Board of Education — April 9, 2024

Okay, we're going to start the meeting at 6.02. Roll call. Patty? Patty, hold on. I'm sorry. Everybody please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance. Can you lead us? Thomas. Thomas. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Righty, thank you. Is there a motion to adopt the agenda?

So moved.

Second? Second. Thank you. Discussion? All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Chair votes aye and so ordered. Okay, now we do the roll call. Okay, Patty? Aye. Jim? Present. Michelle? Present. Melissa?

Present.

Thomas? Here. All right. And I'm here. All righty. Next, a motion to approve the minutes of the March 13th, 2024 Board of Education regular meeting.

So moved.

Second. Thank you. Discussion? Okay, all those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Okay, chair votes aye and so ordered. Moving on to public participation, this section of the agenda is meant for any member of the public to address the board on anything that falls under the jurisdiction of the Board of Education. so um this is the time that any member of the board of the public may address the board on anything that falls under the jurisdiction of the board of education provided the person submits a completed registration card to address the board form to the clerk of the board or his or her designee prior to the time the chairperson calls the item of the board's consideration this is not meant to be a debating period Complaints and problems relating to policy matters will be referred to the superintendent. The person wishing to address the board shall, when recognized by the chairperson of the board, step up to the podium microphone and announce his or her name. The chairperson shall, in the interest of facilitating the business of the board, limit the amount of time which a member of the public may use in addressing the board to three minutes, unless the chairperson or majority of the board determines that a different limit is appropriate. Before we begin public participation, I would like to acknowledge that the board received emails from the following individuals, which will be included in the published minutes of the meeting. Lisa McCarty, Eileen Sanborn, Colleen Cady, and Deanna Espinoza. Okay, so Paul Blatchley.

Good evening board members, Superintendent Cabral, cabinet. My name is Paul Blatchley, I live in trustee area five, and I'm addressing you as a concerned high school parent. So I'm talking about agenda items here. So agenda item XVIIE, it's a rewriting or redoing of the freedom of speech related policy. And in there, there's a section that's actually not altered, right? It says students are prohibited from making any expressions or distributing or posting any materials that are obscene. And I'm wondering if the district, the board, anybody in the administration has a definition for the word obscene. Because clearly, having attended the last several board meetings, there's a disagreement. I'm sure that Safe Redlands Schools and Awaken Redlands would define the word obscene differently, right? So I don't know how you're going to enforce that policy. Right. On item XVF, so you're rewarding RHS like $6,000 to bring in and out to campus as a reward for filling out the FAFSA. My daughter filled out the FAFSA. What is the reward? Were the schools within the district each presented with, okay, here's your options for what rewards we're going to give you for filling out the FAFSA? And then what's the benefit to the district of getting people to fill out the FAFSA? So we're spending $6,000 to bring in and out to RHS. Are we bringing in and out to REV, in and out to Citrus Valley? Is it something else? Also, you know, you've got a lot of Asian students at RHS, right? I wonder about the choice of In-N-Out Burger. On the Williams complaint, which is XVH, which, you know, I'm redacted out of there, but it was me. So it doesn't matter, and I've said this before, right? It doesn't matter that the stool... that my student is forced to sit on during science lecture time is in good working order. It's not appropriate to have a student sitting for classroom lecture time on a stool that's meant for lab work. It's just not right. And I didn't include this, but I wanted to say on XVL, and I'm going to say this every time the stadium's on the agenda, all or part of the stadium should be named in honor of Glenn Johnson, longtime teacher at Rev. Thank you.

Thank you. Okay, Candy Olson.

Hi, I'm Candy Olson. Just yesterday, another case was settled with RUSD on failing to protect our children from sexual predators. There are eight more cases pending. So far, we're at 45.5 million to settle 16 sexual abuse lawsuits, from former students, the district has not admitted any guilt in any of these cases. My heart is so heavy, and the dust hasn't even settled from the recent win of Perry Davis against this district for retaliating against him for doing the right thing. Again, our HR superintendent was given the opportunity to apologize, but instead she doubled down. This is why the children of Redlands are losing. The leadership has failed and continues to fail, time and time again. And as if we didn't have enough, this board recently brought in a superintendent from a district swarming with child sexual abuse. Took about 30 seconds to find that. Now we know he's involved in a lawsuit all of his own for alleged cover ups. When will enough be enough? When will you stand for the children who are being harmed? The predatory behavior here will never cease until you become transparent, until you hold teachers and administrators accountable. It's really hard to do the hard work, but you guys were put on that board to be gatekeepers to protect our children. So you have to do the hard work and hold people accountable when they hurt children. Thank you.

Jeanette Wilson.

Good evening, my name's Jeanette Wilson and I wanted to speak to one thing on the agenda, which is the uniform complaint policy. I noticed that there were two complaints over the last three months, which I've said this before, I find that very hard to believe. based on all the complaints I hear parents talk about. So I really would encourage you to make that form mandatory. When a parent has a complaint, it should be mandatory that they fill out a form or that the school personnel fill it out for them so that you will know what the complaints are and how they got resolved or if they got resolved. I think that would help with a great deal of transparency. And as a general comment, I did want to talk about the culture that seems to exist in the Redlands Unified School District of sweeping abuse and other concerns under the rug. So to change the culture, it will have to start from the top. Perpetrators watch for these types of cultures. They talk to each other. They know where to apply for jobs, where they can get away with their sexual perversions. And now we have a superintendent with a cloud over his head of perhaps allegedly being involved in sweeping something under the rug. I mean, after all, it really should be about the children. All of this should be about the children, not the reputation of the school district, not the reputation of the board. People always say, if I could just do one thing to save a child, I would do it. Well, let's follow the law and report child abuse. And I have a saying that I think is very chilling, is that child abuse casts a shadow that lasts a lifetime.

