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 all right good evening and welcome to the Ross Valley School District Board of Trustees regular meeting today is October 9th 2024 and I am calling our meeting to order at 6:31 uh we have three trustees present today in person at the Ross Valley School District office um myself Rachel lwac Daniel Cassidy and Shelley Hamilton Chris land's Cobb and Ryan O'Neal were not able to attend today um we also have cabinet members presentent our superintendent Tyler graph Julia Walcott AIC Sable Chris Carson and I think that's everybody okay um our meeting is being live streamed via YouTube and the link is on our website and on the agenda there is a
00260-second delay between the meeting and the YouTube live stream an audio recording of the meeting will be made available to the public on our district website within 72 hours of the meeting and with that I will move on to our agenda agenda so our first item is the Pledge of Allegiance and the Democratic reflection don't have one of those today other than to hope that everyone in Florida is safe all right I pledge aliance to the FL of the United States of America and to the it stands one nation under God indivisible with liy and justice for all all right it is time for us to adopt the agenda and time allocation did anybody have any changes or questions if not I'll entertain a motion to adopt the agenda and time allocations no changes for
003me i' make a motion to adopt I'll second it Motion in a second shell I Daniel I Rachel I all right we have an agenda and time allocations so our next item is communication um public comment regarding items not on the Open Session agenda do we have any public comment today seeing none all right thank you I will move on to to the next item correspondence communication to the board we had uh one um Email exchange there um we were all copied on that and our next item moving along is uh D presentation and or action items the first item here is the recommended approval of resolution 05 2425 affirming the month of October as National Filipino month and this is Tyler yeah so you'll see the resolution there we again and um like uh
004the last meeting we wanted to affirm a national Hispanic Heritage Month which was I think September 15th to October 15th and now we uh would like to do the same for uh Filipino heritage month so that's this month um for the Filipino students and families that we have in our district uh we want to celebrate you and make sure that uh you feel welcomed and cared for across our district great thank you have any questions no do you have any public comment no okay um as a um Pacific Islander myself I was really happy to see this on here so thank you absolutely yeah and we'll celebrate AI month uh later in the year as well do you want to make a motion I will make a motion to U approve resolution 052 2425 affirming
005the month of October as National Filipino month H second it great um so I will um say I Danel I sh I perfect thank you our next item is the public hearing and recommended adoption of resolution 042 2425 in the matter of sufficiency of instructional materials Julia go ahead yes um so this is something that we bring to you every year um and it's something that needs to be brought we need to have this public hearing um within the first eight weeks of school um and this is all around ensuring that our students have the instructional materials that they need um in order to be successful in school and um as a part of this process I reach out to all of the sites to our site principles to make sure that um we have
006everything that we need and and that they haven't gotten any um Communications indicating otherwise and all is well we are in good shape and so staff recommends that you adopt the resolution um for sufficiency of instructional materials all right so we need to have the public hearing now um so I'm going to open our public hearing Education Code section 60119 establishes steps and procedures to ensure the availability of text and instructional instructional materials accordingly the governing board of the school district shall hold a public hearing or hearings at which the governing board shall encourage participation by parents teachers members of the community and bargaining unit leaders interested in the Affairs of the school district and shall make a determination through a resolution as to whether each pupil in each School in the school district has
007or will have prior to the end of the fiscal year sufficient textbooks or instructional materials or both that are aligned to the state common cor standards and are consistent with curriculum Frameworks adopted by the California State Board of Education in mathematics Science History Science Social Science English language arts and is applicable in health and foreign language oh I now call the public hearing open excuse me it's 6:36 and now audience members may now comment on this proposal do you have any comment all right seeing none I now call the public hearing close it's 6:37 um so the next item would be for us to approve the resolution of 0424 042 425 for sufficiency of instructional materials for 2024 and 2 do you guys have any comments or questions for Julia no I mean this is
008this is something that we do every year and that our district would be doing whether or not it was a requirement because it's a a good educational practice to do so um I uh I don't have any comments other than wondering what the history of it was that was making it so official and that we have to do it given that it to me it just seems like a oh that's what school districts do is they make sure that all the students have sufficiency of materials for gens but apparently this was an issue at some point somewhere I think it's been a big Equity issue in terms of ensuring all schools in across the state okay have what they need and it's actually it's very important and you know I've been reporting on all of
009these different adoptions that we're engaging in you know the the last topic that was listed on there is foreign language and we now have um just this year a new Spanish textbook um but it is also important to know that it refers to instructional materials not only textbooks the language used to be really around text but there's now um more understanding that teachers use a multitude a variety of materials and different modalities um for instruction thank you for that very helpful appreciate it cuz it makes it feel sometimes I feel like when we do these things that we do every year and we can do them fairly quickly cuz it's like yeah of course it's nice to also understand the purpose and the meaning behind it so that if people are listening or somebody's wondering
010why do they just keep doing that stuff that's like yes yes yes that so it's really helpful to hear the equity behind it and everything so thank you and having a child who is taking the Spanish language at White Hill um I really appreciate the fact that they were able to get new curriculum textbooks and other materials into the classroom so quickly I know that they had a really strong um Spanish one program so the fact that it's being carried over Spanish to is wonderful um so I appreciate how quickly that was done so in order to pass this we are approving the resolution adopting resolution 04 that would be the motion adoption of the resolution yes then I would make a Moote unless there's any other then I'd make a motion that we adopt
011resolution 04-24-2019 regulations great so I'll take this one um what we're trying to do this year is bring all board policies for a first reading which will allow the public and the board to provide comment based on the csba language we'll take that input that we get from you all revise it and bring it back at the following board meeting in the consent agenda for approval so tonight is an opportunity for the public and the board to provide input on in this case the Title Nine regulations that we're bringing um Eric's also working on getting a live link that's prominently displayed on the front page of all of our school websites for time of Mind complaints um largely what this does is there was a new law that was passed it broadens the definition of
012uh sex-based allegations or title n allegations um helps us with things like when to investigate how to investigate when to do notices um so there's quite a few uh policies here happy to answer any questions about these policies or take any uh input you all might have do you have questions IAS can please yeah I don't have any question about the policies themselves totally support them I was just wondering about the uh choice to use non-discrimination versus anti-discrimination if that's any if that is part of the conversation and I'm thinking of some of the conversations around uh racism and anti-racism and it being more of an active verb than a passive verb and I don't know if that's relevant here or part of the conversation but I just thought I'd ask to see if that
013was if csba has any conversation around that or any thoughts that's a really good question I don't know the answer to it okay um essentially what we've done is take the csba recommend language and we made it to where these first readings when you go into the attachments you can see exactly how the languages changed um I haven't had specific conversations with csba about the difference in that language but I think it's a good good question I can look into that yeah I'm not I'm not advocating one way or the other I was just inquiring because it was one of the things that came to mind of like how active do we want to be in non in advocating against discrimination and whether there are implications for using one word or another yeah we should
