Special Meeting

No content available.

[181] Diego Torres: Okay, so I have two questions for you. The first one is, is there any video?

[189] Marie dela Cruz: There is no video.

[191] SPEAKER_22: And then the second question is, is there going to be any interpretation from Spanish to English?

[262] Bowen Zhang: Good evening, everyone. Welcome to the October 27th special meeting of the New World Board of Education. Meeting is called to order at 6.03 PM. May I have everyone stand up to do the Pledge of Allegiance? Ready, begin.

[281] SPEAKER_29: I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

[298] Bowen Zhang: Thank you. Ms. Gutierrez, roll call, please.

[305] SPEAKER_22: Student member Resendiz-Ortiz. Yes. Member Marquez. Member Grindel? Here. Vice President Nguyen? Here. President Zhang?

[317] SPEAKER_29: Here.

[319] SPEAKER_22: And it looks like Member Hill's not here, but may be running late.

[324] Bowen Zhang: Yeah.

[324] SPEAKER_22: I will make a note of it.

[325] Bowen Zhang: Okay, approval of the agenda. May I get a motion to approve the agenda?

[331] Phuong Nguyen: I move to approve the agenda.

[333] Bowen Zhang: May I get a second? Seconded by Member... Motion made by Member Nguyen, seconded by Member Marquez. Student board member, how do you vote?

[344] Julienne Sumodobila: Yes.

[344] Bowen Zhang: Member Marcus?

[346] Julienne Sumodobila: Yes.

[347] Bowen Zhang: Member Grindel? Yes. Member Nguyen? Yes. My vote is just as well. Motion carries unanimously. Member Hill will be joining us late. Moving on to board workshop. So before we start, we have a public commenter, Ms. Cindy Parks.

[373] Cindy Parks: Good evening. The Brown Act indicates the agenda for special meetings must describe the business to be transacted or discussed. Based on the agenda posted last evening, tonight you are holding a special meeting of the Board of Education for a board workshop. The business to be transacted or discussed are the 2021-22 district goals and objectives for action, discussion, or information. The agenda then provides the purpose as the superintendent, Dr. Triplett, will share with the board a draft of the 2021-22 district goals and objectives for Newark Unified School District. Three goals and six objectives are disclosed. However, the background contradicts the agenda language by saying, each year of the agreement, the board and the superintendent shall establish by mutual agreement, the superintendent's performance and benchmarks for the next school year. And in brackets, it says superintendent contract. Based on the comment made last Thursday night, I thought this meeting was to set the superintendent's evaluation objectives. Last year when that was the topic for the agenda, the description read as follows, October 16, 2020, special meeting of the Board of Education, item 3.1, determination of the superintendent's objectives. A summarize of the purpose said to determine the superintendent's objectives for 2020-21. On November 19, 2020, the agenda listed 2020-21 areas of focus and the superintendent's objectives. Recommended action was to approve the superintendent's objectives for the 2020-21 school year. Based on the agenda, the discussion this evening needs to be restricted to the 2021-22 district goals and objectives as disclosed to the public. There's a fundamental difference between the goals and the objectives of an organization and the criteria for a superintendent's performance evaluation. Performance evaluation's criteria should be based on a mixture of professional knowledge, ability to manage the organization, vision, and ability to execute this vision. Essentially, it needs to evaluate his daily efforts. Additionally, when you set a meeting to discuss the superintendent's performance and benchmarks, those evaluations parameters need to come from the board, the employer, not from the Dr. Triplett, the employee. If the board needs assistance with this task, then hire a consultant to assist you. Thank you.

[528] Bowen Zhang: Thank you. So, Ashley.

[532] SPEAKER_22: President John. Yeah. We do have one more public comment. Oh, I see.

[536] Bowen Zhang: Okay. Next speaker.

[542] SPEAKER_22: Eric Tam, you may begin.

[545] SPEAKER_16: Good evening, Board and Dr. Triplett. I wanted to voice my vote to continue an important objective from last year's superintendent objective, as I felt it felt quite short this year. Focal goal number two, meaningful community engagement and communication, restoring trust and building a deep understanding of our collective. A specific example for community engagement and communication, where Dr. Triplett and Mr. Mark was from last board meeting specifically about the science camp. Let's recap. Stacey and Seth Berginger came to the board meeting I believe that it was their first time ever engaging in the civic process, offer solutions and a problem solving oriented mindset. So how did Dr. Triplett respond? In his superintendent's report, he described it was confusion from misinformation and the real reason, quote, mask requirements and you can't wear a mask while sleeping based on health and safety guidelines, unquote. Focal goal number two explicitly calls out restoring trust. Board, did you know I emailed the Alameda County of Education again? and they put me in touch with Alameda County Safety Team. Guess what they said about overnight science camp? Take a guess. In the interim COVID guidance for sports and extracurriculars in section six, bullet point for travel, when traveling overnight, team members not from the same households should sleep in separate rooms or in consistent groups. When feasible, keep masks or whenever visiting other members' hotel rooms. The safety team has written that they have not banned overnight science camp trips and are currently working on a formal guidance. So Dr. Triplett, gave another half-truth to the community. There is guidance and travel is permitted if done in consistent groups, aka social isolating pods. So Dr. Triplett, it's okay to deny children their science camp experience. Just don't hide behind a veil of health and safety. If the leadership really wanted to, you can make it happen before January. Board, last year's success criteria for focal number two was to develop an interactive website. First, the website still doesn't have a CMS or forum area, but even if there was, let's be honest, adding a forum or CMS system to the website ain't gonna fix the root issue. Since the agenda says to use SMART goals, I suggest the following SMART goal for 2022. Develop a meaningful community engagement and communication by ensuring there are zero discrepancies between the ACOE and NUSD. It's specific, measurable, attainable, and relevant and appropriate time. I hope that this goals could help bridge the broken trust that Dr. Triplett and staff have created after now two months in a row provided incorrect information, which has been refuted by ACOE. First, the fifth year ADA, and now the reason behind canceling science camp. Board, I hope you will take this into consideration. Thank you.

[711] Bowen Zhang: Thank you. I believe that's it for public comment. You know, there is an interesting thing that I, by looking at the agenda item, I remember we clarified that from the last regular meeting, this is indeed the superintendent's goal, not necessarily the district goal and objective. But I guess on the, our agenda item, it says the district goal and objective. So I don't know if we continue with the superintendent goal without raising any legal issues, because this is, the posing of our agenda didn't really say a superintendent goal, which all of us are intending for this meeting to be a superintendent goal rather than a district goal. Because I remember there was specific clarification from last meeting that this is the superintendent goal, not the district goals or objective.

[757] Mark Triplett: Would you like me to respond, President Hsuan? Yeah, yeah. So as the sole employee of the board, There is obviously like a very strong correlation between district goals and superintendent goals. This evening, my understanding was that we would talk about them in terms of the district goals. But of course, then what the part of the plan that's articulated there on the agenda is that this would be an opportunity to get input from both board and community in terms of goal areas and objectives. And then the next time, the next meeting that we would come back, I'd be presenting them to the board. And obviously those are the goals and objectives that then as the sole employee of the board that I would be evaluated on and judged on for the year.

[814] Bowen Zhang: Okay. Any other objections from the rest of the board?

[820] SPEAKER_26: None at this time, sir.

[823] Bowen Zhang: Then we can proceed. So before we proceed, I do want to make one cautionary tale. Because we're developing the district goals and whatever superintendent goals and objective, this is a workshop for us to develop goals, not to comment on past performance on the superintendent or future performance. We have closed session item. We have closed session meetings right now twice a year to discuss the superintendent's evaluation and performance. We don't talk about in a public comment. When we talk about this is the area we want to focus on, try not to say last year superintendent did this, did that, or this is good or not. We don't comment. We don't comment on superintendent's performance in an open meeting. Okay, that's the advice I'll give for the board. Okay, superintendent, you want to start with this?

[870] Mark Triplett: Thank you. Yeah, I believe we're going to, if the board would be willing, we're going to go sit down at the workshop table to discuss.

[923] SPEAKER_22: Say that again? Yeah. OK.

[957] Mark Triplett: So thank you all for being here. Good evening, board members and public. So what we thought we would do is share out and really speak to this draft document as a way of engaging in conversation. And then throughout, as a touch upon different goal areas, then provide an opportunity for board members to weigh in, give input, and participate. So, and let's see, is that, it's probably large enough, Ms.

[993] Toni Stone: Gutierrez?

[1012] Mark Triplett: All right, so first of all, just to start here in terms of the process, So the purpose of the creation and adoption of these goals and objectives is so that the board can provide clear direction, coherence, and accountability regarding the areas of focus for the district. And as the superintendent of the district, and of course, these become my main focus and main priority areas in this year's work. The underlying assumptions here, one, governance team and staff need clear goals and objectives to prioritize resources and effectively measure progress towards goals. Two, consistency of goals over time is necessary to deepen the work throughout the district and to realize desired outcomes and to make course corrections based on lessons learned. And lastly, corresponding objectives need to be what we call smarty goals, specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, time-sensitive, and equitable. And so really would love a board's input and support in thinking through, as we go through the different draft objectives, how to make sure that these things are in fact specific, measurable, achievable, realistic time, sensitive, and equitable. And I will say one of the challenges in education is that might be different than some other areas in business and such. is that oftentimes the goals, it would seem reasonable to have a goal that is based on student achievement or some sort of concrete numbers. But in reality, when operating a large system like this, that there's so many different factors that weigh into things like student achievement, that oftentimes many goals for the year are really more programmatic. And they are directly numerical based on student outcomes. The other reason is that oftentimes these things take a lot, it takes a lot of time, years to change outcomes for students in that way. So just trying to be conscious of that in terms of the measurable and achievable aspects. So the timeline tonight, I'm recommending some goals and objectives for community board to weigh in and give input on. And then, like I said earlier, at the next board meeting, I could bring back a revised draft so that the board can make a decision about approving it. Can you scroll down a little bit, Mr. Peters? So when we're looking at the goals, really, I think it's important that We think about to what extent have we aligned our resources, our work, and our priorities to the 2021 goals. That's last year's goals and objectives. And two, to what extent have we achieved our desired outcomes from last year? And then finally, based on that, what should we start doing that's different? What should we stop doing from last year? And then what should we continue doing? And so what I've tried to do is color code the following goal areas and objectives based on what I see as what I'm suggesting would be good to start, stop, and continue. And so the start is, what are the significant gaps in our focus areas that we need to lift up and add? Stop is, what is the work currently underway that is no longer a priority or no longer a need? And that's a challenging one, because oftentimes all of these things continue to be a priority. And then lastly, what is the work currently underway that we need to deepen or strengthen? And what you'll notice, what I found in this reflection is that there is a lot of things that we do need, that we've started, but we need to continue to work and deepen and strengthen, and that we've really only just begun in many senses to do. So if you scroll down, so if you all remember, on April 15th, 2021, the board improve these district goal areas. One was fiscal vitality, building a culture of fiscal responsibility. Two, meaningful community engagement and communication, so that's restoring trust and building a deep understanding of our collective work. Three, instructional excellence, so promoting the focus on continual improvement of teaching and learning. And four, exceptional learning environments, including the condition and the upkeep of facilities, equipment, and fields. So what I'd like to do now is go through, we'll go through area, we'll pull area one, and articulate some of the both the start, stop, and continue that I see, and then we'd love to open it up to you all to both ask questions and also give input. All right, so within, this is the area in last year, so this is fiscal vitality, and there was- So the objective in Fiscal Vitality last year, we're having a little bit of difficulties here.

[1334] SPEAKER_25: So last year, if you recall.

[1354] SPEAKER_22: I apologize, board. We're going to try it again. Okay. Thank you.