Thank you.

Sarah Russ

My name is Sarah Russ and I have two kids in RUSD. I'm here tonight because I'm greatly concerned about the Redlands eAcademy being used to beta test the Minecraft Education Edition for the district. This app, though it includes many amazing features and has lots of potential, also has non-educational video games and many unanswered questions about safety. My husband and I have spoken multiple times with Principal Jeff Im, who has been unable to address our concerns beyond telling us to quote, just educate our kids about safety. In our opinion, our concerns are not outlandish or unreasonable and should be addressed. In our meetings, we were told, one, that parents will be entirely responsible for all monitoring of activities in this app off of school grounds. Two, as parents, we can't opt out of having this app on our kids' computers. All kids will automatically have it on their computers if they are in the beta test classes. Three, parents will not be able to limit time usage or change any settings in the game to make it safer, such as disabling the chat feature. Four, the in-game chat feature can't be monitored by the school using GoGuardian or Gaggle. nor will the kids, nor what the kids build in their worlds be monitored by the district at all. Basically, the kids will have carte blanche to do whatever they want in the game without any monitoring or tracking. I know of no other app the district uses where this is the case. As a parent, this is all very concerning, and it's not just a matter of, quote, educating our kids, like Principal M has said. These are important and valid concerns. It seems inconceivable that the district would add an app that has non-educational video games to school computers, let alone those that can't be monitored, tracked, limited, shut down, or opted out from. There are many things that need to be addressed and questions answered before this app is put on school computers. And I highly encourage you to halt the implementation of this beta test before these issues are sorted out. In my opinion, non-educational video games should not be on school computers, especially those that don't have monitoring. The potential risks and liabilities vastly outweigh the potential rewards. We don't need this app unless it's proven safe for our kids with effective monitoring and safety protections put in place. And parents have the option to disconnect if they choose. Please reconsider this decision and tell Minecraft no thank you. Thank you.

Tonight our student trustees from Redlands High School. Yeah, but you only have to fill out one card because public participation is for everything under community input and Yeah, that was in the past, but if you look at the new agenda item, so. No, I'm okay. Okay. Student trustee, tonight our student trustee is from Redlands High School. Welcome, Thomas. We're glad you're here. Go ahead and give us your report.

Starting off with RHS, we've had an amazing past couple weeks, both academically and in our activities. Our Chamber Singers did really well at their competition in San Antonio. Our Les Chanteuse leaves Wednesday for their competition in St. Louis. Our Winter Guard took fourth place at their finals on Saturday, and our Winter Percussion took second place in their semifinals. Over... Over spring break, our mock trial did really well at their competition. Our school went through all phases of the WASC accreditation successfully. We have started passing out caps and gowns for seniors. This upcoming Friday, we have our Optimist Games, and I encourage everybody to show up and support our incredible students. On April 20th, we have our prom at the Classic Golf Club in Palm Desert. In a couple weeks, we have our Senior In-N-Out Party for those who applied for the FAFSA. Moving on to Citrus Valley. Citrus Valley has had also an incredible last couple weeks. Their prom is this Saturday being held at the same venue as Redlands High Schools. They are holding a spirit week this week in preparation for their spring rally. Their performing arts program has done really well with their advanced choir taking the adjudicators award in first place at the World Strides Choral Festival that was held in New Orleans. The Citrus Valley Winter Guard took third place in their finals. Their sports are doing really well. Their badminton is off to a great start to the season. And their baseball is on a seven-game win streak. And they are sitting top at CBL. And they have a home game against Cajon tomorrow and on Friday. Additionally, their AVID and CRYROP students had mock interviews this past week. Volunteers from the community came and helped CV students with important skills needed for future job interviews. SBAC testing begins for juniors starting April 15th. At REV, tomorrow REV's AVID program will be revalidated for their distinction as a national demonstration school. Their avid program first received this prestigious recognition in 2020 and has held it since. Also tomorrow, RevPTSA will be hosting a Raising Cane's fundraiser from noon to 9 p.m. Their instrumental music program is hosting RevFest tomorrow and Thursday, inviting middle school and elementary bands to receive professional feedback and participate in fun games and activities. The Instrumental Music Program will also present their annual movie night on April 26th and 27th. Last weekend was Rev's Prom. This year's theme was Mirrorball, and it was hosted at Indian Wells in Palm Springs. The last... Sorry, I wasn't supposed to read that. This week is Senior Day at San Bernardino Valley College and Crafton Hills College. At Orangewood High School... They have their BattleBot competition coming up, and they can't wait to destroy the competition with their new bots. Their Fair Fire is next week, a wonderful time for new students and their parents to learn more about the clubs and classes they have at Orangewood. Their eSports club is getting ready for the RUSD Smash Bros tournament. They're glad to have all schools come together for some friendly competition. Orangewood placed second in boys basketball and had a great season. Their first soccer game is tomorrow. Their league is having a 5K against all schools. I'm not sure. Mecca celebrated the amazing work Cesar Chavez and Dolores Horta did this week with interactive activities during lunch and delicious champon parato to warm everyone up. We had a great time and learned a lot. April 16th is their second blood drive of the year. And they have tons of plans to celebrate this Earth Month over at Orangewood and encourage others in the district and community to do their part. At E-Academy, this coming Monday, they have their knowledge fair from 10 a.m. to 12 p.m., and they have their prom coming up on April 25th. That's it.

