Regular Meeting

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[5] Nancy Thomas: 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. We have just returned from closed session where we discussed public employee appointment, employment discipline, dismissal release. Discussed with the labor negotiator and NTA and CSCA. Discussed unrepresented supervisors and contracted management conference labor with labor negotiator. And we discussed anticipated litigation and existing litigation. So we have now returned to open session and I would ask for approval of the agenda, please. I'll move to approve.

[57] SPEAKER_31: I'll second. Please vote.

[71] Nancy Thomas: Three ayes. Excuse me, four ayes. Student member preferential vote. Mr. Rodriguez is not on the phone. Is that correct? Correct. OK. Next, we move to recognitions and celebrations. Miss Salinas.

[97] SPEAKER_41: Yes, good evening. The school spotlight returns for this academic school year, and Birch Grove Intermediate is our first school to present the highlights, the great work that they're doing at their site, and I present to you our principal, Miss Ingham-Watters.

[118] Catheerine Ingham-Watters: Good evening, members of the school board, President Thomas, Clerk Preciado, Member Crocker, and student member Van Rossum, members of executive cabinet and district leadership, student member Sierra Van Rossum, and the staff and support here for Birch Grove Intermediate. I am Catheerine Ingham-Watters. I am the principal at Birch Grove Intermediate. So let's go ahead and get started. As you can see, our vision is to provide a safe, inspiring, and innovative learning community. And we will be highlighting examples of our work towards that vision. We also have a baseball theme this year and that's primarily for fun but we love to work as a team and highlight the importance of teamwork as we do the very hard work that we are tasked to do. Just a snapshot of our school. We have approximately 440 students and we have three and a half to four teachers at each grade level. One of the benefits of working at a school that has just a few grade levels is we can focus our resources and our energy to a smaller age and grade span. And we really are seeing the benefits of that configuration. So it says, what research says about teams of teachers, and we're very lucky to have large teacher teams. The very essence of a learning community is a focus on and a commitment to the learning of each student. So instead of trying to meet the needs of seven grade levels under one school site, we're able to focus on just four. Math has been our goal for the last few years. This year, we're deepening our work with professional learning communities using the continuous improvement model in math. So we're doing things like establishing essential standards, really coming to agreement on what proficiency looks like and how are we able to determine if students have learned what is being taught. And we do that by creating common formative assessments and bringing data together I'm just going to show you some school snapshots of data. But this year, we're really deepening it by bringing data together by the student, by the standard, by the class, and by the teacher. And only then can you have that common language to have those deep conversations about what we're doing. So let's do a snapshot of data. So looking at the SBAC test for English Language Arts in the springtime. This is a two-year comparison. So from 2016-17 to 2017-18, we improved our met and exceeded from 46% to 51%, which is a 5% increase. This is compared to the overall district average of 44% of meets and exceeds. We were 13 points away from what they consider zero or kind minimum proficiency, so we were 13 points away, and using this most current data, three points away. So we are right on the cusp, and that's looking at all students. Another report that we use is through our work with iReady, and this is showing student growth in reading. And so iReady sets a target for growth every year. So they calculate it using some formula or algorithm, but they say, Per grade level, your growth target is 15, 19, 20, whatever they set for you. And so we like to keep monitor of our growth over time. And as you can see in this snapshot, every grade level showed expected growth from 90% of their students to 140% growth in reading. So although we may not be 100% proficient, we're seeing tons of growth at our site in reading. Like I said, math has been a focus. So here's a snapshot in math. This is the SBAC over two years. 16-17, we're at 48% met or exceeded. And in 17-18, 53% met or exceeded. Again, a 5% increase for all students. This compares to the district proficiency or above at 37%. We were 10 points away and now we're just two points away from that zero baseline goal of moving towards green. I will give a little shout out to our third grade team. They had some of the highest data across the district. 70% of the third grade students are at meets or exceeds. One thing we contribute that to is our third grade cohort right now is the first one that has experienced full day kindergarten. And so we hope to see the strengths of the cohorts to follow based on having kindergarten a full day. All right. OK, and then the other snapshot showing growth in math, again, making growth during the year was something that we monitored and now are celebrating. Our site was very committed and appreciative of the iReady math licenses. And we were committed to having our students use those math lessons and instructional pieces for 60 minutes a week. And I think that does contribute to our growth on our state test results. All right, so the rest of the highlight will be focusing on little bits of what we're doing to work towards our vision. We have many things to address safety, including PBIS, our character trait acknowledgements, and of course, our safety team. Under inspiring, we have things like student council, a number of digital learning opportunities, and our green schools challenge, and for Being an innovative campus, we have things like project-based learning, using little bits and Lego robotics to extend thinking and learning. We have once-a-trimester STEAM weeks, and we are at the forefront of developing a maker space. But the rest of my sharing for BGI today will just be those underlying pieces, because tonight is a highlight. So I'd first like to talk about PBIS, positive behavior and intervention systems. This is year one of our full implementation. We have set expectations in every setting in campus. All of our students have been experiencing lessons and activities for each setting. We've created videos also to support what the expectations are. And students are earning bulldog bucks. And they can accumulate these. And we have older students. And they know about Amazon. So our student store is a BG-azon store. There's actually no store to go to. They fill out an order form. They turn in their bucks. And then just like Amazon, like we love to get that delivery to our house, they get their delivery to their class. So they really enjoy the Amazon aspect of it. The older kids also are less interested in the trinkets that little ones like. They like more privileges. So at our campus, you'll see students who are wearing a special colored lanyard, and they can sit somewhere else in the cafeteria. They don't have to sit with their class. That's a really popular one. And one that we're having next week is they can request up to three songs to be played appropriate in the cafeteria at lunchtime. So they're much more into privileges, which is really helpful for us budget wise. So we can easily do those things that they love. Another very proud moment for our campus is implementing assembly bills 1826 and 341. These are state laws that require schools to correctly recycle and compost waste. So we have partnered with Newark Green Schools Challenge with Jennifer Abbey, who is joining us tonight. Her nickname is Trash Talker Jen. She literally talks trash. And she has really revamped our school and is willing to partner with the rest of the sites in Newark this year. So we had a kickoff assembly. Jen spent two weeks at our campus training students, teaching them in the cafeteria how to sort their trays and sort their trash. For perspective, if you've been in an elementary cafeteria, you'll see 18 to 20 large metal garbage cans, one at every set of tables. We are now down to those three. We had over 20 plus bags of landfill every single day per lunch period. We are now down to one and a half bags that go to the landfill for a campus of 440 students after lunch. significant impact in our school and our students understand what it means. We also have a green team of students who monitor the cycle here and they use those little claws to like, you know, fix things. We also like to thank MOT for supporting the site with new clear bags for recycling and ordering compost bags that will be correctly composted, and we have a third bin on campus now for compost. So I'm very excited Jenn is here to partner with other schools. And here's some of the training that we did the first week of school. Okay, academically, our biggest initiative is project-based learning. So students work on a project over an extended period of time. usually six, eight, ten weeks, that engages them in solving real world problems or answering a complex question. They demonstrate their knowledge and skills by developing a public product or presentation for a real audience. Those are some of the design elements that are essential in creating a gold standard PBL or project. So some perspective and highlights of our growth last year. Our goal were that students would have exposure to one project. It couldn't be any subject. It could be teacher-made or pre-made, but it did need to ramp up to the rigor of having the essential design elements. This year, in our CPSA and what we're working on now, we started with a three-day intensive professional development with the Buck Institute for Education. We partnered with Ed Services. So it was most of my staff for half of the training and then teachers from all around the district for the other half. Our goal is that students will experience two projects this year, and that one will integrate writing, and one will integrate next-generation science standards. So we're upping the expectation and rigor in our projects. Still can be teacher-made or pre-made, and still will have the essential design elements. Just to give you some ideas, project-based learning starts and continues with a driving question. And so I wanted to give you a little sample of the driving questions for the very first project students are doing. And you can see at the top what subjects are integrated in the project. So third grade. So just think of how you would teach or assess third graders. These are seven and eight-year-olds. But listen to this question. As historians, use our family's immigration stories to welcome others and promote empathy. There's a lot going on in that question. Fourth grade, how can we welcome incoming third graders using map skills and navigation tools? This is a geocaching project. Just a couple more in fifth grade. How can you inform your community to protect Earth's natural resources? And one about current, our makerspace initiative. And in sixth grade, how can we mitigate the effects of climate change? Pretty heavy duty, real life stuff. That just scratches the surface of what we're doing at Birch Grove Intermediate. I would like to thank you for your time. And of course, you are welcome on campus to see what we're doing. We have once a trimester STEAM week, and you're invited to our fall STEAM week any time between October 22 and 26. Thank you.

[969] Nancy Thomas: Comments from the board?

[975] SPEAKER_19: So I had a question regarding the test score. So it looks like there was a plus 5 for both the SBAC for math and the ELA. Do you have a school goal for the next year and the next two years? Is it like the plus 5 or is it some sort of a different

[998] Catheerine Ingham-Watters: Yeah, so we wrote the SPSA last spring and I think I mean I have to look because I don't have the SPSA with me but it was like nine points away from zero so our goal was nine points. So now that we see we're at zero points or you know two points away we do need to slightly adjust the goals in our school plan. So we have not yet set that as the data was just officially unembargoed today. So we've more celebrated and acknowledged our growth, but we haven't set a point or a percentage away. We think that 5% is realistic and manageable, so we make just continue that goal of 5% increased proficiency. But really, our school plan is the points away from zero, or when you're at zero, which is considered basic proficiency, and then increasing from there. It's very doable for BGI.

[1058] SPEAKER_19: And the points from zero because I don't understand. There's a question for Selena. How does it relate to the amount or the percentage of students that are at standard? So for example, SPAC for ELA was 51% and SPAC for math 53%. How does the point system relate to that?

[1081] SPEAKER_41: going to ask that so later on this evening I'm going to have our director Miss Black actually she's going to show all the district data but essentially that she's an audience so I'm going to make sure that she distinguishes between the points and the percentages to clarify but it's essentially all tied to our dashboard and we'll be able to kind of unpack it by school.

[1101] SPEAKER_19: Okay and the reason I ask is because like just going out thinking about even though it's it's higher than probably other schools it feels like Well, only 51% of our kids are proficient. That means just a little over half. And that's why it's coming from just how do I unpack both of those.

[1122] Catheerine Ingham-Watters: That's right. We do feel positive about our growth. But you're exactly right. What about the 49%? And that's why we look at other measures. So this is just up to four class sessions in May. That's four single sessions in May. So we like to look at other things like growth over time on iReady, which was the other data slide that I included. So it's multiple measures to really get the full picture of a school's growth.

[1152] SPEAKER_31: Ms. Crocker. Thank you. I'm thinking in terms of your transition to a different kind of structure in the last couple of years. And so I'd like to have your feedback on that, and also the fact that we gave you, gave both schools new furniture? Yes. And how that works and how that's, is it aiding or is it one of those things that we really don't have to worry about?

[1180] Catheerine Ingham-Watters: What was the question? Is it aiding? Does it aid?

[1182] SPEAKER_31: Does it help? That's right.

[1183] Catheerine Ingham-Watters: Okay so the first question was the new school configuration. I think I touched on that in my introduction when I said how there's many, many benefits to having large teacher teams as far as collaboration and going deeper. And then also aligning our site plan, our financial resources to meeting the needs of a smaller age span or sets of needs for less grade levels, if you will, has been extremely beneficial. And I feel that Yes, logistically, it was a challenge. And now that we're three years in, we are moving forward in our STEAM roadmap and other initiatives in an excellent way. And part of that is that we have these large teams of teachers that can go deeper. And our school plan is such where we can focus on our students. So not four years old to 12 years old, but a much smaller range. And so yes, I think we are making great progress with our current configuration.

[1259] SPEAKER_31: Thank you. And the use of the furniture?

[1263] Catheerine Ingham-Watters: I would say the first year or so, teachers struggled to find the most effective ways. But I would invite anyone. It's come up a lot at board meetings about the effectiveness of the furniture. And it's hard to just show a bar graph or something if we gave a survey. What I really think is you need to see it in action. Because yes, it's the desks that don't have any storage containers attached And we have our backpacks outside and we have our lunches outside and kids are on the floor and they're on, I don't know, all sorts of different chairs. You really need to experience what it feels like in a classroom to kind of get it. And teachers go through seasons. You know, everyone's twitchy and then, you know, we kind of go through the, you know, the cycle of the year. And classes do also. So a classroom may start out in one configuration, and that's the beauty of this kind of furniture is that it can morph into all sorts of things to meet the needs. If you're getting ready to be on Christmas break or holiday break, and the kids are all like really wired, you can very easily transform your furniture into more traditional seating. That's what your class needs at that time. And then after the break, you start fresh. different options come out and you raise some desks and students have stools or they're standing or they're, so there's lots of flexibility and it's very, very easy to move the furniture on casters. So it's hard to say do they like it or not. I think overall yes, but you have to find what works for your class in that moment or in that time. Thank you. A lot of flexibility there.

[1373] Nancy Thomas: Thank you. Mr. Sanchez.

[1375] SPEAKER_13: A couple things. You didn't touch on this in your presentation, but I'd like you just to quickly speak to the VIB program. I've been to that and it's really cool. And then I was just going to comment that you're already on your way with the fifth grade science prompt and talking trash and making that awareness happen, so congratulations. But talk briefly about VIB.