[1384] Mark Triplett: So in this school area last year was objective of positive certification. And that was ensuring a positive certification from the County Office of Education by maintaining a balanced budget through 2022-23 as required by the California Department of Education. And what I think was really exciting is that, and part of that was appropriate reserves and identifying appropriate reserves to be codified in a board resolution and maintained over time. And that is something that we did, we were able to accomplish in terms of getting board resolution and we are on our, going in the right direction in terms of achieving that 17% reserve goal. So that's why we have that as blue. The parentheses there is just a little reminder that some of what got us there was the one-time monies. And so we need to continue to be really conscious of being fiscally responsible and realizing that over the long term that our current enrollment to budget is not going to be sustainable over the long term. And so then what you see is the second bullet there, develop a plan and implementation timeline to eliminate the structural deficit. The big thing that we did last year was a plan for school consolidations, which was approved by the board. And so what I'm suggesting here in blue is that We need to continue to stay focused on that. And really, we're entering phase two of that process. And that includes what we actually talked about last board meeting, the music consolidation, continuing to support the merger of Snow and Graham into Clarity Hills. And then I'll talk a little bit more in the next section also, or the third section, about the sixth grade transition and how we are facilitating that process. The last bullet in this area, build and implement a strategy for maintaining or increasing enrollment. So in blue, I highlighted the Dual Language Immersion Program, which we created last year. And the reason I have it here is because it is really the most successful aspect of our increasing enrollment last year. And I think the campaign to do so, including the video promotions, mailings, and family engagements, is what really resulted in getting and exceeding those targets. And we know that we are continuing to face declining enrollment. And so therefore what you see in green right there, I really wanted to highlight for the board, and this is really, really difficult work, but we are going to need to do some real position control and really plan for necessary position reductions moving into the upcoming school year. The ADA, the whole harmless ADA from the state is most likely for going to end at the end of this year, unless the state changes their tune. And so it's gonna mean that we have less students than we are currently funding in terms of positions. And we did not make those reductions this year based on transition back to in-person learning and the understanding that while we were in staffing that we had in our schools, but also knowing that moving forward with our enrollments, it continues to decline as it has in many, many districts in the state, that we are gonna have to make some really hard decisions for the next year. And that's a really year-long process that we want to engage forward. All right, I'm gonna stop talking. Thoughts, questions, or comments about this first goal area and the blue and the green? Oh, and I'm sorry, I'm actually, it's okay with the board. I'm gonna take notes right here in the document that we see in front of us, and that will really help me as then I go back and revise this for the next board meeting.

[1635] Bowen Zhang: Yeah, I mean, if you want me to add, I think another important element for this year, when it comes to fiscal vitality, is actually how we use the vacant land. I mean, our old history is just sell that vacant land for one-time profit, that's it. So I would rather see us being a little bit smarter this time, where we can rent out the vacant land, or whatever you, how we use the vacant land to generate, to still keep the land to ourselves, and generate recurring revenue to the district. rather than just sell for one time profit. Because obviously, like I said, I said this many, many times, land is the most valuable asset for any urban center in the world. So it's probably not a good idea to give up land that easily.

[1685] Aiden Hill: Sorry, I'm late. Hello.

[1689] SPEAKER_26: Welcome. I'd also like to just piggyback is that with some of the facilities that we do have currently, for example, the event center or the gym, is the ability for the community to rent them out, right, to generate revenues as well. I mean, a good example would be the fields of our neighboring cities that are doing that. They're renting out their school facilities to organizations and

[1723] Terrence Grindall: I have my concern with this, and again, I wasn't here to write the last time, but my concern maybe is a more overarching sort of objective. I mean, really, and you sort of allude to it here, but essentially, I'll just say it. If we don't turn around enrollment, if we don't actually get more enrollment, we are going to be constantly battling our fiscal issues. And thanks to being held harmless and the one-time monies, we're able to dodge that. But we really have to, in my mind, we have to really wrangle with the goal being getting our enrollment up. Now, a lot of these factors, a lot of these a lot of these objectives do touch on that, do create ways of doing it, but I think we need to be more directly, more directly indicating that enrollment needs to rise.

[1796] Aiden Hill: And to echo what Member Grindel is saying, in order for enrollment to rise, I think we need to understand the root cause of why it's declining. So I think that Part of this objective needs to be to have some type of investigation or study, because we don't need to understand the people that are enrolling here. We need to understand the people who are not enrolling, right? So why are they not enrolling? And then we can figure out what programs and things we need to put in place to bring them in.

[1838] SPEAKER_26: And where does that start? Does that start where, not the recruiter, excuse me, but the registrar? Or when we have forms that students or families are filling out on a yearly basis and they're seeing that there's siblings or there's minors in their home, what's the outreach look like so that we can continue to retain the rest of the family members that are coming up? Preschool or siblings are going to a different school. one here and one in Fremont. Why is that? So where does that start? Because we do have some insight on that, especially if we're pulling out the lunch forms or emergency form or family member forms, because those are questions that are addressed on those forms. So how do we pinpoint or how do we identify those potential students that should be staying within our district?

[1897] Mark Triplett: remember when these were freezed, and also remember when we'll have to pay.

[1903] SPEAKER_27: I definitely agree with everything that has been said. Going off of what President Seattle said, definitely not selling the vacant land, not only because of how it's a valuable asset, but also because it means a lot to the people, especially considering it's, you know, it's just in there. from at least what I've heard in the community. Yeah, not that many comments at the moment. Thank you.

[1933] Phuong Nguyen: So the two points that I was thinking about was also the basic math issue and then being able to understand why the American community is choosing to have students because that is the core of the problem. So I think those two are, those two points are there.

[1957] Terrence Grindall: And I wanna second, I'm gonna indicate that Member Hill's idea of sort of getting to the facts of the matter is very important. And it's probably gonna be a lot of things that come out, but I think as part of a strategy, we need to know what's actually happening. I mean, to some extent, I've heard anecdotally, and you have too, that people have their first interaction with the district back in the day. There was a time not too long ago where people were not getting the phone answered at the district. People would call with an enrollment question, and they were literally just not getting, there was no one getting back, this was before this superintendent was here. But just as an indication, that really turns people off, that's not gonna make them if they're weighing whether or not to enroll in the district, they don't even get a call back, that may be the end. You may never have another chance to get that family to give you a school chance. So I'm sorry for the anecdotes, but just want to strengthen, want to support Member Hill's idea of getting to the facts of why it's happening. And then, but we need to do these things at once, right? We cannot, in my mind, we cannot wait. This cannot be a five-year project. We've got to turn this around. So we have to both, figure out what's wrong and start doing something about it right away. Now, to some extent, if the problem is for people that there's an actual deficiency in our educational production, what we actually produce, then turning that around is going to be hard. But, you know, making sure phone calls are answered, making sure information is out there, and making sure people are aware of all the opportunities we have in the district is something we can do something about more readily. So, anyway, sorry for rambling.

[2072] Bowen Zhang: So, Superintendent, last year, I think I remember, I gave an example of a doctor visit about generally the problems all the schools would have in the public sector. I don't know if these two more members were there. So I give the example of when every one of us went to a doctor visit, the doctor generally spend most of the bulk of the time diagnosing you, trying to figure out what your problem is. Because once you spend 80-90% of your doctor visit to figure out what your real problem is, the medication, the treatment, oftentimes very straightforward. So that's how we do it when we go check our own body, when we check our own body, and we don't feel well in the hospital. But it looks like oftentimes, you know, decision-making process in the public sector, we tend to just think, I think the problem is probably this, then that's the solution. We don't really spend enough time to figure out what the problem is. Because if you diagnose the wrong problem, you can apply the best solution for that problem. You're not going to solve your own problem.

[2134] Aiden Hill: And to your point, President Chung, I think that part of the answer is that We talk to the parents that have their kids that are enrolled in Moreau. We talk to the parents who have their kids that are enrolled in Fremont Christian, right, or all the other schools that have transferred over to Fremont. They're gonna tell us, right? So rather than us trying to figure it out, we talk to the patient, the patient tells us.

[2159] SPEAKER_26: And Challenger is right here. For Challenger, yeah, exactly. They're within our district. Exactly.

[2167] Terrence Grindall: I just want to say one more thing, too. In terms of smarty goals, it may sound unfair in a way, but in some way, I guess in my thinking, the actual enrollment is a performance measure. And it's not just due to strategy. You're the educational expert, you and your staff. We're saying we need to get enrollment up. to some extent, and we're giving you ideas now about how to get started, but to some extent, that's your job, and we're expecting you to use your talents to make that happen. So I really think when we're coming around next year at this, your performance is going to be judged, in my opinion, should be judged by how you make that happen.

[2221] Mark Triplett: Thank you. Yeah. So a couple of things. One is, I appreciate all the sentiment, and enrollment is obviously a major priority, which is why it's been articulated in the first place. We do have to be conscious of a couple things. One is what is in our control, and then what is not in our control. And so the one thing is we actually do know a lot of the factors that would transform enrollment, and you will see them embedded in the other goals here. One of the reasons why I did highlight the dual language is because we know that dual language is something that families have asked for, not just here but in other districts as well. And we knew that we did not have a program like that. And so we created that. And what we saw when we put attention to it is that it did impact enrollment in that specific situation. So just one example. But you'll see later on that there's other things in here that are articulated that we know brings in students. So STEM emphasis and initiatives there, we know that's what families and students have said that they want. And we also know that districts that do have programs like that, then they get higher enrollment. But I do think it's also important the other piece is not to lose sight of the fact that declining enrollment is something that's happening throughout Alameda County and Bay Area as well as California. And so while clearly it doesn't mean that we just say, well, there's nothing we can do about it, we also have to be cognizant of the fact that this is also a larger phenomenon. And so it should therefore inform our strategies for increasing enrollment. being conscious of the things that are not in our control.

[2329] Bowen Zhang: Yeah, that's the reason oftentimes I brought up this topic of horizontal comparison. Not just before when I brought it up, I was talking about the dashboard, like that performance. I said, not just to compare ourselves, because the standard might be lower, or maybe this year in the past it might be even lower. You need to compare yourself to a district that are close to us and demographically similar to us. Like in Cleveland, I use Neva as an example. When it comes to enrollment, sometimes we can also do the horizontal comparison, compare ourselves to a neighboring district. Let's say if we lose 3% of the students, they lost 10%. Then that means we probably did something good. If we lose 3%, they didn't lose anybody. That means something is wrong on our side. So that can be another useful measurement to look at when it comes to enrollment.

[2377] Terrence Grindall: of the measurements, not just how many children were enrolled in the school. It also has those comparisons with how other districts are doing, even statewide, as a benchmark.

[2394] Aiden Hill: So given that we're just now talking about SMART goals, I took the liberty of printing out for people who may be a little bit rusty on the topic, just the quick definition. And so if you just want to hand those around so that we can reference them.

[2409] SPEAKER_27: I also wanted to mention, I'm not sure if this is the district's turn, but last year there was a lot of Zoom meetings being pulled about how to enroll, necessarily, both in Spanish and English. And I found that really helpful, especially for my family, because we, as a mother, didn't know necessarily the process that went through it. So if that could be a continuous goal that we do every year, it could be beneficial to families.

[2443] Mark Triplett: Thank you. And then the last thing I know there was a number of conversations around the vacant land use. So you will find down below in the last goal is where we talked about that is one of our goals.

[2458] Terrence Grindall: In terms of, before you leave that, because I was going to say the same thing, that there's a lot of elements here, there's a lot of elements in other objectives that actually are really very directly tied to the enrollment question. So maybe in terms of formatting, maybe you can sleep on this, maybe in terms of formatting, there could be a discussion of the preeminent importance of raising enrollment and how there's a package of objectives that are going to lead to that. Or whether you change the title, or whether there's a change in the title where goal number one is just raise enrollment or something like that. But there may be a way to create, to show sort of a matrix of all the things we're doing towards that direction.

[2510] Bowen Zhang: And speaking of, obviously when we talk about horizontal comparison when it comes to metrics, I think that can also be up to the board. When we're doing the evaluation, we use our best knowledge to evaluate how that has been done.

[2526] Terrence Grindall: Right. Although in fairness to this, you know, we are talking about, we're talking about district goals. We're also, we're talking about how we're going to be judging the superintendent. So to be fair to him, he should know what metrics we're using. Right. But to the extent possible, if we come across a better one that we ought to be, we ought to, we ought to be always reinventing.

[2550] Bowen Zhang: Next year, next June, when we're evaluating enrollment, if that happens to be a big goal, I will be looking at enrollment number in our neighboring district and our county as a whole. Because that can be a better comparison, controlling all the, excluding all the, measuring all the external factors that might affect the greater environment. But comparing ourselves to our neighboring district that has similar demographic, I think that's a fair comparison. Thank you.

