all right I believe we can start our
meeting Evelyn will you start with roll
call all right we're gonna go ahead and
start our meeting uh and we'll start
with our roll call thanks Evelyn trusty
Lee trusty King is absent trusty Marquez
yeah vice president Weekley president
president well here
all right good evening and welcome to
the January 8th uh yeah January 8 2025
meeting of the Redwood City School
District governing board it's our first
meeting of the calendar year so happy
New Year um
person Sal so that's in the back there
so 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 so to speak uh and
many of you already know this because I
have speakers cards and she spilled in
um but please complete a speaker card if
you haven't already um either online or
if you're here in person uh you can find
them also available at the entrance um
and then if you're here and you fill one
out please hand it to Evelyn uh so that
we can include you in the meeting if
you're addressing a subject that's
listed on the agenda we'll call you at
the time that that item is being
considered um if the issue is not on the
agenda you'll be called shortly during
the oral communication agenda item and
then to be fair to all speakers we limit
public comments to um three minutes or
per topic or unless otherwise noted
depending upon the number of speakers uh
and that is is I think the
Preamble um okay so let's move on to
looking at the agenda do we have any
changes to the agenda we do have one
okay and that it's action item I believe
9.1 9.1 the discussion item yes okay
discussion not action I'm sorry right
right and we're pulling it we're pulling
it and it'll be brought back at a future
board meeting
okay so pulling uh discussion item 9.1
any other
changes all right I need a motion and a
second to
approve I'll make a
motion one second all right all in favor
I
okay uh moving on to oral communication
we have about 10 so um in our policy one
to 10 people is we allocate three
minutes everyone okay with three minutes
per speaker okay then let's move on
um
and I'll find the speakers I'm going to
start with the ones because I believe a
lot of people that are here in person
also submit it online I'm G to start
with our online sheet and then I'll move
to the speaker cards um so our first
Speaker tonight is
M and then when you get to there to turn
the microphone on it is the um the
person button on the right and I I'll
run the timer here for three minutes we
will have to stop you at three minutes I
will do my best to raise my hand about
2:45 just to let you know that if you're
coming up to the end um before we stop
you your mic will turn red when it's on
yeah it didn't turn on
actually and that way I would have six
minutes good and he's uh is he Max yes
okay um yeah we can do that although I
do think that but we have done that in
the past so I'm okay with doing it
tonight though I love more diversity of
speakers um so I don't know if that's
something that we can talk about in the
future but um since we've done it in the
past I think it's totally we will
continue to do that tonight great thank
you I appreciate that and yes we can
certainly have him say a word or two but
um in any case happy New Year uh thank
you so much for allowing us to be here
and share some public feedback and
commentary um my name is mango I am a
parent of a prospective kindergarten
student um at Orion Mander immersion and
really the goal here tonight is that we
have myself Michelle um a couple of
other perspective uh Orion Mander
immersion families as well as current
families even current students and we
really wanted to show up um to uh to
share with you our long-standing
interest in this program um as well as
hope propose to you um the possibility
of accommodating all interested families
who have applied for the upcoming school
year and ultimately supporting the
long-term growth of Orion Mander
immersion which tonight I'll just refer
to as MI for brevity so um I think we've
had Michelle share with you some of
these slides in advance um you have
those printed out as well and then we've
also shared with you um personal letters
from 21 families who are really just
interested and invested in the program
um so throughout the slides that you'll
see um we hope to prove our prove our
advocacy by illustrating the growing
demand the Perpetual weight lists and
then highlighting some data that you
might not have seen around the explosive
growth of Asian families which is
actually 127 % in the last 13 years um
and uh we'll also illustrate to you how
manderin immersion is a successful
educational model that has demonstrated
tangible benefits um this is via the
testing data that we'll show and lifting
up all students um especially those of
socioeconomically disadvantaged
backgrounds and it's really interesting
to see that they actually perform better
in mi programs as compared to um sort of
non-mi education so I think one of the
greatest things about the Mi program is
is that it welcomes the admissions of
students from all backgrounds without
testing abilities um and then the
families that do get in we've seen that
they contribute significantly to the
Redwood City Community um via Civic
engagement they drive economic growth so
I think ultimately our plea to you is
that this is a program we hope you'll
support and bolstering rather than um
constraining um and so if you go to
slide three um again through the
presentation through the 21 letters our
ask to you is that we hope you'll
consider issuing a formal recommendation
for the next January 15 meeting next
week right around the corner just to
find a way to accommodate all the
interested families who have flied in
the first round and those applications
are due January 17th um and we believe
that these are the families who've shown
the most interest the most eagerness to
be part of Mi um they've applied early
they've been eagerly waiting um we
understand that the district is faced
with declining enrollment this may do be
due to a number of factors maybe
underutilized school facilities maybe
oversized overhead um so we urg for you
to consider culminating the demand and a
lot of this is coming from families who
as you'll read have specifically moved
to our amazing Redwood City um they've
made life-changing decisions like myself
I moved here when I was pregnant with my
daughter before uh before she was born
for this program so um we hope that
you'll take some of those um Family
stories in mind uh if you move on to
slide four this is kind of where we get
to the bulk of the data so it's been
really interesting to see that due to
the growing demand of um and popularity
of this program the applications each
year continue to exceed the available
seeds so this there's this issue of this
growing weight list and um for the 25 to
26 school year there's only 12 available
seats for the incoming K students a
couple of the folks behind me are
parents whose children are on this boat
um in terms of having summer birthdays
and so if the class sizes are to remain
at 24 there's only those 12 spots and we
believe that this is going to be even
more exacerbated by TK next year when
it's fully expanded right now there's
only nine months of Eligibility next
year it's going to be the full calendar
year um so this is just going to be a
growing problem we also feel like these
weight list numbers that are reported by
the growth plan committee might not
fully reflect the big picture um so one
of the things we're learning is there's
a delay in data in terms of when it's
reported in September start of the
school year and when families might need
to accept their spots um as you might be
aware some families are also considering
private Mi um again those are highly
competitive programs where they have to
accept around January and February and
so some of these uh families you know
aren't able to take the risk of sticking
around and seeing if they can get off
the weit list um you'll also hear from
Christina a parent that we've gotten
connected to who has a first grader
she's been on the wait list or waiting
for over two years um and so she's you
know really eager to get into the
program and uh has not yet got gotten
off the wait
list uh we also feel like there could be
a cascading effect of new families due
to Sibling priority so that way if the
older sibling doesn't get in um the
younger sibling may not be able to to
get in locking out some of those really
um interested families and then finally
we do want to recognize and appreciate
all the work the board has done in
supporting the program in the past
allowing us to grow to add an additional
TK class um you know supporting some of
these creative ideas and so we just feel
like this is a conversation that does
need to be continually Revisited as
demand will always outpace um the
current capacity
um Slide Five we just wanted to show
some data backing up slide four so this
is pulled from uh the the growth plan
data and then on slide six this is some
really interesting data that we've able
to stumble across um basically we
recognize that Hispanic and white
families and populations have been
declining in Redwood City but I think to
counteract that we've seen just this
really interesting growth 127% for Asian
families since
210 and so if you actually isolate that
for mixed race Asian families like
myself Michelle um you know other
families here tonight that growth rate
is actually
333 and we believe that it's so critical
for these families where you know the
formal education might be the only means
they have um for their children to learn
this language due to one parent not
speaking the language thank you m that
your time's up but I appreciate you
coming in having making comments about
your interest and the Mi program and
providing all this data uh we're going
to have to move on next uh speaker okay
thank you so much for the time so max
conceded the time so we move on to
Christine
L let's see there is a hand up on Zoom
so this may be I'm not sure if
that's Christine Lou here
Christine um okay maybe we'll come back
to this there's hand up and there's two
hands up on Zoom but uh okay I'm gonna
move
on is she have a card does she have a
card uh she's on there's Christine on
the let me come let me come back to
Christine if she's dialing in and we can
do the people that are here first um so
I'll mark that down um the next uh
believe in person is Michelle
strob and again a reminder three minutes
I'll try and like give you a little wave
when you have about 15 seconds left
thank you so much my name is Michelle
stroby thank you so much for having me
here tonight um like Ming I'm a um
prospective kindergarten um parent new
to RIT City moved here with my family
for this program actually I am actually
a seoa union District graduate myself I
believe in public education staunchly so
thank you for your time um for brevity
sake I am going to s to skip to slide
nine um in terms of Mi programs um rcmi
is providing high quality public
Mandarin immersion education to all
students regardless of background and
socioeconomic status this prepares our
Mi students for Success both now and in
the
future and skipping to slide 10 uh this
bar graph here on slide 10 shows 23 and
24 CIP scores for several California Mi
schools and these are isolated for
socioeconomically disadvantaged students
please note that o is not included in
here because we don't have current
academic data for the Mi program as an
individual the data here clearly shows
that socioeconomically disadvantaged
students in mi schools represented by
the Red Bar consistently outperform
their peers in district schools the blue
bar I'm sorry yes the blue bar even when
those District students come from the
same socioeconomic backgrounds this is a
striking Trend that highlights the
effectiveness of educational
environments in mi
schools Orion slide 11 individually as
the Mi program and as a whole has been
improving year after year and individual
test scores from Orion and Co-op rcmi
have not been published since 22 however
winter 22 data shown on the graph on the
right indicates that Orion Mi program is
performing exceptionally well on
standardized tests in fact based on last
year's testing scores Orion is now
ranked number three within the district
importantly Orion and Mi are able to
serve a wider socioeconomic group
compared to other top performing schools
within the district as students are not
required to uh uh have an entrance exam
or live in affluent zip codes to enter
the program this allows the Mander
imersion program to Pro provide high
quality education to all students who
were eager to learn regardless of their
background so skipping to our last slide
in closing we respect respectfully asked
the board to consider issuing a formal
recommendation uh to find a way to
accommodate all interested Mi applicants
in the first round of the lottery by
adding an additional TK andk classroom
to meet growing
demand we also ask the board consider
adding a supplemental application prior
to the lottery for school year 25 uh 26
allowing families to demonstrate support
for the district's bilingual investment
and long-term growth of Orion Mi thank
you for your support and your
consideration we truly appreciate all
that you do for our school district and
building the future of our children's
thank you thank you Michelle for also
for your comments on the mandering
conversion program um uh let's move to
our next speaker if they're in person
Kimberly
Abby here dialing in
okay
great hello good evening my name is
Kimberly uh I'm a proud parent of a TK
student at the Mi program I'm also on
the fundraising committee and highly uh
involved in all the student uh school
activities I cannot say enough wonderful
things about the program and the
experience it's mean to it's meant to us
I truly enjoy the tight community that
we have and all the like-minded families
I really wish that more families could
join the program and expand it further
it it is really a Hidden Gem um I've
spoken to several families and I know
that um it's actually lured them into
Redwood City um I personally come from a
diverse background as well I'm chinese
vietnamese and Italian and my husband is
Indian so um in terms of that other
demographic I think we definitely check
that box and there's a lot of growth
there um my nickname in college was
parmesan um so yeah I think uh it's it's
a great blend of different cultures and
having people come in that may not
necessarily know the Mandarin language
and being able to learn it um is a great
asset I know people look at my son and
they they wouldn't really guess that
he's Asian but he speaks Mandarin
fluently and it's a gift and um being
able to conversate with some of my
family in Asia has been um a beautiful
gift that we would not be able to get if
we weren't in the Mi program so really
love it and uh hope that everyone can
read all the comments and continue to
support it thank you thank you Kimberly
for sharing your experience and some of
your personal stories appreciate that um
we'll move on to our next speaker is
W um good evening so I'm a a a parent of
the prospector a student uh who wants to
uh enroll in to the uh kindergarten
program at the the Chinese immersion
program at R city um and we are also
proud home owners of the r City so um so
one of the reasons that we moved to R
city is actually because of this program
and um as the Immigrant as immigrant ch
um Chinese family uh to the United
States from our perspective we really
want our kid to uh be able to
communicate uh speak the same language
as our ancestors and you know U
communicate really well with uh with us
and with our uh with her uh grandparents
um so this Pro this program has been um
after after touring the school uh in
December last year we believe that this
is really the program that we wanted to
Target for our CH uh for our kid and um
and we are actually um putting the
Chinese um language education as one of
the top priorities uh in our education
goal for our kid um so we're actually
pretty concerned about the limited spot
on the of the program that is opened for
the kindergarten level for the coming
year uh and if we're unfortunate to um
if are not fortunate to get uh the
chance of enrolling into this program we
may have to consider the private schools
like the internation uh the C Val
International School which also provides
the the Chinese language uh program but
that would be much less convenient for
us um for example for we we need to
commute like 30 plus minutes from our
home to that school and it's a private
school it's going to be much more
expensive for families like ours um so
we uh we are standing here just um
trying to express our desire to expand
the program to to have more classes to
um so the families like ours can uh
enroll into the program have our kid uh
still speak the same language that we
could and um also um uh we also like to
um emphasize that uh we are we
