All right,
Evelyn. Oh,
yeah. Uh, okay.
Let's reconvene. All right. All right,
Evelyn, let's start with roll call.
Trusty Lee here. Trusty King
here. Trusty Marquez here. Vice
President Weekley present. President
Wells here.
Uh I'm going to do our report on on
closed session. Um and during the closed
session today, this was April 2nd, 2025,
the board considered and voted to expel
two students. A motion was approved. Um
uh it was unanimous. And so we also
received information from legal counsel
and the board took no
action. All right. And then okay, we're
back on
to I think uh getting the day started.
Okay, cool. So, good evening. Welcome to
today's the April 2nd, 2025 meeting of
the Redwood City School District
Governing Board.
Numero
deala. Again, welcome. Um, you know, all
members of the public are partners in
education and so the board encourages
you to participate and provide comments
on issues of concern regardless of
whether they're on the agenda. uh to
speak uh complete a speaker card online
or if you're here in person uh you'll
find them available at the entrance and
then when you uh complete them you can
hand them to Evelyn. Uh if you're
addressing a subject that's listed on
the agenda uh you'll be called at the
time the item is being considered and if
the issue is not on the agenda you'll be
called shortly during our oral
communication agenda item. To be fair to
all speakers uh we limit public comments
to three minutes per person per topic
unless otherwise
noted. All right, we're on to changes to
the agenda. Uh, does anyone have any
changes,
modifications? Okay, we'll move on to
approval of the agenda. Need a motion.
Make a motion to approve. All right,
I second. Okay. All in favor?
I. All right. So, I
have for oral communication. I believe I
have five
speakers, four online, four cards um and
one one of you. So I will start with
uh is that Eza? Okay. Uh and this is for
oral comment. Isa
here is a thank you. Sorry. Yeah. All
right. And yes, you'll have come on up.
Um, yeah.
I got it, right?
There. And then there'll be a timer
going off and if if we will have to stop
comment at 3 minutes just to be fair to
everyone. But um, please go ahead. All
right. Hello, my name is Azil. I'm an
online fifth grader. Every Friday, I am
one of the few students to look forward
to the weekly English spelling tests. I
also enjoy writing homework. When I grow
up, I want to become a pilot and I need
to to go to a good college to do that.
That's why I really want to advocate for
the advanced English learning at Kennedy
Middle School. In a standard learning
class, enjoying learning is enjoyable
and challenging. However, in advanced
English class, students are exposed to
more challenging curriculum, which
provides them with opportunities to
tackle more difficult concepts with and
push their learning to the next level.
An events ELA class can make me become
better writer and be better
communicator. These skills are important
for many jobs including
pilots. English are not English is
actually not my first language. My home
languages are Mandrin and Turkish. I
learned I started learning English when
I was in kindergarten. My English has
come a long way ever since and I want to
improve it further when I'm in middle
school. An advanced English learning
class will motivate me and my classmates
will and my classmates to work harder at
school. My classmates and are striving
for our dreams to come true. We ask the
school district to provide the resources
to enable us to achieve more. Thank you
for listening.
Thank you. Really appreciate your
comments and for you know taking the
time to come and speak with us. Uh the
next speaker is Nia Seabberger and is
Nia Nia is here. Okay. Great.
Hello, Redwood City's trustees. Thank
you for allowing me to present my ideas
and my academic needs. I was born in
China and I only speak Chinese to my
mother. I haven't grown up learning and
hearing the English vocabulary that
other kids have been able to access to.
My vocabulary scores are weaker than I
want them to be. I know that I need to
improve my English skills in order to be
able to take the coursework in high
school that I know I am capable of. This
is why I need to have an advanced
English class in middle school. I know
the board argues that kids like me will
achieve success no matter what course
they are offered, but that is not true
in my
experience. My parents are very busy and
they don't have much time to help me. I
don't have a lot of extra programming
and extra resources to help me achieve
success. I don't have access I don't
have a lot of access to advanced home
coursework outside of the school
district. I'm not the only one that
doesn't have this. Some kids might have
professional English parents, but they
might never be home to help them.
There's also a lot of people who don't
get any help at all and their parents
can't help them with homework at all
because they don't know how. For all
these kids, it's important that they get
the help from the school district to
have the advanced coursework that they
need and that they want in order to
achieve their goal. Without this
advanced coursework, I believe that
there is a high chance that these
students will not be able to have the
skills that they need and be prepared to
be to in order to achieve their goals of
having high academic success in high
school and beyond. For instance, because
of my English uh
skills, for
instance, my English skills.
Um, I'm
not I am worried that I won't be
prepared for AP classes in high school
because my English needs to be excellent
in order to take those classes. It's
important to struggle. Struggling is not
a bad thing because each time you
struggle, it builds up your brain.
People that want to live up to advanced
work should have the opportunity to test
themselves and develop skills. Kids with
high appetite for learning need to
continue to prepare for challenging
coursework. Thank you for listening to
my perspective.
Thank you, Nia. Great job and thank you
so much for sharing your experiences
with us. Um the next speaker is
Maple. Dear board of trustees, thank you
for your time. My name is Maple. I was
looking at my recent I already results
for English and my scale score was
672. When I looked this up, I realized
that the score puts me at the 92nd
percentile for eighth graders
nationally. I read all the time and I
read many books that I have advanced
vocabulary. I can figure out the meaning
of almost any word using context clues.
I can read a lot of books in a short
period of time and I remember everything
I read for the first time and can answer
questions about it, even challenging
non-fiction books. I don't need repet
repetition to learn things. I learn the
most from new information. I just learn
things really fast. When I can't learn
new things, I feel bored and annoyed.
I'm annoyed because I feel like I'm not
allowed to learn new things, which is
the entire purpose of school. When I am
forced to learn things I know already, I
lose focus. I start writing, doodling,
or sketching things. I'm worried that
I'm not getting enough information for
middle school. I'm developing a habit of
losing focus with lessons in school, and
this worries me. I really need to feel
challenged. It's not good for me to be
spending most of my time in school
disengaging from lessons. Because of
this, my parents are thinking of sending
me to other schools and even a private
school. I feel like these schools would
be better for me because they have
challenging and advanced curriculum that
would really help me break the pattern
of being disengaged and actively learn
new things. But the best option would be
if Kennedy offered advanced coursework
for ELA for all district students that
can benefit and I can stay in my
community with my friends and keep
learning Mandarin. Redwood City Board of
Trustees, thank you for your time.
Thank you Mel also for sharing your
experiences. Our next speaker is Maya
Rose.
Hello, my name is May Skilus. I'm here
today to ask you to add advanced
coursework at Kennedy Middle School. The
courses that I take in high school are
going to depend on what I'm able to
learn in middle school. For me, I really
want to go to a good college and become
a lawyer. And it really matters what
course I take now. I feel like for kids
who are advanced, they could be
preparing to achieve their goals instead
of being in a regular class using their
learning time to help others. I don't
have any other ways to de develop the
high English skills I will need to
achieve my dreams. My mom grew up in
Tonga and didn't have a very good
education while my dad had a rough
childhood and dropped out of school.
They love me very much, but they can't
help me with any of my homework because
of the defects of their own education.
The only way I am going to have access
to advanced coursework is going to be
through this board, school board, and
the through the school district. I want
to become a lawyer because I have always
been interested in learning about law.
There's a lot of corruption in America,
and if you know the law, you can protect
who others who are discriminated against
because of their race and taken
advantage of in the system. I know how
many people I would be able to help if
you give me the education I will need to
succeed. In order to achieve my dreams
of becoming a lawyer, I need to have
excellent English skills. I need to
score very high on test and be able to
succeed in advance and AP course work in
high school so that I can get into law
school. And that's why I need advanced
English in middle school. Most people
dreams don't come true because they
don't have the education that they need
and end up giving up. I don't want that
to be me. I don't want the school
district to give up on me and my dreams
of becoming a lawyer. Thank you so much
for listening to me. Thank you, Maya
Rose, also for sharing your experiences
and your your goals. Uh our next speaker
is
Greta. Dear Redwood City Board of
Trustees, my name is Greta. I'm in fifth
grade and I go to Orion Mandarin
Immersion Elementary School. Thank you
for all the hard work you do to support
students and make our education better
every year. I really appreciate your
efforts. I am here today to ask you to
consider adding advanced English and
other challenging classes to Kennedy
Middle School. My parents wanted me to
go to Northstar, but I chose Kennedy
because I wanted to keep studying
Mandarin with my friends. This their
biggest concern was that Kennedy might
not have the same challenging classes as
Northstar. Like many of my classmates in
the Mandarin immersion program, I don't
speak Chinese uh English at home. I at
home I speak Chinese with my mom and
Leading with my dad. Leading is a
language I use with my grandparents and
my dad's side of the family and the
Dolommites. My main way of learning
English includes grammar, vocabulary,
and the ability to express complex ideas
is at school. Even though I don't speak
much English at home, my test scores
show that I'm ready for seventh grade
English. But I feel that my English is
still not very strong, especially
compared to English-speaking families
and not up to my parents
expectations. Sometimes in class, I lose
focus and teachers think I don't care
about learning. But that only happens
when the lesson moves too slowly. I can
focus for about 15 minutes, but after
that, if I already know the material,
it's hard for me to
stay pay attention. I don't want to
upset my teachers, and I feel bad when I
do. The real problem is that I already
understand the information. I worry that
if I'm placed in a regular class, I'll
continue to not pay attention, which
could hurt my education. I learn
quickly, but I also know I have less
experience in English than other
students. If I don't have access to
advanced classes, it might make high
school harder for me. This is especially
a problem for mand emerging students who
don't speak English at home. I hope you
will consider my perspective and add
advanced classes to Kennedy for all
students who are interested. Thank you
for your time.