[2577] Mark Triplett: So before we move on to the next poll, I didn't hear a lot of conversation about the two green areas. Ms. Gutierrez, do you want to scroll back up to those?

[2587] SPEAKER_22: Yes, and Dr. Chipwood, if you don't mind giving me a second. It seems our interpreters are not being heard. Ms. Riara or Ms. Wainey, can you guys hear me? It seems that your audio is not working. This is a test. I have turned off the interpretation. Can you guys hear me? Ms. Vieira or Ms. Sweeney? Okay, we'll keep going. Thank you.

[2648] Bowen Zhang: Well, here's my opinion about the green item. Without getting into the danger of talking about future agenda items, after the first interim report comes February, March, we just need to do what we need to do. So that's my opinion on the green item.

[2664] Aiden Hill: So did you already talk on bullet point number three? So there was a... So prior to the past year, right, we were looking at Okay, we're potentially, we have a structural deficit.

[2680] Aiden Hill: Part of the options were do the school consolidation, right? But a lot of things have changed. And so do we need to revisit that and come back and say, and even the ACLE has come back and said, look, right now you have money because of COVID, but So I guess the question is, are we going to do sort of a replan? Are we going to go back and look and say, all right, now let's, given our current information, what does our budget look like? And where are the areas where potentially we're at risk?

[2717] Phuong Nguyen: And that's why we need to superintendent. Superintendent Triplett posted those two additional points for position control deferred due to one-time monies and whole-farmers on ADA because we do have to take a look at possibly reductions in staff and because of the position that the ACO mentioned in the letter that we received. those are the two points that we didn't bring up.

[2747] Aiden Hill: One, what I'm wondering is, are there more, right? And so, you know, can we look at the whole pie and we can say, I mean, obviously, I mean, staffing is a big part. 85%. How much? 85%. Okay, all right.

[2761] Phuong Nguyen: That's a big chunk. Okay. So yeah, and again, And with what President Zhang had mentioned is that, yes, at first interim, we wouldn't have a better idea of what's going to happen. So, and then in that case, yes, we're going to have to, we're going to have to make big cuts.

[2783] Bowen Zhang: And obviously, the board also can take the alternative path, saying that we don't care about 17% reserve. We can afford the deficit spent for several years, and then come back and do the deep cuts. that's obviously optimal for the society.

[2797] Terrence Grindall: Well, and that may be something to think about in terms of enrollment as well, right? So if it turns out that in order to, and what I was going to say, moving back up for a second, I assume master scheduling is sort of part of this, part and parcel in terms of that process. It's not really stated out there, but I just wanted to be clear about that. So it may turn out that we're losing, and again, I'm just, I'm just giving examples, not poking it at anybody. It may be that we're losing people because we don't have Mandarin as a foreign language in our schools. We do have it as a foreign language now, and if one of what happens because of position control is we have to cut it, if because of that we have to cut it, we could be shooting ourselves in the foot in terms of our enrollment process. So there may be certain circumstances where dipping into that reserve so that we can maintain the long-term enrollment is something to think about. But obviously, not to get ahead of the game, but that is, all these things are related to that. They're all interconnected.

[2867] Aiden Hill: And do we know, for lack of a better term, right? So in business, it's called a break-even analysis. It's like, okay, these are your costs. This is how much revenue you have to make to break even. So what's our break-even for enrollment, right? So what, if we're going to basically be at least, you know, money into the rent. Yeah, so what, do we know what that number is?

[2893] Mark Triplett: So doing the, it's a significant, body of work that takes all year, because there's a whole bunch of different stages and elements to it, but making the determinations around projected enrollment for the upcoming year, what is the number of staff needed to staff for that number of students, and then doing all of that work to determine, based on that, if positions need to be reduced or not.

[2924] Phuong Nguyen: Yeah, and collectively, I have to look at the master schedule for the high school courses I'm currently offering to students, and whether or not it's feasible to continue certain courses. And that's unfortunate, but that's something that we do have to look at, because if there's one class that's only 15 students, we can't afford to really offer that. So those are the kinds of things in consideration that unfortunately we will have to look at.

[2953] SPEAKER_26: So in essence, what you're saying then, and this would tie back to where Board Member Hill is. So at Master Plan, we have a class that has 15 students. Is that a breaking point? Is that the number? Is that the goal, right? As we visit the Master Plan and say, are we willing, right? So I'm trying to- We have the staff to, in order to

[2978] Mark Triplett: make our budget. The goal is to staff to the maximum class level.

[2982] SPEAKER_26: What's the maximum?

[2984] Phuong Nguyen: Yeah, but we also have to look at programs that are going to bring students in, like the STEM classes or computer science classes and other programs, right? So making those determinations, changing or adding courses that will be able to have enrollment versus non-traditional courses that may be fun, but we can't really, or AP classes that some of our students aren't fully enrolled in. So those are the things that I think overall has to be looked at. And then the offerings have to make sense and also beneficial to the district and the students.

[3024] Terrence Grindall: I do want to raise a point member Hill just made that as I understood it so maybe I got it wrong but um there is a there is a there is a number of students that's that said in in our district district wide that says if we have that number we're not in we're not in deficit right there there is a number not understand all the factors that play into that are extremely complicated. But there is a number where if we have that many students, we're not going to be in the red.

[3057] Mark Triplett: It depends on how many staff we have at that moment.

[3062] Aiden Hill: So what I'm just curious about is when we last year, and this is prior to member Grudel and I joining, there was an analysis that said, OK, we've got a structural deficit. We need to start cutting. We made the decision to do the consolidation. And I'm assuming that, all right, so we're projecting, if we do that consolidation, we're going to reduce, you know, cost by X percent. And then that's going to then cover, combined with our enrollment, et cetera, you know, we're going to be break even. So do we know what that enrollment number was at that point?

[3097] Bowen Zhang: So the analysis for school consolidation is based In fact, I'm closing one elementary school to save on average half a million dollars. And the structural deficit presented over there is between one and two million. That's why we made a decision about shutting down two schools prior to this one.

[3114] Aiden Hill: So that's how we're doing it. And did we have an assumption around how many students were going to be in the system at that point?

[3120] Bowen Zhang: You mean after consolidation or?

[3123] Mark Triplett: Correct. So we do have, we have some projections that are done by a demographer. and a lot of it is then it's back to the contingencies. If we continue to improve programming so that we attract those people that we know are out there and have said that they would come, but we have to create the programming and the options for them that they really want to see. And we have to run our system in a positive, efficient, productive way so that people do show up. But in terms of if there's a concrete number that we just know we have to hit, we basically have to hit our projection every year. That projection number changes every year based on the number of staff we have. So there is a number, I can't remember off the top of my head what the projection number was for this year, but that's the number, actually, it's the number that I show at every superintendent report. So it shows the projection number, and then it shows how far below that we are.

[3201] Terrence Grindall: Maybe the issue is really more of a per school question, because by closing a school, and I wasn't on the board when that decision was made, but I was running for office, so I paid pretty careful attention. Because when you consolidate a school, there are certain certain costs that are limited, maintenance of the school, the principal, some other staff. So there's an efficiency when you do that. So you can infer from that that in general, our elementary schools should have X number of students to support that So maybe that's where the number that I'm looking for is. It's not necessarily district-wide, but for a typical elementary school, how many kids do we need to have before we're losing money by operating that school?

[3264] SPEAKER_26: It's self-contained, or it's able to maintain itself.

[3267] Mark Triplett: Yeah, there's a lot of speculation that's been done around that. a country about what is that number that becomes feasible. But there's not a lot of absolute agreement upon that. What we do know is that when we get below around 365 students in an elementary school, that we're entering a range of it not being sustainable financially.

[3297] Bowen Zhang: Yeah, there's no universally agreed number, but when we made a decision to consolidate two schools, What we do have when it comes to horizontal comparison, again, is New Haven has roughly double their enrollment, 11,000 students, and they have seven elementary schools. We have eight elementary schools before the consolidation, despite having only half of their enrollment.

[3320] Terrence Grindall: Really seven, because the bridge schools, the bridge course schools are two campuses, right? Well, it's still eight elementary school campuses, right?

[3334] SPEAKER_27: I think last but not least, going back to the idea of cutting certain progress from the high school or any school in general. Speaking of the standards that we teach the students from the high school, I recommend being very cautious as to what we do cut. Because, for example, the AP Computer Science A class that we got this year, a lot of students were really hopeful that we only had principals. Sure, it's a small class, but as the years go by, I would like to believe that it will continue, considering how big and amazing of a major, in my opinion, it is. So definitely being cautious as to what we are doing.

[3371] SPEAKER_24: Yeah, yeah, thank you.

[3372] Mark Triplett: And we'll see it later on, but that is something that we really recognize, and the STAR initiative, which is the Computer Science Programming, is actually a priority for us to continue to build versus just now before we even started. So because we know, like you're saying, student board member, that that's the type of thing that students and families are really looking for. They said that that's what they wanted. And so we really feel like we should prioritize that kind of programming.

[3406] Terrence Grindall: I have a, I'm sorry, if we're still talking about that. Second, the third bullet, it says successful enrollment campaign, including blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, resulted in hitting and exceeding targets. That doesn't seem right to me, since we're 300 students below our- The dual language specifically.

[3432] Mark Triplett: So the Schilling is one of only two schools that actually hit their protection targets. Historically, Schilling has been a school that does not hit their projection targets.

[3446] Terrence Grindall: I see, so it's sub to Schilling. That's a little confusing, the way it's bulleted. It's sub-bulleted to the Dual Language Immersion Program at Schilling. Thank you.

[3463] Mark Triplett: Should we proceed to the next one? I know this is really a valuable conversation, but I also want to make sure we get through

[3471] Aiden Hill: What is the protocol? Again, I apologize for being late. So are we going to come back to these, or are we just moving on?

[3483] Bowen Zhang: This is not for both of them. OK. This is only work group. OK.

[3486] Aiden Hill: Because just the key thing, and this is echoing Member Grudel's comment. I mean, I think that you've got a larger goal, but then you've got sub-goals that are going to lead into that. And I think that it may be sometimes harder. So for example, enrollment. okay, there's a lot of factors that influence it. But if we look at the sub-goals, I think we can make those pretty concrete, and importantly, I think measurable and time-based. So those are the key things that are going to move the ball forward.

[3520] Mark Triplett: All right. Great. Why don't we move on to the second goal area, so meaningful community engagement and two-way communication. You see in black, the first two bullets, these were the two goals from prior year, community engagement during the pandemic, which as you see in the red, what I tried to do is articulate things that we did last year to really make sure that we were authentically engaging the community. And they're red because unless the board directs us otherwise, these things are not necessarily things that we would continue in the same manner that we did last year, given that we're back in person. The exception there is the one in blue, building a strong social media presence, that has been a real, we've got some really good initial traction there, and we want to continue to build that, because we believe that that would not just have a positive impact on communicating, doing communication with the community, but then also, as we've been talking about, can really positively impact enrollment. And then our responsiveness hotline that we had last year, that was really because people were not able to come into the office in person, we built this, we created a system. We had a lot of success with it, but now we've moved on to in-person. The district office is open and we're receiving people in person, so that's why those are there. In terms of the second one, so developing an interactive website to inform and engage the community was another goal. And part of that was ensuring up-to-date, relevant, and dynamic content. So I have that in blue because we have created what I feel and the feedback that we've gotten is a really dynamic, new, and improved website. And at the same time, it continues to be something that we need to pay attention to and continue to grow As I'm sure you all know, the website is something that doesn't just, if it sits on the shelf, then it actually ceases to be effective. And so it's something that we're going to continue to train people on how to manage it, as well as continuing to add content and make it more dynamic. And then the second part of that, something that we did not reach last year was to implement the online customer service management system within the website called Let's Talk. And so our plan is to roll that out this year. It is gonna take more, it's not as simple as clicking a button, unfortunately. It's a change in mindset for the whole district. And so that's something that we really wanna continue to double down on for this year. And then the last thing you see in green, is something that I think is really important, supporting positive community interaction and communication through a process that could reach a proven enactment of a board resolution on civility. And this would really be focused on supporting respectful and civil interaction and communication among students, staff, parents, community members, administrators, superintendent, and school board members. And the reason why we brought this up, we have noticed, and I think it's not unique to Newark, but with students returning to in-person learning, we've noticed a lot of needs around supporting students to have positive interactions with each other, and with staff, and likewise, supporting staff and parents, community members, all of us, to really, to continue to build positive community and have positive communication. And I think it's something that unfortunately we have seen across the country in this last year or so that some of that is broken down. And so we really want to lead the charge as a district and as a community to really redefine and really emphasize what it means to respectfully disagree with one another, to be civil, to be empathetic, And I think, obviously, it's something that we want to imbue in our students. But we as adults really, really need to do it as well. And so that's why I've added this here. So I'll open it up to thoughts.

