Capistrano USD Regular Board Meeting | 12-17-2025

001President Davis, we are live. You may start the meeting. >> Good evening and welcome to the December 17th regular board meeting of the Capistrroni Unified School District. The meeting is now in session. The time is 5:00 pm. Mrs. Hayes, can you please call the role? >> Trustee Castianis here. Trusty Pritchard >> present. >> Trusty Zinger. Trusty Zinger is absent. Trustee Adams here. Trusty Jones >> here. Trusty Bulicus. Trusty Bulicus is absent. Trusty Davis >> here. Before we adopt the agenda, please note that item 14 A4, employee cell phone allowance has been pulled by staff. Additionally, staff would like to move item 13E consent agreement TB Dana Point LLC to the first item of discussion action. I have a motion to adopt the agenda as amended. >> So moved. >> Second. >> Moved by Trustee Adam,

002seconded by Trustee Jones. Mrs. Hayes, do we have any speaker cards for the adoption of the agenda? >> There are none. >> Trustees, we have zero speaker cards. All those um and if we could please move to pass agenda. All those in favor please say I. >> I. >> Any opposed? Motion carries 5 02 to adopt the agenda. Mrs. Hayes, before the board recesses to close session, is there anyone who'd like to speak on a close session agenda item? >> There are none. >> Thank you. The board will now recess to close session to address the following agenda items. Student readmission, one case. Student expulsion, one case. Conference with legal counsel, anticipated litigation, two cases. Conference with legal counsel, existing litigation, one case. Conference with labor negotiators, CUEA, CSEA, Teamsters, Kuma, and unrepresented employees. Conference

003with real property negotiators, South Transportation and Groundseping Facility, 26126 Victoria Boulevard, Dana Point. Conference with legal council existing litigation one case. The board will now recess for close session. Thank you, President Davis. You may start the meeting. Thank you. Good evening and welcome to the December 17th regular board meeting of the Capistrroni Unified School District. The meeting is now in session. The time is 6:04 p.m. Mrs. Hayes, can you please call the role? >> Student board member Hansen, >> here. Trusty Castianis here. >> Trusty Pritchard >> present. >> Trusty Zinger >> here. >> Trusty Adams >> here. >> Trusty Jones >> here. >> Trusty Bullus >> here. >> Trusty Davis >> here. Thank you. The pledge of allegiance will be led by Michael Gomez. >> Thank you. over your heart. Begin. >> I pledge algiance

004to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> Thank you. Mrs. Hayes, can you please read the report from close session? On agenda item 4A, student readmission, trustees voted 70 to approve staff recommendation on the following case. Case number 2025004 on agenda item 4B, student expulsion. Trustees voted 70 to approve staff recommendation on the following case. Case number 2026004. On agenda item 4 C, conference with legal counsel, anticipated litigation, trustees gave direction to staff. On agenda item 4 D, conference with legal counsel, existing litigation, no reportable action. On agenda item 4E, conference with real property negotiators, excuse me, conference with labor negotiators, no reportable action on agenda item 4E, conference with real property not negotiators,

005no reportable action. On agenda item 4G, conference with legal council existing litigation, trustees voted 70 to approve staff recommendation on the following OAH case. Please see the case number in the agenda listening. Thank you. That concludes my report. >> Thank you. Now, please turn your attention to the presentation screen. We have a short video to share on the importance of reading by third grade and the ways to read with your children over break. We're working on a little volume here. no volume. If you'll just please read the screen as we watch. Thank you. This is a really great video and really important information that we need to be making sure that we are reading with our children, not only just in third grade, but all the way through. It's great to read stories with your

006kids when they're older as well. So, as we're working on this, just kind of think about that. This boardroom has not ever been so quiet, but the importance of learning to read by third grade is critically important. You know what? Let's go ahead and move on. And if needed at the very end, we can come back to this if we find a little volume. Thank you. All right. And we'll move on to the reorganization of the board. This evening, the board will reorganize and elect a new president, vice president, and clerk. This process completed annually in December per per board policy. During this reorganization, as the current presiding board president, I will facilitate the election of the board president. Please note that a nomination for any office does not require a second and that trustees

007may nominate themselves for an office. Procedurally, the board will take nominations for the role of board president. Following the nominations, the board will vote to elect a president effective immediately and continue through December 20, 2026. The newly elected president will preside over the remainder of tonight's meeting, including the election for vice president, clerk, and the various committees of the board. >> Do we have any speaker cards for this item? >> There are none. >> Thank you. The process will begin as follows. I will compile all nominations into a list and then the board will vote one by one until one candidate receives four or more votes. At this time, I will accept nominations for the role of board president. Trusty Adams. >> I would like to nominate Trustee Lisa Davis for president. >> Thank you.

008Okay. And other nominations. Okay. And all those in favor? >> Is it roll call? >> Okay. For the record, Trusty Adams has nominated Trusty Davis. And then Trusty Davis, do you accept the nomination for president? Yes. Are there any other nominations for president? Thank you. Okay. Hearing none, the nominations are now closed. As there is but one nomination for president, we will now vote to confirm Trusty Davis as president. All those in favor say I. >> I. >> Any opposed? >> Okay. Motion carries 61. Okay. The motion carries 61 by a roll call to elect Trusty Davis as board president for the 2526 with the preferential vote of I from student board member Hansen. Okay, now we're moving on to the reorganization of the election of vice president. Do we Miss Hayes, do we have

009any speaker cards for this item? Okay. At this time, I'll accept nominations for the role of vice president. >> Um, I would like to nominate Judy Bulicus. >> Okay. For the record, Trusty Zinger has nominated Trusty Bulockus. Trusty Bulockus, do you accept this nomination for vice president? >> Yes. >> Okay. Are there any other nominations for vice president? Okay. For the record, there is only one nomination for vice president. We will now vote to confirm Trusty Bulakus as vice president. All those in favor of trustee Bulicus. >> I I >> Any opposed? Okay. The motion all and the mo so the motion carries 61 to elect Trusty Bolicus as vice president for the 2526 with a preferential vote of I from trustee board member Hansen. And now we're moving on to the reorganization of the

010board and the election of the clerk. Do we have any speaker cards on this item? >> Thank you. At this time, I'll accept nominations for the position of clerk. >> I nominate Trustee Adams. >> Okay. For the record, Trusty Bulkus has nominated Trustee Adams. Trustee Adams, do you accept this nomination for clerk? >> Yes. >> Okay. Are there any other nominations for clerk? Hearing none, the nominations are now closed. As there is just one nomination for clerk, we will now vote to confirm Trusty Adams as clerk. All those in favor of Trusty Adams as clerk. >> I. >> Any opposed? Motion carries 61 by by a vote to elect Trustee Adams as board clerk for the 2526 with a preferential vote of I from student board member Hansen. Okay. And now we're moving on to

011the selection of trustee participation on various committees newly elected. Um do we have any speaker cards on this item? >> There are none. Okay. Each of you has a copy of the workshop worksheet for the various committees. I recommend we read reach consensus on each position in order then vote on the list of appointments as a whole. Are there any objections to this process? Okay. Nominating committee of the Orange County Committee on School District Organization. We need one trustee and one alternate and you meet annually prior to the OCB OCSBA dinner meeting in May. And this might change now that um if there's a vote on different days that that we might that we might meet. Okay. Um currently we have Trusty Jones. Is there anyone interested in this position? >> I'm interested in continuing.

012>> Okay, great. And right now we currently have Trusty Bulkas as the alternate. I would just add that we are not changing our meeting night to Thursday until July. So >> that's true. So it doesn't affect us this year >> until 2027. >> That's true. >> Anyone would anyone like to be um the alternate >> stay? If if nobody nobody wants that prestigious job, [laughter] I will remain as the alternate. >> Okay. Um then the OCSBA political action group effort, we have two trustees and meets prior to the OCSBA dinner meeting in October, January, March, and May. And it's currently Trusty Bulkas and Trusty Jones. Would you both be interested in continuing? >> I'm Yes, I'm interested in continuing. Good. I believe. >> Okay. Is there anyone else interested? >> Okay. So, trusty Jones and

013Trusty Vulcus. And then the ad hoc committees and we have two trustees for each area. So, for city of Alis VJO, we have Trusty Costiana and Pritchard. City of Dana Point, we have trusty Adams and Trusty Pritchard. City of Laguna Niguel, Trusty Costas, Trusty Jones and Trusty Pritchard. And the city of Mission Vjo, Trusty Bolicus and Trusty Jones. City of Rancho Santa Margarita, Trusty Bulakus and Trusty Zinger. City of San Clemeni, Trusty Adams and Trusty Davis, the city of Sanon Capistrano, Trusty Adams and Trusty Jones, and Lera Ranch Civic Council, Trusty Bulicus and Trustee Zinger. Any thoughts on that? Everyone fine with that? Okay. The district recon um the restructuring council, we have one trustee and meets on an as needed basis. The 2025 assignment is Trusty Costanos with the alternate um being Trusty Davis.

014Trusty Costanos, would you be interested in continuing? Okay. And is there anyone else that would like be interested in that? Okay. I'll I can continue as alternate college and career advantage. Three trustees. We have Trusty Adams, Trusty Davis, and Trusty Zallinger. I would love to stay on that. >> Okay. >> As would I. >> Okay. And as would I. Is there anyone else interested in that? >> Okay. And then the California School Board Association, we have two delegates for this meets bianually in May and November or December. The 2025 assignment is Trusty Bolicus, which is a two-year term ending uh March of 2027, and Trusty Jones, two-year term ends March of 2026. So, Trustee Bolicus, would you be interested in continuing? >> Yes, I would. And I can I ask a question? Um and uh

015Trusty Jones and I've teamed up well uh in working with the superintendent meeting with legislators since Trustee Jones if she and I believe she would like to stay on ends March this can we at this time extend that if we want to or would we have to do it March at the meeting? >> No, that's what the purpose of it putting it here even though it's a March term. So any decisions you guys make tonight would be reextended. So whether it's to continue with Trusty Jones and then she'd get another two-year term or to to select someone else. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Comments on that. I'm in favor of that. Anyone else comments on that? >> Is there anyone else interested in this position? >> Okay. >> They don't do alternates. Um there is

016the option of attending the um annual education conference which uh Trusty Bulicus and I just attended a few weeks ago uh which is not quite the same but it's there's some similarities to it. So and anyone can go to that. Any board member can go um in fact I think I think staff members can go as well. Uh the superintendent came with us. So, um, and I I recommend that as I mean it's it's a little bit of, um, an entree, I think, into CSBAs to go to the annual education conference where they have workshops and speakers and those kinds of things. >> I'm always interested to learn more, so just know that I'm here. >> Okay. All right. I think >> Let me know if you remember. >> I think the notice goes out

017from the staff um about that. So, yeah. >> Yeah. Yeah, when AEC comes around next December, it's actually in I think it's in Southern California next December. So, we will set it out and we can talk about trustees going. >> Yeah, it's in San Diego uh next year. >> But just to explain a little bit, the delegate assembly or delegates attend a two-day conference um prior to the AEC each year. And because our school district is so large, um we automatically get two members where there's a lot of smaller districts that um they will put their a trustee can put their name in and then the delegate assembly oops votes on who um because there's >> our b board votes on a slate of candidates that are people who are running. A lot of the

018medium-sized districts like Irvine and Saddleback get one representative, but then they sometimes get to because one of their members will also run. Um so uh and then there's other smaller district like I don't know like um maybe uh Anaheim Elementary District doesn't have isn't large enough that they get their own person to elect from their board. uh but they can uh but a member can run and then uh let's see was it I don't remember when we had the election for this last time but generally the people who are on CSBA make a recommendation to the rest of the board as to who should we vote for because usually it's competitive there's like seven people running for five seats or something um but these are people that the people who are on CSBA have known

019them or know something about them and not so we're not just you know kind of throwing a dart at a dart board. So, as Trusty Davis was saying, being current delegates, the next time there is a vote up where there's open positions because it's on a rolling election, we will bring forward and we will make a recommendation. Our board votes then and then each board does the same and then the the tally of votes um for that. when we're at delegate assembly, we are there to vote for the president-elect and the vice president-elect for the the next year. And so that's why they don't have just other people come. It's those who have been on the assembly and following along. Um just add that in. >> Thank you. Okay. In the board policy subcommittee, we

020have two trustees meets quarterly as as as needed. uh 2025 assignment. Trusty Davis and Trusty Jones. Is there um anyone else that'd be interested in that? >> I'm certainly happy to have someone else take my spot. >> Okay. >> Ready to step down. >> Trusty Zinger. >> Trusty Jones, are you interested in remaining on that? >> I am. I feel like I see a lot of things that sort of maybe [clears throat] doesn't seem fully logical to me and and uh and so I can sometimes get that to the staff and and the you know the staff reviews it and says yeah you're right it's not doesn't exactly hang together and that agree that saves us some time on the dis. >> I agree and I appreciate that. Okay. So, Trusty Zones and Trusty Zinger,

021anyone else interested in that? Okay. And then the songs committee engagement panel. Um, there's one trustee. I'm currently on that. I'm down the road from it. Um, kind of makes sense. Is there anyone else interested in that? Okay. We have a motion to approve the trustes participation in various committees. >> So moved. Second by trustee Adam, second by trustee Bulicus. All those in favor say I. >> I. >> Any opposed? Okay, motion carries 71 to approve the selection of trustee participation in various committees with a preferential vote of I from student board member Hansen. Okay. Um we're going to take a quick break. The uh newly elected >> Oh, just kidding. >> We're we're just going to change a couple of seats. Um, ladies, would you like to change positions? Okay, that would be great.