014be conscious of in our policies that was actually one thing that I noticed when we were doing this is because you can see the line items where things have been changed I really appreciated seeing that because I was able to compare what we had before and what they've made the changes on but also the fact that we're doing a first reading as opposed to having it come to us and then us sending it back so in this case like we can have input now and the public can have input so I really appreciated the change in the process though um even though sometimes it's weird to look through like the L out stuff but it made it more helpful for me because I felt like somebody if they wanted to weigh in they had a
015chance to do it now before anything is like approved by us yeah and I want to thank Teresa Machado for that she took a lot of time in making sure that those csba doesn't send us that exactly the way Teresa's presented it but what it does is it allows for a lot more transparency with the community and with the board about exactly how language is changing um so people can ask questions or provide input from there so thank you Teresa thanks thank you yeah super helpful right um do we have any public comments on this no all right any other comments here no all right so uh this was just discussion information so I will thank you um and thank you Teresa and I will move us along on the agenda um the next item
016is to receive for first reading um updated administrative regulation and exhibit in series 3000 business and non-instructional operations this is Chris Carson this one is actually me and did I just turn it off okay um I speak so quietly I need to make sure the microphone is on uh so most of the items within this particular uh policy and exhibit are just minor cleanup um changes to how we inspect and what we're specifically looking at at the facilities uh but there is one thing that I want to point out um it has to do with um the restrooms and that um currently well previously we were required to offer um menstrual products for students in grades six through eight in our district and there's a new requirement for that to go down to grade three
017and then as we move forward in 2026 you'll note that there is an addition in there that beginning in 2026 will be required to also ensure that we have um gender neutral restrooms available to students and so that's something we'll have to take a look at and see how we'll how we'll get to that but that's a new requirement as we move forward it's interesting because we don't have U we don't teach I don't know with the prop like health education life skills until the fifth grade so then you're introducing this complex situation not situation complex life changes to third graders and fourth graders so what's the path of educating students and families on this that wait my third grader is being I have noidea right like is there a thought about that is that
018there is now great question an excellent question I I mean I think that the items are being made available because in earlier grades absolutely they may be needed um and we did have a initial conversation with principles just about how you know to particularly within the boys restroom to you know make this something that doesn't cause a lot of conversation amongst kids I think it's really about being super matter of fact of you know this is something that people use and um it's there for those who need it I think it does but I and and like not not now but in the future or when this rolls out I I think it because it seems totally appropriate to do for the reality of our young people and it also does seem like having it
019mirrored or paired with our strategies for health and life y yeah um information that kids are getting so that so that it does become just kind of like oh that's there and now and I know why because I've had conversations about it that kind of thing so I think when we go to implement it to maybe just think about how it's introduced and how our curriculum maybe has a earlier age component which if we're needing to have products in bathrooms then we might also need an earlier age component for young people somehow that's developmentally appropriate and some of the groups that I'm associate with believe fifth grade is too late anyway so maybe there is and I don't know third grade's too early but fourth grade seems to be right with this group of OBGYNs
020that I know that seems to be a good time to introduce that concept of life or human life development whatever so maybe there's something around just even moving that up a year or something yeah just something keep in mind it's an excellent recommendation I think it's super important that we uh get a plan together about how to introduce the students in a developmentally appropriate way that we're not you know using High School language with the third grader but we're using third grade language with our third graders about this um and we can talk more about that with our principles and and teaching staff and it is interesting if the state is making this is coming from the state that the state is seeing this as an important thing for to do that the state also
021isn't having an accompanying there is gu from the state about health education and and all the different components of that all way from you know K all the way through 12 and so it's it's kind of diving into that so that's something I'm thinking about is that okay I need to dig in and see where they're putting different things they don't always specify the grade level um and then we do have you know the life skills classes that are delivered by our school nurse okay so the state curriculum that we look at does go developmentally all the way into the younger okay that's good to know and even having someone like the school nurse come by and share a short lesson could be one of the ways we go about doing that yeah because I'm
022thinking like if it's not introduced in a way that's very matter of fact and like practical that I could see those being like the items might be wasted for other purposes I know ksel use toilet paper to jam up things so I'm just thinking ahead for like little kids you know I mean I understand it yeah it's like oh hey look what we could do you know unfortunately it does happen at the middle school level too but yes but we do best there yeah I like the idea of kind of easing into a way that's thoughtful and we get input from the teachers who work with his kids and I have really good suggestions yeah all right absolutely cool so this was just discussion information do we have any public comment all right seeing then
023and we don't have any other for comments on this I will move on um the next item is the learning tour update TI all right so we are going to share a little bit about what I've learned today is day 63 of my tenure as a superintendent in the district but is counting no I'm not counting I prise I'm enjoying every single day um and I've done a ton of stuff to learn more about the district um I knew the when I took the job I knew the district was in a really good position so I didn't have to come in and do like a turnaround project um I could take the time to listen and learn uh from the community about the strengths and the opport unities in our district and today is kind
024of a snapshot kind of halfway through my learning tour of what I found so we'll we'll walk through that right here it's on the suspense is killing yeah it's killing me too great there we go um so just a reminder that uh the objectives that I had in my learning tour were really to listen and learn because the district's in such a good spot um to address any urgent and important issues like the start of the school year getting setting the tone in the right way uh and starting to address the budget issues that I we all know are an issue um to do a lot of communication this is part of that communication right here um I have something that's going to go out to the community uh either tomorrow or Friday that's more
025about that communication and then to start strategizing where we might make changes towards the end of the year or in preparation for next year and these are kind of my core values I'm as I'm going through the work uh Equity excellence and Joy are the three things that I'm thinking a lot about I'm looking for areas where we're implementing Equitable systems looking for excellence in the classroom and with all of our employees and it's Elementary School and Middle School it should be fun we should be smiling and having a good time while doing it these are in addition to all the other meetings that I have and the emails and the other work um learning tour specific I've had 21 one-on ones with staff I've attended 12 community events had ice cream with uh all
026five staffs uh visited 21 classrooms so far I wish that number was bigger and I think that will grow quite a bit in the coming months I've done 14 parent meetings those are kind of oneon-one uh with parents had over 377 survey responses to a deer park survey and the pros and cons and things are going well with the district and uh things that are challenges and I've had nine other one-on ones with like city leaders uh police departments other community- based organizations so a lot of meetings and this is kind of part of the data collection the Deer Park one is referring to what to do with with the Deer Park money funding that's right we got thanks for being clear on that I could spend all night just on this slide um there
027are tons and tons of strengths about the district it's clear people are really happy here and the number one thing that comes across in all of my conversations is that the strengths are all about the people it's the people in the community almost every single person sung the Praises of our teachers our administrators our classified staff the strength of our community um the PTO the yes Foundation there's a lot of positivity around the people in the community also a lot of strength around social emotional learning safe inclusive School communities the Dei work that we've been working on uh quite a few people just celebrate the fact that we have happy kind kids that school district and that's something we should be really proud of also the enrichment activities community and cultural events that we have
