001Righty. Uh, good evening everyone. So, we're going to go ahead and reconvene back into open session at this time. Please join me in the flag salute. Removal hats and hoods. Place your right hand over your heart. Ready? Begin. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. I did the most of delivering you ever had in room. So, great job. Did you take my glasses? All right. At this time, we're going to go ahead and take a roll call center. Mr. Fl and our superintendent, Mr. Shim here. We'll move on to the adoption of our agenda. If I can get a motion, please >> the agenda as presented. >> Thank you, sir. Second.
002Thank you. Motion made a second in favor. I oppose. Thank you very much. I have nothing to report out in closed session at this time. Therefore, we will move on to our secret entertainment school. >> Yeah. Well, welcome. While Dustin's pulling up the uh PowerPoint, thank you all for being here tonight. It's always fun to see so many folks. And we've got three of our brand new teachers here in the audience tonight. So, thank you for making the effort to be here. I'm We also welcome all of our veterans. No, I don't want but it's fun to see some next generation and our students for sure. So, as you know, just uh share six quick slides with you that just um are tied to our culture of excellence and our the board's focus goals and
003always there's that something to make you smile at the end. Um on our continuous improvement journey, this is Mr. Brown. Uh Mr. Brown has been presenting at several of our sites. um we just brings a a lens of encouragement and really just you know um how to solve problem solving and just looking to yourself from within and leading from your heart. He does a great job. He's worked with quite a few of our staffs. This picture I believe was taking was taken at Lake Forest and I think the next day he was down at Lake View. But just fun and um so fun. He had a bunch of us. I happen to be here this day and have staff come up and model it and I got to go up with them and it's pretty
004intimidating getting up in front of 300 400 little kids like that and having to do a dance. Um, but he had us all all doing it. We had a really nice time. So, I just love this this idea that we can always just get better behaviors and just the way we approach spring on this um student support. This is at Pleasant Grove Elementary. I think Liz, Liz is in the picture, but Liz politely let me know this is not the PTO group. This is the student leadership parents that ran their um their Puma event uh that Puma Palooa. This is an event they do the first uh Friday of school. So many fun activities going on and and just spent a lot of Green Valley former Green Valley students there having a great time. But
005um you know these events you walk around and just so many parents that are volunteering and staff that are there um it just doesn't happen with uh this these enjoyable and wonderful uh student activities just don't happen without so many great people and they were having a really good time on our staff support. Um this is the lady that is going to be presenting um on the third this coming Monday to our districtwide professional development. We have a really I'm excited about the day. I know uh Dustin and Jen in particular both of them have put just a ton of work into preparing to have a really professional and well-run PD day for our staff. uh this lady here super county and what I have appreciated is this wasn't just finding someone that we heard
006about that did a good job let's just bring in Jen and I's class this summer so watch your present online u and then we had her come and present to our leadership team kind of as a trial almost a trial run like see are you a good fit she's going to be talking about just and what they learned that we heard loud some of the needs experiencing in our classrooms and we just got to retrain that everyone's able to walk away just a better person's done a really nice job um reminding us that we're all learners regardless of age so I know sometimes the idea of sitting down to a PD day in the middle of October for an entire day. Many of your teachers here on that it's like it's like oh and but
007I think this has done a really good job about this is we can all learn celebrate learn together that's going to be rolled out on Monday. Looking forward to this. Well, this is actually here. Uh this is the fun run that they did here at Green Valley. Um it actually channeled in rain to the area because the one day that it rained was the day they were doing the fun run outside. But I just love I my office up here. I get to hear um I get to hear PE down there every day. I get to hear the bands and when these events are going on, it's just squealing of joy. And um uh headed down there and I did not know that the rescue fire department was going to be there participating like they
008were. And the kids just got such a kick out of that. It was just a and and a very successful fundraiser too for you as well. I don't know if they're speaking about that today. Oh, you are. I'll stop. Um, and then on the right hand side, this was just a reminder. This is a one of our cross country meets. And there was a mom, this was one of I don't remember which school this, one of our schools, but this was just the w like a mom just channeling water bottles for our kids. And like you had had parents there that were checking in and getting making sure kids were at the finish line and getting their sticker in there. And just behind the scenes was this mom saying, "I'm just making sure everyone's water
009bottled." is here and goes home with a kid. And it was just a reminder to me again of just amazing in so many different ways to make our community and our district. So um I saw Tim walk in tonight. I know we're going to be taking action tonight ideally on a tenant agreement with CSA. So all he's going to be sharing that we see. I'm glad that that handshake bill happened um between the two of us and I'm really happy for our classified members who are going to be um receiving a raise and a couple other benefits that are approved in it all later tonight. uh our facilities team. I had I was um I was in Rebecca Wood's class meeting and I think you'd heard we had a a student that fell and broke
010his arm on on this field in particular and he was 100% convinced. This is at Green Valley as well. 100% convinced that his arm broke was the reason everyone was out there working on this field. He's like, "Thank you for fixing the field after I broke my arm on it." And I was like, "Huh?" I remember what had happened, but I just thought it was so cute that he that he just attributed that to his arm. But really exciting to see a field getting tackled out there. The uh red dirt, I've heard, is quite the conversation piece on the campus because a lot of kids coming in with red on them. I'm hoping the rain and time and the sun bleaching will settle will settle that, but unintended consequences sometimes. And we still have uh
011some extensive work to do there, but we'll dig into it. And then just this uh this something to make you smile on the lefthand side. We have a lot of schools. This is clay play at Lake Forest. We have a lot of enrichment programs that are going on that our staff are running at a variety of different sites. It was just so fun to go and these these were uh kindergarten through fifth graders that happen to be taking this clay plate class and just to see the joy in the teachers. After a long day of teaching, these kids were sticking around to do an enrichment program and loving it. and so are the teachers. And it was just for me it was just a it was just a fun reminder about just that learning can
012be uh super fun and that how cool that there's zero chance I would have ever stayed after school the school and I loved my school but I didn't love it enough to stay after learn more and all of our enrichment classes get filled up um because they're I think our teachers just do an amazing job of creating an environment like this and on the right hand side this is Miss Stewart and these are the two principles of a day. I just happened to be there. So, we did a little superintendent of the day. I think had them sign a paper or two and and um but I just thought it was fun. Our principles, the things that go on behind the scenes that you just don't even probably take notice of sometimes, but just the
013extra effort that went in with these two little kids and at all of our sites that have a principal for a day that just to make them feel special, to make their parents feel like the investment, the donation was worthwhile. And then the kids had a great time. The one little boy there at the end of the day is like, "I'm done being a principal. Can I go back to my class?" And and the the girl was like, she was she was like, "What else can I do? I want to go do yard duty. Can I have a whistle?" So, just fine. I think that's my last. Yeah. Any questions? Okay, seeing no questions, that has us then moving on to the exciting part of the evening, which is celebrating excellence with our gator valley.
014>> Yeah. Right. Well, thank you for having us. It's exciting to come and share. I know it only happens once a year. So, it's been a year ago since we were here. So, my slides I started with this time last year kind of going around to come around to the start of the year now. So, these are all things from last year, some fun in the garden when they harvested their potatoes. Last year we did uh we always do a Veterans Day um assembly but last year we hosted a breakfast for the first time. So this was our breakfast in the library and then the bottom on that is as part of the assembly. Uh on the left is our kindergarten students. They did a little performance. On the right was our first grade students
015choir also sang. Uh Mrs. Thompson plays the Star Speggle banner on her loot. So all encompassing. Last year for the first time we started having school rallies that were put on by our student leadership team. So just a couple pictures from that. We had um an author visit. Aaron Dy came. I'm realizing I don't think this is my updated presentation, but that's okay. Um, so Aaron Dely, um, author visit, phenomenal. The kids absolutely loved her. She's actually coming back, um, again just for the littles because she has a new book out and she's going to do it for us for free. So, um, it was a great, they really enjoyed it. We had Battle of the Books. All of our fourth and fifth grades participate. So, every student is on a team and assigned a
016team and they compete with each other. And then the the ones that make it to the finals, you can see on that bottom picture on the right, uh they got to celebrate in the library with Miss Cash. >> Michelle, can you take just a just quick I'd never been to Battle of Books until last year and it was I loved it. C um for those of us that might not know >> maybe just a 30 second like what that what that means. So what that means is there's Carrie is it 15 books or 12? 12 books. So all the students there's a list of books that all the students read from and then and they're put onto teams. They need to they read the books and then they're supposed to know the authors of the
017books. So then they compete in a competition against each other to where they have to answer questions. And so it's always in which book was and there's a question and then they emper as a team and then answer out the name of the book and then they get a point if they know the book. They get a point if they know the author. If they don't it goes to the other team to try to answer and then it's usually did we do 12 questions and then the final round was a little bit longer. So, we have all these little mini battles and then the final battle everyone gets to watch. It's a lot of fun. This last year was our second year um doing the battle and we'll do them again this year. As a
018matter of fact, Miss Cash has just been getting the list and everything all prepared because even though the battle happens during I love reading week and the spring, you know, they need the list ahead of time to start reading those books. So, one of our um PBIS prizes or one of the things that students use can use their Gator tickets for is to um help in the library. They love checking in and checking out those books. So, you can see just different gators helping in the library. Um and they paid their Gator tickets to be able to do that. Our readathon was a great um success. And so this was just different pictures of the students hyping up um the readathon. And then we met our goal. So it was a little cold afternoon. Um
019last year uh Carrie or the year before Carrie and I were the two slimed. This last year it was myself um and two teachers. The top winning students kind of got to pick. And so, um, the middle person, you can't quite tell from the picture, but that's Lauren Birkhard, our special ed, uh, teacher. And her son was one of our top raisers, and he wanted mom in that pool getting slimed. And so all of our students who raised over $100, Carrie, right? Um, got to slime us. and they do it the you can't see in that picture, but the rest of the school is out watching. Music's playing, you know, they're they're enjoying um watching us um be slimed. >> Seems like it'd be great for like induction for new teachers, >> you know. I
020think we have three new people that could >> just throwing that out. >> Yeah. Well, you'll see in a moment. We have one who probably would be game for it. So just kind of a um overall just a great year for reading, you know, between the readathon um the author visit and then you can see on the left we had set a goal of 90 million words as a school and we well surpassed that. Our students read over 100 million words last year and that's second through fifth grade with a few um first graders in there who are ready to take on that challenge. So um because we met our reading goal then we have an end of the year uh celebration. So all the students classes rotate through um the bounce houses games and
021the plum center. They do u bingo in the library and just a bunch of activities. Um all day long we have a celebration. We have um in the spring uh in prior years we've done dance and we've done primary at one time and then the upper grade a different time. Last year we did the whole school at one time. We're smaller and it was a lot of fun. So the students take lessons for about seven weeks one time a week and then we do a final uh performance. And so that's just some of that. This one's special for you, Michael. So we have our staff versus fifth grade kickball game. And so that happened. We had to do it on our other field because I've been working on the field on the Foxmore side. And
022well, you guessed it, we won. Yes, I am still competitive. Um, so we even gave them a few extra tries. We gave them like nine outs the last uh last round and it it still uh was GV staff for the win. So, all right. So many other things happening that are obviously are not in the slides and pictures. If I had them all in here, we, you know, it'd be midnight and you'd be like, can we get out of here? Um, so, but you can just see kind of that list of all the other wonderful things. We have our Halloween parade coming up. Our harvest festival as well, which this year we're going to be having a great pumpkin carving contest. They carve them at home and then we'll bring them to school to be
023judged at the harvest festival. So, that's something new this year. The picture on the right is we were able to acknowledge Mike Smith, our lead custodian last week on custodian day. So our theme for this year is dream it, believe it, achieve it. And so starting this year, we've had our Gators on the green. We have the ice cream social every year that's put on by PTO. And this is a giveback event. So our families pay nothing. They come, it's staff that serves the ice cream. We sell Gator gear. So that's Miss Thompson up in the top corner there selling gator gear for PTO. You can see the bottom teachers um getting ready to serve out the ice cream and then we always do a used book sale um that raises money for the library.