[3798] Terrence Grindall: Yeah, on the first point, the community engagement, I believe that the way people are going to be interacting with each other and with organizations like the school district will be permanently changed by the pandemic. So I don't think that the pandemic ending, which we all hope it's in its final days, but I don't think that that means we necessarily throw out the approaches we use. I think there are gonna be people who want them. I'm particularly drawn to the virtual town hall with 12,000 views of those town halls. That's great messaging. And it could also be tied to what the student member indicated. There could be the town hall or issues like that about enrollment, about how you can enroll, the education process in multiple languages. So I guess I'm a little uncomfortable seeing those in red. Maybe it gets modified to be sort of focused. But there are good things that happen. as a result of people being able to communicate about the district from their, you know, from their, from their home offices and their pajamas that can, can be maintained.

[3883] Aiden Hill: When I would echo Member Grindel that I think that, yeah, the pandemic's changed things. We're going to continue to have a lot of electronic communications and so we events. And the title of Goal 2, right, is Community Engagement and Two-Way Communication. And that's something that I think that we, you know, need to really, really work on and create venues for that to happen. And, you know, as I observe, I mean, as I hear, you know, either people contacting me or people coming to, you know, these meetings, You know, I hear a lot of messaging about people are feeling, you know, parents. I've heard also a lot from the Latino community. You know, I've heard a lot of people coming in and saying, you know, we don't feel like we're included. We don't feel, you know, and the word I keep hearing is disrespected, right, which is not a good term. And so, and I, but I think that part of the way that you create respect is by creating an avenue for people to actually get together and talk and hear each other. And so I think we've got to include these types of events and really provide an opportunity for, and not just hope that people come, but proactively go out and reach out into the community and create those opportunities for them to come and to share their views. I think that that's really important.

[3982] SPEAKER_26: I feel that some of the things, because of what COVID has done, right, the pandemic, excuse me, and it's annoying with a lot of activities. But there are events that take place throughout the year that if our presence is there, for example, something like the farmer's market, it's every Sunday at our mall. Why not have a school district group there? Why not reach out? Because you see families and you see the young children and say, by the way, I'm a board member. This is your little one. And reaching out and letting them know, making that presence. Whenever there is events that are held, even at the high school, right? Or at an open house where we have board presence or we have this outreach group, if you will, you see events. Washington Township, Kaiser, that they hold all these community events. And you see it in the Tri-City Voice, right? You see in the different media outreach that they've used, where there's all kinds of local CDOs that are out there that we could join up with or team up with so that we can start doing outreach as a school. Universities do it, colleges do it. We should be using them as an example.

[4074] Terrence Grindall: Which is, not to steal future thunder, but something I've been pushing for a long time. It's part of a marketing strategy, not just We should be marketing, but to actually identify what the message is, and that goes back to what the problem is, right? You have to know the problem, you have to bring the message forward, and you have to identify your venues, particularly in our situation. where we get relatively inexpensive in ways of getting outreach, right? So a parade in Newark days does not cause a ton of money, but we get a lot of eyes on us, and then we can direct them to other marketing materials and really kind of hammer our message. But anyway, so I believe it's, well, there is a discussion of something like that, and it's something I think is very important for us to raise enrollment

[4131] Aiden Hill: and out there. Yeah, why not create an event that says, you know, welcome Murrow parents, right? So we want Murrow parents, you know, social or whatever, or private school, parochial school, whatever. And now you've got a venue for discussion, right? Dialogue. Yeah, absolutely.

[4154] SPEAKER_26: Even to be an equity city hall. Even as easy as You know, we have the principal's report, we have the school report. Why aren't we teaming up with our city officials and once a month, someone from the school district goes and reports the great things that are going on within our school? Because then, even saying, and just really, really emphasizing, so that way, there's just different avenues that we're approaching.

[4183] Terrence Grindall: That's an excellent idea. And again, what we want is a whole strategy, and that's a very good idea. And of course, we have a new civic center, and the library has a community room. So we can utilize those locations.

[4204] SPEAKER_26: You know, Tuesdays and Thursday evenings are late nights, right? And you see the parents in there with little ones. Why not have once a month on a Tuesday, a table set up for outreach? Just different avenues for- Mm-hm, absolutely.

[4216] Mark Triplett: That's unique to the Girl Scout conversation. Do you remember any other thoughts about this one? And then also, number one, President's Remembrance.

[4237] Bowen Zhang: Yeah. So how are you going to consolidate this into a whole different subject?

[4244] Mark Triplett: Good question. I appreciate all the ideas, and I'm wondering is the articulated goal right, and these are ideas for the articulated goal, or is this different, and therefore we need to not do what's articulated above? Could you go up, please, Mr. Timmons?

[4267] Aiden Hill: Well, I think that we need to be really careful about number three. Because, so we've all sworn an oath, right, to defend, to uphold and defend the US and the California constitutions. And enshrined as a, as a, as literally, it's the first amendment in both constitutions, the right to free speech, right? And we don't want to abridge that at all. And we've had moments here in the council where people have come forward and expressed viewpoints, and we've chastised them inappropriately. And they've actually come back and said, hey, you can't shut down my speech. And so I think that this is something that we should be very careful about.

[4311] Phuong Nguyen: And again, I don't- I don't think that it shuts down the person's ability to hold their freedom of speech. I think it's just us. the way we present ourselves and how we hold ourselves to be respectful and listening and just a reminder that, you know, we need to upload those values. So it isn't, I don't believe that it is demonstrating, you know, or hindering anybody's freedom of speech. Of course, anybody can come up and freely express how they, what their concerns are and how they feel, but I think it's just our decorum and our manner and how we do, how we present it.

[4352] Aiden Hill: But we've told the public that their comments were inappropriate. And it's not correct, right? And we as elected officials, I mean, that's what comes with the territory, right? So we gotta hear everything. And anybody that's up here, we gotta take the arrows.

[4372] Phuong Nguyen: Of course, I don't disagree with you on that. But again, I think that it's just a reminder for us too, because we have stepped out of line. ourselves and making directions or assumptions in the same manner. So I think it's just overall a reminder of how we should be holding ourselves in a public forum.

[4397] Terrence Grindall: Yeah, absolutely. And just to reiterate, it is really about the way that information is provided rather than the I'm silencing an idea. We on the board want to set an example for the entire community for how we approach these issues, not to shut down debate, but to do so civilly.

[4434] Aiden Hill: So one thing that's not on here, and that I know has been a regular topic that's come up from the community. And quite frankly, we have some lawsuits related to it because of it, is transparency issues. And there is a feeling in some sectors that we the district are not providing information. And so then that's resulting in a number of public record requests.

[4471] Aiden Hill: As those delays happen, that creates more distrust. I think that we need to take that issue head on and say that we want to be dedicated to turning that around, improving that. And one of the things that we had talked about in prior board meetings is that a lot of the information that's being requested right now could easily be provided by either writing customized or it could be just out of the box reports that provide information from various systems. And that those could literally be set up to auto-generate, get put out on the website, and then we don't have to waste staff's time in going and doing one-off investigations. And I think that we ought to set up an initiative this year to identify what are the types of information that are being requested, and what types of efforts can we do from an IT perspective to just auto-generate some of this information, post it out there, and then boom, it's done. And then we can focus our time on much more unique requests, which are probably less frequent.

[4545] Mark Triplett: Is this something that feels like a priority?

[4548] Phuong Nguyen: Well, I do have a concern in regards to that because Part of the public request is that you're requesting information that we already currently are supposed to have. So we're now asking the staff to generate reports that one, technically, is not part of our public records. That is not part of, that's not in our public records, but what we have to present to the public. So now we're generating reports that we don't necessarily have, and creating work for staff. And they're requesting information that the public should request information that we do have and As transparency, we should give that information to them. But it shouldn't be asking for information that we have to generate to satisfy the request.

[4615] Aiden Hill: Well, let me give you an example, right? And this is not, I'm fairly sure that this is not being published out on the website or whatever. what's to prevent us, the warrants report. So what's to prevent us from automating and essentially having that run, right? It's a batch job, right? And so literally, you say, okay, here's the data that comes in. Rather than consume a whole bunch of time, you know, in terms of staff preparation for board meetings, it's, you know, that you get a warrant report that runs auto-generated. There is no, once you've written, once the developer has written that report, Boom, it just runs.

[4663] Phuong Nguyen: We request the warrant report every single time that there is a board meeting. So that document already exists. So when they ask for that document, they can have it. But if they're making a special request for information that doesn't exist, why are we generating it?

[4682] Aiden Hill: We shouldn't be. Exactly. So the requests obviously are coming in for data that does exist. So it does exist, and my belief is that a lot of this is duplicative, and it probably comes about on a regular basis. And all we have to do is to literally put in a little bit of IT time.

[4709] Phuong Nguyen: No, it's not a little bit. We get a lot of public requests at the City of Moquitas, and it takes a lot. It takes more than one person, one full-time staff person to be able to, one, investigate all of that information, and two, If the information is not there, we generally do not generate it. So even if looking into documentation, when they request for all communication and email, it takes a long time to go through all of that. And asking that for information because it is general public knowledge, they can request all of our communication through email, okay? But because it is there. But that's why I'm saying is that the record exists. But if the record doesn't exist, we shouldn't have to generate it.

[4765] Aiden Hill: That's not the- It's impossible to write a report for a record that doesn't exist. I'm talking about for records that do exist. But let's set this aside. Let's set aside the means. Let's talk about the issue. The issue is that there's a transparency issue. Obviously, That's coming up. I mean, we're seeing that manifested because more and more people are asking for more and more requests. And so that indicates that there is a lack of trust, right? That's what it's saying. So how do we turn this around? And this is under this category of community engagement and two-way communication. So if the issue is lack of trust and transparency, what type of initiative can we put in place to address that?

[4817] Mark Triplett: really, really significant. It's approximately, and I think we shared it with you a while ago, it's approximately five people that ask for, generate about 95% of the requests that take up the time. And there's a significant cost as well, because the other thing is we have to run everything by attorneys to make sure that we're not inappropriately releasing information that's been done in the past, and it's cost the district in hindsight. I guess the question I would have for the board is, I think Member Hill has lifted this issue up as something that, I think I'm hearing you say it should be one of our district priorities. One of the things that we focus our time on above all other things. And so I'd just love to hear from the rest of the board if the board agrees that that's what we should be doing. rather than focusing our attention on something else, then I think it would be important to know.

[4886] Bowen Zhang: So I think the top priority should be power to minimize exposure to the mediation when it comes to this.

[4902] Bowen Zhang: spending more time on it. We're on a bigger plan. Yeah, I do think there are other priorities that's way more important than the public record. I think the priority of public record planning is to minimize the sources of litigation.

[4916] Aiden Hill: I didn't say, so public records requests is one part.

[4937] Aiden Hill: something that is important for us to look into and to put, because again, if we're talking about meaningful two-way communication, if people don't feel that they understand what's going on, that they trust what's going on, we're not going to have two-way engagement.

