Study Session Meeting

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[0] SPEAKER_27: I wanted to kind of spend a little bit of time with you talking about STEAM and STEM and I know that

[27] SPEAKER_09: Member Preciado and President Thomas and I spent some time together kind of thinking about, you know, we need to have a little workshop to kind of talk about this a little bit. It's been some work that we've been working on. It's not new. But I wanted to kind of re-ground us in why we were interested in developing some academic programming, and as the board has referred to, marquee programming, signature programming, something that would attract and create a little bit of a buzz around what's going on academically in our district. So I'm going to start in the packet with this document that has our symbol on the front. And I want you to go to page, I believe it's page 8, which is really kind of an overview of STEAM and what it is. And I think the big idea behind this is not only a little bit about identity, but it's also a way to have applied academics through a thematic unit or a theme of engineering or a theme of math or art or technology or science. These aren't things that are, this isn't really a new conversation, but I think that part of it is just Re-familiarizing ourselves with STEAM. I've asked Leti to kind of talk a little bit too about, there's a page in here of what they've been doing as head services and just kind of talking about STEAM and what we've been up to since last year to this year. So I'll have Leti kind of update you on that.

[118] SPEAKER_16: So last year we started to look at what, not only as we were preparing for our site plans, we also saw that we needed to do something where it's garnering our resources, it's focusing our work all within the umbrella of the four C's, which is collaboration, critical thinking, communication, and creativity. And what that highlights is really the critical thinking skills, the creativity that our kids need all over our subject areas. With that, there was also the need to have a focus for our principals to engage with their staff around being so close to Silicon Valley, really in the, we are Silicon Valley in many ways, with so many of our families that are part of the tech community, and that we have so many kids that are really very interested, as we see from our rocketry program, from our coding classes. a way to have all of that energy and the focus from TK through 12th grade to have that focus. So if you remember last year, as our principals were working through the planning of their site plans, we asked them to engage on focusing on one letter out of steam, either science, technology, engineering, art, or mathematics. And so if you recall, that was really what some of their focus work was last year that they're enacting this year. But before we could do any of that, we said we hadn't really have a commitment out of Ed Services to ensure that that focus was going to be there. So if you turn to page three, our problem with practice was this for Ed Services, that if we focus on the four C's, communication and creativity, we would ensure engaging rigorous instruction, we would build a capacity of teachers and our principals, we would hold each other accountable, and we would recognize that we're all learners together. Then our students would be high-achieving, responsible, global citizens who possess critical thinking skills to successfully navigate the 21st century world. So if you look at that, that was our problem of practice, and then we That underpinning of the Ed Services commitment really showed how if we were to focus all of our students' work under collaboration, creativity, critical thinking skills, and focusing on their communication skills, then we would have students who have knowledge, have interest in STEAM-related careers. And that's what we were hoping, that we would be able to then get students who are just powerfully engaged in this work. A little bit, thank you. A little bit about, if you also remember, previous to my starting here, I know that there was a focus at the BG schools that we would look at more STEM-related work. And those principals have continued that. And if you've seen the advertisement around STEAM Week and a lot of their partners with Hitachi and with a lot of the other companies, that really has been something that both the principals have been focused on because that's their letter for this year out of their SPSA plan. So the hope is that by the time we circle through all of this work, every school site would have incorporated all of the STEAM focus areas, science, technology, engineering, arts, and mathematics. For next year, as we're going through our math adoption process this year, we're going to see this huge focus on mathematics next year with a new TK12 math adoption. and then what within it will be how do we engage with partners such as Code.org, Facebook, looking at how we're going to engage with some of these partners to leverage some private monies to continue to build on this work.

[342] SPEAKER_09: So part of the, and I'm going to defer in a minute to Member Persiello and Member Thomas, part of the conversation we had in planning this workshop was kind of, we need some time to kind of reground in that, and STEAM can be kind of a framework Okay, here's what we're doing as a district. Here's the direction we're going. And now we can begin aligning our strategic plan to that, our resources to that, and some of our academic programming. And using 15 as a way to sort programs that we know are very popular, like MCA, or like robotics, other things like that, and looking at expanding enrichment and extension around that. So I think that was kind of the conversation, but I would defer to you guys to see what else you want to add about STEAM specifically. And we're going to go deeper into the four questions and the four PLC stuff later.

[395] Nancy Thomas: So I think it speaks also to our facilities master plan, especially at the secondary level. So what are the science labs and the science facilities going to look like at the junior high and the high school that will facilitate a strong STEAM program that is hopefully interdisciplinary and robust and brings in things like our rocketry and robotics program, our AP computer science program, our MCA program, the things that are kind of signature programs at the high school that should be grown and nurtured.