024So, Miss Kosh collects donations from families and then we sell them at um Gators on the Green. So, then our water fund run that Mr. Shoemake kind of showed you a little bit of if you look down in the bottom corner you see in that bottom picture Mr. Zavala who's here tonight one of our fifth grade teachers who decided he was going to um run with the students and uh he ended up just as drenched the students. He also was one of the ones who did not have a change of clothes like many of our students and so they couldn't really his fifth graders couldn't complain though because he was in the same same boat um as them. But it was a really fun day and we record-breaking um for us. We set the goal
025at 15,000 and felt like when that goal was set that that was like oh are we going to even be able to achieve that? Should we not set it that high? And we actually raised $18,000 which was phenomenal. So um we are Gators. So we guiding all learners to achieve outstanding results and success. That is what we do. That's what we do every single day. Uh this picture here was a fifth grade student from last year who um would take breaks with Miss Liz. And on some of his breaks, he really liked to actually help others. And so he was teaching some students how to tie their shoes. So very just had to throw that in there. All right. So I' I think I've had this slide in my presentation every single year because it's
026what we believe. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. So we are always refining our practices. We are always finding ways to do things different to get those results. And it's because of all these out here that we do get those results. Our word is adaptable. We are always adapting whether it be our classroom procedures, our school procedures, our instruction, whatever it is to meet the needs of our students. So I've also shared a similar slide to this before. Um, I think the one I've shared before, the one on the right, would maybe had a student in a wheelchair going up a ramp. Um, but I like this one even better, and this is something that we'll be um learning more about on Monday, or the
027district will be learning more about, and that is how do we remove barriers? And so, when you look at that picture on the far right, it's giving everyone what they need and removing the barriers so that everyone has access to learning. And I think that is something that Green Valley, the teachers, the yard supervisors, instructional aids, everyone collectively works really hard to do. So we have our coordination of services team that's made up of a lot of people. We meet um every other week to just discuss students. Um teachers come into those meetings as well when we're talking about their particular students. And again, it's just everyone brainstorming what can we do? What does this child need? What can we do to help and support? This is our triangle. And we probably this was um
028we could even add more to it. We every year we increase just the things that we learn and we can do um to help provide services for students. We have a lot of um PBIS rewards. One of their favorites is um shaving cream. We did shaving cream last week and I think we had all in all in about a 45 minute time probably easily 100 students that wanted to do that. So we rotate them through um by grades. And I will say with the rewards, we're working on doing more rewards that are activity based and not trinkets. I mean, the kids love the little Dollar Tree type stuff, but we're really working on um experiences versus that. So, that kind of brings me to our role with PBS facilitator. Miss Liz is here. I think
029everyone in this room, every staff member in this room would agree we couldn't get through a day without her. Um she does so much. But it's it's using that proactive approach instead of being reactive. And so is providing scheduled breaks. It's um we do a lot of retaches for kiddos when there's mistakes made and we've learned. So Liz, myself, and Miss Cat went to um a restorative practices workshop last year and so we've been trying to incorporate that into what we do. And so we all know like taking recess is against the law. So we find other creative ways. So we do things like we might switch their recess. So they're at recess with a different grade level or we do a working lunch and so they get their lunch recess but during the eating
030time they're with one of us having to do some type of restorative project whether it's a Google slide project, a poster, whatever it is to help restore whatever it was that was needed that you know needed to be undone. So we um >> can you just go back to the slide? I'm sorry to interrupt you. >> It's that top line. >> Okay, hold on. >> I sorry about that. I just want to publicly thank Michelle. Um this PBS facilitator was her brainchild. Um you know that Albert Einstein quote that's up there. I I should be up there with you in your school because I think you do a great job of just modeling like we've got to think about this differently. So Michelle had approached us about this PBIS facilitator job. This is probably this
031is my 31st year in education. It's probably the only job that I can think of that has been besides you know the ones that we've always had that someone has been creative and thoughtful enough to write come up with a proposal and get it implemented and it has been so impactful. We have uh they're at three sites right now. We have every intention of getting at least one at every site right now. And that that doesn't happen without when we talk about just getting better and continuous improvement and culture of excellence, whatever words you want to use, you modeled that with uh really pushing this job and I wanted to publicly thank you for that. >> Right. All right. >> So, um Green Valley Gators, they love their foursquare. Um but along with that comes
032a lot of uh sportsmanship challenges and so again just trying to find other ways. So um at the MTSS conference this summer, one of the workshops I went to, they talked about doing these contracts. And so we just this last week implemented a foursquare contract for Green Valley. And so this is for first through fifth grade students. and you can you know kind of read what the expectation is. Every student um has signed their name and then we are following it. It's made a huge difference um already. So basically it's just working on that sportsmanship issue. It's not about how good you are at the game. If you get out at the game you're not that's not a strike. A strike is if you're having poor sportsmanship or talking back to an adult, that sort
033of thing. And so it's made um a big difference. There were I went to every single classroom to implement this. So, we talked about it. I had a really short uh YouTube video clip to show how the game's supposed to be played and then uh we talked through this. And I did have a couple students, well, what if I don't sign it? Well, then you don't play. So, um there were a couple who wanted to kind of challenge it, but now, you know, it's it's going well. And again, it's really just working on that sportsmanship piece. I tell them recess is supposed to be fun. And when you're arguing over a game, that's not fun. Am I right, girls? Was that happening? Yeah, we got some we got some good four square players here in
034the front row, too. So, again, another um thing that we have done with that idea of being adaptable and changing things up is now also providing something different to do at recess. And so, uh Mr. Power and Mr. Paul Nazic who are both here both in corners. Um just we just started this last week. So we have inter mural volleyball happening at lunch recesses and so kids were able to sign up for it. Fourth and fifth grade. They made the teams. So they play games um during lunch recess and so we had to get creative u because our lunches go pretty much you know back to back. And so you can see Mr. Mike, I mean, he just scrambles at the end of third grade lunch to get the chairs or the tables up and
035those tables are just kind of helping provide a little bit of a barrier so the balls aren't going into lunches. Um, but that's one I can't tell in the picture if that's fourth grade eating and fifth grade playing or vice versa. Um but they each get um opportunities to play and so that's on Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, Tuesday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday. So three days a week we're able to do that and volleyball is kind of our dry run and then we're going to be trying to do it with other um activities as well. So just again trying to think of other options to help with things. So, I've used this one before, too. Just that importance of taking small steps. That's what we do. We just It's one step at a time, one day at a
036time. Sometimes it feels like maybe we took a few steps back, but we always um go forward. And so then, this is going to make me cry. um all of these changes. I know scores aren't publicly out yet, so I didn't put actual scores up there, but I can tell you um that we increased in all area but one. Um and so a huge huge increases and again those increases are just due to all of the great things that are happening by these people out here. and uh guidance. I know I always have this in because I just am a firm believer that the role the counselors play in a school is so vital. Um people think of counseling, they think therapy, and that's not it's not what it is. It's teaching these children just
037life skills, coping skills, how to regulate, all just character skills in general. And they do it in a variety of different ways. And so at Green Valley, there are guidance lessons in classrooms every single week by either Mr. Power um or Miss Cat. They do grade levels and then they switch so that they do the other grade level, but they do uh so much more. Again, Mr. Power is happening with the um inter murals. They're out at recess a lot because that's where, you know, when the conflict happens, they're right there to kind of help solve the conflict um in the moment. So again, I've kind of already talked ahead about the benefits and now I would like to invite Miss Cut up for student leadership and again we keep talking about doing things different
038and so she's going to tell you what we're doing different. >> All right. Hi u my name is Cat Walber and I am the student leadership adviser at Green Valley School for the 25 26 school year. So this year we decided to change the way that we are structuring our leadership team. So this is in order to adapt to the needs of our student body as well as our leadership members. So our team, our whole team is split into three smaller groups that each have a captain and four to five other student members. So when we were creating these teams, it was important that each one had a specific purpose and duties that were very intentional in order to create a learning experience that was very focused and teamwork- based. So um I am going
039to have our three captains come up and share a little bit about what each of their teams do and they're super fabulous. So get on up here. Go ahead, Nelly. >> Hello everybody. My name is Nelly Brin and I am the captain of the ambassador team. The ambassador team is responsible for exemplifying the gator way to all students, welcoming new students to our school through tours, and be role models to younger to younger students in different grades to like of younger grades when they need an extra set of hands for a project. And as well as greeting students at the car drop off and help assist during school rallies. Hello, my name is Casey May Simon and I'm captain of the school events team. The school spirit team is responsible for planning and advertising school
040week morning announcements, gator gear count, greeting students before school on special occasions, and helping plan rallies. No. Hello. My name my name is Elise and I'm captain of the events team. The events team is responsible for helping and helping plan and advertise advertising different school events like Veterans Day breakfast, canned food drive, breakfast festival, and winter wonderland. Assisting with different fundraiser events, and helping during school route. Please join me in the Gatorade chant. Gators rock. Gators rule. Gators love Green Valley School. We are smart. We are cool. Gators rock. Gators rule. Be respectful. Be responsible. Be safe. That's the gator way every day. >> Yay. >> So, we do our gator chant as a school at least once a week. Um, and that brings me to the end with my little, you know, everyone says
041it, but nobody really actually wants to see me later. See you later, Gator. that um any questions? >> Let me go and open that up to our trustees at this time. Direct questions to >> Michelle. I don't have a question, but just a couple comments that I um wanted to make sure to say. I love your one step better mentality. I feel like it fits really nicely in with 1% better every day. I feel that is such a great something that we're all really kind of on the same page about. So that I think is definitely a great thing for Green Valley to support. Um, and I love that in the beginning of your presentation how there was just such a strong emphasis on reading throughout the entire school year. I mean, we all know
