January Meeting of the Board of Trustees January 9, 2025 Board Meeting Show Transcript like to call this meeting to order to this evening at 6:37 637 all right we're going to do a start this meeting with the Pledge of Allegiance over here to our organizers right on your marks you say go of the United States of America and to the Republic for which 1 nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all all right item 3 C approval of agenda approve second all in favor say I all right item 3D report of any closed sections actions and that's Brian technical help teacher voice ready all right so in closed session the board took action to approve a Personnel list which included certificated management 1 temporary new hire classified 2 new hires 2 resignations and 1 Promotion and miscellaneous um the hiring of 1 new coach motion by Bernie and a second by Mark and a vote of 50 the board of approved Personnel report also in closed session the board approved a settlement agreement for in each case number 202409289 on a motion by Bernie and a second by Mark and a 50 vote so that is the report from closed session very good thanks Brian uh items 3 we have a student or 3E sorry student presentation the first 1 woo this is our team that has that very well 4 years thank you my name is Brad stavia the assistant coach for cross country part of the program about the last 8 years for the fast past 4 Seasons our boys team has came in the first place in the league also can in first place in their division in the central section championships and then Place very well at stake their freshman year 4 years ago there were 14 state in division 4 on the top finisher that year was Jack as a freshman for our team um the sophomore year we moved to division 5 we went with third place in the states we got on the podium their sophomore year to say our top finisher of that year was Ben who was a top 10 finisher and also out on the floor their junior year we moved up we still were in division 5 we placed second estate and Jack was also the top finisher that year as well and then this year we did lose no graphia to graduation so we brought up um Garrett and uh Brandon curtly we ended up getting a seventh place at State also in division 5 in our top finisher this year was forward with 15 place out of each year there's around 200 kids that's so those are kind of some the highlights from our cross-country team it's been historically good and I think at this point you've probably heard me talk a little too much so I want to introduce Jack Jack historically or cross country as the sixth Fast 5 paying time in the history of yhs the third fastest 3-mile time in yhs and the second fastest 2-mile Temple again cross country for track Jack has the second fastest 32009 and yhs history the third fast 100 time in which as history and then the 6 passes 800 times in yhs um just kind of talking on what I think I've learned through cross country we've obviously had to go through so much adversity through injuries and um just being a small school with very little um funding so I just think it's really cool that we are able to do what we do um being a D5 School in such a small area and trying to bring Pride to our school um I've been honored by being um I've committed to a D1 program um with and my brother and just think it's really cool that we had I think 5 or more um athletes that were able to commit to a Z1 program including Insurance study um yeah I think it's just really cool that we were able to bring so much honor RI to our small community and really uphold our high school Ben's been doing some injuries the last couple of years but he has some really crazy highlights too he has the third fastest 5K time yhs history uh 4 class of 3 Mile time and 4 passes 2 miles high for track he has the third fastest 3,200 times the 2 mile time um so fifth fastest as a freshman so having a freshman with fifth fastest white uh 3200 time Ys history is quite impressive so then Colorado just to clarify my third fastest 5K um I'm tied with Ford and then Scott Cole who was second technically and he was like pretty old you're all within the same I just so I mean like realistically I don't think that's me but yeah I ran out my sophomore year and um I was doing really well um and then I got an injury which spanned um I think 3 months and then ran good ran our state meet and they got entered again and then ran my track here and then got into it again so um I really faced a lot of adversity doing cross country and I think that's taught me a lot on how to become a better Runner but also more importantly about a person just to like really keep going and keep grinding and just not letting adversity like drive me down and keep going um so I have a lot of Pride with these boys while I've ran with all 4 years and um just like like my brother said um bring Pride to our school like this place is amazing it's small it's tight it's a great community and I love being a badger and um like times aside I just love this camp campus and um going to be stopping leave it and leave my team but um yeah and I think that's a part to you guys thank you very much for um letting us run and um letting our um program grow when it hasn't been what it has been in the past we've kind of like um stepped up a level a little bit and just really grateful that we've gotten all the opportunities in um gotten into these great meats that um um able to do without so thank you next up is AJ Ruiz AJ did not run as a freshman with the group that he did join his sophomore year and in that time he's moved up to top 10 in the 5K time for Ys history fifth overall for 3 miles in track he's knocking on the top 3 door for the 800 he's currently sitting forth in the all-time yhs record books for the 800 and top 10 in both the 1600 and 3200 I don't have much to say but it's not good winning team and it's been a fun 3 years so yeah thank you very much and finally is Ford steady um Ford is my son so I apologize to you guys I tried to do better so the best I could do um Sports cross country history he's uh the second all-time in the 5K right behind Scott hole is second and the 2 3 Mi time again right behind Scott hole is first in the 2-mile for cross country for track last year as a junior he broke the 800 meter all-time yhs record at a 157 he is also broke the 1600 metre wide chest record at a 41196 the 41196 as a junior put him 38th in the state for all schools and all Runners so 38 fastest runner or boy in the same California he was the 11th fastest Junior in the state of California all coming from our school and then also his third currently in the 3200 all-time list for yhs when I started my year I had big dreams dreams so big you would think still dreaming however through humbling experiences I was woken up to like someone called reality and this reality was harsh at first but through says the port of my family friends and meditation I was able to um persevere and really achieve my goals and more which I couldn't have done again without these guys and all of you guys support so thank you very much for all of the support you guys have given us throughout the years we're giving out of this group we have 2 committed to University of San Francisco or committed to University of San Diego no Prophet who graduated last year currently runs for Fresno State AJ has options but I'm not running is in the future I think he's done but he could if you wanted to and then Garrett's here as well Garrett's a sophomore this is for sure in Cross Country he stepped up quite nicely so we're hoping that some of the work ethic that these 4 have shown over the course of this past year Derek can pick up and share what it takes to be successful in this program thank you super impressive young man well done you guys will always be Badgers we're we're super proud of you guys breaking records um this this is where you learn how to be a champion in the world so continue to go on that would be amazing young man how many of you have seen him running around town everywhere you go right they're on the streets running around and so it just takes a lot of hard work to get where they are I also want to um thank Brad for um all of his work and sticking with the kids and when it takes as adults to really put this together and give kids opportunities like thank you guys so much you've made our school and our district proud it's amazing we have like the fastest cross country team and the slowest superintendent all on the same district all right item 3F Addison hi everyone um I would like to start with for my report um the fall semester has just ended to Grant you're all coming in um and the spring semester has just started uh fall report cards are now up the adult school is also following the same schedule and now has these graduates for y7i high school counselors in the register are finishing up on transcripts from the fall semester also working on getting students into the into their spring semester classes just in case if they want to change their courses um ASB is currently working on getting a new yhs flag me um because ours randomly went missing holy go a week ago so that's what we're working on right now um and then Miss Lisa has been going into our senior classes to discuss a community Awards and then Mr Beck with from graduate Services talk to the senior about cap and gown orders on the River Gold side not too much going on just getting back into the newspaper um they would like to give a shout out to the girls soccer team for winging the Mountain Area tournament in December um boys soccer and girls basketball is beginning this and they are praying for snow so that masks will start on next Friday January 17th I think on the student side just getting back into the swing of things it's a new semester um seniors are almost done so just keep pushing so yeah um but yeah that's about it all right very good thank you Addison all right moving on to um item 3G public comment just a quick rules of regulations persons wishing to address the governing board on any closed section item may do so at this time a maximum of 3 minutes total is set aside for persons wishing to press the board if you wish to address the board on closed session items please sign up before the meeting begins a maximum of 3 minutes may be allowed items required item requiring lengthy discussion at the board's discretion may be scheduled as a public agenda from a for a future meeting speakers are requested to state that their name and to address comments on Board of Trustees the board is by the brown act and may briefly respond to public comments but take no action except on items scheduled on the agenda so we're going to start this evening off with Sarah camps from I brought my cheering Squad hi everybody dear USD trustees my name is Sarah seastrom and I'm a reading intervention teacher here if somebody High School I've been a teacher for 26 years 17 of those here at wine chefs I'm here tonight to welcome you to our district and tell you about our amazing breeding Intervention Program at yhs reading intervention is an intensive of course and it does not take the place of English each year for the past 19 years I've witnessed high school students consistently learning to read yhs is the only place that offers reading intervention in the mountain area this is a program that works and it's never too late to learn to read every spring we screen eighth grade students who did not meet the standard on the cast testing or by teacher or parent request throughout the school year we also received reading screening requests from yhs teachers parents and staff we only take students who screen less than sixth grade level in Reading to coding if a student qualifies and parents agree the student is enrolled at the start of the next semester this semester our students made an average of 2.3 years of growth in just 1 semester 1 student made 4 years of growth in just 1 semester considering that after 9 plus years of schooling these students had only made 1 to 5 of growth in reading this is miraculous and it puts them on track to get caught up it is so incredible to watch students change and learn to read after years of thinking they were incapable I'm passionate about this class because I witnessed the life-changing skill of knowing how to read please feel free to contact in the family questions and welcome thank you so much Sandra Costa hi my name is Sandra I've been a member of her PTA and often donate my time to volunteer at various school events I've noticed a push for change specifically from parents of special needs children parents whose children acquired IEP and those who have required an nft meeting this has made me wonder what these issues are and if the concerns I have for my own students are related if so resources spent on addressing these concerns would do more than benefit 1 Democratic it would Ripple change throughout the yusd community and statements made by yusd it seemed as if the district legal fees were accrued by defending themselves against empty claims of educational negligence however when 1 looks up the cost spent just within this current school year it makes you wonder why Hefty settlements are being enforced I have had conversations on both the administration side as well as the member of the change for yusd Parental movement and both sides claimed dishonesty on the counterpart as a neutral yet invested party of the yusd community I would like fact there's seems to always be accusations but for now the fact is when there are due process claims and settlements made 1 can only assume that there is a mutual understanding that reasonable resources have not been administered to date since June of 2024 our district has not approximately 94,000 on legal fees in addition there has been about 28,000 in external resources and settlements paid for by the district this gives us a total of about 122,000 as far at this rate with 5 months left in the school year a projected amount would equal about 209,000 in legal fees and restitution for the 2425 school year this could equal the salary of 12 full-time para-educators or 2 full-time psychologists or 2 full-time speech pathologists or 2 to 4 new teachers depending on the contract terms and salaries throughout the district this year alone I was happy to hear that the positivity project would unroll and our students would have conversations about inclusion kindness and self-control I was not aware of the cost in August there was a payment made for 11,385 to the positivity project I asked you to please ensure to collect thorough and honest data on campuses and evaluate whether this was the best way to spend those resources or if it could have gone and been used for other programs and or positions that are utilized in other school districts that assess and Carry Out action plans to specific specific to the children's cognitive and emotional needs there must be a way to avoid settlements in due process as these funds could be allocated more universally and distributed in a better way some of the concerns that could be addressed with money allocated towards these Solutions rather than settlements include training for all staff SST 504 behavioral interventionalist special education teachers on special education procedures and laws structured literacy for just 1 students dyslexia screens um I'm going to skip down to the most important support for staff members to have the reasonable appropriate time to complete training and job responsibilities and campus staff support so that the office members do not have have to substitute daily in the positions that are essential to keep campus safe thank you Mr Anthony you're good that's 2 in a row yep that it Tony anyways item 4 a president I just want him to stand up good evening uh my name is president for the teachers of Y USB 33 years with discussion and I'm going to stay positive um I've debated about what to say tonight um but I am going to be positive we have an incredible incredible District each and every 1 of you has taken the commitment to each and every 1 of the students in this District the parents and and the entire community appreciate each and every 1 of you as I said I've been here for 33 years as I was speaking with 1 of uh 1 of my teachers they made the comment that they believe 1 of the last times they were was probably the most contentious board meeting I've ever been at we are far past that here right and to say that it was an emotional meeting would be an it's 1 of the reasons I'm standing here tonight um we are a big aircraft carrier we are not a little zodiac about and I am happy to say that we have this aircraft carrier on the right track we are going in the right direction we are going in the right direction not only because the Board of Trustees but each and every 1 of the administrators in this business we are going in the right direction because of these people classified certificated working together as I've said and shared my position in this District as Union leadership is I'm supposed to be in an adversarial relationship with each and every administrator with the board and fighting tooth and nails for every little strap I don't have there's a lot of misinformation out there me off it's personal it's professional and my people are getting attacked that's not how we build back an amazing District that's not how we build a male cross country team that is doing amazing things we have performers that are on state bands choir we have analytics we win almost every year locked trial we provide services for each and every member of this community not you to 12 y'all know what I do for my day job we are bringing amazing programs but we reach out to the community each and every day and to have a small faction attacking us is not okay okay some of you know some of you don't know that a letter was shared what went out to teachers I'm not embarrassed about a single thing I said the boy did it get turned the wrong way it was a message about how wonderful this district is but it was fun it was fun that we are only money grabbing people that's not true we are passionate educators okay there's no amount of money that can make me or to the district that doesn't validate each and every student that treats their staff poorly to use their Community there ain't no money worth that I am here because I'm proud I would like like blank for this District I will defend them to the nth degree thank you thank you to each and every 1 of you it's personal if you want more money to go to the classrooms you need to empower the staff the administration is doing amazing amazing things okay probably shouldn't say this but I'm going to they can't say much I sure Hellcat okay I can say something in public comment and I deferred a many of