Regular Meeting

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[2] Nancy Thomas: And item, there are forms in the back. And you would be limited to three minutes for your comments. Also, with a group this size, we have our assistant down here taking notes. And it's really important that she be able to hear what's happening. So if you have something you need to say, please take it outside, and far outside, so that we don't get interrupted and we can keep the minutes on and hear everything that's going on up here at the dais. OK? Thank you. I understand we have a student from Lincoln School who is willing to lead us in the pledge. Would she please come forward and identify her? It's not a she, it's a he. Would he please come forward, identify who you are, and lead us?

[59] SPEAKER_10: OK? I am Aiden Manns from Lincoln Elementary. Well, welcome.

[64] Leonor Rebosura: I'm happy to be here.

[76] SPEAKER_10: I pledge of allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

[93] Nancy Thomas: We have just returned from closed session where we discussed the superintendent's evaluation, employee discipline dismissal release, conference with labor negotiators, NTNCSEA, conference with legal counsel regarding existing litigation. So with that, we will move on to the superintendent. calling on our student reports.

[124] SPEAKER_13: OK. Representatives. Thank you, President Thomas, members of the board, ladies and gentlemen. At this time, I'd like to invite representative from Newark Junior High forward if they're ready to provide their report. Any students here from Newark Junior High? OK. Hearing none yet, we'll move on. Is anyone here from McGregor campus? There we go. Welcome.

[147] SPEAKER_28: Thank you. Good evening, Superintendent Sanchez, board members, and cabinet members. My name is Autumn Duran, a graduating senior at Crossroads Independent Studies Program. This will be my last board meeting tonight because I graduated early. Thank you. Over 25 Bridgepoint students attended the Ohlone field with Mission Valley ROP on Friday, March 15th. Fourth quarter for Bridgepoint and Crossroads begin on April 1st. There will be approximately five new students at Bridgepoint. Over 25 Bridgepoint students attended Hamilton yesterday. Everyone was excited about the opportunity to see the show. Thank you for listening and have a nice night.

[191] Nancy Thomas: Thank you.

[198] SPEAKER_13: Cesar from Newark Memorial High School. Is anyone else here besides you?

[201] SPEAKER_16: No, it's just me. Thank you, Superintendent Sanchez. So 11th graders in Newark Memorial are currently taking the English language arts portion of the SBAC this week. We started testing on Tuesday, and we'll be going until tomorrow. The junior and senior prom will be held next Saturday at 7 PM. Students will be meeting up at Pier 3, and then we'll board the yacht for four hours of dancing, eating, and all-around fun. Seniors are getting more college decisions on the list here. Josh Billman has been admitted to Chico State, San Diego State, and San Jose State. Parker Atwell has been admitted to UC Merced. Sienna Burghardt has been admitted to Columbia, NYU, and Sacramento State. Indigo Coleman has been admitted to St. Mary's and Pepperdine. And our last board rep, Sierra Van Rossum, has been admitted to Menlo College on a wrestling scholarship. So we're all very proud of all of them. And last but not least, the Rocketry Club will hold its final qualifying launch this Saturday, 7.30 a.m. behind O'oneill-Newark campus. The board and members of the public are welcome to attend if you want to see what's going on. Thank you. Thank you.

[278] Nancy Thomas: Next, we move on to our school spotlight. Who would like to introduce that item?

[285] SPEAKER_30: This evening we have Lincoln Elementary School. A big round of applause for Lincoln. Principal Angela Ehrlich will lead us through the information about her great school.

[299] SPEAKER_19: Good evening board members, board president, cabinet, parents and students. My name is Angela Ehrlich. Principal at Lincoln Elementary School. I would like to first of all talk about our mission statement. Our mission is to create a challenging child-centered environment where students are empowered to develop intellectually, physically, aesthetically, and emotionally.

[338] SPEAKER_19: So this is what our demographics look like. Our enrollment is 400 students. And as you can tell, we also are a Title I school based on our percentage of free and reduced lunch. And Lincoln is a high-performing Title I school, which serves students from traditional kindergarten through sixth grade school. Some of our achievements are due to the commitments of our staff, our parents to student success and Lincoln was recognized in the past three years as an honor roll school and recently recognized as a top Bay Area public school for underserved students. Now to highlight our goals and focus, Lincoln is a school where our innovative staff strives to create and maintain a learning environment that enables every student the opportunity to reach their highest potential academically, socially, and behaviorally. We challenge our students with strong rigorous academic program, technology integrated curriculum, and offer differentiated differentiation of instruction at all grade levels as to prepare them for the 21st century skills needed to be successful. Our goal is to have all students aim for the highest potential and our motto is to soar through excellence. And these are the areas I'm going to be covering briefly tonight. Our first is a PBIS, which stands for Positive Behavior Intervention and Support. And the purpose of PBIS is to make our school more effective, equitable in our learning environment by reinforcing positive behavior. Our students are trained in these expectations and positive behaviors are reinforced by students receiving a copy of the Leaping Leopards, which goes into a weekly drawing and 12 student names are selected. every Monday morning during our morning announcements. In line with our positive behavior intervention and support is our response to intervention. And we are committed to support each student's individual need and have adopted the RTI philosophy of our students versus my students. And that means that through assessment data, we try to group students into needs-based intervention, provide them with the quality purposeful intervention that best supports the student's need. And in order to do that, we have had to coordinate our schedule to protect core instruction. We're doing our best to make sure that students are not being pulled from intervention during their core instruction, which will cause further deficit in knowledge and skills. Now teachers collaborate to determine and develop common formative assessments which are aimed to target prerequisite skills as well as understanding the new concepts. These are generally quick tests that can help specifically target what the students need and to be on track to achieve the desired standard. And we go through the process of response to intervention. We plan, we document, and we deliver. rigorous intervention, we reassess the situation, and then turn around to determine the next step for each student that's in our intervention program. So now PLC is the core of our meetings, and these are times that students collaborate with each other. And the collaboration consists of analyzing student data, aligning curriculum with grade-level partners, creating common formative assessments, and then planning and documenting Tier 1 and Tier 2 interventions, and then standardized behavioral expectation and teaching strategies. Now, during this time, teachers develop common core units, and they discuss and they share best practices. And this is what our last CAS score looked like. We increased by eight points in English language arts. And this is what we currently look like this year. If you look at the triangle, there in three tiers, the green, orange, and the red. The green is where we wanted to increase. And if you look at that, there was a 14% growth in tier one. And these are students that are on and above grade level when you compare the fall assessment to the winter assessment. And there was a decline in 10% in tier two. And that is students who are just one grade level below. and we want that number to decline because most of our students have moved on to the green area and there was a 4% which is the red area, a decline in students who are two or more grade levels below. And how did we improve? And these are the things that we've done to improve ELA. We're offering readers workshop, writers workshop, accelerated grammar. Teachers are focusing on students. And we're using an RTI model. And reading instructions are targeted by classroom teachers in conjunction with our reading specialist, our ELD teacher, and also our bilingual aides. In addition to these programs, the teachers are focused on ensuring rigor in students' tasks and talks. The 50-50 rule requires students to speak in complete sentences with an emphasis on academic vocabulary. And in math, we showed a three-point increase in math. And currently, this is what we look like in math. We have shown a 25% growth in Tier 1 for students who are on and above grade level. When you compare the winter to the fall assessment, the green section, and then 19 percent decline in Tier 2, which we want to decline because most of the kids have moved up to the green section, and a 7 percent decline in students that are at risk for Tier 3, and these are students who are two or more grade level below. So this is what we currently look like. And how do we improve our math? Along with Big Ideas Math Program, which we adopted, we've also embanked on Silicon Valley Math Initiatives, which are practices promoting critical analysis and thinking. These strategies allow students to mentally solve math problems, verbalize their understanding of math concepts start. Lincoln teachers are receiving training and administering performance task marks assessments in addition to exit tickets to help guide math instruction. In addition, we're supplementing our math program by adding on Khan Academy, which is accessible to all students, Zurn 10 max, and most importantly, we are targeting instruction to meet the student's need, and this is what the classroom teacher, the intervention teacher, and also the bilingual aids are assisting in math. In line with STEAM, this year we started the A in STEAM, which is art. So we expose our students to 21st century skills with an emphasis in creativity through art, integrating art into their lesson. Our students have discussed and talked about Claude Monet, Camille Sausson, John Philip Sousa, Henry Rousseau, Villa Lobos, and they're going to be going through the Fame Program with Leonardo da Vinci and Beethoven. So, we're using the FAME curriculum, which is the Find Out Mini Experience. In addition, we're offering many after school enrichment programs, such as the Art Factory, which is facilitated by a parent, the Young Rembrandt, as well as some performing arts. We have an ongoing choir. And we now, this year, have invited the theater factory where students will be participating in a drama. And the play they're working on right now is called the Ugly Buckling with the choir. For next year, as we look at the 19-20 school year, We are implementing the T in STEAM, which stands for technology, and in preparations, my teachers have attended classes at Code for Fun, and they're learning how to code by using the Scratch program, which will be integrated into the curriculum. Some of my teachers are so excited, they came back, and they've already started coding. My second graders are already coding. We offer many activities for students to join in, ranging from student leadership, the ability for students to be young authors, a computer class, girls who are interested in running, the choir, the theater, chess, transformative life skills, the art factory, Young Rembrandt, music for minors, and so on. So we have ample activities that students can participate in after school. In line with that, parents are an integral part of Lincoln, offering support throughout the campus. When schools and families and community groups work together to support learning, children tend to do better in school. They like school more and achieve academic success. So expanding parent engagement efforts to assist parents in supporting their students' learning in school is very, very vital to us. And these are numerous activities that parents can participate We have the PALS, the ELAC school site council. We also offer parent education and currently we have a nutrition class ongoing with our ELAC parents. We have a fourth grade community event as a way of bringing all the parents and the students together. We offer science fair and movie nights. So there's plenty of opportunity for our students, for our parents to participate in school. And finally, I would like to invite the board and cabinet members to join us in our fine art mini experience. And we're going to be talking about Leonardo da Vinci and the composer Beethoven. So this is happening April the 15th from 8.30 to 1.40. So if you're interested, please swing by to see what we're doing as far as fame is concerned. And on that note, I am proud and honored to be the principal of this great school. Way to go, Lincoln. I also would like to use this time to acknowledge members of our communities, our teachers, our parents, and our students who have taken this time tonight to support Lincoln's spotlight. So parents, students, and staff, can you please stand and be recognized? And thank you for the opportunity for me to brag about my school.

[1052] Nancy Thomas: Thank you. Well, it's certainly much deserved. And congratulations on your recent award. Could you explain a little bit more about why you got it and what it is?

[1063] SPEAKER_19: They looked at our test scores, our last CASP test scores, and they looked at it in comparison. And they found that we were pretty much closing the achievement gap for our underserved students. how we were nominated.

[1078] Nancy Thomas: Well, congratulations. And congratulations on the growth in your test scores in the last CASP scores. Thank you. Thank you. So one last thing. Let's look at the the bulletin board in the back, and it shows all of the wonderful work that has been going on at Lincoln School. Yeah, take time to peruse it if you get a chance. Thanks. OK, next, we move on to public comment on non-agenda items. And as you know, there's a three-minute time limit. And you will see up on the screen, it'll turn red when you have 30 seconds left. OK, and first I'd like to call up Nicole Eisendt. I think she's by the door. I saw her earlier.

[1165] Nicole Izant: Okay. Hi, good evening to the audience and to the board member. Do you want me to time start? Oh, up there. Okay. That one doesn't work. Okay. Great. So I'm just here to make a couple comments, some observations about a committee. I don't know if it's actually a committee, a district meeting that was held on the 27th. It was a revenue generation discussion with some members of the public, including stakeholders such as parents, staff, students. And some of the folks up here were there as well. I first of all want to thank the people who put that meeting on because it was a great idea to actually reach out to your stakeholders to get their input on ways of generating revenue for the district. I wanted to point out that a lot of the parents that were attending, or they may not have been parents, they may have been guardians or public whatever participants, didn't really have a baseline knowledge of what they needed to have to be able to kind of productively participate in the discussion. And a lot of questions came up like how is ADA calculated, does an absent child with a doctor's note, does the district still get money from the state and so on and so forth. Those questions come up in almost every public forum and it's been asked numerous times, I know by all the committees and meetings that I've attended. If the district on their website could possibly put up some sort of informational one-pager explaining kind of like the basics of budgets, how we get the ADA money, what is an independent study, if my child completes their contract, will the district get money that way, et cetera, et cetera. I would urge you in your documentation on the site to provide that baseline information so that the public can participate actively and provide constructive suggestions. especially in forums as important as revenue generation. The second point I'd like to make is that many of the parents took time. I know I took time off of work to commute from the peninsula to come over. And a lot of us spent two hours there. And it was, you know, well-intentioned. It could have used a little bit more structure and I provided my feedback separately. But it seems like several of the ideas that were proposed by the parents are already being investigated by Superintendent Sanchez. And so I would suggest that also on the webpage you put the results of the research into those ideas so that we don't waste parents and stakeholder time if you are already developing those types of studies and you have actual data that you can share with us. So please be transparent, share that information up front, and really maximize the parents and stakeholder time when you have us joining these types of meetings. Thank you.

