Special Meeting

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[2] Marie dela Cruz: Buenas tardes a todos. Bienvenidos.

[7] SPEAKER_18: Okay. Okay.

[26] Bowen Zhang: Good evening, everyone. Welcome to the December 14th special meeting of the Board of Education. The meeting is called to order at 2 to 1 PM. And let's go ahead and pledge allegiance.

[44] SPEAKER_16: 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.

[64] Nancy Thomas: Member Marquez? Present. Member Hill?

[67] SPEAKER_16: Here.

[67] Toni Stone: Member Grindel? Here. Vice President Nguyen? Here. President Ajahn?

[72] SPEAKER_19: Here.

[73] Toni Stone: All present.

[79] Bowen Zhang: All right, thank you very much and good evening to board members, community, staff.

[103] Mark Triplett: So we're back here. Thank you for making time for this special session. So we're back here to hopefully be able to conclude the discussion around district goals and superintendent objectives. And welcome back, Mr. Hewitt, to join us and help facilitate. So when we met the last time, we did go through just reviewing the video and the notes we went through. What I took as some of the ideas and consensus were, number one, that we would eliminate in Area 1A, we would eliminate the reserve goal, and that that would be something that we continue to pursue, but that it wouldn't be articulated as a goal. And then that in Goal Area 2, maybe Ms. Gutierrez, maybe you can put it up on the screen as well. Goal area two, yes. Scroll down to, I believe it's, oh, sorry, go back up. There we go, right there. I know there's a lot of discussion around 2A, board resolution on civility. And what I understood from the conversation and the direction was that we actually of the official goal areas, that it's something that we continue to pursue, but that it's not, that we scale it down, and that it continues to be something that we pursue this year, but not as a objective and a goal area. And then I believe we left off, like I said, in area 3B.

[249] Mark Triplett: So turn it over to Mr. Hewitt.

[253] SPEAKER_24: Well, let's look at goal area 3B. And it looks as if it's broken into two objectives. One is professional development, and the other one is coaching and feedback.

[265] Aiden Hill: I'm sorry. Did we skip? I thought we were doing about two. Are we all the way into three at this point? Yes. We went past DOI and middle school design and STEM initiatives.

[278] Mark Triplett: Can you scroll up one? So this is where we left off. My understanding is that we concluded in this area, but if the board has a- That's my understanding as well.

[290] Aiden Hill: Yeah, we didn't even talk about the STEM initiative.

[298] SPEAKER_24: Do you have some more thoughts on that? As I recall, this is where we kind of concluded, but we can go back to where we ended.

[309] Aiden Hill: Right. So my question about the dual language immersion, because I think we were still talking about this, is, and my question, and I was bringing up the issue of APES, right? Because this area, this particular area is, we're calling it instructional excellence, right? So the three areas of instructional excellence. So I guess my question is, is we've already launched this program. It's still in the early phases. We've talked about the fact that because it's in such early phases, it's very difficult to measure progress in this area. My understanding also is that we roughly have about four cohorts here. And so that's roughly about between 80 and 100 kids. Is that approximately correct? Okay. So if we compare that to an issue like Apex, where we've got, so we know that for many years, Newark, according to California School Dashboard, has had high graduation rates and yet low college and career readiness. And we've been trying to understand what the root cause is. And I think that we've discovered that a potential root cause is related to this online. learning option through this vehicle called Apex. We had a whistleblower earlier in the year that called out and said, there are issues with how this is being run. There's a potential academic integrity. We then looked at it. A plan for remediation was put into place. But at this point, we haven't heard anything more. And if we look at this in terms of, because I think as you said, Mr. Hewitt, You've got to focus in on the critical few. So you can't have too many objectives. My recollection, when we were understanding about APEX, is that at any given point, anywhere from a quarter to a third of our high school population, so we've got 1,700 kids in our high school, anywhere 300 to 400 kids are potentially somehow being touched by APEX. So if we look at order of magnitude, We've got a bigger population. We've obviously got issues that have been identified potentially associated with academic integrity. And I think that we need to see this through. And so I really think that we ought to substitute DOI with taking our program that we've, that has been presented to us and that's going forward and then measure essentially our compliance and effectiveness in addressing this issue. So that's my recommendation to the board.

[483] SPEAKER_24: If I can just ask a couple of clarifying, so I'm up to speed along with all of you. Apex is a online, a credit recovery sort of program.

[495] SPEAKER_19: I've seen it elsewhere.

[496] SPEAKER_24: Similar to Cyber High? Yeah, similar to Cyber High. And where I'm real foggy about it is how it interplays with A through G or not.

[508] Aiden Hill: I mean, I- Those are courses that are being- On APEX.

[512] SPEAKER_24: Correct. Okay. So, A through G courses, kids can take either in class with direct instruction or they can take them through APEX? Correct. And do they- So, move in between them.

[524] Mark Triplett: No, no, no, no, no, no. So the APEX conversation was one that the board wanted to have a dialogue about at the end of last year. And we committed to bringing that forth at the beginning of this year, which we did. And the board made a decision after three study sessions, I believe, and a lot of conversation to move forward with APEX this year and continue to monitor it, which is what we've committed to be doing. returning to the board with progress throughout the year. I just watched the tape from our last session. So I think this was brought up by you yourself, Member Hill. And then what I saw on the tape was that the group made a decision to stay with dual language immersion and to continue to ask myself and my staff for progress and reports on APEX. the board, the collective was not interested in adding this.

[588] SPEAKER_24: Or substituting it in for the dual immersion, right?

[594] Terrence Grindall: I believe that's my recollection as well. And regardless of recollection, that's the approach I would recommend, I would like to see. I think it's really important that given the unrolling of a new program, dual language immersion, that we keep it as a goal because we really want to focus on the on this new program. It's very popular and very, it's a program that's popular within our school community and also in the community in general. I think we really want to make sure we stay laser focused on that. So I, I strongly support it staying as a, as an objective of the second phase.

[631] Bowen Zhang: Yeah. So superintendent, how do you recommend us on measuring the success rate?

[640] Mark Triplett: So Ms. Gutierrez, if you could scroll down to the, let's see, it is slide 17. This is where we talk about end of year measurable outcomes. Now there's also in the other attachment, there's mid-year outcomes. But for the dual language immersion, which this upcoming, what we're doing right now, slide 17. One more, please. Sorry, two more. One more. There we go. So we are currently implementing phase one of dual language. Next year, we would increase to another grade level. So then we'd be talking about six cohorts of dual language, kindergarten, first grade, and second grade. And so these, if you see on the right, are some of the different measurable outcomes that by June 15, we would come to the board to present. Number one, have all the resources been purchased or on order to implement the next grade level of dual language immersion? Are the number of cohorts and the staffing process at or near completion? In other words, have we staffed? Are we near completing staffing of the next phase? And are we very clear on the enrollment of the next cohorts? And then lastly, have we gathered baseline data on the program quality based on the quality review tool which has been presented to the board and discussed?

[742] SPEAKER_24: I wanted to mention with initiation of new programs, you typically see more quantitative assessments like, did we get it in place? That's the first thing. First, that's the front-end assessment you have of most program implementation. And then, as you move through years of data, that's when you get to where's the quality going. And so it seems appropriate if this is the second year of that, right? This currently is the first year? Oh, this is the first year now. Yeah, and so when you're building towards the second year. Yeah, so that's appropriate.

[777] Terrence Grindall: And what's important here is we We have to track what our objectives are. If our objective is to build a new building, then that's what we track. We don't track the scores of the students in the building at this point. We have to have a well-crafted objective so we can tell if we've met it. So that's the smart equal idea. And it's important that the objective not get lost in a cloud of other things we'd like to see measured down the road. We have essentially six months to see these objectives come to fruition. That's correct.

[820] Aiden Hill: So we have four overworks right now. That's correct.

[827] Mark Triplett: That's correct. We currently have kindergarten and first grade, and two cohorts at each of those grades. And then we're talking about going to second grade. So then we have kindergarten, first grade, and second grade starting.

