Board of Education — August 20, 2024

Okay, it is 607. We're going to go ahead and get this meeting started. Thank you all for coming today. Let's start off with the Pledge of Allegiance. Alina, will you lead us in the pledge?

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.

Thank you. Okay, is there a motion to approve the agenda with flexibility?

Move.

Second?

I'll second.

Thank you, discussion? Okay, student preferential vote. So that- Aye. Those in favor say aye. Aye.

Aye.

Chair votes aye and so ordered. Okay, is there a motion to approve the minutes of the July 9th, 2024 Board of Education regular meeting, July 31st, 2024 special Board of Education meeting and August 6th, 2024 Board of Education regular meeting? Can I have a motion? Thank you. Discussion? Okay, student preferential vote.

Aye.

All those in favor say aye. Aye. Chair votes aye and so ordered. Okay so in regard to public employee appointment part of the agenda I would like to report the following. During closed session the board unanimously took action to accept the resignation of certificated employee 2024-2501 effective August 21st 2024 and to approve the settlement agreement in connection therein. 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 we have Jacqueline Olivares. Come on down. So.

Hello, everyone. My name is Jacquan Olivarez. I'm here for a concerned mother for a daughter that attends Highland Grove Elementary. I'm here today to support a friend, Ashley D'Ambro, whose daughter has faced bullying and witnessed two students being weapons onto the school campus. Her daughter bravely reported this as she saw this. She told her mother and the school staff identified her bullies. However, since this, However, since this then responded from Ms. Pry, which is the principal there, it has been disappointing. I feel like it should have been a serious situation where she should have taken it serious. But nothing was addressed. As a parent, I am deeply concerned for the safety, not only for my daughter, but all the children at Highland Grove Elementary. I'm even contemplating of pulling my daughter from the school because this lack of action is bringing attention to other parents. I'm not an absent parent. I'm actively involved. I volunteer my time and the resources at the school. So I ask you, what will you do? What will you do if this was your child? Will you ignore a mother's plea or brush this under the rug?

Thank you. Next we have Ashley D'Ambra. Did I say it right? Okay, thank you. D'Ambra, all righty.

Hi, I'm Ashley D'Ambra and I've stood before you many times. Usually to remind you that Highland Grove needs a crossing guard and we still do. But this time it's personal. A week ago today my daughter was threatened at school during ELOP. There were three boys. One of them brought weapons that looked very real to my daughter and it scared her. They attempted to bribe her once but twice. The second boy looked my daughter in the eyes and said, I wish I could shoot you so that you'd keep your mouth shut. And my daughter was brave enough to turn around and do the right thing. I drove to the school immediately after leaving my job, and I spoke to the AP and I expressed my concerns. The next day, your principal Amy Pry of Highland Grove called my daughter to the office to investigate, and upon arrival, my daughter sat in the common area of that office with the very boys who threatened her. She was interviewed. She was sent back to class where she was then bullied by a third boy, telling people that she was a snitch and that she was the problem. After these interactions, my daughter went from being flabbergasted that these boys had the audacity, and trust me, those are my daughter's words, to speak to her like this, to being genuinely concerned. And for the first time since she's been in TK, she looked me in the eyes and said, Mommy, please don't make me go to school because I'm scared and they haven't gotten in trouble and I don't understand why, Mom. I work for a different district and I've contemplated taking my children there, but I went to Redlands. I graduated from here and I love this community, so I chose to keep them here. The fact that my daughter sat in the very room with the boys that threatened her is negligent and an oversight for her well-being. This district is see something, say something, and that is what my daughter did. the missteps and the empty promises and the negligence has continued and I would be more than happy to forward that email to each and every one of you because I am a parent and I made sure after every conversation to follow up with an email of details of our conversations. In one conversation, your principal in fact decided to throw the ed code at me. She was not wrong in the laws that she said to me, but she was wrong to tell a crying mother that is concerned for her daughter about an ed code. There is a time and a place, and that was neither. How poorly this has been handled is why my children have not been back to ELOP for an entire week. My five-year-old is being punished alongside his fourth-grade sister for something that he doesn't even understand. He wants to be back on campus with his teachers making oobleck. He doesn't want to be in a babysitter. This is a program that is ran by phenomenal teachers at Highland Grove. Yet those boys have not missed a single day. I'm not done, but I'd be more than happy to forward you the rest of my speech.

You could finish.