Thank you, Grata. I appreciate your
time, too. Um, and our last speaker is
for um oral communication is uh Louise
Luis Palaska. Yes. Yes. Luis Velasquez.
All right. So, um, my daughter wasn't
given the chance to talk today and I
came here in support of her. But having
said that, I would like to address. Uh,
uh, I am Lu Velasquez. I'm a parent of
this district and the father of Alexis
who wasn't given the chance to talk. uh
defigurator um who was hoping to speak
for more clarity of many people most
people that I know I want to tell you
something that I hope that you hear
we're failing some of the brightest
students and we're doing it in the name
of
equity Alexis like many of her little
friends here have tested way beyond
their grade in English and and she's and
they're asking they're asking for a
challenge
for something to stretch them, to push
them, and to help them
grow. And what is being told in effect
is that we don't have we don't do that
here
anymore. That is not just disappointing,
but it's just
heartbreaking. I want to believe that
this district and the community um this
district's commitment to equity, but let
me be clear about
that. Equity doesn't mean pulling people
down, but elevating people up.
And here is where it gets
personal. I'm not just a father. I'm
also someone who has spent years
coaching CEOs, teaching at Stanford, and
helping leaders to become better
versions of
themselves. And here is one thing that
I've learned is that you cannot grow
somebody by limiting their
potential. You can inspire ex you cannot
inspire inspire excellence by limiting
ambition.
So let me offer a let me let me let me
offer some thought. The idea of
eliminating
challenges creates fairness is not
progressive. It's regressive indeed and
is costing us the very diversity that
you and we want to have in our district.
I'm asking you tonight to reinstate
advance Ella a Kennedy not because
Alexis is a special or her friends are
special but because we all lose when
kids like them are told to wait their
turn. There is no wait your turn in
curiosity. There is no there is no slow
down in passion.
My daughter is 11 years
old and he had he had to stand he was
hoping to stand here today and advocate
for her education. That should never be
necessary in our district. But since it
is, I'm here to back her
up. Please do the right thing, not just
for her, but for all the students here
present that we're just waiting for the
system to rise with them. And if we want
to eliminate something, think about
Northstar. There are not everybody's
allowed to go to
Northstar. I'm asking you the same.
Thank you. Thank you for your comments,
Luke. Um, we did get a few more cards.
Um, these are going to have to be the
last ones though because we've allocated
three minutes per speaker, so we'll have
hit our time budget um at that point.
Uh, so the next speaker is Alexis.
Hello, my name is Alexis Velasquez and
I'm a fifth grade student at Orion. I'm
here today to share my story about why I
support advanced English classes at
Kennedy. I recently took the I Ready
exam and my scores indicate that I'm
ready for eighth grade instruction. I'm
worried about not having advanced
English classes at Kennedy because I
know how much better I could be doing on
test scores and showing improvement in
my skills if I was receiving instruction
at the level I'm currently
demonstrating. My time at Orion and Love
of Learning has helped me to become a
proficient reader and score well on
English testing. Having advanced English
classes will allow me to continue to
expand my learning at a level that
challenges me and helps me stay engaged.
Advanced ELA will help to continue our
love of learning.
I'm asking the school board to please
add as many advanced classes as possible
to Kennedy, including advanced ELA and
science, and to let anyone into these
classes who feels up for the challenge.
Advanced ELA and middle school will
create a solid foundation to prepare us
to take on challenges from middle
school, high school, and beyond. Thanks
for your time and consideration.
Thank you, Alexis. I appreciate your
comments. Um, our next speaker, I
believe it says Olia.
Did I get that right? Sorry.
Firstly, I would like to thank all the
members of the Road City School Board
for all that you do for district
students. My name is Olia and I'm a
fifth grade student at Orion and I'm
planning to attend Kennedy Kennedy next
year. I've come to this board meeting to
ask the district to reinstate advanced
ELA classes at Kennedy next year. My
recent scores on the I Ready test show
that I'm already advanced well above my
current grade level. and I know I'm
capable of completing much more advanced
material than I'm currently currently
receiving access to. Kennedy Middle
School has a wide range of students
coming in from different schools.
Different schools might have different
after school activities or tutoring.
This might cause students to learn more
than class teaches them. For example, I
recently joined an afterchool math
competition team and that's helped me
improve greatly in tests and academic
learning. That's why more advanced math
learners have an advanced math program.
And I believe that could be the same for
advanced ELA learners. Even in fifth
grade, I noticed that students have
differences in their appetite for
challenges and
information. Being in a class together
makes these differences more noticeable
where it's really highlighted. It would
be better if I could be in a class with
students that that have the same
appetite that I have so that I can work
with people who are on the same level as
me. I'd like to ask the school board to
reinstate advanced ELA and other
advanced classes at Kennedy. Thank you
for your time.
Thank you, Obia. And to all of your
classmates for speaking tonight, I
appreciate it. Our last speaker is
Megan.
May I approach and give you some?
Yeah. Hand it off to Evelyn and she'll
pass it around. Thanks.
Hello, my name is Megan and I'm here
today to support these wonderful young
people who are asking for more advanced
coursework at Kennedy. And I also want
to support what Alexis said and that um
we should be letting in any child who
wants to access these courses and have
this uh these this challenging
curriculum. Sequoa Union High School
District has eliminated advanced
coursework for credit, but they have not
eliminated AP classes. They have not
eliminated IB classes, which are
essentially equally challenging. In
order to have students accustomed to the
rigor necessary to succeed in high
school, students need to have access to
advanced coursework early on. And
Redwood City provides this academic
rigor only for Northstar students. But
for every other student in the district,
they deserve this access as well as the
preparation needed in elementary school
to get on track and stay on track for
success. Clipping the wings of our best
and brightest students has led America
to a race to the bottom. It's weakened
our public school
system. And families with the resources
and able to, they opt out of this
system. And this exacerbates and cements
achievement gaps. The strategy to limit
the achievement of one group of students
and instead deploy them as a public
resource to help another group of
students is a dubiously ethical
intervention. And while this is popular,
I think it's just paying lip service to
the idea of equity while obscuring our
collective failures as a community to
actually support marginalized students
to achieve on grade level success. There
is no overwhelming conclusive evidence
that this works. Meanwhile, in front of
you right now, you guys have
incontrovertible evidence and proof of
an intervention that works superbly. And
you have incredible administrators,
Katherine Rivera, Winnie Wong, who know
how to do this. You have incredible
resources at hand and they would cost
little to implement beyond what you are
already spending on your teaching staff.
Why not expand this to across the school
sites that need it
most? The district is already committed
to grouping kids by supposed ability and
concentrating them at one school site in
the district. Returning to advanced ELA
at Kennedy would fill two classes per
grade at Kennedy. Two class per grade.
That's 67% of what Northstar has per
grade. Do we recognize that? And a
district that recognizes the unique
needs of highly gifted students so much
so that they offer them their own school
site can yet at the same time deny these
same educational needs at another school
site. I don't understand it. I really
think the best path forward would be to
provide an accelerated curriculum at
earlier ages so more students more
students have the chance of achieving
what Maya has managed to achieve despite
her challenges. So I would like the
district to support and accommodate all
advanced students. Let them achieve. Let
them challenge themselves. Let them test
themselves as much as they possibly can
and fly as high as they are able to. And
please help them arrange whatever
challenges that they can think of for
themselves. Redwood City is known for
its innovation, its leadership, its
practical solutions to real problems.
And this is an area where we can be
state leaders and make a true difference
in the lives of children and I would
love to see it. Thank you so much for
all your time. We did have two more
speakers, but if we don't have time,
I'll let them come back. I think we've
already hit our 10 for at the three
minute one. But thank you so much for uh
all the students for speaking tonight
and uh all of our speakers for being
part of our um our meeting this
evening. Let's um move on to our bond
program consent items. Uh we're going to
approve these all in one motion. Uh
would someone like to make a motion?
I will make a motion. Is there a second?
Second. All those in favor? I. Great.
Then we're moving on to there's no bond
program action items. So we'll move on
to the McKinley school presentation for
the 2425 school year. Okay. So tonight
we have Miss B. Williams will be with
her team from McKinley today presenting
Uh yeah, we turned the microphone on.
Yeah,
it might help.
Um clicker.
Good evening, distinguished board
members and to my wonderful cabinet. Um
thank you for having us today. We are
the McKinley Bulldogs.
I want to say thank you first off to my
staff that showed up and showed out as
well as the students that are going to
come up in a little bit and also to my
staff that couldn't make it but really
wanted to um because we couldn't do this
work without them. Um so we're going to
go ahead and begin our
presentation. Okay.
