Corvallis School Board Meeting (October 13, 2022)

001foreign can we do foreign we're just gonna go until we get to the end so Vince Sammy you may get left off foreign okay good enough that's more important that it's red than it okay uh resolution number 20-1002 acknowledgment of indigenous people's day whereas Christopher Columbus a man who is inaccurately described as having discovered the Americas Came Upon land that was already inhabited by indigenous peoples and whereas Columbus's Voyage to the Americas led to the introduction of transatlantic slavery land dispossession and genocidal acts against indigenous people and whereas the City of Corvallis and current day Benton County are on lands fully inhabited by the calapuya people before removal for settlers and whereas education is a necessary component for creating a more Equitable and anti-racist Community nation and world and whereas the Corvallis school district has

002made a commitment to equity and anti-racism and whereas the Corvallis school district has an opportunity to uniquely reach and educate children as Touchstone in the community and whereas the Corvallis school district has a responsibility to honor and respect the diverse histories of our community and whereas the Corvallis School District recognizes and acknowledges the significant contributions made in our community by indigenous people and commits to ensure greater understanding of these contributions by all students through Oregon SB 13 curriculum and whereas the idea of indigenous people's day was first proposed in 1977 by a delegation of native nations to the United Nations and whereas the state of Oregon does not formally recognize Columbus Day and whereas the City of Corvallis has proclaimed the second day of October as indigenous people's day in Corvallis since 2015 and whereas

003the state of Oregon has proclaimed the second day of October as indigenous people's day in Oregon since 2017. whereas this day should be recognized for the indigenous peoples of the Americas therefore let it be resolved by the Board of Education of the Corvallis School District 12 2020 as well as the second Monday of October annually as indigenous peoples day in the district and strongly encourage families staff and community members to join in existing local indigenous people's Day celebrations and encourage all schools in the district to help highlight this day in great appropriate ways as well as highlight the contributions of indigenous peoples to the local community nation and Beyond both historically and in current times adopted this day October 8 2020 . [Laughter] thank you I know um so the next item on the agenda

004is action on the matters that were discussed in executive session as you know we are not at Liberty to discuss anything that took place in executive session you received sample wording for the options available to the board during our meeting if you plan to propose wording other than that provided please write out your Motion in its entirety before reading it aloud does anyone wish to make a motion Madam chair director Adams I move that the board sustains the findings of the assistant superintendent with the exception of the action cited in item number two and direct the district to remove the related warning from the student's record do I hear a second move director Adams Adams aye director Jones that we act on the items considered in executive session let's take a vote director White Bear

005aye director Tommy aye director Jones aye director Adams aye director Baker aye director elabor aye and I vote I passes okay so the next item on our agenda is board member reports does anyone have anything they wish to share for me um yeah I was just gonna say several of us went to the CHS safe mural reveal and thanks for the invite and it was really beautiful to see how much effort went into that and how much the students worked on it and the staff and it turned out amazing and it was they hosted a really great event too with lots of good food and positive energy my only report is that there is an osba Road Show on Monday October 17th at 5 45 is when the dinner served I think the meeting itself

006will start at six it's at the Albany School District district office I encourage you to attend if you were able to um I was gonna say I could give people a ride but I have to be there early so don't ask me for a ride I would like to report uh on the same notes of the Roadshow I just came back from John day uh last night they had the Prairie City uh Roadshow at Grant County and I had the pleasure and honor to meet people there board members superintendents and principals and learn about common issues across the states that impacts education how we can advocate for public education especially in the upcoming legislative session a theme that came up is how can we encourage board members to engage and get involved in training and

007I feel very grateful that we have been committed to this work way early on and as well I was honored to be chosen by osba board of directors as the incoming president to elect so I'll be serving as president in 2024. I want to thank you for your support and it's a great opportunity to bring Corvallis voice to the state platform and also share the Lessons Learned across the state and just last week and I got appointed by the nsba board as the regional director for the Pacific region representing five states I think it is at least the first time in about a decade to have Oregon represented the National School Board Association board of directors I want to thank you really for the support doing this work I just got assigned a mentor as

008a new board member which is a really interesting concept as a board member from Boulder is going to get me to learn about the process and I already have some thoughts and ideas about our board and maybe adopting a process that's formalized mentorship programs for incoming board members and yeah that's my report congratulations thank you yeah thank you for doing all that extra work for schools um so nobody else so next on our agenda is our superintendent's report all right I will I mean make sure it's brief tonight as we're starting a little bit late first off I want to thank our student representatives for joining us this year we're really excited to have you join us um and for the opportunity to hear your viewpoints and perspectives as we have conversations about things that

009happen in our schools that directly impact you so it's always a really valuable component of what happens with our school board Charlotte as I think our one student who's done this once before a year before or year prior and I do think you know typically we meet in our at our school board um our Board Room at the district office and we try to have Student Art up just to kind of remind us about who we're making decisions for um but that doesn't feel quite the same as this year where we're in a school and also have you coming and sharing your experiences as as students in our school so if you wouldn't mind tonight just introducing yourself say your name what school you're representing and just maybe what schools you've been in in Corvallis

010because again it helps us to have perspective about what what your experiences have been over time with us as we hear more from you throughout the year so if you don't mind just introducing yourself that would be fantastic Damian do you want to go first hi uh my name is Damian Ricks Patrick I'm representing College Hill High School and and prior to College Hill you've been that Linus Pauling right yeah I've gone to Linus Pauling and Lincoln Elementary thanks my name is Celia and I'm representing College Hill as well and I've been to shuttlein Adams and Wilson yeah thanks for being here Emily matsuba and I'm representing CHS Corrales high school and I've been to Franklin School k through eight my name is Lucy Brown I'm also here representing CHS and I started here at

011Lincoln and then I also went to Linus pollen so the gym feels a little different to you now definitely um awesome thanks for being here tonight and um Charlotte and Zoe your voices are as quiet as mine and so just to make sure to bring it close as you as you introduce yourself and again as you insert into conversations we have because again we want that to be I know it feels a little bit different this year because it's kind of a bigger space a little bit more dramatic TV cameras and all of that but really we do want to hear your hear your voices and perspectives because it totally matters so thanks for being here a couple of other things just briefly we are in the communications audit that just started we've sent out

012emails to community members to staff members to um to get more input um specifically related to our Communications Department some of the things we've talked about before is a process of reviewing our board goals which were which is underway but also Communications audit is similar time aspects of it are more so we get a better sense of how communication is happening within our system but outward facing as well in terms of what kinds of communications are being set to families is it direct is it the kinds of information that families need and so I would encourage you to go ahead and complete that survey it's on our website on the banner as one spot to find it also it's coming through parent square and some other channels as well so again we have had some

013participation we're always looking for more we tend to get strong participation in our community when we send out surveys but we want to make sure that that's really gives us a broad picture of how to better communicate with families and so um Kelly in the back is championing that work and we look forward to seeing changes happen based on the information we receive from the community also I was going to mention the osba meeting on Monday but taken care of by Sarah and then the other thing was to um two things one is to prepare the board at our next meeting the Corvallis Public Schools Foundation we'll be here and they will be coming to get some feedback from you as they work to fill their executive director position so between now and next Thursday

014if you have time to think about some of those qualities and characteristics that would help us to move that conversation forward and then they're going to be providing some information to all of you related to our board goals I met with Shawna and Sarah today to come up with some questions that will be shared and asked of the foundation board again as you're working on revising your board goals is another opportunity to hear from a community group and to have better a better understanding both of what language we use Clarity also alignment between their work and the work of the board so it will be a really good conversation and I just want you to be um and then finally next Thursday as well there will be a renaming ceremony at Leticia Carson Elementary and

015prior to the board start of the board meeting so I'd encourage you to attend as well there will be a chance to hear from community members organizations that have been involved in telling her story it will also be a chance to see the new building and to see some beautiful art artwork that's being um by descent great opportunity for us to be together prior to the board meeting next week so I just wanted to make sure that I brought that to your attention so with that I'm going to turn it back over to the chair thank you so the next item on our agenda is public comment I will now open the public hearing for Testimony the complete guidelines for public comment are available on the registration table I'm not sure it says at the

016back of the room but that's from so at the bathroom um at the back of the gym and on the board's website I will share a few important points now when it's your turn to speak please come forward have a seat state your name and direct your comments to the board the um speakers may offer objective criticism of District Operations and programs but the board will not hear complaints concerning individual District personnel as a reminder you will have three minutes to make your comments I we will alert you with the light the yellow light will come on when you have 30 seconds remaining and the red light will come on when you have when you're when your time is up following your comments the board will have three minutes to ask clarifying questions if they

017wish before you start your comment please state your name for the record and state whether you reside within the District boundary so who can you say that for me one more time Ashley okay b-o-n-n okay beautiful so I have an eighth grader who is very excited to go to high school next year um I've been following social media and a couple of things have come up recently so I wanted to make sure that I voiced my opinion because I do have a high schooler coming up um recently on social media uh the book The Kite Runner has come under attack which is fine it's cool it's also been part of our curriculum for a very long time so I ask why now if this hasn't come up before why would we get rid of it