[1399] Catheerine Ingham-Watters: OK, so VIP is very important person. So at the BG campuses, a VIB is a very important bulldog. And that's basically an acknowledgment for students who are demonstrating the monthly character trait. So things like keeping a positive attitude, being cooperative, using good manners is the highlight of every month. And so each teacher will nominate or acknowledge three or four students who are the VIBs for that month, for that trait, and it's pretty simple, but Mr. Sanchez has joined me. The kids eat lunch with me. I don't treat them to lunch. We just eat lunch together, and I have like a disco light and, you know, little stars I put up, and they think it's like the best thing, and I get them popsicles. So that's their little acknowledgment, and it really highlights the, emotional social-emotional learning that goes a part of with our full education that we do so very very important bulldog the IV has been I Wanted to add to kind of the concerns that member presciato brought up

[1470] SPEAKER_16: As for the keeping track of the progression, because my brother attends this school, and so I'm with him through this whole process and the transition, and he actually has an IEP. So it's hard for him, he'll reach the proficient level just barely, but the progression he has had with these new programs being implemented, the I-Ready, the math programs, it has been extraordinary that he almost doesn't need an IEP anymore. And just because he doesn't reach the proficient level doesn't mean that there isn't huge progression. And this is amongst all the students. And then as for the furniture and just kind of sitting in the classroom, I always check in. I sit in Ms. Aka's classroom. And I'll help in with the projects. So I've seen a lot of the project-based learning and how the seating works. And it's like a privilege for the students. They feel like they're special because they get to choose where they sit. what type of chairs they have, it's very collaborative, it's exciting, they're engaged, they're excited to learn. I think it's super beneficial and I feel like Birch Grove Intermediate is a prime example of what we hope maybe the other schools can model and hopefully the high school also. And yeah, it's going good.

[1549] Nancy Thomas: Thank you. And I'd just like to add congratulations. I think this is really great news from what I read in the Alameda County press release, plus 5% is way above the county and the state average. So you're on a great trajectory. Thank you. Thank you. We have a great team.

[1575] SPEAKER_41: President Thomas, may I also add, I want to recognize Ms. Catheerine Ingham-Watters and also Ms. Rachel Bloom They've agreed to, if you remember last year, we talked about the makerspace and having a team approach or a work group. So they both are actually joining together to start to put together a work group to start to look at makerspaces across the district and learn best practices from Graham, from BGI, and from some of our other schools.

[1602] Nancy Thomas: Great. I think the board had asked for an update in, what, November sometime. So that's coming soon. OK, good. We look forward to that. Thank you. We go to student reports.

[1622] SPEAKER_13: I would suggest we start. Let's see. Is anyone from McGregor campus here? Or junior high? Let's start with Newark junior high.

[1635] SPEAKER_15: So hi. I'm Inez, the 2018 through 19 school year ASB president. And at my school right now, we just had our welcome back dance. It was basically like a glow theme, so we made neon posters and got glow sticks and other fun stuff. We also just had our homecoming spirit week in support for the high school's homecoming. And right now, we're finishing up our fundraiser for new scoreboards in our gym, where we were selling cookie dough. We're also designing our new school gear, like pullovers and hoodies. Next Tuesday, our athletics department They're having a fundraiser at Chipotle, and we also have two clubs already, our Tobacco Use Prevention Education Club, and our Speech and Debate. We have Unity Day, too, where students can wear blue in support of bully awareness. Leadership students are also going into classrooms and having discussions with students about bullying. Thank you. Thank you.

[1694] SPEAKER_13: I don't think anyone's here from McGregor campus. OK. I think it goes to you.

[1701] SPEAKER_16: Hi. OK, before you leave the junior high, I wanted to say it was kind of funny that we actually also did neon lights theme for our dance, for our homecoming dance. So we had the exact same theme.

[1714] SPEAKER_13: So you copied the junior high?

[1715] SPEAKER_16: No, they copied us. So I found that very, very interesting. But OK, to start off, Newark Days, this year we decided, I kind of came up with the idea because I saw it at another county fair. that the school is very involved in also the community. The community knows all about it. There's all this info booth. So I decided, why don't we have an info booth at the Newark Days Fair? It took place on Sunday. It was very, very successful. We had a lot of parents and teachers and people of community come up and learn about what's going on at Newark. We talked about all of our academic programs, such as Puente, Rocketry, Ohlone Connections, etc. It goes on and on. We had all the dates for all of our athletic events, fundraisers, contacts of info, if you would like to support these programs. And we talked about, we invited the community to come and watch our Spirit Week rally and our assemblies. And a lot of the community actually did show up. and sit in and watch our skits. So it was really cool that we were able to connect with the community in that way, and we are looking forward to doing that more throughout the year. Spirit Week was, as of last week, we decided to add student-involved activities this year, which included every day at lunch, the classes competed against each other, which included food eating relay contests, lip sync battles on a spinning wheel, let's see, different types of cannonball contests within the pool, and then dare contests. Like, you know the commercial where it's like, what would you do for a Klondike bar? It was kind of like, what would you do for these Spirit Week points? So some students had to eat sardines. But they were willing to do it. And in the end, I guess it paid off. Overall, it was a major success. And the students were so excited for it and want more next year. And hopefully, we'll implement it also within our winter Spirit Week As for the assembly, the freshmen performed Toy Story, sophomores Hercules, juniors Lilo and Stitch, and then seniors The Incredibles. The winning order that was announced at the Friday game was the sophomores got fourth place, freshmen second, I mean third place, juniors second place, and seniors first place. The seniors this year in my class, we are actually two times Spirit Week winners since we beat the seniors last year. So we thought that was epic that we won again. The band started off the homecoming game that Friday night with an extravagant performance showcasing the wizarding world, kind of pertaining back to the Newark days. They conducted, it was all conducted by senior Gavin Silva, who actually decided to wear a Mickey Mouse wizard hat and a cape. And it was amazing. The crowd went wild. All of the band were very well put together. And they moved in formations showing like a pinball machine and words. And it was something everyone was definitely looking forward to. After that, the top five males and females for our homecoming court were announced. Homecoming is something that we try not to make popularity. Commence and the beginning of the school year, but also, what's the word? Give, I'm like forgetting the word. Implore all the students who've done the most at the high school. Like students that, hm? Give credit. Yeah, give credit. And present them that these students have impacted Newark Memorial the most positive ways while attending here. And so it got down to the top five students. And in order, the princes were Indigo Coleman, Ashnell Chan, Angel Martinez, Billy Reyes. And the king was our class president, Jerrick Bernando. And the princesses were me, Natalia, Sanchez, Juno Naranjo, Ariana Silva, and Alexandra Macias was the queen. And additionally, to add on to that, the varsity and JV football team won that night against American. So it was a great night overall, and we had lots of show out. It was packed stands. And then the following day, we also had our best show out for a dance that we've had in all of my years of high school. We had over 300 tickets sold. It was a packed house. It was also neon lights themed. We had a ice cream booth, which we are planning on having at our other dances and actually a formal dance later on. And there was a free photo booth. And yeah, that was just an overall really great spirit week and activities. Looking towards the future, leadership students are looking to integrate an activities discipline policy for students looking to look at activities more as something they're awarded for, for receiving passing grades and not getting into trouble on campus. And then leadership will also be presenting, hopefully at the next board meeting, an open campus policy that will be student-created but initially followed through with Mr. Paul Bretz. So we're looking forward to presenting that to you guys. Finally, as for next Wednesday, it's the PSAT testing for sophomores and juniors. So if your freshman or senior is sleeping in on Wednesday, don't be alarmed. They're not skipping school. They aren't allowed there till 11 AM. And then October SAT is taking place this Saturday. So if you miss this session, make sure to sign up for your students taking in November. And FAFSA, which is Federal Financial Aid, opened yesterday. So if you want money from the government for college, make sure to apply, the sooner the better. And then college apps also open in November, so make sure to apply for college, please. Yeah, that is all for today. I will, yeah, there's a lot more to talk about next board meeting.

[2095] Nancy Thomas: Thank you, that's very comprehensive. Appreciate it.

[2097] SPEAKER_16: Yes, there was a lot that has went on these past few weeks.

[2100] Nancy Thomas: Okay, next we move on to I believe the superintendent's report.

[2111] SPEAKER_13: Thank you, President Thomas, members of the board, ladies and gentlemen. I wanted to report on a few things tonight. Starting with strategic plan, kind of a report out on strategic comparatives. And strategic comparative one, I had planned to share some things with you tonight, but I'm going to hold on to that because we're going to go into a deep dive into the unembargoed data. So I'm going to let Lettie address that later in the agenda. And we're going to go deeper into the data with Ed Services. So I'm going to move to the next two for right now. I want to update you briefly on imperative number two, which is our fiscal management and stability. We will be bringing forward at the future meeting, we're working currently to to bring forward a recommendation on imperative 2 that encompasses the recommendations from the CBOC, the Kitchell report, and MOT's input to meet the minimum spending requirements and actually exceed the 85% that we need to hit for Measure G this year. We're compiling that right now. Kai's been working with me as well as we're working both with Mr. Shira who's going to kind of help us see that through. to bring that forward at the next meeting so you'll see something in the queue for the board to take action on to kind of finalize those recommendations of what the CVOC felt as well as the high priority items from Vanner and some of the elements that were kind of remaining from Kitchell report as well as staff recommendations from MOT. So that's coming and then also a little bit of an update on Russian and developer fees and kind of a in that regard. Um I do want to share something else on budget with you that I have and I can hand these out to the audience. Now if you would help me with that sure the county update and I'll share this with the board and cabinet um and we'll let everybody get a poppy so we could go through this document together. Here's a Let me pass it down to Sierra. I'll wait until we get that. So on the first page, just a quick glance at that. We'll go into that a little deeper when we do the report out. But it kind of gives you the LCAP priorities as they're kind of weighted by the districts in Alameda County. And you see that first category is all of us are really heavily invested in staff salaries and benefits. English learner is a strong second place. Instructional materials, third. Twelve districts are heavily investing in family and parent engagement. Eleven districts are heavily in professional development. And after school summer programming. So it's good to see that there's a lot of alignment district wide. especially on those first three. As I said we'll come back to priority one later in the program. The second page I think is very interesting as well and if you look on the left-hand column you'll see that we are not in that first category for once and that is deficit spending but 11 districts out of the higher number of districts in Alameda County are currently still deficit spending. of the 18 districts in the county. So that gives you kind of a snapshot of how that's going. And it kind of projects out what they're doing for 19-20 and also projects out for 20-21. So that still is the increased amount of STRS and PERS, the cost of how we're still being underfunded from the state of California. Everyone's feeling that and it's not going away. Also, seven of the districts in the county are suffering from declining enrollment. We happen to be one of them. Even though we're not showing up on this report, we're still kind of looking at that data. And 12 districts are looking at planned reductions coming forward, and seven districts for the other out year, the 2021.

[2384] Nancy Thomas: I assume this is from our adopted budget, and after the budget was passed by the state, our numbers took off. Yeah, and ours has changed since this report was issued. And because of our declining enrollment, because of what the state did, so it's... Yeah, this is a snapshot that was earlier in time. Yeah, so it looks better than it is for us.

[2405] SPEAKER_13: Correct. This is a false... this is not something we would be planning from for us, but it does give you a feel for other people having similar struggles in the county. And the last page is just kind of the status of collective bargaining, how many have settled, with classified, how many have settled with teachers, who's kind of on and off schedule, what they've done, just kind of an at-a-glance report for the county level. I thought that'd be interesting to share with the board and our community. It's an interesting report and the county, you know, the problem is once they put it together it's almost stale the day it's published, but at least it gives us a snapshot of what's occurred this year. And on item three I do have another handout that is kind of a work in progress. But I'll hand these out to the board and to the audience as well. It's on the board. We're starting to get a better handle on this data and actually the fact that we don't have a really clear picture and handle on this is something that we're really focusing on to make sure that we can pull a report easily and be able to track these. But inter-district transfers that are kids that have been approved to attend another district We have 34 at elementary level and 32 at secondary level. So a total of about 66 kids, roughly, that are out of district transfers. Students who left between June 13 and October 1 that we do not have a move to receiver and synergy, we have 103 in elementary, 29 in secondary. The one part that I'm still working on with staff to clarify, these are the most commonly cited exit reasons. And I think, excuse me, I believe they're somewhat rank order but I gotta get some numbers behind these. But the largest one is the other public school in California, followed by out of country and some go to private. For some reason we knew that only four went out of state. But that's not really strong data yet. So I'm still working on kind of getting that cleaned up.

[2544] Nancy Thomas: Those numbers are codes or something?

[2546] SPEAKER_13: Those are codes that the 160, for example, means that kid is coded as 160 means they've moved to a public school in California. 240 means that student is coded as 240, which means that one kid moved out of country. 180 means they moved to another private school in California. And code 200 means outside of California. But I don't have the numbers behind it yet. That's what's coming next. So when I come back to the next meeting, I'll have those populated with actuals. We're still kind of trying to clean up the data. And we've kind of been struggling to get the right inventory and the right trust in the data reports. So we're cross-checking it with actual paperwork, so it takes time.

[2595] SPEAKER_31: Do we have the information about students from outside the district coming into ours?

[2601] SPEAKER_13: I don't know if we've had, have we been working on, have we heard anything about outside of districts transferring in?

[2606] Nancy Thomas: That was in the report.

[2608] SPEAKER_13: We're going to try to merge them all into one. This is kind of a follow up from the last conversation. I'd like to have it all in one comprehensive sheet that's probably not a size eight font, but we're still trying to clean it up.

[2622] Nancy Thomas: Yeah, do we have any idea why the elementary is so much larger than secondary?

[2629] SPEAKER_13: Not yet. I know that we are discussing instituting some exit reports and exit surveying of some of the families to see what's going on. Right now, I can't tell you. But it's something we are going to explore.

[2643] Nancy Thomas: And we'll be able to tell which public school in California, like if they're going to the Central Valley because of housing costs and things like that?

