January 18, 2018 Board of Education Meeting Recap

This meeting paired a warm, personal evening — a children's band performance, a tribute to a bakery-training program for at-risk teens, and a board member's remembrance of a young student who had died — with the year's most data-heavy presentation on how prepared Chino Valley's graduates are for college and career.

Closed Session: Two Personnel Actions

The board met in closed session from 3:45 to 6:31 p.m. to discuss legal counsel, pending litigation, and labor negotiations with the district's two employee unions, among other personnel matters 1. Reporting out, the board approved two personnel actions: a new Coordinator of Information Services was appointed effective January 29, 2018, and a resignation agreement for a certificated employee was accepted, effective June 30, 2018 23.

A Sixth-Grade Band and a Bakery That Feeds Grocery Stores

The meeting opened with a district "student showcase." A sixth-grade advanced band from one of the district's elementary schools performed a Spanish folk song, joined by a guest professional trumpet player 4.

The evening's warmest story came from Boys Republic, a residential high school program the district partners with in Chino Hills. A staff member who runs its bakery told the board about the apprenticeship, which now supplies baked goods to roughly two dozen grocery stores and had recently landed an additional retail contract 567. They framed the apprenticeship as an alternative to entry-level fast-food work, giving students at the residential school paid, structured employment and a path toward self-sufficiency 8.

Board members praised the program at length. One trustee said the work was "giving them a vision that they could buy their own car ... pay their own rent, and then ... become a father one day," calling it a matter of "opening up their future" 9. Another trustee separately praised the impact of Boys Republic's on-site leadership more broadly, across both the high school and its affiliated adult school 10. Boys Republic's bakery apprenticeship has continued in the years since, described in the school's own materials as a paid training program that gives students real bakery equipment to work with, and it has drawn continued community support such as a 2022 Rotary Club foundation donation 1112.

College and Career Readiness: The Year's Big Data Drop

The night's centerpiece was the second annual update on the district's performance on the state's "college and career indicator," presented by two members of district staff 13.

The state's official report — for the graduating class of 2016 — rated 50% of students "prepared" for college and career, 26.3% "approaching prepared," and 23% "not prepared" 14. Students could reach "prepared" status through five pathways: a CTE sequence with qualifying test scores (32.4%); state English/math testing benchmarks (55.3%); two semesters of dual enrollment, not yet a viable pathway that year (0%); a 3-plus score on two AP exams (38.6%); or UC/CSU "A-through-G" eligibility (82.1%) 1516.

Staff then walked through more recent district trends: cohort graduation rate up from 93.4% (class of 2016) to 95.5% (class of 2017) 17; roughly a quarter of high schoolers taking at least one AP course, with qualifying 3-or-higher scores climbing from about 66.5% toward nearly 70% 18; and SAT college-readiness rates rising across the two years discussed, a period complicated by a redesign of the SAT itself 19. About one in three high schoolers took a CTE course 20, and a new state metric found 7.7% qualified as "completers" who built a multi-course pathway rather than a single class 21. Dual enrollment reached 555 students through one community college partner and 491 through a CSU campus, alongside new "early college" courses launching that spring 2223. The AVID college-readiness program graduated 127 seniors in 2015-16 and 159 the next year 24, with 78% to nearly 80% earning four-year college acceptance 25.

Board members pressed staff on next steps: whether early college would expand beyond the two comprehensive high schools currently offering it, whether parents were being reached with information about it, and whether staff could compare AP enrollment against AP exam-taking rates and break down what dual-enrollment credits cost families 262728. A year later, the district reported the following cohort's "prepared" rate had fallen to 48.4%, with 19.6% "approaching prepared" and 32% "not prepared" — a step down from the baseline discussed this night 29.

Financial Audit and the First Year of Measure G

The district's outside auditor delivered an "unmodified" — clean — opinion on the district's financial statements for the year ended June 30, 2017, reporting no significant deficiencies or material weaknesses in internal controls 3031. The federal programs audit, covering Title I and special education spending, was also clean; the one finding in the state-program audit concerned unduplicated pupil-count reporting under the state's CALPADS system 32.

The auditor also presented the district's first-year audit of Measure G bond spending: of $208 million issued 33, the district had spent just over $3 million in year one, leaving about $205 million on hand 3435, with roughly 55% of that spending directly tested in the audit 36. One trustee asked for a dedicated Measure G spending update within the next month or two 37.

Employee Representative Reports

The certificated teachers' union representative reported that members had just ratified a tentative agreement, with 94.8% approval among 672 members who voted between January 8 and 16 38. The incoming president of the classified employees' union introduced themselves for the first time, pledging to work collaboratively with the district, and reported that the union's own contract had also just been ratified 3940. They also thanked two colleagues who had stayed with a fellow employee who fell ill and needed hospital transport, until the employee's family arrived 41.

Board Communications

Board members raised a run of administrative follow-ups: the district's Williams Uniform Complaint results for October through December 2017 (no complaints, no facilities deficiencies, zero teacher vacancies or misassignments) 42; ASB (student body) financial-control findings from the audit at all four comprehensive high schools, with a request that staff tighten up controls 43; a request for advance notice before disabling apps used by students or teachers, after a third-party grades app was found to be miscalculating scores and had to be taken down without warning 4445; concern about STEAM program funding at school sites 46; and a request to make the district's "We Tip" school-safety hotline link more visible on the district website 47.

One trustee described a week of school-site visits — including a teacher spending part of a lunch period tutoring students, and an assembly-day visit to an elementary school 4849 — before turning somber to describe attending the funeral of a 17-year-old Chino High School student, briefly paraphrasing a note the student had left about the value of family and friendship 5051.

District administration addressed an earlier board concern about the website's usability, saying a redesign was underway for the following school year, and announced that 2018-19 kindergarten registration would open that month 5253. Another trustee described a weekend robotics competition hosted at a junior high school, then closed by announcing the death of a longtime former district administrator who had spent decades working at multiple district sites, including at Boys Republic High School 5455.

Community Liaison Updates

A Chino Hills community liaison praised the elementary music program that opened the meeting 56. A representative from the county supervisor's office invited the community to a public open house on February 3 at the Chino Hills Community Center 57, and a City of Chino community-services liaison updated the board on Parks and Recreation programming and an upcoming round of nonprofit interviews for Community Development Block Grant funding 5859.

Consent Calendar and a Career Technical Education Month Resolution

The board approved its consent calendar, pulling one item for discussion: a resolution recognizing February 2018 as Career and Technical Education Month, timed to follow the evening's CTE data presentation 60. The resolution described CTE as a multi-year sequence of courses integrating academics with technical and occupational skills, intended to build pathways to post-secondary education and careers 61.

This is an independent, community-maintained summary of public records and is not affiliated with or endorsed by Chino Valley Unified School District. No official minutes are on file for this meeting; because the pairing of names to statements cannot be verified against an official record, this summary does not attribute any comment, position, or vote to a named individual. Names of appointees, retirees, and other individuals honored during the meeting have been withheld for the same reason.