028uh lots of Hands-On learning arts education all that kind of enrichment stuff was another big highlight that came out um and then lots of good communication between staff parents and administrators uh academic standards are set pretty high you'll see later in the in the slide deck we've got some other people that might want us to increase those academic standards so not everything was conclusive across the the whole District um and then one thing that kind of shined above all else for me was the fact that we have really small schools our elementary schools are about 260 275 kids um that's really small for an elementary school district it's expensive to run schools like that but every teacher knows every kid all the kids know each other the principal knows every student so it's a it's
029a thing that we have that we're able to offer our our families that not every district is able to do here's some of the opportunities that are emerging obviously Revenue constraints uh academic rigor special ed was a big topic of conversation um the culture of collaboration and Trust was another big one um and then school lunches although kind of a minutia was also a another topic that was uh brought to the floor quite a bit so the way I've organized this is kind of on the left side you'll see the opportunity or the kind of General consensus that I heard from folks and on the right some of the action that we're already taking to to meet that and some of that has been in place before I got here and others we've started this
030year so with Revenue constraints this really is I know we always talk about it being a budget issue a budget issue bu Bud budget issue it's not a budgeting or spending problem it's a revenue problem um because of the way the state gives us Revenue it puts us in a really challenging position I'll talk about that in the next slide so teacher this means a lot for Teacher recruitment um retention and salaries we all want to pay our teachers better um but with the revenues we have it's very difficult to do do that so we've got to find some Creative Solutions um we also have facilities that need support our our Fields we're a huge top of conversation um when asking what to do with the Deer Park money uh our bathrooms have been getting
031upgraded and we need to continue to do that our buildings need a little bit of paint and uh care as well and then making sure we have really great student programs whether that's enrichment programs programs to support our kids or challenge our kids those really need need money to run those programs so we've got an attendance campaign the plan is linked there I won't go deep into that but when we send our students to to to school it's 7 $5 a day um we lose close to half a million dollars a year from students missing school the more you can send your kids to school the better uh we're doing lots of budget presentations I've got a budget uh newsletter going out here this week to to families we presented to all of uh the
032teachers a couple weeks ago we're going to set a $500,000 goal for cutting the budget with our budget advisory committee um this won't go into action this year but could be used next year particularly if we don't get a partial tax uh we're partnering on a supplemental partial tax we're going to see if there's viability there we're being really strategic about utilizing the the proceeds from the sale of Deer Park um I met with a grant riter on Monday to see where we might be able to bring in some Grant funds uh Chris is going to look at changing the facilities use agreement this year to bring more Revenue in that way and then more longterm we need to increase enrollment and a potential down the line and this is in a few years of
033doing a facilities Bond I think that's in order to do things like gender neutral bathrooms paint our buildings do landscaping upgrade our Fields do the things that our community really wants a bond is probably pretty necessary uh many of you have already seen this before but this is part of the revenue constraints you can see um on the basic Aid side this is districts that get to keep their excess property tax revenue um from their local property taxes The Tam District up at the top gets $21 million of excess property tax that they get to use for uh student programs teacher salaries benefits upgrading the facilities all these wonderful things that the Tam district is able to offer and our students end up getting to be recipients of those wonderful products at the Tam district
034and it makes it very difficult for us to compete salary-wise with our White Hill teachers and other single subject uh teachers at Tam and on the flip side you've got the lcff uh folks like Santa fell and Nado who have a large number of multilingual Learners low-income students uh Foster Youth and homeless students that drive what's called uh supplemental and concentration funding we don't have many of those students in our district so you don't get much supplemental concentration so we don't have much property tax revenue and we don't have many unduplicated students so we're kind of at the bottom of that uh inverted curve which makes it this is why it's a revenue problem not a spending problem um and I can talk more about that at our upcoming town hall on the 22nd if
035you're interested in learning more about that academic rigor is one that came up and again this kind of goes both ways I think some families really think that we've got a rigorous program here and other families want to see more um there's a perception of declining academic standards and I think uh here in November I'm really excited to have Julie present about our increasing academic outcomes I think there's a narrative out there that uh standards going in the wrong direction but our teachers doing a wonderful job and we're seeing some of the test results at the state level come out as above pre-pandemic levels and we're eager to share that once it's released from the state um there's a desire for more challenging curriculum uh one thing that we're seeing from our I ready uh
036implementation of our interim assessments is that we have some students in our classrooms that are performing far above grade level and that makes it challenging for a teacher to differentiate for a student who's below and maybe two or three uh grade levels above um and that I ready assessment starting to see that that's a big need for us um staying focused on the core mission of schools I think is really important and we've done a good job so far this year staying focused on curriculum and instruction and improving what's happening in the classroom with our students Julie is doing all kinds of stuff to make sure that happens and so is Eric on the special ed side um and then I think a lot of parents just want to know more about what's happening in
037the classroom if you're not sending a bunch of homework in homework to home or taking a bunch of student work home sometimes parents have a question mark like hey what's what's actually happening in the classroom um and I think the more we can communicate with families the better so we're doing an excellent job with professional learning teams um and that's basically like teachers collaborating around data to better serve their students to plan lessons to look where there might be gaps um we're implementing I ready which is that interim Assessment program we're piloting a structured literacy program in English language arts this year there's other curriculum adoptions we're doing classroom visits Julie went out to a couple classrooms couple School sites this week to get into classrooms I think some of the things we need to
038do is clearly Define and Implement a homework policy um so people understand what's developmentally appropriate um find the balance between academic rigor and social emotional Wellness this is elementary school we want kids to be having fun and developing at a at a rate that feels natural to them and not pushing them so hard that they're having social emotional breakdowns um we need to Define what rigor means rigor isn't more work it isn't more homework more worksheets it's actually more complex work um and collaborative work and kind of depth of knowledge type stuff and we can talk more about that at another uh at another board meeting special education um and academic support so it's not just special education it's actually maybe for a student who's struggling who's not doesn't have an IEP um but needs
039extra support that's part of this bucket uh we have some strategic tier 2 interventions but we need more and that means more personnel which means more money so it's a it's a challenge that we have we want to offer more strategic tier 2 interventions for our students but we don't really have the revenue in order to offer those interventions at the moment um at least not broader than we're already offering them uh trusting Partnerships with some families I think we've got a lot of special education families or families that have students with special education needs that feel like they've got trusted adults working with them each and every day and we have some families that um want to see more from us and I think we'll look into see exactly what that means and how
040we can move on that a lot of financial obligations uh we're starting to look into settlement agreements and non-public school placements Eric's really done a deep dive into the data on that in the last week or so uh right now 4.5% of our specialed students are placed in non-public schools the California Department of Education asks to keep it below 3% so we're a little above that um but the Marin County average is 5.2% and actually the Sonoma County average is even above that so we're we're higher than we want to be but we're not wildly out of line when it comes to non-public school placements so that was kind of a new interesting finding uh for me all kinds of actions on the right side I won't go through all of them some of them
