Study Session Meeting

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[481] Richelle Piechowski: Recording in progress.

[517] Bowen Zhang: Regular meeting on your Board of Education. Meeting is called to order at 5.03 PM. Ms. Guterres, roll call, please.

[523] SPEAKER_30: Vice President Nguyen? Here. Member Grindel? Here. Member Hill? Here. President Hsiang? Here. All present.

[541] Bowen Zhang: Approval of the agenda. May I get a motion to approve the agenda as it is?

[546] Phuong Nguyen: I move to approve the agenda as is.

[548] Bowen Zhang: I second it. Member Grundahl, how do you vote?

[552] SPEAKER_17: Yes.

[554] Bowen Zhang: Member Hill?

[556] Phuong Nguyen: Yes.

[557] Bowen Zhang: Member Nguyen?

[558] Phuong Nguyen: Yes.

[560] Bowen Zhang: My vote is yes as well. Motion carries with four ayes. Next item, study session. Continuation of our APAC credit recovery. Ms. Gutierrez, any public comments?

[575] SPEAKER_30: Yes, we do. Just one second.

[579] Bowen Zhang: Welcome our student board member. Yes, this is your first meeting. So, student board member, do you want to go by member Ortiz or you have... Resendez-Ortiz. Okay. Resendez-Ortiz. Okay. Welcome student board member Resendez-Ortiz. public comment for study session.

[608] SPEAKER_30: One second. Okay. The first one is going to be Brian Foster. This is going to be a virtual caller. Mr. Foster, you may begin.

[645] SPEAKER_16: Thank you. I hope you can hear me. I could barely hear some clip voices on your end. President Zhang and members of the board, since the NTA does not have a seat at the table in the room where it happens, I am limited to exercising my First Amendment rights of petitioning my government for a redress of grievances in three minutes or less. Given more time, I could invalidate much of what the administration presented to you at the last study session. wherein they were either retelling you lies that their subordinates told them, or they were presenting Apex's guidelines and hoping they were actual practices. To be absolutely clear, what they told you last time is simply not true. It's a fabrication. How else do you explain that just this last week, one of my students who is currently enrolled in an Apex course said that his counselors are unlocking his units and grading his assignments? How is it that in my four years at Newark Memorial, our counselors have never, not once, approached me about coordinating a student's course needs in APEX, and that the only way I learn of a student being assigned to APEX is when the student tells me that he or she does not have to submit makeup assignments because they have already been issued APEX credits? How is it that counselors can instantly approve and assign APEX courses without your curriculum review while it takes a year or more for our school to approve advanced placement courses, which are already approved by colleges. How can you explain how another student of mine just this week took issue with me and argued that Apex helps with graduation? He said he just earned credits in summer school and was counting on Apex courses at the end of this year in order to graduate. I asked him what he learned in Apex because I was prepared to praise him for his work. He said nothing. I asked him if he got his answers from the internet, and he responded that they all did. I told him that was why I was against APEX. APEX teaches our students that cheating the system is appropriate. That same student asked why APEX was wrong if it helped more students to graduate. And based on information administration gave us in the last study session, that means upwards of 30% of our graduates, a quadrupling of APEX courses in just four years, are relying upon APEX to graduate. I asked the rest of my class to imagine that they were waiting to cross the graduation stage. Are they proud of their accomplishments? Are their families proud? Some of them worked hard to get As. Some worked hard to push an F into a passing grade of a D, which, by the way, is not college-ready since CSUs and UCs require Cs or better to graduate. Yes, they are proud, they said. I saw the grins on their faces. Then I asked them to imagine that standing next to them is a fellow student who just earned his credits in a day or two, or even with a district-reported average of just 19 hours. I asked them how they felt. They all responded with anger and frustration, with cries of, that's not fair. Our students instantly recognized why Apex is fraudulent. And I am left to wonder, why can't you? To be fair, our administration arrived long after our counselors were using Apex. They inherited this problem. I initially brought my concerns to the attention of our administration internally. But since then, counselors have only ramped up Apex's abuses.

[834] SPEAKER_30: Thank you.

[835] SPEAKER_16: As I did then, and as I am doing now, I invite our administration to defund Apex.

[843] SPEAKER_30: Thank you your time is up.

[846] SPEAKER_16: I have more.

[869] SPEAKER_37: Hi, hello, can you hear me?

[871] Nancy Thomas: Yes.

