001e e e hiy for for s for sh for good afternoon and welcome to the February 17 2021 regular board meeting of the Capistrano Unified School District the meeting is now in session and the time is 4 and I 4:35 p.m. due to the nature of the covid-19 pandemic and in accordance with govern ER nome's executive order n 29-20 issued on March 17th 2020 the board members have the option to attend the meeting and take action on any item telephonically the boardroom is now open to the public for the safety and well-being of others and attendance all are required to wear face masks and social distancing practices are being followed the public is also allowed to participate in the board meeting telephonically prior to the meeting the district posted a link for you to call
002in if you wish to address the board on any agenda item this evening Miss schmi please call the [Music] role unmute try [Music] again Susie no one can hear you Judy maybe you can just call the role okay uh trusty bronstein here trustee bulus here trusty casos here trustee Davis here trusty hanich here trusty Jones here and trusty mcnicholas here and student advisor unel wasar I don't see you is our student adviser with us this evening okay [Music] president bulus you're muted thank you before the board recesses to close session is there anyone who would like to speak to a Clos session agenda item do we have any blue cards I'm not hearing and I don't see that Judy there should be three Judy okay I then can I have um either M Hayes or
003Miss Schmidt call the names please I don't have a list I'm gonna try Rocky Brown can you hear me now yes okay Courtney buco Courtney go ahead you have to unmute your microphone please president bu because we do have two speakers but we having difficulties [Music] okay Courtney you need to unmute your microphone I'm we go on to the other speaker perhaps she'll be able to in a minute I'm gonna and try Rocky Brown can you hear me okay yes Rocky go ahead thank you um great great to be here again at the board meeting or be able to speak before the board meeting thank you for this privilege um I really I really want to First say that I appreciate the fact that you know teachers and parents and I come under underneath both
004um you know both of those uh wear both of those hats I should say um can speak before these things and uh you know can vocalize opinions and um you know do so in a civil manner I really appreciate that um next as a PE teacher um for middle school I'm I'm looking forward to the board um hopefully moving helping PE move forward in the way of getting letter grades for students especially since um I have so many students right now with the new curriculum who are you know who are really Aiming High on it and wanting to get that a um I've had over 16 of them today say that just today alone I'm looking at my list again it would be 17 today alone who said that they weren't going to settle you
005know something to the effect of they weren't going to settle for a b they wanted to get an A because they know that this curriculum is worth it and they know that they're more than capable of it so I'm I'm just looking forward to those discussions hopefully of having the letter grade return to PE and then last but not least as a parent um I did want to say that I'm I've been looking at some of the new adopted curriculum and I'm seeing the word inappropriate attached to it a lot um which is a very great concern to me um because it does say that with teacher guidance that even with inappropriate material um that it would be okay to present it to students and I think I can speak for a lot of parents
006I know I can speak for my wife myself um but I think I can speak for a lot of parents when I say that if there is anything inappropriate it would be best to leave that for parents to teach their own students and to be able to get curriculum that does not have that inappropriate tag level attached to it um in addition with the PLC model that we have in place it would be great to involve parents and surveys as far as what curriculum is adopted I think there's a growing sentiment that more parents would like to have that happen would like to see that moving forward and I thank you for your time thank you Rocky thank you uh Courtney are you there we see your name but if you unmute go ahead Courtney
007I don't know if Courtney wants to hang up and try to come back in as we go to the third person Courtney is the last speaker oh okay TR one more time I'm asking her to unmute okay we can ask Courtney um you could put her in oral Communications and try again at 7 p.m in order for her to speak to the board okay I'd be happy to do that don't you go ahead president bolus okay uh that'll close um the uh speakers for the evening uh until the next session so the board will now recess to close session to address the following agenda items a public health emergency consultation with agency Council B conference with legal counsel anticipated litigation significant exposure to litigation seven cases conference with legal councel existing litigation significant exposure to
008litig litigation two cases student expulsion one case Public Employee discipline dismissal release two cases conference with labor negotiators CUA CA teamsters and Kuma conference with real property negotiators property Pacifica San Juan property self transportation and grounds keeping facility P de kinus property the board will now recess to close session it is 4:44 thank you for e e e [Music] [Laughter] good evening should I turn this all the way down turn off do i m welcome to the February 17th 2021 regular board meeting of the Capistrano Unified School District the meeting is now in session and the time is 7:10 p.m. due to the nature of the covid-19 pandemic and in accordance with Governor Newsome's executive order n2920 issued on March 17 2020 the board members have the option to attend the meeting and take action
009on any item telephonically the ward room is now open to to the public for the safety and well-being of others and attendance all are required to wear a face mask and stay socially distanced the public is also allowed to participate in this board meeting telephonically prior to this meeting the district posted a link for you to call in if you wish to address the board on any agenda item this evening please note The Following on agenda item a public health emergency trustees were provided with exhibit A-1 staff has pulled agenda items 14 talking points software services and support agreement and item number 27 instructional materials recommended for adoption cultural proficiency lessons grades K through 12 on agenda item number seven Master joint use lease agreement wellness and prevention center staff has updated section 22 to
010include a statement that written consent is required according to the mandates of the California state law also section 24 of the agreement is revised to re reference Orange County rather than Los Angeles County in addition the services for the wellness and prevention center will be provided at the Aliso Nigel High School library a revised map is provided in the back of the room on our and on our uh District website on agenda item number 11 memorandum of understanding agreement number 508 14 with Orange County Superintendent of schools for mental health student services act partnership 2020 through 2024 staff has made a correction to item .7 the word scare is a typographical air and should read as care coordination on agenda item number 25 first reading temporary board policy T 614 6.1 High School graduation requirements
011and item number 3 2 first reading board policy 6176 education of homeless children and youth staff has made corrections to these policies revised copies are provided in the back of the room and on our district website Mrs Hayes please call the role student adviser boser present trusty brunstein here trusty bulus here trusty cosos here trusty Davis here trusty hanich here trusty Jones here and trusty mcnicholas here the Pledge of Allegiance is going to be led by trusty Pamela brunstein this evening all risei to the FL of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty Justice for All adoption of the agenda may I have a motion to adopt the agenda so moved second moved by trusty mcnicholas and seconded by trusty ham Mrs
012hay please call the role student advisor bosar I TR Brownstein trusty buikus I trusty ctios I trusty Davis I trusty hanich hi trusty Jones hi trusty MC Nicholas [Music] hi motion carries 700 by a roll call Vote with concurrence from student adviser bcar report on closed session action Mrs Hayes please read the report out from closed session on agenda item 3A Public Health Emergency trustees gave direction to staff on agenda item 3B conference with legal council anticipated litigation trustees voted 70 to approve staff recommendation on the following ADR cases case number 2020 1000 622011 02 20201 1208 202012 209 1213 20201 1216 and 0120 on agenda item 3C conference with legal council existing litigation trustees voted to approve staff recommendations on the following oah cases case numers 2201 0593 202012 284 on agenda item 3D
013student expulsion trustees voted 70 to approve staff recommendation on the following case case number 20212 on agenda item 3E Public Employee discipline dismissal release on agenda item E1 in closed session the board took action to issue a notice of non- reelection to provate AR certificated employees identified by the following employee numbers 35985 and 36055 purer Education Code section 449 2921 b effective at the end of the 2020 2021 school year and directed by the superintendent or design to send out appropriate legal notices the roll call vote was as followed eyes seven Ma Z on agenda item E2 trustees voted 70 to approve staff recommendation on agenda item 3F Conference of L negotiators trustees gave direction to staff on agenda item 3G Conference of real property negotiators property Pacifica San Juan 7.2 92 acre property located
014at the northeast corner of communo Los rhus and avenita California trusty gave direction to staff the second property South transportation and groundskeeping facility 5.51 acre property located at 26126 Victoria Boulevard Dana Point California trustees gave direction to staff and the third property Caso De Colinas property 2.47 acre property located on C De Colinas adjacent to Miguel Hills Middle School trustees gave direction to staff and this concludes my report thank you it's now time for board and superintend superintendent comments so I'd like to ask superintendent Tristan ball bruy to make her comments great good evening and welcome I want to begin tonight by thanking our extraordinary teachers and staff for their work to open our classrooms for inperson learning in the fall of 2020 in Sacramento this week our state legislators are discussing a plan for
015reopening schools this spring I sent emails and I met with along with our local PTA ledge team our local elected officials to share with them all about having our schools open in person I sent emails to decision makers in Sacramento in Sacramento excuse me reminding them that we're already open and we've been open safely without having to close one single School we shared that our first priority during this pandemic has been to keep our students teachers staff and famili safe while we are one of the only districts in the state of California to open our classrooms in September and October to date according to the Orange County healthcare agency which reviews each case of covid-19 connected to our schools we have not experienced a single case of co9 transmission in our schools not a single
016case of transition in our schools even dur the worst of the pandemic this winter we shared this in Sacramento according to the association of school administrators in California there are approximately 100,000 students in the state going to school in person C represents 25% of those students and we're proud to be open to support our students and families I'm proud to tell everyone that we're open we're already open it's hard work and we haven't been perfect but we've always remained focused on what's best for our young people this board supported and directed our efforts and our plan and I would say that it's been the time and resources well spent for our students and our families on another note I want to congratulate our 2021 teachers of the year so exciting for cusd elementary teacher of
017the year 2021 is Ann Berger asencia Kate School the winning Middle School teacher of the year is Margaret dubell of vad Delmar middle school and margarite wesling of San Clem High School received the honor of being named the high school teacher of the year 2021 we'll be selecting our classified employees of the Year soon and I look forward to celebrating them in the near future finally as noted agenda item 27 was pulled by Dr holiday and Dr mwin staff will be working to explicitly connect the lessons to standards and research to ensure they're developmentally appropriate and this suggest item agenda item will be coming back in April 2021 to the board for discussion and action and that concludes my [Music] remarks I'd like to open up this evening with uh going first in comments um
018and Doug tailing off of superintendent Bal bry's comments I would like to acknowledge our very own Dana high school student Nicholas drael who was awarded uh from the Better Business bureau's ethical torch scholarship because he accurately reflects the senior's values and personality dwell's essay titled the importance of ethics and integrity in our community describes his ethical dilemma when he discovered that two of his fellow student leaders had Prejudice points of view Nick is a seeker of understanding equity and Truth Baker declares principal Baker and a progressive young man who wants the best for all students of his decision to ensure a voice for the victims to speak their truth dwel writes I know deep down that I have done the right thing I was a voice for the voiceless and an ally to those in
019need and it's wonderful and I believe we adults can continue to learn from our children from our students and I would even encourage um in the write up that was in our Insider February 10th we might even suggest that we use his case study in the curriculum that's being developed so congratulations to Nicholas drael of Dana Hills High School from um the Better Business Bureau winning a scholarship for his excellent essay and the other point I'd like to make is one of our newest fellow um trustees Lisa Davis did an extraordinary Grassroots uh Valentine community service project that uh we're quite proud of in that uh she had asked at the school district um how many students we have um that are underserved and in underserved we refer to students that are um homeless um
020in a multif family living uh situation uh in mil their family members are maybe military and [Music] um Foster Care thank you we found that with the 47,000 students we had we had 5,500 students uh across our 50 plus schools in this um category and Lisa did a major Outreach in terms of the community asking for donations in the hopes that 5,500 Valentine gift bags could be created to be delivered to our schools well it was and the wonderful part about it is as we all know that as we've been living through this time of covid and coming off of a very uh difficult election there's a lot of depression there's a lot of um uh disagreements and and there's anger and and it's also with our students in not being able to play sports
021not being able to be on campus with their friends not be able to hang out at the beach it was a time to relish the season of friendship and love at Valentine's Day and the outpouring of the community was tremendous we had so many churches and organizations and businesses that came together that in the end almost 8,400 gift bags were made and very surprising to me every one of our high school students received a gift card in their uh gift bag so I would really like to applaud the efforts of Lisa Davis reaching out into the community and for all of our community and that included even our our ptas um everyone individuals organizations that came together and overwhelmingly wanted to give and I mean they were beautiful bags wired ribbon beautifully made um and
022it was so well received the schools were just so thrilled and they were confidentially given out as the school administration had contacted each of the students to come up to the office uh and so they had a very nice surprise so I just wanted to thank Lisa Davis for doing this effort it was a joy to see this happen thank you and now I would like to ask our student adviser to start off because I've forgotten her in the past so I think we will have you lead off um adviser bascar good evening um I just have one thing uh uh feedback from students have been great everyone's enjoying the new semester and everyone's doing well um there's a continued effort from the seniors to feel recognized they continued saying that they don't feel recognized
023and they would hope that there's something some senior events that they could have that we obviously following guidelines that could support the students um and the other thing is that I don't know if this is just based on School site but at Alisa Nal high school we were given the option to go back to school um switching from online to hybrid and our deadline was today and some students were thinking about going back later in the semester if numbers improved so they were wondering if this is a hard deadline or will as things improve or as things change will there be will there be an option to go back later to from online to hybrid that's all thank you I could ask Dr mwin if you could just clarify the deadline yes thank you uh
024the deadline is the the six week Mark so this is the the final time for our students to move from the online program to the hybrid program for high school for Middle School it's at the uh at the quarter so the final opportunity is coming up and then for elementary it's at the end of the second Tri prime minister so if our student adviser started emailing all her friends do they have time tonight to submit or was it a cut off at 5 or what no I believe they're I believe they're still in time yes okay I think it's the 19th true Friday oh is it Friday yeah I believe it's the end of the week that's okay there you go you still have time in the email it said like I just opened it
025said February 16th I don't know if that's just for our School site for high schools but it did say February 16th for us so I don't know if that needs to be clarified or if that's the case very good I'd be happy to follow up and make sure our our high schools communicate that out and clarify do any other trustees have comments this evening uh trusty mcnicholas um yes a couple of things one the I was so happy to be involved in the celebrations of our teachers of the year um at uh at asencia V delar and San Clen uh I'm I'm disappointed they were all in the South and not in the north but that's you know we have good teachers everywhere but it was just so inspiring to be back on campus even
026though we're social distancing and we had our masks and it was just that is one thing I really miss is being on campus with with students and teachers and they are all wonderful wonderful teachers so so so proud of them um the other thing I want to bring up is a shout out to Danny Hills PTS a uh Danny Hills PTSA usually does a fund fundraisers for senior scholarships and their big fundraisers are fake sales we try to get away from the whole PTA bake sale idea but they raise a lot of money well this year not so much on bake sales so they are having a drivethru ice cream sandwich sale that was this afternoon and tomorrow afternoon for handles ice cream in lagona Niguel for $5 and the proceeds go to for senior
027scholarships I want to thank uh principal Brad Baker who I know is listening for uh getting us started with some um ice cream sandwiches for the trustee so I going to encourage everybody if do a drive-thru tomorrow if you don't have that if you can in the afternoon from 2:45 till five so support senior scholarships thank [Music] you trustee H I wish I had him now because I'm starving so that would be great so thank you um yeah so I just wanted a quick check in um our board meetings are basically the business meeting of the board conducted in public and once in a while we are presented with opportunities to consider discuss and Implement policies curriculum or programs that directly relate to students and these are items that support our District's Mission which is
028to prepare our students to meet the challenges of a rapidly changing world and our vision unwavering commitment to Student Success and uh one of our wigs that I want to touch on tonight which is to engage students in meaningful challenging and Innovative educational experiences to increase postsecondary options for all students in recent years there's been a growing movement for schools to help students develop 21st century skills alongside academic competencies driven in large part by frequent reports of employers unsatisfied with the skills of recent school graduates Business Leaders point point out that they not only need employees who are smart and competent in math and reading and writing they also need people who can lead teams communicate effectively to Partners come up with new ways to solve problems and effectively navigate an increasingly diverse world to
029quote Dean Foster from the Wharton School of Business it's the 21st century and there's really no wiggle room at this point for cultural ignorance the opposite of cultural ignorance is cultural competency the ability to understand that people will be thinking differently they'll be doing business differently developing cultural competence is a process rather than an endpoint just like any skill the process of development and Improvement continues it was a process that was supposed to begin this evening with our age appropriate culture proficiency lessons and though I'm disappointed I know staff will come back with something um that will move our young people forward and my expectations are that when they return to the board they will effectively lay out this extremely important foundation for our K12 students so that they are imbued with the skills necessary
030to compete in higher education the workforce or the military skills that are not optional because cultural proficiency and cultural competence are increasingly important as our means of communication and collaboration in all working environments learning how to respect communicate and collaborate with an increasingly diverse work culture are crucial essential skills I look forward to this opportunity to better serve and prepare our students to excel in this rapidly changing world thank you so much any other trustee comments okay trustees we have this evening 25 speakers for oral comments and we have a thre minute limit so that would uh mean 1 hour and 15 minutes so I'd like to know if it would please the board to keep it three minutes or if there is anyone who wants to elect um and this is during open oral
031so it's all different topics uh if anybody wants to request that we limit it to two minutes I'd like to hear three minutes from everybody I'm sorry I'd like to stick with the three minutes okay I would as well okay are we sure that they um AR not mostly speaking about item 27 which was pulled from the agenda I do not know that do we know I'm sure there's quite a few but I I don't know so and we don't know as we've experienced in the past if everybody will be on the phone okay um so with that I think we're in agreement that we will move forward and uh the first speaker is Sarah King and if I can take this opportunity we learned at a recent meeting I admittedly imp pour pronunciation so
032please if I've mispronounced your name please give your name at the beginning so that we know thank you thank you president Bokus and trustees my name is Sarah Kang thank you for the clarification I'm an English teacher at San clementy high school and the campus coordinator for no place for hate I'm very grateful to our principal Mr Carter who has supported the no place for hate committee by making space on our campus for curriculum and discussions that promote diversity and inclusion I'm here today to speak about inclusive book adoptions when it comes to including diverse authors one of the mo one of the common comments I hear is that book is so great oh but there's that one section it might be a few pages of reference to sex or inappropriate language here's the logical
033problem with rejecting book adoptions based on a few pages of inappropriate content it always starts with history most of the novels our students read are written by white authors prior to 1960 when if you wrote about sex or profanity with honesty your book would not be published if you were not white your book would most likely not be published the only books published were ones that reference sex solely through vague metaphors they didn't write in metaphors because they wanted to they wrote in metaphors because Society mandated it trust me if F Scott Fitzgerald wrote The Great Gatsby in 1980 it would be an entirely different book after the 1970s contemporary authors wrote with realism and honesty about these experiences this honesty does not detract from the beauty of the language but serves to challenge our
034students to think about author's purpose at the same time after the Civil Rights Movement non-white authors were finally gaining recognition in the publishing industry most of the books by latinx Asian indigenous and black authors were published post 1970s when Society started to finally accept them contemporary authors write with realism and honesty therefore if you are to unilaterally reject books that have a few pages of profanity you will be rejecting almost all of the new diverse and inclusive options not because these groups are inherently degenerate but because the era in which they were allowed to write requires honest storytelling so the question we need to ask ourselves are how many books have we rejected for this reason how many of them are books of color do our students of color deserve to see themselves in the