[2651] SPEAKER_13: That's part of what we're wrestling with is how do we get better accurate data. I'd like to know where they're going in California and digging down deeper. I know that some are going to Fremont. I know that some are going to the Central Valley. But I'd like to have numbers behind it. I don't know exactly how many are going to Fresno or to Fremont. But we got to do a better job at quality data in is what we're finding and making sure that we've entered all documents that are sitting on desks. You know, people are just overwhelmed. There's a lot of getting caught up at the beginning of the year, but we're working through it.

[2685] Nancy Thomas: Which ones of you would like, I have the students, Jan and Mr. Preciado. I'm sorry, what? I failed to clear it, I guess. So Mr. Preciado, you wanted to make a comment?

[2695] SPEAKER_19: Yes, I was going to ask, in terms of the private school in California, is there a way to see, like, if it's within the county or within a certain radius? That way we know, like, obviously if they're going to,

[2708] SPEAKER_13: similar to the public school like if they're going to Southern California or somewhere like that it's hard to compete in that way but if they're going within like a three mile radius then right that's okay yeah I want more specifics on those data too but I was gonna pull it and not share it but I thought I'll even share a rough draft of the working draft for now but that's where I want to go deeper next I think it's interesting the number of students that are requesting to be transferred to a different school 118 mm-hmm is that ones that

[2736] Nancy Thomas: newly requested or that were already there?

[2743] SPEAKER_13: I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I need to get more clarification on that. The good news is that there's a lot of movement within the district, but they're not leaving the district. So that's good that they're moving within is OK. So I think the last part of the strategic plan update that I want to share with you. I did put in the agenda tonight for ratification a contract with Volare Communication. We did have a couple of meetings with the Enrollment Advisory Committee and a lot of the things that they've identified that they feel are important is just for us to start getting the good positive word out about the district, start having a stronger social media presence, to start developing a newsletter press releases about what's going on. For example, some of the stories we heard today from BG schools about what they're doing with STEM and STEAM week as well as how much they've reduced their trash or increased the trash talk I guess would be. But one of the things that I did talk with a couple board members about today is I will be asking the company to be providing a monthly update on what they completed and what we're paying them for so that there's a monthly progress monitoring of what are they actually doing for us and what are the deliverables month by month. What we're paying for is kind of a it's kind of a subscription to get a communications team. So for the amount we're paying we're getting a full team of people with specific expertise English and Spanish as well as you know TV, video production, writing and you know dealing with crisis situations. And it's only for seven months. I am still working with the CCEE to try to contribute or even match what we've got there to be able to extend that further for communication purposes. But that is in the queue and I just wanted to make sure that I was bringing that to you on the front end so it's not something I'm bringing on the back end after I've done it. Even though it's within my authority I just think that right now I want people to know what that is because I usually don't spend that much money.

[2877] SPEAKER_31: A question on that. Are you planning to discuss this more fully when we come up to the vote?

[2882] SPEAKER_13: We can, yes.

[2883] SPEAKER_31: Because my concern is, you were talking about seven months, and that's fine. It's a starting. But what happens at the end of seven months?

[2889] SPEAKER_13: I really believe in the next month or two, we're going to get some significant dollars from CCEE to that end to hopefully extend it or maybe do something different. I've asked for much more than that from CCEE. So if they give us what we match, I may take a different tact on how we handle it or do a different vendor. But I didn't want to be. It may not be with this vendor. But for now, I feel comfortable trying them out, give them a test drive. But if CCEE is willing to match what I asked for, we might be able to create our own position.

[2923] SPEAKER_31: I was going to say, because if we're looking for training for someone on how to do it, to get the startup, that's one thing. If we're looking for someone to manage it, it's a different thing. And so you're talking about ongoing expenses.

[2933] SPEAKER_13: Right. So I think we'll see some money soon. I know we're sending a team to CCEE now in October. I don't have the dates in my head, but it's coming like the 13th of October? 16th, 17th. We're sending a team to Sacramento. Letty and I will be here because we have a city liaison committee as well as a board meeting. So we'll be here. But we have confidence in our team that's going and we're trying to work. some arms to get some dollars. But yeah it is short term but I think part of it is we don't have a lot of internal capacity or skill to be able to do some of those things and we need a little help right now just to get things going quickly. So that's that part of the report. I do want to share with you that we have asked Davis Demographics to do a demographic study update. They're waiting to get the new data from actually tomorrow, which is CBEDS day. And they'll be continuing to complete that, another student projections and student capture rate study for us. And we'll share that not only with the board, but also the enrollment committee. And they'll probably be completing it this spring of 2019. That long? I think it takes that long. Is that correct, Kai, for Davis?

[3021] Nancy Thomas: For an update?

[3023] SPEAKER_28: Well, CalPADS is due tomorrow. And then we got P1 and P2. The P2 is from July 1st all the way through April 15th. And then we'll get a concrete answer in terms of our average daily attendance sometime in May or June. Oh, OK.

[3043] Nancy Thomas: But Davis's report will come out sooner than that. I would think so, yes. Oh, I'm sorry. I misunderstood. And you were going to mention volunteer funding.

[3052] SPEAKER_13: Yes.

[3052] Nancy Thomas: Issue? Yes. We talked about that.

[3054] SPEAKER_13: It's on my list here. So I have talked with the donor of the original $2,000 to put towards supporting volunteer background checks and also spent some time with member Thomas who's agreed with some strong arming. Just kidding. She's going to match that. And the change is that we're going to kind of open up a pot of $4,000 for need. If parents need to have a background check or community member, we don't want financing to be a barrier. If that money gets consumed, OK. But she's agreed to match the $2,000. And then now we have a pot of money to go to if parents have, parents or somebody has financial need to get a background check, that there won't be a barrier.

[3108] SPEAKER_31: What is the cost per item?

[3111] SPEAKER_13: For a full background check, just under $100, $80.

[3113] SPEAKER_31: So that's the total cost.

[3117] SPEAKER_13: Fingerprinting, live scan.

[3120] Nancy Thomas: There should be no reason people can't volunteer.

[3123] SPEAKER_13: So thank you, thank you Member Thomas and it's a good starting point, that's great. But I'm still going to see who else can match it, maybe Rotary and a few other people.

[3134] SPEAKER_19: As long as they're matched, they show up in the donations report so we don't have to.

[3139] SPEAKER_13: Right, exactly. My last item to report on is actually a few more things. Budget advisory group will be meeting tomorrow. We'll be talking from noon to 3 tomorrow. We've invited union leadership as well as a couple board members will be joining us. Just to kind of really have an initial conversation about how do we approach it differently this year. So there's just a better overall awareness system-wide. And Kai's presented and done a good work to present kind of a full picture of where we are this year and next year and looking at the out year. So stay tuned. We'll have more after tomorrow's meeting. So we're excited for that. And at this time I'd like to bring Paul Bretz forward to present regarding the CATS program. And then I have one video at the end to show And my report's longer now than it's been all year. So bear with me.

[3197] SPEAKER_06: Good evening, everyone. How are you today? So. I'm here today to present to you an idea that we've been working on since I came into the district, which is providing Newark Memorial with an alternative to suspension. And so we'll be speaking about that for the next few minutes. So the job title is the Center for Alternatives to Suspension Coordinator, or CATS. He reports to, this person will report to the school administration, and it's a certificated person. The idea behind it is that we want to, when we suspend a student for a myriad of reasons, we lose the opportunity to teach that student. And really what we're trying to do is to shape behavior and change behavior. So it's our opportunity to change behavior, to get the student back into the classroom, to provide them with some instructional practice and some tools to, some coping tools for the student to be able to function within the classroom. This idea was approved for CPSA in May. And when I came into, when I came to the school, one of the intriguing factors about this position was this idea of alternative to suspension. So I'd like to provide a little bit of information about my background with alternative to suspension. When I was an assistant principal in Park Middle School in Antioch, we had three administrators with, and the first year that I was there, we were processing over 1,200 referrals a year. that was for each of us. So a little over 3,000 referrals that were discipline type referrals. And one of the dilemmas that we had was what else can we do besides this suspension? We are not training, we're not teaching our students, we're not bringing them back in. So we came up with this concept of an alternative suspension center. And really what it was was the It was a center for us to bring restorative justice back in. It was a place for us to mediate conflict between students. It was the practice of mindfulness. It was bringing into this the concept that the student has some control over themselves. It was this idea of breathing and exercising and just There's studies to show that the simple act of breathing and focusing on the breathing will bring down a student's nervousness and tension by over 40%. And that initiative provides the means for us to get to the student. Because of the Wellness Center in our first year, we were able to reduce our suspension numbers by half. In the second year that it was implemented, it brought down another 25%. So in the span of a two-year period, our suspension rates went down almost 75% from where they were originally. One of the benefits, and one of the biggest benefits, is because we had given our students these tools, the repeat offenses didn't happen. It brought to focus The mindfulness, the idea that the student had control. It was giving those students that control back. And really what our alternative suspension center is designed to do is to facilitate that. We want to focus on the positives. We want to teach positive behavior expectations within this classroom. We want to use the data to collect, to focus on our students and see what's working and what's not and have a primary person whose job is to facilitate that conversation with the other teachers and then to bring those ideas to the forefront using our current systems in synergy to focus those conversations with our students. It provides a continuum of services with one center, one focus point, that being the coordinator of the CATS room. We're not proposing that this position is an administrative role. We're proposing that this position is a certificated role whose focus and primary responsibility is to facilitate PBIS initiatives and PBIS programs. So you see with you, and I believe you have a handout.

[3485] SPEAKER_13: I don't know if we have it yet. Is it in my stack here?

[3491] Guadalupe Lopez: Oh, I have it.

[3496] SPEAKER_13: Right here under my nose.

[3506] SPEAKER_06: So our PVIS team developed a flowchart of discipline And our CATS coordinator, you can see his responsibilities. So really what we've done with this form is we've defined the roles by which by which discipline is administered and who handles it on a primary basis and who handles it on a secondary basis. Obviously, the administrator is responsible for those more severe actions. Our teacher is responsible for the green boxes. In the black box, that's all of our cost. And in the yellow box is our coordinator for alternative to suspension. They're focusing on those items that are impeding the student's ability to learn, but also impeding their behavioral expectations that can be changed and modified. And that's really what the Center for CATS' responsibility is to do. These are the absolute no's that go straight to the administrator for discipline. Now within the context of this, we can also, once we administer the discipline for that, there's also discussion about possible referrals to the cost programs. These are the behaviors that we're seeing in the classrooms where we believe that a CATS coordinator can facilitate a conversation and change the behavior of the student. So these are the actions that teachers are seeing that are reporting to us that we believe that we can change through this program. So the essential functions for the, these are in line with our PBIS program and at the tier one level, our CATS coordinator supports the effective strategies for student engagement in classroom behavior interventions such as positive behavior recognition and explicit instruction of pro-social skills. So the teacher that is administering this has to be well aware of our PBIS program and our services that we provide but also the recognition of what is going on in the classroom. The primary job of this person is once they come in there and we're providing this restorative justice program, we're providing some tools for the student to bring down and de-escalate themselves. We want to teach those skills, those restorative justice skills, do the conflict mediation if we need be. and then get them back into the classroom but also to monitor their success so that we're not repeating it. This person will also be responsible for our check-in, check-out program where it's assigning a mentor. So it's defining who that mentor is and our mentors are those teachers who are willing to act as an adult liaison that's not necessarily part of the classroom instruction. So it's an adult that the student can check in with on a weekly basis. The main focus that I've had since I've been at Newark is this idea of positive relationship building. And again, the CATS coordinator will be the person that's handling that from that classroom and also reaching out to the teachers to facilitate those conversations. Using Synergy to ensure that the Synergy input is there and that all of the teachers are using it and that we develop a more consistent plan for these students so that what is happening and being successful in one classroom can be successful and implemented in the other classrooms. As I referred to earlier, our Tier 2 is our check-in, check-out program. And at the Tier 3 level, where we're referring for cost services, this person will also be, because they're integrated within the student's day and seeing the issues that are coming up, they'll be a forefront and a focal point for our Tier 3 interventions and providing references to our cost team. They'll also be a member of our cost program. Some of the on-campus daily activities that would happen for a student who comes in for this program. The coordinator will be, will have access to the referrals that have been generated. They'll know what the administrative side of the discipline was and they'll know the ins and outs so that they can have a reflective writing piece to recognize really put the forefront of the ownership of the behavior on the student. So part of it will be this reflective what did I do? Why am I here kind of idea. What did I have control over? What did I not have control over? And in the afternoon session, the afternoon session moves from what I did to what I can do to move on. There's a goal setting piece that will be followed with the student. They'll recognize we need to shape this and we're going to observe these goals and behaviors. And part of the dilemma will be the coordinator will be monitoring those goals on a weekly basis.

[3907] Terrence Grindall: Oh, that would help. Okay. Is that my last one? Okay. There we go. Sorry.

[3927] SPEAKER_06: Okay. Questions, please.

[3936] Nancy Thomas: The student would be spending all day in this classroom?

[3939] SPEAKER_06: Not necessarily. It depends on the severity of the activity and how much of a focus it would be. One of the things that we want to provide the opportunity for is this idea of wealth of Mindfulness. We want to provide students with a safe place to go to when they're in an agitated state. We want to be able to provide these students with a safe place to go to for 5 to 10 minutes to de-escalate, providing some de-escalation exercises without interfering in the classroom. but provide students that opportunity to train them how to become mindful about their own skills. That's one of the big, it's one of the big differences between a detention center and an alternative suspension is that we want to be able to provide students who feel the need to that have the ability to self-reflect but need that time to de-escalate so they can get on with their day. We want those students back in the classroom, but a lot of times they can't because they're not there. And sometimes they don't have that ability to take a breath and to relax and to come back down so that they can go on with their day. And one of the things that we would be able to do with this center is monitor that. We want to be able to recognize how many times a student is coming in and if there's a need for additional services, that person would be there to focus those energies.