[4953] Phuong Nguyen: I don't disagree with you on that point, but again, transparency is a broad subject, and the public records requests are just a part of that. But I'm in agreement with President Jean that, yes, in terms of public records requests, we need to minimize it, so that we aren't, for litigation purposes. But yes, two-way communication starts when there is active trust. And what we see sometimes here in the district is that, yes, the communication that we didn't provide in terms of translation is one of them. The community feels that because we hadn't actively provided translation over the course of the years. And I feel that strongly that this last the last two years during the pandemic, the superintendent, his staff, we have been translating records more than we have in many prior years. So can we do a better job of it? Of course we can. But that's what I'm saying is that we see all these issues coming up now from the community and it is concerning. And I'm not saying that it isn't, but we are actively working on it and we are actively trying to improve that process. But I think with everything that's going on in terms of how communication, how fast communication is being transferred nowadays through social media and through everything, it is very hard. It is very hard, and it is disheartening that we are getting the brunt of it, saying that we're not doing the best job in terms of transparency. And I don't necessarily think that that is true. I think that overall, the district has improved in the last in the last years since Superintendent Triplett has been here and have been actively, and we're still trying to improve that as we are coming back into in-person learning. And then that comes with a whole new set of problems, how we interact with people. I mean, everybody is on a short fuse, and I have to say that for the record. We have lost empathy and we have lost our patience when it comes to a lot of things. We are instant, we need everything instant now. So those are the kinds of things that for me, I do take into consideration and account that I'm not gonna sit here and not be supportive of staff because I am. I know how hard they work and it's not like everybody's sitting around doing nothing. and so we do need to take that consideration and just know that we are working on it and we're trying to improve it as much as we can.

[5144] Terrence Grindall: Yeah I'd amplify that that this this is something we do value at least I do. I should use I instead of we in this case. I do value transparency but I wouldn't think it I wouldn't say it rises to one of our key goals. This is something we should be doing. If we're getting requests for the warrant report because people can't find it in our agendas, then in the normal course of your activities, your people are going to reorganize the website so it's easier to find. That's not a goal or an objective. That's just doing your job. So it is something we want to see happen. We want you to be creative and use a heat map. What are people going for? Make it easier to find the stuff that they're looking for. If we're getting requests for information, then your folks can make that information easier to get. Again, that's information that's already available. But that's not an objective. That's just something you should be doing in the normal course of business.

[5213] Bowen Zhang: So, yeah, I mean, speaking of that, like I said, we should do what is required by law. And then the top priority for some of these issues, like I said, is to minimize exposure and mitigation. Speaking of, like I said, community concern about transparency, Interesting thing is, last year, I probably talked to close to 3,000 people in the community. Some of them are parents in the district, but some of them are parents of the community, but not parents of the district. So meaning they have kids in private schools. And not a single one told me, because of transparency issues, they didn't send their kids to school. Most likely there's three things. One, underwhelming academic performance. Number two, during registration process, not good customer service. Number three, fear of being bullied because their children are minorities. These are the three top reasons they said that they sent their kids to a smaller private school or going to Fremont, where 75 or 80% are minorities in Fremont that they thought were safer. So like I said, I think it is an important thing, but it shouldn't be going to the point of paramount importance, because that's like 2,000 to 3,000 people. It's not a great sample of the entire city, but it's a pretty good angle.

[5288] Aiden Hill: Can we write a report from your brain?

[5292] Nicole Pierce-Davis: Yes.

[5293] Aiden Hill: Since obviously we don't have access to that data.

[5298] Phuong Nguyen: No, but generally, I mean, I do agree with President Chong. Those are the three major items that I do see. Those are the big issues, is whether or not the community feels that our district is lacking in academic performance. customer service is huge, you know, if parents aren't able to register a student online and aren't able to connect with somebody at the district, yes, they're less likely, you know, making the assumption that hey, you know, this district doesn't really care about whether or not I enroll my kid here. And they're not making it easy, right? And then lastly, yeah, what was your last point? The bullying problem? Oh, yes.

[5341] Bowen Zhang: And then- The bad customer service problem and the underwhelming examiner.

[5345] Terrence Grindall: Right, and we're back to enrollment, but it's okay. It strengthens the idea that it's the overarching theme. And a lot of those things are perceptions that are not reality. So that makes, those are low-hanging fruit. If you have a, if you're able to counteract a perception, you're able to identify and then counteract a perception, that's easier. That's a lot easier. than increasing the test scores. Right. And so we need to be really looking at that low-hanging fruit to turn the ship around.

[5384] SPEAKER_26: Yes, because I was one of those parents. Ditto. So when you can speak from experience, because you've lived it, that's a first-hand source. Yep.

[5399] Aiden Hill: So if we say that these are the three on primary objectives, let's put them in here. So if we're saying that the big things that are driving everything is academic performance, customer service, and safety, let's put it in here.

[5422] Mark Triplett: I think we're going to find that they are.

[5424] Bowen Zhang: Yeah. When we do the full diagnosis of them, what's wrong with them?

[5427] Terrence Grindall: Right. But even more, back to your earlier point, Member Hill, we need to have, notwithstanding my respect for President Zhang's mind, we need to have a more scientific sort of approach of identifying these issues. Correct. But I mean, what you have is a good start, but we need to do, we need to have a comprehensive scientific objective look at that. Although, again, I suspect that President Jiang is right on, but it'd be good to have an independent consultant that would tell us what the real issues are.

[5467] Aiden Hill: Based on data. Data.

[5472] Mark Triplett: Which can be surveys. Right, sure. And can be perception, right? It is?

[5476] Aiden Hill: Yeah. Right, but that's what customer service is about, right? I mean, so the customers are telling you what's important to them. Right?

[5487] Phuong Nguyen: Student member.

[5488] SPEAKER_27: Yes. Oh, yes. I'd like to make a comment going back to where we were talking about trusting and transparency between the issues. And from my perspective, I had assumed that the support, positive community interaction and communication was made for that purpose of having a good relationship with the board and the public. And I was wondering, like, if that was a curriculum, how would that work? This is a question and a comment of assuming that that would be how we would engage more with the public and showing that transparency that is said to be missing. So.

[5521] Mark Triplett: Yeah, thank you. I think the idea would be to engage in a process of developing a resolution that did articulate different ways that we could go about building a more respectful and civil a community that is both respectful and has civil interaction and positive communication. So a curriculum could be part of that, but I think the resolution and the process of building a resolution would surface the ways that we would be saying that we want to pursue that.

[5559] SPEAKER_24: Does that make sense?

[5561] SPEAKER_27: It does.

[5566] Terrence Grindall: Well, the resolution isn't drafted yet, so one of the factors in the resolution would be to pursue a curriculum that supports this.

[5575] SPEAKER_26: If you look at our wall, it's pre-existing. It's just a matter of the lights on. Each week or each quarter, however we want to end this making it a focus point school-wide, so that it's not only just the adult, but the students are seeing levels you know, are seeing that, okay, this week or for the next two weeks, this is what we're focusing on.

[5599] SPEAKER_24: It's across the board.

[5602] Phuong Nguyen: Yeah. Like, we have, like, annual training for different subjects at work, same thing, or annual, you know, assemblies at the high school to address anti-bullying or anything like that, as an example.

[5625] Mark Triplett: Excellent, should we move on to goal area three? Yeah. Okay. So this goal area, promoting focus on continual improvement of teaching and learning, arguably like the fundamental reason why we're all here. Yeah. And so last year we did engage in the year-long process of defining what a graduate profile would look like. The skills, knowledge, and proclivities, the newer unified school district student, would demonstrate upon graduation. We did do that, we did create that. There was tremendous stakeholder engagement. I think it was over, maybe it was hundreds, or at least over 100 different stakeholders were engaged in that process at different times. We are finalizing the graphic. I'm excited to bring that back to the board. So the board did agree, or here, and I believe approved the graduate profile characteristics. And then what we're bringing back to the board, sharing out some final graphics at the upcoming board meeting. So that part, red in terms of we developed that, blue in terms of finalizing the graphic this fall. But then I think the deeper work there is realizing and actualizing how we then go about building and promoting those characteristics in our young people and in ourselves. And so, if you could scroll up or down a little bit, Ms. Gutierrez. So, some of these programs are, just to loop back to this discussion around enrollment, are how we know we're going to continue to attract more families, and retain the families that we do have, is through some really quality programs. And so one of those is phase two of the Dual Language Immersion Program. So we've started it, but so far it's been really tremendous. And it is still at the beginning, and so if we don't continue to really devote a lot of attention to phase two, then we run the risk of it not continuing to be successful. Number two, a very large bucket of work this year is the Middle School of Design And so I spoke about it a little bit at the last board meeting, but essentially when the board voted to move the transition sixth graders to junior high and make it a middle school, that set in motion this work that we're doing this year. So that's gonna be their primary focus. And incidentally, tomorrow we have our first middle school design team meeting with stakeholders, including students, teachers, principals, parents, and we're really excited about that. So then the next one is something I alluded to earlier, which we know, and the student board member mentioned as well an aspect of this, is building out our STEM initiative. So before my time, I think there was an initial building out and articulating of the STEM initiative, and so what we're looking to do, and we started some work around this last year, but we're really looking to bring this to fruition, is think about STEM in terms of two focus areas. One being environmental literacy, outdoor education, science camp, and really expanding on that. So right now we have science camp up there just for either fifth or sixth graders, but what we're looking to do is expand that. K-12, a program, not necessarily that every grade level goes to an official science camp, but what does it look like to build environmental literacy within our students, starting as early as kindergarten and going all the way up through 12th grade. And really thinking about what it means to be environmentally conscious, good stewards of the land, and really connecting with our environment in ways that we know are really critical. And then what is the symmetry with what we're calling Star Academy? So something where we're really promoting computer science, rocketry, and robotics, and technology from K-12 as well. And I think it's no coincidence companies like Tesla are here, which in my mind really represent that combination of both environmental consciousness with computer science and technology. And so I've heard over and over again that being in Newark and being in this community that we are so well positioned to really foster these two ideas, almost like a yin and yang kind of a thing. And so we want to spend this year really focusing on how to build out these two aspects of STEM in Michigan. And then lastly, this is something that I realized last year, this is what's like deeply core to my My heart is the recruitment and retention of highly qualified educators and how to create a culture of learning that is not just for students but for all of us, that we're all in a culture of learning together. And that professional growth and development is something that's lifelong. And so I would put this in here because last year I realized while we were doing it that we hadn't articulated in the goals. And that struck me when we did have a chance to talk to the board about the goal areas and realize, wow, actually, we're doing all these things, and this is so, so important, and yet I actually hadn't articulated it in the goals. So this includes professional development for our teachers, for our other staff, for our administrators, it includes coaching and support, and it's something that we know that the most important aspect of education, at least in my opinion, is the teachers. And that's going to make all the difference. And so how we support principals to support the teachers, how principals support teachers, how all of us are in this community of learning, I think is something that I really wanted to make sure I lifted up here.

[6009] SPEAKER_24: I'll talk a lot more about this one. I'll hold on.

[6012] Phuong Nguyen: I know you mentioned Tesla, but we do have an electric car company here in... That's right.

[6021] Mark Triplett: That's right, the mayor just took me on a tour last week, and he showed me the area where that company is as well.

[6031] SPEAKER_26: And then with Amazon, just the opportunity, the job training, the department, all of this stuff. For anything you deny, just be there hands-on.

[6047] Mark Triplett: So thoughts about the, are these the right things? Is there something we should not be doing of these?

[6052] Bowen Zhang: Well, I can talk about, I mean, obviously Objective 3 is probably the most important thing to me. I mean, this objective probably weighs the most, weighs way more than any other objective. I can talk about how I'm going to measure this. Obviously, the way I'm going to measure this is going to rely on the dashboard score. We have the math score, we have the English proficiency score, we have the college readiness indicator, we have the English learner progress. We're going to be measured against ourselves on the result in 2019. We will be measured against our neighboring district. For example, New Haven.

[6088] Aiden Hill: Yeah, I mean, and I would echo your thoughts, President Chong.

[6095] Aiden Hill: I mean, as you know, when we were first talking about it, I had concerns. And the concerns weren't around the program. It was around the fact that we didn't really have clear metrics. And so, you know, We've now got our feet wet, and we've got a year almost under our, well, I shouldn't say year. I mean, we've got almost half a year. But we're talking about going forward. And like you say, President Chunk, I mean, we have information in the school dashboard. So if we look at Schilling right now, I mean, literally, we've got, we know for English learners, right now, English language arts, 70 points below standard. And then if we look at it in terms of basically, you know, ELL progress, right, so ELPAC, et cetera, right now only 32.4% of English learners are making progress towards English language proficiency. And these are 29, this is 2019 data, right? We weren't measuring last year. I suspect that maybe it might be even a little bit worse because of the pandemic. But I think that we ought to start anchoring this and say, okay, if the whole point is to try to raise these standards, let's bring these forward and let's start to establish some targets and then some specific components of this that we think are going to move the needle on.

