001Okay. Thank you. Good evening. Good evening everyone. Thank you for being here tonight for session four of the parent workshop series for the 2025 2026 school year. Uh our topic tonight is academic planning for your students next chapter. My name is Greg Merwin. I'm the associate superintendent of education and support services and u myself and also Ryan Burrus the chief communications officer are co-f facilitating tonight's session. Thank you for being here both in person in the boardroom and online. Tonight's topic, we will be breaking down this concept of supporting your student in in their moving into the next chapter of their education. We're breaking it down into a series of uh subtopics. So, we want to make sure that we will be addressing these key points. supporting your student as they move from elementary to
002middle school, supporting your student as they move into high school, supporting your student as they finish high school, move on to post-secary, and then supporting a student uh who has an IEP. We have four incredible district experts here this evening who will be uh co-presenting and supporting the topic. Uh when I say their uh their name, if you would please stand and give a wave. So, first and foremost, we have Miss Erica Gardner, coordinator of college and career counseling. We have Mr. Clint Collins, assistant superintendent special education. Miss Jennifer Smallley, assistant superintendent secondary education, and Mr. Romero Coral, coordinator of counseling. We appreciate all of them being here with us this evening. So before we hand it off to our outstanding presenter, I do want to spend a minute to talk again about our commitment
003as a district to uh a worldclass education. Now what does that mean? It is basically a commitment to support our students to adapt and excel to a rapidly changing world. We want them to have the skills that are needed in order to be successful post uh post high school. So as it shows on the slide, a world-class education is getting that support to be ready for that for that rapidly changing world and basically providing five different skill sets for each and every one of our students. We call those the vision of a CSD graduate. Five key attributes that every student leads us with when they graduate or move on from a adult transition program. This is on your tables uh and also online on the slide. This is another way to look at that vision
004of a COD graduate. So in the center of the graphic you see the graduate who is in their cap and gown and they're looking out to the future with their telescope looking at all the different possibilities and opportunities that they have. Around the graduate you can then see the five attributes that each one of them are equipped with as they leave our system. innov oops sorry innovative problem solver and critical thinker inspired leader skilled communicator engaged citizen and continuous learner. So how do we get them there? The con the way that we get our students to those five attributes and supporting them for a a successful path to the future is through great first instruction. This is something that's been foundational in our classrooms for over a decade. And this is about making sure every
005student is engaged, supported, and challenged. Now, what does great first instruction look like in the classroom? There is a handout on your tables here. The blue handout is more specific about what you see in every classroom. You can also go online and you can search great first instruction and you will find the the uh this PDF and the information about what this looks like in the classroom. We encourage you also to please uh ask your teacher, ask your site administrator, can you tell me more about what grade first instruction looks like in our classrooms in our school? And we recognize that it's more it's not just teaching and learning, but it al it's also our students well-being. And so making sure that our students feel safe and connected is is absolutely critical to their success.
006And we call that CUSD cares. So as it shows on the slide, this concept that we are supporting safety and well-being in each of every one of our students so that they be successful academically. If you look to the left hand side of that slide, those are the three key components of what CUSD cares is all about. That students are have the opportunity to connect with each other. that they have a sense of school community and that they have opportunities to celebrate. To learn more, all you have to do is go to the district website and type in CD Cares and you'll have a detailed list of the different things we do each and every year as well as more on those three key components. So, with that, I'm going to hand it over to
007our first presenter for this evening. Mr. Corral will uh take on the next section. Thank you, Greg. Appreciate that. Got me dialed in. All right. Well, good evening parents. Uh once again, my name is Omero Corral. I'm a coordinator for us here in Capistrron Unified specific to counseling and student support. So, for my portion this evening, uh within our presentation, I just want to share with you all a few points uh to consider with regards to your students transition. um initially to chat about the transition from elementary to middle school and then the transition from middle to high school. The emphasis I'm hoping to place here uh with us all is just to briefly touch on our students learning styles as they make this transition, the transition in academic setting and details that might influence