022Thank you. Okay. Okay. And I'd like to now recognize Dr. Chris Brown, who will present his opening comments, followed by trustees. Good evening, everyone. Welcome to the final board of trustees meeting for 2025. It's not the end of the school year, but it is the end of the calendar year. So, lots of celebrations. I know our students are counting down um at this point minutes. They were down to wakeups, right? How many times they had to wake up uh because tomorrow is their last day before winter break. They do not have to come on Friday. Um so for those watching who didn't know that your your kid will be home with you on Friday. Um do with them as you will. Um I just want to wish everybody COD students, families, and staff a happy

023holiday season and really a wonderful winter break. Uh no matter what your plans are, I hope you get to spend time with family, with friends, doing some things that you love, getting a little bit of rest. We're a busy place. So, the more you can recharge, especially to our students, especially our our students who do lots of things like sit on boards, um the more you can rest, the better off you're going to be. Uh and and we'll be back January 5th and 2026 will get started really quick. So, it it'll be right around the corner. And so, like always, I want to invite people out to a few opportunities that'll start uh to kick off our our community engagement for 2026. So, January 9th, we will have our first 2026 coffee with Chris. It'll

024be at Viejo Elementary School at 8:15 a.m. Uh, and then January 15th in this very room, we will have a parent workshop and really specifically focused on students as they progress from elementary to middle school or middle to high school or high school to graduation and college. So, information from parents on how to help your students as you progress across those those grades span gaps, which can be challenging sometimes. Um, and we look forward to seeing you. And with that, I'll keep my comments short. Have a wonderful winter break. >> Thank you, trustees. Yeah, I'll jump in. I don't have I don't want to say a lot. I just want to say that um last week I was able to go to the choir concert at San Juan Hills. Every time I'm there I'm blown

025away. So I just want to remind everyone that we have incredible events at our schools and um the amount of talent is unbelievable and um I just think Mr. Ino at San Juan Hills does a phenomenal job with those kids. Every year I may have said this from the dascese before, I don't know, but every concert he has he has a um a men's choir and he'll have them perform a beautiful song and then he'll have those who have never been inquired before raise their hands and I would say like threequarters of the kids raise their hands and it's remarkable what he can do with these boys, with these men, these young men and um and with all of the choirs he has. But that always astounds me because I understand there's I have some

026some of my own kids are forever choir kids. But to have some of these young men take just they just need an art credit and they end up loving it. I know that happened with my son as a freshman at San Juan Hills. Um it's just I'm blown away by our staff in general like and just what they can do with um with these kids and motivate them and get them excited about something new. So I just wanted to comment on that. It was such a great event. Thank you, President Bulicus. >> Well, I just love this season. It's so joyous. And I spent every night last week at a performance at uh Los Flores Middle School, both or orchestra and band. Um I spent many nights at Toro because they had an orchestra one

027night, band the next night, vocal the next night, and then Friday night hit the um San Juan Hills High School performance. Just wonderful. Um, and at New Hart Middle School, I am so thrilled that room was packed. It was a long line. I didn't think we had enough chairs in the MPR for them. Um, their orchestra has grown to such an extent. It was standing room only. Um, and the principal was there and I said, "We need to buy more chairs." So, it was just really great. Um, so if you missed getting to the holiday season, um, performances, um, we'll remind you again come spring, uh, with the plays and the performances and the sporting events that'll take place. Uh, and we encourage you to to go and see. Um, and on a different note,

028President Davis, uh, on behalf of our school board, I would like to present you with a remembrance gavvel and plaque, um, to thank you for your dedicated service, um, to our students, school, teachers, to our staff, to our administrators, along with families, and the community at large. Um, our board has accomplished much working with our superintendent and staff uh this year and we thank you for your leadership in that work. Um, I've I know you to lead with passion for student learning and compassion for their well-being. Um, and your devotion is beyond the San Clemente area. um you are out there visiting schools um and celebrating students um all over the district and we appreciate um the fact that you encourage parents to volunteer in the classrooms. And so for your hard work and commitment

029to CUSD, not to mention a lot of extra hours and meetings, um please accept this plaque that I have for you. um as a thank you for the work well done. >> Thank you. Thank you very much. I appreciate that. I'm I'm actually very honored to serve our communities in um CUSD and value education and know that it is the what it cements it all. Cements it all. And back to that, they're by reading by third grade. Please read with your kids. It's so so so important. so important and spend time spend time with your families. Enjoy this holiday season. Thank you. I appreciate that. Happy Quanza, happy Hanukkah, merry Christmas and I wish everyone a very happy new year. Thank you. >> Thank you. Any other trustees? >> Yeah, I have a couple of

030comments that I wasn't able to make in November because I was not able to attend the meeting. Um, but I wanted to thank the Shoreline Church of St. Clemeni back in September. Um they held their annual serve San Clemeni and they served several of our schools in the district in an amazing way. Um our schools were the recipient of their generosity and hard work at Bernice Ays. Um old bushes were removed and they installed fresh landscaping in the front planters at Concordia. Um creating a calming room. They created a calming room on campus at Palmus Elementary. There was weeding, planting in the organic garden, clearing and leveling a plot of land for a future outdoor meeting space, refreshing the teachers lounge with new furniture, which is always nice. Um, at Palisades, there was new paint

031on the blacktop and murals on the walls and flesh fresh flowers in the planters. And then at uh San Clemen High School, they cleaned and organized the cheer room. They made repairs. Um, they painted walls, made some repairs, hung some shelving, and got some new furniture. And then at Shore Cliffs, their group sanded and painted table legs in science classrooms, planted new succulents, and painted murals. So, I just want to thank Stacy Tertany, and everyone at Shoreline who served our schools. It means so much when the community comes alongside our schools in such an amazing and generous way, and we appreciate your hard work so much. Um and then also I wanted to highlight um in November the Palisades Elementary Foundation was there was a great article in the St. Clemeny Times about their foundation.

032It's a group of parents working tirelessly to raise money for the school and engage the community in serving students at Palisades. Um the article talks about how their fundraising has gone from 7,000 to over 50,000 in just a few short years. Um, Palisades is an example of a school that has been and continues to work really hard for its students. The foundation now funds free afterchool programs in STEM, art, and theater, and has brought hands-on marine science lessons into classroom. And I went and saw gosh, it was week before last, the kids put on Aladdin and it was literally the best show ever. I was so bummed that I didn't invite you, Trusty Bulockus and Trusty Jones. I know you would have loved it. Um it was so well done and it was paid for

033by their foundation and they partnered with um the Laguna Beach Playhouse. So the Lagouna Beach Playhouse put it on with these kids and the talent was unbelievable. So I love what's going on over there. I had a chat with a longtime teacher at Palisades and she commented um that so much of the success we're seeing now at Palisades has been in the works for several years. Teachers, parents, and the community working together to bring excellent learning opportunities to our Palisades students. And now with the amazing leadership of Yenia Hogan Camp as principal, Palisades is truly soaring. So I just want to thank that foundation. And thank you parents for just putting in so much time and so many generous donations. And that's it for me. >> Love it. Thank you. I was able to be

034at some of those service days and incredible, absolutely positively incredible. I love it. Thank you, >> Trusty Jones. >> So, I won't go into uh CSBA because that's already been mentioned, but I was there with Trusty Bulicas and Superintendent Brown. Um, I also attended the San Clemeni CIF football championship final. I'm very sorry to say that San Clemeni did not win, but they put their hearts and soul into it. They actually were winning at the half and then they weren't. But it was such so great that uh that they got as far as they did. It's a little unusual to uh get into a a CIF final in any of our sports uh on the varsity level. And it was just really exciting. It was also really crowded. Um um the I I really only

035like to talk about things that involved kids, but I was at the uh San Capistrano Christmas tree lighting with performances by the the Capistrono Valley High School Orchestra, the Marco Mariachis and San Juan Capistrano Ballet Folklorico students. And it really is remarkable how amazing some of these kids are. And it's you wonder the the two singers in with the mariachis this year were two of the best singers I have ever heard, best student voices I have ever heard and and I hear a lot a lot of vocalists in this district, but they were amazing. Um and I was so proud to be there uh representing the district with those fabulous kids. Um I also went to the Laguna Niguel Holiday Parade. Uh, Trustee Castanos was there, Superintendent Brown. We were both uh all riding with

036uh students from the district in our cars. Um, I had a Lagona Niguel student from uh Molton Elementary um who had the opportunity when we were getting ready to get in our cars to meet uh Supervisor Foley. Supervisor Foley asked her what she wanted to be when she grows up. Well, this is a fourth grader and you know, you kind of expect you're going to hear maybe like ballerina at that stage. She wants to be a newscaster >> and quite an extraordinary young man, young woman at that age. Um, and supervisor Foley said, "I am pretty good friends with Michelle Jely, and I want you to have your mom contact me, and I will get you a studio tour with Michelle Gileie." So, I I thought that was worth the price of admission right there.