the people in this community need to get the okay we have more special ed teachers and Paras and uh speech language Pathologists that we have ever had it's because we don't like paying settlements that's money that is taken from each and every trial in this community okay I'm done because I'm thank you Tony Lisa at all okay uh administrative staff starting with Jessica okay Tony remember you can't go first maybe that I kind of decided since we are um new principles of this district and we are 6 months in we kind of wanted to get state of our site address to you guys tonight we didn't even tell Brian about this I'm used to it all right um um so I'm gonna start with adulthood and this is where I might need Tony but he can help out so uh we are moving in a shaken in the adult ed um Arena we are looking at we are looking at bringing in what is called Valley build through F Fresno Regional Workforce uh to host a program called careers and construction it's going to be a pilot program very similar to what we do for our forestry Corps same kind of a thing a 10-week program it's going to start in April and you will see a contract next month don't worry Charlotte you're going to see every everything and all the budgets all going to go on you it's all going to be fine it's all going to be very similar uh but we are moving very very fast um on this because I know Regional Workforce had this money they couldn't spend and they reached out to Sony and said hey can you do this and Tony said yes we can and I said what and I'm so happy um and so we have been in meetings all this week and it's very similar um it's going to be bringing great things we're looking at a 20% cohort and we're running it as a pilot if we do really well they will continue giving us the money and I believe the first go around of money to support it to buy equipment and run the program is 20 40,000 dollars correct yes um based upon the 20 based upon the 20 students that we could get enrolled so we are going to be moving very fast um um so some of the classes or all of the courses that they will be taking um will be for um plumbers and pipe here are the list of classes that I had down here um the training is is 10 oh here's the certifications uh that has operator 4 CP ocean 34 Cliff safety scissor lift SE safety and 8 hour has and Scaffolding cards they'll also be some training on construction map in English blueprint reading um and they're going to be getting uh training and uh presentations by all the different kind of unions where you know Iron Workers teachers painters roofers electricians and whatnot so we are looking to bring another great program to our adult ed program yeah now on top of all of that um we're going to get adulthood was accredited and we start that initial phase we first meeting is on March 31st and then the meeting the on-site meeting will happen so we'll get the date it'll be um sometime in the fall of next year so we didn't have enough to do an adult dead so there there you go okay um this is a 1 uh white balls and um Evergreen along with even Raymond Granite down in Raymond um we are full we are people the capacity at all of the school sites um we are uh that there is intent for this we are working um to get students in right placements and also utilizing it make sure that we get students graduated um we have a lot of students requesting these programs um which is great things um but we also are seeing benefits to these programs for students for various reasons um we have added some additional help for the rest of this year into a 1 to really help those students um and as teachers so we get these students graduated and on the right track um starting in March Ron will be taking on along with me getting um the alternative sites mainly aani Raymond what's called gas certified it really kind of puts them on an alternative dashboard and it doesn't hit the district dashboard because their numbers are so low um and they have like more transient population in and out turn over socio-economical disadvantaged students you have to meet criteria to even apply which we built but that will also greatly help what you see gets reported on the dashboard because they will report separately um so that is something we working on why you just um we have come a long way since I started here um and the VA of schools um we just finished up finals we did a new final schedule this year and from what I heard from my department chairs um they all love the final schedule I have not heard of negative thing about the final schedule um I've got a lot to talk about here so there's a lot of change in culture there's a lot of different things and it started off rough I you know cannot lie there was a lot of things a fires all over the place 1 thing with suspensions and we kind of had to keep up with some of the suspensions due to the behaviors um because they were suspendable Acts mainly dealing with drug use um and fights on campus um if you were a walk on this campus right now you're going to get a completely different feel of what is really going on and a lot of the gang issues due to um collaboration with our law enforcement um and probation has really helped and a lot of that is is dissipating not saying there are some things that are still around but it's it is completely different than what you would have seen in August um from August October the number of suspensions this is a thin number of days total this is the number of instances um that we had was 45 the number of incidences that it had since November until now it has only been 6 wow um um graduation rates uh this has been a huge factor and um in emphasis for the counseling department and the administration team um we have 30 23 kids on our radar and we are meeting weekly um to discuss the needs where to put them what kind of supports and we will get them graduate cannot promise you 100% graduation rate there's no way I'm going to get to that but man are we going to be 90s like that is my goal and we are going to get there we're going to get these kids graduated and we're going to get them in the right programs and get them to where they need to be um attendance right now is our new initiative I'm meeting with my tenants team and we are coming up with plans we are going to hit that hard with families um to really get kids here and really focus and not let it get so far down the road that we can't come back from it and try to maintain our attendance rate and not let it be so chronic um the counseling department has been nothing short of like Stellar stepping up to everything that I have asked they did move up from here up to the main office and if we don't talk daily like there's just it it it's on the power um there have been an integral part of talking with students and finding out where they need to be discussing courses um and meeting with them and making sure our kids are in the right places um and being there for part of the collaboration process um it is it is known that being shorter than using with them and having them there so you're having to work through like some coding issues or how we have decoded and systems because they think some of our numbers that you do see dashboard are not necessarily accurate but we got to figure out why and we are slowly chipping away at that um next year planning has already started I met with Department chairs today and things along with ad um you'll see some probably even changes coming forth in the near future of different things I've asked them to bring forward some different things that they may want to see if it comes to different electives and students are going to be surveyed as well to find out what they might want to see um not that we're going to bring forth a whole lot of change but we want to get their input and see what we can actually um provide to provide for them um safety has been a big concern and a big focus of mine um as I know we had a lockdown um that happened and it wasn't a drill um and I've been working with local law enforcement to discuss some of the issues that we saw come out of that which just happened to be that we were we had to go on lockdown during lunchtime which made it an extra layer of uh securing students that were off-site um and so we are working through to make sure we have the best plan for all different kinds of scenarios um and the safety plans will be in front of you next month so I am working pretty quickly to get that in that plan um culture is is Shifting you can see it with the students you can see it with the staff um I am really happy to see how some of the interactions with students are going um students that were very aggressive or negative at the very beginning um especially with administrative staff has really turned a corner we are engaging um and it it's been great to see because at 1 point we might have thought we would have never going to make Headway kids halfway point um you know they there was a lot of complaining in the beginning and parties and mingi and 2 passes and and whatnot and not saying there aren't still issues and there aren't sure kids that are party and but they're falling into place and you can see it and um the staff is getting there and they're they seem happier um probably have to ask them a little bit more but um if it seems a lot more relaxed and we're able to um we're getting to where we can focus on what we really want to which is focusing on the instruction and student support um in a nutshell has been going on um our school science do you guys have that's a big nut-shell I don't have that much data as much yet but you mean um the kids staff came back refreshed and ready to tackle uh the rest of the school year before break we held the demand performance was featured both with Google Air Force School band and excuse me I believe a number of our River Gold kids um also tried out for a Fresno band Yes Fresno County uh honor band and 4 we have 3 or 4 2 from riverville 3 from River so it's pretty amazing of what what the our music program has been doing um the next night we had our performance our winter performance our TK and 4 classes and there was moment it was amazing the cutest thing I think I've ever seen in my entire life um Amy Hansen's kids doing the best rock around the Christmas tree or whatever it was and anyway it was fantastic um during the last week of break our third through 8th grade students took the IAB or IAB test which is kind of similar to like a practice cast test and what that allowed is for students to interact with the program prior to taking the cast test in the spring work out a lot of those Kinks that they're going to that are going to show up so that way when they do actually take the cast testing they'll actually be able to show what they know um with that data um Mr Wilkinson was able to um a or pull that out for us give us the teachers and they're going to be looking at that during their grade range we need next week um our safe a civil team is focusing on climate and culture and included um before break we hosted a door decorating contest where Mr bodin's class took first place if you didn't see the door on Facebook it is absolutely amazing so their classroom Donuts um we do have plans for similar events each month where classes are going to be um asked to present this month is winter decorations so we can decorate the classroom and decorate classrooms in the cafeteria things to kind of bring the school together for the break uh Battle of the books team competed in Madera though they didn't win uh they did have a lot of fun and it was a great opportunity for the kids to get together red discus so they're really looking forward to doing that again next year my staff continues to attend hmh trainings to improve their instruction uh with our adopted curriculum I'm really excited to announce that we've uh hired Haley Laguna who was a campus safety here a number of years ago as our Native American Mentor which has been a position that's been open for a number of years uh hires her before break she jumped in on Tuesday and has been working diligently to kind of um she's going to be working with our Native American tutors with our Native American students and the tribe to kind of help that comp the the communication between all that really to our students uh during our all staff meeting on Wednesday which we probably had I think we include midair County and all of our support staff on Wednesday with about 40 adults and staff members we rolled out peaceful playgrounds which is 1 of the initiatives is that we were able to purchase with our community school Grant and this program is going to provide opportunities for recess and PE where they're structured games um that the students are going to learn they're going to learn the rules and it's going to be a schoolwide initiative so the equipment's going to be there every teacher is going to know it they're going to push it all out so that's really exciting to have that if you walked into our home ec room recently uh Jeff and Sparky have an very actively reinstalling new appliances again with Community Schools we thought that our home AC room needed a revamping since we do have a culinary class and we are hoping to be able to also utilize that to offer um classes for our families classes for kids to come in get on campus and to really see what's going on uh the 22nd of this month um Mrs Shepard our School site has set up a training for all staff schoolwide state or district-wide on our campus for autism ADHD and anxiety awareness um and some strategies that staff can use with those students that's um being provided to us by the Diagnostics Center so we have invited all of our students or all of our staff districtwide um I've moved my staff meeting to the next week so that way it figures up all um Personnel that are available from custodians to para Educators to teachers to bus drivers you know that's really an area of need that we felt needed to be addressed excuse me um attendance continues be an issue or not an issue but an area where we want to work and improve uh last month or in November uh Bigfoot pizza came to us which is the brand new pizza place in core schools and offered wanted to reach out and support um our students so they gave us 105 off coupons to Bigfoot pizza and so we were able to get up we had a 100 students with perfect attendance in the month of November and so we're able to reward them with that you know local sport local and um reward them with that um certificate this month uh we are looking at doing perfect attendance with ice cream in the classes and um we're looking at 5 days of perfect attendance in each class so we're going to do some some sort of incentive for them as well uh with the help uh Mr Wilkinson and Mr smolen we started World we rolled out yesterday cougars On The Rise and this is an incentive program that focuses on the pride Matrix and on the positivity project which we roll out every week that we themed where so not just teachers but any staff member can refer students to Administration excuse me for positive behaviors and today I was able to give out 2 Awards they get a certificate they get their picture taken it goes on the wall they get a letter going home to their parents and they get a little prize and Miss Hansen can tell you she was the first 1 that filled 1 out she said she had tears in her eyes when the kid came back because it was the most amazing thing in the world so our office staff on those when those kids come in you make the biggest deal in the world and it's hopefully going to start changing some behaviors that we are already seeing you know Jessica spoke to uh suspension rates I don't have data for for you in front of me but I can tell you that suspension rates in last year are down the number my kids that are off campus for suspensions for bullying um drug use knocked on wood is darn near non-existent as far as we can have been found finding um and so those are a lot of things that are really great to hear um Kathy gabbani said her mom came on campus last week and said this place doesn't feel like it did last year there's a whole new Vibe a whole new feel to this place so that speaks a lot to my staff um of what they're doing to really turn Corps school around and I'm really for what's going to happen or the rest of the year thank you Allan is out on a uh surgery so Matt Wilkins is calling in for him this evening thought it was eyes or something oh okay good evening president Alan members of the board superintendent back my name is that Will consent and I'll be presenting the report for River Gold uh Elementary uh Mr re sends his apologies for not being here this evening he had a prior commitment schedule before the board meetings were switched from Mondays to Thursdays uh we're excited to share updates on several initiatives underway at River Gold focusing on instruction attendance and positive interventions we're taking a data driven approach schoolwide currently we're administering the fastbridge middle of the Year benchmark Investments as well as analyzing data from the first round of our uh focused interim assessment blocks or fee ABS um using the state cast platform this analysis is helping to identify instructional gaps in areas where students need targeted support by aligning as a team we can ensure consistent and focused efforts across um all classrooms additionally several of our teachers uh recently attended a Kagan training and we aim to expand these strategies to all classroom to enhance student engagement and collaboration uh the river gold attendance team is meeting by weekly and has started making referrals to the school attendance review team we've sent letters to families and are preparing for follow-up meetings which may include include referrals to the school attendance review board uh We've initiated a new attendance contract for students with poor attendance partnering with families to support better attendance outcomes as we know chronic absenteeism is closely tied to lower academic performance higher Dropout rates and increased risk factors later in life our positive reinforcement programs such as student of the month soaring Hawks and superhawks are thriving the positivity project is evident in every classroom and highlighted in our daily announcements these initiatives continue to Foster supportive and encouraging School environment finally while our sarc report indicates areas for improvement we're actively addressing these challenges we believe this steps we're taking will lead to measurable progress and student outcomes School culture and overall performance 78 Matt yeah um next is uh Brian with the superintendent's report superintendent with the fastest kids in the district so uh good evening to you all it's really good to