 subdivision D243 special education program dispute. It's one case. Student ID 5331 936 835. Before the board recesses to close session, we always allow for public comments only on the close session agenda. There is no one in the room to make those comments. So, I'm going to adjourn to close session. Recess. Recess to close session. The time is 6:03 Good evening once more. The time is 6:23 and we are reconvening from close session. Uh the board is reporting out that it voted unanimously 3 to zero for student ID 5331 936835. Moving on to the procedural items,

003we're going to say the pledge of allegiance, but before we do, we often have either a democratic reflection, and I have one tonight that I want to share. Um, the flag right here represents uh something which is a united democracy. It was sewn together to reflect that for this country. And regardless of where you stand, our country is experiencing profound changes of which we will not know for some time what the impact will be, whether it's positive or not. What we do know is that we are at the helm, all of us, guiding young minds in the future of this country. And I want this night and our work to continue to remind us that we do not do this for ourselves, but for the children who are powerless to determine what makes for them

004a great education. As adults, we've had our moment to be molded through our own education and community. We're done. Our time in the sun is complete, and whatever it provided, so be it. So I hope that as stewards of the future of others, we continue to push empathy over violence, togetherness over divisiveness, and belonging over exclusion, and to make those things an undying part and maybe even a pledge to our school community and our democracy. For those of you who wish to stand, please join us in reciting the pledge of allegiance. I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all. Moving on to But this does get fun. That was heavy, but this does

005get fun. Moving on from procedural C to item number two to adopt the agenda and time allocations. Do we have any uh thing to note from the board? Okay. Can I um put out for a motion to approve? Recommend we adopt the agenda and time allocations. I will second it. Okay. Um so be at the we have adopted the agenda and time allocations. Um Daniel I I I approved. Okay. Now to the fun part. We have a student presentation tonight uh from our White Hill Mathematics program. Um I'm going to give the floor to you. Come on up. We can have students. Introduce yourselves before you talk. I'd love to know who you are. Um, hi, I'm Callie H. What grade are you in? I'm in seventh grade. Seventh grade. Um, I'm Irish Grac and

006I'm in seventh grade, too. I'm Camila Gomez and I'm in seventh grade. I'm Jocie Grammar and I'm in seventh grade. So, I'm Mr. Baker. I'm one of the White Hill co-principles and we are thrilled to have our White Hill students here and two of our White Hill math teachers. Um, kind of a big topic has been really math skills in general and how critical they are. And you know, we've seen there's been a lot of discussion, especially after COVID, about making sure that students accelerate their math learning. Um, a lot of our work um, at White Hill has been focused on this and we are so fortunate to have um, two incredible educators who have joined our team in the last few years um, and Miss Evans and Miss Hatfield to really help lead this

007work and provide these um, transferable skills to prepare students for high school and beyond. Um, a lot of our work we've been trying to leverage, you know, the the power of collective teacher efficacy when teachers work together. The power of that um looking at priority skills um and that first best instruction that they um talk about and collaborate about. They also have been um collaborating around assessments, shared assessments and then come together and look at the data and look to how we can accelerate students um that we can offer extension activities as well as um interventions when when needed. Um so with that, I'm going to turn the floor over to our teachers, Miss Evans and Miss H. Okay. Hi everybody. I'm Jamie Evans. I teach seventh grade and an eighth grade workshop class. Um

008and I am Brianna Hatfield. I teach um two math workshop classes for sixth grade and seventh grade and I teach math seven and eight. Okay. So there's two things that we're going to talk to you about tonight um that are very impactful and student facing and impact the student experience in our classroom this year. And those are amplify desmos math and I ready. like [Music] and what I'm going to try to be flexible with tech here. Thank you. Okay. And if while I'm introducing if I could have you all be our students and try to go to this website. Is it big enough for us to see? Go. What's the website? Learning. Learning. Forward slash join. I didn't know we had to take a test today. I'm like a test. Okay. So, and then the

009joint code is 2 E K Mary H. top and then do we have a uh a class code or you can just log in with Google okay and then we can go back to the presentation right now starting you can just say lo you don't have to have an account your sizer first we switched over to our trusty Google accounts Star student right here. Star student. Did you? I did. Yeah, I did. Help me. Do you just have the one student in so far? I'm in. Okay, we got you. I'm not in. So, I don't have an account. I've already failed seventh grade. Like, I can't say it. You guys look like fun. I'll hang out with you again. together. Wait, do you have I think we have to be we have to have like

010Jamie. Oh, there it is. Sorry. [Music] There's a spot in the corner on the sign up page that says like log in as student and that will allow you to join with the code. Yeah, it does. It takes us back to this that page even at clicking student sign up. I just Yeah. And then it's a loop. It goes back to kicks you back to this code. The code. It's okay. I think we will be able to just have the few people that are logged in. Um, and we'll be able to see what we're Oh, wait. Do I have to do two verification? My goodness. Good job. Did you just create one person? Yeah, just check it for my%. I think we have enough folks in. So, if you're not in, don't worry about it.

011Oh, it's on. We have to go to the first slides. It's online right now. Daniel's got a screen that Tyler and Rachel can share. All right. Okay. So, let's go back to the slide. All right. So, we will quickly move on because we know we're all here to see the kids. Um, Amplified Desmos map is the curriculum that we're piloting this year. It's got a digital platform and then it also has the consumable for the students. Every single digital lesson has an alternate in the workbook. So, we get to balance that tech versus p pencil to paper. Um, what we love about it and what I want you to look out for when the kids are walking you through their experience, one is the conceptual modeling that it provides. Um, it's super important that students

012are able to anchor their mathematical concepts to a model and Desmos is exceptional at providing this. Um they're all interactive models so the students can see how different inputs make the model react. Um two is visibility to student thinking. So in the seventh grade classroom sometimes a teacher will ask a question to get a conversation going and the kids are like we don't get anything. And in these digital lessons, they have the opportunity to give input on their screens, which the teachers can then see and respond to in the moment, which is fantastic. Um, students get real time feedback as they're working with the models. So, they can not only see if their answers are correct or incorrect, but they can see what their answer did to the model. So, they can see, you know,

013oh, I made the shape bigger. My intention was to make it smaller. what can I do different to start getting on the right track? And then lastly, look for high engagement levels when they're showing you um their favorite slides. The students seem to have a lot of fun with Desmos. Um there's lots of conversation that it generates, lots of laughing that happens in the classroom. Um and it's overall just really high engagement. So look out for those things when the kids walk you through. Miss Hatfield's going to talk a little bit about I Ready. Yeah. So, I'm sure you guys have seen a little bit about I Ready because I think the elementary schools or at least a couple of them are using them. Um, but we wanted to show you a little bit about

014what we see from the middle school standpoint. Um, so some things that we love about I Ready um is we're able to see their growth over time. Um, so they took their first diagnostic um assessment at the beginning of the year and then we took one again in January and then we will take one again at the end of the year. Um and then from that diagnostic we get to see their my path which sets them up for individualized um lessons. Um and then in addition to that we can as teachers assign them lessons um that can give students who might be struggling on an um inclass topic some extra practice um so to add that fluency to it. Okay. So, and then these are just um some quick snapshots of what we might see.

015Um so the first one on the left um is seeing their growth over time after working through I Ready. Um so going starting at a grade seven level and then getting to being on grade level after um the January assessment and then you can it can break it down based on domains. Um so looking at those four um and then you get to see their growth for those specific domains um over time and then this is again one um that you can see their specific time spent on the specific domains um so the lessons that they might have passed or tried to work through. Um yeah that's it. Okay, so we're gonna move on to the student experience. Um, and thank you all once again for making time in your schedules. We're really happy to

016have you and they're going to have fun with you. So, they picked out some of their favorite Desmos slides. You guys are going to be the students. Thank you. Do you want to tell us what the slides are? This is Iris. Oh, Iris. Iris. Okay. Um, so like this um slide like shows us if you watch the video to just watch the video really quick. So you want us to watch the video? She can show it on the TVs, too. Um, so as we can see, number one starts ahead of number two. Tammy, we call her, is a cheater. Not good. Um, and um, we did this in class with Miss Evans at the start of class. It's a really nice way like to start class, you know, we get to like write down stuff

017and that like lets us interact with our classmates and Miss Evan will like point out funny things in our stories when we're writing them and it's a nice way to like start class and laugh and like just make it not super serious math all the time. Um, yeah. You know, it's also like really nice way to like get into unproportional relationships. Um, as we as we can see, Tammy starts ahead. So, on a graph, um, Tammy would not be going through the origin of the slope or of the graph. Um, and yeah, it's a nice way to sway. Yeah. Yeah. Number Yeah, number two. Um, yeah. So with this one also um similar video and one of Desmo's like great things is we can see like um immediate feedback. So if you guys want to