042that's the foundation of lifelong learners, right? Um, and so I love that your school it's not just a one time event or a two-time event. It's it's throughout the school year. So I really thank you for your presentation. And I have to say I did one of the slides that is missing um was Miss Cash actually reorganized the library which was a huge amount of work to make it just more accessible for kids to find books. So thank you Carrie >> Michelle if you send me that slide I'll make sure that they get it. So I I do have a very important question for the for the athletes in the room because it's very controversial at my house whether or not we allow fishies in four square. You guys familiar with fishies or grandmas or
043spikes or queenies? Any of those? I didn't think they were real. I was pretty sure my daughter was making them up anyway. So, I'm going to tell her that the Green Valley experts told me there's no such thing as any of those. >> Um, but along with that, so thank you. I appreciate it. But along with that, a couple times you mentioned in your presentation, I've used this slide before. I've se, you know, I've used this quote before, but I think that's super important. I think that the consistency is key and I think that shows up in the community building that you continue to do and particularly in the the fundraising and and the parents that are showing up and the kids who are getting involved in your intram murals and I just think that
044consistency over at Green Valley is one of the things that I always appreciate um and I think makes a huge difference um with kids and families. So, thank you for doing that. kind of echo what u what my colleague said because I um I I feel like it's the same thing you um very intentionally try different things I feel like you know I've watched you do many different presentations through the years and you are always kind of word that kind of comes to mind it's tinkering it does fit in with the one% like hey how can we do this how can we do this a little better and don't want to you know doing the same thing and and and then expect a different result. So you're trying different things and um I really appreciate
045that. Also from what I understand, you know, you went to Jim and said, "Hey, we need this position. I think it's um instrumental and different and um you were right. Um so um so I just really appreciate that. I appreciate that with your leadership and I appreciate that with your staff. Like everyone's willing to get the buy in. It does take that to make changes. Now, I have a super very important question and um I I cannot believe it wasn't slide on it. Um what was the score of the fifth grade staff game? >> Oh, what is it? >> Oh, did I not? It was >> I just thought but I didn't see it. Oh, >> I didn't see that. Oh, ouch. That hurts. Okay. It was nine to two. Ow. >> It was just
046the tally marks because it wasn't written out this year. They just had the tallies. Yeah. We had the board, but you notice that I don't know if you saw the student with the clipboard because there had to be a double tracker because Miss Shayla might cheat, you know. >> Well, you know how those adults can be. I mean, I understand where the students are coming scorekeeper as well. >> Anyway, great presentation. Really appreciate it. Thank you, >> Michelle. I always appreciate your competitive spirit. Um I feel it's um cut from the same cloth in that manner. And ironically, on a serious note, I think sports are so important. >> But I also think that sometimes sports could be a detriment in regards to not fitting. And so at the beginning of your presentation, one thing
047that really stuck with me that I really appreciated was your battle and how you created a competition um centered around academia. And I think that foundation really is the essence of the importance of of school that there's a place for everyone, but really um focusing your um your importance on academics. It's why they're called student athletes, not athletic students, right? And so I just I just want you to know I really love um that part of your presentation and that group. So yeah, great presentation. >> Thank you. I couldn't do it without all of them out there. So, thank you. >> I know the next portion of our meeting tends to be riveting. Um, however, if you choose not to stick around, this would probably be the best time. >> Thank you very much. Thank
048you. Let us know if those new teachers in the slime thing happens. Righty. Uh, this has us then moving on to public comment. Biden's not on tonight's agenda, but this is placed on the agenda for the purpose of providing members of the public and bargaining unit representatives the opportunity to address the board on any items of business that does not appear on the agenda. We do have a two-minute countdown on the screen. However, the Brown Act where trustees are not allowed to comment on items that are not on this evening's agenda, but we can direct those questions to our superintendent, Miss Cabinet, to follow up with our community regarding the disclosures. However, for items that are on this evening's agenda, I'll go ahead and identify the time in which our community can lean in and
049ask questions. So, this has us then moving on to agenda item number two, California Phone Free Schools Act. And Mr. should make up the floor. >> We do. Yeah. Um so, uh California legislature recently passed Assembly Bill 3216. That that's the relevant part, but it's called the phone free school act, and it requires every district to county office of education, everyone to adopt and implement a policy um limiting smartphone usage by July of July 1 of 2026. So, um, I want to just update you with where we're at and what our next steps will be. You've probably seen more and more, um, news articles about districts that are taking different stances related to this and how they're tackling it. And I wanted to share where we're at. Uh, it's an opportunity to u also listen
050to see if we're on the right track and we'll let you know where our next step. So, we we'll be bringing back a policy probably. Um, so again, today is just really explaining the the why that's driving this, the requirements, what our current practices are, and where our uh those next steps are. As I just um sharing with you, um the legislature uh is not giving anyone an option anymore. We are adopting a phone free school act for California and we've got uh got nine months, I think, left to comply, whatever that math is there. The underlying the underpinnings to this really was um what we all know related to smartphones in classrooms and not just in classrooms but just even more importantly for us at launch before school is you there's a whole list
051there but I would say that um what we see on our campuses because we have been limiting smartphones I think since my boys were here we we are ready for all intents purposes compliant with this law and when you go in the morning. Um Jamie was there for the uh Constitution Day. No one's walking around staring at their phone. Oh no, excuse me. Michelle, that was I'm sorry, Michelle. There's no one walking around staring at their phone. They're not a group of people not interacting with I mean, you go to our middle school campuses, our elementaryaries campuses. The kids are engaged. They're talking in the morning. There's no one's looking at a phone. Lunchtime is all about the social interaction. and you go to schools where the phone is allowed right now and that they're
052really going to have to clamp down on this. That's not that's not the case. So again, we have until July one. After that, we do have to review and update every five years. And then there are some, you know, there's some requirements in there. We can't say can't pick up your phone in an emergency. And even if a staff member tells you it's okay, it's not. you know, there's there's some re some language in there that um we know we're going to have to allow be compliant with the moon will. And then the the last piece there, we obviously already know that you can't an adult cannot take a cell phone from a kid and ask them to open up their social media account and show them what's what what they were uh or or
053even monitor it. So, we'll be compliant with all of that. I not worried about that. So, um the consistencies that we currently have, we're compliant, like I said, with the law. we could uh pass, we could just turn in our uh formalize what we currently know and we're compliant. We do feel like this is an opportunity though to just get a little tighter and and look at where we have some inconsistencies with language between our seven school sites particularly can we get alignment with our middle schools. So it's the same for middle schools and alignment at our elementaryaries. The consistencies here that we every school requires phones be turned off um during the school day. they need to be stored away, not visible, um maybe put away in a backpack or bags or just really
054not accessible during the school day. And then they're allowed after school or at at the dismissal. So um the day the day ends, pull your phone out as you're heading off campus and um that's where we have consistencies. So the the core underpinnings of this this piece were in alignment uh really well. some really small inconsistencies that I wanted to share with you. Um, we do have some inconsistencies on consequ consequences for violations. They're super minor, but it is an opportunity for us to just tighten that piece up. Um, access for phones for parent communication. Our our policies have some different language in there that could be construed as inconsistent or just um confusing maybe in some cases uh if you're comparing two sites. And then the advent of so many new devices. Some of
055our um languages do do not references don't reference smartwatches and some do. Some reference you know uh earbuds and some don't. So just kind of getting a little more up revising the language that we use and they're really the big inconsistencies. So you can see here just some small things here. Uh, you know, if you get caught with a a cell phone at Marina Village, you're you it's merit loss for detention. At Jackson, it's confiscated until the end of the day. At Lake you, parents got to pick it up. And at other schools, they've left it intentionally vague. And as a former VP and principal, the vague is not a bad thing sometimes because it allows you to um pivot and and do things um kind of might be required for a certain kid that
056aren't maybe required for another kid depending on how many times they've been in the office. Um but it does it does that's a that's a space where we can definitely tighten up. The other part too is access for phones for parent communication. You know, we got a couple sites that say you got to go up to the they explicitly state you got to go up to the office that say you want to call your folks and then uh we've got a couple schools that just are silent on that. They don't say you want to call your parent the process for doing that and then got two sites that just reference it for emergency use. So again, I mean, real small language nuances here that we feel like we can sit down with our team and
057just tighten up so that we're really clear about process when there is an emer when there is a situation where you need to contact the parent to go down to the office. I think we're all in alignment on what the plan is just what verbage is going to be. So we're working uh and then again I share the um the policies the language that is being used some of them to and we've got two that only reference cell phones and don't talk about some of those other gadgets that are out there right now. So this is good opportunity for us to clean this up just for your own I guess knowledge. We just did this with the middle school dress code. I think we talked about this the last year where we just had some
058little minor congruencies and we were able to get the two schools together and say middle school students regardless if you're at Marina Village or Pleasant Grove who share the same expectation of the district and that's council and we were able to do that successfully involvement. So, um, our next step is really just getting consistent with the language and it's I don't anticipate that we're going to have rescue USD language that's applicable for TK through 8th grade. I think it just makes sense to break this up into what's language that our middle school students need to hear, what's language that our elementary students need to hear, and then obviously we just want to make sure that we capture all the key requirements of the uh of the law. So then our policy and then what our