[1336] Nancy Thomas: The board typically does not respond to non-agenda item requests, but I'm sure my colleagues and I would be grateful for staff to take notes and take heed of some of these suggestions. OK, next, we have two individuals that would like to come together, Veronica Tomes and Zoila Aria? Avila. What is it? Avila. Oh, Avila. Taurus. Oh, Veronica, Taurus. It looks like tomes to me. Taurus. I should know what these are. You're going to have to have your help me.

[1389] Maria Huffer: Try to crowd it back in.

[1397] SPEAKER_29: Good evening. Right here. Okay. Good evening, members of the board, community. We are here to share with you our majority report from our first Latino Summit held last February. And here is the information for you. For too many years, Latinx students and families have been underserved and undervalued, and Latinx students have underperformed in the Newark Unified School District. As more and more parents began to talk and gather, it became evident that the NUSD needed to begin to listen and address the parent concerns. It is critical that the board recognize that Latin students represent the majority of the NUSD enrollment. And concerns of this community have been largely ignored for years. Latinx parents have a longstanding and growing concern about how this district is serving their students and what the district is going to do to help Latinx students and families to be more successful. Specifically, how is this district addressing the predictability of Latin students performing at the lowest levels when this group is the 53.8% of the total student population of the Newark Unified School District? Parents agreed that the summit was necessary in order to bring families together to voice concerns and generate solution for consideration by the Board of Education.

[1507] SPEAKER_59: On February 22nd, 2019, over 170 Latin families and community members gathered on Ohlone College, sorry, I have a cold, Ohlone College campus in Newark. Parents and guardians and community members revealed the national state and district students' performance data from the Latinx students once familiar with the shocking and unacceptable trends, the participants were cursed in smaller groups to identify priority solutions and steps to begin to interrupt the low performance of the Latinx students. Below, I think, and we sent you a report already, and below that there are top three methods that were identified and the following pages are the data. We asked the board seriously to consider the contents of this report direct action in the next step to intervene. And on behalf of our students' parents, look forward to our response as they plan to convince regularly on this and any other understanding issue and arise. Thank you. We gave you guys the reports already.

[1586] SPEAKER_29: Thank you. I just want to finish with this. We are, I say, Latin parent, we care about our children's education. And we are here to help you, work with you to make good changes. But these changes have to be include all the students, all the students please. Thank you. Thank you.

[1617] Nancy Thomas: Angela Lee.

[1627] SPEAKER_07: Hello. Thank you, everyone at the board and everyone at the audience and everything. First of all, I'd like to start by thanking NUSD for recognizing that today is National School Library Day. I was actually coming up here to announce that next week is National Library Week, which is sponsored by the American Library Association. And their theme today is libraries equal strong communities. And April is actually School Library Month, which is sponsored by the American Association of School Libraries. And so I just wanted to bring that up and so people can, you know, thank the librarians and library clerks. The libraries are a great resource. And if you have a question about the history of your NUSC libraries, please ask us. We're a great resource. One thing that I noticed was in the fiscal recovery plan by Ryland School Business Consulting, it had said that library clerks were reduced from 1 FTE to 0.475 FTE with the exception of the high school librarian who is a 1 FTE in 2017. As part of the history, Library clerks have always been 19 and a half hours per week and any school that had a library clerk at school for longer than 19 and a half hours was actually, those extra hours were funded by school site plans or school site funds. And so, you know, we'd love to be able to support Newark students more and yeah, that's pretty much what I wanted to bring up. Okay, thank you very much. Thank you.

[1751] Nancy Thomas: Ramon Medina.

[1758] SPEAKER_08: Before you start clocking me, I'd just like to pass this out. Make sure you guys can read it. Good evening. I'd like to thank you All the parents, everyone that's here, it's amazing. Music school. I'd like to start by asking to, I'm here to make sure that you guys know the facts about music school. Last board meeting, Nancy said there was a school with 200 kids and I think she was mentioning music school and I didn't take it lightly. I felt that my daughter, who's in special ed, was insulted. She wasn't counting. So I expect a public apology. I'm sorry. I expect a public apology. We want to make sure that everyone in this board understands the facts about music school. Total students, 328. Preschool, 45. TK through 6, 283 students, OK? 199 students qualify for free and reduced lunch. That's 61%. 125 students are English learning. 35 doesn't mean that they only speak Spanish or English. They speak other languages. Mostly, all those kids' dominant language is English. 15 students are considered homeless. 110 students have IEPs. 34% of that school has IEPs. So when you guys think about closing something, you've got to start thinking about those people. and people who have lawyers. Because I know it's going to cost $500,000 just to execute some with a lawyer. So I'll start thinking. TK, we have teachers, too. I count them all the time. That's my team. Parents and teachers are a team. I'm the president of the PTA there. And the first thing I ask the principal there is, I want the teachers coming in. and they're there. Every time, every meeting, there's a teacher present and I'm proud of that. Special education, there's preschool teachers, four. TK through six, there's 14. Special educational aids, there's 12. Instructional aid, one. PE teachers, one. Science teacher, one. Part-time intervention, there's one. Now they share SPD staff OT, SLP, and APE. I want you guys to understand that's what our school demographic says. If you want to study, we can do it. Parents can do it for you. Don't have to pay $30,000, $25,000. We can help you. Make sure that you understand that this community in Newark, I come from Palo Alto, so I know that we can do the same thing here, and we can do better. I'm in the East Bay for a reason. I moved here. I believe this is the next area where it's going to take massive growth. And I believe in this. But if you don't believe in our schools, then you shouldn't be sitting there. We have 47 paid PTA members, OK? And we got a budget of $21,000. $21,000 for the poorest public school around here, OK? So don't think that we cannot generate and tell you ideas how to budget and how to raise money. PTA supports Ballet for Krotiko, Fire Up Your Feet, Fall Festival, Turkey Trot, Valentine's Dance, Science Camp, Transportation, Teachers Mini Grants, Alumni Scholarships, Yearbooks, Sports, Team Uniforms, Science, Night Dinners, Career Fair Basket, Music for Minors, Fundraiser we're gonna come up. I have I expect some of you guys to show up. Thank you teachers appreciation lunches and taste donation Thank you. I invite you all to those.

[2012] Nancy Thomas: Thank you, and I appreciate that I Apologize if I if I was implying that it was music school, I think And and if it was taken out of context, I will be more clear in the future. So next we have Is that it? Sue Eustis, I know, was there.

[2041] SPEAKER_04: Yeah.

[2049] Nancy Thomas: I just said about making sure that I make comments that are in context. Thank you. Noel, I think Sue Eustis is next.

[2078] SPEAKER_51: I'm Sue Eustice. I'm president of the California School Employees Association, the Newark Chapter 208. Would my classified bargaining unit please stand up? Everybody stand up. We're going to show you what we think of your pay for classified employees is. Okay, just so that you clearly understand. When you are a food service worker and you start with $12.10, you're starting at minimum wage plus 10 cents. That's what our salaries are like. So I'm not being funny and I'm not being mad at you, but I want you to clearly understand where our bargaining unit's coming from. While you were in closed session, it was pointed out to me that 10 years ago, Many of our people would actually wait for positions to open up in our district. While Fremont and the other surrounding districts had slightly higher pay, workers wanted to seek out jobs here in Newark because they felt there were several benefits to working here in Newark. Those benefits were good benefits, healthcare benefits, They also, most of our schools worked together as a team. Everybody was part of the team. We felt respected. We had a decent wage, a fair wage. We had a small tight knit community that worked together, that supported the district. And we genuinely cared for each other. So we cared for the teachers, we cared for the administrators, and we cared for the classified. That is not happening any longer. It has shifted, and people are really concerned about the money that they're making because they're not working for the additional benefits they once had here in Newark. Our health care benefits, there's a pot of money that has not had any improvements to it over the last decade. So there was no money added to that pot. So we have lost the opportunity to have some of our family members covered. Now we're lucky we can cover ourself. We feel disrespected. Our pay has not risen with the cost of living. There is constant turnover to the point that sometimes when we post jobs, you're not even getting qualified applicants anymore. You need to think about what's going on. We are short-staffed in many positions, yet we're still pushed to get the same amount of work done as we did with more people here. This is causing many of our members not to take their breaks and not to take their lunches. We know the kids come first. That's why we do it. This isn't just once in a while, it's all the time. Many of our people are starting to get sick because of the stress that they're having and working here in the district. Classified cannot continue to work this way. You must take the first steps in the right direction. The classified are struggling. We're not elephants and we're tired of working for peanuts. We deserve a fair wage or at least a step in the right direction.

[2312] Nancy Thomas: Sandy Acarizzi. Sandy Acarizzi.

[2318] Jodi Croce: There you are.

[2328] SPEAKER_20: Good evening, esteemed Superintendent Sanchez, Executive Cabinet, Char, our school board, Cesar, I'm very proud of you. My name is Sandy Acarizzi. 0.5%, one half of a percent. What does that look like in real numbers? I have two sets of numbers. The first set, I chose two administrators and one teacher. These numbers are old because the newest ones I could get were 2017. I also have numbers from an office clerk, a library clerk, and a special ed aide. These are real numbers, so that means the gaps are actually a little bit wider. So, I want you to think about what does that half a percent mean, .5 percent. Well, for one admin, it's going to be $592.50 a year. For another, $493.44 a year. And for the teacher, $462.20. Now what does that look like for classified? For classified, for the library clerk, remember all the other numbers were at least three digits. They were in the hundreds. $81.60. Office clerk, $80.30. Special ed aide, $67.05. Divide that for the library clerk, office clerk, special ed over 10 months because they get paid 10 months. So, a lot of our classified, they don't work just one job, they actually work two. And I'm thinking of someone who I knew, she's such a scrapper, she's working three. And these people, They have students here or they did in Newark Unified School District. We have, there's so many of us. I love my district. I love my city. I love my community. And I was able to have my kids go through school here. But some of our classified, they can no longer afford to live here. And when they're moving away, they're taking their children out of our school. So that's part of our declining enrollment. How am I doing on time? Okay. So that is part of our declining enrollment. We're losing our kids. And then our classified who already aren't making enough money. They're all they're having to do commute time and that's causing wear and tear on how they get to work. We need to be able to live and work in our community. I feel extremely fortunate as an office manager. I have an office clerk and I've had many wonderful office clerks who do a lot of what I do. I do have some ultimate responsibilities but there's a lot that we do. But yet, our office clerks are at the very bottom of the pay scale. There's a huge difference between an office clerk and an office manager. And my gosh, to think that my clerk is going to get $80.30, that's $8 a month for 10 months. So, please. Keep us in mind. Keep us in Newark. Keep our students that belong to us in Newark. Thank you. Thank you.

[2537] Nancy Thomas: Noel Doot.

[2550] SPEAKER_17: Good evening. My name is Noel Doot. I'm going to be a little bit of a subject change here. I'm speaking in regards to the look back at special education suggested recently by Ms. Hieronymus of Ryland Consulting. Several years ago, I attended a seminar in Oakland regarding the state of special education in California. Speakers included Senator Ellen Corbett and a number of adults with special needs. The gathering was intended to showcase the success of people with special needs in our communities, but also how the aid they receive will impact the state up until the year 2025. It was both inspiring, but eye-opening. I have special education in my blood. I grew up in a household that included my uncle who had cerebral palsy. My grandmother, before she died, fought for the 1990 ADA Act, Americans with Disabilities. This was a long overdue piece of legislation that should resonate with us all. My grandparents were told to put my uncle in an institution. They didn't do that then and in education we do not do that now. We are a compassionate society and cherish each individual and what they are here to contribute. Is the payoff always the same as a general education student? Perhaps not. Author Rick Rorden is quoted as saying, fairness doesn't mean everyone gets the same. Fairness means everyone gets what they need. So after 25 years in special education in Newark Unified, I have no degree after my name. I can tell you that I do know something about it because I lived it and I've served it for 25 years. It must also be pointed out this district has had many examples of errant or late placement in special education. I personally know teachers who have begged the district to assess students who struggle. Years later, if they get services, other teachers are shaking their heads wondering how it was possible that a sixth grader got to that grade reading at a first grade level and how to now repair the damage. Rarely, it is because the parents didn't want extra help. By then undesirable behaviors may have surfaced and frustration is at an all time high. The point here is that we must be circumspect in our ability to adequately know optimally recognize students with their special needs. The symposium I attended taught me that we can invest in our youth now or we can pay far more later. Be careful when reexamining which students qualify and their needs. The seminar in Oakland showed that people requiring extra support are going to cost the state exponentially more funding as the years go by. However, with education always being the key to independence, we must support all of these students in any way they need. Thank you.