Right. Thank you very much. Anybody have any questions of Thomas or comments?

The Optimus games are this Saturday?

This Friday.

Oh, this Friday. Okay, good. Yeah.

Doesn't interfere with your bike classic.

No problem. Yeah. Maybe the people in the audience don't know what it is. Can you give us just a brief? I know you know, so.

Optimist Games brings in students from the special ed classes, and there's a club that helps put on events. I'm not quite sure what is part of the games, but I know there's a big relay race, and it's a really good chance for these students to go out and experience an amazing time.

That's very good. Are you going to be volunteering there Friday?

I didn't find out about it until last week.

That's okay. Well, it's a great event, so thank you for sharing that.

Any other comments? No?

Okay.

Okay, so we will now move into our association reports. Sue? Redlands Teachers Association.

No problem, I answer to both. Good evening school board trustees, superintendent Cabral, cabinet, staff and community. It seems like a few weeks ago we were just starting off this school year. It's gone by so incredibly fast and now we're two months away from the end. So I just want to caution everyone, it's going to be a whirlwind, but please pace yourself and take care of yourself. On a personal note, I was selected to attend two days of lobbying in Sacramento in support of AB2901. This is a bill that would grant up to 14 weeks of paid maternity leave for educators. Currently, there is no paid maternity leave for educators. This ends up affecting income for new mothers and has some retirement implications as well. The state teacher retirement system estimates this equates to about $100,000 loss in retirement for women. We are a profession dominated by women, so that has some long term implications. The legislative leaders and CTA are working to make this a state budget priority. So I want to emphasize state budget. This is not going to be the responsibility of local school districts. So I'm hoping that with that information, it continues on through the process. In other news, one of our very own Highland Grove teachers, Susan Kortz, has a published children's book, Alpaca Poe. The book aims to foster kindness, character, and individuality, and I'm hoping that we can consider adding this book to our school libraries. If you get a chance, please send Susan congratulations on this accomplishment. I understand there are other books coming in the series. And finally, this weekend, I got to meet Steven Acosta, the recipient of the Paula J. Monroe ESP of the Year Award. Now, if you don't know who the award is named after, I want to let you know she's from Redlands. She's an educational activist and a longtime member of RESPA. She was quoted in 2013 when this award was created that together we are better. And I think as we finish this year and get ready for the next, we need to keep that sentiment in the forefront. It will be a tough year next year. And as we navigate the budget constraints and the impact those are going to have on our teaching, but let's keep being collaborative, creative, and fearless. as we work to make sure Redlands schools are the best in the state. Together, we are better. And I want to thank you. I will see you all at the May meeting. And that is all for my report today.

Thank you.

So Redlands Educational Support Professionals Association, Liz is not here, so we're going to move on to REPA, Redlands Administrative Personnel Association, Becca.

Good evening, presidents, board, superintendent, and cabinet, and guests. I know it's not November, but this is a season of gratitude for many of us at the school sites as we enter this final leg of the school year. And so with nine weeks to go, There's much work to do, but we want to really take time right now as we have a bunch of appreciation days coming up to say thank you for all of the support that we are receiving as professionals throughout the district. So first, I actually wanted to start with a partnership with the Redlands Education Foundation and just shout out that next Friday we have our annual Harlem Wizards game, and we hope to see many of you there supporting. It'll be admin and teachers playing against the Harlem Wizards, and it's a lot of fun, and it raises a lot of money that goes right back into teachers' hands for the classroom, for books, and materials for students. Business Services, we wanted to say thank you for working on preliminary budgets for us to get us started and kind of ramping up to create our SPSAs for next year to support our students on campus. Tech Support, thank you, there's some of you in the back here, for helping us prepare for state testing and ensuring all devices are working and connectivity, we really appreciate you. We need you every day. Ed Services, thank you. Miss Sonja for supporting with ELPAC. We're all making great progress on that and ensuring that our students are rocking it right now. And then I really appreciate too, and I know that the teachers on my campus appreciate the support from Ed Services reaching out to staff to ask for input on our scope and sequence to help plan for next year as well and moving forward. So thank you for that Dr. Wagner. And just want to say it takes a team, and as RAPA, we are so glad to have a strong one here in Redlands that supports one another in the best interest of our students. Thank you.

Thank you. Okay, committee reports. Does anyone have something they would like to report?

Two things to remember, as Dr. Costa said, the Harlem Wizards game is on Friday the 19th. And I'm hoping that we have some players. Mr. Cabral, are you going to play? Okay. Anyway, so it's a really fun event. He always plays. It's a great event. The kids have so much fun, and I just hope everybody gets their tickets. Go to repforschools.com. You can get your tickets there, or at each school site, there's a poster, and you can just take a picture of the QR code and get your tickets that way. Hope everybody comes to that. Also, for Rep, they are planning the Evening of Appreciation. That's going to be in May. I believe it's May 8th. I don't have my notes, but That is sticking out to me. And that's when we recognize, REP recognizes teachers across the district. There's also the Arts Alive program that night that the kids' artwork that they've submitted gets unveiled, the winners. And you can purchase the cards for $10 a pack. So if anybody wants a pack of those cards, I'm your person. So that's it for REP. And I have nothing for compacting the meetings tomorrow.