018try you can to type in some answers and yeah just give me a second there and then we're going to we're going to observe you over here because we can see what you're doing. So two seconds one the turtle. So this is six, seven, eight, n for turtle. Turtle 2 is going so it's going 12 ft and 6. We're struggling a little bit. Not us. Not us. We're not struggling. struggling. So in the start, right? So yeah. So if we go at 0 seconds, you've got uh six I see already went six feet. That's right. Before even starting one second. If you guys look at the video, it's a little hint. You can um do the dial. Let me just at two seconds we can see that turtle 2 is at 6 ft. Yeah, you

019can turtle. Oh yeah. But and then if it's a linear progress they're going at the same rate. Oh, it's going to be six. Team Sable is close. Team Sable is close. 3 seconds. team. Yeah. Are we team Sable? I don't know who's team. Congratulations. And so it can't be 12. Like you can see with the video like when I was doing this slide um it helped with the video because you can draw it back and it gave you that dial with like the beat marks and that really helps with like visual learning. Like personally I'm more of a visual learner and it helps me to see like graphs and stuff. Can I ask a question Iris? You asked you said something about a graph and like lines and stuff. How did you get that from

020this or you just know that as the teacher? There's the graph. Well, if we just take away the graph or the table there and we look at the video, Tammy number one is when she would start she would go through the y intercept. You call Tammy a cheater. Maybe Tammy's blind. Yeah. Right. Maybe Tammy needed that extra push. Who knows? But she's still lost. Yeah, that's that's the sad part. But or maybe she goes to McDonald's. Yeah. Who knows? I like I like that. Yeah. But like see it makes it makes it fun. It is fun. Yeah. We like it. You know what I like? I like that collaborative blending we both figured out. Yeah. And then together we all do that. We know that. I have to help. Yeah. Yeah. It's really fun. Nice.

021Thank you so much. Let's take a look at Callie's favorite slide. Um, now now we got it. Now we got it. So, if you guys want to press press, you guys can press try it and see um what the video will show you. Okay. Okay. Let me see. No, you said try it. Mhm. So, um, in this lesson, we were learning about slope and how like one of them is going in a straight line. Um, and whereas the one on the right has like different triangles that have different slope angles. It's going to be a really rough ride. How do we reset it? It just so is it if I'm looking at this correctly, the first one has the straight because the two lines are equidistant. Does that equate to proportion of slope? We like

022that one better. Proportion. Yeah. So the proportionate distance between point A and point B to C is equidistant. Yeah. that creates the proportionate slope. Yeah. And I I really like these cuz like it gives you like a way to like it gives you like a thing to look at. Whereas like instead of just like having a teacher explain it, you have like a model right in front of you that you can look at like, oh, this one looks right. Oh, this one doesn't look right. Um, okay. We're going to go to the next one and you guys can try to figure out. So, obviously 20 is the wrong answer because it's too tall and would make it not. Um, it's cool. You can see right there. Yeah. But why is it 10? Because Okay. 24.

023Looks like team save already got it. This boom [Music] boom. Okay. Okay. Looks like everyone got it right. So, like Iris said, 60 is 10. Yeah, it's 10. Yeah, like I said, I really like how like it gives you like when you put in the answer and like try to check it, it gives you an automatic answer like to see if you're wrong or right and like how you need to like change it. Like obviously if you put in a number higher than 20 or higher than 10, it would be way too like large and wouldn't be a like proportional slope. Um but if or if you put in something that was lower than 10, you could see that it was the wrong answer. So what if you just put in a number and got

024lucky? Does it tell you how you why you're correct? Uh, it no, it doesn't tell you why you're correct, but I think a lot of the time Miss Evans like tells us to like not don't just guess, like actually try to work through the problem and like try to figure it out yourself. And then usually also we after like we do the slide depending on if we're working with a partner um then you and your partner would probably talk about it or if we're working in a whole group um as a class like we would usually talk about the slide after everyone put in an answer. Okay. Thank you. All right. So, um, we're going to go next to Joyce's slide. This is a learning experience that helped me improve my abilities to learn new

025skills. The math lessons we were introduced to were very entertaining because of its fun animations, and it makes my learning easier and more enjoyable. um because it was visual. I personally really had fun learning scaled copies where you make a copy of a drawing and multiply by a larger number. On this slide, you can change the lengths of each you can change the length of each side of your robot to create a scaled copy. You can go ahead and try it. face. That would be teacher, I have a question. Oh, what is scale factor me? Did you already try doing it wrong? Enter in the wrong number. See what it did. Oh, you got entering the wrong number. Try entering the wrong number is what I'm saying. A scale factor is hold the teacher's talk.

026Don't be real student. A scale factor is like what you multiply by to make it a proportional like shape. To make it proportional. Yeah. So okay. So multiply by two everything is doubled then. Yeah. scale. Okay, cool. So, a question that I've had is um Rachel and I aren't necessarily Well, I'll speak for myself. I'm not necessarily a tech native. So, sometimes the tech stuff I don't know how to like figure out how to change one of the lengths of the sides. Is tech ever an issue for you all when you're doing this or is it pretty No, we're gend we go. Okay. I was like, I look at this different. That's interesting. 12:5. I really enjoyed this slide because it helped me understand how this could be useful like in real life where maps

027are maps and like blueprints are like scaled down and many other like things like projects and yeah um and this next slide is for using Desmos for the first time was is a game changer because it helped me explore more mathematics. One of my favorite mathematic problems were equations. It was very entertaining for me and it helped me understand the concept of how to read a tape diagram. In this slide, it asked me which of these equations matched the tape diagram. And the best equation that helped me was three parentheses x + 6 = 30. And how I solved it was I had to multiply three and x which equals 3x. And you have to do the same to six which is 18. And I grab a piece of scratch paper and I had to

028write 3x + 18 = 30. Then I had to solve it by subtracting 18 from both sides and I got 3x = 12. Then I had to divide by three and got x = 4. So that's how I that's how I found out what x represents. And this is how Desmos helped me solve a con concept problem. That's good. I was trying to understand. Yeah. One of the things we've been talking about at the district level is how much time kids are on screens in class and thinking about, you know, like a kindergarten student probably shouldn't be on screens very much, but a middle school student needs to be able to learn how to work with technology. What do you feel like is your do you feel like you're getting the right amount of technology

029use in school? Too much, not enough? What are your thoughts? I I think like Miss Evans like does a good job of like switching between like going from online Desmos to like our Desmos workbook. And like for homework we always have like we have like practice problems in our Desmos workbook. So like I feel like it's definitely a good amount of like each. Yeah. Like um I think some sometimes we do spend a lot of time on screens which is like understandable. We have like a lot of our curriculum is on screens. Um, but teachers Miss Evans definitely has been getting more on top of like computer usage because like you know it's natural for middle schoolers to get sidetracked on computers. Um, so like yeah, we've been more on top of that which is

030nice. When you do exams, when you do testing, it's all paper. Yeah. Yeah. In math, um I've definitely taken some history tests. Yeah. But like in math it's always like on paper. Yeah. So thinking about when you're doing these exercises, do you find that they transfer well to when you have to take this to this to this? And that's that's really good. That's great. It's a little hard for the side that I showed with like the video. It's a little hard to show that. I think they like write it out really nice and it's easy to understand. That's great. Yeah, cuz I think a lot of the time like our tests will like have references to like like turtles or whatever. Like when we were learning about the proportional and non-proportional, like it'll be like

031turtle one and turtle 2 or whatever. Do you think you like math more because of this? I I really like that here with like the slope and geometry like X and like algebra in general. It's really cool. Yeah, that this is really awesome. And Camila, what did you like about the equations? Like that's a crazy thing that you said like I'm excited about equations. Like what about that excite? It's awesome to hear. Um, I just like how with distributed property I could find out the answer more quicker and yeah, that's awesome to hear. It's great. So, a question before you you were in Miss Evans and Miss Hatfield's classes, did you feel like you were good at math and did you like math? Yeah. Yeah, I did. I wasn't good enough, but I think I

032I like liked it. I was good enough to get an A, though. So, yeah, I was actually I had Miss Hatfield last year for uh sixth grade, so I think both of them are like such good math teachers. We did not play them. He could know I was going to ask them. What What do you think to that answer? Well, I personally like back then I was like struggling with math, but like since like um we got like introduced to Desmos, I feel like it was more funner which interested me more and wanted me to like learn more. So, I think that helped. Yeah. and the past. Like last year, I was kind of also struggling in math, but then when I started using Desmos this year, it kind of helped me with my mathematics