[2746] Nancy Thomas: Jennifer Baines.

[2753] SPEAKER_04: Good evening. My name is Jennifer Baines. I, too, want to comment on the education for the IEP students. My grandson, I started in kindergarten trying to get him IEP help and went all the way to fourth grade before I got help. And then I received a tutor that would come to my house one semester And after that, that was it. And he's in the sixth grade now, and he's reading at a fourth grade level. He's doing third grade math. Even though he's excelling, it's like, where's the help? I don't understand why he's kept getting passed class year after year after year, and nobody did anything. And you guys are supposed to have evaluations on the student's education. My grandson is suffering behind that. And I don't think it's fair. I have to go out and buy extra tutoring help just to get him to where he needs to be. I think that is one thing that definitely has to be looked at.

[2819] Maria Huffer: Thank you.

[2828] Nancy Thomas: Next, we move on to the superintendent's report.

[2834] SPEAKER_13: Members of the board, ladies and gentlemen, I have a somewhat brief report, and I'll keep it brief in the interest of time. I want to start with a brief recognition. 15th annual African-American Student Achievement and Excellence Awards will occur April 12, 2019 at Chabot College. And we have seven students receiving this award. From BGI, we have Naya Weeks. It's OK to clap. From Kennedy we have Jonathan Mitku. From Newark Junior High School being recognized as Jesse Charles IV. Also from Newark Junior High, True Clark. Jariah Cromwell. Madka Tesfaye. And finally from Newark Memorial High School, Damigan Bradley. So our congratulations go out to those students. I wanted to ask the board, and we don't have to take time here to do it, but if you would please email Char potential other board retreat dates. that might work for you, give us two or three options that might work for everybody and we'll try to find the best fit to be able to do that. I'd like to thank President Rodriguez, Member Thomas, Member Gutierrez for joining me to talk with leadership students at Newark Memorial High School and 9th grade students. We started this last year, we'll continue to do that and just hearing their perspective has been powerful. And I would like to thank formally on the record Ms. Canales for helping coordinate these meetings We'll continue to do that, and other board members who want to be involved, we'll be getting them out there next soon. We will be working to coordinate a day at the junior high, and I know that member Martinez has expressed interest in that. So we're working on that in the coming weeks. And that concludes my report this evening.

[2974] Nancy Thomas: Thank you. So are you going to introduce the?

[2986] SPEAKER_13: I think I'm going to have Leti.

[2989] SPEAKER_50: Let's wait for a moment till folks move on. It's warm in here.

[3001] Elisa Martinez: Want me to open the window a little bit? I'm okay. Holy! It was so great. It was really nice.

[3033] SPEAKER_53: We're ready when you are, President Thomson.

[3054] SPEAKER_30: Members of the board, this evening we have Ms. Robin Sert who is our Director of Special Projects. She will be introducing both items and will be able to answer any questions. Thank you.

[3066] SPEAKER_36: Good evening board members, Superintendent Sanchez and Executive Cabinet. I have the privilege and honor of facilitating our LCAP process and so tonight... Excuse me, could we take our conversations outside please in the back of the room?

[3087] Nancy Thomas: Thank you. You may.

[3088] SPEAKER_36: So I have the privilege and honor to facilitate our LCAP process and so this evening we've brought an LCAP update to you. We have many presentations at all of our LCAP events and I really would hope, I mean it would be exciting if I could bring all of them here but that would take many, many evenings. So, we're just going to highlight a few and tonight we have an update on our Makerspace Task Force and an update from our counselors. So, we are going to start with our leads on our Makerspace Task Force, Ms. Catheerine Ingham-Watters, the principal at BGI and Ms. Rachel Bloom, our elementary SRT.

[3131] Catheerine Ingham-Watters: Good evening, Clerk Thomas and board members, Martinez, Gutierrez and Zeng, and student member Caesar. Good evening, Superintendent Sanchez and Executive Cabinet. I'm Catheerine Ingham-Watters, the principal of Birch Grove Intermediate. And to my right is Rachel Bloom. She teaches at both Graham and Kennedy. So we are excited to give a brief update on our work this year on maker spaces, primarily at the elementary level, but it has spanned all of the schools. So we have had three task force meetings this year, one in October, one in December, and one in March. And we really had some clear objectives. Our objectives were to define a makerspace, what it looks like and how it's used. We wanted to reach consensus on what Newark sites should have as a base, like materials and equipment. And then we also wanted to identify what professional development may be needed. So what is a makerspace? A makerspace promotes 21st century thinking, such as critical thinking, collaboration, communication, and creativity, also known as the four C's. It can be a building, a room, even a corner of a room or a library, or even a portable trove of materials that encourages students to create, tinker, collaborate, problem solve, and learn through the process. We really understand that it's not necessarily the actual end product that students create, but it's the process in which the thinking and learning occurs, All of our task force meetings had three components, some sort of hands-on engagement activity, knowledge building, and then sharing or open floor time. We've also created a shared Google Drive to anyone attending the meetings so that we can share resources as we move forward. So here's an update on what we're working on now. In March, Rachel and I presented to the district leadership team about our work this year and supporting other principals in developing their own maker mindset. Like I mentioned, we've had three makerspace meetings. We're gathering information where sites are as far as creating a room, ordering materials, or working on professional development. for the next steps as a district. Getting input from teachers parents and principals as well as recommendations for next steps as a district. Currently sites are spending their L cap funds with guidance from the task force as Teachers are visiting their makerspaces to complete design activities and using STEAM tools and activities. So some sites, the makerspace is open as teachers see fit. Other sites have goals such as BGI. Our goal is that every class will visit the makerspace three times a year or once a trimester. We're also very excited that some teacher leaders are attending a design process and design thinking workshop in summer at the D School at Stanford. I'm going to pass the microphone over to Rachel to talk about STEAM and Newark Unified.

[3364] SPEAKER_33: So, yeah, I'm sick, sorry. So STEAM, we know, stands for Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, and Mathematics. So in Newark, we have science. We have our NGSS-aligned curriculum. We have science resource teachers, an elementary science partnership with Alameda County Office of Education, and we also partner with the Lawrence Hall of Science through Bayside. For technology, we are pretty much one-to-one with Chromebooks. We have iPad carts in every maker space. We have the smart boards coming in for engineering. I'll get right back to that in a second. For art, we have, as you saw from, yeah, from Ms. Ehrlich's post there, we have art in schools. For mathematics, we have big ideas, math happening, I think, throughout the district. So the engineering, so if we're going to be building things in engineering, you need a place to do that. And so that place is a maker space. So when you think about maker spaces, at least from a teacher or task force point of view, we realize we need to get things going at a site level and at the classroom teacher level. And so when we think about the site level, we realize that, People will want to know, okay, well, what does it look like? And then, well, what goes in it at the site level? And then for teachers, okay, we have stuff and we know what's in it. Okay, well, how do they use it with tech training? And we'll talk more about it, but the professional development to develop the mindset and understanding the design process and the engineering design process and design thinking, that's the key to get our shift and our mindset. There we go.

[3472] Catheerine Ingham-Watters: Our third task force meeting was co-facilitated by ADIS architects and we had representatives from every site meet together to give input on maker spaces specifically in the facility master plan. And our focus was how to align our core values, which were created as part of the visioning process. So how does our culture, the way we want our students learning and our schools to be, how does our culture match our STEAM curriculum, match our physical spaces? And so the focus with this meeting was all about physical spaces. So the team that attended this latest task force meeting learned all about components to consider when creating a maker space, including light, seating, color, tools, storage, flexibility, and the ongoing steps in spending our STEAM funds with this knowledge in mind of our physical space. It is more than four walls.

[3545] SPEAKER_33: So, a few things we talked about what it can look like. So, we've talked about rooms, rolling carts, corners of classrooms, corners of libraries. What goes in it? You can see there are a variety of materials. You have your Legos, little bits, robotics, the rolling cart with materials, cardboard, duct tape. And then, of course, to build the environment and help with the mindset, you'll often see posters that talk about the design engineer, the engineering design process. and those sorts of things. Now, how is the big, the big idea? And so, how they're used is the important part. So, I have some projects here which you might think is like, well, it's the what, but I wanted to talk about like how they were used to support the engineering design process. So, you can use these materials in a few different ways. So, you can have standalone engineering design projects like build a Lego house. Or you can have things that integrate the science concepts. So with STEAM, the whole point is that things are integrated. So let's say students learn, can I show people? I'll use my teacher voice even though I'm sick. So you can have fourth graders learn about circuits and they can build circuits using little bits. You can also have fourth graders, after they've learned about circuits, create math games. for first and second graders, for kindergarteners. And when they get the answer correct, they'll light up the circuit right like that. So you can integrate that content.

[3661] SPEAKER_33: air resistance, and so with some materials from a maker cart, you can make an air car. This is Ms. Bloom's car. And the first graders can design their own sails for their sail cars, and they're probably going to realize that Ms. Bloom cut out the Bs in her sails.

[3682] SPEAKER_33: But don't tell them that. And then you can also integrate ELA. If you have a creature design challenge, you might have someone make a Unipig. But the Unipig, you know, why is the Unipig so sad? Or why is the Unipig happy? Where is the Unipig from? What challenges has the Unipig had to overcome in Unipig's life? And those are some jumping off points to integrate ELA and writing and narrative. We also have technology integrated with video and learning about erosion in our stream tables. And there's art integrated with the science, also with the landforms and water you can see here. So there are a lot of ways to use the materials, but the point is to use it in an engineering design process with thought. So the students are going to build their cars. They've done research. They've learned about air pressure. They've learned about resistance. They'll test their designs. They'll go back. They'll retest. They'll redesign. The fourth graders that were designing their circuits, they started building their circuits. They were testing them. It didn't work. They would go back. The fourth graders that were designing the creatures, they first had to plan what they were going to do. They had to think about how the materials would work together. So there was a lot of the thought process. So there is a what, and we need materials. But the big things are mind shift of how we're doing these things. That's important to keep in mind.

[3787] Catheerine Ingham-Watters: All right. In closing, we do have some recommendations that we have shared with principals as they're in the process of creating their site plans for next year. So our recommendation is that each elementary school have the following. Number one, a dedicated space that they can speak to. So where is your dedicated space at fill-in-the-blank school? Ours is in the library, or ours is in room one. So a dedicated space that is well-known across the campus. And like Rachel was emphasizing, it doesn't matter. There are so many pre-made activities, teacher-made activities, kits that you can buy. There's so many vehicles. to have students learn and practice the engineering design process. So part of ours was, yes, we can provide you lists and lists on Amazon, but it's really no matter what you do, teaching students how to think critically through the engineering design process really covers everything. We also recommend from the success from our schools that we really need a teacher committee, like a STEAM committee, maybe as an adjunct duty to really jump in and push the staff to use the makerspace and share resources and ideas. And then, of course, STEAM-related goals included in the site plans. We are awaiting recommendations from ADIS and curricular recommendations from the task force to help direct funding at sites, possibly online support, maybe a database of lessons and links to materials that we can give to Newark teachers for support. And then some professional development opportunities such as the San Francisco PD, the STEAM Expo happening this summer. So that is just a little overview of our Makerspace work this year.

[3911] Nancy Thomas: Thank you. Thank you. That's great work. Do you have any questions for them? Well I attended the last meeting and it was very interesting and seeing the teachers engage with one another and putting together the plans. I'm really heartened that in one year look at look at all the work that's been done in maker spaces and steam in general. Thank you.

