001is 6 p.m. and we will reconvene our January 13, 2026 Lame Mesa Spring Valley School Board meeting. Um, moving on to announcements. Please be advised that this meeting is being recorded. Also, participants on Zoom who would like to make a public comment must submit the public comment form linked in the agenda by 6:10 p.m. We will call your name during the public comment portion of the agenda. And that brings us to the pledge of allegiance which will be led by students from Aenddale Elementary School. >> All right. >> Can everybody please stand up? Right hands over your heart. Ready? Begin. Pledge alce to the flag of United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> Good job you guys. >>
002Great job. Okay, that brings us to our approval of the minutes of the previous meeting. I move to approve the minutes of the previous meeting. >> I second. >> Any questions or discussion regarding these minutes? All in favor say I. >> I. Opposed. >> Okay. And next is the approval of tonight's board agenda. >> I'll move to approve tonight's board agenda. I'll second. >> Any discussion regarding this agenda? All in favor say I. >> I. I. >> Opposed. Okay. That brings us to our communications. We have a spotlight on um Aendale Elementary. >> All right. First, we have a video that we're going to play for you all to celebrate your school. And we're also going to ask um Principal Marissa Sheno, you can come forward and then as soon as the video is done,
003you can bring kids up and all the other good stuff. alone. Not on my watch. That was me just a few years ago. Some things have changed since then. I've grown. Ael has grown, too. But the things that really matter, those are still here. Aenddale Elementary opened in 1959. That's a long time ago. Since then, this school has been part of so many famil family's lives. Parents came here, then their kids, and now some of those kids are parents, too. This place holds generations of stories. From my very first days here, I felt welcomed. The amazing staff here made me feel right at home. That's when I knew something special was happening here. At Avenue, community and connection aren't just ideas we talk about. They're things we live. >> We celebrate who we are. >>
004That means many ways of seeing the world, many cultures that make our school stronger. >> When people are embraced for who they are, trust grows, belonging grows. Avendale is a community school. Providing access to community resources is part of what happens here. Food distribution is really important. When families need support, Aendelle is here because learning works best when we feel supported. When we feel safe. It's about connection. Aenddale has always been a safe, strong place. Generations have walked these halls. Generations have learned here. Generations have grown here. I am so grateful to be a part of our community. >> I like how the teacher make us want to try new things. She teaches us great math and now I know all the >> I like how the teachers care about us. >> All the teachers
005at Avenue respect us. >> I love how all of the students are respectful and nice to us. Aale is a magical place. >> Some things change. The heart of Aendale stays the same. presentation >> of course centering student voice. So we will have a few of our tigers come and introduce themselves in their home language. No more said Tiger. Aendelle Lily Pom Evanell is a round of applause for the floor. >> My name is Marisa Sheno and I am the proud principal of Aendale Elementary. I would like to first thank our families for joining us this evening. They are at the center of all that we do. I would also Oh, sorry. I would like to thank the mayar poa deng no Ramirez Rodriguez and St. Louis families. Thank you so much for being here.