035books they read and is there a way to teach diverse books while Respec in the values of our community I know we can find a way I want to end by thanking the school board for the work you are doing with the cultural proficiency task force to make all the classrooms across our district an inclusive place we are headed in the right direction thank you thank you and speaker Jamie I don't have a last name or Jamie is the last name I do not have Jamie registered to speak she is listed but not on the line uh lesie Power lesie is here tonight so Leslie if you please come forward and we are requesting that you do not touch the podium or microphone um but we will be able to hear you thank you and
036gone on to college I have one son who is a senior at San Clin high and one daughter who is a sixth grader of V delmare first I want to tell the board how appreciative I am that my children have had the opportunity to go back to school in person two days a week our schools have figured out how to do it safely and effectively and I am truly grateful I also appreciate being able to share my thoughts on the instructional material for adoption on cultural proficiency I want to discuss item 29 on focus of the Middle School curriculum while there are some excellent materials being covered I was bothered by item 29 because quote the instructional material may include material or language which might be considered inappropriate for students I actually read this sentence
037multiple times because I found it odd that Educators who recommended this curriculum were recommending it while they found that they found elements in it inappropriate why in a time when we are struggling to educate our children are we focused on teaching them material that is considered unsuitable most of the curriculum is very vague but I will take one example where I did find the curriculum inappropriate one of the books for reading was all American boys I have not been able to read the full book but while I did agree with the message the language in the book was highly inappropriate for my seventh grade middle school child I read many reviews of this book the book is not recommended for readers under the age of 15 it is loaded with profanity I want to be
038clear I do not have a problem with the message of the book but I but I have a problem with the profanity and the sexual content of the book I'm going to make my comments brief but if those Educators who recommended this curriculum for middle school students are telling you and I that parts of the curriculum are most likely inappropriate for students then I think our school board School Board needs to do its diligence and figure out why there are elements that are inappropriate before we pass it and teach it to our children I appreciate the time thank you elij Wilman hello um I have a fifth grader and a third grader at truman Benedict and my comment is on the cultural proficiency curriculum well there are a lot of good elements in this curriculum
039my main concern is that is the concept of privilege the way that it is presented completely ignores a huge factor in many wealthy or so-called privileged people success which is hard work and good choices well it is true that life is unfair and everyone is born into a different set of circumstances making their lives easier or harder than someone else what our society seems to love to ignore these days are the concepts of choice and accountability rather than teaching our children that they are victims of their circumstances and that because life is unfair less privileged people should be given handouts and freebies we should Empower them with the knowledge that anything is possible for those who are willing to put in the hard work and effort regardless of their race gender social status Etc we
040should heavily emphasize the importance of making good choices in achieving happiness and success in Life Choices regarding drug and alcohol use premarital sex education personal responsibility marriage and work all have immeasurable effect on someone's success or what you might call privilege in life an amazing book that I would highly recommend as middle school or High School reading material is Dr Ben Carson's Gifted Hands for those of you who don't know Ben Carson was a skinny black kid who was raised by a single mother with a third grade education in inner city Detroit he eventually grew up to become a world-renowned neurosurgeon and ran for president in 2016 these are the stories of hard work and success that we should be teach teaching our children and emphasizing thank you thank you Colleen bashforth Colleen bashforth I
041do not have Colleen logged in currently okay Christy craft Rowley chrisy is not currently logged in okay Chelsea Erikson Chelsea is not logged in oh in person there she is thank you so much I have my head down yeah thank you um hi my name is Chelsea Erikson I wanted to start by first telling you all thank you for your time and efforts and everything that you have done for our schools in the district as I have talked with other friends throughout the state it is is very clear that our district and our school Vista delmare are very prepared and on top of things and it has made for a much smoother ride along this crazy pandemic year I am here to address the petition that has been presented to the district from the group
042CD Against Racism in regards to Christine Hoster my daughter's current fourth grade teacher at V sad delar elementary school I just want to share our absolute gratitude for the teacher that Miss Hoster has been to our daughter this year we've offered our daughter the option A couple of times to do 100% online learning for the opportunity to go visit family and stay with them while doing her her schoolwork and she has turned us down every time telling us that she does not want a different teacher by doing that and that she wants to stay with Mrs Hostetter our interactions as parents with Mrs Hostetter have also been wonderful and very professional and we have been very very grateful for her when we heard heard of this petition I did a lot of research into the
043situation I wanted to know because it's my daughter's teacher I read the entire petition I watched all the video links they shared as evidence on their page we had no idea of Mrs hostetter's political affiliation even during such a volatile election year this made us wonder if our daughter had any idea so we asked her if Mrs Hostetter had ever commented about the elections or those running and she told us no in fact she told told us that some of the students had been talking in class about it and she asked them to stop talking and that they needed to discuss that at another time and place this is the type of teacher that we believe should be in the schools and in our children's classrooms it is always a little concerning for us as
044to whether a teacher is sharing personal political or moral viewpoints on things in the classroom with our young and impressionable children we were pleased to hear that Mrs hostad steered the kids away from any such talk that could lead to that in this situation obviously if something illegal is done that's for you for you to handle but I have to say that after reading and watching the evidence shared on the petition I am very blown away at the Liberties that were taken in the wording of such things compared to what I actually saw nowhere from what I have seen does it show that she did anything illegal marching in a protest is not illegal in fact it's a right that we all have to me it seems that this is a group that's out to
045get rid of someone who believes in something politically that they do not and that's not okay they are a group that at its foundation seeks for more inclusion yet they are seemingly attacking a person and teacher who is a peg that does not fit into their hole and it's disappointing I just want to share that I hope that she can get back in the classroom as soon as possible a number of teachers I've or parents that I have talked to in the class have said the same thank you Chelsea uh Courtney buo Courtney your line is live just um I'm unmuted now thank you um so I'm a parent um of a first grader and third grader at San Juan Elementary School and we are the Spanish imersion program and that's basically what I'm here
046to talk about um we when we first signed up for this program we were told that you know that my child is going to be with the teacher hours a day um in basically an 8020 program which is most of the day is 80% of Spanish and 20% in English um and I'm not a Spanish speaking home so it's very apprehensive to sign my children up for this program but they told me that everything was going to be fine don't worry your kids going to be with their teacher for six hours a day in Spanish and then once they get to second grade it's like five hours in Spanish one hour in English and then by the time that they get to fifth grade it's 5050 so it's an immersion program and it does go
047both ways so there's kids there that are non English-speaking and eventually they become SP um english- speaking um which is their second language so we committed to this um this program and with um the model that is now happening with the 50% of the day with the parent educator 50% of the day with the teacher it's been very unsuccessful and unsustainable so I I feel like the um the Board needs to come up with a different model or solution for just the emersion programs and not have the PA Educators I'm not sure what the what the solution is but um I've had to hire a tutor and um paid out a lot of money for this so I'm just wondering what the board is going to do to sustain this program and keep it successful
048and there's been Talks Of Summer School um and there so far the talks have been that it's only offered to kids who are very behind but I feel like it should be offered to everybody um we've also had um teachers out with covid that we haven't had um substitutes that are Spanish speaking so we're even farther behind in that um my my daughter had a first grade teacher who had covid for the past two weeks and she didn't have a single um hour of instructional Spanish um so that is like my main issue um also at my daughter's school it's San Elementary School they have outdoor classrooms that are under EAS UPS I feel like it's very unsafe very unhealthy we've had shelter in place we've also had a homeless person wander onto campus I
049was patient with the outdoor classrooms and the Easy Ups from the beginning but um I just feel like that's not a long-term solution and then the last thing that I wanted to talk about was the ultra minimum days it's very insufficient or in ineffective for us and it's not like time friendly okay thank you thank you Michelle Meer um mtin or Monon Michelle Miss hay do you have Michelle Michelle your line is live please go ahead and she's listed as just Michelle on your screen uh Michelle go ahead and unmute and you may speak we can go on to the next speaker and try we can come back to Michelle Katie Crockett Katie your line is live please go ahead thank you um my name is Katie Crockett I have a child um in first
050grade at asencia I was going to comment on agenda item 27 um and I'm still going to uh I support the approval of the cultural proficiency uh curriculum I'm excited that my children could have the opportunity to learn these types of lessons and I'm disappointed that it was removed from the agenda I understand the need for staff to ensure that adequate detail and justification for curriculum is provided to the trustees but I'm disappointed that this is being pulled from the agenda because it's likely due to controversy this is not a controversial topic I heard a group that is against the curriculum for cultural proficiency state that this is really uh anti-racist and privilege um cloaked in cultural proficiency as if being anti-racist is a negative thing or could be construed as such in in any
051way um I I'm I'm disappointed I will be here here in April when this comes back um fully supporting this curriculum and that's all I have to say on this thank you for your time thank you and Michelle plel Campbell hi good evening superintendent Board of Trustees PTA is a membership organization and the mission of the California PTA is to positively impact the lives of all children and families we are so thankful for all of our members parents teachers students and community members I encourage all to join your local schools PTA and become a part of the largest child advocacy organization in the United States the California state PTA just hosted their annual legislative conference virtually for the first time the theme of equity we heard amazing speakers including Michael Eisen on the benefit of
052community schools and the importance of validating student voice and student experiences especially with the eye towards cultural proficiency and awareness with this in mind I am disappointed that the cultural proficiency curriculum approval was pulled from tonight's agenda the content is important for our students to learn I'm hoping is back on the agenda for March 17th board meeting not waiting till April we need this curriculum now it is what our students need and we need to do what is right for all children thank you thank you Deborah State [Music] pleas Deborah go ahead hello superintendent vital Bry president bulus and trustees I am Debbie Stapley my youngest son is a student at Salon Hills High School and 12 of my 13 grandchildren live in the district on Monday I learned that the board was being asked
053to vote on a cultural proficiency curriculum so I thought I'd take a peek at it to be sure it was something that I could support for my son and grandchildren with short notice I only had time for a cursory review of it but I immediately identified enough troubling material to Warrant not only a deeper look but an an open and robust public debate before this curriculum hits our kids in classrooms while the idea of helping children learn to treat others with respect and equality is a good one this curriculum misses the mark on numerous counts it makes broad generalizations about race privilege and discrimination it suggests negative role plays involving discrimination and hate rather than positive experiences that might teach kids how to better accept and celebrate one another's differences there may be portions of
054this proposed curriculum that would be beneficial and welcome in our classrooms but we will not know that until a full community- based review of The Proposal is made and its various component components are fully examined and discussed in doing so we as responsible adults would actually be modeling the very behavior that this proposed curriculum purports to promote we would as people of differing backgrounds and viewpoints be working together to come to consensus on what is and isn't good for our District's children and that might be the very best instruction on cultural proficiency that we could offer to them I was very grateful to hear today that you had already decided to give this proposal more thought and I thank you for giving me an opportunity to add my opinion to the discussion thank you thank
055you Amanda Ernest Amanda go ahead yes yes hello thank you so much for uh having me and for the time here you know I keep hearing about the you know item number 27 to me it feels like an ice cream Sunday with a cockroach in the top of it instead of a cherry so while there's a lot of lovely things about the curriculum as a whole as far as I could see there's enough in it just like Debbie just said Eliza Leslie and several others is really pretty outrageous and as a parent I don't want teachers whom I don't know well and whom I didn't choose for my my kids teaching them values-based lessons those are things that are best taught at home so after reviewing the curriculum it's clear that critical race theory is
056being pushed on our children I believe this victimizes children's of all Races and divides them further it aggravates a false narrative uh or agenda that the media and other social Engineers of our time are trying to push while being responsible and compassionate citizens is important for All Children's and ad to learn using things like the quote FiveFinger privilege game and telling a child that he or she is underprivileged because he can't find a Band-Aid that's their skin color at the store is beyond ridiculous children need to spend time in school becoming academically proficient critical thinkers they should not go to school to be taught or brainwashed this offensive curriculum that further victimizes and alienates and divides students in the name of cultural proficiency it's the Community as a whole wanted to add some sort of
057training in this area it would be more appropriate number one to only have the ice cream parts that's first two have an assembly outside the classroom similar to the Dare program character counts we have so many amazing programs outside of our academics to help support our children in gaining life skills and becoming good people do we really need to use class and academic time to teach them about quote their privilege those who support this curriculum why can't they teach their children these skills and values at home look at the Ames and Community we rallied around the Valentine's Day project our families are good our students are good Americans are good we don't need to sacrifice time learning reading writing and arithmetic in our classrooms in order to make our children proficient in any of these
058areas and I do not support the adoption of such a curricul as I've seen it laid out thus far thank you so much for the time tonight thank you Julia McDonald go good evening uh superintendent and trustees I'm Julia McDonnell I'm a parent of a 10th grader at uh cvhs and a sixth grader at hanky Middle School um I'm a c CU PTSA legislative Advocate and I'm also a school counselor with a another District so I'm really disappointed in the decision to remove the discussion about the adoption of the cultural proficiency curriculum from the agenda tonight I really feel that these lessons are needed now and I feel the time to act is now cusd is known for providing excellence in education and neglecting to educate students on cultural proficiency by bias yes privilege and
059yes being an anti-racist is doing a disservice to students and really puts cap unified behind the curve um this cultural Prof proficiency piece is missing and it is needed now this is an equity issue and April seems a little far off um I would ask that the board considers adding this item back to the Earth to the agenda for the March meeting um so we could really I I would like my my girls to receive these lessons and I think that it is very important um and I would just that last speaker mentioned critical thinking so I mean I think this is part of critical thinking being educated and being able to think uh make decisions and and so just kind of avoiding teaching this is really doing a disservice um um so I hope
060the intention is to uh go forward with this and again I'm really disappointed that we didn't have the discussion this evening and I would really a uh ask the board uh that we could talk about it and uh address it before April because it just it seems like it's the farther we push it down um is really just doing a disservice to the students thank you very much thank you Anna scaffy yes Anna SCA thank you um so I have a h second grader and a kindergartener at uh Concordia Elementary um my husband and I reviewed the lesson for Section 27 um and we had a lot of concerns as a family raising a very young mixed child and teaching him that um he is a person of color um I we just feel like
061teaching him that since he's a person of color he will have an almost an immediate disadvantage in life that life is unfair because of his skin color um and he'll be treated unfairly by people who are not of color it just was such like it opened so many questions in our home considering his dad is white and his mom is Asian um it it it opened up so many questions that he wasn't even aware of in our home we don't see colors we we just see kindness and love and we want to raise our children that you know we're all uh created equally and we all have the same opportunity in life to succeed if we all work really hard and we stay focused and so we were very um concerned about this lesson and
062I had emailed the school district and um the superintendent and um the lessons that were already it it was like a pilot program I think um it was pulled immediately because they wanted to review it but then I saw that it was coming back and I just wanted to let you all know that these lessons are important but they're very poorly written and we just want to make sure that you know everything that you consider teaching our children from this point on um we highly suggest that you know you consider to make sure that it's been studied to pych make sure that is psychologically appropriate for children and it's developmentally positive for a child's growth uh these lessons do not set my child up to succeed um I I want to make sure that you
063know if it is required um for our children to receive credit for this curriculum I just want to make sure that these lessons are appropriate for our children in a way that they don't feel disadvantaged and they don't feel like um they did something wrong because of their skin color I just want to make sure that our children who are minority at the school get treated fairly and suddenly are not seen by their peers as somebody who is different and that's it thank you uh Brian n n and Brian's here with us tonight so he's making his way to the thank you good evening my name is Brian NRI I live in Mission vijo and I have two elementary school children and a middle schooler in our district tonight I wish to discuss fully reopening
064our schools uh before addressing the future I want to applaud you for the last 11 months of adapting to unprecedented events most of California's Public Schools remain in distance learning only environments so I feel I personally feel very grateful that my children had at least uh a hybrid schedule and that the precautions driven by this group have kept our children very safe thank you very much I'm also very excited that current data indicates that we can safely reopen schools now first I want to highlight that coronavirus incidence remains very low at most 0.03% of our community has the Corona virus additionally 0.1% of District students have it with 40% of cappo schools report report no cases at all second I want to highlight that most private schools in our community have returned to full inperson
065instruction without suffering coronav virus outbreaks public school children are falling behind their private school peers worsening economic inequality thirdly I want to highlight the vaccine distribution continues to accelerate with over 450,000 in excuse me 450,000 vaccines administered in Orange County while there is a growing movement for educators and staff to be high priority vaccine recipients which I fully support the CDC has also said that vaccination should not be a prerequisite for full school reopenings fourthly I want to highlight that in recent published studies of over 100,000 students and fully reopened North Carolina and Wisconsin school districts masking and at least three feet of distancing kept case rates extremely low and there were no cases of Corona virus passing from students to staff I recognize that the Corona virus remains a very real risk but I
066hope that these four points have Illustrated why that risk is very low at the schools in our community lastly I wish to highlight the physical mental and emotional toll this year has taken on our students and families the social isolation has been extremely challenging and many athletes have been forced to Halt their aspirations while their peers in other states have not academically my experiences that students are not as engaged and do not learn as much in a distance learning environment my wife and I have become our children's private tutors to compensate for Less Direct instruction time and less time in the classroom which has added to another layer of mental and emotional stress to an already turbulent time families with special needs children have also been disproportionately impacted one of my children is on the
067autism spectrum and he is not receiving the in-class resources that he needs I'm short on time so I just ask that uh this group consider safely reopening our schools at least giving the option to do that perhaps a pilot of Select schools where the case rates are low and the school Community is receptive to that idea thank you uh Andrea Dustin Andrea is with us live in the room so we're just gonna wait just a second top thank you thank you okay first I want to publicly thank all those involved with keeping our schools open as a parent of two children that attend T and Benedict I'm especially grateful they can be learning from their excellent teachers with their peers Lori crle and Kelsey Johnson are very much appreciated in our family I'm here in
068a personal a parental capacity regarding the new cultural proficiency curriculum which was just tabled I would like to ask that the trustees in the district allow parents essay in shaping this value-based curriculum I was involved with cusd in providing parental feedback for the sexed curriculum I was grateful the district provided parents the opportunity to have a voice in how value based curriculum was implemented to our children it should be noted that we were still loud of voice despite the fact that California legislators wrote a value system into law law I was unaware of the new cultural proficiency curriculum until yesterday I learned it was implemented earlier than anticipated and included no feedback from parents or the community I was concerned that capistrana unified had decided parents no longer have a voice in the decision-making process
069when it comes to teaching values in our schools but this day on the vote tonight gave me hope that we could still be a part of the process many parents fought hard and won to erase biblical values from schools values taught in school should always be placed under scrutiny what are the anticipated outcomes of this curriculum is there empirical evidence that supports the efficacy of these types of values being taught in the school system that you could Point parents to do these lessons unify students or further stigmatized byx students by highlighting differences and teaching stereotypes are we inadvertently reinforcing Division I strongly urge this board to educate parents first regarding these practices before implementing these new ideas perhaps the district Could Teach the courses to parents so they can see the supplemental material and understand