see so many of you out at a board meeting we usually have I don't know a tenth of this in a in a tenant so good to see you um so this week I think you all know it was our first week back from winter break I hope that everyone had a chance to enjoy the holidays and that you're off to a good start for 2025 um I did just want to point out again our cross country team and uh just the pride and and not only what they've accomplished you know in in their running and what they've done they are just great human beings great young human beings who represent our school so well and I think um we need to continue to bring students like that in front of our community in front of our staff in front of our other students and let people know you know what what it's like to really accomplish great things um here in our school and and to become great Badgers so just want to appreciate them again um so as school started was really good to see students back on campus you know they bring the energy and they bring a reminder as to why our schools exist we can quickly forget about that but those guys are why we exist um I had a chance to visit all of our school campuses this week and there was a lot of Joy our students teachers and staff were back at work they were focused on teaching and learning like right away they didn't even didn't even miss a beat um it was good to see our students engaging in the curriculum they were utilizing Lexia ST Math hmh curriculum have you heard I've used as you've heard so tonight uh Mr Kirk Mr Kirby had his welding classes fully engaged I had a chance to stop by there Mr Solomon was working her magic at Evergreen I think Miss Solomon's here she was here right um she was working her magic as always miss Mount was doing some small group decoding instruction with their students at course gold Miss himer uh River Gold she had her students engage in fastbridge as we heard Matt say they're engaged in fastbridge at uh River Gold right now and this concludes TK class uh had some snow left over from uh before the break and our youngest course gold cougars were more than happy to tell me all about the snow that that that they had that they had made and the mess they were making in the classroom um but those are just a few observations but I mentioned those guys because it's really a way of me um telling you that your work it's noticed and you're doing amazing things and I just want to say on behalf of myself our District administration I know I speak on behalf of this board to say thank you for the work you're doing and the dedication and the commitment that you've made to our students our families in this community thank you so much for doing that and it's always great to stop by and and see the good work um as I mentioned at our last board meeting the board took action to hire a new full-time special education directors so I'm excited that for the first time I don't know if it's ever but in a long time we're going to have someone who is solely focused on special education and not just something that's that's part of their job um I also mentioned though last month that this this new director wouldn't be able to start until next school year because she's currently under contract um with another District I also mentioned that I would let people know what her name is at some point so I'll do that tonight her name is Beth Kirkley and um she'll be moving here to the area which is where she's from she just moved away and she's and she's coming back and we're excited to have her she'll be um again working with our district at the end of school year also tonight in closed session the board took action to hire an interim sped director on a part-time basis that will be here from now until the end of the school year until Beth gets here um so again we didn't want to waste any time or you know have have some some some lag time there so we're bringing someone in right away to help us for the end of the school year until Beth arrives um next school year her name is Susan kalpakoff I've known her myself for for many years and she'll begin next week she's retired um she has over 30 years has a special education teacher and a special education administrator um in in central California and um again she'll start next week but together between uh Miss Cal moff and Miss Kirkley they represent over 50 years of service special education teachers and administrators so they bring a wealth of knowledge and experience and I'm convinced this is going to make a tremendous difference in our school district and we're going to be the best around why shouldn't we be right so really excited about that I want to thank the board for making the decision and investing in this um for for our district because we have to make hard choices as we're moving along and I think this was the right choice and I want to thank you guys for being bold and um doing that I also want to mention the graduation ceremony for the greater s Sierra forestry Corps I think Tony is getting way too much props tonight but um but um but Tony Cathey and Stacy um who were here and their team I mean just just a wonderful job of putting together a first class ceremony for our adult students um it was held Chuck tansy they got basically everything donated like it was just it was it was so nice and it was good to see adult students who don't always get properly recognized for the hard work that they do right we do all this Pomp and Circumstance of high school and we should write but this was cool to see kids who normally adults I'm sorry who normally don't get recognized the way they did they've taken a different path and alternative path but they found a way to to to um to complete some certifications and get themselves into the workforce and contribute to our society so thank you guys for the work you've done um on that and Jessica mentioned a lot of like where we're going um uh beyond that and then lastly I just you know hearing Jessica and Mindy speak tonight and Matt thank you for accepting Allen's invitation to to present for him tonight but I cannot be more proud of our principles and our site leadership I mean if you didn't get anything else from tonight just know that these folks have a handle on their schools they know what's going on they know what needs to be addressed and they're doing it every single day and for them to be able to stand up there and articulate that in the way that they did and so here's what we're working on but also not shy away from saying we still have issues here we still have needs and we're addressing them that's true leadership guys that's leadership and I'm so proud that we have that kind of leadership ship on our district and so I just also want to thank the principals but they'll be the first to say it's not me it's the staff their leadership matters though so don't don't forget that um the other thing I want to say is as they were speaking tonight you could sense there's a change in culture and hopefully if you're here on our campuses every day you can begin to sense that change as well and I'm convinced in my role as superintendent and I think the board believes this as well The Best Is Yet To Come for ease unified and I'm excited to to be a part of it and as long as you guys will have me I'm not going anywhere I want to be a part of the success so thank you for letting me be part of that and um I just want to thank you all again for being here tonight thank you for your dedication um thanks for doing what you do for our kids and with that I'll turn it back over to our board president the amazing Brooke Allen all right uh we're gonna continue with Andy down here at the end the new guy all right this this mic working okay all right I wanted to mention a couple of things uh I attended a course called Elementary winter performance uh that was super special it was so cool to see every class put on just amazing performances uh the care that those teachers showed the excitement in those kids faces really reconnected me with them my teachers going to the profession why they choose to do that super rewarding I enjoyed very much thank you for putting on a great show and for inviting me and appreciate that also at the honor of being invited to the Sierra forestry graduation and um Anthony props to you um you on that day referred to what you called a deep bench you were quick to share the credit for such a wonderful program and I saw 22 I think uh graduates who built friendships with each other loyalties learn things built a sense of teamwork and camaraderie it was very apparent uh the the election was nice it was a beautiful ceremony uh very um proud of that group uh for those kids to young people to protect and preserve our forests to take on that responsibility that was super super cool and really was touched by that as well thank you for your leadership on that and congratulations to uh Jessica and you I guess for the new Adult Ed program it's going to be coming to the high school soon proud to hear that I was watching Charlotte very just briefly help make sure it runs well and stays in um you know I guess um I'm excited to be the new guy um in this group it's exciting because I do see I sense a culture shift but Anthony shared tonight I've been to a lot of work meetings but I've never ever I don't think in the history of of my career seems such a a sense of camaraderie teamwork Unity desire to to work together to be collaborative uh in a super special I'm excited to be a part of this pretend that that pointed out um it'll points toward great things in our future I'm just I'm super excited and honored to be a part of that um the Athletics teams of the progress on academic goals discipline so many good Positive Directions and such great energy here so I'm glad to be here and honored to be part of this experience and part of this process thank you that's my report tonight president Alan thanks Andy Bernie thanks Brooke um it's always cool when I see so many people who I like so much at these meetings because that's not always the case I uh um there are too many cool things going on to acknowledge everything um the cross country or any those folks still here that they all leave that's really a model you know what you can do we we've had we have those areas of success we kind of have it going with music right now no and 2 and the wonderful things are happening there where when you get the right people in the right places and you get the motivation and you create that little micro culture within our school culture you see these bursts of incredible success and it's even been on the board and seeing that happen especially over the last couple years you know I came on during Co and everything was shut down so it wasn't an ideal time to become a school board member I don't think I really got trained I did self-training and at the re uh I went to a seminar at the recent school board convention that we all attended in Anaheim and um I think I heard 3 different 3 different seminars I heard well the last thing you want to do is let your board members self train and I thought oh that's not good because that's all I did but uh so I'm getting around to it now and 1 thing I'm trying to do that I'm taking away from being in this position is where I'm copying you guys and administrators teachers all staff is um trying to to get better at the things that I do all the time and um I don't think in my business because I started it and for years it was really just me and then my wife joined me and um it's a small staff 4 to 5 employees employees I don't think I've ever really you know been systematic about how do I improve how this is operating I kind of each year go oh I've got a few goals and I keep them in my head and I don't really tell anybody if I achieve them I'm telling myself silently good job um but this year is the first year that I've tried the articulate them and tried and to the people around me this is what I'm hoping to accomplish what would you like to accomplish how can we do that together in my business and I even wrote it down for my personal life and I wrote it down as a school board member things I'd like to see happen and I actually communicated it to the superintendent which is the first time I've done that uh instead of just doing it verbally I've wrote it down so I think it might have shocked him when he got that email um but so I want to thank you guys because I've seen that happening here I I know from being in this position I've been able to see how teachers and all staff uh certificated and classified and administrators work hard at getting better at what they do even when they have been doing it for a long time and that's been inspirational to me so I want to thank you for teaching me that um because I haven't always done that um there was this I think the 2 or 3 people that have been saying this little refrain over the last month or 2 I'm not sure they're here tonight I can't tell so this was really this uh question where's Brian Beck as it's kind of a little refrain that was out so I just a few people and at first I thought well maybe it was tongue and cheek and then I thought well maybe it's like a business branding and then after a while I was like no it sounds like it's intended to be critical and to be some indictment of the superintendent as if he's not doing his job so I thought I'd just make it easy on the people who keep asking that question and answer it he is right here doing exactly what he's supposed to be doing what we hired him to do and I don't I personally just 1 board member don't want him to be doing anything else besides what he's doing so that's where Brian Beck is um and since I talked to him day I'm pretty confident I know exactly where he is at almost all times um so if that if that question is supposed to be a criticism of him I just think it's lost on me anyway um he's doing what he's supposed to do and the board has 1 employee employee and that's the superintendent easy way person we hire and in my uh opinion I'm completely satisfied with the person we hired and the job he's doing so if the people who keep asking that ask you maybe you can say well you know what 1 board member's answer is he's where he's supposed to be um and maybe we can move on from that question um in general when you don't this is government I know a lot of people don't think of school Moses government but when you're in the private sector like me it's it's obvious to you you don't get to just fix stuff immediately you don't just say you know what that's not working um I need somebody new there um or you know that we don't have enough money to pay for that so we're just not going to have it it's a different process and the way you get your money is different too and it's constantly in flux and it's so out of the control of the people who are working here which is different because if I'm not making enough money I can there are things I can do to probably generate more business um that is not necessarily the way this works and I think there are some people who in the community um just maybe don't fully understand that fact so that when they they say I want this um and it doesn't happen right away and it doesn't happen exactly the way they think it should happen they get frustrated and I think we've all experienced that I've experienced that many times in my life I've experienced that with this District I had a daughter who had taken 2 years of French and the district announced it was getting rid of French well that's no big deal except when you need 3 years to the foreign language to go to a UC and you've already finished 2 years of high school and they got rid of your language you don't have 3 years left to take Spanish and so I wrote emails and I made phone calls and I'm like can't you make an exception and can you let these few kids who are going to take French 3 finish and the answer was no we can't cost too much money not enough kids in there and we got to put the money elsewhere and I was not happy and that didn't matter I didn't get my way but what I did learn in that and other times when I was not happy with things happening in my kids school uh life was that if I got a reasonable response and I understood the reasons for why I wasn't getting my way uh I accepted that and in no event that never get to talk to the superintendent by the way um I started with teachers so I went to Vice principals I went to the principal I don't think I ever even got to the assistant principal I know Dr bourie talks to parents all the time and he's really good at it and even to me that feels like special really special attention when the assistant superintendent is addressing an individual concern or 1 particular parents concerns over and over that is special attention and if you then say well why or am I not hearing from the superintendent well this is government first of all and people have roles and there's a way that this needs to work and when you call the sheriff you call 911 Tyson Pogue does not always come to your door and when you call for Cal Fire the unit Chief is not always there getting the cat out of your tree so I think that um you have to understand that people I'm preaching to the choir here I know but maybe um somebody picks up this message that we are responding to what people are saying the superintendent is responding it doesn't always happen immediately you don't just send a request and get it get what you want and sometimes like me with French for my daughter you don't get it at all and you she goes online and does the year of worthless independent studies so she can say she had 3 years of French uh so she can go to a UC uh sometimes that's the answer and that's frustrating but that doesn't mean that the people acting here are not acting in good faith that they are not making decisions based grounded in reason with good good explanation so I'm sorry I'm being a little more long-winded than usual but we have as Tony said we'd have some emotional board meetings lately and I feel like some of it might stem from a misunderstanding of how government works how schools work and and perhaps not understanding that um if you have people in positions of worship who are doing the best they can and have good reasons for what they're doing but it doesn't go the way you'd like it to that doesn't necessarily mean they're not doing their jobs um it just means that 1 particular thing didn't happen in exactly the way that you wish it it had happened so I don't know if anybody's hearing that that needs to hear it maybe that that hits home supervisor McCauley thank you for being here is this like I feel like I'm the teacher and you're the principal maybe checking in on us just to see what's going on I see all right so here I am thank you um there was there