037And what a wonderful offer for her to make for this young woman who already at age I guess that's nine wants to know what she wants to do. Thanks a lot. >> Thank you. Yes. Congratulations to St. Colin High School. A great great football season for sure. Um, last night I was at Vista Delmare's uh, holiday concert and the sixth graders were fantastic, but by the time they get to eighth grade, they were just outstanding. So, it's just incredible what the talent that's in our district and um, and just a huge shout out to all of our teachers that are working hard every day in every way. So, thank you. Okay. And I'd like to acknowledge the retirees listed, just some of some of the highlights. Um Aruna Atalina uh Atalie a teacher high school

038teacher for 23 years. Luis Maul was [clears throat] a school bus driver for 36 years. Rajel Galand was a custodian for 32 years. Uh Katie Sourers is a PAR educator 26 years. Deborah Skooler 25 years par educator and Rogoberto Ummano Choto Cisco custodian for 24 years. So, thank you to everyone that's been and just a little highlight on those that were with us just a little extra longer. All right. And we'll move on to oral communications. >> Can I say comments? >> One moment, please. One moment, please. We're going to actually recognize student board member Hansen to present her comments. >> Thank you. I'll be really fast. I just had a couple thoughts. Um, so I recently got to go to the San Juan Hills Winter Dance Fusion Show, I think is what it was

039called. And it was really cool to see all the different types of dance. I'm not really a dancer, so I was trying to figure it out as I go. I had a friend with me kind of explaining me some of the stuff, but it was really cool to see um, uh, different classmates I know do something they love and be so good at it. And it was so cool to see um how our dance instructors bring different um like dancers from the community of all ages bringing that community involvement. I thought that was really great. Um I want to thank all of our staff at this time who are helping our students at this finals time and wrapping everything up. It's busy and stressful, but we appreciate all the help and support. Um, and then

040I wanted to highlight this uh CCA because I think we try to talk about it as much as we can, but we can never seem to talk about it enough. So, I'm in one of our CCA courses right now, and I just want to use it as an example of all the other ones. And um, as we've gotten further into the semester, we've been really learning all those different technical skills. I'm in medical assisting and um, when it was advertised, I was like, okay, maybe we'll learn some of that, maybe we won't. I've really learned to do all of the um things advertised and um I'm interested in going into healthcare and medicine, but I had this pretty significant fear of needles and blood and all this stuff. So, I don't really know how I

041was going to overcome that to get there. And I would pass out at like the site of like needles and everything. I hated shots. I hated getting my blood draw. But in this class, I've been forced to give shots, get shots, do blood draws, and all the different things. And I've totally conquered this fear. Like actually the our teacher has been so so helpful to get us to learn and she always encouraged us even if she said the most nervous kids normally are the best at it. So I was like hanging on to that and um we're actually getting so much practice in and just like a lot of the other courses are getting uh starting to get internships to kind of go out and practice what we've learned so far and we're going to

042continue to go to class and continue to learn. And I just thought it was a great example I wanted to share with the community. Reminder to next year if you can look at our CCA list of classes. There's so many good options and there's definitely I want to say definitely there's something that you could look into that your student might be interested in and um I would take it. It was it's been such a good experience so far and I'm excited to keep learning more and um yeah that's u merry Christmas and happy holidays to everyone. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you, Trusty Hansen. We are now moving on to oral communications. The total time for oral communication is is 20 minutes. Mrs. Haste, do we have any speaker cards for oral communications?

043We have eight speaker cards. So, we'll be setting the timer for two minutes each. And I will be calling the entire eight people to line up by the far exit door by um Darren Gindra. And here is the list. Virginia Vargas, we the first speaker, Lisa Meyers, Amber, Pam, Victor, Tammy T, Linda Haddock, and Sarah Phillips. So, Virginia Vargas, please come to the podium and please go ahead. >> Okay. Good evening, Superintendent Brown, President Davis, and esteemed board members. I am here to discuss a concern I have regarding a book that is required reading at San Clemeny High School. The book is called Poetex. The way that I came to find out about this book was when a mom had reached out and let me know that their freshman student came home upset about a

044book that him and his classmates are being required to read. Of course, this piqued my curiosity due to the fact that I also have a freshman at San Clemen High School. I did my due diligence and read through my son's copy. And to say the least, I was shocked and disappointed. I am here not just for my kids, but I am here because there are hundreds of students that do not have a voice that are being required to read something that is making them feel things that are not appropriate in an English class setting. I have handed each of you a copy of the excerpts that are uh up in front of you called Poetex. If you don't mind, go ahead and pull that out in front of you. Do I have permission to read

045a couple of the excerpts? Okay. And I apologize for what it says, but it says, "In Aman's arms, my hand touches skin. In Aman's arms, my shirt comes off. In Aman's arms, my jeans and snap. In Aman's arms, I show myself. In his arms, naked skin rubs against mine. In Aman's arms, kisses and kisses. And it In Aman's arms, fingers touch my breasts. Here's another one. So, I press my lips to his. His mouth is soft against mine. Gently, he bites my bottom lip. And then his tongue slides in my mouth. It's mess messier than I thought it'd be. He must notice because his tongue slows down. And to even go further, and again I apologize with this information, but it is a scene about uh masturbation. In bed at night, my fingers search a

046heat I have no name for. Sliding into a center, fighting a h finding a hidden core or stem or maybe the root. I'm learning how to caress and breathe at the same time. How to be silent and feel something grow inside me. And when it all builds up, I sink into my mattress. I feel such a release. Such a relief. Um, the book Poetex obviously has a bunch of physical sexual contact which is written in the first person dialogue. They're not exeer. >> As we all know, all parents can take their child out of any book they don't want to read. I'll just remind you of that. So, I'm here speaking tonight about ethics. That is what I want to talk about. Just simple straight up ethics following the rules. Like all CLA teachers here

047in our district try to instill into their students. Unfortunately for this school board, our new president and our vice president, they don't think that the rules apply to them. I'm speaking of course about the IMRC committee where Judy appointed someone who lives in the state of Texas to represent her mission VJO community in her trustees area that covers eight schools. Not one community member was apparently able to do the job on the IMRC. So Judy had to reach out to someone who lives in Texas. Why? Why? Because Amber Smith has been on a mission to censor books in CUSD. She previously did live in San Clemente, which leads me to question how or why Judy would appoint her as a representative for Mission Viejo, but that leads me to think that there's a connection between

048Lisa Davis and Judy. Some behind the scenes scheming, and that appalls me. CUSD has a process in place, a transparent process, one would hope, where 15 members on an IMRC committee who represent the district and our community make decisions about curriculum materials and their appropriateness. I was at that IMRC meeting last month with my high school senior daughter where four experienced and skilled high school teachers were forced to defend their classroom experience and their professionalism. Not one of the 15 IMRC members made a motion to remove the books in question from the CUSD leading ri list. Amber Smith might have if she was there, but she wasn't because she lives in Texas. A quote from the CUSD board bylaws says the board member should not subordinate the education of children and youth to any partisan

049principle, group interest, or member's own personal interest. Judy's actions clearly violated that principle. The majority of you supposedly care about parental rights. What about >> Speaker? Your time is up. We'll move on to our next speaker. Amber, please come forward. >> Yeah, that's me she's talking about. Okay. So, I am here tonight to put all these stupid rumors to rest and the false posts going on about myself and the IRMC committee. I have homes in both California and Texas. I have businesses in both states as well. I pay taxes in both states. That means I contribute financially to this district and I have every right to speak on what happens within our public schools. Trying to silence or discredit me because I don't fit someone's narrow definition of who is allowed to have an opinion

050is dishonest and intentional. It's just a distraction. The real issue isn't where I spend my time. The real issue is that sexually explicit material has made its way into our schools and parents and taxpayers are right to demand accountability, which we've seen from another parent tonight. I will not apologize for standing up for children. And before anybody spreads any more false information or insinuations, I suggest they do a little more research than repeating claims from some so-called wannabe journalist who appears more obsessed with me personally than reporting actual facts. The district deserves truth, transparency, and leadership, not smear campaigns against, yes, a community member like myself in this district. and I am here now and I I'll be here next month and I'll be here the following month and I'll be at every IRMC meeting

051from here on out. I did have to work that day. Sorry, some people do. Our next Our next speaker is Pam. Pam, please come forward. For those who believe the scriptures, Jesus did say, "There will always be temptations to sin, but woe to those doing the tempting." I believe in this case, the English teachers, the curriculum committee members, principals, superintendent, trustees who approve of these pornographic vile language and anti-family value books as assigned reading with oral classroom discussions are the temptors. if they agreed to those books. Scripture goes on to say that the tempter being thrown into the sea with a huge rock around the neck would be better off than the punishment in store for those harming children's souls. This is a strong warning for the protection and oversight of our students. Emails have

052been written. Parents are here tonight to object. An antonym for temptation is prevention. prevent these books from the classrooms. Thank you. >> Our next speaker is Victor. Victor, please come forward. The earlier speaker um gave an a lot of graphic examples actually from the book but this is about this book is about uh two young high schoolers uh Aman and Zomara. And I'm not going to read what she already read but I'm going to read some more from the book. Um, and I also know we have to stop because we're now lying on the couch and he's on top of me and his kisses feel so good. Everything feels so good. But I also feel him pressed against me. That part of him that is hard, that's still an unanswered question I don't have a

053response for. And when his hand brushes my thigh and then moves up, I stop his hand. I pull his face from my kiss. He's breathing hard. He's still kissing me hard. He's still bumping up against me hard. We have to stop like a big tangle. I feel guilty because he looks so frustrated. I feel hot and wanting. I feel like crying because everything is so mixed up and I feel the panic slowly die because I can think. I just need a moment. Things need to slow down. So, can I undo the knots inside of me? There are words that need to be said, but we don't say any of them. I sip a malta. Aman drinks a bottle of his father's caribbeer. Remember, they're high schoolers somewhere in New York City. It's late, but Aman

054is Aman is Aman's living room. Time has stopped. I'm dozing off with the lights dark and the buzz of the computer with Aman's soft breathing in my ear. Zom Mara made a good choice to not move and continue, although she slept at a boy's house alone with him. This story is about high school classmates that will resonate with high schoolers here as well as junior high schoolers. How many other young readers will follow with the same decisions when dealing with human emotions and sex drive that is reaching decisions when dealing >> Thank you. Your time is up. Our next speaker is Tammy. >> Thank you. I'm a parent of two that attend school here and I just want to remind core mission elements of relevant learning provide instruction that is individually appropriate and has real

055life application. Poet X X is I'm assuming X-rated has very much bothersome content that I can't even believe I'm here um let alone discussing this um explicit sexual content, sexual harassment and objection. How come every year we get a sexual harassment video and it's not okay in the workplace but somehow in school it's okay? Profounding and vulgar language. That's not appropriate. Depictions of abuse and family dysfunction. Okay. Promotion of disrespect toward authority or rebellion. Explicit language. Profanity. Graphic sexual content and references. Anti-Christian. Oh yes. Violence and disturbing scenes promote disrespect towards authority and lawbreaking. Racial slurs. Nword is not acceptable. So can we please find other literature Our next speaker is Linda Haddock. >> I'm here to talk about uh SESAP, which as an employee um interested in. Uh it's the classified school employee summer

056assistance program. I would like you to consider including CAPO in this program. HR wants to negotiate inclusion of it by decreasing our raises since we're one of the lowest paid schools in the district in the area. That's not acceptable. My understanding is that CESAP is not a negotiation item and can be approved without having to negotiate. Please help classified employees survive the summer without months without having to go to food banks. It may help filling over the filling the over 90 open classified positions. and I got a little time and I haven't read those books so I really can't say on the content. The one thing I do want to say is it's a public school. Quoting scripture as your as your reasoning for making these remarks is not appropriate in a public school. >>

057Our next speaker is Sarah Phillips. Good evening everyone. Um, I'm a high school librarian. Reading is an important practice professionally and in my family. The slideshow had some great information on reading and I hope you get it working later on. Uh, reading is important at all ages. I do hope that adults in the room and online watching are also reading for their own pleasure and knowledge expansion. I've been reading the great books my 10th grader has been assigned uh this year at Sllamin High School. I read Bless Me Ultima for the first time, which great book. Um along with my regular reading and I'm working on building my third grader as a reader. She's she's fighting it, but we're working on it. Um once the magic of reading is discovered, it lasts a lifetime if

058you make time for it. Um I wasn't going to talk about Poetex, but I've read that book a couple times. Uh it's a really engaging coming of age story and uh I'm glad that it's an adopted text. Um Ziamara makes great decisions ultimately. She struggles but she makes great decisions ultimately and I think that's a great lesson to grab from that book. Uh parents can always opt out of any book. Um feel free to exercise your right with your children but you don't get to push your views on other parents. So it's in there. They cannot do it. Thank you. We are now jumping to item 13E for the adoption of the agenda. We have a motion to approve consent agreement TB Dana Point LLC. Moved by Trusty Zinger. >> Seconded by Trusty Bulkus. And

059I'd like to recognize Clark Hampton, deputy superintendent to introduce the item. >> Thank you, President Davis. trustees. So, as the board knows, in August, the school district entered into a 99-year lease with Toll Brothers for the South Busyard. And in their lease agreement, they have the option to transfer the lease to another entity, and they've decided to exercise that option and transfer um the lease to an organization called Kennedy Wilson. Uh Toll Brothers has sold their entire apartment living uh division to Kennedy Wilson. So staff believes that this would be advantageous to the um the lease option or the lease we have currently with being transferred to Kennedy Wilson and staff recommends approval of the consent. Um and district legal council is here to answer any of your questions you have. Thank you. >> Mrs.