[3936] SPEAKER_36: Thank you. And I am happy to report, as we're closing up purchasing right now, that all of the sites have used, if not all of their funds, pretty close. And I have sites asking for more funds from the LCAP for STEAM activities. So it's been really exciting to see all the thoughts and plans that every site has put together this year. Thank you. OK. Our next presentation is our wonderful counseling team. We have our five counselors who are going to share with you a little bit about what they do every day. And then I will follow up with some information about our AP goals as well that are in the LCAP. So these are two goals in the LCAP. Our counselors actually fell in two spots, but their main place in the LCAP is in goal one for academic achievement. And so they were going to be sharing with you tonight all that they do every day. So I'm going to ask Heather Ryan, Alexis Baker, Sonia Torres, Jonathan Luna, and Yesenia Hernandez to come up.

[4008] SPEAKER_06: Hi, good evening. I am Heather Ryan, and I am one of the counselors at Newark Junior High School. So I have a caseload of the entire school. So I have about 900 kiddos on my caseload. At this point, as of this week, I'm now seeing 63 either weekly, bi-weekly, or every third week. Forty-five of those 63 are students that at some point in the year had suicidal ideations that are now on my caseload for emotional support. In addition to meeting with kids that are on my caseload and supporting the junior high school student population, I am our 504 coordinator, SST coordinator, I run our cost program here at Newark Junior High School. We are a part of, both myself and Ms. Baker, run a lot of mediations because as you can imagine in junior high, there's a lot of drama-rama. So a big part of our job is mediating issues with our young ladies and young men. We have a kid's closet that myself and another teacher created about, I think this is our fifth year, that is offered to all students at Newark Junior High School, in fact all Newark families. And I get donations from the community. We get brand new shoes, backpacks. This year I got 48 backpacks at the start of the year full of school supplies that I was able to give to 28 of our families that are classified as homeless. So that closet has been a big hit, in fact, It's not even just the junior high now. I have elementary families come and take clothing as well. So that's been great. And it's, I feel like it's becoming bigger and bigger as more families are talking and more people are utilizing it. So that's been wonderful. I'm the eighth grade DC coordinator. I've done the trip the last 15 years. This will be my 16th. Crazy. Fun trip, but it's a lot of kids flying across the country for a week that I'm in charge of. And yeah. The biggest part of my job really is the emotional support. I, again, do a lot of mediations, but more than anything, we have, especially I found in the last couple years, just a higher need of kids that need that one-on-one support, whether it's for self-harm, again, suicidal ideation. Anxiety has been on the rise at the junior high. We have a lot of cases of kids that have anxiety that need check-ins. And so, in addition to meeting with the kids, I oftentimes coordinate with their outside therapist. So that way we're also on the same page in the therapy that we're providing for the kids. And then of course with their families as well. So thank you again for having us here tonight.

[4171] SPEAKER_42: Hi, good evening. I'm Alexis Baker, and I am new to the district. This is my first year. I spend half of my time with Miss Ryan over at Newark Junior High School, primarily doing academic support. And so what that looks like is that I manage a caseload of around 30 high needs, academically struggling students. So what that looks like is meetings with them, either weekly, bi-weekly, tri-weekly, or monthly, depending on their needs. I coordinate SSTs for those students, so getting teachers, students, and parents and family all in a room together to discuss those kids. I also collaborate with teachers and families regarding general education needs. The second major part of what I do is school-wide classroom presentations to promote academic achievement and high school readiness. One of the things that was made clear to me when I started at Newark Junior High is that there's a disconnect, it seems, between the junior high and the high school in terms of knowledge about what it means to be a student and what credits are. There's this magical thing called credits that suddenly everybody's talking about at the high school, but none of the ninth graders know what anybody's talking about. And so it's been my task to help bridge that gap. And so I've gone into classrooms over the course of the year to do lessons in classrooms to teach students what credits are, so to make sure that they're ready for Memorial. And they don't become my students again, which I will get to in a moment. I also assist with mediations as needed, assist with individual counseling as needed, and collaborate and support Ms. Ryan in what she does with more of the social emotional support. The other half of my time, I am the only counselor at Bridgepoint and Crossroads. And I realized that I put on this slide that I'm a .5 counselor, 166 students to one counselor. That's not true. It's 166 kids to a half of a counselor and that's me. I assist with Newark Memorial student and family recruitment and community outreach. I am the 504 coordinator for both campuses. I participate in intake meetings with families and so making sure that before they step foot on our campus for the first time that they understand what our program is about which is, just a joy, honestly, to do with Ms. Calderon. She's been a fantastic leader at that school. Something else that I do that I forgot to include on this slide is that I facilitate the new student orientations. And so each time a new student comes onto campus, in the past, they just showed up on their first day. They were handed a schedule and sent on their way. That doesn't create a great community or a sense specialness for those new kids. And so I've started doing new student orientation. So every student on their first day on campus, they sit through an orientation with me. They get to identify other students who are also new to the campus. So we've begun doing those. I perform credit checks each quarter, then schedule and conduct graduation progress meetings with seniors and or juniors and their families, depending on the time of year. I do school-wide presentations and activities, including organizing what was this year our first annual, I hope. November report card night and resource fair and also spring seminars which are coming up. I'm the cost coordinator for which we have weekly meetings. I deliver professional development for staff for both campuses and collaborate with our Newark Memorial High School counselors.

[4391] SPEAKER_48: Hi, good evening everyone. I am Jonathan Luna. counselor at the high school. The first slide is the data slide, of course, obviously. It's broken down by grade level, right? So there's grade 9, grade 10, grade 11, grade 12. Mrs. Hernandez is right behind me. She oversees ELD and letters D through M. I am right there. I oversee MCA and letters N through Z. And of course, Ms. Torres, she oversees Puente and letters A through C. I'm going to Keep going this way and that way, because I'm really, I don't have my glasses, sorry. So course registration, first bullet, let's start off with that. So basically, as new students, we work very closely with our registrar at the high school to update the transcripts. So that entails a lot of the day-to-day coursework, I mean, work in terms of the day-to-day. We make classroom presentations in the spring. So what does that look like? So basically, for example, in February, right, we just finished this. Two weeks, the first two weeks of February, for example, we're in the English classrooms. So what does that look like? We basically have a round of presentations. So we call it round one, basically. And in that round one, basically, the students get a packet, a registration packet. With that is a transcript, right? So they all get that in the first round of presentations. And we highlight, you know, graduation requirements, A through G requirements, that sort of stuff. And then the second round is that's when we really get into the labor-intensive part of it. So basically, we're just collecting the registration sheets. And that way, we're able to sit down with them one-on-one-on-one and we're able to see course sequence with them or, you know, making sure they take the right classes for the following year, right? So that is classroom presentations in the spring. 504 coordination. So like Heather and Alexis says, we do that also, right? So there's about 66 approximately at the high school. ELD, English Language Development. Like I said earlier, Ms. Hernandez oversees that. She is real good at just translating the international transcripts, right? So she has a hand in that. MCA, we have. The Media Communications Academy, they start MCA in 10th grade. So from 9th to 10th, whoever is interested in MCA, it's the school within a school academy, a career-focused academy. And we help with the MCA director. And with the MCA director, we're basically recruiting students, right? So from 9th to 10th, I'll give you an example. 50, to be in compliance with the Cal Perkins Grant, 50% of the applicants, for example, 48 are registering for 10th grade, right, for MCA. 24 of them have to be in compliance of HER, highly at risk. So basically, highly at risk, that means that with the highly at risk, they have to meet three of six criteria. It's not up there, but I don't have the, Yeah, I don't have the six criteria. Okay, Naviance. Okay, Naviance. I'll talk about Naviance in just a little bit. Last year, we implemented the Naviance program in terms of the ninth graders that are current 10th graders. So basically, they're 10th grade now. They all have a four-year plan in place. This April, this month of April, we're going to do the ninth grade. The ninth grade students basically will start the four-year plan with them.

[4650] SPEAKER_51: Next. Cost.

[4652] SPEAKER_48: Cost, we went over. Alexis and Heather touched on that. SARB, we attend approximately eight to ten meetings per year. Just this last Tuesday, we were there. One of us was there. The ongoing part of letters of recommendation, I should say, right? Letters of recommendation, we were ongoing with letters of recommendation. We basically write letters to, through portals, through Common App, through EOP, through coalition colleges, send it to you. Those are the letters of recommendation we send through the portals. Oh, yes, this year, Alternative Ed has been working really streamlined and smooth, efficient, I should say, because we work closely with Julie Calderon. We have access to her Google Calendar. And then basically, we meet with the students and parents at Memorial. And then we send the appointment times through Google Calendar with Julie Calderon. So that's been streamlined.

[4736] SPEAKER_15: Okay, go ahead. Okay. I'm Sonia Torres, counselor at Newark Memorial High School. Yay, Ms. Luna. So graduation data, this is as current as of Monday, yes. So on track, off track based on the current credits that we have. We didn't use third quarter grades. So this is the information you can see there. I mean, it changes daily, particularly with the 12th graders because most of, all of those 12th graders are on APEC, some form of credit recovery. So that could change the 6. Oh gosh, 6.5% that are off track. You know, one student, 25 students, so if one student finished Apex class, that number changes drastically this time of year. So what do we do with students who are off track? So once the students are identified, we have to wait for the semester. We try to intervene intermediately throughout the semester through the progress reports looking student view. But once the students are identified, we definitely meet as best we can with those students individually, come up with a plan. really check in more with the emotional support, like what's really going on, what's beneath the grades, because we don't want to skirt any issues. And so that's definitely timely working with those students. We want to get them back into school believing that they can do it. But what we actually do is we put them in APEX space permitting. We have so many licenses. So we typically take seniors first, juniors, sophomores. And we increase the amount of APEX licenses on our campus. that's definitely helped students get back on track. If not, then they wait for summer school. One of the things that we have used, and it works, we don't have any data that we've collected, but we do pre-book, particularly with the freshmen, their pause appointments because, yes, they would love to go play basketball in the gym or do something else or relax during those 45 minutes, but it helps if we are able to check in with them and pre-book their pause appointments. So that's helped. We do try to meet with The teachers as much as possible get the feedback and obviously connect with the parents as much as we possibly can. Not every parent, we do try to get them on ParentVue, but some parents still appreciate the weekly progress report, the hard copy. So we do that with some that ask for it, we do find the hard copies. Some of our challenges, not with regards to off-track students, but just in general, large caseloads with limited support staff. So we didn't know at one point how good we had it when we did have a secretary and then she left or she retired. So that's definitely one of our challenges. And with that, it's hard to really set your day. And we have a plan, but with the continual walk-ins and, yeah, just the open door policy, which is good in theory, but you're doing something like a letter of recommendation, right, and then someone walks in. And we don't want to ever be dismissive of a student because we don't know what that student is walking in with. So we do try to see those students. You've heard this before, so I won't go in great detail, but the constant change in leadership, that definitely affects the work that we do or how we do it. Student truancy also makes it difficult to meet with the students who are off track, you know, and that's we try to work as best we can with the admin and try to connect so that we're not working so that we're at those SART meetings together. Next step, we know things are not perfect. We don't ever think that in our counseling office like, oh, we got this. We know what we're doing and, well, with the programs we know we're doing, but that we never relax and say, we got this, we're perfect. So we're obviously looking at ways to improve always in our work. So we definitely want to increase classroom visits. With the new calendar that we start in early August, no, yeah, mid-August, usually when we start late August, because the admission cycles for college has already started by August 1st, the pressure's on to get into the senior classrooms and make sure doing those last minute steps. But now that the calendar, now that we start earlier, that gives us more time to definitely make more classroom visits to freshmen, sophomores, juniors, before the admission cycle begins. And then start creating four-year plans using online software that's free, right? So we've looked at some of those, and Ms. Hernandez has used one of those programs in her previous school, and then our college and career tech has used one of them as well. So we're meeting to work on how to develop lesson plans in a more cohesive program. Oh, and then work together, continue to work together with the counseling, no, that's us, Career Center, Career Center and create a cohesive calendar that's published so parents, families and students know when we'll be visiting classrooms. And send, ah, yes, continue. We did, we just this year, I mean it was pretty hectic with all the changes, but continue to send actually letters in the mail and create a cohesive PLC with the Career Center. and then asked to be part of whoever the new leadership staff is. We're not a department at our school, so there's no like lead counselor or head counselor, but it's nice to be part of those conversations with the other leadership members so we know what's going on with the school. These are, are you going to speak to them?

[5047] SPEAKER_42: Okay. So now that you've seen our jobs as they actually appear in comically small text, On the last several slides, I just thought that it was important to take a look at student to school counselor ratios. So the American School Counseling Association, our national professional association, recommends that schools have a ratio of 250 students to every one counselor. The national average, however, is more like 477 to every one counselor. The state of California has the highest in the country at an average of 945 students to every one counselor. At the secondary level in Newark Unified, because that's the only level where we have school counselors in our district, we're at 542 students to every one counselor. But if you look at district wide, we're at 1202 students to every one counselor if we include elementary.