a couple of meetings now there's been talk about legal fees and I feel I want address that because I that's how I make my living um as a lawyer there's some things that just may not when you just look at how much we spend there's some things that don't jump off the page that are not that are hidden in those numbers investig sometimes when we have to if someone makes it serious allegation we have to investigate and we hire independent investigation firms to do that um a lot of times those investigators are hired by the law firm that were using they are and then we are paying the law firm those for those investigative costs so some of those numbers can be inflated by it wasn't just attorney's pocketing that money that could have been an investigating uh company that hasn't conducted investigation why do we have investigations there's lots of reasons right I mean uh staff staff problems uh complaints against the staff member is whether that's from a parent or a student or another staff member and this stuff's confidential too so when you look in there and say well how much should they spend you know you are not going to see a lot of information because of the confidential nature of some of this stuff we don't want to share anything related to a student or to an employee it just looks like a big number and there's a lot of things packed into that you may not see um the giant solar project you know those are big lengthy contracts and they've got to be just right we don't want this to go south I mean we took out what 6 million dollars to do that it's got to be right um lawyers look at that we pay lawyers to look at all that stuff when you look at how much we spend illegal fees you're not seeing the breakdown how much did we spend just to get all of that project off the ground illegal fees um so so I just wanted to comment on that and then uh it's been asked like you know why is this I think there's an assumption sometimes well that's all special ed stuff it's not it's really not and why do you we spend money on these types of things and who's right that kind of question these settlements are confidential there are clauses in them that say that neither side can talk about them um they also have something every settlement agreement I've ever written or reviewed in my life has basically a no fault paragraph no admission of fault neither side is admitting they did anything wrong and there's legal reasons for that but that's there's practical reasons too it's hard to settle something when the other side is insisting that you admit you were wrong um because then you'll keep fighting if you if you're not ready to admit you were wrong so when you're settling by definition you're both willing to say okay I don't have to prove that you were wrong um I want to get this resolved so I know it's unsatisfactory and they say lawyers say this all the time if both parties leave unsatisfied then the mediator did a good job and that is when the case settles if somebody leaves feeling great um that's probably not a settlement they probably won at trial and they say why why would you settle well if you go to trial and you lose you could be out hundreds of thousands of dollars in attorney's fees on 1 case we don't have that so I know from our perspective uh we don't have that the people who sometimes sue the district they have the same concerns their attorney wants to get paid too and if they go to trial and lose uh they're losing out big time so I just wanted to comment on that because that keeps coming up stop spending money on lawyers I don't think anybody would want that more than the board you know we would love for that to happen um but I just wanted to offer a little input on why we do spend money on lawyers and that it's maybe not all what you think it is uh there's a lot packed into those numbers so thank you very much thanks for uh indulging me in sorry I thank you Bernie what if your guys is new public servants Jennifer Rogers first of all this is just really high oh yeah I'll be here all week so this is only my second um word meeting so I don't think this how this works but can I just say ditto to everything it's all really well um so my first full month as a board member um not not a lot happened we all had holidays we were all done over the holidays which was which was great and I feel feel like everybody there's something going on in this room there's a feeling and I don't know well rested or happy New there or something but um that I can feel it so I also attended the um forestry Corps program graduation it was so amazing and inspiring to see these young adults these men and women uh received their certificate to graduate the program um and they received that because of work that was done in our district which is so amazing and I'm so proud with that um it what the the education that they got and the certifications is going to open doors and create new possibilities that weren't there before these are like whole new trajectory of their lives and um and that's available now and it wasn't before because of this amazing program so I too want to thank uh Tony Miser and Kathy Cavani and Stacy you your all involved in this so thank you thank you thank you um these kind of programs and now this new program that's that's coming just makes such a difference in our community and you know I really think the health of our whole Community affects the health of our schools so you know it's all it's all related and so I so appreciate that um and you're changing lives so thank you what a great thing to do with your life um I was so excited to attend events like this um to visit sites to learn about all the aspects of our district and are there ever aspects um how it runs I mean the staff the teachers and um the parents and the students as well um I am accessible to see great things happening but I'm also accessible to be contacted when things aren't working or someone feels things aren't working and um like I said before there's um some something in the room that wasn't here less last month and um and I'm really thinking that you know as we as we enter a new year I know everybody thinks of um you know to have their New Year's resolution and I was thinking you know what can I bring in 2025 to this position as a board member um that's that's unique and different and as a resolution and I really believe that we are a community so every facet of the district like from the staff from the teachers to the kindergarten students to the bus drivers to the administration to the superintendent to us as as board members um we're all part of the same community and and I really decided that what I'm committing to in this year is to have um be a catalyst however that shows up and having us come together more as a community you have us listen to each other uh respect dignity compassion um experience and to bring forth our own wisdom so that when something doesn't work it doesn't show up as a big problem it doesn't show up out of anger it doesn't show up out of um you know accusing someone of or being disrespectful to somebody that it shows up you know as like how do we deal with this that we all work together to come to solutions that work for everybody now I don't know how I'm going to be a part of making that happen but I know I'm committed to it and I know when when you're committed to something something moves that wasn't going to happen before so um I just want to say that I plan on working with this entire body this community this District these people you know the kids the parents the every facet don't know how that's going to show up but that's my New Year's resolution and I'm going to accept the mission and anybody that wants to join me in that mission um feel free to come aboard and have it be you know what you're what you're up to in this in this uh district for 2025 um and as always I'm available the good to bad the ugly I'm available and I will do that with respect compassion um constructive communication and a commitment to having it work for everybody and I would like to say that um so that's that's my report but I really like that settlement agreement thing that we do I did I just learned that today that in the settlement agreement you can have it um that that neither side needs to admit they're wrong and I'm wondering if you can transpose that onto marriages does that work wouldn't that be great if I could just call settlement agreement and I'd have that work so that might be under years resolution as well so thank you that that's all I've got oh yeah thank you Jennifer welcome welcome to the Lord um and yeah thank you for showing up Bobby I appreciate that another public servant here it is not an easy job you know as Bernie said it's super difficult mark well um everybody's talked a lot tonight and I'm usually the 1 that talks the most so I'll keep it short um I just want to say yes to everything you know um it's amazing the culture shifts and that's something that you know I've been talking to Brian about um he's he's like yeah we're there we're moving in that's great that's what we need and um just seeing all the all the greatness coming out of it like from the sports and all of that and that's great but also from the 1 student that went up for the grades and they're reading all that um good culture shifting to see um so just good job to everyone involved I just wanted to talk about our role a little bit as board members because I think people don't know what we do that much um and I'm not going to get textbook or take a long time but I just want you to remember that we're elected officials of the community so we're just people that were in those chairs and now we're in here to be able to represent the community maybe can't be here can't influence um there were just some things that were said that the board is just yes men to the superintendent or we just do whatever he says I gain nothing from that I get nothing from that so um we are the community sitting behind this table watching things from the background watching the things that can't be said to you that can't be explained to you completely so that we represent the community that might be a little bit in the dark to be able to represent their position in the school district and we're doing that job so I just want you to know that you can trust us and everyone here has the best interest for every single student and I speak for myself but I think I speak for everyone that every single staff member here I think has the best interest of kids at heart we are as a small school district half of people working here that we do from the top down to the bottom we are very lucky to have who we have here in the school district so just thank you to everyone who makes all these great things happening here thank you Mark I'm just going to go ahead and throw away the first 3 pages of my speech I think you all guys for coming out I really appreciate it you know it means a lot we spend a lot of time coming to see classrooms um and it matters to us um and and so thank you for the invitation to come see our workspace teacher parent and wisle person that care to impart wisdom and knowledge upon me as I was young all said the same thing lessons hardest learned are lessons best learned so that's why I think I know best I know about missteps and definitely not bragging that I have made more than most and yet you all trust me as board president with the ultimate responsibility of our district nobody is perfect and I do not judge for the misstep but surely I scrutinized closely what efforts are made to correct the misstep after because that is where the true growth is and the wisdom comes from I appreciate you all for the extreme efforts to build amazing youth I witnessed in the last 2 years the awesome directs and change and growth of positivity I have watched all you teachers ban together to align curriculum throughout the district and take additional professional development courses to enrich and better serve your students as a witness I bear truth to the fact that every single 1 of us is trying our hardest and doing our best and genuinely cares for each and every student and I know we all keep picking up starfish on the dry Beach and throwing them back into the ocean as for the teachers I got my starfish here in my crayon box from every every year started that's why I had Jeff made a y for everybody here if you don't got your why they're over at the door but these little things are special this is our this is the start of our little team thank you Jeff and all the kids that did all the hard work because it makes a difference think about it on a beach with thousands of starfish drying out how many starfish can 1 person stay now how about 200 people on that Beach we are making a difference what we are doing here is only happening because we communicate in a manner that is more than just civil it's polite and caring being able to talk about issues or missteps in a manner that doesn't excite or insult or Dare even to use abusive language those things make make people shy away shut down or attack pack and positive direction never comes from poor language accusations and aggressive behavior big changes are underway at Yosemite Unified School District and we need all the resources possible to help students heal and recover and thrive this is a pivotal moment an opportunity to fuse our investments in education the urgency of the co 19 response which has been quite some time but it is still it is still haunting us and we need to continue to focus on it this is a once in a generation opportunity to break the cycle of educational inequality we have used the co money to boost public education to transform our schools it should be noted that we made many Investments to transform our schools it's critical that we integrated new programs and strategies to support our students families and Educators our schools are public schools serving any grade through uh K through 12 inclusive with Community Partnerships that ensure pupil learning and whole child and family development this includes integrated Support Services collaborative collaborative leadership I need some of your training Extended Learning Time and practices for educators and administrators we mostly Jared and his staff have been evaluating how our teachers and mentors are being engaged proactive teacher support is key to success in the short and long term teachers are learning new technologies engaging engaging in educator training and putting in the work to reach our students these aren't just things we are doing or these are words and goals our great state of California are working towards to so negative only works against these goals as I go through these challenging personal times I find the best way to meet be close focus on unity and team to forgive squabbles that make us bitter and refocus our main goal on putting our students first and I see people out there wearing these shirts I want to thank you all this is this is such a trying time but we're going to be better and more than better we're going to be like our track team breaking breaking boundaries and setting records our goal as Administration is to be a model school district for all of California to follow surely we still have work to go but we are working hard there I want to thank you all on the item 5 a consent agenda move to approve second second all right all in favor say I all in favor say hey 50 all right moving on to some discussion items 6A information on differential assistance teacher voice again so we have uh Kirk Delmas here from the Madera County Superintendent of Schools office um he'll be sharing with us uh process known as differentiated assistance what that means and the impact to our district it'll kind of you know overlap with some of our dashboard results and those kinds of things but uh Kirk before you start I just want to thank you and thank the staff at Madera within the schools for the partnership and all the work that we've been able to do at least you know in my 2 and a half years here it's really good stuff and areas where we really put our mind to it and and we focused together we have made improvements so thank you for being here tonight and look forward to what you have to share thank you very much for that and thank you Alan Board of Trustees superintendent back for allowing me to come back and I was here last year and I come back this year and today what really what we're going to talk about is a status check of where somebody unified since so then that the system of support for the California so again my name is Kirk Delmas I'm the Director of Business support and Improvement for Madera County Superintendent of Schools and I've been working with this district for about the last 4 or 5 years a very closely on if you just Improvement efforts in a variety of different areas and we'll get into that as we kind of move forward here um this diagram which we call the egg for uh for obvious reasons is a system of of what the system of support looks like in California and I just had a backup just a little bit in 2014 the first year that the the the state really changed the funding model for schools it also changed the accountability model and what we're going to talk about today is the dashboard and differentiated assistance and some eligibility uh that the district has is really about the accountability coming off the dashboard prior to that schools were measured by 1 number it's called the A1 IP those of you that have been around for a little bit remember that and it was really like going to the doctor and the doctor touching me on the forehead and saying well you have a fever when you come back I I don't want you to have a fever anymore and there was no support there was no help there was no it's like okay we have some areas of opportunity here but there was no support so the California system of support was developed off of to after 2014 when they changed the funding model they actually added the local control accountability plan and now this system of support is has been in place for quite some time what this diagram shows you is that there's a 1037 Las school districts within the state of California 58 County offices and those County off including Madera County Superintendent of Schools belongs to a regional um Geographic lead region which we're in region 7 and those that allows us an opportunity to collaborate in our work with school districts with other counties throughout the state so the we're all working off the same sheet of music when it comes to helping districts improve in certain areas based upon the California dashboard so level 1 supports the county office provides uh fun or fiscal support lcap development support um other types of supports Community Schools