060Hayes, do we have any speaker cards for this item? >> There are none. >> Okay. Thank you. Okay. Comments, trustees, discussion. I'd just like to confirm with Mr. Hampton. Uh it's it's the district's understanding that the city of Dana Point, which is our partner in this, is has been fine with the change to what is it? Kennedy Wilson. Uh is that correct? >> And they've not expressed any uh >> okay objection to it. >> And I think it's important to note that Kennedy Wilson is a very wellestablished company. We we talked we were able to discuss this earlier, but to make that clear, that was my concern is what is this company and will they be able to follow through with this commitment and on the level that Toll Brothers could, which is a company

061I think we're all familiar with because Toll Brothers is here in Southern California as well. It's a new name for me, Kennedy Wilson, but they are it sounds like they're pretty well-connected company with billions of dollars of um properties throughout the world. So, but I'm sure the attorney will >> No. >> Any other comments, questions? >> Okay. All those in favor say I. >> I. >> Any opposed? Okay. Motion carries 70 with a preferential vote of I by student board member Hansen. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Moving back to 13A, 2025 California School Dashboard. This is an information item only and no board action is necessary. I'd like to recognize Greg Merwin, associate superintendent to introduce the item. >> Okay. Thank you, President Davis and trustees. It's our pleasure to present item 13A, California

062school dashboard results. Assistant Superintendent Dr. Meg Irvvis, Mr. Brad Shear and Executive Director Dr. Michael Gomez are going to join me tonight to share a presentation with all of you where we'll present the COD dashboard performances for our district as well as the performance of the charter schools in our boundaries. Tonight, you are going to see positive trends and improvements across all indicators on the dashboard for CUSD. We're also going to provide you with an update regarding progress for the support of our foster youth and we'll be sharing our next steps in response to the district data. So, we encourage you during the presentation, please feel free to ask questions as we go along during the presentation. Uh, Michael, Meg, Brad, and I are happy to pause and answer anything that you uh have on

063your mind at that time. So, please feel free to do that. Okay. It seems like every year that there are changes to the dashboard we present and there are different rules and there are different things every time we bring it to you and this year is no exception. So we do have a couple of things we'd like to share with you briefly on how this dashboard is different from the previous year uh for the areas of science and for the area of college and career indicators. So first off with science as it says there there is now a color assigned to science. There was not one in the past. There is no accountability measure for science. It's it's purely informational and then they have changed the way that it is measured. So instead of uh

064reporting it out as distance from standard, it is a 100 point scale. So you get assigned points for science. So for the students in grades five uh 8 and 11, their average their scores are average basically across all the students that take the test. And then you get a score and 100 is the highest score you can you can achieve. Zero would be the lowest. So keep that in mind as we get to the science or the college career indicator as it says on the on the slide the it had the metric has changed. So for a student to be prepared now it would be completing two or more AP courses with a C minus or better. In the past it was actually passing at least two AP exams with a three or higher. So

065the the California dashboard now is about passing courses two or more C minus or better. Uh instead of just exams, it can be a combination. It needs to be at least two different AP achievements. So it could be one course, one AP exam, or it could be just two courses or two exams. In the past, it had to be exams that were passed. So please keep that in mind as we get to the college career indicator. you'll see that the 2024 score was modified to the new rules because you have to compare 24 to 25. So yes, trusty Bulkas, >> do you know their reason for uh dropping lowering the standard in terms of um I guess trying to elevate everybody. I I believe part of is uh philosophical that it's more about students being

066participating in the courses and successfully passing courses as opposed to passing the exam. I don't know if >> I would also add that the exams have a cost. So if you had families that didn't want to bear the cost across the state, um they were then automatically excluded from being considered college and career ready even if they were because they didn't have the ability to pay to take the exam because the exams are not free. Is it just in the past the SAT and the um AC is it ACT um that we helped to support students who wanted to take those which of course is not required. >> Students can get AP fee waiverss as well if they're on free and reduced lunch. >> Um >> okay, but there's nothing for AP testing. >> No,

067they can get AP reduced cost AP exams as well. Um doesn't mean they all do. It doesn't mean they all do the paperwork. I mean, and this is a state change, not a not a local district change, right? So, um, yeah, they have depending on how people are choosing to pursue and and indicate for themselves and apply for fee waiverss or not apply for fee waiverss. I think the state just wanted to take that out of part of that out of play. >> Well, in addition, >> there just real quick, a lot of colleges don't accept AP tests for credit. So, if you think you're going to be going to one of those colleges, there's no point in taking the AP test. >> But to be clear, students in need do get SAT fee wavers,

068ACT fee wavers, and AP fee wavers here in Kappo. >> Thank you for the questions. Anymore? >> I don't want to get off track, but later you can answer. as we look at the grading scale that we evidence-based um I know my children had experience in high school that their AP exam score seemed to be the same score that they received in the class that year. So I just wonder what kind of impact we may have. >> Yeah. And that is absolutely a discussion that I I know that we're that we are actively having those should those should be uh commiserate. Okay. Yes. >> So my question is for the college and career indicator >> um the a the two AP course passing the two AP courses that's the only metric for that part of

069the document. >> A minimum of passing two courses with C minus or higher. >> So there's no other >> you can be a combination of an exam. So you could do either exam courses but courses could count at least two and then you're considered prepared and then you count as progress on the dashboard. >> Okay. Is there anything else you want to share? >> Meg looks like she has something to say. >> So, the college and career indicator actually has several components in addition to AP. It's ELA performance, um, math performance, whether they've taken a class at a college, dual enrollment. There's a variety of indicators that go into that composite for college and career indicator, and AP is one. >> Got it. That's good to know. Thank you. All right. Excellent. Thank you for

070Please keep bringing the questions as we go. This is good. So, we'll continue to to make sure that we're clear on each slide. Okay. And then we we start with an overview of all of the dials for the dashboard for for CUSD. And before we dig in and and give you more detail regarding the progress in these areas, I do want to take this opportunity to thank our teachers, our classified staff, our site administrators. The continued success you're going to see on this dashboard is because of the tremendous effort, skill, and dedication to our students. So, I want to publicly acknowledge their work. And with that, I am going to ask Dr. Irvis and Mr. Shear to come on up and they'll walk you through some of these different indicators. Dr. Merwin. Yes. So Megan

071and I are going to tag team here. So start with a really good slide. So as you can see, TSD earned blue or very high performance in English language arts and we have done that for five consecutive dashboard cycles. Oh, I bet all the way back to 2019. There's obviously was a gap for COVID, but since every year it's been blue. Uh and this year we had the highest percentage points above standard at 52.9. So on average our kids average was 52.9 above that standard. Um so just a celebration again of all the great work of our teachers and our site leaders for the work over the past four years. The investments we made and the work has paid off. >> So we have a similar positive trend in math. As you can see we've

072continued to grow. We've exceeded our precoid levels. And what's especially important about our math growth is we just implemented new curriculum in both elementary and middle school. And so historically across the country when there is a new curriculum introduced, districts can anticipate a slight implementation dip in standardized scores as students and teachers adjust to changes within that curriculum. CUSD had the opposite. Not only did we maintain, we improved on our previous year's level. So you can see we've maintained green for years, but we just increased our performance in math during an implementation year. >> I think we're exceptionally proud of our teachers for that this this accomplishment. For English learners, um we received a yellow or medium score rating for the LP for 2025. This was an improvement from the previous year. Last year was

073orange. Um 46.8% 8% of our English learners made progress toward English proficiency. That means they moved up a level on their on their scores on ELPAC. Um the results do highlight the need for continued import support and professional learning and that has been a focus of ours this year. working specifically with some of our schools that have higher percentages of English learners, looking carefully at that ELPAC to see what the expectations of the assessment are so that we can ensure that the English language development instruction that's happening is aligned to the expectations of what we want the kids to be able to do. So, this has been our work this year and in many of our schools that have high numbers, higher numbers of English learners. >> I have a question. >> Yeah. Can we

074pause for just a second and go back to the slide um the ELA English language arts slide? I just um can you guys clarify or talk about so when I was noticing our points above standard we're obviously I was looking at the trend right and so we were trending about a point a gain of a point right throughout all those years but then we had a big jump. So do we have we do we can we identify why we made a jump that year from last year to this year and made that four-point jump and we hadn't done in the past. Is there a reason for that or can we not pinpoint? >> Yeah, trusty I'll start and then Dr. Everis can add her thoughts from the secondary lens. I mean we we did it

075had a four-year investment of support for our teachers in terms of really focusing on providing effective intervention for kids. So every one of our schools both elementary and secondary have dedicated intervention time usually called wind time at elementary and and tutorial at secondary. I think that makes a big difference. We also had some support. We had release staff that helped accomplish that. Um we obviously don't have that this year. Um but we created expectations and protocols and and created that system so that we are seeing those things continue this year even without that those additional support staff. So we're never quite sure why we get the big jump all of a sudden but I think it is accumulation of four years of dedicated work >> of consistency maybe consistency >> consistency of doing something that

076you know is working but it takes some time to show progress. At the primary level, we focused on science-based reading. Orton Gillingham approach, many of our teachers got trained in that. So, as the kids, back to your point, Trusty Davis, learn reading by third grade because that's when the kids take the assessment. If we build up those skills for the students in those primary grades and then they enter third grade, they have much greater access, be able to comprehend the text as they're reading it for that assessment and being successful, actually comprehending on this assessment and being successful. So it's it's very important and we've been investing in doing that work. So kudos again to our teachers. >> When you look at the data for ELA though, is there do we have the ability and

077this might be um at the district level to take apart the writing portion of that test? because I know in another district I work in, we we do we take out that information and that's where we see the struggle, right, in in the ex in the ELA exam is that writing piece. We don't identify it because it's not on the dashboard, right? It's not individually assessed. Correct. writing as as it's as its entirety. It's embedded it's embedded in ELA, but you can take out that data and look at it specifically on how kids are doing within the district with their writing. >> Yeah. And I would actually say that's probably another change that we've made over the past few years is getting very very intentional with our use of data with our teachers and with

078our principles and so that they are at their level looking through and actually identifying which skills kids need. And so when when Dr. sure talked about um the win time and the tutorial time. It's it's not randomly assigned, right? We look at how kids are doing. So kids who need more intervention in writing would go to specific writing support or a teacher who's working on a specific writing or versus a kid who might need more fluency work. Right? So that's where that intervention time comes in. It's not just you're a little behind, you get intervention. It's very targeted to is it a writing, is it reading, is it math, is it a specific point of fluency reading, is it phonics, um those types of things. And so I think that's another reason we're starting to

079see some of these bigger gains is that we're focused. But yes, our principles absolutely do break that out and know um their writing scores and and there you're starting to see a lot of writing across the curriculum and support from other teachers. >> And then we spend time in those meetings also looking at individual classroom success and finding out what that teacher might be doing. We've had them present to other groups of educators and students. In addition, at the secondary level, probably at the elementary as well, we've increased our use of interimm assessments. As you know, the ESPback is a very complex way for students to demonstrate their understanding of content. And so, part of their journey is to learn how to be effective in taking those styles of test questions and performance uh assessments.