018now I also feel like it's an important piece of literature um I also feel like if we're going to talk about books we can really talk about some books because there is a tragic story of a father who sacrifices his virgin daughter to a roaming mad of sex offenders and that's in the Bible so we really shouldn't be banning a book or bringing up concerns about a book when most of the situation sorry I have a cold um most of the situations in this book are relevant today and important for our young adults who are practicing becoming adults to have that opportunity to learn and instead of criticizing this book and taking it for certain aspects and certain quotes out of the book that I'm sure our high school children have heard much worse from

019peers we should take the opportunity to have conversations with our young adults and Coach them and educate them and open their eyes because the book The Kite Runner is based on a different country going through a massive transition it's when the Taliban takes over and the majority and the minority overturn and it's a beautiful piece of literature so to take it and rip it apart and take away that opportunity for our young adults is disappointing and so I'm just here to make sure that the school board remembers this and I'm sure this book has been brought up before and there's a reason that it's still in our curriculum and it's still important and it is still valid um it also hurt my heart a lot because a lot of the social media messages slandered members

020of our school board and Educators in our school district so the people that are criticizing this book have very little respect for our Educators and the members of our school board and I think it sad so I just wanted to say keep the curriculum because there's a reason it's in place thank you I do before I begin I do have a question for the board um I was not aware that students were going to be here I'm not sure what your policy is on sexually explicit topics with students present it's a public meeting so they could be watching it on YouTube right now too okay then if that's yeah um ironically I'm also speaking regarding the book Kite Runner um oh my name is Valerie yes I am within Corvallis District um I've got three

021kids that attend high school here seraphin afin um from anyway I'm also addressing the book Kite Runner from a bit of a different perspective this book was brought to my attention by my sophomore it was a side reading and um the content is oh I will I will read it um what a tight little sugary she had this Soldier was saying shaking hands with the others gritting um Kamal and Wally each gripped an arm twisted and bent at the elbow so that Hassan's hands were pressed to his back Asaf was standing over them the heel of his snow boot crushing the back of Hassan's neck Asaf knelt behind Hassan put his hands on Hassan's hips and lifted his bare buttocks he kept one hand on Hassan's back and undid his own belt buckle with his

022free hand he unzipped his jeans dropped his underwear he positioned himself behind his song Hassan didn't struggle I pretended I hadn't heard the crack in his voice just like he pretended I hadn't seen the dark stain on the seat of his pants or those tiny drops that fell from between his legs and stained the snow black my mind flashed to that winter day six years ago me peering around the corner in the alley Kamal and Wally holding Hassan down asaf's buttocks muscles clenching and unclenching his hips thrusting back and forth a good question was asked previously why has nothing been said now [Music] um the fact that this book has been in this curriculum for quite some time is extremely concerning um it is not to say that these topics are not important these things

023happen what people go through in other countries our children do need to be made aware of but it can be done in a manner that does not subject our kids to sexually explicit material that does not subject our children to scenes of rape to we need we need to be setting the example um and this book does not do that there are many different ways that we can address these issues while respecting our children um there's one of the other major issues is have we considered those that have been victims of rape for boys I mean as a female you know it may be a little bit different boys that have been subjected to rape before it's extremely triggering um there is no warning there is no notice sent to parents there is no pre-opting

024out I did request an alternative assignment and she was assigned Great Expectations there are alternatives to this book and there are other ways of teaching what other countries what the people go through what other countries are like and other ways of discussing these particular topics without the graphic images in our children's heads so that so thank you hello good evening my name is Melissa Norland I am I do reside within the district I have a high schooler at Creston Valley High School um I'm here to address the current vaccine requirement for our school district volunteers um I was recently made aware that um unlike Schools staff and teachers for volunteers in exception or exemption it's not something that is available for volunteers I wonder why if anybody can answer that question um on the OHA

025website it describes the requirement for students for staff teachers and volunteers they're all lumped together it does not decipher that one group can receive an exemption and the other cannot it does describe clearly that the school district should uphold the um the uh religious or medical exemption and that it does not exclude it let's see excuse me um so it says nothing in this rule is intended to prohibit schools or school-based programs from complying with the Americans with Disabilities Act and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act and state law equivalents for individuals unable to be vaccinated due to a medical condition or sincerely held religious belief so I just wonder um it seems like it is within people's right to decline the vaccine and to State their reason whether it's medically Justified or religiously

026Justified and to not present that to me uh just makes it seem like the school district is being discriminatory to those that have chosen not to take the vaccine the children and families are very well aware of this situation I think every single family kids parents have had these discussions amongst themselves now what they are discussing amongst themselves is the fact that the school district is not allowing these parent volunteers that are wanting to be part of their child's education they are needed because volunteers staff teachers our district is in dire need of all of these things so to continue to not allow that is in real time real time demonstrating and teaching our children what discrimination and bigotry is so I ask you to seriously talk to each other and consider removing that rule

027that is unique to this Corvallis School District Philomath allows volunteers to have exemptions Salem Portland Beaverton we are unique and I wonder why who is responsible for making that decision I have asked I have emailed you superintendent Ross I haven't received an answer so I am here I hope that somebody can provide that are you able to share why we have maintained our um maintained our policy of not allowing exemptions for volunteers yeah so um at this point the reason we've done that is because it requires an individual meeting with each parent volunteer to set an exemption standard so it's scheduling meetings with each parent volunteer is a piece that our human resources department would need to take on up to this point they've been in the process of filling positions for the school year

028with our hiring both our HR and our finance department and so to us what the capacity needed to be focused on up to this point had been on getting our staff hired and so what we have to think about now is what is it going to look like in terms of time and the additional costs of Staffing to hold exemption meetings with every parent who wants to volunteer who has an exception and so that's what we're looking at now well do I may I respond is that something that I are we able to have a dialogue okay okay I just didn't see anywhere in OHA that discussed a meeting for each individual exemption the rule states there's a form that one fills out that's it okay you're I'm sorry but your time has expired thank

029you thank you um so my name is Becky deversich I do reside in the Corvallis School District I'm a mother of three boys in the Corvallis school district and I am an Exempted ER nurse and I am the Corvallis School District captain for the Oregon moms Union um and would like to speak about my concerns regarding the Corvallis School District still not allowing coveted vaccine exemptions for volunteers I did reach out to my fellow captains in addition and in addition to albanyful and with Elsie Monroe I was told Eugene Springfield and Salem Kaiser allow Exempted volunteers and that is my understanding that these School these school districts they haven't hired extra staff they accept the exemptions just like they accept the vaccine cards at face value so there's a process that it doesn't have to

030be as com complex it seems that you guys are doing right now I've been told by Miss finger McDonald our human resources Department's time is being consumed by hiring and background checks we do not have the capacity to process vaccine exemptions to put it bluntly I'm concerned that this is just an excuse the same school board meeting members who are here today we're on the school board last October when they were proposing that our children be mandated to get the coveted vaccine that ended up not working out and I'm concerned that the board members are holding on to not allowing unvaxed volunteers because they still hold judgments of being vaccinated I got an email oh I would I I would be actually be interested to know how many of you got a third fourth or

031fifth shot I know of a few fellow nurses who got a third zero who got a fourth or fifth most have told me there's no freaking way they will be getting any more coveted vaccines I did get an email from my youngest son's elementary school on Tuesday it was titled calling all volunteers it said we are working hard to plan and run several fun and memorable activities for our kids this year at Adams unfortunately some events are at risk of being canceled because we do not have the number of volunteers needed to make them happen end quote I personally would be able to volunteer for most of those activities and there's other moms atoms who are also available if you guys were able to change her girls my youngest son has been struggling at school

032he hasn't reading yet and recently started wearing a mask again because he doesn't want to talk at school he needs me to be there for him and because I won't take this vaccine that I've seen with my own eyes in the ER hurt many people it's unfair and just and cruel to me and to him please reconsider your discriminatory policy of not allowing unvaccinated volunteers I and others who are barred from volunteering won't be just standing by waiting for the school district to follow OHA guidelines for much longer for your time sorry that closes the public hearing part of the meeting the next item on our agenda is the Dual language immersion update foreign thank you all for being here tonight and for our families as well yeah can you hear me now yeah all

033right good evening everybody it's just so wonderful to be here with all of you and as I was reflecting on this evening's presentation it's hard to believe that it was seven years since the Dual language program has presented so hopefully tonight you'll have an opportunity to get to know all of us as well as get to know the amazing programming and what we're proud of in our dual language program as well as hear from some of our students our students who are teachers our students who work for our Corvallis school district and students who are currently in the Dual language program and they want to share their stories so again thank you for this opportunity we're really excited so I will go ahead and start us off and I wanted to start off with a

034video in this video our Communications Department helped us put together a little while ago and I don't think it's been publicly shared so I think it's wonderful that we're going to get to share this video with you tonight what I did want to say about this video is that you're going to recognize a lot of the voices is you're also going to recognize a lot of the faces and I was recently in this in grocery shopping in a store and I bumped into one of our parents whose child attends a dual language program and he looked at into my eyes and he said my son's teacher is a national Treasurer and he was talking about one of the teachers here at Lincoln and I remember saying yes she's a treasure and I also wanted to

035say that our teachers our Educators our assistants all the folks that work in our dual language program are National Treasures and I think we would all agree right yes so we're going to show this video and then we'll get into our presentation program it does tend to be a pretty close-knit community and I think it's a community that extends beyond the classroom we have more head-on conversation and we have more example because we have a deliberately combined demographic of students and they can really take advantage of discussing those things and learning from each other about them I think all of the DLI teachers what makes them so engaging is that they make the space very safe for everybody they're okay with whoever you are they truly care about you know opportunities [Music] the rewarding part