[440] SPEAKER_18: making sure that we can have the conversation about being on the same page for moving collectively in a cohesive manner by focusing on STEAM as academics, because each school does its own thing and kind of focuses on whatever program, and at least that's how it's been for, or it feels like. having some sort of structure where you know as a district we're committed to moving forward steam steam is really broad that each school can still within that be like hey i want to be more arts focused i want to be more engineering more technology but you can create that identity but at least as a district that in that way we can coordinate resources um from the district perspective we use a cloth if we're focusing on steam um It gives us more purchasing power for specific projects as we move together. It's not site by site. It's also, in terms of the academics, like this is what, from my perspective, what Newark needs to be is, needs to be a STEAM district and make sure that we're not behind or at the curve, but ahead of the curve and making sure that we're developing or preparing our students to succeed in whatever they choose to do so. So that's really where my focus on STEAM specifically came from.

[529] Nancy Thomas: I think it's really project-based and interdisciplinary. I think that it will help our teachers carry on the collaboration, critical thinking skills into other subject areas where maybe they haven't seen those subject areas as being open to project-based or critical thinking as much as math and science, for example?

[558] Ray Rodriguez: I had the opportunity to go to, as the advisory member from the board, to the East Bay or the beginning teacher mentoring. I was sitting next to a teacher, and she's also the administrator for a small school in Hayward, and she said that she has two nephews from Fremont Unified that are at the high school in Newark, and the reason they're there is because of the MCA program. And what she told me was that with all these new people coming in, if you want to draw the population that's coming in, which is mostly, you know, Asian or Indian, She said that you need special programs, because that's what they're looking for. So something like this, with the steam, is great. But then as we go forward, it's something that we need to continue to develop if we're going to draw people to come in. Because a lot of people just look at the numbers. We don't number right. Our numbers aren't where they should be for each one of our, let's say, elementary schools. But if you have special programs, then that's something that they will come for. And it's a way for us to grow. And it also gives our own kids an opportunity to do something great with the STEAM program.

[664] SPEAKER_17: I'd like to underline something, too. I think I'm delighted we're talking about this, because I was a project-oriented teacher. All my things were project-oriented. It was applied science in a way that many people did not respect, but the truth was there. But we have to understand when we're talking about our facilities that this takes space. And so when we're talking about new rooms, we are talking about enough rooms so the kids can move around without them getting over themselves. There's some school or some of the rooms I've been to in the district that would not allow for this kind of movement very nicely. And I think that what's happening, I want to say at Grant, about the maker station, I think that's marvelous, and I would certainly love to do anything we can to encourage that and to support that kind of thing. And this is where you can get into your project-oriented kind of creative stuff, where the kids are using collaborative skills or developing collaborative skills to come up with a project that, it used to happen to the families on the farm. Sorry. We're going back to that, whether people accept it or not. It's definitely applying science in a real world.

[737] SPEAKER_20: I'm not sure if the space comes before the program. No, it doesn't, but it has to be with it. Right. I mean, the program needs the space to support it, but I think The first step is establishing a program. STEAM is so broad that literally you just take out English and social science and it becomes everything else that we teach in schools. And so it's really easy for a school or a program to claim that we're doing STEAM. because, again, it's so broad. But I think we need to focus down whether it's robotics at the high school or whether it's, you know, health professions or, you know, coding, let's be more specific, computer science and technology or whatever it is, right? But I think we, STEAM is great as a large and broad term, but we need to drill down further and be more specific.

[803] SPEAKER_18: for us to get on the same page, at least three of us, that we haven't even made the commitment that STEAM is the focus, even. And that's, to me, the kind of frustrating part, that if we can at least get three of us to say, look, we are going to be focused on STEAM, and then here's the deadline for the specific programs that need to be developed kind of under STEAM, or the conversations to happen, at least, then it gets it moving. But unfortunately, I feel like we weren't even the STEAM level because we weren't talking about it in that way.

[835] Nancy Thomas: I think there's another thing that we really have going for us and that is our IT infrastructure. I think it's second to none. The fact that every student is going to have a computer in their hands. All the other equipment that we have that's technology oriented. I went to Science Night at Kennedy and I saw what what they're doing in the AP Computer Science course with the students building a robot. And it was doing amazing things. And I'm thinking, gee, our students did that. So I think we have a lot of, what do you want to call it, just small embryonic programs that can become cohesive and really give us a name and a focus and an identity. And so I think STEAM as an identity is something we can all buy into or hopefully all buy into.