070what their child will be learning if this curriculum is as strong as the staff is recommend recommended then it will surely withstand the scrutiny from parents of the students you serve I urge you to allow parents to be a part of this process I am willing to give my time to be a part of the review and I know many other parents who are as well thank you thank you uh Michelle mcnut hi can you hear me yes may I start am I may I start yes Michelle go right ahead thank you hello my name is Michelle mcnut I'm the parent of two c cusd students I'll be speaking about the cultural proficiency curriculum that has now been removed from tonight's agenda an email from the district stated this is due to additional feedback from
071the community and that there will now be more updates to lessons I can only hope this means that you will add content that is even more robust more comprehensive and even more aligned with the goals of anti-racist Education if this is not the case and your goal is to somehow water down this content even more I'm asking the board members and the admin to look carefully at who is requesting that you withhold this vote tonight I'm asking you to please recognize the differences between a true desire to understand content versus propaganda disguised as concern for bipo students I'm asking you to question why anybody in this community would suggest that anti-racist lessons are harmful these are the people that stand to gain or are these the people that stand to gain the most by keeping
072the status quo ask yourself what exactly it is they fear by ensuring that everyone is treated equally or even by acknowledging that privilege exists systemic racism is in every Community including cusd one of the most impactful ways to change this is through education and by taking steps to actively integrate anti-racist lessons and content throughout all subjects in K through 12 curriculum the time to make this happen is now well I'm disappointed that cusd has chosen to delay this vote I'm hopeful that we will revisit this topic during the April board meeting with all board members prepared and committed to embrace and fully implement the cultural proficiency lessons in cappo do I have a few seconds left yes you do um I wanted this wasn't prepared but earlier a speaker suggested that anything is possible for
073anybody and success is available as long as they pretty much pull themselves up by their bootstraps and they have accountability and motivation uh this is simply false different groups face different challenges and that is not based on ability or motivation and that um that that has everything to do why we need this content and actually I'd like to thank those speakers for highlighting exactly why this is important that kind of attitude and those comments are exactly why we need this curriculum content implemented now thank you thank you uh po March go ahead po your line is live can you hear me now yes hi good evening um my name is Pilar I am the mother of a SS alumni Esther and a current sophomore ATS Alex first of all I will like to thank our
074teachers for their great job they do during these difficult times my kids are both students of color I am really disappointed I'm here today because the cultural proficiency task force curriculum was taking off of the agenda from the board meeting due to a an email campaign asking the district to omit the discussion of anti-racism and privilege from the curriculum speaking about such topics and having models and videos that explain what privilege is and what it entails does not alienate bip students or create divisions be between students on campus in fact it simply educates them on the world as a whole we live in a community that has a lot more to learn about how to treat or act around people of a different ethnicity or race than them these models and this curriculum will help
075with just that it will allow students to become more educated and also understand classmates teammates who have different race religion sexuality or gender I will like to ask this curriculum to be added to the March agenda do you know and I'm a little bit going out here do you know that 90% of the books that our kids read are wrote by white men what about books written by woman what about books written by minorities African American Native American do you know that 30% of our highest schoolers are the origin Latino orig do you know that there is no options for this students to choose Central or South American history classes this is what needs to be changed a status quo is not acceptable critical thinking is that not anything else the time to make it
076happen is now thank you so much for listening and for the opportunity Jessica J good evening superintendent vital bruy president bolus trustees and super uh student adviser Bashar tonight I speaking in support of the work of the cultural proficiency task force Stacy Yogi Rebecca P Laura Lion and our counselors for all their work on the lessons that were going to be presented this evening this is important work and these lessons are an intrical part of encouraging our students to acknowledge racism and accept differences in appearances behavior and culture better CI citizens and create a better world for everyone I hope the district will start a dialogue and address concerns so that April's board meeting these lessons are unanimously passed thank you thank you and Glenn goodel Glenn go ahead yes my name is Glenn goodsell
077my wife Amy and I are parents of five children two are white and three are black black we love them we are dedicated to their well-being I'm asking you tonight to not initiate the cultural curriculum that has been so actively discussed we love all of our children the same I don't want any of them to be wrongly accused mistreated or targeted because of their skin color that is what we are doing here we're shaming one and telling another they can't make it because of their skin color perhaps it's brown tell that to con Lisa rice or Ben Carson people that my children are very familiar with the truth is how you see the students and talk to them has significant effect on how they think and how they act let us find a way that
078will help and show respect for all students rather than shaming a way that will Pro motivate and create Unity that is not found in the cultural curriculum problems do exist we have been witnessed to this for a rarted example I am a Hallmark movie watching Dad we have waited for years for people of color to have leading roles and thank goodness they do now on a heavier note we have had racial slurs swung at our children but the ignorance of one does not contem a whole race are we trying to insert this curriculum into our schools to check a box to be woke because everyone else is doing it let me close or let me introduce Booker T Washington I hope many of you are very familiar with him he was born into slavery and
079who became a great educator most leaders spend time trying to get others to think highly of them when instead they should try to get their people to think more highly of themselves it's wonderful when people believe in their leader it's more wonderful when the leader believes in their people you can't hold a man down without staying down with him we have much personal experience with this as a family I can promise you that generalizations and T singling out people and generalizations leads to nothing but hate and discrimination thank you thank you uh liono mafuta I do not have liono on the line with us okay uh Olivia Olivia's here with us in person so go ahead and make your way to the podium it's been [Music] cleaned sure I want good evening my name is
080Olivia Fu I graduated from sjhhs in 2018 after spending 12 years in COC schools and I'm also one of the core organizers for cusd Against Racism first I am thrilled to see so many diverse novels up for approval on the agenda tonight since our group's Inception last June one of our priorities has been diversifying the curriculums in our classrooms so that students of color have the opportunity to feel seen and validated in our curriculum and to generate conversations about compassion and empathy for people with experiences different from your own while some of these novels contain heavy subject matter they are representative of the experience many students of color live through each day though they are fictional novels the experiences they describe are true and it is important not to shy away from these stories in
081our classrooms when students are seeing them already and hearing them in much less nuanced ways on the news in the in their own lives from my experience in C USD our teachers are well equipped to navigate these conversations especially with the guidance from the district and the Fair Act I strongly encourage the trust useth to approve all the novel on both um agenda item 28 and 29 tonight I was also excited and encouraged by the K through2 cultural proficiency curriculum that was originally supposed to be on the agenda for tonight our group has been so appreciative of the thought and Care put into the development of these modules by the experts um and the cultural proficiency cultural proficiency task force um we especially value the emphasis of teaching compassion and standing up to racism um
082for younger students now more than ever these lessons are needed um to remind the board why these lessons matter I'd like to share some testimonies we've received in this last month um we heard from a concerned Community member that a student at oo Grande elementary school ran for student council on a platform of building a wall and that another student that same day um manufactured a clue clux plan like Hood during class and then ran around after school on campus another Community member this past week shared how there is an Asian family in Lera Ranch who has been racially harassed by students in CC schools so badly that the police had to be called to their home this mirrors the rise of anti-asian hate crimes happening Nationwide in the wake of covid-19 for the sake
083of protecting students of color from hatred and discrimination it's important that this education start early in our elementary schools and the cultural proficiency curriculum is a perfect start it teaches students that anti-racism is the act of call out racism or unfair treatment of others when you see it I see no problem there the problem is not about talking about racism the problem is racism which as you can see is still abundantly clear in our classrooms for student of color not talking about race doesn't make it magically go away thank you for your time thank you the final speaker during oral communication is April Dames um April if you'll just wait one second while we clean the podium and TR buus we will have one speaker [Music] after hi my name is April Dames and I
084am I'm a parent of a seventh grade student Marco Forester and a third grade student at sadan elementary um that being said part of the dual immersion program um and I'm here tonight to discuss um the future about Extended Learning for the rest of the semester um as well as the future for next year um as you know some as was pointed out tonight some of the extended learning classes are outside and fortunately because we live in a beautiful area we have only had one day where we had to cancel Extended Learning but as a working parent who is also a teacher so I can't necessarily just bail on my responsibilities there um the idea of being at call and at whim of the weather is not something that's feasible for pretty much everyone um
085so I'm here to ask ask we have five classes that have our outside so we need we are in the need of five Portables um I have talked with Mrs bertini I had a great conversation um with John forny as well as Laura Lion um and Mr for and I were talking more about next year we know that probably coming down the pipeline is going to something to do with class sizes which we know is a buzzword anyways just as far as a learning environment goes but we know that we're going to need more space so I'm calling on you to use your creative financing which we all know happens at all times um for the remainder of this year and to solve a problem for this year and potentially be one step ahead for
086next year in terms of finding space for the Extended Learning um you know it isn't ideal but I'm not here to complain I am I I want to be part of the solution to the problem and um though money has been allocated other way places this year there must be money that hasn't been spent because of so many things that have been cancelled and I um as was pointed out with somebody else who called the dual immersion program is its own Beast it's its own entity and it struggles with its own stuff um and we need more time with our students and not necessarily with the ex with the um the AIDS but having them there at least rather than being called off because it's too windy or it's too hot or it's raining is
087not a feasible situation so that's my two cents thank you thank you [Music] Mrs Hayes are you going to call in the final person yes I just needed to find them um they were registered earlier tonight and it was just a misunderstanding so I do have them it's um Mr Mrs Duncan your line is live please go ahead hi I'm Paul Duncan I have a fourth and fifth grader at Vista delmare so I I've never been to one of these board meetings before and I'm just curious um have you requested any feedback from the families Mr Duncan we could hear you at the beginning and we are not hearing you now if you need to step closer to your phone feedb can you hear me now yes but you need to speak louder okay so
088I've never been to one of these uh board meetings before I'm curious um have you guys uh requested any feedback from the families regarding the Prof the cultural proficiency program or have you surveyed any of the families can you hear me yes Mr Duncan the board cannot engage with you during oral Communications you're allowed three minutes to speak but we usually do not interact with the speakers thank gotcha okay um so so like I I wouldn't want to argue the merits of critical race Theory but as the previous speaker with the mixed race child said and also the dad with the five kids um has anyone really thought through the impact of teaching a generation of students of color that they have a social disability I mean have we have we thought through the impact
089on the child's self-esteem in my household we uphor racism and I don't think there's probably anyone in this room who doesn't but that doesn't mean that we want someone outside of our households teaching our young children like below sixth grade their version or their vision of what equity and inclusion is there's you know there's other avenues for that um we want you guys to stick to Reading Writing and arithmetic President Biden the other night said that China's gonna eat our lunch and yes they are because while while they're busy training Engineers scientists and computer programmers sitting here teaching the social Pudo science so I'm curious to know whether or not you've gotten feedback from other families because everyone in my peer peer group we don't want this in our we don't want this taught in
090our schools we can teach it just fine at home and I can tell you that there's a lot of private school options for a lot of us and if we start getting this you know critical race theory in our schools probably won't come back thank you thank you Mr Duncan a superintendent BAL of bruly would like to make some comments so always appreciate oral communication and family stepping forward to give us feedback and I always see it as an opportunity too to help clarify and help families Maybe maybe sometimes with misinformation I want to just take a minute to talk about opening normal it is this board's uh desire and my desire to open schools normally unfortunately we are unable to do that at this time the California Department of Public Health decides when and
091how we can open normally and the one criteria right now that's really difficult is that you must practice social distancing and we are unable to be able to hire double the teachers and even if we're able to hire double the teachers we don't have the facilities to then put those teachers in to be able to respect the social distancing numbers that are required by the California Department of Public Health so that must change for us to open normally and our hope is that as the numbers go down of covid cases and as folks are vaccinated we will be able to ultimately open normally next year but if we are not able to open normally next year reopening 2.0 is working right now on a plan if we can't open normally what could that look like
092and how do we learn from the lessons of this year to really think through and plan for any possibility including some of the facilities issues at four of our schools we have extreme facilities issue San Juan Elementary Truman Benedict Los palus and Oso at truman if it's Monday then they're okay on facilities because it's virtual Monday at bams at Les palus they've been super creative in order to fit kids in nooks and crannies and have been able to handle the facilities but we still are stuck at San Juan Elementary and at oo doing the best we can when we offered program a a full-time opportunity um probably one of the only districts in the state of California that was able to provide full-time Elementary to its families and 65% of families took advantage of that
093we knew that it would be or we believed it would be for a short amount of time it wasn't a short amount of time and here we are a year later and we still have covid and we're doing the best we can so hence the tents so yes we've had rain and we've had wind and I'm grateful because every time we have to postpone cancel school that is a decision I must make and I make that for all families and frankly I am one of those families that has to figure it out so I wish it could be better I want it to be better but I think it's pretty wonderful based on what we have to deal with as a as a district under the cdph guidelines we'll continue to be as creative as
094we can at sanan elementary and AD Doo we can't provide more time for one program and not for another I understand the questions about immersion and about our Mandarin immersion and about IB but it's that same question for a family who's in K5 at any elementary school that's worried about literacy and numeracy for their children whether they're getting enough science or social science so again I think the Extended Learning has been a really creative thoughtful solution that we've gotten better and better at and our hope is to open normally next year but again it's those cdph guidelines it takes about eight months with a lot of Miracles to drop Portables a portable can cost between 400 and $500,000 you also can only drop them in certain areas and so as we look to next year
095if we can't open normally there are some schools where we may have to drop Portables in order to just get through help students who have significant learning loss so we are planning for and thinking about those things right now so I wanted to address those issues because at the end of the day we would all love to be open normal and we just can't without California Department of Public Health changing those rules I am going to ask Dr mwin if you can just please address the cultural proficiency lessons why April why um how what our curriculum processes if you can just take a minute because I do think many of the speakers came to hear that tonight and sounded either um disappointed or glad that it wasn't on tonight's agenda so if you can address
096that that would be very helpful yes thank you superintendent of do R i' like to clarify the reason that item 27 culture proficiency lessons was pulled from tonight and moved to April is not because of an email camp pain that we heard from a couple of our speakers tonight it is because although we've made significant progress on these lessons and we're very proud of this work there is still additional work to be done there are revisions that were identified um uh very recently that need to be take that need to be addressed as well as we want to take the time to have as explicit connections to the research regarding the developmentally appropriateness of every single lesson so we want to be to take the time to be able to to have these done very
097well and ready to be presented we want exactly what I believe all the speakers asked for tonight which is to have outstanding culture proficiency lessons and so we this is the reason why we have asked to pull it tonight and bring it in April because we agree we want it done right and we are very excited about the progress but we do need the additional time [Music] um could you also explain uh to the public what our instructional material review process is that it isn't necessarily we don't open it to a committee of thousands that there is a process but it's always publicly available could you explain that yes absolutely so the the materials are publicly available and as it actually states on the board reports uh for the novels that are believe item 2029
098it does actually describe the imrc and the different Representatives that are assigned to the imrc uh to represent uh and then vote on materials so very important part of the process is having uh the imrc fully prepared and having everybody able to vote and everybody to provide their feedback before then it's it comes to the board for consideration so we we obviously have a lot of in this but we also understand we want to take a take a look at the IMR imrc process too and make sure is the imrc ready with with the sufficient materials do they have all the materials they need so that they're fully prepared to make the to make the recommendation to the board so uh again it's very a very public process and one reason why if we now
099can have the additional time we want the transparency with the community so as we heard tonight many speakers said but we just found out about it a day ago or two days ago we don't want that to happen again we want uh the time to be fully transparent and to have the public understand these were posted this time around but we want to do a better job of communicating that out to the public so they know when the uh the lessons are reposted that they have access to them I'd just like to add that we're very big in education on um acronyms imrc does stand for instructional material review committee thank you president bulus exactly all right we will now move on to consent calendar and I see we do have a speaker a Susan
100paraly hi this is um Susan parley I'm the executive director of the wellness and prevention center I really don't have any comments I'm here if there's any questions as this was um my item for our Master facilities use agreement was pulled um for a correction so I just want to be sure I'm here in case there's any questions thank you okay thank you uh trustees does anybody have an item to pull uh on consent okay seeing done uh may I have a motion to approve the consent calendar items 1 through 23 with the exception of agenda item number 14 which was pulled by staff move approval of the balance other than item 14 second and the motion was by U trusty mcnicholas and it was seconded by trusty Davis Mrs Hayes please take roll student
101adviser bosar I trustee Brony I trusty bulus I truste costos I trusty Davis I trusty hanich I trustee Jones I and trusty mcnicholas I motion carries 700 by a roll call vote to approve the consent calendar with the exception of item 14 that was pulled with concurrence from student adviser mascar president bolus I know our practice is to pull push the pulled items to the end but I think this is a pretty quick one can we go ahead and address item 14 do we or does that need to come back later it was pulled for a revision I think it was just the the map for the wall [Music] no we're pulling it all together yeah the item was pulled oh okay sorry not not pulled for discussion pulled from tonight's agenda okay thank you
102thank you I'm Sorry Miss for clarification okay um so we're going to move to discussion action items uh first item number 24 first reading of the temporary board policy T s121 point1 grades evaluation I'd like to recognize and holiday chief administrative officer education and support services to present the item and I'm sorry oh we do have a blue card but that's after she presents yeah okay H Dr holiday please thank you very much board president bicus trustees and superintend infant tal this evening we bring before you board policy at t512 1.1 grades and evaluation of student achievement on January 20th 2021 trustees directed staff to review this policy based on feedback from parents and teachers on the desire to have the option to receive a letter grade the board's Direction was to have grade marks
103default to credit no credit but then also to work with our middle and high school PE teachers to revise this language and provide a draft to for trustees consideration to give students the opportunity to select a letter grade so in collaboration with our PE teachers both middle and high school we've developed draft language to provide students the choice to select a letter grade in place of a credit the previous policy stated the default Mark was to be a credit no credit this proposed draft though reflects that teacher Fe with feedback from teachers that we'd like it to default to a letter grade staff and teachers recommend that additional policy language allows students who fail with the option to make up the class or has received an A B C or D to select a credit
104Mark if they so wish PE teacher input shared that the preference is to default to a letter grade they actually surveyed many many of their students to get their preference and over 80% actually ask that they receive a letter grade and have the option to select a credit they feel that this will provide students motivation and encourage them in their engagement and completing of required assignments this policy would be retroactive and appli to previous seme semesters and quarters students would receive a letter grade unless they select the credit we realize that communication will be critical in um communicating this to our families as well as to our students about this option so we will work with our PE teachers and our principales to send out messaging as soon as this policy is approved pending board