[5114] SPEAKER_36: Okay, so I know there's some question around Naviance, so I'm going to start with Cesar. Cesar, open up your email. How many colleges do you get emails from daily or weekly?

[5131] SPEAKER_16: Weekly, I would say 20.

[5136] SPEAKER_36: How do you think they got your email?

[5139] SPEAKER_16: From the college board and from the ACT.

[5143] SPEAKER_36: When did you start getting those e-mails?

[5146] SPEAKER_16: Probably freshman year?

[5148] SPEAKER_36: Freshman, sophomore year? Yes, so freshman year you probably started getting e-mails. From a Navion survey you took in eighth grade. Do you remember that?

[5159] SPEAKER_16: No, I don't.

[5162] SPEAKER_36: So you took a Naviance survey in eighth grade. That's how, and I only know because I have my own child who also receives those emails. In eighth grade, you took the survey part of Naviance, which then from that survey, colleges started to look at your interests and started sending you emails. That's the initial, their initial introduction to you. So that's how those emails started coming to you was through Naviance. So in eighth grade in 2012-13, I'm still putting all the pieces together because that was before my time, they started with the surveys in the junior high. And so the survey was really interest-based. What are you interested in? And so that, as I said, that's how colleges got connected to students initially. And so now he gets weekly emails. And now the college board is starting to look at his SAT scores, his grades. And so Naviance was the first introduction to our students through a survey. And they conducted that survey at the junior high. And then at the high school, as was mentioned, they also did another survey with a number of our ninth graders and 10th graders, just in case they were missed at the junior high. And then speaking with the college and career Is it coordinator? Is that the title? Who was there last year. She went into either the U.S. history classes or their English class and conducted a survey with them. If they had the survey completed, she started to help them build their resume. And so that's really what the Naviance program does. It's a survey of interest to introduce our students to the world outside of our school doors. And then really the goal is to help them create a four-year plan, how to get to the college or the career that they want to pursue. So that's what the goal of Naviance is. We have one last year this year with it. So the current ninth graders, as was mentioned, in April will be taking that survey. And then as a team, they will be working to look at some free services who can do the same exact. create the same plans for our students. So that's really kind of how the history of Naviance came. So you didn't even remember you had a survey back then. It's nice I have a child at home I can ask lots of questions from. But that's how it all started, just from the initial survey and it's an introduction to college and career once you leave our doors.

[5335] SPEAKER_42: I just wanted to illustrate a couple of things with this slide. One is that total enrollment at Bridgepoint has increased by over half, over 50%. Over the course of the year, in August, we were, when we began the year, we were, we had 50 students enrolled. We now have 109 as of this morning. Crossroads is a little different. Our maximum is 55 because we only have two and a half teachers for our independent study program. And so we right now are enrolled at 54, but we're going to be enrolling that 55th student. We won't have any room to take any other students, but we do have an ongoing waiting list for, Crossroads Independent Study. The second pie chart, although what it shows is that 65% of our students are on track to graduate on time, we need to keep in mind that 100% of those students, when they arrived at Bridgepoint on their first day, were not on track. And so Bridgepoint is their opportunity, so we now have 31% of 10th through 12th graders who are not on track to graduate on time, and 3.3%, which is two of our students who have graduated early, I will be adding, well, this is just Bridgepoint, but Autumn will be added to the Crossroads data shortly. Data regarding our cost team and the referrals that we bring through cost. So far this year, we've brought 91 students have been referred to cost.

[5434] Maria Huffer: Seventy.

[5440] SPEAKER_42: I can see it better here. Oops, sorry. 76% of them have received a Tier 3 intervention, so that's some one-on-one intervention. And 23% of those 91 received a Tier 2 intervention. Also at, so Newark Junior High School, 289 students so far as of this week have been referred through COST. 56% of them, just over 56% of them have received some Tier 3 intervention and 43% a Tier 2 intervention. So the Tier 3 again interventions are individual and Tier 2 is something like a counseling group.

[5490] SPEAKER_15: This is our snapshot of our cost data. We have, as of Monday, 306 referrals. Tier 1 would be services that all students have access to, including counselors, VPs. Tier 2 is, like Alexis said, more of the group counseling that's facilitated by some of our off-site providers. And then Tier 3 is the individual counseling that's provided by our on-site therapists.

[5518] SPEAKER_36: Okay, so the second part of this presentation is our goal five, which states that we want to increase the level of participation in advanced placement courses for our unduplicated students and increase the number of students taking and passing AP exams. This goal was written for our first LCAP. So it was actually written in 2016-17 to start our three-year LCAP for 2017 through 2020. So when this LCAP was written, we had a relationship with EOS that I'll talk about in a minute. And we really had a focus on equity in our AP classes. So this goal will remain in our LCAP for an additional year. because we really have a focus on equitable opportunities for our underserved students in AP classes. In our AP classes, I've shared this, but I just wanted to re-share it with you. These are the numbers of students taking all of the AP classes that are offered. If you totaled all of that up, it's 1,011 students. Now we know students like Cesar, how many AP classes do you have? Six?

[5594] SPEAKER_16: Five this year.

[5595] SPEAKER_36: Just five? Oh, Cesar. Only five, yeah. So we know students take anywhere from one to six AP classes. So on average, we have about 300 students taking AP classes, which is about 20% of our population. So we've done a really good job of the course offerings for our students and encouraging our students to take AP classes. In terms of our demographics, this is really strong data to show that our students who are taking AP classes represent the demographics of our student population. So in the same year, 2013, that was a big year, we established a relationship with EOS, which is a program that really supports, and I believe it was through Stanford, There was a grant, there was a grant through Stanford for Equal Opportunity Schools Program and they really collaborated with our district to increase equitable access for our AP courses. And what EOS did was they worked in conjunction with our and you can step in if I say it wrong, with our admin team at the high school to look at our practices and why were they not equitable for all of our students. And so one of the first steps that happened through EOS was they looked at the course catalog. And the course catalog had to be changed because there were a lot of prerequisites that already closed doors for our students. So the admin at that time and our counselors worked closely together with EOS to rewrite the course catalog to ensure all of our students had access to the AP classes. And then in that, a lot of practices were changed throughout the school. As I said, it started in 2013. They were a partner with us in this process. That partnership ended at the end of last year. And so the goal of EOS was to help the district become self-sustaining with an AP program that had equitable practices and offered opportunities for all of our students, including our underserved students. One of the indicators, one of the big indicators was the PSATs. And so that's why we had to shift a number of years ago to pay for the PSATs for all of our 10th graders and 11th graders. Those initial assessment results are what we would ideally, what we've done in the past with some leadership change this year, it didn't happen to the level we had hoped. But the PSAT scores were the first indicator of some of our students who we could have individual conversations with and encourage them to take AP classes. In addition, with EOS, they provided an assembly called I Believe in Me. Is that right? I Believe in Me. And so they would come and the students would be invited, the ones who we believed had the potential to do well in our AP classes. Those are the pieces that we were not able to do this year. We weren't able to be self-sustaining with that. And it's definitely something that we need to revisit. Ms. Salinas has already contacted EOS to see how we can build back our partnership with them. And these were some of the things. So all 10th and 11th graders took the PSAT. This was funded through our college and career block grant, which is also ending this year. So these are some of the things I'm asking our LCAP advisory to consider. It's definitely something we want to continue to support for our 10th graders and 11th graders. We have several students who wouldn't take the PSAT. In addition, we have several students who are taking AP classes who we support with lowering the fees for them so they actually take the exam. The number one complaint from our students on why they don't take the AP exam is the expense. They were $84? 95?

[5858] SPEAKER_16: It's $94.

[5860] SPEAKER_36: I knew there was a four in there. $94 times that by five, if Caesar were to take all of his. And so it really gets expensive for our students and sometimes parents say, You have to choose, right? Maybe not yours. But sometimes parents say that, and that's why students don't take the test. It is very costly. So through our LCAP, we have been able to support our underserved students with lowering the fees for them. They do pay a portion, but not the entire amount. I think that's it. Yeah, that's it. Questions?

[5904] Nancy Thomas: Ms. Martinez.

[5906] Elisa Martinez: Hello. Thank you for your presentation. A couple of questions. Do we have rates of, I know that we typically speak about, you know, pass rates for the test, but from just a grade perspective, the reason I ask is, you know, kind of things that stay in my head during the campaign. There was comments around, you know, are some of our kids going into AP classes when they're not ready. I specifically have in my head a student that unfortunately was expelled. And as I looked at the trajectory, there were a lot of performance issues, not just behaviorally, but academically, yet they were in an AP class. So I'm curious in terms of how does that happen in terms of I understand us wanting to encourage and absolutely we believe we should have those opportunities but how do we make sure we're moving the kids that are ready for those classes into AP classes?

[5972] SPEAKER_36: Right and that comes in the after we receive their PSAT scores because the opposite could also happen. We have students who are underperforming in their classes because they're not engaged and so we have to look at those students too and see is AP an opportunity for them. And so once we identify those students and they may have had behavioral issues because they weren't engaged in the CP class. And so offering them opportunities to actually challenge their thinking and the critical thinking part of AP classes opens up a different door for those students. And so once they're identified, that's when counselors would meet with those students and monitor those students in the AP classes. I will share with you, I forgot to say, it is the rare case that a student is allowed That's the word I'm, drop an AP class. When students, Cesar, when you were going to sign up for an AP class, what was the clear message you got about AP classes?

[6033] SPEAKER_16: You cannot drop it for any reason. Once you sign up, you sign up for the contract. You sign that contract when you register.

[6040] SPEAKER_36: So the reason behind that, and you guys could step in too, the reason behind that is also perseverance, right? The first semester, even quarter, of an AP class, It's hard, and it's hard work. If we didn't have that message, most kids would drop out. And the message we want to share with kids, you're committing to something, and sometimes you have to work really hard to get through it. It's a message I have to say every night with my own child, but it's about perseverance, and sometimes it's the students that don't fall into that profile that we have to engage in challenging opportunities.

[6085] Nancy Thomas: you. Thank you.

[6090] SPEAKER_52: Miss good tears. Just an audience is kind of a hot topic right now. Based on your knowledge and experience do

[6103] SPEAKER_36: I think having talked with the team and the college and career counselors, I think it's the service itself, without the name, is something we definitely need to continue for our students. I think if we can find free ways to do that, then that's great for us as a district, especially with even our LCAP, Supplemental Concentration Funds, are decreasing. We no longer have the College and Career Block Grant. It's definitely an opportunity for us to look for free programs that do that exact thing. I will share with you, I've already talked to Mr. Neal, what are you going to do at the junior high? Because that's where it started, right? And so he and I are already having those conversations. The main point of the survey is to see what kids are interested. Sometimes they don't even know. So it helps start to guide them. So it's definitely the philosophy of a four-year plan is definitely something we want for all of our students. I don't know if it has to be Naviance.

[6164] Nancy Thomas: I have a question. It's about A to G and about increasing the number of our students that graduate A to G eligible. Through all of this, you've talked about graduation rates. Our graduation percentage is 90%. Our A to G is only 32%. And the average for the county is 52%. right at the bottom. And about six years ago, this board recommended and adopted the fact that the sixth graders at the time would graduate using A to G default curriculum. And so I would have expected by now that we would have had increases in the percentage of our A to G students, you know, graduates. What are we going to do about that?

[6216] SPEAKER_36: And we can speak to that, or there are we can't. The one thing I will also say, it's not an excuse by any means, but over the past six years, we've also shifted to the common core. So the accountability piece in those ADG courses has also shifted over the number of years. Comparing us from now, our current status to six years ago is apples and oranges because the accountability piece has really changed and shifted. Not just for all the adults, but also for our students. An example of that is our social studies and history classes. We have newly adopted standards, but we are still in the process of piloting materials. And so we are looking at ways to make sure we're supporting our students with the current standards, but all of that is shifting. The plane has been going with not all of the parts available for many years with the shift of the Common Core. And so Common Core, most people think of the shift is just an ELA in math. It's happened everywhere. Look at our science departments and all of the current curriculum they're using. They've really shifted and had to do a lot of work with that. So it's not an excuse, but it is to remind us that over the past six years, we've had a lot of shifts that have happened that have been part of curriculum as well.