which will be talked about a little bit later tonight uh level 2 support is differentiated assistance and we'll talk a little bit quite a about that as we move through this presentation differentiated assistance is an identification of Eligibility a district has to get additional support to improve in what areas whatever areas they may need um level 3 is a little bit different it's an intensive support and um the eligibility for that and 1 of the reasons why we're going to talk about that today is you send a unified is eligible now for level 3 support and we'll talk about what that looks like uh in just a second here so what is differentiate assistance and what it's not it's really an opportunity to help build capacity and to develop and Implement actions and services for students as needed based upon results of the dashboard and it is very much aligned with the district's local control accountability plan uh Dr bourie uh writes the local control accountability plan for EA unified and is 1 of the use have done a great job and and picking that up in very short order and writing a very nice Rapport and a very good plan for the district help leas in their schools meet the needs of each student they serve well 1 of the things that happened with the ayp was it didn't differentiate students at all the dashboard now differentiates different student groups has multiple measures and we'll talk about that in just a little bit and then um it is a 2-year eligibility and then the Las remaining control just select the Improvement strategy strategies and when we start showing some of the numbers the district has the opportunity and actually as a voice and saying this is what we want to focus on and that's been I've been working with this district for the last 4 or 5 years and every year we have chosen an area to focus based upon what the district requirements are and a lot of times it's it's aligning with other initiatives that the district has so that we're not working something in isolation we're actually coming alongside and and working with them and something that they're already working on the numbers that we're going to show here the dashboard results um are backward-looking they're after the last 4 years and there are not reflective of some of the great works that have been talked about this evening and certainly in my time working with this District I have found everybody that I worked with to be very professional hardworking uh and wants the best for um students certainly um and then if a so if a school district fails to improve over a couple different um priority areas and we'll talk about that in just a second um and they're eligible for differences so the levels of support we kind of talked about this level 1 support very fundamental uh course that a county office will provide at the districts level 2 support is differentiated assistance based upon the last dashboard that was released in December of last year until just a month ago um you have a unified is now eligible level 3 which is is called direct technical assistance and we don't know exactly what that's going to look like moving forward because I don't talk about this as as we move through the process um so what does that mean um School District is eligible for differentiated systems if it fails to um uh have student groups within the um uh in the lowest category of the dashboard over 2 priorities local indicator fit they failed to to meet their local indicators or a combination of of those together differentiates this and also also applies to Charter Schools so what are same priorities there are 8 State priorities the first 3 are what are called local priorities basic Services uh implementation of state standards and parent engagement these 4 areas are the ones that really helped identify districts for their eligibility for assistance 3 Forest student achievement so if you have a student group that is read in English language arts and read in are the lowest indicator in math or second lowest and lowest orange and red combination or your English learner progress indicator is red that that's 1 State priority that could um create an eligibility priority 5 is 2 indicators graduation rate and chronic absenteeism chronic absenteeism is not a high school indicator but obviously graduation rate is and we'll talk a little bit about and when I show you how this um kind of all settles out here in just a second priority 6 is school climate suspension rate and then priority 7 and 8 which is college careers so there's a I'm going to start showing some data and there's a couple rules associated with what that data looks like for the dashboard for a student group to qualify within a particular cohort you have to have at least 30 of those students um so low-income students you need to at least 30 within the school or the district-wide to actually count to get a a color and an indicator on the dashboard however Foster youth all those youth and long-term English learner students you only need 15 student group contains between 11 300 and 11 then they'll get indicator but they won't get a color and I'll talk about the color in just a second here and students with less than 11 have no data because they want to protect the identity of those students Veronica absenteeism what does that mean this is the percentage of students that have missed at least 10% of the school year 180 days in school 18 days is the they missed more than 18 days they are considered as student that it meets the requirements of chronically absent student must be ruled in the district for 30 days to actually be part of that cohort and it is only a tk8 indicator suspension rate is different so the number of students that are in the suspension rate cohort will be more because all you have to do is be enrolled in the district for 1 day um you could be enrolled 1 day get suspended leave and you're in the cohort for suspension rate for the district and then students only need to be only 1 day all right so the colors associated with the the California dashboard um meet what is called the 5 by 5 here and I chose this 1 for chronic absenteeism but every single indicator develops this same basic template chronic absenteeism we want that to be low so if you look down the left hand side this is a really nice pointer by the way I did this point the Blazer I don't burn a hole through the so very low is less than 2 and a half percent and you low medium high and very high we want to stay out of the very high range we want to be in the very low range but you also get a a points for improvement if you get so if you improve unlike the old system of of of accountability there was no points for improvement if you approve here so if you increase significantly that um you get a little bit dinged for that you increase you maintain and if you line because we want this 1 to be low um then you actually get a different color so this is what this this is how the colors are determined on the dashboard so following the 22 dashboard so that was December of 2022 this is what we're seeing here this um experienced a lot of red in various different categories what we decided to focus on after this dashboard release was chronic absenteeism because the the number of a little harder to 60% of the district was chronically absent which means that 3 out of every 5 students missed at least 10% of the school year so we focused on chronic absenteeism through our differentiated assistance process and the next year it dropped almost 20% before the officer so I have every confidence in this District having worked with them for 5 years and they focus on an opportunity that opportunity gets better so this was the dashboard after the 20 in December of 23 much improvement across the board suspension rate was an area that we looked at and we've specifically focused on student with disability suspension rates get um a lot of data analysis a lot of root cause analysis is came up with some cheap systemic changes which was what differentiated systems is all about um and while the overall dashboard for 24 didn't approve the suspension rate for students with disability did approve so this is the dashboard that was just released this past December somewhere in between the 1 we saw on 22 and then the 1 23 this uh creates the eligibility for the Intensive intervention that uh we're going to talk about here in just a second actually I'm gonna go back so this dashboard and can go wrong so the level 3 support There's an opportunity now to have that additional support this is not something where it's like you're in trouble or it's a a red flag if you will this is an opportunity an eligibility to have somebody else come in and help with this and it's the California collaborative uh for educational Excellence CCE and the the eligibility is an opportunity opportunity for them to say whether or not they're going to select us we don't know if the district will be selected by CCE for this process or not uh our office has a meeting later this month with them we'll talk about it and then they'll make their determination superintendent back and myself and others from our organization have been uh in communication um continually about this and then we'll we'll know more by the end of the month the dashboard results um for 24 here there's there's our questions I thought somebody okay there's another accountability measure that we'll talk about in a little bit here which is the the federal accountability is the 1 we just talked about is state so comprehensive support and Improvement is through the Essa the federal uh and that has to do with the accountability for school districts the district has made some of Improvement in those areas from last year to this year and um the funding for like course code Elementary has exited CSI that that was a big uh Improvement so the the eligibility now through the federal is Alani high school is in CSI for low performance of course 1 Elementary exited CSI but they're in what's called TSI which is a they have a student group or student groups that have the majority of their indicators are read and then riverville Elementary uh is an Otzi for students with disabilities and then the force golden uh Dash here shows tremendous improvement from last year when they were in actual CSI uh and you can see the student with disabilities uh um row has no red in it and we focused on student with Ally suspension rate often times all of our meetings were at course all elementary the staff jumped in and did a phenomenal job with this work to to lower some of those numbers and um River Gold is in Otzi for um students with disability but really it's because they don't have enough students to qualify for the other 2 um for the academics they don't have that 30 30 for 2 years they have 33 now so when the next year's dashboard comes out they'll actually have a color and that will help with their their Otzi status and then the high school did not have eligibility for anything but as was talked about their opportunities there and again none of these numbers reflect the great work that has been talked about this evening because this is all backward-looking this is all at the the basically the status report as of the end of last school year so nothing that has been done this semester first semester moving into second semester is reflected in this dashboard questions thank you very much thank you thank you all right all right moving on to uh Community engagement initiative committee update I'm extremely excited to um possession tonight I didn't expect it to be registered large group but I'm also really happy that um so many people are here tonight I'm actually so proud because I put out an invite to my team and they all so far away as well so I just appreciate that my name is is nappy and I've been hired by District back and I'm in the role right now as student community services coordinator it's a position that came open from um December unified line 4 and receiving the schools um as a result of that I've been working with Christy Castillo this year from Nick sauce she's actually been working with me on learning all about Community Schools and at the end of last year so we applied well in February of last year we applied for the implementation grants for Community Schools for all 3 of our main sites we received a different course goal so that was sort of mentioned tonight Mindy expressed quite a bit that we are doing in that regard um so that's really exciting stuff um but I also was approached to apply for this grant that California was putting out last year and it was for Community engagement initiative we're going along 86 other districts in California um I have a team of 9 UM amazing people and I say amazing people I I pitched this out to quite a few people um before we got started this uh August and you know I didn't really know what I was putting together you know what we were about to embark on but um what it resulted in so far is a team that like I I couldn't have picked a better team like and it's so amazing um they're up there and kind of you can see the idea behind the community engagement initiative and a district is that you bring in a community partner that's Karma Medina she's actually um started as a director at at my club um when we started um you know yes it's great and I asked her if she'd be a part of it and and represent our community and she came along um we have raileen on our on our team which I couldn't imagine a better person for Community engagement as she was out our district newsletter which is brand this year I was like she she updated or website which when I first started this District I was kind of like wow we we needed to work on that so you know she's already made improvements in that area and there's so much more we can do to engage the capability um and then you you can see who else is on the team there I would probably gonna forget people but I do want to just mention that our student is here fifth grader on the team from course School memo and I was actually really eager to be a part of the team and I decided about um we all got a chance to go to uh San Jose and I'm going to mention that I realized now that I'm actually in charge of this so okay well let me tell you Stacy Vasquez you guys know her right so there the committee the community engagement has set up a schedule for us and they're very concerned for our time just knowing that with trying to get so many schools together they've got some virtual meetings for us to attend and so far they've been really good with all of our schedules and then there are some in-person meetings um 3 per year just so that we can really go and Focus because they know that once we're away from our desk we can learn the tools that we need to leave the community that's what we've done so far and our next meeting that we have as a team is next to or next Monday so we're looking forward to doing great things so I did want to just mention really quickly that we also we all got a chance to go um on a first experience and most of us would have thought this was a um like a conference right but they don't call it a conference they call it a pln because it really is a pure leading and Learning Network it's meant to be a place where you with collaborate with each other in fact um Kirk was just presenting all that data that's actually what we were doing um sitting around memorable got a chance to take a look at our dashboard which I think is pretty fascinating stuff would you like you know 10th grader looking at how we're doing as a district right and we were collaborating and talking about well what do we do and and really job engaged in the community which I think is a beautiful about the entire night tonight has been like I was like wow how did that work out because I couldn't be prouder of the of the process that I I started 2 years ago in December 22 and I came from a district that was a small District in Tracy called Jefferson School District and it it was a strong district and small schools Just 4 schools but in Tracy California which is a pretty big District Tracy is um and we were this is really well there and you know I came here and I was I I saw some data and I I think the staff I I introduced myself with that background and I saw that we had a lot of work to do um I I came in and I saw the culture and I was shocked by some of it and I think we have come a long way and I'm extremely excited and you guys are really inspiring I come every month to these World meetings and I just want to tell you I really haven't had a chance to truly meet a lot of you I look forward to continuing to work with you and represent this District but I'm proud um to be a part of it so I got I gotta at least get 3 emotional um with you especially we're up so I thank you for your inspiration though seriously I um I am so it's eager to continue collaborating and I think we're doing great things so anyway I just wanted to mention that you guys have access to the next slide which I didn't present but there are 2 videos in there where Dari is speaking to 800 people in that room about her role on this team and it's beautiful um also um we have soda Neil who's not here with us and I just don't know when that I think of the team here which shouldn't come tonight but she also spoke in front those 800 people talking about her role um this is being American who's you know um been able to help you know connect with uh another in the family that came in in and such which is exactly what it's all about right it's all working together everything that you you guys are all talking about you know to build a strong um foundation for our kids we have to work together so take it to get off to Amber and she's to talk a little bit about what we were actually doing there yeah you're in the pln we did a lot of things but 1 thing we did was a deep dive at the uh dashboard as and some of the data is concerning that's is no surprise to any of you yeah um The Next Step was We were supposed to look at the data and make some hypotheses as to what could be causing this what could be leading what can we do about this but that was just a piece it was like that try to think about but that's not an Irish we need to actually reach out to the community and work with actually people within the the community our students our families to see our perspectives because we can make all the hypothesis be more about why the data is saying when it's facing so we don't talk to our students and their parents about their experiences we can't work with them to resolve and improve things so next steps among the next steps are doing some empathetic research that's going out and doing up the interviews with our community to learn more about their experience with the education system