080And so by using samples that the state provides us, students are preparing for how they can show their understanding in the way that the state is going to ask. >> In math, is it because of the writing piece though that you that explanation of how they solved a problem? Is that why you see lower scores? Not that the scores are um not great, but they are lower than ELA. And is it because of the writing piece or is it just because math is more difficult and it's assessed differently than >> I mean I would say that that historically irrespective of the style of assessment math has always been lower even when it wasn't a writing and reading based assessment. We do know that one of the things that's changed over time as the test has

081become more reading based for the math is that historically back in the early 2000s, English learners actually usually outscored on math compared to ELA. But now that their ELA >> uh is required to be able to access the math questions that that has since fallen statewide. Okay. Right. But but there's a lot of a lot of unpacking to do into why math is different nationwide and has been for a long time. If I could just add to Superintendent Brown's comments that the math the questions they get on the math assessment are problembased. So they're real problems are trying to solve which means they have to kind of read and unpack those problems. >> So yeah, if you're struggling with the literacy, it may not be so much a writing or you might have to justify

082it. There's some writing, but it's really >> reading comprehension I'm sure plays a huge part of that too. Yeah. And so as we talk about the math, one of our our new adoption is very problembased, which is helpful. And I think that's also speaking to why we saw better results because we're actually asking kids to do in class daily what that assessment is requiring them to do at the end of the year, which is is helpful, obviously. Very helpful. >> Okay. Thank you. I have a very vague recollection uh from three or four years ago that some of these measures were being rebenchmarked. Um am I do I misremember that? Uh it seems to me there's some rebenchmarking and I'm wondering if that is part of the reason we see some variation. If you don't

083know it doesn't matter. >> They definitely haven't been rebenchmarked since 2019. So I would say that if it was done before that that's okay. um our trend is still valid because our trend is on the current benchmarks. I what we do often talk about is that it's rebenchmarked every year from grade to grade. So so um often when we say a a student um you know grows by a certain amount of points but then their growth doesn't show up because it's above standard, right? The standard changes. So the the the points to be at standard in third grade are less than the points to be at standard at fourth grade and less than at fifth grade. So, so the benchmark for standard and the way a kid has to score on the ESPback moves up

084every single year. Um, and and so to show growth, you actually have to be exceeding that benchmark change every year. >> College. >> Okay. So in um our college and career indicators so to clarify the types of measures that are included in the state and this is probably one of the indicators that has been most dynamic. It has changed several times over the past seven years when the first idea of college and career indicator came on. So it includes academic portions such as performance on ESPback getting a standard MET or above AP exams, IB exams. Then additionally, whether a student is A throughG completer, um whether they've completed a college technical education CTE pathway, whether they've taken college courses in a particular way. I'm going to talk about that a little bit more. Other measures

085including our JOTC program is going to start assisting those students on our dashboard um being registered in pre-apprenticeships. So there's a variety of indicators that combine to form our college and career indicator outcomes. And so you can see we have shown incremental growth over time. You will notice that for our 2024 number, if you were to go on the CDE's dashboard, it would indicate that we're at 64%. But then the CDE changed a measure and that was the AP measure we just talked about. And so they did recalculate last year's scores, but they did not change it on the state's website. So just wanted to give you that clarification of why 2024 looks different than probably the last time we were in front of you with this information. So for 2025, we're at 68.8%. We

086did see an incre incremental growth. What you do see is the difference between that current measure and 2019. And the biggest difference between what was included in 2019 and what's currently included is we have students take numerous courses at Saddleback College. We assist them with that process. We sign paperwork with our community colleges to allow students to take courses and that used to be included. If a student took a college course that we supported, it would count on the dashboard. Now the state has separated that out. We still have students taking more college courses than ever, but the act of them taking that college course no longer counts as one of our college and career indicators unless it happened to be a CCAP or dual credit course that we also offer like within our schools.

087So, taking a course at Saddleback, amazing. We want that for students, but no longer counts. And that's why you see that higher number and then we dipped and we've been building back. We're proud of this work and we continue to focus on improving our college career indicators with a heavy emphasis on A throughG preparation and supporting students to meet other measures. >> Dr. Irvvis, um when that happens, I got to imagine it's really difficult for you to then uh measure apples to apples. Um so because there's different reporting systems, is there a way to go back and look? Is there another report so that you kind of know then looking at the 81.9 versus our 68.8 really how much growth we did have? >> So we do maintain our own separate data sets. So we're

088able to look and aggregate the data differently. Um so yes we have seen continued growth. Uh, one of the challenges is that we have quite a few students who take their visual performing arts requirement, A3G requirement or their world language requirement at a community college or other entity, which is within board policy, but then it's us trying to track that and add that to their A throughG completion. We do that. It's um I'm blanking on the name, but we go through student records to add that information. We're really excited because we are very close to completing a data use agreement with Saddleach College and Irvine Valley College where that data would be shared back and forth. So, it's not just up to a student to report that to us. Um, so we're just going to

089continue to increase the accuracy of this measure. I have the impression from this that it's college and career that uh we the state is calling it college and career but it's really mostly college preparation. Is that true? >> The well the CTE pathway completers that's a significant component. There's also a workbased learning component. So there is a career element aside from college indicator that could have a student be a completer. But there are rules in place around that too. So if we have a student take uh CTE courses out of order. For example, they take a higher level course, they fall in love with it, they take a different course >> because they didn't do it in the correct order. We won't get credit on the dashboard, but the student got the information and knowledge.

090So, as we continue to refine our practices to help our students both become college career indicator ready and have that robust experience we want for them, it'll be a continued balance between career and college. >> So, if a student is a pathway completer, does does that mean they are college career ready in for this indicator? >> They also have to meet an academic measure. >> Okay. Okay. And can you really briefly say what that academic maiden? >> An example would be a meets or exceeds standard on ESPback. >> Okay. All right. >> So they have to hit multiple criteria to be considered ready. >> And our CCA board works really hard or team works really hard to make sure that they are following that path so they do become pathway completers. >> And they've put

091a ton of time and effort into really refining that process. So, we'll continue to be watching these numbers and expect them to continue >> and as soon as the state gives us more money, we will continue to work on that piece of that, the career readiness. >> Right. The next uh category is chronic absenteeism. Uh so, we received a yellow or medium rating for chronic absenteeism. It did decline. You want to see a decline in this category. So, it declined to 11.7%. And so the continued improve the improvement is that it's going down, right? Um we are not quite to where we were prior to COVID, but we are substantially better off than we were in 2022. So we continue to um just try to focus on getting kids to school um and getting them

092we know that when students are in school and chronically absent means 10% of the instructional year you've missed. So that's how that's defined. So, one of the ways I've been telling parents because the word makes you think like, well, my kid's not gone all the time, so they're not chronically absent. It's only two days a month. They miss two days a month at the end of the year, they'll be chronically absent, right? So, that suddenly doesn't seem like all that much. Well, yeah, we missed one here and he was sick there and then she went here, had this event. So, um it it really sneak two days a month can sneak up on families and I don't think they realize that that's how little is because 18 days that's what that is. But, um you

093know, I think in their mind sometimes it's different. So, we've been having that chat. Um, no one really has gotten back to pre-COVID levels. We know it's a national and statewide trend that that um we, you know, families have decided that sometimes they can make up the work, get the work online, independence day. There's lots of things they can do. So, they don't necessarily always come in >> and we're trending the right way. >> And we have the opportunity to allow our families to make up one day. one day you can work with your site, you can work with your teachers, you can make up any one day that you miss where it used to be five, you could do that. Now you can do a >> what's it called? >> Yeah. So independent study.

094>> It's uh there's short-term independent study. There's also after school homework club in the elementary schools where if they do four days that can recover a day of attendance and then the secondary schools there's Saturday school uh at middle and high school that can also recover attendance. I believe uh we just started those this year and we didn't start them at the start of the year. They're they're new processes to us that we've been figuring out how to fund and do. But I believe and and Clark could probably give me the exact number. I'm sorry, but I think at last check, which was a couple weeks ago, we had something like 847 uh attendance days recovered, student attendance days recovered this year. Um it's not for every kid, but you know, 847. So it's over

095900 now, Clark. So it's working. Uh I mean that's 07% or something of our total, but it's it's every time we come, it's good. And and the really the the power is we know that for students who are present in class with their instructor, there's a stronger correlation to higher outcomes sort of across the board. So we want them in school because we know it's better for them in general. >> We want them in school, but if they miss, we can still make it up and it's still a benefit. >> Yeah. Well, it's a benefit to the student and a benefit to the school district to receive monies because we still need to spend that money with students that are in the classroom. And so graduation rate, you'll see we continue to maintain a graduation

096rate above 95% which is outstanding for a district of our size and exceeds both local and state expectations. I do need to point out we have over 3,000 graduates every year and that does not mean we have 5% in CUSD that are non-grads. this number. We typically might have 40 to 50 kids across the entire district every year who did not achieve graduation by graduation date. We offer them a late grad program. I know many of you have been here to support those ceremonies. We have typically over half of those students finish in that program as well. So our non-grad rate is actually very very small. This number statewide is calculated and it includes students who have left our district but have not registered in a program recognized by CDE. So they head out of

097state. We don't have knowledge of that. We try and catch up on paperwork, but that student or a student who disenrolls from us, but the state can't reconnect them to another school system. They count as our non-grads. So this isn't the number of actual students in CUSD who finished in June but didn't graduate. This represents students who within high school left us and did not connect back into the system in a way that is recognized by the state. So it's it's a high number given all of those factors. >> The category of suspension rate um we continue to maintain a green score which means low suspension rate. And you can see that that rate declined to 1.8% in 2025. And it just has been a consistently um good area for us. We've been green every

098year we've had the dashboard. So >> science >> and then finally science our newest indicator on the dashboard. So science is calculated slightly differently significantly differently than ELA and math. It is not distance from standard. It's an aggregate number closer to an average of student performance on a 100 point scale. The state will continue to report in this way until they have enough data that they can bring a full dashboard for science forward. But to our teachers credit and our students credit, we are already scoring in the blue on the last two years of science as a new indicator not included in all calculations but specifically showing progress in science. And this test is given in fifth, 8th and 11th grade. Okay. All right. So last year with the dashboard release, uh, Capistrano Unified was

099identified for differentiated assistance. That is a 2-year process that we go through in technical assistance with the Orange County Department of Education. Uh, one thing I can share right now is in that two-year process, if you make process, you move to year two. We have successfully moved to year two in that process based on the performance of our foster youth students and how they've made improvements. So we have made improvements on the academic indicator. But what I really I think is a a big testament to the changes that we've made is with chronic absenteeism. So with our foster youth students when they are removed from the home uh they have three days in what they call detention and it's not detention like we would think that way but at Orangewood Children's the family and children's

100center in Orange um they within three days they have to see a judge to get them determined school of origin where are they going back to and all of those process and that process can be they have to do that within three days and then they come back to us. What we've done in the past year with our focused work in differentiated assistance is gotten that time period so that as soon as we get clearance from the judge and the social worker oftentimes we're getting kids back on day four and in years past sometimes it was day six, day seven, day eight and very quickly that student chronic absentee number you hit those numbers very quickly when they have a longer period before they're back in our schools. That is one successful thing that we

101have done in providing transportation services for our foster youth students and that is a testament to that decline in chronic absenteeism. Again across all indicators we're making improvements. Are we perfect? Are we there yet? Not yet. But we have made significant progress for our foster youth students. Uh also in improvements in in suspension and interventions that we're providing for our foster youth students. Uh to kind of summarize our next steps, uh we continue with our differentiation plan uh which included uh we have a full-time social worker here on site that does a lot of the case management and connecting with all of the different social workers for every one of those students. Uh currently we have 70 foster youth students spread across all of our schools. I would say everybody's got a one or a

102two or uh three students here or there. Uh oftentimes we see uh at at holiday times is when more students are removed. So we know that um right after Thanksgiving we had five or six students removed from their homes. We see that same trend repeat after winter break, after spring break and those kinds of things. So that number is dynamic at 70 today. It could very easily be 75 in the next few days or change in January. And so it's very cyclical and a very dynamic population in terms of students that are identified for that. Um, we also are uh just today the California Department of Education released the ESSA status. So, students uh, excuse me, schools that were identified for comprehensive support and improvement, additional targeted support and improvement or targeted support and improvement,