[6304] SPEAKER_30: I also want to add for the past 2 days we've actually had a team from Illuminate that's been here to gather data from the high school and this afternoon we were there for the debrief and to do some planning so we anticipate being able to support the new principal and also looking at master schedule planning as to how do we meet the needs of students we're trying to look at it I think from the policy level from you all supporting us with that and updating board policies. But then I want to make sure that we're also giving our And I you know hearing from them this evening. I really feel that we've got the right folks on board But then it's the consistency. It's looking projecting our metrics and what we see from the landscape report. That's going to come out soon

[6369] SPEAKER_36: And Superintendent Sanchez has had several meetings that I've been part of, and this data is something that we're reflecting on as an entire district. It's really the common message that he's been bringing to all of the meetings, regardless of the topics, even with the students. What can we do better? And so we're gathering input from students, from teachers, from parents, really looking at how can we support our students to ensure that they're A to G compliant.

[6394] Elisa Martinez: you know I think it does come back to the metrics that we discussed at the last meeting I think this would be a great one to totally understand will call that the shifting you know environment. But you know I would expect that we would form a perspective. From just a target you know we don't know we don't know we don't know, but you know based on you know, of how long is it going to take us to move from 32 to fit to at least the county average? Are we talking two years? Are we talking five years? Those are really critical pieces of information we need to have a perspective on.

[6436] SPEAKER_36: And we use the EAP as an indicator for us as well. And so that assessment that I'm not as familiar with, I don't know if any of, but it's something we can look at and how, because that's what the indicator is for us on our college and career readiness. And so what exactly is the EAP and what is it assessing would help us to know how to better prepare our students as well.

[6459] Nancy Thomas: Thank you.

[6462] SPEAKER_36: I just want to thank this dynamic team. They stayed really late, but they work hard every day, as you can see in all the work that they do daily. So I appreciate them coming this evening. Thank you.

[6472] Nancy Thomas: We all appreciate you. Next, we move on to employee organizations. CSCA, would you like to speak again?

[6509] SPEAKER_51: Yesterday, I had the pleasure of riding up to Sacramento because the East Bay Coalition for public education, it's to fully fund our schools. They were doing a demonstration up at the Capitol on the south side. And so Nancy Thomas and myself got in the car and we went up there and we participated. I believe she sent some pictures to everybody of what it was like up there. And so it was a rough week for us because we were still in school where a lot of the other schools were having their spring break and they were able to participate. there were a lot of superintendents there, there were a lot of teacher organizations that were there, and there were some classified. Classified is just starting to become involved in it, and so we will help to carry on the cause to fully fund our schools. So we do work with you as partners. I was really trying to make sure that you really understand this. When the, you know, Rick hits the road, which we try to be there and we try to be supportive of trying to get the funding in the district. In May, California School Employees Association has a member recognition event out of the South Bay Field Office on May 4th. And this year, the theme is sort of kind of like a county fair. So it's where we get to come together and we celebrate a lot of the people that have done a lot of good work during the year. And this year, we have nominated two individuals. I have no clue whether they're going to win the award or not, but we have submitted Maria Huffer from Newark Junior High. And Mary Bingham. Who's in the audience. And Mary Bingham, who actually works in the payroll department. So in May, Classified School Employees Week is the week of May 20th. So the whole week is a celebration of classified employees and the different jobs that they do and provide for our public education. So our particular chapter is going to be actually celebrating it on May 20th. And we're going to be going to Chevy's and spending an evening there celebrating classifying school employees. But I would like to ask you to thank your classified bargaining unit members for the work that they do here. Because to be quite honest with you, we support this whole system. If we were not here, the schools would be closed. So really show them that you really do appreciate them. They're having a very, very hard time, as I said earlier. They want to be appreciated, and they want you to show them respect, okay? Thank you.

[6702] Nancy Thomas: Thank you. Is there anyone here from NTA? Anyone from NEWMA? OK. So next, we move on to public hearing for the Sunshine Proposal Reopener for Newark Teachers Association contract. The public hearing for the NTA Sunshine Proposal is now open. Would anyone like to address us on this item? Yes, you certainly can.

[6758] Megan McMillan: So I'm Megan McMillan. I'm a member of the bargaining team this year, so I'll keep this pretty brief. It's a new experience for me. I haven't been on the bargaining team before, so that's been a lot of learning. I'm really looking forward to the opportunity to sit down and really dive deep into this. A lot of work's being put into it on our side, and I know the same is being done on yours. And I know that together we are going to do our best to build the best new work we can because I think we are all coming from a place of understanding that we really do want to put the students first. And it's just finding a way to do that that best suits everyone's needs in the process. So thank you.

[6796] Nancy Thomas: Thank you, May.

[6806] SPEAKER_20: I'm so glad to be able to come up here. I wasn't prepared for this one. But one thing I'd like to say is that I have been blessed. I have worked at music school, snow school, and now I'm at Birch Grove Intermediate. And I have been blessed to work with many, many, many wonderful, very dedicated teachers. I have seen teachers who have the passion, the calling for teaching and to see how they would give their all regardless of what is happening around them. And I just want to say thank you. Where's Megan? Thank you very much because for all that the teachers do, for all the hard work, I applaud them.

[6847] Nancy Thomas: Thank you. Okay, this hearing is closed. Next, we move on to old business, the facility use fee schedule.

[6861] SPEAKER_49: The use of facility was presented to the governing board back in January 17th of this year. As you know, we haven't increased our use of facilities since 2004, so it's about 15 years. So on this new tier, new fee schedules, we have group zero, which is organizations that belongs to Newark Unified School District, such as PTAs, or the community advisory groups, there will be no charge. However, for group one, such as Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, Little Leagues, there will be a small fee. We'll begin start charging those organizations. Then there's also group two, where there's at least 70% participant from the City of Newark organizations. And then there will be a fee. as long as they don't charge over $60 for participants. Then there's also Group 3, which is for-profit or non-profit organizations where we charge them a larger fee. If you look at the PDF files for Group 3, the fees are pretty high as of right now. For the current year, second year, and the third year, the outer years, the fees won't change much. But for group one and two, fees will incrementally increase for this year, next year, and the third year out. But you can access that on our district website under Board Docs.

[6973] SPEAKER_13: If I may help, so tonight, This is just initial reading. I would suggest we don't adopt or take action. I think part of the intent of the board is they gave it to staff, wanted us to make more of a tiered adjustment. And I would suggest, per the board direction, we let it saturate for a couple of meetings before we act on it. We have a little bit of time. That way, everybody has a chance to look at it and process it, and we can hear some feedback from the community.

[7002] Nancy Thomas: And I think I like the idea that- One more item, if I may.

[7006] SPEAKER_13: Also, we have representatives from Siltron here as well. If we do, if the board does have questions, I want to make sure that you know they're in the room.

[7013] Nancy Thomas: Oh, I appreciate their taking the time to be here. Well, since you're here, would you mind coming up to the podium and maybe we can ask you a few questions? I'd like to thank you. I've talked to you at the CSBA convention and you've been before us several times, so I appreciate all the work that you've put into helping staff put together this fee schedule and maybe you could say a few words about how Facilitron is working out in terms of doing the work for Newark and maybe a little bit about how our fee schedule fits with other districts that you're working with?

[7060] SPEAKER_11: Yeah, of course. So I don't have the numbers off the top of my head, but from the previous sort of facility management platform, moving to Facilitron, the fees that have been recovered from the facility use has about tripled. So that's already been kind of a great improvement, just sort of from streamlining the process and in making, you know, the community aware of kind of this this online process of them submitting exactly what they want. And if, you know, the space that they're interested in isn't available, we'll help, you know, repurpose them to an area where they're able to have their event go on, as well as sort of providing that customer support, providing that assistance to the admins. So that way they have us to sort of lean on if they have any questions, if they have questions about fees, because we do partner with a lot of school districts in the Bay Area. the Outer Bay Area, Southern California and sort of globally and have done fee rate comparisons between different districts sort of in the Bay Area mainly. I would say fees are comparable for most of the facilities. They are generally lower than other districts that we've seen especially for field use because currently there are no facility fees for field use and usually what we see when that happens is the field sort of get overutilized. And then there, you know, there are dirt patches, there are holes, it's not safe for the kids to play on. And so we've sort of come up with kind of a calculation to help the district determine their direct cost based on their operating cost, custodial fees, utilities, as well as sort of the capital replacement cost dealing with the wear and tear, how much it costs to, you know, put in more sod and, or replacing, you know, gyms and buildings and refinishing floors, things like that. So that way the district can recover more of its direct cost and hopefully not have to, you know, have their facilities get run into the ground as quickly and, you know, have to raise another bond and things like that. So just sort of helping the facilities last as long as they should.

[7198] Nancy Thomas: So are you saying that we are only collecting our direct cost fees for our fields when maybe, and we're charging less than other districts do? And maybe I could ask staff what the reason for that would be.

[7213] SPEAKER_11: You go first. So yeah, so I believe currently it's just any necessary overtime custodial. If that, sometimes the grass fields don't, users don't get charged custodial fees at all. And I would say that that's taking place just because The fees haven't been looked at or updated in a decade. So I would say that's.

[7239] Nancy Thomas: I guess I'd also like to ask staff if they've compared our use fees for our fields to what the city charges. And is there any reason why we shouldn't be comparable for the same types of groups that use our fields?

[7255] SPEAKER_49: I believe Facilitron made some studies in regards to comparing our fees versus of the school district, but I don't know if we've done any fee studies in regards to comparing with the City of Newark or the City of Fremont.

[7271] SPEAKER_11: Yeah. I would need to look back because I don't remember off the top of my head. I may be getting it confused with City of San Jose, but I can definitely look back at that. My guess would be that the City of Newark charges probably $30 an hour or at least $20 an hour for field use is usually what we've kind of typically seen.

[7293] Nancy Thomas: And are we going to be charging, by year three, are we going to be charging that?

[7299] SPEAKER_49: Well, it's based on group one, group zero, group one, group two, and group three. So there's going to be four groups. So if it's group zero, which is PTA, our kids, then it's free. But if it's little leagues, then we'll begin charging them, for example, using the elementary schools or the middle schools. The soccer field will be $13 per hour. The baseball field will be $9 per hour. And then second year out in 2021, it would be, as an example, the soccer field will be $16 an hour. And the baseball field will be $11.

[7338] Nancy Thomas: OK. Superintendent, do you think that that's, is that something that you're recommending?

[7348] SPEAKER_13: I think that what we're looking for and what I'm recommending is a starting point. And I think what the board had asked was, there's some things that are on here now that were never discussed before. One that I would point to that has never been collected $1 for is storage. And I think those rates are very reasonable for anyone that's had any storage in the Bay Area. $0.25 to $0.50 to $1 a square foot is quite a bargain. I think we're still under market value, but I think that we've been able to strike a balance between, you know, just paying costs versus trying to make a huge amount of money. We're not trying to break anyone or hurt any of our partners. And please know that as far as groups like now that is called, I think it's the Newark Baseball League that has been consolidated, that's not in this mix. The agreement or license agreement with the city of Newark is not in this mix. McGregor Field's not in this mix. And there's other partnerships we have with, I think there's one other agency that, for whatever reason, is escaping me. We're dealing with some of those larger partnerships in a MOU or a licensing agreement. So that's been held out of this. So we'll be making those deeper partnerships. Oh, the other one that came to mind was stage one. So some of those are held in a different category, and we negotiate that separately in more of a contract way. But no, I think that we're on par, we're close. I think we need to have this saturated in the community and see what other questions we hear. But I think we're right within market value and on par with what's going on in the Bay Area.

[7456] Nancy Thomas: Anyone else want to address this?

[7458] Bowen Zhang: Oh, can you introduce yourself first?

[7461] SPEAKER_11: Oh, my name is Rachel Koppel. Sorry. With Facilitron.

[7466] Bowen Zhang: Oh, I see. I guess my question for the superintendent is, so going forward, we're going to have separate charges for storage and usage, is that correct?

[7479] SPEAKER_13: Storage and usage will be one charge at standard, pretty much for any group that has large amounts of storage or that needs to leave things on our property. But I think that's why we're also looking at, if you look at the group fees, are the things that we do have to consider as well. So it may be a lesser amount for group one, for example, which is our partner. They probably pay the lowest amount. But the idea is that no one would just get it for zero. And that's currently what's been happening for several years.

[7510] Bowen Zhang: So if you have a unified charge for both storage and usage, which part do you want to lean on that? You want to charge primarily on storage or you want to charge primarily on usage?