105approval to make sure parents and students understand their options students that receive an a and second quarter will be able to revert back to that a in second quarter and this is so that they can be honored for um the superintendent's honor Ro in middle school so this concludes our staff presentation and we look forward to questions thank you thank you Dr holiday we do have one speaker Michelle plel Campbell [Music] good evening superintendent Board of Trustees I want appreciate all the work done to reconsider this item I also appreciate all of the work done by our amazing PE Educators to keep our middle and high school students engaged even through the challenges of distance learning I want to reiterate I think it is important when looking at grading of PE through an equity lens
106that credit no credit are the default grades with students able to select letter grades upon requests no matter what happens there has to be clear communication in the family's home language no matter which one it is and we have over 40 home languages represented in our district to families to let them know how to either if it's credit no credit is default select a letter grade or if you end up with the policy of a default to a letter grade how a family can go through the process of selecting credit no credit this needs to be Equitable and if we have it default to a letter grade I fear that for some of our students we are not treating them equitably the ones who have an A know how to request an a they're not
107the ones I need to worry about but their voice needs to be heard and their work needs to be honored with that a but if you have a second language learner sometimes they do not have the supports at home so from an equity lens defaulting to credit no credit and really doing good Outreach by our PE teachers and our school and District administration in the home languages is going to be necessary so I want to thank thank you for letting students voices be heard within this issue and for considering it I strongly encourage that it defaults to credit no credit versus the letter grade determine what and let students choose what determines actually ends up on their report card is it the letter grade or is it the credit no credit thank you thank you
108do we have any trustee comments yes trusty Jones I'd like to make a motion that we amend this policy as the last speaker has just requested so that the default is credit no credit and that students May request a grade I'm making a motion I have second we have second by truste Bry and do we have any comments trustee buus we would need to wave the second reading first before um the motion to amend but we can go forward with comments now at this point okay I thought I would keep those comments I think we could deal with that when it's time to vote okay I think to me Dr holiday explained fairly clearly that the p with the Outreach to the PE teachers who also Outreach to their students that students preferred the the
109grade as the default I thought that was pretty clear and I also wanted to thank Dr holiday for clarifying that it's retroactive to first semester or first quarter because that was one of one of my concerns so I thought it was fairly clear and I I don't I guess I don't understand the reason why we would default to credit no credit as a I guess I don't understand the speaker or G's motion on why we would do that well I guess I would add this point it does seem counterintuitive to me because normally we would give a letter grade and then if you wanted something different you would ask credit no credit now I recall when we went through this at the last time that we voted on the the PD grade it was only
110the students and the families of students who were receiving a who thought they would get an A or be that were upset by that that I heard from so I've heard from my colleagues um that and and from Michelle pel Campbell the concern is um the students that might not necessarily know how to uh respond to this and make the request and so the default is really just for the benefit of um the student that we have greatest concern uh in terms of um having clear communication whereas as it was stated a student who is probably going to get an A or B knows how to ask for it it does seem counterintuitive to me but I am open to this to make the playing field level and would uh appreciate I guess I disagree
111with that because I think some of the the statements input we got before was some students had that may have been their only a and and were struggl other places and they wanted to keep that and if that's a family that doesn't necessarily communicate with the school we should give them that option then to keep that a so I I guess I don't get that I think in regard to what we did in the fall with Apex and the changes that have been made as far as how to better do PE and with um Amy and I met with a number of PE teachers that also felt that they would prefer a letter grade and it is what we have normally had in PE so I would I would like to keep it as is
112but but if you default to a grade you're going to end up with kids that didn't know the process and end up with an F or a d whereas it be default to credit no credit it'll default to no credit generally right gu still be a no credit I'm just trying to protect the kids that don't trying to get the floor just a quick com I think the struggle for me is I'm I'm worried about the communication getting home to to families that their first language is in English right so Spanish speaking homes or any a variety of these home languages do those parents really understand that they you know that there's a process if it defaults as credit no credit the students who are seeking the a or the b or whatever they will
113go get it right because those are our students that are fully aware of their gr the student who's getting the F I'm not sure that the family is in tune to really what's happening they're like so and and if if I was confident in our communication skills with those families and I knew we could do Outreach then I don't think it would matter I'm I'm just merely worried about our ability to communicate and our ability to outreaching and get in contact with all those students well based on the percentage of a and Bs that we had gotten a a shout report on I I feel like we would still be in that category I I don't think we're in a category where we're having so many children fs and PE now I think that the
114PE teachers have really up their game and figured out how to navigate it and worked differently than Apex and I feel like we are as and B's and yes we do need to make sure that families are receiving the information in their language and I and I I'm confident our staff can do that I don't think we have evidence that our staff can do that when we send out uh family surveys um I think when we sent out the Middle School survey we got uh 43 um answers in to the Spanish survey so clearly we are not able to get through to those families and that's a problem we need to solve it I don't think this is where we solve it we solve it first you know I think that if if I had
115a child who was failing a class um I think my child would feel more motivated by getting a no credit than by getting an F an F is you failed you did bad whereas a no credit is is not to me as hurtful it doesn't you know kind of stab you in the heart the way an F does um one of the things we found with uh Apex was that it's a very language-based uh curriculum and a lot of kids who are not very fluent in English do well in PE normally because there's not a lot of language you just go out and throw a ball or whatever but Apex being very language based flip that around and a lot of the kids without a lot of English language um and who had no parental
116support in English language suddenly we're doing very badly so I I we don't have a breakdown on who is getting the D's and Fs in in PE here we didn't get that but um kids who are doing well can make the request we will let them make the request for the a or the b or even the C but we just have not shown an ability to communicate with that population with our very disadvantaged population with our non-english-speaking parents and until we have that I I just don't feel like we can we can confine these kids to FS I'd rather have them get get no credit it's just not as demoralizing I think that's what this is that an F would default to a no credit would not an F would default to F no
117that's not the you cannot mix grade schemes you either have a through f a kid gets CH chooses a through F or they choose credit no credit if they get an F they're getting an F if if if our default is a through F and they get an F they get an S they don't get no credit so Dr Marone can you please clarify because when we last left the board directed to start with credit no credit and at the same time have conversations with teachers and in those conversations with teachers the policy came back not as the board directed but what came out of that teacher conversation and so there has to be a compromise here because at the end of the day I deeply believe there are young people who will Who will
118not request a grade will not take that extra effort we already know that in the high dnf rate we have during covid it's just the reality we're working really hard on and so we have to navigate that significant issue of equity of some of our kids who are struggling more than others and at the same time I get honor feedback of our PE teachers but this board directed that it come back credit no credit as the default and then that seemed to shift so if you can address what the solution is that question about mixed grades and credit that would be super helpful yes I I'd be happy to thank you superintendent Bal Brook and thank you trustees so uh staff recognizes that when we were directed to come back with this um revision it
119was as the credit no credit as the default that is how we were we were directed to uh to uh return with the revisions and then in addition we were also directed to work with our PE teachers and through those discussions is where you can see the recommendation shifted uh that being said uh we do recognize the original intent and and I apologize for the confusion here regarding what we brought back to you is not what you directed us uh to to bring to you um I would like uh Dr holiday to jump in and just kind of explain the the technical Parts on the uh on how the on how the F would work and if you could answer those questions Dr holiday yes thank you Dr mwin so two things I think we
120have to think now and we have to think future as part of this policy now in the sense of looking back at what students will have on their report card and their transcript and how that that is determined and then secondly how are students graded now and being motivated and engaged to participate and complete work and turn in work through the end of the year and I think that's the hard part of this conversation and what's confusing is we have to look at both those pieces in this policy and this and so when the when the um teachers gave feedback they kept that in mind about how to motivate students keep them engaged knowing that the student could um get a c and still tried really hard online was very successful online and could ask
121for a credit that was their thinking but they're also very motivated and completely agree with uh trustees around how important it is to make sure parents are aware and reaching out one by one they said they were willing to reach out to each student to make sure they understood that they could select a credit and explain that to them so they were willing to do that and thirdly we can mix and the policy allows us to do that in in the way that thec icies written is that if a if a student gets an NA they default to no credit that's that no harm piece that we want to support our students that um they get the opportunity to earn a grade and it not harm them if they're they're struggling um and then it
122would default to a letter um a letter grade unless a student again like we were talking about would select the credit in place of a a b c or a d so I hope that clarifies those pieces Dr mwin please let me know if there's anything in addition so Dr holiday theoretically you could have an A and then default to credit no credit for C's and D's and Fs correct so that's a way to maybe thread the needle around dealing and supporting students who may not make that request it's wait a minute we talked about this when we originally adopted this policy that were now advising and the discussion was that California Ed code does not allow the mixing two grading systems so I remember that Dr holiday can you address the discrepancy that from
123that time to this time I think the difference is is we were looking at it universally right for every single subject area um and for all grade levels and I think that's the difference and I'd have to go back again and and research those notes but that's the difference here is we can do that this this grade is not this specific class is not impact ing um GPA specifically either I'm sorry Dr holiday I understand the teachers concern as it has always been that uh they want to incentivize students and the A and B student will feel less incentive if they were getting credit no credit but in this case every student can get that fabulous grade that they're working towards they just if if we were to follow what uh is being requested by
124trustee Jones they would be getting a credit no credit and they would be able to ask for that letter grade so the incentive essentially does remain for the teachers to be able to share with the student it it states on here during the 2021 school year physical education SC um courses will be graded using a letter grades of a through F at the end of each quarter semester students will be provided the opportunity Select Credit or no credit in lie of the letter grade letter grades of ABCD or qualify as credit a letter grade of f qualifies for no credit if no selection is made the grade will default to a letter grade A through d letter grades of an F will default to no credit which to your point Gua those students that would
125feel less than by receiving an F they actually in our language right here will be receiving a no credit I yeah I see that in the policy I you know we talked about this back in April or May last year when we were trying to decide if we were going to do no harm and we said what about letting kids who got A's and B's get A's and B's and everybody else gets credit no credit and we were told and and and then a c is credit and a dnf is no credit we were told no you cannot mix grade systems it is a violation of code I remember this discussion very specifically very very specifically and so now we're told that we were being lied to then or what I mean what is right
126and well I do remember that but actually I remember that they did come back and correct that so this isn't the first you know tonight was reading this um I mean Dr holiday would have to I don't know if it was an a board update but I did read that they went back and looked and found that they could mix um I do recall having the conversation on another subject but it was along with trusty um Jones was saying when we did the survey I made the comment to Ryan burus that um our um Spanish speaking um parents we only had I think like 8% and it was I don't know if it was was it as many as 30 or 40 people but in contrast it was a very very small um percentage which
127demonstrated that their probably unaware of our survey so for the reason that it is being um challenged that it is a default of credit no credit and the student would have to ask for the A or B I would lean myself towards that because to me there's a better chance of accommodating all students in doing that even though like I say it's a little counter intuitive but um I am concerned about those those students that um may not get the communication because we know it's not great well I think that what we have a commitment here from what I understand with Dr holiday that the education teacher physical education teachers will contact each student directly it's not a survey that they have a choice of of whether I'm going to fill out or not that
128that was you know I I don't think not that we don't have to address the language communication whether it's Tech and text message or whether it's a survey or whatever but this is a this is one class and it's and it's Middle School and High School only and it's not a overall I I think you know I think our PE teachers have stepped up on the curriculum I think they'll step up on the communication too okay I I would really have to counter that and say um knowing what we went through with covid and the D's and Fs um and knowing that we have teachers that have 350 500 600 kids in a PE class that if you were going to have to speak to each one of them it would be easier on the
129part of the teacher to give the credit no credit and speak to the probably smaller population about the A and B's I disagree that's not what our teacher said though president buus yes trust thank you can I've heard some wonderful thoughts here and it's all students centered which is the best and which way is the best for students um so originally I thought because what our our kind of discussion was credit no credit and that's how they did it the first semester or quarter and then we would the A's and B's or A's could be requested um so there and I think uh you make a very Salient point in that you know you can get an A or a B right so the motivation is there um so you're going to go for it
130you know I mean and so yes there might be kids that'll just go oh just go for credit but that's again back to that teacher doing that personalized service right that's what they're doing every day and I've had feedback from uh some parents who are really receiving that I think uh chusty ciano's talked about the Outreach that her daughter is getting and I'd like to comment to our teachers man we handed them lemons and they've been amazing I don't I respect that they probably want to be on um operating the same as their fellow teachers are with social study English so on so forth where everyone is doing the letter grade but this is kind of a unique situation um and it's just this year it's going to be over with where this is you
131know stops so there is aide of me for Simplicity reasons um I would like to honor trusty Jones's concerns of let's just keep that credit no credit I understand motivation but every child will know that that A and B is within their grasp and what we we witnessed at um the uh tman Benedict that teacher he he's not going to care really what grading is he is in there with every single student so I think that's our expectations gring is probably in the age of Co should be thrown out the door right this is all this is crazy time right to even hold these grades as a thing but it is a thing this is the constru that we're work construct we're working within so I I totally with respect to our teachers not trying
132to pull the rug out from underneath them at all I know understand what Martha's saying um but this this work we didn't know you were doing this work with them right we were going into this agenda item going okay credit no credit get that option to get that a and we're done so after all my blah blah blah I too support keeping at what we had originally discussed credit no credit the young people will know that A's and B's are in their grasp they will go for it and that way we don't worry about losing um folks that may fall in that uh crack that uh Mrs Jones is very concerned about and rightly so so I hope that made sense yes and so just for further clarification for everyone here my understanding in discussing
133this item number 24 the only conversation we're having is this credit no credit which which is the default so in terms of whether to determine whether we need a second reading does anybody have any questions about any other part of it then what if we can uh have a motion to wave the second reading and then we'll finalize whether it's default to credit no credit or um great so my motion is on the floor but I will withdraw it temporarily if you want to do that first okay I'm getting a nod I think we need to do this first um to wave the second reading I move I move to wave second reading U president buus okay U motion moved by uh truste Hanah do I have a second I second uh second by uh
134vice president [Music] castios okay and Mrs Hayes can I have you take roll please and since we have all seven trustees present um you do not have to call the role oh we don't so all those in favor I I any opposed okay so it's a 7 Z vote and I didn't hear trusty okay and uh including student adviser bascar okay so back to um do I have I'm going to make my motion again to change this to the default to credit no credit uh with the option of choosing a letter grade whatever letter grade you wish and do I have a second okay a motion by trustee Jones do I have a second I second a second by trusty Bry comment just from a teacher that teaches in a predominantly Hispanic school she said
135grades please they are using stand standard-based curriculum now the credit no credit there's no incentive to finish and they're working with all of their students so I think the grades is a great incentive for children to reach for that a if that is especially these children that are only receiving an A and PE it's important to them okay well as it was stated they will get the a if they've earned the a so we have a motion on the floor and I think oh one more comment from truste comment on the motion do we have specific language that you want to change here because we're doing this on the first reading so we want to be very clear read the language what so this is what it would be it would say during the 2021
136school year this would be the temporary language that would then come out of this policy during the 2021 school year physical education courses will be graded using credit or no credit at the end of each quarter semester students will be provided the opportunity to select a letter grade letter grades of ABC or D qualifies as credit a letter grade of f qualifies for no credit if no selection is made the grade would default to credit no credit I I think if we do that we're flip weing it it's again creating more work for teachers I think after taking away Apex working with teachers to help them work from proficiency based and if we follow up with teachers to reach out to individual students I think we can stay with this language and and still provide
137an opportunity for students to earn an a without having to search I really don't think that students like to um to Chris's point that that they're going to reach out to try to get that well why don't you let them get an A if they earned an a instead of credit and you know if we were only talking about the coming semester I might go with you but we're also talking about a semester that is over and where we were mostly using Apex and students kind of wanted the the no credit but and and I also am concerned that are we really going to get 100% of PE teachers talking to 100% of their first semester students and 100% of their second semester students I don't think so I mean a lot maybe but that's
138those are big numbers that's all of high school and all of Middle School it could be like 5,000 students 10,000 students I have no idea I just think that we're talking if if we cannot guarantee that all the teachers will talk to all their students we just can't we certainly cannot we certainly cannot but I think to our statistics Greg can you um share out on what are statistics of a for and a and b yes um we did trusty Davis it's just districtwide it's districtwide data so we have for the first quarter of 2021 uh we have 58.9% were A's 14.1% were B's 7.6% were C's 5.5% were D's and 13.8% I to that point I so 74 % are A's and B's and then five 5% are D's and 133% are FS I
139think the teachers that was and that was before with working under Apex so I think that the I absolutely think we could count on our teachers to reach out to those students and help them understand that they could choose to have no credit you have to reach out to the need too I mean how how do it create how does it create more work to credit you still have to reach out to all the students4 you have to ask but no matter what how your default you still have to ask what I'm worried about is the C or D student who doesn't respond so ends up with a C or D right credit right I'm not worried about the a student right I think the same amount of work either way for the teacher I
140have to say to to the point because what I was wanting is I think anytime we have to make a decision like this I like data because it's just so then clear so if we're looking at um I'm putting students first I I want to make sure that we get students to receive what they they should see that's going to help them and I I'm not trying to make teachers work harder they're already working hard but if you look at numbers and to truste Davis's point if you've got 75% are going to get the A's and B's and then those are the ones you have to talk to to say you need to do the next step and you have to come forward and ask that now you are saying you're talking to a greater
141population I think it's easier to talk to the the the Lesser population to be to be honest um well it has to be communicated in some way whether they talk to them they email them we're going to have to talk to a student group no matter what it is because we are now putting in place something that they're not just going to get a break they have an option so we have to we have to communicate they have an option because if we go with this amendment they would have to contact the greater number of kids yeah yeah but the default isud students are students not what that's a large percent that now the teer is now going to have to okay I have a couple questions first wow the data when you consider our
142first semester with Apex and they got that many as's and B's I'm like right on our our teachers are rock stars they were doing an amazing job so motivation they it's it's there right and they kids kids do they were getting oh no at the last minute we did throw in the credit no credit so you're right they were motivated you're right Martha for that A and B um so there is that and I I think the other point is trying to understand what's best to capture as most if not all students so um if I let me just understand this if I'm a teacher I'm looking at my roster and the teachers have been keeping grades I see all my A's I don't need to contact them are they really going to tell me