103you know, just to get the alphabet soup going on for us in education. Um, I can proudly say though, and I will share this, we'll give you more information on all the details, but Dana Hills High School, they are no longer TSI. And so I shared that with principal Casey and and everybody. I'll share it with you publicly. They've made some tremendous work on their dashboard from dashboard 24 to dashboard 25. And so they're no longer TSI. We'll follow up with more information on the rest of all the status uh and and everything. But definitely a proud moment for our district to see that kind of improvement. >> And will you please share for the alpha alphabet soup world TSI means >> TSI uh targeted listening at home? >> Oh yes. Uh so the the

104federal government under ESSA requires every state to hold schools uh accountable. So if a school is found to be in comprehensive support and improvement, it tends to be that their uh graduation rate is below 50%. Or on academic indicators, if they're if the dashboard is red on probably two or three different areas, uh they get identified for comprehensive support and improvement. That identification happens every three years. additional targeted uh ATS additional targeted support and improvement uh is for schools after they identify for CSI and it wasn't a grad rate issue but there's still issues on the dashboard then they get identified for ATSI and those happen kind of every three years then in the years that we don't identify those two then we get targeted support and improvement and so basically those are the schools

105that again have read indicators on multiple student group levels or even at the whole school level um saying that there's red indicators for that particular school for a group of students. Yes. And those are all on the dashboard. So, >> thank you. >> So, I often find that words like support get used and it sounds like you're going to get some actual support from someone, but sometimes that it doesn't mean that. It just means you're going to have to follow more rules. Um, so is there actual support we get from someone on this or is it just more rules? >> It's kind of a combination of both. So under CSI, schools that are identified for CSI do receive additional funding for for work and focusing work to improve student performance. If it's ATSI or TSI,

106there is no funding, but there are additional requirements. So they are required to do a comprehensive needs assessment. They are required to have a comprehensive school school plan for achievement uh which are all overseen by their school site councils. We've brought those plans to you um in January, excuse me, in December we do an update but then they always come to you as a board in June. So they get extra requirements to do these comprehensive uh plans to address those things. But in the case of ATSI or TSI, they do not receive any additional funds at all. It's just always interesting to me that when government sees a problem, its response is generally to make more rules. >> That is true. And I'll pass the baton back to Dr. Murray. >> Okay. Thank you, Dr.

107Gomez. We are uh about to pivot into part two of the presentation and share the charter school uh results. Does anybody have any other questions before we move on? Hearing none. I'm trying to give some little wait time for all of you. We're all good. Okay. So, here we go. So, now we will pivot and we will first we will be talking about performance results of the charter schools that are within CD's boundaries. This is a list of eight [clears throat] charter schools in our boundaries. The first six are authorized by uh by CUSD. The last two that are highlighted are authorized by the Orange County Board of Education. This slide shares the demographics of all eight charter schools and also includes the demographics of CUSD. So if you take a moment to reflect on

108the data, you can see the significant differences in total enrollment, number of students who are socioeconomically disadvantaged, English learners, foster youth, students with disabilities, and compare our district against the singular charter schools. So the CUSD numbers include a total of 64 schools and programs whereas the charter schools are singular schools. So that's important because for that reason we are not you'll see as we're going through the performance indicators tonight we are not comparing our entire district's dashboard with the charter schools individually. instead in English language arts and in mathematics we will compare the top charter school with our CUSD schools with similar demographics but for this reason uh it's not a it's not a the comparison is is a little skewed if you're taking a look at 64 schools and programs versus one school for

109that reason we uh we are presenting it the way that we are okay we're going to first start with English language arts. And again, this is a comparison of the eight charter schools showing both performance colors and status indicators. Very high performance or blue on the left. And then from left to right, green would be high and then yellow would be considered medium. Gray means there is no performance color assigned. And that is because there are fewer than 30 students that were tested the previous year and then the the current year of the dashboard. So you have to have the same 30 students minimum of 30 students that were tested in 24 and in 2025 in order to have a performance color. Uh so you can see here with uh with OFL they had fewer

110than 30 students that were tested from 2024 and 2025 in English language arts. So they do not have a performance color. They have more than 11 students that were tested the previous year and 2025. So therefore they have a status indicator. I'll point out as we go through you'll see that gray and that's what that means when you see that designation. So slide 19 here compares the eight charter schools, but this time we're looking at the highest percentage of students meeting or exceeding standards in English language arts starting on the left and then the charter schools with the lowest percentage of meeting those standards on the right. The colors match the dashboard colors that you saw on the previous slide. So the reason the colors are different and not all the same is because we're

111trying to show the alignment with their dashboard scores. And just for clarity, the reason why a score school with a higher score might be green and have a lower color indicator is because they declined and didn't either maintain or increase. So the color is based on your performance and your change. So even if you're really high achieving, if you had a big drop, you would drop from blue to green because while you're high achieving, you are declining substantially. So that's why you might say, well, OPA is higher than CRA in terms of percent of students. Why aren't they also blue? because they had, if you think back to the previous slide, a 13 point drop from their previous year. >> Correct? >> So then on this slide in English language arts, we're showing a comparison

112of the charter school with the highest uh average distance from standard and comparing that school to the six of the highest CUD schools with similar demographics. And in this comparison and of this group of schools, you can see CUSD's Canyon Vista Elementary has the highest distance from standard at 94.2. The colors of the bar graphs here again representing the colors on the dashboard for each one of the schools. Then moving on to mathematics. Um again, we're starting with a comparison of the eight charter schools. four receiving green or high, three receiving yellow or medium, and then the one grade out again for fewer fewer than 80 students tested. And as we did with English language arts, here's a comparison of the charter schools percentage of students meeting or exceeding mathematical standards on last spring state

113test. And again, the colors of the bar graphs representing the dashboard performance colors. On slide 23, we're now comparing again the charter school with the highest distance from standard in math and comparing it to to six of the highest CUSD schools with similar demographics. Similar to English language arts, CSD's Canyon Vista Elementary School, highest distance from standard in math at 70.9. So, moving on to the English learner performance indicator. This compares charter schools percent of students making progress in English development towards that language proficiency. So you'll note here Cal Ops received the only performance color uh and that is again because of that rule of the of at least 30 students being tested in both of the school years. The other seven charter schools did not receive a performance color because they had fewer than

11430 students who tested in both 2024 and 2025. Three of the charters on the on the right hand side had fewer than 11 English learners that they tested in both years. So that's why they do not have a status indicator. For college and career indicator, uh we have OFL and Cal Ops receiving performance colors and status indicators. Uh Okasa College Prep was not included because they had fewer than 11 students. The other schools do not serve high school students. For chronic absenteeism, uh you have three schools in green, two in yellow, one scoring in orange, and one scoring in red with OFL fewer than 11 students. Moving on to graduation rate, very similar to uh to the college and career indicator, you can see cal ops and of received performance colors and indicators. cost college

115prep had fewer than 11 students and the other five schools are not applicable applicable for this indicator. I always clarify this. Um, there's always a question every year about OF. OF is an alternative education school. So, it's not really an applesto apples comparison. The students often return from OFl back to their home schools to graduate in in whatever setting it might be our district, other districts. Um, or they go other places. So, it's a very different program. It's also, I think, subject they're looking to be on the DAS. They've historically been on the DAS, the alternative dashboard, not the standard dashboard. Um, so I put that out there because we often get questions about OFL's performance and and their charter, but but OFL is an alternative education setting. The others are not >> an alternative

116for to a traditional a traditional school setting for students who are catching up on credits for graduation. And on to suspension rates. Uh, four schools earning blue, one green, and three designated as orange. And our final dashboard indicator for the area of science. Three schools earning blue, two schools earning green. The the remaining three schools again fewer than 30 students were tested in both years. So they did not get a performance color. And we conclude just with a a reminder about the ED code regarding uh charter school performance and uh the renewal process. So as we look to that in future years for our charter schools, we will be referencing the charter school performance on the dashboard. And we appreciate your support trustees. Thank you so much. Happy to answer any final questions. >> Thank

117you trustees. We covered all our questions all the way through. Thank you very much. >> We did a good job of that. Thank you. I do have some questions. I just kidding. Just kidding. I I didn't want to uh jump in there too fast. Uh when you were saying that there must the students tested must be the same 30 students. Must it actually be literally the same 30 students? Um or can it just if it if they've got like 25 were the same and five are different, they can't report it? >> It has to be same number of students. >> I would have to look, but I believe it is the same students. It's cohort students because ultimately you're looking at growth. And so if your school had 30, you you were a small school,

118you had 30 kids, all 30 left. You get 30 new kids in test them. That's way >> really the growth of those kids. It's really looking at cohort growth for the students. I I'm going to say I'll qualify that. We will look up to be sure and I'll put it in a board update. But I believe it has to be the same 30 students. Um otherwise you don't. >> Okay. And of course, we aren't held to that standard because we're so large that >> Yeah, we are held to the standard. Just none of our schools fall below it because they do have 30 students. >> Well, they Okay, they do have that cohort. So, if it's more than 30 students, you don't even it doesn't have to be the same 30 students or the same

119if it's >> at least 30 of them have to be the same. So, it looks at cohort. >> Yeah, you already have 30. >> But if you have 300 that test over again that they're'll confirm that and make sure that we share that with you. Now, um I know that when a charter school is new, we don't look at their stuff for a little while. I did notice that CRLA was listed on a couple of those, but most it was not. And I'm I'm just wondering when are we going to start getting all the data on CRA like um let's go back. >> Yeah. >> So, you can see they are listed arts. >> This is I think the first year they get colors >> because they didn't they had the two consecutive years. >>

120They finally have the two consecutive years. Okay, great. I missed that >> mathematics. Yeah. So, they were in the majority that they where they counted towards the the the minimum number of students. >> Okay. I apologize. I missed that. No problem. Have 30 students to test. >> Sorry about that. Little too quick with the clicker there. >> Thank you, trustees. Any other questions, comments? >> Okay, Miss Hayes, do we have any speaker cards for this item? >> We have one. Okay. Thank you. Julie, come on up. Thank you. >> Uh, good evening, Superintendent Brown and board of trustees. Uh my name is Julie Colinber and I am a community member but I'm here in my capacity as a employee of California online public schools where I serve as an assistant director of operations focused on

121family relations. Um I wish to speak simply to thank the district uh for your 21 years of serving as our authorizer. Uh we opened our doors in August of 2004 and through the years have educated thousands of students throughout the five counties that we serve. Um I remember during our 10-year anniversary celebration uh we had members of COD join us up the street at our little office and more recently last year uh when we celebrated our 20th anniversary. Um, you know, it's interesting. As you can see, over half of our families are economically disadvantaged. Um, over 15% are children with special needs. Um, many come from communities uh which have seen a dramatic rise in bullying and that's out of COD's footprint naturally. Um, [snorts] we thank you for giving us the opportunity to help

122these children. Um, as the district knows, we've taken significant steps in the past year uh to enhance the way we serve our students. Um, we you can see some of the advancements we've made on the dashboards. We still have room to grow and we have a relentless uh pursuit of um improvement in all of those areas. Um, we do thank you again uh for your longtime support and I wish the entire CUSD community a joyous holiday season. And that is all. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Okay. And next up 13B. May I have a motion to approve establishing Randa K TK8 school boundary and associated boundary adjustments? >> So moved. Second. >> Moved by Trustee Jones. seconded by trustee Zinger. I'd like to recognize Clark Hampton to present this item. >> Thank you, President