006Also equally important, I would like to thank our staff. They are phenomenal and they are also in attendance as well. I would like to thank my sons Kazzy and Shahi for supporting and being here this evening. Aenddale Elementary is a beautiful place where everyone knows your name. Families walk their childrens to school and generation of families choose to have their children at Aenddale. There is beauty in the care our staff give to each of our thinkers. In the time they take to connect and support Aenddale families. This enduring care is visible in the bustle of our mornings. When teachers take time to check in with families and lean in and listen. when Aenddale alumni check in with their past teachers on their walk to middle school. It is also visible or actually audible in the
007music that's played by our cafeteria staff that just kind of makes you want to sasa first thing in the morning. The vibrant displays that our PTA create and really make our school a welcoming place to be. and of course our office staff who greet each and every family every morning. I feel honored to be a witness to this unparalleled beauty. When you walk into our classrooms, you feel the dedication that each teacher pours into their school day. When you speak with our thinkers as they learn in class, you feel the earnestness of each question, each answer, and each thinking move that our Tigers make. Another element to note and celebrate, of course, is our diversity. At Aenddale, we have over seven languages spoke at our school. We also have rich diversity in our thinkers who
008problem solve every day and reach toward their endeavors. The majority of our beloved staff are also multilingual which strengthens our ability to connect and support our families and our greater community. This vibrant tapestry that our community illustrates daily is empowered by many things. However, the strongest is love. Love of learning, love of community, love of each other, and love for our school. Thank you to our board and our La Mesa Spring Valley School District for presenting me the honor to serve Aenddale Elementary. Thank you. >> Mrs. Shaniel, can can you introduce your um students for us? and and also um we have some little gifts for them. So we we'd love to get a picture with you and and the kids. >> Harun Nor, come on up. And we also have Daisy and Daniel Ramirez
009Rodriguez. We have Cedric St. Louis. We have Lily Pomhan and also Sophia Deng. Did I forget anyone? Is that everybody? Oh, and we should introduce Lexi as well. She is the narrator on our vid video. Lexi, come on up. >> Okay. So their parents come in. And shout out to our amazing principal at Aendale. She was the um most recent guest on the LMS Heart podcast. And if you haven't heard it, I really encourage you to because it's really inspiring. She did an amazing job with it. And um you can check it out on any of the podcast I don't know apps or whatever that are out there. Thanks guys. >> Should I do >> So our Aenddale families, we really love having you and you're welcome to stay for the whole meeting, but we
010will take a little break if you want to go do something else with your evening outside of this boardroom. So it's a good time if you don't want to stay that you can you can go, but you're welcome to stay. We got a report coming and Thank you all so much for coming. >> You did such a good job on the video. >> A great turnout. >> I love that so many of the staff came out, too. That's awesome. >> Room clears. Yep. Do I take dinner? >> It's just the regulars now. >> Look at you. Look at you, >> man. That evaluation Okay, that takes us to item 4B, other staff communications and information. And it looks like there is no other staff communications. >> Nothing else tonight. >> Okay, which then brings us
011to the report of action taken in close session >> and no action items in close session tonight. >> And that takes us to public comment. Do we have any comment cards? >> No. >> And do we have any participants on Zoom? Uh there are no public comments on Zoom at this time. >> Okay. Thank you. Which brings us to item 5A, the 2025 California school dashboard report. >> Well, I'm going to um give Matt a moment to >> the man in the >> finish public comment and walk to the front. Um, we have previously been sharing our state test results and we've talked a lot about just the test results themselves and in terms of prof wow percent proficient and um looking at that metric for state testing data but the um what we haven't
012talked about in a while is the California school dashboard. And so tonight, um, I've asked Matt to come and present on the California school dashboard and understanding the dashboard, which looks a little differently at results and helping us understand how that is a different metric for state accountability and what it means. So, turning it over to Matt. You did a good job getting up here just in time. >> All right. Thank you. Uh, good evening everyone. Happy New Year. It's really good to see you again. last time I was here in November, uh, as Deianne said, talking about how we did on our academic measures and measuring like percent proficient in advance. Uh, and today we're going to just show you a different way that the state accountability system looks at how districts and schools