So here is our California dashboard
data. As you can see um from 22 23 to 23
24 um some of our indicators did um we
went to red overall.
Um for our ELA groups and our math group
we are red overall. um from for our
subgroups uh math um and ELA, our
English learners, our Hispanic, our
ELTELS, our socially economically
disadvantaged, and our students with
disabilities. Those are subgroups that
did go into red last year. Um and our
suspension subgroups, which also were
red, um again, our English learners, our
LTELs, and our students with
disabilities. Um, so that's the data
that we are currently trying to um
trying to get ready to improve for this
year. You got to point it to her.
Sorry. There we go. So looking at our
goal number one, our goal number one is
pretty much about culture and how to
improve um the culture out of school by
um lowering our
absenteeism rates, our chronic
absenteeism rates and lowering our
reducing our suspension rates. So as you
can see by 2027
um we aim to reduce our absenteeism rate
by 3%. That's of course um for the whole
district um and improve our attendance
rate by 2% each year in all groups and
to also the biggest thing that we really
concentrated on this year is reducing
that suspension rate because it was very
high last year. Um again we felt that
changing the culture using all the
resources that we have on campus in
order to do that um would help reduce
that. Um, truth be told, it has been a
challenge. Um, I have a whole new admin
team this year. Alma Payz, my assistant
principal, um, Nelson Brazil, my dean,
um, my MTSS Tulsa, my lead mental health
counselor, we're all new, not an excuse.
But it took us some time to jail and to
really get to know our students. That
first semester was about getting to know
the students and looking at what
resources and services they needed in
order to improve upon these targets. Um,
I am going to have four of my students
come up right now to talk about some of
the things that they've seen that have
changed this year and then we'll get to
look at our data so far.
Um hello. Um I'm Emily Guzman. I'm a
student at MIT in 8th grade. Um some of
the changes that I've seen is probably
phone use. There's like not many people
using their phones now. probably
respecting more of the rule because of
how much they implement it to us. And
um and also I think that the yonder
pouches have really helped a lot too
because students will tend to like not
try to open it either because they know
that they will get in a lot of trouble
and pay fines.
Um, I've also seen that the school has
been a lot more like in a mood, like a
in a good mood ever since I guess Miss
William became principal. Um, she's very
cheery. She's very she's very nice to be
around.
Um, I also like how a lot of the staff
is also really um they interact a lot
with the students and they like to get
to know us a lot better which we didn't
have a lot of LA the years before and I
think it's really helped students become
more comfortable in the school
environment.
Um, uh, yeah, that's what I got to say.
Hi, my name is Genesis Hernandez. Um,
I'm in eighth grade. Please bear with me
that I'm have a little tiny cough, so I
will try my best to speak. Um, some of
the changes that I've seen throughout
this school year was probably like the
block schedule for the I Ready testing.
And at the start of the Thank you. at
the start of the year um we didn't I
think we just had to do the I readies
like for like a period of the class time
for like 40 minutes was it? Yeah, for 40
minutes. And then this time, I think it
was like a month ago or two months ago
that we had to do our I Ready testing
and it was like for an hour in the
morning. And it actually really helped
because I went from a fourth grade level
in ELA and math to an eighth grade level
in ELA and a sixth grade level in math.
Thank you.
Um, so I really think the blog schedule
really helped a lot and I'm pretty sure
it also helped with other students in
around the school cuz I seen some of my
friends with like more improved
um like scores in their eye ready. Um,
and yeah, that's what I had to say.
Thank
you. Um,
Um, my name is Jonathan Ortiz. I'm an
eighth grader uh at
McKinley. Um, I'm not really going to
talk a lot about the changes. I'm just
gonna say a few things about um my
experience because
um yeah I have experienced a lot of
kindness during in my eighth
grade experience at MIT.
There has been a lot of improvements and
I got to go to what the school I wanted
to which is Tide Academy for high school
which is great. Um, one thing I did want
to talk about was our guitar con our
concert in spring May 9th which is
great. We have been preparing a lot for
it. I personally guitar which yeah it's
wonderful and um the students I feel are
way more motivated
uh this year to succeed and
to like persevere because
of all of the things we have gone
through. Thank you
Um, hello. My name is Marco. I am a
eighth grader at Mckenley and I'm going
to talk about the whole year that this
year, this school year. And um, at the
beginning of the year, there was a lot
of problems that like I couldn't admit
that, but with the help of our staff
members at Mckenley, it's gotten better.
Like for example,
Miss, my
bad, Miss PZ, Miss Williams, and Mr.
Nelson. They've helped me a lot. Um,
Mckenley's like a second home to me. I
feel comfortable there, you know, like
we have flags all around the hallway and
that like that makes me feel like
accepted there
because yeah, you know, it's just
flags. And then um also there was a like
a lot of how can I say problems in
between students and everything but um
it's changed now like I had problems
with multiple students but now that we
have like sports teams and everything
it's changed like it's really changed
I've gotten along with more people now
and also with the schedule uh we can't
have more than if we play sports and we
have more than five tardies, we cannot
play. That's helped me a lot because I
used to get I used to be like 15 tardies
in 3 days and I only get right now I'm
like at two tardies this week and that's
helped me a lot.
Um and also what I wanted to what else
do I want to talk
about? Um yeah, I've like Mckenley a
lot. It's it's welcoming. It's really
welcoming and yeah.
So I I will say that I don't think at
the beginning of the school year they
would have ever come up and did that.
um our our students have have come a
long way because um we've allowed them
to say things and to come and and talk
to us. Not that they didn't do that last
year or the year before. We're not
saying that at all. But what we are
noticing is that they are coming to talk
to us. Sometimes the things that we
don't want to hear, but um you know,
we're not going to cut their voice off
because they're feeling more
comfortable. So, when we look at our
data and we look at some of the things
we've
done and we and we look at that target
of 5% um suspension rates for our
Hispanic and Latino families that I'm
we're on target to meet, these are some
of the reasons why. Okay. Um we we
we actively listen to what they wanted
to do instead of us always having the
answers. Okay. We listen to their
voices. We pull students aside. We just
talk to them at lunch. We're out there
at lunch. We're out there at brunch.
We're out there welcoming first thing in
the morning. Miss Alm is out there at
the at the line at the drop off line.
I'm at the auditorium door. Mr. Nelson's
in the auditorium. Derek's out on the
black top. We're actively out there
listening to our
students. So, if you look here, this is
this is from a report from school
status. Last year we our attendance rate
was at
91.6%. Notice we have 453 students last
year. This year we're at
90.9%. We have uh 33 more students this
year than we did last year. So if you
look at we're about the same as we were
last
year. Here we don't really have the data
from last year in power schools to look
at this. the absentee absenteeism
rate. We actively look at every single
student that is a chronic absent rate.
We can go through and tell you exactly
which students have our highest
absenteeism that are is bringing our
data down. Um we have done things the
Tulsa my MTSS Tulsa was a godsend this
year. Um she has parent meetings. We she
prepares SARS. um she prepares our
agenda for our um screen team on
Fridays. Um she's part of our um admin
meeting. So we when we talk about
students, she's there and she hears all
the data and we coordinate all the
service we have have on campus in order
to try to get these students to come to
class. But we can look at each and every
last student that falls in that chronic
absism and know what we're doing and
what we've tried and what's stopping
them from coming to
school. Again, here's our chronic
absenteeism rate. If you know us here,
our students with disabilities is very
high. Of course, some of those fall into
other categories as well. Okay. But we
know with some our students with
disabilities, these are four of our
students definitely have uh chronic
fatigue that is extreme not fatigue,
anxiety, I apologize, that's causing
them not to come to school for one
reason or another. Um for those
students, um one of those students is a
2.6%
um attendance rate. So that's going to
bring everything down. um if we were to
take those students off, our absence,
our chronic absentism rate would be a
lot lower,
but they are our students and we are
still reaching out to them to try to get
them come to school. In fact, one of
them um came to school today. Um we made
an agreement. She showed up. I was I was
almost in tears when she did come to
school today and she said, "Miss
Williams, my here." and she followed
everything we said that you know we
agreed to today and um she came to my
office 7th period to check
in. She sat down at my table and she did
exactly and tried to catch up on some of
the work. So, but those are things that
we are trying to do whether they're
using my office, whether they're using a
conference room, whether we're putting
them with another teacher to pair them
up to try to catch up wherever they're
feeling comfortable at. Just as long as
they're coming to
school. Here's our suspension
rate. Pat ourselves on the back because
this was a lot of work. Okay, last year
was at 10.7%. Right now we are at
2.6%. Again, it is looking at
alternative ways to keep our students in
school because we know if they're not in
school, they're not learning. We know
that school is a social um place for our
students and after COVID, they need to
be in school. Some of our kids need to
be in school just to eat. Okay. Some of
our kids need to be in school to escape
what's going on at home for them. So, we
do look at alternative things besides
suspension in order to keep our kids in
school. We run out of ideas, but they
are being kept in
school. Again, here's our comparison of
our data um between our subgroups um
with the suspension
rate. Here's some of the strategies that
we've put in place. Our weekly screen
team, again, my wonderful Tulsa, she
holds those meetings. Um, that includes
our our school psych, our lead mental
health counselors, all of our admin.