understand that learning the language
especially the maning language is going
to be a long-term commitment and if we
are fortunate to be enrolled in the
program we actually plan to um remain in
the r City for uh ke k um up to 12 um uh
years for for the uh for this for our
kid to remain in the program um and
especially when she uh levels up to the
middle school and high school we still
want to have the maning immersion
program for her in this school district
um so that's pretty much I wanted to say
thank you very much thank you a uh for
expressing your interest in the program
um our next speaker is uh Christina
Lee um good evening to the school board
and um my name is Christina Lee and I'm
the parent of a cur kindergartner
currently weight listed for the Orion
Mandarin immersion program and I would
like to advocate for its growth my child
started kindergarten in the
20242 school year and is currently
attending Roosevelt Elementary our
School of Choice application for Orion
Mi initially yielded yielded a number
eight weight lless spot in the lottery
results and just before the school year
started we moved to the number one spot
on the wait list and that's where we've
stayed since in L in of gaining a spot
my husband and I have chosen to invest
in our child's Mandarin education
through an after- school program so she
can get exposure to the language and
build foundational skills while we wait
for a spot to open at
Orion um which may or may not ever
happen uh and this uncertainty has put
us in a difficult position along with an
added financial burden of paying for the
Mandarin after school program through
touring Orion attending various
community events put on by the Mi
program and connecting with Mi Families
my husband and I I saw that it was and
is the best fit for our child and our
family's needs which is why we've stayed
on the wait list all this time
additionally my child has a July
birthday and didn't qualify for TK which
further limited her kindergarten options
as existing TK students get priority for
those Kinder spots when they level up
the Redwood City School of Choice
process leaves family plans around child
children's education to chance and in
particular the summer birthday kids if
my kindergartener now doesn't transfer
by first grade she'll lose out on the
valuable Mandarin education um and I
will actually likely face this same
Challenge in a couple years with my
younger child who also has a summer
birthday um and so if my elder child
doesn't transfer into Orion we would
then miss out on sibling priority I want
to ensure that both my children along
with many other children in the Redwood
City Community have access to the
incredible Orion Mi program and I
believe the way to do that is for the
school board to invest in the expansion
of the Mi program so that all students
who want this opportunity can access it
Orion Mi has an excellent reputation not
just in Redwood City but throughout the
peninsula even more so because it's a
public program expanding the program
would benefit current families and
solidify Redwood City's reputation as a
top destination for families thank you
for your attention and consideration of
my comments today I appreciate the
chance to share and look forward to
seeing the positive changes we can make
together thank you Christina for your
comments and sharing your personal
experience um our next speaker is CA
raffy
I hi my name is HHA I'm a fifth grader
at Redwood City Mansion immersion I want
to share my journey with you because
it's been a roller coaster of emotions
in first grade I nearly gave up I
struggled so much that I felt like I was
drowning failing in Mandarin math and
English I was convinced I would never
catch up last year I competed in a
national math competition and my team
placed 17th out of hundreds I went from
barely passing uh one or two easy
mansion levels each year to suddenly
acing three levels in one trimester
Landing in level M which is technically
2 years beyond my grade this
transformation is all thanks to the
rigor and demand of mandin Education
watching the parents
advocate for their kids tonight brings
me hope but it also makes makes me think
of one of my classmates whose parents
struggle and can't help her with
homework her dad can't read and her mom
has night shifts yet she shines
academically she competed with me in the
math tournament and she did amazing I
can't help but feel that if her
mom that her mom would not have signed
her up uh for this program if if it had
been such a
gamble uh as gamble back then it pains
me to see how much our program has
changed my class started or my grade
started with 56 kids in kindergarten but
now we are are down to 20 28 for my
whole grade which is in one
class only four in my grade left for
North Star um
and many friends moved away or left the
program especially during the pandemic
and its heartbreaking I worry for my
friends who have to choose School
different other schools because they
fear there won't be enough students to
create a vibrant learning experience at
Kennedy they have lost faith that the
district uh will will ever build us a
path to study mandin uh in high school
school for me mandrin is not just a
subject it's woven into my identity and
culture this program is vital to All
Families not just those to with Asian
backgrounds I know that decisions are
the impacts the future are tough but
they are crucial parents often choose
hard
path choose the hard path in the present
knowing that in the long run these
choices will be better for their kids
I believe
this I believe the school board should
act as advocates for every
student ensuring they have the best
possible outcome I hope you'll consider
how to support all students including
those like one of my classmates who need
this opportunity and aren't here today
to advocate for themselves thank you for
listening thank you s and thanks for
yeah thank you so much for sharing about
your progress about your personal
experience at Mi and congratulations on
the math team of course um and it's
always wonderful for students to come up
here it's very brave um I know uh for
adults it's also very brave to come up
and speak but there's something special
about one of our students being uh here
and talking to us whether it's on Zoom
or in person so I really appreciate that
um and following that uh it's a tough
stack to follow but uh the next one will
be Megan oil green
to
Michelle all right so for Megan I'll be
very brief I think just the one last
thing that we wanted to highlight was
just how beneficial Mandarin immersion
is for families of all background not
just Chinese Heritage mixed as well as
um uh as well as the uh non-native
speakers so I think um this is actually
slide seven but I think we just wanted
to like emphasize just ending off on the
data that the growth of these um
projections the growth projections put
together by the planning committee show
a decline um for Orion so 70% capacity
and then if you look at the years moving
forward you see this declining trend
line and I think ultimately we just
wanted to share that based on the
families we've talked to the data that
we've looked at we truly don't believe
that this is the case um we think that
you know families like us the mixed
families this is so critical to maintain
those relationships with extended famili
I hope that my kids can be able to
converse to my entire extended family in
China um you've heard from native
Chinese speakers like uh W and family
who these students actually help boost
up the fluency of other classmates um
they help the teachers be able to better
support students and um uh increase the
fluency levels in those classrooms
Mandarin is the hardest language to
learn I believe but you know with these
native speakers mingling with non-native
I I think that just kind of helps
everyone and then as Michelle has shown
um just lifting up data for underserved
populations populations who um have
recently moved to the US but you know
they're learning Mandarin in addition to
their home language and it's just so
amazing to see the impact of this
program um so I think just really
appreciate the board's consideration um
we hope that you will consider our
request to enable all the families
who've applied in the first round to
attend but another request we had was
maybe even considering a supplemental
application the families who um have had
their heart set on this program they've
shared these letter could this
potentially also be reflected um in
addition to the lottery
system yeah yes so in terms of D exactly
so the letters that you'll read these
are from 20 plus families current
students like cersa um you know these
are folks that we've been able to
collect across the community um whether
it's through our current schools online
Outreach um all these efforts and it's
actually been done in the last two weeks
we only recently heard of this growth
plan in some of these meetings hence
kind of showing up here tonight and and
maybe surprising you a little bit um so
again this is just a team effort and
something that we've um just been really
grateful for the community that's shown
up
tonight thank you thanks for sharing
that additional
information there's like 30 seconds I
just wanted to say the presentation that
she just gave you um actually there that
has been worked on this is for two years
by Mi families um in different different
incarnations of families that don't get
in you know left on the waiting list
like Christina um and so there was in
terms of diversity of voice that that's
there um you know there's a lot of
people that kind of want want to you
know present this you know this data
that we have of the seeing the growth uh
in mi um so um they're they're new to it
but you know there was a lot of other
people that were all right thanks we're
gonna we're gonna have to move on to our
next speaker uh is James herbold in the
audience here or is that an online one
yeah well we haven't uh we haven't
unmuted them yet let me just run through
the couple speaker cards that we have to
finish off the people that are in the in
the room and then we can move to the two
that are online um I have Chris
Lao hello uh I'm Chris laau I moved to
Rood City with my wife and my daughter
in
2023 um first off I want to thank the uh
the board for all that you do for the
Redwood um Redwood City School District
um I wanted to share a little bit about
um our thoughts and deciding to move to
Redwood City we U when we're looking at
houses uh we talked to a number of uh
sellers that actually have um kids at
Oran and we thought that it was really a
special program and we really were
hoping that Isabelle in two years can
apply so while I'm not in the boat of
some of the other families I don't want
to be in that situation later so I want
to thank you guys for considering um
really expanding the program and really
helping um my family connect to our
Asian Heritage I never knew Chinese
going up and I never had the opportunity
to so I really hope that is get that
chance
thanks thank you thank you Chris yeah I
appreciate that um Katherine Stewart
wasn't going to speak but I just can't
miss the
chance yeah so my my kid went to
Mandarin immersion and my kid now goes
to Northstar and we had really wonderful
teachers at AT Vander immersion and we
have really great teachers over at
Northstar and the thing that I noticed
with both of the programs they have a
few things in common one is that they
both have extensive weight lists of
people who are just dying to get in and
just do everything they possibly can to
get their kids in and the other thing is
that they both have really pretty good
test scores and academic records for
their kids um which we weren't expecting
when we first started Mander immersion
it was just sort of like we had no idea
what was going to happen um but it was a
really good um really good result where
we were happy academically and we felt
like the quality of the teachers and the
staff were just terrific and we're
enjoying Northstar as well and so my
thought is that when we looked at
recently there were some planning
meetings and stuff where they had um
statistics about where they thought
there would be declining enrollment
and I looked at it I thought how can
there be declining enrollment um when
there are these weight lists that are
just these crazy nutty weight lists for
these poor people and I I know before we
got into kindergarten we were on a
weight list you know to the last minute
and uh so I think that maybe for I can't
speak to all of the schools because I
haven't been to all the schools but
maybe for Northstar and maybe for
Mandarin immersion um when you see big
weight lists and you see academically
kids are getting good grades and are
scoring well and seem to be adjusting
and all that sort of thing that that
might be the school those might be the
programs that would um Merit having more
resources and having bigger classroom
capacity um extra classrooms uh whether
you have to build a building or you know
do some other kind of planning um and
more support for the staff and
administration because um they get good
results and people are specifically
coming to Redwood City as opposed to
going anywhere else because they've
heard such good things about them um so
and also just for a brief moment if I
could say a huge thank you to Diana Fu
Jean wanabi Julia Fang Katie Goetz and a
number of other people who put you know
helped get the Mandarin immersion
program so that it was there when my kid
was ready to jump in and I I have a lot
of Sympathy for the people who are going
to be on weight list because that's
sometimes the reality of it um but hang
in there if you're on one and um so
that's that was my comment as I think we
had really good results and those uh
Northstar and Mandarin immersion um
definitely are worth investing in
continuing to investing and expand thank
you all right thank you Katherine um
let's see if we can get Christine Lou uh
who we think is online um the name is
shing shing shing shing okay great we
have a hand raised so yeah perfect ready
for So Christine you can uh you unmute
and
begin okay hi can everyone hear me we
can yes oh okay great hi my name is
shing shing and I'm here speaking on
behalf of myself and my husband
Dimitri uh we are both first generation
immigrants uh I came over to North
America when I was seven from China and
my husband immigrated from Ukraine when
he was 10 and we both grew up in the
public school system not in California
and other places and we both have a lot
of faith in the public school system we
think it's really important to actually
have the diversity and the exposure for
and it also helps to Anchor uh anchor
families to the communities and make us
stronger City in 2019 we love it we
really hope to stay we've had uh two
kids uh since we moved here hopefully
enrolling them in the in the Redwood
City School District in the immersion
program so they can get their Heritage
language that way um and um that's
that's just all we wanted to share thank
you thank you shing shing for sharing
your story um let's see we have one more
speaker here to uh try and get that was
James
herbold see if they're online
yeah I see Luke raising their hand all
right um James if that's you it's Luke
uh please go ahead H yes yeah thank you
thank you um yeah no um I mean I just
wanted to be another voice in the the
crowd to kind of like advocate for the
program uh oh sorry can you hear me
right now uh yes
yeah um no yeah so I I just really
appreciate the opportunity that you've
given everyone here to speak um I have a
daughter Khloe who is currently applying
to the Mandarin immersion program um my
wife is from China and so she grew up
you know speaking Mandarin um her family
only speaks Mandarin um so we really
want Chloe to be able to communicate
with that side of our family um I grew
up here in California but I actually
lived in in Hong Kong for a while and
studied Mandarin there um so I really
enjoy the language and I love speaking
it and I love I I I'm not a great
teacher I I probably speak at like a
first grade level or lower and so I
think my daughter would really use some
you know more professional teaching um
but yeah I just think you know everyone
here has really done a good job kind of
explaining why they really want this
program and you know us being a family
who's entering it in in this year um we
would really love the opportunity for
for my daughter to be able to go there
and uh I think given how competitive it
is and you know the availab ility it's
not looking too we're not too optimistic
about our chances um so anything that
the school district can do you know help
families like us um would just be you
know really great and yeah I mean we
love Redwood City came here many years
ago we actually live like just a block
away from the school on Jefferson and so
we pass by it every day um and just kind
of you know the dream is for our