[873] SPEAKER_37: Okay. Hi board, Dr. Triplett, Ms. Pearson, staff. When I saw the Apex presentation last time, it reminded me about the base rate fallacy problem. Here's a quick example. People are very worried about vaccine effectiveness. An article cited in Finland over one month, 67% of COVID infections, there were in people that were fully vaccinated. However, people hearing that high percentage might be scared of the effectiveness of vaccines. Base rate fallacy is when you do not consider the data with the whole context. So if you provide more context, Finland is 71% vaccinated. In the past six months, the actual number is six of every 1,000 vaccinated people get COVID. However, unvaccinated people get 18 in every 1,000, which is triple of vaccinated. Therefore, with better context, you see the benefits of vaccinated versus unvaccinated. Why do I bring this up? Personally, the APEX material brought me sad reminders of the MBPI deck from November of 2020. Example, APEX touted big key partners like NCAA, selecting specific measurements like pass rates by course sequence. However, we do remember how MBPI nice presentation of 99% kill rate ended up. Let's put aside the similarities in materials and dig into the data. First, thank you to President Zhang for calling out needing even more data. Ms. Pierce, in your Apex usage slide, slide 13, with hours and course breakdown, you focused on average time spent per student and talked about the blended model should be between 20 to 30 hours. However, if you use another different metric, time spent per enrollment per course, your own data shows that a student taking Apex courses' time on average had a much lower range, four hours for crossroads, five hours on the bridge points, and 10 hours at Newark High School. So your 20 to 30 blended model expectation is not being met. It's 50 to 75% lower on a per-course basis. Should kids be passing classes after 4 hours of remediation? Second, slide 16, year-to-year comparison. If I ignore COVID years from 2015 to 2018, a 4-year period, there's an 81% increase in number of enrolled APEX courses on a per-student basis. Board, you should hopefully want to ask, why would the average student need or want more to take or want to take more APEX courses on a year-over-year basis, assuming a random distribution? Finally, let's use pass rate by course sequence that Apex touted in presentation number one. Slide 29, that algebra 2 after Apex geometry has a 44.4% fail rate. Math analysis has a after Apex algebra 2 has a 50% fail rate. However, just like my first story, let's not fall into the base rate fallacy. Board, don't just take my quick numbers, but please see that the data provided is insufficient and can be a lot more comprehensive. Please ask the staff to go back and provide a more complete analysis before addition. Thank you.

[1039] SPEAKER_30: Thank you. That's it for public speaker.

[1048] Bowen Zhang: Okay, we'll go down to the table and start our study session.

[1061] Penny DeLeon: Remember, you can come down to the center.

[1090] SPEAKER_27: Hi, I'm Catherine. I work in HR. That's great. Nice to meet you.

[1119] SPEAKER_28: Are you like, 11? I'm okay. Thank you. It's not going to be long like that. I'm nervous. Is it? Yeah. I'm all over it. Of course. Did you put that on there? Yeah, sure. Hi.

[1156] SPEAKER_27: Are you training? Yeah.

[1161] SPEAKER_28: Awesome. Awesome. So we're going to be hiring people in the staff for our next meeting. You're welcome to go to that. And not a stranger to public speaking.

[1178] SPEAKER_27: Thank you.

[1211] Nicole Pierce-Davis: I remember the days where I just pulled up on Zoom, huh?

[1255] SPEAKER_17: Was that something we discussed last time? The board member was talking about it. His phone was giving him guilt because he was unread the whole time. He was expecting a speech. Longer stuff is a bit weird. We're going to get started. Yeah, go ahead. I should have let you know. Oh, slide 27? Yeah. There's places in San Jose that are better.

[1317] SPEAKER_27: Did I do that?

[1318] Maria Huffer: On accident? Okay, I got it. Again, part two? Yes, please.

[1321] Nicole Pierce-Davis: Sorry if I accidentally flipped something. Really is why I put the slides together is because obviously we're answering, we're spending most of our time today answering the questions that you all had last time, and it made sense to just have that context there for public. So, we ready? Ready to start? Okay. All right, talk a little louder for our audience, yes. So last session, there were a series of questions that came out at the end. We wanted to spend most of this session really delving into those questions and making sure that we got thorough answers to those questions. One of the first questions that was asked was how many students at North Memorial High School took Apex courses and pass-fail traditional subsequent courses in mathematics and ELA? That was the data requested. There we go. So just as a reminder, so the data that we are pulling from, I did spend some quality time with our Newark Memorial High School counselors and pulling that data. And so again, what we did is we pulled the class of 2019, that's 339 students who attended Newark Memorial for the entire four years. Because we wanted to get a full picture of what that four year experience looked like. Of this cohort of 339 students, 102 enrolled in APEX courses, and 23 enrolled in APEX for grade improvement. So the content areas we actually did poll, we also polled history in addition to mathematics and ELA. And then we noted the remaining sections, just so you guys could be clear on which sections were being taken. And in the tables following, students enrolled in either one semester or two. But what we did is we combined that data point. So if they enrolled in the two semesters, let's say to complete all of algebra one, we compiled that as one data point to see how they did on geometry the subsequent course. Instead of doing, okay, first semester and second semester, we combined that to one data point. All right, let's begin. So this first one is in mathematics. So the first example, the light blue, is students who passed, who took geometry after taking Apex Algebra 1. In the light blue, you see the students who passed. In the dark blue, you see the students who failed the subsequent course. In the orange, you see students who did not take the subsequent course. And then in the pink there, you see the students who enrolled in the Apex subsequent course. So we made sure we captured all of that data. And then in the following, you can see students who took Algebra 2 after Apex Geometry, students who took Math Analysis after Apex Algebra 2, students who enrolled in Transitions, and so on.

[1499] Bowen Zhang: So, does that mean in the past four years that only nine students, I mean only seven students are moving out of Geometry after Apex Geometry 1? that seven students passed the regular geometry, and two, I guess, and one took the APATS, one didn't take it.

[1518] Nicole Pierce-Davis: Yeah. What's interesting about the way this data is broken out, and I don't think we would have been pushed to do it without you asking this question, so we appreciate it. What you're going to see is really which classes and courses students are taking. And it is interesting, the majority of those courses, at the end, you'll notice are in electives.

[1539] Bowen Zhang: Actually, given that you have over roughly 400 students taking APADS class, and only 7 actually took the L4-1 APADS, that's a very minimal number, given that 400 students decided last night.