Yes, we we take ourselves off uh the
campus in order to talk about our
students because we need to know. Um we
review and and a person from our family
center because they are a huge part of
um intervening on our students behalfs.
Um we review of students who are in need
of counseling, academic and behavior
support. Our attendance again we hold
attendance meetings. We've done
attendance
raffles. Um our front office
communicates they are some beasts in
communicating with families to find out
where our students are on a daily basis.
bus passes from the family center, home
visits, um we've done those students
starting to feel a sense of belonging.
That again, that that's the I think
that's the the biggest shift is students
starting to feel a sense of belonging.
Um social emotional learning, we have
friends for youth, our our mentorship
program, intramural sports at lunch,
that's what Marco was talking about,
clubs. I actually host a knitting and
crochet club on Wednesdays. Thank you
very much. Um, mental health check-ins,
you're you're going to see on the next
slide, our mental health check-ins have
increased. That's not a bad thing. Okay.
Um, college field trips. So far this
year, we have gone on four college field
trips. Again, getting our eighth graders
out of the building to go see this is
what you should be aiming for when you
leave school. Not just the major
college. Um last week we took him to um
Sanonteo Comm Community College so and
looked at other programs. You don't have
to go to a four-year, you can go to the
two-year, you can go to a trade school,
but we need to know that that let them
know that there are opportunities for
them, right? Um behavior PBIS PBIS
implementation. I have a wonderful team
that last week we went to the county to
go get training, more training
celebrations.
Um that's a morning announcements having
um having um our our five grade level
meetings so far this year. They are a
pain in the butt, but we know we needed
them, right? Um to celebrate our
students um and to of course re-engage
them after breaks. Um classroom and
school incentives. More and more of our
teachers are starting to have classroom
incentives within their um classrooms.
And finally, our student advisory group,
which we plan on building upon for next
year. Here's that mental health data
that I was talking to you about. Last
year, this was all of last year, we had
79 total referrals. Between first
semester and second semester this year,
we have 162 referrals. We're starting to
identify our students that need help um
faster, and everyone is involved in
identify our students that need help. um
individual counseling sessions. Again,
all of last year were 79. So far in two
semesters, 87. We now have groups
because some of our students don't want
to just talk solo. So, we do hold group
sessions over over different things such
as um maybe anger management or grief.
So, we we do hold groups um check-ins
from 3:26 to
478. We know we don't always come to
school happy. I don't either. So, we
don't expect students to to um either.
So, they're allowed to check in, right?
Um crisis, we have decreased this. We
went from 42 last year to the first two
semesters down to 27. Again, I think
that that that um is because we are
checking in more frequently, right? And
then our lunch bunches, we do have whole
lunch bunches twice a week. We had 53
last year and this year so far we've had
123. Our goal number two of course is to
get our students reclassified to up the
percentage of students that we need to
reclassify,
right? And then decrease our LTELs.
Okay. Um so some strategies that we've
tried this year. So here we are right
here. Um, we're approaching our target.
Um, we were at 18% last year, the RFP.
Um, hopefully this year we're going to
hit our 20%
target. Here's our Ltails. Um, we
have a huge population of Ltails. We do.
Looking at the data of who came in this
year, um, we are blessed that we only
had six sixth graders that came in as
Ltails this year. So, we're hoping that
that helps us decrease the number. Um,
that is all from the work of our feeder
schools and and and and those staffs
because, you know, we we go as far as
they they bring us in, right? So, that
is all their work to only have six sixth
graders that were els that came in this
year. So, here's our LPAC again from
last year. We don't have this year's
yet.
strides for this year.
ELPAC, we held the ELPAC boot camp, my
ELD teacher and my newcomer teacher for
three weeks for uh two days a uh two
days a week for three weeks. Um they had
students stay after school. We were able
to use our bus that carries our um
students that do after school program to
help those students that wanted to stay.
they caught that bus, but they helped to
um with interventions for the students
and it helped them understand what they
needed to do do to do better on the
LPAC. Um our newcomer teacher, Mr. Font,
again, I can't say enough about him. He
held study sessions during lunch for two
weeks before leading up to the Elpac.
Not only did he do after school, but
then he also did his lunch. Um we went
to a block schedule. Um Hennis talked
about block scheduling. We did this for
ELPAC as well. And one of the things we
did was we took it out of just the hands
of our our EL teacher and our newcomer
teacher and every teacher either
administered or watched students that
didn't have to take the LPAC. Upstairs,
we had students take the LPAC because we
have 45% of our student population that
is EL. That's almost half. So, we had
them test
upstairs and then those students that
didn't have the test were downstairs
because if you've ever walked MIT, you
know, if you walk across the floor, it's
squeaky. So, we had the students that
tested upstairs so they can have a quiet
a quiet learning testing environment in
order to be successful. Um but the main
thing is that now it's everyone
everybody owns the LPAC not just the two
teachers. We spoke to individuals about
their 23 24 scores. It was amazing when
we had these conversations especially
with our students that were level three
to let them know hey you're almost
there. Well what are you talking about
Miss Williams? You're old pack from last
you're at level three. And then when you
show them the four domains and one of
them was at a four and one was at the
three and they only they didn't know
that they only had to score four in two
of those
domains. They say I only have to get one
more point. Yep. That I don't have to
take that class anymore.
Yep. We got that kid to start going to
boot camp when we did that. We got that
kid to start going at lunchtime when
they knew that. is about communicating
um those test scores to our students. It
shouldn't be kept a secret as to where
they are, right? So, it was about
communicating with those students what
their scores were so that they can
understand what it meant and what it
means, right? Um we communicated with
our families as well. We sent home
letters to tell them about the
importance of having their students just
show up on time and every day. When we
took the LPAC, I think during that time
when we took it, we had some of the
highest attendance rates we've had all
year between those two testing periods,
the ELPAC and our um and our I Ready
testing. But it was communicated with
the families of how important these
tests are to our community. All
right. Strategies for next year. We're
going to continue the strategy we did
this year. If they are working, maybe
tweak them a little bit, but continue
those strategies for next year. writing
across the curriculum. One of the things
that we noticed when we looked at our
data from last year is that our our
students struggle at writing. Not just
our EL students, but all of our students
in general struggle with writing. Um,
we're looking at writing across the
curriculum. Every single content area,
including PE, including our electives
will become writing teachers for next
year. Adding reading time to one period
each week. This was actually an idea for
my staff members that said, "Hey, can we
have a time where students just read?"
Absolutely, we can. So, we're going to
work that in our schedule for next year.
Increase the number of minutes to each
period. We are going from 47 minutes
this year to 55 minutes next
year. Creating more family engagement
opportunities on campus for our e and
newcomer families specifically. Of
course, we want all of our student all
our families to come on come on campus,
but we need to actively target our our
um newcomer families and our e families
to make them feel um like their voice
again, just like their students voice is
important and to and to help us um with
their students as well, right? I'm
collaborating with Redwood City Library
for field trips and guest speakers where
I was there a few weeks ago and they
have this wonderful room upstairs that
we can use if we just walk our students
down to pick up books. It's free of
charge. We're just a hop skipping and
jump right down from the library. So,
let's utilize some of those free
resources that we do have in our
community to get our students to
read. Our goal number
three, of course, is to increase our our
ELA and our math scores on the CAT
testing that's coming at at the end of
April. If you can see here, our ready,
our targets for our I rating was to
increase ELA by 20%, math by 12% and for
our CAST testing is increase ELA by 38%
and math by 16%.
Here's our I Ready data. Um this right
here is for
math. I mean sorry
ELA 20% only 20% of our students met or
exceeded that.
Um that here is for ELA for our
different groups of
students. Again, here's for our these
are our cohorts right
here. We got some work to do. We
know our eye ready. Um this is our fall
eye ready test for reading. As you can
see, uh we had a lot of red, right? We
had um every single category from 22 uh
23 to this year in the fall was a red
there. I mean, at least 50% was read.
Correct. Here's our current spring I
Ready
data. Again, we we we improve we
increased the growth for our green to
11% for our sixth graders, by 11% for
our sixth graders, by 17% for our
seventh graders, and by 17% for our
eighth graders. The most important part
is we decreased the percentage that we
had in
red by 17% for our sixth graders, 13%
for our seventh graders, and 13% for our
eighth
graders. We use just simple strategies
this year going into block testing. Of
course, our teachers taught, right? but
doing a block testing schedule for our
ready um communicating with the
students, communicating with the
families and of course incentivizing our
students to do better, right? Everybody
likes food. These kids love food and
they love
food. So last week um one of the things
we did when we celebrated not just our
honoral students but we also celebrated
those students that grew on the I Ready
and we we did grade level lunches and we
invited the families to come out and
celebrate. We bought a lot of pizza last
week. Bought a lot of pizza last week
which was a blessing. We pretty much
doubled from fall to spring the amount
uh of students that we celebrated. Okay.