041I've already talked about uh Eric did a special education parent survey last year he'll do that again this year we're hosting a special education town hall to hear more about that trust and what other supports parents might need on November 6th uh I've actually attended an IEP meeting I've got another one coming up tomorrow actually um so thanks Eric for inviting me to those uh there's an inclusion collaborative that Eric and some of his team members are going to at mcoe because inclusion is something we're interested in digging more into um and then just continued program exploration special education is really complex and in a small District like this it's hard to offer a program that serves every student um a district like Oakland Unified or San Francisco with 55,000 students can offer a deafen
042heart of hearing program without a problem where it would hard be hard for us to offer a program to a single student um so that's part of the challenge with special ed this was one that I heard a lot about in summers this culture of collaboration and Trust um and it's not just you know administrators with Union Partners it's also you know the district and I put that in air quotes with the community um and just making sure everybody's kind of being transparent so there's a huge desire for more transparency that's part of what this presentation is um trying to be more transparent with the community there's a real eagerness for authentic listening and collaboration I've heard that from parents Union Partners from teachers uh people want to if you're going to hold a meeting
043make it feel like you're authentically listening to the issue and then try to action on that issue so um the Deer Park survey on how to use the money from Deer Park is an example of that being transparent that we're using the money ask asking parents for input on it and then actually using that parent input to bring an issue like our Fields up the priori prioritized list um another thing I found is that uh in small districts like this visibility is a real big priority having cabinet members out at out sites having the superintendent and the board out at sites is really important um and there's more there's interest in more frequent and shorter Communications uh this community definitely has an appetite for knowledge and delivering in a way that's digestible is really important
044um so we're trying to work on that to the best we can although I just crafted a very long newsletter to go out next week tomorrow so uh hold on uh some of the actions we're doing we're doing a monthly meet and confer with our Union Partners this helps us build relationship we actually have a meeting scheduled tomorrow this is where we can iron out issues ahead of time before they become grievances or challenges we can just kind of talk uh like colleagues because that's what we are uh to solve problems being out at classrooms uh attending school events uh I think it's important to express a lot of gratitude there's a lot of really good things happening uh at our schools it's easy to focus on the things that are that needing attention and
045needing to be worked on and we need to take the time to say like wait we're really lucky in the Ross Valley School District we've got fantastic teachers great kids a strong Community we need to name that more um doing the budget presentations is all about transparency the Comm committee meetings uh parent Square Communications I'm doing my best to keep them short and concise and as frequent as possible uh principal updates we're we're doing that a little differently we've reduced the number of uh meetings there there's some other things there you can see and school lunches this is a a Hot Topic I've heard this one it's a lukewarm sometimes sometimes it's cold it is a Hot Topic and one of the things that I just want to put on record is that when we
046went out for the lunchmaster uh contract last time lunchmaster was the only people that would contract with us so we didn't have any choice this is who we had to work with um we've heard you know a lot about that lunch I've eaten I think three or four of the meals at this point and so I'm testing it as well uh a lot of the food is wrapped in plastic and I think aesthetically that turns people off especially in a community like Marin um and The Limited number of providers is really challenging so uh we're already visiting other school districts uh Chris just want to go see Lanas they're working with a really good uh I think it's conscious kitchen um and we're going to go down and see s in City see what they're
047doing as well uh we're going to put out a request for proposal for other providers I think there are more providers in the pool now so we'll have some choices Eric's going to work with the wellness committee to kind of narrow down a couple of the options and maybe even do some testing from with parents to see what options we could bring to the board later in the year The Challenge here is you've got a ton of federal requirements with lunch program the costs are really high and you're basically offering a full meal to a student for like a150 which is a challenging thing to do these days um Staffing we have very limited Staffing for our lunch program and Facilities uh some someone like Santa City schools has a full kitchen to do scratch
048cooking we do not have facilities like that so we've got to choose a program where we aren't doing scratch cooking although that's what our community would love we would need completely new facilities and new staff in order to do that so um that's going to be part of the conversation we have this year is there one slide back these these are some other things that I've noticed and really in talking with cabinet this is really my leadership approach and things that I think I've noticed so one of the things is I feel like there's I tend to be someone who's tries to be efficient and I think there's a desire for some efficiencies in the system whether it's our decision-making process the way we're communicating conversations we're having that seems to be one uh accountability
049in regards to expectations having direct clear conversations with our administrative staff or teachers when need be um that account and holding people accountable to those expectations is something um that I looking to implement here uh a desire for more transparency that's been the way I've always LED schools um do my best I'm always open to feedback if I'm not coming off as fully transparent I want to know um early and often uh making sure we have structured meetings to authentically engage people and this could be something as formal as the budget advisory committee to make sure that feels like a really authentic engagement for people all the way to like making sure I meet every other week with every Cabinet member so they have a dedicated time to express their concerns um share the projects
050they're working on as opposed to kind of catch as catch can catching me in the hall as I'm running between meetings but giving some dedicated uh meeting time to those folks we have some amazing administrators across the district I want to double down on that and I think it's really important to build capacity among them some of them are sitting in this room tonight and we need to be able to delegate that work to them allow them to spread their wings make decisions without me you know telling them what kind of decisions to make and if they make mistakes that's okay we'll learn from the mistakes and we'll go back we'll correct them we'll apologize for them and we'll move forward but uh capacity building is something that's really important to me and I think
051we need to do a little bit better job with our forward planning so thinking about something as simple as setting up dates in like May for the following school year or getting a PD plan in place or even having a really Crystal Clear Vision for the district so parents are following our vision as opposed to our engagement Community kind of making up their each individual vision and then we're kind of playing whack-a-mole before we're so we're kind of looking behind us instead of in front of us so those are some of the leadership approaches that uh I feel like I need to apply to the team we have and here's some next steps we're starting in facilities walkthroughs uh we did two of them Chris Dez and I uh at White Hill and Manor this
052this week which was really great we've got our two Town Hall meetings coming up on the 22nd and then on November 6th we're starting our budget advisory committee in a couple weeks we're excited about that our parent Guardian Equity task force is right around the corner um and then doing I'll do another listening tour update like this uh sometime in December or early January that it so that's it if you have any questions I'm happy to take them I just want to be super transparent that I've told cabinet to keep their presentations to 10 slides or less and 10 minutes or less and I failed at that uh on this first attempt so I will do better next time to keep it to 10 slides in 10 minutes do as I say not do as
053I do 10 by 10 you're you got big spectum there to cover too so appreciate that the academic rigor is interesting um because college campuses are seeing this as well like wait these kids can't write they write they used to write real good now they don't write very well at all um so I wonder how that is nationally and if we're seeing in a college campuses what does that mean for like a fifth grader sixth grader middle schooler and what does it look like then at Archie so that's just a that's just a a thought I actually read an article in Ed Source I believe it was earlier this week that talked a little bit about um how grades and grade inflation has really impacted academic standards at that High School school and matriculating to