[839] Bowen Zhang: So I guess by June 15th, we should have a pretty good idea about if we're going to sixth grade. We should have a pretty good idea about. What are the sign-up rates for the new kindergarten? By that time, we see a decline on that sign-up that we probably know this program, the first year, didn't really get. I mean, have yet to get people a very great experience. Yet we see a sudden, we see increase in the new sign-up for the new cohort. Then in a certain way, we probably can tell the program, at least the first year, the final year, is decent enough. Yeah, I mean there's a lot of different ways to measure success. Where that can be a good measurement for the success of the program.

[883] Mark Triplett: We work with teachers in the program. I was actually observed the program last week in one of the classes. And there's fantastic things happening. And I think families are really, really excited about it. And like we've mentioned here before, we had a dramatic increase in the interest in enrolling in Schilling this past year. And it's really due to the commercial program. It's one of the only places where we were essentially hitting our projection target for this year.

[930] SPEAKER_24: I'm going to bring us back to center on these hopefully back. What we're doing right now is we're really working to see what are the objectives. The assessments and such, it's fine to talk about them. I don't have any problem with that at all. But that should be a second phase of all of this. So it'd be fine to do it tonight.

[954] Bowen Zhang: Yeah. Yeah, because generally, we sort of want to agree on what the assessments are. Yeah, what are the assessments before we approve this final document.

[963] Mark Triplett: Yeah. And if you recall, the last session, we talked about the outcomes or measurements for all of the initial goals that we.

[971] SPEAKER_24: Do you feel like you've covered the assessments on the first three? Yeah, I think the assessment on the first three.

[976] Bowen Zhang: So we're doing it as we go, then? Yeah, we're sort of anchoring.

[980] Aiden Hill: I'm not familiar with the assessments. We call them measurable. Measurable outcomes. OK. So question about staffing. So right now we have four cohorts. We're going to six. So is there one teacher per cohort?

[998] Mark Triplett: Yes. That's correct. They rotate based on some are teaching in English and some are teaching in Spanish. So one cohort sees. two teachers. So each teacher sees two cohorts.

[1016] Aiden Hill: So we're talking about hiring two additional people.

[1021] Bowen Zhang: That's what that's saying. Or like having two more people have to be classified.

[1026] SPEAKER_15: Or as well as if you read the information for this upcoming meeting, we have that agreement that's coming up with San Jose State University that offers the program for the teachers. So that's a great place for them to get their student teaching as well as their internships in. And it's a cost saver for the district as well as beneficial for the candidates, especially with what Ed Joint has done in easing off on some of the requirements. They're testing, they're allowing you to test at the end of their substitution and substituting in their internship versus the beginning. So right now, with everything that's happening, it could be a win-win.

[1061] Aiden Hill: Right. And the reason I'm asking this is we're saying that the way that we're going to measure success on this is if we hire two people.

[1071] Terrence Grindall: Well, the way we're measuring is that, as we stated here, number of cohorts and staffing process at or near completion by June 15.

[1084] Mark Triplett: We're going to do all of the enrollment process. We're going to do the recruitment of both families and staff. And based on the numbers, then we'll know the staffing. And then we go through the whole staffing process. And so that's one of those three bullets that will measure whether we've hit our target by June 15.

[1109] SPEAKER_24: And I'm assuming that when you're talking about hiring those staff, and they'll be fully qualified and meet the criteria that you put forward. So that's part of the assessment.

[1120] Terrence Grindall: So is it my understanding, and sort of reflecting on Member Hill's point, June 15, you typically wouldn't have the staffing completely in place, you'd have progress towards the staffing, you typically wouldn't have hired the six teachers at June 15th. That happens later in the, that happens later, or is it?

[1145] Mark Triplett: We'd really like to have it by June 15th, but we did put at or near because sometimes it just happens that at that point, for example, if someone were to leave on June 14th, Or June 1st, or at the end of the year, then it does take time to hire.

[1166] Terrence Grindall: Yeah, I wonder if there's a way for us to expand near to mean something a little more substance to it. Because of course, that's a very subjective statement. You could call it near if you put the ad out, right? And maybe that gets to Member Hill's point a little bit. If we can specify what we're supposed to actually have done on June 15, the mirror does make it a little soft. So maybe on track? I guess so, but we'd have to know what the track was to know.

[1199] Bowen Zhang: Which we can certainly articulate. I mean, given this, is there a way that we can send service to these parents asking them that? Are they satisfied? How they rate the first year pilot program? Some of them might say excellent. Some of them might say satisfied. Some might say neutral. Some of them might say not satisfied. My kids will not be in that program. I mean, if we can do a survey like that, that might be a better reflection of all the success of the first year.

[1230] SPEAKER_24: Let's go back to the purpose of the assessments. There's two purposes that I see here. One is the quantitative, to say that you're on track for keeping the next cohort staffed. The other one, though, is to gain data. And what you're talking about, that is qualitative data. Satisfaction is a form of saying what the program quality is from a parent's point of view. No matter what you do, it seems like since you're in your first year, though, you don't have it to compare against anything, right? Right? So any data that you collect this year is going to be, I mean, it's valuable data. It's going to tell you things. But that's the baseline. That's the baseline. Yeah. So we might want to define what a baseline data is.

[1279] Bowen Zhang: I think we probably do want to have a baseline data for this. Yeah. I mean, if there is this outright dissatisfaction that we know this program is not very successful, if we have a majority success, then despite my minor kickoff in the year, then you know apparently General Hockey was the program.

[1295] Terrence Grindall: I have two points about that, so I'm sorry.

[1297] Mark Triplett: Sorry, if I could just interject. bullet three there, gather baseline data on program quality based on the quality review tool. So we did go over that with the board. It's a very comprehensive assessment tool or quality review tool. And so we identified that we are going to be focused with the Go Language Immersion Committee this year on really doing the first part of that review tool. And that's what our partner, SEAL, who's a California-based experts in goal language immersion and English language learners. But that's what they recommended. So I would have to go back and review all of the details of that first phase of that quality review tool. But I think that there are elements of engaging with families around their experience for the year. And so I think that is part of what you see in bullet three.

[1358] SPEAKER_15: Thank you for that information. Let me share one thing. It's going to be extremely, it's going to be apparent. The minute we find out who's coming back, that's going to be a measure of success in itself. Because when the questionnaire comes out, will you be returning for the next school year? If you have 100 students and 80 come back, you're at 80%. That right there is letting you know, as a baseline, the success of the program. If we were dipping below six feet, I would be worried.

[1387] Bowen Zhang: Yeah, I mean, the question is, would that program quality, that quality review tool, be capturing these data?

[1392] SPEAKER_18: Well, your data doesn't allow for that.

[1394] Bowen Zhang: I mean, would that review tool have a component of our survey or feedback on parents? I guess that's what I'm asking.

[1403] Mark Triplett: I'd have to go back and be sure, because I don't want to talk out of turn.

[1406] Bowen Zhang: But I think I got the answer. Yeah, and then if we don't, just like I mentioned, that once you go to the sixth cohort, you have a new kindergarten to go to. You can compare that number to the previous year. Right.

[1417] SPEAKER_15: Right. They're their own genuine code.

[1419] Bowen Zhang: I think by June 15, we should have that number already. Right. However, it's made up. So the board can use that as a way to measure the success of the first year program.

[1428] Terrence Grindall: That's true. However, the superintendent and his staff are monitoring the performance of the school and working with the parents on a daily basis. That's correct. We're not going to wait until June and say, well, hey, how are we doing? Do you want to come back? There's an ongoing work in this regard. And it's my understanding that if there were problems, you would jump on them not waiting for an assessment. You deal with the issue. That's correct.

[1459] SPEAKER_24: And remember, I always like to take words back to their role. You've implemented a new program. Your role is not to really dive that deep into the daily machinations of things working, not working. But it is to kind of say, OK, year to year, what's our data telling us? And it sounds like that tool is designed to do that. Yep, that's right. Yeah, so I would stick with that for now. Yeah.