I actually forgot my highlights for cryo, but, and I hate to do this, Dr. Engel, do you have anything that you would like to, I hate to, you can say no, but I know we're really excited about the aviation program and our evening of excellence coming up, so I was hoping you could maybe share just a couple things with the board.

Sure.

Sorry. Put me on the spot.

So, yes, as you hinted at, preparations continue for the Aviation Academy that we hope to get up off the ground next school year. And that's going to be at REV. And we're really excited about all the different partners that we're meeting with to make that happen. Right now, our biggest challenge is recruiting a pilot. to come and teach our students so if anybody is friends with a pilot that maybe is retired or has time on their hands we would love to recruit a highly qualified pilot to come work with our students so that was something we could definitely use some assistance with right now This past month, I think somebody mentioned it. I think Mr. Heron mentioned it. We had mock interviews at several school sites, and the kids did great. I got to sit across the table from a few of the kids, and they came dressed really sharp. They did a great job keeping eye contact. I think somebody talked to them by eye contact, and I felt guilty looking away at my notes because they were just like lasered into their eyes. And they had really practiced and rehearsed and did a lot of research to be ready for those interviews. So our kids are going through some great experiences to prepare them for next steps after they leave high school. So with that, I'll turn it back to you.

So sorry about that again. Sorry. And for anybody that didn't know, that is Dr. Jason Engel. He is our cryop superintendent.

Yes. Okay, on to Board of Comments. We'll start with, who would like to speak first? Jim?

And no, I don't have anything to report from the Parks and Rec Department, thank you. But they meet Thursday. So, yeah, a shout-out to Mrs. Anaya at Citrus... Her choir, boy, her choir has rocked at the recent competitions. And they had a safe journey to New Orleans. It was amazing. And just got first place in everything, everywhere they sang. So it was like really, really, really great for them to have that experience. And Mr. Diaz and his choir also at RHS, as you know, doing well. And Thomas, you didn't mention that you're in the band, and you guys have a pretty awesome band, right? Yeah, indeed. So our theater and arts and music programs continue to shine. They're just unbelievable. And full credit goes to our amazing staff that lead those students to that quality and that success. kind of performance excellence. Thanks for mentioning Optimus Games. That's awesome, even though the Bike Classic is going on. And speaking of the Bike Classic, Saturday and Sunday, my Kiwanis duties will find me at the... top of the parking structure downtown uh preparing breakfast for anybody who would like to come and board members i have some tickets here if you want to see me after the meeting and you want to have breakfast just see me but we have a secret recipe for our pancakes be the best pancakes you've ever had so i guarantee it if you ask me when you come this week or next weekend no it's this weekend I'll give you the secret. The only one word. The Wizards game, I'll encourage everybody to participate in that. It's always a lot of fun. I hold my breath while our employees play, hoping no one goes down in a heap. I think we have had a couple of injuries in the past, so I'm praying that no one goes down on their ankle this year. But it's great entertainment, and the kids have a great time with that. I would like to ask the superintendent, if the board so sees, to look into that Minecraft beta testing that's going on. I would like to know if those concerns are addressed. And that's all I have for now. Thank you.

Thank you. So tonight, I'm really thrilled that we're going to be hopefully approving new curriculum, which is Dance One. So I want to give a shout out to Ed Services for bringing that. I think it's going to be a great program. So I'm really looking forward to that. I attended the fundraiser for the Redland Symphony Orchestrate. where our fourth graders get a chance to go see a symphony at the U of R. It's fully funded, including the busing and everything that is there. It's a great time for them to experience the music and the arts and to see a symphony, which is awesome, and get them going. I attended a couple events hosted by Congressman Obernolte and Supervisor Don Rao. And unfortunately, on April 19th also, there's another fundraiser the same day that they are doing the basketball. It's Redlands Bench Warmers. And the money goes to the Redlands Unified School District Athletics for all athletics at all schools. And it's a roast, their annual roast that they do in their major fundraiser for the Punchformers. And it's Friday the 19th, and this year they will be roasting our Mayor Pro Tem Paul Barich and Redlands High School alum. So fortunately it's the same night, so it can't be everywhere, but that's that. Looking forward to seeing our Redlands High School Heart Academy students attend EMS Day at Arrowhead Regional next Wednesday. So thank you for Heart Academy for coming out. And next week we look forward to having them. And then also I was able to stop and catch a little bit of the CV RHS boys golf, where our student athletes looked very professional. I don't know who won because I left, but it was just great to see them out there. Thank you.

Thank you. Michelle? Michelle?