daughter to be able to walk there and
and go to school and and learn the
language that our family speaks um so
yeah I just want to uh Echo everyone's
sentiments you know the program has been
um really amazing for the city and um
yeah we we would love to see it expanded
thank
you thanks James and uh thank you to all
our speakers I think that's everyone
there um I know that uh we can't
obviously discuss about it tonight but I
know that this is a topic that's going
on with the enrollment window coming and
the growth plan committee already
already going through so it's being
looked at um with no other speakers
there I think we're going to move on to
our uh Bond program consent items is
there a motion to approve
it I will make a motion to
approve I'll second all in favor I thank
you guys thanks happy New Year yeah you
too um okay and then we're going to move
on to our school and Community reports
uh we have have uh ta nante school
reports for this school year I think I'm
handing it off
to
yeah good evening David um we're gonna
have Taff begin and then alante so ta
will be presenting um their board report
today
um are we ready yeah give me a minute
right and David you have the clicker on
the side there so you can click the
slides oh okay
great go back okay good good evening
everyone happy New Year we hope you had
a great uh oh thank you I don't know if
you took some time off I know I did I
didn't do any work I was like
disconnecting and I wanted to spend time
with my family my wife and children got
to stay home with me so my wife got two
weeks off as well so there we were
watching movies but anyway they're
watching online thank you uh ronita and
my kids I love you very much thank you
for being here thank you to all the
staff members that are watching um at
home I know some of my colleagues texted
me today and they're like are you are
you on I was like yes we are on and um
thank you uh uh board members uh Dr
Baker and Miss Wendy Kelly missa Rick
everyone for just being here with us
it's been uh it's been quite a ride at
Taft I enjoy it I saw you I commend you
Mr Wells for your Spanish you know good
job there and I saw you walk in Mr
Weekley with some bonsai trees is that
what it is do you have an extra one
we'll see you back thank you very much
well anyway so I want to get started
with my report and first I want to just
let you know a little bit more about
Taft I know we have some data up there
and some of the data points there tell a
different story but I I want to just
paint the picture for you and and I know
David Lee is that correct you're new to
us I just want to give you a just a
little overview of what Taft is um and I
really love the school I was chosen by
Dr Baker to go there a year ago and it's
been a great it's been a great
experience I really really enjoy the
staff that I work with so family are
great um it's we serve about 400
students or so U we have students from
prek uh all the way to fifth grade so we
have a broad range of students and um we
have multiple programs we have uh three
sped programs four uh we have a special
uh education prek that serves the little
ones um and that's called inclusion also
with the CDC with a Child Development
Center we have a K2 uh SLC which is
specialized Learning Center a 35
specialized Learning Center and a TLC
therapeutic Learning Center for grades 1
through 4 and that serves students with
emotional disturbance and we also have a
50/50 bilingual program which uh serves
kinderg Guardian uh through third grade
and after that um they move on to the
English track only but it is quite a
place um we have over 90% unduplicated
students um for those who may not know
what an unduplicated student is it's a
student who is either Foster youth
English learner or eligible for free and
reduced lunch so that's 90% of our
population or more so you got to take
that into consideration because we're
going to look at the D the data and I
want to make sure that you're aware of
all that we have uh 224 English language
Learners or 66% of our population 25
homeless students or 7% socially uh
economically disadvantage that's 307 or
90% disability students with
disabilities at 20% or 66 students and
our Hispanic population their numbers at
314 or 92% lastly we do have a a a
number of newcomers um from all grades
kindergarten through 12th grade I I'm
sorry kindergarten to um um fifth grade
and we number at 45 or 12% so we serve a
lot of students that come from various
places in the in the Western Hemisphere
and we do have some from um we have one
student from Nepal okay so um but most
of our students come from Latin America
and we do have uh some Asian um uh
students and also some African-American
students and a couple
uh Caucasian American students so it's
it's it's a little bit of uh it's
represents of what Redwood City is uh
you know in that part of town we do tend
to have more Hispanic folks down there
but we do have students that come with a
lot of drama and especially for those
kids who come from other countries a lot
of them haven't been um schooled ever
and uh we our mental health team is
currently serving 53 of those students
in various capacities and we have
something called Lunch Bunch um and
teachers choose those students to come
and get get some type of support whether
it's friendship support or just checking
in with kids but anyway my reason um the
reason I'm telling you all this is that
you understand what tath is about
because if I don't tell you that then I
don't think you fully understand the
challenges that we go through day in and
day out okay so if you want to move on
to the next
slide oh thank you Warren I remember
that if it works there we go oh back to
this one so uh we were in atsi
as you all know and guess what we uh we
exited so thank you Mr for letting us
know right before Christmas so that was
a nice way to go home you know the
holiday so we uh that's a notable
achievement for us um back in uh 22 23
we were we were in atsi additional
target support in Improvement under
those indicators we now exited all that
because we are improving our English
language arts overall under the
subgroups there and also in our math
subgroup so we we're proud about that
and I let all the staff know and they
were happy um ask what happens next I
was like um let's improve our reading
and writing and math that's what's going
to happen next so here's our alcap goal
number one this one talks about um as
you know uh reducing chronic absentismo
come back to school especially after the
pandemic when I came on board I already
had inherit this school from is so thank
you to her um but in the last year and
this year we've hired a couple of folks
who worked as a community school
specialist who have just done an imp an
amazing job really connecting with
families calling using all of our
resources such as at the at the time of
last year Blackboard but this year power
school and really using those tools to
communicate effectively with families so
that they come and and it also helps
when I call I call Robo call and be like
hey it's Mr Kam now you know we noticed
this and that but we're doing that so
that students come to school as you
could see our chronic absentismo
that speaks volumes that also tells you
that kids like our school coming there
and our parents are happy yes the data
when it comes to our results May not
paint might not show you that but this
tells you that kids enjoy coming to our
school okay it's fun there and it's a
tiny little school and super cute and if
you ever go sometimes people go over
there like are there students here CU
it's so quiet and it's just but it's
real nice it's so anyway what I'm
getting at is The Chronic absentismo
coming to school any questions on that
that okay here we have our uh uh by
student group and as you can see the
numbers just continue to drop okay and
we're we're going to keep it this way
because we we really push all of our
kids to come to school at the end of the
trimester I run reports through Power
School and school stat status attend and
I and I work with my attendance team and
we reach out to families we call them
we're definitely on the phone by this
time we know all the students and I tend
to have a connection with most families
okay I personally meet all the people
that show up uh when we get new students
I meet the family and the student that's
just something that I do and I think
that's important because I want to make
that connection with the families and I
think that also builds um a good
relationship with them and trust trust
trustworthiness no so here are some of
the strategies that we are using to
improve our attendance uh we're doing
attendance rewards for every Trester we
won't be able to do trimester 3 cuz
obviously school will be out but we're
uh recognizing our attendance uh
students we like I mentioned I work
using Power School school status attent
I compare the data I really happy with a
power school analytics now because that
helps with the a lot of the the work it
eliminates a lot of the you know time
consuming process that we used to do we
have been using Power School messenger
effectively we use all three methods of
Robo call text and email and we also
have our community specialist who works
doing attendance call when needed um we
think it's important for families to
receive a phone call it's um a text is
and a email is not very personable so we
appreciate when we ourselves and I
sometimes do the phone calls myself I I
really like to talk to people and I know
a lot of this I I pretty much know I
know all the kids first and last name
but I'd really like to know the the
parents as well and people will tell you
that one of the good things that we've
done and thanks to marii Bar who's our
mtss TOA she has uh she did some drop in
attempt attendance meeting so we
identified our chronically absent
students and those who were on the verge
of being chronically absent and we sent
them a a robo call and a text and an
email and we asked them to come in and
we sat down with them and we conducted
our student engagement support plan so
we knocked out 27 in two days and that's
all thanks to her so marel if you're out
there thank you um we're tracking
attendance on our own way not only
through through school status attend but
we also use our own internal um just
because we that's how we work and we
like to make sure that we are
documenting what is happening and we're
making sure that um you know we're
closing our conferences and school
status attend so if you're aware we have
power school analytics and power school
and then we have school status attent
that that sends out the notices to
families we double check both um
platforms to make sure that they come
they correlate so we're monitoring that
regularly we have done some home visits
and our parent engagement has increased
we are uh we have partnered with the
YMCA Cornerstone project Cornerstone
Corner excuse me Cornerstone to conduct
parent workshops we're doing four this
year we've already done two the next
one's coming up in February and then
April we've had plus 20 parents show up
to each one of those so it's um it's
been helpful um I attend those sometimes
if I can um and the mental health
support has also been a big piece there
thank you to Lauren Abrams who has been
crucial in just getting the families
connected with uh outside resources and
also our one life and starv stud
concerts have also o supported that and
I believe that all that helps um proove
attendance because we've had students
who come with trauma and have school
refusal and avoidance and we have had
our mental health support um the aison
step in and support us our teachers uh I
have as of December and January um um I
directed all classroom teachers to send
out a a newsletter on one pager letting
everybody know the parents and what the
kids are working on in school and they
include tips on attendance reading
anything like that um I got the idea
because my son school does that and I
and he's the first grader so I really
appreciate reading what's happening in
the classro so I want to kind of mimic
that and I want it's also a good way for
parents to hear and see what's going on
in class um because as a parent I
wouldn't want to just get the report C
at the end of trimester I kind of want
to know what's going on regularly so all
our teachers at our side are doing that
and they've given the choice to either
do a Weekly Newsletter or a bi-weekly or
a monthly but that's happening regularly
and I built the
the template for them so that it's as
easy as they can for them um we on our
power on our parent newsletter I include
tips on a regular attendance and it's
there if you read my newsletter it's
there about attendance uh this recent
one I said hey if your kids spend a lot
of time you know watching TV you know
this is what you could do I just give
parents tips on how to improve
attendance and overall like just working
at home because um it's they're busy and
and sometimes they just want to hear
things like
that this is the attendance comparison
from 24 December to 23 so if you look at
this chart here I'll explain it to you
but um on the right hand side and this
was one of our notable achievements that
got us out out of atsi um we declined
chronic absentismo to the state
dashboard by 4.4% but if you look at the
categories excellent satisfactory
manageable chronic and severe chronic
there's a difference so let's look at
the excellent one a year ago in December
we had a 127 students with excellent
attendance this December that just
passed we had 145 so we increased that
by 18 and that and the rest speaks for
itself right so if you look at the
chronic
ones we reduced a lot of students coming
in chronically so we're making strides
here and again it also stems to how well
kids feel at school and we think that
it's because we are doing a good job in
making kids feel safe and um we provide
opportunities for them to express El and
they're enjoying their learning activity
and also our school climate culture I
mean excuse me our school climate survey
that missa sent to us that we had some
good numbers there we up 70s and above
so we're really happy
there our suspensions uh have
dramatically decreased I haven't
suspended anybody in a long time um and
the reason I don't like to it's not that
I don't like to suspend I just feel that
there's other ways that we could get to
our our our students I also we track
Behavior regularly every day we have a
behavior tracker and whether it's I give
it up I let I let the teachers document
and then I read it and then we make the
you know determination what happens next
but I also establish relationships with
parents so if I know something's
happening and I notice a pattern I'm
calling home regularly and by this time
I know all the students and I know who
and how I can talk to them and so
suspension is not happening at school
one because the students have bought
into our PBIS system um and the rewards
we do dolphin raffle every week um and
kids love what we have for them we have
we give out books we give you know
little tidbits here some of my kids old
toys they love it they love it they love
it but it's helping us we we haven't
suspended somebody in a long time yes
sometimes they come and hang out with me
or we do but I haven't sent anybody home
suspended in a long time and again we
don't see that happening because our
staff works together and we do have a
set of in the TLC that class can can get
you know um demanding but those students
are learning how to cope with their with
their stress and how to manage their
their their emotion and our therapeutic
learning uh counselor there has helped
tremendously and we contribute all that
especially our mental health to just
lowering the anxiety on campus and then
that leads out and also students are com
actively engaged in class we there's
really not that much opportunity in
class for them to act out and then gets
into the office
so and again here is just the numbers of
um suspensions and as you could see over
the the course of the last few years it
just continues to decrease and it's
going to continue to decrease we want to
keep it there where it's at at
zero here are just like some things that
I've already mentioned we are doing our
dolphin trades which happen weekly um we
give out dolphin tickets actually this
past Tuesday uh I had my assembly uh
where we discussed our trait of
perseverance uh for student of the month
having a a video and there's a video
that kids made from last year that I
showed anyway the reason I did that is
because after two weeks obviously
students are going to beat so that helps
and it's been quite it's been a quiet
week so far but we are definitely
implementing our PBIS system um that has
been happening um uh for a while now
when I took over the school they were in
year two of the PBIS initiative with the
Santa Clara County Office of Education
we were we finished that and we're