[4018] Nancy Thomas: Just before I call on my colleagues, do we generate ADA for that time they're in there? Yes. academic works they're supposed to do?

[4027] SPEAKER_06: Yes. So one of the things that will happen is there's going to be several activities depending on the thing that they've done. So if it's a hostile engagement with a student, they'll have activities. As part of the restorative justice, they'll have activities within a Google Classroom environment. So when they come in, They de-escalate themselves first. They get into a state where they can, where they're relaxed. They can receive some information. They're gonna do some activities. Some are online. A lot of them will be groups. There'll be conversations with the coordinator. Again, about owning their own mistakes. But then there'll be that instructional piece that we can monitor through Google Classrooms to collect the data. And really, that's the piece where we can use to see if it's working and the activities and things that are being productive.

[4080] Nancy Thomas: Mr. Preciado.

[4083] SPEAKER_19: So thank you for the presentation. I want to start off that I do like and appreciate the restorative justice framework. And I wanted to ask if you knew kind of a overall like where are we today in terms of like what are our suspension numbers like and then Referral numbers like just like a ballpark so they see like in terms of the impact One and then two would be touched on this a little bit, but measuring the impact Is it individual? Basis for measuring impact or are you looking at like would you look at the whole site?

[4121] SPEAKER_06: Our goal is to work on the individual. My belief is that once we focus on the individual, the whole site is going to benefit. So we'll see a reduction in the numbers. Ultimately, what we're going to see is a reduction in the suspension, where we're losing money on that ADA when we're suspending. It's our opportunity to collect that, to regain that money that we would have lost otherwise. To answer your question with regards to where we are now, The honeymoon is over with at this point, so I can tell you that that's the case. We don't have numbers yet. I know that the biggest issues with discipline that we have right now are, unfortunately, C violations. Those are our biggest impact right now that we're seeing. The possession of paraphernalia and other things due to the availability of those kinds of things. So one of the things that we will be doing is providing those drug awareness programs for students that do have C violations. We've had several C violations at the beginning of the year. We will be providing group therapy for those students as part of our program. our support systems that have in place. And so we're in the process of putting those kids together. So those kids have come back on campus. We were able to reduce the number of suspension days that we had with the proviso that they go through this drug awareness program.

[4209] SPEAKER_19: My last question, if you permit me, would be, do you have a time frame for the coordinator? And this kind of falls in line with the measuring impact so that you see, as you reduce the number, is there still a need or is there no longer a need?

[4225] SPEAKER_06: That's hard to say. I know from my own personal experience that in year four, Antioch still has it because they're still seeing benefits from it. The purpose has changed from, I still have connections with the Antioch School District, so the purpose has changed from an overall general perspective to a focus on our more struggling populations. So the focus has shifted from the school as a whole to a demographic population.

[4258] Nancy Thomas: Thank you. Ms.

[4259] SPEAKER_31: Crocker. I don't think there's any doubt that this kind of approach would be a very positive thing for kids that are struggling with behavior in schools. I don't think there's any doubt about that. My concern is the cost and how you plan to fund this and what, because we're talking about this is I know counsellors don't want to do this because they are in a positive situation, they're not in a suspension kind of thing. So I can appreciate the fact that you want someone that's not a counsellor, but finding someone trained to do this is a very unique kind of set of skills. And then what the cost would be if we're talking about $70,000, $100,000 for the coordinator?

[4305] SPEAKER_06: So the cost that we've incurred so far is an FTE position that we were able to pick up through our CPSA. So it would be an ongoing incurment from the school in regards to providing that FTE. So that's part of the CPSA. Party ratio. Correct. OK. With regards to the person, the person itself, It's more about finding the person that is right for the job, as opposed to, so it's really the person who has that ability to develop relationships with some of our more difficult students. When I was in Antioch, the position was filled by one of the security guards on campus. And he did a phenomenal job. And he was able to bring in a lot of these ideas of mindfulness, of restorative justice, of group facilitations. But he was able to do it because he was able to engage the person. And I think that the critical piece to this is really it's all about the person in the room. We believe that we know who that person might be. We believe that we have several candidates that will buy for the position. And so that's where we're going with it. We believe that we have some people on campus that would love to have the opportunity to do it.

[4386] SPEAKER_31: So give me an example of a student has a behavior that's not acceptable, then what happens?

[4393] SPEAKER_06: So we have several students who, for various reasons, will leave class without permission. That's an opportunity for us to bring that student in, identify the triggers that are putting that student, bringing that student out. We also have collected data that some of these students will stay in with teachers as they've developed that relationship. The question is, what are the unique characteristics of that teacher that's providing that opportunity for that student to stay in there, but they're not getting it with the other teachers? So it's about having that common connection And the coordinator would be that one to identify those patterns. Why is he staying in this classroom but not in this one? And then look from that aspect. It's also about setting So we're identifying specific behaviors and we're targeting on specific behaviors themselves. So if the behavior that we're talking about is leaving the class without permission, that's the behavior that we're going to impede. We want to find, we want to replace that negative behavior with something positive. So as an example, one of the things that we're doing that's proving successful with one of our students is in a PE classroom. For every day that that teacher stays in the PE classroom, he gets to pick up the equipment. The student stays in the classroom where he wasn't before because we made a plan for the student to be a, he's the one that's picking up the equipment at the end of the day for PE. It serves a purpose for that PE teacher, but it also keeps that student in the classroom. That same model can be applied to other classrooms. It's about having a coordinator whose job it would be to say, we're going to try this for a while and then follow through with that aspect of it. That piece is a very critical piece because you have one person that's focusing all of this. We're talking about identifying 5 to 10 students at a time and working specifically with those students to change that behavior. We know from research past that it takes about 2 weeks before a behavior is replaced with a positive behavior and that person would be the one that's working with that student on a daily basis until the behavior is changed.

[4534] SPEAKER_31: So the student would be with the coordinator for the whole day?

[4537] SPEAKER_06: No. He would be with the teacher, the general education teachers, and he would be checking in with the CATS coordinator as needed. Sometimes it'll be more, sometimes it'll be less. And again, it's that CATS coordinator who's the one that's going to be having that conversation with the teacher.

[4554] Nancy Thomas: Thank you. You're welcome. I'm ever mindful of our financial situation. We had a dean position. We did away with it just as a cost-saving measure. projected an increase in enrollment, which didn't happen. I'm curious about, is this FTE position, FTE that you found because we were able to collapse classes because we have fewer students and now we've really created a new position and can we justify that going forward after this year? I know it's built into the budget this year.

[4594] SPEAKER_06: I think the cost savings of having a person in there to recap the money that we would have lost through that CPSA, excuse me, through the suspensions.

[4608] Nancy Thomas: We had very few suspensions last year, which to the chagrin of some teachers who felt that those students should have been suspended and they were disruptive and remained. So the incentive from the state is to minimize suspension. So if you only have a handful of suspensions, how can that justify a full FTE?

[4628] SPEAKER_06: The other piece that we're talking about is we're trying to shape behaviors to more successful. And we can't do that with, we have students that bring to our school a lot of baggage. And part of understanding our students is getting to know their story. For some of our more difficult students, it's hard to get to know their story. And again, it's all about the person in the classroom that is, or in that room that's able to make those connections with that student. We have some phenomenal teachers that can make connections with them, but we can't get them with that teacher because they, for one reason or another, they're not the right schedule. So, I think it's hard to capture a cost of that. I know that if we can save two, three students from leaving our campus, I think that's money well served.

[4683] Nancy Thomas: make the general population more successful because the disrupting students aren't disrupting.

[4687] SPEAKER_06: The other impact is just that. These students that are walking out of class and creating this disruption, how much of an impact is that having on the general population? And again, that's hard to quantify. We can look to capture that data, but that's hard to quantify without having that position in place first.

[4705] SPEAKER_31: Thank you. I have another question about the mentor. Is this something the teachers are volunteering to do? The Chico? Are you talking about the mentor? The mentors for the students? Yes. So this is the volunteer and the teacher's point of view? Correct.

[4720] SPEAKER_06: For the check-in, check-out. So that's part of our PBIS program. And yes, they're all volunteers.

[4728] Nancy Thomas: OK. The student member?

[4731] SPEAKER_16: OK. So clarification. This would be one position that would be overseeing all this for the student body? Yes. OK. I did want to bring up, because we're thinking cost-wise, that we have had a sponsorship with Washington Hospital before, but this was for the athletics program. But I don't see why we could look to see if we could have something similar, at least for therapy for students, because it is free for 18 and under. So maybe we could look into that. And then additionally, I was curious on Can this be available for students who maybe are stressed or is leading up to the problem before the problem actually occurs so we can target it and attack the problems and help the students before it explodes?

[4786] SPEAKER_06: Yes. So let's go back to the original question, the first part of your question, which was about counseling services, I believe is what you're talking about, from the hospital. This position wouldn't be for that. We do have staff. on our campus that serve that need. Those in terms of our PBIS program, that's a tier three group that's very targeted. We do have relationships with county mental health services to bring those in. So for those services, we do have a person to fill that need. This is specifically for the more generalized population that is in the general education classroom but has not yet been identified as that. One of the roles that this coordinator will have is to more effectively identify those students that need those cost services and those cost referrals. So it's another input into the cost program. With regards to the second part of your question, the mindfulness piece. We want to be able to open this up to everybody who's feeling stressed. So as an example, in year three of Antioch's program for mindfulness, it actually relieved stress for the teachers more than it relieved stress for the students. So every morning at the first part of the day, Park Middle School had a little chime that they would ring. It would be the school's trigger to practice mindfulness. And it's been doing it 1,000 years. It's called meditation. But it's really a classroom that's meditating and focusing on the breathing to bring everybody down to that point where they can actually focus their learning. The research on breathing exercises is phenomenal with regards to bringing somebody down to focus themselves. Athletes do it all the time. It's well practiced. And it's, I believe, can be a school-wide initiative within the next year and a half. And again, that CATS coordinator would be the one to oversee that and bring it into the classrooms.

[4917] Nancy Thomas: Thank you.

[4920] SPEAKER_31: So there's nothing that you're asking for us?

[4924] SPEAKER_13: No, it's just a report. I do want to share a stat with the board that a lot of people aren't really aware of. Generally, in a high school setting of this size, 90% of the discipline comes from 10% of the population. So part of what this addresses is the need of, there's a kind of a grouping of kids that tend to be somewhat frequent flyers with behavior, and this is trying to get to a deeper solution around that. I think that's kind of the big idea behind it. But just to know that of a high school that size, most of the disciplines generated from about 190 kids on any given day or any given week or month. But I think something that we're moving more towards trying to get to the root cause of it.

[4973] SPEAKER_19: So if we can get the numbers maybe as a Friday update in terms of that would be helpful.

[4977] SPEAKER_13: I wrote down suspension data, discipline data, and some baseline data for is this going to make a difference after it's implemented. Just kind of predicting what you guys would say. Thank you. I have one last thing I want to share with you and I kind of want to reframe a little bit. We recently had, if you want to go ahead and get ready with the video, sure.

[4996] SPEAKER_31: Excuse me, we have the non-agenda items are supposed to be by 830. Okay. So can we stop at this point? Yeah, we can come back to me.

[5005] Nancy Thomas: Okay, so we have Michael Min.

[5012] SPEAKER_10: Dear Board of Education, my name is Michael from the City of Fremont. As a part of the homeschooling community in Alameda County, the challenge we are dealing with, including preparation of course materials and delivery of the instruction to students. Since we only received a course guideline from the school district, the uplift theater charter school being proposed to and revealed by the new work, Unified School District. I believe that will offer the resources we need to make the home school education from K-12 a more successful and easier process. The course from the Cheddar School are free and will all be taught by, teach by the instructor who had the California teaching license to ensure the quality of the education. Of course, either offer online or deliver through the hybrid mode, which are more flexible for the schedule of the students and the parents. Last but not the least, from the homeschooling, students who would like to attend UC and CSU. The Cheddar School also offer A2G UC and CSU approved courses, which are great for our community. Once again, thank you for this opportunity for me to speak here this evening. Thank you.

[5125] Nancy Thomas: Thank you. Jennifer Mitchell.

[5136] SPEAKER_27: Hi, I'm Jennifer Mitchell. I'm a parent of twins. They're first graders at Lincoln Elementary. And so I guess it's a little bit timely that I'm here when he's talking about how to deal with bullying, because I came here to let you guys know some things have been going on in the first grade class that my children are in. Ordinarily, I wouldn't call. I wouldn't assume malice on the part of children so young, but these behaviors that have been happening at our school, I think you guys should know about. The principal knows. We talked about it at the coffee with the principal last week. But I don't know if she has enough tools to do anything about it. So I'll talk about first the incident that happened on September 24th. Now, my kids weren't involved in any of these, And they will tell me everything. And all of these were confirmed by the parents involved or the teacher. So in the cafeteria on September 24th, one first grader physically restrained by wrapping his arms around another first grader while a third first grader slapped the child repeatedly and two other first graders cheered them on. One kid punched another kid in the stomach this morning. There was a substitute in the first hour. And according to my children, it was just because this child wanted to make the other child cry. And then there's another parent who gave me permission to talk about her situation, but I'm not going to name names. And you can verify this with Principal Ehrlich. All last week, There's one kid, first grader, who's been grabbing her first grader's glasses off of his head at recess and whipping them across the playground. And a lot of parents, like I said, I brought this up at the coffee with the principal, a lot of parents are concerned that we have this level of bullying going on in the first grade, that parents aren't being notified. that there is this kind of bullying so that we can be brought into the process on how to talk to our kids about preventing bullying in themselves, preventing bullying in others. I mean, not necessarily that they have to tell everyone all of the names of the kids involved. You don't have to do that. But people want to be informed, and parents want to help. And some other parents also expressed a concern that if there aren't any major repercussions or big, like if nothing happens to these kids who are doing these deeds, that other kids are going to be encouraged to do the same because they can see they can get away with it.