008them socially and emotionally. These details are all details I can definitely tell you uh with the lens that I carry with our school counselors um that are points that they're looking to support our our students for their academic success and are in support of our district's vision of a CUSD graduate. So, I'll go ahead and start initially with regards to our students transitioning from elementary to middle school. In this transition, we're definitely going to see a marked difference uh when it comes to our students regarding their learning styles, regarding their academic setting as well. They're going from concrete systems, concrete learning styles to more comprehensive, more abstract ways of not only learning, processing information, but also with regards to their academic ecosystem that supports their overall academic setting, where their school campus is, what the
009campus looks like. So to kind of expound a little bit upon this, you may be familiar, I know we as educators definitely are, of some concepts related to Bloom's taxonomy. Our elementary students that are transitioning middle school go and elevate in their learning process from remembering information, understanding concepts to applying that knowledge, analyzing that knowledge and evaluating that information as well. And at the same time as as they are um uh evolving within their learning, their learning environment is also changing as well. Just to look at it plainly, they're going from the elementary to the middle school setting from one teacher to six teachers. Their campus blueprint is potentially doubling, tripling, enlarging in size for sure. And when we look at our students transitioning from elementary to middle school, at the same time we can
010see that our students are growing within their own sense of independence and the way they communicate, being more clear regarding their concerns, their wants, their needs, and potentially within their friendships socially a part of the school day for them. They may be going from having a few friends to a friend group, evolving into middle school, multiple friend groups where different perspectives related to academic success, social norms are all part of their academic school day. And once again, I support school counselors and from the school counselor lens, these are all details that our counselors look to support our students with regarding supporting their academic success in the school setting and during the school day. So the following points that I'd like to share with you all not only are points that I wanted to bring up
011for this evening, but at the same time points for you to consider as you support your students as well as they prepare to transition from elementary to middle school with regards to their learning and their academic setting. looking to frontload your students on the changes to their academic ecosystem, the change to the fact that they'll have multiple teachers, to the fact that homework will potentially be more rigorous and the workload will enlarge itself. What are the online platforms to be intentional about regarding their campus and what the campus layout looks like as well? A pretty silly point. I was chatting with a few counselors in preparation for this evening. One of the biggest things elementary students struggle with when they come to middle school is just where their classroom is. It's a point of stress
012and frustration for them. Some of you online, I know some of you this evening are giving me a few smiles. You've seen this for yourself. You've seen the stress in trying to navigate the campus, navigate resources, working with your students on communicating not only with yourselves and what they need, but with their teachers as well. Being mindful of positive communication systems for their academic success. So, we really encourage attending back to school night as a great opportunity to understand how you can support your student, connecting and communicating with them on those resources or what their needs might be and maybe potentially modeling for them positive communication strategies, positive coping skills. And we're going to definitely see here in the middle school and especially within high school as well, establishing and evaluating positive time management, organizational
013skills. At the end of my brief portion, there'll be a QR code. You're welcome to scan in. There's resources that can more specifically support you in these areas. But at the same time, don't want to leave this point without discussing our students academic success related to social and emotional support potentially needed. It's going to be at this point that we recommend being mindful of our students social and emotional needs. Your mindfulness there would be great to inform a staff member on how to support your student or it may just be a conversation that you have with them at home. supporting norms and practices for positive communication with your students, evaluating and supporting ways for them to handle stress, academic stress, social stress, just the stress of being so focused in within the school year, and
014encouraging efforts for them to self- advocate and problem solve. It's going to be not only a skill that will support their academic success, but it's a life skill as well that postgraduating, becoming a CUSD graduate will definitely serve them well. So to transition a little bit further from our students now going from middle school into the high school setting. In this transition for our students, uh there's an increased emphasis on academic and postsecary preparation. Yes. Um I apologize. I wanted to make sure my slides were there. Academics and post-secary preparation and pursuit. Some examples of mark changes in that transition from middle school to high school is with regards to now being used to six teachers, an increase in rigor, an increase in workload. Chatting with some of our counselors, they've definitely let us know