033skills. And also, Miss Happy would help me a lot by like teaching me step by steps and then I got it on my own. Camila, I've been really impressed with your academic vocabulary, too. Like, you were using all the math language, which is pretty impressive. Thank you. Yeah. Was that the last one, guys? He did. That's amazing. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you. [Applause] Before Before we we wrap up, I want each of you to take a moment and and tell us who you came with tonight. Oh, yeah. Okay. And uh then after that I want we want all four of you to come up here and have a seat in our seats because the world needs mathematicians in the front and center. So why don't we start? Tell us who you came

034with tonight. Uh I came with my dad and my dog. Um I came with my brother and my mom and my dad. Yay. In the front. I came with my mom. She's in the back. I came with both my parents. So, hello. Well, you guys, I I am just impressed beyond belief. And And believe it or not, you're going to have to find out the variable of X your whole life. So, this is a great way to start. At least it's fun, right? So, will you come up here and join us and have a picture with us? Take a seat. Take a seat that you'd like to sit in. sit next to you, Callie. Oh, that's a superintendent's chair. So, if you want to be like the head, right, guys? Sure. Come on, Shel. The

035X variable X has showed up. How about the Gavl? Do we have G? There we go. Here's your X. All right. And I just want to note that this to me is a really good representation of why White Hill has been recognized as a school to watch. Fantastic teachers building strong relationships with students. students deeply engaged in their academic content and it being rigorous content, too. So, I just think this is a really good example of what uh an excellent middle school looks like in practice. So, thanks for coming to share, folks. [Applause] And we have swirl ice cream gift cards for all four of you. So, fancy stuff. Thank you. Thank you for the Halloween math lesson. Good job. Do you guys want the back books back or should we keep these? It's not

036a gift. Technically, I mean you [Laughter] guys get a leg up on Thank you. [Music] Okay. Um, that was wonderful. Thank gosh. That's like the best. The best. That is the best. And I felt that I felt that moment where just about to not be as bright as my kids. I call it high school homework. Okay. So, we are going to uh now move on to section E of our agenda communication. Um, one public comment regarding items not on the open session agenda. Um, I am looking out to see if anyone has any comments that they'd like to thank fill out the card. Okay. At this time, no one has expressed I haven't card, but I would like to speak. Non-aggenda non-aggenda item. I'm here as a representative of RBTA. That's the next one. Okay.

037So, I will have that. So, other than you coming to something on the agenda, there's no one Hill True have a comment. Okay. All right. Uh, moving on. Um, communication, correspondence, communation to the board. Um, acknowledge our receipt of information sent by a parent. Appreciate the outreach. Those of you interested, take a look at it. We encourage everyone to read it. Do we have any comment from the board on that? Okay. Uh number three, announcements by the labor unions, the CSEA and RBTA. Um and we welcome Yeah. Mitch Brown. And just for the recording, could you state your name? Yeah. Yeah. Um my name is Mitch Brown and I'm a fifth grade teacher at Manor. I'm in my 20th year and I'm just here representing um Manor as our site rep for RBTA and um

038this is kind of the first time I've ever spoken to the board. So, it's kind of a big moment for me in those 20 years. So, um I just want to thank you for all the collaborative work um we've been doing with Measure E and uh our district is continuing to progress towards providing our students with an educational experience that's challenging, engaging, and inspiring. We have amazing teachers at our schools and the California Distinguished School designations for Brookside and Hidden Valley validates everyone's hard work. Um, I was on the bargaining committee in 22 23 and uh I know that it must have been hard for you all to hear the testimonials that were shared during that that negotiating year. Um, and I know that you heard us and I am hopeful that measure E will

039pass and help RBSD to pay our teachers a living wage. At that time, trustees spoke about pressuring policy makers to think outside of the box to fund our schools. Now more than ever before, I hope that you will continue to think creatively about stabilizing funding for our schools and advocating for Sac in Sacramento. California is the fifth largest economy in the world and we are currently ranking uh 37th at US News and World Report. Um lastly, I want to invite you all to come to our schools and connect with our school communities and our staff. And in this competitive school choice environment, stellar teaching is continuing to take place in RBSD. I'd love you to come and see. I think all of our teachers would. Um, and during your site tours, uh, hopefully you could

040join up on a Wednesday morning with our TK and and kindergarten uh, parents and you can be impressed by how our student ambassadors are sharing their learning and our schools with you. And, um, hopefully you can be available to answer some questions with these uh, incoming parents hopefully. And while funding competitive salaries for our teachers is difficult, teachers commitments to uh their students and to their craft is rock solid. And we look forward to working with you to better the learning experience for all of our students. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Moving on to section F, presentation or action items on the agenda. Number one is the recommended adoption of resolution 12-2425 recognizing April 2025 as ArabAmerican Heritage Month. Great. So, like we've been doing all year, uh, bringing in, uh, cultural celebrations, um,

041and recognitions of different cultures each month, uh, the reason we're bringing this the ArabAmerican History Month today is that our next board meeting is until April 30th, and we want to make sure we're recognizing that before the basically the end of of that month. Um, and this is just another recognition that, you know, Arab Americans have made a a significant impact on our the culture of our entire community and our country. Um, they've been actors and models and CEOs and politicians and business leaders. Um, and we just want to make sure that all families that uh attend our our VSSD feel welcome and uh that we recognize them. So, like to bring this to the board for a vote. Okay. Does anyone have any comments on the attachment before we put a motion out? Any

042public comment on this item? Okay. There are no public comments on it. Um I will open up the floor for a motion. Before we do a motion, I just want to say thank you for bringing these to us. Yes. Every month. I appreciate it. Agreed. Um but with that I would um make a motion that we approve resolution 122425 recognizing April 2025 as Arab American Heritage Month. Second. Okay. Um all in favor Rachel I Shelley I Daniel I I from myself approved. Thank you. Thank you. Item number two is the recommended adoption of KA as the instructional program for seventh and eighth grade Spanish. Yes. Terrific. So, um, Mary Claire Mullen, our co-principal at White Hill, is going to be presenting with me this evening. Um we started the year um with some new Spanish

043teachers but not a new curriculum and just pretty quickly recognized that there's a need to have a base program. We previously had had some longtime Spanish teachers within the district who had developed their own curriculum that was standards aligned. Um, but having having teachers that need a little bit more. Um, Julia, can you I know I didn't pronounce that correct because I'm such a I'm going to try and then Eric can correct me. Okay. Chev. So chevet cuz I was French and I realized, oh wait, this is not French. This is the French person speaking Spanish. That's awesome. That's awesome. Great job. And it is the name of the program um that we've been piloting all year. Um so I'm just going to start by talking a little bit about the pilot process. So basically

044as we started the year we had a very quick identification of a need for an instructional program to use alongside our really strong teacher created standards aligned materials and took a dive into which programs um the state of California is recommending for Spanish language instruction and there are three K shaveros and Cinderos Um and we did a preview of all of those. We contacted all the publishers. We had little um you knowformational sessions with each and every teachers landed on. Um so as a as a full year pilot and so we had a full training day on September 27th. We launched the program and also had ongoing coaching. um there were office hours that teachers could tap into where they could um schedule any kind of a coaching session that they needed. Um and so

045that's how we launched. And then I think in February I reached out to the teachers to get um their feedback on the program and we got really positive feedback and here we are now recommending to move forward with this program. And then just a little bit about the evaluation lens, what we were looking for. Of course, we want it to be a program that is aligned to the standards. That's why it was recommended by the state of California, by the CDE. Um, structured to support gradual language acquisition. Um, something that we love about this program is that it represents all of the diversity of Spanish speaking peoples. It's very strong in terms of um understanding Spanish culture around the world and bringing in real world contexts. Um I think sometimes some of these older programs

046are really kind of wonky and ridiculous for kids and there's a very strong attempt to connect these instructional materials to who middle school kiddos are. Um and then there's really good teacher supports. It's a pretty easy program to navigate. We purchased um hard text print copies for each of our classrooms. So there's a class set of those in the room, but there's also the entire program is available online. Um and some teachers and some kids prefer using it online, I think, but it's nice to be able to have both. There are also workbooks, auditory accents. Is it that assistance hearing what sound words sound like? Yes. And that's a big piece with the world language, right? Yes. Yeah. when you have it online, you can click a word and know exactly how it's meant to

047be pronounced, which I think I need. Yeah, sure. I think um so, you know, as Julie was kind of saying on the last set, one of the things that we loved about this curriculum was um how much it embedded the language experience also with kind of the cultural context so that students were all really also just thinking not about the not just about the language but um you know the the culture in which this language is used across the world. Um, so there's, you know, real connections across each each unit to that. Um, they're also with each unit, um, kind of aligned to some of the work that we've been doing with looking at learning targets, um, around goals and that culturally responsive and relevant videos. Um, each unit is aligned to, you know, what