[898] SPEAKER_09: And I think that kind of back to what Member Nguyen said, it is broad. But I do think that if this is an area of agreement for the board, next steps are going to be what categories fall under STEAM and what is the kind of strands of programming that happen K-12 So there is a pathway, and I think if you're able to fast forward in your mind a little bit and think about what does a course catalog look like, 6-12, and then what are we doing in the elementaries that might wrap up into some of those 6-12 opportunities, then it has a little bit more of what we're anchoring into that we think is important. And what I would say about STEAM as the broad idea or vision, that's really kind of the what. And the how is kind of the next segment, which is really, how do we do it? It's really project-based learning, problem-based learning. But it's also making sure we're reinforcing the four C's, which is, you know, as highlighted here, collaboration, creativity, critical thinking, and I think the last one's creativity. But something that I kind of come to the conclusion with in conversation with staff is every time I see standards-based education, it scares people. And I really, what we can do that we already have in place that's a nice anchor point about how we're going to do this is really PBIS. And what they call, I'm sorry, PLCs. I'm sorry, I've had it wrong. PLCs is really based in the same philosophy of standards-based education. But my sense is that the PLCs that we've been working on are good, and I think the foundational pieces are there. But let me kind of give you an example. If we look at the questions, professional learning communities, and this is work that districts have been working on for a while. It's not something new, but it's standards-based. That's not a secret, but I think that the idea of what's on page five in this package with the district insignia on it, This is really kind of what we call theory of action. So if we were to apply these questions to how we build a master schedule, if we were to apply these questions to how we structure staffing and courses work at each school, then we start answering the questions that are really important. So, you know, what do we want students to know and be able to do? That's curriculum. That's what are the high yield power standards? What are the deliverables they need to know by grade level? How will we know they learned it? That speaks to our formative assessments. That speaks to, you know, checking along the way of how are they doing relative to grade level. What will we do when they haven't? That talks, speaks to intervention, enrichment, extended time. And then the last one, which is what are we going to do when they already know it? How do we accelerate? These pieces are based on a very simple theory of standards-based education, which is is pretty much the shortest version I can tell you is the goal is to make learning the constant and time the variable. Instead of kind of what we have now where time is the constant and learning is the variable. So I think this idea of trying to get to kids, if you need more time we're going to give you more time and we have ways to do that. But this would help solve a lot of our ways to use even are CPSAs and LCAP resources and supplemental concentration with more intentionality. So if each teacher is able to use these questions to kind of guide their planning at the site level and know that they want to reinforce the four C's, and then each grade level knows these questions and what they're looking at at grade level, that's another way to make sure we're catching all kids And then at the district, or at the site level, the principal's looking at things from this lens. We're all operating from the same model, that we're trying to capture as many kids as possible to give as many opportunities as possible to be successful. And then the same for the district level. How do we plan summer school, extension? What do we do in after school? Do we need to shift some dollars to be able to support that? So they do work together well, and I think that the idea of STEAM, for me, as mentioned, earlier is really the idea of applied academics.

[1165] SPEAKER_17: A PLC, is that a school? Is it a department within a school? Is it a cross department?

[1173] SPEAKER_09: It's how they largely spend professional development time. I'll let Eddie kind of expand on that a little bit. But it's largely when they have common time together as a staff or planning time that's common, they'll spend time. And the PLC structure is so that they spend time answering these questions as a team looking at student data.

[1190] SPEAKER_17: So the team would be a department?

[1192] SPEAKER_16: It can be a department, it can be a grade level. It really depends on how the school site, the school leadership and the school site have structured it. Our principals are already, they're already in PLCs, so all of our principal meetings, we've already got them in PLCs and so we've actually leveraged it so we have our Title I schools. mixed in with our non-Title I schools, our secondary, the junior high, the alternative, and our high school person is actually in a PLC with a district person. So it's just a group of leaders or educators who are together looking at a problem that's data focused, it's measurable, you're asking these questions and really kind of either coming out with a product, hopefully you're not just kind of sitting there talking and talking and talking, but you're coming out with some kind of a tangible product and making adjustments. If it's adjustments in your teaching, adjustments in your leadership, it depends.

[1246] SPEAKER_17: So they would have common planning time, because they would be close to each other. a physical closeness so they could?

[1257] SPEAKER_16: It can be. So like at the high school, it's a little bit easier because they have their department times. It's at the elementaries now with the new contract language that's in effect this year. Two of the Fridays of the early release are principal driven, and the other two Fridays are teacher directed. And so we have this early release time where teachers are able to work together, which is a common planning time, a common discussion time. So that's new for our district. that I think, I would say that our principals are leveraging it really in a good way. We've also done more professional development during that time, where we've had, for example, we've had Amy Black going to different elementary schools, and because all of the teachers are there for early release time, and she's doing a professional development training, so then the whole staff kind of becomes a PLC. But what we're saying now is that we would focus the framework around these questions to really come out with something tangible out of it.

[1313] SPEAKER_09: So what I like about it is this deepening work we've already started. So PLCs have been going on for more than 15, 20 years.

[1322] SPEAKER_16: And this district invested with Solution Tree. And so actually before we got here, there was already a lot of professional development with our leaders.

[1330] SPEAKER_20: I think there was 10 staff members who went to that Solution Tree training. And so we high school, it's costly. So we have to find the financial backing for our institutions if we decide to venture down that path. So there's an initial onboarding of training, right, that you send the staff to. And then the ongoing annual Not that you're paying a subscription, but you need to pay your POC facilitators and your POCD teachers, et cetera, to host these mini departments, essentially.