015within the early years of their transition, freshman and sophomore year, just getting accustomed to the rigor to the workload uh is an adjustment for our students. A little bit of a culture shock. Academic effort and success is now being connected more relevantly to impactful outcomes. Now our students efforts uh within their academics is tethered to their graduation towards their post-secary options. And as they become to become more aware on their future options and future plans, everything that they do is just tied that much more intentionally to those potential options socially and emotionally within uh the high school years as our students transition over. We see similarities within middle middle school where they look to become increasingly more independent. Maybe as middle school students they became more independent of thought, of mind, of self-perception, but in
016high school they can physically become more independent. Our students are driving. Our students are engaging with their friends and engaging with their academics in differing ways. Students self-perception is more pronounced, more particular to tonight's themes. You'll be able to see themes within their immediate short-term high school goals, their their efforts towards their academics. You'll begin to see them speak to or begin to express desires for their long-term goals related to post-secondary outcomes postgraduating from Capistrana Unified. I have the privilege within my position to interact with multiple school districts. And our vision of a CSD graduate is not only a great vision, but it's also a great illustration as you see it right there. We're able to cleanly and plainly, regardless of your position, point to the points that we're looking to support our students. So,
017as your student prepares or is transitioned into high school, a couple of points for us all, for you all as parents, as I'm a parent as well within the district, frontloading your students on the educational system changes, the online platforms to increasingly be more intentional of within high school makeup courses. This was another point speaking to our counselors as a little bit of a culture shock is there's going to be potential support to make up courses if that's necessary. What are the graduation requirements? What are post-secary options that your student may be afforded or may be able to pursue most intentionally? We're going to speak a little bit about that later on this evening, but these are just points of of of emphasis that I wanted to bring up that are sometimes stressful for our
018students and it's more so just the lack of knowledge or closure with regards to these uh points and details and just trying to make sense of them all. Connecting and communicating with site resources. It might look a little bit different, but once again, encouraging your student to better engage with the online platforms with resources such as a school counselor and establishing and evaluating time management. If you have a student in high school or preparing a student for high school, just being able to be intentional on supporting their time management and organizational skills. So, in closing for my portion here, I don't want to leave without addressing as well are the social and emotional state of our students. that is a detail within their academic success, but just increasingly being mindful of your students social and
019emotional needs. Being able to have that conversation, share information with site staff and site resources, supporting norms and practices of positive communication with your students once again with regards to their academic success, post-secary pursuits, and evaluating and supporting ways for your students to handle stress. It's it's it goes from being not only an academic support but just being a life skills that many of us see as necessary and we probably might even wish we would have learned earlier earlier on in life. And closing just encouraging efforts for your students to pursue self- advocacy problem solving problems just a part of life. So being able to deal with that and learn that to be academically successful will not only serve them as a student here in Capitol but will serve them in life as well. So
020just a few points to share with you and once again the resources that you not only see on the slides but can be accessed through the QR code will speak to them more more intentionally. So with that I'll go ahead and hand over this portion of the presentation to our assistant superintendent of secondary education Jennifer Small. >> Thank you Omero. As a former middle school and high school principal, I can assure you that this transition time from middle from elementary to middle and from middle to high is exciting just as much for the staff as it is for the child and for the families. And it's fun uh to see the students expand their friend groups, take on six different teachers and personalities, deal with a combination locker for the first time, dress out for
021PE. These are huge milestones and our staffs at both our middle school and our high schools are ready to support our families through that. We understand as exciting as it is, it can be anxiety producing as Omero shared for both families and their child, but we have a lot of things in place to help support you. I wanted to go over some of the nuts and bolts that are unique to Caprona Unified to support the transition from elementary to middle. There are four big events in the spring right now coming up and over the summer. In July, we have packet pickup. In elementary school, that first day of school, you get all kinds of paperwork to fill out as a parent. But in middle school, we have you come in July and pick that up.