013are doing so we can kind of narrow the focus and see what's working and what we need to improve on. Um so tonight really I'm going to be talking about uh kind of doing a little education on the state accountability system and then speaking about state indicators and performance levels as they uh are as a definition and then how we did at La Mesa Spring Valley and some of our specific schools. So part of it education and then some of it's just how do we do so I think the first thing we want to start off with is the the state indicators for a district u like ours that's a TK8 district. Um they're looking at these four indicators. Academic indicator which is our performance on English language arts and mathematics on the CASP. They
014look at our English learner progress. Um another state indicator is our chronic absenteeism and they kind of call that student engagement. So if kids are in school then they're engaged. Um and then they also uh measure the state indicator suspension rate. Um so in each of those state indicators we get a color. Um, and on the dashboard there's a lot of details, but I'm really kind of review the overview of the dashboard. And so each of those indicators, we get a a color. Red being the lowest performing and then blue being the highest performing. Um, how we determine those are on the 5x5 table. So um, I'm going to kind of walk you just through how we get a color for each of those state indicators. The first thing we have to do is look
015at a status in one of those indicators and that's on that left column here. um and you have a status of very high to very low. Um and that's for the indicator for the last school year. So in 2025, that would be a status for suspension rate or academic. Um so that would just be a vertical axis of how do you do? Are you very high or very low. Um the cool part about the dashboard is it just doesn't give you a snapshot. It compares growth. So I feel like it's a much more equitable way of looking at the growth in change in a district um because of this um horizontal axis of change. Um change is pretty simple in this. It's just an equation of a minus sign. Um how did you do in
016like 2025 versus 2024 gives you a change of either decreasing significantly or increasing significantly. And I would say like a goal of the district is to be um that that lower left quadrant of low to very low to decline declined. We want to move out of that quadrant in all of our state indicators. That's an indication of moving in the right direction. So um that's how we get the colors on the dashboard. Um so like you look up a school in dashboard and you see an orange and orange can mean a lot of things um depending on the indicator. Um, and I'd like to point out that each of the state indicators, um, the cut points change and some of the colors also change, um, based on some formulas that I quite don't understand, but
017the state does. Okay. Um, and so the the intersection of status and change gives a school or school district their color distinction. Um, we're going to spend a little time in the academic indicators because it's it's easy to understand um, if you've been playing around in these indicators for a lot, but for the first time talking about it, um, it is a little more complex. So, bear with me here. So, our academic indicators on the state dashboard show how well students are meeting proficiency standards on the English language arts and math assessment. So, similar to November, but it doesn't just look at percent proficient and above. So how do we calculate our color in a district or at a school? Um the first thing we need to do is define status that left column. Um
018and there's two steps. The first step is to calculate this idea of distance from standard or we call it DFS for each student. Okay. So ready distance from standard. Each student gets this score. And this is kind of like why I get excited about it because each kid score counts. Not just students who are proficient in advance, it's all students. Um I have two examples to try to illuminate what DFS is. The first one is um an example of a third grade student receives an ELA scale score of 2420. The student has a DFS of minus12 because their their score is 12 points below the lowest possible score for the student who met level three. And then for third grade that we call that a cut score or minimally proficient but like that just met
019number your DFS is either plus or minus that based on your scale score. Um so this students DFS would be 12 points below standard. Okay. Another example and I like to illuminate this one because it's two grade levels with the same scale score. So we have a student in uh third grade who took the ELA assessment and got a scale score of 2472. Because the minimally proficient cut point is 2432, this student has a DFS of plus 40. Plus 40 is a good thing for a district, meaning this student is above the minimally proficient. In contrast, the fourth grade student has the same exact scale score, but the cut score for proficiency in fourth grade is 2473. So although this student has the same score, different grade level, different minimum expectation for proficiency, um their