and with just living so how we invest in these and our students to support them and academics and that's the next step okay I should probably mention if you guys don't know Amber bass is just doing an amazing job as a principal here at yhs I'm I called her the other day just to ask her if she would be around to be able to talk with me and she was getting um observing the classroom and she answered my phone call anyway which I thought was pretty amazing um she's doing a amazing work I watch her all the time talking with kids as I you know when I want when I run into her she's talking with kids and saying good morning all the time interacting with kids like on a every second basis and I think not saying that it was it didn't happen in the past but I just know the work she's been doing and I'm really proud that she's serious in his heart as well some other again a new thing that's happened in our district so she's on my team too um okay okay and from there was just the next steps I think some other another idea that came out of this after we were all talking was just like oh can we do next alright and 1 of the ideas we came up with was that baby our principles to get together and do a video altogether the 3 of them right Mindy and Jessica about the importance of of the cash test and what does it really mean you know right why why are we testing our students what does it mean it's a really report card a reflection of um and that it's an important thing because people are looking at it right and when you see it and it's all red that's not actually what's happening in our classrooms so it's more of a of a people not understanding you know the importance of taking that test right these Dimensions before Jessica just mentioned you know just kind of like at our last board meeting that a lot of parents elected to have their kids not take it um not take the test there's a repercussion to that that's right the schools right so I think um it's about those connections and understanding that maybe um engagement point of view really is going to take us to the presentation and explain another thing that we did during our our our time together so reileen is not a great public speaker so no tear and I just have to say it wasn't mentioned but um ended up being our only only student in our group but there was a huge um a huge group of students who broke off into their own bank talking back got on the microphone in front of the 800 people and and that room and explained what the students did and I was just so impressed um he would he has been a very good um addition to our team so this slide here um this was 1 of our um like our group range stories um sessions we were tasked with um finding a root a root I'm sorry so I'm just going to read each team was tasked with Philippine a problem of practice using the 6 group causes on this slide but we couldn't decide decide on just once so we chose to um we did um 1 and 6 so basically um believing that success to um depends on relationships with students families in the community and that developing those relationships requires creating community-friendly systems and tools to make it easier for families to engage with the District of State involved so um so that's if I go ahead and move on and so after we decided that's what our root cause is we're um we had to um brainstorm on a problem of practice using those 2 Roots causes and so we decided that 1 of um our districts problems of practice with communication um and that we would like to work um um okay yeah that's it that's it so yeah there is so basically what what number problems of practices is that um we don't have consistent Communications across the school sites like um we may all say the same message but it's different ways different means of doing it so we decided that um um that we would really like to work on having a more unified um sorry more more unified way of communicating things and so once we decided that you know we talked about different ways we can do that we could we talked about um different ideas but before we went any further than that which we weren't supposed to go any further than that no it's basically that's basically where we're at but before we decided for sure this is what we wanted to do we took this to our leadership team and made sure that we were on the right track and they agreed with us so we're going to continue on this chat yeah that's what we're gonna do again is there anyone else you want to introduce oh yes I I should have introduced Christy Castillo she's within s she's our County um rep or rep or representative she's joining us um and she came all the way to be there could be a good time and then we have Adriana Diaz who's a campus safety that horse Bowl this year she was hired this year she actually also worked for my club which was also kind of a new kind of collaboration she had coming over to course gold and then her son memo as well so and then I get like I mentioned soda is not to decide but these are behaviors and student Advocate um attendance of the year guess yeah um how often do you guys get together well so that first first slides were this the times that we've been getting together um I obviously I I feel like relationship with individuals which why I asked them to be on the team how long and when maybe I I didn't turn around we just started in August in August okay gotten together 5 times actually as a team so the idea is it's a 2 year commitment I meant to say the first slide did state that it's a it's a 70,000 a year grant for 2 years it's 140,000 dollars of the district was awarded for this team to get the other so obviously the time that we're spent together and you know Subs that are needed or whatever um is important event as well as um so each time we get together and convene you know with a district State a portion of money so that work can be happening and then it I I get email notifications of that is it oh do into the public or is it you mean the engagement initiative know your meetings when you get together um I just wondered if that was oh the community and there is a whole other side side thing and yes those are definitely open to the public okay sure I wouldn't but when you guys together to do what you're doing that's not necessarily an open meeting this team was put together really mainly to go on to these conferences and to do these kind of like 3-hour virtual meetings where we're learning with 86 other districts in the state about this concept of really engagement as an initiative or a district and we're meant to then bring it to leadership teams and to the school sites to try and actually okay thank you I may have I may because of the grants get confused the 2 in my mind so thank you I'm also I'm also running the Endeavor of the Community Schools right yeah which further led me into that trap but thank you know and and to be fair it's easy you know they've got a million grants going on throughout the state but thankfully um Yim has been awarded Community engagement and Community Schools and Denise and I are leading both of those and we're able to really um you know weave in those together so that we're not working in redundancy we're moving forward with the problem of practice that was identified and then we can um utilize Community Schools to help holster that effort so it's been an honor to work with this team they're amazing they're inspiring so uh we are meeting again um at in Ontario after next weekend Ontario February so we're looking forward to delving deeper into that problem and we appreciate your support yeah for sure um this problem of practice yes is that the the methodology that was developed by Harvard do you recall if I don't know if that's what they that came up with as participated in 1 of those um the methodology called the problem of practice it's very very difficult work and if I recall correctly it's really trying to under um identify not just look at symptoms but really try to identify some underlying causes of why things are the way they are it is super difficult you got to look beyond the surface way into what's going on here and it's it's is extremely complex difficult work I admire for for all of you to to go to the effort of trying to figure that out um proud of you I I know how difficult it is I wonder what we can do to help you in some of the goals that you have identified here with the communication is there anything we can do started I mean that's how I really getting started I think presenting it to the leadership team appreciate that returning to us and say Well only thing is you actually you should probably present us to the board and we're like okay so it got on the agenda this month like I said I didn't expect us to be presenting such a big group but um we are just getting started and I'm I'm excited about the team because the facility and unique about this experience is I ended up driving to San Jose and I had Dari and Adriana in my car right and as we're driving we were talking just very authentically about what it is to be a parent in this District she has a wonderfully amazing daughter Adriana does Rocio who is probably in some of your classes and at the high school she just came over here of course was just graduating for school came up here and I mean she was able to talk to this very say again she also she also played soccer and she's a star yeah but I mean but I mean she's been talking about how when she went over those math scores I mean Dari both but both Dari and Adriana they're they're not raising education right I didn't really know what the dashboard was they didn't they've never read these things before you start to recognize just the the um like unfamiliarity most parents have with this kind of stuff about education I've been in an education now 18 years so it's like I know what this is you know but even as teachers you know like if you're a new teacher you probably don't really know what the dashboard is either so my point is is I think that was 1 of the questions we came up with while we were talking we were like well what if what are you observing what are the Wonders I had was how many of our teachers really know how bad we actually are scoring I don't know when that every 1 of our teachers knows that so to assume that they do is an assumption because I remember being kind of a new teacher and I didn't know how we were doing as a district it's sort of like all of that we need to we need to bridge all that that's why I say that's why it's so exciting to see so many people here right to be listening to those these different way of looking at education I think it's important try the awareness yes people become and then they say oh I did okay now I understand right well why is it important that my kids take this test okay well you know here please absolutely what are the things that I feel that community that our parents me as parents we have to step in because if we don't step in how do we how do we know do you have and we have to I mean we want to make our kids you know the our future then we have to be there we have to find out what's going on so I get a little bit but I mean we have to find out everything I used to be 1 of the ones that oh I have I have to wash the dishes I have to do this I have to do that no I have to stop that if I get the first step I have to be there because I want them to have and I expect them to have different to have everything then I have to be that and this is very important you have show up we are trying to what's going on and 1 of the things they said is like put it on the meetings they'll put them on Facebook and we have to keep inviting people and 1 of the things that I feel that we put up excuses is leaving people at 6 manage as well some of the the um the parenting oh it's because I don't understand always because I don't know oh can you do it for me because I get a lot of that sometimes when we get we just sign the permission slip for me I'm like no I can't do that you have to so as you have that the parents the community has have to they have to you know get informed be there for their kids if they want good kids they want you know just that I've been a future I don't know if they want that they have to be there you know they have to put them first what better for us so can you see why I say I had an amazing team it was like that all weekend long or they'll hold the whole 2 days it wasn't a weekend I just want to say thank you to the team on behalf of the district in general uh memo 10 years old step into a leadership position the your destined for good things buddy given that the yhs President right right and Dari thank you so much for for your inspiring words there Adriana for being part of our staff and joining in Amber safety railing thank you guys and Christy here's another example of a good partnership with the county superintendent of schools in guided Us in the community schools effort they guided us guided Us in this effort and um I think we're becoming known as someone who partnered as well with the county office and we're doing good things for kids because we do that so on behalf of our District administration just thank you for the work that you're doing it is just the beginning they'll be back probably maybe in a year maybe a little less than that to kind of give an update and show where we're going with the ultimate goal of being better Community Partners um as a school district I do want to say just 1 more thing again um I think it's really important to mention if it hasn't already been mentioned in and I know it was a little bit um Mindy mentioned that we just on Monday got a new um person of our district as the um you know American Mentor I was able to to talk with her today and introduce her to a few uh people she's going to be completely and hugely influential art in our efforts and I'm super excited the other 1 is our bilingual we just started out of December 2nd she's already attended 4 of my Community Schools meetings throughout the district I today in the morning went on a purse home visit um with a family that is definitely struggling um to have their child attend school they are bilingual family they live in a very very remote area that takes an hour to walk to the bus stop and the child has not been able to come to school it's been going on for several months and we've been trying to Aid this to happen and today's efforts uh going on that home visit was something that for me I had never experienced before and um it's usually impactful like I said I'm I get emotional and I think it's because I do know that the strides that this district has been taking in these last 2 years and it is something and I want people to fly into it and know that it so I appreciate everything that you answered tonight I totally agree for example of of working together and continuing to bring us all together to make this better we're going to move on to item 6 C uh 2024 yusd California school dashboard but we have a public comment on their uh I'll make my comment so um I talked with Dr bourie uh thank you Kurt just what uh uh for your discussions uh about the California dashboard uh thank you to uh Denise and her team for talking about the California dashboard we've come a long long way from the old funding model to the new funding model and using the California dashboard and the lcap etc etc um and I know Dr borny is about ready to show the dashboard and I'll tell you it's a little discouraging and that's because it's flawed okay there is no perfect system there are truly truly uh but 1 of the things I want to highlight is when I say it's flawed it is but it isn't and what you'll notice there is there's some real problem here it is how the data is collected and let me say that again it's how the data is collected being a small school district having some low low number skus some of the points off we get penalized for students that are 18 that move to adult education on the dashboard of system as a Dropout however if that student is 18 and moves to Evergreen or aani for a fifth year do they have not graduated in their 4 years or with their core 4 year cohort they graduate their 5th year they are seen as a graduate but if they actually graduate because they're 8 in 3 years so a year ahead of their cohort they're seen as a drop off that's a flaw for our foreign exchange students and let's just think about that for the people whose families have been had the financial resources those high-end kids that came to America to have an experience in the United States educational system zero dropout on the dashboard that's a flaw um our College and Career Readiness data is sued because not getting credit for the incredible Career Technical education classes that we have you've heard it you've seen it each 1 of the best things we've got built and that is not because because I'm a CT heart and soul person is because we do a dang good job here so when you look at that data and that data the there's some garbage that's going in because it's not the garbage we're putting we're putting in some really great students some really great data but if you only have a so hard of 5 1 of them is not super successful you're at 80% that's where the the dashboard is flawed I'm done with my time I got buzz but please please look at that with that the information in your head because we do a dang great job here and I am so proud of us thank you Tony good evening trustees and superintendent as well check check we've been trying all night has a student yeah Madison's maybe take the first 1 there okay use your 20 M voice good so welcome our 2 new board members the 3 other board members that have been on here have seen me speak about the dashboard and data-driven experiences and some of the initiatives that we've um move forward but kind of want to start with um this is my 6 uh semester here and going 2 and a half years and there's been significant change um over these last 2 and a half years looking at the progress hard to see so we're looking at curriculum 1 of the first initiatives or charge from the board and superintendent Beck was evaluate the curriculum we get surveys teachers felt they weren't heard we there was an adopted curriculum that there was no voice so what I developed was a 5-year plan for a curriculum adoption so that has started and is underway but the but the big lift was getting teachers and staff to use the district adopted curriculum which is hmh so there was a lot of front-loading there was a lot of Prof development there was reaching out to hmh partnering 1-on-1 modeling lessons showing teachers how to utilize the hmh curriculum to best engage kids and that has and that has translated into year-long progression it's translated into Partnerships and I can tell you with Fidelity that our k8s