[5316] Nancy Thomas: So that's my thought. Thank you. Superintendent, I assume you will follow up. Yep, we will.

[5320] SPEAKER_27: Thank you. My email is on the card.

[5323] Nancy Thomas: OK. OK, next. I just want to conclude my report if I may. Oh, that's right. You have a video.

[5335] SPEAKER_13: As Char queues up the video, actually it's pretty timely with what the comments were just now. I recently was at a super, go ahead and pause it for a second Char. This is a program that I really believe we need to step into and incorporate into our system and it is provided to us at no cost. But it is exactly, let me go back for a minute. We've worked with principals recently in the last few weeks to do emergency response training. Lockdown, lockout, some of that training to try to get consistent in the district of how we do that. But all of those measures are kind of reactionary. This is a video from what's called the Sandy Hook Promise. And they provide a lot of kind of ways to prevent these things on the front end from bullying to isolation, suicide and there's a lot of resources and actually there's a presentation again tomorrow at the superintendent council for Alameda County. But I wanted to share this with the board because I really feel that after you see kind of what they're offering and certainly the price is right, they'll provide training and on the ground support for us in any way that we want. to move forward with this. And then we have kind of a universal way that we're approaching some of these challenges that we're seeing, unfortunately, in today's world. Let's go ahead and cue the video.

[5423] Nancy Thomas: Is it six minutes long? Yes.

[5425] SPEAKER_29: Dylan was just pure love. He was the glue that held us together. And he had an amazing laugh. Every day from school, he would bring home pieces of paper that he made big purple dots on. Six years old and in first grade when he was killed. I'll never know what he could have become.

[5454] SPEAKER_03: That morning, Friday, December 14th, literally changed who I am as a person.

[5464] SPEAKER_03: He was a light of happiness. People could truly feel and sense his warmth and compassion. He had a lot of love.

[5474] SPEAKER_29: And he gave that all back tenfold. After the shooting, Mark and I, along with several other family members, launched Sandy Hook Promise to honor our loved ones' lives and to ensure this never happens to any other family. Sandy Hook Promise is focused on just one goal. Prevent gun violence before it happens.

[5500] SPEAKER_03: So how will we do this? We'll do this in three ways. The first is training people how to know the signs. The second is building an engaged base. And the third is passing sensible policy. We start by teaching 26 million youth and adults our Know the Signs violence prevention programs by the year 2026, shifting the culture of two generations. We deliver these programs at no cost because we believe that money should not get in the way of saving a life. There are four nor the science programs.

[5533] SPEAKER_29: The first program we teach is called Start with Hello. Start with Hello teaches students how to recognize and minimize social isolation, marginalization, and rejection. And then teaches them how to create a school culture that's more inclusive, that reaches out to isolated individuals. Because we know that those behaviors are some of the indicators for someone who could go on to eventually hurt themselves or someone else.

[5561] SPEAKER_03: Second, signs of suicide, or SOS. SOS trains youth and adults how to identify, intervene, and get help for people who may be depressed or suicidal. Research shows that 7 out of 10 individuals tell somebody or give off signals before they complete suicide.

[5580] SPEAKER_29: Our third program is called Say Something. Say Something teaches youth how to recognize warning signs, especially in social media, of individuals who may be a threat to themselves or others. And then say something to a trusted adult or submit a tip using our 24-7 anonymous reporting system.

[5600] SPEAKER_03: Fourth, safety assessment and intervention creates multidisciplinary teams to identify, assess, and respond to threats of violence or at-risk behavior. safety assessment and intervention that addresses the underlying issue that led the youth to act in an at-risk manner.

[5617] SPEAKER_29: We deliver these programs through a team of national trainers, but schools can also self-lead by downloading our interactive training videos and materials. And we require schools and community organizations to embed these programs into existing student clubs or create a Students Against Violence Everywhere Promise Club to help sustain the programs. Now the second part of delivering our goal is to build a base of six million Americans educated and engaged in the issue of gun violence prevention. San Diego Promise will achieve this through our Above the Politics position and focusing our message on the human side of gun violence. We're also training 7,000 volunteer Promise leaders to raise awareness, recruit more supporters, and help bring our programs to their communities.

[5667] SPEAKER_03: will advocate for meaningful state and federal legislation that supports our Know the Science programs, provides mental health and wellness resources, and protects at-risk individuals from firearm access and ownership.

[5679] SPEAKER_29: So now you know who we are and what we do. And we know it's working.

[5685] SPEAKER_03: To date, we have trained 2 million youth and adults in our Know the Science programs in all 50 states. We know that our training has stopped multiple school shootings and suicide threats, self-harm, and weapons coming into schools. Additionally, they have reduced bullying, as well as gotten hundreds of youth mental health and wellness services that they need.

[5705] SPEAKER_29: Our PSA, Evan, has been viewed over 145 million times. It's helped change the narrative on gun violence by teaching people that it is preventable when you know the signs. Evan's engaged in educated Americans, driven training of schools and community organizations, and helped raise funds so that we can train more youth.

[5726] SPEAKER_03: And on the policy side, we've leveraged our supporters, partners, and alliances for several pieces of state and federal legislation, including critical work on delivering mental health reform as part of the 21st Century Cures Act and multiple gun violence prevention and ballot initiatives in 16 states.

[5745] SPEAKER_29: It's too late for us to go back and save our children. But by taking our tragedy and transforming it into something positive that could save the lives of others. It could even save the life of your family. That's what keeps us going every day. It honors the children we lost and protects those that survived. And it's our way of kind of keeping them alive so that their death has some meaning because we can prevent it elsewhere.

[5775] SPEAKER_03: Help us by spreading our message, bringing our no-cost know the science programs to your community, and donate so we can expand our reach, accelerate our momentum, and help protect more children from gun violence.

[5791] SPEAKER_13: So I just wanted to share that. I know that, unfortunately, we've seen an increase in gun violence across the nation. And it's something that's real. And hopefully, we're never in a situation where we have to deal with that. But it's always kind of lingering in our minds. Thank you, Char. But I don't know if there's any questions about that.

[5811] SPEAKER_19: I was going to say, what do you need from us to move forward?

[5814] SPEAKER_13: I think I'm going to gather more information and then probably talk with principals about how's the best way to implement. Is there certain parts we could take slow this year, but then go to full implementation next year? I don't want to add more to principals' plates, but I think some of the pieces that are easy, like the early warning and suicide, there's some of those I think we can probably start quickly, but I kind of want to have a deeper conversation with the principals next. I just wanted you to be aware of what we're doing and I think it's a good universal preventative measure instead of just planning for an emergency situation.

[5848] SPEAKER_30: Period.

[5848] SPEAKER_13: Thank you. That concludes my report. I'm sorry it took so long. Nancy. Did you have a comment?

[5855] Nancy Thomas: I'm sorry.

[5856] SPEAKER_31: I just would like to underline the program that we've been talking about two things in terms of this. One is the high school. It's pretty evident to me, and I think to most people, that the way that you take care of these situations, you address the bully and take care of the bully. Because they have gone through hurt. For whatever reason they're doing what they're doing, it's because it's a learned thing that has taught them as a preschooler or as a first grader that that's how they get rid of their hurt. And so I think anything we can do within the school system to identify and to help them early on is going to take care of some of the problems we have later on. So I think that definitely this is something that we need to address. Okay.

[5903] SPEAKER_13: Thank you.

[5904] Nancy Thomas: Thank you. We have a presentation next, but we have a member of the public that would like to speak to this. Mr. Newk.

[5924] Cary Knoop: Good evening. My eldest is going to sixth grade now, so I feel every year kind of the same cycle where the Caspi scores come out. And then everybody's saying, well, but our goals for this year are really tight. We're going to go up 3% for this group and 4% for that group. And then a couple of months later, we get I-Ready scores where everything is exciting. We're really on the right road. I-Ready is just, we're going through the roof. We're improving. Everything's going to be better for next year. And then we wait for the next CASPE scores. And it's basically the same. There's no change. So, you know, who are we kind of fooling? If we're setting goals that are not realistic, then don't set them. Now, I think we can do certain things. I mean, we can do miracles. But take, for instance, the high school. Now, for the last two years, the math scores have been so low that less than 25% of the students meet the math test. Now, I brought this up in two consecutive years. It's not me. It's not about me. But I brought it up because I think that's an alarm phase. You know, on average, if you compare all the scores for all the districts in Alameda County, we're about average. But not when it comes to the math scores of the high school. We have a systemic problem there, if you ask me. And this is the third year, are we going to do something about it? We want to be a STEAM school. Well, that means you have to start working on technology, and you start with math. It all starts with math. All these scientific things all start with math. So you've got to focus on these projects. If you're not willing to spend money on these things or initiatives, and it's the same LCAP, it's the same school site council data, the next year is going to be the same outcome. So I think we need to spend more effort on core education, English, especially for the lower grades. math, especially for the higher grades. It all sprang from there. And all children will benefit, not just the good students or the bad students or, you know, whatever classification system we use for people. You know, we really want to improve academics for everybody. So hopefully that can be broken and, you know, we're not going to go through the same year where in a couple of months, we're going to hear, whoa, it's going to be all better. iReady is just telling us the goal. It'll be all up 3%, 6%, and then the next year, we get the same thing. But work on that math problem at the high school. This is a systemic problem, if you ask me.

[6108] Maria Huffer: Thank you.

[6113] Nancy Thomas: Ms. Leonis, you want to introduce this?

[6116] SPEAKER_19: Do you need to set up the PowerPoint or anything?

[6123] SPEAKER_41: She's doing it right now. Good evening President Thomas, members of the board, and our community. This evening we're happy to share information that was released out of embargo today. President Thomas referenced the county. The county put out a very quick press release and I think it's good information to put out and that's one of the, I think, the benefits of having a good partner with Alameda County as they move forward to supporting us as we roll out the data. So I'd like to introduce our director, Ms. Amy Black, who will work through some of the CASP results. I do want to let you know that this is part one. The next time we meet on October 16th, we'll be able to share more information as it relates to the data and the dashboard. And we're hoping to have more annual updates and just kind of give you the bigger picture. As you know, sometimes at this late hour also, it's very hard to look at data, but we're hoping that As we make it more of a regular item, you'll be able to kind of build, the community gets to build on the information that we're providing. So I'll ask Ms. Black to go ahead and start.

[6201] SPEAKER_38: Good evening, President Thomas, board members, Executive Cabinet, Superintendent Sanchez. Thank you for giving us the opportunity. I was really excited to know that we're going to have public release and it didn't change the date. Like last year, we kept pushing out, pushing out. We've had the opportunity to have the preliminary scores for a while to be able to analyze the data and start to talk as a leadership team and also at our school sites. So I'm very anxious about getting the information in front of you and talking about some of the things that we're noticing and then our continued next steps with you. So I just want to remind you. We have a lot of ways that we collect student data. So we have our state testing, our CAS scores, or SBAC testing, which is our ELA, math, and then actually last year was the first time for science. And we're still waiting for those scores. So once we receive that, we'll share it out on our science course as well. And this is a summative assessment. So it's really a collective results of our student, how they understood the grade level standards. And then they take the test, and we receive information on it. It's one measure. We also collect local data, which you got to see a little glimpse of that with the iReady. We also collect reading assessments, like DRA, writing, pre and post, K through 12. We also collect math assessments as well. And that gives us just a bigger picture of where our students are, and this is one snapshot in time. Yes, it's a high-stakes test, and we want to see continual improvement, but also framing that there's a lot of way that we collect data and information about our students to make informed decisions about their learning as well as programs. Okay. What you're going to see this year in ELA, not a huge change. Pretty, I would say pretty flat, about 1% which matches the county growth in ELA. You're going to see that students, our EL students did increase from 7% last year to 13%. There's also a continual increase in our third grade, as well as our fourth grade in ELA, so you're going to see some measured growth in those categories. When we look at our ethnicity and student group reports, you're going to see, just like last year reported, our Asian, Filipino, white, and two or more race subgroups continue to score higher than our other student groups, and then our EL, SPED and our economically disadvantaged students are continuing to score significantly below our district average. So let's just kind of get into the data. So this is this year's scores in ELA, so our entire district. Of course, in our leadership team, we break down the data into grade level, which I'll show you that as well. And then I'm also going to share some other student groups that we've been looking at a little bit more closely. So you're going to see overall. So there's a couple ways that we look at it. And Mr. Preciado, you mentioned the number of distance of three and percentage. I don't know if you remember from last year, there's a couple different ways that California, so we have the new California way in terms of how we're reporting our assessments. So we continue to look at our percentage of growth versus who's met standard and who's above standard. But then California really wanted to move away from like a deficit model or a punitive model like we had with program improvement. And so they've created what we have now is the California dashboard. And they're continuing to roll out more indicators. And the way that they use the California dashboard is that they have a distance from three. And so that minus points that you see in the middle, where is it? Distance from three. Do you see in between 44% and 56%? And then it says, I can't see this one. Negative 20. So then that number tells us in relation to the dashboard score, and that's going to ultimately give us a color indicator. So there's a couple different formulas that are happening that we're looking at. So the state's looking at not only what your percentage score is, they want to see if there was any movement within that indicator. And even if it wasn't significant movement, but you're showing some movement, they want to celebrate that a district is continuing to show growth. So that's where they developed a growth model. So you have to, and I'll share more of the dashboard in a couple weeks and then we actually have to submit our local indicators in November and then they'll release our dashboard as a district in December and I'll bring that to you and we'll talk more about these indicators as well as other indicators that are attached to the dashboard.