According to your staff, they are following the district's recommendations and somebody amongst you guys already knows that this situation has occurred. I want to be clear that I could have filed a police report and a restraining order making this messier than it is, but I'm an educator also and I didn't want to put that on those boys because I'm hoping that these were empty threats of kids saying stupid things. My husband and I chose not to this time, but next time they will if my daughter is ever threatened again. All of the children are of our utmost importance. You guys should read the book, Why Meadow Died by Andrew Pollock. My daughter will not be another meadow and that's why I stand before you because you should know what's happening on these campuses. If it wasn't for the phenomenal teachers that you have at Highland Grove and the relationships that I have built with them, not only as a mother, not only as a past URSD employee, but also as your PTA president, my kids wouldn't have stepped back on that campus because it has been negligence. And my daughter's well-being has not been of the utmost importance. We are more concerned with checking boxes and the kids who threatened her than the kid that was threatened. I don't want to be here tonight, you know, where I want to be at home with my kids having dinner. But I have to be here for her and I looked her in the eyes yesterday and I said, baby, mommy is going to make sure that everybody knows that this is not okay. So on that note, I want to say God bless you and we need to do better.

Thank you. Nicole Gilliam.

Hi. My name's Nicole. I'm also a mother of two children who attend Highland Grove. I'm here today to support a fellow mom whose child witnessed boys bringing weapons to school. These boys not only brought weapons to school, but threatened, bullied, and assaulted her for bravely speaking up. Despite these serious actions, I have yet to see any consequences been taken. I'm deeply concerned for the safety of all of our children. I believe this situation should be addressed with the utmost seriousness. If I do not feel my children are safe or my children do not feel they are safe, they will no longer be here. Today, I urge you to look up the California Penal Code. I believe Section 240, which states verbal threats can be considered a crime or an assault in California. This code defines assault as an unlawful attempt coupled with a present ability to commit a violent injury on the person of another. A verbal threat alone may be constituted as an assault if it is threatening enough that it could put a reasonable person in fear of imminent physical harm. The fact that I have seen no action taken is pure negligence. So I ask you, what are we doing to keep our babies safe? Because where I'm standing, I'm not seeing them being safe. The superintendent states in his message to all families, and I quote, We aim to provide our scholars with the very best academic rigor, career guidance, social emotional support, and safety. We need to aim higher and do better. It's not okay. Thank you.

Thank you. Just so you know, the superintendent or somebody from his office will be reaching out. All righty, next we have student report. Oh, wait a minute.

Roll call? I didn't take attendance, right?

Yes. All righty. So we have Alina here. Melissa.

Present.

Michelle.

Present.

Jim. Present. And I'm present. All right. So next we're going to go to trustee report. So tonight we have Alina from Citrus Valley High School. We're glad you're here.

Thank you and good evening. So I just want to say that since we're still in the process of gathering student trustees for the 2024-25 school year, I will be reporting for just Redlands East Valley and Citrus Valley High School today. So I'll go ahead and start off with Rev. Fall sports are well underway at Rev. This week, girls volleyball and girls flag football both have home games, and boys varsity and freshman football have their first away games at Vista Del Lago. The Marching Wildcats wrapped up 2024 band camp preparing pep tunes and this year's competitive show for all eternity. Rev Esports is excited to be starting their third year. Among the returning games, they're excited to introduce Street Fighter 6. The class of 2025 has kicked off their senior year by hosting both Senior Sunrise and Senior Fling. These events were both lots of fun and they're looking forward to many more. Lastly, Wildcat Club Rush is tomorrow, Wednesday the 21st at lunch. Moving on to Citrus Valley for sports. The inaugural game for our girls flag football team was held on August 13th. Citrus Valley played against Yucaipa and won 31 to 0. Football season started off strong last Friday with our annual black and gold scrimmage. Our first official football game and the freshman girls volleyball invitational tournament will both be this Friday. Also, the first cross-country meet of the season will be held this weekend at Cal State San Bernardino. For our performing arts, the Citrus Valley Marching Men, also known as the Black and Gold Brigade, worked hard during band camp over the last week of summer to work on our upcoming competitive show called Mission Accepted. The CV Performing Arts Applause Awards were also held this morning. Students dedicated efforts in their respective instrumental, vocal, or theatrical ensembles, rewarded them with Bravo, Encore, or Ovation awards, as well as a donut to kick off their day. Lastly, concerning social events and school pride, Link Crew Orientation was extremely successful this year due to incredible participation from the class of 2028. Also, Black Hawks have been keeping up with school spirit every Friday by wearing their shirts labeled We Are CV that each student received during their scheduled pickup day before the start of the school year. Lastly homecoming tickets will go on sale starting next week and our annual club rush will be this Friday during lunch. Thank you.