[1554] Nicole Pierce-Davis: It's also, I think what should be noted here as well, is each of these courses, you would either have to create a new section with its own individual teacher, if you did this, so that would be one, two, three, four, five, six different classes, or you can embed those into the coursework, but that can be really challenging in a master schedule. And here's why. Oftentimes, if a student failed a course, that means they're taking it with the grade level behind them. And oftentimes, we establish a master schedule in a way that seniors kind of have a flow for the day, juniors have a flow for the day. And so if I'm a junior taking a sophomore class, chances are that class won't be readily available. You just never know. And if it's not readily available in that one section, that might be the only time they can take their English class or their other class, and it becomes quite a challenging schedule.

[1602] Mark Triplett: Mr. Pierce, just to your point, President Chen, so taking the example of the first one on the left side, it's actually saying that 11 people took the Apex-eligible one. Yeah. But then seven went on to pass. In a time span of four years, is that right?

[1620] Bowen Zhang: Is that correct? I'm sorry? In a time span of four years. Yes. You're looking at a four-year.

[1628] Aiden Hill: These numbers add up to- Well, this would be the senior class, right?

[1631] Nicole Pierce-Davis: So this isn't a four-year period. This is out of that seniors who attended York Memorial for all four years. That's how many.

[1640] Aiden Hill: These numbers add up to 109 students.

[1644] Nicole Pierce-Davis: So remember, these numbers will not because some of these semesters we've compiled together to make one data point. So if they took, let's say, some students may only have taken one semester of geometry. Some students may have taken two semesters of geometry before they went on to take, let's say, algebra two. And so you won't see those numbers add up because, again, we compiled those data points together because it just didn't make any sense. to say, OK, these students took one semester versus these students took both semesters and went on to a traditional subsequent course. But that's why I made that point, because I wanted to make sure that that data was accounted for. This is in English. So again, out of those 300 students, 339 students, these are the students who enrolled in English courses. So these are the amount of students. So here, you can see nine students went on to pass English 2. after taking Apex English 1 and similar. So taking English 3 after taking Apex English 2, English 4 after taking English 3, and then there is one student who took semester 2 of English 4 and we decided to add that in since it was relevant data point and it was easy to track. No students in this case enrolled in a subsequent Apex course. One student did not take the subsequent course. Obviously, that is because either, right, they either finished at English 3 and took a different course. Again, as you go higher and higher, you're going to see less students take the subsequent course because they're either graduating or they're not graduating. The next one is history. So these are the amount of students who passed. US history after taking Apex World History. These are students who passed and failed government after taking Apex US history. And these are students who did not take subsequent course after taking econ or government. There's only one student in this case, but I wanted to make sure we mark that down. Out of the remaining courses that are not captured by this past failed data, we've got 15 that were semesters of foreign language, Spanish in this case, and we've got 63 that were electives. So there generally is not a subsequent course for electives. The next question was?

[1792] Bowen Zhang: Yeah, the ACG.

[1793] Nancy Thomas: Say that again?

[1795] Bowen Zhang: Yeah, the one, ACG readiness, the college readiness.

[1798] Nicole Pierce-Davis: Thank you, yes. So how many students that are taking APEX courses are college and career ready if we're using A to G completion as the indicator? And just as a reminder, the students here we expect maybe would be less because these are students that are struggling in a particular content area. So really, because our graduation requirements are the same as A to G required courses, the only students that you're going to see listed here as not being A to G ready are students who have a D in a particular course. or who have gotten, who have been able to waive themselves from graduation. So they're either special education students who are on a certificate track, they may be foster youth who are eligible for less credit, something like that, but very very few. So most of the students here you're going to see are students who have a D in a particular course.

[1843] Bowen Zhang: So these are the student group though, the entire graduating class or

[1848] Nicole Pierce-Davis: These are the students that are- This is that same group of 2019 of those seniors, of those 339 seniors that stayed at North Memorial for four years.

[1857] Bowen Zhang: Okay, this is the entire graduate and senior class?

[1859] Nicole Pierce-Davis: Mm-hmm. Okay. So this will equal your 339. Because these are students- But this doesn't equal to 339.

[1867] Bowen Zhang: Yeah, it does, if you add it all together.

[1870] Nicole Pierce-Davis: It equals 336, probably. It's 332, I believe. Or 332, if I had it wrong, yeah. But it's going to equal our total amount. So these are students, right, who are Apex takers. So we had 40 that were A to G, who had completed their A to G courses, essentially that they had no other Ds on their transcript. And we have 91 over here. And then for our non-Apex takers, 136 and 65. What embedded intervention options exist at Newark Memorial High School prior to requiring credit recovery? So just took this was more for our community, but just understanding what embedded intervention is. It's essentially intervention prior to getting to the summative, right? And realizing, no, we now have to make it up. So what are we doing during the day, during the school day to try to avoid students from having to take credit recovery? So avoid having failed the course altogether. So here's some of the things that are happening at Newark Memorial High School. We do have Ms. Rangel here, who will be talking about a little bit more of these things. Actually, would you like to talk about these? Sure. Come on up.