022And then we have you come back about a week before school start starts and turn it all in. And we call that walkthrough registration. And that takes place in um August, like I said, about a week before school starts. At that walkthrough registration, your child will get their schedule and they'll get their names of all their teachers and their classrooms so they can practice where all their classrooms were are. Again, like Omero mentioned, finding their classroom is one of the most anxiety producing events for our middle schoolers. And typically the weekend before school starts, you can see several hundred families walking and practicing the schedule and writing it out. Our schools that use lockers also you'll get your locker combination at registration and you can practice your locker. Some of our students like to decorate
023their locker and put carpet in it and name it and decorate it and we encourage all of that. Anything to make them feel comfortable at school in the springtime. The middle school will be reaching out to incoming fifth six reach out to fifth grade parents incoming sixth grade parents and invite them to a parent night. So, be looking for information from your elementary school principal about when those u middle school nights are. And then either the middle school will come to the elementary school to meet with the fifth graders and talk about what the middle school experience is like or some of the schools have the fifth graders actually bus over to the middle school and take a tour, sometimes even eat lunch at the middle school so they can see what it's like. Each
024school works individually with their elementary school to do what they work works best for their communities. It's essential that you stay involved and we I would really encourage you to go to any parent night events that your in your middle school your next middle school will um be offering. Our students in middle school tend to want to push parents away a little bit, but we want our parents to get even more involved. And even though they ask you to drop them off down the road, please still come and volunteer at school and help at school and stay involved. Listen to who their friend groups are. And the school would love to have your support in any way. Um, you probably won't get to work in the classroom as much as in elementary, but we have
025all kinds of um, office positions and afterchool positions and before school positions that we can use parents to help support. Some unique things about the middle school schedule is it starts later than elementary. Typically, our middle schools start about 8:45, which is nice for our Sleepy Head Middle School students, but it is something to be aware of. It's a transition and they get out a little bit later, about 3:25. If your child's going to a K8, the hours might be a little bit different. And at secondary, both at middle school and high school, all of our schools start late on Mondays. So, we usually start about 9:45 at middle school um for a late start Monday. In elementary, we tend to have early outs, but in middle school, we have late starts. And then all
026of our middle schools have about one minimum day a ye a month where the staff collaborate. So, it's something to plan ahead in case if you need to plan for child care. Your child's schedule, like Omero mentioned, your child will go from having one teacher in fifth grade to six teachers in middle school. and the placement into their courses and their elective choice all take place in the spring between the fifth grade classroom and the middle school staff. The big excitement in middle school is being able to one have more lunch options but two pick out the elective. We have universal electives at our middle schools like band and orchestra and we also have electives that are unique to just our middle schools. Some of our middle schools have culinary arts labs. Some of our
027middle schools have wood shops. So there are unique electives at each middle school and then common ones that we have at all of our schools. And every middle school schedule has a time during the day we call it tutorial and that's time where students can get extra help and support from their teachers and you'll get information about that. And as uh Omero mentioned, Canvas is a system in which all your child's work and grades are posted and it helps them stay organized. All these tools and all the specifics about your child's schedule, their elective choices, the exact dates for these meetings can be found on your middle school website of your incoming middle school. The big question students tend to have coming into middle school is how does snack and lunch work? Um, do I
028dress for PE? Yes. Do I dress on the first day? No. But when do I dress? All of that. And the lockers and how locker rooms work. Do we take showers? No, but are they there? Yes. All those stressful questions they have. When does pick how does pickup and drop off work and getting to know the campus and the passing periods and how lockers work. All that will be discussed at the incoming sixth grade parent night. So again, really important that you attend that. Some recommendations that we have as a district is to walk the schedule. Like we mentioned, your child will get their schedule about a week before school starts. And it's really nice to walk. Okay, this is where first period is and this is how long it takes to get to second
029period and then they don't have as much stress on that first day. But on the first day of school, all the teachers are out to help all the students find their classrooms. If your child's never done a combination lock before, it's a really big learning experience for middle school and you should practice in that summer between fifth and sixth grade just so they learn how to do locker combinations. They will have one in the PE locker room and like I said, some of our middle schools use book lockers as well. My best recommendation would be to follow your middle school social media and make sure your parent portal is up to date so that we can email you um information about these incoming parent nights. And again, just another plea to please stay involved. We
030have robust PTSAs at our middle schools, ELAC, academic foundations, our principles do coffee with the principal, we have parent education nights at our school, and a lot of our schools do family events as well. and we'd love to have everyone participate in that and get to know the school community. High school's similar. Um, in regards to the student calendar, we have the same packet pickup dates that we do for middle school. And we have registration about two and a half weeks before school starts. And then as well, there's incoming parent events, uh, incoming parent nights, and then events for our incoming ninth graders. We have um link crew is a is a program that we have at high school that has a usually like two days before the school starts. We have our incoming ninth
031graders come to the campus. Juniors and seniors show them around, practice the schedule, give them information about all the different activities at high school. It's a really important event. We highly, highly encourage our incoming nth graders to attend that. We tend to hear from our ninth graders. I felt so much better on the first day first day of school because I int attended the event for incoming ninth graders. Uh again, our start time is later in high school. We start at 8:30. And it's important to know that some athletic teams uh do practice before school, especially our freshman levels. So that's something if your child's interested in athletics to be aware. They could have practice as early as 600 6:30 in the morning. And then our high schools don't have very many minimum days, but