036for me is me being able to connect with him as a Hispanic person to have them see that one of their own has a position like mine I didn't ever have the opportunity to be in a dual immersion program but I just didn't get to have that K-12 experience of learning in Spanish and I love working as a teacher in the program [Music] our program isn't going to change the world but I think that we are changing the people that are going to change the world we have kids in our classroom who are going to go out and make a difference in their community and I think that the teachers here and our staff here in our dual immersion program have the same vision for them [Music] the dual immersion program it does tend to

037be a pretty close I know it's just a beautiful video it's just beautiful and um so that was and Amanda Sharp who did that voice over in Amanda along with Carrie Woodruff are our new DLI at ell toses so we're just really excited to have that so tonight you're going to hear a lot of updates you're going to get a chance to hear from our amazing administrators on the programming that they're excited about at their respective schools and hopefully what you're here tonight is Unity right um who need those right Aaron and because this is a K-12 dual language program we believe that our students as they move from elementary to middle and high it's an experience that really requires a lot of collectivism a lot of alignment between all of us so I'm hopeful

038as you leave here tonight you'll hear a lot of that in a lot of the things that we're going to share um so I have the honor to share some data with you some overall District data and I will kind of go through it fairly quickly because I really want to make sure to give voice to our administrators and to our our students and that are sitting back there so um with that I'll go ahead and get started so what you see in front of you is the the 59 all the languages that we have represented in our district and it's just really exciting to know that we have 59 languages of origin on the right side of the column you're going to see the 20 highest languages spoken in our district and currently our

039top five are top four languages are English Spanish Chinese Mandarin and Arabic our goals um so when I think about our goals these are goals that were established when our program first began in 2001. so think about where we all were in 2001 and so our goals and these are the goals that we stand by that are part of our vision and when we think about making decisions as a dual language program we always go back to these goals and they are bilingual bilingualism and biliteracy grade level academic achievement cultural cross-cultural competence and when I think about our racial Equity work as a district that we accelerated in 2013 I also have to think about our program our dual language program was one of the first steps that we took as as a district to

040really Elevate the voices of our students of color and that was back in 2001 22 years ago so it just goes to show that our dual language program was one of the first big steps to ensure that our students have culturally responsive and socially just classrooms so here you will see a timeline I love timelines I won't go through every single date but just wanted to highlight a couple of dates first off our dual language program started back in 2001 really based on the idea that when we looked at our graduation rates for our Latino students they had about a 50 50 chance of graduating from our system so we knew that we needed to do something different and so dual language was the model that we chose based on Research there's a famous graph

041by Thomas and Collier and Thomas and Collier talk about the different models to support multilingual students and one of the models that they say based on Research there's tons of information out there that talks about dual language as being one of the most effective programs for our dual language schools our students or in our Latino students so that's why that was kind of the premise as to why we started the program as you can see it started at Garfield expanded to Lincoln expanded to the middle school and expanded to the high school as of 2009 we did create a DLI task force which many of us were on and we the purpose of that task force was to ensure that we had full dual language opportunities for all our students entering into Lincoln and Garfield

042Elementary so that was a pivotal moment in our in our program um next uh I'm gonna go to the next page next you will see just from 2017 a lot of the things that we have grown as a program including um piloting collaborative co-teaching thinking about not pulling students out of their classroom and including them where in the classroom setting where they have access to peers and access to content around 2017 we also expanded from a 50 50 model to a 70 30 model and then soon after that we adopted a curriculum Adelante and we made sure that this curriculum was not a translation but authentic materials that were actually written in Spanish first then translated into English think about that right okay and there's more and they're going to share so I'm excited for

043you to hear from them so I also wanted to spend just a minute talking about who is participating in our dual language program and as you can see we have in our current enrollment in our district we have 6 348 brilliant students and out of those students we have 1297 students participating in our dual language program which is about 20 percent of our student population participating in dual language pretty awesome next I wanted to quickly share the our race and ethnicity so 40 43 of our students participating in the Dual language program are white six percent multi-racial 46 latinx one percent black one percent Asian one percent Alaska American Indian Alaskan native students participating in special programs in our dual language program 10 of our student population receive special ed services 25 are English language

044Learners are multilingual students and uh 50 50 of our students receive free or reduced lunches okay and this is probably why you came tonight how are students doing [Laughter] okay there's one slide I just we just have to pause and I'll do ah because it's really exciting um so in terms of the growth of our students yes so um in this slide what you can see is um at the end of a student's High School experience they take the AP exam as AP Spanish exam and so what you can see in front of you is the number of students who during the 20 21 21 22 school year took the AP Spanish and students who received a three or higher and 95 students from CHS took this exam and passed and you can see the

045comparison between Oregon and Global and those are international and so you can see that there was a high percentage of students who took this test and passed it many of these students some of these students aren't in dual language but most of them were so it's just really exciting to see that students are participating in a rigorous assessment and doing well okay um here I have this these next three slides are connected to the growth from 2014 to 2022 right and so here we see the increase in ninth grade on track to go to graduate an 11 growth for latinx students and again I want us to remind us that this program was developed and is is for our latinx students and so you can see the growth from 2014 to now from 72 to

04683 percent this next slide is and this is the one I kind of wanted us to pause right Damian was like oh my gosh this is great so how graduation rates have changed from 2014 to 2021 from 65 in 2014 to 92 percent we believe there's I think a lot of reasons why our students are doing well and thriving in our district but my belief is that it has to do a lot with our latinx students participating in our dual language program here we have post-secondary enrollment in the first year after graduation so you can see the growth over time particularly in our latinx community from 59 to 68 percent all right so the Oregon sealed by by literacy I know we've talked about this in the past but just a little bit of background

047Corvallis was one of four districts who piloted the sea level by literacy back in 2014 so you can see we had 14 students who earned the Seal of by literacy back in 2014 and overall we have awarded 448 seals of biliteracy and I just hot off the press we have about 90 more seals that we expect to award for the class of 2022 so 448 Plus 90 somebody do the math that's a lot all right okay so last slide before I pass it on to my amazing colleagues um this is a visual that I just again going back to how we started this is a k oh yes Charlotte I was just curious for the seals of bi literacy are they for all languages yes yes they are for all languages yes yes and last

048year we awarded seals of by literacies for students who spoke Chinese Mandarin French Portuguese german yes great question that's why the students are here this is great um so this visual I just wanted to kind of represent that this is a K-12 program this students to to learn another language sometimes for our students it's their third or fourth language it takes anywhere from seven to nine years to acquire language and so oftentimes we ask our parents to be patient and our students to be patient too because it takes time right this also represents the unity and the progression that our students experience as they go from elementary to Middle to high with the end goal earning the Seal of bi-literacy graduating and being career and college ready so with that I'm going to go ahead

049and hand it over to Nancy Davila Williams my name is Nancy Davila Williams I'm the principal at Garfield elementary school I'm also a product of the Corvallis School District I um my my family is from San Luis Potosi Mexico I was born in Texas and then we kept going up north and I went to Mountain View Sheldon Crescent Valley OSU and then um Portland State anyway that's another story so so yeah I I'm a product of the Corvallis School District but I think that one thing that I'm really I've really taken from this experience is that my experience as a teacher in dual language comes has brought me full circle back to really connecting with my roots going from Nancy Davila that happened over time back to Nancy Davila Williams so thank you district for

050that a little bit about Garfield elementary school we are I thought it was going to be up there um so we okay thank you uh our enrollment is at about 382 students all of our students are participating in dual language Kinder through fifth grade these are our numbers broken down by grade level as you can see we have higher numbers in Kinder first and second and our smaller numbers and third fourth and fifth but a little bit about our teachers we have three teachers at each grade level K through two we um they are all bilingual teachers and those teachers are all teaching 70 of the time in Spanish and so they're all self-contained classrooms where they um they like I said spend most of their time teaching in Spanish and then third fourth and

051fifth grade teachers are also bilingual teachers for the most part third grade has three classrooms and we have um 50 of the time in Spanish and 50 of the time in English each self-contained fourth grade starts to move more into a self-contained model and then a more traditional model of the of two teachers sharing groups one in Spanish and one in English and then fifth grade we're down to two teachers one of them teaches in Spanish and one of them teaches in English which is a great time to have that model because they're preparing to go off to the middle school where they are transitioning into many different classes so our um demographics for Garfield we have 49 Latino 40 white two percent black two percent Asian Pacific Islander one percent American Indian Alaska native

052and seven percent that identify as multiracial the exciting thing about that on top of having such a diverse student population is that our teaching population reflects that same percentage of people of color in the teaching ranks and the leadership ranks and and we all know that it's great for students to see themselves reflected in the leadership in the school because then they can see themselves being in those roles in the future we have a safe group at Garfield we're in our second year of our safe group that's being led by our wonderful Veronica Lepe our PE teacher the Latina that is students advocating for Equity we are starting into our Mariachi experience we really thank the community for all of their support and providing Mariachi instruments and funds for buying Mariachi instruments we actually really