054college level where there's a lot of bias and Grading where people are putting in participation and uh attendance into the grade which really doesn't have a any reflection on the academic Content Mastery that students have so things like uh standards based learning and other approaches at the elementary and middle school level can help with uh with that and I was what I found interesting was you clarified it's a perception that is not necessarily the reality that when you look at the way that the students in our district are doing they've they are rebounding creete pandemic but that the perception is the opposite direction and I'm also wondering whether there is a lot of media out there about the learning loss from the pandemic and and students not doing well in a very general kind of
055way and so when you take that General perception maybe that's I don't know if you have any other specifics about where that perception was coming parents also saw what school was like during the pandemic oh my God this is school what I'm saying is it's not a realistic no that wasn't school that was Zoom school we know that wasn't the best delivery method but they're still thinking that doing like that riger has gone down when actually and so I was thinking about where's this perception coming from no the one thing that came to mind was there's this General there there is meing about it but young people today are don't have the same level of communication and writing skills that they had 20 years ago I am old right I think another Factor too is
056sometimes when people look back on their schooling in the 80s or the 90s or the 70s and you uh you saw lots of homework you equated that to High academic standards but that's not really how we Define High academic standards these days it's not about the amount of homework you have and how much you're working at home it's about the complexity of thinking and can you connect this idea to another idea out of context can you summarize um there's all kinds of complex thinking that our teachers are asking our students to do um so and I don't think we've done a good enough job marketing how great our schools are and I think that's part of what we need to do and Julie and I are sitting on the edges of our chairs ready to
057present the Casp data to you once it's released from the state or or there's some opportunities there but there's a lot lot to celebrate and I appreciate it also the idea of needing to Define rigor kind of what you're talking about right now is how do we collectively Define what rigor looks like because there is a part of Mastery that is practicing something multi like getting to that complexity level also requires a certain amount of Mastery of practic like playing sports you can't just run out on the field and do the complex strategy things that you can do you have to do the drills and you there's a certain amount of path so it's like rigor it has a bunch of different pieces to it and so I think having that definition that includes all
058of those different pieces is a helpful talking conversation element um to what does riger be and I was in a middle school classroom this week a seventh grade English class and um the students had finished their I ready testing and the teacher was having data conversations with every child and sitting and going over you know exactly how they did in each of the different areas and then pulling in their student work and to me that's a part of riger to is really having that Clarity and engaging our students in their whole learning process so that they know what they're working towards um and they can see that progress It's very motivating for them self-evaluation right reflection on how you're doing what are your strengths what are your weaknesses that's a component of a rigorous education
059this whole cont is fascinating to me these women this with your work yeah like like at my class at Dominican I'm like how are I need a help we need to work on basic punctuation okay these are college stud so well and some of that is is like what we're pointing out with science of reading right and the programs that we're piloting this year are stronger in those foundational skills than some of the work that we have been doing we've done a great I truly believe we've done a really great job um but we there is more Focus now on those discreet skills the whole thing is f the homework policy my second grest is cominging back I need to I need to read for 20 minutes a night that's my homework absolutely we now
060have a homework policy every kid in elementary school should read a certain amount of minutes a night done pick any book read that's actually a lot of the research shows that homework shouldn't really be more than 10 minutes per grade level so first grade 10 minutes second grade 20 minutes and a lot of it should be free self-interested reading um and some other small things like practicing your writing whether it's your handwriting or a three paragraph essay um those things are kind of where it should be but if if your fifth graders doing more than an hour of homework it's too much the other thing I that that one of the first slides where you uh were talking about the positive feedback about our schools and the phrases and stuff that you had on there
061that was really like that was one takeaway that I felt this was really good at was how it painted a picture of what our schools are and helps kind of dispel the traditional Public School narrative sometimes that's out there about the schools and really shows the all of the rich nuanced joyful handson like just the word the Hands-On the social social emotional uh it does include academic standards but it's one of all of these different things and so I just really thought that this slide helped like you're talking about communicating all of the really interesting great arts and enrichment and everything that's going on because I think that's sometimes been some of the challenge when people think of tradition like traditional schools um so this was great we have a variable balanced enriched program at
062Ross Valley there's no doubt that was great and then the challenges of differentiated differentiation I mean I that came up in a couple of different places in terms of small schools differentiated learning additional supports for tier 2s special education as a method of differentiation and being able to provide that scaffolding and supports for students where they're at and where they need it is um is all is like you said the spectrum of who you might have in a classroom from two grades ahead to somebody who really needs one-on-one instruction is really challenging for teachers um so the more supports that we can give them for that differentiation 100% and it was very well articulated so that very helpful one one thing um just on this topic in terms of um you know what it means
063to create environments where all students can uh experience um uh you know deeper learning every child is coming in with a different set of experiences and needs um and that you know um could be day-to-day or it could be something um you know more intrinsic to to who they are um their strengths their particular challenges and so today at Brookside um our occupational therapist um gave a presentation on sensory strategies for the classroom and so and this this has happened many times in this District we've had our OTS do um when we've done like um conference style PD days um they'll give presentations that you know for General teachers um and so this is we've been talking a lot about this how like the disproportionality plan is really just the LC cap um you know
064or an offshoot of it a little you know sort of branch of it and um you know the same is true for the work that we're doing on the wellness committee all that is is is really related um uh so and and the what special education does for example multi-sensory reading strategies that support students with a dyslexic profile those method methodologies and curricula benefit kids in general education and our intervention teachers and our ELD teachers are trained in those methodology so it's all one big supy um Fiesta of um you know expertise and and I think that it's really critical um because sometimes I think the conversation around riger I know this is true for us in larksburg um when I was principal there is that it's a zero sum game like if we have
065heterogeneous classes and there's students that aren't as like you know academically gifted as you know my my little angel um then that means my little angel is losing out and I think that part of what we have to do as public Educators re large the many millions of us um is to reassert what we're here to do we're the commons we're one of the last places in society where people all people in the community there's no application you come you get registered you're in um and so and you um student have a contribution to make now of course we're not perfect at meeting every need for every kid every day um and I challenge anyone to identify the school that does that um but um but things like this I think are just a little
066snapshot into how I think it's it can um contribute to a bit of a a rigid mindset about like well special ed does this and then we do this over here but really the truth is we see our colleagues all working together collaborating with each other and um you know and this was this was one cool example of that thank you that's I think that is a really great example of how Sensory Learning can benefit all students in different ways for different reasons and also building that appreciation of different Learners in the classroom because that's life when you go out of the classroom is you are going to be with lots of different people who have different circumstances and different abilities and different skills and different challenges and so learning through your education um to
067learn together with everybody that's there is a great skill to have as well so thank you that's great I had one other question on the Hot Topic of cold meals yeah um and this had come up I don't know how many when when it was Christian you might know this when the state changed the policy around Universal meals I think that was two years ago two years ago um and I know this came up in jayac um when it was happening and some of the unintended consequences of that which we all support completely Universal meals but it had a financial impact and it also had I think you had given us some statistics once about people asking for lunches but then not picking them up but then we still have to pay for them and