We just want them to know no matter how
much they grew, growth is still
important. you know, it's it's you
against it's you versus you. It's not
you versus the whole school. Your
growth, we want them to know that their
growth is their growth, right? So, we
celebrated
them. Again, here's our math. Notice
here for 2024 and this this is uh fall
uh
6.8%
exceeded. Again, there's our subgroups
right there. And then here should be for
the spring. Nope, my bad.
Cohorts. Again, here's our fall a lot of
red for
math. Here's our growth for spring. Um
we we increased the number uh the
percentage of green for sixth graders by
9% seventh graders by 7% eighth graders
by 6%. We decreased the number that were
in red 7% for sixth graders 13% for
seventh graders and 21% for our eighth
graders. Yeah, that's amazing. Thank
you.
again. What did we do this year? We went
to block. Oh, I think you've been going.
Okay.
So, some strategies for this year
because we are um in ATSI we do have
coaching um and I wanted to thank our
not just our TCM coaches but also the
district coaches that we have. They have
come out. I meet with them every other
week to get them um to come into the um
not only to help individual teachers but
they come to our meetings um because one
of the things that we have in schedule
all of our content area uh teachers have
the same planning period. So all the
math teachers have second plan per um
planning our English has uh third period
planning. So we deliberately put them
together because we know on Thursdays
that's grade level. So our coaches come
out and they go to their meetings with
them and help them develop strategies
for increasing our student learning. Um
so we did have TCM coaches um that came
in this year. So our math and our ELA
teachers were able to go not only on
campus but also to Hoover to go look and
see how to um put strategies for
engagement into their lessons.
What we did for I Ready again, we used
block scheduling. All teachers again um
were involved with administering the I
Ready. It was and it just fall on the
ELA and the math teachers as we had in
the fall. That's what happened and it
took them forever and it felt just um
like only the ELA and math teachers were
responsible for that data. We we
reversed that and we said nope,
everyone's going to administer the I
Ready. Um, this also created smaller
testing groups for our students to be
more
successful. We created a testing
environment where we we treated it just
like it was a state test. We put some of
those those strategies and procedures in
there. The teachers had they walked
around. They weren't on their computers.
We treated it just like the state test
in order to get ready for the state test
that's coming up. But we want our
students to know how important um
testing is. Whether it's a unit test or
whether it's the I Ready or whether it's
a state test, we need to start treating
every test the same. Um standard mastery
checks were given by some teachers. We
did um we've done three cycles so far
and out of those three cycles, two of
those cycles focused on writing because
as I told you earlier, our students need
a lot of help with writing. And again,
we communicated um with students about
with families about the importance of
the I Ready and its connection um to the
ESPback that's coming up.
That's
it. Like I've been on here for like two
hours. I can't question.
Thank you Bulldogs for the presentation.
be Alma really appreciate it. Your staff
that's here in attendance um yeah that's
great and particularly Emily Genesis
Jonathan and Marco loved hearing about
their experiences.
Um this is the time where we get to
discuss amongst ourselves or ask
questions of be uh would anyone like to
start please
thank you for the presentation and it
was great to hear from from the kids um
at the schools. I think it would be nice
for some of the other schools to do the
same. It's good to hear from the kids.
Um thank you for answering the question
on the mental health service data. That
was my first thing when I saw the
numbers. Um I guess my follow-up
question to to that is um it's great
that we're doing the early intervention,
but do we have the resources now that
we've identified such a large group of
kids who need support? You know, those
are that's some of the things that we
are working with through with the
district and actually the foundation. We
just met earlier, uh, actually last
week, Thursday last week, they're
offering a grant for $60,000 for next
year and the following year for mental
health um, resources at MIT. So, we're
actively looking for more because we do
need more. I mean, we have waiting lists
for our students to see a counselor at
this point. Yeah. So, um, we are looking
for more. Um, but again, we're working
with the district to help us fill some
of those needs. Oh, good. And then my
other question maybe is more of a Anna
Jenny question on the I read especially
for middle school. I was wondering in
the future if we can see um sixth
seventh eighth broken out separately. I
just feel like looking at some of the
data that's coming back from the schools
a sixth grader and an eighth a sixth
grade class and an eighth grade class
especially that fall I
ready. But thank you guys very much.
You're welcome.
Y David Lee. Um I'll echo. Thank you so
much for the presentation and for
bringing your staff, bringing the
students. It was really helpful. Um I
will also just acknowledge that culture
is so hard in general to recreate and to
change and improve and um I recognize
the difficulty about doing that both
with um a very new admin team uh and
also simultaneously tackling the
suspension issue. I think I'm I imagine
this is not the the district way, but I
I would guess that there are a lot of u
folks who have the temptation to use
this suspension as a means to um filter
the culture and you guys are not doing
that and that's great because it's super
important that we serve all of our kids.
Um, so thank you for all that and thank
you for the the students testimony
because uh it's just really helpful to
have the the firsthand accounts. Uh, and
I'm a sucker for extemporaneous speech.
So it really just felt very genuine and
like really like testimony to all the
different things that they saying and
how they feel about it. So that was
really just I really appreciate getting
that. Believe when we first went to that
school this summer, it was like white
walls. Nelson. Nelson was a be we hung
things and we got, you know, I'm a
strong believer in the outside and
keeping interior clean and keep your
house clean before you invite people in,
right? So, we needed some color. I mean,
so we put up flags. We put international
flags. We hung up college banners. We
got a poster maker or start making
posters instead of the students writing
them out. We made we created a space in
our office so families could feel
instead of having these little purple
chairs that a second grader sits in. We
put furniture in there and plants and
because we wanted to create the
environment where the building and our
office where people come in at it can
feel warm and inviting. Yes, students
went through and they were blowing stuff
down, but we've seen a decrease in that
because they, you know, they didn't
understand, you know, so now they're
starting to take pride and ownership on
how their building looks. We put garbage
cans in the hallways, you know, we we we
we actively sought to do that because
they need to have a safe place and in
our minds a safe place includes a clean
place and they need to start taking
ownership of things and they have
started taking ownership and things. So
I think that started changing um a
cultural shift too and then they I think
they started to see that we're not gonna
leave them alone. We're gonna keep
talking to them. We're gonna keep being
their face. we're going to be in the
middle of their four square game. We
going to go out and watch their soccer
games. We're going to do all that. So
once they saw that we're not going to
give up on them, they started to come
and and started talking to us and now
they won't leave us alone. But that's
okay. We love them. No, I I love it. I
will only say that I feel like you maybe
set expectations very high for I'm
excited to see what happens next year,
but now I'm have high expectations. Um
that's kind of what it is. Um and I
think to your point, right, like the
there's a foundational piece, right?
Yes. Learn. We want to have the students
learn and we want that to be um visible,
tangible, but like you have to have the
conditions and that's one of them,
right? Safe environment and then the
other as you acknowledged is coming to
school. Um which we'll put that to the
side because I do want to have I have a
couple questions on that. Um but again
really appreciate that first part. I
just going through the two the other two
goals first. So goal two on the um e
learn the English learners. I I think I
gathered this but it's it just to
confirm it sounds like broadly at least
on the RFA the rec reclassification and
LLESS we we feel like we're tracking in
toward our goal. We don't feel like
there's alarm there or is
I feel like we're tracking towards our
goal.
Um again we're we're we're excited to
see what comes out of it. Um, but it was
showing the students what where they
were to begin with, you know, is it it
it it was giving them that information
instead of us holding on to it. It's
giving them ownership of their data,
right? Um, so we're hoping we're praying
that it does come out um in our favor.
Sounds good. Yes. the I really
appreciate that the um the examples that
you gave about letting them have the
ownership and the insight into what it
takes because yeah, you have to have
ownership and you can't do that if you
don't know where you are. Um so again,
testament to the culture. I'll keep on
saying it but I love it. Uh and then the
uh on goal three I think you already
answered the question but broadly yes
you know different question on we'd love
to have higher baselines but we can only
do what we can do and it looks like we
have a great amount of growth um at
least relative to our goals that we've
been set. So unless you tell me
otherwise I'm not going to worry too
much about they may tell you otherwise
you're right it's a girl sounds good.
Um, so then the the one thing is on the
chronic apps and TS and piece and I this
is more maybe a question for Anna
because I I I I feel like I keep on
getting mixed up on what the
calculations are and how we're doing it
but uh yes I guess when we when we use
the percentage of chronic absenteeism
uh I had I had assumed it was like a
percentage of students that are in this
bucket of they have 10 10% or more
absence. So if we have like 480 or
whatever students, then we're looking at
like 150ish who are who have more than
10% absences. Is that right?
Yes, probably at MIT we have a lot.
Okay. There is I think on list is back
there should probably tell you how many
phone calls. Yeah, there is a lot. And
also middle school the way also we do
remember middle school does attendance
every period as well. Also keep in mind
if you but there is a lot of students um
that have chronic absentism um and I
know they've been working really hard to
try to get some of the students back
onto campus and making phone calls
consistent with families and making
plans. But that also falls like if we
had a student that came in last month
and they missed a day, they
automatically fall into because it it it
takes it's a weird calculation on on how
it looks. So, you might have a kid that
misses two days and they're at a
78% attendance rate, but they would fall
into that chronic absenteeism.