123Davis. Trustees, so this is probably be the easiest boundary to establish in a school district uh ever. So, hope it goes out works that way. So, as uh trustees know, um the we we need to establish the or reend school is currently being constructed. So it's a little early to be establishing a boundary because they open in 2027, but never too late to you know to get it never too soon to get it started. So the boundary is established based on the mitigation agreement for the students that the um the Melus will be serving that's funding the school and we have to make adjustments to Asencia school to accommodate the new uh boundary for Rienda school and then I'll talk later about high school boundary. They're currently uh boundary to um to Soro and that

124will remain the same. Then now that my time is up, I'll go >> get to it Clark. Let's go. >> Thanks. [laughter] >> Okay, so boundary review. So these are the three planning areas that uh Rancho Mission Vo has been has built, Asencia, and Rienda. They began as planning areas one, two, and three. And those are the years that they opened uh 2013, 15 and Rienda opened in 2022. And when we built a Sensia school, we established the boundary as depicted here for K8 and then it metricula, it started as a K5 and metriculated up to a K8 school and now is fully open and Rienda is expected to open in 2027. So now uh Rienda TK is scheduled for 2027. It'll open in the same way that Asencia has. So start with K5 and

125then metriculate up through um to K8 school and the you can so this is where the new boundary for Randa will be established and it'll carve out a part of the current asencia boundary. So this is the current students in both proposed boundaries. We have uh 1,362 students, TK8 students in Asencia and they expect to generate between 1496 and 64 for 1643 students in that boundary by 2034. Uh also want to point out that there's about 138 students that are choicing to our emer school programs from that area uh currently and that is a a geographic boundary projection. is not based on the actual attendance. It just looks at the number of students generated in that area in that in those grade ranges. And then already there's uh students who live in Rianda now and

126they're attending Asencia until Rienda opens. There's 230 TK8 students. They expect that region expects to generate 1,200 to 1453 students um by 2034. And then for the high school boundaries, there's 381 n uh high school students that currently live in the combined boundaries. And the combined boundaries expect to generate 1,085 to,200 high school students by 2034. Just kind of a picture of where we are right now. So high school boundaries. So all of Asencia is currently in Toro with the new boundary of Rianda and revised boundary of Asencia. They'll both stay in the ascent in the Tasoro High School boundary. Uh this is the upper enrollment end for uh Tasorro High School including the Asencia Rianda area and so it doesn't it doesn't uh max out its capacity. So we should be good. This is

127again the upper upper um range for our projections. So the recommendation is to revise the Asencia TK boundary as depicted and establish the new Rayenda TK boundary as depicted here and there'll be there are no other existing boundaries are impacted with these adjustments and with that that's the uh the REDA rendering again that will open August of and there are I think already ahead of schedule, but I'm not going to say how much because there's always a risk of rain and things like that. >> I just say that they're on schedule and doing well. Um there's a I believe a time-lapse camera people can go to on our facilities website. You actually see it. It's amazing. It was bare ground just a few months ago and now there's the outline of a school. >> It's

128amazing. It's a great contractor. They're doing good work. >> Thank you. >> Any questions? I went back to the current to the >> Before that, Mrs. H, do we have any speaker cards? >> Thank you. Okay, trustees. I have a question. Rianda and its overall look, is it going to look much like Asencia? You know, each time we build a school, they get better and better with new updates. So I'm looking at this. It doesn't um look like a sensia to me, but I just wondered in terms of the overall >> there's similarities in the design, but the things that we learned and you know John Forny can I think shake his head yes or no, but we learned a lot from Asencia and what we learned is incorporated into the design for Rianda. >>

129So this school is we've made some improvements in the way it's programmed >> new and improved. New and improved. So yeah, it won't be a direct copy of unlike you know when we were building schools very fast. We have some schools that are very very similar in footprint layout if not identical to Soro and Aliso Niguel come up uh this one will not be just a copy of Asencia. It's its own school. >> Yeah, this is its own own design separately designed >> different look still they still go for that kind of ranch style look because we do work with the ranch so that the school can blend in with the community. So, I have a very specific question, but I'm going to compare um a high school and a middle school, and this is

130a K through eight, but the STEM building built at New Hart with the big open beam ceilings has the same echo chamber that the new Dana Hills High School has, but I saw in the report in November that there's going to be some monies to go back in and do some sort of mediation. in terms of >> Right. >> Yeah. So, um, talking about lessons learned because then I was going to ask, okay, so what's going to happen at New Hart? Because if you talk to those teachers trying to teach in those classrooms, >> it's uh, it's very difficult. So, is that like one of the lessons we've learned that that wouldn't be happening here? >> I mean, it looks great, but then when you start to teach in this echo chamber um, kind of

131classroom, it it really is challenging. We should be good. We should be good. >> I have a question about the um just about the students, the high school students. Do you know how many of them do open enrollment for let's say like San Juan Hills? Because I live in that area and I know some I know a lot of kids that go to Doro and a lot that do San Juan Hills. Just wondering, look at the looking at these numbers of high school students. >> Do you have an idea of like the percentage? Is it really small that >> the Let me go back to the um So this is for looking at Toro High School's current attendance patterns. So this incorporates uh choicing in or out of the boundaries and there is a number

132of students who are boundary to soro but they go to they choose to go to San Juan Hills or Capell Valley or Dana or even San Clementi just >> and vice versa. There's students in Larian boundary to San Juan who choose to go to Soro. So when we do the projections we look at those percentages and that's why that's bounded right like we might not hit these numbers. These are our hopeful numbers. It could be slightly more slightly less based on how many kids move into the Randa area as well as choice into other schools. you may want to show at some point. Um, trustees on Linger, you have that fabulous screen in your office that you can pull up and like this color chart show um, how many are living in that area, school

133of choice. Um because I had asked uh Trusty Zinger in regards to this because um principal Kenzradi I sent him this um presentation last night to say hey good news and he responded he's very happy but I you know asked Lisa because um while it's a neighboring community um understanding the roads and how busy the toll road is or isn't or Cow >> cow camp. Um because looking at the map it looks like Rianda is much further to go to Toro than it is to go to San Juan. But Lisa was kind of sharing with me that actually trafficwise and all. So there's all kinds of nuances. Like I would never begin to guess Aliso Viejo or San Clemente, you know, egress um and traffic patterns because if you're not there during um you know,

134school opening and and closing times, right? >> Um >> but I'm kind of excited about >> and also the um you can see the pointer the way Asencia has grown up this direction. Uh Randa is gonna there'll be all the homes opening up in the northern part of this region as well. >> One other thing I think is important just to note about the toll road is that we always call it the toll road because it does turn into the toll road, but that little section there is no toll. [laughter] You don't pay the toll until Oso and that's where you get off to get to Doro. So I hear some I've heard people say to me, "Well, I think it's disgusting that you you have to pay a toll to get to high school."

135And I'm like, "No, no, no, no." >> Yeah. Just >> Yeah. the toll ends after p after you've passed Toro. >> And when we look at those projections, while there will be more kids from this area going to Toro, unfortunately, we still are under declining enrollment through the rest of the district. So, um like you see you're not getting this big sudden spike in Toro's enrollment because of this area. You're getting a a gentle increase because it's sort of mitigating the drop off from other areas that feed to Sorro. So you're not going to get the huge traffic changes if you had just kept a flat toro enrollment and then added a new community to it. Um because it's base enrollment without is not flat unfortunately. Nowhere is >> that right? >> Other comments questions?

136>> Clark. Thank you very much. >> All right. All those in favor say I. >> I. >> Any opposed? Motion carries 70. Moving on to 13C. May I have a motion to approve resolution number 2526-15 withdrawing from membership in the school's excess liability fund Joint Powers Authority. >> So moved. >> Moved by Trustee Adams. >> Second by Trustee Jones. I'd like to recognize Clark Hampton, deputy superintendent to present the item. >> Thank you, President Davis. So, uh, given the the recent changes in the excess liability um insurance market, the uh there's been a a lot more claims. Um you may notice that when you drive down the freeway, you see a lot of attorneys billboards. So, but but regardless of that, it's important for us to take a look at the market. And in order

137to do that, we need to issue a withdrawal notice per our agreement with u self, which is the current excess liability carrier we have. And so, we need to provide a six-month notice. And this allows us to go out and look at the market, determine uh if we can do better or do or do we stay with self. Um some of the other providers out there are also JPA. Self is a is a public JPA and the other ones are the school schools association for um uh excess risk or referred to as safer in prism which is public risk innovation solutions and management. So um by uh passing this um resolution it just allows us time to go out and ASIP will actually run the analysis of the excess liability carriers. >> Yes, Miss Hayes,

138do we have any speaker cards for this item? >> Okay, trustees. >> Okay, so as mentioned just this allows doesn't mean we're leaving. It just means it gives staff opportunity to look into it. So thank you. All right, Miss H, can you please call the role? Student board member Hansen is absent. Trusty Castianos I. >> Trusty Pritchard. Hi. >> Trusty Zinger. >> Hi. >> Trusty Adams. >> I. >> Trusty Jones. >> I. >> Trusty Bullus. >> I. >> Trusty Davis. >> I. Motion carries 70. Moving on to 13D. May I have a motion for the certification of the 2526 first interim report? Moved by Trusty Zinger. Seconded by Trusty Adams. I'd like to recognize Clark Hampton. Introduce the item. >> Thank you, President Davis, trustees. So, I'm Philip Townsen, assistant superintendent for fiscal services is

139joining me. Uh so, this is our first opportunity to provide an update on our budget. per AB1200 school districts are required to adopt the budget and then share with um the county office and the state their uh status their financial status now and then we do it again in March. So just uh before I turn it over to Philip I'm just going to give a brief outline of where we are right now uh fiscally. So uh the department of finance of California and the uh LAO office legislative analyst office are seeing lots of increases in revenue in the state from the AI investment that the stock market's doing really well with the investment. A lot of but there's a lot of concern that there's overinvestment um and it and that there's going to be a

140market correction because it is a little kind of in a boom period. uh they call it a um a bull market and uh this quote is bull markets never die of old age but they they this think it could be a flash in the pan and I just read an article that um a uh I can't remember the name of the capital company just pulled out of a10 billion dollar deal with Oracle to build an AI data center. So we could be seeing the beginnings of the pulling back just to kind of see where things are. So, the state is seeing a lot of um one-time money and so that's the $7.5 billion in one-time funding and uh but they are seeing deficits out into the future. So, from it from our external the things

141that we have to worry about externally is the state budget and whether they'll be able to fund schools or not. Um the 7.5 billion in onetime funding, we're not sure what the state's going to do with it if they uh the what the LAO believes they should do is offset their deficits um and make adjustments to some of the cash flow that uh they've been h cash flow issues they've been having. Um but they could also give it to schools and uh one time or they could split it up. It depends on really what the governor proposes in January, whether we determine what we see they what they do with that one time money for they've had from the market upturn. So they also the learning recovery emergency block grant which is a holdover from

142the COVID days. Uh the state held off on paying us some money. They owe it back. They paid 1.2 million this year and then we expectation is they'll pay 1.2 million next year and 1.2 2 million the following year. We're not expecting any federal cuts, but we don't expect any growth. So, we're just uh estimating um uh stability for now. Current outlook, we are seeing attendance decline across the state. Uh as we've talked about this many times about the declining birth rate. Um so, you have fewer babies, you have fewer kids that come to school. And that's one of the challenges now from an internal standpoint that school districts have is um we have to look at both things carefully. What is the state doing with their funding and then how are we doing as

143a district with our um enrollment and with enrollment decline comes revenue declines and the need to make budget adjustments. Uh still again there's uncertainty on the future of federal uh education policy. So far so far we haven't seen any uh cuts. It's kind of status quo, but u we don't we're not quite sure what the future holds. >> The state has done cash deferrals. The cash deferral is just paying school districts in a different fiscal year. So instead of paying districts in June, they pay in July. It's an accounting thing, but um we incorporate that into our uh budgets. And we currently have a positive certification for the current and multi-year. So, we're presenting to you tonight a positive um budget. So, the first interim, we did see a decline in enrollment this year, but