are utilizing curriculum and utilizing the hmh curriculum to a much higher degree much higher degree than when first initiative when we first initially evaluated um curriculum in terms of services um for safety we've utilized the Catapult emergency um response we've started to look at active net which is at core school elementary and these products that were purchased years ago that were quasi initiated and now we we've developed a plan where we've initiated a professional development and supports and rolled out catapult um to a high degree so when that lockdown occurred when the principal initiated the lockdown I immediately Got a notification from catapult that said School on lockdown um and that and that should work with Bass Lake because they're also on catapult so some of these um programs that we've had and part of my job my first first year was devalued how many programs and what are we using and uh catapult was underutilized and looking at data so a big lift coming in we had teachers doing great work we had teachers um working and I I would say Pockets where where some teachers would initiate some checking for understanding um some formative assessments um which is good let us not consistent in district-wide so what I was able to do with principles with my team was we developed um benchmark assessments so I can tell you the last 2 years we've been we've been able to check for understanding um for for our students and been to disseminate data regularly um to to have teachers check to see what um there there are students that are in red there are students that are high performing um and it's a it's a measure its 1 check for understanding measure that um that was not consistent so well Joe here kind of from my lenses systems um consistent practices and common practices um my belief and what we're what we are utilizing and moving move forward is consistency at River Gold and at course gold I can tell you years ago my first year it wasn't wolf schools were in different areas both schools utilize different types of curriculum um the curriculum that was used was was not with fidelity I can tell you what our leadership that we currently have and the collaboration from our k8s is uh is astounding is excellent and it's uh revitalizing with the data also what and what you'll what board members you all see me coming up and providing an update on how kids are doing and it's 1 measure and what it what it's what the why we're doing that is 1 I think it's great that teachers or administrators can say you know Johnny or Susie is doing great what does that mean well now we can now we have a formalized way that's nationally normed to take a look at how kids are doing so there's going to be some kids in red and and color-coded that provides immediate intervention so so if a student is struggling with the beginning of the year middle of the year or even end of the year they're providing an opportunity for immediate intervention to to remedy and provide supports this year we're also utilizing iabs with which um the high school and the elementary utilizing um and that's also in preparation for the Casp so these checking for understanding with the benchmarks and our iabs um theoretically should be able to Max realized um when students are testing for for student outcome of Student Success so with ELD so when I came to this District um we had a very very small um support system for English language Learners I can tell you that my dissertation and my doctoral research was around Student Success particularly around English language Learners and we didn't have much so I can tell you right now we have a full program uh for English language support we have a bilingual liaison to help me families to help um Latino Americans to help um all families that are bilingual I'm also bilingual help came from a family where um my grandfather came over here not speaking in English and he went to a segregated school so for me making sure we provide supports and uh opportunities for kids that are not able that maybe in in English language learner and maybe a special education or may not be able to access curriculum that's very important to me so um 1 of the and speaking with families um Latino Spanish speaking Spanish they were frustrated they would come into specifically a course called the high school and they're basically walk out um not to say that they weren't getting service but they they there was a translation barrier so with our lcap were you able to hire a bilingual on Leslie Ramirez and she had been able to reach out to every Spanish speaking family that um is in our district so to introduce herself to let her know that hey I'm here to help how can we help with Student Success and immediately we have more participation um we're going to have a district-wide link um District language advisory committee so because our our demographics are changing we have more English language Learners we have a higher population of social communities advantage and we have more Foster Youth and that was not consistent I'd say 3 years ago so we are so our demographics aren't changing and we need to meet the needs for all learners with our EOP or after school program that's something new that's also started over the last 3 years with some of the funding positivity project was was new for this year and it's been a big support and big success for professional development uh we started with we've initiated for the last 2 years CPI training and deescalate lives which is a safety type of approach for active Shooters uh CT we we started with some CT professional development to really look at maximizing our CT teachers to connect that with court with court teachers and really looking at CT programs we have safe and civil schools and then we have the hmh year-long uh curriculum coaching which has been a great benefit and some of these things that I'm mentioning have been absent prior prior to 3 years ago these are things that have been initiated that are new and I can tell you through my doctoral research and through research that um is um in education that changed like this hap doesn't happen the next year it doesn't happen even in 2 years okay right around 3 years is when you start seeing some of these new these new initiatives paying off so what I'm asking is be patient we have the foundation we have the right people in place uh at core we've had 3 principles in 3 years at the high school we've had 2 principles in 3 years in our River Gold Leaf out of consistent principle so the the with with teaching and learning the most impactful person is the teacher and the next is the principal and that's through research um with special education and and I'm trying to frontload a lot of this a lot of information 1 for the new board members but for 2 to provide a snapshot of some of the things that we've initiated and launched in 3 years these are these things I'm mentioning were absent and were not in place and these are either knew that are that are combined in helping or are just um just new initiatives that that are becoming successful with special education contrary to some some of the information that you're hearing we're doing a lot we have a year-long professional development plan we've we've looked at provide we is initiate a new lcap goal we've launched an additional compliance with IEPs um we took a look at mtss and how kids are are qualifying in terms of um being assessed um and going through an SST product SST process Tier 1 interventions and then providing um data at a second SSD we have a special education manual um and then some of the key initiatives that we have so we have an 8A Gore study an 8G study that's coming going to be brought forward in terms of an evaluation of how are we doing at the high school with a to G in terms of maximizing students to be prepared for College and Career readiness and we also have um a lot of tutoring and attendance initiatives and then um recently we were able to secure a screener for dyslexia that we're going to start training um our principals to to roll out next year so our front loaded a lot of information so at least we have some some contextual knowledge on what have we been doing for 3 years so in 2023 so a few highlights from our dashboard in 2023 and some folks may have forgot or some folks May um it may not have known but we went up 10 points in math which was the highest growth in Madera and Fresno for all unified districts we wanna we were the highest so that was for math for last year and then for English we also won up um another 10 points so we made significant gains last year this year we did we we did have a drop and we dropped it in ela and we dropped the math and we we did we didn't make improvements so I'm still a little sick so I'm I'm getting over um getting over being sick and looking at how we're doing so what I wanted to do is also to take a snapshot of how are we doing in comparison to other districts that are our size and I can tell you that we we in some areas and in some throughout some districts we are improving so yes our dashboard results may be there may be a decline but in some areas we we are um surpassing some districts that are nice similar and similar demographics thank you thank you appreciate that I just want to say as Jared collects his self there um I did tell him if he was not well enough to present tonight we would table this 1 to put on the next meeting and he said no no I'll be there I'll be there so here he is he's feeling well and I wouldn't advise anyone to use that microphone when he's done but I want to go so I so I provide the board um a variety of slides I'm not going to go through each I I traditionally don't my hope is that you are looking at those but I do want to take a look at core School so through core School what's interesting is that even though we decline Corps school has been in CSI for years and we've been trying to get out of CSI CSI is not good we don't want to be in CSI it's the bottom performing schools uh throughout really the US it's a federal monitoring system we move so we moved out of CSI so kudos to core school um what is what is a counter to that is we don't get the funding for it so there was a large sum of money that was attributed to core school and that is to bring stability like develop systems develop um supports um and carry those out so that so that it's a positive again we are at a CSI for core school but but the funding has um so I'm going to go so I'm going to go to um so Kirk obviously mentioned um where we are with the dashboard I don't want to be redundant so in 2022 was a significantly red red is obviously not good we may we we developed um some systems we we looked at sites we were able to make some significant gains and then this year we also dropped but we're continuing to evaluate and looking at data to figure out what are what are these drops and why and what we are going to look at um for next steps expanded targeted intervention for chronic absenteeism and suspensions enhancing professional development for educators to support our diverse learners strengthening College and Career Readiness initiatives to improve graduation outcomes and utilizing restorative practice and SEO programs to build a more inclusive climate so these are our next steps and and I can tell you that some of the principles intrinsically have already mentioned attendance team so each School bi-weekly is going to have an attendance team and they're going to look at their attendance and they're going to quantify a certain number of absences and and kind of go down and say well what's going on with this student you know who's helping this student and to partner with that um they're going to Apostles that were pupil support So students that either are are struggling with a benchmarks or score low on on our caaspp we're going to be able to Monitor and figure out a plan for each student and those are those are some of the new shifts that because of our dashboard that we need to do things a little different so so the principles mentioned already the attendance team so that's right off the bat they're they're on attendance they're making sure students are supporting so um are there any questions this is more of a comment and I'm not going to do my normal spiel about test scores and how I feel about them although if our test scores go up after we focus on teaching kids how to take a test and I'm going to give the Spiel again that help useless tests can be but um I was just thinking about how many people commented tonight on how they feel when they walk around the campuses and and I think there's a lot to be said for that and I I I think we can I can feel that um there's this is going to improve you know and I think that some of the reasons it dropped or just superficial I really believe that so um hopefully we're all right I think we all kind of think that's going to happen and we're all proved correct you know 11 months from now or 10 months or whenever we get the next results but uh I I just want to say as 1 board member I don't look at that dashboard because a lot of people comment on it and said oh it's not good and when I first saw I said yeah that's not and it's not we want it to be better but I I believe that we're going in the right direction and I a lot of the changes you've discussed um you know I I've been paying attention to those and I think we're going in the right right direction I want to encourage you to just keep doing the work that you're doing Dr boarding thank you I can I come in I can only imagine that you're your question many times has been where do I start and uh I just want I give you props for the you know tackling this enormously complex question and for making the progress you obviously it's showing already and you know hopes for continued success and for the next dashboard to reveal the true fruits of your labors thank you thank you I also forgot to mention that KES also to develop um to develop um curriculum mapping so traditionally the HT districts I've worked in been a high school principal for ten years Curriculum maps were were regenerated they're they're they're ongoing we don't have Curriculum maps so we don't have a map where if I'm a new teacher that comes in um for first grade um this is my map this is where we're going to look at standards this is what we're going to do for um for specific content so Curriculum maps that are cons consistent that are utilized at both schools and the high school were absent so the work that the sites are working on right now is Curriculum maps so so teachers can better be unified in terms of what they're teaching and when so when you go horse Gould first grade you're going to see the same thing that's going on and River Gold it may be a couple days apart but it's going to be the same theme it's going to be the same standard and that's not going to be driven top down that's going to be the experts in the field that are on the ground I'm working they're going to be able to develop and come together and look at developing a curriculum map not to mention I want to thank Jerry for powering through tonight and I know he doesn't feel well and hasn't filled well but also there is not always out you know uh he does a lot of work behind the scenes you can hear what he's talking about about developing some systems developing some structures um that people can work within that create guidelines and safeguards for kids to make sure that kids are getting something the same across the district so it can be some thankless work it can be a lot of behind the scenes work but it will make a difference as we create these these systems that that need to be created as Jared has mentioned several times and you guys know as a board especially the 3 that have been here you have way more data coming your way than you we had in the past and that's been a system that's been created by Dr bory to gather data so that we can make better decisions that will lead to better student outcomes and thank you thank you Jared I appreciate you any more questions thank you so she's already there I'm I'm already up here good evening Board of Trustees so we are here for the approval of the 2324 audit report so if you'll remember um so if you remember at the last board meeting when we brought first intro and we talked about what are the next steps and we talked about the budget cycle that we close out the prior year which is called un audited actuals and then we are finishing up our audit from that prior Year and that that would be coming to January um so but we did file the audit on December 14th and our auditor uh Christina zarian is here and she's gonna go just a brief overview of the audit and um we're asking for approval for that so I'm just go ahead and hand it over and thank her for uh just sitting through our whole meeting for this all right I think you each have a copy yeah of the everybody has a bound copy there and there was an electronic on the agenda so I I like to just go through the bound copy and I'll I'll just point out some things but to just start things off so we are talking about the 2324 Financial audit um and it's been submitted to the state like um Charlotte mentioned it's due the December 15th of each year is when it's due it always is usually done right around that time just because of everything that's going on around that time um so what's the minute on time the state receives a report they review the report sometime in the spring or sometimes into the summer when they're behind they send an approval letter of the audit report to the district so that should be coming in some time in the spring um the format of the report it's a state mandated format they have certain schedules that we have to include in here based on certain audit procedures they have us do and it's also prepared in accordance with auditing standards um the district also spent more than 750,000 dollars in federal funding so part of our audit is also the federal single audit procedures and so we've performed those as well during this audit and so the audit has also been submitted to the federal government through an online data collection site we just got that filed this week so I'm gonna start off by having you turn to page 1 of the actual report which is the independent Auditor's report this opinion letter it's the result of our financial portion of the audit where we give an opinion on the district's financials um we've given a clean opinion on what that means is we're just saying that all the financial data stated is properly stated in all material respects so we didn't find any issues I'll have you now turn to page 4 this section of the audit is the management discussion and Analysis or mdna I like to go through these Financial tables because