020score is a minus one or one point below that standard. Okay. Um step two for calculating status. So you take all of those DFS from either a school or the district. So every student's score counts. Uh and you average them. It's pretty simple. So uh this is my example school. six students. Wouldn't we love to have a school with six students? Uh, and as you can see, their DFS vary. Some of them are negative or below standard and some of them are above. They're exceeding the standard. Um, and all we do is just take a mathematical average. So, take the all the scores, add them together, divide them by the total number of students. And for this example school, um, their status would be plus five or five points below that minimally proficient for the
021school. So that's the left axis of status. Now if you envision the 5x5 matrix um change is really really simple. All you do is you take the current year status. So is this example was a plus five. So five points above the standard. You subtract it from last year's status. So in this example I'm saying that this fictitious district was two points above. Right? So their change would be a positive three. So when we're looking at that distance from three average, a plus three has some significant um statistical relevance as you'll see in an example. I'm hoping this is making sense for you. So this fictitious school um their status was plus five. So on the status column um that's low performing because the range for low performing for English language arts is 5.1 below
022that minimally proficient up into God my eyes are not what they used to be. Um up into minus 70. So um what's what's unique about this one that is not correct. Oh yes it is. I'm sorry I saw a minus. Uh because it's below standard in between 70. Oh, did I get this one wrong? No, it's right. It's minus5 to current figure. I'm sorry. >> Yes. Yes. Thank you. Thank you. It it was it got cut down one. I apologize. Um the change is three. Um so a positive three and it would just slid down on this side. So the example for this fictitious school is they were in the medium status. So between minus5 and 9.9. Um and their change was three. So this school or fictitious school district received what color on the
0235x5? Green. Okay. So their status was green. I'm going to move into La Mesa Spring Valley. So if you go to the um dashboard, the California dashboard, and you look at how we did in English language arts as a district, we are yellow. So yellow can mean a lot of things when you look at that 5x5 matrix. So for us our status was again this is all of the students distance from three in all of our schools their average on average we were 9.6 below that minimally proficient but our change from one 2024 to 2025 was an increase of 4.4 that put us in the increased change column which gave us the indicator of yellow. Okay. So, as a district, that's where we landed. So, uh we like to see out of those six boxes
024moving out of that direction. Um what I did is I did a little bit of a I don't know what you want to call this, a little bit of visualization for our district. So, uh in your packet, you see how we did in 2025, but what you see on the screen right now is how we placed in 2024. So this was our our our placement um our performance level in English language arts and I just animated so if you just watch the screen for a second you'll see what the pattern is is as we move to 24 to 25 you can see the movement yeah pretty fancy right uh and I really illustrate that um because uh I said it before um this way of looking at data it's it's equitable because kids who move
025from a not meeting to a MET change that axis. A student who goes from we a green to a blue makes that change. A student who's far below and gets to approaching makes that change. So that visualization is an indicator that what we're doing in La Mesa Spring Valley is moving the needle for all students in English language arts. Okay. Um similarly in mathematics we'll do the same kind of a thing. Um as you'll see the cut points change in mathematics. Um but uh as a district we were in the orange level for our performance level. How we received that um performance level of orange is our status was 37.1 points below minimally standard still in that low category. You see how the the uh the numbers have changed from English language arts to math
026and we maintained that level um and we gained two points uh on our average for change which gave us this indicator of LMSV being um in the orange indicator. Similarly, this is what our district was in 2024. And with a little bit of automation, you can see Lamesa Spring Valley stayed in that maintained And the pattern's very consistent um as many of our schools moved to the right and up in that matrix which indicates some positive growth for our students. The next indicator uh uh the next state indicator uh is around English learner progress. Um, the definition for this is the percentage of current English learners making progress towards English language proficiency or maintaining the highest level on the English proficiency assessment for California. So, are they making annual yearly progress or staying at that
027high level on the ELPAC? Our district as a whole, our performance level was yellow because we were at the 46.6 six making progress percent making progress and we maintained a plus half of percent. Um I didn't animate this one because that one kind of takes a whole lot but um this is a snapshot of where our our schools plotted on English learner progress and how we did as a district. Our status put us in medium and our um change put us in the maintained which gave us a yellow distinction. Okay. Chronic absenteeism um is defined as the percentage of students who are absent 10% or more of the instructional days they were enrolled. So if a kid was here at the start of the school year, it's 10% of the school year. If someone started