032the last three days of the semester when students take finals, they do have minimum days. So if you need to plan for child care, uh that's something to make note of. Our schedule changes in high school and we move to a block schedule. This is usually the first time students have experience this. On Mondays, again, we have that late start and then they have periods one through six and they're kind of mini periods. And then Tuesday through Friday, they're on a block schedule. So they'll do periods one, three, and five, two of the days, and then periods two, four, and six. This allows students to get into groups, do extended science experiments in their science classes, have more rigor and robust experiences. Our students tend to report how much they like the block schedule because
033they can really focus heavily on just three classes rather than six each day. And again, like in middle school, we have tutorial where students can get help from their teachers if needed or retake a test, things like that. Again, Canvas will help your child stay organized with all six classes. The fun part about high school, of course, is all the events that we remember and we really encourage and in support students getting involved in some way, shape or form at high school, whether it's through academics outside of the classroom. We have all kinds of, you know, speech and debate. We have academic decathlon, things like that. Athletics is very popular for most of our students, as well as the visual and performing arts. Um, at freshman orientation and at the incoming parent nights, they'll discuss
034different um ways your children can get to know about all the programs your high school offers. And then our ASBs at our high schools, they're the ones that promote our dances, our lunchtime activities. We have over a hundred clubs at every high school from which students students can choose to be a part of. We have dress up days, pep rallies, spirit weeks, and we tailor a lot of those for freshmen. So, we'll have a fresh for our first football home football game. We have all the freshmen come early, the upper classmen, feed them dinner and walk them into the stadium and show them where to sit. They don't get to sit with the seniors. They have to sit up higher, but they make them feel really welcomed and show them how to, you know, cheer
035at a football game. We don't want freshman ever feeling out of place. We also have pep rallies unique to our freshman where we teach them how to cheer and teach them the mascot for the school and, you know, the lingo of the high school. Um, important to know for athletics, if your child's interested in trying out for a team, a lot of our fall sports, the tryyouts are in the summer. In late spring, you'll be getting information about athletic clearance. they have to have a physical to make sure they're fit to play. And um there'll be practices in the summer as well. A lot of our sports both win uh fall, winter, and spring have summer camps. So there'll be information on your high school's website about that and also at the incoming parent nights.
036uh like I shared visual and performing arts. Some of them like dance also have summer camps and summer plays opportunities for students to get a taste of something and to see if they're interested in those visual and performing arts. Our district recommends uh again following the social media for the high school that you're going to be going to, making sure your information is up to date in the parent portal and continuing to stay involved. There's so many ways at the high school to be involved, whether it's an academic foundation, athletic boosters, vapa boosters, the PTSA, uh coming to parent education nights, coffee with the principal, things like that. Parent involvement is just absolutely essential and is part of why our high schools in CUSD are so successful. Now, I got the pleasure of talking about
037the fun parts of high school. I'm going to hand it off to Erica to talk about the important parts of academics and high school graduation requirements and all the support CUSD offers to support our students with their post-secary. >> Perfect. Thank you. I actually think that I get to talk about the fun part, Jen. So, we'll see who's right. Um, I'm going to be chatting a little bit about what goes on in the guidance office and more guidance information. So from that school counseling lens, what you can kind of expect. So once your student gets to the high school, they will have a school counselor assigned to them by last name. At some of the high schools, there are four counselors, some five, all the way up to seven, just depending on how large that
038high school is, but again, assigned to um the student by the last name. So be on the lookout for that. Also, students are really going to know those 220 high school graduation requirements and our A throughG requirements, which are the UC CSU entrance requirements. Uh, we will be going out to the eighth graders and going over these. So, they actually hear about this in middle school and then again, they'll hear it every single year of high school. So, they will really know these requirements. And I'm going to show you in just a second a way that parents can kind of track these A throughg requirements. Um the next piece is our CCA, college and career advantage, our CTE courses. Uh there are so many different options for students and it depends on the high school
039what those pathways are. So examples are going to be our digital photography, video production. Some of our sites have auto technology, culinary arts. So, checking your high school's website to see which options are available. You can also check the college and career advantage or CCA website for that information. A newer program that's at San Clemente High School the last couple years is our JOTC. Students who are not at San Clemente can still be part of JOTC if it does work with their schedule. So they can come to San Clemente for that class if that's something that they are interested in. Another big piece is starting in ninth grade students can take honors courses. Um there is an AP course that students can take ninth grade. We also have lots of advanced placement and honors courses
040in 10th, 11th and 12th. And then at two of our sites, Capo Valley and San Clemente High School, we have international balora classes that start in 11th grade. Again, more information, please check the school's websites. And when the schools come to talk to the middle schools, they go over these programs as well. College at Cappo is a big one. This is our dual enrollment program. So, high school students taking college courses while in high school. So, they're able to earn college credits for free. And these are actually courses taught by Saddleback professors at our high school campuses after school. So, students are able to take these courses. Ex. They change every semester but this semester for example we have um an ecology course we have a marketing course if students are interested in taking that.