Good evening, everyone. First I want to thank Jessica Keating and Redlands Council of PTAs for the beautiful association meeting and brunch last month. And a special thanks to Carrie Ann for making the room look so great and so inviting. That was such a fun day. I had a chance to go to Mentone to witness their avid open house. And I want to thank Dr. O'Day and Mr. Flowers for inviting me. The students took their families around to the classroom so they could just see a little bit of what AVID is at Mentone. I was pretty impressed. And I saw Juan, and we went and sat down and listened to one presentation. They were really good. Tomorrow night at COPE is a social media and cyberbullying safety forum, and I encourage all parents to go. I think this is just really helpful and necessary right now in light of everything that's going on in our schools and on social media. I think it would be really beneficial for parents and students to hear this. And I also went to Beatty. I walked around with fifth graders and learned about becoming a bobcat next year. So that was really cool. I like how they did that, how they brought kids to the school. And Optimist Games on Friday. And the Wizards game on the 19th. I am going to try and be in two places at once. So I'm going to go first to the roast and then go to the game. So that's my plan. To also... This weekend is the bicycle classic, as you know. The last two days we have hosted teams, assemblies at each elementary school and one middle school, two middle schools, no, three middle schools, I'm sorry, three middle schools, one high school. So we had the visits the last two days. Lots of fun. The bike riders are very excited. We have a lot of young riders riding in our race this year, which is really neat. So if your kids have not registered for the races yet, you still can do it. You can race register on that morning. You probably won't get a T-shirt. I don't know, but they will still get to race and compete in the school duel, and hopefully their school will get the trophy for the year and take it away from Judson and Brown. Not that I don't like Judson and Brown, but they've had it for a long time, so another school needs it. And I just was going to give a little shout-out to the Kiwanis Club and Jim and let you all know to go up there and get some pancakes. And we're pretty excited for the races, and hopefully we're going to have some teachers and help in there do the public races in the morning. So I hope everybody comes out. And that's all I have. Thank you. Oh, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. No, I'll do that next time. Never mind.

So I... Thanks to Jim. Got to experience a very fun event. It was probably one of the most rewarding I've had in quite some time. I was invited, again, as Jim's guest, to the Islamic Center of Redlands to their Ramadan Iftar dinner. It was put on by the Islamic Center of Redlands and the Redlands Peace Academy. And it was certainly an experience, one that I had never had before, and I absolutely welcome it again. So with that being said, I did get to meet some families that I probably wouldn't have otherwise got to meet. I got to sit with an incoming COPE Eagle who asked me lots of questions about what's going on at COPE, being that I have a child at COPE, and she was just full of nerves and she wanted answers to questions. There's a lot of rumors out there. about what it's like to be a COPE Eagle. But hopefully I helped ease some of those nerves. But they were shared by both the student and mom. And I mean, now we have our Becoming an Eagle Day coming up. So I mean, hopefully all that stuff gets taken care of. But I would like to, and I hope, I mean, the rest of the board shares my sentiment that if there are other community events out there going on, that maybe we don't know about. We know about district events and some with our partnering organizations, but if there are other community events going on and you wouldn't mind having a board member show up, please, please email us with an invitation because I would love to get out and meet more of the community that I might not otherwise meet or maybe who doesn't have, maybe some of our community members don't have kids in the district yet. Or maybe they're all grown up. But I would love to do more out there. And so please, email me. Oh, and yes, it is the last couple months of school. And my son picked up his cap and gown today. I haven't seen it yet. And I probably don't want to cry when I do see that. But it's going to go fast. And it's going to go like we have prom coming up. And just breathe in the moments. Try to slow it down as best you can. But we're almost there, guys. Thank you.

Right. Thomas?

Well, at RHS the past couple of weeks, before we went on break, the instrumental music program, we hosted our Redland High School Day of Festivals, which was actually two days now, and all four of Mr. Hansen's groups took Unanimous Superior. Our golf team is, I believe, won that competition. We've had a lot going on in the past, especially before Spring Break, going through our WASC accreditation. We successfully went through all of that, but we have nothing new coming up that I don't think I already addressed. Thank you.

I want to give a shout-out to my two girls that are sitting in the back. Love you, Brianna and Emma. Thank you. Also, I want to talk about spring fever and that normally occurs with our students, you know, throughout the whole district where they know it's only about two months left and they're excited about, you know, ending the school year and they start getting antsy and they just have a lot more energy. So I want to give the teachers a shout out. Hang in there. We got a couple of more months left. I know what it's like to be at a school site where the kids have so much energy and excitement. And to the classified staff, Continue to be patient and understanding. This is an exciting time for everybody during the school year, because many of our students are excited to go on to their next grade level, or they're excited to get ready for their summer break. And we have a lot of sunshine coming soon, so spring fever's coming. Thank you, teachers and classified, for all that you do on a daily basis. Next, I'd like to talk about artificial intelligence. So before I talk about artificial intelligence, I just want to mention during the pandemic, one of the positive things that came out during the pandemic, it leveled the playing field when it came to the use of technology throughout all of the schools in the United States. All of the teachers from one day to the next had to learn how to utilize Google Classroom. And the students, for the first time, got to take home a school computer, laptop, Chromebook. So now we are dealing with artificial intelligence. So what do we do moving forward as a district? How can we utilize and take advantage of artificial intelligence and teach the students how to utilize it? How do we embrace it and move forward with the speed and growth of technology? So I want to make sure that we're at the forefront and we're looking at creating a possible committee so that way we can develop a plan or policy on how to utilize the increased use in artificial intelligence. Chat GPT is not going away, and there are a lot of programs that our students can utilize and benefit, as well as our staff and teachers. So those are all the comments I have. Next, we're going to go on to a superintendent's report. Juana?