definitely moving forward with PBIS at
school uh we have our own PB committee
that meets monthly to discuss Behavior
data and we analyze different things
that are occurring and our Behavior
tracker has been really really useful in
you know just picking up patterns of
things that we want to you know keep
tabs on because
sometimes we have to have something
happen regularly so that we get to the
root of the problem at least start you
know figuring out what's going on and
again that's another one of our notable
achievements one of the things that I I
attribute to having just another strong
good strong School climate and culture
is we do have a very competent veteran
staff um over 80% of the staff at school
is bilingual myself included so we do
have a lot of Spanish going on out there
um all of our teachers most of them
anyway um uh speak Spanish and as you
could see here a lot of us are first
generation uh you know born in the US so
that allows us to connect with families
a lot easier um we haven't had much
turnover in terms of Staff um from
classified to teaching right Mrs Kelly
yes so that's that says something about
what's happening at TA at least with
teachers and we also have used our um
our partners um our therapeutic learning
counselor um is provided through
effective School Solutions and they
provided four professional development
workshops on mental health so I brought
them in and they've done some training
for us and as I mentioned earlier we
have multiple programs in sped and all
those students are included in our
program so all those SP students
participate in their specials so art
music PE they're all doing it together
and they're also recognized um through
attendance or any there's stent of the
month everybody is included in in on our
in our in our school climate and culture
and our PBIS we have our student council
who manages and does some of our uh
events for example we're going to have a
hot chocolate sale sometime in February
so folks you're invited we're also going
to have our manual pancake breakfast
coming up February 7th so Mr weekly I
expect to see you there okay so and then
P we also have things like school spirit
and we let the students decide this past
school year because it was an election
year we had a student council run a ma
collection and the kids came and um Miss
U uh Joslyn ARA the the coordinator
coord community school coordinator they
built these um um ballots the kids lined
up it was super cute I if you saw my one
of my newsletters had patient on there
but anyway those are things that we're
doing as a school to keep the momentum
come going in terms of keep being
positive any questions on lcap goal
one keep going all right let me have
some
water alab goal to and this is
increasing our English language learner
and Al pack
scores so um as you could see here and I
think I have some slides for just
some so when you look at this m this uh
percentage of in increasing um alpek
levels you know we do see uh some
differences there but when you look at
it by coh her that's one of the things
that this doesn't really explain so if
you look at for example grade number two
there um when it says 29.2 that's uh
2223 they actually went up in uh 23 24
to 39.3 so when you look at it by
cohorts the numbers look a little bit
better um for example fourth grade looks
like there was a major dip but no
actually it doesn't because if you look
at 03
39.5 that group is actually
45.5 now and also that dip that you see
from 81.3 to 45 is because that
particular grade level now which is the
fifth grade onethird of them
reclassified onethird of them are doing
alpack level three and then the other
oneir is novice and that includes a lot
of our newcomers so that's where you see
that dip but it's not because because
we're just having more kids reclassify
so those numbers are shrinking when it
comes to seeing those outpack levels
change so that's what I wanted to make
note about that
there we're doing uh everything the
district has mandated us to do um to
improve English langu English language
learning progress obviously we're using
the language part curriculum we're using
our guest teacher to provide release
time so our guest teacher we created
again this is something Miss Mariel um
did she created a form we have our
teachers fill it out they ask for
release time and we figure it all out
and then we send the guest teacher in
there to to support or sub while they do
you know whatever small group
instruction or they their planning and
that way that way it helps us um with
this we also partnered with our with
healthy cities tutoring because towards
the end of last school year I want to
say maybe the spring they came to me and
with the ELD tutoring curriculum that I
thought was very effective we piloted
that
out of those 12 um students that
participated then one reclassified and
two or three were on the brink of
reclassification so we decided to do
that again this year they meet every
Monday um and we have 12 kids who are
working there who are level three and
the goal is to hopefully get them to
reclassify this school year um
everything that we're doing in terms of
uh after school tutoring we're using
outpack data taken from elevation so we
definitely made a focus to work with
with three four and five grades
especially those students who have Alpac
levels three because we feel that if
we're able to help them move we will get
them reclassified and then therefore
that will help us in the long term with
cash
scores okay we are going to start our
site funded teacher tutoring program so
we have eight teachers that will that
are participating um and they're going
to be T tutoring eight kids I mean three
kids um weekly so that's happening now
and the focus is Ela math lpac and Casp
preparation so we're definitely focused
we see the data we know that L that our
Ela and math scores could be do could be
could improve so we're definitely doing
what we can to move the needle in that
direction and again this is another
notable achievement so our English
language Learners are moving in the
right direction we're now at Green so y
to us here's just some more um
strategies that we're doing we're
collecting data all all the time and um
the way we track data is on spreadsheets
but I also uh you know put notification
rules every time somebody's putting
something in there it alerts me and I go
back and check and also allows me to see
who needs to catch up on their on their
um on their data entry and everything
you see here which you know a lot of the
things that are happening across the
sites um you know we have newcomer
assistant instructional assistance we're
doing the TCM coaching Miss Chavez leads
the elac meetings with a community
school leader Miss joclyn
and then we also we're going to start
having the library available for parents
to come in and check books out on this
uh starting in um in January and the
feedback from the cabinet members from
our educational rounds have also been
important in how we move forward with
with just the el el and El an elll
progress here we have a progression of
English language acquisition and I um
thank you to miss Chavez for putting
this together um she noticed that as
students progress through uh
through the years the the red decreases
and more students grow uh in um in in
outpack
levels however that tends to kind of get
um when we have newcomers and they come
into grades three four and five you know
those numbers kind of like throw us off
because some of those kids are all
novices and and we have to test them and
they have to take Casp so that's what
you'll see there but the data that we
showed here is as students move through
Taft we start seeing them learn English
more more and more and more and then
those lpac numbers improve over
time here you could see the the summit
of lpac and over year how you know more
and more students are becoming
proficient in English and that means
that they're gaining a level we're
hoping that this data and incrementally
we've been increasing um
reclassification rates I believe um
we've done 5% and then we're going up to
seven and 10 and so we're looking at
having more and more students reclassify
each year especially if this trend
continues
okay ALC cap goal three this is dealing
with our Ela and math um and I ready and
our cast
scores so this is where I know this is
an area that we need to work on and
there's a lot of work to be done um we
see that from 23 to 24 we dropped about
four points four or five points and and
and Ela okay and that was this is the
SAG what we see here is just the
comparison with with the different
groups and then here we also see the uh
the corer comparison from 23 to 24 and I
had something to say about this one
here when we look at it in cohorts we do
see that um there they're actually
increasing okay so when you look at this
slide
here we have for example it says current
fifth grade so the gray is four and then
the and then that's grade four and then
10.5 would be grade three and then so
the current sixth grade the 33 is fifth
grade and then the U the fourth grade is
27 so as and so on and so on so as you
could see every year the students are
making some type of growth it may not be
showing up as we would like on the c or
sback but we are making growth
incrementally it doesn't show as much as
we would like but a lot of our students
come and they're already three four
grade levels behind so we're doing a lot
of catch
and that's what we're showing here so
we're going to continue to work we know
there's a lot to do there's no excuses
there but we do see that there is a
trend slowly moving in the right
direction we would like for it to go up
you know faster but it's just going to
take time especially with the new
curriculum that we've been using and we
just got to make sure that we continue
pushing our teachers and and and
believing in our students you know and
saying the bar high enough for them to
also believe in
themselves this is our ready reading
fall diagnostic performance through the
years and I know it looks a little dismo
there but one of the things I would like
to say is I would I want to focus on 23
24 the middle graph because you know if
we look at it from year to year you also
have to consider your testing students
after the
summer and we have the summer slide and
a lot of kids you know we already know
my student my son who is you know
reading he's in first grade and he's
reading at almost a second grade level
he struggles when he it's back in school
after the summer so it's going to be the
same for other students as well so I
just feel that here it does look like
we're not growing but I'll give you an
example um if we were to look uh at year
223 24 um and it's not up here but I'll
just tell you if we were to consider
looking at the growth between fall and
spring so for reading yes it says that
we have 8% here but what that doesn't
tell you is in the spring we were up to
20% so that's an increase of 12
percentage points then the summer
happens and then we're back to square
one so that's what I would like for you
to think about because we do see growth
in the year here we are taking already
two times this year versus three last
year at this time I would have been able
to show you the growth between you know
fall and winter we're not going to be
able to do that because we're going to
take already in March um so I think that
we are moving in the right direction
what doesn't show it like here but I
believe that we there is a lot of work
to do and there's no excuses for that
but we are moving in the right
direction math is also one of those
areas that we need to work on and I
think that it's also if we're not
preparing our students to read and write
well then Math's going to be that much
harder we have word prompts to work with
and when students can access the
curriculum or they comprehend what
they're being um told to do in terms of
WR instruction or written um directions
it's going to make it that much harder
for them to really do much better in any
of of these exams whether it's I ready
or
espac here you could see there was this
is an area that we need to definitely
work on and I understand that this is
where um you know things can ask people
will ask what's going on here well it's
you know we got to give it time we got
to see how how how how how our students
you know react to this and our staff as
well and everybody was well aware of
these I gave um our teachers all of our
cast results as soon as they came out um
you know it wasn't it wasn't what we
expect expected and one of the things
that we noticed with ir is we were
really optimistic when it came to
comparing the projections but at the end
of the year it just didn't pan out that
way and and you know what I already
projected to us just didn't just didn't
correlate with this so we just know that
we have to work on that but when we look
at already ready the same thing I'd like
to say is if we were to look at 23 24
here um for I ready if we were to
compare within the
year here it says 4% but at the end of
the school year we're at 20 so we went
up 16 percentage points so that doesn't
dictate that here but again you I would
like for you to think about that because
during the span of a school year we are
making growth even though here again you
know the summer slide happens and some
kids go to summer school some don't some
have um academic you know um some type
of academic intervention during the
summer and others don't so you're going
to get a mixed bag
there and these are our strategies that
were being used used we're using to
implement our Ela and math progress
we're using all the curriculum that's um
that's being uh that's been adopted we
use our guest teacher to provide support
in terms of uh subbing or leas time to
plan lessons record data collaborate
with colleagues we're using healthy
Cities A lot of the things that we did
for ELA ELD and math have all been kind
of in conjunction because we have been
looking at all those alpex scores we
think that if we really narrow down
those kids who are like a yellow or a
three that's going to help us move the
needle and also it's going to prove uh
results in the long term um it tells you
there that's what we're doing uh College
advising prep starts next week and so
we've also been very very very very
intentional with the students that we're
picking to put in there U we know we
just had air reading for the past um uh
in the spring I mean in the fall we're
gonna start that again again being
intentional with the students that we
pick we're not just picking random
students we really want to look at
what's been going on and we're
definitely looking at all different uh
areas of of growth and really what needs
to happen because if we're just putting
kids in just to do it then what's the
point we have all this data and we're
really really being intentional with how
we manage that and look at it so that
you know we're more U it's more
instrumental as we move forward we also
have our staff development coach that's
been working with our third grade
regularly because that was one uh area
that we we noticed needed some
help um we're enhancing our tier one
instruction across all classrooms I
created a walkthrough form that was uh
you know shared with teachers at the
beginning of the school year they gave
me some feedback on that that's what I
use when I walk in give teachers instant
feedback we're doing Benchmark Ela
assessments um so Benchmark which is our
English language um Arts curriculum has
interim assessments built into it we're
promoting the use of that and grades
three four and five because those mimic
a lot of the questions that will come up
on the esack so not only we just do the
fiab BS we're going to continue doing
this so that we just get our kids more
and more prepared for for the spack when
it comes in May and we have our mtss
committee that views uh all this data
regularly and they help me U you know
design uh the agenda for for for a staff
meeting so they guide me on they're kind
of like my leadership team when they
help me with with and give me comments
and and feedback on that we're directing
teachers to use their prep time
accordingly so
every trimester all te certain teachers
have certain number of prep time in it
so we remind them to use that time to
make sure they get their stuff done and
you know all this we're also offering
all teachers who are being evaluated
Workshop PDS so it's part of their it's
part of something that I've done for a
number of years now so any you know I
offer PD workshops for teachers who are
being EV valued probationary or veteran
because I think it's a good idea that um
they continue their growth that way and
we as school will cover the cost for
that
that's it in a nutshell I guess any
questions
folks thank you David for walking us
through your presentation on Taft um
I'll jump into the other board members
to see if anybody wants to start with