[1939] Olivia Rangel: Good evening, everybody. Thank you for having me here. So we do have something unique to Newark Memorial called PAWS, it's Proactive Workshop. It's an embedded flex time every Wednesday and Thursday of about an hour where students can receive tutorial support. Teachers do reteach concepts using informal assessments. They allow students to retest, are able to provide support to students, act as an advisory period to make sure students understand how to navigate Google Classroom, synergy, understanding their grades, graduation requirements. So this is just one proactive way to provide support to students. We also have after-school tutorials. We have a very robust class referral process which allows us to remove any barriers to students' learning such as providing mental health services, And then also providing some support, such as counselor check-ins and conferences. And just in the last year, we started a student advisory team, in which we really look at, is there a larger barrier? What can we provide this student, whether it's a 504 plan, recommendation for assessment, or even just regular counselor check-ins to ensure that our students are being successful on site? to the pandemic we did work around differentiation accommodation with a C O E we had a C O E employee come and support us with really diving in her department on how to differentiate meet the needs of our kids of course that was cut short because of the pandemic. But we're moving into even reevaluating grading policies. aligning grading policies, checking for understanding, also engagement. And they did support us through some engagement online when we went into the pandemic as well.

[2055] Nicole Pierce-Davis: If you're going to avoid failing a course to begin with, where should your energy go? It should go into, how do we support the student prior to failing the course? And while these are all school sort of systems, more policies, more school-wide structures that are set up, this is where the real work happens, right? It happens in the classroom, it happens with the teacher and the student. And I think this is definitely an area to continue to consider for professional development at Newark Memorial High School.

[2082] Aiden Hill: So what percentage of students, as they're going through, so they're having issues, they are potentially failing the course, these interventions come into play, and you're going through essentially a progression of interventions. What percentage of students don't make it through the interventions? I'm not sure if you know that. And then, of those that don't make it through the intervention, are they put into APEX prior to failing the course, or are they put into APEX after they fail the course?

[2118] Nicole Pierce-Davis: That's a great question. So APEX is a summative. So it's after they failed the course. And so that's a sort of, it's no longer an intervention. It is a credit recovery. It's a response to the fact that a student has failed the course.

[2135] Aiden Hill: So if they had taken, you know, let's just say, you know, US History or Geometry or whatever, So are you doing it on a yearly basis or on a semester basis?

[2148] Nicole Pierce-Davis: Would you like to answer that?

[2149] Olivia Rangel: Yes, so it's on a yearly basis.

[2153] Aiden Hill: So they would go through the entire year, they would fail that course that year, that would show up on their transcript that they failed that course, then they're put into APEX after that.

[2164] Olivia Rangel: Yes.

[2165] Aiden Hill: And then their final transcript would show both the original fail, the F, and then their credit recovery.

[2174] Olivia Rangel: Yes. And then depending on what school they attend, it's either an average of the grades, which most of them will be an average of the grades. So if you get an F and you get an A, then the average would be a C. It doesn't replace the grade. both are on the transcript.

[2191] Bowen Zhang: When you say it depends on the school, so you're talking about either which one or?

[2196] Olivia Rangel: No, depending on what the colleges accept. Oh, I see. You have to report both grades.

[2204] Nicole Pierce-Davis: which again, I think speaks to this isn't kind of a escape out of what happens, right? They still fail the course that ends up on their transcript. That is known by the colleges. I think at this point, we are looking at students who are struggling and we are trying to get them to that finish line of graduation. And what does that look like? Again, without having to repeat content, but really thinking about targeting content that was missed the first time around. Something else you said, I think I lost it. I think I lost it. If it comes back to me, I'll say it again. All right. So I think at this time, we have some voices. So I'd like to, again, turn it over to Ms. Rangel.

[2256] Olivia Rangel: So I know that we've had some community voices. And one of my fears is that it's not representing the demographics of our student body. I hear the comment grace before grades, I hear let's take into consideration the needs of our students and how the pandemic has impacted them. I think that's important to hear. I also want to say that it's hard to get students to come up here and talk when they've had a misstep in their career at Newark Memorial. So the bravery of the two young women that are here today should be recognized for them to come up and talk about their need for Apex. So the first student that I want to invite up here is Mariana Armenta Nevarez. She's a 12th grade student.

[2308] SPEAKER_10: Good afternoon. My name is Mariana Armenta Nevarez. I'm currently enrolled as a senior at North Memorial High School. And I'm here to express the importance of Apex learning. My freshman year of high school, I got my first job a few months after I turned 14. Being so young and trying to balance school and work while also trying to have somewhat of a social life wasn't very easy. As a result, my grades had suffered. The following year, my counselor had recommended I take Apex to recover my grades from the previous year, and I did. But that was only the first Apex class that I had taken. Unfortunately, due to the demands of the Apex class, I was unable to finish it. It was a lot harder than I had thought. During my junior year, we were learning online. During my junior year, we were learning online, sitting behind computers, only to stare at a blank screen, wondering what our teenagers were rambling on about. I wasn't able to mentally keep up with distance learning, and I ended up failing numerous classes. I had found myself with zero motivation, and I didn't want to fail, but no matter how much I wanted to do my assignments so I could pass, I couldn't bring myself to do it. In consequence, I didn't have enough credits to be on track to graduate this year. Over the summer while I was in summer school, I had met up with my counselor and together we had come up with a plan. I was to take seven classes in person, which was the maximum amount you can take, but I was still under in credits. So we had decided on Apex to make up for those missing credits. As of right now, I'm taking seven classes from 730 to 330 and waiting to get into Apex so I can have a chance to graduate with the rest of my class. Without Apex, I won't be able to graduate.

[2412] SPEAKER_27: Thank you.

[2418] Olivia Rangel: Thank you, Mariana. The next person that I'd like to invite up is Brittany Flores. She's an 11th grade student at Newark Memorial.