Yes, thank you. Good evening, everyone. First of all, Thomas, nice work. It's really good to have you up here. I'm really enjoying having our student trustees join us every month. Okay, tomorrow night, I've been talking about it for a couple months now, is the Social Media Cyberbullying Safety Forum. And it is at Cope Middle School, and I've talked about being in partnership with parents and our community members and in just finding out as much information as we can to help with respect to social media and how our students can use it more responsibly so please come out we did take Some advice last time about maybe live streaming, and we looked into that, and we tried our best to make that possible for tomorrow night. But it's really up to the presenters. We have to honor what they feel is best for them. And San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department is actually going to put on this safety form for us, and they did not agree to be live streamed. So for this one, we will not be live streaming it. but we are going to attempt to live stream every safety forum that we can. And that includes, in the future, finding presenters who are okay with it up front and making sure that we can include more folks that can't be there in person. But if you can be there, please, 6 p.m., Cope Middle School. I will see you there, and we can have a good discussion. They're doing a Q&A right after their presentation. Okay. Last meeting, we also talked about books a lot, and one of the things that I looked into was the online system that we have that has all of our books listed at every one of our schools. That does exist, but I did confirm that we don't have it open to the public. You can't go online and just look at every single book that we have in our library. We're looking at the possibilities of that right now in order to access that. You have to have a student ID, student email. So our students are able to go online from their homes and see what books we have, but the general public cannot, and we're looking into that a little bit more. So that does exist. We've already talked about the Optimist Games that are happening this Friday. I'm pretty excited about that. It'll be my first opportunity to see our Optimist Games, and so I'll be out there at RHS Friday morning. I'll see some of you out there. Our last Superintendent's Awards of the Year is happening next Tuesday. Really excited about that. We're not only going to celebrate our students from each school, we're also gonna celebrate all of our students who have qualifying scores of four and above in our advanced placement exams from last year. And so it's going to be a huge event. We'll be in the clock auditorium at RHS. There's going to be 1,000 of us there celebrating kids. It's a little bit of exaggeration. It's probably closer to about 900. No, I was playing. There's going to be a lot of us there, though. It's going to be a lot of fun, so come out if you can. And then we started something new just this week. We are going to be visiting many of our sites, all of our sites, and all of our departments and divisions because we are going to celebrate our classified employees who have been at work every day for the months of February and March. And we're going to be personally delivering certificates to our team members who have come to work every day, and celebrate their excellence in attendance. So that'll be a lot of fun. We've not done that before, and hopefully it'll be something that's well received from our folks. And tomorrow we're going to start off with Rev. I think some of us already started handing them out at the district office, and so we're pretty excited about celebrating our employees, because everybody works really, really hard. I think that's everything on my list. Oh, the Bicycle Classic. I will be there Saturday morning to help out. I'm excited about that. Also, I hear there's bikes just humming. And so I can't wait to see that. And it'll be Saturday morning downtown. So thank you very much. Pancakes. Now I'm really excited. I didn't know I was going to get pancakes, too. All right. Thank you.

Thank you, Juan. Next tonight we have Sonia, our Director of English Learners, and Parent Engagement will be giving us a DLAC update.

Good evening. It's been a while since I've been here. So good evening, President Vara, board members, our awesome student Thomas, our superintendent, cabinet, and community. I'm here this evening for our annual District English Learner Advisory Committee presentation. So this is a presentation we do annually. It's required. And I report the minutes to the state that we have shared information with our school board regarding DLAC. Tonight, I'd like to share some data with you. It's not a data presentation, though, because that belongs to my colleague, Jamie Quartz. So I don't like to step on his stage. But I will be sharing some data with you. I'll also be sharing some information with needs assessments, what we do as a DLAC committee, and the work that we focus on throughout the school year. So to begin, Let's hope this works. There we go. So 49 is the number of different languages, beautiful languages that are spoken in the classrooms, the hallways, the athletic fields across our district. Last year, I think it was 50. So we lost one language there. This data is actually based on our October of 2022 CALPADS data. So our CALPADS day is every October. And you can find this public website, DataQuest, has all the information here. So our top three languages in our district are Spanish, with over 2,000 students. Arabic is second over 200, almost 250 students, and Vietnamese coming in third. And these three languages have not changed as the top three over the last six years. EL Data at a Glance, this also comes from DataQuest from 22-23. This is a report that you can find on DataQuest. It compares the district, the county, and the state. There are columns for English-only students, IFEP students, English learner, RFEP, and I know that's my world, so some of those acronyms are kind of different for everyone. But just to give you a baseline, because this is the community that our DLAC is making decisions for. So our English learner population there is just a little over 1600 students at that time that we captured this back in October of 2022, which is about 8.2% of our population. And there you can see the comparison with the county as well as the state. So reclassification is the goal. So this is a basic information, but we've changed the data up for you this year. This data is actually not from DataQuest. This is our own real data from ARIES and Elevation. So we've captured the data so that you could see how our students are reclassifying. Reclassification means that a student is moving from English learner to RFEP. They've learned enough English and have shown through criteria that they are now almost equivalent to an English only student. So we monitor that and once they are RFEPed, we are required to monitor them for four years. Back in October, as a board, you looked at the district criteria and approved the criteria at that time. So very quickly, I'd like to look at the chart there. on the right in green is the number of english learner students so that's what that number represents the blue is the number of students that we happen to reclassify during that school year and then the red is a representation of the percentage of that population at the time very quickly i just like to start at the bottom to tell the story In 2019, we had 285 students. So you look at that and you think, wow, that's pretty impressive. It is impressive, because at that time, we were still allowed to have our students take the ELPAC and score a three or a four. And in 2020, that rule changed to ELPAC level four only. So all those level three students back in 2019, that did not apply in 2020. So that's why you see a difference in that number there. Now, we all know what happened post 2020. So you see that number decrease there. We did not have as many students taking assessments in that spring of 2020. Therefore, we did not have as many ways to reclassify our students. But as soon as we were able to get back into the classroom, we began the process over and we started to focus our teachers on how to reclassify our students, looking at the criteria, and then little by little we began increasing our overall number and our percentage and what's really important to note is although we've had declining enrollment for our english learner students as a total we continue to increase the number of students that are being reclassified so that's been wonderful Each California public school district with 51 or more English learners must have a DLAC. So you see that we're well over 1,500 to 1,600 students annually. So that's the reason we have the committee. The committee holds five to seven meetings per year. We are on a hybrid schedule, so we start off in person, and then we go virtual, and we will be having an in-person meeting in the middle of May. Here's what it looks like when we're on our hybrid schedule. I had everybody say cheese here. I did not capture everything, but there was a second screen. And then these are our amazing officers. So these are the parents that have come to the meetings and they've read through our bylaws and they've committed to do the work that's necessary for our English learner students. Our president this year is Norma De Leon. Our vice president is Karen Pineda. Our secretary is Rebecca Astorga. And our spokesperson is Laura Garcia. And this year we have a message from our DLAC president.