041So again changes every semester but there is a college at cappo website and we can help you through that process of applications and the paperwork because there is some paperwork that goes along with that. Just remembering though that students taking these courses are starting their college transcript, right? So these courses are on their permanent college transcript. So something to take into account. Okay. [sighs] Fouryear academic plan. So this is not just students picking their courses for the following year. students actually map out their four years of high school, letting us know what they're interested in taking. And we have an example here. As a parent, you have access to this in Aries as well. You can view it. You can't change your students choices in there, but you students are able to update this plan
042every year. So this year, eighth graders will be starting their ninth grade academic plan by placing their electives on there and then once they're in high school, they'll really get that four-year plan down. So something to be um looking for, more information to come. Again, they can update it every year because we all know we change our minds all the time. Another great resource is our CS CUSD course catalog. This has every high school course and description and if the course was approved for A throughG, if it's NCAA, where does it fall, what does it mean? This is located on each of the high schools websites um and also linked in this presentation for you. It's updated every year and we are actually going to be um going website based so it's easier to filter
043but here is our one for for this year. Now my favorite part but I am the coordinator of college and career is prepping for college and career. So let's take a peek at that. We have some amazing resources here in our district and I'm just going to touch base on a few of them. The first one is california.edu. Every student grades 6 through 12 have access to this one-stop shop for everything college and career as long as the the family has opted into this in Aries. But what this is is it is career search in interest inventories for students, college search, building your college list, financial aid information. But what's wonderful is it speaks to our ARIES system so that the transcript is in there and it allows students to track their progress through A
044throughG to see if they are on track for the UC's and the Cal States. They can also apply directly to the CSUs and UC's through this website and all of their transcript information goes into the application. So, less mistakes and everything's already in there for them. So, a great resource um for our students. Have them log in. It's in there. Clever. Play around in there. You can't break anything. Lots of great information. Another place to look at the high schools is our college and career centers. All six of our comprehensive high schools have a college and career center on campus. Uh this was in a collaboration with CCA, our college and career advantage team. And in this college and career center, are our career guidance specialists who are amazing. They'll help you through the whole
045dual enrollment process. They will also help students sign up for our career technical education courses and the CCA courses. There is also a college and career counselor located in the college and career center available for students during the school day and I'll be chatting about them in the next slide. During tutorial like Jen had talked about the in the college and career center they offer college and career lessons during this time. So students can sign up throughout the school year during tutorial for these lessons. So, another great place for you to look. All right, I mentioned our amazing college and career counselors. We are called Futurology, but really we are the career and counseling team here in Capistrono Unified. We are um credentialed school counselors, but we are very specialized in college admissions. So many
046of the team actually also in their free time right work for the UC's in essay reading for admissions. So they are really specialized in what they do. Um they help students with one-on-one appointments. So as a parent you and your student could have a one-on-one appointment with them. We suggest that starting junior year and then continuing senior year. you can have one-on-one appointments. We do offer appointments a little later into the evening, so about 4:30. So, if you work a little later, that is available for you. We also um help with all schoolwide initiatives that have anything to do with college and career. Our district college fair that we have every year in October is a great resource for you to uh come and meet college reps or learn about different pieces. And then we
047have a website and I have that QR code that will take you right there, but if you Google Futurology, it comes up as well. We have an online resource library there of all of our presentations, so you're able to see those at your convenience. And then we also have bilingual support if needed. We offer monthly webinars for all families in CUSD. These are the ones this spring. Um this one already passed. This is our ninth and tth grade college and career orientation for families. We'll offer something similar next year for our parents in middle school as well. This one um even though it's passed was recorded so that is available for you to to see if you're wanting to get ahead a little bit. We also have that California colleges.edu A throughG tracking so to
048teach parents and students how to monitor their college admissions. We have our alumni insights webinar coming up and this one came actually from our hearing from our parents and students that they wanted to hear how are let's have some of our CUSD students come back who are off at college and let's hear about their first year what what to expect so we're really excited about that one we have I've got accepted now what this one is for students who have been accepted into a four-year and now what do I do, how do I read my financial aid? Did I get a good what do I do with this scholarship? How do I get my scholarship money? All of that information. And then another new one this year is mental health and college admissions because it