Excellent job.

All right. So I'm going to go ahead and skip agenda items 9, 10, 11, which is board committee reports, board comments, and superintendent report. And we'll get back to it. I want to go straight to presentations. Recognition of Loma Linda's fire chief, Minerva Castorena, and Nikki Gonzalez, Mission Elementary School.

Alex, can we go ahead and dismiss our student board member so that she can go ahead and get on with band practice?

Of course. You can go ahead and.

Thank you.

Thank you board members for giving us this opportunity to highlight the amazing commitment that Chief Boucher, who we call Chief Nate, and his crew have given to Mission Elementary. We wanted to take this moment to express excuse me, our deepest gratitude for the incredible impact Chief Nate and the Loma Linda Fire Department has given our students. Their dedication, leadership, and unwavering support has been nothing short of transformative for our students. The time and effort that Chief Nate and the Loma Linda firefighters have given in guiding and inspiring our students was evident in the growth and achievement they made. Their ability to nurture and strengthen their self-esteem helped the boys discover their true potential academically, socially, and emotionally.

We simply asked for a mentorship, but what we got was far greater than what we could have imagined. Chief Nate and the crew built strong relationships with the boys that influenced better decision-making amongst them. Chief Nate and the crew, thank you for being the beacon of light to our students and to us. They saw you as a role model and someone they could depend on. Your influence extended far beyond the classroom, and your legacy is seen in the success and aspirations of those you mentor. Your commitment makes a profound difference, and for that, we are all incredibly grateful.

Chief Nate. And the guys. Oh, OK. Just go to the stand.

Hey. Hey. Hey. Hey. Everyone look this way. One, two, three.

So when a gentleman from the fire department of Loma Linda came up to shake my hand, I felt like they were squeezing a hose. Firm handshakes. And I bet our students learned how to do firm handshakes. Next, we're going to go ahead and move on to the next presentation, summer program updates. Patty and Denise.

Come on down.

Good evening, board, superintendent, cabinet, and audience. My name is Mark Blind. I'm the director of student, or not anymore, director of secondary ed. Sorry. Patty Buckmiller, Denise Fee, and myself will give you an update on summer programs. My part, we did high school summer school was a credit recovery at CVHS from June 17th to July 23rd. Dr. Rehaj was the principal of the summer school program. We kind of had two things go on this year. We had site-based instruction, so a teacher with math and physical education students who wanted to help with the math students with more intense instruction to help them get through the math. And then we had the edge annuity support leads there, which helped provide tutorials when needed and to help the teachers if there was any glitches.

I think on the next slide.

So one thing with edge annuity I wanted to point out versus traditional in-seat education is some kids, it allowed for us to have kids that might take two edge annuity classes first session or second session, which would accommodate if they had to do some type of extracurricular activity, some type of summer camp, baseball, or cheerleading camp, one of those type of things. It also allowed us, we had several kids that you'll see later on the number of classes that were taken. Some kids, there was only one kid in a class. We can't have one student and one teacher, so it allowed them to take the class through edgenuity because staffing wouldn't relate that.

Can you explain real quick, Mark, what edgenuity is?

So Edgenuity is basically a computer-based program that takes kids through a series of lessons, quizzes, and tests to accomplish. It's A through G recognized. It'll take the kids about 60 hours to go through a course, and it's self-paced, so they can move at their own pace at summer school. Some students that are more focused and have that ability to move a little faster go faster other students It would pause so the teacher could give additional instruction Thank you. You're welcome. Thank you on the next slide So we had 786 kids basically take 110 edge annuity classes and 25 seated classes amongst them. So we had 1,295 classes taken basically. So it was a really good credit recovery for kids. And then based on that, if we go to the next slide, we had 13 students get diplomas because of this, going back, finishing some courses in summer school. Four seniors through RISE summer school, and then nine through CVHS. Well, that was five from CVHS, three from RHS, and one from REV. Sorry, Orange Wood wasn't included in there. And then another positive is that we had 48 students take advantage of dual enrollment classes at Crafton Hills College. Just so you know, I probably should have taken the elements of public speaking with them. Then we had, well, we probably all could use stress management and emotional well-being and appreciation of American popular music. Very good classes. So that's a great thing that our kids are taking advantage of that. So they get credits here and in college at the same time. And now I'm going to turn it over to Pat.