[6499] SPEAKER_13: So Amy, just to clarify, so is that distance from Is that a distance from the mean?

[6509] SPEAKER_38: Yeah. So it would be zero.

[6509] SPEAKER_13: The state average? No. What is that? What is that referring to?

[6513] SPEAKER_38: So when they say distance from three, and then I'll go into more depth when we do the dashboard because it's confusing. And I don't know if you remember we did the five by five and looking for movement.

[6522] SPEAKER_13: All right. We'll wait until you get to it then. That's fine.

[6524] SPEAKER_38: So that's where that number plays in.

[6527] SPEAKER_13: OK.

[6527] SPEAKER_19: I'll hold on. And the level three is the movement of three or it's the slot of the standard three?

[6534] SPEAKER_38: Level three is where we want to be.

[6536] SPEAKER_19: OK.

[6537] SPEAKER_38: And it equals zero. But we want to be at level three. So let me just show you, just to snapshot our three-year data of our grade levels. So I mentioned at the very beginning that we're seeing continual increase in our third grade cohort, which is very promising. And we saw growth in our fourth grade cohort as well in ELA. And it's either flat or a little bit declining in our fifth and sixth grade. And then here's 7th, 8th, and 11th. And we saw a deficit. We had a pretty nice growth in 11th grade last year. And I had a couple conversations with the department chair at the high school as to trying to figure out where that drop came from in our ELA department and in that grade. So looking at kind of what the factors might have been in maybe that particular cohort or something in the program. So that is something that was a little bit We got to take a little closer look at that. Okay, so this is a really confusing report. It's a side-by-side. It's the same data. One talks about the distance from three, which is on the left, and the other is the percentage points of standard met or exceeded. The blocked out number is a student subgroup that is under 30, so that's why you have that weird teal line that goes through. So it's an ethnic group I can't publicly share. But it'll show you what I mentioned before. When you look at our Asian groups, like this is the district average of 2.2. This is where we are. And then what our subgroups are scoring higher or lower. So what the difference is in the mean. And then our socioeconomic, EL, and disability groups. They're continuing to score significantly higher. And then this is just the percentage breakout. And I believe you guys received a copy of that in your packet to look a little bit more closely. It just is a different way to look at it. It gives you an idea of how our student groups are sporting. And this is a three-year comparison. So as I mentioned earlier, we did see an increase in our English learners. And then here's our broken down by ethnicity. I also wanted to show you some additional groups. I know I have heard this in the LCAP advisory groups. Could you go back one slide, please? Oh, sure. Pretty similar, not huge statistically. You have questions about?

[6703] SPEAKER_13: I'm glad we're seeing a little bit of an increase in black and African-American. Yes. It looks like our Latino and white. Latinos, we've got to look at that deeper.

[6712] Penny DeLeon: Yeah.

[6712] SPEAKER_13: And Anglo is interesting. That's interesting that that one's going down. OK. Just curious.

[6719] SPEAKER_38: Yeah. I know it's a lot of data. I know. So we also tweaked out the data in some additional student groups. I'm looking at gender, how our boys and girls are scoring in ELA. And then also, the questions arise sometimes in terms of English-only students versus our English learner student population, initially fluent population or re-designated population. So you can see the breakdown of those groups compared to the district average, as well as special ed, and then our socioeconomically disadvantaged or African-American students, which kind of the right side of the graph, those are all part of the dashboard and indicators that we have to watch really closely to make sure that we're showing measured growth so that we avoid, what is it, differentiated assistance.

[6779] Nancy Thomas: Are the initially fluent English learners, they're classified, so are we testing kids and characterizing them as English fluent when they're initially fluent when they maybe are English only?

[6792] SPEAKER_41: No. So essentially, when a student first comes into the district, they fill out what's called the home language survey that's part of the registration form. And if other languages are indicated there, there's a certain number of questions. And if another language is spoken in a home, it may trigger testing. When we test the student with now what's called the ELPAC, a student can be identified as initially fluent and they are not considered an English learner. But they do have another language spoken in the home or perhaps they have some other language, but they also are fairly fluent in English. And so this is the result of the ELPAC test.

[6828] Nancy Thomas: But look how much larger that is in the English only. I mean, is that a concern? Or what does it say?

[6834] SPEAKER_41: What is it telling us? I think it's good news. I think what it tells us is that, what the research tells us, that when students speak two or more languages, they are significantly academically better prepared to work. And so what these students come with us was with wonderful gifts. And it's truly an asset to have another language in the home.

[6853] Nancy Thomas: Thank you.

[6856] SPEAKER_38: Any questions about that slide before I move to math? Okay, so what you're going to see in math, pretty flat, 37%. Last year, we also reported that we saw an increase or higher scores in third grade and seventh grade, and we'll continue to see that in the trend. We also saw our EL students increased a small percentage, but definitely worth celebration. We also saw an increase in our socioeconomic, disadvantaged student group, and our African-American student group. And then same as with the ELA, Asian, Filipino, white, and two or more race, they continue to score higher than our other ethnic student groups, and our EL, SPED, and SED groups are significantly below. So let's take a look. Okay, so pretty similar to last year, so actually pretty spot on. You've heard us talk about the last two years of math being a focus. One thing that we're starting to embark in our PLCs is really taking a closer look at the concepts and procedures claim. When you look at the blueprint of the SBAC, that tells us that there are, that section actually has the most questions of the entire test. It's about 20 questions. kind of multi-choice type questions. So really unpacking what are the essential standards that are being assessed in that particular claim. And then also what do the questions look like in order to give our students more exposure and practice in those types of questions. So sometimes it's not necessarily that they don't know the information. They just don't know how it's being presented to them and how to appropriately answer or show their mastery. So that's something that we're going to continue to explore this year. So you'll see third grade increase, fourth grade is pretty similar, a little slight increase in fifth grade. Sixth grade was pretty flat from last year to this year, but then you can kind of see the three-year trend. Tell me if I'm going too fast. Seventh, eighth, and eleventh. Eleventh continues to be an area of focus. There's a lot of kind of ideas and also even a statewide conversation about 11th graders in general across the state are scoring significantly low. One theory is because the amount of testing that our 11th graders have to undergo with SAT, ACT, there's a lot of testing that happens in 11th grade and by the end of the year. They're sometimes over it, also with AP testing. Did you want to add to that?

[7024] SPEAKER_41: And you may have noticed that what was in the news was a statewide movement to look at perhaps the SAT scores or the ACT in lieu of this. Because our kids, I mean, also, they're 11th graders, it's spring, a lot of the students who are already on track for college or career, we want to make it important for them to also perform to the best of their ability on this test. So we're waiting to hear any kind of guidance on that, but that would certainly be a big push to make it the SAT or the ACT perhaps. the test in lieu of this.

[7057] SPEAKER_38: I've also started conversations with the junior high about taking a look at their advanced math courses and making sure we're pulling data on students that are in those courses to make sure that they're showing mastery on the SBAC of a score of three or four. Because if they're in advanced classes, that's something that we would expect to see. So those are dialogues I'm having with Principal Neal, as well as his department chair. So again, for math. similar scales with the... Would you go back one, please?

[7087] SPEAKER_13: Yeah. I would take a close look at 7th grade 2016 to 8th grade 2017. That's the same group of kids. I'm wondering what's going on in that transition and what is the opportunity gap or what is the rigor gap going on between those two in math specific to, I mean, do the questions get that much more difficult, which is possible? But I think that's something, I think, for the site to unpack, because that's really within their control in those two years. I know we're looking at it with Big Ideas Math, and that's part of it, but that's just something that I noticed that's kind of interesting, because usually you don't, that's uncommon to see that, unless, like, the test really changes dramatically. So it looks like it does, just from what I've seen in the data. Something to look deeper at.

[7143] SPEAKER_38: No, absolutely. And we're definitely on the same page and having conversations at the junior high about that. Because that is something that they've noticed the trend as well. And it's their concern in trying to look more closely at their program and how they're addressing that.

[7155] SPEAKER_13: So great points. Thank you. You can go on. I just wanted to call that out.

[7158] SPEAKER_38: Yeah, thank you. OK, so this is that confusing student group, subgroup report. tells you ethnicity as well as the student groups that we look on the dashboard, which is on the far right. Those are part of our indicators for differentiated assistance. So pretty similar to ELA. And there's nothing that's really an outlier difference. And then here's what it looks like side by side with the bar graph. And I mentioned our SED students increased. English learner, we saw a slight increase. And then our African-American students. And then you can see some increases in our already high-performing categories. But that's always fantastic to see our students continue to grow.

[7211] SPEAKER_19: So I have a question. I mean, this is similar to the English, the ALAs course. So maybe you can help me out understand it better. Is the percent of demographics for our district higher among Latino and Hispanic students. So is that why? Because we're full?

[7232] SPEAKER_38: Compared to the other? Well, I think the numbers are at the top. Let me go back. So it'll tell you, yes, we have 1,654 students that are in this. So it's a significant group. And the next highest is 800.

[7247] SPEAKER_19: OK. So then it goes, so the reason, or not the only reason, A huge thing is there is that significant drop which meant that anybody else's increase just leveled us out to be flat in terms of that 37%. So in terms of a plan, I know I'm thinking that already, but in terms of a plan for next steps on both of the groups, then the group that needs to be targeted or in terms of the numbers is really the Hispanic Latino and then what was the other 800 you said are the next biggest So, like, the biggest groups by far, so socioeconomically disadvantaged, I guess, and then Hispanic, Latino, and how, because massive increases in those would boost us up exactly. So, I think we've got to figure out how to, and I know I'm jumping ahead, but thinking about how to address those.

[7305] SPEAKER_38: We saw this one. Just another way to look at the data, side-by-side, three-year comparison. And we're seeing some growth, which is always great. Again, we did a cross-section of some of the other groups that we were curious about, how our gender groups are doing compared to the district. We saw a deficit in our boys for ELA, but it's pretty even in math for our girls and boys. Our English only are initially fluent. We see, again, as higher, like we saw in ELA, and then re-designated. And then our, so again, EL, special ed, our SED, and African-American, those are all populations that we see on the dashboard.

[7356] SPEAKER_19: And it looks like for girls, it went down in terms of boys and the district, whereas the ELA was 3 percentage points above. So as a kind of framework, we need to think about, Focusing on targeting math for young girls so that we can help support them in that way. Yeah. Yeah.

[7380] SPEAKER_38: Okay. I think that's it. That was a lot, right? It was a lot to process. Thank you. Any questions or other data you would like me to consider bringing forward in future presentations?

[7393] Nancy Thomas: I would like to hear specifics about what the data is telling you and how it's leading you to do something different this year.

[7401] SPEAKER_38: OK. Do you want me to talk a little bit about next steps? Or we could do that next time. OK. So the one thing about math that we're super, super excited about, and thank you to your support and also approval, is our district-wide K through 12 big ideas math program. So that's something obviously we're not I don't anticipate seeing astronomical increases in within a year but hopefully over time and having a consistent coherent math program we're going to see the benefits of that over the next few years. All of our K through 12 math teachers receive training in August and we're looking at additional trainings that we can provide them throughout the school year as they get more familiar just with the curriculum itself. and then hear from them about what additional support they would like. Probably most likely there's a lot of technology, online tools that are available that tend to sometimes take a back burner when you're just trying to navigate just the paper and books, so bringing that back to the forefront of teachers. We're also steeped in our PLC cycles, and we rolled that out, our professional learning communities. We focused on math the mathematical practices last year and now we're going to take the work that we learned last year and apply it to essential standard work in mathematics as we unpacked our new curriculum and actually we are asking schools to do four cycles this year so we've calendared out four different PLC cycles or inquiry cycles where they analyze student data, they make a plan for instruction, they identify what the key essential standards are that they're gonna teach within that unit, they do progress monitoring, adjust their instruction, and then review the data at the end, and then start a new cycle. So that's something that we're embarking on this year. We'll continue our partnership with the Silicon Valley Math Initiative, and then we'll look at adding implementing performance tasks and aligning that with the core curriculum, as well as looking at MARS and MAC assessments. We did a few at the elementary school, but we really would like to capture some data in ninth and 10th grade, because those are gap years for math. So that's something that I'm going to be working with Ms. Hinke at the high school to get that data. And then ELA, next steps. So last year, if you remember, we had writing coaches at Graham and Schilling. And this year, we're really excited to be able to offer a five-day cycle to all of our eight elementary schools in Writers Workshop. And then one school that's already implemented, if it's full implementation, SNOW's in full implementation of Writers Workshop, they're actually going to be receiving five days in Readers Workshop. So, in order to leverage the resources and support at all our schools, that's something, and writing is an area of deficit on our state testing. So, I'm really wanting to support those efforts. We also rolled out writer's workshop at the junior high. So, they received a three-day intensive in August and have launched their first writer's unit of study in the last month. really fantastic if you haven't had a chance to go to the junior high. Part of it is also just how they reconfigure their classrooms to make it more friendly, having a gathering space. Students have choice. They have really specific lessons around strategies that writers use. And in fact, Mr. Neal came into my office yesterday and said, one of my teachers came to me and said, it really works. So I was really excited about that. So we'll continue, and they'll receive their next coaching session at the end of October. We'll continue our work with Corwin. So last year, Corwin did some work with visible learning around John Hattie's research on essential strategies to use with students. And they're going to continue ELA and ELD at both the junior high and high school, continuing year two. And then we're also going to bring on board our social sciences and modern language to do their inquiry. We have an EL master planning team. That's taking a really close look at our EL master plan that was developed a number of years ago and bringing it up to speed and updating it and seeing what supports we need to put in place for our English learners. We're also piloting two new programs. One is called iLit. It's a blended... ELA intervention tool, online tool through Pearson, and we're doing that at the junior high and the high school, as well as we're looking at bringing in a leveled, it's sort of called reading, leveled literacy intervention. It's a reading intervention program in our primary grades, because we're lacking some primary intervention. So those are some things that we're embarking to address our concerns in EL, ELA, and then our EL population. Okay, now any questions?