questions or comments I'm looking down
at David Lee if you want to kick us
off yeah thank you so much by the I
mean um a lot of things to be thankful
for here one is first just providing
that context up front I think it's been
a recurring theme among this board and I
think the community that we are focused
um of course on absolute results with
also meeting people where they are so
getting a sense of what the starting
point is and what those unique
challenges are is obviously something
that should color the our VI so thank
you for starting with that um I have
maybe two questions one I think for you
and maybe one for the district but um
big picture super helpful to get this
information I think particularly as
you've noted um all the work and the
progress on the attendance chronic
absenteeism suspension expulsion and the
English Le progress great like great to
see all these this growth um it seems
like you're doing quite a bit to to
raise those things so as long as it's
sustainable like I take the view of vame
broke so thank you for doing all that
thank you uh I think the the one
question is a little bit more on the end
which I think you've already
acknowledged on the math and Ela just
some of the results that we're seeing um
I think I fear maybe you're selling
yourself short on some fronts because uh
I think the big thing that I looked that
was that there is growth in the core
data on some ends right and then other
is a little bit more of mixed so I think
like what I would I would find really
helpful is would be getting a sense from
you because again seems like there's a
bunch of different strategies uh being
implemented to improve is there anything
that you would highlight uh on the math
and Ela as a strategy or support that
has been particularly helpful or you
think that is crucial in in kind of
growing that going forward Bic like if
like non-negotiable we need to make sure
that we keep on doing this and then on
the other side are there any particular
challenges that you would flag um where
the the board the district health
support well we have to use the district
uh curriculum with Fidelity I believe
that you know one of the major things
that teachers really like for you know
illustrative math is the usage of
centers and that's been something that's
been used across the board at school so
that's something that's a highlight for
us um we see growth there and we think
that the teachers are bought into what
we're doing um it's also very beneficial
that we constantly look at our data and
we're constantly recording it and
looking at it back in we're also using
all that in our PLC so that's a
highlight for us um we're being a we
have been a very collaborative team in
terms of and the staff they have to
acknowledge that they've been very
forthcoming and they've also been very
accepting with the trajectory that we're
taking um you know the challenge is how
do we get ourselves how do we make
ourselves better like what can we do to
improve prove I'm always asking Wendy
Sera Dr big advice because I think the
more feedback that I could get from
multiple viewpoints is important and I
believe in my staff I think that we do
have a challenge with with with some of
our students it's you know they they
they come with the they come to us
especially when they sign up you know we
just got a couple of students from other
schools that that you know that are
reading at kindergarten level and
they've been in the United States the
entire their entire time so what do we
can we do to improve that and those are
the challenges that we see a lot we get
students uh who sign in or sign up at
the middle of the school year and
they're already to three grade levels
below and that's that's a challenge
because we don't we we have to really
scaffold our lessons to meet them where
they're at and then we start seeing
growth but it's just plain catchup for
for us and for them but you know we we
continue to come to work every day and
and we we like what we do and and you
know it's a happy place and and and I
think students enjoy being there and you
know I think one of the things that we
want to start doing is letting students
know that their capacity and and you
know believing in them and having them
believe in themselves um that's not
that's something that I would like to
continue working on okay so maybe just
recap it sounds like not a specific
strategy support but a lot of cultur
building that is going on well that's
happening day in and day out but we
definitely have to follow the district
lead in terms of making sure that we're
following you know and and adhering to
the curriculum and doing that regularly
because if you know we don't want to
Stray From the Path there and you know
again I think the usage of you know
small group instruction is something
that's happening regularly and that's
non-negotiable um we are using our
curriculum day in and day out and that's
non-negotiable so those are strategies
that we're doing you know every day to
to continue working with our families
and students okay thank you uh and then
the other question I think for me for
the dis for Dr Baker is I know that the
ELC caps are super important obviously
they should guide everything we do we
also do it kind of on a district basis
and as we mentioned every people are
starting for different points um so just
like stop lights red green yellow do we
have a sense on and I know that the data
is a lot of day we looked at as a year
old but there's been a lot of work
already been going on this year so
curious if given what you guys have seen
this year so far there any things that
you flag in terms of where where we are
on tracking toward our LC cap goals
based on this so we'll know more uh
especially in the month of March when we
do the I ready test that's going to give
us a dipstick to see where we are um one
thing that I appreciate about David and
his team is that they um look at data
they look at that data to see if there
is progress if there's not progress what
else can we do differently as we have
the rounds with those of us from the
district office that come to the school
sites and we look at the data with them
and come up with okay have you tried
this with this work and really involve
his teachers in that process he has a
good relationship not only um with
ourselves and also with his with his um
staff but one thing that's coming along
with him also is his parents the piece
about the um Geor is it Georgina or
Georgette I always forget her name with
health stors Geet Georgette Jette georan
from healthy cities
gean it's what yeah yeah she she has
been uh one who is kind
of she she not only sits with myself on
Redwood City together and of course with
cilia uh but she has uh met with myself
uh several times and the last time we
met with right before winter break and
how much she um admired David for saying
you know I really need some support in
the E area yeah and this is something
that they have not been accustom them to
doing in the past and so she met with
Katherine Rivera who you know handles
English language development and so
forth and she is mimicking what should
what teachers are doing in the classroom
although she is not a certificated
teacher nor nor her tutors but you'll
see um by going in this direction she is
making progress so it's really good to
hear this because I met with there about
four weeks ago and I said what does the
data look like and she goes I think
David can give you that information but
we're
going to talk again to see if we
continue and so it was pleasant to hear
that that's your you're moving forward
and what she and her
group what they're doing it's working so
in answer to your question um we will be
looking at that March data we'll bring
it back to you so you look at it but
we'll definitely be working with site
administrators and their staff to see
what can we
do more especially be
and I hate the Casp it's one time it is
one time um what can we do better so
that we can um uh improve in that Arena
because that's what everybody looks at I
was just looking at some of my neighbors
scores today other districts that mirror
us and we are doing better in some areas
than they are and in one area that what
of my colleagues is doing better I want
to find out what is she doing in that AR
in that in that area that is different
because she has the same type of
population in some of our schools that
Taft has and that Garfield has and also
Hoover so but we outbeat them in another
in two other areas so she should come
ask us about that but I will and that's
another source that you know because why
reinvent the will if we have a
neighboring District that is doing
something that is showing progress and
we constantly talk to one another about
it you know we we share our ideas and
share what we're doing no that's
fantastic okay so maybe just toet it
sounds like we're optimistic just based
on kind of a lot of the work that we're
seeing happening it' be premature at
this point to really have a good sense
until we get the data so we'll revisit
when we can exactly okay thank
you well again thank you for your
presentation um and I've said it before
when you've presented um I love your
enthusiasm and I love the way that you
interact with your parents um especially
when you're talking about um you do
other things other than just following
like the attendance you gave an example
you do something else and you look you
actually call the parents you get to
know the families um as you mentioned a
lot of those students have a lot of
trauma and that's actually harder on
your teachers and their support staff to
support those kids and make them grow
and so um I really don't have any
questions it's more of like comments
that I just want to tell you that I
appreciate you and your staff for
everything that you guys are doing um
obviously congratulations for exiting
the
[Music]
um yes um and then of course kudos to
all the teachers and their support staff
um for you know stepping up their game
they um I do appreciate the level of
contact that you have um you also
mentioned some of your staff does um I
believe it was a parent leaon that helps
you with making phone calls yeah and I'm
sure just not just her and you probably
have other people that do that so I do
appreciate it and like you mentioned
some of the data it's not what we want
to see but even just you explaining to
us like why certain things happen like
the summer slack or however you summer
slide slide um you know it's hard and
different cultures are different right
um unfortunately I think there's some
kids that struggle so much that in the
summer who wants to read and you know
follow up um you also want to have some
tender love and care within your family
to like move up and you know try to do
better so um I I commend you and and
your staff and I appreciate you stepping
in I do know some parents that have said
they do miss miss aera but definitely
they really like Mr Kamar so I
do I appreciate that you want to trade
spots M no
I'm good so thank
you thank
you I'm GNA Echo some of the comments
but then I also have some of my own I I
I love the enthusiasm the clear passion
you have for this job um you're cut out
for this um I love the connection that
you have with your parents specifically
around chronic absenteeism it seems like
that level of effort and intensity is
clearly working kids are showing up
contestant must be present to win so I
really appreciate that um
the suspension data looks really good uh
historically when we've looked at
suspensions and those have gone down yay
we want to make sure that we're not just
kicking problems back into the classroom
but the problems are actually getting
resolved you know how would you say that
like Behavior referrals have been
trending U flat down up you know the
interesting thing is we we don't have
Behavior referrals so the tracker system
enables a teacher to input it's a
referral online but we don't treat it as
such so the teacher will enter
what happened I get a notification I
read it and I always talk to the student
so it's it's kind of nice because it
happens in real time so let's say it
happened um in the classroom and then 10
minutes later they're going out to
recess and running into the kid right I
was like hey what are you doing he
doesn't even know right that that he
doesn't even know how I found out but um
so you know I deal with it right away
and I don't necessarily like to call him
to the office anymore cuz that freaks
him out um so I just go see him or see
him in the hallway or but um I think
it's also built on the PBIS and the
expectations that we've they really
established we our we have monthly
assemblies on our PBIS traits and we we
we we encourage teachers to write you
know give toin tickets so I think what's
happening there is we're kind of being
preventative in terms of we don't let
things escalate and we try to deal with
it we counsel students and we like to
hear what they have to say we always you
know have that back and forth with them
um the positive one but we we really we
don't see it as as a behavioral referral
we see it more as like some type of
intervention that needs to happen um
when we look at our Behavior data we
we'll see I can show you it one day if
you want to come over the tff but yeah I
I could show you like how over the
course of of of you
know instances that happened you know
for example at the beginning of the
school year in grades you know K1 you
see a lot of hitting right yeah so we
target those kids well if we see a
pattern let's say one or two students
who are repetitively doing that we
bringing them M to health counselor we
sign them off for lunch bud you know
they join a a group therapy session or
something like that so that we could
that way we we're tackling it up front
and we get the parents involved we don't
wait till till you know at five we right
away call in the first especially if we
start seeing a pattern so once students
realize that we're going to call home
and I encourage all I mean
all of my staff is you know especially
the new ones that have came in like Mr
come what do I do call home yeah call
home call don't send an email don't send
a text pick up the phone because that
first or second phone call is going to
pay dividends later and then the kids
understand and I think also kids
understand the expectation and and it's
it's not because hey I'm going to come
after you it's simply because we've
built a culture of where things are
accepted students are accepted from who
they are and they have the ability to
express you know their problems or
whatever it is that there but we give
them that opportunity to do that and I
think that that's over the over the
course of the last year you know we've
seen that like some of you have gone on
my campus and it's some people be like
wow it's quiet here and it's you don't
see you know it's not an issue where you
know I worked at middle school and I
worked in Oakland in high school and
then you know it's a big difference but
you know we try to just really make a
connection with the students and I I
know all the kids now first and last
name so one of the things that I do is I
open the gate in the morning at 8 A.M
and I let them in
you know and I really like to do that
because I set the tone for the day so I
just think it's the personal
relationships that we that we establish
and I really encourage our teachers to
do the same thing and call home and and
be there for them in that aspect so in
our results that you send me Mr for the
climate showed that you know it's
getting better in terms of you know that
type of thing fantastic um I am blinking
on uh our movement from three I ready
measurements a year to two is that
because you mentioned the next data
point we get as March I'm just
forgetting did we do that for all the
schools in the district yeah we did we
did yeah we went through this last
spring when we were going through the
yeah just feeling a little bummed out to
not have this conversation with the
winter Delta Data right there was
concern that we were testing too much
and um so we had we had several
conversations as a as a team not only
ourselves here at the district office
but also with the principls and also
with staff members they said you're just
doing there's too much testing there's
you're because it's it's a Time suck
especially when you are an instructor in
the classroom I okay I'm GNA take this
time I have to give this test and it's
over several days two days right at two
weeks two weeks and and teacher saying
that that's a lot of time that we're
missing with the instruction that that
totally makes sense I think just the
hard part is like if we're sitting going
to be sitting here year after year
hearing presentations showing summer
slum data summer slump data summer slump
data like how do we know how the school
year is going as it's going and have a
chance to make a course cor so I'm going
on it but as soon as she starts um we