OK, I'm going to talk about ESY extended school year. And extended school year is for students that are on an IEP. And the data shows that they have regression during school breaks, like spring break, winter break. So it's actually part of their IEP. It is for 20 days. It's from June 17 to July 17. And this year we had 162 students. It's one of our highest groups that we've ever had receiving ESY services. We were at two sites. We were at Smiley Elementary with the populations you see listed there. Ninety-seven students were at Smiley with seven teachers and 45 paraprofessionals. They had a lot of support, a lot of adult support. Our high school program was at Citrus Valley High School with 65 students, five teachers, and also 45 paras at that school site. The related services bubble that you see over off to the side, there's lots of initials there. But any services that a student had on their IEP, they also have during ESY, just in a modified shorter form. So those are all of the services that we were able to offer during ESY. So just a range of services. We also had two of our pair of 3s and our BCBA were on staff to help with behaviors and we had additional safety measures that we put into place including a campus monitor and PCM trained staff as well. So overall, a very successful summer for us with one of our highest populations, so something to be proud of. All right, questions?

You know, that's the kind of support we need on a daily basis but unfortunately we can't do that.

That's a lot of pairs.

Believe me, I would welcome all of those pairs at the site. Thank you. Any other questions?

All right. Turning it over to Denise.

Hi, so I get to present on what we offered kiddos from grades TK through six this summer. It looked a little bit different than what we've done previously. As you know, for Expanded Learning Opportunity Program, we are catering to students who are foster homeless or low income, and that is the priority and the purpose of expanded learning. And we wanted to have an opportunity to provide some of the 30 extra days that we are required to provide for our students this summer. And so we provided six weeks of opportunity in partnership with AAA Academy, which is supported through our partnership with the Redlands Educational Partnership. They have provided wonderful camps and most of the kids that have attended those camps previously have been paid for. And what we did this time is we partnered with Redlands Educational Partnership and Scholarships, many of our families who wouldn't otherwise be able to attend. that many weeks and that many days. And so you'll see here that we provided that opportunity for almost 200, I'm sorry, almost 300 TK through sixth grade students this summer. 170 of them were at Kingsbury, and 120 of them were at Lagonia. We selected a northern and a southern location in Redlands for logistic purposes. We also provided transportation for families who needed to get their kids to and from those locations. Of the 179 students in Redlands, that were scholarship. When I say we scholarship them, Expanded Learning Funds did pay full scholarships for those children to attend. Of those students, 123 of them attended all six weeks. They do have opportunity to do drop-in, but many of our kids went for the entire six weeks. That program is overseen by Cherish Bowman, who works really hard to provide just engaging activities for kids that are learning-based, but through activities that don't feel like they're learning necessarily. And those kids got to go on two field trips a week, local field trips that got them into locations that they wouldn't normally go. Maybe their parents are working or they just don't have the resources to do that. And they offered summer U-Skill building sessions, so kids got to pick cooking or various activities that they wanted to learn more about. as well as weekly themed activities that engaged kids in wanting to come back every single day.

Q, any questions?

comment. Um, the summer camp, just from a point of view of a parent with kids who worked it, who were working at it, it was awesome. And every time I went in to see what was going on, these kids were all engaged. It was, it was amazing to see what Cherish can do with, with her team. It was really neat.

Yeah.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

I'm going to stay up here because I'm the next presentation. I'm going to take off this hat and put on a different one.

Universal PK? So next is the universal PK update.