049is very stressful. It's a stressful process, but just know we are here to help support you through that process. So, these webinars are a great way to get information. Um, and we have them in the fall and then we also have them in the spring. So about once a month for parents and family webinars and located on our website. All right, I'm going to hand it off to our assistant superintendent of special education, Clint Collins. >> Thank you. Okay. So, all of the great things that we just talked about um in this presentation today are also going to be um accessible for our students with IEPs, but we also want to support our students with IEPs a little bit more because we understand that they have some unique needs and learning styles and that kind
050of thing. So, we want to um kind of talk about the next steps we're going to go through coming up in the spring for our students that have IEPs. Um, so as students transition from again TK to kindergarten, elementary to middle, middle to high, high school to ATP, um, we will be holding transition IEPs coming up in the spring. Um, so your case carrier for your your son or daughter will be reaching out in the next few weeks to schedule a transition IEP. Um, that will be held in March, April, May, mostly March and April. um some may be coming in late in May but that's the time to ask a lot of questions when you start looking at the questions that we have been addressing like that you als that earlier today we also
051have more questions like well what about my my son or daughter if they can't adjust well like those are the questions you want to make sure you're connecting with the case carrier because when you have a transition IEP you're also going to have a representative from the next the next school so then you're able to kind of ask very unique questions especially going from elementary to middle it's going from having one teacher all day potentially to now three, four, five teachers. Um, and that's that's hard for any student transitioning, but sometimes even harder for students with IEPs. So, one of the things you're going to want to make sure is you you will have a case carrier as you do in elementary and then also middle to high. You're going to have a case carrier.
052Um, make sure you address those case carrier questions frequently and and understand that you you might have four or five teachers and you want to connect with them, but your case carrier is going to always be your go-to for anything IEP related and just general questions as a whole. Um, we did develop, um, on the bottom here of the slide Q&As's for parents that have students transition from elementary to middle and middle to high to kind of help walk them through that process, help them understand some general questions that everyone asks like about case carriers or about class schedules or about services. If my my son or daughter has speech services, will they still have the same speech services as they transition up? Um, those kinds of things. accommodations that are in their IEP. If
053they're getting preferential seating or whatever the case may be at elementary, is that going to follow them up to to middle school and and so forth to high school? So, those are some questions that are here to help an answer those questions, but also make sure again connect with your case carrier because that's going to really help you to get that back and forth information. Um, as we we we talked about a little bit earlier, when they do those walkthroughs for um, middle school and high school in August, highly encourage taking your son or daughter with you, walk them through their their class schedule and do it multiple times. Make sure that they're aware of um, where their classrooms are located on campus. And then also again, ask staff a lot of questions. When we
054have those campus visits, we have a lot of staff members out there for that reason to help answer questions. A resource that students that parents have um with if their son or daughter has an IEP or a 504 plan is the CAC. The CAC is the community advisory committee and that is um a group of parents that have sons and daughters on IEPs or 504s that work collaboratively with the district. So I was actually at a CAC meeting this morning um connecting with the parents. They have a lot of questions that we ask they ask us from the district. We actually ask them back because it helps us to see some blind spots that we have from the special education department, some unintended consequences of rolling an initiative out. We connect with them and it
055helps us to work together as parent groups and district office staff to make sure that we're meeting all of your sons and daughters needs and also making sure that we're able to help support parents as they go through these these situations, that kind of thing. So on the the uh slideshow here, there is a CAC website link, but more importantly um in December, they did a transition event similar to this, but specifically for parents of students that have IEPs. Um and those right there on the um slide there are the the four different presentations that were done, the sessions. Um, they're videos, so about 45 minute videos of each that actually walks you through, again, similar to what we're doing now, but specific for for uh parents that have sons and daughters and IEPs. So,
056I would encourage you to go ahead and click those links, watch those transition videos to really help you answer a lot of questions. Um, and then again, there's always that connection with the CAC. Their their uh information is on that website. And most importantly, if you have connection uh questions about that up and cominging transition, um guide them towards your case carriers at your schools because they're going to be the ones to really help. They do this every year with families, so they're able to kind of get you to that next level and lower some of those anxieties. And I'll hand it back off Dr. Murwin. Thank you so much, Clint. All right. Well, thank you. So that is the uh the information for this evening about academic planning and preparing for that next chapter.