are looking to see what what else is out
there as far as uh assessments we're
talking to our neighbors uh on both
sides of us on the to the to the north
and to the South to see what they're
doing um there's something that just
came up that we I just got an email to
was last night from uh C Foster City and
another piece that they're looking at
for math that I think I'm going to
reserve spots for us to go to and see
what that's like and if that's better
and it's not as or you can do it maybe
you could do it more often but it does
it's not a Time suck like this other is
and it gets the teachers kind of you
know you want me to do this instruction
but at the same time you're telling me I
have to do two weeks of assessment what
do you want let's let's talk about this
so go ahead down I just want to add one
of the reasons why we also moved is this
year we're also moving towards our
interm assessments where our assessments
that mimic C and they're actually given
by the state and so this is our first
year we did a writing one in December um
on our PD this last Monday um they was
scoring them and it takes a long time
from middle school they pretty much took
all day scoring and so they're going to
be looking at that data and planning so
really what we're trying to make sure
we're because we know that that is going
to allow us to create a plan of
instruction around theard see some of
that data huh can the board see some of
that just did it so they're still not
all completed scoring and so once we
have that we will I'll have Jenny try to
give us some of the information um I
know David knows exactly how his scores
because we were looking at that today
but um you know it's it's it's our first
time doing it in many years we did it
before the pandemic and so we're really
trying to go back to that type of
assessment where we could pull that data
um we know that the teachers what we
heard from the teachers it was very
beneficial to spend the amount of time
we spent on looking at it and really
thinking about what is our what are our
students being asked of so that we can
now start requiring requiring that but
we're really focus was writing there are
multiple different assessments that we
want to get to um but it does take time
so if we do that we can't really be
doing all this other two weeks to take a
test and then do that but that's the
type of the that some of the work that
we're working towards towards next year
so that we're doing that more inter
interally with throughout our
professional learning Cycles so it is
something we wanted to make sure we
embedded this year to get it to move
that forward with our
plc's um but again it's new this year
and we know that writing is an area that
we need to focus on so that's why we
chose writing and I think um I think the
teachers all really appreciated having
us a focus this time and having the time
for it so we're really trying to build
that in more of that in for next year
thank you and just to be back off that
so we just finished the fibs and for
example fifth grade finished and fourth
grade is almost done so I already have
that data so today we had our mtss uh
you know PLC here for administrator so I
was already thinking about how I was
going to use that data come next week
because next week on the 16th we're
going to be looking at that so there is
that data like I said you want to come
over to TA do show me you but uh um but
yeah it's there it's like as soon as we
get it I'm looking at it and I'm asking
her like this is what I like what do you
think and so on and so on because you
know it's it's it's important for us to
look at the data see it right away and
try to move forward with it it's no use
if we're waiting two three four five
weeks you know so but yeah that's the
thing there is a there's the various
data points that we're using so you know
but that's for another time fair fair um
in previous years when we've done School
site presentations we've U gotten a
sense of the Delta so like what
percentage of students over the last
calendar year made one grade level of
progress made a fractional grade level
of progress made two grade levels of
progress right um trying to meet the
students where they are so if they're
starting off three grade levels behind
and they end the year one grade level
behind it's it's fantastic right high
fives all around um so I would love to
see some of that data about deltas in
terms of how rapidly the students are
advancing because like ultimately that's
the thing that I care about because if
we can give especially for the students
are way behind if we give the median
student who's two three years behind one
and a half grade levels of instruction
per uh calendar year we're we're we're
going to be closing the Gap right and we
know that we're on on proper course and
just the presentation thank you again
for giving it but this presentation
doesn't give me that data to tell me
like red light yellow light green light
are are are we on track to be able to to
to close that Gap yeah would love for
you to come over and to show you what I
got
message received sir pancakes or no um
oh I expect everybody have the pancake
birday sorry Betty if you're hearing me
out there I already told them okay one
one thought just offand is that if we do
have a number of classrooms where there
are students of many different levels in
that classroom um exploring using pure
instruction um could be pretty effective
um just it's been something that's been
a proven approach and in other words
it's hard to pull off so it's lot easier
to say than to than to execute but it's
just something i' continue to encourage
us not just a tap to continue to explore
um you mentioned a couple times in your
presentation following the district's
lead and I'm I'm curious to kind of turn
things around like what can the district
do to better help you uh make sure that
these kids get a great education and
English and math because you know we're
we're we're not where we need to be
right now well I'm always asking for
feedback I mean I when I meet with her
and Dr B I'm always asking what advice
do you want and that's really to me
that's just support um my teachers come
to me and grip and I grip to them so
that's you know that's kind of what but
I I just right so I just feel that the
district can continue supporting us by
just hearing us out and and and
providing Solutions or at least comments
or feedback on on what because every
time I talk to these folks here they're
giving me something to work with and I
like to run things by them because it's
important for me as a school leader to
know what my superiors think about what
we're doing because that's the only I'm
I'm I like thought partnership and I'm a
distributed Leadership Model type of guy
and so for me is just having that uh
that support like pick up the phone and
have the question that's that's the kind
of help that I like last question for
you uh you mentioned a couple different
times just you focusing on the the
summer slump you know and the degree to
which that presents a meaningful
regression for many of these students
what additional supports might the
district consider for uh giving students
over over the summer to minimize the
impact of a
summer worked last year on getting some
uh some some summer school going I think
that that's crucial um you know and it's
and you know it's it's a span of five
six weeks or something like that four so
I think that should continue I think and
we should definitely I think she was
very very uh intentional with choosing
she made us look at the data and then
choose the students who would we
recommend it right or invite to come so
I think that should continue I think
that's that's important especially for
for folks down at the Bayside because
you know a lot of those families are
working folks and they want something
for their child during the the school
day I mean during the summer day so
that's that I think that should continue
even if we get send them home for the
summer with with some books and like
when you come back we send them home
with books you know and but and one of
the things that I didn't mention in my
presentation is I send home um I figure
out how to You Know download all their
data in terms of their clever accounts
and I send it off to them so you know a
lot of most folks nowadays have a
technology at home so I do get phone
calls from parents like hey I'm having
trouble logging on so I help them log on
to thank you again for your presentation
for your passion for this job thank you
yeah thank you um it's great to see the
efforts like PBIS and Community
engagement and sort of the um all those
programs being fully implemented and the
impact that they're having um also the
personal interactions that you mentioned
throughout your um presentation that
start right when the gate opens uh those
have such a profound impact on the
community so it's really nice to hear
about those um I guess the other thing I
wanted to mention was you had mentioned
it and you just mentioned it about
wanting to be able to see growth data as
opposed to like you know static data I
think we've Ted talked about this before
I don't ever recall seeing it in the
school reports I know we've seen it a
little bit in our I ready reports before
and I know you're given the data to
present you're not given you're given
the format so it's more and we've talked
about it before and I know we're looking
to try and get it but really being able
to see student growth as opposed to like
just snapshots of where they are would
be tremendously helpful um and then uh
the last thing I wanted to mention was
it sounds like the air program the air
tutoring is working well which is very
timely because we're approving their
contract later um yes it is an effective
program uh it's good we think it is okay
and then the students that we're
choosing are um we're very intentional
about the first group versus the second
okay outstanding that's good to hear in
time timely information I'm gonna sling
it to Dr Baker so that we can get you
out of here and move on to our next
presentation David I just want to say
thank you to you and your staff thank
you to them vonica for everything that's
that you're doing um David is really
good with the data he's very good with
the data whenever he comes meet with us
and asks for anything here comes the
data before he does his ass and so it it
supports what what he needs right and so
we do our best to support it if we can
support it depending if we have the
budget or work can we find dollars
within the budget I go over to do can I
squeeze some money out of one bucket
Here Without You Know screwing things up
for him um but he's very good about that
and that's something I really appreciate
so thank you so much for doing that um
and just keep up the good work thank you
I want to say thank you to all the staff
that's really like I I couldn't do it
without them and it's not just me it's
all them you know I really appreciate
everything they do for me so thank you
author uh gold half outfits so so just
to let you know you met my attendance go
cuz when I took over C we were at 97% we
were the highest and now you're the
highest oh really so you met my go from
2019 when I took over just want to give
you
that big
things a lot of work and Y from last
year who's now at Garfield but thank you
thank you very much folks have a great
evening thank you thank you David all
right okay so next we have Mr Cedar the
alante team Al team no no break oh no
break yet no breaks you'll talk
fast was that 20 minutes I don't know
there you go uh good
evening uh see we get oriented
here good evening uh board president
Wells trustees uh Welcome to our new um
board trustee uh David Lee invite you
out to the school our wonderful
superintendent Dr uh Baker uh Wendy
Kelly
anara um audience members custodian that
just started with the vacuum cleaners
back
there and um if anybody is at home
welcome um Warren seder the very proud
principal of adalante Selby director
Warren um here waiting patiently to
present given an opportunity uh with my
admin team it's Jose Luna our wonderful
community school
coordinator uh and our wonderful
assistant principal Patricia
alcoser and Maria is one of our dear
loyal teachers Orosco you might know her
mother worked in the district for a
number of years Victoria who just got in
from the East Coast she was stuck on a
flight and then she's here tonight to
support adalante sby because she's so
dedicated um anyway so thank you for
being here and thank you for the
opportunity to present try to get my
energy level up because it's p past my
bedtime for sure um we've had a number
of new initiatives I want to talk a
little bit about tonight and um ongoing
programs that we've seen that are
effective that we want to continue um
we'll be reporting on our progress to
meeting um the goals on our lcap um we
had some progress and some mixed results
um we are uh fortunate to have a
wonderful Community I think it's one of
the best things that we have I feel
privileged to be uh part of a um veteran
staff that really cares and believes uh
in the the immersion model um the
parents and the community are very very
strong um and we're all here we're all
at our school uh to promote um immersing
education for our students and I think
the big highlight for for us it's been
my fifth year I think as the as a leader
of the combined aente Selby as being
voted and the parent magazine as the uh
top emersion program in the county of
San mono voted on by parents so we
really happy about that um so we are the
alabes we have a lot of of school pride
I know we heard about the Dolphins but
we are the alab bries and this doesn't
work yes it
does okay so uh I'm going to go over um
our progress towards uh meeting elcap
goal and it's a little bit different
than previous presentations we wrote
over because we do Sipes right the site
plans that I know you all go through the
thousand of pages that we write on our
goals but the this presentation has on
progress towards lcap goals so we have a
little bit of mixed data um but we'll do
our best to do it in a quick way I'm
going to go over lcap one um around
climate improving attendance and um
social emotional learning setting the
stage that students can uh learn at
school and feel good about themselves uh
Patrice will talk about progress and
goal two around English learner progress
and then I'll continuing goal three
around um reading and math progress so
in goal one uh is an area to highlight
for us because we did meet all of our
goals in reducing chronic
absenteeism
significantly if 2% was the El Cap goal
um we did it we did a really good job um
overall um reducing chronic absenteeism
from 2223 from
24.9 uh to last year to 15 .3% which is
significant uh percentage drop there um
also in the next slide shows all the
subgroups that we met uh as well we were
on track these first two months of the
school year this is only through
December but we did get a little spike
in um November and December uh just be
honest there was kids that were sick I
don't think it was uh anything
unexpected uh for the week that those
two days and right before Thanksgiving
that's historically you know we have six
I think there were 68 students that
Monday and Tuesday leading into the to
the break people just take off they
don't send their kids to school um so
that's something to think about with the
calendar but I know I know it's already
set for next year
um but this date this data is good
overall and I I do think we are on track
to meet the goal when we come back uh
this week for example January through
through May basically is kind of like
our money time is the what I think about
it our attendance improves everyone
knows the
routines um this is when a lot of the
learning happens at the school so I do
think we will make our we'll make our
goal in this area at the end of the year
these this this slide just shows the
subgroups um all subgroups made uh
Improvement um from 2223 to 2324
significant
Improvement except for um families uh I
think there were 20 three families that
we had that are um housing challenged is
that how we say that
in
um housing
insecured uh that was the only subgroup
that didn't make the goal last year but
interestingly that group which is not
the same you know students come and go
um has the best chronic absentees and
rate to date this year at 4.8 prison so
it's kind of just shows you what the
data looks like it's kind of
interesting um we don't believe in
suspens suspension uh as David talked
about similar mindset I think across the
district at this point we prefer to work
with our students and send them home I
think um also we have wonderful staff
that that are really good handling
Behavior at the site I kind of put our
action steps a little bit different than
what David had shown in his presentation
in kind of tier one strategies in tier
two and tier three I thought that made