Um, so it's it's you know, it's weird to
look at, but some of them have reasons
why they're they're missing for those
two or three days. We went through a
spate there where shots is a big one.
Shots of immunization. Um, again, we we
had we went to Spain there in December
where the flu and we've had a couple
things that happened on campus where our
families kept their students back. Um,
the the environment today doesn't help
when you have 86% of your students that
are um, Hispanic. Um, what's going on
today doesn't help that. So, we had a
lot of families that were were nervous
um, rightfully so. That hurts us. Um, so
again, I think the main thing is yes,
that number that percentage is high, but
we
we know why for the most part our
students are are absent and we're just
keep trying to get them to come back to
school, the ones that aren't. I'll I'll
do more homework on my end of the
calculations piece, but I guess big
picture for next year, I mean, do
we do we feel like we have an approach
to reduce that uh or I think we do. Um
it's starting off with um reaching
parents more. Um we we have a better
footage of what's working now. Um
because I again I think that if you took
some in the beginning of the school year
off and we took a few of those students
off that and we have a student that's at
2.6% attendance rate you know another
one that's at 25% what do you do with
those? Um but still trying to use some
of the things that we're doing now later
in the year starting those off at the
beginning of the school year. I think
we'll be in a better place.
I'm very excited to again you set my
expectations so high so it's a little
bit on you. Um the last last question is
I had um mostly just if there is
anything that you'd call out in terms of
supports that have been super helpful uh
that are particularly helpful like
please make sure that we keep on having
this to continue being successful. Uh
and then on the opposite end uh any
particular challenges that you're facing
that you think that um the districts of
board can be more supportive of. Um, you
know, I it's it's it's funny because I
don't think I've ever had this much
support. I mean, this is my second year
as administrator. Um, but I know that I
can call up any any of them and they're
there from Katherine Rivera to Wendy to
Anna to Dr. Baker to Rick, you know. I
mean, all of them. Martin. Martin has
been a huge support for me because I
just walk over to his hey Martin knock
on his door because we right there
Martin what you doing I need this but
you know there's no one that I I've ever
reached out to the principles you know
they're amazing they you know Aaron next
door you know I've I've thrown my keys
and say I don't know about this Aaron
and she said come on be let's talk so
you know I there's there's there's so
much support here that I know if I think
of something you know we can work it out
and and my my think part partners in
this district are strong. They're there
to help out right now. I think it's just
um we're working through getting more
mental health support and also working
on making sure our teachers have um some
of the strategies they need to help um
to keep improving upon our students
success.
Thank you so much. Oh, Michelle Griff,
too, because she's a strong Thank you.
I'll go next. Um, thank you again so
much for your um, presentation. And I
just want to say I want to go back to
school and have you as my principal.
I know you're good. Thank you. Thank
you. Um, and then, of course, I have to
give credit to all the teachers and
staff that support you because I'm sure
you support them, so they want to um,
pay back. Um I want to say obviously
thank you to the students for being
here. Um it takes a lot of courage to
speak sometimes even we as board members
including myself get nervous. So please
um very thankful that you were here um
to express your feelings. I love to hear
the students say that they love Mckenley
um feeling welcome. Uh things have
changed. Obviously, I I think to be
honest with you, this has been the most
I want to say kind of like engaging
um presentation and I think because you
made that, you know, just having the
students here made a big difference. Um
we've had other
uh student I mean I'm sorry other
schools where they bring their staff
members as well. But again, it was just
like your enthusiasm as well as I know
I've said it and I love all the
principles, don't get me wrong, but I
know like David Kamarena, I've always
said too, like I love the enthusiasm and
I think that makes a big plus for
students and a lot of the times a lot of
the students are struggling where they
actually see themselves um again feeling
welcome. I think um leadership has a lot
to do with their um growth. And I want
to say to the students that are here,
please know that as a school district,
we care about you. Um, and obviously I
appreciate the fact that one of you
mentioned how you were tardy a lot of
the times, but now you see you can't be
tardy otherwise you can't play soccer.
And I know soccer is important, but just
think of your future. The more you come
to school and the more you learn, um,
you will thrive and be successful. Um,
so again, thank you so much for all of
you um, being here.
Um, I love the fact that you're doing
the ELPAC boot camp, um, the study
sessions at lunch. I mean, just all the
extra time that your team is taking to
make a difference in the students, um,
academic success. I know that the
needle's moving, and I've said it
before, to other schools, too. Um,
slowly, uh, but it's moving and you guys
are making a big difference, and I hope
that's something, as we just hearing
from the students tonight where they
actually feel it. And so hopefully they
can go back to their siblings and their
friends to try to get everybody engaged
um in the future. Um I love to hear that
you're doing working strategies um like
engaging students um how you mentioned
that you went to visit Hoover. That's
one of the things that we've mentioned
as a board that we would love to see
from principles and different schools
just uh seeing what works at one school
and see if you could bring that and
mirror that um at your school site. So I
really don't have any questions. I just
want to say um it is very um challenging
at times for
um leaders to not have to throw their
keys. Uh so I really appreciate
everything that you are doing and again
just seeing and hearing from the
students I think that just like touched
my heart. So thank you so much. Well one
of one of the schools we visited was
Sequoia to come look at the model for
their co-eing. though, but it was
getting the the the teachers out to see
the strategies at the high school so
they can try to bring some of those to
the school, you know, to our school, you
know. So, I think they got a they were
amazed when they went to Sequoia to the
different classrooms and saw how
students were engaging and how the
teachers were getting them engaged. So,
those, you know, those are it's right
across the street. It was an easy call.
Hey, can we come over? Yeah, sure. Thank
you. Um, and then of course I love to
hear that and and I've heard it from
other uh principles, you know, thank you
to cabinet for for their leadership and
their support. So, thank you again.
Sweet. Yeah, students, nice work.
Presenting is hard, scary, gets a little
less scary the more you do it. This was
maybe presentation one, presentation two
out of, you know, hundreds of
presentations you're going to end up
giving, I'm sure. Yeah. Um staff,
teachers, thank you so much for the work
that you do for the school. Um
yeah. Um you know, I'll be honest. I I
take a look at that uh progressive of 22
23 24 on like the I Ready scores in the
fall scares the crap out of me. Those
are really terrifying bar charts and
they're all going the wrong direction.
Um, this school needs strong leadership
and thankfully it's got it in you D. So
I B Bud.
Um, so I'm I'm I'm I'm really grateful
for your vibrancy, your leadership, and
your willingness to listen to the
students, to engage the students, to put
them here in front of the podium. Um,
people respect that. People respect
being respected. And so the respect that
you're pouring out into the student body
is, I think, getting reflected and is
getting results. I really like that you
put forth like what are my strategies
for next year, right? So there's not
just a presumption of we're going to
keep on doing what we've been doing and
so I I love us trying new things of
experimenting of exploring and I I
really appreciate your thoughtfulness in
putting that together. Um I think it's
great as well that we're showing
students their own ELPAC scores and
putting it on them give putting them in
the driver's seat that mirrors
metacognitive best practices. Like what
are you going to do to drive this? you
know, how are you going to take
ownership of your future and what you're
going to do here? This is not just about
uh education being something that is
done to you, but it's something that
that you command and that that you that
you need to own. And I think that's
that's fantastic. Great progress on
suspensions. Love uh things like
creativity around uh you can't be tardy
and still play sports. Um I think that
that was really really clever.
Um, do you feel like you're getting all
the data you need like with uh two two I
ready samplings here? Is there more data
that you feel you need to be able to do
your job well and see what's working and
what's not working?
No, I think sometimes you can have data
overload. Um, the the cool thing about
Power School's analytics, the more we
play around with it, the more that we
can find what we need. Um, I mean, if we
need more, we go to the family and say,
"Hey, what's going on?" Right. So, I
think we have we have enough data to
look at to see to help support our our
efforts right now. Okay, cool. Um, do
you have an opinion on like summer slide
and things that we can do to help
students during the summer given like
the eight and a half weeks we got off?
That's a tough one. Um, I I did summer
school I was the summer school principal
for middle school last year. Um, I saw
how many students, you know, we started
off filled and then by the second week
they were half of them were gone because
I think they need a mental break as
well.
Um, there's really, you know, this is my
20th year in education.
There's, you know, there's really
nothing. We can try to get them to read
more. Um, but I think they need that
mental break as well.
Um I yeah I I don't have an answer for
that. I it could starting this year off
right. Um maybe do I don't know. Maybe
doing some uh Yeah, it it there's no
there's no right or wrong for that. Uh
there's no right or wrong. Okay. Thank
you so much. I really appreciate all
that you do. Just
Yeah. I echo uh the thanks and
appreciation for you, your staff, um and
everything that's going on there. I I
love the focus on belonging. Um I just
think that that's like the number one
thing that we can possibly do in
elementary and middle school education
is make sure that kids feel like they
belong, that they're seen, they're
heard, and that they love education
because like nothing else is going to
follow with that. And it's cool to see
the growth from fall to spring uh and I
ready and that the strategies that
you're taking are starting to show that
growth. Um so that's amazing. And it was
outstanding to hear from Emily, Genesis,
Jonathan, and Marco about I could hear
threaded through their comments that
belonging that's growing and that sense
of wanting to be at school and that is
just outstanding. So, thanks for the
presentation. Um, loved visiting in
gosh, was it Thanksgiving or I can't
remember was the food drive time. Yeah,
it was Thanksgiving. But yeah, yeah,
looking forward to getting out there
again. Thank you. Thank you.