[1372] SPEAKER_09: But I think we have enough wherewithal within the district to train within our own staff. I think we have our own trainers that can train others. So I don't see, there might be some cost to bring some people in just to refresh. But by and large, this is, I don't think it would be a huge expense every year to go deeper than where we started. I think the big thing we hear from teachers, we'd like more time to work on these things together, and that could be a function of kind of the calendar committee. Can't we carve out deeper time for the whole staff to spend a half day or full day really going deep with these kind of assessments and aligning those resources in more of an intentional way?

[1415] SPEAKER_20: So my PLC budget for my school is about $75,000 per year. That's for training, because each staff member is like $3,000 to give them training. And we cycle them in 10-12 at a time. There's attrition, so you have to train new staff members as well. And then you pay for the release period if the PLC leads don't have a common prep or common time, or beyond the collaboration time that we've set aside. then I might have to pay them overtime so that they can work together. The main thing is that the three or four of them are working together and studying the data, as you said, and usually they're, you know, you have all the chemistry teachers together in one PLC, so you're going to talk to them about chemistry and you have all the second grade teachers in a PLC so they can share common practices.

[1469] SPEAKER_17: How does this differ from the old, let's have a common prep, and let's have our department meeting, and we'll sit down and talk about common problems?

[1476] SPEAKER_20: So at the high school, if you're in the social science department, you're teaching three, four different subjects, and so the conversation can't be as deep. and it gets really scattered versus if I'm just sitting around the table with two of my other World History teachers, I can't really talk to them about World History and why sophomores are doing in World History, what I can do better, that type of conversation. And the department's too big. There's too much variety.

[1505] Nancy Thomas: Didn't last year we have Nancy Quay full-time as PLC lead? Now we have... We have Sakanya Goswami, who is not a full-time. Not full-time. We have two. Are we... What can we say about the groundwork that they've laid and how satisfied we are with the progress or what kind of progress has been made?

[1524] SPEAKER_16: I'm feeling a lot better about the high school and also about the McGregor campus because they've been going through a self-study through WASC. So their WASC visit is coming up in about Three weeks, three and a half weeks. And so they actually have done a lot of, well, I think Nancy led a lot of groundwork from last year, but what Sukanya has done is to help to facilitate, also with Mr. Edwards, facilitate the conversations around the self-study for WASC and around their SLURS and what they're going to focus on. The same thing for the McGregor staff, much smaller, but really the more principal-led. So my hope is that all of that training and the release time that has already been invested in, we're going to build on that. And plus, we are going to have our report from WASC that we're going to really need to address and really internalize what that report tells us about the visits. So they've got some, they actually have probably the most tangible next steps, I think, having gone through the process of preparing for WASP.

[1587] SPEAKER_20: So are the high school teachers split into PLCs currently?

[1590] SPEAKER_16: They're currently, I don't know if the term PLC is the term that they're using across the whole high school. What they have done, though, is by department, they've been working on the self-study. So every week they've been working on that.

[1603] SPEAKER_20: Oh, okay. They're a focus group. Focus on learning groups.

[1605] Nancy Thomas: Yeah. What have you been doing at the elementary school? level that similar.

[1610] SPEAKER_16: These are Fridays. So the Friday release during that early time when kiddos are going home, two of the Fridays a month are principal-led, and that's where they're working around as a staff. Some of them are doing book studies. Some are focusing more in terms of their makerspace, because it's not just most of our elementaries have now really kind of lifted that makerspace, and they're actually meeting in the makerspace and focusing on their letter out of steam for the SPSA this year. The other focus has been around math. So because we've been pretty consumed with piloting at the school sites, there's been a lot of discussion around math and we're going to be voting this week. And so a lot of the focus has been there at the school sites. I think it's going to be reinvigorating our principles with the PLC work. So in, I believe it's the third week of June, we're actually taking all the principles to Santa Clara County Office of Ed and Solution Tree is going to be providing another overview for leaders around PLC work. And so we're going to reinvigorate or retreat all of our administrators the third week of June.