[2430] SPEAKER_09: Hello. All right. Hello. My name is Brittany Flores Palacios. I'm a junior in, sorry. My name is Brittany Flores Palacios. I am a junior. Learning math online was a tough experience, and I failed math. My parents put me in summer school, Apex. My experience with learning math on Apex was even harder to understand. I asked my friends for their opinion, and they said, and I quote, I didn't learn anything because it was hard to understand. And I couldn't remember anything. Thank you.

[2486] Nicole Pierce-Davis: I do want us to make sure that we hold some other considerations. I know these weren't the questions that were asked by the board, but I do think they're considerations that should be top of mind. One is just timing. Students and families are still grappling with the impacts of COVID-19 and being on distance learning, as you've heard from our students. We really do need to keep that in mind. Equity as well. Again, I want to be very clear that equity should never, ever, ever be associated with lowering standards, and that is not what we are doing. But we do want to make sure that we provide a pathway for students who are struggling to still meet the needs while showing that they can do the work. So I just want to be clear on that. And then cost, there are some associated costs and I think we need to be really wary of what those costs are. I know that some folks, if you've never done a high school master schedule, it's a beast in and of itself. And so I really encourage you to check in with some high school counselors, because that master schedule process would create a lot of additional costs if you decided to look into some other models. I also want us just to think about the difference between implementation and platform. It's very easy sometimes to think about how technology can be used to support us. We don't want to be not in the 21st century, right? We need to use technology to support us without relying on technology or over-relying on technology. And so I just want to remind us that that is a balance. And we really want to make sure we identify the root. Is it an implementation issue or is it the platform itself and being very clear on that. And so if there is some guidance around implementation, we can work on continuing improvements there. But again, how do we use technology to enhance our lives is really the balance that we're trying to achieve here. Finally, AB 104 was signed into law this summer, and it does create and really ask districts to again, specifically for those seniors and juniors of last year. So if you were a junior in high school or a senior in high school last year, It does require really that districts look at credit recovery options in a different kind of way and open up really opportunities for students to complete coursework. In fact, even looking at the requirements not necessarily set by the LEA, but set by the state. And so that is just another thing to consider as we think about making these adjustments. recommendation from our staff at this time is in the box there. And the reason why those are in the box is because it really are kind of the options that we feel like we have a path forward. And that is really continuing with Apex and maintaining the current administrative adjustments. Again, Ms. Rangel talked about that last session about setting up requirements like you must take a unit quiz in front of a teacher. There's a certain minimum requirements of hours. I know we heard in the public comment around the amount of hours at Bridgepoint were different. That is true because they run a very different model at an all-ed school. And so how you, again, how you implement the program is different depending on how much involvement the teacher is using in the course. The other option would be to continue with APEX but increased adjustments, and we could really talk about what does that mean. I think you had said last time, maybe we could have an end of unit assessment to kind of create that additional protection for quality or for mastery of content. Or we can continue with APEX again this year, but take this year to really compare alternatives. I will say I've already done some of that work and many of the platforms are very similar. There's a couple that I would absolutely not use. And then there are quite a few that are very similar. Again, it really goes down to how are you implementing whatever program you choose to bring into your district. And that is it for my presentation today. So we are looking for next steps.

[2734] Aiden Hill: So you, in your last slide, you were talking about process, basically looking at root causes. And I think everybody knows I'm a former consultant. I worked a lot with companies who had broken processes. And the emphasis was, don't put a Band-Aid on the broken process. Identify the root cause and fix it. So we've had issues from our California school dashboard going back many, many years, which demonstrate that at the high school, we have a high graduation rate. And yet we have a low score in terms of college readiness and career readiness. What that indicates to me, right, is we have a system problem. There's something that is dysfunctional there. And it lends credence to the thought that, are we graduating people? Are we pushing them through, passing them through, and they're not really prepared? We're not really preparing them. But I guess my question is, before we had this technology, what did schools used to do? They didn't have an option. They had to go back and they had to fix the fundamentals. From my viewpoint, there's something that's broken. And rather than putting a bandaid on it, we need to identify what that is and fix it. And there could be some instructional issues that are happening with the frontline teachers. We need to analyze that. There could be issues related to the interventions and how those are working or not working. But to basically just essentially let holes in the system continue, and then try to use APEX on the back end. And especially given, I think, some of the concerns that we've heard around potential for, you know, for lack of a better term, cheating, it seems to me that it's not a good approach. So I'd like to hear more about, you know, what we're doing to address the fundamentals that are causing this, rather than implementing a Band-Aid on the back end to sort of mask

[2879] Bowen Zhang: So my question is, I think the AB104 is that you give the student who are struggling two paths, either staying there for a fifth year or you have a credit recovery. That's what a stable requires, right? So obviously, to make a decision on the APATS, I think I want to see some financial picture about the different options of those decisions. What would be the impact? And I don't think we're ready to make a decision without knowing the financial impact. possible financial impact. So I would love to see what would be the financial impact if we ask the student, if you are not ready to graduate and you stay there for a fifth year, given that the third year and the fourth year in many ways are not very effective. Do you have anything? No, no. That's my question. Because I think the third year, fourth year for high school kids, I wouldn't say that high school experience is a problem. extracurricular or economic. That's not a complete financial experiment. If you are not ready, I think a better option is you should stay there for a fifth year and get your work done. So I just want to know what would be the financial impact of this if we happen to go in that route?