sense um hopefully that's okay um you
can't include everything on one slide
but this is kind of the highlights I
think the biggest thing in for this goal
one that we do as a site is emphasize
relationship building right from the
beginning of the year uh we're all
getting to know our students um there's
a lot of Getting to Know You activities
uh going on in the
classroom um they're doing their
Community
circles uh we had really strong uh
climate survey data I was happy to see
we have a new climate survey I don't
know if the the board has a chance to
look at it yet I looked at it because
it's one way to at least measure like
climate's a feeling you know is there a
way to measure it I don't know so anyway
these are third fourth and fifth graders
took the new climate survey and I on
this goal I I figured three of the three
of the indicators were teacher and staff
um care about me so that was one of them
uh 77% of the third fourth and fifth
graders said yes and the district
average was 58% so I thought we were
we're moving good that's pretty good
there um I'm happy at school third
fourth and fifth graders 72% said yes uh
62% was the district average and then
importantly in this area too is safety
uh I feel safe at school 80% of the
students in third fourth and fifth grade
said they did uh the the district
average was 66% so those are kind of
some highlights and a little bit of
metrics I think uh we do a great job of
uh building Community as I said at the
beginning it's one of the highlights of
the school uh these events engage the
families in fun ways at the site so they
feel good about coming to school all
this contributes to attendance and to
Behavior Uh we have a great partnership
with a acknowledge Alliance uh where
they're doing uh social emotional
learning lessons in the classroom for
third fourth and fifth grade um that
supports a lot of different things um so
that students can learn in in the
classroom uh similar to what David was
talking about we have a a strong imp
implementation of the PBIS program with
common expectations around being safe
respectful responsible friendly and
caring and focused and ready to learn
students immediately get their alabri
ticket it's kind of like a brag tag kind
of thing they immediately take it home
they can put it on their refrigerator I
got I got an Al ticket and then once a
week we do the the all calls and then
they can come down and get their
bracelet that that indicates that
expectation for for being safe or for
being responsible so I think this is a
great thing a new thing we started this
year similar to what David was talking
about we have Tri trimester Awards Al
Awards and we put an attendance um award
in with that a strength for especially
for an elementary school K5 typically
see more active student council at
middle or high schools right we have a
very strong student council um Jose Luna
and cloudy in the Family Center kind of
um have done a really good job bringing
out student voice the teachers as well
in the
classroom um we have them also have the
opportunity to uh be peacekeepers or
conflict mediators uh so that gives them
lead leadership experience but also
helps out with some of the smaller
conflicts out on the yard we don't have
a lot of Behavioral referrals and
somebody was just asking about that uh
from our teachers because we have such
great teachers really quite honestly
they're they're excellent with
management um but what does happen with
behavioral referrals usually is out at
unstructured times like at recess before
school or or at lunch time so this is an
area it's kind of twofer right so this
those students get the leadership
experience and then it helps the yard
um something that might not often be
talked about but I'm very proud of and
we should be proud of is our extended
day program we have four uh Partners so
we started out with reach which is our
partnership with the wreck and parks
department they have over 200 students
and after extended day after school
program so they can be there until 6 o00
uh YMCA has 60 students Sienna youth has
80 students and and a new partner that
started last year and now is up to 60
students is Kasa culo so have four
different partners over 400 students are
an extended day after school program and
they have improved their uh enrichment
um the quality of their enrichment of
the after school program um the leaders
they're typically younger and interact
in different ways than than teachers and
principles with the students after
school it's safe it's it's fun they have
some
tutoring um it's great and particularly
in terms of attendance and where our
site is located and that we're a school
of choice and we are not a neighborhood
school kids can't just at 2:30 walk home
you know parents are working they really
are depending on their kids being an
after school program and they can pick
them up and interact and see how their
kids day was going with with uh the
program
leaders um at our site at SI up to six
o'clock it's
great um so th that's available for
everyone right so those are kind of like
the tier one universal there's a lot
more going into climate and social
emotional learning and behavior but
that's those are kind of the highlights
uh in tiers two and three uh we have
screen teams right so all schools should
have this um where you're looking at uh
you're trying to identify the students
that need the most support so we have
our mtss tosa our counselor
admin uh community school coordinator uh
looking at students and then putting
them in what students need um counseling
support either in groups or individual
therapy uh also for attendance reach out
for phone calls
check-ins um we're all kind of doing
that work I do think it's important that
the the board of the community is
realizing as as all schools are going
through budget cuts we've already
experienced budget cuts in this area
this year our mtss TOA is now 0.5
working this year and our counselor is
at 05 and next year both of those
positions are are cut completely so
that'll be a big change uh for our
school that we'll have to um take a look
at how we're going to work to support
our
students um the rest of those are pretty
pretty normal I would say what most
schools are doing uh in terms of the SST
504 IEP
process um but one thing I do want to
highlight is our community school model
it's just gotten better and better and
better every single year stronger and
stronger so I just put hyperlinks here
and if the board you can just like pop
those open and go through them and I
really love a chance for Jose to just
talk to you for about 20 minutes but
David took all of her time and the
vacuum cleaners were going on back there
um
it it is been great and so I'm so
thankful to Dr Baker I know there was at
one point we weren't sure if we were
going to get one and then it was going
to be a 0.5 and then it's a full 1.0
position and it's just been great um uh
the
program so I think I hit all my oh we
have a little we have some pictures I
think do I yeah on to let me have a
couple of slides to have fun with so
upper left here you can see student
council uh we had a new program that
Jose initiated uh with alas it's a
program that work with the migrant Farm
Workers in Half Moon Bay and students
you know they they it's they're giving
back right so they're massive
collections of things came in to stuff
the stocking so the families in uh haen
bay could get some holiday cheer so over
4 458 there's a there's a number you
guys like numbers uh stockings were
given out to bring some holiday cheer in
the upper left there um student voice
and Bel belongingness is that a word um
is highlighted here in the upper right
the Ruby Bridges brought uh walk to
school day where everyone belongs um
everyone we purple this year was bigger
and better than than any year and I love
this this is kind of like a new I like
these Traditions at the school so I
think this is a like this stock stocking
stuff for that'll be a tradition for
this will be a this tradition has
continued to improve every year and it's
meaningful uh lower left picture there
is one of our community big Comm First
Community Building events is de de los
muos Day of the Dead uh because we have
cultural emphasis and so some kids
dancing here we have a wonderful
partnership with the San Carlos
Children's Theater so here you can see
some kids uh we've already given our
play this year was Finding Nemos the
choir is the cutest thing ever memorable
experience getting up on the stage and
this picture although a little bit out
of focus is our wonderful Patricia aler
giving out um the the bracelets to
students lined up uh weekly um that's
promoting um the expectations the
positive
behavior
so yeah we don't do questions till the
end right so Pat's going to talk about
our progress towards meeting goal
two hi there good even I'm just goinging
to shout out to my parents because they
asked the Lo for the login and so
they're watching so hey Mom and Dad um
so I'm the proud principal vice vice
principal of um adant sby Spanish
emersion school I feel very proud and
fortunate to be part of the community um
especially because this community is
believes in bilingualism and supports uh
and our goal towards that for all of our
students so elcap goal number two was
about English Learners moving our
English Learners one level every year
increasing our
reclassification and uh decreasing our
long-term
eels
um so here looking at the data we can
see that overall we um we made slight
growth but didn't make looking at the
data like David said if you look at the
cohorts there's growth from um second to
third if you look at or from second to
third there's a dip because the test
changes the cap test changes so there is
a dip there but the other cohorts they
actually do make Improvement but just if
you look at face value it does look like
second and third are the ones that made
uh the most growth but looking at the
cohorts except for the dip between
second and third because that's when the
lpac test changes um to one1 testing to
whole group testing um on the computer
and that's their first experience in
third grade with um standardized testing
um let's see so we look at this we do
have some action steps you know we do
have challenges that you know make the
you know to make our growth and so we
continue to take steps and like Warren
talked about in the Latin the first goal
we do have the tier one supports and
then we have the tier 2 supports and we
continue to have high expectations for
our English Learners and moving to
moving them towards reclassification
because that is the ultimate goal for
our English language Learners so some of
the tier one supports that we have this
year we did or we started the new
curriculum of language power uh our
multi our the director of multi
multilingual Learners Katherine Vera she
did come out to our uh to one of our
staff meetings and presented the
strategies the flow of the lesson the
expectations of how to use the program
how to implement it in our classrooms
and then she did share a lot of
resources uh through staff development
the website where they can find
resources to help support language power
in addition the um the district provided
the professional de development for the
TCM uh presenters uh I was fortunate
enough to participate in those and I got
really good feedback from all of our
teachers the presenters were very
interactive they connected with the
teachers uh and really focusing the
strategies and implementing
uh the program to meet the students
where they're at and realizing that they
are English learners but they are coming
with us to us with strengths it might
not be at the level but they're coming
with a a tool chest they're coming with
their own strategies their own
experiences and that is a big asset to
move them along in the reclassification
process we still continue to use are the
seal units integrated uh thematic units
for social studies and science
uh and the thinking maps that started
with the Nua when we work with them the
trans languaging the cognates things
like that that we our teachers continue
to um to use TK through fifth grade in
the classroom uh like David was talking
about that small group instruction
differentiating lessons making sure that
we're meeting students where they're at
but then also pushing them um because
they can they can do it and that's where
the expectation needs to be that they
can do it and continue to push them in
in that direction using the strengths
that they have we also have our monthly
elac meetings that have been very well
attended this year and this I Warren and
I were talking this has been a really
big um place to connect with parents in
terms of the beginning of the year they
were getting the reclassification
letters and the elpac scores and they're
like what like what do we do like what
does this mean so we
uh Katherine is gracious enough to send
me you know blacked out you know names
and things like that so we actually got
to go through the elpac scores and how
to read them and what does this mean and
where are we trying to move to and so it
really got them talking and they're like
well how do how do we help them more so
they are very invested and moving their
children forward and talking we showed
them up about the reclassification
letter this is what it looks like what
is reclassification how do they get to
reclassification and because they have
those questions they they hear the
buzzword they hear that but they don't
necessarily always know what that means
so going through step by step with that
has really gotten a lot more parents to
attend uh at our next meeting which is
next Monday we're actually going to take
the El curriculum of language power and
lay it out to the parents kind of show
them the flow of the lesson uh what
their students are doing um you know
just give an example some of the elpac
stems uh Katherine last year she did
come uh right before the elpac just to
show them the stems the resources they
could use how to how to change the
website like to Spanish so they can
actually read the direction but then
kind of have their students just
practice at home uh so that's been that
connection has just been it's been
really imperative in them just being
even more invested and didc do always
gives homework your homework is always
to bring another parent or two parents
so that really gets uh more parents to
attend our elac meetings and we do have
a partnership with Famas unidas that
also helps with uh supporting parents
and how to support their children at
home and what they can do and they can
do there uh our tier 2 supports that we
have we do have a newcomer instructional
assistant so she provides even uh
provides one on- one not one on one
small groups intensive support to a
smaller group and that's in addition to
their designated ELD time uh
and one thing I didn't mention actually
this year we did start ELD um the week
of September 3rd which is earlier than
we've started in previous years um to
kind of get the the momentum going for
the school year
um and then this is dor and myself very
proud principal and vice principal at
the reclassification ceremony I think we
were missing one or two students because
they skedaddled before we could take a
picture but we were very proud to
support them and for them to be there
and we're going to have a lot more
students in this picture next year so
I'm going to give it back to thect
war you think your parents are still
awake yeah
yeah okay uh lcap 3 is around progress
for English language arts and math and I
ready and also um yes back or Casp as
David had talked about um we have last
year's data from our sipson and our site
C gone through that we met goals in I
ready uh in all grade levels except for
fifth grade in both language arts and
math uh except for fifth grade in both
of those which is ironic because guess
what on Casp on the state test fifth
grade was the only grade level that met
the the goal uh for growth in reading in
math so the there wasn't like a great
correlation I think last year when I met
before you there was a direct
correlation so there was that was kind
of some ahas like we didn't understand
particularly the third grade data didn't
make sense to me because I saw all the
amazing growth that they had made
through the year uh demonstrated on and
then they took that test in those two
days John's favorite test I guess uh
didn't show didn't show it so um I guess
I should show the data instead of just
talk to this one
um so there was a dip uh in our
Ela which just goes to show that we need
to continue the work that we're doing
and be really
mindful uh continue with the high
expectations and the Fidelity to the
work um um from 48 to 42 is a
dip um continue to see the achievement
Gap this was flushed up pretty
um I would almost say not shockingly but
uh in depth uh over the summer we had a
group that met uh that was led with
Michelle Griffith uh our community