[1680] SPEAKER_09: And that's also an area that I'm planning, if the board shows that this is kind of the direction. I'm planning to bring a team back to the next CCEE retreat and see if they have some dollars to provide some trainers for us to kind of re-kickstart even next year or finishing this year with PLCs because I know they have some money they need to spend on us. I'm trying to get that money. But just to kind of answer your question about What does it look like in a high school? Generally, in a high school or a secondary school, you would group teachers by a PLC course in core areas. And then you would have electives in a separate group, because they're very different. But they still can have a focus around certain things. So PLCs can focus around ninth grade language arts, 10th grade language arts, or math, or science. But they can be configured however the staff kind of thinks makes the most sense. Another way to frame this is really what they call now is big data teams. The PLCs lends itself to just having, there's other parts of this that aren't the questions. The part of PLCs I think that also helps schools is shared agreements, you know, a common vision. how they resolve conflict, and to some degree, how do they define consensus, which is important. Everyone's going to have a say, but at the end, we all agree to support it and not sabotage it, but we've had our say. So there's a PLC definition. So there's some other pieces I think will help leaders, not just principals, but teachers and all leaders, deepen it. But I think the common form of assessment So let me give you a broader kind of look of what it should look like after four or five years of implementation. You have more time for teachers to work in these work groups with more frequency. And then academically through the year, you have more intervals of formative assessment that help you progress monitor how you're doing in the most critical core areas. Let's say math and language arts. And the cycle usually is about somewhere between four to six weeks cycle with the interim assessment. So you start the year, you kind of do a pre-test, you see where your kids are in certain areas. And then you agree as a team in ninth grade language arts, for example, we're going to try X. This is what our kids need. We're going to do a dose for this six weeks. We'll come back to the next assessment, see how they did, and make adjustments based on that, and then go on to the next. So there's a way to kind of progressively monitor that. And that will be the next phase of deepening PLCs. But for right now, just starting with these questions, it's not something that's scary or going to be intimidating. It's something that's, I think, familiar to staff. It's not gonna be, well, we already tried that and it didn't work. I think for the most part, staff wants more time to work together.

[1866] SPEAKER_16: If I could share an example, so this year we grouped our principals in a PLC, and we actually, one of the principal meetings a month, we meet at a school site, and we do a walkthrough around looking at mathematical practices. And so they're in their group, they're going through a walkthrough of classrooms, and they're remarking on the mathematical practices that they're observing, or not observing, in a classroom. We do it on a Google Doc, and then we're able to project the data as soon as everybody comes back from the walkthrough visit. And then we're able to have the conversations around what are we seeing in the classrooms, what is still needed. And then we leave the classroom teachers with the principal a question as to what are some wonderings where we could see them take it to the next level. So we do that all within our PLCs and how we're seeing the implementation of mathematical practices. And that's also looking for example, so for example, I'm thinking back to snow. We were at about a month and a half ago, and we saw a classroom where students were working with an SVMI problem of the month. And so we saw kids were grouped at tables, they had big chart papers, and they were actually, there was a facilitator, a note taker, a recorder, and they were talking about a problem of the month, right? And so we were able to then highlight what mathematical practices within that observation that we did as principals did we see at Snow Elementary. And then what is the next step that's needed for that staff? And for a lot of it, it's just time. In some aspects, it's materials and supplies that are perhaps needed. And then also looking at the trajectory of a kindergarten classroom and then looking at a sixth grade classroom as to whether or not we're seeing the implementation of mathematical practices. But we do that all within a PLC with administrators. And so we do that once a month is some of the things that we're doing now.

[1978] Nancy Thomas: So do you go to a different school every month? And you've hit most of them then this year already?

[1982] SPEAKER_16: We're almost done, yes. So we were just at BGP last Thursday, and then the other Thursday principal meeting, we do it here at the district office.

[1989] Nancy Thomas: What kind of feedback have you gotten from principals as to, you know, how they like this?

[1995] SPEAKER_16: I think they're really enjoying it because we're in classrooms. We're not pulling our administrators off of the site for, you know, half the morning every Thursday here. We're actually in classrooms. It really pushes us to make the connection between our leadership work in classrooms. And it's been wonderful. And also we deprivatize our own practice. So principals can see just how implementation is going at another school site. I mean, I think it's been actually very beneficial for them when we went to high school classrooms. That was more at the beginning so that our elementary principals were able to see the implementation in all of the math classrooms. So we did that at the beginning of the school year.

[2034] SPEAKER_09: So I know we're tight on time. I'd like to come back to STEAM. And if it sounds like there's some agreement around STEAM, and what I was going to propose was this idea of a potential resolution at the next meeting to consider to kind of codify this idea of STEAM. And we can certainly edit and tweak this resolution Because that will give some additional validity and support to, yeah, this is kind of where we want to go. And the how parts are really the PLCs and the four Cs and the four questions. That's kind of how we're going to get to it, along with assessments and all the other pieces that are embedded in that. But this is an example that we found And this came from, help me with the name, Nancy.

[2091] Nancy Thomas: National Academy of Sciences.

[2092] SPEAKER_09: From the National Academy of Sciences. So it's a good starting point. We can certainly weave our own language in there. And I'm not, it's not anything that's proposed for tonight, but if it's something that you guys feel is, would feel good as a board to solidify that, then I can begin aligning the next conversation, what we're going to do in the last 20 minutes or so is some of the strategic imperatives to that and be able to start framing the rest of our work this year around moving in that direction.