[2954] Nicole Pierce-Davis: Should I answer that if I can? Yeah? Okay. So I think a couple things here. If we are talking about financial impact, we can create an estimate. But that's going to be hard to judge. Because in any given year, so let's say part of my research here, there was about four years ago, 80% of the ninth grade class failed either their math or their English class. So in that kind of year, the cost would be quite high.

[2987] Bowen Zhang: So my understanding is do we, so if a student stay in a high school for the fifth year, so are they not counted as part of the ADA when receiving state funding? Because if they're not counted as an ADA, then yeah, sure, we absorb the whole cost of educating this kid for one more year. But if they're counted as an ADA, then maybe the financial impact is very minimal. The only thing that might be on the negative side is sort of a cultural taboo, is people think that, oh, I'm here for the fifth year. There might be some mental taboo on me, or I might feel I look bad in front of that. But other than that, financially speaking, if that's counted as ADA, then the impact should be minimal.

[3027] Nicole Pierce-Davis: So there is some concerns around adults, 19-year-olds. I see, I see.

[3032] Bowen Zhang: Well, the other thing that's happened with the senior club, when they graduated, they're adults already, right?

[3037] Nicole Pierce-Davis: You mentioned the mental taboo of the fifth year in high school.

[3039] SPEAKER_20: I think adding on to that, it's not only the shame of, oh, I have to take high school again, but it's also like parents, especially I don't know, for me, a Latino background, I have high expectations, parents have high expectations of their children. It's either the side of extreme deaf parents, it looks like a disgrace almost, that they have to take a fifth year, or the parents aren't even involved in their lives, that the students say, what's the point of me taking a fifth year? I'm already 19, I'm already an adult, why should I even do it? They lose the motivation, and no one's keeping them in check, and they just have to do APEX, and they're already failing their classes. What makes you think they will do it again?

[3089] Bowen Zhang: So the fifth-year option, if they stay there for the fifth year, are they going to be in the APEX class, or are they going to take the regular class?

[3097] Nicole Pierce-Davis: I think that's something that we're going to have to work out probably in an upcoming session.

[3102] Bowen Zhang: using credit recovery or stay for the fifth year. So it seems like the law is designed for the stay for the fifth year as really taking a regular car rather than going for APAC. If you go for APAC, that's credit recovery, that's not fifth year anymore.

[3117] Phuong Nguyen: I think the gist of that is that it's asking the school district and the teaching staff to find other ways for intervention besides as another option other than part of the company. So we end those families while they're going through 9th through 12th grade. and complete the APG. So they're asking the district to provide additional intervention or ways to help these students pass these courses so that they can graduate.

[3151] Mark Triplett: One of the challenges is that the schedule, the student schedule is limited and so there's very little room in the current schedule for students to actually fail something and then be able to take the class again within four years. So that poses a problem. But the other thing that's maybe could be considered intangible, but I would argue is probably the thing that's most important, is dropout. And so part of the reason that Credit Recovery was created is because our goal is to ensure that as many students as possible graduate. And the goal is to support students to graduate and be successful. And data shows that when students fail a class, particularly if they don't have an opportunity then to pass the class in another manner, then they're much more likely to drop out. And to me, that's like the greatest fear of all, is students dropping out because we're not offering them an opportunity to actually be successful or be able to pass.

[3219] Terrence Grindall: I have two points where I agree. In terms of that, that makes a lot of sense, but we want to make sure we're not lowering standards in order to make that happen. So we want to use whatever tools to, that's our goal, but it's not a diploma mill, right? I know that's not what you intended, but I just wanted to clarify that. And I wanted to go back to something Amy said, which I thought was right on point. Apex is just part of the solution. But Aiden hit on the issue. We have a fundamental issue. Our students are not, on average, as prepared as they should be. And certainly, one of the things I'd be worried about is if we're leaning on Apex. I think that's what you indicated, Member Hill. If we're leaning on Apex and not doing those early interventions, then we're really working against ourselves. Those earlier interventions are maybe where we need to put more energy, and APEX may be sort of a, when that hasn't worked, then there's another option, and it might work better for some students than others, but I'd really like to see what we can do so that the child doesn't have the F on their transcript in the first place. Because that's going to really hurt, particularly in competitive schools. That's going to hurt their chances. So sorry if I'm going on and on. But I think that I'd like to think about that at Apex as part of a whole solution, but certainly caution that we don't start leaning on it because it's easier for us or cheaper or whatever else. Those interventions should happen. And we need to structurally look, even in the all the way down elementary schools, to make sure that we're doing state of the art to help our students excel.

[3350] Phuong Nguyen: When we fail and we need to review the steps of our current implementation, how we're using it, and are we using it correctly, what isn't working, we have to evaluate all those points. If we aren't evaluating all those points, then yes, it's a disservice to the student, and not only that, at the end of the day, then we are just using it as a tool to pass students on for graduation. And that's not the intent of it, right? The intent of it is all the students being able to get a really good education, being career ready and college ready, right? So I think that part of it, and I think staff has been evaluating the implementation processes that have been in place in prior years and trying to improve it. But again, we should definitely go back and have those discussions and re-evaluate those points. And then also make sure that

[3423] Nicole Pierce-Davis: I think that's actually one of the reasons why I wanted to highlight this slide. In my time as a high school principal, I was actually able to move our A to G requirements by almost 20%. So the amount of kids after my three years of being there that were A to G ready were 20% higher than they were when I showed up. And a big part of that is doing these types of things, right? Doing the interventions prior to the end. And I wanted to highlight this slide because I was actually very excited that Ms. Rangel had her attention on this prior to the summit of need for credit recovery. So in many ways, although the attention right now is on APEX, It is just one piece of this larger plan. And I wanted to make sure that that was clear. And I was happy to hear that that's been the focus. I would like them, that's why I kind of made this part in orange, to refocus on this part because that part was interrupted during COVID. I'd like us to take that back up again at the high school if we can.