053slowed that process down intentionally because we really wanted to make sure that we approached this carefully and respectfully to make sure to to represent that culture well be having so many students from the culture that Mariachi comes from we really wanted to make sure that we were connected to members of the community who could help us roll that out well and so we've connected Ryan connected us with Victor Villegas at OSU Mariachi steam camp and he and our Music Teacher are rolling that out together and so slowing it down was worth the wait and now we're ready to get into that we're also applying for a grant to bring back uh well actually to start monthly Guatemalan nights to try to connect further with our Guatemalan community and see what we can do to develop

054that relationship with them and really just hear what those needs are and what they um would Define being connected as versus US telling them um you know what connected is and how we want them to be connected we just want to grow our relationship and see how we can further connect with the Guatemalan community um our leadership team has now moved to be our Equity team because we want all things that Garfield to be done and decided through a lens of equity really making sure that we're being mindful of the impact that our decisions are making on our population um and then uh celebration also is that 68 of students at Garfield demonstrated above average growth in Reading in one language or the other based on Star and this is information from last year during

055a pandemic so it's a celebration and I think it just shows where we're headed the other piece that I really want to celebrate about that is the equal importance that the district is giving to the two languages that the students are learning and navigating throughout their educational career so I really am appreciative of that Focus we did the youth truth survey and out of the youth truth survey we learned that 92 percent of students and Staff feel that people at their school value people of different races and ethnicities and that is a celebration because that is um something that we just want to be natural and organic at our school because of who we are and who we serve however one thing that did come out of that was that we need to focus on

056reconnecting kids and staff I feel like we really were impacted greatly by the pandemic and things that were taken away were things that really brought us together in person assemblies meetings all of these other pieces that that we had to do to keep people safe but we're really looking forward to getting back to so that we can address that that need for our school thank you except I'm about to go so you want to sit down no I'm kidding it's good to see many many faces just so folk online heard What Sarah Said the students don't have to stay past eight but they're welcome to so thank you all because we want them to all get their homework done yes good to see you all and go to and go to bed early I was

057principal of three of these students right over here so go get your homework done it's it's good to be with you and good to be with this team we have opportunities to meet frequently and really calibrate and celebrate and spend time thinking about how to make our program um what we know it can become for students it's this growth mindset and as a principal uh Lincoln Elementary I think back to when I was a teacher here starting in 1997 a few years ago and just seeing the growth of the program and knowing that we we have lots of growth ahead we have 338 students this year and all of our students are in the program unlike when we had a school within a school and just the unity that we experienced through that change has

058been fantastic so we appreciate the the board's move and support in doing that several years ago um our demographics are also listed there where I want to honor the the metaphor of we want to provide mirrors and windows for our students so that they can see themselves and that they can see others through their learning experiences and so the demographics of our students really reflect in who they get to see in front of them each day and I'm very appreciative of the support that we've had in moving towards that direction which is a far cry from where students experienced when I first began teaching and it was a lot of white teachers and so I'm I'm celebrating that and you can look at those percentages as well um we have some exciting pictures to kind

059of highlight things from last year I'm right here on this floor at the end of our year we had a chance and to celebrate our fifth graders and our kindergartners as they were moving on our first opportunity to bring families back in to celebrate learning in that way so by life of clorico in the picture with the um dancing that happened to celebrate that that end of year was awesome our safe group that's in the picture right next door is also a celebration that's reflected in our schools where Marla Juarez is our fifth year teacher and our safe coordinator was also a fifth grade student here at Lincoln when she came from Mexico and just to come back and share her experience and bring that lens has been amazing down below kind of reflects Our

060intention as we came into more opportunity to be out and about last year where all grade levels had a chance to experience field trips and the lahatuanian project that is at both of our schools is I in our vision aligned with District goals of real world learning is an exciting partner ownership that we have going at both Garfield and Lincoln and the youth truth survey I wanted to highlight the notion that I think is one of our overarching goals in dual language is that everyone belongs and making that um a priority so that if a student comes here they they know that they're going to have a safe space to learn and both belong in instructional methods were reported in the 87th percentile where students um felt again that what and how they were learning

061mattered and then 71 percent of the students were above or at average growth in Spanish and or English reading and that's also on the star I can't remember but it's it's an important measure that helps us to understand where students are so that we can help them to grow from there so thank you thank you all right well good evening I'm Alicia Ward saute and I'm the principal at Linus Paulie and I'm really excited to be here with this awesome team um I really appreciate when we're able to meet and um I feel like every year we get more aligned and just are growing a K-12 program I think that is the best in the state and maybe in the country it's it's just really amazing to work with these folks and with our wonderful

062teachers that we have so and you must look there we go all right so there's our current enrollment for this year we're at 772 students um you'll see the the dual immersion enrollment broken down by the grade levels um you know back when I first gave this presentation what'd you say marcian seven years ago we were kind of you know waiting for the big growth in the number of students we've we would get at the middle school I think this is where we will probably be unless we have bigger growth coming in larger elementary schools coming you know Elementary classes coming in which doesn't look like it'll be but but this will be about where we will sit with our numbers at each one of the grade levels so it's a robust program I would

063say what about 40 percent of the students maybe a little less that are participating in dual immersion at Linus Pauling we have been really successful in recruiting very strong teachers to work in our program all our heritage and native speakers of Spanish I'm really proud of that and I'm proud of the the wonderful education that they are giving our students I'm just kind of going down that list we did start a mariachi band last year we were lucky in one of our our band teacher who left us for a couple years went to Southern California got experience teaching Mariachi in Southern California and came back to us and first thing I did as soon as I interviewed her and found that out and of course we were to hire her I sat down and said

064what do you think about starting a mariachi band and she was very excited and with the support of the district we were able to purchase instruments and and get that off the ground so we are very proud of our students in in our mariachi band and Hope to grow that as the years passed so just a really great addition to our school and it's exciting to hear that Garfield is now also starting that and and bringing we'll be able to continue that with their students coming up to us so that's a really exciting thing um this year I'm excited also about our world peace games that we're able to offer as an elective offering in Spanish one of our dual immersion teachers was actually trained in in World Peace games I think before the the

065pandemic and we have dabbled in it in English at Linus Pauling but now we're able to offer that elective in Spanish and for you for those of you that may not know what world peace games is I'm just going to read just a little bit here it's a Hands-On political simulation that gives players the opportunity to explore the connections of the global community Through the lens of Economics socials and environmental crisis and the imminent threat of war the students are highly engaged in this in this class and in this activity everybody kind of finds their that they all have a role in this game um you know and in this and in this situation they're now able to use their Spanish working through this game our teacher Jose becerda who also teaches social studies is

066the one teaching it this year so we're really excited about that last year we had a great end of the year DLI celebration which we will make something that we will do every year for especially celebrating our 8th graders and all the great work that they've done in middle school which is really something to celebrate after they've taken the stamp test which is our our assessment that we give students which may give them the opportunities to start high school in an AP Spanish class which is very exciting for them it's something that they all get a little nervous about but boy they all rise to the occasion and do a wonderful job and and I'm just really I'm proud of them and proud of our staff for the great work that they do and then

067you'll see the student demographic there at the bottom it's about I would say it's staying about the same not a lot of change that's about what we've been at for uh quite a few years here so yes yeah School overall yes thank you and then this is just uh I think when you start getting to secondary and it's important to know what the course sequence is um in the dual immersion program as you see our minimum offering are the two uh the social studies class and the Spanish language arts class so each year there's a different Focus the social studies follows the English curriculum with the same topics in each of the grade levels the students participate in all of the activities that are done in those Social Studies classes just like in English except

068obviously in Spanish then the Spanish language arts classes are there to really hone in in those language skills and and and really work on that reading and writing to to help them get to those levels that they need to possibly be placed in an AP class in in high school um that the bottom line there is our other pathway through our dual immersion program which is more of a World Language Focus you know we like to say you can you can become bilingual in many different ways um and so we want to make sure that we are offering those options for students who who wear these classes may be a better fit um you know another thing I think that's important to know each year when it comes to hiring we look at our hires

069and we say can we find a Spanish speaker to offer a class in say another content area a math class a science class something else to really beef up the amount of time that students are in uh us they're in their Spanish and in learning Spanish along with learning that content so so that is our goal every year sometimes it happens sometimes it doesn't so I'm looking forward to next year and hopefully being able to recruit hopefully amount math teacher that we can bring in but as we look at our openings we'll see what we can do but yeah there's line is falling in a nutshell thank you I'm serado Munoz um I shouldn't look up there it's weird to look at yourself up there I'm gonna look down um I am an assistant principal

070at Corvallis high school and also athletic director and this is my second year at the beginning of my second year working with a DLI program as a former Spanish teacher who got to work with a DLI program in Salem Kaiser it's really exciting for me to to work with our department we have a great staff and it's really come a long ways here the you know since the last time that um we presented to the board with that we've gone from one one teacher to now we have five and it the makeup of those five teachers you know we have a staff of color that reflects our students um you know and it's great for them to see themselves through those teachers um the other thing with that uh you know highlight for us right

071now I'll go on to the pathways here in a minute but having a DLI advisory committee as we're making decisions with with some of the changes that we've got to make as is Pretty crucial for us because decisions we make really impacts everyone else so we want to make sure that we're hearing the voices of the other schools that are feeding into our into ours um right now as you see the pathways here um with going to the seventh to the seventh periods our students who are in the DLI program are affected so as far as electives they can participate in and also if they're an avid so we we've worked with the the DLI advisory committee to to look at how many credits we want to require to obtain the bilingual by literacy seal