028halfway through the the year, it's 10% of the time that they were with us. So it is a bit of a moving target depending on when a student started. Okay. our our performance level as a district was orange. And again, it's important to see where does that orange fall. Our status was very high, which seems opposite because it's a very high chronic absentee rate. So, some of the labels are a little um a little confusing at times, but it's stating that we have a very high chronic absenteeism rate. Um but our change was we declined by 2.3%. Again you might think declining is not a good thing but in this instance we are reducing the chronic absentee rate and so we got out of those kind of that six um squares in the lower half
029corner and we are orange. So we're making progress and our efforts um are moving and declining that chronic absenteeism rate. And then lastly is our suspension rate. Um, and this is the percentage of students who have been suspended at least once in a given school year. So each student, whether they've been suspended 15 times or not, if it's once, that's an indicator for uh our state indicators. Um, again, um, our performance level is or I'm sorry, yellow, I apologize. Uh, and the reason is we are at the medium level for a 2.8% suspension rate. we maintained it. So we decreased it by 210 of a percent. Uh and so we are performance level of yellow and suspension. Um and the the chart also has how the rest of the schools did across our district. That's
030kind of the quick and easy of the uh state dashboard. I'll be happy to answer any questions you guys have regarding the dashboard. No. Um, yeah. Yeah. No, I I don't believe so. So, those were the the graphs. Uh, I'm sorry, the charts were screenshotted off the dashboard. So, if I missed one, I'm not quite sure why I would have missed one. Um, unless No, no, go ahead. >> I was looking at some of this earlier today. Um, and it looks like some of the schools, so if they don't have if they have a small number of students that fall under I think English language um was one that I was looking at specifically that doesn't have like not all of our schools are listed because there's too few students that um qualify under that
031category for them to >> Thank you for the clarification. Yeah, the number is 30. You have to have 30 students to have an indicator. So yes, if a student if a school had less than 30 English language uh learners, then yes, they would not be on the dashboard. They would be grayed out if you wanted to look them up. >> I appreciate Thank you. Any other questions? >> Perfect. Thank you. >> Love the animations, by the way. >> You like see it growing. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> Very cool. >> Um, okay. That takes us to item 6A, the board policy and conflict of interest code updates. I'll second. >> Any questions regarding these board policies and conflict of interest code updates? >> Okay. All in favor say I. >> I. Opposed. All right. That brings
032us to item 7A, which is our business consent items. I'll move to approve the business consent items and also note um a thank you for to the National Foundation of Autism Research for the gift for Rancho. >> I'll second. >> Excellent. Any other discussions, questions regarding these items? All in favor say I. >> I opposed. Okay. And next is the authorization to execute and file notices of exemption for solar projects. I had a quick question on this one. I know that there's two or I noticed that there's two schools missing on here. Lame Misa Dale and Kemp. Um what is there a reason for that? >> Yes, there is actually. Um that's funny. David had asked the question earlier um I think yesterday as well. Um, La Mesael, they're still working on some u minor
033changes to what the layout's going to be, but we didn't want to hold up getting these sent up for approval. So, that one will be coming at another time. And Kemp was never actually because those were the two was never actually built um and planned for in the design because they're connected to Steam and there's some credits that are going to be coming back because of that connection. And then separate from this, could we get um I know that when we had approved the solar project moving forward, there was still some flux when as they were trying to figure out the exact plans for it, but do we know the um how large the systems and and what the cost savings for the different systems are expected? >> When we finalize all of that, we
034can definitely share um the rest of that with the board as well. >> Yeah, sounds good. Thank you. I'll move to approve the action item um item 7B. >> I'll second. >> Any other questions? All in favor say I. >> I opposed. >> Okay. And then we have item 7 C which is our annual It's bumping around. Audit report. >> I'll move to approve item 7 C. >> I'll second. >> Any questions or discussion regarding this report? Always good to see a Clean audit. All right. All in favor say I. I. >> I. Opposed. I mean I and then oppose. >> Um okay. Educational services. We have an action item. Educational services consent items. >> I'll move to approve item A. >> Any questions, discussion? All in favor say I. I. >> I. All opposed.