057Uh we do have four more workshops uh coming up this uh to the second half of the year. So we'd like to point those out to you as we uh look ahead to the future. In February, school funding, March, artificial intelligence. April, student assessments. and in May summer programs and support the so the next workshop coming up is on school funding and if you think you know how schools are funded guess again it is an incredibly complex puzzle of how school funding works and we recommend that all parents get more familiar with that and Deputy Superintendent Clark Hampton will be the one presenting to you at the February meeting so we do encourage you to uh to attend that is again here at the boardroom on February the 26th at six o'clock live here and
058then livereamed on YouTube. So, please do join us for that if you are able to do so. And with that, we're going to wrap up tonight with uh with an opportunity for the people here in the in the boardroom for questions. If you are online and if you have questions, I recommend that you can email me directly at [email protected]. GJ [email protected] feel free to email your questions into me. Um also if you are in the boardroom and then also online if you're able to do so use the QR code to give us some feedback on tonight. Um what did you like about the about the workshop? What are some suggestions for future workshops to make sure that they are uh relevant and helpful for parents? And then if you have other topics that you would
059like to see at future workshops, you can include that uh on that survey. So do take a couple minutes to uh complete that for us so that we can continue to offer you quality workshops in the future. So with that, we're going to now open it up to questions uh to see if anyone in the uh audience has any questions. So if you do, please write them down on the card. We'll come we'll come over and pick it up from you. Okay, this is a great question and uh and I was going to share too I have uh two sons and one has already uh graduated from Dana Hills through the went through the system and is now in freshman in uh Saddleback College and then I have my younger son is a junior at
060uh Dana Hills and boy I have the same question too. So, I can't wait to hear what the experts say about this and we'll we'll open it up and I'll just hand the microphone over to you all. But the question is, what are some some ways I can encourage good sleep habits and time management for my eighth grader before transitioning to high school? So, transition from 8th grade to high school, good sleep habits and time management. Does anyone want to start on that one? I would highly recommend that the phone is charged in a location other than the bedroom because we know our middle schoolers and high schoolers are tend to be nocturnal uh hormonally they're nocturnal and they love their cell phones. So keeping that cell phone far away as well as any other
061electronics >> and I I feel at the same time um not only telling our students and supporting our students but modeling for our students would be ideal as well. So if there's any kind of home norms that you can come to an agreement with a conversation over dinner or sometime and then follow through with those norms would be greatly beneficial. uh couple of the articles that are linked in the resources provided also speak to the need for how many hours per night for developing students as they're growing and maturing. So I would just say if the home can come to an agreement on those norms, it would be greatly beneficial if everyone's buying in and sleep's always good. >> Well, now I'm feeling guilty because I'm not doing a good job of modeling that at
062home. Maybe that's why my junior isn't doing so well with us. Anyways, all right. Uh yeah. Are there any other questions you guys had? Okay. And then online again, if you have any questions, please feel free to email GJ [email protected]. Send your emails our way and we'll email you a response back. Uh, and again, want to appreciate everyone for being here this evening and spending your time with us. Please do um uh attend the February uh parent workshop about school funding. We look forward to seeing you there. Take care and have a good evening.