[7720] SPEAKER_19: Mr. Preciado. My first question, or maybe in terms of additional data, I'm not sure if you looked at this. It would be good to kind of get an assessment of the schools that had writer's workshop and their data compared to schools not using it. So that if in fact, based off of the other I can't remember if it was the IRED, I can't remember all the assessments that, the internal assessments we used versus the external, that if in fact it increased, then if that's the case, then what are we doing to ensure that we have riders workshop K through six, or for sure in all the elementary students, because if something's working, let's support it and continue, and then you can come back to us in terms of resource, or from my perspective, of resources of, it's easier to digest resources for programs that you know are aimed at increasing imperative one, which is the scores and then the academics. And there's a track record of success. So if we can kind of dive into that piece. And then I really like your point about technology incorporation. I do want to note that kind of seen it firsthand in terms of at the elementary level of the use of programs and softwares. If the children aren't exposed to that, just that whole process is foreign. So let's use the investment that we did in terms of technology and actually incorporate that. Because if we have the tools, but we're not incorporating that as part of the curriculum, then when you take the exam, you're I know how to count 10s, 20s, 30s, but when I see a box that just pops up in front of my face that I'm not used to, then I'm confused in terms of that process. Then I have the last point is that, to my earlier point, if we can figure out a way to have a plan for specific demographic groups that are going to have the most impact for the overall scores, and let's focus on that.

[7861] Nancy Thomas: Thank you. And I guess I'd like to kind of, I'm wondering about the Readers and Writers Workshop and why it isn't being implemented. That's our language arts program. Why is it not being implemented every night? When we do offer training, is it, especially training that is optional in the summer, what is it that is causing one school to send many of their teachers and another not? Are we looking to see what the data is telling us in terms of the fidelity of implementation of these programs? And, I mean, it looks like with big ideas in math we're being pretty comprehensive, but it looks like English language arts is kind of piecemeal. And so if you could shed light on what you're learning and how we're going to address that if it's correct observation, how we're going to address it. Thank you. There you go.

[7930] SPEAKER_19: Sorry, the last one, if you could post that on the website, the presentation.

[7937] SPEAKER_13: Thank you, guys.

[7939] Nancy Thomas: OK, well, sorry everyone's staying with us till the end. I appreciate that. Maybe we can move a little more quickly. We have a speaker for 12.1, which is new business, changing the funding source for the agreement with Decotec and the district-wide audiovisual project. That would be Merrick.

[7973] SPEAKER_11: Hello. Merrick Yarbrough. And I'm not speaking on behalf of the CBOC, but on the CBOC, I am exposed to the language of the bond. The language of the bond is a little bit different than the underlying constitutional, California constitutional language that I believe may be being referenced for trying to make such a move as this. The language, if the board had chose to use all the language that was available to them in the bond amendment that was voted on, they would have included language that specifically articulated the use of this bond money for information technology projects. But it was not. It was an option that they chose to decline at that time. This project should go forward, but it shouldn't come from this money unless somebody can show me some other underlying language that should override the language that was put before the voters. so that they are aware that this money is being spent on what they voted for it to be for. So if you look at the reference for the California Constitution, section 13a, small b, section 1, small b, it tells you all the stuff in here that you can spend it on if you so choose to put that into your bond. Our bond language that was on the voters amendment was different. It was a little bit smaller subset of that language. So I think the Russian money is there to be spent for this reason. I don't see a reason for taking the money from the G to do it. I don't know, you know, I haven't heard any reasons for why they would want to move this. If there's a good reason for it, so be it. But in terms of saving the money for a rainy day to be spent on something else, I think the money in Russian should be used for what it was intended to be used for. And that's my piece on that. I appreciate the candor that's taken place on this. And thank you for picking up our bond committee recommendations before and running with them. So thank you very much. And I look forward to seeing Larry come out there and drill some holes and get some stuff out of this. Thank you.

[8119] Nancy Thomas: Thank you, Mr. Newk.

[8130] Cary Knoop: Well, thank you, Mr. Yarbrough. I fully agree with what Mr. Yarbrough said. And I just want to add a couple of words. When we go out, ask the citizens for money, and we put our bond language, we make an agreement with them. And when I read that bond language, I can't get this DecoTech stuff. I love that stuff. You know, these interactive boards, they're not projectors, interactive boards, wonderful stuff. But I think we're doing a disservice to the citizens of Newark who pay for this by once the bond is done for 20% and we have a lot more things to do by just adding projects. It's wrong. And I would ask every single board member to vote no on this because There may be a lot of implications. The CBOC may come to the conclusion that it's a wrong use of the bond. The CAOBOC make to the conclusions that there's a lot of districts in California who get bad references, and the board members will get damages because they approve things for Prop 39 bonds that are not valid. And so if you're not sure, get legal opinion. But I think it's pretty clear. I hope every board member read the bond language. And, you know, all these projects are either for an earthquake or safety or hazardous materials or energy saving. It's pretty clear. The list of items is clear. And we have so many things to do. Vanner on his exit came with a whole list of things that we need to do. You know, HVACs, door locks. the parts that need replacement or demolishing and hopefully something for the lab or something else that we have left. So again, I ask every individual board member to vote no on this because I think it is wrong, it is illegal to not come through what you promised the voter.

[8259] Nancy Thomas: Thank you. Did you want to address this?

[8263] SPEAKER_13: Yeah, we can respond to that. Kai, would you please read the actual language into the record?

[8271] SPEAKER_28: Sure. On the bond measure G, appendix A5, states that the upgrading of technology infrastructure includes, but it is not limited to, computers, LCD projectors, portable interface devices, servers, switches, routers, modules, devices, sound projections, systems, laser printers, digital whiteboards, document projectors, upgrade of voice over IP systems, call manager, network security, firewalls, wireless technology, and other miscellaneous equipment and software. So it does include LCD projectors.

[8318] SPEAKER_13: Would you like to see that?

[8321] Nancy Thomas: Yeah. Go ahead. So this is part of our bond?

[8330] SPEAKER_28: That is correct. It was written in the bond measure. It's on appendix A5.

[8338] Nancy Thomas: So that paragraph that public has been citing doesn't specifically say that, but it's...

[8352] SPEAKER_28: This goes into more detail, the SIM death, as compared to the general bond statement.

[8359] Nancy Thomas: OK, so we wouldn't have the grand jury coming in and saying we're not doing something correctly with the bond?

[8372] SPEAKER_28: That is correct, because it is written in the bond measure.

[8390] Nancy Thomas: Does the public have access to this information?

[8395] SPEAKER_28: That I don't know. That I do not know, but we can post that on our website or something. Yes, we can do that.

[8403] SPEAKER_11: It's not currently on the Baltimore website.

[8415] Nancy Thomas: We can't post it. Well, what the staff recommend, we can post it.

[8418] SPEAKER_13: We can post that easily. We still do recommend approval.

[8424] SPEAKER_19: I'll move to approve. I'll second.

[8431] Nancy Thomas: Please vote. Three ayes, the measure passes.

[8440] SPEAKER_13: We can post that ASAP.

[8448] Nancy Thomas: Okay, next we move on to our resolution declaring reinstatement of previously surplus property. I've got it. Bus number two and bus number six. Yeah. Mr. Nguyen, would you like to comment on that?

[8487] SPEAKER_28: Yeah, so we're going to be putting the two surplus buses back into production because maintenance and operations and transportation is running a grant. So what's going to happen is that we're going to receive two, five electrical buses and then we ship back five used buses to the organization.

[8516] Nancy Thomas: So, okay. May I have a motion? I move acceptance. I'll second. Okay. Please vote. Three ayes. Next we have the monthly, I think there was someone that wanted to speak to 12.4, but we'll take 12.3, monthly business transaction report for July. I would like to say that on this issue that I've had some discussions with the superintendent, with our CBO, and I find that report not very useful and I've been told that staff is going to look at it and hopefully make it into something that is useful but in the meantime I would move or we have to have three people here to vote we should pick a three-minute recess I'd like to go okay let's take a three-minute recess please thank you maybe three and a half okay on monthly business report.

[8871] Cary Knoop: Thank you for including that report. That's really very useful, and I know the board is really anxious to see that every month, to see where we are tracking things, especially when it comes to the adult ed fund. You know, several citizens have asked in the last meeting about some details about the adult ed fund. We haven't gotten a reply, not in this meeting, not after the meeting, and hopefully we will be served with a reply. Citizens, as well as I know board members, are very concerned about the way the adult fund is run. The idea was that the board was going to say no deficit spending on that account, and that we have to be really proactive and make sure that this actually is not happening. Just a little bit about the report. So I think I agree with Ms. Thomas, that there's some problems with the report. I think the balance report is excellent. It really shows you where we are, and the percentage column shows, like, you know, in relation to the year, where we are. So that's extremely useful information. The other report, though, I think can use a lot of improvement by translating some of these codes. These codes are like hieroglyphics. I mean, unless you really know these account codes, it's just not very readable. I would suggest to have translations of this code. You have to look up tables and stuff like that. And so you can show better ways. And thirdly, I think, especially with that report, because it's quite a bit of data, it would be nice to have that also in an Excel format so people can sum it up or slice it any way they want. But again, I'm really happy that this report is back here. And I'm sure the FICMAT people, if not they're already visited, are going to be happy with that. Thank you.

[8977] Nancy Thomas: Thank you. Any comments? Would you like to make a motion? Three ayes, thank you. Donations report? I'll move to approve. I'll second. Please vote. Three ayes, thank you.

[9011] SPEAKER_19: Would you like to read? Donation, in-kind donation of a washing machine and a dryer for Newark Memorial High School. The donor, Mr. Jim Perry. A specified purpose, washing costumes in the drama department. Thank you. Donation, $280 for Newark Junior High School. Near Cause LLC, trustee for PG&E, specified purpose is a school use as determined by the principal. Donation $1,266.96 for Newark Memorial High School. Donor, Cougar Athletic Booster Club. Specified purpose, transportation for athletics. Donation $425 for Graham Elementary. Donor, Philanthropic Ventures Foundation. Specified purpose, special ed resource grant for Ms. Ramona Sosa's classroom. Donation, in-kind donation of hand tools for MLT, maintenance operations and transportation. Donor, Mr. Pat Sanchez. Specified purpose, district use as determined by MLT. Donation, in-kind donation of office supplies for Newark Memorial High School. Donor, donorschoose.org. Specified purpose, Ms. Jessica Ochoa's classroom. Total, $1,971.96. Thank you to all the donors. Thank you.

[9096] SPEAKER_31: I just wanted to make a comment, and that has to do with three of these particular items are examples of someone taking something they're no longer using and giving it to the school district in a usable form. And I think that that's sort of in the history of what we do in Newark. And it's delightful to see that it's more than just money, it's in kind. And I think that's marvelous. Thank you.

[9116] Nancy Thomas: And sort of on the other side of that, when we do get a donation, such as the washer and dryer, Is that supposed to go through the business office first to make sure that any cost associated with installation or the ongoing maintenance and use of it fits within our ongoing needs?

[9139] SPEAKER_28: Yes.

[9140] Nancy Thomas: Thank you. It's backwards, yeah. OK. The Bowler Strategic Advisors is the next item. Superintendent?

[9154] SPEAKER_13: Basically, as I described earlier, this is a contract where they're going to serve as an on-demand, as-needed communications team. However, I do know that we would like to see more deliverables in the contract, but they have agreed, and I talked to Volare this afternoon after talking with a couple of board members on this item, that they will provide monthly updates on what they deliver each month so the board has a monthly report as to what they're doing for us for the money.

[9184] Nancy Thomas: I'm sorry, go ahead. Ms. Crocker and then Mr. Preciado.

[9189] SPEAKER_31: I'm wondering, it indicated that it's from your fund. How much you were talking about, is that most of your fund that you have discretion on?

[9199] SPEAKER_13: Yes. Well, Kai, would you describe?

[9203] SPEAKER_28: Go ahead, please. Yes, it's out of the general fund.

[9212] SPEAKER_31: But there's a certain percentage that the superintendent has the ability to spend, or is it just because it's under $10,000?

[9218] SPEAKER_13: This is within my threshold, but I did want to bring it to the board on the front end and not do it kind of on the back end. Really, largely because I felt a lot of urgency around this item for communication after talking with the enrollment committee. And some of the direction from the board was try to move on as quick as possible, but I just We don't have someone here in house that I can just hand this to you. We do need some support. In fact, if this is approved tonight, I have a meeting scheduled tomorrow morning at 10 a.m. to get them started on some critical items immediately.

[9252] SPEAKER_19: Mr. Preciado. My understanding, because it's under your threshold and your prerogative, that it's already signed, so like on page 14, agree with above-reference terms, signed, and then the contract is signed. What you're asking is for board support for this buy-in so that we move forward.

[9274] SPEAKER_13: Well, it's kind of front-end gratification. Instead of bringing it to you after I've done it to ratify it later, if there's any discomfort from the board now, we still can pull back and not do this. But I'd rather ratify it on the front end and kind of be really transparent of what we're up to with this. And even though it is only seven months, at least that's seven months where we have a tool in place where currently we don't have one.