[1482] Aiden Hill: And what's bullet one?

[1483] Mark Triplett: What are resources? So that's the textbooks and any other materials for the classroom. Software. So we've currently purchased for kindergarten and first grade.

[1497] Julienne Sumodobila: Not purchased for the next grade. Oh, wait, first.

[1501] SPEAKER_24: And again, that's a quantitative assessment. Did we meet our goal of getting everything we need for the program? So it's very legitimate for a new program to have quantitative assessments. Now, if you had that as an assessment, say, five or six years down the road, no. No, it's not appropriate. But it is, at this point, very appropriate to have a quantitative assessment. And since we're being smart, we're doing support goals, the first letter is specific.

[1528] Aiden Hill: resources is very generic. I think it would be great to have a list of all the resources that need to be put in place. That's how you measure it.

[1540] SPEAKER_24: So when you report back, I'm sure you're going to say what the content is of the resources that were purchased.

[1547] Mark Triplett: Yeah, absolutely. I don't think we would put it as a list into the

[1555] SPEAKER_24: But in your assessment, when you report to the Board on progress, that's, yeah, that would be a given.

[1563] Bowen Zhang: You would be specific. Okay. All right.

[1567] Mark Triplett: So we've already talked about middle school design.

[1569] Aiden Hill: Do you all want to go back? I remember where we left off. I remember that the issue that I had pointed out was when we had an earlier project, which was our website design, We had commitments that we were going to run this as a project. We were going to have a project plan, and we were going to basically execute. We did not have a good project plan. We ended up being late and over budget. And to this day, we don't even know if it's been fully delivered. We cannot follow the same process. So I would like to recommend that we have, by early January, a very strong draft plan that the team presents to we, the board, that we review, we have input, and then we help to finalize that by early February because that's how we're going to be measuring progress. Right now, the way that it's written, it says we're going to get the plan in August and we're going to figure out if we were successful or not. That's a recipe for disaster.

[1631] Mark Triplett: We did have this conversation before. It does not say that we're going to get the plan in August. It says the project is progressing on track to open the middle school in August. And that the timeline benchmarks have been met at June 15th. Right. So that's all based on that plan. I'm sorry. That's the plan is that we will be presenting to the board and regular check-ins around around what is the timeline, what are the benchmarks, and have they been met, which is what we've done with merger last year and other projects as well.

[1669] SPEAKER_24: Mark, are the two bullets backwards then? Is it that you present the plan to the board and then you get progress on the being on track on that plan to hit benchmark?

[1681] Mark Triplett: So there's just a distinction there. One is like project management, and that's the first bullet. So that's like timeline benchmarks being met. The second one is the middle. There's a group of stakeholders that has formed. It includes students, teachers, administrators, district staff, parents. And so they are meeting. I've been reporting that out to the board. And we'll continue to do that. They are meeting and building components of the instruction and culture plan. OK. So they're kind of on parallel tracks. Yeah, one is project management around a whole bunch of things, including staffing, facilities, et cetera. But that's not what the middle school design team does. I see. They're working strictly on the instruction and culture.

[1732] Aiden Hill: But that's a part of the master plan.

[1734] Mark Triplett: That's right. So we have a timeline for their work as well. And I have shared that with the board and happy to continue to share that. But the middle school design team does not need to have their plan completed in the same early time frame as, say, like staffing. There's certain staffing benchmarks. All right.

[1761] Mark Triplett: That helps me. So we'll be presenting, the middle school design team will be presenting the plan to the board. in June, just like we did with the merger of snow and ground.

[1777] Aiden Hill: So the part that I don't understand, and again, having been doing project management for 30 years, is that this is a work stream. The second bullet point is a work stream. There is no way that this second bullet point can be in flux. It has to have a plan right now. Okay, and then the plan is what they're going to execute on. But they can't be coming up with new initiatives or new deliverables, et cetera. That's how your project goes off track. And so what I'm asking for is that we have a comprehensive, fully-baked plan that is reviewed with the board of formal professional There are thousands and thousands of tasks and things that need to get done. The only way that we're going to stay on track is to document that, have in detail, to have clear roles and responsibilities identified, and clear dates for when we're hitting it. The only way that we're going to be able to tell if we're on track or we're off track.

[1847] Mark Triplett: Yeah, so that's what we did last year with the merger of Snow and Grain. We presented, if you recall, every month I would present to the board the things that were supposed to be accomplished that month and whether we were on track to do it or not. We ran over on something, reported that out when it was complete. And so we're prepared to do that same thing this year. And we have presented to the board already the timeline and the different things that the middle school design team is working on by month. And so I'm happy to share that again, and go it over, and also to share as we progress through it. So that certainly can be a part of it.

[1887] SPEAKER_24: Yeah, maybe a scheduled calendar might help this some, because I hear the notion about that first bullet are all those details, all those things about bringing two schools together, and the steps and things that have to occur.

[1903] Mark Triplett: It's actually not two schools together.

[1904] SPEAKER_24: It's all the sixth graders merging into one. That's right. That's right. So sixth graders coming into the seven, eight centers. Yeah. And then the next, that second part is more programmatic, really. I mean, it is basically what's our program going to look like. And I think one is a logistical thing and one is a curricular and sequencing of curricular issue. And I think that's where, at least in somebody like me who's not that exposed to this, it's clear now to me that what you're looking for is probably mostly in that first bullet, is making sure that there is a sequence of reports to the board that say are we on track to bring the sixth grade in and all of the things that have to occur, are they occurring in a timely way?

[1955] Aiden Hill: Yeah, I mean that's my primary focus. I believe that the second point is subordinate to that. But what I want to see and what's the best practice is you don't take this a week at a time or a month at a time. You have a comprehensive plan. You look at the plan from now until when? From now and then you're tracking, right? And I have not seen that. For the first one. Correct. Yeah. So I think we need to see this because if we don't, there's a given the compressed time frame, there's a high degree of probability that we're going to go off track. And by the way, I fully experienced this when I was helping roll out Covered California here And so when I came on board six months before Go Live, they didn't have a project plan. And so that was healthcare.gov. So there's a best practice around having a comprehensive plan in advance and then marching to it. So I think we ought to have this and have a date for when this is going to be presented.

[2014] SPEAKER_24: So Mark, you talk in this first bullet about timeline benchmarks. So your staff wants to put some of those things together already. And just making that maybe public, or giving it to the board, and then they'll know every month about what to expect. Yes. Yeah. OK. All right. OK. Anything else?

[2036] Bowen Zhang: We have two more sub-goals before we open, right?

[2042] Mark Triplett: We do. We actually have three, although I thought we had passed through the DK12 STEM already. Ms. Gutierrez, can you go to the next slide, please? This is where we finished last time. We finished with this goal. Do we need to go back to it, or should we move on to where we haven't discussed it? We should move on. Yeah, we want to increase it.

[2064] SPEAKER_24: Ms. Gutierrez, could you go to the next one, please? OK, so we're good on this one, then?

[2068] Mark Triplett: All right, so this is the last part of goal area three. And so the larger goal there is development and retention of highly qualified educators. And so this is two fundamental ways that we support the professional growth of our educators, both our principals and our teachers. And so professional development, as well as coaching with feedback, are the two fundamental ways to support people to continue to grow professionally. And so the first goal, professional development, What we have been doing is implementing a professional development plan throughout the year. We actually have a professional development session on Thursday with all of the elementary school teachers focused on STEM and SEO. And those fall within our three instructional priority areas. So what we'll be doing by the end of the year is, and I'm happy to give progress throughout the year and share as things go along, including feedback from staff around how they feel like it's going, as well as concrete, like here's the number of hours that we did complete and what date and what was the topics covered. So that would be the measurable outcome by June 15th for the board. I will say that there are districts and there are schools where they have great plans, but they don't get implemented. Plans to have professional development, but then it gets canceled. Something falls through. It ends up just being a wash. Comes to ski weekend. Exactly. And so I think this is arguably two of the most important things we can do to really improve, continue to grow and improve classroom teaching and learning. But we have to name it as a priority, and we have to stay focused on it.