059team will be doing that work internally and that'll come back to you just depending on how quickly we can reach agreement on some of the language piece. But probably some I would I would guess December, Januaryish um coming back with uh policy to present you that's compliant with the law. Again, really nice that we're already compliant. We're not I've had people ask if we're going to be going to those yonder belts that Folsson Cordova and Black Oak Mine have tried and um with mixed success. Uh we're fortunate that we're not trying to put Genie back in the bottle. It's it's already in there. We just need to tighten things up. So, I think that is so >> awesome. Thank you for the presentation. Let me open up to trustees. I'm sorry, public comment. Let me
060give public comment tonight on this. And then this is just a discussion item. No action taken tonight. So if any trustees has some questions seeking clarity, want to provide any opinion or feedback to our superintendent or cabinet to spend the time. I do have one question. Um I was waiting to see if it happened to appear in the presentation. Do you think at um any point maybe before we take action we could see some data on incidences that currently exist if any at all on our middle school or elementary school campuses? >> Uh data where students are not being compliant with the cell phone. >> Yeah. I'm just just curious if it's even ex >> if it's existing and to to what extent >> um >> or or maybe um non-statistically just a narrative that
061that you're able to likeness with. >> Yeah. >> Are there incidences on elementary school campuses with cell phone? >> Uh it's it's not the cell phones. I know the smartwatches are are a little bit of a an issue at times. Um they have a function that you can put it into school mode but you know most teachers do not want to be policing that and so it's a little difficult with uh little kids. I think what I can do is I can we absolutely run the data on the infractions for cell phone violations and I think just anecdotally anecdot anecdotally I will I can collect some information from I think the middle school and elementary is like what are you seeing? Sure. Um there I can I will tell you I don't maybe Dustin Lisa
062you guys you guys are on campus. I don't see them when I'm on campuses. It's not like either I'm not being very observant but I don't see kids walking around trying to hide it. Um get some smiling over there. Maybe there's a couple of uh rule breakers. I mean it's it's middle school. There's some Yeah, we'll find some data. Yeah. So I'll I'll I'll get that for you. I've been accused of not being the most observant person sometimes. So, that's probably what's happening here. I think as as a high school teacher, what I see on at least the campus that that I'm around and having a high schooler in my household, well, um I know that phones are issues and so I was just spend some time since I in fact I I don't even
063think um smartphones were around when I was a middle school teacher. I don't know. I'm not sure. Um and and so I'm just curious the the challenge of subject matter on middle school and elementary school campuses in relation to um cell phone policies and device policy. >> Yeah, it's applicable this law is applicable to high school too. Are is that something you guys are tackling as well at high school? >> Yeah, I mean I I have a policy in my classroom and they have to pick them up beginning of class and don't get them till the end of class. it seems to take care of the problem. And believe it or not, I find more students to find it refreshing to actually unplug and focus on their academics or just conversations or study buddies at
064a table or um but I also see the people sneaking too. >> Yeah. >> So, I was just curious if it's a problem with the lower ones. >> Well, I I will share that principles have not pushed for like the yonder pouch or the collection like lockers and the many of the tools that are out there. Um, so that I know that it's not this overly pervasive issue, but clearly and especially I was a middle school principal for quite some time. I mean, I know that the kids are sneaky and uh the policy that we're going to be bringing to you um is not going to prevent that us sneaky kid from still wanting to be sneaky. um that to do that requires us to take possession of of the tool and what I'm hearing
065from my colleagues in Folsson and Black Oak Mine and that they are they'll be the first to tell you oh it's working amazing because kids are finally talking to each other and and that is true because if you have it out clearly you have violated that you did not put away but what's happening behind the scene is just kids are taking their old you know 19 not 19 2013 cell phone and putting it in the honor pouch and keeping or saying, "Oh, I forgot my phone today." So that they still have it. Um, so I know that they've seen improvements with kids talking to school, but I don't know that they're they haven't eliminated people being able to sneak around the rule and our and ours will not eliminate sneaking >> either. Thank you. Anything
066else? Okay, thank you for the presentation on that. We appreciate it. That'll help us then move on to agenda item number three constitution day observance presentation. We should make you got this as well and this is once again just a discussion ite brief just presentation on our constitution day. Um that date got me confused there. It was on September 17th. I saw October 7. Uh we had it on September 7 uh September 17th which is required by law. So today, just going to go over the kind of how we got to this spot where we're um doing a much better job of being intentional with Constitution Day and just how we how this year looked at our school sites and what our plan is for next year. So obviously the um Constitution Day is on
067it's on the same September 17th of every year and it's just uh celebrating the historical significance of the signing. Um the the day is intended as as by statute is really for us to just how do we do a better job about talking about constitutional principles, civics, um governmental structures, things like that. Can we improve that throughout the day um through lesson plans and guided activities and just activities that go on on the campus and obviously there's an ed code requirement and you recall Kim had think um I think must have been two years ago we met for breakfast I think and you were just asking about constitution day was coming up and so we um and it was required we had not been if we had been doing it had not been done in
068any type of structured activity it was just loosely happened and we said, "Well, what would it look like if we just got a little tighter on this?" And then we did the same thing. I'm sure we got even a little bit better. Um, I'm not going to read you the ED codes at the board policies, but the ED code says we're supposed to do it. So does our poor policy. And so we are um so on this continuous improvement approaches PDSA cycle plan do study act. We began planning uh well we began planning in July of that first year and re refined right up until se se until September 17th. Then the due was we implemented at all of our sites. We assessed how it went and then we started planning for this year here
069and the district support that comes from this event. So rather than the approach that we took was rather than sending out an email to every teacher that says hey this ed code and the our board policy says you got to do this so do it and send us a picture you know it was hey this is new we're asking you to do something more than we've asked you to do before here are some guiding documents for you so we we provided every every staff member with a CDE supporting documents um and We that first year we even at the beginning of our kickoff we had our leads for each of our grade levels do a slow roll of this out to personalize it. Hey by the way we're required let's just talk as a group
070like what what does that look like? So like Lissa as I was sharing with you earlier seeing oversees our kindergarten team. So when they had their kindergarten meeting actually was Michelle at that point was able to just say let's talk about what what what could we do on constitution day kindergarten? They did a quick brainstorm. They got the documentation. They were able to leave that professional development kind of like, "Oh, okay. I know what the expectation is. I don't have to do six hours of constitution day. I'm just going to weave it into part of my lesson planning throughout the day. School's going to throw some colors while something like let's just roll this thing out." And then we did some district messaging where we provided the sites with language that they that they could
071blast out in their eblast. So we weren't asking the principles to come up with their own narrative. We we took a stab at putting some short blurbs together for them so they could just copy and paste and send out. We wanted to make this really in soft trick point for them that first year and we continued with that this year. We gave everyone again the guiding document. Everyone had access to guiding documents and we provided the principles with blurbs. So this year uh for for all of our schools regardless of where you went the theme was red, white and blue as far as what you were wearing. We did a lot of communication to our community that's pushed out through eblast classjo our our new newsletters that go out and again we uh helped with
072some of the messaging on that and then we had schoolwide events on September 17th at at every school. It looked different at every school. So Green Valley for example they have their morning announcement. It's out there every single morning. But that just got so they they just took that existing and rather than creating a new like let's interrupt class later today and have a whole new assembly like that was their entry point to the assembly. You saw that little girl that came up there. She clearly knows what she's it happens every single day. She didn't get up here and have anything written down. You asked her like on the fly and she was like take off your hat. Stand straight. Put your hand over your right hand over your heart. She she told her I
073said, "You obviously listen to Mrs. Winberg every morning." Um, so it's just ingrained. So they use that and then you had some other schools that did some bigger things. I'm going to focus on two today. Every cl every school already does the pledge of allegiance. It's one of the things I don't know if you hear this in our community where people are maybe choosing a different school setting where like they they emphasize the pledge of allegiance there. I'm like we do this we do it every single day at every single site. uh um as well. We had activities that varied. And at the classroom level, we we left that up to teachers like what's this going to look for you? If you want to do it, you don't have to do it from 9 to
07410:00 a.m. or all morning or in the afternoon when when Dustin's coming by so we can get a picture. Like just you do you and um just make sure that you weave this in and there's some intentionality related to it. And again, the activities vary from class to class which you'll see right here. So the spirit where this is you went on any of our elementary campuses. This just happens to be rescue on the left hand side and on the right hand side this uh little girl was at Lake uh Forest. I loved how uh much she got into dressing up. So cute. Um so the attire wherever we went was pretty much red, white, and blue. The classroom activities varied. This I forget what that sign says. It says uh why we can no
075even read. What does that say? Why do I think why did we write the constit why why did we write the constitution? Yeah, I was looking at it earlier tonight because I'm like what does that say? So they had a conversation about why did we write the constitution and they did this class where they filled in that where those that blue red blue red strips are. The class kind of filled it in together like why they wrote it. You can see one school had a birthday cake on the US Constitution that they cut. Uh some class constitutions. This was a common theme in a lot of classes where they just kind of came up like if we were going to write a constitution for our class, what could that look like? And they they did
076that. This uh down below is Lake Forest. They came out and sang some uh some songs uh related to just, you know, uh America and United USA. Just kind of a fun um presentation that the kids did. And again, these this is that if you go back to that why do we write this is this is what it looked like in real action where they were going through and kind of talking through you got a kid that's leading the charge there on the right hand side you had big buddies going into little kids buddies and helping them with the math to find out how how uh old the constitution was. So it's a fifth grader with I'm not sure how young the the boy is there. Um, uh, no. On the right hand side with