I am. So we'll let them get that one up there. I'll go ahead and start while they're getting that slide presentation up there. So UPK stands for Universal Pre-Kindergarten. And as most of you, I know all of you up here know that that is quite a focus for the state of California right now, is offering opportunity for our youngest kiddos. And so I get the privilege of supporting that opportunity here in Redlands. And I do have the clicker up here. Okay, there we go. So it does, that term does, is the umbrella term for kids who are not in kindergarten yet. So that's our transitional kindergarten, which is our big focus right now, and preschool, wherever that might be. And I'll share a little bit about what that looks like in our district. Currently, right now, we do have a state preschool opportunity that is fully under the jurisdiction of San Bernardino County Superintendent of Schools. They are housed at three of our elementary schools. You'll see there it's at Franklin, Lagonia, and Victoria. It is a three-hour day program. that is based on income eligibility. So families in the community who meet the low income eligibility have an opportunity to apply for participation in that three-hour program. And there's an AM and a PM class. Again, we did employ the staff for those preschools for many years, and this current year we have elected to have San Bernardino County Superintendent of Schools fully run the program with their staffing, and there has been a bit of a delay in them opening those three classrooms this school year due to licensing for childcare licensing requirements, but we anticipate that to be happening. Hopefully any day now But the big piece of you PK and Redlands right now is our TK and how we are serving our youngest kiddos. So State requirement is that by 25 26 school year that? Kids who are for by September 1st of the next year school year are eligible to enroll in transitional kindergarten that means they can be three up until September 1st We as a Redlands district have been a little bit ahead of the game because there's been such a demand for kids You know wanting to be enrolled in TK here So we are one year ahead and as of this school year, we opened up enrollment to TK For any kiddo who is for by September 1st of this school year so you'll see that we have a I have the past two years of data on there. If you look at 24-25, currently we have 500, well this was when I did the presentation last week, we had 583 TK students that are enrolled. That's about 100 more than we had last year. We have increased our TK staff up to 35 TK teachers. The reason we have hired so many more teachers is because there is a requirement to student-to-teacher ratio. The state realizes we're serving young, young kiddos who need a lot of attention. And so we have a maximum size of 20 students in a classroom, but it's a 10 to 1 ratio. And so the way we do that is that we hire a TK paraprofessional for every teacher so that we have two adults for every 20 students in the classroom. We are actually getting ready to open up another TK classroom because we continue to get kids enrolling in that grade. We have a lot of support coming to our TK teachers and our support staff this year. We are contracting with San Bernardino County Superintendent of Schools and Mindfulness in Motion, two agencies who are coming in to help train our teachers on how to navigate kids at this age and at this developmental stage in their lives. There's a lot of research that shows how significant it is for us to be able to expose kids to this experience. before they get into kindergarten and on. And I think the biggest plus to this is that often we see families who have resources who can afford to pay for private preschool or private TK. And many of our families had to wait until their kids were older to get into school. And now we can serve all of our families. It's very equitable. Families that are coming into that opportunity are not just families that have the resources financially, but we can offer that to all of our families, which we're really happy about. I was told I only had so much time to speak. I could just keep going. Any questions?

Jim? A disclaimer, I'm wearing this because I've become very annoying with my summer cough. I cough a lot. I've got this lung thing going on.

I'm sorry.

But physicians say it's not contagious. But if I don't wear my mask and start coughing, I feel a lot of judgment coming down on me. So I'm wearing this tonight just to let people know if I start coughing, you're protected.

Have no fear. Yes. Thank you.

So my question is, And I don't know if I'm a little confused, but I know the San Bernardino, Superintendent San Bernardino County Superintendent of Schools is running those programs. We're providing the facilities. We're not providing any employees. They're all San Bernardino County employees. Is there any burden on our administrative staff? I mean, they also should provide, but I'm just wondering, is there a little bit of a crossover in terms of responsibility because they are our students. That's a great question.

The bigger answer is no in that all communications go through the teachers and the supervisor who oversees the three preschools here in our district through San Bernardino County Schools. So all of that goes through their department. Of course, our principals are still sharing with them, need opportunities that they're offering at the school sites because we want them to be part of that. So those opportunities to engage the logistics and parent communication with how their kids are doing in the preschool program that is all through San Bernardino County Superintendent Schools.

It truly is a partnership.

It is. Because they are our students and our parents and eventually they're going to be in through our.

And they care very deeply for those kids and know that many of them will be moving into TK and kindergarten there so they're very invested.

So the school culture would be important for them to also be a part of so thank you.

We want them to keep keep coming to school there.

Michelle. I just have one or two questions. The TK program is four hours or three hours?

It's about three and a half hours. It ends up being about four when you count recess and lunch. But it's 201 minutes of instructional time. So it matches about your half-day kindergarten that we used to offer. We still have a couple half-day kindergarten. Okay, and then because I just wanted to because we had the four-hour paraprofessionals, so I just wanted to Yeah, so we have them coming in because it does end up being about four hours So we have them coming we have them serving the time the kids are there so eight I'll give you an example am might be eight to twelve and that includes like I said recesses and lunch so it does add up to be that much but we need that adult there at all times and

That's great. I'm glad we have that support, because I know at the... I think was it last year we didn't have as much... We didn't and we were struggling. Yes. So I'm glad you have all the support and the teachers are fully staffed. Thank you.

You're welcome. Okay. Thank you.