072and right now we've landed on five so students in their High School career will be participating in five classes for that and as well as doing the five hours of community service which is another highlight of our program that students have to go out in the community and use Spanish as a way to give back um the other another highlight we have with this is that we're offering Global Studies as in Spanish as a way to obtain your core credit so that's really exciting for us so that students can still so they don't lose out in an elective credit I I got um I had the pleasure of going into one of the uh culminante classes with Amanda and I spoke to a few of the students and uh did an activity on the board

073and I wanted to voice some of their uh highlights we do have some other students in the back who will also get to share a little bit about being I think that's really the highlight of my piece and they get they get to present to you guys but a couple of the things I heard I'm just going to read them here the environment of the program and the classes is supportive and feels like a learning community the program offers access to perspectives and instruction that is unique in particular to their program and creates depth and overall learning there's always support help and opportunity for learning practicing Spanish and expanding abilities the teachers are good caring and supportive there are special opportunities to interact beyond the classroom with the community within the DLI program there's opportunities

074for the future Beyond High School that are increased due to bilingualism as far as higher education Workforce Etc the program is empowering for Spanish-speaking students especially those who are recent arrivals to the USA they are given a space to be leaders be strong examples and helpful to their classmates this in turn helps them Foster friendships and relationships and I can tell you when you know when I heard the students say this it gave me some chills because it that student had the opportunity to connect to our high school because of the program um and Lasting the lifelong friendships and because students have been together for such a long time so those were some of the things that the students shared our hopes really are to continue to grow the program as far as the core

075classes go that will really help students in the program with electives I have this dream of hopefully following the lead of LP and bringing in a math teacher who can I mean a dream of being able to have students earning algebra one credit in Spanish I'm also going to mention that I'd love to have BPF in Spanish so those are things we want to work towards where Alicia mentioned a little bit about this already we're also trying to figure out the pathways so that students come into AP Spanish language and are able to earn language arts credit for their English side so those are a couple of the of the things we're looking at one other that I'm forgetting is U.S history and Spanish where we're we're planting that seed because that that would give

076them another class so the more core classes they can complete in Spanish the more they'll have for the more spots they'll have for electives um here we are oh one other thing as well another another dream of mine is to continue the Mariachi uh ban and I've already talked to Matt about this where that's that's a hope of ours as well because we want to carry that on um Amanda was kind enough to connect together a little bit of data um of some of our alumni in the program and currently we have 20 of them as teachers EA's or office staff within the district we have um 14 of them in the medical and Health Care field we have five who have their own licensed and bonded companies eight in finance and business eight in

077engineering and Technology seven in science and reach and research nine in advance Academia and currently we have a 118 students in in higher education and many of them are first generation students so that's a big one for us [Applause] there's one other slide and this kind of shows what our numbers have been since 2014 we're projecting 65 students uh completing their DLI program this year with that I will that is all I have yes okay um hello my name is farron groom I use lay them pronouns and I'm currently at Corvallis high school I have been part of the dual immersion program since kindergarten I actually went to Lincoln I was gonna say I went here but it's very different now and I found the dual immersion program has been pretty impactful on me and

078more so as I've gotten into High School originally it was just interesting I found like oh yeah like I can you know have a class that's a tighter knit than most because we all have so many courses together but as I've gotten into High School I've had experiences um they really solidified for me how important speaking Spanish is going to be for me going to the Future in 2019 my family hosted the Garcia Matias family who are from Acapulco of Mexico they were seeking Asylum and my parents both thought they could speak Spanish but they really they definitely had more abilities than I think most people who have taken no classes but it was very striking to me how much more I was able to communicate and I've also found speaking Spanish to be really

079useful I've been able to read more books and also been able to volunteer work where otherwise language barriers would have just made that impossible and so I have found that going into the future being partial immersion program has made me have a lot more value for the community I'm in and I'm hoping to live outside of the United States knowing that I can learn a second language and potentially learn more it's given me the confidence thing that I could live outside the U.S and fulfill that dream um hi I'm Alden Lancaster I go to CHS I went to Lincoln just like Baron I went to Alliance Pauling also I've been in the DI program since kindergarten and that yeah that's that's always been good so uh for me the DLI program has mainly just given

080me like a sense of community to have because for me there isn't very many like African-American students in our district or just in our just people in our city and so it's really given me like a sense of community and like people who I can that I've grown up around that I know how to like be a part of something um and for me it's it's just given me the opportunity to have like more friends and have more experiences like this last year I went to Spain and I was able to speak fine and it was it was great um and for me it's the like being part of the program it makes me want to continue like learning more about the language and the culture surrounding it and um even maybe living or doing

081like an exchange sometime outside of the US and a Spanish-speaking country so that's it's always been really special to me to be a part of this program my name is Jorge Aquino and yeah I've been in di for about like 12 years I started kindergarten in South Shore Elementary School in Albany and then I moved to Garfield and then LP and then High School CHS but yeah uh this program has impacted me a lot because of the teachers these are teachers that look like me sound like me and have lived like me and I feel like that has been able to for me to connect with them and actually um participate in the class I wouldn't say I'm the best student but in Spanish class I think I do have a glow and they made

082me feel that way and I feel like in the future having them as an example shows me how to be you know a good person and then I in my family I don't have someone that graduated college but these people that lived like me have a college degree and succeeded in their field and I feel like that has made me expand my career options instead of just you know working a normal job and I thank them for that Cisneros I have been a part of the CIA program since kindergarten so it's been 12 years I attended Garfield Elementary and Linus Pauling and I am now attending Corvallis High School the DI program has had a wonderful impact on me it's allowed me to not lose my roots of having Spanish as my first language it

083allowed me to practice and use it in my everyday life and know that there's other people just like me that I can relate to and rely on uh it's impacted my future plans a lot actually I want to be an elementary school teacher and foreign yes um they're actually really amazing examples for me being in the DI program really motivates me to just keep going and um reach my goal because I know I'm going to impact a lot of kids and a lot of parents and as a bilingual teacher it's going to be a change in the world so yeah thank you [Applause] so so I just have to say how like from from my vantage point to see the Educators like standing behind you but like leaning in with like pride and excitement for

084all of you you don't get to see that because of where you're sitting but I got a chance to see that and it feels it's really cool so thank you for for sharing your your experiences with us I don't know what comes next but thank you so much for the students if you may stay okay so I wanted to ask the question initially to staff especially when I started hearing dreaming about things we want to do adding classes seeing the trajectory since 2014 in terms of graduation rates so here's my question and after I ask the question I'll give you some time as I build this setting uh the program started in 2001 and you've been in the program for about 12 years and you're telling us about it right now the question is if

085I ask the students in the DLI program in 2035 about a DLI program how would that look like what would they tell us I want you to dream without any constraints there's no wrong answers one thing I know for sure you'll be standing behind the students as their teacher and proud of their work that they have done they are kindergarteners right now how would the DLI look like or what would you say if you were in their shoes as they share in 2035 I would probably think that the future kids here will probably respond to you guys in Spanish since our generation are probably going to be teachers board members and other things so I'm really hoping that the kids were talking Spanish too important people I just want to point out that we are

086no more important than you are I actually really like this question I am currently working at the Garfield after school program so um I work with a lot of the kindergartens kindergartens kindergarteners sorry um and a lot of them all of them speak Spanish so I think they're going to be really really grateful for the opportunity and they're going to be amazing because of the DI program thank you just lots of appreciation doesn't say the same thing thanks for hanging in there to share your experiences with us um good to hear from you all yeah and you all should also feel free to leave and go do your homework is the mother of a fellow High School senior I I got one you were just getting ready to get up huh um so I just

087like as you think back about the experience of being in DLI um I would anticipate there is um there's work that comes with that there's experience that comes with that and so I'm just kind of thinking about you know thinking about your 13 years now in the program are there points in time that you like either stand out to you as a moment of success or a moment of challenge that we as the people who try to make the program as successful as possible should be thinking about and knowing about so we can help to to help those Kinders who are just starting in the program as they move through the system and again you don't have to answer it but I just I'm always curious about that could you repeat the first part of

088the question please it was a long question wasn't it um as you think about your 13 years in DOI are there times that were more challenging or or you felt more challenged or more successful As you move through the system so I was actually part of the first class who got the opportunity to start AP Spanish freshman year so that was a really big accomplishment and I moved on to uh honors Spanish Literature uh 10th grade and then AP Spanish Literature um 11th grade so that was a really big accomplishment for me and my my family was really proud because um as a Mexican student having those type of opportunities mean a lot to us to be represented as being capable of taking those classes as much as any of um um other people are

089other students are and that was one of my biggest accomplishments that the GI program gave me an opportunity to have to I want to say that I guess the biggest challenge was only having one class in di throughout the school year I wish actually not thinking about it it would have been nice having my father help me with math homework if it was in Spanish and I feel like with having one class a day of Spanish some of my Spanish has probably been shut off and having more Spanish class is actually a very good idea since we're already surrounded of a world that speaks English and then some of us forget our Spanish thanks I appreciate it go do your homework [Applause] and then next we have Anna Maria and Gustavo to former dla students