[2202] SPEAKER_24: Yeah. So you have two indicators here. One is the number of hours. Do you have any baseline data on that yet? Or is this a baseline data year in the question? We can share what we did last year.

[2216] SPEAKER_16: Yeah.

[2217] SPEAKER_24: So you could make comparisons there and say what person Maybe somebody could work out the average hour a person was engaged in professional development. That's quantitative, but that's a very solid assessment. And then the next one, the feedback form is an excellent thing to do on PD, is to see what's the viability and use. My question on this is, is there a standard form that you use with some standard indicators I mean, a lot of my career was in Elk Grove, and they had one. It was very useful.

[2255] Mark Triplett: Yeah. Yeah, so what we do is we have feedback at the end of every session. And it's essentially, I mean, it varies. But essentially, it's did staff, did we meet the outcomes? Do you feel like you were able to meet the outcomes that were articulated for this professional model?

[2271] SPEAKER_24: Do they do a rating or anything like that? Or is it? Yeah, if I remember correctly, it's a scale. A scale. Well, I mean, I think that's helpful, too.

[2280] Mark Triplett: I believe it is anonymous, so I have to go back and look.

[2283] SPEAKER_15: Yeah. All right. And also, so the presenters or the vendors, they themselves, they always have, right, or do very well with presenting a survey at the end before they can do the checkout. And then the other thing I would ask is, so when they're participating in their professional development, are the participants maintaining a portfolio that can also be graded or rated compared to other school districts, where when they're participating and they have an assignment, and then they have until the next. So let's say they have a series of four professional developments. So they have a project that they're working on in a cohort or individually, and then are they tuning in that project so that it can be rated by their principal or received? So that way, you'll also have a gauge of what the actual certificated staff are doing during the professional development.

[2335] Mark Triplett: Right, so there is no project that we have with these there. So no portfolio? Educator portfolio? Yeah, we don't have an educator portfolio. So these two things really go hand in hand, because we're supporting through professional development, and then we're going into the classroom to then see if the focus of the professional development and to what degree of fidelity, and then not as a gotcha, but just as a how do we, yeah, and then how do we support people to.

[2374] SPEAKER_24: So Mark, is that next one then quantified coaching and feedback cycles per educator? Tell me a little more about it. Is there something you're looking for and is it tied to the staff development?

[2386] Mark Triplett: Yeah, so we have a, we have basically like a system of tracking when we go into a classroom, what's observed, et cetera, et cetera, the feedback given. And I do that on my visits, and then the principals also do that.

[2406] SPEAKER_24: So in this area, I'd really like to encourage the board to keep focusing on this particular goal area and assessments that the superintendent and you all have come up with, because it's got the most impact on teaching and learning. The RANDS study said professional development's great, but you've got to have monitoring of it being implemented. There was this thing that they say if you teach somebody something, they'll get 5% of it. If you have them practice it, they'll get 25% of it. If you go in and observe them and coach them and give them feedback, they get up to 80% of it. So I really like the model a lot here, and I would like just As a facilitator and an educator, you're going in the right direction to have this. I just keep lobbying you to make sure these two are tied together, that the coaching and the feedback directly ties to what the staff development has been in some way, and that you consistently do that. Great. Absolutely.

[2472] Aiden Hill: It's so fun. One of the comments that you made earlier, Mr. Hewitt, again, was if you have too many goals, you don't have any goals. Right, right. And so we've already got three in this category, dual language immersion, middle school design, and TK through 12 STEM initiative. Those are all big. These are super squishy. And so even though I spent most of my career in business as a management consultant, I am now currently a teacher. I'm a second year teacher, all right? But I will draw an analogy from what I've seen in business, all right? Where you have management that is so focused like in a manufacturing facility on how do we make those front line people more productive, right? You know, and so they go through and they put in all these programs and they put in all this effort and they spend all this money. but they never actually ask the frontline workers what they need, okay. This needs to be driven from the teacher level.

[2534] SPEAKER_24: That should come through that synthesize the staff feedback. I mean you really should be getting that exact, I'm not, you're right about that. You want to have this be valuable to staff and they have to be able to tell you whether this is useful and valuable in the work that they do. That staff feedback form should reflect that. One of the questions on there is,

[2561] Aiden Hill: that we ought to put, you know, put together, you know, a formal effort with, you know, again, the teachers, with NTA saying, okay, what do we need? What are we trying to accomplish here? What do we want to do? And they need to design this. Because I will tell you as a teacher, right, literally I'm doing finals right this week. I'm taking time out to come here so that I can participate. Time is my most precious commodity, okay? There are so many different educators in our district and administrators who have all these great ideas for what those few little front line people need to do, but they only have so many cycles, right? And so if you end up having people that are really not familiar trying to dictate top down, you're going to end up, it's not going to be efficient, it's going to be a big waste of time, and it's going to be very frustrating for the teachers, right? This needs to be a bottom up, and so I would say if we're going to do this, We need to have a bottom-up, bottoms-up planning effort with the teachers to figure out what this program needs to look like.

[2623] SPEAKER_24: So I'm curious. Thank you. Yeah, I appreciate that. How do you decide what staff?

[2626] Mark Triplett: So we really based our professional development. We don't actually do a lot of contracting out of professional development, only where it's necessary. But in general, we have a model of what we call TTT, teachers teaching teachers. And so I think that's the way that you really see deep change in teacher practice is when you have teachers supporting each other around how to grow and develop. And so we have a lot of different examples of where teachers are sharing best practices around particular focus areas in our three instructional priority areas with each other and training each other. We also, as you remember last week, we had a discussion around TOSAs, Teachers on Special Assignment. So these are teachers, they're NTA members, who are supporting their peers through coaching and delivering a professional development, really based on what they're hearing and seeing in the classroom. So a key part of our professional development plan and our coaching is utilizing those teachers on special assignment to support both these areas. And last day, I would say, we actually have been engaging with NTA around these professional development sessions. So for example, we've talked with them and engaged with them, worked with them to develop this session that's coming up on Thursday, and really made sure that it fit what they were seeing as the needs of the teachers. So yeah, I really appreciate that. And that is exactly what we strive to do.

[2738] Terrence Grindall: And the way I read this, calling it coaching rather than sort of evaluation implies a two-way communication. That's right. And so that's the way I interpret it the whole way.

[2751] Mark Triplett: That's exactly right. Yeah, thank you. Yeah, obviously, we do have an evaluation system that we do use. But that's not what we're talking about here, to your point. This is about non-evaluative coaching, because we know that when we do evaluation, which is necessary, but it creates a different dynamic. And this creates the opportunity for people to be learning, being able to be vulnerable, to be reflective.

[2779] Terrence Grindall: Oh, and to Member Hill's point, if the teacher made may be able to express what they need to do their job, right? Instead of just being told to do x, y, and z, it might be like, hey, if I had y, if I had more y, then I could get more done. And that should be a back and forth. And my understanding is that's what's happening.

[2805] Aiden Hill: I guess what would be helpful again, because as I look at these, I'm thinking that we ought to put our hat on and say, we fast forward. seven months from now, and we're doing an evaluation. How am I going to measure that? So what are the goals? So how do we define success? What are the goals? And how am I going to measure that? It seems pretty squishy to me.

[2831] SPEAKER_24: Well, let's start with the top one. That very first one is a quantity one. So you're going to measure that on the number of hours per person they're engaged. That doesn't talk about quality. It talks about quantity. So that's, to me, that's not very squishy. Because you can take that year to year and say, are we providing enough PD just in time? Now, the next one, though, I do think needs still. All we're saying here is quantify.

[2859] Aiden Hill: Yeah. So we could say, yep, we offered one hour. OK, we've quantified it. Or we've offered 1,000 hours or a million hours. We've quantified it.