[2128] SPEAKER_18: You want to say anything? Yeah, so for me it would be in terms of, I'm looking at it really quickly, in terms of the be it there for, so what we're going to be working on, kind of the member wins point, if there's a way that we can kind of map out some sort plan or even just say like that we are going to map out a plan with this framework so that we actually have like tangible next steps and then we we work on the academic excellence plan with a STEAM focus. So that, because right here is just, that's like a statement that we're committing to STEAM. If we can say like, this is how we're committing to it. So.

[2164] SPEAKER_09: Would you note that, please?

[2166] SPEAKER_18: Thinking about like the facilities master plan, as we develop, the framework needs to be around STEAM. As we use any kind of capital funds and resources that we have, the framework needs to be around STEAM.

[2183] SPEAKER_09: How does it further our mission? Okay.

[2184] Nancy Thomas: And I like what you said about, say it again so that we can capture it, because this is just a statement, yeah, we want to be STEAM, but you said building, say it again. I like what you said.

[2200] SPEAKER_18: We've got the video. Yeah, just outlining next steps that we're going to come into.

[2209] Nancy Thomas: The action is in there.

[2210] SPEAKER_09: But what I'm here to is aligning our strategic plan to this. And as we discuss resources and even contracts with people, the question has to be how are they furthering this? Exactly. How are they contributing to this? Are there facilities, energy master planning, instructional professional development, grants, All that stuff should be kind of furthering part of this in some way. That's kind of what I heard. Yeah.

[2238] SPEAKER_17: I just have a note. The third, whereas, when it talks about artistic right brain, then you go into science, technology, engineering, put that art after engineering. So it's a sequence? So it's a sequence to state?

[2257] SPEAKER_17: Let's consist in terms. Oh, yeah. That makes sense.

[2260] SPEAKER_09: We can do that. How does that idea feel to the board? Does it feel okay?

[2267] SPEAKER_17: I think it's very well written. It's close.

[2269] SPEAKER_20: We're not there yet. Do we feel it's necessary to declare and proclaim that all of our schools need to be student schools?

[2279] Nancy Thomas: Or you could say, we could say Newark Unified School District will be STEAM focused. We don't have to talk about individual schools or anything.

[2286] SPEAKER_20: I think I would prefer that. Like, you know, that will prioritize or will be STEAM focused, but I wouldn't, I don't know if I feel comfortable being so prescriptive to say all schools will be STEAM schools.

[2297] SPEAKER_17: Well, we are asking all schools to take a piece of this. And they may emphasize our economy.

[2302] SPEAKER_20: But I'm not going to say a STEAM school, though. When you're saying a STEAM school, That's a different connotation than saying the same programming.

[2310] SPEAKER_18: Okay, so you're saying like specifically like if you were a STEM school versus a STEAM school versus an art school like you're saying that by being an art school you're not a STEAM school you're an arts. So the idea is that that STEAM that we commit as a district that we're going to be moving in this direction and that we're going to be kind of coordinating our resources in this manner, because without having like a thematic focus, like I feel like we keep on bringing up different things. Hey, what about this program? Or what about this program? What about this? And then we're never going to be, at least have even a general broad category. If we can commit to that, then we know that our lands are the framework of the resources.

[2355] SPEAKER_20: So again, going back to that broad question, right? What is it that we're committing to? other than to say we're a state-focused district, which many districts have gone out and proclaimed, but what is it that we're actually authorizing and approving and pushing and funding, right?

[2371] Nancy Thomas: Exactly. That goes back to what you just said about having, we're going to have next steps to.

[2379] SPEAKER_18: So as a specific example, right, we have the celebration funds, we have capital expenditure, the bond, we have developer fees, it's making a statement that's saying, like, these structures or these funds will be used to further a STEAM-centered district, as opposed to just, hey, you know what, like, well, we have the wish list or whatever it is, right, that has

[2414] SPEAKER_09: originally is your first idea is probably the simplest, was just all of its schools to develop a STEAM focus, providing activities, and the rest of it kind of stays the same. It's not specific to every school has to be STEAM, but we want them to develop a STEAM focus area. It wouldn't even say that, but I think just a few words instead of to be would be all school, its schools to develop a STEAM focus, comma.

[2440] SPEAKER_17: I think you're just saying something because you are doing STEAM really in this room.

[2444] SPEAKER_09: Right. You're just saying something. And arts matters. And I think that balances out the brain. And I think that's really key. Some of our schools, they really like that. It still leaves latitude within the framework.

[2455] SPEAKER_18: But I think you're right in terms of this. So for me, it's making that commitment, but then outlining next steps. Like, what does that really look like? So for me, it would be like thinking about a timeline for bringing back a plan so that each school K-6 will bring up a plan that will kind of, within the STEAM focus, like what do they see themselves, the junior high and then the high school and independent studies.