Great job. All right. So now I'm going to go back up to Board of Committee reports. Does anyone have anything they would like to report? Okay.

for Redlands Educational Partnership. Grants for teachers and grants for principals opens on September 23rd. Principal grants will be $2,500 this year and the teacher grants will be $500. It's going to be on a first come first serve basis when the money runs out. the grants are gone. Um, last year we gave out, uh, I mean, no, we re- gave out 10 principal grants and 60 teacher grants. So there's quite a bit of money there to give out. Um, and please put, uh, Thanksgiving morning, November 28th on your calendar for the annual Turkey Trot. Everybody is welcome to participate or come and watch.

Thank you, Jim.

No, they have not met. I have nothing to report.

Okay. Melissa? No? All righty. Board comments?

Jim? You're trying to make me cough, aren't you? When I talk, I start to cough. I'll just mention that I enjoyed very much attending the Mentone, Jetson, Brown, and Crafton Elementary back to school nights. You know, the rooms never looked better than the back to school nights. The teachers put a lot of work into getting those learning environments ready and they looked excited and there were great turnouts at all the schools, so I enjoyed that very much. I wished I was well enough to see the inauguration of the girls flag football event at Citrus Valley Did any of you go did you were there? It was pretty cool to watch I would imagine and my hats off to Doug For working hard our athletic director that the stands were were full like if it was a regular football game Oh, that's isn't that great.

It was amazing Supporting That's fantastic.

That is very, very cool. Well, I'm glad that you guys were able to, and I wished I could have, but I intend to go out there. We have some, I mean, our district is full of amazing students doing amazing things, not only in sports, but in music and theater. And, you know, I wish more of the public would attend such events. There's a lot of hard work and dedication that goes into that, and they're always outstanding. And I'm looking forward to another year of that. You know our student trustees are set. We have Bella Salazar from Redlands High School and Ella Ford from the E Academy and of course Alina Joseph is here tonight from CV and Ethan Morris is going to continue from REV although We're hoping to get one more person to join us from REV because Ethan plans to graduate mid-year. So hopefully we'll get a junior so he can have that two-year term. That'd be awesome if we get that done. And Jania Thompson from Orange Wood High School. So I'll be meeting with them, setting up a meeting through Carrie-Ann but need I remind you that my term will be up in November. I'm okay as a volunteer, if you'll approve my volunteer status at a future meeting, I will continue working with the student trustees, but one of you probably should be on the order of business for your December meeting to pick somebody to head that up and meet once a month with our student trustees. Oh, I will. Yeah, I'll CC everybody when we're getting together. So looking forward to meeting with those kids again. On behalf of the board as the clerk, I was somewhat interviewed by two counselors from Bryn Mawr Elementary School today. And they're working on an application that would bring them national recognition for identifying at-risk students and interventions to support them, especially when it comes to attendance. So I asked them. They're working with Rachel Malatesca. They hadn't talked to the superintendent yet, so I mentioned to the superintendent to get him involved. with how we could help. And as I listen to them and the project that they've been doing and the thing they've been working on over the past year. Mr. Varra, I would like you to maybe invite them to come give a presentation to the board because I was very impressed with what they're doing out there. So I can put you in touch with them later in the future meeting. I guess the application is due in October. So that's all I have for comments tonight. Thank you. Thank you.

Melissa?

I don't have much. I just want to thank the superintendent for taking us all around on the first day of school, visiting all the sites that we did. It was really great seeing all the kids excited for their first day of school. It was a lot of happy faces. It's wonderful. Um, also, I want to thank everyone, all of the site admin that came out to the Title IX training that we had. Um, unfortunately, Mr. O'Neill couldn't be there, but, um, the rest of the board was and I- it- it was really, um, informative and I look forward to, uh, more trainings in the future so that we can all make sure that we're doing everything we can to move forward in this district. That's it for me.

Yeah.