143they want no credit um so I could then make that executive decision and I guess what I need to understand the executive decision is could I then assume that my B's want B's or they're like whatever I don't get an A I want you know so I think there's a point where I I do need to understand this Outreach we don't have any teachers here I I do feel we got thrown a little Loop because of wasn't in my head all I wanted to do is get kids that wanted Ace a chance for them to have that a how they get it at this point I I don't really know because again our Rockstar teachers are going to continue to motivate um students at this very you know wacky time so I know that wasn't
144much help but I I need to understand if they can make that executive decision if you've got a student that's a c you don't hear from them or can you assume they want no credit start to be kind of absurd so okay if anybody can help me figure out how to capture as many students as possible and the Integrity of the work they're doing we're good and then we can move on with this all I want to make sure is the kids so there may be another compromise Dr Mar can you can you please clarify about the mixing of grades and no credit credit yes uh thank you trustees and I again apologize for the confusion this evening uh Dr holiday you have uh been reviewing this can you clarify on the mixing of the
145grades yes so we we had the policy review by legal and legal did verify that we could provide for the letter grade and the option to um do credit and no credit and addition we've evaluated the CD website and we've looked there to make sure that we're in alignment with that guidance and that also says um that districts can use a combination of these options of pass fail credit no credit so then theoretically the policy could read at the end if no selection is made the grade will default to credit no credit or an A or B if earned now really correct normally non credit right I don't understand why D gives you a d and only an F gives you no credit is that not correct the language is there at the bottom it
146says letter grades of an F will default to no credit it's that is already right but that's not the normal thing in a grading system but this is co so right now this is what this is okay right d d for I have a I have a Amy's question about the executive decision on let all a be A's that's not what our policy says what where what you're proposing is no all A's will become credit no so and and who wouldn't want an a well actually I got an email from a high school parent who said let my freshman take the credit because an a will bring her grade point down down because she's taking all AP classes and why should someone has an open mic so why should why should she be penalized by
147taking a credit why shouldn't she get the opportunity to take credit instead of even though she's getting an she can te and yeah so that's in the answer to the question who wouldn't want an a there are some people that don't want that an a is a lower grade for them we have one more speaker student advisor let's hear from the student so last or at the end of junior year for me when um Co hit our teacher I know we switched to where you could choose to do credit or no credit I don't it's fuzzy for me completely how it worked but I do know I was in all AP classes so I think that kind of skews my view of the motivated student versus students who are not in that kind of classroom
148but I do know that it was confusing even for me um whether or not how to do the system I guess and that's kind of my view is like it was a little bit difficult to choose I know for a lot of students they chose to go no credit um when they got a see and below and for but it was hard for them to figure out how to do that and to make that decision whether or not they got credit or not I know it was confusing so whatever way we go if the teachers say that they'll be clear I know for a Stu from a student perspective it can get stressful and confusing when you don't understand and aren't able to communicate well with your teachers how to choose these things whatever way
149we go it just has to be very clear because I do know last semester that as much as the teachers are doing and I know it's very different now and the teachers are communicating more there's still Limited hours and teachers are getting other things done during the period so it can get confusing so I don't really know what to do but whatever way we go I do know it needs to be really clear to the student what their options are and how to go about that especially to our students who maybe don't speak English at home or don't have access to those kinds of resources oh so I have one other suggestion I was just writing I was reviewing some the resolution from before so under the asteris that says physical education you could also
150add to that same asteris all students who earned A's last semester slash previous quarters would revert to that letter grade and that way at least you're capturing the A's not just connecting but I do think you know again this is the board's decision but I think I mean I would agree with our our student uh trustee that we should air on the side of caution for students who may not feel comfortable speaking to their teacher and help them in those particular instances but again it's up to the board and you waved second second reading but if you are not unanimous then it will come back for a final approval I have the board policy 9311 come back as a ratification yes it needs to be all seven of you otherwise it'll come back as Mrs
151Hayes says as a [Music] ification you could call to pull the board then you're not actually voting you're just pulling let's pull the I raise of hands okay on trusty uh Jones's um recommendation her motion uh that it would be a default to credit no credit and that they could get a grade can I have a raise of hands of those who support that okay so it is not unanimous yeah but does it have to be yeah so it has to be unanimous to skip the second reading so what would happen is we'd make these revisions that we discussed tonight we'd bring it back on consent with the revisions we discussed on the record tonight a trustee could pull it off of consent otherwise it would be voted on consent well hold on a second
152that was only on my Amendment so that would mean that my Amendment would fail would pass then we can we would vote on the entire policy and that could be unanimous I mean I don't know whether the two who your amendment is the policy right so you need seven votes on your amendment to this policy no just the amendment and then we would vote on the policy the the amendment separate from the policy no the amendment changes language in the policy for the board to then vote on okay and so language I read into the record which is your amendment is what they'd be voting on so you do have five people willing to vote Yes at the next meeting so you potentially so we would revise the policy and then we' bring it back
153that would be the board's so we would retract the second reading so we would say second reading for Action because you did a first reading tonight but based on the majority of the board's feedback we would revise the policy to incorporate what we discussed tonight that the majority of the board is in favor of right and point of we could do tonight um we could do a subsequent motion to your motion which then Incorporated uh what Kristen had brought up earlier so with the asteris so if you wanted that additional language that that automatically could go in there about that a I I know that's not your your concern necessarily well could be so I could we could do a subst substitute motion to your motion saying credit no credit with the amendment with the
154language that you brought up a few minutes earlier about the automatic yes yes so we could do something like that if that is more palatable if if not if we're doomed to not have 70 uh we should still talk about that if that is interesting to us to add that for when it comes back should we have the superintendent reread it to us so the language with the asteris would add all students who earned A's last semester slash previous quarters would revert to that letter grade that only applicable for past semesters and not for current well current under this policy you can earn an a you can earn an A or a b or you can earn credit no credit so you're reading language in front of you right that I've now revised and read
155aloud which makes it hard I get so a draft because you're not all seven in agreement will come back with this language I think what we're trying to pull the board on is whether you want the idea of an reverting to an A in the language per trustee hand check or not well what about reverting to an a if you earn an A and no credit or um no credit if you earn an F what if we add that to it and then keep it and pass it would that suffice that's fine with me um an a is an A and is no credit and every but everything else is is teacher has to contact but it but it's if they don't hear from the student it's credit no credit so that puts it at
15625% for the teachers to have personal contacts with based on last last semesters which we know our are those grades are lower than normal so I'm guessing that that would even make it more like 18 probably % that teachers will need to have a direct contact with for the discussion here that we're going to have a followup that the teacher should individually for Chris's request talk to each family so everyone who gets an a who earned an a is receives an a everyone who earned an F receives no credit correct and every and then teachers contact everyone else but if they don't get an answer they just get credit right are we good with that I'm good with that Martha would you be good with that okay all right so now we're only only only
157six to one so if we bring it back next that yes it will be second reading next time we'll revise this which then will allow someone to pull it off the consent if they want to have this discussion but we'll revise it based on those two elements okay because the majority of the board is in support of that default my feeling is A's and B's what what you all just said is the A and the F but I think if a student had a b they' want a b or or are you really speaking just a just a I'd be fine with A and B and then that only takes us to 11% last semester at 6 and 5% but I actually know people that got be that weren't happy getting there there some of
158the at Tech kids ended up with bees and wouldn't want to be I think I don't think we can assume well it still allows you to select the letter grade so people want to be want to be and the people who don't won't right so we could leave that part off my my friend who has all AP classes has to take the a doesn't have the option to get no she can choose you could choose no credit that's the beauty I thought you just said that a will be well but then but it's still in the language that you could request it to be the opposite so Martha you're right that it would be two conflicting things within the policy but that would allow for a kid who got an A who doesn't want an
159A and wants credit could ask for credit even though they got the A and we gave them the a okay so see how many emails get from PE teachers do you have enough clear Direction on what you're coming back with we will carefully listen to the audio and make sure that we get it exactly right and bring it back on March 1 okay thank you thank you I still believe we need to vote Yes I'm calling the question which means we vote oh we need to vote you vote yep you vote motion on the floor second you're right thank you Mrs Mrs Hayes please call the [Music] role trusty [Music] buas I student advisor bosar I trusty Jones I I trusty casianos I trusty mcnicholas n trusty brunstein I trusty Davis trusty hanich I motion
160passes 52 okay but the policy does not pass for the record because we don't have a unanimous vote we'll put that in the minutes bring it back on consent okay so we are now on agenda item number 25 first reading of the temporary board policy t614 6.1 High School graduation requirements and we're going to recognize uh Dr Susan holiday Chief Administration administrative officer education and support services to present this item thank you so much Bo president buus trustees and superintendent Bal I apologize if my mic is giving you some feedback we're going to have tis look at this hopefully shortly and it will fix it tonight we bring forward to board to the Board of Trustees uh board policy 6146 point1 temporary high school graduation requirements per trustees Direction on January 20th 2021 staff was
161directed to bring this policy back with revisions to restore the credit requirements necessary to graduate this item provides revisions to Temporary board policy where it reinstates the required 220 credits for high school graduation all High School principles have weighed in and recommended these revisions principales recommend that we increase the credit requirement and we phase it in over three years so as to not harm our classes of 2022 23 and 24 the class of 2025 would be restored to the full 220 credit requirement the classes of 22 23 and 24 will be required to now have 210 credits to graduate high school principls also recommend that the five credit health class continue to be wave for our class of 2024 this allows those High School principles flexibility to support students to retake classes if they failed
162any additional revisions were made today to clarify that the class uh the health class is a five credit class that we're weaving as well as language was cleaned up around transfers that concludes my presentation and we have a speaker Michelle plel Campbell Michelle go ahead good evening and I want to say thank you for the debate that was held on the last item I really appreciate all the concern taken for students so to start this I am pleased to see the restoration of graduation requirements our district is known for having high academic standards and this will just reinforce that notion I really want to see that health is added back in as a required class student mental health is suffering our health classes provide another class for students to learn resources available to them within
163our local community additionally seeing a rise in fenol related deaths in our district we have had multiple students this year and last year all since the closing of our campuses die from fentanyl poisoning I am hoping that by adding health education back in we are adding yet another Avenue for addressing this horrible drug that is impacting our students and families we need our health class back I understand we need to consider okay they didn't pass a class but there is ways of doing Credit Recovery we need help back now we need it back for every child we need it back for every family that is devastated by the effects of drugs in our community we cannot lie and say oh we live in a rich area it doesn't happen it is happening here it's happening
164at our schools and it's happening at our middle and high school students are dying at unwavering rates that are crazy and impacting so many of our students so we need help back it is not something we can wave something we can to the class of 2025 that is too long we need it now so please modify this policy and get health back in now we've already impacted too many kids by not having that class this year thank you thank you are there any questions uh for Dr holiday in regards to this policy yes Dr or excuse me to trusty Jones oh I'm a doctor now great okay um this is not actually so much part of the um the what we were concerned with here but I had found some language under transfers that was
165confusing to me and and it has been clarified except that now something new has been added um and I'll draw trustees to page five of 10 at the very bottom part A and uh so we talk about exempting these students who have are in they're homeless Foster youth coming to the district um anytime after the completion of their second year of high school um or there an immigrant student who's in the third or fourth year of high school and is participating in a newcomer program so that is new to this policy that wording and I don't think we have a newcomer program so I I'm not clear why we would have that reference in there unless that is something in Ed code Dr holiday can you clarify that and then I have one other question
166correct it's straight from Ed code and if we had the newcomer program it would apply um we could strike that piece out okay so I'd like to then say strike out and is participating in a newcomer program um I don't know whether this comes up very often but it's if it's going to be in our policy we ought to make it work with uh with what we have um then above that for number two transfers I brought this up in the question and answer and I'm still not clear that that we're we're correct here so we say to participate in graduation ceremony and receive a diploma student must be enrolled prior to the first day of spring semester um these students must successfully complete 25 District credits that's five classes five class five courses semester
167courses so if a senior is only required this year to complete four classes why are we why are we making them here do five and the same thing for if they come in in the fall semester they have to complete 50 it seems to me it would be 40 we can we can adjust that but we ALS o have measures by which we support trans transfer students um in the past we've done resolutions specifically to address those students that transfer in from out of state and we know that they are on track to graduate and they taking courses that qualify we then work with the family and the student and then we bring a board resolution forward to support students that should graduate um even though spec our policy language might Li them there are
168ways for us to then um like the policy says find students reasonably qualified to complete and then we can support that student in in um receiving a cusd diploma I don't think we have to annotate it um but we can Gila Jones if you'd like to make sure that it's super clear uh it's you know if we have a way to deal with it I guess it's okay with me I just felt like if we're changing the rest of the policy to allow students to graduate taking only four classes at seniors then why would we be treating transfer students any different I I don't feel strongly about this I would like to take out the reference to the newcomer program but the rest of it I guess if trustees you know also are concerned about
169this we could change it but you know I I just felt like it was you know sort of penalizing someone for being newcomer everybody else only has to take four classes but they have to take five so yeah I would be agreement to changing it to 20 District credits for incoming spring and then to 40 for seniors coming in in the fall and of course that would only be uh for what is it this year uh but we we don't we don't know for well I don't know let's see that this is a temporary policy oh it's temporary the whole thing is temporary right okay okay okay all right so we just have to remember when we go back we have to remember the numbers under transfer I'm sure you'll point that out Dr holiday
170will remember I know she will remember okay so the other um rewarding on number a is um more to be in line with Ed code is that what's the the reason for that addition no it was just just the original language was like I read through it and I could not figure out what it was supposed to say um it I think it was just something that things got edited and pretty soon that made no sense okay so this is just clarifying language not relative to co or cor or credit reducing the number of credits or whatever necessarily just when I read through it I said what it does this mean and and you know it just didn't make any sense so that all I'm asking about so so just to recap and I think
171Susan was saying I remember this work um when students transfer in we have different obviously sometimes our levels here and they AR efficient so then we I think she was saying we do a case by case um to help them so you know as long as that stands because that's that's a been a problem they come in either through our our different been in Arkansas or wherever they've been traveling around um and happens that way um I just have a little point of clarification around Health isn't there still a requirement I'm talking to Susan in the space as um a requirement around the modules for this uh the three modules and then you can wave of course sexed I mean is that something that the students are still doing thank you try Hanah let me
172clarify so again health is required we we we didn't wave health for everybody we're just saying this year and 2024 so health is still a requirement it's very important and we want to make sure teachers um or students are still taking Health but in addition we have law at the California healthy youth act requires that we provide specific modules by law EG code so we do do we do provide those and we have provided a small um module in Apex to accomplish that and so it's just up to and I know it's going to be a challenge again that capturing those students they're going to have to capture them make sure they've gotten their modules taken whether um and I I know they're not thinking have you know it's punitive ideas of but I I
173talked to the principle of doing it a different way so that'll be up to the school to find them and make sure that they this is all their deck R but it comes time for graduation as any surprises correct and we found them we know exactly who they are and we're working with them you I'd like to suggest that we defer this decision until next year when we're Beyond Co and we're back in school 5 days a week we pass it if it's not pass the temporary policy remains in Force if it's pass the present policy remains in force for this year I don't we just hold this and then revisit it when we're back in school um the our principes have to plan now for the incoming classes they're now talking to their eighth
174grade families they want to um as as one person articulated very well to me we're prioritizing normality we're going back to normal and so that's what we're doing we're kind of turning the ship back and with our eye on the prize of uh hopefully that normal environment um and creating again going back to um our expectations for excellence and for um you know achievement as best they can so I think we have to Str turning the ship now um and obviously it's over a period of time we just can't do it overnight and that's something I didn't quite understand so I'm good with this as long as we get to that point that it's all laid out here um so that this class of is back to 220 with health with the whole Shang I
175had that question from principles uh as they started to prepare for their eighth grade uh welcome they they need to know what to tell the the students okay if there aren't any more questions um do we have a motion to approve um excuse me um or do we need a second reading well I think on the vot I'm move approval with the additional correction of changing 25 District credits to 40 District credits on page five what is that and taking out theing out the and participating in a newcomer program what paragraph on page five uh it's the last paragraph on page five and the paragraph just before it oh okay up here yeah thank you okay any other comments no we need a second on that that's the motion and with a second from trustee
176Jones and clarification um Miss Hayes if we pass this unanimously tonight even with theend we don't have a second reading yes you can wave the second reading and pass should we vote on waving the second reading first yeah iage do it after you can do it after I encourage you to to vote no on the second reading if you're not feeling like what's motioned on the floor is something you'd agree to because then it fails right there and then we can vote to bring back so I believe we can do the show of hands thing if you get a temperature and then pull yes so you could pull okay so with those just is there anyone who has a question about what the change is um in the motion okay so everybody understands all right
177so by a show of hands can I see those who are in favor of passing this with the addendum okay so that's a unanimous so now we have to read the vote so vote on the second reading and then vote on the vot on the second reading first yes can we do it all in one motion you may do it all okay I'm G restate my motion to the superintendent I'm pretty sure you have to do it as to can I restate my motion that I I move to wave second reading and approve this with the um addition of changing 25 to 20 and 50 to 40 and deleting the phras and is part participating in a newcomer program do I have a second second second by truste Davis and Mrs do we need to
178do a roll call on that or all in favor you may do all in favor all in favor I no n 700 with trustee okay so we are on number 26 before we go to number 26 I just want to correct for the record number 24 that policy t512 1.1 did not pass on first reading because it did not have the unanimous vote of the Board of Trustees and we'll come back on consent I failed to say the word first reading thank you for the clarification uh presentation and receipt of the district and Community facilities districts annual Financial reports for the fiscal year ending June 30th 2020 and we'd like to recognize Clark Hampton Deputy superintendent business and support services to present this item thank you president buus trustees so this is our report out
179of our yearly audit for the for the year that ended June 30th 2020 and would like to thank Philip Townsen our assistant superintendent for fiscal services for her and her staff's work that is also part of the results of this audit and Philip will be available for questions but first I'd like to introduce H Jeff Nigro who is with our independent auditor and he's here to deliver the audit and answer any questions trustees have thank you thank you Mr Hampton uh good evening Madame President members of the board it's my pleasure to to present the audit report to you tonight and um as as Mr hamson said this is the audit for the 201920 fiscal year seems like ancient history now but um that's the way we work as Auditors we're always looking at the