[2481] SPEAKER_09: And we can have a couple iterations. We don't have to take action right away. We can discuss it once and let me bring you a first draft. We could tweak it publicly and then if it feels better, then we can bring you back for a vote. So I think that we don't have to rush this, but I think it's also symbolically important. I think it will help, kind of to your question, it will help principals feel, okay, it's not changing, we're going to keep our direction, we're going. And some of the schools have already been pretty far down this road, so.

[2509] SPEAKER_16: Right. So, I mean, I could say, like, the first step is going to be really to unwind, kind of do an asset inventory, what are we already doing? And back to Trustee, I mean, your whole point about what this district has done with technology, I can't even think of another district in Alameda County that are in the surrounding area that has done that much of an investment in technology that this district has. But I think it's doing an asset inventory, documenting it, making sure people are aware of it, and just kind of seeing what is the base for every school and what is everybody getting. But then back to the point of The BG schools are a lot further along than, let's say, Lincoln. I will say, like Lincoln, for example, their focus was more in art this year, and that's really what they wanted to do, which I get it. But then you looked at what the two BG schools were doing more around project-based learning, working with the Buck Institute. They were doing a lot more in terms of the instructional model of project-based learning and having in all of these other outside entities, we want to be able to also kind of align our work. So then going back to Ohlone, so you remember the conversation we had at Ohlone. I met with them at the end of last week, no, yes, at the end of last week, and that's still kind of coming around because I would hope that we would be able to show the students survey results, which really was around engineering. That's what they wanted more, and also American Sign Language. but to have these dual enrollment classes and align that as part of our focus for STEAM. So we're already doing a lot, so it's going to look at what are we doing as a district, and then giving individual flexibility to the school sites just to show what is their next letter of STEAM and where they want to focus. I'm sorry, the last point is, and I do think that eventually this will help us to leverage private monies to really do something with grants and private funding along the way after we've shown that we've done the work at least after the first year. Because this is what really San Francisco Unified did, is that when they were working with Salesforce, it was, we need something to market and to show. And if we're able to show the commitment that this district has already made to students around technology and infrastructure and facilities plan and having a resolution, then we're able to really leverage that with private monies to really kind of take it to the next level. And maybe not every school would go to the next level, but depending on where their focus is, that might be a possibility. And that's years down the line, but I think that's where we have to kind of look to go.

[2661] SPEAKER_18: So you have to have a plan in order to do that, and that's the piece that, for me, it's sort of like... Let's think thoughtfully, but let's hurry up and develop the plan so that we can know how to move forward together collectively.

[2673] SPEAKER_09: Well, this represents the larger vision of the plan, and I think that what I intend to do with the edits and if the direction is to let's work on this and bring it back at the next meeting, I'm taking a team to the CCE summit. We have a lot of team time there. We're going to probably do some deeper dives and look into how can we build a strategic plan structure that aligns what we're already doing to the STEAM, and I think that'll help us kind of start getting a really good first draft to bring to the front of the board. So does that feel okay to everyone, to bring it back? So we'll bring it back, and I'll work with whoever wants to bring the language up. We'll take a stab at it first. and then we'll route it to you guys up in a Friday update and then we'll put it back in the queue as a draft for discussion at the next board meeting more formally. Okay? We're not going to discuss it today. Well, I don't know.

[2729] SPEAKER_09: Okay, good. Yeah.

[2731] Nancy Thomas: Not on the agenda. We have 10 more minutes. But I wanted to finish with this.

[2736] SPEAKER_09: The last part I wanted to talk with you is I took the goals from my evaluation and kind Responded to some of them and some of the dates and so I want you to have in front of you is the goal sheet and then there's a couple other sheets that one that looks like this and one that looks like this that was a something that Remember for shallow and share with us, but I want to explain this document to you as it relates to this the goals And in the original version it was red line, but if you look at some of the strategic plan under that category and We were originally thinking you guys were asking for April 2nd, and I wanted to counter that and suggest April 17th, because I'm trying to map out the work in this document in a way that gives staff enough time to get what we need. But for example, let's look at B. Strategic imperative one, it makes a lot more sense for us to look at that on May 15th instead of May 1st because in June is when we'll do the final approval of the LCAP. And to have that in advance of that gives a lot of saturation time in the public eye like the board's been wanting before you have to vote on LCAP, you've had a chance to look at the academic strategic plan for imperative one. And so I tried to sequence them so that you see where they occur when we're planning to do that in this document. And then the facilities master plan, I'm suggesting April 17th. I think by then we can have identified a architect firm and probably be voted on that night. And tonight I'm going to be asking the board to help with an ad hoc committee to do some vetting of the final Architect to bring back to a vote at the next meeting. I think that is in the agenda But there's some flexing of the agenda of the dates, but they're all occurring before the end of the year And down here you see the key milestones I put May 15th in in there because I think that'll probably be something I can do sooner than what was asked and we're getting close to doing that, but I just wanted to show you how those work, but the idea behind it is kind of the same idea of that was here is being able to go deeper and expand, okay, who's responsible for that. So number one will be largely me, but Leti will be the lead of imperative one, academics. Two is going to be Brian, will be reporting that night on imperative two. And me and probably, I don't know who else yet, will be reporting on three, which is about increasing enrollment. This isn't perfect, but we're getting better to where we're starting to see here's what we're going to be doing for the rest of the year with the time we have with the board and what we're planning to kind of report out on and kind of some milestones towards the goals. So that's what I wanted to at least put in front of you to hear your feedback and how can we tweak that to make it more explicit and actually be a nice way for the board to really be public about what I've been asked to do. So whatever you want to share about that or comments.