[2872] SPEAKER_15: And with the funding that's coming up, though, we have, as a school district, for the next five years through 2026, we have to demonstrate to the CDE the amount. We're going to be accountable for that. So there's going to be reports, and there's going to be plenty of it, because if we want to use it and not lose the funding that's coming to us through 26, that's going to be provided.

[2892] Terrence Grindall: Right. Now, understand, the staff feedback forms are squishy. It's basically a survey, right? how else can we get to the quality from the person who's receiving the training, but to ask them, essentially.

[2910] SPEAKER_24: More of the quality will come in the second box, honestly. The first one is that answers that question about is this useful. Was this time well spent? Is this useful? Do I apply this in my classroom? It is a kind of an attitudinal survey is what it is. But it's very important in staff development. Because if staff doesn't think it's useful, it's not going to take it all.

[2936] SPEAKER_15: And that's where the planning is going to come in. Because if you have a math teacher, you're not going to put them in Region 1A and train them. Right. Right. It's going to be very, very specific to the needs of the teacher and what they're teaching. So if they're asking ahead of time, OK, these are the courses, or this is what we're offering for your PD this upcoming month, please let us know which one you'll be signing up for.

[2959] SPEAKER_24: I know we aren't belaboring this one, but guys, I just think it's important to belabor this one because this one has the most leverage on improved student performance of anything that you have, any of your objectives that you have. Not that the others aren't important, but this is where it's going to happen. So as I see this, the first one is that. We have to say what the quantity is and are we meeting our standards on what we think the quantity is. And you may, as a board, look at the data this year and say, okay, that seems reasonable. Administration would say it. Or maybe you say, you know, we need to up our game. Really, that's not enough staff development. Or it's just right. It should be in hours per person overall in a total year when you're quantifying it. It's not just quantifying what we offer. So were you thinking you're just going to say a list of things you offered and that's it? Or were you going to talk about participation? Hours of completion. Yeah, it's hours of completion. So it's participation. That's what it is, yeah. The second one, you know, you probably are going to want to tailor your feedback form from year to year to get it stronger and stronger, you know. And staff will help you with that, you know, if you get your staff to participate on what would be What would you like to say when you're giving your feedback? And you want some scales on that. You probably also want to have some verbal area, you know, a combination of the two. Now, finally, the coaching and the feedback, which is the one that really the RAND Corporation really makes a huge difference in teaching and learning, that's the one that takes the most work and care. for sure. And you will want to, and Mark, you may have had some experience with that. I had a lot of experience with that in Elk Grove. Elk Grove really taught us how to coach and give feedback and how important that was to staff development. We had this effective teacher thing and we went in the classroom to see it. We had teams and all that kind of stuff. But it made a difference. Kids' performance went up.

[3085] Mark Triplett: Yeah, and if I may, that final one there, it's multi-layered because we have to, we are in the process of building up principles and TAPTOSA's capacity to give quality feedback and to do quality coaching. And then likewise, they are enacting that and engaging with teachers and

[3107] SPEAKER_24: But I do want to commend you as a board, because I don't see enough of this, typically, when I go into boards and talk to them and coach them on their goals. And you definitely have it right in the center of yours. So I want to commend you for having this. Keep at it.

[3120] Terrence Grindall: And credit goes to the superintendent as well. We haven't traditionally, this district has traditionally had a problem with a weakness in this area. And I think that previous board members, previous superintendents, the superintendent's really taking it upon himself to sort of build this program from a very weak spot. Yeah.

[3144] SPEAKER_24: Yeah. Good job. But keep talking about the squishiness, because we want to make it less and less squishy and more and more tied to real skills, real performance, and real staff development.

[3157] Phuong Nguyen: Yes. And I just wanted to, I mean, also let other board members know, Superintendent Triplett has really when he did the evaluations for the principals last year, has taken it upon himself to sit and really observe some of our principals and have given them feedback on how they can improve. So the coaching and the feedback part of it, he is personally invested in that, and that's what he believes, and that's his model.

[3189] SPEAKER_24: So most of, I'll share this. I hope I'm not breaking any rules. As you know, I was heavily involved with two of you, right? One or two of you?

[3204] Phuong Nguyen: Two of you, right? Two of us left.

[3206] Cindy Parks: Three of us in the room, but two of us.

[3210] SPEAKER_24: Yeah. And that was a big important thing to the board at the time, was getting an instructional leader superintendent. That was really, really important. You remember that. And you had two finalists, one, of course, And both of them were very strong academic ones. I remember that conversations that were, that went on there. So this is important. This is the change that the board has brought to the district is this stuff.

[3238] Phuong Nguyen: And coaching, I mean, obviously, your staff has to be open to it. And the feedback, they're willing to accept and try to improve on their next step to better teach their students and to better help their staff. So I think that's really important.

[3258] Aiden Hill: If we put a rubric next to this, how are we going to measure it?

[3264] SPEAKER_24: Well, the rubric on the first one is pretty Clearly, you've got to establish some kind of benchmark standard that you think is a good expectation by the superintendent. Staff's good to ask that. The second one is clearly a satisfaction sort of rubric that you're going to have to say. What do you think is reasonable for staff satisfaction for their staff development? And I'll tell you, staff's pretty hard on staff development, right? I used to say, if you get above 50% saying this was valuable, you're making progress, not what you want. But it's awfully good. Or it's good. I wouldn't say it's awfully good. And then finally, on the coaching and the feedback, I don't know where you are on that, Mark, about how you would say, what do you think your steps would be in saying we're making progress on coaching and feedback?

[3320] Mark Triplett: Yeah, I would say it's the number of classrooms that principals are getting into and the feedback sessions that they're having with their teachers. And likewise, the number of the same thing that's happening for us with the principals. The number of times that we are meeting regularly with principals, visiting classrooms together, practicing, coaching, and feedback with those principals.

[3346] SPEAKER_24: So that's a quantity. And I think that's fine for now, but I would also hope that down the road that you would tie that to the actual skills to, for instance, if you're talking about we're really working on student engagement in our school district, then at some point you'd want to say, okay, let's measure engagement. Let's just see, as we go in the classroom, we'll do an indicator of what engagement is, and then you can look from year to year to see whether that's going up, down, or indifferent, you know?

[3376] Mark Triplett: But I will say, yes, it's true that that's a quantity. At the same time, one of the biggest challenges for principals is to get into classrooms. And so it is a leadership development to be able to handle crises, but also prioritize instruction. And that's a skill that has to be learned. And so when we are able to set that up. And that's where you are.

[3401] Terrence Grindall: Yeah. And having to substitute classes, having to substitute teach classes in this COVID environment is not what you're talking about. Because they're getting into classrooms a lot right now.

[3411] SPEAKER_15: Is there a baseline expectation that's been provided to the principals already? What's being expected of them? Or is this also in a pilot stage, if you will, where everyone is trying to build that leadership?

[3424] Mark Triplett: That's a good question. Yeah, so we've been building throughout the fall. something. At this point, the goal is that principals are getting in at least into one classroom a week and then having a debrief with a teacher. And honestly, we want to get it higher than that, but that's the starting place.

[3448] Aiden Hill: It's what we're going to be faced with seven months from now. We have a rubric. We haven't decided this, but theoretically, not needs,

[3460] SPEAKER_16: Are we going to measure that? How do you see that forward?

[3467] SPEAKER_15: Knowing that, for example, if we know that there's x amount of schools, x amount of principals, with x amount of teachers, and the minimum is x number, right? And if they meet or exceed, right? So it would just be a matter of having the data presented to us, so that way we would be able to measure that. Is it trickling down through the district?

[3496] SPEAKER_24: Yes, okay, thank you. But again, I commend you on these tough conversations that you're having on this because it's really important. We're good, okay?