[3481] Phuong Nguyen: So I'm really interested in performance-based metrics on how PAUSE is working. Because, I mean, I did not go through that when we went through the school here in the district. So that's interesting to me, to see if the interventions during PAUSE really, really work.

[3506] Nicole Pierce-Davis: And that's one of the areas that I think will push. And Ms. Rangel, oh, she's talking. But I think this is one of those areas that that will be the indication. One of the things that we did look when we saw the PODS data is that it was helping the kids who maybe had A's, B's, and C's get one grade higher. And so the focus this year is, yeah. So the focus, and Ms. Rangel has an eye on this as well, and I'm excited to partner with his, is really focus, how do we focus more attention on the D's and F's students? to push those D's to C's, which will get at our A to G eligibility, as well as our F's into D's or F's even into C's, so that they're still A to G eligible, but so that they still do remain on track to graduate. Because as Dr. Triplett said, with a six period day, even with the opportunity for a seventh period, it's very hard within the day to maintain what you need each year. So if I'm a junior, I need to take those junior classes and still have room for that credit recovery.

[3562] Phuong Nguyen: So as a current student,

[3565] SPEAKER_20: Yeah, well so with PAWS, I truly have loved it. A specific memory I have of PAWS, sophomore year I took three AP classes. Usually that's not recommended for sophomores, it's recommended only one. I was quite ambitious and I took AP bio, one of like the most set hardest classes and while I am like an ambitious and rigorous student, AP Bio brought my grade down to a D minus at one point. And I would have had to take APEX if it weren't for PAWS. And I'm pretty sure I spent from like November to until the pandemic started, every Wednesday and Thursday in my bio class, studying the book, asking questions. My teachers would have like these fancy flashcards and like study groups and study guides. And it really helped me. In the end, I passed with a B, I believe, which, you know, AP scores, it turns into an A. So, it really helped me, personally, and I know a lot of students, it also helps them just take a break from everything that's going on. Sometimes it's not even about like, oh, I need to get these classes, I have this kind of homework, it's about organization. Sometimes you need to go talk to a counselor, like, hear out counselors, get a second opinion. There's so much more that students can do with PAWS, and from what I've heard, it's really beneficial to everyone.

[3641] Phuong Nguyen: But the student has to take advantage of it, right? Correct? It's individually driven?

[3647] Nicole Pierce-Davis: No, it's a period within the day. So it's actually within the high school schedule twice a week. Twice a week where students can, it's kind of a period where they get to, well, you should probably explain this. I'm sorry, go ahead.

[3659] SPEAKER_20: No, please do. So on Wednesdays and Thursdays, Wednesdays we take our odd classes, first and third, and then right between between ending of third and lunch, we have a pause for I believe 45 minutes, I'm not sure. It's on times right now, because the time schedule changed. And usually students make an appointment. Some teachers max their capacity at like 30, so you have to make an appointment. I remember I used to have to make them Monday for sure, because they get packed with so many students, which is also crazy, because you'd imagine so many students wanting to get to one class, and you're packed at 30. You have to go somewhere else. So usually, sorry, back to the main point, it's in between your third or fourth period, and then it's pause and lunch.

[3703] Phuong Nguyen: So the pause is not automatically assigned to the student who is, I mean, having, having, or failing grades.

[3711] Nicole Pierce-Davis: I'm gonna invite Ms. Rangel up to, yeah.

[3716] Olivia Rangel: So for the most part, it's student agency. I'm looking at my grades, I see I'm, you know, I'm getting a D, In my bio class, I'm going to go attend my bio class and I'm going to sign up. It's a sign up. It's on Teach More. The students learned about it this week, how to access it. And then in some circumstances, teachers will assign. So if she wasn't doing well in bio and she was requested to go to Mr. Johnson's class, but yet she tried to go to PE, as she checked in at PE, her name would fly in red. and she would be then sent back to Biome. So it's really just, there's two different ways teachers can request based on their assessment of wanting a kid to relearn a component and students have agency to choose. They can only choose to go with their six teachers though. Pardon me? with their six teachers. So for example, we don't want them going, if they don't have Mr. Johnson, we don't want them going to Mr. Johnson to hang out. They can only go to one of their six teachers.

[3792] Terrence Grindall: Yeah, and one concern I have is we certainly want to make sure the resources there for the students that are struggling, getting, going from B to A is great, but the that the student that can get an F and can get a C instead is, well, it shouldn't be a scarce resource, but if it is a scarce resource, it should be prioritized. Better just increase the resource somehow. We get the money back when the students don't drop out and we're getting ADA, so this can be part of an upward cycle rather than a downward one.