[2940] SPEAKER_18: So I would say I'm OK with that. I would. My thoughts would be, I don't know if it's May 1st or when, but if we can have kind of this mapped out along with these pieces so that we know some of the content. A little more detail?

[2959] SPEAKER_09: Yeah, exactly. Sure. Okay. We can do that. I just want to make sure you like the structure first. Now we can go deeper and say, here's exactly what that's going to be under imperative one. And, you know, would you talk a little about what might be inside that that you're working on?

[2975] SPEAKER_16: So, for example, I get what you're saying. So we would plop in there, for example, a textbook adoption process. And the presentation that's going to come to the board, that would be one of the highlights.

[2994] SPEAKER_18: I feel like a great example, at least from my perspective, was the presentation that you and Amy collected in terms of saying, here's the readers and writers, I forgot what the name of the workshop in terms of, here's the scores before, here's the program, here's how we implemented it, here's the scores after. So you saw that increase. You saw that it was working. So it's a way to actually see the academic pieces that are being implemented and that it's working. And then if there's anything that we're doing that we see that's not working, then we can talk about re-evaluating. Maybe we switch gears or we do something else.

[3030] Nancy Thomas: But that's how. And I think it's important to have an equity lens there because even though we increased, improved, there was the students that were falling behind. And so what are we doing to? Always having the student, all student groups. All students. Okay.

[3051] SPEAKER_09: Okay. Other comments or feedback?

[3058] SPEAKER_17: I think, you know, I think putting the second board meeting of the month seems reasonable because that's sort of where we're at anyhow in terms of our board workshops. So it, the time was, that seems reasonable.

[3077] Nancy Thomas: So it's almost 6 o'clock. I have a question.

[3107] Ray Rodriguez: if they were taking five different subjects, then all the teachers would come to the meeting, not just whether I was talking about, you know, I wanted to meet with them on English or whatever. And the whole concept seemed to work real well, where each teacher understood what the child was going through, or the student, So if the student was acting up in period one, or maybe was tardy all the time, as opposed to, you know, how they were doing in, let's say, period three. And they all seemed to compare notes, and they had a common, you know, way of dealing with things. And that, by doing that, they were able to catch the student when they were having issues at home or whatever, and they did it as a group. So is that basically similar to what we're talking about now?

[3168] SPEAKER_16: Yes and no. So I know the junior high does a report card night, so it's an opportunity for parents to visit all the different teachers. But oftentimes, we know that's not enough time. And especially if there's a student who might be at risk or parents just need more information and there's a focus. So our school sites do what's called a cost team. And so with this team, there's an administrator there. We'll have someone who's working and focusing on PBIS. We'll have the classroom teachers who are needed, depending on the area of need. If it's all of them, it's all of them. But candidly, it's a little bit more difficult with roving substitute teachers. And a school will have roving substitutes to release teachers. And they kind of have just appointments throughout the day to do this. So there is a model that we are doing. And that makes me think that's probably something to bring back to the board to really tie it in with PBIS and how cost is another way. Within cost, we also have student success teams. And you're going to hear a little bit about it tonight as we're bringing a revised board policy on promotion and retention. And all of that has to go through a student success team meeting. And that's where you have all the teachers there at the table to really focus it. But it does logistically get a little difficult because of substitutes and having to release classroom teachers, unless we do it after school.

[3252] Ray Rodriguez: And then students that have learning disabilities, that's all incorporated into the whole thing.

[3256] SPEAKER_16: And that we will go through the IEP process. Right. Okay. That will be a different team. Okay.

[3261] SPEAKER_09: Thank you. Okay. Thank you guys. Thank you.

[3265] Nancy Thomas: Well, I'd like to announce that we will be going into closed session and I will ask if any member of the public would like to address us on closed session items. We have item 3.1, Conference of Labor Negotiators. regarding NTA and CSCA, 3.2 Conference with Labor Negotiator, which is unrepresented employees, supervisors and contracted management, and then Conference with Labor Negotiator that would be superintendent. Then we have Conference with Legal Counsel regarding anticipated litigation, and Conference with Legal Counsel regarding existing litigation and that's Blaze versus Hatton, JK and KK et al versus State of California et al. Seeing no one coming forward, we will adjourn the closed session.

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