Hello, my name is Alejandra De Leon. I'm the president of DLAC here in Redlands Unified District. The importance of encouraging our kids to speak multiple languages is to help them with their self-esteem and also to make friends with other people that live in different countries. When we introduce our kids to a second language, we are not only introducing them to the language itself, but also we are introducing them to the culture of that language. This will help them to be mindful of the people around them

Our DLAC officers are truly dedicated to all of our students, and especially helping each other as parents. So what do we do as a DLAC? If you could go back, there we go. Quickly, we review the master plan. So we have an English Learner Master Plan, which was also approved by our board earlier in the fall. We look at a needs assessment, which I'll be sharing those results with you. I also share results with school sites as it pertains to them. We look at the EL education program, its goals, its objectives. We make sure services are aligned for our English learner students. We offer training and a lot of parent involvement. So this month we have parents that will be attending the California Association for Bilingual Education Parent Training at UC Riverside. In addition, we look at parent notifications, student handbooks, letters that go home. We ask our parents for input to make sure that they understand and that everything that goes home is in a language that they can understand. So they really work hard to look at those things closely on our district websites, et cetera. we discussed reclassification we always talk about the criteria because the state surprises us with changes every now and then and so we need to review that we have an annual language assessment assessment our english learner students are currently in lpac testing season and we hope that we get some of those level fours out of this assessment so we can move them to reclassification Again, we look at the EL programs. We look at data. They provide LCAP input. And we look at requirements for teachers and teacher instructional aides. We have a set of bylaws that we follow and we adopt annually. And we usually end our May meeting with approving to apply for Title III federal funding for our English learner students. So that will be coming up in May. The needs assessment. Very quickly, I wanted to let you know, this is very important because this is the meat of what we need to share with you from the committee to the board. We look at them in categories when we're talking about our needs because that helps our committee focus academics, attendance and behavior, social emotional learning, and then EL programs overall. You can see some of the ideas in each of the categories, such as reading with small children for academics, rewards and incentives for students in attendance, PBIS assemblies, they really want to see more of those. And when we get to EL programs, we talk a lot about how important it is to have our teachers trained on strategies to use in the classroom, make sure our students are ready for assessments, tutoring before and after school. And believe it or not, we have a lot of newcomer students, new to the country, that are coming every single day After every break, we always have a group of new students to our country and our department is responsible for making them have a smooth transition into our school system. Latino family literacy is listed there because I wanted to remind you that our communications team is so awesome. And they will be putting together a video that will be coming out to our website soon. So be on the lookout for that. That highlights reading with small children. That's what the Latino family literacy project is. So to conclude, we will continue the work. We will make changes to our district master plan. We did have a state audit this year, and we had some language that needed to be updated, so we'll take care of that. We'll continue to work with our professional development director on professional development for the entire rest of this school year and into next school year. parent education opportunities will continue we always want to remain in compliance so that is very important to our DLAC committee and we're always talking about federal laws and state laws because that's changing all the time so legislation is a conversation that happens a lot during our DLAC meetings We will re-explore implementation of dual immersion program or, at a minimum, a bilingual pathway to support the global California 2030 initiative. We really need to be in front of that. And, of course, annually we'll continue to support reclassification and the state syllabi literacy, which we will have our syllabi literacy and AVID evening recognition next month. And that's all I have for this evening, short and sweet. I'm open to any questions if you have any questions, or you can email or contact me.

Any questions?

Thanks, Sonia. Good evening. So the graph that shows the number of EL students and then how many that have been redesignated.

Yes.

So I want to say that it looks like a great number. Is 12% a good number, and is there a comparison with other districts?

It is a good number, yes. So if you go on DataQuest, you can see a comparison, and we are usually within two or three percentage points above or below. It just depends. This has been great for us. The 12% in this year, because I really wanted to show you this year, right? We do most of our reclassification in the fall. We start looking at ELPAC scores in August, to be honest. And then we're going through the process, because it is a process to reclassify. So the 12% is great. And we believe that we're... above many of the districts surrounding districts. But we also have to look at the overall percentage. We do have an 8%, which is lower than some districts. So it is kind of hard to compare. We wanted you to see within our district without comparing to other districts, because the percentage is very different from our neighboring districts.