Well, B, it was great that you brought
not only your staff is here, but the the
four students that showed up tonight
with you. It does show that the climate
and the culture has changed. And just
listening to these four students, out of
all of you that spoke tonight, have you
been in Redwood City since
kindergarten?
Yes. Very good. That's great. That's
great.
So fantastic coming and speaking Spanish
and now they're they're quite
bilingual. What you have created um with
a culture at the school and I know we've
talked about this especially at the
beginning when we're doing our walks and
talking and meeting with students in the
hallways. What has happened now is
entirely different from that fall period
and they are the evidence of it. So you
should be very proud of yourself, your
staff, the students that are here and
what you have accomplished in that short
period of time. I know it was rocky, but
it's getting to the point now. I think
as we end the school year and begin next
year with your experience that you've
had, you'll step right in and know
exactly where to start and what to do.
And I'm very pleased with what you've
been doing and these students to come
forward as you brought them tonight is
quite impressive. And so I applaud you
for doing that. And um as was it Jen, I
think you said it. It would be nice to
have more kids come and speak at these
meetings. So, bravos to you. You're the
first one that I've done something like
this. Well, there again, we their voices
are invaluable. You know, it's
just the beginning of the school year.
Yeah, I know. Lots of
conversations 6:30 in the morning.
Their parents also showed up too to
support them and hear them. So,
But that's the that's the culture we're
trying to build at MIT. It's just not,
you know, it's that triangle is is the
the the school, the family, and the
student and connecting those is what
we're trying to work on. Um, but to have
the support, you know, one of my
favorite times at the beginning of the
school year was doing the the drop off
line because I was able to to make
connections with the family. I almost
got it now because there's a lot going
on, but I did it for the first first
semester and a half. Now she's got it.
But that was the that was the piece of
of making those connections with our
families and
and a strong believer. And the first
thing some students see our our our
smiles are the first thing sometimes um
first time a student sees that in the
morning. So I had the biggest headache
cuz when Kelly knows what time I get up
4:45 every morning get on the treadmill.
So but I go in and I smile and I tell
them happy Wednesday and I say miss you
so loud. I like I know I'm loud but
that's who I am you know but you know
they they know what to expect out of me.
Um, I'm genuine, but I think I I I I'm
real with them. Um, there's high
expectations and they know it. I don't
sugarcoat anything with them. I tell
them all the time. I might say something
you don't want to hear, but I'm going to
tell you always tell you the truth and
be honest with you, but also value you
because I know where I came from, you
know, um, and being a minority, um, I
always wanted to feel valued. I did. I
want them to have the same experience.
So that was always a goal of mine with
with every student um that's in front of
me for the last 20 years. I want them to
feel valued
and you you are doing that. So thank
you. Thank you.
Yeah. Thank you.
Same time next year. Bye.
4:45 is right around the corner. So
please have a good evening and thank you
again. Thanks, Bulldogs. Appreciate it.
Hi.
Let's move on to the consent agenda.
We're going to approve these all in one
motion. Um, can I get a motion for all
the consent items? I move we approve the
consent agenda. Is there a second?
Second. All in favor? I. I. Perfect. Uh,
okay. Then we're going to move on to our
action items. This is 14.1 approval of
the agreement between RCSD and Team
Civics and Godby Research and SEI
Consulting Group. Um, and this is to
conduct a partial tax measure
feasibility study. I believe we're going
to have a presentation. We also have
public comment. Um and so maybe we'll
take the public comment after the
presentation.
I got to be I
was thinking the presentation first and
then public comment. Is that our is
there a presentation or a presentation?
Okay. Sorry. There really isn't a
presentation. It's more of a dis of a
discussion. Okay. So um first of all,
let me introduce I don't
[Music]
and Blair, right?
Oh, right. I forgot. Then we can we can
take the public comment. Why don't we
start with that? Um, is that okay? Yeah.
Yeah. Okay, then. Um, let me make sure
that nothing else has come up. Uh, okay.
We have, uh, two now actually. Um, so
our first speaker, and I'm guessing
looking at the audience that they're
going to be on Zoom, is uh is Jessica
Shade.
Hi everyone. Jessica, we can hear you.
Great. Um, I'm a parent of two kids at
Orion. I'm really thankful that the
district's looking at multiple options
for filling the funding gap that we've
got. Um I'm part of a group leading a
citizens initiative for a parcel tax. Um
but honestly we aren't picky about how
the funding gets passed. So if you do
this survey and it shows you know over
two3 um over twothird support by a good
margin, we're happy to work on a
district-led initiative. essentially our
students need this funding. Um,
and we're hoping to work with the
district to make sure they get it. Um,
we're really interested in retaining and
attracting quality teachers, supporting
steam programs, um, maintaining small
class sizes, and more. So, thanks for
looking at options to fund RCSD. Um, and
we're here to
help. That's all. All right. Thank you,
Jessica, and thank you for your
advocacy. Um, and our next speaker is
Carlo Kavali.
Hello everyone. Hi Carla. Okay, you can
hear me good. I'm also a parent in
Redwood City School District.
Um like once again the board meeting
started with an outcry about important
key programs being cut because we don't
have enough funding in enough budget. I
think we we we all know that our schools
need a lot need more funding and they
need it now. They need it badly. So we
know there's a new way to raise parcel
taxes based on square footage and we
know that this has been extremely
effective in raising funds in other
districts as well. uh you're about to
discuss uh um like a poll in order to
find out if this can be effective in
Redu City as well. I think it's very
important to move forward with this poll
and find out if this can work for Edu
City because if it if it can work for
Edu city, it's something that that we we
should push forward as quickly as
possible in order to have more funding
and hey restore the AP programs that are
being cut or like provide more teacher
aids or like do all those things that
that are important for our teachers to
be successful with with with our kids.
Uh I'm also involved with the parcel tax
initiative and and again I think it's uh
like whatever we decide to do uh we'll
do our best to to whatever we find out
from from this research and from this
poll we'll do our best to make sure that
that we get more funding into the
district but I think it's very important
to have the data and to to to see if if
uh this can be effective pretty much.
Thank you. Thank you Carlo for your
comments. Um, Dr. Yeah. So, this item
comes to you for approval of the
feasibility study uh that would assess
the community's willingness to support a
parcel tax measure for our students. Um,
as we've heard from Jessica and Carlo
and other community members, there may
be some willingness to move forward in
the near future. So, as we've heard
during multiple board meetings recently,
parents have expressed support for
pursuing this funding option, and we've
discussed the importance of exploring a
sustainable solution for some of the
reductions that we've done due to the
reductions of COVID uh funding that we
have had since that for a small period
of time. and due to the reductions that
we made earlier this school year to kind
of balance our budget even though there
is still some deficit spending occurring
but it's more balanced now than it was
previously.
Um as we consider this for approval I
want to recognize and thank you know
every parent that has been working on
this initiative project. I know Jessica,
you've been part of Jennifer, you've
been part of it, and Jessica and Carlo
have been extremely supportive in moving
this forward and working with community
members to see if there is a flavor to
go out
and possibly do this parcel tax in the
in the near future. The study will
provide critical data to help determine
the best pathway forward for the school
district and to continue with having our
highquality education here in the
Redwood City School District, maintain
our teachers and our staff and to
maintain a lot of the programs that you
hear about that are coming before you as
board these board presentations are
being made by uh different school uh
sites. So, um, with that, I do have
Jeremy Hower here. I have, um, Ryan
Godby and Brandon. I'm trying to look
for his last name since it was Blair
that I was thinking of. Brandon Van
Luven. Brandon Van Luven. Hi. Thank you,
Brandon. Hi. Great. Thank you for being
here. If you have any questions in
regard to the contracts that we if you
move forward to approve this, if you
have any questions about those
contracts, uh, this is the time that we
can discuss them and they can give us
any possible responses for those
questions that you may have.
Does anyone have questions about the
contracts or the process going forward?
I know we had a discussion item on this
before um last board meeting, I think,
um with with Jeremy. Maybe there's one
too before.
Any questions for Brian and the as we
move forward? And and Jeremy, you're on
the line. And I did speak um with uh
President Wells and also Trustee Lee uh
this afternoon regarding uh a future
meeting coming forward if they were to
be passed. Um I know that you also asked
at that meeting have some few parents at
it. I don't know if you wanted to
discuss at that time at this meeting um
that uh Brian would be there and I don't
know if it's Brandon or Blair that would
also be at this meeting to give more of
um timeline and what's to occur next.