077the glass is holding up the sign, that's a fifth grader that's going into a buddy class. And the 49er jersey, I don't grade that is either. Yeah. Uh, some other class activities. You have that rescue here. They made these hats and this little girl's smiling up and doing a Constitution book. This is more like a coloring book that had some keywords from the Constitution that they got to color in. So it looked differently at all the different sites. But regardless of where you went, you you saw things going on. This is just the Pleasant Grove on a that looks like that on Constitution Day. It looks like that on September 18th. They're standing up and doing the Constitution. On the right hand side, they had some more buddy class work this morning on them. And
078then at I just wanted to highlight too that took that went a little bit more robust with the way that they handled this uh at Lake Forest. This has been this is this and Veterans Day have been a theme through Lake Forest since when my kids went there. So we just it's part of what that school does. I don't know what's going on with my voice. I'm sorry. But they um they had a schoolide assembly out by the flag pole. Thank you. Um and it was it it was super fun. and Jamie, you were there. Um, but they had fifth grade students led the event. They talked about the constitution. They rotated. It was super studentledd. If you know anything about Renee, it's about it's very similar to what these three little girls here did
079today, but she gets out of the way and she really gets out of the way. Like I'm a nervous wreck when I like wanting to have things hyper organized. She's great about just stepping back and saying, "We practiced it. They're going to do it." And it and it goes it goes fine. Um, the fifth grade students raised the uh the flag and the whole school did the pledge of allegiance and then Mrs. Pierce's third grade class came up and sang two songs and I think I sent you some videos and some pictures today. Um, and so you could just see the flag raising that's going on there. This is Merrill's daughter there on the right hand side. She's a a math teacher at Marina Village. That's her daughter um talking about the importance of the
080Constitution. And then this is just a nice picture though kids out in the parking lot. I will tell you that the solar was anyone that didn't like solar like that morning because of the shade that it was providing to a lot of people. And then uh at the middle school highlight um Michelle and I were both at that event and there was a morning assembly in the quad. They did not want the staff in general did not want to an assembly to run an assembly in a middle school. you know, it requires 10 minutes for everyone to get down into the room, 30 minute assembly. You know, you're you're it's an hour out of the day just to get something going down there. And so, they tried it before school just to see how that
081would work. It had some mixed results. I think those that attended it really liked it. But it was what I really liked, and Michelle, you pointed this out to this. As the kids were coming up and getting dropped off, everyone was so respectful as they were walking in. And by the time the event was over, it was pretty well lined up. But the PTO decorated the quad. We had the Daughters of American Revolution were there. They were giving out Americana swag. Uh the Sons of American Revolution, I got a picture of them. They marched out the flag. That was really fun. We had it was a student led event. The student president and the vice president um led that. There was three guest speakers. There was a a parent that was a recent citizenship. He's
082from Germany. He just took the test two weeks earlier and he did it because his daughter was I talked to him afterwards. He was he was fascinating. He's going to come speak next year for the 250th again. He just did a really nice job and he really humanized what it means to become an American because he's like I'm German. I'm that wasn't even in his thinking. And he got here and realized this is the greatest country in the world. I absolutely want to be a citizen here. Daughter of the American Revolution. She talked quite a bit about the history of the about the um the Constitution and I did kind of a wrap up um over them. There was a schoolwide pres uh um pledge of allegiance. There was arena of the preamble. The band
083played uh they played two songs which was really fun. Every kid got a a copy of the Constitution in their history classes and then the the classes took some time to talk through that. And then at um at one o'clock the whole staff fell in the school knew that that was a that was to recognize the actual time of didn't have it at one o'clock but I was like this is this is a reenactment of the signing of the constitution and I know uh I think I forg you Levi's already sent out invitations for next year to local assemblymen and um the legislature about coming out and helping us with the 250th one of the staffers I think it was for assemblyman Patterson, if I'm not mistaken, said um this is the furthest invite they'd
084ever received for the women to be at an event, which I and then here's some pictures of that. We've got the daughter on the uh left hand side. You got the daughters of American Revolution uh helping decorate. These were the sons called the sons sons of the American Revolution that came out and and marched and posted the flag for us. And then you've got the soon body president and VP there that were there to start the ceremony. So just a really well done event I thought. So now we're back down to the we did our plan and do this year and now we're down at the study. What went well? What didn't? What could we improve upon? And then we're going to be acting on implementing um areas of improvement going forward. And I'm sorry,
085I think I have one more presentation after this. I hope my voice gets gets through. Um I think that's it. Yeah. So we got America. This is the official slogan I found out for America 250. So uh we'll be getting that we have September 17th invites out to all of you for those events. That's it. >> Wonderful. Thank you. um doesn't hear as if there's any public comment. I would like to welcome Mr. Clarity into the chamber this evening. >> Can we hear what the outcome was? >> Victory. >> Marina Village 8th grade. Another banner. Nice. That's excellent. Thank you. >> All right. Let me open up to any questions or comments from our trustees from our superintendent's presentation. I just want to thank you again, Jim, because uh I um you know, we did
086have our breakfast and we did talk about it and I just really appreciate how proactive and intentional and thoughtful and how you were willing to, you know, embrace it and move the ball forward and not just give it lip service. Oh, sure, Pam. We'll send out a a little, you know, flyer on it or something. Uh I I really appreciate it. I really think it's valuable and so thank you. >> Okay. Uh that then has us moving on to agenda item number four. This is a board of trustees proclamation building culture of excellence grounded in the culture of caring. >> Yeah. So I I wanted to just give some context to humanize it beyond what the um the cover page says here. So, a couple years ago, um Karen Shudy passed away here in in
087the district. And Chris, her husband retired. Remember, we recognized him uh this this past June. And before he retired, he asked to have a private meeting with me and uh was very emotive and shared that people leaning into him and asking him how he was doing and us getting the hearts for people to wear. Um the people that reached out, the number of people I know Jamie and I, number of us were at the funeral. He said he couldn't have gotten through what he had to get through without so many people leaning into him. And he's like, I know that almost no one because he also said, I didn't say thank you enough during the time because I was in so much pain and I didn't realize how valuable it was until two years later.
088And so he he he he just was a reminder to me about the role that we all play and just um supporting each other and if if we're going to have this. So, I started ruminating about if we're going to have this culture of excellence, you know, um what else does that look like besides, you know, test scores and our attendance rate and our surveys that we do and our school schools that come and you're going to hear amazing sped the improvements they made in sp like all those like check check and then you go home and and there's a lot of work that goes into those and I don't want to minimize those at all, but at the core of it is almost what we're trying to do with this gratitude initiative that we've
089been doing too is like really just humanizing that we're all working um towards making this a a great place to work. And so I landed on this uh building a culture of excellence but grounded in a culture of caring. And so um it this is not intended. So Chris really got this ball rolling with me and he he had asked about doing something in honor of Karen. And I told him that as much as I loved Karen that if we were going to do anything, it was going to be in the spirit of so many other so many people going through what what Chris was going through. And he was very receptive to that and very understanding of that. And so this proclamation um it does not ask anyone to do anything other than just
090affirm that we're all in this together and that if you know of a colleague that needs someone to check in. There's a meal train that's going on for someone that you consider plugging into that that you send a a thoughtful card when you know someone's going through something or you just stop and ask someone um you know just how they're doing. And so, um, I'm really proud to bring this to you. The the intent is, um, not to send this out and say, hey, everyone's got to follow this, but just as a reminder like, hey, we're all in this together. Please take a look at this. And then just consider like what how do you add onto a culture of caring on your campus. So, with that, I don't think I have anything other to
091say. >> Um, any public comments, right? discussion, questions, clarity. you're proud to be a part of this larger group that we just call our district all encompassing that um this is the important thing that we're talking about and many I like also what it models not only for our certificate or classified but also for our students >> um the importance in caring for their peers and their times and that there's a time and a place for that. Um, and if we can model that as adults for our kids, um, learning is contagious. So, I think this is fantastic. Very good. Um, there are no other comments or questions. This is an action item. So, therefore, I would request a motion, please. agenda item move forward. >> I move um that we uh approve the RUSD
092building a culture of excellence grounded in a culture of caring population. >> Perfect. Thank you very much. Is there a second? Motion made and second. All in favor? I oppose. Motion passes. Christina, if you're able to identify with our voting now with all five present. Thank you very much. Um, this has us then moving on to curriculum. Uh, I'm sorry, Mr. Shem. Thank you so much for doing appreciate it. Thank you. Um, let's move on to agenda item number five. This is student services update and um we have our director of student services, Mr. Bailey, here. >> All right. You want to come up, Michelle? Um before we start, we just want to thank everybody. Um we're representing our student services department, but there are so many more voices and people that make what we
093do possible. And that goes to the custodians, food service workers, parah educators, school psychologists, and our district leadership. Much of what we're going to present today wouldn't be possible without the unified support and teamwork of everybody. And then really district leadership diving in to invest time and energy to move forward what our mission is. So my name is Dustin Bailey. I'm the director of special education and student services. >> Hello. My name is Michelle Kuster and I'm the special education coordinator. >> All right. So, I'll try to operate the clicker. Um, as we move forward, it's always important to look back and reflect. And when I joined this department um three years ago, we had a different director, Sunshine Hanley, who had laid out a three-year plan for rescue who identify some of the gaff