180past so um the primary objective of the audit that we do is for us to render an opinion on your financial statements and to conclude whether those financial statements were prepared in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles and in our opinion yes they were uh we're giving what's called an unmodified opinion on the financial statements it's a clean opinion essentially the financial statements were in accordance with General accepted accounting principles now this was no normal year as you all well know um we did the majority of this audit without setting foot in the district office that was very un usual for us so uh I would also like to take this opportunity to thank Mrs Townson and her entire staff for working with us to do the audit digitally virtually um fortunately we were able
181to go out and visit the school sites uh prior to closing and so we had that scheduled in late February early March so but our normal visits to the district where we would Hound the business office and spend time with folks in other departments we didn't get to do that this year so I'm sure they were very disappointed but to to get back to the audit uh just to kind of highlight some of the key areas in the audit for you I mentioned the opinion being the primary objective but there's a lot of other information in there um and I'm not going to go through every page with you but I will kind of talk about some of the major sections so after our opinion there's a section in the audit report which is is
182called managements discussion and Analysis and this is basically an executive summary it's a comparative section that looks at how the district did compared to the previous year a lot of information in there that compares numbers and a lot of discussion about financial accounting and the and the statements themselves and then you get into the actual financial statements and that's where we really start getting into a lot of detail so there's different views of the financial statements of the district looking at the district as a whole and various uh statements that look at individual major funds of the district as well and then after that you get into the notes which give you even more detail information so if you really want to get into it uh roll up your sleeves the notes discuss governmental Accounting
183in in excruciating detail but with a lot of information about the district's funds about governmental accounting and about uh things like you know how they account for Capital assets long-term debt a lot of discussions in there about the stirs and Pur pension plans and the retiree health care plans so that's all in there um after the notes you get into supplementary information which is a a few schedules that are required by gasby the governmental Accounting Standards Board as well as the state controller's office so there's schedules in there that give you even more information about about your pension plans and the retiree health care plans uh there's schedules in there about the district's Ada offerings as well as um schedules that show the financial trends of the district over the last few years and then
184there's some letters towards the back of the report where we explain how we followed Professional Standards when conducting the audit we followed government auditing standards we followed the uniform guidance to select a sample of federal programs to ensure that the District complied with Federal program regulations for a sampl of programs and then there's a number of State programs that we also had to follow in the state audit guide to audit things like the attendance accounting um the lcap the after school program things like that so those are all listed out there and those letters are basically saying that if we found any areas of significant deficiency in internal controls for the district or if we found any non-compliance that we would report them in the audit to you as audit findings and I'm very pleased
185to present to you that there are no audit findings in the audit of the financial statements no no weaknesses in internal control no findings in the area of federal compliance and so there was only one finding this year and it had to do with the reporting of calpads data to the state and I can also report that we've all already worked with the district on looking at the current fiscal Year's calpads reporting data and found it without exception so the finding from the 201920 school year was from data in the previous spring and so we've already looked at the new information it's already been corrected so that's the district's regular audit report now I don't know if you'd like me to stop now and take questions or should I just go ahead and talk about
186the Community facilities uh audit report are there any questions trustees please go ahead on the facilities okay my pleasure so in addition to the district's annual audit which is obviously significant there is the uh number of community facilities districts uh that the district overseas and we are engaged to report a separate audit on just the financial activity of those Community facility districts and so that's in another report now there's some similarities in that cfd report um we also have an an opinion on the financial statement so again referring back to that opinion letter where we say there's an unmodified opinion clean opinion that the financial statements of the CF funds is presented in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles so um for the 2019 20 fiscal year uh we've got financial statements that show the
187cfds and we present them in different um types of funds there are those that we call Debt Service funds and there are those that we call capital projects funds so it depends on where the funds are kept and what their purposes some of them are to be used for Capital project related activities and some of them are held to uh rep repay the debt on the cfd ponds themselves and then similar to the district's audit report after the financials you've got notes that explain a lot of information about the cfds and there's some supporting schedules in there that break them down by individual cfd But ultimately you get to the end of the report and probably what you're most interested in is our performance report which is basically that we um did selected a sample
188of expenditures across all the different cfd towns and we looked at those expenditures and compared them to the cfd language to see what the projects were for and made sure that the funds were being spent on uh appropriate purposes for each of those individual cfds and so we're pleased to report no audit findings that everything was in compliance with the language and the cfds um and so the fact that there's nothing to report after that is is a good sign so the end of the report after that discusses the uh sort of the objectives the scope and the procedures that we performed um but um the cfd audit is a clean audit for the district as well so be happy to answer any questions on that do we have any questions trusties and I understand
189my video might have froze at some point in that presentation did everything come through no oh I'm sorry I didn't see a video the audio was fine the audio was fine yeah oh okay very good thank you for your work on that yes good to know we're in good standing it's always good to hear that but uh yeah we we uh even though we didn't come into the district we still spent quite a bit of time on the phone on Zoom calls and emails and uh through our portal uh getting a lot of information so again I'd like to thank Mrs Townson and her staff for for all the assistance and my only question on this uh Clark Hampton had answered and that was the um the loss of funding of $62,000 um based on
190a complication in how we report our uh unduplicated Count versus Our Food Services um lwi income kids so I think that's being researched yes yes that that happened last year and as as Mr nro mentioned he checked the the way it was calculated for this year and it had been corrected when he checked this year perfect yeah and and I I know it's a minor point but I I would like to clarify that it's even the way it's worded in the report is is basically the way that we have to report it but it's not so much that it was a loss of funding it was more of a return of funds that the district wasn't entitled to so it's it's it's kind of a minor technicality but we still view it as a loss
191all right Mr Hampton so the board has to vote to accept this report it's an action item yes I do have one question for you Clark on page 23 of 107 exhibit you know 26 or if you're looking at 695 of 949 uh it's the reconciliation of the government fund statements of uh revenues expenditures and changes in fund balances seems that it's a a full page here uh with bullet points in terms of I don't know somewh in our accounting that we didn't understand um like Capital outlays reported in governmental funds as expenditures uh and there were some that were should have been depreciation expense so this full page of these variances in how we classified them on our uh uh cash flow is this something that then is being corrected it was like a
192mistake and we were unaware or is there like a law that changed may I answer this yeah you can go ahead Jeff yes um the this page is not these are not um errors or Corrections what these are and and I'll try not to get overly technical here but there are two different sets of financial statements in here that follow two different bases of accounting so the first set of financial statements uses what we call full acrel accounting and it includes reporting all of the district's Capital assets as well as long-term debt but when we get to the fund financial statements where we talk about the general fund and the other major funds they use what's called modified acral accounting so they only look at current assets and current liabilities and so this page is
193required by gasby to reconcile those two sets of financial statements by showing uh accounting differences basically between the two different statements so those are not uh anything that the district did incorrectly those are simply accounting adjustments that are made in accordance with gap so um I hope that makes sense well I thank you for the clarification because um I didn't understand that that would that was a reasoning right if you were to go back and look at all the previous reports you'd see a very similar page with different numbers on it okay thank you uh do we have a motion to accept uh so moved second okay so it was moved by trusty hanich and seconded by truste mcnicholas and can you take Ro is it a it's a role but it's not a role
194we put that in everywhere because we didn't know everybody was going to be in attendance so all those in favor say I I opposed motion carries 70 okay thank you good night thank you Jeff much okay as previously uh expressed item number 27 was pulled so we are now on 28 instructional materials recommended for adoption high school English language arts and history Social Science grades 9 through 12 we're going to recognize Dr Susan Holliday to present uh these materials thank you so much for president trusty buus as well as trustees superintendent vital uh for both items 28 and 29 I have similar backgrounds and introductions um but I'll share with you in both cases as Dr mwin shared earlier we're looking at um our imrc policy and reviewing that process to make sure that we
195have sufficient materials for all those involved in evaluating materials and we want to make sure that that process is super tight and clean and and supports this great work of our teachers and our staff so with that this item um requests the approval of nine supplemental titles for grades 9 through 12 for your consideration we had a committee of 27 teachers English secondary teachers participate in the evaluation of suggested materials it's a a a diverse author ship um to add to our uh supplemental novels it will increase representation of div diverse authors engage students in higher order thinking and provide additional equity and diversity in our materials with appropriate teacher training and of course instructional support to provide context and unbiased viewpoints the novels will enhance our students instructional experience um this also supports our
196cultural profic plan to address diversifying the current Curriculum by increasing representation of our diverse authors the recommended uh books support uh making sure we represent under um marginalized and understudied populations inory Dr holiday yes some buzzing so we're having a hard time hearing you would okay would you like me to try a different microphone or would you like me to move down to the district boardroom I'm trying to figure out how to solve the buzzing sh is saying if you switch to a headset it may be better but it's like a constant it's very hard to hear you my apologies I do not have a headset with me but I will look for something in the building in the meantime um I can put myself on mute and be prepared to answer questions I did
197want to say that um something earlier was shared about materials being in appropriate we want to just share out of abundance and cost and and transparency to our community when there is information in in any book that might have follow language or um remarks that we want to make sure that our community is aware of so that's why we want to make sure we're super transparent Dr holiday while you try to get a headset we do have a number of speakers on this so we will go ahead and call on those uh people joining us tonight uh the first speaker is Tori Bard that speaker is not on the line okay how about Noah Rodriguez Noah's with us Noah go ahead you're mik is SL well good evening superintendent vital and the trustees my name
198is Noah and I have three children who have attended C cusd school since preschool and are now at Oso Grande elementary I'm speaking at some Port of agenda items 28 and 29 and also in support of the new K through2 cultural proficiency curriculum over the past four years at OS Grande we have seen the exit of the only four black families that were there the parents of these CH of these children pulled their children from Oso not because they moved to another city or out of state uh in fact the families still live in the community but rather they pulled their children from Oso because of years of microaggressions that their children suffered unfortunately at the hands of other children who alleged that they unknowingly made offensive comments about black hair or black skin to
199address the lack of basic Cultural Literacy in March of 2017 I along with other concerned parents wrote to cusd leaders and our local K through 8 Ladera principles and I quote from the letter that we wrote for years ago we are concerned that our ler K through 8 schools are not adequately preparing our children for the world in which they live specifically we are troubled by the lack of a contemporary culturally relevant and competent curriculum the current diversity model is ineffective Antiquated and lacks uh curriculum that teaches inclusiveness and draws a on critical analyses of diverse contemporary literature and informational texts end quote that was four years ago and we are still waiting and unfortunately as recently as two weeks ago a fifth grader running for vice president at oo Grande made a promise to
200build a wall between Oso Grande and Lera Ranch Elementary and have them pay for it this statement was not only culturally ignorant but also offensive this evening we heard from one of our trustees informing us that employers of the future are looking for a Workforce who not only Excel in math reading or writing but also know how to lead a team and navigate an increasingly diverse Workforce preparing our children for the Glo for the future Global Workforce is a primary responsibility of our schools teaching about the realities of systemic racism economic privilege and yes race-based privilege is not radical controversial or value based these are well recognized issues that affect all of us in the present day and will impact the job Force Readiness of our children as such these issues need to be addressed
201early and often both at home and at school we heard about teaching our children to pick themselves up by the bootstraps this cliche metaphor assumes that all children are born with boots in the for in the first place and is just sorely simplistic we need Cultural Literacy now so that our children don't fall into the same simplistic traps and cliches as their parents but instead can think more critically I strongly encourage encourage the board to address the cultural ignorance that has plagued our schools for far too long and support the new Kate 12 cultural proficiency curriculum and agenda items 28 and 29 thank you thank you Mr Vanessa Santos Vanessa go ahead you may unmute your mic and go ahead and speak Vanessa sorry sorry I'm here go ahead sorry about that um thank you
202for the opportunity to speak I am a mother to two young boys at elementary school in the district I would first like to say thank you on behalf of my family for all the work done to keep our schools open and I hope all of you understand how much this has given my kids so thank you very much I was speaking tonight on behalf of supporting the updated reading list and the work of the cultural proficiency task force I am disappointed that number 27 was pulled from tonight's agenda I do think that cultural compet competency is important in our diverse Society I believe all students in our district should feel seen and celebrated in our schools and that's why representation is so important in what they read and experience at school I was excited and
203proud to see that our district was taking this on but this delay um of number 27 has me nervous I want my children to see that their school cares about all the students I reviewed the curriculum and it does take on difficult issues I think it is important to recognize that we must talk about these issues because otherwise they get ignored or overlooked I don't think that these are values lessons they're simply lessons on how we all experience the world in different ways our diversity is our strength but if we are not willing to even recognize that difference then how do we move forward to build a more Equitable world this is not about driving a wedge between our students but to build Bridges and acknowledge our Common Ground while celebrating our differences my own
204story of privilege as a white woman is something I recognize because I experience the world differently than a person of color it should not be like this but it is not being honest about the unfairness in the world and teaching that if someone can't succeed it must be all their fault is part of the problem we need to empower our students that they can work to make it fairer hence the attention to empathy and compassion in the cultural proficiency curriculum we should all be working to make our country a place where Liberty Justice and fairness for all isn't just a closing line to our pledge but a very real commitment to the continued progress that it acknowledges this progress does not happen on its own it takes work by people in the community who care
205to help make that progress happen we have to stop solely blaming others for why they fail and look to the systems that they live work and are educated in our children need this now I would like to see this added to the March agenda let's not have them wait any longer thank you so much thank you Cody [Music] Hitchcock hello me go ahead hi there my name is Cody Hitchcock I'm an English teacher at s CL High School I teach English one English one honors and and English 3 I'm also the leader of the English one team at s l High School um I first want to commend Stacy Yogi and our cultural proficiency task force for securing several thousand dollars for ninth grade new text adoption um and I very much want to be
206vocal about Chris Carter's support of our entire English Department and his willingness to work alongside the cultural proficiency task force we truly feel like he is coming to the defense of English teachers and supporting our desire to increase diversity in all of our text at all of our levels so I just want to be very vocal about that to get started um first let me say this um I'm very excited that the imrc is working so um actively alongside our teachers 27 teachers to be precise um but My worry is that our board is going to be hesitant to approve some of the texts that are being presented from the imrc uh process what I want don't run away from any form of language use or controversy I think it is so important so crucial
207for our students and that there are going to be times when they agree with items that are being presented to them and times that they disagree and whether or not they agree or disagree it is so so so important that our students understand how to do both things in a manner that is productive and respectful um all of the texts that we deal with deal with controversy of some sort deal with race in some way deal with language in some way that is um prevent presenting a challenge to our students to Kill a Mockingbird Of Mice and Men slaughterhouse 5 Kite Runner Peter in the ride Lord of the Flies Tony Morrison and all and everything that she writes all of those these things are difficult texts that demand that our students um learn the
20821st century skills of understanding how to agree the right way and perhaps more importantly disagree the right way and we are not given vessels the right vessels in proper bipo authorship we can't provide the opportunity to give these uh our students the ability to um discuss these things several people tonight have boiled our job down to three things Reading Writing and arithmetic and that is just a gross oversimplification of what teachers do um we do so much more than that and we are trying to prepare our students for so much more beyond the walls of our classroom Behind These screens our students are so much more than uh the faces that we see and we want to prepare our students for critical thinking and to be honest with you 21st century skills our bipo skills
209our critical thinking skills and being able to navigate these things are um just so important I don't know how else to put it um thank you for your help us with that thank you Susan Susan is not online okay Katie Crockett Katie go ahead your line is live thank you good evening again um uh my name is Katie Crockett I support the adoption of the additional books for the high school curriculum and just could not agree more with the last speaker um um for True diversity and learning literature history and social sciences we need to do less learning about diverse voices uh and more learning from diverse voices and I think that's what these additional books do um do some of these selections make us uncomfortable maybe but it's okay to be uncomfortable discomfort is
210like a little signal that maybe there's more to be unpacked and examined does everyone end up liking or agreeing with the author no can everyone learn something absolutely there's no growth learning or increased resiliency without discomfort um I specifically wanted to discuss nickel boy um I know it didn't receive a unanimous vote um the topic is hard it's terrible that reformed schools like this happened in the life of America and that we not as far removed from it as we we like to think um that's one reason it's so important to hear about it to critically think about these things um what are we afraid of in having these discussions um I'm not afraid for my child to have these discussions please adopt the additional books thank you thank you and Rya P turple I
211know I watched that up so Rya if you're there let me know how to pronounce your last name hi it's Ria but let's start with your first name than you please go ahead thank you um hi my name is Ria Cather Paul and I'm a senior at St Clen High School this year um today I will be speaking as a representative of CD Against Racism in reference to the agenda item concerning the passing of a supplementary novel list for high schools in our district the proposed novel list includes pieces that provide representation for previously underrepresented communities within C their implementation will succeed in empowering not only black indigenous and people of color students for which these novels and other literary works are representative of but for other communities that will reap benefits from learning through
212the perspectives of a variety Voices That Vary from their own there are many benefits to implementing more diverse literary options into our curriculum reading and learning about bipo history and literature serves as the first step to combating racism racism because it brought in students perspectives of various cultures this is especially important in high school as it's one of the most impressionable times in a student's life diverging from eurocentric literature through the incorporation of books written by bipo authors and about bipo stories encourages learning and stimulates education whilst eradicating stigma surrounding certain marginalized outg groups creating A Better Learning environment and catalyzing change through Newfound understanding in a study from 2004 by col and lion it was found that Multicultural literature can be used as a tool to open students Minds it helps to stimulate an
213understanding of diversity in the classroom and build an understanding of and respect for people from other cultures Multicultural literature is a powerful tool that can be utilized in order to weaken dissolve and gain a better understanding about racism bipo literature and stories are also extremely beneficial to the motivation of learning um and learning of students of color they can't relate to eurocentric the eurocentric experience so focusing on narratives other than this narrow perspective um is beneficial to students of color because they can engage in relate to what they're being taught just as white students are able to do with the current state of the novelists in our high schools this engagement will inevitably motivate students to invest and care for their education beinging themselves represented in the in the content that they are learning is