090in our program I'll let them introduce themselves here all right two questions before I start one double time limit I gotta get out of the way you're way past where we were supposed to be anyway we we started out behind so we'll give you a little all right sounds good and then second am I allowed to say my friends names or no okay sounds good I can get started now so hello I am Gustavo sparsa I live in Corvallis I have a brother who goes to CHS who is soon to graduate so hopefully Gerardo's watching right now and I am a recent graduate of Oregon State University which I actually just got today [Applause] and the main reason why I'm here today is to talk about the importance of the Corvallis School District's dual immersion

091program to my success in life as some of you know I'm a class of 2017 graduate of Corvallis High earning my Oregon state seal of bi literacy AKA El seiovilingue after 13 years of being in the DI program I want to give a quick shout out to my parents with all due respect to Franklin which is a three-minute walking distance from my current home of 22 years I am thankful that my parents were informed about the program in 2004 when it was still in its infancy and made the choice to send me farther away to Garfield I had the Delight of having great teachers and staff wanted to help out students succeed building up skills academically and socially in both English and Spanish with two of them right there in the yeah the school looks

092nice by the way big upgrade having a core group of students in a class allowed for a sense of familiar familiarity as we as I transitioned from Garfield to Linus Pauling and from Linus Paul and Corvallis High having classmates that cared about the successes and well-being of fellow peers allowed for my experience to be a very great and fun fun time many of my friendships throughout my school years began and were strengthened with fellow students at the DI program not just in my grade but in grades below with one of them sitting right over here I was appreciative of the time I had outside the home to converse and work on my Spanish skills with my classmates and Friends class material allowed me to not just appreciate Latin American cultures and identities but other world

093cultures I am happy that many of my friends are not American Born or raised as I can learn Customs Traditions Norms from cultures that are not American based the opportunity to learn from multiple teachers that embrace the program was something I never took for granted all of them are great Advocates and care about the well-being of their students inside and outside the school setting I could name all of them and they know who they are but I only got a limited amount of time their ability to appreciate different perspectives has Implement influenced me to do the same present-day me is balancing multiple jobs all relating to helping out others communicating with different groups of people offering different perspectives at the grocery store I work at I'm one of the few people of color that work

094there in addition to being one of the few Spanish-speaking workers there are instances where I have to play the translator role for customers and I'm happy that my bilingual skills come in handy they're also helpful when coordinating a project for high schoolers on behalf of Casa Latinos unidos it is called jovenes and Axion or Youth in Action where a group of students of the Latino Community will learn research research steps toward creating an action plan towards an issue that students care about and are impacted by in addition I'm also at OSU as an academic counselor for educational opportunities program EOP playing a small role in assisting first-year students from traditionally underrepresented backgrounds in maneuvering through University life I can thank the DI program for teaching me not just the strengths of bilingualism by teaching me

095the importance of leadership advocacy empowerment empathy creativity teamwork compassion and more don't just look at me as to why the program is a success there are many stories out there that highlight why the DI program has played a role in the life life successes of former students take Malia about her for example she is currently in Seattle working in the healthcare field as a genetic counselor her tasks include creating resources translating documents and counseling patients in the hospital setting being able to speak fluently speak Spanish fluently allows the Spanish-speaking patients she interacts with to feel comfortable and connect with her on a deeper level Malia is super grateful for the DI program and I can probably assume the same thing for her two younger siblings the DI program was also of great help to one

096of my longest tenure friends Chris Polanco who attributes the DI program to helping him learn English it also assisted in this transition from knowing only Mexican culture to also learning about American culture he is on track to graduate from OSU in the spring of 2023 majoring in business Information Systems he spent the summer interning at Deloitte as a financial advisory intern after graduation he has a job lined up as a risk and financial advisory analysts he creates his present and future job look on the time spent in the DI program now if I had unlimited time I could go all day highlighting the stories of my friends making it big in the world occurred in the crediting the DI program for teaching them multi Multicultural and bilingual skills the dual immersion program has been a

097success and I hope they see it continue growing in the upcoming years producing more quality people who are motivated and determined to make a positive impact in the world thank you for listening [Applause] good evening and I'm one of the dual immersion teachers at Corvallis High School I currently teach di language for freshmen and sophomore and this is my third year as a teacher at CHS and I'm really excited um so I've been part of the dual immersion program for many years first as a student and now as a teacher I had the amazing opportunity to be enrolled in the program back in 2003 when I started kindergarten at Garfield Elementary in 2015 I graduated from Corvallis high school and I earned the by literacy seal I still remember the day when we had our

098interview it was terrifying there was a panel and one of them was our teacher Amanda pjoy and Alicia was there too and they really helped us to calm down and I also remember when I got the news that I had passed the test and therefore uh earning the biliteracy seal so for me to do dual immersion program has impacted me in many ways it opened the door to many opportunities I was able to continue learning my native language Spanish as I developed my second language English thanks to the ability of being able to learn in two languages I have been able to effectively communicate interact and help many individuals by being part of the DLI program I was able to embrace my bilingualism and by culturalism it gave me a deeper deeper understanding and connection

099to my community and to the issues that we face I was able to learn from teachers from teachers who were passionate and who care about their students I've learned many connections with my peers and my teachers that have lasted many years because of my amazing teachers at Garfield blindness Pauling and chess I decided to become a teacher they were my role models and they still are and now I have the honor to teach and to support my students as they continue to learn and develop their language skills I get to work each day with some of the most creative funny and caring students I see them helping each other with their Grammar with their reading I see them talking about different things that are going on in their lives that are going on in the

100school we have dance sometimes during class we sing every day I get to see how my students Embrace being bilingual and most importantly how they are accepting and respectful of the many cultures that coexist within our classroom at times it can be difficult especially when developing a new curriculum and trying to find the resources necessary to teach but with the support of my colleagues and mentors everything is possible I'm part of a great team and I'm very thankful for the privilege of being part of the dual immersion program as a student and now as a teacher thank you [Applause] I think we should do the same problems start with Sammy's and then go to the superintendents yeah I think the same questions yes kindergarteners today are going to have 12 more years and then 20

10135 they're going to speak about it uh maybe also the recent graduates are going to speak about it tell me more what things that the program could grow to or change us so they will share other things other than that you mentioned how do you envision the program will be in 2035 12 years from now foreign kind of a loaded question I think 13 years from now if the students are appreciative of the sacrifices the hard work that their teachers put in to creating a curriculum up program that cares about their successes both academically socially athletically I feel like it's doing the right job this is a very loaded question Jorge pretty Jorge pretty much nailed it as long as as we see more people that look like us in the school board as teachers

102as staff I think the program's doing its job you heard that right on the way out so there you go I was going to add that we have some openings coming up on the budget committee and if you are a member of the Corvallis School District Community you can apply for those positions so trying to maybe get a fourth job sadly none of us are paid and so my question was just to restate it like over the 13 years are there high points and low points that you think we should know about and be thinking about at least in my time I know that around junior senior year after the AP exam luckily right now I've seen I've noticed that you the program's like evolved as far as the AP classes the honors classes that

103are being provided I think it was a good a good change because I think after junior year there's like that high point oh we just did the APA test get a following AP test and you think that there's probably not really a reason to continue learning Spanish or working on it so I think as long as as long as it keeps evolving and understand both the highs and the lows that come with it and work around it to improve it then I see that the program is continuing to be in the right direction producing high quality people to to put a high quality people that make a difference in the world for me I think that when I was a student I only had one class in Spanish with an amazing teacher and now I'm

104really happy to see that we have we are offering two classes in Spanish at least for the Freshman sophomores and I do hope that in the future we can offer more classes in Spanish so our students can get more language exposure thanks I appreciate it it's really helpful information for us to hear and think about and know about I would send you home to go to do your homework but I know that that's not the case anymore you've got to go grade other people's homework or volunteers somewhere in the community thank you thank you [Applause] okay questions I have a few but I'll pick out a couple um I'm have a question about um That was supposed okay hold on um this one is really specific to Garfield um and I do want to say

105I really appreciate it at the secondary level looking at core classes in Spanish to allow for more electives I think that's amazing and what much needed so that's just a comment um that I wanted to share in at Garfield you were talking about working more with families from Guatemala and I'm wondering if they're a high concentration of like kiche or other indigenous language speaking or if it seems like it's Spanish and how that's being incorporated into the conversations of support for families from that region so that's kind of that question it was already on enough so Lou are you asking what language yeah like if it's because it's like focused I know the program itself is Spanish and I understand that and I think it's needed um but I know that a lot of families

106from that region in particular that are up here speaking indigenous language and so I'm wondering like how that overlap is working for especially if you're doing specific Outreach in Garfield or if it's something you're thinking if you don't have an answer now that's okay but I'm just throwing that out there as like a potential to kind of think about yes so our Guatemalan Community mom speaking Community has really grown over the last several years and so we have been very intentional to work with our Community Partners to support and connect with our mom-speaking community here one of our health Navigators and she has been an instrumental in helping us con and create opportunities for the mom speaking Community to come together with with Garfield staff and um and this is pre-covered so we're trying to