[9302] SPEAKER_19: My last comment would be, so where I'm at, unless there's a specific language that we can add or some sort of message that has the monthly deliverable report, I won't be able to support it unless it has that from my perspective.

[9318] Nancy Thomas: I would agree with that. I really feel that it's very open-ended and doesn't have any deliverables, so if we can get monthly reports on what's being been delivered given that it's only a seven month project but you know for for things like this I think there should be more specific plans associated with with the item but I'm okay with it if I did speak with volare and they will be providing a monthly deliverable report I can make it more explicit if the board chooses wants me to do that in writing with them

[9356] SPEAKER_13: But I do think that any delay in getting this started will definitely set us back in our initiative. But I don't think that a monthly deliverable report from Air Conversation, they didn't feel like it was a problem at all to provide that.

[9370] Nancy Thomas: Ms. Crocker?

[9371] SPEAKER_31: I'm concerned that this is $50,000 that is going to be for seven months, that at the end of seven months, we need to be able to function on our own with the staff that we have. And if this will be a start, and if you're talking about getting funding from the other groups, CCE, SS?

[9391] SPEAKER_13: I'm hoping that that does occur. I am planning to probably leverage that as much as possible. There are some things that Valera will provide that is training staff. The customer service training is something we want to launch immediately for all front office staff and staff that deals with the public directly. That's something that would train staff that would stay beyond it. We are looking at if there's aspects of how we can take on some of the social media monitoring or continue the newsletter ourself. We do want to have ownership of whatever is created. So we own those documents so we don't have to buy our own documents back. So we would have intellectual property of what is created to be able to tweak and modify to go forward. So there is some of it that would be ramped up for us to maintain with existing staff. But we needed an initial launch and I feel this is kind of the best way and probably the best price I've been able to find in my shopping around.

[9451] SPEAKER_31: When in the past when we've addressed this particular need. We've always felt that we did not have the money for someone that was going to be, this is going to be their primary thing to do. So this is maybe half of a person. So I think that there needs to be, make sure that we have something that enables us to continue. So there's value for what's been happening. Because it's important to start the process, but we also have to have the ability to maintain that. I agree. Thank you. OK. I'm finished. I will move to accept.

[9491] Nancy Thomas: I'll second it. Please vote. Three ayes, thank you. Proposed membership for the 2019-20 local control and accountability.

[9511] SPEAKER_41: Good evening. Good evening. This evening, Ms. Robin Sert, who's our Director of Special Projects, will speak to our LCAP committee and she will give some updates of some important dates that we want everyone to take note of and start to save the date for. So, Ms. Sert.

[9531] SPEAKER_40: Good evening, President Thomas and school board members and Superintendent Sanchez and cabinet. I'm excited to share with you we have a name from every school site, at least one, to participate in our LCAP process this year. According to the bylaws, our membership ended on October 1st, unless they are a two-year member. And so that's why we wanted to bring the names earlier to you this year. We are going to start our first LCAP meeting on October 17th. That was feedback that we heard loud and clear last year was to start earlier. So we're hoping that you approve the names tonight so we can get started on October 17th. We also do have a save the date for you for January 24th where we're gonna have a community event. 9 to 11 in the morning and then 6 to 8 in the evening, same event, but giving the community an opportunity to come in and give us input for our LCAP as well.

[9592] SPEAKER_31: Questions? I see some awfully good names on this. You've got some really nice people that I think should make for a good organization.

[9602] SPEAKER_40: It's a nice balance of some people continuing and some new people. So it would be great to have the historical perspective and then some new voices as well.

[9611] Nancy Thomas: Very good. Can you share a little bit about the, oh, I'm sorry, Mr. Burciaga, next.

[9616] SPEAKER_19: So I was just going to ask in terms of, because I remember the last time the approach was incorporate as many parents as possible, which is still our framework. But then the issue was that there was no commitment. So can you tell me, can you touch a little bit on that?

[9631] SPEAKER_40: Yeah, so our bylaws call for that every school can have a maximum of three participants. And so we'll be working with those bylaws at the first meeting to really look at equity and voice from every site. So regardless if you have one member or you have three, there'll be one vote. And the main thing we're voting on is minutes of our meetings. The rest are recommendations that the committee makes.

[9656] SPEAKER_31: I move acceptance.

[9659] Nancy Thomas: I'll second. I'll second it.

[9663] SPEAKER_19: I just have one last question. For Gramatis, is it Gutierrez? I think the I might be after the T, unless I misread that.

[9672] SPEAKER_40: Oh, it's a typo. We can fix that.

[9673] SPEAKER_19: Yeah, only so that we don't have to. Oh, yes.

[9676] Nancy Thomas: All right. OK, please vote. Three ayes. Thank you for staying this late. Yes, thank you. So next we move on to board policy 3515.21. This would be a first read for discussion. Unmanned aircraft system drones. Did you want to say something?

[9721] SPEAKER_41: Just that educational services continues to work on board policies. We thought this one was kind of interesting to bring forward. Mr. Larry weighed in on this one too, but yes, so we bring it forward. We can certainly bring it back for a second reading, but we're continuing to cull through new board policies. This is a brand new one from CSBA.

[9741] Nancy Thomas: Okay, thank you. Well, we'll pull that over for another second reading at the next meeting. Employee organizations, Ms. Eustis, and thank you for staying late as well. Excuse me, we need to extend our meeting. Oh, that's right. I will entertain a motion to extend the meeting. We have what left to do?

[9763] SPEAKER_31: We have consent. Consent and comments. 10.30, was that? I move to extend the meeting until 10. Actually, let's go quarter to 11. We'll get done by 10.30, but quarter to 11.

[9778] Nancy Thomas: OK, I second that. Please vote. Three ayes. Okay, Ms. Eustis.

[9790] SPEAKER_30: Good evening, everybody. I don't have a lot of new things to report, but we're going to be having our chapter meeting on the 8th, and we are going to be taking nominations for the elected offices of CSC and President, Vice President, Secretary, Treasurer. And so those will be happening on the 8th, but we also are going to have a second meeting with the candidates from the school board. and we will be interviewing them on the 10th. And so we're looking forward to that. I would like to say that I am on the enrollment committee. And I am very pleased to be there. I am very happy with the interaction of all the employees, whether they be teachers, whether they be administrators or classified. Everybody is heard. We all get to participate. And it's been a wonderful opportunity to come together and join and try to solve a problem. And I think we're off to a good start. And I think we're going to be doing that. So hopefully, I have some more good things for you next month. Thank you. Thank you.

[9860] Nancy Thomas: personnel report, consent agenda. Oh, I'm sorry. Is there anyone from NTA? No, we're good. OK, I'm sorry. I move acceptance. I just saw her, so I thought I'd ask. Yeah. OK, is there a second? I'll second. Please vote. Three ayes, thank you. Next, we have The consent agenda 15.1 through 15.6.

[9892] SPEAKER_19: I move to approve 15.1 to 15.6.

[9897] SPEAKER_31: I second that. Please vote.

[9907] Nancy Thomas: Three ayes, thank you. Next, we move on to the student expulsions. There is one case.

[9918] SPEAKER_19: I move to approve the recommendation.

[9922] SPEAKER_31: I would second that. Please vote.

[9931] Nancy Thomas: Three ayes. Thank you. So I don't think it'll take until 1030. No, it won't. OK. Ms. Crocker?

[9946] SPEAKER_31: Actually, I just want to say that I went to the football game last Friday. It's been a while since I've been to a football game. And it was cold. So when you go, make sure you warm up. Talking with people in the snack shack, they said they're looking to encourage the students to make it a Friday night date night as a good kind of activity. And the prices are very reasonable for the food, which is really kind of interesting. You have a hot dog steal for $3. Can't find that kind of a deal anyplace. It was very well done. The band was lovely. The team was an exciting game, just a very exciting game. They really worked hard and had some wonderful plays. And it was just sort of a fun fall activity. And I encourage anybody in the community that is interested to go, it's a reasonable price. If you're over 62, it's free. How about that? So those people that are that age, that's marvelous. for some reason I don't have the date down for the the city meeting that we have what is the date on that sure Monday October 15th and if I could have input on the agenda by this Friday I will be posting that agenda the following Monday okay thank you very much came on the October 15th I think that's it

[10029] Nancy Thomas: OK. I had the opportunity to visit Schilling School with the superintendent today. It was very nice. We visited three classrooms, saw a lot of learning going on, and had a nice chat with the principal. Very impressive plans moving forward. Also, as part of my CSBA duties, I am on the validation team for a grant from the Tri-Valley ROP. which in partnership with Las Positas Community College or, yeah, Community College is got a middle school, middle college program that is extremely impressive. They have 140, they've had two years of a pilot and now they have 140 students this year at two grade levels and their students can get up to 1,000 units of college credit and so virtually they have one free year of college if they are in the program for two years. It's really something I would hope that we could look at it and it worked out very nicely because the ROP there has three districts that they're supporting so it's very it seems like it's similar to our Ohlone connections except for two years and if it were If we were to do something like that in cooperation with ROP being the fiscal agent, we could invite and hopefully work with all three of our Mission Valley ROP districts to institute that program with Ohlone College. And just think of the money that students can save, not to mention the students we talked to just thoroughly. It's been life changing for them. Not that they weren't doing OK in a comprehensive high school, but they felt much more fulfilled and comfortable in the college. So it's something to think about.

[10155] SPEAKER_19: Thank you. So I have an announcement that I'd like to make in the form of a written statement. So bear with me here. It's a letter. Dear Newark family. It is with a heavy heart that I submit my resignation as a Newark Unified School District board member, effective October 15, 2018. As a lifelong Newark resident, I have loved serving my community in various capacities. I am resigning due to the fact that I will be moving. After years of raising our children, coaching soccer teams, and attending community college, my wife has been accepted to a four-year university. In order to prioritize my family, I cannot continue to serve as a board member. I am grateful for the opportunity to have served as part of the district team to push forward a new vision for Newark Unified. I'm glad to have worked with Superintendent Sanchez, fellow board members, and the hardworking employees pushing to make Newark better. I am excited that we are moving forward with engaging the community on a much needed strategic plan and facilities master plan. As I've expressed at various board meetings, if we don't have concrete targets of where we're going, then it's difficult to measure the progress we've accomplished. I hope we continue updating our curriculum to be in line with A through G standards, as we've recently done with the K through 12 math curriculum. I also hope we continue to improve our communication with the broader community. Although I feel there have been many accomplishments these last couple years, we need to continue pushing to do better. Unfortunately, like many organizations, there are always people working to oppose accomplishing the fundamental purpose of our work, which is to provide a world-class education for all of our students. In order to push the district to continue improving, I urge parents to engage at all levels. Volunteer at your child's school, participate in parent-teacher activities, speak up at board meetings. Sometimes it is easier to criticize when we don't have all the facts, so I would urge parents to get the information they need in order to advocate for the success of their child. The more parents are engaged, the better our district will be. Lastly, I would urge anyone who is interested in making our community better, to run for the school board and advocate for academic excellence for our kids. Sincerely, Francisco Preciado, Jr.

[10299] Nancy Thomas: Congratulations on your wife getting her degree and on your move. And I'm sure the community down there is going to be better off for you being involved with your children in their schools.

[10316] SPEAKER_19: It was a hard decision, and I have to think about it. It's just with, I mean, family comes first, and there's no way I can juggle the different priorities. And my wife has support. As I noted, my wife has supported me in my educational career and my goals. And it's my turn to support her, and that's why we're a team. And yeah, that's why it's with a heavy heart. I really wish I could. fulfill the rest of the term. I did say October 15 in case you need me to call in, whatever, so that if there's some sort of meeting that comes up that I can call in. But otherwise, I have to step down as a board member.

[10358] SPEAKER_31: I would like to thank you for your contributions in the short time you've been on the board. I think that you have given us directions and an approach to look at problems. that has really been a very positive thing. I know your heart is where it needs to be to be on the board. And I'm going to personally miss you because I would listen for how you approach things and how you look at things. And it's always been very informative and very much a help for me in terms of clarifying issues. So I'm excited for you. I think that what you're doing is exciting. And you know, this is not meant to be your lifetime work. This is meant to be something that we're doing. And you've got a lot of things that you're going to be doing in your life. And so just keep us posted what's happening, those beautiful children and your beautiful wife. And I'm going to be down in Santa Barbara because that's where my granddaughter is. I may have a chance to see you.

[10419] SPEAKER_19: And I'll still be working up here in the Bay Area and be going back and forth, so representing workers and fighting for workers' rights. I'm glad to do that.

[10429] Nancy Thomas: So you may come back to this area, and we may encourage you to run for the board again at some future time.

[10438] SPEAKER_19: If the community will have me, then I would love to come back in the future.

[10442] Nancy Thomas: Wow. I want to echo what Jan said. We're going to miss you and appreciate all your contributions and your insight and your cogent comments regarding the issues that are before us. Thank you. Wow. Superintendent.

[10461] SPEAKER_13: Tough act to follow. I would just say quickly that Mr. Preciado, as a superintendent, it's not easy to hear that. You will have very big shoes to fill for whoever steps in in your shadow. And to have someone on the board who has been a product of the system is rare. And you've never wavered from having a heart for our kids, and I'll always admire that. As your friend, I definitely, this is not the end. We'll be working together. I'll be calling you for advice still and nagging you. So that won't stop. But I do wish you and your family the best. You have a beautiful family and your priorities are on straight. So I commend you for that. I have nothing to report. Thank you. Meeting adjourned. Thank you.

No minutes available.