214more likely to inspire them to seek higher education attempt to gain positions of power and overall make an impact on our community and our society supplementary novelist being proposed includes titles from bipo authors including John Lewis and Shan tan that illustrate important parts parts of the bipo experience these authors are just a few of the many amazing individuals who have created pieces of literature that that have the potential to become foundational pieces in our curriculum the passing of this novel list will set the tone for future titles and teachings that will help promote lessons of learning and education about anti-racism and anti-bias to students and staff throughout the district we urge the Board of Trustees to vote for in favor or to vote in favor of the passing of this novelist tonight for the enrichment
215of the learning and experience for all students in cap capistran Unified School District thank you for your time thank you R Michelle plel Campbell Michelle go ahead good evening superintendent Board of Trustees I strongly support the adoption of these supplementary texts for our teachers I am so excited that graphic novels are being included in the adopted reading list Mouse is a haunting story that tells the tale the horror of the Holocaust is presented in a way that students can grasp and start to understand why this horror should never be repeated this book needs to be adopted I am also thankful that our district is finally going to adopt materials compliant with The Fair Act Senate Bill 48 which became law in 2012 I am also so pleased to see the inclusion of books of the
216book they call us and me this is a book I've already shared with my sons to make them aware of the cultural profiling that happened during our country's past thank you again for bringing forth such a diverse reading list that complies with The Fair Act and I want to thank Cody Hitchcock for pointing out that teachers do so much more than Reading Writing and arithmetic teachers help us broaden our awareness of the world become critical thinkers examine ourselves teachers need to be celebrated and not relegated to the just the three Rs they expose our children to the entire world not just the small town or local area they're growing up within so thank you to our teachers for making sure we have a diverse reading list to go by thank you thank you and our
217next speaker is our teacher of the year from son Clemente High School Margie wesling Margie go ahead thank you my name is Margie wesling and I have been teaching English at St Clemy High School for the past 33 years I wanted to extend my appreciation to the Board of Trustees for their past support of our ability to meet students academic needs by entrusting us with book selection there was a time some years ago when bless me Ultima by Cho author Rudolfo anayia was on the topping block because there were some who labeled it a poic can you hear me my it says my intern my internet connection is unstable we can hear you go ahead okay sorry um but there was some time ago when um bless me Ultimo is on the topping block because
218there were some who labeled it a pmic due to their looking at some parts of the story in isolation and missing the big picture in fact the novel does not tear down Catholicism it is a tale of one boy's spiritual journey where he takes aspects of several philosophies and makes his own path the trustee supported us Educators enough to hear us out on why we should not eliminate such a significant novel from the cusd reading list at the time it was one of the only few texts that represented latinx culture now we are at a Crossroads where we have a plethora of texts to choose from up for adoption with so much diversity it is so important that we view these works with the same open minds that we viewed bless me Ultima and that
219we don't cast aside a valuable work because it may have a little sensitive material in it we as educ ERS know that some issues in literature can be tricky to navigate in the classroom but please know that we deal with them in a nurturing environment where young adults feel safe it is important to hear a diversity of voices and perspectives in our classrooms so that all students feel they matter not just the ones that compromise or that comprise the majority thank you so much for listening thank you and L Schmid go ahead hello hi um I'm Lana Schmidt I'm a teacher at s Clemy High School um I also have a daughter who um attends s Clemy high school and um I guess the first thing I want to talk about that came up a
220lot I heard anyway um earlier is the word privilege and I just wanted to clear up maybe some misunderstanding around that word because um there could be uh a couple different connotations for that word in in different context and um one of the things I kept hearing is how privilege is something that's earned and it certainly can be that but I think in the contest context of what we're talking about um privilege is often something that we can be born with that we don't really see or understand that we have um for example I walk up the stairs of my classroom every day and um I have a body that can do that and I don't think twice about or ever think about anybody who might be in a wheelchair chair or might need a
221ramp or might need you know the key A or a key to the elevator so when we talk about privilege the only way that I'm able to understand um what an experience of somebody else might be like is um either if I'm talking to them or I speak to them or oftentimes um a lot of times we we understand that experience um through literature um in fact literature becomes a very um real experience because it's so cognitive and that's one way we can identify with others so um just a little bit more my background um I wasn't going to mention that part but it just made me think about the idea of um having diverse text for the two purposes of inclusivity and and perception so um I'm the daughter of of immigrants my father
222came to this country um from Jordan didn't speak any English he only had a ouple couple hundred bucks and he came here for opportunity um my grand my mother is also an immigrant she's from Russia and um she had to grow up in Brazil because she's basically a product of World War II refugees and and she experienced and her family experienced um all the atrocities of War um that are not comfortable to talk about things like family separation death even rape um and yet that became very much a part of her experience and those are difficult topics to address um but when we read them in literature um we can engage in those topics and a safer um a controlled environment um so they met in New Jersey by the way and and uh nothing
223short of the American dream since then but I can say from personal experience that representation is definitely important and I know that reading from um from Dr um backgrounds and for writers of diverse backgrounds reaffirms my own identity but it Al also helps me um share in the experience of people from different cultures and identities um I know that when I read works from other people that have similar experiences that I did and I feel very connected to um your time is up I appreciate your comment Michelle mcnut Michelle is not online and that um L was our final speaker for this topic okay I had one other person but I assume they're not on here they are not onine Josh is yes SAR is not on one okay all right do we have any
224comments from our trustees about uh the language arts material trustee Han truste bulus I I apologize for interrupting I do have one of our speakers Susan saso who did register was now able to re when I announced she was not online she was able to reconnect so I'd like to allow her time to speak hello can you hear me hi yes hi my name is Susan Salo I'm a Latina and mother of three children of color at Oso Grande I strongly support the adoption of the cultural proficiency curriculum and inclusion of books by diverse authors agenda items 28 and 29 I'm disappointed that item number 27 was pulled from the agenda and hope you will bring it back in uh in for the March meeting as it has never been more important to move forward
225with this type of education I've seen young boys in our neighborhood in in our neighborhood yelling the n-word on the street a kid at also was wearing what looked like a KKK Hood a kid proposed building a wall between two of our elementary schools and a few years back a Nazi symbol a swastika was painted onto one of our local elementary schools for someone to suggest that we don't need changes in curricula because quote we are good um or quote Americans are good fails to see through my eyes and my daughter's eyes fails to acknowledge that we humans are imperfect we can be good bad anywhere in between and complicated although the intent might not be bad or evil the pain that these comments cause is very real I cried when my six-year-old little girl
226told me that another kid told her I don't want to play with you because of the color of your skin while some might not find the chant build the wall offensive as the daughter of immigrants I do I feel unwelcomed I feel my kids are not welcomed I don't want my daughters to graduate from cusd thinking that it's okay for a group of white kids to chant build the wall at children of color and I think most parents wouldn't want their kids doing the chanting either or being in the receiving end I want my kids to read books from diverse authors with varying experiences I want want my kids to learn about racism privilege anti-racism compassion and empathy this is how we make our communities better I strongly support the work of the cultural proficiency
227task force and thank them for all of their efforts and moving some of these things forward thank you and trusty Hanah thank you um I love literature and this is super exciting um I used to read my son's uh especially my older son had an IB lit teacher at San Clemente and it was amazing literature so I think I he may have skimmed them but I read the whole thing um so I just would like to go kind of quickly I believe that all of this uh we're looking at secondary right now that's our first item uh for 28 and it looks like all of them uh have been accepted except for um some push back on nickel boy so I just wanted to reaffirm how important um Mouse would be to have an our
228reading uh curriculum this has been required reading at Rancho Santa Margarita for quite some time um and when you look at um the fact that 63% of Millennials and gen Z do not know that six million Jews were murdered in the Holocaust and many have not even heard of the word holocaust this is very very important that we have this selection so I don't believe we'll have any problem with that and I would like to talk about just quickly about nickel boy um I have not read the whole thing but what really struck me as a amazing role model in this author when we are looking at authors of color the gentleman was amazing there's an incredible NPR interview with him and now this book uh one garnered him a pullet surprise H even though
229it is about abuse the abuse is not graphic or exploitative um and the other thing that struck me and I hope I can speak to this um uh well he he wrote a powerful important story about dignity and Redemption within 200 pages so not all of our students in the world want to read War and Peace uh but he was able to accomplish and and he said there was a reason why he did that understanding that maybe uh the students that he's trying to reach students of color Etc that you know none of us read as much as we used to so I just felt that was an incredible uh not only is he a role model what he what he achieved it's again it's a pullet surprise and I I hate to see this
230just tossed aside um it should be really an integral part of our of this reading uh source and then just a last thing when we talked to about the Middle School the All-American boys just um I I read different things that that actually was um I'm wondering if it should have been in the high school offerings not Middle School I would have read it with my middle school students as a um a translator if you will as we read together but um some of the things I've read that said all America boys is really for a 15 and over uh group of age group so I'm worried that we uh assigned this to fail by thinking it through a lens of a sixth grader or something something like that so um I I hope again
231that is one that is not tossed this was this is extremely relevant um and uh it balances it balance it's from what I understand it balances issues and and importantly it also it it promotes or shows about being a police officer so you're getting two sides um which is very important so as far as I'm concerned then I would pass every single one of the ones that are on our list um for high school um and happy to open it back up to anybody else thank you then I'll add mine I am a member of the imrc and I will be voting against mle boys this evening because I cannot condone that story uh the rest of them as it was stated um were voted unanimously but I cannot condone the explicit violence rape torture
232um and I just don't I I think there's enough other books that can be read to to make the stories come across I know it had uh won many awards but I voted against it I'm going to vote against it tonight I don't think it's appropriate and that's my comment thank you [Music] president buas um my comment on both 28 and 29 is uh kind of I'm going to reiterate what the board report said that um instructional materials include material or language may may be considered inappropriate however this is the important part with appropriate teacher training and instructional support to Pro provide context and unbiased viewpoints the novels will enhance the student instructural appearance and I want to um especially kudos to the te the teachers that spoke tonight um Margie wesling and Cody Hitchcock
233you know they are they are the rock stars that we need to be supporting and I think with with this kind of material it really we really are going to rely on our teachers to set the context I mean even in in my era of novels and To Kill a Mocking Bird and um George Orwell 1984 Stranger in a Strange Land it really requires the teacher to kind of set the this is the the terminology that was used in this era or this is how these people talk to each other even Gone With the Wind you know has has some if it were in today's um Society we wouldn't allow those kind of interactions or or those kind of uh positional things but in the context of History this is how people operate and I
234really think it's it's going to be um on our our our wonderful English teachers to guide our kids through that so I have some questions but I'm going to support both of them um but I really am counting on our English teachers too the suppor our kids well that is part of my problem is that my feeling is it's the excellent teachers who are the ones who bring these forward who want to use them in the class those are probably the teachers that could have a very Dynamic conversation but as soon as we approve these it means Any teacher can use these and it was noted as grade 10 through 12 and um there was comments within the imrc conversation that it does not seem as appropriate for grade 10 you know perhaps for the
235the senior class um but when it comes to the all-American boys I will not be voting for that as well those were the two books um that I am a part of that vote um the amount of swearing graphic violence adult beating a teenager mentioning two teachers having sex at school um I mean it does show teen resilience and activism but even a middle school teacher who was a part of the group said this is a very difficult text and would need gentle guidance by a teacher at this level and she was not quite certain that just anybody could deliver so that is where I'm taking my um my decision from the question for Dr holiday that because we approved these it doesn't mean they have to be used in the classroom it's still up
236to the teacher to choose from our approved novels is that correct just yes that is correct it is an option once it's approved of under our supplemental materials and part of the recommendation is that we require staff development um tied to this adoption trusty Jim but my understanding is that uh generally in a school the The English Department chair works with the English teachers and they develop the novels that will be used in that school so um a particular teacher might object to it but if the other teachers in the chair say this is what we're doing that's kind of what they're doing correct I'd have to probably defer to Mr horning in regards to if they all matter mandatory have to do it if just because two of the three or three of the
237four have selected it I think that I have experienced um School sites that did were able to choose something different and came to an agreement around how uh it tied and connected to each other in their curriculum so I know of that experience but if Mr horn is there and he'd be willing to share if he knows of anything different I'm happy to defer to him but that was my my personal experience I witnessed I am here can everybody hear me yes great uh yes the the reality is that it comes from our collaborative work within our plc's so if there is some discussion or or obviously discourse around what some people agree or disagree with you know that is part of that process uh ultimately there is no expectation that everybody does the same
238thing lock and step I think you guys are privy to that and preaching to the choir but when we think about it there's a process we go through for consensus and that's where those voices are heard but trusty Jones specifically there is no you know expected pressure or mandate that just because let's say I'm on the English one team work through this that there is that absolute Dynamic that usually comes instead from the PLC process and the supports of that team working together through their time also come up with these different units of studies around the content so it isn't really just the novel specifically in isolation instead uh collaborative work around that as well thank you um I do want to make a comment about the the one no vote for mouse that was
239my representative who um uh voted against it and I've SP spoken with her about it and I actually did go in and read the uh the the book in the imrc well it's a graphic novel and frankly in my age group they're a little hard to get through but I basically I I went through it I I say I read I read it um her objection was to the fact that uh in Mouse the uh Jews are portrayed as mice and the derms are portrayed as cats and the Poes are are portrayed as pigs and in Judaism a pig is an unclean animal and she felt that this was a deliberate um denigration of Polish people and um coming from an Eastern European family I'm very familiar familiar with this particular Prejudice I did feel
240that uh that really pigs were a standin for every sort of non-german non-jew and I didn't necessarily think that it was uh just polls um and there are relatively few um uh instances when where the pigs even appear so I feel uh that it's it's perfectly appropriate I was not offended by it um I'm going to interrupt you yes go wouldn't that be a great discussion yes English class yes a great discussion exactly animal is portrayed this way and you know right I think that's sometimes we the pro provocative literature starts the discussion absolutely absolutely and I agree with you and I think that's a wonderful point and thank you for making it um can I chime in on that point just because this is this is something something that had come up in the
241past around this book and the comment was made that um for the person that's had a problem with the pigs being rep representing poles and this particular person wrote the thing is Mouse made him uncomfortable so he didn't want other people to read it that is censorship um as opposed to Parental Guidance so that could be your discussion Point um in that classroom you know when someone objects if they're uncomfortable reading something what is that censorship is that you know what is happening so there's some really great deep things here especially when you're looking at your age group um so great Point Martha thank you Gila so um I also wanted to mention nickelbys and there were three who voted against it and that certainly makes one think but um and president buus has made
242some EXC excellent points but this is a high school text I think it would be um the subject would be less acceptable to me in Middle School um I did however uh going to American boys which is a uh Middle School text and if you read it it's it's very simple language it's obviously it's the Lexile score that makes it appropriate for Middle School I don't think I would have a problem with it for high school it is a little difficult for me to um place it in a middle school classroom uh it's just it's a younger age group that is not as Discerning and not perhaps as able I mean middle school is such a strange time uh as most of us probably either know or remember um it's I I I'm just not
243clear that a a middle school audience would be able to kind of deal with it uh but if it were high school I I would feel differently about it but uh that I would be pleased to vote for any of these um but I I don't think I can support uh all- American boys from middle school that's that's my only issue um to that point I would approve it if it were high school but I'm not going to approve it for middle school all American boys Dr doesn't seem appropriate for pre teens was it the same team of um English teachers that uh reviewed all these books and came up with the separation or is it the Lexile that kept it in the uh middle school as opposed to content that would have bumped it
244up to high school you think it was both those things uh trusty mcnicholas it was an eighth grade group of teachers that recommended the book itself um for 8th grade or an accelerated seventh grade class potentially um would be a good fit and it is um recommended through Common Sense Media for 12 ages 12 and up um tied to that reading level and then the complexity and the difficulty of the topic I understand and I do agree that professional development for teachers in implementing it should be tied to that I am I just want to uh caution us that we're talking about middle school and we have speakers on middle school so I just want to be pull us back to just dealing with high school and then when we get to Middle School allow
245for these speakers because I don't know what they'll be weighing in on I'd like to hear from each of the uh each of the people that were on the imrc that I know they were invited to attend but I don't I don't know maybe if someone can tell me if the ones that spoke were on the committee that voted no no Greg or Susan this evening the speakers um I do not believe any of the teachers were on the imrc committee that spoke tonight they may have been on the panel teachers that recommended the books but the imrc committee I don't believe any individuals spoke this evening I'd be really interested to hear what their thoughts were on that um just going down the line the arrivals wordless graphic novel and I mean it would
246be a great 30 minute go through and you could have um a great exercise where you could just take that and do something with it and create a story yes I it's it's a it's not not not literature per se um and it says critical reading it's adopted under these curriculums but it's it's wordless so m is very heavy deals with mental illness and suicide a strained relationship with his father and a relationship with his father's second wife and considering the times are in right now I would absolutely vote against that under the suicide piece completely um they call this enemy again I mean again all of these are graphic Memoirs or graphic novels except on on the high school one except nickel boy and um fences is a play and I read I read
247six five of them and I found that I wouldn't agree with many of them um I am all about finding authors that are bipod I am all about that I think that's great and I think it's important and we need to find the best and I and I know we can find some that might better fit what we're looking for Towers falling by Joel Parker RADS maybe we already have adopted that I don't know um but she's written six novelist she's a black author from Pittsburgh she's a novelist and an educator there are fantastic authors out there I don't know that that we that gra adding graphic novels as I the majority that's the majority of them are all graphic novels and I maybe that was the point was to add graphic novels in this
248whole adoption but I I did notice that we adopted in 2016 and 200 well last time we adopted in 2018 32 novels were all adopted and presented by the trustees in April of 2018 so I would guess that we probably did a a good job on that on that one and um had authors that were from bipac and um nickel boys it's too much I mean the brutality it's fiction but it's based on the real events of a reformed School horrific abuse Injustice rape torture it's heavy it is very heavy in a time where we are suicide is on the rise and it is a massive problem trusty um ctios is on the imrc with me would you like to weigh in yeah I just have a couple comments first about um Lisa's comment about
249graphic novels so um I don't teach with graphic novels obviously but my daughter has read one this year and I found it to be tremendous that she got to read a graphic novel I think it was Frankenstein um that is now a graphic novel and it allows a student who isn't necessarily into reading right and it brings the story alive through pictures and we may not like to read graphic novels that you know we we're used to more print and we want to read it differently but it appeals to them so I think adap um adopting more novels that are graphic novels are actually appealing to many students so I don't want to Discount that but another point that the a caller made that I thought was an incredible comment is that these are all
250difficult conversations to have in classrooms and they're uncomfortable but what how do we have these discussions in classrooms novels help us do that in a safe environment so even all the way down to TK in my land when we have things that we need to discuss how to be a friend how to you know whatever the case may be I often what do I do I introduce it through through a piece of literature because it's an easy way to get kids to have conversations that are difficult to have in that type of an environment so I do think that these are hard discussions to have but I think they're necessary during these times so um I am supportive of the novels on the list time I need a vote to extend the meeting I move