[3837] SPEAKER_20: Could I add something while we're here? Please. So the past week, I was informed about the situation with Apex. And I tried getting student input instead of data, which was really helpful, like the students' voice. I would go around during lunch and ask students, like, hey, this is Apex. Tell me what you think about it. And a lot of students said, oh, it's a credit recovery program. That sounds amazing, right? But none of these students had taken Apex previously. What I organized with Ms. Rangel and Ms. Canales, our activity director, we were able to send out a group form that I created asking them to rate Apex, how it helped them, how it didn't help them, why they feel that way. And I believe I got six responses, seven asking previous students. And from what I heard from different students, sometimes it wasn't even about failing classes. It was that they skipped, let's say, Algebra 2 to Geometry, or Algebra 1 to Algebra 2. And they're required, obviously, to take Geometry. So they had to go back and take Apex. And another info I got was that some students are afraid to talk to teachers. It's their introverted personality, that they don't feel comfortable asking questions up in class, especially when it's a rigorous class and there's the smart students in front. You feel kind of dumb sometimes asking the questions that apparently everyone knows. So from what I heard, Apex helped them take notes. I heard there was flashcards. And the quizzes helped them take notes and find out questions that they couldn't have asked during class.

[3929] Nicole Pierce-Davis: I will say that was a part I was a little bit surprised about. I know that we've heard some public comment around, you know, going on Google to find answers and things like that. I will say I'm working on my dissertation right now and I use Google a lot, so I just kind of was like, that is a part of studying.

[3947] Terrence Grindall: I'd like to get to where there's an independent assessment. So if you use Google to do your homework, you're going to pay for it when you go to do your test, right? Not if you're using it for research, but yeah. But if you're using Google to take the test, then that's a problem. Yeah, yes.

[3969] Nicole Pierce-Davis: I'm not sure what time it is. I mean, what's the time? 6.01.

[3976] Bowen Zhang: Any follow-up or request? My request is I want to see the financial impact of the 50-year option. Okay. And speaking of increasing accountability and prevention, what is the game plan there?

[3991] Nicole Pierce-Davis: What is the accountability game plan?

[3996] Aiden Hill: And given the importance of this, right, in the intercession of teaching, I think that, I mean, so not only are teachers the front line, okay, so they're the ones that are delivering the instruction, things are going right or not on there and then also they're also involved in the interventions as well. I mean I would like us you know to have some teachers come and speak about this whole process and what's working and what's not and what we need to do to fix it because as we've all talked about it's a deeper issue than just APEX.

[4026] Bowen Zhang: Okay now I guess maybe we'll have either follow-up study session or follow-up staff report on this because this is obviously not done yet.

[4035] Mark Triplett: We do have a bit time sensitive because we believe we're on hold, is that correct Ms. Pearson?

[4044] Nicole Pierce-Davis: So the only students that are enrolled, so we have not enrolled any new students for the request and I think there is a little bit of a, yeah.

[4053] Terrence Grindall: Can you go back to the options slide? Isn't that you need some direction on like right now? yeah what we could do obviously the board wouldn't vote in this in the study session but if you want to give us some direction we could come back to the board at the next session with a proposal now so with three are we also looking at alternatives can we do three and four at the same time can we move forward with three and but also be having staff continue to look at alternatives, is that something that can be done? Well, that's something I would support.

[4091] Maria Huffer: Not that we're voting.

[4096] Bowen Zhang: So, for all our members, please bring back teachers, and then assume responsibility, because, like, we're currently, if we're going for Senate floor, let's listen to what teachers have to say, and then I'll still want to see the financial impact of the fifth year. Then we might be able to make a decision soon.

[4113] Nicole Pierce-Davis: as well as the accountability plan.

[4116] Aiden Hill: And also what would be good to see is, if we're considering, even on a temporary basis, continuing co-peds, so how many students are going to be essentially in the mix for that? for this semester, for next semester, and then it would be good to understand, you know, the associated costs of both continuing the program, as well as if we're not going to continue the program, what we anticipate for costs. I think this is what President John is getting to, if we have an alternative, if we follow an alternative path.

[4158] Bowen Zhang: I guess if we're going for the fifth year option, that's number seven, right? Just continue APAC. We move most priority recovery options. That's, if the fifth year is that, that's number seven, right?

[4171] Terrence Grindall: You could do seven, you could have, you get a fifth year and a fix, so that's.

[4176] Nicole Pierce-Davis: Yeah, please don't think this is, you can mix and match. It's a mix and match option.

[4181] Bowen Zhang: Yeah, so we hope to hear from the staff again pretty soon on this. And that concludes our study session.

[4189] Terrence Grindall: Can I make one comment? Just to Ms. Rangel, Principal Rangel, please pass along to the children I much appreciate that.

[4198] SPEAKER_27: It takes a lot of courage.

[4204] SPEAKER_28: Thank you. Thank you.

[4215] SPEAKER_20: Everyone is mentioning plans that we could do to help students before they actually fail class. I'm personally in a lot of rigorous programs outside of school, relating to other universities.

[4261] Bowen Zhang: So that concludes our study session. We'll be entering into closed session. And in closed session, we'll be discussing item 4.2, Public Employee Discipline Dismissal Release. 4.3, Conference with Labor Negotiator, Employee Organization, NTNC SEA. 4.4, Conference with Labor Negotiators, NEWMA, Unrepresented Supervisor, and Contractor Management. 4.5, Conference with Legal Counsel, Anticipated Litigation, Significant Exposure to Litigation. And 4.6, we'll be back to open session around 7 p.m. Any public comment for closed session? Ms. Gutierrez, any public comment for closed session?

[4301] SPEAKER_30: No public comment.

[4302] Bowen Zhang: Okay, thank you. So we'll see you at 7.

[4634] SPEAKER_27: you you you

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