[3505] Mark Triplett: All right, so Ms. Gutierrez, if we can move on to the final goal. So this is our goal articulating, I'm sorry, let me pull up. Slide up above says the actual goal area. These are the objectives. Slide 13, let's go through this. Create safe, attractive, and inviting learning environments and appearance of schools. I didn't count the number of slides, so. OK. Keep going up. Keep going up. There, right there. Thank you. So there's the goal, and then the two objectives. facilities improvement plan, creating a three-year plan for ongoing facilities improvements, including deferred maintenance and bond feasibility. And the second one, facilities utilization plan. So these are two distinct things, although they're obviously connected. Develop a facilities utilization plan, including potential utilization of Whiteford, music, snow, and the feasibility of development, area three. I did, before we get started, I did want to suggest that the second goal there, I'm concerned about if it's reasonable to be able to complete that by the end of this year. In October, we felt it was. But now that we're entering January, I just want to make sure that we are setting ourselves up for something that is doable, that is attainable.

[3605] Terrence Grindall: Well, the sanctuary or area three school is where the time crunch is. And I've been saying in these sessions, I think we have a lot on our plate here. The superintendent's really offered up quite a bit. And I think focusing this on the sanctuary school instead of the other facilities, it would be a better way of focusing us for the next seven months.

[3631] Bowen Zhang: Yeah, I will say probably the first

[3635] Mark Triplett: Well, what I was going to suggest is that we modify the second one. The first one, we desperately need.

[3644] Aiden Hill: I thought we already have that. I thought we already put together a facilities improvement plan.

[3650] Phuong Nguyen: No, there is a facilities master plan that was conducted several years ago. But I think this is different from what that plan is.

[3664] Mark Triplett: Yeah, I can expound a little bit on that. And then I'm glad Ms. Delacruz is here as well, because I think she can speak to this. So there was a facilities master plan before my time that was done. And it's public. I think it's been shared a number of times. In draft form. In draft form. Yeah, I think we finally did it. It's final. Yeah, I think we did it. By the board or something?

[3691] SPEAKER_18: Well, there was a final draft presented.

[3703] Mark Triplett: So the challenge with that facility's master plan, it's a pie in the sky, everything under the sun plan. And again, this was before our time. But what this is proposing is based on the massive laundry list without prioritization that is in that master plan, What we desperately need to do is start prioritizing and really creating a timeline for when things will get done and how much they will cost. And so that's the proposal for the first objective there. I think it's critical. First of all, where we've now spent down are the Measure G bond. We've sunsetted that. And yet we all know that we have a lot of facilities and things that outstanding. And we also need to determine whether based on a deferred maintenance plan and the facilities plan, whether or not it's both feasible or advisable to go for another bond. So that's why this objective is really, it is time sensitive because to go for a bond is time sensitive as well. And so we feel like we really could accomplish that. The culling down of the broader to get to some really concrete things that we want to do this year, next year, for the next five years, I think is the way that we're going to actually move.

[3794] SPEAKER_24: I have a couple of questions on the first one. Thank you for that information. Ms. Douglas, did you want to add anything? Yeah, go ahead.

[3802] SPEAKER_18: Yeah, no, that's exactly the idea for the three to five year. It's more specific and itemized on what we can do in the next three to five years, as opposed to the two to five year. big, broad master plan that requires $600 million to do this.

[3819] Terrence Grindall: So I'll let you interject on your point. The master plan that was produced in the past would be used sort of as a foundation for this, at least informationally. So it wouldn't be like we're reinventing the wheel. No. You're taking and focusing and building upon that what I don't want to call foundation, because there's certain problems with it. but just say, building upon that past effort.

[3846] SPEAKER_18: Narrowing. Using it as a reference. For example, this board says, parking lot needs to be paved. So when can we do that? Just using it as a reference and then having a more specific plan.

[3860] Terrence Grindall: Great. Yeah, I wanted to make sure we weren't just redoing things that we're building upon what we've done in the past.

[3869] Phuong Nguyen: So there's already items that were. Yeah. There are any items that were identified in the master plan, and I believe that the superintendent and staff are looking to identify specific ones that we should be working on at each of the school sites. Prioritizing them.

[3886] Mark Triplett: Yeah. When you have $600 million or so worth of needs, if we don't prioritize, then we'll just never do it.

[3895] Terrence Grindall: No, no. I strongly support that.

[3897] SPEAKER_24: So my question is, what is your Are you targeting a bond election at the next general election? That's part of this process.

[3912] Mark Triplett: Are you looking at something else? Part of this process in these next six months would be to determine whether it's feasible to go for a bond or advisable in 2022. bringing forth to the board to make a decision.

[3939] SPEAKER_24: So this really is a prioritizing your deferred maintenance and deferred maintenance needs. You're not building anything new right now, right? No. OK. So it is prioritizing that or, you know,

[3957] Terrence Grindall: the sanctuary school could be part of that three to five-year plan.

[3963] Mark Triplett: Sorry, when you said not building, you meant literally like a facility? Yeah. Oh, I see. Yeah, so that is the connection to the second one. Okay. Is part of the area three and determining pure probability of it.

[3979] SPEAKER_16: Right.

[3980] Mark Triplett: Yeah, would be a part of that and we can sort of jump to that one if you like because they are connected even though they're different. It's really, I think, with the point that Member Grindel made is focusing on reaching a decision on whether or not to move forward with the land use in Area 3. So different aspects of that, different options that we want to bring forth to the board.

[4012] Mark Triplett: We'd want to take into account budget considerations, of course. We do want to do additional enrollment analysis on top of what was already done for the feasibility study, because we know that there's new census data coming this spring. And then think about bonds, feasibility, and then cost analysis of construction and all those things.

[4035] SPEAKER_24: So let's bring this into a tighter focus then, OK? All right? Seems like that's what I'm hearing you say, is that there's two things going on here, but they're related. One is an analysis of what your facility needs are right now with what you have. Yeah. Yeah. And prioritized. And then that may or may not lead to a bond. So do you have a sense of how you're going to do that? Are you going to try to do that in-house? Are you going to go outside?

[4065] Mark Triplett: For the facility needs? Uh-huh. So feel free to chime in, Ms. Delacruz. So we do have the master plan that we'll use. And then we're working with both team, as well as our project manager, who's supported us with different projects, including the Measure G bond work.

[4090] SPEAKER_24: Does your project manager work for the district or for a company?

[4093] Mark Triplett: No.

[4093] SPEAKER_24: He's a contractor. Uh-huh, OK. All right, so you have the horses. Yeah, it seems like you have the staff that can do this.

[4101] Terrence Grindall: And you're envisioning, it's off the subject, but you're envisioning public and board involvement in the prioritization. That's right. We definitely would like to be transparent in terms of making sure that the public has a chance to weigh in on which of the, which of the, which of the, one of the $600 million in projects are priority for the district. So it's not just what, it's not just what our experts think, but it's what the community itself thinks.

[4129] SPEAKER_24: Okay. So to assess this, It's going to be that you met your schedule and your timelines for putting this together, and it concluded in a prioritized needs assessment for facilities.

[4146] Mark Triplett: Yes. And Ms. Gutierrez, if you could now go down to second to last slide on the whole deck.

[4153] Mark Triplett: Oh, no. There. So what was originally present here that we would present to the board. Obviously, there'd be engagements throughout the spring, but present to the board by June 15 the plan for deferred maintenance, and then also a recommendation to the board that the board would need to decide on about bond. The second one now would need to be modified a little bit, but I think it's really bringing forth to the board a recommendation with clear rationale and thorough research as to whether or not to move forward with Area 3 development.

[4200] SPEAKER_24: Yeah. OK. So the recommendation is to the long-range planning of the three schools that you have closed. We need a longer timeline, and this is going to fall into the succeeding years.

[4212] Terrence Grindall: All right, Board, what do you think of this recommendation? I think that's prudent, given how much we have going on. I mean, it'd be nice to have it, but we can't have everything. Right. You've got to focus. You have to focus. I think Member Hill had indicated, if you have too many things you're trying to accomplish, nothing gets done. So sorry if I misparaphrased that. But so I support focusing on that issue. Any other comments?