they're easier to read than the actual financial statements and there's also a comparison Jen with the prior year so that's no tell me what I what I like to go through with some changes that you'll see so and trying to page 5 you will see the first table which is a table with the net position of the district so um part of what I want to explain is that this is the district as a whole and without getting too technical it's um governmentwide and it includes like the district's fixed assets your buildings your improvements your long-term debt you don't traditionally see that and your um in room reporting so that's only going to be shown during the audit so these numbers we're seeing here on these first few tables and include all that so um the total net position of the district was about 15 million um this is an increase from the prior year about 2.2 million and primarily due to facilities projects and grants with Grant balances carrying over into the next year you'll also see some big change changes are the cash balance of the district which increased between the 23 and 24 years um the best grant that it was not all yet spent and so cash was higher which is also why you're unearned Revenue you'll see it went up quite a bit to about 4 million that really represents that money from those less grants that was not spent as of June 3024 which is where we're looking at here you'll also see an increase in your Capital assets um due to some construction work in progress projects which include the Energy Efficiency projects and the the bus charging projects those um were new this year those are in the capital assets as work in progress and also the long-term debt increased by about 6.4 million relating to the new debt issuance for the um tax exempt lease for the energy project now going to Page 6 you'll see the table 2 which shows the details of the change of the net position which was that increase of about 2.5 million from the current year activity um you'll also know there was something unique this year where there was a prior period adjustment noted noted for about 300,000 um it was found that the district's bond interest and Redemption fund your bond fund was overpaid for taxes from a prior year relating to another County and so that represents the district repay that during the 2324 year that it related to Prior period And so it's shown separately as a prior period all right I'll have you turn the page 7 um so this table table 4 this is now going back to what you traditionally see in the way I just governmental funds so this is just the ins and outs of your governmental funds not including those Capital assets and long-term debt items I previously mentioned you'll see the increase from about 12 million to 15 million from the current year activity I want to page 8 you'll have 2 tables here which detail those Capital assets and the long-term debt that you don't traditionally see so this is where you'll see in table 5 um the work in progress increasing as I mentioned relating to those those work in progress projects then also in the long-term debt table you'll see the large increase in the the certificates of participation is is really where that tax exempt lease in and that's you'll see the big increase there as well and so you also get to see the detail of the district's long-term debt I like to point out that function liability that fits there so it's about 18 million that represents the district's proportionate share of the stirs and Furs pension liability that's out there and so that's um a part of your debt balance as well okay now we're gonna jump over to page 50 5 this schedule is just the trends over the last 3 years of the district's General funds and so it it shows the last 3 years as well as what was budgeted at the time of the UN audited actuals so you'll see the general fund balance increased by about 3.4 million during the year again primarily relaying that to some Grant funds that are carrying over into the 2425 here you'll also see a District's average daily attendance your Ada amount that it did increase by about 26.88 compared to the prior year which is good and then if you'll also see a percent imagine that um table at the top and so the district is meeting the percentage of the state recommends um your available reserves as a percentage of your outgo the district is meeting that percentage and is also meeting it for the the 2420 my budget here all right so now I'll have you put your to pay um page 61 to about 63 so not only do we look at the distance financials we also perform our state compliance which also includes the attendance audit and so um we do have a couple um reports relating to those areas and so um Pages 61 to 63 please show and list the audit procedures we that were applicable and that would perform for the district in those areas um we did have 5 auditions this year and they actually all fit in under the state compliance so I'll go through those findings later but um they are related to the state compliance section they are not um material type findings that have this large fiscal consequences so they're just listed as other matters so they're not significant ones so um now have to go to page 66 um we list our major federal programs that we audited for like I mentioned the district does spend more than 750,000 so this year our federal single audit major programs we audited were the title 1 program as well as the Child Nutrition program and we did not find any uh findings or issues the page 67 starts the audit findings our first audit finding was related to attendance um there's a lot that goes into the attendance summarization reporting and so what we found during our audit was there were a few months that sixth grade students were actually input it in the wrong column with the seventh grade students funding is different between those grade fans and so um that was just a circle are debt and the summarization of the of the attendance um if you were to try to question what those costs would be it would be a decrease of about 3500 88 I mean 3500 dollars from the district so it's not that large of an amount but it was just this this so we just recommend the district make sure that when they're reporting mediate to make sure they're in the correct grade fans and just do more reviews to make sure that those type are the second out of finding we have is for kindergarten continuation so in California for student to do a second year of kindergarten they have to have a a go through a process of parent approval and they have a retention phone um retention form signed to get a second years of of attendance for that student so that this was actually a unique situation where 1 of the students we sampled what the transfer student from another District they came in in April of 24 so it was later in the school year um they were in kindergarten for a second year at the old District they came from so when they came here the district properly enrolled them in kindergarten but there was no retention form in the file to support the student being in kindergarten the second year so even though the district wasn't the 1 to make that decision the state still requires for that form to be on hand we did reach out to to think because it was a unique situation they said if there's a similar situation happens the district set up on enrolling the students have the parents just sign in so um this actually had no question costs for the district because they came in after the p28a cut off which is what the district is funded off of so there's no question cost the district the third finding has to do with the district's unduplicated um people cow um we audited the list of um unduplicated students and um for 1 of the school sites there was a unique situation where the district's process of importing the student designated s from I believe they're Titan software it's calpads have some sort of unique glitch where this 1 student was improperly designated and not switched so we looked at multiple students and and sampled additional students and just found this 1 issue and so this 1 student was incorrectly designated as um being reduced eligible when they weren't so um that would be about 2500 in question costs when pushed through um so also not to material but um once again uh District the district should make sure they're monitoring those import processes and reviewing them to make sure similar everything do do we have to in that circumstance do we have to reimburse the money if we were given somebody free and reduced lunches that didn't qualify so this is a little different because it's um I'm looking at the Cow pads and duplicated list which is used for different purposes let's say so the district supplemental and concentration yes we have to reimburse the supplemental concentration so what with the audit find the state will contact and if there's any of these findings things that do require revisions because you you are able to make revisions to this reporting I don't recall for this specific finding if they have a threshold I know for attendance findings it's 188 at the state will require revisions for and then they'll adjust the funding accordingly so similarly if this requires an amended uh reporting they'll let the district know to do so but it only impacted it was just the reduction of 1 student count so I'm not too that like I said that Threshold at the state uses or that's just and now that we have a universal meals for the for the students getting meals that everyone eats for free yeah so that's separate does and your C correct so like getting meal reimbursements as as separate this this is the extra funding above normal de this is what feeds into that supplemental and concentration funding that we but I think what Bernie's asking is what's the mechanism for dealing with 2500 like do we do we send a check for 2500 what this next year and so and it all depends whether or not they even do that so I know like so if they do it's actually I believe this will reimburse through your your principal abortionist okay so they'll reduce your principal abortion by that amount um the fourth state compliance finding we had had to do with immunizations so we have to we sampled tkk rate students um it was another unique situation where there was a student that moved in from out of state and so they have different communication requirements but um based on what this student did have they were missing 1 of the vaccines and if that's the case they're supposed to receive it within 10 days of the parent should be notified and then get the vaccine within those 10 days that didn't occur and so um what happens is the attendance for that student gets disallowed but once again this was later in the school year because it was a student that moved into the district so it only decrease the heat to 88 for the district 5.03 which is extremely minimal and so I don't see there to be any fiscal impact but for this 1 there's no adjustment would have been needed so um we just recommend the district continue to maintain efforts to come make sure that districts and district is in compliance with the immunization requirements and if you have a student that isn't that they're not included in the attendance until they are and then the last audit findings is related to the classroom teacher salaries um this has been a repeat finding for the last few years and I believe in Madera County almost all of the Madera County school districts didn't need Department either um this has to do with the percentage of spent on classroom teachers not meeting the 55% for a unified district and so the district is able to obtain a waiver through Madera County um when this occurs if they could show that there's different criteria to be granted the waiver so the district did file that exemption with Madera County and they were approved for that um and like I said it is a repeat of the prior year finding so we just recommend that the district continue to try to meet that 55% and if that they can't that they continue to obtain the waiver or exemption from the mayor again um lastly on the page 73 um we have to follow up on prior audit findings um we had an attendance finding in the prior audit as well as that um classroom teacher salary finding so the attendance finding was not he does this to our recommendations for implementing relating to that attendance finding um but as I mentioned we do have a repeat of the classroom teacher salary finding so in closing I'd like to thank the District staff um I feel like the audit procedure just keep growing and growing with all the different programs and funding that's out there so there is a lot of different um program level people we work with now and and everything and it still is a great job trying to facilitate everything and everyone so um it really helps make the audit run smoothly and having the audit submitted on time so thank you does anyone have any questions so nothing about ASB no I hugged is that Miss Godly or Sheree bulmer or use Charlotte that's awesome at least my if 1 of these and that's first time that I was awesome it was handy she said it was her and then how many's credit it was last year right exactly thank you thank you Christina um so again we're asking for acceptance of the audit and then just to keep you up with the timeline we then submit that to the county which this has already been submitted to the state state controller um and then we'll be coming back or I'll be coming back to you in February with the corrective actions for those findings and if it had been implemented or when they will be and you guys will certify those and we um turn those into the county office by March 15th so it's kind of that cycle and then pretty soon after that we'll be starting our next appointment for um our audit of the for 25 year which we usually start even before the school year in so it's it it is a continuous cycle and and again thank you to um Christina they were really great to work with and um so you guys have any questions for me and if not asking for questions can I get a Move Motion a second all in favor say I I all of say no 50 thank you Charlotte moving on to approval of the sunshine of initial bargaining proposal from Central California or California employees Association Brad yeah so this is on the board agenda for the second time the first time was just uh to Sunshine um for discussion for a month so it's back to the board which basically is outlining CSEA is proposing that we negotiate on and so unless there's any questions or discussion I would ask the board to approve question or discussion motion move to approve second all in favor say I I all opposed say nay item C approval of a sunshine and of initial bargaining proposal from the Yemen Unified School District of the California School Employees Association um again yeah so same thing this is just the other way this is this is the district sun shining and making public what we plan to negotiate so again it was on the board agenda last month about a month to look at it unless there's any questions or discussion I would ask for approval and if we get that we will be getting negotiating in the next few weeks motion to approve motion to approve second second all right um all in favor say I I all oppose say nay moving on item d second reading and approval of Revis board policies as you're all well aware we're embarking on an effort to really keep our board policies up to date as I've mentioned several times um they are all up to date nothing is older than 2023 and we will continue bringing updates to the board um as we get them from CS de with recommended updates so um we had these board policies and bylaws on the board agenda last month for the board to take a look at for a month they're now back for asking for approval there are 14 board policies and 2 board bylaws everybody get a chance to review no questions motion to approve so second all in favor say I I all oppose say nay be moving on uh approval of subscription add-on with csba for Legal Services I'll address that so uh 1 thing we learned at the latest csba conference is that csba does offer legal services for member districts we are a member district and um for a for 10 more added on to our annual fee to be a member district we would be able to access all of csba Legal Services at a discounted rate um Legal Services had a discounted rate and so for proposing to the board is that we spend this 10% which is about $900 for the year that would allow us to access legal services and assess it for a year make sure that the quality of those Services is up to par and that there is a cost and if there is I'll probably come back and recommend that we continue if there's no cost savings and the quality is enough to far then I would recommend that we just give you but I think it's worth the $900 to give this a try and potentially save many thousands of dollars if I'm not mistaken Brian part of Legal Services means Investigative Services Legal Services means we could access their um legal services to conduct investigations at a discounted rate any other questions I like to approve second all in favor of trying to save some money all opposed All Right Moving On approval of school accountability report cards Still Standing pushing through it get in there you don't want to make a comment Miss Martinez is she was the first uh Department she raised her hand and said you know what I'll work with my team and teachers develop curriculum app so Miss Martinez did do that and I remember the work that way the last year thank you very much I heard something I was like yeah you're right so I'm asking for um this is a requirement we bring every year sarks each each School presents a sarc and I'm asking for approval questions motion to approve second all in favor all opposed all right informational items on District enrollment report uh let me see let me pull it up here so yeah there's just informational items but we're showing that our enrollment is down by 5 students compared to last month and now by 23 compared to the same time uh last year but this is not required any kind of board action this is just for information and next is the Des District report yeah it's the last 1 so I'm gonna talk about this 1 for about 2 hours if you guys can stick around know so um we yeah so the district just learn report shows that we are up by 3 student suspensions incidents from last year at the same time um our students I'm sorry and that by 7 Days of suspension overall um from this time last year so again just an updated item that we include every month to keep the board in form but does not require any board Act all right uh item 9 a next board meeting of trustee February 13th February 13th on the boardroom all right I moved to adjourn the whole room