[6183] Phuong Nguyen: But I just want to make a point. I know that with dual immersion and students that are enrolled in dual immersion programs, that they're reading their reading levels aren't that progressive the first couple of years through the program until later on. Especially in the lower grade levels. So, because they're learning two languages at the same time. So, for us to strictly who use the dashboard for comparison or to make a metric, you know, that are only metrics measuring the performance. I don't necessarily think that's correct. So it has to be a fair evaluation.

[6229] Bowen Zhang: Yeah, like doing a version is only a small part of showing it. When we look at dashboard, we look at the facts that went out. Across the district, 38% of people are doing math at grade level or above. High school is around 28%. Those are the big numbers. That's across the 5,300 students. English learner programs are slightly below 50% are doing at a grade level or above. Where are we going compared to 2019? And then speaking of the point that member Hill just mentioned about 70 point below standard. If we're, like, we suspect that this is going to get worse, but here's the other measurement. We used to be 20 points behind New England when it comes to math and English. We're 50 points behind after this year. Then we're clearly not doing well. We're five points behind New England then, even though we're descending, we're not descending as fast as the rest of the community because we're mitigating the pandemic, right? So it's vertical comparison to yourself, horizontal comparison to your neighbors.

[6286] SPEAKER_26: We have to be careful, too, because we don't want the duplicate information, especially if we have students that are the lower grade levels that are in the dual immersion program. We wanna make sure that dashboard or the information that's being provided is not duplicating so that they're populating two different reports, right? If we wanna be very specific, then what we could do is, because it's the lower grade levels, is go back to a neighboring school. So for example, let's say Osborne Internal. to dual immersion school, K through six or K through five, then we would be able to say, okay, compare ourself in terms of dual immersion specific, right, that those identified students. And just again, I have to be very careful that they're not duplicating or they're populating more than we report. Yeah, thank you. Because then it's not gonna give us a true reading.

[6341] Mark Triplett: Yeah, thank you, Member Marcos.

[6345] Mark Triplett: that the state has recognized over time about these kind of metrics is that what's most doable and reasonable is growth metrics. So how much do students grow? So because when we try to compare students to other students, there's so many different variables that it's almost impossible to find exact. So from where they start and then where they end up,

[6377] Bowen Zhang: in the student achievement. So let's say you mentioned a negative 70 below standard. Are we going to be negative 50 below standard next year? That's the growth that superintendents want.

[6388] Mark Triplett: And specifically with specific students, so what we have right now is all we have is the 2019 data. So really, we're not even talking about the same students for the most part. So what we want to do, try to do, is measure where the students were at the beginning of the year, ended up at the end of the year.

[6409] Phuong Nguyen: And did we see growth in... Yeah. So this would, I mean, we're making comparisons from the California dashboard. This is going to be our benchmark for next year.

[6421] Aiden Hill: Right. I mean, so I'm not saying that it necessarily has to be the dashboard, but what I'm saying is that any program should have metrics. Of course. And especially when it comes to student achievement. And so, and we did not have that in our plan in the beginning of last year. We did not have any metrics. And so, what I'm advocating for is let's now take it to the next level. And I would say we benchmark. Let's look at other dual language immersion programs. People have figured this out, right? We shouldn't be, you know, essentially trying to reinvent the wheel. But we should be able to say, here's, you know, here's now we're in year one. Okay, here's where we should be. Here's what we should be measuring. You know, here are the things that connect to this, and then now we're going to go in and look at year two. Here's going to be what we're hoping to achieve. These are the things that we're going to do.

[6483] Terrence Grindall: I'm on a totally different tack. I just want to be clear that the environmental literacy and outdoor education, the idea of creating a kind of a coherent path makes sense. But I do want to say that it should involve a science camp. This should not be a curriculum that replaces the science camp. I know this is getting down in the weeds, but the, you know, you could understand your statements as sort of replacing the actual off-campus science camp, and I think we want to maintain that.

[6526] Mark Triplett: Yeah, I'm sorry if that was in any way heard, because what I intended to say was, right now we only have science camp in 50 places. Oh, I understand. And our goal is to expand the outdoor education experiences.

[6542] Terrence Grindall: So that's more, not less. I understand. I just want to make clear that I think it's both popular with the parents and enriching for the children.

[6557] Phuong Nguyen: Absolutely. For most of the students, it's their really first time away from home and experiencing some fun and learning experiences.

[6572] Terrence Grindall: But with, you know, with COVID safety, of course, in Paramount, you know, it really was deep in the weeds, but I just want to make clear what that meant. Otherwise, I would agree that we need to have metrics, and they need to be smart metrics that actually measure what we're doing. And I don't think we're gonna figure those out today, but it's something that educational experts need to work with us on and help identify metrics where we can judge performance of all across the whole district, as well as individual programs.

[6614] Mark Triplett: One of the important things I think about SMART goals or SMARTIE goals is that it's measurable and time-bound. And so we also have to think about some of these programs. We might not see the change or the growth. see the fruition of it down the road. Dual language is a perfect example because we know that a student doesn't learn a second language in one year. In fact, research says that for the first couple of years, it actually appears that the achievement is going down.

[6669] Aiden Hill: But I think the one thing that's important to understand is that you eat the elephant in bites. And so whenever you set a big goal, you've got a whole bunch of subordinate goals that go into that, right? And so as a personal example, I, like many people, put on weight during the pandemic. And I followed my own advice over the summer. because I know that what happens is if you say, I want to lose 20 pounds, and then you just say, okay, number one, if you don't have a time, okay, you're in big trouble, you're not going to lose it. But then also, if you set it up as sort of, I'm going to wake up six months from now, and I will have lost 20 pounds. The way it happens is you get on the scale every morning and you measure yourself. And the goal, and this comes from weight loss reduction experts, is that you can lose one to two pounds per week. And so you now break down your goal of 20 pounds and you say, I'm not focused so much on 20 pounds, I'm focused on how can I lose one pound per week. So that's what we need to do with every single one of these programs, We can have a larger goal, but that doesn't mean that we don't measure in the interim.

[6751] SPEAKER_27: I definitely agree with that, but think specific in how we measure this. Because, like, giving the example of the losing weight idea you gave, you know, like, if you get into the, like, nitpicky ideas of, like, I need to, like, count my calories and everything, you develop a disorder and it might affect you. And going to, like, the actual issue here of, like, all these programs, if we do, like, I don't know, what the measures could be, like, for example, assessments every week, I personally struggle with assessments. It nerves off and gives me anxiety. I wouldn't want that every single week. Having a way that also works for students and is proficient for the district to get the data they're looking for is definitely something that we should balance out.

[6791] Aiden Hill: Yeah, just so you know, I'm not advocating that we're measuring what's every week. So that's what you do when you try to lose weight. But what? We're not. Again. We're not.

[6805] SPEAKER_26: before it was that, you teach to the test, right? And we've tried really hard to get away from that, and especially with the changes in Common Core. But what we need to understand is that we still have to have a means of measurement, and it's finding that happy place. What is going to be acceptable? Because we know, traditionally, at the beginning of the school year, it's test, test, test. So the student is English language learner, they're getting the CELT, or the CELT-type test. Aside from casements, and then in high school, it's the same thing. We say we're not teaching to the test, but yet we're expecting the test to teach us something, right? And that's where we just have to really be careful that we don't, going back to what our partner just mentioned, is that we don't over-test, but the information that we do gather is valuable, that we can say, yes, this happened, because we do have students and we can ask them. This is not you, this is not just for reflection. I'm testing all the time, so what are they doing? So placing value on the type of assessment that we're going to use, and that staff support that, and they make the message very clear that this is an assessment of you, it's not about a pass or a fail. This is so that you can help the future students, and we will unify.

[6881] Mark Triplett: Thank you, that's a good point, and it actually goes to the, last bullet there because it also requires to become a data-driven culture that uses data authentically and not in a way of over-testing is a shift for the adults first and foremost. How to use data effectively and not just qualitative, not just quantitative, but qualitative data. And so that is part of what we want to do this year. I don't believe that we currently have a highest functioning data-driven culture in this district. And so part of professional growth and development coaching and support this year is really moving towards that kind of a culture that uses data in a way not to penalize, but to inform practice.

[6937] SPEAKER_26: When it comes to the recruitment and retention of a high-quality educator, It's important that we understand that as an educator, when we're looking for that job, one of the things that we're driven to look at is, what does the growth look like from within? Once I'm a teacher in this school district, what does my future look like? Does it end, or do I not move forward in five years because that's the scale that I hit? Or even as a classifier, is this it? What is the next step? So if I'm, let's say, a teacher one, for example, or if I'm a librarian one. So in five years, when I've gone through the professional growth and I've gone through the years of service, what's my next step? What do I need to do to move not only up and over, versus you do this and we stop here. So as a school district, looking at our own growth, What do we offer our employees to retain them so that we don't have equipment and that we can have more employees that are staying longer? Because they know that they also have, if there isn't, this is where I'm at, okay, now it's just years of service versus are we connected to, let's say, a university? We have Cal State, we have Stanford, we have all these different universities around us. What programs do they offer and that they can, offer to our school district so that we can become a partnership, so that we offer our educators the ability to continue to become highly qualified, internally and externally.

[7038] Aiden Hill: To add to what you're talking about, Member Marquez, and I think just as we were talking earlier about enrollment and about we need to talk to the people who aren't enrolling their kids, right? So we need to talk to the customer and say, what do you want, Mr. and Mrs. So I think in this category, we need to come to the teachers.

[7067] Aiden Hill: In private industry, there's a popular term that people use where they say, we want to become the employer of choice. And so it's like, we want to be a destination. We want to be the place that everybody says, wow, that's the cool place to work. I want to work at Facebook. I want to work at Google. I want to work at wherever. And so how can we do that? But in order to figure that out, we've got to talk to the teachers. And they're going to tell us this is what we want. This is what would make this desirable.

[7097] SPEAKER_26: And you bring us to a great point. There is the fact that, for example, we're going to New Haven. The paraeducators, we use the term teacher's aide or assistant. They're teaching, right? They're doing the one-on-one, right? How are we making them highly qualified? What are we doing as a school just so that we routine what programs we offer so that they can become the certified teacher? What better way than to have a turnover, to complain about a turnover, because it's your own staff that's moving, that they're promoting and they're staying within, A neighboring school district is offering a program where your educators can go to school and get credit for the usual service, whatever the case may be, and then that they're hiring them on. So we need to maintain competitive. We need to retain our own. And if you see that when you have happy staff, happy students. I mean, it's just, they correlate. Right.

[7167] Terrence Grindall: And I would just reiterate Member Hill's point that we can't just do it, you know, sitting in district office. We have to talk to the teachers themselves. Yes. And that doesn't necessarily, that doesn't only mean their labor representatives, but that they shouldn't be excluded either.

[7190] Phuong Nguyen: Sure.

[7191] Aiden Hill: And to your point, so there is, as a current teacher, and I know that you've seen in your district, sadly, there is a lot of, I don't know what the right term is, lack of respect towards parent educators just in general, right? But they're an untapped resource, right? And they could potentially be, like you say, you could develop a career path, right? And then that could solve a lot of the short And then if we back it up even further to say subs, right, and we have a sub challenge, everybody has a sub challenge. How do we, is there something we could do to make becoming a sub here better here versus other places? And then they maybe transition into either becoming a teacher or maybe a para-educator and then a teacher. And so that could be great.

[7241] Phuong Nguyen: Because we do have some long-term subs that the students really love and do a wonderful job. It's one of those things where you both are correct. You need to be able to ask them, hey, how can we get you to be a certified teacher, right?

[7261] SPEAKER_26: NAE Series is one of those great places to start because, for example, they had the grant, the T3 program, taking the paraeducators and getting them back into the local junior colleges and universities, developing the program so that it was workable, balanced, and at the same time they're being supported because it was through Alameda County. So there were paraeducators coming from all over the Bay Area that were within Alameda County because of the programs. So we could break that down and make something like that happen here, support our own, less turnover.