048are really clear student I can statements. Um, so they're kind of identifying what are the specific things I'm working on in terms my in terms of my language acquisition in this unit. Um and then um those videos which we'll get to see some of those um in a moment here as well. Um and then you know with language it's you know such um such an experiential um type of learning because students are really practicing you know in that um that with their oral language with their written language. And so they're really great opportunities throughout this curriculum for students to engage in all those um different modalities. Yeah. Is this where we pop to the other tab? Yes. So, we're going to pop into the top here. We're going to watch a little um example just

049of a video um that really students might start as an opener to a unit that really embeds the new vocabulary that they're starting to, you know, acquire in a in a context [Music] here. It's got a little bit of spookiness to it. Hola. No, the most [Music] Gracias. [Music] So, what are they what are they doing there? Are they then now reciting what they said to each other? I mean, I'm trying to understand like how So, it's setting the vocabulary for the lesson. So, like in that first one where you're learning each other's names, kids then get paired up and they're talking to each other and practicing um that kind of thing and bringing in more vocabulary. You can also show the video as it shows right there with either Spanish subtitles or English subtitles,

050both of which are useful. I think you can play them both at once, but I'm not sure. Uh I think just one at a time. Okay, cool. Yeah. Um, but it and it does also within the video also give you a transcript of the whole conversation too. So you're able to kind of look back at that as you're looking through the video. You could give students that transcript to go through. So again thinking like they're trying you're both working with them like understanding the written connection between the language that they're hearing, acquiring that new vocabulary. So there's in there, you know, this is like an example of a beginning one. So they're still working on understanding like their alphabet letter. So that spelling out of, you know, the student's name is also reinforcing the, you

051know, each of those letters in there as well. Was was that like intro 101? Yes. Very first unit. So very intro 101. So So this is like none of that made any sense to me. And that's part of it, right? Like, okay, this is where I'm going to get to by the end of this class. It's like you're basically trying to start a unit with some sort of immersion immersion where kids are like, "Okay, I can kind of tell they're introducing each other or she's like talking to someone on the phone and like it it gets kids engaged by like wondering what's going to happen." And then the teacher starts doing lessons where they're saying, "Okay, in order to introduce you have to say your name is Mayo Tyler and you have to start actually

052practicing." And it is how people acquire language, right? People come here from another country and they're hearing so much English and they're going to pick up some pieces of it and they're not going to know a lot of it. And it's very similar within the classroom of that immersion in language rather than mostly being English and just saying a couple of vocabulary words of the day which doesn't take you all that far. Does this um also pay sensitivity to like like you know If I'm learning Spanish and I'm and I go to another country, you have all these different ways of people talking, different accents, faster, you know, someone will speak slower, they'll they'll pronounce something differently, you know, versus, you know, and it's like, does it incorporate those different types of dialects to help

053them? Yes. And as part of that conversation kind of when in that looking at those different cultural contexts within each unit. Yeah. So in in many of the units they're focusing on a particular region across the country and so they'll get in some of those um sorry across the across the world uh and get into some of those more specific dialogues. Spain is very different than Mexico, right? Yeah. Okay, that's cool. Yeah. And then so I mean as we're talking kind of some of the things that we really liked about this curriculum is the interactive digital textbooks, some of those student activity um resources and um so here's an example just as we're talking about kind of culture, some of the things that they might you know highlight. This one is an example from a

054unit in which um they're working on vocabulary around you know houses and what's in your house. And so they're giving some context too about the different ways um and different types of housing in which people might live in in different parts of the world in the Spanish speaking world. And then in terms of kind of just the interactive pieces of the textbook. So this is the actual online digital version of the textbook as Julia shared there's you know hard copies as well. The benefit for students, especially at home in working with an interactive one, is that, you know, they are able to um click right on these links that will actually read the word out and pronounce the word in Spanish um and allow them to actually interact with some of those questions and prompts

055that are in there uh in a way that's um you know, more than on a worksheet so they can get some feedback. So, I think that's pretty good because some kids might not know how to read clocks. Yeah. these days either. But this goes to another question that Tyler asked earlier. What's the total time a typical seventh grader is on a device learning at White Hill across all their courses? Do we have an idea of that? It's, you know, that's something that John and I talk about and actually, you know, we're talking about more and more with our leadership team and in um, you know, we spend a lot of time getting around in between classrooms and have been doing our own kind of informal survey to be able to answer that question with more

056data. And we're talking more with our leadership team of like you know do we want to um you know really set some clear things for us to think about together as a staff collectively of what is a reasonable amount of time and you know it's is this balance as the students were saying you know that the experience is like there's some things that they are doing digitally because the tools are so valuable for helping them to deepen their understanding right that manipulative um work that they can do with you know Desmos or with some of these online supports in Spanish might be more valuable um in terms of pushing their learning deeper than trying to do a bunch of you know calculations by hand to see what's happening. So it's really about that intentionality of

057when are we using digital tools we're at home because they've got Netflix and Snapchat open on all their tabs and then I'm also doing my homework on this not paying any attention to it. So there yeah there's just it's f it's tough. Y I would ju I would just say that within the classroom you could almost look at this as within math class, you know, you're you're doing a lot of mathematics problems and talking them through and there's a whole interactive piece that happens there and then there is some really appropriate practice time. Some of what you're seeing here is that practice time. So you've done a lesson where the kids have been practicing around time. Everyone kind of in the class has had to say like Chase or whatever it is and then now

058we're going to practice on here and see if you know we're coming more in that way. Yeah. Then just that interactive piece. So there is a piece on here is um where teachers can also you know assign some of the assignments that you see there in the textbook but can actually assign a digital version. So students can actually answer right on their computer and be able to submit right away to get feedback and go back and see which one of those they got correct, which ones they might need to um need need to go back and rework on. And Daniel, I think that's one of the power because I I think you and I have had lots of conversations about how much tech the immediate feedback is really important for students. And I think when

059you're a teacher with 30 kids, you might only be able to give feedback to five or seven kids over the course of the the lesson where this is giving all kids feedback, but we don't want to over rely on it because the most powerful teacher in the classroom is the teacher and then the second most powerful is the other students and I would put technology beyond that. Yeah. And then, you know, just another tool that's um within this curriculum is um actually this um a platform called Clear Talk in which students are actually able to have a conversation with AI. So, if they're working, for example, maybe studying for a test where they're going to have to do some dialogue, you know, with the teacher back and forth. This allows them to actually get feedback

060on the verbal language, their oral language that they're practicing um in real time. And there's a little demo here for that we can take a look at. Yeah, the video loads over it. It should it should actually be Yep, that link there. It just takes a moment to load. I think we're good. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Anyway, in in that video, what you would see is that there's um a person there and it might say give the student a prompt. So, it might say hola and then the prompt might say ask me you know how I am. And so then the can student will hit the microphone and actually give the prompt for asking how they are in um Spanish and then at the end of kind of going through those different prompts gets back a

061transcript with things that were correct in the language that they used and where they might need to go back. And the other part of that that's really powerful and helpful is you know a lot of students will feel a lot of anyone feels pretty awkward when they're learning a language and can feel kind of embarrassed to speak. So, it's also this really safe space where you can actually speak and get feedback, but there's nobody there. It's good. And so, for kids who are shy about speaking in class, it gives them that opportunity. Or adults. Or adults. My family is embarrassed when I try to speak Spanish and it's just going to your class. I love that. We'll see. Is there a and when they when they do practice on these modules is there a builtin

062AI function that picks up on weaknesses so that they can go back so that it comes and helps them work on the areas that that's what clear talk has that's what clear talk has okay that's great that's great and it's personalized for that person so that it just is responding to them so if you know they they might say here's another way that you can say it or I mean it's It's AI. It's great. Um, and it will get better over time, right? We all know that. Yeah. Um, does it record their spoken words so they can listen to it back and hear their accent? Because that's a hard thing for students or anyone to understand of like, what do I sound like in Spanish? That is a good question. I would have to double

063check and look back at the transcript. I didn't see that um but I wasn't looking for it either um when I was looking through it. Yeah. It's very different from when I learned Spanish in this. We were like, "Now we're going to learn the months." Yeah. So, again, what we really like about this program, we love that it's culturally rich. We love that um it's authentic and that it speaks to who a middle school kiddo is. We also like that there's a more traditional textbook as well as all of you know the online and and tech aspects and um bells and whistles that can actually really provide something that paper can't provide. Um and we think it's a really good you mentioned this is being used across the country. So, the the California Department of