094areas and then also improve on um our practices and our systems to get us back into compliance. We we've always had good educators and that will never change. We have great personnel and employees here. We needed to tighten up our check boxes and make sure that we're hitting everything in the eyes of CDE, but also so that families understand the services that we're providing to their children and why. So, as we're going through our topics to be covered, we're going to start with the department reorganization that started with Sunshine Hanley. We're going to talk about the systems and identification that have led us to implementation. And then finally, a view looking forward is how we're going to enhance the services that we're already providing for the students and do so in a way that starts
095with us being human first. >> Would you like to talk? >> Sure. All right. So, um just a a visual, a glimpse of who we are within the special services uh department and team. So, um, a, as you can see, we're pretty multiaceted. We've got a large group of of specialists who have expertise in in their various areas of of, um, profession and have a lot of experience. And to Dustin's point, um, from our instructional assistants who are hitting the ground running every single day, um, to to, you know, our our team at the district office. Um there really is a lot of care and thoughtfulness and consideration that goes into supporting uh a team that it has a lot of presses um and and a can be pulled in a lot of different directions
096at times. So, one thing that we are working to normalize is an understanding of what special education is and how we could serve kids without the label of special education. There are countless numbers of students that have exceptionalities and that's okay. And not every student with an exceptional need requires special education services. So what we're doing is we're improving on what I consider a disabled discourse, right? How are we talking about special education and how are we doing so in a way that's not only meaningful to our staff that's supporting these students, but understandable and relatable to the families. Oftentimes we'll sit in meetings and Miss Custer here does a lot of work with our preschool age students and sometimes that's the family's first time hearing that their their child has a educational disability of
097autism. And when we start with that in that meeting, that family may only be hearing my child is on the autism spectrum. So, it's important that when we sit down with families from the onset, from enrollment, from the time that they're identified or there's a suspected disability, that we're talking about what this continuum looks like because we're not looking at statistics. We're looking at that individual child and their unique needs and how to help that family understand how we could support them and what that support might look like and how it's always going to be a sliding scale. The best IEP is one that erodess away after time because the student has the requisite skills to need less and less ancillary supports. And so when we talk about the continuum of special education services, there
098is a litany of things that we could provide along this spectrum. I feel that rescue does tremendous work with all students and I love to keep students home in our programs and with that we we might have a student who just has speech and only services and then the rest of their time they're in general education then there may be those kids who need a little bit extra intensive intervention and they'll get pulled out to a resource room or they'll get pushin support from a resource specialist. We do have a special day class. Those are students who spend more than 50% of their day in a special education setting. And even with that, the impetus and emphasis is always to include them in every general education activity possible because regardless of your label as being
099a special education student, you're a general education student first. And everybody deserves that, right? And a big part of what we're doing at Rescue is thinking of how can we meaningfully include our students. We don't want to just have a co-op model where suddenly there's an ed specialist pushed into what was formerly a general education classroom. That's not great for the teachers. That's not great for the students. What we need to do is create a culture of common care where everybody could come together and learn in a way that's going to be adaptable to those unique student needs, but also give them the first instruction that they deserve to have. We have Edco regional programs. We partner with our county office of education for students with niche needs that extend beyond this level of support
100that we could provide in our special day classes. and we work directly with the directors and program specialists to ensure that even if a rescue students on a campus that may be hosted at Buckeye, they're still a rescue student and that family knows that they're going to have a team that's walking alongside them and we're always looking for opportunities to bring them back home. That's the best goal. And then unfortunately, we do have a couple students in non-public schools. These are very restrictive settings because everybody at a non-public school is going through something really challenging and those schools don't have access to what we would consider typical peers. Um, and so when we look at students in a non-public school, we're always looking for indicators or benchmarks to help us bring them back. And if
101those things aren't in place, we're working with those teams to call meetings to look at how we could retinker, retool, or reinvent their IEP to give them a more um a greater chance to come back to our school in a timely manner. >> Well done. Um, we do talk a lot about the no the continuum of special education services with with the intent and concept of always looking for that least restrictive environment. And that's not just our legal and ethical obligation that students are educated to the greatest extent possible within the general education setting. that's the language in the law, but that it it is done meaningfully and that it and that the focus is on that child and supporting that child to to grow skills um and and that it's a mean that they
102are meaningfully um incorporated into all of the opportunities that we offer in our schools. So, students served. I like to say that uh it's kind of like Dustin's the principal and I'm the assistant principal of a very um uh a very vast group of of kiddos that are at a lot of different sites and a lot of different campuses. So, um we currently do have 511 students in the district who are receiving special education services. Um, right now we have 41 students who are pending eligibility. So, um, and and I I saw Kim's eyes go go go up. So, um, about 20 of those students are speechonly assessments. So, within the speech and language, um, domain, we see a lot of kids enter in and exit out of speech and language services. But um I
103did look at the numbers right before about 20 are initial students looking at more comprehensive um services that would be further along on that continuum. Right now we have 24 students who are receiving special education services in one of the EDCO um classrooms. That also includes preschool age children. And then uh oh no it does not. Um the the next bullet there, we have 15 preschoolers in four county uh classrooms and that's ruling enrollment throughout the year. So as they become age eligible and are potentially receiving early intervention services once they turn three, they then become eligible for for school-based intervention services. And so that number will increase as the year goes on. And then we have um we have two students placed in um in non-public schools that that was our IEP team's decision
104um because of their needs. And then we have four students based off of a settlement or or an an alternative dispute resolution agreement um attending a public school and we have one student right now in a residential school. So that's kind of a snapshot of of all of the the students um that we are supporting within the umbrella of special education services. >> Thank you. So as we look forward, it's important to look back and reflect. So when we looked at 2324 data, there were some things that we noticed were were areas that we needed to address as a department. We had a growing number of students which we previously only had four full-time um school psychologists for. We moved to five and thank goodness for our leadership approving that because we have noticed that
105that need continues to be there. Um we have larger case loads. So the the state cap for teachers is 28 students. Um and we were having growing numbers especially at Jackson and Rescue Elementary. So, we added a roving um education specialist to split 50% of their time at Rescue Elementary and 50% at Jackson to cover those overages, but more importantly to be able to provide services for the students so that the students weren't feeling the impact of this growing number. Um, we have a number of IEP team meetings and some of that is because we need to have those annual meetings, but there's also meetings that are occurring with a regular frequency when we have our high need students and we need to continue to look at the plan and see how their needs are
106evolving and what we could do to evolve our support to meet their growing needs. And with that, it does bring about challenges for our school site administrators. There there are four necessary parts of every IEP team. We have to have a school administrator. We have to have parents, a general education teacher, and a special education teacher. What we noticed was that our principles and our administrators were spending a ton of time in IEPs. So what we worked on was a system where we could do admin designate training and train a prospective admin or a teacher who's interested in learning more about administration how to sit in and attend an IEP and meet that legal obligation and do so with the same intent and spirit as um the site principal. Um this is I think this
107is one of my favorite slides. So, some of this data was gathered when Sunshine was here and um the 2425 I really wish you could be here to see this because I think um if you notice the increase on the far right column that's the total number of students with disabilities. Okay, so the populations have shifted in total enrollment but this and we didn't capture that in here but you could see from 2021 to 2122 there was an 8% increase. The year after there was a 4% increase. In 23 24 there was an 8% increase. And then last year our year-end data we had a 1% decrease in students with disabilities. And I'm not saying it's it's a win because we have less students that we have to serve. What I'm saying is it's a
108win because of the thoughtful process in which we dove into our multi-tered systems of support to provide students with the interventions that they need at the level they need it without going to a label without removing them from their general education classroom. And Michelle Winberg did an amazing job highlighting Green Valley and I wish I stole some information from her because one thing she didn't mention was the CASP scores for her students with disabilities. I believe ELA improved by 33% or not 33% sorry 33 points in math for students with disabilities improved by 55 points in the 24 or 23 what year? 2425 school year. Like that is outstanding improvement. And they also referred the least amount of students for special education services as a school site within our district. So, not only are they
109improving test scores, but they're improving the rate of referrals for special education services through their MTSS through their collaborative approaches and through their instructional model. It's just absolutely fantastic work. And Rescue as a district is still above the state average for student performance and academics and ELA and math for students with disabilities. So um really like I I feel privileged that I get to to share this part because it's really the work of so many others and I I think you have some numbers on the states and >> Yeah. Yeah. Just um when when Dustin and I were looking at this so nationally uh there has been a bump in the increase of numbers who in the numbers of students who are identified as having an educational disability. It used to hover around 8 to
11010%. After COVID, um that bumped up to about 13% which is where we are nationally. Um in the the well actually no that yeah and then in the state of California um we're we're hanging out at 13%. So nationally it's nationally it's between 13 and 15. In the state it's staying steady at 13. But um if you look at kind of the trend of where we were going in the district was really you know um passing that that norm um or that average and I think it's really important for us to look at the why behind that and and and the intention I I think often is to support students and how can we support them without removing them from that general education setting which is really a big part of of our goals. Yeah.