068so that's just something I think to keep on our radar about how we can work with those kinds of of issues of being able to improve quality maintain the universality but maybe communicate with families like don't ask for it if you're not going to take it CU it costs money and it precludes us from increasing the quality if so anyhow it's just another thing to keep on our radar and that we can continue to bring to jayac because I don't know maybe there's some it hasn't been brought up lately as far as the legislation goes but it's something to maybe ask again if there's any shifts going on in terms of funding or legislation well I mean Miller Creek had a wonderful meal program a couple years ago and they had to rip it out
069to go to this so they're they're suffering like a loss like oh my God we had something great we had fresh meals we had local sourced so it's again it depends on facilities and what you're able to do in the Comm so it is it's a yeah understand the issue we're trying to solve and one size doesn't fit all and so you know it's not working great for us and it's definitely not working well for other districts as well yeah but more kids are getting fed so that's a great thing that's a great thing Universal is good one size fits all hard how do you do both um so more questions for that's great do you have any public comment no no public comment no comment on food are we do we do we have
070a way that we're are we like giving away the food or donating it when it's not used I don't know if we can look into that I'm just curious to see what what's sounds like Tyler it and eats it we actually do not have the ability to donate the food because it's prepackaged and already heated so that's one of the disadvantages of it so even bigger reason why we want to make sure that if the families order the food that the children pick it up yeah but I pick up six sweatshirts a day at Brookside can you get they're not going to remember they don't know like yeah can't put it on the kid can you I don't know food food waste is a real issue yeah it is maybe something the green teams can
071yeah P I don't know all right well I think if we have no public comment and no further comment here we can move on good present that's fun conversation yeah thank youate being kept today um our next item is consent actions we have one item recommended approval of certificated classified administrative Personnel actions so we have one thing there and we can do this All in One motion unless there is any public comment or question okay do you have any public comment on this one no nothing on consent okay I will entertain a motion uh I'll recommend that appr the personal Personnel actions as presented motion I will you I'll second it all right so Daniel hi Rachel I shell I all right so that is approved um next item is board business committee updates and
072reports from and announcements from trustees anybody have stuff to report we had an effective effectivess committee meeting this morning at 7:30 efficiency and eff efficiency and Effectiveness committee because my last one first one I attended a month ago I was like what why we're not talking about any type of shared service like this was what are we doing so today was all about how do we how do we communicate how do we share these Services what are we doing well it was a really it was a it was a good conversation and they almost wanted to break us up into hey what school districts have a lot of money which ones have a lot of money over here and which ones are struggling right us and Miller Creek and Larks quarter Madera the gentleman there
073is running it but it was a it was a it was an effective meeting and I expect more to come out of my involvement with that throughout the year you're chair you're be Chair by the end of the year but the heat math is good like what are we actually doing to share Services how much money are we saving or what resources are we are we sharing like tell the community what are we doing with the district that has what 16 school districts how are we coming together in what we're so it was um it was a good way of starting my morning and then there were some interesting stuff with jayac too and then we rolled right into cell phone policy y um what was the other one the um that was the one
074that caught my attention the most as far as like kids with devices but what does that look like does that include watches that are now smart Y and then shelle brought up well if there's an emergency the kids phones are all in a bucket at the top of the shop class how do you get in touch with people you need to get in touch with so it's it's challenging stuff yep no it was a good overview again legislatively it's the end of the um it's the end of the legislative season and so all of the bills that made it through the legislature um have gone to the governor and those kind of things so it's it's coming towards the end of the season there and kind of the overall summary was there were it was
075it was this season was about on par with the number of bills that went through that passed through the legislature it wasn't more it wasn't less um so there wasn't a whole lot of other educational stuff that was standing out I did write down my SB 1315 which is the list of lists the lists of reports or the reported reports that's what it was it's the reported reports so that's still moving forward and by March Chris just so you know by March the CDE is tasked with producing its report of reports and then after that there will be an evaluation of the re meaning the report of all of the reports that leas have to submit and then after the report of reports comes out they'll start doing the evaluations of which ones maybe are
076extraneous and don't need to happen so that's the other thing that caught my eye and thought it might catch yours as well in terms of if you have input on that that we can take the jayac I'm sure it's caught Tyler's eye with all the emails he gets from CDE that says this report is now due this report is now due well now they'll have a report of all those reports that we can then start saying hm do you need to do all those reports so just and we do have a lot that are doe constantly oh yeah yeah and again for a small District back to the where we are on that U a small district with constrained budget how much of that time do we really want to be spending doing some of
077that reporting so if there can be some efficiencies had in that process better all right um so I got to go to the white Hill Middle School community barbecue which was super fun they had like really good food there um a lot of donated things they had a yes thing um it was great there was the one of the coolest things was that they had a white Hill um Middle School band playing and it wasn't like the band from the school but it was like a rock band of kids who were students there and they were just so amazing they were out there it was great um a little loud but I think that's because I'm getting old so I was just really impressed they did cover songs they did their own original music and
078some of their music had really really cute lyrics they probably would want to hear a rock band called cute but it was it was it was really sweet um so to all the people who organized that they did a wonderful job and thank you um had a good time I also attended fall paloa this Saturday um that was at the San raell Elks Lodge and it's just it's a wonderful venue um there was a lot going on there was a silent or silent auction that was organized and so there were like a ton of really cool things that were up for auction they had uh two different bands they had two different DJs they had like games there was like a ping po table there was like cornhole there was like a lot to do
079um so I just wanted to say thank you to the US board and all the folks who worked on that because that was a lot of work and it came out really really nice um and then last night was the yes board meeting um so a lot of the time we spent going over fall of paloa since it had just happened and it's kind of like hey what do we want to change for next year what do we want to keep um they they did a financial report um the financials are looking really positive for this time of year for yes um almost double what they had raised at this point in the time at the school year last year so almost double yeah it's they were really excited about that um I was too
080so their their fundraising is just I don't know what happened but it's been kicked up a notch um and just they're doing really well they are also interviewing for a new executive director and that is also it's in process so hopefully they'll be able to announce something um soon um and then this morning I was at Wade Thomas for their Wednesday welcome they had like a three to fifth graders were given Awards which is really sweet um their students have a thing where they have identity bags and so they decorate the outsides of these paper bags and they they just like they put their identity how they feel they identify on the outside then they also put things that you wouldn't see on the Outside Inside the bags and then they share them out which
081I think is extremely Brave and it's so wonderful so um just wanted to shout those kids out anys and that was last two weeks yeah there was one other event that I went to it was a community event it was the Fairfax town picnic oh and and I went to I forget how it wasn't this weekend it was the weekend before or so and um and then and then the on the Avenues and I was I'm thinking I'm wondering if it would be helpful to have maybe something we could do just collect a list of all the various town events and occurring and to have that kind of in our back pocket for where are the parades where are the picnics where the outside of the schools um just for us as a school district