[7298] Mark Triplett: Yeah, an example of that would be this past year when we we created a pathway for our teachers to become BPAC. And so we were able to partner with an organization so that they didn't have to pay anything to be trained and become certified. So those are the kind of things that we really want to continue. In terms of this goal, I know we're going to move on to the last goal, but so are these the right things? I'm seeing some nodding heads. Is there anything we should take off of there?

[7331] Aiden Hill: But just one thing to add around the middle school design. I mean, that's a big effort. And so we really need to have a really strong plan for that because there are so many different moving parts. And especially, I mean, our target is that we say we're going to go live and we're going to be actually implementing this at the beginning of the next school year. And so I think that we really, if we were gonna go and make this a measurable, or how we make this measurable, I would say we need to have a good plan, let's say by the beginning of next year, that we can review, maybe the first coordinating of the new year, January. And then we can look at it, make sure it looks good, ratify it, because you're gonna need that runway to get that going.

[7382] Bowen Zhang: And then, obviously, in the superintendent report after that, we probably need to talk about this, every superintendent report.

[7390] Mark Triplett: Yeah. Yeah, so we, before you came in, Member Hill, I was mentioning that we are starting the middle school design team that has been founded, and our first meeting is tomorrow. Part of their task will be to be creating a plan for how the middle school The timeline is not for them to be finished by January, Mr. Clare.

[7419] Jodi Croce: But that is... That gives you two months to implement?

[7426] Bowen Zhang: No. I mean, the actual implementation, because I guess the transition, this actual implementation will take a month.

[7435] Mark Triplett: Yeah, the implementation is next year. That's when we become a middle school, so that's when the plan will be put into action.

[7442] Bowen Zhang: Yeah, starting in August of 2022, there will be a middle school. That's right.

[7450] Aiden Hill: So that means there's all these activities that are happening prior to that, right? So that literally means you've got to have your plan in January, right? You've got to, I mean, facilities is a part of the plan.

[7460] Mark Triplett: Facilities is not part of the middle school design plan, so we have a larger district a plan which we'll share with the board, just like we did with the merger, Henry Mills merger. The middle school design team will be really focused on culture, instruction, the way that the middle school is designed and structured. The facilities piece and the staffing piece, those are other elements that are a part of a larger plan that we will be sharing with the board before, what we call the Gantt design for how we're going to be working between now and August to prepare for the rollout of the middle school.

[7512] Aiden Hill: But I mean, you're, again, right, you're going to have to deal with staffing issues, you're going to have to deal with instructional design, right? Instructional design is part of the middle school design. Right, but so, but you're not going to be, I mean, but if you're saying that the plan isn't ready until next

[7530] Mark Triplett: I don't think you're understanding. The middle school design team is designing the instructional components and building the culture, developing a plan to then implement in August the plan for how to support the transition of sixth grade to the middle school, including staffing, facilities, and all of those elements, budgeting. Those are things that we are putting together as a larger team that It's already started.

[7558] Aiden Hill: So I think that's where that needs to go right there, right? That's the whole shooting match. We need to have the whole shooting match there. Otherwise, it's not going to work.

[7568] Mark Triplett: Implement the move from the junior high to middle school to focus on the sixth grade transition. That's right.

[7573] Aiden Hill: So is it going to be, can we try to focus on getting that separate team, that whole plan, at least a draft of it by January? Because you're going to need it by then.

[7586] SPEAKER_26: The design?

[7588] Bowen Zhang: No, not the design team. The bigger facility team, the budgeting.

[7593] Mark Triplett: Staffing, facilities, the plan for how, what the different parts of that, and how that will look between now and August. Yes, we can, that is something that is, something that we can share with the board in the upcoming months.

[7613] Terrence Grindall: So you asked if there was something missing, and I feel compelled to point out that art, particularly music, shouldn't be left out of this. It's very important to educational achievement. It's often overlooked, and we're thinking of computers and technology, but arts, particularly music, needs to be something that's included in in creating a great quality school, a great quality education.

[7652] Mark Triplett: I appreciate that, Member Greenell, and I absolutely agree. Should we add an additional goal or objective on here that is related to that? We are moving forward with work related to building arts and music. I think we're not yet at the same place that we are with STAR and Academy of Science Camp in Seville, But if the board feels like we should add an additional?

[7677] Terrence Grindall: I think if it's something you're working on anyway, I think raising its profile by including it would be worthwhile.

[7686] Mark Triplett: Does the rest of the board? I think one of the challenges is if we

[7693] Bowen Zhang: We add on more stuff without taking anything off that we... Yeah, like I said, we will avoid one mile wide and one inch deep. So I don't know, you have a narrow focus on three or four goals, and do them really well. After that, you can talk about, I can do 10 things really well. So if that's something you're working on, keep working on it. I wouldn't put that into a class right away. I think if you can do this science thing, this STEM thing, extremely well for two or three years, that we can raise the profile of the music department. I definitely think no organization can have four or five things on the play and do all of them extremely well.

[7736] Aiden Hill: I think one thing that isn't up there that we've already kind of talked about and committed to is, we've talked about Apex, we've talked about the challenges, We've talked about putting a program in place to rectify it. I think that we need to actually have some follow up related to that. And make sure that that's successful. And I think also maybe get to some of the, at least start to identify some of the underlying issues. Because what we learned from the prior presentations is over 20% of the kids at Newark Memorial are doing some type of credit recovery. So, I think we need to at least get APEC stabilized and then we need to figure out why is that happening and what potentially can we do about it in future years.

[7788] SPEAKER_26: So, how would we tie that? How could we propose that? How could we tie that in? college and career readiness, right? Alternative path or alternative curriculum for college and career readiness, right?

[7812] Aiden Hill: I would put it as a separate bullet point and just say... Tie it back into the... Yeah, because it all connects into college and career readiness. Because the challenge we've got at the Newark Memorial, right, is We've got high graduation rates, but we've got low college and career readiness. And I suspect that there's a strong connection between that and APAC.

[7834] Bowen Zhang: You know, like I said, one of the metrics in the dashboard is college and career readiness. If we're going to measure that, I think it's up to the CEO to decide which program you need to tweak to fulfill that measurement. Because in addition to APAC, I raised the issue of the elementary school grade report. There's this math pathway, but I don't want to put all of these programs onto this one. Because all of them serve, at the end, is how we measure the success of math proficiency, English language arts, English learning, college and career readiness. These are just the measurements. How are you going to improve that one? I will leave it to you.

[7874] Mark Triplett: Just to be transparent, I actually did have college and career. readiness on here in relationship to building out a sixth grade through 12th grade sort of articulated plan of how we are ensuring that our students are graduating A through G and all of that. And we are starting, we're starting to really dig into that work. people, counselors, teachers, just all sorts of, all the different aspects of our organization. I took it off a year, not because we're not gonna be doing it, but again, because if we have too many goals, then we're not gonna do anything well. And so my thought was that that would actually be, we're starting that work, but that that would be a good thing to have on our goals next year, But if the board feels like we should take something off and instead put that on, that would be important.

[7948] Bowen Zhang: I think next year is fine. Well, like to be transparent, like I said, come next year, what I'm going to evaluate you on this year is going to be like the one I listed on the college effort that literally nobody can deny the existence of those data. your math proficiency, your English passing, your English learner, and your college readiness. These are data that's public, that everybody can see that. So you can't hide behind those data. So I will assume that anything you do in here, whether it's dual language immersion or STEM initiative, middle school design, all of these are serving for these, the greater package of all the dashboard indicator, moving in the right direction, both horizontally and vertically.

[7996] SPEAKER_29: I wanted to add to that.

[7997] SPEAKER_27: Oh, sorry. Oh, Star Academy. I'm not sure if this is already a goal for that, but definitely outreach. I know various programs, Go into Code, Smash Academy, small community-wide and California-wide, talking out to the colleges, CSUs, UCs. I'm sure they have support systems for these types of programs, and I know it could definitely help us out.

[8022] SPEAKER_24: Thank you.

[8023] Mark Triplett: And I know you're about to go on to college in computer science. So you're going to be one of these people that we tag.

[8038] Mark Triplett: Great. Ms. Gutierrez, can we move on to the last one?

[8042] SPEAKER_22: Hey, Dr. Haynes, just to remind the board, since we do have our masks, some of you guys are heard muffled. So just try to be very clear in the lab. Thank you.

[8056] Mark Triplett: All right, so this is the fourth goal, last goal, exceptional learning environments, which is my articulation or our articulation of improving the condition and upkeep of facilities, equipment, and fields. So we know if those things are top notch, that those are actually the learning environment for our students, our facilities, our equipment, and our fields. Last year, the main goal was to create safe, attractive, and inviting learning environments in the parents of schools through what you see there in the red. Effective and efficient and timely Measure G bond implementation. So that's what we were focused on was for many years, I think that there had been criticism that the bond was not being spent. The bond was not being spent down, it was not being utilized. And I'm really proud to say that the team has done an amazing job of identifying what the community said were the priorities for the use of the bond and then spending it down. And we're in a position that we're about to spend the last bit of the bond, which is really exciting and is resulting in new HVAC units and the things that you all have been aware of and helping to improve. flooring, stairs of the junior high, et cetera, et cetera, landscaping and such. So what we see as the next stage, and it was mentioned earlier around facilities use, is two part. One is thinking about ongoing, how do we create a plan for facilities improvements? And that includes deferred maintenance plan, something that we have not had, and then also thinking about what is the feasibility of new monitoring? And it's, as I'm sure you're probably aware, it's not as easy as just saying, oh yeah, let's go for one. But there's actually a tremendous amount of work that goes into determining if it's feasible, if it's needed, and et cetera. So that's the first part of the green, the new, the start. And then the second part is what I think member Zhen and others were referring to earlier, is developing a clear facilities utilization plan. And so what are we going to do with white fur, with snow, with music facility? And if you recall, we are planning on bringing back results from the feasibility study of area three and property there. And so all of that we look at as very multi-dimensional and it's gonna take a tremendous amount of work and attention, but really coming up with a clear plan moving forward about how we utilize these different properties and facilities. And I see that as a year-long process that hopefully by the end of this year could result in bringing to the board and getting board approval on a plan for some of these things.

[8240] Terrence Grindall: So in the spirit of taking something off the list, I think given this is a one-year effort, I think the bond feasibility is misplaced. you really need to have the outcome of these other efforts to even know if you want to proceed that. And the only way to make it happen in this same time would be to literally do them simultaneously, which I think isn't appropriate. So I would argue that the bond feasibility is something that comes, that's not a goal for this year.

[8280] Bowen Zhang: Yeah, I mean, like, I raised the issue about vacant land, so that's for me, when it comes to dealing with facilities, that's probably the paramount issue for the company. Because, like I said, historically what we do is we close the school, we sell the land for 20 million, and then you've got 500 companies, you're selling for like 1 million, that's the result. Then you're done.

[8304] Terrence Grindall: Right, well, you're doing the feasibility study, I mean, you're doing the, we don't want to do the, we don't want to do the utilization plan right now, but we need to get it done.

[8318] Bowen Zhang: No, I'm talking about the objective. I really want to see how you're going to optimize the real estate portfolio. That's very important.

[8327] Terrence Grindall: I agree. But I think we do that first and before we pursue a bond.

[8333] Bowen Zhang: Yeah, I mean, I don't think bond feasibility. I mean, because the other thing about ARSA, we don't know the result of ARSA feasibility. Maybe it doesn't need a bond, right? Yep. So I will scratch off the entire first creative plan for ongoing facility improvement. I will just focus on how do you utilize the vacant land, the existing facility.

[8353] Terrence Grindall: No, no, I disagree. We need to have a deferred maintenance plan. The fact that we don't is Well, it's inappropriate. We need to know what maintenance is needed for our facilities.

[8366] Phuong Nguyen: Yeah, because if we don't, it's going to deteriorate, which has to happen.

[8369] Terrence Grindall: Exactly. And you can do triage in that case, right? So you can say, oh my gosh, we need a new roof on this school, which we ought to be taking into account. There's going to be further closures, right? We've got portables that are falling apart. Or something's falling off this foundation. These are things we need to know. be able to triage with health and safety issues, with things that are ugly that we'd like to fix, that are not critical. So we need to have that plan.