144higher than we expected. We've usually been right about on expectations, but school districts across the county have seen larger drops than expected. Um ours was about 380 some odd students, more than we expected. um which uh is what we're seeing is it's been typical with other uh districts. Luckily, we've not been as bad as some other districts. Some districts have seen like one or two% worse than they expected. We were I think 08% lower than we expected. Uh the first interim incorporates again expected cash deferrals that the state will make in 2026. Um, and we are also going to be talking later, Philip, will talk about the need for us to continue to make reductions. We've been making reductions as our enrollment declines. Uh, so we will need to continue to do that as we

145project lower enrollment in the future. So, here's our enrollment projections. Uh, again, this shows what we expected to decline to and what we we actually declined to. So, all of the future projections are adjusted. So that account that that total decline is about $19 million over the t over the time frame shown here in less revenue. And Philipp will talk more about the impacts of declining enrollment and why it why it's such an important thing to be addressing early and early so that you can be ready because you lose when you're declining you lose revenue faster than you can make reductions and when you're growing you get money faster than you can spend it. And uh so Uh now that districts are declining, our boom time is over. That was in 2009 and we've been

146declining since 2009 just due to the aging out of students and the declining birth rate. So here's the declining birth rate, the fertility rate. And uh the red line is you have to maintain 2.1 to uh continue growing. And uh you can see Orange County is um or this is California, right? Yeah, this is California's birth rate is now uh projected to go to 2050 to be 1.44. It doesn't seem and this is this is happening independent of of up down ups in the market downs in the markets. COVID this is just a trend that's occurring society across the board. It's not big. We did see a little bit of a tiny baby boom after COVID, but it was just a teeny little blip. um and it's continued to the uh birth rates continue to

147decline. Now I'm going to turn it over to Philipa to go over the multi-year projection and give you some more of the details in the um first inter. >> So my first piece of bad news I guess you could say is that next year the cola was anticipated to be 3.02% and that's what we reflected in our budget. However, the LEO, the legislative analyst's office, came out with their report in November and said they expect it to be about 2.5%. So, the way we handled that in our first interim report is to set aside that half a percent in our reserve um because we do anticipate that we will be lowering the cola in January. So, the reason that the COLA estimates are kind of dicey right now is because the data is prepared on

148the federal website. And of course, with the government shutdown, the information that was supposed to be updated in October still hasn't been updated. We expect it next week. So, we'll see if that happens. So, um, we do have that money set aside. We will look at that again at the second interim. And when we get the new estimates, it will include new cola estimates for not only next year 2627, but also 2728 and 2829. So we do update all the years at the same time. And the final number for the 2627 cola won't be known until the May revis. So that's when we get the final data piece. This was the federal website when we were trying to get the information. So, the reason that declining enrollment is so difficult to handle is because when

149you lose, let's say, 500 students, you're going to lose about $6 million overall in revenue. And you do have some automatic expenditure reductions. So, you have reductions in teacher costs, which happen automatically, and reductions in uh student supply allocations, things like that. and that comes out to about um $2 million. So a third of the loss in revenue is automatically addressed. But for the the other twothirds of the loss in revenue, we actually have to identify additional cuts in programs or in non-classroombased staffing, things like that. So you h actually have to make a decision about what you're going to cut. So in this scenario of 500 students, you would have to identify $4 million in ongoing cuts. Oops. That is not the back button apparently. >> This is the back button. >> Why would

150you not have the back button just like a TV? Oh, [laughter] okay. So, there was a blue box on here earlier, but seems to have disappeared. Try it again. Nope. Okay. So pretend there's a blue box around those uh three green bars on the left hand side. That's the three years that make up the current multi-year projection. So those green bars reflect our fund balance each year for 2526 through 2728. So those green bars mean that we will be at or above 2% in each of the years, the three years in the multi-year projection. However, in June, we will start the 26 27 um multi-year projection and we will move over one bar to the right to that red bar, which means that we will have one of the years in our multi-year projection that

151is not at 2%. So one of the purposes of the first and second interim budget report and multi-year projection is so that we can identify what our budget will look like and if we need to make any budget reductions. So because we are coming up to a year when we'll we will not be at 2% we do have to start to identify cuts or continue to identify cuts I should say as we have already been making cuts. And so I just want to mention this is very similar to where we were in 2223. You may remember the fiscal solveny statement that we made. So it was a similar type of thing at the adopted budget. If you look out into the future and you see that there's a a negative bar, then you do a

152fiscal solveny statement committing to the reductions necessary to bring that back up. >> And just to remind everybody, we made that statement and then we made the reductions um to get to back to a positive certified budget. Right? So we we've been doing this the last two and a half years. Um there's nothing new. It's just not stopping. So once we make a fiscal solveny statement at the adopted budget, assuming we have not already >> [clears throat] >> identified enough cuts to make ourselves positive in all three years, then once we get to the first interim report, if we don't have all our cuts identified, uh we will need to certify our budget as qualified. So that's the next step. Um, another item that was impacted by the the government shutdown is the district audit.

153Our district audit uh uses the uh guidelines from the state for most of the audit, but also guidelines from the federal government to audit the federal programs. So, at probably partway through the audit process, we were all told to email the state controllers's office and ask for an audit extension. And of course, as soon as we did that and that was granted, that's when we got the uh federal information. So, we have completed our audit and we will be presenting that to you in January. Also, in January, the governor's budget comes out uh on or before January the 10th. So, we'll be updating you with that information. And in March, we will be presenting the second interim with any updates for um the first attendance report, any updates on enrollment projections as well as any

154update from the state or federal government. These are the the assumptions that we are using for the first interim report. This is something that we provide to OCDE so they can do their oversight so they know what numbers we are using. Um most of these numbers come from outside agencies like Calsters, Kalpers, school services and o Orange County Department of Education along with our projections for attendance and enrollment. So with that we would like to recommend approval of the first interim report with a positive certification and if there are any questions we will be happy to answer. >> Thank you Mrs. Hayes. Do we have any speaker cards on this item? Okay discussion. Okay just >> so I understood that this year we were going to continue the incentive program for our schools in trying

155to reduce the absenteeism. I just wonder if you have any findings at this point. How are we doing in that? Is um because we had some schools that were big winners uh last year, but do we know if um I I don't hear it as much or read it in the weekly emails that they used to be driving at home last year. So, I just wonder if it's being as effective this year. >> If you know, >> things have kind of leveled off for us. So, we've leveled off at about 94 and a half%. Um I think we're 0 02% better than we were at the same time last year. Uh so it's about even. And then with the attendance recovery that bumps us up to another like 01%. So um we're 03% better. So

156for all per for it's really we've leveled off. So we still have the incentive going. The the bottom is 94 and a half percent. So the uh the incentive is for schools to be above 94 and a half percent or better than they were last year if it was above 94 and a half. Um so we keep going but um sadly we've kind of leveled off and that's all there is a lot of school districts same thing. is um >> do you recall do we have better attendance in fall versus spring or vice versa or is it >> pretty much >> there's if the trend is you see it you know it starts off high because uh there's fewer days in the formula but then it drops uh it used to not drop as rapidly

157precoid in the beginning of the year but we now see it like there's a a steep drop off and it's on a daily we do the average daily attendance average each day and it's much steeper drop and then it kind of levels off and then there's more drops. But we're seeing bigger swings in Monday and Friday absences. That's where it used to be. There was always Friday and Monday absences, but the swing was very tight. Now it's a much, you know, there's a much it's it's instead of going from 96% to 94%, it's 95% 94 and a half percent to 91% on a Friday and then it comes back up and then drops on a Monday. It might be 92%. So that's where we're seeing it. Just >> overall too, we do see it start

158to to rise again in the late spring as we get towards the end of the year. Unfortunately, that's after P2, in which case we're set for as far as state funding. But um it doesn't rise a ton, right? It's it's the highest the first few days of the school year and then it drops uh and then slowly recovers. It's usually down during the holidays and uh flu season as well. >> Maybe we need to create an incentive for parents. A Monday, Friday, send your kids to and we could have a collection or something and your name gets in a hat and you win some money. [laughter] >> But if you're absent, the attendance recovery program is fantastic. want to put that out on to private donors. We will not be doing that with district funds.

159So private donors want to fund parents. Absolutely. Yep. Fundra. >> Other trustees. Thank you. Okay. And all those in favor say I. >> I. >> Any opposed? Motion [snorts] carries. 70. We'll now now move on to consent calendar. Mrs. Hayes, do we have any speaker cards for this item? >> Thank you. Do you have any trustees that um that have any consent items they'd like to pull? Okay. Have a motion to approve the consent calendar. >> Moved by Trusty Zinger. Seconded by >> Second. >> Trusty Jones. >> Mrs. Hayes, can you please call the role? >> Trusty Castianos. >> I. >> Trusty Pritchard. >> I. >> Trusty Zolinger. >> Hi. >> Trusty Adams. >> I. Trusty Jones >> I. >> Trusty Bullus. >> I. >> Trusty Davis. >> I. Motion carries 70 to pres approve

160the consent calendar. >> All right. We have a mo motion to adjourn the meeting. >> Moved by Trustee Adam, seconded by Trusty Bulus. All those in favor say I. >> I. >> Any opposed? >> Motion carries 70. The time is now 8:18 p.m. Ladies and gentlemen, please do not move. We will be now moving on to our facilities corporation meeting of the board of directors. Good evening and welcome to the December 17th, 2025 facilities corporation meeting of the Capistrroni Unified School District Board of Directors. The meeting is now in session. The time is now 8:19 p.m. Mrs. Hayes, can you please call the role? >> Director Adnums >> here. Director Bulicus >> here. >> Director Castianos >> here. >> Director Davis >> here. >> Director Jones >> here. >> Director Pritchard >> President. >> Director

161Zinger >> here. >> Okay. And pledge of allegiance. Phil Townsen, would you please lead us in the pledge of allegiance? to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, liberty and justice for all. >> Thank you. We have a motion to adopt resolution number 2025-1. Resolution of the board of directors of the Capistron Unified School District Facilities Corporation holding annual meeting and electing officers of the corporation. >> Second >> by Trusty Bullus, seconded by Trustee Jones. Mrs. Hayes, can you please call the role? >> Point of moment, please. One moment, please. Point of order. Point of order. We need you uh motion to adopt the agenda. >> We're going to switch that up. If we could please have a motion to adopt

162the agenda. Second >> by trustee Adams. Seconded by trustee Jones. Thank you. Mrs. Hayes, can you please call the role? >> Director Adams. Mrs. >> It's an alphabetical order. >> Okay. Director Bulicus >> I. >> Director Castion. >> I. >> Director Davis. >> I. >> Director Jones. >> I. >> Director Pritchard. >> I. >> Director Zinger. >> I. >> Thank you. Motion carries 70 by roll call to a vote to adopt the agenda. And now may I have a motion to adopt resolution number 25 2025-1 resolution of the board of directors of the Capistron Unified School District Facilities Corporation holding annual meeting and electing officers of the corporation. Moved by Trustee Zinger. >> Seconded by Trustee Adams. Mrs. Hayes, can you please call the role? >> Director Adnums. >> I. Director Bulicus. >> I. Director

163Castianis >> I. >> Director Davis >> I. >> Director Jones >> I. >> Director Pritchard >> I. >> Director Zinger >> I. >> Thank you. A motion carries 70 by a roll call vote. May I have a motion to approve the minutes of the December 18, 2024 board of directors meeting. >> So move. >> Moved by trustee Jones, seconded by trustee Bulicus. All those in favor say I. >> I. >> Any opposed? Motion carries. 70. If nothing else needed by the board, this is now adjourned. There being no further business before the board, may I have a motion to adjurnn. >> Second >> by trustee Adams, seconded by Trusty Jones. All those in favor say I. >> I. >> Any opposed? Motion carries 70 to adjourn the meeting. The time is now 8:21. Thank you.