107get back to that but just to have events that are really culturally appropriate for the community and having folks in those spaces that even serve as interpreters and aren't interpreters is a graduate of ours that was able to be a bridge between what the community is needing and what resources we want to um make sure that the families have and um so I think it's an area that we're definitely growing in we've so I hope I answered your questions because it was a targeted Community within the community and I just understand the Dynamics there and that's why I was asking um what those efforts look like or if that's already in works and stuff so thank you and then the other one is across the board with um with the di program if there's the

108incorporation of I love the examples given of like sharing culture and music and everything and if there's talk about incorporating experience of afro-latinx community and Indigenous communities within the Spanish-speaking Community if that's already woven in I didn't hear it highlighted and so I was just wondering if it is and if not if that's something that's being looked at as being incorporated into programs and stuff a little bit tonight um some of the pieces that we have in place are our racial Equity lessons that that do discuss different latinx populations and so all of the teachers are using the equity lessons in their classrooms and we've specifically carved out um a chunk of time to make sure that we're all doing that in alignment and having school projects at the end of of each section of

109equity lessons so that we are all recognizing this across the board um there's also Heritage months that we're putting in place at at Garfield and making sure that this is part of our assembly work and a part of our Cross School discussions and what's being you know put up on the walls and celebrated and recognized and although I know that those might feel um I don't know maybe in some places more tokenistic I think at Garfield because we're we're we have such a large student and staff population of color it's sort of organic and natural for that to be part of our discussion and part of our world and part of our daily our daily work and focus and so definitely afro-latinx populations are part of the discussions and all of those components that was

110that was for everyone thanks I would agree with Nancy and I see how it's integrated and really the equity lessons is a foundation that's consistent across the building I'm here at Lincoln and the Heritage months being celebrated and having more intentionality around that is helpful as we think about our what used to be our leadership and Equity committees being separate our Equity committee is our leadership team and having that there's more Synergy and momentum in moving forward and I I also concur with the um the caution of it feeling like a token approach because it is efforts that are um being propelled forward and highlighted from our our staff of color and allies it's definitely authentic if you look at our walls when you're getting pizza if you got pizza if you didn't you might

111still be hungry but I would invite you to take a look at our walls and just see some of those examples of efforts being led by our leadership Equity team foreign I think the focus at the middle school is really looking at the reading material that students are reading in the Spanish language arts classes and making sure because the Spanish-speaking world is so diverse is to making sure that we're getting all of those voices from the many different areas and the many different peoples that that live in those lands and and so as we continue to develop our Spanish language curriculum and align alignment etc those are definitely things that we will be focused on I do believe we do a little bit of that but I think we need to be a little more

112intentional in making sure that we are including the diversity that exists in the Spanish-speaking world so great question and yeah and I would kind of echo what Alicia just said as well that their the students are are discussing these topics within the curriculum but we could probably be a little more intentional uh we had a campaign for Hispanic Heritage Month but I think that's an opportunity for us to be more intentional as well great thanks Joe diversity of the latinx community and like being part of it as well in some regards and having those areas especially the way that anti-indigynating anti-blockness shows up in the commitments as a district we have I was really curious how it's being incorporated into the dla program um right now or what your plans were and look forward to

113hearing more about that in the future so thank you so much foreign this was a really fantastic presentation and I feel a little terrible actually asking a question this late but I really but I really want to know the answer to this so um so my question is about the relationship between dual immersion and special education um and I guess it's kind of a layered question really kind of starting with just um how would you describe the um way in which there's you approach co-collaboration for serving DLI students that are also accessing special education services and then where do you see a need for growth opportunities regarding those special education students and I have a list of like specific things I want to know about those subs those students but I'll email those because you

114probably don't know this all the time you're head anyway so all this that's kind of what I'm I'm hoping to hear a little bit about is it on okay I think the exciting growth area is um in regards to Staffing as well right sometimes we think of special education as just providing Services um in the form of an IEP but special education services sometimes our student services in the way of 504 plans or whatnot and I think there's a disparity in our system of how folks can access those services and just being really Mindful and using our Equity lens questions to guide our decisions around how we improve our systems within our schools and our processes so that families can receive the services and that we're really aware of any disparities as we're tracking who's

115getting Services who has the power in making those decisions um we we both share especially maybe I'm not supposed to say this because that's my microphone bring out um this year who is Spanish speaking by cultural and that has been huge we just had a meeting recently um led by um this teacher and a native Spanish-speaking teacher who afterwards just was in awe saying that previously she had felt just this weight of having to advocate for the family and to see this advocacy happen and the connection happened um in the family's ability to access Services now it's been a game changer and also having family liaison in our building who is bicultural native Spanish speaker who can be one added member to this pretty tricky process and then in addition we have health Navigators who

116often will help advocate for families to access services medical services that might need to um accommodations and whatnot so yeah I think what I would add to that is just a celebration of having an environment and that is welcoming and feels safe for families and having people that speak their language so that maybe in the special ed realm we still have some growth to do as far as bilingualism goes but in the whole school as far as the front office staff teachers and assistants there are always people to to process things with to ask questions through and to advocate for families and so that's that's an exciting place to be and I just really look forward to continuing to grow our bilingual staff foreign I would just say that that I think this is um

117an area where I think we're working in but also an area of growth obviously our teachers differentiate within their classroom to accommodate students that are on IEPs I think at least for Linus Pauling having um you know hopefully in the future having a bilingual special education teacher would be very very helpful who understands that that cross between special education and language acquisition and so I you know that would be um a great a great person to land in a position at LP and so definitely looking for that I also do think like training for our our teachers who who are teaching in a second language and and having to use lots of different methodology and maybe better to help them understand how to support students within the classroom that are on IEPs with certain accommodations

118would always be an area of growth and would be something very helpful um and then the continuation of having our bilingual educational assistance assisting in the classroom with students that may need just that extra help to get through the material and to and to be able to fully engage in the classroom so so there's um you know I think there's some areas of growth and um you know some some definitely some Personnel to find to be able to help us with that I think that the only thing I'd add to what Elisa just said because it's very similar as well is and I use this for a mat when I'm talking about bringing you know looking for a math teacher that is bilingual is that that special education teacher who's bilingual is probably choosing what

119district they want to go to and so we need to find a way to attract them to Corvallis Oregon so and I did want to correct one thing because I was saying earlier you know my my dream but it's actually our Dream as a team at Corral's high school so hopefully it doesn't didn't seem like it was just my decision because it is our team hope that we are able to bring those core classes in Spanish and thank you um I just would encourage this to be a topic where we have a lot of parent engagement because I know that you know there's there's a lot embedded in special education um that really does reflect other aspects of culture and so I appreciated the reference to bicultural and recognizing that even the way in which

120we would conceptualize a learning need or an unmet learning need could really vary based on people's backgrounds and so I'm just glad to hear there's some awareness and sensitivity to that and I suspect that you've got more than a handful of parents in the community that would jump at the chance to participate in a dream session about what um bilingual special education could look like and so if there is ever an interest in that um I just I'm pretty sure you could drum up the people that would come and say this is what we think worked or didn't work for our kids and this is what the question that Sammy asked about well the class of 2035 be able to say I hope it would be able to say is that there are bilingual special

121education kids getting their sealed by literacy because I don't know that that is necessarily that they're they are adequately represented right now but I know that that's attainable so I think that I'm going to answer your question Sammy I think that's what um that's an area that we could go almost supposed to say hi to Mr Villa Williams for Quinlan um he Mrs Garfield and we had six great years there so um when I told them that the Dual language is coming tonight he said oh say hi to my old teachers and I said I'll I'll make sure that they know that you loved it there so thanks foreign go do your homework thank you so much thank you foreign sorry the school board meeting has resumed um the next item on our agenda is

122the division 22 report and action hi everybody um I've been watching you use these microphones for multiple sessions this is my first time so I hope I learned something we'll see I have presented to you the division 22 report which as you read and are well aware of is the report that we need to file each year with Ode to show that we're following standards the report that you have is the report for the 20 20 20 no yes 2022 school year so um that's where we're at happy to report that we are in full compliance for the first time I've ever experienced it so that's super exciting um and all of our plans that uh we had to send to the state last year to say that we were going to move towards compliance

123all of them were accepted all of them were completed um I think the couple things I want to focus on quickly is and the questions that I received were about PE so I want to talk about that a little bit so the um and then I had another question about instructional minute so I'll talk about that as well okay so first to talk about PE and and this goes to the question that um I received about PE at the middle school and are we going to meet the 225 minutes of PE at middle school that are required for this school year in next November's report and we're probably not going to and that is um something that we need to talk about as um as a prioritization that we've created for Middle School the Middle

124School teachers who teach or have taught Health PE for for a very long time in a semester system where their feedback was it's really hard for us to cover all of those Health standards in a very um intentional way when we teach you know soccer for like four days and then one day we come in and we talk about healthy sexual relationships um it's just kind of a weird thing so they really asked if they could we could do something different the trimester schedule that we created for Middle School requires students to take two trimesters of PE and one Health unless you're a DLI student it's one in one but what we've created and prioritized is a standalone health class and that Standalone health class is taking a look at topics like mental Wellness healthy

125relationships healthy behaviors sexual abuse prevention healthy sexuality gender identity all of the things that we need to cover in our sixth seventh and 8th grade health standards so that's where we've laid our priority and it really is um kind of a testament to what the health that the health teachers want to do a better job of covering those topics and that meets you know our board goals as well so that's where that question ends we meet our PE minutes for elementary using our teachers doing active things in the classroom but also recess because that's considered physical activity so that's how we meet those minutes and we're excited that we have the opportunity now to have a gym aside from a cafeteria so that we can do more PE and make it a little bit easier