[7524] SPEAKER_13: It depends on what they need, but I think it would be both if it's appropriate. Yes, it would be both because sometimes, sometimes we, they might want to, it might be more convenient to leave equipment there for extended periods of time. But currently I would estimate roughly, We're probably currently providing well over 8,000 square feet of storage with collecting. We've not collected any dollars on that at all. We see the starting point. I don't know if this is where it's going to end. This is a recommendation. It might go down, depending on what the board thinks and what you hear from the public. I just think that there should be some charge for that. I don't know if this is a starting point to have the conversation.

[7573] Nancy Thomas: Thank you very much. Of course. OK. I think we agree with the superintendent that we allow the public to digest this information and be able to come to us in the future. And in the meantime, if we can get some figures on how we compare with the city, I'd like to see that. Next, we move on to new business. being asked to receive the proposed re-opener for the Newark Teachers Association contract, I would entertain a motion. I'll move.

[7619] Bowen Zhang: Should we wait till Member Martinez comes back?

[7624] Nancy Thomas: Well, you can second it and we can wait for a few minutes.

[7627] Bowen Zhang: Yeah, I'll second it.

[7631] Nancy Thomas: Although we are a quorum. Here she comes. It's been moved and seconded that we receive the proposed re-opener for the Newark Teachers Association contract. I will open the voting unless someone has any discussion. Please vote. Five ayes. Thank you. Next, 14.2 is a declaration of need for fully qualified educators. Ms.

[7682] SPEAKER_30: Salinas? Yes. Ms. Saavedra, I wasn't feeling well. I'm happy to share. This is an annual process. And essentially, what this does is allow the district to work with intern teachers We have an area of need with special education and also with, excuse me, specifically with special education teachers. This process would allow us to, again, contract, excuse me, hire interns and work to ensure that they have a credential and also support them through induction as needed.

[7716] Nancy Thomas: I would entertain a motion.

[7719] Bowen Zhang: I had a question about the needs. I know just weeks ago we voted to reduce the number of FTE positions by 13 so is there any consideration that how we are going to whether convince the public or make it reasonable that we just cut 13 positions and right now we have another or what will be the pace of backfilling these positions without creating another fiscally unsustainable situation where next year we come back we need to vote to cut more again. Or I guess is that by hiring these full time we're reducing the expense on the professional services and consulting category because we are spending a lot of money contracting the special ads out.

[7775] SPEAKER_30: So this process is distinct from the last action that the board took. What this action does is allow the school district to have teachers who are on special permits if it's for special education. And I see here also CLAD certified teachers. That does not mean that we would use all of them. In terms of teachers who were on temporary contracts, I know that the Human Resources Department would work first to bring back teachers who are on temporary contracts before even exhausting this. This is kind of a safeguard for all school districts in the event that we do need to hire or have a special permit for a teacher. In terms of contracted employees, you're correct, this year has been, especially in the areas of special education, this would allow us, after exhausting all other possibilities, to have a special permit. in our case this year we did use some special permit teachers but then we could not even find those and so that's why we had to do some contract work this year. I know that we are already aware of retirements and vacancies that we have for next year and we've actually had a team of principals and our special education director who have already been at resource fairs and so they are already doing interviews to ensure that we don't have to hopefully contract this incoming year.

[7865] Nancy Thomas: Anyone else? Okay. Would someone make a motion?

[7874] SPEAKER_52: I'll make a motion.

[7879] SPEAKER_53: I second. Okay. Please vote.

[7890] Nancy Thomas: Five ayes. Thank you. Next, we move on to a resolution for declaring support of the National Child Abuse Prevention Month. I would recommend that we have a motion and a second on this.

[7914] Bowen Zhang: I move to accept the resolution.

[7919] SPEAKER_53: I second.

[7922] Nancy Thomas: Please vote. Five ayes, thank you. It's been our tradition to read these. Could I, let's start with you and read two or three of the whereases and we'll move down the line so we can honor this resolution.

[7954] Elisa Martinez: health and well-being of not only the children but also the adults they become. Whereas safe stable in return relationships and communities can break the cycle of abuse and

[7984] SPEAKER_52: supporting children, youth, and families, such as schools, law enforcement, health systems, faith-based organizations, and community programs.

[7994] Bowen Zhang: And whereas everyone has a stake in ensuring that children have access to resources and supports they need to be safe, healthy, and successful, and whereas suspected child abuse or neglect must immediately be reported to appropriate law enforcement authorities, and therefore we have identified child safety and family services to be a priority and hereby declare April as Child Abuse Prevention Month.

[8020] Nancy Thomas: Passed and adopted by the Board of Trustees of Newark Unified School District this 4th day of April, 2019. Thank you. Next, we move on to Individual Service Agreement, the Bay School.

[8042] SPEAKER_52: I'll make a motion to vote on individual, on resolution 14.4.

[8054] Nancy Thomas: Is there a second? I second. I second. Please vote. Five ayes and student member abstaining. Next, agreement with Bowler Strategic Advisors. Superintendent, do you want to introduce this?

[8082] SPEAKER_13: Sure. This is a proposal that will be paid for from the CCEE grant. CCEE has pre-approved this in our initial granting of the dollars. However, I felt it was important to ratify it before we initiated the contract. So that's what's before you this evening. it's to complete the the big ticket items deliverables are one through 7 in the public content.

[8111] Nancy Thomas: Would someone like to make a motion?

[8113] Bowen Zhang: I move to accept the proposal.

[8119] SPEAKER_52: I'll second it.

[8121] Nancy Thomas: Please vote. Four ayes and the student is voting no. Often we give the no vote a chance to explain why.

[8137] SPEAKER_16: If you want to. Yeah, I don't think it's justifiable right now. I think there are more important things we need to focus on. I don't think social media, media relations, video production, that's not what we need to be focusing on. I think the board should consider, well obviously it's too late to consider, focusing on other things before we focus on branching out with things such as lawyer.

[8166] Nancy Thomas: Thank you.

[8173] SPEAKER_13: No, I would just share just to make sure you understand this is not district dollars. These are dollars that we got through a grant for this specific purpose. So it's not taking away from dollars we have here at the local level. I just want to make sure you understand that. But respect your opinion.

[8192] Nancy Thomas: Next, we have Board Policy 3290, Gifts, Grants, and Bequests. This is a first reading. It adds online funding, fundraising. Is there any discussion by the board or does staff want to introduce it at all?

[8210] SPEAKER_49: Board Policy 3290 extends into crowdfunding where any organization that provides donations, gifts, funds will be the property of the school district.

[8223] Nancy Thomas: I noticed one of the things that asked for, excuse me, Ms. Gutierrez. You can go ahead. I noticed one of the things that asked for is approval, and I just made a donation to a fundraiser for one of our programs, so will this be will, if it comes back and we approve it, are we going to have some kind of information and policy in place so that we can make sure that our teachers, our parent groups, anyone that wants to raise funds through GoFundMe and things like that are given the right information and know what the rules are?

[8267] SPEAKER_49: We would have an outline of what is being we're going to be able to do that. We're going to be able to see how it's. Donated. And we can create something up.

[8277] Nancy Thomas: Like an air. Yeah, okay. It's good.

[8280] SPEAKER_52: Here's I'm I'm just curious if being added on because technology it's being updated so this is just something new since it's a popular sorry implement into our our policy is

[8302] SPEAKER_13: I heard you. This is really CSB recommendation, a policy update. So I believe that's really where it comes from, largely.

[8312] Nancy Thomas: One of my thoughts is someone may say they're donating on behalf of a classroom, and they may ask that the donation go to them personally. And somehow we need to make sure that people that donate know that this is not going to be become someone's personal funds, and that we don't have visibility about how those funds flow to the district's needs. So I think it's really important maybe to even research before we bring this back, because this is just a first reading, research how other districts are implementing and policing and overseeing online fundraising. I think that's a good point. Thank you.

[8362] Elisa Martinez: Miss Martinez. I was just curious in terms of how. Practically speaking how does this affect you know so we have our classroom teachers that are set up go fund me pages. So is there will this add additional complexity to their put to them up being able to just get that started I think that's really important I wouldn't want us to kind of get in that way. So how do we make sure this doesn't deter?

[8397] SPEAKER_13: Why don't let us address that? I certainly agree. I don't want to mess with the teacher's flow and maybe look at a grandfathering process or make it easy for them. Part of it is just make sure the district's aware of it so it's not a surprise. But let us research, and certainly we're not expecting action tonight. Let us research those questions and bring it back with more information.

[8419] Nancy Thomas: Thank you.

[8422] SPEAKER_52: I just want to add one final comment because based on Ms. Mancini's comment because I think it is very important that we don't deter people from donations but I also think in the spirit of transparency that we also make sure based on what I'm reading in the policy that we do have accountability for those funds. So thank you for the further research.

[8445] Bowen Zhang: What about for the gift donated to an individual under the $50 amount required to fire the form, form 700? Yeah.

[8452] SPEAKER_13: I believe there's a whole other series of policies that address that.

[8459] Bowen Zhang: And obviously when it comes to online fundraising and gifting, given that we have certain threshold, the tricky thing is I might donate $52 to you, but due to the online transaction cost, whatever go from me or something. You only got $48, so how do you count that?

[8476] SPEAKER_13: Right. There is some loss that happens. Let us do some research on that.

[8481] Nancy Thomas: Thank you. I'd like to understand what your question is regarding Form 700 and the conflict of interest.

[8493] Bowen Zhang: I guess what I'm just asking for the complexity on the online donations. How do you look at from the donor perspective or from the receiver perspective? because there might be transaction costs, right? There's a 10% cut, right? Generally speaking, GoFundMe generally I believe is even 10% to 20% cut. And Indigo is another 15% to 20% cut. So. Okay.

[8519] SPEAKER_13: Let us check on that. Okay.

[8522] Nancy Thomas: Do we vote on this or? So we usually, we bring these back and it gives the public a chance to, and staff a chance to kind of answer the questions we have. OK, next we move on to the monthly business transaction reports. And I know I've asked in the past if there could be some kind of an analysis or a description of any variations.

[8551] SPEAKER_49: Well, the other day we gave you a summary report of what the object codes were, the revenue that's coming in, and then the encumbrance. And then there's also the expenditure piece. It's a summary. of what has occurred so far this year, up until February 2019.

[8568] Nancy Thomas: Okay, but are we on track with our budget versus our expenditures? Is there anything that is out of, that's a surprise, that means we'll end the year over in a certain category from the second interim figures, for example, beyond what we expected.

[8596] SPEAKER_49: Can you elaborate on that question for me? Maybe I can.

[8599] Nancy Thomas: Well, for example, we just passed a $60,000 contract approximately for special ed. And I assume that that's in the budget. But $60,000 is a pretty, if it wasn't in the budget, it would be a pretty big variance. And it would be something that you hopefully would bring up and say, well, we had this variance in this area because we have a new student and we weren't anticipating it, and therefore, you know, we have this overage in special ed, but we can counter that with some adjustments that were in areas where we're not going to spend money that sort of things to make sure that we end the year that we're monitoring our budget.

[8652] SPEAKER_49: Based on what we presented on the second annual report as an example only where our expenditures for certificate staff went down as an example and then our professional services and other expenditures went up because we have to outsource our services for speech pathologists, speech therapists, psychologists.

[8672] Nancy Thomas: Yeah, so Ms. Martinez.

[8675] Elisa Martinez: I think this is as a follow-up to our Audit Committee meeting from earlier in the week. I think that, you know, if we kind of take it individual item by item, we can have a kind of an explanation. I think what we're missing in the conversation in the Audit Committee meeting was how are we trending? And I know that there is some challenges from a reporting perspective. that we're going to be able to do that. But when we look at at the fund balance summary for example, the first question was what if I look at my actuals is that good or bad against my budget and we know that there's some changes to the budget number that are reflected so I think if I'm gathering member Thomas the question is how can we get that visibility as to where we're All right.

[8729] SPEAKER_49: Yeah, definitely. So if you look at these fund balance summary report, it tells us that the actual so far as of February 2019 is about $40 million in terms of revenues. In terms of expenditures, we're spending about $39 million. However, we got about four months left until June 30th, and we're projecting that our expenditure will exceed our revenue coming in.

[8762] Nancy Thomas: Yeah, it's going to be about 2.2 million, is that it?

[8767] SPEAKER_49: That's the reduction that we need to make for 19-20, about 2.2 million. But if you look at the revenue versus the expenditure, we're anticipating a deficit spending of about $1.8 million.

[8782] Nancy Thomas: This year?

[8783] SPEAKER_49: Yes. But it can change, because we won't know we're not going to be able to do that. Until our on our actual is completed.