[4242] Aiden Hill: So in potential violation of my intent, suggestion around not complicating things too much, I'd like to recommend that we add one more item to this. This was a comment that you had made earlier about how we interpret what is exceptional learning facilities and environments mean. And it can be physical infrastructure, but it can also be intangibles. And I think that we've been hearing a lot about increased violence in our souls. And what I'd like to recommend is, my understanding is, is a number of years ago, 2018-2019, there was actually a safety committee that was put together and operated to really, number one, assess what was going on, understand the issues, and then start to come up with strategies around how to address them. And so I'd like to recommend that we add a safety committee on here to follow kind of that 2018-20, at least for the beginning 2018-2019 blueprint. and then figure out what's going on. We can do a baseline. We can get regular reports on this and then figure out what things need to happen to improve safety in our schools.

[4311] SPEAKER_24: Let's talk about, you oftentimes see safety as one of the goals for the board. Where are you as a full board on safety issues, the need for your public to have that being addressed as a priority objective?

[4328] Terrence Grindall: Obviously, safety is is critical, it's the starting point. And, you know, none of the, having these things called out as objectives are really sort of, it's, I see this more as, in a way, a strategic plan in a lot of ways, it's focusing on things. It doesn't mean that the fundamental tasks of the district are not happening because we've got these priorities.

[4351] SPEAKER_24: Yeah, these are high, these are high need objectives that you're really focusing the superintendent, sort of a new context. Not everything the superintendent does. I'm sure you're doing lots of stuff on safety. The question is, does it rise to that level?

[4364] Aiden Hill: So the reason why it's strategic is we have declining enrollment. We've been having reports, not only about increased violence in our schools, but anecdotal reports and letters that have come to the board indicating that parents are taking their kids out of we have to meet the safety issue head on.

[4395] Terrence Grindall: Yeah, I guess my main concern with the idea is I'm not sure what a safety committee does to address this issue. I think that's really kind of a deck chairs on a Titanic idea. If there's an actual physical action that we wanna take, then that we can- So I can, I mean, we've literally got it here.

[4417] Aiden Hill: I mean, we did this before in the district. I mean, I've got it right in front of me. The first thing that they started to do was to quantify what's going on. You can't solve a problem until you quantify it. So I literally look here, they say, this is 2018, 2019. They quantified, okay, we had vandalism cases, we had threats, we had suspected child abuse, we had sexual battery. marijuana, so we can start to understand and quantify what are the issues, right? And then they start to talk about, you know, get more details on that. And then they start, and also there was a coordination with Newark PD around this. And then talking about what types of recommendation, and at this point, the recommendations, and this is a few years ago, they were talking about there are certain areas where they need security cameras. You know, there's recommendations around how to deal with expulsions. And so I think that we need to kind of revisit this, right? So first we need to quantify what the issue is, and then we need to figure out what are the potential mitigations that can resolve these issues.

[4478] SPEAKER_24: So probably, if you were to add something, the first step would be the quantification. It would be to examine the data, report to the board on the data, and be able to say, here's the baseline data of the issues that we're seeing in the district. And next year it might be, how do we tap this data?

[4497] Bowen Zhang: So without getting to the regular agenda item for the next regular meeting, so I have a superintendent and I raised this issue with him privately, whether we should set up a goal, ask for physical violence and disrupted behavior in the classroom. So I guess what we get is because the district will continuously focusing on SEL and emotional learning after the pandemic, we'll be getting a monthly report on how the district is tackling the disruptive behavior post-COVID, particularly on the secondary side, like junior high and high school. So knowing this, I don't know whether we still want to make this part of the goal. At least in the next seven months, we'll be getting a monthly report on how we are tackling the disruptive behavior.

[4543] SPEAKER_24: It really comes down to how important, how high it rises. It doesn't mean it's Not gonna happen, right? Safety always, you're monitoring safety all the time and dealing with it all the time. It's a matter of for you as a board, does this rise to a high level that you really wanna hold the superintendent more accountable for, right? These are- Yeah.

[4564] Terrence Grindall: I think as you structured it as a report on the status that we can then tear off of. Right. I think that is a goal that by including that as, and here it stresses the importance for the board, even though it's things that are, you're essentially already doing that work. But I think having it as, having it as a goal, but again, not, I don't, I don't, I don't believe in creating a new bureaucracy, having the board just become safety experts. But if it, but if it.

[4597] SPEAKER_24: A couple of the, a couple of the things that I think on it just, I try to keep my own, it's your decision outline, but. But from what I've heard, a lot of what you're wanting to do is to have the public have a better feeling for the school district, wanting to have their kids here, keeping their kids here. Safety is a thing that can drive them away. You mentioned it. And if you're getting some of that anecdotal evidence, maybe it is important. Maybe it is pretty important.

[4628] Mark Triplett: Did I make? So yeah, I appreciate this. President Chun mentioned we are bringing up this at the board meeting on Thursday. Yeah. A report out on SEL and safety and wellness for our students and what we're doing to address the concerns. And we do want to continue to give regular reports and engagements with the board throughout the spring and moving into the next year. This is a concern that is, I think, every district. You read the news, every district is really facing right now.

[4671] SPEAKER_16: Yeah. Yeah.

[4672] SPEAKER_15: On students. It's going on in LA County, as well as out in Kern County. So it's not exclusive to just a specific area. It's everywhere. And it's this pandemic. It's not only the physical and the aggression, it's the depression. So there's many factors. I'm considering that because for me, this is for our superintendent. If I'm saying safety is the goal, I feel like I'm putting the weight of the entire district's safety on his shoulders. And that's just because of what's going on. When we look around our room and we see, OK, RISE, that right there in itself, right? PBIS, what's being implemented at ground level is measurable. And it's showing that we are already implementing when it comes to safety. And it's also being required for us when it comes to the funding that's being provided with everything that's coming from the CDE and as well as federal government. So we're being held accountable, especially when it comes to proving what are you doing with safety because of what's going on. Put that exclusively.

[4741] SPEAKER_24: Let's talk about that for a moment. I understand. I appreciate what you're saying about that. But let's also remember that this document, this word, Accountability isn't blame. OK? It's not you putting it on his shoulders. It's you as a board. I mean, you take ownership of these things just as much as the superintendent does. It is that you as a board are saying, this is important to us. Yeah, this has high importance and high need. And so we need to know about it, really. All these things we've been talking on in here, you should be getting a lot of information from the superintendent on it, right? More so than the mundane, how's the lunch, how are the lunch sales going? So I appreciate you not wanting to put the weight of the world on the superintendent and the health and well-being of the superintendent. But I also think it's in your role that you have an obligation to say what's really the important things. Yeah. And that's what I'm asking. And it may or may not be. I kind of sense that it is.

[4813] Terrence Grindall: But again, your point is very well taken. The objective has to be defined. It isn't just make the schools safe. And if you don't, you're a failure. We've got to say what it is. So if that is a report on, if that's a report to us, which you're already planning to do, if that's a plan development, of what can be done to enhance it. And again, seven months, you know, be careful. But I mean, so, but it needs to be defined. As long as it's specifically defined, then I don't think it puts the, it doesn't put the onus on the superintendent to wave a magic wand and fix the problem.

[4858] SPEAKER_24: And the way we build these is not gotchas. It isn't gotchas. Because you, you know, what you're doing is you're saying, here are the needs, here are the programs we need to put in. Let's track how they're going. Let's see what the quantitative assessment is, and then the qualitative assessment. You're a long way from the qualitative assessment on safety. And so if qualitative doesn't come up to what you think it should, then that's a place to say, hey, we all need to focus on maybe doing some other things. That's a part of assessment and accountability, and it's a good thing for that thing.

[4895] Terrence Grindall: Part of the quantitative assessment is, as you indicated, to look at how we're comparing to other areas, to look at the context of a post-COVID world and a world where civility is falling by the wayside. So that's not just Newark. In fact, it's much less Newark than other places. And so as long as we can define it, I think it does send the right message to the community that we are prioritizing it. But it can't just be fix it. It's got to be something specific.