126to schedule during the day and then I wanted to hit the questions on required minutes and what you're going to be asked to do today is um is to make a motion that to publish this on the website our report and also to authorize us to use up to 30 hours of professional development time parent 30 hours to parent-teacher conference time and up to 60 hours of recess for k-3 the reason we're doing that is because we need to have that flexibility in case unforeseen things happen so that we're not having to add days at the end of the year we have that flexibility to do that I think back to last year and we really were like down to the hours taking a look at for example Bessie Coleman leading to close Bessie Coleman

127a little early and start it up after winter break a little bit later so that we can get teachers in to do what they needed to do and still that didn't impact our classroom minutes so that's the kind of flexibility that we're looking for and that's why we're asking for that in this motion so those are really the things I wanted to hit and if you have any questions I'm here and Beyond those if you have a question are you making a motion motion okay just go ahead Madam chair I moved to approve the division 22 reports for submission to Ode and 2p published on the district's website and authorized the district to include up to 30 hours of professional development time up to 30 hours for parent-teacher conferences and up to 60 hours of

128recess for students in grades kindergarten through grade 3 for calculation of instructional hours oh second so it has been moved by director and seconded by director white bear um make a vote if there's no further discussion director White Bear I aye Dr Tommy aye director Jones aye director Adams aye director Baker aye Dr L algebra aye my vote I passes unanimously hey the next item on our agenda is the adoption of the board and superintendent working agreement and board norms um is there any discussion or questions or should we move make a motion actually I have a sorry I do have a question uh the document that we have here is it a revised one or is it the one that has been adopted previously so both documents have been revised good question uh so

129I met with the superintendent we reviewed the board superintendent working agreements the part that that affected the board Norms was the mention of communication if you go to the bottom of the of the Norms document you'll see I believe it's three bullet points discussing communication we felt that moving that over into the Norms just seemed more germane to that document and then we made a few adjustments language adjustments not major ones to the board superintendent working agreement we felt that retaining most of that language uh was important we didn't yeah there weren't any significant deviations yeah going to say there wasn't anything substantive that we changed and then it did feel like the communication needed to just and it was out of the conversation just reviewing to do we need to hold on to this

130and that's when it occurred occurred to make this shift it was a comment I was just going to thank Vince for taking all our feedback and revising it and putting that work in and working with Ryan on the other one thank you truly my pleasure I moved to adopt the 2223 board and superintendent working agreements as submitted it's a second okay it's been moved by director Jones and seconded by director aldriver that we accept that we adopt the board and superintendent work in agreements director White Bear hi director Jones aye director Adams aye director Baker aye director aye and I wrote I patents unanimously now onto board norms is there any discussion about the or questions about the board norms I should have saved that comment for this one my bad but we still thank

131Vince for taking that on wow chair I moved to adopt uh the 2022-23 board Norms as submitted second sorry um it's been moved by director Oliver and second by director Jones that we accept that we adopt the board norms director White Bear aye sure director Tommy aye director Jones aye Dr Adams aye Dr Baker aye director aye and I vote I thank you it's been passed unanimously um now thank you thank you on to Consolidated action as a reminder the items under this portion of the agenda are for Action does anyone have a question about anything in Consolidated action commence don't want that information yeah if there's no discussion I would entertain a motion I don't care I move to approve of Consolidated action second [Music] stop the items and Consolidated action director White Bear

132hi director tomity aye director Jones aye director Adams aye director Baker aye director elabor aye and on to Consolidated information as a reminder the items in this portion of the agenda are for discussion would anyone like to discuss an item in Consolidated information Madam chair I'd like to pull the June 22nd financial statements oh Sammy I know that thank you anyone else okay so go ahead so question for for Olivia and I sent this in as an email um you know looking at the June 22nd financial statements we see a one percent reduction in the ending fund balance between fiscal year 2021 to 2022 and I was curious as to why you know what was what was the drawdown and then also looking forward what can we expect in the next budget foreign okay all

133right I replied to your email but it was late today so you probably haven't seen it yet I'm sorry I haven't seen it um let me find it so last year um the general fund operated at a deficit of 184 and 321 dollars considering our total budget is about 84 million dollars we were pretty solid last year which is rare to kind of spend and receive about the same the Indian fund balance decreased by one percent because the denominator in that calculation changed because our operating revenues increased quite a bit from the previous year so from 2021 to 21 22 our operating revenues increased by 4.7 million so the ending fund balance and the amount of the the ending fund balance didn't change very much because it only decreased by about a hundred and eighty

134four thousand dollars the percent of operating Revenue looks a lot different because the denominator for that calculation changed because the operating revenues went up um in a scenario when you have excess reserves above policy if we were to try to maintain that same percent from one year to the next we would have had to spend less money which kind of seems weird to be operating in a surplus when you don't really have a specific purpose for doing that and so um for last year it seemed pretty pretty good that we ended where we did the projection didn't change a whole lot I looked at the May um financials that were provided to the board in June um and it changed I want to say maybe by five hundred thousand dollars our total spending ended up

135being a little bit more than what we had projected it to be um but pretty stable the second part to your question was about what it looks like for this year yeah but then now the follow-on question doesn't make a lot of sense because I was really fixating on the numerator part of that calculation and I'm assuming that the change in the denominator value was really rooted in probably one-time monies you know like grant funding related to covid relief I'm guessing um it there were a lot of factors about our projected Revenue last year our our um the state school fund was kind of weird like our enrollment was less than what we had projected but the dollar amount per student ended up going up quite a bit between when we've developed the budget and

136where we landed I guess we're still technically not done because they won't reconcile that until May um so during the course of the year the dollar amount for admw did go up quite a bit um so even though our enrollment was less than projected our revenues were higher than projected and same with our property tax revenues which is pretty standard we're pretty conservative when we budget for those and so the actual receipts were a little bit higher than what we had originally budgeted um so last year was a little I mean it was tricky in terms of project projecting expenditures because it was kind of the first year we had kind of a normal spending year and so we weren't 100 sure what what kind of inflationary factors for things like student transportation and even

137some of the Staffing just because we knew a lot of positions weren't vacant in the first part of the year as it we were trying to bring people back in after being in remote learning or Limited in person learning so yes so the reason why it looks different from a percent perspective is mostly just due to the fact that it's it's not necessarily Apples to Apples when you look at it from the per person perspective but from the dollar perspective it didn't change very much right and so that was and that's where my question was stemming from is being fiscally conservative and it's like why are reserves going down but when I'm you know that was just a misunderstanding on my part sure so thank you for it does look different in the current year

138okay so tell me about that so the the agenda tonight also includes the projections uh for July and August that reflect through the end of this year we're really early in the year so those numbers are going to change but all of the factors that we're sort of collecting at the moment are all kind of resulting in negative changes our enrollments less than projected our property tax receipts probably aren't going to be more than what they were budgeted at we know our expenses are going to be more because of some of the agreements that were tentatively you know in the process of of making and so um that's going to look a lot different and we'll probably be really close to that 12.5 percent policy percent at the end of this at the end of

139this year but we are starting to do some things right now to kind of make sure we don't get too low to that number because we know we need to be more well positioned moving into the following year um so we have started implementing some shifts and utilizing grants in different ways and starting to get creative on how we can protect the general fund a little bit more moving into next fiscal year great the hours late thank you for indulging my esoteric question you're welcome yeah first of all thank you and I know I sent uh questions offline uh thanks for uh answering them in detail I do uh would like to actually pull out a j g a b uh policy on seclusion if that's okay and my question is on this policy have

140we recently used seclusion cells as defined by policy uh question mark what other methods does the District staff use or situations that would have triggered the use of seclusion cells in the past and what is the professional development look like to ensure compliance with the policy change sure so no we have not used seclusion cells they're not part of our practice this is a new just an add-on to that uh that restraint and seclusion policy we have not been in the practice of using anything like a seclusion cell and I know I think Vince you sent a question too about the the that what we have to look at is the difference between what is seclusion and what is a seclusion cell and yes we have restraint and seclusion as a policy do we use

141it very incredibly so infrequently and then talking to our district trainers and our district Behavior staff we teach it but we and we have the ability to use it but we highly discourage seclusion and would have to really get to a place um that is very serious before we would do that as far as training professional development we have ongoing non-violent Crisis Intervention training that includes de-escalation disengagement and holding skills for our staff through something called Crisis Prevention Institute we have a staff member who's a certified trainer and they focus on trauma-informed practice with regard to de-escalation to avoid these kinds of situations in the first place so let's not get into a situation where we would have to restrain or even do seclusion and we also work with staff on training student about with

142training about how we can create five-point plans Behavior plan safety plans other interventions before we get to that place thank you very much yeah you're welcome okay um so moving along the next item on our agenda is board member comic does anyone have a comment they would like to share um this is a ask for Ryan and team is for a future meeting to bring a report or of some sort um for us that's regarding disciplinary action at the secondary level um especially interested in a cross analysis with gender race and abilities in a review of related policies along those lines that would be super helpful for us to see thank you okay does anyone else have a comment they'd like to share no with that we are adjourned all of a sudden almost 10

143P.M really