[8795] SPEAKER_13: Kind of step in a little bit. So on this page in that far right column where it says available. That shows a percentage of dollars still available. In that funding stream. So I think part of what I think the board's thinking about is. For the month of Are we on pace with our spending? Are we over pace? Are we under? Just kind of more of a dashboard kind of feel. And where are we projecting to land with ending fund balance? Because I know you and I have had discussions that we're anticipating a fund balance, but it's hard to discern more or less where is that going to land. And like, for example, federal revenue is still at 75%. However, if I look down at other outgo, there's only 1% left. So that's kind of what I'm thinking. Maybe it's the way we're representing it graphically. But to see how these funds are trending, even if it's just compared to the prior year, and looking at that proportionality. Are we on pace with our budget? Are we over in areas? Or what are we under in areas? So maybe that's, we could spend some time working on that. But I think that this kind of tying back with the audit committee, I'm sorry to get a clearer picture of kind of what you guys are thinking about.

[8878] SPEAKER_49: Good point, Mr. Sanchez. Ms. Thomas, what I think what you would like to see is how is it compared from 17-18 to 18-19 right now. Is that what you're alluding to?

[8893] Nancy Thomas: Part of that we cover in first interim and in second interim. The monthly, the reason FCMAC is asking us to do it monthly is because we have been despite deficit spending for so many years and we don't seem to have a handle just like what happened this year with unanticipated expenses. We're spending $1.8 million more than we projected in the original budget. We can't have that happen year after year and now we're going to have to use our reserves this year to make it up this year. So it really needs to be, you know, if we have an unanticipated expense What are we going to do real time to try to balance that out this year so we don't have to take money out of our reserves?

[8943] Elisa Martinez: Superintendent Sanchez, I think you're understanding where we're headed. Part of it was a retrospective comparison, but that just gives us a comparison when we're trying to make sure we're making the right decisions going forward.

[8960] SPEAKER_13: Let me say it this way. Sorry to interrupt you. I think what they're looking for is a blood test, not an autopsy. We want to know before so we can do something about it. Not, oh, it's already done. But we can work on that.

[8975] Nancy Thomas: So if there's no other discussion, would someone make a motion to accept this report?

[8983] SPEAKER_52: I'll make a motion to vote on this, on 14.7.

[8986] Bowen Zhang: Second.

[8986] Nancy Thomas: OK. Please vote. Five ayes, thank you. Next, we have our donations report, 14.8. Oh, sorry. Well, why don't we vote on it first, and then you can read it.

[9021] SPEAKER_13: I'm ready to read it, though. My apologies. I'll have it ready by then.

[9025] Nancy Thomas: Would someone like to make a motion? I'll make a motion. Go ahead.

[9030] Elisa Martinez: I move to approve the donation report.

[9037] SPEAKER_52: Can everybody second? Oh, sorry. I'll second it. OK, please vote.

[9048] Nancy Thomas: Five ayes, thank you. Superintendent?

[9051] SPEAKER_13: Newark Unified School District summary of donations, April 4, 2019. $150 for Snow Elementary from Common Vision for the Tree Care Scholarship Award. In-kind donation of chair, shelves, and artwork for McGregor from Fremont Bank per Seal Santos for McGregor use. In-kind donation of a desk file cabinet for Snow Elementary from Marilyn Bernard for office use. In-kind donation of textbooks for NUSD from Newark Educational Foundation for use in NEF's elementary band program Totaling $150. Thank you.

[9087] Nancy Thomas: Next, we have individual service agreement with Inova. And that's special ed, I believe. Yes. Anyone have a question or?

[9101] SPEAKER_13: Do you want to describe it or no? OK. Oh, Jennifer's here. She'd like to describe. Or if you have questions. If we have questions.

[9114] Nancy Thomas: OK.

[9117] SPEAKER_16: Kind of pedantic, but on the second page, it's Nova. Yeah, there's two different spellings. And on board docs, it's spelled Nova, but in the document, it's spelled Evona. I don't know. Maybe I'm being pedantic, but I'm just noticing that.

[9134] SPEAKER_13: The second doc in the contract or in the other one?

[9137] SPEAKER_16: In the, when you click on the link and you get the PDF file. Individual service. OK. Yeah.

[9142] Elisa Martinez: At the signature line.

[9147] Nancy Thomas: Is that just a typo we can correct?

[9149] SPEAKER_16: Yeah, I just wanted to point that out.

[9151] Nancy Thomas: Thank you. Okay, I accept a motion and a second.

[9159] SPEAKER_52: I make a move that we vote on 14.9.

[9163] SPEAKER_53: I second.

[9163] Nancy Thomas: Okay, please vote. Five ayes, thank you. we move on to the consent agenda. 15.1 personnel report and of course the student board member does not vote on personnel issues.

[9194] SPEAKER_52: Make a motion that we vote on 15.1. Second. Please vote.

[9208] Nancy Thomas: 4 ayes. Thank you. Next, we have a consent agenda 16.1 through 16.4. Would anyone like to pull those items? If not, I will accept a motion.

[9229] Bowen Zhang: I move to approve 16.1 to 16.4. I'll second. Please vote.

[9244] Nancy Thomas: five ayes, thank you. Next we move on to Board of Education, Committee Reports, Announcements, Requests, Debrief and Discussion. Mr. Bowen.

[9258] Bowen Zhang: Oh, I think last time when I asked for the ethnic breakdown of the special ed, I think I probably didn't explain myself clearly. I wasn't asking for a ethnic breakdown of the total special ed population say given this special ed population, how many are Asian, how many are Hispanic? I'm asking is among all the Asian Americans or among all the Hispanic students we have in this district, how many percentage of Hispanic students are identified as special ed? Compare that to the Fremont or New Haven number. Among the people whose primary language at home is Spanish, how many percentage of them are identified as special ed? So I guess that's the confusion we have. We can update that. And then compare that to New Haven and Fremont.

[9303] SPEAKER_52: Okay. I wanted to ask, Superintendent, if based on our... Give me one second, let me get the name. Our marketing... Valera. Valera, thank you very much. So based on our volunteer contract, I wanted to see if you guys can, Superintendent, if you can possibly give us a comparison report in regards to getting an in-house person that can do all the public relations, whether, and if you could also break it down into a part-time position compared to a full-time position, and then so we can compare finances on that, and I know that include in it, if possible, the duties to work with our Newark Education Foundation. Yes, please.

[9374] SPEAKER_13: OK. I can report on some of that in my report. Yeah. OK. Thank you. I can look at that.

[9384] Nancy Thomas: Ms.

[9384] SPEAKER_53: Martinez?

[9387] Elisa Martinez: Yes, just as a follow-up to the counselor presentation today, Assistant Superintendent Salinas, I'm not sure if that was in response to my question from the last meeting. I don't feel that that question got answered. And specifically, I know that we saw a lot of statistics, and we know that there's a ton of work. I was coming at it from the students' perspective, which the kids that are having, you know, the issues in terms of where they are credit-wise, right, and how we're making the decisions to move them forward. So my question was, you know, how are we planning, how are we generating those plans for these students that are in trouble? I did hear them, a couple of the counselors talk about, I have, you know, 60 kids that I'm, you know, working on these plans I think there are a couple of things. One of it is for the kids that are really struggling, but generally speaking, right, I know we get, you know, we see the, I have a caseload of 500 kids. I would also specifically say, well, how many kids are we actually touching, right? Because I think that's really important to understand, you know, is that tiny minority of kids pulling the resources and we're not touching. 30, 20, 10% of our total kid population. Again, I just don't feel that that got answered. I understand that we're setting an initial plan at the beginning of the year. But how often are we revising, actively revising, right? So that's what I didn't hear. And I'm not sure if this presentation was intended to answer that question.

[9495] SPEAKER_30: It was intended to try to start to answer and to have the discussion here to give us some context. This presentation, there was some added to it, but for the most part, it had been presented at the LCAP, so it was more also updating the LCAP. I know that they were able to share in terms of the tier one, tier two, tier three about how many students are supported. From my understanding, they are not actively keeping a log because they've lost the clerical support of how many kids are coming in. But what I do see is that, especially after meeting with folks today, as the new leadership comes in, and there have been some challenges because of unstable leadership there, how do we support their direct supervisor to really make those work plans? And so all of that is to say, let me take another, let me meet with them again and with Ms. Sert to see if we can get more I don't think we're going to get very more specific data in terms of like 50 kids this week or 40 kids this week. But what we can have is some planning as to caseloads and how are you monitoring kids and how many times a year and how are you adjusting your caseload.

[9567] Elisa Martinez: I think this is absolutely critical and in the last conversation I did say this is one I'm just not going to let go and I wasn't going to accept the answer of we don't track it. There has to be a way, if it's the calendar, then I'm okay, let's figure out how we resource someone to manually do some data entry. This is so important. And so, you know, definitely let's figure out how we follow up on this and how can we, you know, find the resources for that. You know, it could just, it could, you know, present the problem and that we, you know, we really are that under-resourced. But I want to make decisions that are fact-based, right? So I think that's really, really important.

[9613] SPEAKER_13: If I may respond to part of that, I can share with you that I am working with the high school in changing the master schedule and how we structure it to be able to answer the question, what are we doing for kids that are off track? And what are we allocating resources to do so? And what I would suggest is probably a report to the board on how we've restructured the master schedule. based on student needs.

[9634] Elisa Martinez: That would be fantastic. I think that would be really insightful.

[9637] SPEAKER_13: I've been working with a couple of groups on that.

[9640] Elisa Martinez: On a lighter note, so my daughter represented our district at the California Geography Bee. She did not win, but I was really proud of her. And just the kids from all the schools across California, it's just amazing how young they are, but how poised they are under that pressure. So anyway, it was a really great experience.

[9669] SPEAKER_13: Do you want to call her out by name on the record?

[9672] Elisa Martinez: Alessandra Castaneda.

[9675] Nancy Thomas: Great. Congratulations. I'd like to get a little bit more of an understanding, if not now, at a future meeting about APEX and the way we're using APEX and why we're using APEX. I understand we're using it during the school day. And if we have a slot in a classroom with a teacher, why are we having students, if that's happening, taking an APEX class in the same subject, and especially When I look at our software costs, I just say APEX, to me, is something that should be done in the summer for kids to recover units. And during the year, we need to have that kind of one-on, not one-on-one, but classroom teacher interaction and not interaction with the machine. Because I'm not convinced that online learning is, especially for core classes, is the way we want our students to learn. That's what I have. Oh, by the way, I did enjoy going up with Ms. Eustis to Sacramento to lobby for full and fair funding for our schools. And I plan to stay engaged and involved. And I would encourage our staff and board members and teachers and our administrators to become engaged and contact our legislators and tell them how important it is that we, instead of being in the bottom 10 in funding, we want to be in the top 10. Oh, Cesar, yeah.

[9785] SPEAKER_16: I don't think I have anything. No, I don't really have anything. Yeah, I don't know if the... Any questions for my opinion as a student, but I don't have anything to ask for at this moment.

[9798] Nancy Thomas: Thank you. Superintendent?

[9801] SPEAKER_13: I have two requests. The first one is please, please think about dates for a retreat that would work for you. And the second request is when we finish the meeting, we all text Ray Rodriguez the time we finish the meeting. Just a request. That's all I have.

[9820] SPEAKER_16: Now that I think about it, I do have one thing. OK. I know I mentioned it in my report, but I would like to mention it one more time. The board is invited to come to the last Rocketry launch. This is our last opportunity to make it to the national championships, the TARC championships in Virginia. So we've been working really hard. We've run into some snags with administration and finding times to build. But we're working really hard to get good launches on Saturday morning. So I know it's kind of early, it's 7.30 in the morning, behind the Ohlone campus in Newark, but we're really hoping that we can get good launches off and that you guys can come be there to support us.

[9860] SPEAKER_13: If you send the date and time to Char, she'll put it on the calendar. This Saturday, yeah.

[9866] SPEAKER_16: But is it at Ohlone? There are some gravel lots behind the Newark campus. That's where we launch. Oh, OK. Behind Ohlone, yeah.

[9877] Bowen Zhang: Oh, actually, speaking of President Rodriguez, so on this agenda meeting, I think maybe we made a mistake on the address that he's in. So the address being printed on the regular board meeting where he's from, the address actually doesn't exist.

[9896] SPEAKER_13: We'll have to talk to him about that. OK.

[9901] Nancy Thomas: Oh, my.

[9906] SPEAKER_13: I think that concludes what we've heard.

[9909] Nancy Thomas: Meeting adjourned.

No minutes available.