064Education reviews for for every content area reviews um all different kinds of textbooks and then they determine which ones meet their standards and there were only three that three publishers that met the standard and this was one of them. given the integration of all these different learning modalities that are wildly new to a lot of people and I imagine to a lot of teachers as well and you had talked about coaching and teacher support. Does that include learning how to teach with like how to integrate like small group work in a classroom among students with whatever is the online thing or even something as simple as like sit in the teacher should sit in the back of a class when you're doing the online stuff so you can see everybody's screens as opposed to sitting

065up in I mean traditionally teachers sit up in the front of the class but when everybody's got their Chromebooks open and they're doing digital stuff to your point of just at that point walking around monitoring. We also have a program that we use that actually lets the teacher on one screen see what's on every child's screen within the classroom even if they're sometimes when like we'll have a middle school math release day here and they'll be checked and then they can freeze their student screen if they're on the wrong thing. Oh, interesting. Okay. Get bumped off. And so is that part of the coaching or is that it's like how to deal with digital integration at different it's a little bit of both. I would say some some of this is definitely a conversation that

066happens in the um you know in the the onboarding with the curriculum and them understanding all the components and then another layer of it is really the work that we do I think across sites all the time with how do we give time to teachers to collaborate with one another and really talk about the instructional practices in the classroom and how they're finding the most effective ways to engage students um you know with the different um curriculum pieces that are there and and what else to bring in. Cool. Will this be available for at home study if they'd like to go on to this anytime? You could learn along. You got my dual lingo. Thank you very much. My little phone vibrates. It sends journaling out my response. And is clear talk part of um

067this or is this a separate? This is part of the Okay. I was trying to say the name but I know. I got to do it. Okay. Oh my goodness. I'm gonna say it the same way that you said it now. Chev. But what's the correct Chevro? I'm a native Spanish speaker. It's Oh, help us out. Chev. A little more. Yeah, a little more chi. And I'm sure Eric is like, "No, it's so good. It's all good." I mean, that that's that's the process of learning is, you know, is being the immersion, repetition. And it's just like, you know, um, when our little infants are starting to learn how to talk and, you know, and the the the real key like we saw with our math students and and just how comfortable they were and

068talking to us and math talk and, you know, joking and having fun with it is just getting past the self-consciousness of not not speaking at this high level. Mhm. And um and that's all the the culture that you know our our teachers are um are bringing and um you know I know too that when they go to Archie because those are former colleagues of mine um you know they'll have the same attitude which is take a risk and um you will say things that will embarrass you deeply and that is part of learning a language. Um and uh so so it's it's it's it's a cool um thing to have. when I was teaching AP back when I would record my students on cassette tapes so that we could listen back and kind of analyze.

069And so it's really cool to also expand the teachers capacity to be able to get the kids that sort of feedback um instead of you know one by one by one progress. Yeah, I was just going to say I I do really appreciate that immersion approach and um you know you had asked about like listening to this as the beginning and like I didn't know anything. Am I supposed to know? And and just that experience of of having that immersion I think is a really important twist in the way that language is taught nowadays. um not only because it's more um intrinsic to the way you actually learn a language, but it also builds a sense of compassion. Yes. For everybody who's learning another language, even you know, especially for people who are learning English.

070And that's the kind of thing that you didn't used to get except if you would go abroad and I've got a whole bunch of family, you know, from Mexico and going there and being like, I don't know anything. my husband can't speak a lick of Spanish and he he's the only one in the room who doesn't know what's going on and it's a great just personal skill experience in addition to the language skill. So I really appreciate that addition in our curriculum. So staff recommends the adoption of Kate Chamé as our Spanish world language instructional program. Okay. Thank you very much. Um, we will put this out for public comment. Does anyone have any public comment on this presentation? It does not look like there is any public comment. So, I will bring it back

071to the board and entertain a motion for recommended adoption. Yeah, I'll make a motion that that we approve the adoption of this curriculum as a seventh and eighth grade Spanish world language instructional program. Sorry, Anna. Chevro. There you go. I'll second it. Okay, we have a a motion and a second. Um, Daniel I Rachel I Shelly C and myself C. Yeah, big thanks to Julia for leading. this was not something on her bingo card at the beginning of the year um to do this and she did it really swiftly with good teacher input and I think what it'll do as we have turnover in the Spanish program it'll help support new new teachers to be able to deliver high quality Spanish instruction to our kids. That's great. Thanks. Okay. Well, thank you very much and

072congratulations. Okay, moving on to our next item. Number three is the recommended approval of the agreement for the 202526 school year with Sanfell's city schools to provide services for extended learning opportunities. This one is me. Um this is just a continuation of the contract that we have for the current year. And what they're doing is they're helping us to ensure that we um access all of the dollars for the ELOP program, which provides a 9-hour day for students that are English language learners living in poverty. So basically, you're on duplicated pupils that are in grades um TK through grade six. And um what they're uh attempting to do is also ensure that there's been multiple outreach um to those parents that they know that that program is available for them. Um and one other thing

073that it does is it provides 30 uh days of uh what they would call interession. So that would be during um winter break, during spring break as well. So uh it's that 9-hour day plus the 30 days. And so this contract just is with San Rafll to provide those um additional supports for us. And Sanfell City Schools has a full-time person that does this um for their whole district and then uh that person has additional time that's paid for by us. I think they do Miller Creek and maybe one other school district. So just it's uh a good way for us to utilize shared services across the county. This this has cost us any thing in addition to what we've been paying or uh No, it's just the the cost of this which is um

074I believe it's $15,000. Okay. What is our um usage rate of um students who qualify to students who avail themselves of the ELOP services? Do we know? That's a great question and probably one that I would have to come back with. Okay. Um I know that what the YMCA is doing is they're braiding their their program together to try and find the best way to be able to provide the services and this is one of the things and um I know it's individualized by by school site and so I'll make that one of my tasks to to bring back to the board. Great. Okay. My approval is not contingent upon that. I was just curious. Okay. All right. So, we will um put this out for public comment on this particular issue. Do we have

075any? Okay. There is no public comment. I'll bring it back to the board uh to entertain a motion for the approval of the screen. Make a motion to approve the staff recommendated staff recommended um contract extension for this year. P City Schools. I'll second it. Okay, we have a motion and a second. Shelley, I Daniel. Hi, Rachel. Hi. And I will add my I as well. Okay, so approved. On to the next item. Number four, we have a recommended approval of Axia Architects agreement for the services related to the shade structures at Hidden Valley and White Hill Middle School. Chris, I think this is you again, right? I think I have the rest of them. I think you, but we're going to make it a little we'll spice it up a bit. So, this is

076uh to put in the two shade structures at White Hill and Hidden Valley. So, Hidden Valley, it's in the TKK area and White Hill, it's in the sixth grade area in the front of the campus. Uh and those are are shade structures that were prioritized by the um by the parents by the uh school community and um we've brought back to the governing board. So, we'll be putting those two shade structures in this summer. And as part of that process, what we need is um it has to go to the Division of State Architecture for a minor ADA uh upgrade that might be uh related to those shade structures in the areas that they're at. And so, they'll submit it to DSA and provide uh any information back to us for additional services that might

077need to be done, but it should be minor in in nature. Are there any ongoing maintenance considerations with these shade structures? There always are. These uh they are fabric shade structures. They're not going to be the um the metal type. Um even with the metal type you would have ongoing potentially. Um and with the shade structures you that are fabric, you have to replace the the fabric every couple years. Um, and we're in the process of doing that, I think, at one of the sites right now as well in another shade structure area. But again, approval of this will provide us the architectural um work that we need as part of this process. Can they be retracted um for when they're not needed so that the sun damage and wear from this unexpected rain for

078example? They're not going to be that type of a shade structure. No, they're they're going to be uh permanent shade structures with Yes. with four posts and uh we expect it to be about a 20 or 12 by 20 I think is the size for the uh kindergarten TK area and it should be close to 30 by 30 for the sixth grade area. So, they're pretty large. Are they under warranty at all? I mean, I think about these wind storms that come through here every year and the and spending this kind of money and then having them ripped during a major storm. Are they Yeah. Have they provided any warranty for some time on these? You usually get like a year warranty on it. Um and they're rated to absorb the type of winds that

079we get. And so we shouldn't have them go out on a routine basis. It should happen every you know maybe three, four, five years kind of in that range. And is this going to be over the the new digging pit in Hen Valley for the TK or near it or is that going to interfere with that? the the digging pit is actually going to be kind of over by the um uh garden area and so this is going to be yeah completely different area. This is going to be in the existing TKK area and we're hoping to extend it just a little bit as well. Is it going to be over where the kids eat kind of in in back u behind the play structure where kids eat lunch? Yeah, kind of in that general