[4928] Mark Triplett: What do you think, Mark? So a couple of things. One is, so goal area four, I know it's been maybe a little confusing for some folks. It's really focused on facilities. And so I would say that safety, We could get more cameras, but that's not really, that's not going to get at changing and making the culture of.

[4955] SPEAKER_24: Well, there's two ways of going about it, having a Gold V or changing for the same facility, safe and adequate learning facilities.

[4966] Mark Triplett: If we go back up, Ms. Gutierrez, to the third slide. Oh, sorry. Go up a little bit. Yeah, stop at this one. So this goal around, I'm sorry, could you go up, actually, up farther to where the goals are? Keep going.

[4988] Mark Triplett: Keep going. There we go. Oh, there we go. Thank you. So I hesitate to come back to this one, because we spent a lot of time talking about it. But goal 2A. If you look at the goal, support positive community interaction and communication. So part of that is, of course, how community members, parents, administrators, superintendent, school board interact. But if you read the description, develop and improve it in an act of board resolution on civility in order to support respectful and civil interaction and communication among students, staff, parents, community members, administrators, superintendents, school board members. So I think maybe we got a little stuck on the board resolution part. But what's really underneath that is how do we, what we're seeing right now is increased conflicts. Not just in Newark, but across the country. And not just in schools actually, but outside of schools as well. And so those are resulting in unsafe situations in schools and outside of schools. And so this was intended to really talk through how do we support our young people and our staff, our parents and ourselves to really build a more respectful and civil community and interactions between students, between students and staff, between each other. And so the resolution, the idea here was that the resolution would include aspects of how to support that level of safety on the part of students in schools, but also parents and all of the others.

[5100] Cindy Parks: Would it be appropriate to add the word safety in the description?

[5106] Aiden Hill: I thought we said we took this off.

[5108] Phuong Nguyen: Well, we took it off because The superintendent was mentioning is that we were all stuck on the part where it was a board resolution and that it was going to be worked on regardless, so it wasn't an actual goal. But if you rephrase the goal as an objective and put it with the preface that it's for student safety or community safety in general, then I think that could be something to consider.

[5144] Mark Triplett: I wouldn't take away respectful civil interaction and communication, because that's fundamental to how we stop people from getting into fights. But I would add, I think we could add safety, like you said, number one. Or actually, member Marquez. And member Marquez.

[5162] Phuong Nguyen: I was supporting her. I support you, too.

[5172] Terrence Grindall: So you're going to rework that?

[5175] Bowen Zhang: I don't think it's going to work. Going back to what we mentioned, the safety, that I have this conversation with the students. Like I said, again, without getting into the regular agenda for the Thursday meeting, if we're going to know that we are doing this and we're going to have monthly report on this, my suggestion is, as a compromise, the next seven months, you're going to have a monthly report on how we're dealing with post-pandemic conflict resolution and holding people accountable for disruptive behavior. If things don't improve, if we see this as a worsening problem, then come next year. We can make it a goal.

[5208] SPEAKER_16: That's my offer.

[5210] SPEAKER_15: That's another way to go. The situation will improve. What's going on nationwide, well, worldwide, but in our case, nationwide, when it comes to how the pandemic is affecting, right? The article that we're seeing, what's happening with the students, just that anxiety, right?

[5230] Phuong Nguyen: Yeah, I'm in agreement with President John. I think that that's a good.

[5234] Bowen Zhang: Okay, so I'm going to go back to go here and number four, if the board thinks that's a reasonable compromise.

[5243] Mark Triplett: Can we go back to go here and number four? Ms. Gutierrez, could you go to the end, the second to last slide? So what I'm understanding from folks in this area is, that we would, I would edit that final one. So it doesn't include white thread music and snow, but really focuses on the area three and bringing to the board a plan and some options to decide on.

[5275] Bowen Zhang: OK. Well, the other thing I'd like to ask, what is the current status or the legal regulation regarding charter schools getting a vacant piece of school land?

[5288] SPEAKER_24: You know what, I know a lot about charter schools.

[5292] Terrence Grindall: Not exactly agendized at this meeting.

[5294] SPEAKER_16: Let's bring that one back.

[5299] Phuong Nguyen: Sorry to be the, sorry to be the, it might be wise for you to bring that back. Let's bring that one back. Unless it's part of your goal. You can make that as a request at the end of Thursday meeting.

[5311] Bowen Zhang: Because I guess you were talking about why for music and so give them that vacant lot. And we're going to be de-emphasizing these. Better have a strategy involved, even though it's not a good one. Yeah.

[5326] SPEAKER_16: Yeah, I understand.

[5326] Terrence Grindall: I'm sure the superintendent does, but let's talk about it when it's in June next.

[5334] SPEAKER_24: OK. OK. All right. So what I hear is on goal area number four, we're going to be tracking safety, but we're not going to have it on the list at this time. It may very well come up next year. Very good discussion on it. that we're going to talk more, I think, about in the facilities planning to be looking at Area 3 rather than the other schools. And that as we look at this plan presented to the board, that's also going to have interim reports that come to them on the progress that you're having, right? Yes. OK. All right. Anything else? All right. OK, I think we've gotten through them. Now, I think the next task, then, is for you to tailor these up and bring them for approval to the board.

[5386] Mark Triplett: That's right. Yeah, so what I can do is I can just, like you said, tailor them up. And then what we were thinking about is if the board arrived at this point tonight, that we could hold a special session on Thursday before the regular board meeting, starting at 530, just for the board to review and vote.

[5409] SPEAKER_24: I know. On this Thursday, right? This Thursday.

[5412] Mark Triplett: Does that sound, does that work for everyone?

[5414] Jodi Croce: Yeah, it's fine.

[5418] Terrence Grindall: Another, another, uh, fast track on the feed. Sorry, Member Marcus. That's going to be, that's going to be holiday-like by then, so you'll be all right.

[5428] Bowen Zhang: So, so, I move that we adjourn the meeting. May I get a second? I second. Seconded by Member Marcus? Yes. Yes. Yes.

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 The recommendation is 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 The recommendation is that the Board of Education approve the agenda for 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

3. STUDY SESSION

2021-22 District Goals and Superintendent Objectives

Type Discussion, Information PURPOSE:

For the board to review, provide input, and finalize the district goals and superintendent objectives as articulated in the NUSD Accountability Framework for Implementation of Initiatives.

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. Evaluations shall be based upon the achievement of the mutually agreed upon performance goals for the year in question, the Superintendent's effectiveness at discharging his duties as defined in this Agreement and Board Policies, and job description, if any." (Superintendent Contract)

"Evaluation criteria shall be agreed upon by the Board and Superintendent prior to the evaluation and shall include, but not be limited to, district goals and success indicators; educational, management, and community leadership skills; and the Superintendent's professional relationship with the Board. The Board and Superintendent shall jointly determine the evaluation method(s) and schedule that will best serve the district and the structure and format of the instrument to be used." BP 2140

At the October 27 Board meeting, the Board reviewed the prior year's goals and objectives and identified the areas of focus which the District should either start, stop, or continue for the 2021-2022 school year. At the December 6th and November 18, 2021, meeting the Board provided direction to have a study session to discuss the 2021-22 District Goals and Superintendent Objectives. The Board provided valuable feedback and input into the direction for this current school year. Per the direction of the Board, the Superintendent created the document titled, "NUSD Accountability Framework for Implementation of Initiatives," which provides a SMARTE goal accountability framework in order to track the level of implementation and impact of desired outcomes. During the school year, there are thousands of actions the administration takes in order to serve our students and families. The purpose of this document is to name the top priority areas for the year and the means to measure progress in these priority areas, in order to collectively stay focused on those areas with the highest leverage potential and the greatest academic return on investment for our students, families, and district.

File Attachments District Goal-Setting Process 2021-22.pdf (418 KB) District Goals & Supt Objectives 2021-22.pdf (1,960 KB) NUSD Accountability Framework for Implementation of Initiatives 12.6.21 - NUSD Goals & Objectives.pdf (66 KB)

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 at 7:31 pm.

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

No minutes available.