251to extend the meeting what do you think till 11:30 30 minut 35 minutes till 11:30 yeah be good would that be good Judy knowing what we have left yeah let's let's do 11:30 and then okay so I move to extent to 11:30 second and a second by trustee mcnicholas all in favor I I I in regards to the March books um I think they that they all come from a place of victimization and I don't know that that's the place we want to that we want to have children reading books coming from um and I had a note from a a parent that reached out in regard to um graphic novels in general um we moved here from Texas and came from a very rigorous school this summer my fourth grader was required to bring
252in his own reading book for times when they had finished assignments and had time to spare I received an email from the teacher asking that we not allow these picture comic style books to be brought in by fourth graders for their free time reading I appreciated that email and agreed with it I think those books are fine for entertainment purposes but should never be part of formal School curriculum so I I I think these would be great to have in libraries and um but I I I don't know maybe it just would be a very short reading of a book um president buus um I don't so I think um I don't want to do you know I want to make sure that most of us are on board this is very important um and
253I feel like if if we can I know we won't all agree um on this so we could probably debate all night long but I think it's time maybe to call the vote um oh AO you've got to talk thank you thank you Gila I can't see sorry just a quick comment and then I have to go so I'm just gonna say bye before I comment but um I think as a student who gets to read these books at least at the high school I've been lucky enough I think to have some phenomenal teachers who presented books that were difficult to read very well and I don't know if every student had that opportunity what I do know is that the conversations that they brought up whether they're difficult and hard and even for me
254like I'm reading a book in U my AP class and my teacher he loves this book and I'm really enjoying it but it is a difficult book to read it's about a menal institution but he presents it so well and the conversations that we have and hearing different opinions about the way Society was in the 50s or different things it's just I think that op my mind and I know it opens up we have some conversations that Mr Bigs will facilitate and he never presents it in an uncomfortable way it's just a way where we can like think and hear what our peers think and why did the author do it this way and why is he talking in the book this way and I think those conversations have the novels themselves I love reading
255so reading is fun for me but for my peers who maybe don't love reading I know even for them the required readings the the books they read in school are sometimes the only books they read and the presentation of books that evoke thought I think is really important to at least we're talking about high school so um I really think those conversations are important whether they are uncomfortable or difficult I think they need to be presented early on because they're going we're going to I know I'm going to face uncomfortable things in society I'm facing hor horrific events are happening in society and I have to learn how to hear diversity and thought and hear things and I think those novels really allow for that diversity thought and that diversity conversation so that's kind of
256my view and so as a student that's and we have read controversial novels already or like not controversial or I know I've even said myself who loves reading like this is a hard book to read like it's heavy and I'm not in the mood to think about people dying today we're in the middle of pandemic like why do I have to read this but then it's kind of like the learning that I'm gaining from it and the conversation in class my teacher Mr Bigs frames it in such a good way and he kind of turns it into a positive note so it's easier for me to process those things and understand how I should deal with those kinds of things so I think kind of I do understand that some of these topics are controversial
257but I feel like the benefits and the learning you get out of it kind of overweigh that thank you and good night so trusty Hannah check someone just needs to make a motion second it for the board to vote I call the question is that a motion I think we have motion to pass the staff's recommendation or whatever Mo then that we uh adopt the recommendations for the grades 9 through to I second okay uh trustee mcnicholas makes the motion and truste hen seconds it want to call a vote roll call oh is this a I okay all members [Music] uh say I those who in favor say I I the secondary the high school this is for this is for agenda item number 28 High School only and those who do not want to
258adopt it Nay n nay that's a 62 excuse me 52 vote 520 vote so number 29 the instructional materials for Middle School um Dr holiday if you'd like to present that thank you again board president bulus I'm so glad that I don't have a buzzing background I'm sure that was very annoying so hopefully this is a little clearer we're moving on to middle school this is grade 6 through eight novels we have seven supplement titles that we're recommending for adoption again it's our a group of 27 teachers that have evaluated and suggested these titles the goal is to create di diversity in options um the common core standards actually does require multiple genres so that's why we embed these different types of novels whether it's graphic or Pro um we also wanted to make sure
259that we are providing titles that expand on on our already diverse titles so we're a fortunate that our our teachers looked at the options that were available and recommended something to expose us to living authors as well and so it's an experiential opportunity for our students as well so staff recommends approval of these novels and I'm open to answer any questions any comments from trustees have speakers there are 10 speakers we have speakers uh Jack Bradley are you still with us Jack Tristy Bas we only have four speakers on the line Jack is is not with us ahead and call them for us because you know which ones are around absolutely thank you check the list um I'll will read their names so that we know they're acknowledged uh Jack Bradley is no longer on
260the line leesley power is no long longer on the line Tor Bard is no longer on the line Noah Rodriguez is no longer on the line uh Vanessa Santos is available so Vanessa please go ahead hi um I'll just say something quickly because I spoke at the high school level but given the comments previously I just think I I think it's really important that we don't underestimate our kids um my son is in third grade right now and I've had such deep really emotional conversations with him just about police brutality and things that he sees on the news or hears about at school and I think it's important for them to be able to have conversations at school with the use of literature to help them work through those emotions in a setting that is
261not just at home but is at school with their peers and with professional teachers who know how to kind of address these things so I think it's it's really important to learn how to be uncomfortable with some of the stuff that you're learning because the world is not fair and bad things happen to good people and we need to learn how to kind of process that and and just teach our kids how to be resilient so that they can be successful because bad things are going to happen to them and they're going to have to know that they have the strength to get through it so I think if if people can survive these things like survive being put in um these horrible penitentiaries for kids in Florida then our kids can survive reading about
262it and I think we should just not underestimate what they can actually survive okay [Music] thanks okay Susan solo is no longer with us Katie Crockett is our next speaker Katie go ahead your line is live thank you um I also spoke on the last item um I I support um item 29 for the Middle School level as well for the adoption of all of these additional books for the Middle School curriculum um in particular I did want to talk about all American boys um I grew up going to K12 to a Reformed Presbyterian Christian school and when I tell you I didn't swear ever I am not exaggerating um profanity could get you Su suspended from my school and listen all-American boys is one of the best books I've ever read to disqualify this
263book for profanity is pardon my French BS regardless of the practices in our homes our kids have heard and know the words I have a first grader she's heard profanity she repeated a word she had heard and she used it right one of those moments is apparent you're simultaneously proud and mortified it was a great opportunity though to discuss how different people use these words and where and when they're appropriate or not and how regardless of how we feel about profanity respect for ourselves and others is at the heart of everything we do so we respect others wishes to not hear them and not use them in inappropriate places like school but in literature and excellent literature that that's like excluding sculptures and paintings from art history because they may have nudes just because we
264view it in our history context doesn't mean we show up to school naked this is an easy distinction to make um how lovely that we feel we have the ability to discuss or not discuss the issues in this book um that's uh that's privilege um let's see what else so kind of like the last caller said let's stop acting like our middle schoolers are precious unblemished flowers and using that as an excuse to not read books that make us uncomfortable the these kids are Sharp and they can discern context and for any child struggling with context of when swearing is or is not appropriate or for the the topic of the actual novel um I'm confident that our teachers and us as parents can handle this with our kids I can talk to my seven-year-old
265about it we can handle this our kids can handle this thank you the next speaker is m Michelle colossal Campbell Michelle go ahead good evening I want to support the adoption of this diverse reading list is important for our schools to have books not just from white male authors we need more diversity and we need to bring our district to at least partially into compliance with The Fair Act it became law in 2012 it is currently February of 2021 we're in a different decade we need to get there we need to be culturally proficient as a district we need to work on identifying issues that are anti-racist and privilege we need to teach our kids to be culturally proficient this book list is just a start of the work we have to do it is
266not going to be comfortable for most of us parents but you know what we need to put on our big girl panties and our big boy boxer shorts and just do that work because it is what is best for our kids so I hope our district continues to expand the diversity of the reading list put forth by our teachers in the imrc and adopt these lists lastly people are talking about graphic novels novels are how to get non-readers to become readers it is what Hooks them in and makes them want to figure out the words on the page it helps you bring images to life some of the greatest authors are the writers of our comic book graic novels do not discount these books because they are picture books these picture books convey more than
267simple words across the page they are important parts of the literature that should be taught in our middle schools and high schools graphic novels have as much value as someone might say or Po and believe me I've been living through the seventh grade amplify Les lessons on PO for the last two months I would much rather be reading the arch all three books of it by John Lewis it has a lot more impact and power and Impressions and relevance for the life of my son who has been born into the privilege of having white skin it is important that we teach the issues of privilege be awar of this thank you trusty vas that concludes our speakers for this [Music] evening I'll open it up for any additional comments from trustees truste MCAS um Dr
268holiday on any of these novels that may have um questionable content do we require teachers to notify parents of things they're studying that they might object to or request an alternate assignment it is not required that our teachers do it's not required but our teachers do is there a syllabus at the beginning of the year that deals with this sorry there I have I have a light yes so each teacher is required to have an adopted syllabus and share that syllabus with their fam so they have notice of what um content literature materials will be taught that year and the expectations of that classroom so be listed at that point as well um what books are taught at that um grade level or at that school are there any other compents one of my concerns
269is that they're all at lower Le level reading levels right um I believe we build vocabulary by Reading literature that stretches children and I didn't there wasn't one book on this list that did that so I I mean right right there I mean it shows right on that first one lower level low level reading lower level reading lower level reading they're not they're not high high level and that's where you build vocabulary so I would love to see authors of color byock that have higher level reading so that we can stretch because like several people had said this is the only books that some children will read is the books that they read in school so I believe it's very important that we have high interest High vocabulary so that maybe sometimes we have to
270look something up as to what that means so you stretch it's it's how you actually your vocabulary grows is through literature statistically so to to respond to the level um teachers look at books through three lenses they look at the Lexi level as one the other level is the content and the third level is how does it linkoln connect to the standards and the the topics that they're teaching in their classroom so that's why these were recommended is looking through those three lenses um Susan so I just we have an amazing one here the long way down and this is pros and very rarely do our students uh read poetry and from what I understand here it's um it's a one long poem unless I've got this wrong and they talk about it being a
271viseral and immediate staccato full of symbolism this is the long long way down by Reynolds do I have the right one okay and in in fact they said some pages only have a couple words on them but they speak volumes so again back to Martha's point where words can be simple but how they are put together and what they're conveying so a great topic for the class um I don't think I need to come back for these I just would like a fun fact on trickster the Native American Tales um the that it's Illustrated the um artists aren't necessarily Native American but the um the interviewer felt much better because each one of the T the people the tribes that wrote the tales okay who would create uh the visual content that went with it
272so um so it's very cool um and then the arrival um when we're back to this um Illustrated stories um it basically it says it's you know it's a visual Masterpiece and this is what we're using the both sides of our brains so the creative side you're creating the story in your head you've got the visual so the graphic novel and and graphic novels are uh it might be the only thing that grabs maybe a seventh grade boy or an eighth grade boy or something so I think you've created what you set out to do was a quite a good cross reference and and we can always be adding to these lists um I already asked about you know our latinx community next round that we have that more so I um I would move
273uh adoption of the instructional materials recommended for um grades 6 through eight language arts and history social science second do we have a discussion now I'm sorry um truste Han moved I moved adoption okay seconded by um trusty Bronson and I just have one additional comment um it's interesting for me to note people who've responded and called in um those who vote against this because they don't feel it's appropriate like myself uh it is not to say that I don't believe that we should be um having these subjects in terms of in our schools I just to um trusty Davis's comment there's thousands of books there's got to be other books and there's one book out of the rest of them that I voted and I'm fine with but um if I would not want
274to have my children reading that book I don't use that language in my home um that's not to say they don't see a movie with something like that but I think that you can get story lines across um without having to have the explicit violence and torture at all so um just as I'm open to hearing people and I realize it's literature and I realize that if I look at a nude uh Mona Lisa if she were that that doesn't mean that I walk around the mum new I get it okay but um I stand that this is one book I would not want my middle schoolers reading and uh if I could just pluck that book out and approve the rest I would but um we'll go ahead now and take the B motion
275make a motion to that I would make I don't think it would pass I let me help you out so you can make a substitute motion if you've are if you enjoy all of these books feel there a value but you have a problem with all American boys you can to a substitute motion over my motion we're like the only group that does that um then if you get a second then my motion would die I mean I don't want I want to keep all American boys we can also do a little polling to see how you know if my motion would pass then um then it would pass right so we could do a little polling like that Martha go help me out oh um question this is on the Middle School list and
276if we think it really should be on the high school list that wasn't part of the recommendation but could we decide because we I mean that's going against these 27 teachers but could we decide that it really is more appropriate are we feel more comfortable approving it if that was all American boys was in high school I think that's tied to the previous item so I would have to defer to you could do it so what you would do is you'd make a motion saying that all these books all these books you approve for middle school as recommended except for all more American boys you are approving to be used in high school I can we do a poll for that so and you'd be doing a substitute motion to am's motion and you'd need
277a second in order to discuss it on the floor so I'm I'm happy to compromise so if that if that book stays active by moving it into the high school Arena which is great because somebody's younger brother could still as a family they could still read it and we don't lose that book then I would um I would support that so really what you need to do is withdraw your motion Amy withdraw my motion thank you g okay I will move that we adopt the curriculum for middle school as listed with the exception of all all American boys and we approved using all-American boys in the High School curriculum say number 30 the designation of title School Canyon Elementary School we have only 10 minutes I think you should extend one more time even if
278you don't use the time oh dear okay uh' got two on title one should I go 20 minutes I move to extend to midnight second okay okay all those in favor I [Music] okay I'd like to recognize Dr Susan holiday to to present um the designation of title one uh and tell us about Wood Canyon Elementary School thank you board president buus um as you shared uh we each year around this time in December and January we start a by our calpads data with the state and we identify those schools that then um may qualify for Title One based on their free and reduced meal percentage currently District elementary schools above 38.5% receive Title One funding schools cannot be skipped to fund lower percentage schools so this January through our calpads reporting we identified Wood
279Canyon Elementary School as a low income percentage of 41. one which now they surpass um two other schools so this evening we bring forward to the board the approval of wood Canyon um as a title one School uh Dr holiday can you give us a little more information in terms of because we've got Lobo and Hanky that are below 40 what should we anticipate and and because of covid you know we've got numbers shifting and we're hoping to you know um bring back our 8 a uh what happens in terms of is there a a threshold if you're below 40 for two consecutive school years then then you need to be dropped off because we wouldn't want Title One you know bouncing on and off so can you explain a little bit how that works
280as a board we can determine our uh low threshold so as a board we and a district we've identify 38.5 now if we find in the next year based on Co that we have schools fluctuating we bring back to the board um as soon as possible what that data would look like now remember we don't want to be too ahead of the data we don't want to be in October or November because that data could fluctuate as we certify um calpads in December and January so it's really important that we wait for that certification to to identify where our schools are at so we want to be consistent that's our goal so that's why we really watch the data and we try to make sure that we keep the level as consistent at 38.5 as
281possible the next school that's like right on the cusp is Palisades at 38.2% um I know that we've talked about Palisades in the past because we thought they were going to be I think last year and then the data changed as it was certified so um it's an annual process and our goal is to try to be consistent each year and that we bring this to the board for your consideration to give us Direction Dr holiday do you happen to remember what Carl hanky's percentage was when we uh approved them two years ago I don't um I have Stacy Yogi available she might have that data at her fingertips it's really not important I just thought you might remember or perhaps president [Music] bu it says 38.5 here would it be lower or higher than
282that I feel like it was more like 3940 I I thought it was stronger in the grouping they didn't just slide in right because we approved it with Las palas and Las palus is almost 41 I just feel like it was um it was higher and it's JY just shared with me it was over 40 okay okay okay any questions we have a motion I'll move the item I'll [Music] second thank you all those in favor I I any Nays 70 Z okay 31 also Title One schoolwide program waivers this is Carl hanky now in Clarence Lobo Elementary we'll recognize Dr holid thank you board president buas and just as we approved Wood Canyon due to their percentage increase these two schools now fall below the 40% requirement for them to be able to be
283identified as schoolwide so if uh the schools want to use that funding to Resource and support the whole school we have to as a board and as school district approve these schools as title and schoolwide um designated schools so we're re recommending this evening that uh we have the title one schoolwide program waivers for hanky and Clarence bbo approved so that they can serve their whole school population and their single School uh student I'm sorry their school plans for student achievement are required as part of being approved um as a schoolwide titl one program and those plans were included in the exhibit and they were already approved in November so we've got that covered and we can move forward to have this accomplished this month for the reasons that we had already uh trusty Jones
284brought up hanky um I wouldn't want to remove them for me I would wanted to keep them on because I anticipate that their numbers are going to to grow back um but does anybody else have comments or a motion would would there be any Merit in waiting to designate to see where everything lands so it's more stable no I think as Dr holiday said you know everyone every child can the money can be funds can be used directly for every child yeah and there there's a certain time of reporting that to be able to and then if if you pull them out then it changes the table of funds for all the other schools so well and really by by approv is we're staying the course because they are presently doing schoolwide and this is
285just to allow them to continue do schoolwide yeah think something we have to apply to the state to get approved okay is there any question that it wouldn't be approved no we just need Bard approval we need the single the plans approved as well and that's it so do I have a motion to approve Title One School wave program waivers for um hanky and for Lo so moved second okay motion moved by trusty Davis seconded by MC Nicholas all those in favor I any Nays a 70 vote and oops aren't we done one more no one more sorry number 32 our first reading and our final of the evening education of homeless children uh and youth and Dr holiday if you could present this for us please thank you again president buus this evening um
286we just ask for this policy to be updated to reflect current law tied to every student succeeds act at that guidance and so we just modified the policy to come into alignment with the recent changes in law and to make sure it's an alignment with a designation of homeless liaison um that our records are um properly documented and that we're in alignment with family education rights and Privacy Act which is furpa and we recommend approval okay any questions do I have a motion to um wave the second reading so moved second stereo okay I believe it was moved by trusty I I did but I would I would suggest we include the move the second excuse me wave the second reading and approve the policy on the first reading and is everybody agree on that
287yes I second it and you second that as a motion okay yes thank you so motion made by truste mcnicholas and seconded by truste hich all those in favor I I any Nays 70 it and that concludes our meeting um move to adjourn second that's okay move toj by trus Jones seconded by H uh the motion carries 7 z i all those in favor say I the time is now 11:30 p.m. thank you everyone I'm so sorry was [Music] EX [Music] if you didn't get your ice cream sandwich I I believe they're still in the freezer [Applause]