111>> And I'll say, Principal Winberg shared that pyramid earlier with the tiers, right? Tier one is universal interventions for all students. Tier two is those kids that need a little bit extra, and tier three is that intensive intervention, usually accompanied by an IEP or behavior intervention plan. Well, be because of our leadership over the last two years, we've sent 30 staff members to a multi-tered system of support conference in Anaheim. And not only did they go there, but they came back and they went to their sites and they started implementing. They started data tracking all these systems that they used that came from that training that came from that initial investment in people and time in our district is what's creating these results and paying dividends. So really, it's not just looking at what could
112be done or should be done. It's how we're doing it and how we can generalize that across all of our campuses to support our students and support them in a way that doesn't also label them or unintentionally remove them from activities they should have access to. In year two, we we increased this was looking back at the impacts and we added a TOSA teacher on special assignment. Um right now she's primarily serving at Lake Forest Elementary. We added that roving education specialist. We dove deep into our tier 2 meetings. Principal Wingberg talked about the cost meeting. There's meetings at every single site right now talking about our vulnerable kids who are not yet identified or we have questions about special education needs or exceptional needs whether it's academically, behaviorally or social emotionally that we're tracking
113and we're working on plans of intervention before they reach this special ed assessment level. Um we're providing continuous professional development and um our behaviorists are doing um monthly trainings at Lake Forest Elementary. We're going to talk a little bit more later about what we're doing as a department to increase the transparency and communication with special education services. And then we're also offering in the- moment guidance and training on specific plans for students, whether it's a behavior intervention plan or a way to provide um structured literacy program instruction like a Sunday. And then compliance-wise, this is something that Sunshine did an amazing job of and I'm so happy that we get to continue the work with. It's it's making sure that we're meeting our compliance times, like our deadlines, our checkboxes, making sure that everything is
114relatable and transferable to parents. We invested in Relay, which is a tracking system that everybody who provides a service for a student goes into Relay and puts what the service was, when it happened, the frequency and duration of the service. So, if there's ever a time a parent questions, well, I don't even know if Sus's getting this. We could print out a log and give it to them and show every single time that they've received that specialized instruction or service. We report that to the state at the end of every year and we are absolutely within compliance for the state standards and relay and sunshine's ambition and vision of getting that in there is an important part of that. Um we talked about changes in placement. Our goal is always to bring kids back home,
115bring them into, you know, a less restrictive setting. So if they're in SDC, how the heck can we get them into RSP? How can we have their home base be a general education setting? And then the multiddisciplinary report has changed. So every time a student has an initial assessment or a reeligibility evaluation, parents will get a 40-page document and that's really tough. So what we did was we brought every service provider on one page, not one page, sorry, in one report. It'd be nice if it was one page. I get through them quicker in one report so that you're seeing what the occupational therapist said, what the speech and language pathologist said, and the education specialist said without having three different reports to filter through. With that, we move to IEP pagenation. If a kid
116only has one IEP, it's it's pretty simple. You get the IEP, you read through it, you understand. There's a lot of legal ease and jargon in there. But what's challenging is when we have a kid whose needs are evolving and they might have six IEPs in one year, you don't want to have six different IEP documents where you're trying to track which one's the most relevant, which one's the newest, which one has all the agreements. So, what we do is we print the original and every time there's an amendment or a change, we just switch out the pages that were changed, we number it and give it to the parents so it's easily readable. I'll take this one. Um over the last six years, I believe there's been six changes in um the director of
117special education. So when Michelle and I entered this journey together last year, we made a commitment one to Jim and two to ourselves that we weren't going to change too much, but what we were going to change is the attitude and the culture of our department. Um special ed is always evolving. The only consistent is change and it's really difficult for somebody who said well three directors ago I heard this which is completely different than what you're saying. Absolutely totally relevant totally true. What we need to do is we need to increase our communication and lean in on the feedback that we're being provided from sites. And so with that for the first time ever we had um monthly department trainings. Um we have Did you want to talk about the the office hours? That
118was your brainchild. Oh, uh, just we had I I think twice a month last year um because of the the emphasis on MTSS this year. I I think we're at once a month where it's just open office hours and and they're virtual. So, anybody at any point in time can pop into the link to just ask questions or to get some um you know, guidance. And we we opened that up to our general education um staff as well whenever we went out to to talk um at each of the sites. And and when um Miss Kuster talks about talking to the sites, we we do road shows, which is like quick 20 30 minute presentations where we have the whole staff and the principles been gracious enough to let us intrude a and we talk
119about what special education is, what the the barriers are to providing education for students with exceptional needs and challenges a and what we could do to support them. And it's it's 100% vulnerability because we want to hear everything that people are saying regardless of their role. Whether they're an instructional aid, a school psychologist, a special ed teacher, or a general education teacher, it's all relevant. And teams are really what makes this whole system work. When when I was uh young in sports, I had a coach that once taught me that team is really just an acronym for together everyone achieves more. And I think the rescue spirit absolutely embodies that. And those road shows are part of the vulnerability that allow us to have this open conversation and discord to move the the needle forward.
120Um did you want to talk a little bit about >> Yeah. So I I would just say you know and this goes back to the the proc the proclamation the um grounded in a community that cares. I I really think I I was not looking for a job when Dustin called me and was like, "So, what would you think about coming over to rescue?" And we had already been working together um because I was a school psychologist for EDCO. And so within those EDCO regional classrooms, we we had been working together um a lot. And so when when I came aboard, um Dustin's Dustin really was very emphatic that we um that we focus on caring for the caregivers and and that we really increase our our our presence and our support for our staff
121who who really do so many things on any given day. And so, um, we were very intentional last year about making sure that we were at every single campus, um, every week, um, for for the most part. We, we rotated, we divided and and conquered. Um, we also were having meaningful, um, scheduled one-to- ones with our site leadership. Uh we really increase our um our meetings and the structure of our meetings with our behaviorist team that is working on not just supporting students with with special needs but also the students who are receiving those tier 2 level supports as well as with our school psychologists. And so we really did a lot of very intentional touch points to be getting and listening and supporting um and um all all of our >> two of the
122other things that we looked into that we didn't mention were um exploring special education curriculum. Our SDC programs have never had their own curriculum. They've been pulling and piece milling together from what our resource teachers are doing and what the general education teachers are doing. So that was important. Not only do we want to create a better user experience for the student, but we want to make sure that we're working on improving systems so that teachers aren't breaking their backs all day in class and then going home and curating individual lessons for everybody else. And then with our relay, we increased our medical reimburseable services to the point where we recovered over $100,000 last year through that tracking system and making sure that everybody was diligently staying on task reporting those services. >> That is
123um $100,000 more than the year before. Um just to highlight that. And I will tell you the last board meeting um I was I was over in in the office looking at the the held services and we are really looking at just leveraging that opportunity to get reimbursement um that that is available. It just takes time and energy. And we that was another thing. We had monthly phone calls um last year with our re relay um uh >> representative. >> Thank you so much. Yeah. >> See, we're working together. Um so for for students, the the the staff that was working with them received more training specific to their individual needs. We worked on ways to track are we really making a difference? And so that's setting up short-term objectives and benchmarks so that we
124have measurable goals for each student. Oftent times when when I first joined this district, we would see an IEP with a goal with a baseline of where the students at and then an annual goal that we hope they achieve 12 months from now. But what they were missing were those threemonth touch points to see is this intervention, is this goal reasonably attainable and is it appropriately ambitious for this student. So we've normalized in an IEP now every student should have their baseline where they're at an annual goal but also those benchmarks. So we're checking in and we're reporting quarterly on student progress. Uh we've worked on creating behavior support plans at the tier 2 level and behavior intervention plans at the tier three level so that no student is removed from a general education classroom
125due to um acting out behavior unless it reaches a certain threshold. What can we do to positively promote behavior in the classroom through use of a reinforcement system? Working with our occupational therapists to build in some sensory or movement breaks and just being cognizant of how there are so many opportunities at the tier one and tier 2 level where we can provide support to these students that we don't necessarily need to elevate everybody into a more restrictive setting. Um, with that, our wellness center did expand. we were able to add uh time at Marina uh Village Middle School and then also they supported Lake Forest Elementary in addition to the work that they had been doing at Pleasant Grove. We started the meeting piggybacking off of the proclamation that's operating with care. Parents need to
126know that their child isn't just another child that we're sitting in a meeting for and then we have another meeting in 30 minutes. So, we got to rush through and hit timelines and we're just reading the norms in the agenda because that's the rope program that we're on. Every parent should know that their student is unique and cared for and that that team is dedicated to that student and they're dedicated to doing the work to problem solve and if something isn't working that we're going to come back to the table. And with that, it's talking about the continuum, talking about how our intent and our purpose is always to give them the most typical experience possible, regardless of their exceptionalities. And then just being objective with what we're saying. It's great that we're providing data.