082to also you know build those relationships and whatnot with the town groups so yeah Rachel pulled us together to do the parade in Sano whatever a month ago and it's like great who who can we get to where the costume and people were like hey we didn't know this was going on so that's a really good call out of of those things where we can this is what's going on in the community I was Kyler thinking of your thing of like getting the schedule in May for next year comment about the school stuff and that might be a thing for us to think about having a calendar of as well um I I wasn't here two weeks ago but I went to Walker Creek and Tyler came out for an afternoon that's my first experience
083Walker Creek it was exceptional it was great Brookside fifth grade does it early in the year so that the students bond with each other they don't go with another school from Ross Valley which a little bit of a Miss but it brings those fifth graders together and the teachers really like that component of it uh so it was a really cool experience to meet the staff out there the location of it the facilities it was it was it was a really good experience so um thankful for the parent communities that are able to to sponsor that because it's expensive it's not cheap for the students and the parents to to pay um but it was really well done I heard that that M County Office of Education has been doing some facility um work out
084there and that it might soon also have the ability to do like small conferences or offsites which might be something to think about like if you're going to do a staff Retreat or something like that I think that's in the works the facilities were were nice like there was good enough for what you would expect of yeah yeah it was it's good yeah so it was a cool experience to be able to go as as a parent um but also with that lens of hey these guys are running a really good educational program the naturalists there are great right so it's a cool experience for them to come from all over the US to work there for a year or two so L invertebrates lots of invertebrates right um so moving on we have the
085approval of the regular meeting minutes for September 25th 2024 you have any questions comments can we approve them with just the two of us because Daniel was not here nope I mean I mean we can't technically we could because if he's read them and he approves of it then he could do it but he wasn't here we generally tend to recuse ourselves so I don't think we could do this or S I have to bump this to next we can bring that to the next meeting that's easy all right so then we have superintendent cabinet report um a couple things that have gone on in the last two weeks uh I went to go see the white Hill Field last Thursday when we had non-student day so I got to go see that it was
086getting aerated um and dragged and some new uh some new dirt put on top of it uh and got to talk to Dez a little bit about that and we've got a plan for improvement kind of a six week cycle of air rating dragging and seeding um and you hopefully the water mains will stay intact so we can continue to water that field um there's been just kind of A Series of Unfortunate Events out there and we're hoping to get that field back to where we want it to be I got to see some white Hill classrooms today really impressed with the teachers that I saw um fun to get in those Middle School classrooms kids all really clearly understood what they were supposed to be working on and just fun to interact with them
087we started our fac facilities walkthroughs this week we'll continue doing that next week uh we had 305 responses to the uh survey that I sent out about how to use the proceeds from the Deer Park sale um couple of things that are coming up and we'll bring this to the board in a future board meeting um shade structures is a is a top priority for a lot of the families preventative maintenance I was really proud of our community putting that towards the top of the list is definitely a big need for us um and the field repair was another big one at at Brookside at uh Manor and at White Hill making sure those fields are are taken care of um we had negotiations today I feel like we're getting close it's very positive very
088collaborative I want to appreciate our Union Partners um for just kind of the tone and tenor of the back and forth uh it feels like a true negotiations um and I'm eager to see where we can get that going in next few weeks um and then I just wanted to give the board a quick update on ebikes at White Hill um John and Mary CLA have done a very nice job working with Fairfax PD to do a little bit of a uh info session and registration for ebikes uh these really need to be class one ebikes to be registered on site uh we went through the ebike parking lot on the other day actually was during the facilties walk through and they were all class one ebikes really happy to see that I didn't see
089a bunch of class two or class 3es out and about around the school either so uh both of the principles there report that that has gone uh well and I think it's going to take some time for parents to understand that staying away from that class two bike is really the way to go even if your kids are like really pressuring you to get the class two say no stick with the class one um so things are going pretty well with that I think it really helps to have the school I mean to have that reinforcement on campus Because then for parents who yeah you know can be like okay we got your back on that if you want to and you're it's hard in the community to sometimes get that peer pressure yeah that's
090and the laws are changing all the time on this so to go out and spend $5,000 on a class two and maybe not have your kid be able to write it you it's you've got to make a really informed decision on a purchase like that or at least I would yeah any updates from the board or from the cabinet yeah um we had three different release days last week for various adoptions um Monday we had a TK um we our four TK teachers learning about creative curriculum which is the program that they are um piloting one of whom is here um our DK lead s um and it it was a really great day it was fun we got to play a little bit it's a play based program something that I appreciated was that
091the units that they have are um all really tangible um the the one that they're piloting is around percussion instruments but they have other ones they have one on cameras they have but everything that they um you know it's all of your academics and and seal is integrated into the program but the units themselves are things that are in the real world and you can touch them and you can interact with them um so just you know it's it's aligned with the preschool standards and just seems like a great program but we'll see that's what a pilot's for um and then we had two release days for Benchmark our Ela program one for second through fifth grade and one for K2 or sorry K1 um and these were demo days so they had one of
092their um professional developers who was really great um and she did kind of a pre- meeting with the teachers to talk about the materials and talk about a very specific lesson and then demonstrated it in a classroom and then they came back and had a conversation about it and they did two rounds of that so that was really helpful and we also had time for teachers just to kind of talk about how things are going and give each other tips um on this kind of really big undertaking this an Ela program you know includes so many different components and they're piloting all of those components so it's phonics and it's writing and it's reading and um it's a lot to figure out but that was great and then I've been doing class visits and site
093visits which is fabulous I was at White Hill and Hidden Valley this week and next week I'll be at the other three sites so that's just exciting to see um and we had a terrific Delight um our teacher leadership group meeting yesterday where we kind of did a practice run for our up PD day around priority standards and it went really well um teachers gave really good and important feedback and input to make the day even better and I'm I'm just really excited to be moving forward with that Eric you have any updates yeah um let's see um couple things just coming up I mean in the spirit of like being connected as a county who have our monthly uh special director's meeting next week um and and and actually it's also Sela that's hosting
094the noral inclusion collaborative with which Tyler mentioned in his presentation that's Friday and we're taking like a team of five or six of us um so I'm really excited about that um you know because inclusion is um you know not just a culture it's also a tangible pillar um in this this leadership group this is a uh there's three big meetings throughout the year and then um uh additional work including data collection throughout the year um and like I talked about before it's going to inform all our many little buckets of of plans um so I'm really excited about that and just really appreciate the staff um couple admin couple teachers coming um taking um time that they don't have to really give um to to do this it's going to be really fun um
095then um spending you know a good amount of time to um uh collaborating with uh local private schools and families from private schools consultation around title $2 which is instructional Improvement so they they if they consult with us and have an appropriate plan they can get an equitable share of those federal dollars um uh so I work with them on that also to um children that are privately placed that we're evaluating um that's you know takes takes a lot of communication actually a shout out to MCO as well uh and Sela they are supporting districts with a psychologist who's helping us do um psychoeducational evaluations for children that are privately placed um so that's that's an example of a of a shared service that um that takes pressure off of our staff um who are