035Okay. Which moves us brings us to the school accountability report cards. Um I'd like to thank the teams that and all of the work that goes into putting these together. Um these are many many many pages and have lots of information. Um, but it's good for the public to be able to see, you know, that's kind of what these are for, the public to see how are our schools doing, what um, what, you know, what are the demographics at different schools and class sizes and whatnot. And, um, and so, thank you for putting these together. And, um, I'll move to approve our school accountability report cards. >> I'll second. Any questions or discussion regarding all of those pages? Okay. All in favor say I. >> I. Opposed. >> Okay. Next is the authorization to increase
036fees for the extended student student services program effective July 1st. I know that we got into kind of a briefing on on why this is necessary, but um could we for the public get a little bit of a explanation on I think you can combine it this item and the following item with the increase in fees? >> Absolutely. Both of our um both of our programs, the Smart Steps preschool program and the ESS program are um intended to be self- sustaining programs. So essentially programs that are are fund that fund themselves. um their programs with the the ESS program is a program we haven't raised fees on actually in many many years. Um 2017 is the last time we revisited fees. So as u minimum wage increases have come and increase staffing requirements etc. um
037we have to look at how to ensure we're balancing those costs. And so one of the things that our um director has done in this as we've looked at this is how to ensure that we are um competitive and and matching neighboring costs in other districts um keeping our costs as affordable as possible. We're not profiting but um being able to create a self- sustaining program. Um the Smart Steps program as a preschool program also has to uh ensure a parody of rate with our state preschool. So it can't charge less than the reimbursement rate that we receive for our state preschool program. So we're required to increase that fee um to be measure it with that allocation that we receive. So both of these are things that we have to look at to ensure
038that as we provide this service to our families, we're still ensuring that we are um keeping the program both affordable and um affordable to the district. Cool. And you mentioned with ESS the you had mentioned, you know, kind of looking at our rates versus other districts rates. Um what where are we in that? Are we similar to or is that something that we hear that parents are looking at? >> Correct. We weren't. Um we were um because we hadn't raised our fee since 2017. We were significantly below. Now we're right in the range of all our neighboring districts for that offer similar services. Cool. I just want to say as a mom who's used both of these things for my children, they are well worth it. Great. >> And then with ESS, sorry, just one
039last question. With ESS, is there there's still a program for um uh discount or free for for uh needs? >> Yep. Absolutely. In fact, um majority of our families get assistance for that cost. But for families who don't qualified for that, then we have to ensure that our fees are appropriate. Okay, cool. >> I'll move to approve item A and Z. >> Okay, any additional questions? All in favor say I. >> I oppose. >> Um and then I don't know that we need this is the next the smart step. Yeah, >> just need a motion. >> A motion. Good. Yeah. >> Got it. >> AD second. Got it. >> And you did it a second. Okay. Um all in favor say I. >> I. I opposed. And that brings us to our human resources consent
040items. >> Move to approve item 9A. >> I'll second. It's always good to see all of these pair professionals that we're hiring. So, um, much needed, especially for sped. Um, any additional questions, comments? All right. All in favor say I. >> I opposed. And that brings us to our closing communications, announcements, reports, and communications from the board and superintendent. Any announcements. Happy new year. >> I just want to say, you know, welcome back from break everybody and thanks again for those stark reports. Those you guys who worked on those, appreciate all the time you put in and yeah, enjoy your evenings. >> Yeah, welcome back. I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday season and uh getting ready for your second half of the year. >> Um I'll echo that. Welcome back. Um hope everyone is
041able to have a safe and hopefully restful holiday season. And um then I also just want to um say as a board I think that we um send our thoughts to the community at Casadoro um who are are you know grieving right now >> and happy new year. Welcome back everyone >> again. Welcome back. Happy New Year. Hit the ground running and get get everybody back into the swing of things. Mr. Superintendent, do you have some announcements? >> Uh just happy new year to everyone and um I want to thank Aendale um Miss Sheno and the whole team. It's so awesome when um staff come out and parents come out and she had all the kids involved and everything. So that was just wonderful to see. Appreciate everyone coming out to support. That was great.
042Okay, so it is 6:43 p.m. We can adjourn this meeting.