So like everybody talks about back to school nights, I was able to get to seven of the elementary school ones this year. I enjoyed all the classrooms. They were really, like you said, they're really fun and clean, not disorganized yet as they get to be during the year with all the projects and things. And I look forward to going to the middle and high school back to school nights over the next few weeks. Um, and I want to thank all the principals and assistant principals who took the time to walk with me along with several other people around their schools during back-to-school night because I know they took time out of what they were doing to get us around to different classrooms and to see different things. Um, I also had the opportunity to go to Lagonia and visit, uh, Mrs. Harker's kindergarten class. It has only been a full week of school and the children already like know all the rules. They are following everything They can get up when it's time to sing and they know when they have to sit down. I was very impressed So thank you mrs. Harker for the visit to your classroom, and I will see you soon You may not know this but all your students invited me back. So I will be back And I want to thank Dr. Cannotti at Kingsbury for allowing me to get a glimpse of how inclusion classes work and how they're working at Kingsbury. I was very impressed by the ease in which the students and the teacher and the aides in the classroom, they were all working together on the same lessons, the same group projects they were doing. I know it's not just happening at Kingsbury but in all our schools across the district and I would love to go to other schools to witness how it's working at different sites. Our teachers and our support staff are all amazing. Over the past few weeks I've met many new assistant principals and office staff and I hope you're all enjoying meeting all the families at your school and getting to know the students. Also want to thank CNS the medley station for the invitation to orange wood high school last week to see the new lunch service area Our superintendent was there and I think Jason was there Were you there and a couple other people? So I was pretty cool to see that I'm sure orange wood any Academy are happy to have more space in their NPR for their different programs that they do I'm looking forward to all fall sports and volleyball starting at the middle schools. I And that is all I have. So I hope everybody has a great rest of your week.

Thank you. So my daughter's senior year is this year, and she was emotional her first day. She sent a text message, this is my last first day of school. And I decided to surprise her at her third period class. I left work, just was in her class waiting to see her. She was excited. and I even got an opportunity to talk to the students it was a one of the it was a it's a math class but it's um oh what is it called it's about um business math help me out uh Jason help me out with the it's just like a basic math class for the future so the students take this math class and it prepares them uh you know uh yeah i got personal finance class what they have to do so you know i was talking to the students that you know um there's just so many bills that you have to you know uh pay when you have your own home and it was nice participating in helping them out i forgot what the name of the class is

I see that they're doing a class like that.

Yeah, no, it was a great class. I talked to them about credit card debt and everything. Personal, yes, yes.

You visited your daughter's class and you got a positive reaction, because when we visited my daughter's class, she pretended like she didn't see us. She got up. We got up. She didn't even turn around. So that's the difference between a senior and a freshman.

She got up and hugged me and, Dad. Yeah, no, it was exciting.

It's a girl and a dad.

So I just want to make a comment to the Highland Grove parents. I know it's not easy coming up and discussing situations that are occurring, especially with your babies. I understand as a dad, and as as a mother you you know you're a lion you want to protect you know your which is you have all right to um i just want to let you know that uh many times in the school system um as educators we cannot let parents know what the consequences are or what actions are taken to um uh for any student that you know has done something that they shouldn't have been doing and then there's also a due process that we have to go through and uh you know uh with every situation every situation is different and we have to you know respect you know uh what happened but I want you to know that somebody will be looking into it to make sure that everything was taken care of and That all of our students are safe because our number one priority as a board is to make sure all students are safe at all times Thank you, thank you. Okay. So next we have superintendent's comments

Thank you. Yes, I just want to assure parents, Highland Grove, we will be contacting you. Thank you for, because it is not easy and we do want to make sure that all our kids are safe going to school. And so it will be addressed. My first is a thank you to all of our staff that work outside because the start of school is always the hottest time of the year and Many of you some of you that are here today are outside almost the entire time during your work time So thank you because it's not easy and I appreciate it We all appreciate it. So please and it's not going to get any more colder. So it's It's actually cooling down this week, but then I think it's gonna get hot again. So I Think it's gonna be like 99 instead of 105 Yeah, but I do want to I do want to make sure that we show our appreciation because it is it is hard work Selpa is going to do another inclusion summit and I sent the information to the board many of you participated in that at the beginning of May at the end of the school year and This date is going to be towards the beginning of November It was very very well done the last one we had and hopefully you'll be able to participate I think the exact date is November 9th, but it's in an email that I sent and I'll make sure that you all get it Safety Committee, the last board meeting I did a presentation on our updates with respect to our mandates from the DOJ and OCR. One of the things that I talked about was inviting the community to participate in a committee. We would love to have parent participation. in a committee that would get direct updates as we progress towards all of the safety protocols that we have in place this school year and things that we've continued from previous years. If you are in the audience today and you're interested, all you would need to do is let Carrie Ann know who is right there and we'll get you signed up and we'll get you the information to get to the first meeting which is going to be in the next couple of weeks. Appreciate everybody's hard work as we started this school year. I'm looking forward to an excellent 24, 25 school year. Thank you.