[8395] Phuong Nguyen: In terms of that, if you're making a case for a deferred maintenance plan, I do feel that we should keep the bond feasibility on there because The next time we can go out for an election on a bond is in 2022, which is right around the corner. If we defer that until we have until 2024, which still would be okay with the results coming back from the feasibility study. So that's what I'm just saying.

[8430] Terrence Grindall: I think we have another year. If we can do all these things, if you can do all these things, except for the bond feasibility analysis this year, then we're doing very well. And that sets you up to really inform that bond process. For 2024. For 2024.

[8455] Mark Triplett: I will say that I think we all recognize we have some very dire facilities needs. And so that was the thought around just seeing the feasibility of a bond. Not necessarily saying we're going to help for a bond, but just even seeing if it's feasible was something that we thought was really important. Because we don't have the funds to pay for severe facility needs that we all recognize. And we also are hearing, to President Chun's point, selling properties, at least for President Chun and maybe for others, is not considered a wise way of generating funds.

[8505] Bowen Zhang: Yeah, because we've seen what happened in Russia. We sold about 70 million or something. Within a couple of years, we start transferring that money to general fund. Right now, that fund is down to 13, 12, or 11 million, so several million just gone. We don't even know what happened. Yeah. And that- I understand, but- If we keep it today, it will be more than 50 million.

[8525] Terrence Grindall: We don't need to do that plan right now. So my concern is that in order for the feasibility, bond feasibility analysis, you know, to be done, you really need those other inputs. You need to know. So, I mean, if there actually is a way to couple these things together and get it done this year, then I'm okay with leaving it up there, but I think that's overly ambitious and And you don't want to do a bond feasibility analysis that's done halfway. You need to do it properly, and you need to be able to see what your needs are, and identify what you'd be asking for the bond. That polling, that's what we're talking about, right? That polling needs to be educated based on the actual information of what's out there, not just, boy, we have a, you know, and again,

[8586] Phuong Nguyen: If you already know that there's something we, that there's... Well, I mean, I think it's based on the master's facilities plan, right? Right. We want to do all these improvements. It's going to cost the district, what, several hundred million dollars to do it, right? Even with the money that was left over from the previous bond, it wasn't enough to even make a dent in... Right, but that plan never got finished, right? I'm just saying based on the information that's on the master facilities plan. So I think from a district perspective, what we've already seen with the last bit of money from the bond money that we've already spent, there are still improvements that we can make to the existing facilities in the district. And so therefore, I think the superintendent put this on his list.

[8639] Terrence Grindall: was not the limit I am, but I still think it's.

[8643] Phuong Nguyen: But I I understand where you're coming from. I think that for a bond feasibility study to be. Efficient, we should have. Credible information in in regards to the other area 3 feasibility and the and how we want to utilize and have a plan for the other district properties. So I don't.

[8670] Mark Triplett: I think one of the other things is that we know that part of what attracts families to the district is having nice facilities. And so we just feel an urgency around it. And not to say that we should put a bond up in 2022, but rather doing the research about what, when is, or if it is appropriate to. to float a bond either in 2022 or in 2024. With the initial sort of mapping out that I've seen from some of the people that do these kind of things is that even 2024 we need to, if we're going to do that, we would need to get started right now and start really planning it out because it does you.

[8721] Phuong Nguyen: Yeah. Even last time when we tried to go out to see whether or not we're going to put a bond out for the 2020 election, I think that we did. We ran out of time, you know, to really do a good job around that. And then with the pandemic happening, it was just kind of like, oh no, it's not a good time, right? But so I think he's the superintendent is putting it on our radar so that we don't forget and we make a last minute decision on whether or not we're going to have a bond feasibility. So I think he's just pre-planning in that aspect. So I can appreciate that.

[8763] Aiden Hill: One of the things, though, that I think that we need to keep at the forefront of our minds is the first part of that goal, which is exceptional learning environments. And in my experience, both in corporate America and now in the educational field, I can't count the number of companies who've built monuments to themselves. Big, fancy headquarters, right? But they kept their eye off the ball. I can literally list off a handful here in Silicon Valley that I've worked with. And right now where I work at Cupertino, we have great facilities. I'm in a building that was completely remodeled over the summer. Looks beautiful from the outside. I come into my new classroom. I teach business, and I'm teaching kids how to work in teams. And so I form them into permanent teams during the semester. And that means they need to sit together, and they need to move around. None of my tables and chairs have wheels on them. So nobody ever consults the teachers. Nobody ever talks to the people about, well, what is an exceptional learning environment? What do we really need? It's always top down. So I think that as we do this kind of stuff, we need to really think about, okay, how are we really going to push the envelope around learning? And the people that you need to talk to are the teachers and the students, right?

[8856] Jodi Croce: and that they should be driving what types of facilities and needs we have.

[8868] SPEAKER_27: I agree with the discussion. I don't have much to say on this, since it is more of a four-year, two-year type of plan, and I am just a one-year type of term. But I do see the point of value of the conversation and what has been said.

[8883] Phuong Nguyen: Your input is very important regardless of the fact that you're only serving for a short time, but because it gives us insight into what it is that the students need from your perspective. So it's really important.

[8900] SPEAKER_27: I was just recalling that it was back with probably the first meeting that we had about the ACs and how it was a big thing in the elementaries and how it was working. you know, replacing them and everything. And I feel like the maintenance and appearance of schools is important, as long as it doesn't take priority from the other things we've discussed. That's really good.

[8923] SPEAKER_26: Would it be appropriate for states to develop a facilities utilization plan, including where we would add a bullet or we would also add here the usage of the facilities, like community usage or community rental or community access to usage? right, to maximize as well. Because if we have these great learning environments and we're upkeeping our facilities, right, then this could be an area where we could add that. And also, because I know we mentioned it from the first floor. It would be repetitive if we added it here.

[8968] Terrence Grindall: Well, Super Team, you can take that back and figure out how to incorporate it.

[8971] Mark Triplett: Did I just capture what you were saying? Oh, sorry, you can't see me. No. We also want to make sure we're not losing money by

[8990] Terrence Grindall: What you'll often find is that there'll be a very low-cost lease to, say, the Little League that costs us much more in maintenance than we get in funding. So that's actually the flip side of that. We need to be very careful about it.

[9008] Aiden Hill: But we'll make it up on volume. We just rent more.

[9015] Phuong Nguyen: I think you see that a lot with our recreation programs at the city.

[9020] Terrence Grindall: The ones that actually make money are few and far between.

[9028] Mark Triplett: In general, we provide it because it's important to be providing these things for the community. We try to make sure that they don't lose money, but they don't tend to

[9040] Terrence Grindall: But it's something we should be looking at. I'm not disagreeing. I think it's super important because it's really part of the community engagement, right?

[9048] Mark Triplett: And being a true service to our community by providing these facilities.

[9055] Phuong Nguyen: Yeah. Generally, if you're lucky, you'd be very even. Yeah. But it doesn't always happen.

[9061] Bowen Zhang: OK. I guess the next step is superintendent consolidate these names and present to the board in the next meeting.

[9067] Mark Triplett: Yes. Thank you very much for the input. I really appreciate it. And I tried to take beautiful notes throughout. And so I will take it back. And based on what I feel like I heard and from the notes, then I'll sort of reformat a little bit and add. And I didn't hear a lot of taking away, but I heard a little bit of adding.

[9093] Terrence Grindall: I tried. I tried to be worky like you.

[9098] Aiden Hill: He did try. He did try. But I think the key thing, though, is that we need to make sure they're smart, and particularly measurable and time-based. So I think for every single one of those, we need to have a metric, and we need to have a duty.

[9128] SPEAKER_26: have an extra one of those.

[9155] SPEAKER_29: So I move we adjourn the meeting. May I get a second?

[9184] SPEAKER_26: I second the motion.

[9185] Bowen Zhang: Seconded by Member Marcus. Supervisor, how do you vote?

[9188] SPEAKER_27: Yes.

[9190] Bowen Zhang: Member Grundahl? Yes. Member Marcus? Yes. Member Hill? Yes. Member Nguyen? Yes. My vote is yes. Motion carries unanimously. Meeting is adjourned at 8.32 p.m. Thank you everyone. Good night.

1. CALL TO ORDER

Meeting Practices and Information

Type Information, Procedural IN-PERSON MEETING INFORMATION NUSD has opened its boardroom for in-person meetings and will follow the State's and Alameda County's safety guidelines for public gatherings. Please refrain from attending in-person meetings if you have any of the following symptoms: Loss of taste/smell Difficulty breathing Vomiting Diarrhea Fever Cough Headache Sore Throat Runny Nose

For additional COVID-19 information please go to https://www.newarkunified.org/covid-19 or https://www.acoe.org/guidance

OBSERVE THE BOARD OF EDUCATION MEETING Members of the public may observe the meeting via the NUSD YouTube Channel, live transmission on Comcast Channel 26, or in- person at the NUSD Boardroom. Spanish translation will be available via Zoom.

PUBLIC COMMENT The public will have the opportunity to address the Board of Education regarding non-agendized matters and agendized items with a live audio-only comment via Zoom with advance notice requested by email at PUBLICCOMMENT@newarkunified.org, a written comment by submitting a speaking card via email at PUBLICCOMMENT@newarkunified.org, or with live in-person comments by submitting a speaker-card with the Executive Assistant.

Pledge of Allegiance

Type Procedural PURPOSE: The Governance Team will recite the Pledge of Allegiance

Roll Call

Type Procedural TRUSTEES President Bowen Zhang Vice President/Clerk Phuong Nguyen Member Aiden Hill Member Terrence Grindall Member Alicia Marquez

STUDENT BOARD MEMBER Member Estaina Resendiz Ortiz

2. APPROVAL OF AGENDA

Approval of the Agenda

Type Action

Recommended It is recommended that the Board of Education approve the agenda for this meeting. Action PURPOSE: Members of the Governance Team may request that the agenda be amended or approved as presented.

Motion & Voting It is recommended that the Board of Education approve the agenda for this meeting.

Motion by Phuong Nguyen, second by Alicia Marquez.
Final Resolution: Motion Carries
Yea: Bowen Zhang, Phuong Nguyen, Terrence Grindall, Alicia Marquez, Estaina Resendiz-Ortiz
Not Present at Vote: Aiden Hill

3. BOARD WORKSHOP

2021-22 District Goals and Objectives

Type Action, Discussion, Information PURPOSE:

The superintendent, Dr. Triplett, will share with the Board a draft of the 2021-22 District Goals and Objectives for the Newark Unified School District.

I. Review Purpose of the Creation and Adoption of Goals and Objectives 1. To provide clear direction, coherence and accountability regarding area(s) of focus for the District.

II. Underlying Assumptions 1. Governance Team and Staff need clear goals and objectives to prioritize resources and effectively measure progress toward goals.

 2. Consistency of goals over time is necessary to deepen the work throughout the district, to realize desired outcomes, and
    to make course corrections based on lessons learned.
 3. Corresponding objectives need to be SMARTE (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, Time Sensitive, and Equitable)

III. Timeline for Board Approval 1. Superintendent will recommend 2021-22 Goals and Objectives for community and Board input on Wednesday October 27, 2021. 2. Superintendent will make revisions based on community and Board input and present to the Board for approval on November 4, 2021.

BACKGROUND:

"Each year of the agreement, the Board and the Superintendent shall establish by mutual agreement the Superintendent's performance and benchmarks for the next school year." (Superintendent Contract)

4. ADJOURNMENT

PLACEHOLDER - Extend Meeting

Type Action

Recommended The recommendation is that the Board of Education extends the meeting to ____P.M. Action PURPOSE:

This is a placeholder, only to be used if the Board adds a motion and action to extend the meeting.

Adjournment

Type Action, Procedural

Recommended The recommendation is that the Board of Education adjourns this meeting. Action PURPOSE: No items will be considered after 10:00 p.m. unless it is determined by a majority of the Board to extend to a specific time.

This action will conclude the meeting.

Motion & Voting The recommendation is that the Board of Education adjourns this meeting.

Motion by Bowen Zhang, second by Alicia Marquez.
Final Resolution: Motion Carries
Yea: Bowen Zhang, Phuong Nguyen, Terrence Grindall, Aiden Hill, Alicia Marquez, Estaina Resendiz-Ortiz

No minutes available.