080area. Good. And is the funding for this the onetime funds that we got from the sale of property last year? Yes. And this is based on feedback from principles and families that we made this decision to move forward with shade structures. Correct. Correct. Great. Okay. We have any more questions from warden and cabinet? I'll bring it out to the four for any questions or comment. Public comment. Okay. At this time, there is no public comment on this issue. We'll bring it back to the board for a vote. So, I'll entertain a motion. I recommend h sorry I move that we approve the recommended agreement with Axia Architects for the architectural services related to the installation of state shade structures at Hidden Valley School and Way Middle School. Second. Okay, we have a motion and a

081second. Rachel, I Shelley, hi. Daniel, hi. And I from me. Thank you, Chris. Moving on, we have the recommended approval of Axia Architects amendment for improvements on the Brookside Schoolbridge. And I think this goes to you, Chris. It does. And this is an amendment. Um, initially what we were planning on doing is making uh repairs to the bridge. And when we met with uh the division of state architecture in the the fall, one of the things that came out of it is they were similar to the issues at um the children's center. there's IR and different things that you have to adhere to. And what they do is they look at the cost of the project in relation to um the the old methods of building the bridge. And if it reaches a certain percentage,

082it automatically then has to be rebuilt. And going through the process, we were hoping we weren't going to have to rebuild it and use different methods. Um, but at the time of meeting with the division of state architecture, they're like, "We don't even want to look at that. We want you to put in a new one." And so what we have to do is go through the process and do additional work. And this particular amendment allows for the additional work. So you've got um a small additional amount in Axia for the work that they need to do plus some additional fees that they have to pay out related to uh structural engineer electrical engineer because again as as you'll recall we have electrical that goes underneath the existing bridge um that that is there now

083and uh it's also for civil engineering because there's it's a bridge and so the total amendment is 26 a little under 27,000 26710 is the total. And Chris, this is coming from the same funding source as well, correct? Okay. And then if you're driving up Butterfield and you pass Brookside, Brookside, the back parking lots on your right, there's another bridge just up Butterfield on the right. And it's a pre-fabricated metal bridge. You can see pretty easily when you drive up Butterfield. Is that a similar style bridge that we're going to be putting in? The answer is yes. Kind of took the thunder away from that last agenda item number seven. But the answer to that is yes. Yeah. The the intent is to have a pre-fabricated bridge and that that will make the process faster

084um safer. So they're not constructing it on site. It would be constructed offsite, craned in place. uh once the one day job hopefully at that point is there any point where uh we should they've all looked at this the this the structural integrity of this bridge has it been deemed okay to continue the usage during the school year? Yes, but during the summer it will be taken down. It will be taken down. Yeah, that's part of the process. It'll be removed completely. Great. And I've been working with the architects. I was on the phone with them today. Um, part of the problem that we are seeing right now is it has to go through um, one statewide entity for review. That takes about six weeks to go through and uh, I have the information to

085be able to start the process in the next few days. We also have to take the bridge through the division of state architecture which is another six weeks. So, we're hoping that we can get them kind of overlapping a little bit um so that we don't have to wait 6 weeks, six weeks. But the hope is that we were able to take everything down, do the site prep work because it what this also will require some aid uh Americans with Disabilities Act uh upgrades on the site both um on the school side, but also in the parking lot. So, we'll have to do some work and my hope is that we can do that during the summer. Remove the the bridge and then ultimately crane the bridge in. Might not happen um during the the

086summer period, but before the next school year, it will happen. It might happen shortly after. Okay. Okay. Soon as possible. Soon as possible. Thank you. Um so, we will Does anyone have any questions, further questions on this? Okay. Okay. Um, we'll put it out for public comment. We have no public comment on this. We'll bring it back to the board for uh to entertain a motion for approval of the AXI architects amendment. Uh, I recommend that we authorize Oh, I'm reading the one before that. Uh, we approve the agreement with AXA Architects amendment 01 for improvements on the Brookside School Bridge. I'll second it. Okay, we have a motion and a second. Daniel, I Rachel, hi. Shelley, I and I from me. Moving on to number six is the recommended authorization for advertisement for bid

087uh for the Brookside School Bridge. So, Chris, I'm getting out in front of it. Even though we can't put it out yet, I'm getting authorization now and that will allow me to to start all the work on it and get it lined up so we can get it out as quickly as possible. Okay, that makes a lot of sense. Um, that's pretty clear. Do we have any questions on that? You've been in touch with the folks who did the one further down Butterfield, the installation of that? Uh, not directly, but what we did is we um we did get contacted by a local parent who pointed that bridge out, but at the same time, we were already working with architect to look for a pre-fabricated bridge that we could crane in in terms of timelines.

088and uh the architect was able to find uh a bridge that has gone through DSA already. And we also looked at the manufacturer of the the one from down the street. We got that information from that parent. Um but really what we're looking for is a bridge that's already gone through the process with DSA. The the manufacturer knows the processes that have to happen has gone and dealt with them in the past. That's the biggest issue because TSA can be a its own beast at times. Any further questions for Chris on this item? They will put it out for public comment. No one's here to say anything for public comment on this issue. We'll bring it back to the board and we'll entertain a motion for number six. I'd like to make a motion we

089authorize the advertisement bid 242506 for the Brookside school bridge replacement project. I'll second it. We have a motion and a second. Daniel I Rachel I Shel I I for B as well. Thank you Chris. finally in this area even though it's been ruined so much. Number seven is the uh recommended approval of resolution 13-2425 of RVD for the designation of specific materials meaning what is the bridge going to look like meaning what is the bridge going to look like as well as who the manufacturer is and so we've designated the specific bridge that we want and uh with this resolution the board then authorizes us to use that as what's considered a sole source and so when we put out the bid, we would include this information. Whoever the contractor is that is the low

090bidder would then purchase the bridge directly and install it based upon the specifications within um the bid itself. Okay. So, we are just so I'm clear, we're approving the usage of the materials that's being proposed that tixies with everything that came before. Yes. Correct. Okay. Um, do we have any questions? Continuous questions on this. Out for public comment on number seven on the agenda. There's no public comment. We'll bring it back to the board for entertain a motion. I move that we approve resolution 132425 of the Ross Valley School District for the designation of specific materials, products, things, or services for the bridge at Brookside School. Second. Okay, we have a motion and a second. Rachel, I Shellyley, I Daniel, hi. I for myself. Chris, thank you very much for all of this work that

091you're doing on this. Okay, moving on to the consent actions on the agenda. Uh we have uh 1 through 10 set preemptively for review. I'm going to put it out to the board for any questions on any of the items in front of us with an intent to approve them with one motion. I will entertain that motion comment on these any of these issues under G consent actions. Okay. No public comments. Okay. I'll bring it back to the board for a motion. I'll move consent on the consent actions. Second. Okay. We have a motion to um approve and a second. So Rachel I Shelley I Daniel I and I from myself all approved. Moving on. Board business. Uh number one, we've got committee updates, reports, and announcements from the trustees. I'll start. Um we went

092to uh Tyler and I attended uh Japa meeting, joint exercise power authority, um the yellow school bus. Um we've come a long way. It was perhaps one of the most um joyful and I think uh uh impressive meetings to see the statistics of a 99% and in some cases one was 100% arrival on time. Communication on the buses has been fluid and has been consistent. Uh there has been uh an uptick in the uh from the estimated to the actual purchase of passes from when they raised the price. They they they they underestimated how many were sold and overall they're happy. The best news is they're not going to raise the prices again going into next year. Um they're not going to fix what is broken. So we will continue with those services. Um they

093have um they took chances on uh removing some of the the roots and it worked out well. Um and the level of complaints has gone from this to one complaint. I think they said they had one minimal complaint that they they managed which is a big difference. So that was a very good meeting. I don't know Tyler if you had anything to add. There there is some uh conversation around the middle school students getting dropped off at Fairfax. Yeah. And because that was cancelled this year, the alternative is for families and students to use the public bus. So there is an option there. Um I don't think every parent is ecstatic about that, but it is there is a viable option for all for all students there. Yeah. So that was a great meeting and

094time we got to see uh Mr. Coar and his wine insured. It was you know he's was really great leadership I think running those meetings I mean really created an environment of camaraderie and it was great to see it was great to experience um Shrek production at Brookside proud mother of the cookie executioner. I got to have a shout out. Great job. These these the Yes Foundation, I have to say really they have they they are just such an important part of our schools. They brought these kids together and it was one of the best productions. I've been taking we've been going to see these before my kids were even in TK. This is one of the best shows I've seen out of Brookside by far. It was great. And and then parent parent feedback