Thank you. So next onto business service consent items. Is there a motion to approve items 14A, consent items B through I? I'll move. Second? Second. discussion okay all those in favor say aye aye chair votes aye and so ordered so we don't have any action items on business services so we're gonna move on to educational service consent items and we have a replacement a replacement for page 112 which will be submitting into the agenda

Board policy 4212.5, everybody got it ahead of this meeting. It is just updated. The Department of Justice sent in a late revision. This is just updated and so it just is going to replace page 112 and you have that copy in front of you.

Right. So is there a motion to approve items 16A, consent items B through F?

I'll move with the revision. Second.

Discussion?

I'd love to see those trips. Fantastic for our kids. Great opportunities for our kids. And all of these new policies, they're somewhat daunting. There's a lot there. And I know we're doing everything we can to align ourselves with making sure that we're doing everything right and dotting all the Is and crossing the Ts. I did have a quick question, Mr. Cabral, about all the Title IX policies and protocols and everything. We're spending a lot of time on staff and training. Is there something in the works and plans for making students more aware of the processes and protocols and what sexual harassment looks like and all of those kinds of things, especially the secondary kids?

Yes, there's actually two ways that we are going to approach student awareness. One is we have currently a training being developed by Spregio who's helping us create age-appropriate information that we can give to every single student that would first go through a process of approvals That includes sharing it with parents before we actually present it to students. We are also looking to do a pilot where we choose one elementary school, one middle school, one high school, and we would go through the training with those schools first and then implement it district-wide. But the goal is this school year that every single student be trained or be given information that's age-appropriate related to the prevention of sexual harassment in Title IX. The second way is we're creating a survey. The survey is going to be sent to every single student and every parent so that we can get feedback if they can answer the questions, whether or not they can answer the questions. Do you know how to file a complaint? Do you know who the complaint would go to? Do you know where to look for in online and or by phone, how to submit a report? And so those are two specific ways that you will see this school year that we're gonna make sure our students know How to report and how to identify?

Wow, that's great. Thank you very much and look forward to more of your videos Yes.

Thank you the video. I just did a video The presentation that I had at the last board meeting did not capture the presentation because we didn't have it set up correctly and Uh, so I did a video where the presentation, uh, goes through every single, uh, provision that we've implemented related to safety. Uh, it is on our website. If you just go on Redland's, uh, website, you can see the video. It's only about 12 minutes long. It's not very long, and you can fast-forward and kind of go at your own pace. Uh, but we go over this exact thing that I'm talking about as far as what we're gonna implement with respect to age-appropriate training for students.

I look forward to having your Emmy on your desk. That'll be great. Thank you.

I have a question about that. I know we're working on training for students and then a separate one for, you know, informational for parents. But would we be able to develop some sort of maybe a discussion guide for parents to have that discussion with their students? So that, I mean, if we know kids know about it, if we know parents know about it, that should still be a follow-up conversation between parents amongst families so that we- they have guidance on how to have that conversation so that we know that- and- and parents are assured that their children understand, um,

How to go about these things definitely can be a part of it one idea also is for us to share with parents what it looks like and then invite parents to participate with their students as the information is presented and So that it's a collaboration between the school the parents and the students

I just think it'd be, I mean, especially, I mean, that would be in a public place, but if there's something that we could send parents, send home with parents. Adam, definitely, we could do that.

I think that's a great idea, both comments that you and Melissa made, because a lot of times in our ed code, and our parents don't understand, or know it because they don't have to work on it as much as we do as administrators and educators. But when it comes to sexual harassment, at the elementary level, through third grade and below, there is no sexual harassment. We have to file it under a different ed code under our four eight nine hundred, you know sections but fourth and above They are they can be under the sexual harassment violation, but I think it's important for parents to know that But okay, so all those in favor say aye Chair votes aye and so ordered Okay, so there are no educational service action items, so we'll continue on to human resources. So is there a motion to approve item 8A, consent items B through AC?

Move.

18.

18B through AC.

I didn't say 18? Okay, 18A, consent items B through AC.

I'll move. I'll second.

Michelle and Melissa. Okay, discussion? All righty, all those in favor say aye. Aye. Chair votes aye and so ordered. And then I have, okay, human resource action items. Management, established position and approved job description for compliance manager effective August 21st, 2024. Is there a motion? I'll move.

Okay.

This end, Jim. Discussion? Okay, all those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Chair votes aye and so ordered. So we have no discussion items this evening, so we'll go on ahead and hold on. Never mind, we already did it. Okay, so we're adjourning the meeting and it is 704. Thank you.