Yeah, that that's exactly correct. I
think really assuming we get direction
and approval from the board tonight to
move forward. Really our first step as a
consulting team is honestly to do a
listening session with you all with your
leadership and key stakeholders to
understand what your funding needs are
so that we can begin the process of
crafting the survey. Right? And those
needs can take various forms. It can be
the programs you'd like to see funded,
the staff, but also the revenue goals,
right? And how we might uh achieve those
goals through a square footage parcel
tax. So that would be the first step is
really a listening and learning session
for us. So then we can, you know, build
a survey that we think has the best
likelihood of success. Um, and of course
go back and forth in that process and
get it in the field and really just hear
from your voters about what they think
might be possible.
And this is Brian Godby from Godby
Research. As Jeremy said, that first
session is a listening session. It
usually takes about two and a half or
three weeks to work out a questionnaire.
Uh as with those issues that he
mentioned, uh there's another few days
for programming. Then we're in the field
doing our interviewing. Uh that usually
takes between seven and 10 days. There's
a data processing component after that.
Uh so another three days. Uh and then we
have topline results and cross tabs. Uh
and from there uh we discuss with your
internal group. Um and then a
presentation to the full board.
And Brandon, in regard to flat rate
versus square footage,
um any information in regard to how we
move forward in that direction?
Yeah. So, we're going to be working
behind the scenes if you know it,
assuming we're approved by the board
today, we would be developing various
tax rate scenarios at various
um rates per square feet. And we would
also run a typical tax and give you
options of looking, you know, looking at
those side by side to see the
differences. And then once we know the
revenue goal, we can start developing
more mature scenarios and present to you
a technical memorandum with our
recommendations
um and rate scenarios based on the
district's revenue need. And if there's
any other questions or scenarios that
you would like to see, SEI would be the
on call tax consultant who would develop
these scenarios and we can certainly
provide you more information on that.
Anyone have questions or
comments? Um, looks like an experienced
team to me and I know we've worked with
with Godby and um team civics before.
Um, you know, I think because we heard
from our speakers, there's urgency in
pursuing this now. We see it in our
classrooms. We hear it from our
community. Uh, so I to me at least it
makes a lot of sense. Um, would anyone
like to make a motion to approve this
item?
I move to approve this item. Is there a
second, Cecilia? Thank you. All right.
All in favor? I. All right. Great. Then
we will move forward and Jeremy, I'll
give you a call tomorrow morning.
Looking forward to it. Thanks for having
us again. Thank you all for being here.
Thank you all. Bye. Bye. Have a great
night. Bye. Thank you. Thank you.
Appreciate it. Um, okay. We're on to
report from board members and
superintendent. Who would like to start
the report out?
I'll
go. So, I've started trying to do more
structured uh trusty site visits. Um so
I put together I think as most of you
know a document describing how should a
trustee conduct a site visit and I got
very useful feedback um from folks. So
thank you so much everyone who chimed in
on that. Um and okay uh now to put
theory to practice time to go start
having site visits in that way. And so I
have started reaching out to different
sites to go and meet with them. and
principles really appreciated knowing
like oh what is he planning on doing
right these are the kinds of questions
to expect and the like and um that let
it uh really be a focused listening
session where I would do it a 90-minute
visit about 60 minutes of which would be
me mostly just listening to what the
principal had to say um and then about
30 minutes of doing classroom
visitations walking around uh observing
uh the quality of the facilities you
know really doing uh doing an inspection
and then afterwards taking about an hour
or two to go and write up my findings
and send them onward to uh to Dr. Baker
as well as to the principal for them to
check for understanding and make sure
that I actually had captured accurately
and truthfully uh what had happened. So,
I I've done that with a couple different
schools now, and it's been really pretty
gratifying because turns out if you
spend an hour listening carefully to an
expert talk about what's working, what's
not working well. They have a lot of
interesting things to say. So, I would
have pages and pages of notes. And uh
oftentimes in those notes, there was
material that was novel and actionable
where like the district needed uh to do
something about it. Lots of praise, by
the way, for district staff. um just it
I think tonight's speaker was not the
only one who feels very well supported
by uh the district. So, a lot of high
praise there. So, yeah. Um I've been
doing those and I'm looking forward to
um doing those with even more sites.
Uh coord coord coordinate with him with
the superintendent. Let him know if
you're thinking about visiting us. Is
that fair for me to put you on the spot?
Right. And then they have their
calendars. They have their calendars so
they know who's coming when and so they
can schedule you. Good point about
pylon. Yeah. Yeah. Another trustee, I
think. But just be, you know, be open to
say I'm flexible and work for their
schedule and they'll be very friendly of
saying this is not a good week. Um, you
know, can you do some other time?
In that spirit, I think Trusty Weekly
and I visited us the same school over
this last period and I think principal
nurseries on the the Zoom as well. Um so
it's one of the items I did a site visit
at Roosevelt learned quite a bit about
um the general history. It was really
interesting for me to really get a sense
of kind of the uh amount of change that
they have that the school has faced over
the past several years. And so it seems
like there's a relatively stable period
now which is great for a variety of
reasons. Um and then I think what some
things I heard were that transportation
be helpful um in terms of making sure
that we get kids get to school. Um one
thing that I observed was that like at
many other schools felt like there was a
very strong relationship with um
principal, the staff and the students.
Uh enough where you know very much like
knowing them by name and greeting
proactively and things like that which
sounds small but um to the earlier point
about culture is like super important
obviously. So it was great to see. Um,
and I think they're very excited about
getting the H check over the summer. So,
that's great. Um, everyone that is
getting it, I'm sure, is very excited.
Then the only other thing I report is
that I I did go to the the matinea
showing for Legally League blonde. So,
that was great. Really enjoyed that. I
think I saw trustee was there as well.
Um, so I enjoyed that.
I didn't visit any school sites this
week, but I'm doing a MIG training right
now, which I I Yeah. So any information
you guys can send my way would be
appreciated just on glossery words.
Yeah, that's awesome. I did see I saw
Legal Blonde. I saw twice actually on
Friday night and uh Saturday. So what
you missed was the dance program uh
which they had before. So they did that
on the evening ones. Visited a couple
sites. I saw Ford which you were at and
Clifford. Um, and then we had uh Rick
led the facility master plans, community
engagement meetings um at Hoover and
Kennedy. Uh, and it was good. It was
different. I mean, it wasn't the room
was set up for a lot of people. There
were not as many people there, but it
was a pretty, you know, I think we got a
pretty good diverse representation from
different sets of schools at the
different at the different sites. So,
almost every school seemed to be have at
least one or two people there for it.
Um, I think by the end if you count the
virtual meeting. Yeah, that's right. um
that we had before. So, um yeah, it was
good. And hearing it three times, I
thought for sure would be like overkill,
but actually it was a little bit
different every time and a little bit
more information. So, uh it was kind of
good to have the repetition.
Great. Like Leblon, too, but it was on
Saturday afternoon for me and then Wendy
went on Friday night. Um
stop with her.
Um we had a immigration meeting again on
Monday. Um and it was not only ourselves
presenting but alo also faith in action
who is a group in Sanonteo County who is
working very closely um from northern to
the southern portion of the county to
make sure that um people who are here
undocumented not only know their rights
like we have been instructing them but
also know about resources that are
available to them during this time.
resources in the in the manner of um
rental assistance, in the manner of
assistance for um if there's a physician
needing, they don't have one and they
they're going to go to an urgent care or
something and there's money needed for
that, they have that. Uh we had heard a
story um at one of our cafestos. No,
yeah, I was at one of the cafes and also
at one of your um Philip's master plan
got back to me that one of our parents I
guess
I believe it was Jorge asked the parents
to take take a picture of the QR code.
She goes, I'm not able to because I was
unable to pay for that portion on my
cell phone this month. So, an item like
that they can help support. So, it was
great uh having this meeting. We went
from 6, it was scheduled from 6 to 8. We
went from 6:00 to 7:30 and covered
everything that was needed. There is
still a lot of anxiety and stress out in
the communities where
um parents did share what they're
experiencing and then how um
appreciative they are for the district
and also the community schools and the
community school centers that are there
to support. So, uh it was it was good to
hear that. I went to a chamber meeting,
chamber education meeting today and
there are several people that tuned into
the facilities master plan and wonder
and then asked me the question when is
the study session and I go I'll get back
to you on that because I couldn't
remember what date we had chosen. It's
April 23rd. I'll get back to them then
so that you will hear everything that
has taken place at those meetings. But
it was very interesting that these are
people who not necessarily have students
in our district but are interested in
the education that's taking place in
Redwood City and also own in Redwood
City. So of course they're interested in
in what we're doing. So I said yes,
we'll get that information out to you.
I'm sorry I don't have the date in my
mind at this point in time, but I'll
send them the information so they could
come to the study session and listen
along with others. Great. And the folks
from the charter schools are
participating as well. Exactly. Awesome
from charter school. Sorry.
Great. That means it's back to me. I
forgot. Um, so we have no information.
How about correspondence? Did anyone
have correspondence to
share? Hearing none, uh, we can move on
to possible other business and suggested
items for future agenda.
All right. Um, Evelyn, are there changes
to the board meetings calendar?
No changes. No changes. Great. Um, then
we're up to the adjournment. I got a
motion to adjurnn.
Move to second. All in favor? Hi. Hi.