095as well. And we'll we'll talk to the S group at some point, but how do we that was beyond exceptional. Every kid loved it. Every parent loved it. The costumes were great. How do we just put that on rotation every 3 years and next year Hidden Valley should do it the year after man? I mean, just and find a couple. Anyway, I'm different so far. It was it was it was just incredible. Reuse the same costumes and repair. It was exceptional. You show up and you're like got to sit through this play a lot. I saw it twice and I was just like, "Oh my god." Every night. I'm like, "That's weird." It was fantastic. Fantastic. Legally Blonde has very high I have very high expectations for Legally Blonde Friday night. Tickets. We couldn't get

096tickets. It's sold out. All of the shows are sold out. Did you you know, you you scroll over to the right and there's that side that nobody sees. All of it is sold out. Great. I'll sell you my ticket for 45 bucks. The offmarket market. So then that that's mine. Anybody else? Any trustees have any reporting out from their committees or we uh Daniel and I were at the um recent um round table uh committee meeting and superintendent council meeting. Kind of let you talk about the superintendent superintendent council meeting. But I just wanted to say from the round table um having been involved in that committee for quite a number of years now actually involved in that committee even before I was uh trustee back when I was PTA chair and it was just

097getting going in the lovely contentious years of trying to bring everybody together to build some common goals and visions for how we can create equitable access to the programs and resources that are funded by the parent organizations. This was it was it's just so great to see um see it being a given like this is what we're going to do and then we get on with other conversations around coordinating the actual actions of fundraising and and the the stuff of having like a whole calendar for the whole year with all of the schools and when they're going to be doing the fundraising so that the conversations are just very tangible and actionable and um and that everybody's enjoying being with each other and working together is fantastic to see. That's wonderful. Marcy deserves a lot

098of credit for getting that. She hand she got it all, you know, bound and tight and handed it over. So, she certainly made my job a lot easier by doing that. Yeah. and you did a really I I appreciated the um there's definitely unity and solidarity, but there's also very much of clarity around the role of the school district and that these are independent 501c3 organizations, but they're all operating independently get together in concert with school district as a school supported organization. So, the clarity of the roles I think has really added a lot. We still need to help support White Hill more though with fundraising. That was a big that was a big miss and not everybody was saying, "Yeah, you can have some of our extra money." So, it's Yes, that there's a

099concern there. Um, I'm I'm hopeful that the I'm hopeful that the model that kind of combined model with the YES foundation of coordinating that we can then kind of I know there's still some stuff to be worked out with that that there but there but at least it's like on the table and people are talking about it without it being it used to be the kind of thing I mean what used to happen was you just kind of wouldn't talk about it and then after the meeting you go out in the hallway and everybody would be talking about it cuz nobody really wanted to bring it up in the meeting because it would get contentious. At least now people put it out on the table and kind of wrestle with it and all the solutions

100aren't there but it's way more above board in that way which is moving in the right direction. Haven't solved everything yet. Looking forward to that. So I attended the yes board meeting but not all of it because I had other commitments. Um, I just know that there's a lot of stuff going on at the theater right now. I was actually painting sets this week, which is super fun. Um, it's uh, it's been very busy lately. Is your daughter in there? My daughter's in it. Yes, she is. My son's actually helping as well on the tech side of things. So, whole family. Um, yeah. That's great. Yeah, it's fun. Well, that's any other report outs from the trustees? side move on tomorrow in the mud. Oh, we'll move it into the multi-purpose room if it does

101rain. But the kids, they've done a great job and we talked about this on Friday at the superintendent getting the kids involved and bake sales and everything. The kids have loved it at Brookside and there's been some good healthy competition between classes. My second grader came home today. Dad, I need five more dollars cuz we haven't reached our goal yet. I'm like, okay, get five bucks and give it to somebody. Um, so there's that competition between classes, which maybe you don't want to lean on that too much, but it's it's healthy and it's good. And so, you know, talk about that at White Hill. How do you get the the students behind the fundraising and behind, you know, the bake sales were a lot of work for a lot of the parents in K through

102fifth grade. And maybe it's the same thing for middle schoolers because maybe middle schoolers aren't baking. Um, anything that you'd want to eat. Uh, but um, that's been a really cool thing to see at Brookside this year, more so than years past, how excited the students are and like, hey, we've raised $7,000 to class, we've raised $6,000 a class. I think there's some positivity that comes out of that. And I think recognizing the teachers are really helping drive they have meetings in the morning to strategize. You know, it's kind of it's it's really kind of fun to see how it's become this almost like this little buzz of a an event that they're it's nonprofit fundraising advancement, right? They're little salespeople, right? Um and so that's the second graders doing market day as well and

103maybe they do this at every school. don't know. But, you know, it just introduces the idea of consumers and producers and, you know, fundraising and advancement is a big part of our economy from a nonprofit perspective. And so, I think it's I think it has some really good uh learnings for students at a young age. Yeah. To participate in their own fundraising efforts. For sure. Okay. If there's no more report out, uh we will move on to the number two on board business which is the draft of calendar meetings. Yeah. So we have uh a list of dates here and appreciate the feedback when we post this on Friday. Uh try to do every other Wednesday. um and avoid any uh important holidays that might need to be avoided. Um and just kind of kept

104it similar to this year. We have July as an optional meeting. Um and then you know once a month in November and December, January and February. I think this year it felt by the end of February felt like we needed to meet a little bit more those meetings started to get a little long. Um and now we're back on the two two times a month train other than April. So I'm happy to take any feedback you all have or we can move forward with uh approving this. Okay. So we are going to work to approve this. Right. Okay. That's right. Um do I have a public comment on this? Yeah, you do. My only question was for the December ones. I know Chris there's some sort of financial timeline for is that going to meet

105your timelines if we do December 17th? December 17th is actually after, but u as long as I get the information to the uh county office of education, which is what I did this this last year as well. So, you'll approve it after the December 15th deadline, but I've sent them everything ahead of time. I just want to check that. Yeah. Is that is that problematic? Do you think we should move it or? No, I think it's fine. Okay. It's more problematic for uh the governing board if you don't have one in that range when you have to have the new new board members because you have to have it a certain number of days after the election. And so that's really I think the reason it's set up this way. But for us for for

106the budget purposes, I have plenty of time to get it in. Okay. What's what's our process? If through the agenda setting um agenda setting you realized, oh, hey, we don't need two next month. We might only need one if we add a few more things onto the agenda. What's the protocol? If we have we ever done that and we just cancel the meeting and we just cancel it. Okay. I'm fine with doing two months, but if it's really a matter of like adding two more items, it's going to add a half an hour or even an hour to one meeting as opposed to two. Just keeping that in mind. Um I do know of a school board uh just on the outskirts of the of the Bay Area that does once a month, which I

107think would I mean just experiencing, you know, about six months of this once a month is a pretty aggressive. I feel like there's enough business for us to do to a month, but you know, if we do have a month that feels a little thin, you know, we don't need to make up a meeting, just have a meeting. Okay. Well, there's another comment, we'll take it out for public comment. And we do not have any public comment. So, we'll bring it back to uh the board to entertain a motion to approve the draft calendar. make a motion to remove our approve calendar. I second that. Okay, we have a motion and a second. Uh Shelly, I Rachel, I. Daniel, hi. And I will approve as well. So, um moving on to the next item number

108three, the approval of regular meeting minutes from March 5th, 2025. Does anyone have any comments. Moving to the public for any feedback on the minutes. There's no public comment. Bring it back to the board for a motion to approve the regular meeting minutes from March 5th. Uh I'll make a motion that we approve the regular meeting minutes from March 5th. I'll second it. Okay, we have a motion and a second. Daniel, hi. Rachel, hi. Shel, and I from me. Okay, moving on uh to section I, superintendent cabinet report and I will hand it over to the cabinet. Great. Um, yesterday I had the great joy to go to the Hidden Valley Wax Museum and also went to a second grade poetry event kind of backtoback. Um, and just kind of like today having the middle

109school students. It's so nice to be in front of and interacting with students. I got to, you know, talk to Tiger Woods and Barack Obama and Amelia Heheart and, you know, a whole whole list of historical figures and I left feeling my bucket was full and I felt a lot of joy. So, I think it's one of my favorite parts of my job is just getting out to the schools in the classrooms, seeing the great work our our teachers and principles are doing. Um, also got to go to the school admin breakfast at College of Marin, which was really neat. Um it's a little bit more high school focused but they invite high school and middle school just to talk about articulation and getting more students into uh college of marin and you know how