Well, I know people work hard on that, and they do amazing work. They really do. And I always admire students who are able to get to that threshold.

Yes, and our principals also honor the students with certificates, and the parents are able to understand what reclassification means, and so it's really nice.

I look forward to your night of biliteracy awards. It's always awesome. Yes. Thank you. Yes.

Go ahead. I see a to be determined category on the data quest sheet. Is that supposed to be like students who are coming in who have not entered into the district yet? Correct.

Thomas is so awesome. So to be determined on the graph, in case you have a copy in your hand, to be determined are the students that are waiting to be tested. So when we have an influx, for example, after spring break, we usually have students that have enrolled during those two weeks that we're off. And they need to be assessed with the initial ELPAC. So they don't usually have a score yet. They don't have what's called an ELAS, which is their label inside of our student information system. Great question.

All right. I just have a couple of questions, but it's more of a scaffolding thing because we used a lot of abbreviations, and those of us that are in education know all of the abbreviations and those that aren't. So I just wanted to, so just for the public information, what does ELD mean?

ELD is English Language Development. ELD is required by the state of California in all classrooms for all English learners.

What is ELPEC?

ELPAC is the state assessment. So it's the English Learner Assessment for California that started about 2019. We transitioned from CELT to ELPAC, and it's an online assessment. Our old assessment was like a test booklet, more like what I was used to when I was in school. But the ELPAC is an online assessment. Four domains, listening, speaking, reading, and writing.

What is EL?

English Learner.

And who's identified as an EL person?

A student. So if you've had experience of enrolling your child in a school system, there is a home language survey. And there are four questions on the home language survey. If there is another language on any of the four questions, then we are required by state law to assess your student for their English proficiency. And so that's what happens when we're at the enrollment center, we work with the enrollment center, and they flag the student for the language assessment center to assess them.

And what does RFIP mean?

RFIP is when the student moves from an English learner to reclassified fluent English proficient. So that's what reclassification stands for, the R. And how do you get reclassified? You get reclassified by meeting four criteria. The first one is all the criteria set by the state. So that's the most important thing to remember because sometimes parents think that I set the criteria and I really don't. So that's a state assessment. So the ELPAC for all of our English learners, level four. For our students with disabilities who are also duly identified as English learners, there's an alternate ELPAC 3. And then there's teacher evaluation, which could look like grades. There is parent consultation. Parents need to be consulted if their students are reclassified. And there's the performance of basic skills.

All right. And then the last question. What is the general expectation of when a student enters Redlands Unified to when he's classified?

The general expectation is that if they are an English learner student, they will receive ELD, so English language development, daily through all content classes. So not just with an ELD teacher, but through all science, math, history classes. because what we're doing is enriching their academic vocabulary so that they can become fluent English proficient while maintaining their home language. We really encourage them to keep their home language as well. So we can expect to support them with different scaffolds until they are ready to reclassify.

And last question, and then Melissa has a question after this. And who does this on a daily basis with the students?

Daily basis, the classroom teacher. We also have some instructional paras. They're also going to an event this month at UCR. We have four in the district right now for our language programs. So the teachers and the paras are really working hard with our students every day.

All right, my quick question. From once a student is identified by the enrollment center that there is another language spoken, about how long does it take for them before they're assessed to receive support?

So by law, we need to test them within 30 days of receiving their enrollment. And then the turnaround for the results is about two to three weeks from our testing system, which is called ETS. So they can receive services on their first day. Even if they have the TBD status, Thomas, the teacher still knows that they are potentially an English learner student and begins working with them on day one in the classroom.

Thank you, Sonia, for sharing all of that. I just wanted to show how much is done for all of our students and how the teachers work with our students on a regular and how our classified staff support and work with our students. It's just amazing. They're doing an amazing job, and thank you for sharing the information today.

You're welcome.

All righty, next, let's begin with business service consent items. Is there a motion to approve item 15A, consent items B through P?

So moved. I'll second.

Thank you, discussion? All those in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Chair votes aye. And so ordered. Okay, next we are going to see adopt resolution number 27, 2023, 2024 resolution to authorize temporary borrowing between funds of the school district. Is there a motion?

I'll move.

Discussion? OK, all those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Opposed? Chair votes aye, and so ordered. OK, is there a motion to approve item 17A, consent items B through J?

Move. Second.

Carry on. OK. Discussion?

Yes, as I mentioned, just happy about the new district curriculum for the dance one secondary study. That's going to be awesome. I'm so happy for that.

Anybody else? All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Chair votes aye and so ordered. Okay, moving on to action items under educational service. We are going to go ahead and take all of the ed services action items together. Is there a motion to approve items 18A through 18H? I'll move. Second? Second. Okay, thank you. Discussion? Discussion? Okay, all those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Opposed? Chair votes aye and so ordered. Okay, is there a motion to approve item 19A, consent items B through A-N?

Second.

Thank you. Discussion?

Lots of retirees. That's good. Congratulations.

Thank you. All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Opposed? Chair votes aye and so ordered. Okay, we have no human resource action items or any discussion items listed tonight, so we're going to go ahead and adjourn the meeting at 7.13. Thank you.