096under pressure to be assessing kids in the district um not to mention outside of the district so um I want to appreciate them for that step two just proportionality plan speaking of plans like Shelley said that's due tomorrow so that's a lot has gone into that including great input from our principal team uh and cabinet um yesterday which I really appreciate and lastly on the topic of phones um the webinar in 1022 is Jonathan hait the author that's been on all the talk shows with the anxious generation and ban all phones phones are evil um and he wrote a a bunch of other stuff too and he's actually written stuff that you know is all about you know play based learning as well so he's an interesting guy he's in conversation with State superintendent Tony
097Thurman so I'm signed up for that I'm going bring the popcorn that's 8:00 a.m. on Tuesday the 22nd so that's separate from Dr LaVine who's speaking as well that is separate yeah separate from that so is okay good stuff my I'll keep short um with all of the work that we're doing out at the sites and um related to the field work and with all of the heat that we have have just come through it's hard to believe that um all of our inclement weather is just around the corner the really bad storm that we had several years ago in 21 2021 when we had the flooding at White Hill that was really only about two weeks from now so one of the things that our staff is also working hard on is ensuring that
098our sites are ready for the inclement weather that's coming in so we're in the process of doing all of that and then I do want to point out that we have a budget advisory committee meeting on the 21st of October um that will be at 5:30 pm and so that'll be the Monday prior to our next board meeting so I just wanted to make sure that was out there for everybody Jia one thought for all of the pilots that you're doing along the thing of appreciation and gratitude and learning more about them and understanding kind of where they're going in terms of our curriculum adoptions and things like that so I was thinking we've done you know we've done a series where the students come in and do presentations but I was also thinking that
099I would really enjoy and appreciate having some of the teachers come to our board meetings a good to present their feedback on all of these pilots and also an opportunity for us to express our gratitude and thank you to them for doing it it's great I'd love hearing your reports but I I'd also really love to hear from the teachers um and even kind of giving us a little clip of kind of what they are and getting their feedback and and also a way for us to express directly appreciation and gratitude for the work that's being put in on that so I'm not sure where in the process that would go we I typically like when we once the group has made a recommendation and we bring it to the board there's usually teachers then
100got that kind of demonstrate some and talk about the why um we could think about along the way but it also would be an extra evening for teachers which no I don't want to make anymore I don't want to make anybody show I don't have to but um if it's if it's that I just want say if it's appropriate when and if it's appropriate not more or less but just I think when we bring it for approval to the board that seems like a good recommendation to continue that practice that'd be great yeah or I could work it into do those days when the kids come like hey this is one of those lessons because then you're not then they're already GNA come I I just don't want to make teachers come no um all
101right so let's see next item is future board topics in board Direction anything anybody wants us to look into that we haven't already given Tyler direction for no all right um I um I was talking to a former board member in another school district who mentioned doing a newsletter that didn't just go out to the student families but to the whole community that they served and I was wondering if we would have the ability to do that I don't know how you get that information but I thought it might be good because then we can let our community know hey look at all these cool things we're doing it supports your property taxes and it kind of just gives them an idea what we're doing with all these things like hey look we're going to
102do these fields and you know to give the community an idea especially with the Deer Park proceeds right that was a community yeah and I I did put that out on social media to everybody so it wasn't just our school families who had access to that and I did receive like gratitude for that because you know neighbors of the schools who don't have children would want to participate anyway so I just thought it might be a good way for us to start connecting with everybody parents where have an option for adding people that aren't parent I have something sitting on my desk from Kentfield that was given to me by uh John that they mail out I don't know if they mail it out just to families or if it's to everybody but it's a
103a color twofold two-page back to back uh and it's there's a message from uh superintendent Rose there's a message from both of the principles there's a little bit about what they're doing with facilities and curriculum adoption so it's something that we could probably put together and we could probably do a little bit of cut and paste with some of our board updates that we've done and some of the presentations we've done um i' just have to look into the cost of making it look nice and setting it out if it wasn't a PDF because we get emails from the town manager from San anelo about things that are going on so I wonder if there's something in Fairfax as well so they obviously have lists well they got a they there's a on the website
104it's like if you'd like to be on a newsletter click here and sign that's what I was wondering is whether with whether you can have a group in parents square that is like hey if you'd like to be if you want to get the emails that all the parents are getting just sign up here and we're happy to send them to you even though you're a Community member maybe who isn't a parent but it's a self opin yeah I wonder button or option something like that maybe canfields does go to all their constitu yeah there's something I talked about with a couple people this week uh John gave it to me I think on Monday uh so yeah it's definitely something because email would defin cheaper than having to mail things and easier and less
105time consuming um and then people could just opt in on their type in there and just kind of thinking back to the feedback that I've received about more frequent more concise a newsletter like that is a little bit longer but uh Julie and I were talking a little bit about the difference between an email and a print copy I don't know about you all but when I get an email from a company or from an alma moer most of the time I delete it but the second I get that Chico State you know flyer in the mail I usually sits on my coffee table for a little bit and I read it a little bit and I engage with it a little bit more than I do the email so there might be a little
106more bang for the buck if we send something out physically if we're trying to move forward with a parcel tax I think having the whole Community kind of see here's the good work that we're doing because there's a lot of good work going on a lot and you could put just short summaries with that go to this teeny URL to read more go to this teeny URL to read more might find a parent that could help with the layout good recommendation one last thing quick uh I've had talks with Bar's parents about our logos and so there's a something like some people thinking hey how do we change logos for schools or the district or something like that so just wanted to put that out there yeah not a CR not an important thing but
107there's enough people talking about it that I heard about it and uh we got a lot of smart graphic design folks got the banner REM made it's it's I was just I don't want to be like the person who's been on the board forever said I've been here it's a very interesting Evergreen I was just thinking about this the other day it's an evergreen type of conversation as you get new people coming in who kind of have their opinions and my one one side saying a logo is a thing that should stay as a brand it's a thing it's a durable thing and then the other side is like why I mean if you have new community members new families maybe it's an okay a conversation Valley and Manor Evol I don't know where I
108land on that but it's interesting that it just 20 years later since Manor had four or five Loos I I'll talk to our principal about it and see I I think there have been some new logos created that are not trademarked recently so yeah white Hills is brand new like if I think about a private school and if we're trying to you know show the community the quality of our schools the private school it is a kind of a brand it is something that lasts for a long time that doesn't change year-over-year um but I'm sure there's a lot of cute OTS we could find for a new logo we been a Manor's been a acorn an otter a tree a cougar they changed the mascot they act the mascot not just the l oh
109yes oh yes those are the four different mascots over the years so which school is going to be moodang the little so I think it's an interesting I mean it is an interesting kind of creative tension of community engagement because it it really does show an Engaged Community wanting to adopt and express kind of how they feel about their school which is a wonderful thing and yet only bring it up there's a bunch of brilliant people that could do that and there 20 20 years ago yeah yeah no no absolutely yeah yeah um yeah all right so I think we G you board dire there you go to that for a little bit great all right with that we can just paste the new logo of our Banner it'll be fine all right um meeting
110debrief any comments questions there if not I will uh make a not a motion to continue past 230 um no meeting to brief stuff no I appreciate the conversation yeah and theity um and with that I will adjourn our meeting at 8:01