110that college marin actually it was interesting is has the highest UC acceptance rate of any uh community college in the state of California. So, for our local students, if if community college is one of your options, it is a great option to transfer to UC Berkeley or UC Santa Cruz or um you know, any of the other UC's that they're interested in. Uh we had the round table meeting, talked about the fundraising uh calendar, and it is just a really collaborative group. There was some a little bit of talk about uh what they can do for future uh legislative action and changing bylaws. there was interest in everybody kind of changing bylaws together and they'll do that um on their own which I thought was an interesting conversation. Um students council we talked about technology

111use it was a little bit stunted of a conversation but it was useful. Um and I think there's a couple action items for us to consider moving forward. Julie did an awesome job uh getting LCAP feedback as well for our strategic plan. Um, I went to M MCOE to hear Jared Huffman talk about some of the things happening at the federal level and um, what we can do to kind of prep and prepare, although because things are hard to predict, it's hard to plan. Um, and I think most people left um, just as confused as when they went into the the meeting, but it's good to hear his perspective. Um, and then just earlier today getting, you know, the second I walked in, Teresa had it printed out on my desk that Hidden Valley and

112Brookside were not were named as California Distinguished Schools. Just really proud to see that work come to fruition. Um, you know, along with White Hills recognition earlier this year as a school to watch, it's three out of our five schools that have had a significant uh, you know, award this year. And you know the other two schools uh way Thomas has been a California distinguished school in the past and Manor uh really deserves a lot of credit for raising multilingual learner achievement this year. So you know every school has something to celebrate this year and I'm really proud of that Julie. Yeah. So um excited to have brought Kate Chevet to forward this evening and we've got a couple of others um that are coming your way. Um there is a release date coming up

113for our math department to really do a final dig into amplify but I would anticipate very likely we'll be bringing that program to you at the next board meeting um recommended for adoption and then we are moving forward with our K5 ELA English language arts program. Um this week today we had the first of two days of coaching um and training days. all of our kindergarten through 2 grade teachers who are piloting took the journey over to Luxburg Port Madera and we went to Neil Cumins school where um the trainer from EL education was great. she talked a little bit more about how to unpack the program and understand, you know, the different complexities of it. And then we went into a classroom and watched her teach a lesson. Um, and then had a really

114amazing debrief of that lesson. And then I I left at that point, but in the afternoon they did the same thing for the other component of the program, which is the skills work. Um, and teachers are sharing that they really like the program. There's a lot of depth to it. the DO, the depth of knowledge, the rigor, um, is very high and that's something that they're excited about. Um, and then that foundational learning that's been actually a little bit of a surprise to them of like we love the skills, we love the skills, which our teachers are not. Um, their bar is high and so it's exciting to hear that they're excited about the program. So that's going really well. We also are looking at a um a new TK um curriculum. Well, new to

115us TK curriculum. We've we've piloted one this year and decided it wasn't the right one for us um for a number of reasons. But there's another one that actually our TK lead teacher Cindy Credo learned about when she went to a big conference this year that really does from what I understand the job of infusing the playbased um with the academics and really intentionally supporting students in learning through play. I'm so excited about that. And hiring is still happening and we are making steady progress. It's been great to, you know, get out of the what's it called when the horse jumps out. There you go. We did that. And um, you know, forget that we operative position today, planning to likely offer one tomorrow. So, steady progress and happy about that. It's awesome. Every time

116you say, it sounds better and better each time. Each time it's like you're mastering it. I like that the book is called something that's a word that most people who have my high school level of Spanish don't know that word. I think that's kind of um let's see. Uh this uh coming Friday will be the third and final um all day gathering at um COE for the NorCal Inclusion Collaborative. Really powerful work and um amazing to be with our Ross Valley team um but also to connect with probably 12 or so other districts um engaged in the same work. Um very very cool. And um also uh like Tyler of the Hidden Valley to see um the living wax museum and just impressive, you know, to have fourth graders um that are practicing their public

117speaking and they have these strangers walking up to them and they're um I mean Leonardo da Vinci like wow. like I just I mean I was learning stuff and um but all of them just really uh really impressive. Congratulations to Miss Hirs. Um my older daughter actually has her husband as a teacher too. So you know a great marine educator family like like so many that we know. And um and then also last week uh at Wake Thomas the neurodiversity celebration week which um you know it's a pinnacle event was the Wednesday welcome which of course are always special. It's always special to bring community together and have parents there. Um but um they also coupled it with Persian Heritage Month. So, there was um some comments, some music, and um just uh kudos to

118Principal Harris and that whole staff for um collaborating with parents and having parents speak and children speak um uh about something so personal uh to to to each to each of them, each of us. That was really um inspired and inspiring. So, I felt privileged to see that. Um and uh yeah, you know, uh just um getting get like child by child. Um we're welcoming in the the three-year-olds. We're um going to hand off the 14-year-olds and and everyone in between. So right now for the special education team, it's it's a very high water uh high water mark kind of time because along with all of the transition stuff are new assessment requests and there's just so it's it's a lot of churn but um uh they're they're amazing and um you know really well

119supported too by the awesome uh principles in each site. Um, need my microphone on because I talk so softly. Um, we do have a couple of our bids out. We have our roofing and asphalt bids that have gone out. So, that's exciting to to start that process. Um, we did have a water leak um at Way Thomas on Monday morning. That was our welcome back to school um memo that we got. And uh it's in rooms 19 and 20. and in the third grade rooms. And um what we've done so far is the we have a restoration management company out taking a look at everything. They've already lifted up the walls about 18 in almost every wall. Um had a lot of water in the walls, so they've had to do that. Um they're in

120the process of drying everything out. Luckily, it's it's um kind of a a steel um beam, so we don't have wood there. But um the reason they had to take the the walls up is because of the type of materials it was. It was almost like um a sawdust once you pulled the backing off. It was a little unusual, but um so we do have some some additional work that we need to do there. Uh there's no timeline currently. Um, and I do want to uh thank our maintenance staff for the hard work that they put in on Monday just to find the leak. Um, it's a new building, so it was really unusual for us to have the leak to begin with. What was equally as unusual is to find that there's no shut

121offs for that brand new wing. And so, um, we were looking at plans, we were looking everywhere for it, and there was nothing. And so that was one of the things that we added to at least those two rooms that we were able to add a shut off which will allow us to not have to shut the water off for the entire campus if we have something happen again in that general area. So that's that's important for us. Um and just wanted to let you know that. and also to kind of dovetail on um what uh RVTA was talking about um this evening about looking at and working with local legislators. Um one of the things that I'm doing is I've joined a group to um with the legislative analyst office. It's kind of a

122round table of CBOS from around the state to look at funding and specifically like our average daily attendance versus enrollment. And what they want to know is kind of how how do districts pay for staffing. You know, what what are the types of things that we put into a classroom just based upon enrollment and how we get paid for ADA. So, that'll be an interesting step and hopefully something comes out of it with the LAO, some type of a report which oftentimes they will have some influence over the state legislation. So that's that's exciting for for us and the Ross Valley voice will be in the room. Wonderful. Thanks for joining us. Okay. Well, thank you very much. Um moving on to the meeting review. Uh raising future board topics and the board direction that

123we want to discuss at this time. I just had a question. There were a couple times tonight, I think, where the idea of um shared services came up. I think the San Rafell contract that we approved um the comm uh meeting that you went to, meaning either shared services with other districts or all the districts shared together like CO or something like that. Might be interesting at some point. want to make extra work, but if it kind of folds in with the flow of something to kind of look at all the different ways that we're um doing those kinds of shared services or cooperation with other districts because I I've heard it matters matter before and I think it's just again I know Tyler you've always you've talked lately with our budget in terms of

124how efficient and effective we are with the money that we have and I think that's another great example of the way we're able to do it. Plus, I was also just thinking about like curriculum adoption and whether there's groups of districts that share what they learn when you go through this process for somebody coming behind you a next year. Like if there's other districts we're thinking of curriculum adoption, there's three state approved Spanish curriculums. other people who might have to do this could avail themselves of our services and we have theirs. So there's just something that came to mind. Um anyone else? Thank you. Uh meeting debrief. Um I will mention I wanted to say it earlier but I wanted to be separate um to acknowledge those families and individuals who um are um recognizing

125Ramadan and to um send uh what they we say Ramadan Kardine and to those families out there. Thank you. I just want as far as meeting I want to say thank you for running the meeting today. You're welcome. gave you a break. Yeah, I mean I needed a day off. So I really was good training wheels for me. Really appreciate that. You appreciated that I kept moving time wise to go under. Thanks. I thought your democratic reflection was really moving and strong to start the meeting too. I was inspired today. Thank you. Um no, it's fine. anytime you need a break or you know let's let's let's help each other out whatever we can do. Um we obviously are not needing to continue the meeting past 10:30 which is a good thing. So with that

126uh I am going to adjourn our meeting for March 26, 2025 at exactly 8:21 p.m. Thank you.