127We want to provide data before the meeting. We want parents to have an opportunity to look over the reports, ask their own questions, and be prepared to have thoughtful conversation in the meeting. We speak in acronyms and letters and jargon all day. And I've been in special education over 20 years and I'm still learning every day. So I can't imagine a parent who's trying to navigate how to support their child with exceptional needs also sit across from a team that's mainly foreign to them and understand what they're saying with all the jargon and then digest a 40 piece uh 40page uh legally binding document. it it's really a tough place for parents to be in and that's why we have to have conversations to normalize this experience and help them understand and then also offer
128the support of our um our soapa because we do have representatives that help families and districts work together and help families understand compliance and procedure. >> Yeah, I I do Dustin's very humble. He's not good about bragging. Um, I feel like I am really comfortable with bragging and so I'm going to brag for a moment. >> That's right. Now that I'm getting a little more comfortable. Okay. So, positive impacts. Um, I we I mentioned this or we mentioned this in DTL this morning. This morning, I think it was. Um we there were several students last year that when we met um with with our behaviorists and with our our intervention specialists that we we were tweaking we we were we were um coming back having conversations looking at the data what can what can be
129um trled what you know like are we moving the needle I think that's how you started this um we had some really intense challenges right um uh that that really required all hands on deck and a lot of meetings. Fast forward to the beginning of this year, these kids aren't even on the radar anymore. I mean, that is success. I just got goosebumps. Yeah. Um and staff that have come to to us and just are very appreciative of, you know, we we tend to play pretty well off of each other. We try to make fun, have fun, um, and sometimes make fun of each other, right? Um, and and parents that have just truly reached out saying that they feel it, they hear it, they appreciate it. And so, um, I I just have nothing
130but, um, positive feedback from you guys starting, you know, one year in this district to to where we are now. Um so and I think that that was um in large part due to some pretty great >> I don't know about that. Well well all right now we will brag. Um so this is from our um uh employee engagement survey and the 2023 results are on the left or in the middle column and the 202425 results are on the right column. And while you know I sure as heck would like like to have that exceeded goal have like I don't know 13 or 14 questions I I do see the slow growth going from seven questions that exceeded the goal um to 10 questions. And one thing I really want to call out is I
131know horseshoes and hand grenades are the only time we consider close is counting but if you look we were below the goal in 10 questions. Six of them were at 3.9. So, we were right there moving it to where I wanted to be. And uh I Yeah, Jim, I think we should take this survey three or four times a week until we get that number up. Um but but I think this is in large part just to being reflective and understanding that we had to operate with three fundamental pillars last year. It was improving communication, communing, uh, improving um, accessibility and the support that our teachers got. Every score that was really low was resource-based. So, while we did a good job improving the attitude and the culture and the climate and the timeliness of
132response, we know that there's still more work to do. And so, as we plan forward, we're really leaning on this data and the data that we're getting from every road show that we do that we're having people contribute information for. And I'm just I didn't catch this when you said that that 13 questions is supposed to say is that's supposed to say seven. So I think the is it 17 questions that are up there. I think the point if I'm not mistaken was to highlight that you're six you're six questions away from being at 16 and four. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> Or six excuse me 16 and one >> or seven. >> Right. My apologies. I got even more excited for you. Sorry. >> We'll take it. >> Yeah. Yeah. It's like you're selling yourself
133short on that one. We have a math program for you, Jim. >> Yeah. Thank you. >> I could My dad would attest to that. >> So, so looking forward, we're continuing our road shows um together with all of our campuses. We're hitting every single site. We're listening feedback and then we're coming back to close that feedback loop with them about what we're taking from their input and how we're implementing it in years out. Um, we've also have a teach town curriculum which is specific to SDC. It aligns with state common core standards and I actually have some samples here that I'd like to share with sorry it's under the chair that I'd like to share with you. So essentially what it can do is it could take a book like White Fang, which is something
134that's being read in our middle schools right now, and it will tear it in three different ways. So it'll be the same book on the outside, the same presentation, but inside it'll be structured where one will have a full paragraph of text. One will have maybe three sentences of text with some symbols above it for those challenge words, and then one's remediated all the way down to like a kinder first grade level where there's only two or three sentences. And then there's icons to help support readers with those challenge words. There's also a robust digital delivery model of this that grades students in real time in syncs with our Clever portal so that we could aggregate data very quickly and it allows teachers to grade and individualize instruction seamlessly because students are able to access
135it through their Chromebooks. So, one teacher could teach an entire lesson to an entire class that spans from TK all the way to 12th grade. We wouldn't go to 12th grade, but all the way to 12th grade if needed based on this this Teachtown program. Um, this is something that was brought forward first by Sunshine when she was here a couple years ago. And I've been working with Pler County Office of Education, who has previously adopted this, just to kind of go through our pilot. We did a six-week pilot with our SDC teachers. All six of them engaged in the work. And at the end of the trial, all six said that they wanted to move forward with this program. It's ELA, it's math, it's history, science, and then there's some daily adaptive living. And
136my favorite part um is the social skills components as as well, especially when we're talking about our littles who really well, not just our littles, but need to need a lot of um engaging and exciting ways to learn about feelings and about regulation and about strategies for um for coping and or expressing. And so, um, yes, there's this the social skills component, there's a basic intervention component, and then the core curriculum that is aligning with grade level standards. Yeah, it's exciting. Yeah. Okay. Um, less exciting unless you are a school psychologist or a occupational therapist or a resource teacher. Um, but very exciting for us. um is that we've also moved to a digital assessment platform. And this um this is a pretty big leap and and the roll out is in process. But in
137the world of standardized assessments, it it is essentially like a script, right? And you have to follow the by which you um are are recording everything that the students saying is is very um succinct. And when there are deviations from that, it can impact the the decisions that you're making, right? Um, so we moved to this digital assessment platform which opened up 42 different standardized assessments for our for our professionals in district and it's unlimited usages and by our resource teachers and and our other professionals using this iPad platform. it it allows students to respond um uh by touching on the screen. It records their responses for things like when you're trying to do oral reading fluency or listen to errors and nonsense words. Um so it records their responses so you can go back
138to it and and listen and it's saving so much time because you can select your battery. You don't have to just stick to one assessment. You can pull reading measures from multiple assessments. And so it's really increasing um just the breadth and and the depth of our assessments while also saving time and increasing accuracy of of our assessment data. And so it it really is um it it's an improvement because the less time we're spending doing the assessments and writing reports, the more we're interfacing with with our kids. Okay. So, I mentioned that we do like to try to have some fun. Um, there's a lot of stress in this job, so having fun is important. Um, and we are trying to do things seasonally. We're trying to increase, you know, just some entertainment. I
139I will I have a very vivid memory after our first department meeting um at the beginning of school last year. One of our resource teachers who has been in the district um one of our most senior teachers said to me, you know, I I don't even know the other teachers, the other special education teachers. And that was like a right light bulb moment. So we are trying to change that. Um, and sometimes we do seasonal activities like it's October. So, Dustin, do you like trick or treat? >> Treat. Oh, so we have treat. >> Oh, wow. Look at that. [Laughter] Yeah, I was gonna say we we brought six but uh so so with this we're trying to celebrate not only our department but those people who work with our students and our students. So
140this is the second straight year we have well we're going into our third year of working with Northern California Special Olympics to use uh or to to engage in the unified sports. So the last couple years we've done basketball. We're really excited to roll it out again. It's personally my favorite day of the year. We just get to all be kids together. And um not only is it a great experience for our athletes who may never have the opportunity to wear a jersey in another sport, but our student ambassadors who help support our uh special education students have carried that on. I I have a daughter who's at Pleasant Grove Middle School in seventh grade right now and one of her best friends says, "You know, the best part of my fifth grade was at
141Jackson Elementary getting to do the Special Olympics basketball." And it's so cool to hear a 13-year-old remember something from two years ago that was special about school. And every time she sees me, she connects that memory. And like that's creating lasting impact for our students, our staff, and our community. I I totally want to piggyback on this. So, I was um able to coach for Lake View and as an Edco school psychologist, I supported the two um autism classrooms at on Lake View's campus. So, I had been um working, you know, with the with those kiddos for several years. Um that being said, what I learned um which is so true to inclusion is that there was so many teachable moments for those peer mentors through that coaching experience that um certainly had ripple effects
142and we we would meet um before meeting with our ambassadors and they a they asked really thoughtful questions and they wanted to learn and understand more about about the students that they were working with and how they could help. And so it just um by far it was exhausting. Um and it was worth every single second. And I'm still sitting in meetings and and parents are saying, "Oh yeah, weren't you that crazy lady at the basketball thing?" And I'm like, "Yes, yes." So I think that's a huge win for our entire community. Yeah. >> And then those are just two pictures of events we did. We did a winter gathering and then a chili cookoff which Lauren Burkhart resource specialist has the best white chili in the I think the nation. I'm going to go
143nation style. >> It wasn't close. She won by a landslide. >> She said she had been working on it for three days. It was like a whole weekend layered flavor uh situation. >> I think it's the competitiveness at Green Valley. So that's that's that's our time. Are there any questions? >> Um so it doesn't appear there's any public comment on it. So, let me open it up to trustees. Any clarity or questions or comments on the very thorough recommendation? >> I just want to comment there there very few more important things that be able to see stat trends and more importantly brag all you want. Be able to show that impact on a daily annual basis. sharing the story about daughter. She can share that story. Think about what share ragway. I love that. Um
144your energy and clearly the way you guys work together to me is so infectious. That could have been a long and boring presentation and it was not at all. Um, so I I just I love all of that. Um, I have my masters in special education, so this is always like a special touch point to me. And the first time we went down to CSBA my first year on the board, I didn't quite understand. It was like you can go to whatever session you want to go to. And I was like, I'm going to go to special education, special education, special education. And I came out of them and was like really didn't know a whole lot about our district. It was very I was very new um to being a board member, but I
145did know from just pulse in the ground a little bit and pieces of everything and I'm like um so I think when I came on it was just great and now to see what you guys have done in such a short amount of time. I am so proud of what you guys do and to be at this district. So thank you very much for how intentional you are with everything you do and with each student you work with. Ditto. >> Um, the other thing I wanted to say though was that you had so many significant and impactful moments throughout the presentation. The one that I landed on the most for me um was when you said the best IEP erodess over time that um the needs become less and less because requisite skills grow. I
146think that that's probably one of the most powerful things I've ever heard in terms of an IEP because you think that as a student goes through school and the content becomes more complex or the burden of learning becomes heavier that you would be adding and adding and adding and the idea that you're working backward from that and that mindset is um incredible and I hope that you don't mind if I use that in the future um in in future IEP that I might be in. um that that they're really looking to to pull back the layers rather than continue to layer on. And so I just really find that to be just transformational. They don't have any but I would like to commend you on an incredible presentation. I love your enthusiasm. It makes me
147feel like I know that our sped department is being so well handled and cared for and our students are getting people that really really care, really really want to make a difference. Like that's what like we got a lot of information and I appreciate in all of this but what is really resonating with me is how excited and passionate people are about. So thank you very much. >> Great presentation. You can double high. >> You can double high five us. That was really >> I felt better. >> I would just be repeating what my colleague said. So I I won't do that. But I do appreciate intentionality passion. >> Thank you all. >> This has us in moving to classified employees or CBO as the floor. That was a tough act to follow. This is
148not as exciting, but well, I should say it's exciting in a different way. We are very excited to share that we have come to an agreement with our classified union. The um attached in this agenda is a what we call the AB1200 dis collective bargaining disclosure. That's a requirement to demonstrate that we um not only what we agreed to can we afford this year but we can afford in our multi-year. Um and it outlines the details of the agreement. Um the agreement includes an increase of 1.9% to the overall salary schedule. It also removes steps one and two from the salary schedule. And the reason that we've done that is because our our salary schedule started very low and we are just not recruiting. And we had a very intentional um um theme over the
149year was to look at how we can recruit and retain. and we were really struggling with the recruitment piece for our classified staff because of those steps one and two. We're hoping that we're going to see some great improvement once we can get this approved and get this on our website with steps one and two removed. We'll be able to actually change the postings that we currently have to a starting rate of step three. Um the overall cost of this is um removing steps one and two was about $75,000 including um benefits and the overall cost for the 1.9% is about 200,000. So we do have that outlined in the multi-year within there and we will maintain um a 12.5% budget in our third year out. So, we'll see this reflect reflected in our first
150interim report in December. >> Thank you for the presentation. Um, it doesn't appear that we have anyone for public comment, but I will open up to either questions or clarity or discussion from the trustees for our CBO. Seeing no leans towards microphones, I will then assume we're ready for action. Get a motion. I move that we approve the tenative agreement with the classified employees of the Russian mun district. All in favor? I oppose. Great. Motion passes. Congratulations. This has been moving on to consent. And if you all can serve the number eight, we need to pull that. Um and I can get a motion to accept consent without eight. vote on that. Then we'll show that gate regulation >> seven through 14. >> Sorry. >> Yep. W 21. >> Sign all in favor. I motion.
151Wait.