school team and then we've looked at it
as a staff as well what can we do to
improve uh this achievement Gap because
it's pretty striking when you look at it
um although that we think we're moving
the in the right direction you know it's
across the state like this um but it's
at our school so it's like in our faces
so um it's hard to look at
it um this slide however is a little bit
easier to look at because this is one of
the highlights right so this is the
cohort data this is what you want to see
you want to see the the students
starting in third grade at well 30% not
very good right and then leaving and
they're on to Kennedy in sixth grade now
at
51.3% so that's that's what you want to
see the trajectory like that you can
only take them from where they are and
then you want to see uh value added
growth uh again here's the I already
data for the last three years the fall
diagnos diagnostic only um I've already
gone through with our our site counsel
staff that we met our goals you know
through the the beginning of last
whatever 23 24 to the end of last year
we have this one dipstick at the
beginning of the year and then we'll
have another one in March um slight
Improvement here though a little
bit uh and here's the math performance
we did meet our our goal and Improvement
here so this is kind of nice to see
overall
overall but again the same achievement
Gap uh is pretty it's pronounced for
everyone right
um and then cohort is not as strong as
the
ELA
um with the dip in in fourth grade but
um um slight
Improvement and then here's the the
dipstick for I8 for the last three years
fall uh in math again slight
Improvement um so here again tier three
what we're excuse me the the the tier
one and tier two what we've been doing
kind of the significant things that
we've been doing and some of the
initiatives that are new this year I
wanted to highlight uh we continue for
the last two years
with this mtss Universal Design for
Learning good tier one instruction what
is it in the classroom right and that
cohesion model that's what we're trying
to do um districtwide in our school
too um this is an area I think uh truste
lee was asking about like what is the
big thing you think that's making the
difference or will make the difference I
think across curriculum um in California
Public Schools especially
is this differentiation piece how can a
teacher veteran or
new uh really differentiate in a
classroom setting with students that are
all different um levels and
needs and how can I pull a small group a
targeted group I've looked at my data
this group needs this and then the rest
of my 25 kids what are they doing you
know we have to build the routines that
they're accountable give them something
meaningful to do some can work
independently on this some are working
in a group there some are they're doing
different things while I'm pulling this
small group real quick to accelerate
that learning a little bit with trustee
weekly was talking about we want to
accelerate give them a little bit more
extra so they make a year and a half
growth that kind of a thing is really
hard to do really hard to do um and I
feel like we just starting this year
I've had um the first try Master roughly
um every week Michelle Griffith and
Katherine Rivera were out now I have uh
it's John and and Wendy are visiting to
tr get some feedback and we kind of see
some of that growth we had started it
right before the pandemic started and
then we lost because we went to whole
group instruction scared to bring the
students into a small group so I feel
like that's starting to change but it's
not hard I mean it's not it's not easy
excuse me it's very hard to teach this
way it's easier to teach a whole group
um we are a 9010 two-way immersion
school that's why I put that hyperlink
there um that's what unites us that's
what we believe in there's data and
research um supporting the program from
just recently from Stanford so those
integrated units the focus on vocabulary
the anchor charts and all the classrooms
you can see them they're up teachers are
doing it we're going to keep doing it um
some of the new work the last two years
is the phonics work I would argue we
were were doing phonics because Spanish
is phonetic for years we just weren't
using aeno alier but now we're we're
using aeno alier new this year is the
hegerty English Phonics work because
we're this 9010 model right so in second
grade we're not really we didn't
typically teach any English reading
there's ELD going on right we're still
doing Spanish reading in the model uh
because of the need and with shown by
the science of reading for teaching
specifically English phonics
uh once the the second grade class has
shown that at least 80% of them showed
their their phonics at in aeno LA Air
and their Spanish um literacy we've
shifted into the they have a 20 minute
English um phonics block so I think that
will make a
difference um as they're prepared to
move into to Maria Maria's class in
third grade she might not have to do as
much um hey work next year because
they've started earlier they're going to
they're going to be farther along so
that's one of the newer things this year
we're in our second year of illustrative
math uh implementation I think it's
better this year uh teachers are more
comfortable with how um how the program
works I think there's still some issues
with it
honestly uh I talked to you a little bit
last year about how different it is U
especially for veteran teachers and
someone might like me cuz I want to be
modeling and teaching it and giving
examples instead of inviting you to
figure out the problem on your own and
then talking to your partner and then
they and then I'm just walking around
asking questions and then you're going
to go into your games for your
activities and then I'm going to do a
cool down and I'm going to try to
synthesize the learning you know that's
that's kind of the new model those those
um those practices uh we've had I think
two two sessions this year hav been in
both of them uh from um a lesser of math
have been
helpful um and then new this year but
wasn't really new because we had done
them pre pandemic as as Anna knows is
professional learning um communities
collaborative work uh and grade level
teams using uh dour's book uh cycle of
inquiry so teachers are setting smart
goals um
next Thursday uh we'll have we'll go
over our second cycle our second our
growth whether they made their smart
goals for the second cycle
take a look at the FIB fiab results that
we just looked at this past monday it
feels like a long time ago but Monday
was just this week um to start their
next cycle for cycle three uh setting up
their smart goals and um this is work
that we used to do but it's it's
important work and um we're really lucky
to have a collaborative staff teachers
like to work together which is um which
is a good thing um I think we need to do
more uh that were observing each other
we had one cycle this year that they
were able to observe each other in the
class we do more of that uh I think
would be better um next in these next
Cycles um so that's some there's a lot
more in that tier one but that's that's
some of the highlights uh in tier two we
can this is more around intervention and
support we have instructional assistance
supporting push in small groups for uh
kindergarten and first grade um reading
support in small groups pull out for
first and second grade uh in Spanish and
then uh reading support with very strong
um reading intervention specialists in
third fourth and fifth grade um we do
have a another budget cut that we've
adjusted to this year because we don't
have um as many reading uh intervention
teachers in English this year or 0. five
less um so that is a change this year
there is some tutoring also going on in
extended day program or after school
programs and then obviously all students
in the district should be getting via
their IEPs and their goals um reading or
math support or study skills supports as
per their goals um with their RSP
teacher and instructional
assistant so here's some of the funner
pictures I wanted to highlight uh that
teachers are working collaboratively
students are working in small groups um
I see teacher nard here's uh teaching a
phonics lesson with aeno with a small
group so what are the rest of her 20 uh
because that that her class is at 27
kindergarteners I believe so she at one
two three four five she got five so what
are the other 22 doing H what are they
doing right so that's that's part of the
piece um teachers working
collaboratively uh this is a in the
lower or the far right there they're
doing a measurement um activity for
illustrative
ma um and then goal setting there's a
goal setting there at the beginning with
maest
suie um so yeah get a little bit of feel
um but honestly the best feel is to come
out um the cabinet's been coming out
every week so cabinet members have
that's a new thing this year so board
members are welcome uh anytime to come
out and get a feel for the
school I think that's my report all
right thank you Warren and Patty for
presenting and Jose and Maria for being
here let's jump right into discussion
and questions
um yeah let's go the same order yeah
right
away um first and foremost thank you
guys again for not only putting this
presentation together but also for
obviously doing the work um lots of
stuff to celebrate so and appreciate uh
the pictures first of all to seeing that
and I will definitely make my way out
there as well to see in person um I will
try not to delay anyone's bedtime any
further so I'll try quick to the
question F that's okay um the first one
was just a because I can't help myself
with numbers and data um very small
Nuance I was just curious I saw on the
chronic absenteeism rates with um the
breakdown for students with disabilities
it looked like there was a spike this
year I was just curious is there do you
know is that anything is it just anomaly
or is there some specific thing going on
there well there's there's a couple of
things there are individual cases right
I'm not going to get into their
specifics we also have a a few students
that haven't reached turn independent
studies uh they have to turn in the
their work we're not just going to
approve the independent studies there
are a number of those students um and we
have a a couple of situations with with
a couple of students in that in that
group
um I know it doesn't answer your
question no I think or correct me if I'm
right it sounds like it is more it
happens to be an individual student kind
of basis it's not like a this is
something we need to really
there's a big issue to to resolve there
um other question just to Echo uh my
last question before very helpful to
hear kind of the areas where like it's
super helpful to get the supports and or
what strategies work on the flip side is
there me to Echo trusty weeklys a
question is is there anything that you
have flagged that the district could do
to support um the school in particular
yeah I think I've been shy in telling
John and Anna and Liz previously that we
really miss having an instructional
coach embedded at the school uh at least
part-time uh half day uh I feel like uh
when we were demonstration site with
seal that was really the best in terms
of keeping us on on point um and really
trying different strategies that are
coming on and and teachers modeling and
more
collaboration I think that that was
really that's something I really missed
and the teachers really Miss and I think
it's really important for the work but
it's a cost Factor still good good to
know that's all I had thank
you thanks again for the presentation
for obviously you guys again and all
teachers and staff um one of the things
I want to say Obviously Adelante has a
special place in my heart all my kids
went
there um and one of the things I wanted
to mention regarding U Mya Maria was
just want to throw it out there your mom
was my Victoria yes back 30 something
years ago um at mckenley so I will never
forget that and so I just want you to
let her know I and I don't want it I
mean it's still kind of part of the
presentation of why I'm saying this is
because I do think that building
relationships with the students are very
important because again to this day like
I remember her dearly I still have we
used to be the mckenley Trojans and I
still have my little paper
where like I don't know why I got it for
I don't know being good so like those
are the relationships that we build and
I do know that firsthand because my kids
went there um how you know Adelante just
like any other school it's a really
tight Community um I feel feels like
family right super yes like super super
tight um so I do appreciate that and
then uh moving along with what you guys
are doing um I appreciate of course
everything that's happening for the
after school programs that are actually
helping out all the students that really
need um the after school uh not
necessarily just the academic but the
enrichment the
um I don't even know what to say um so
in other words socialize there's yes
there's some downtime it's it's good
yeah yes um and so I I appreciate you
guys doing this partnership with not
just like one but you know five four
uhuh four yeah um
Partners so um I appreciate that um I
really liked like like you said with the
Ruby Bridges and
your I guess if you want to make it
a I can't even think maybe because it is
late um a tradition yeah right um I
appreciate that uh just engaging the
students and the families um to be part
of again a community that can set up for
success um and again we don't see the
scores we really want to see and I
believe that no matter how much we tried
and this is like Nationwide the
achievement Gap is always going to be
there I mean there's so much out there
you know whether it's the traumas of the
students whether it's the way we were
brought up and the way we socialize the
way we learn and the stuff that we
didn't learn um I think we are all
moving forward to try to close the
achievement Gap and to me that matters a
lot because again progress you know
matters we're probably not going to see
what we really want to see I mean I
would love for everyone to be successful
um but what I do admire about this
district is that everybody wears so many
hats and we believe in the students so I
I appreciate that
um and and again when when we talk about
numbers maybe not something that we want
to see but then one interesting um when
David was um comparing
the I ready scores and he focused on the
23 24 your gisis in 2425 was actually
higher yeah slightly yeah so I I know
that's one of the things that you
mentioned so I again the progress is
there and and I've said it before for
other presentations and like the needle
is moving and I think we do have to you
know hats off to all the teachers and
the support staff for being there for
our students so um I really appreciate
that and I will pass it along to my
colleague thank you thank
you um really great to hear uh just
thank you for the presentation uh the
work with uh in particular from this and
engaging parents there uh it's really
wonderful to you know engage um the
community help the parents help the the
kids so that uh we can continue the
education out inside the classroom um in
terms of lcap goal 2 uh would you say
that we are on track to hit our
reclassification goals it was a little
hard to tell from the data in the
presentation uh we didn't meet our meet
meet our goal on uh reclassification
last year um we had it was significantly
lower uh I talked a little bit uh with
Dr Baker about that there's there was a
change in how you can reclassify
students um in terms that they have to
have a solid four now before students
with an IP that had a I don't know if
you want how detailed you want to be
that you could reclassify with um couple
of different metrics if they had a three
you could reclassify them you you
couldn't do that uh starting last year
that was one of the issues uh
additionally our our fifth graders
showed the showed the most growth on on
test scores last year right and then
they when they reclassify they
reclassify as sixth graders that was a
little bit of a dip but not wholly the
answer okay thank you but do I think
were on track to meet the goal this year
yes sweet okay that's fantastic news um
you mentioned this interesting
frustration that Casp and I ready felt
like they were maybe not agreeing yeah
they didn't that they didn't correlate
particularly third grade was like the
one that was like really upsetting to me
cuz I know how much how hard the that
team worked and the students um and we
celebrated their progress throughout the
year and then the two days of that that
cast ELA test in particular they didn't
they didn't show it so which test do you
believe uh maybe neither of
them in terms of like what's your guide
star for progress I don't know I said
this to John yesterday like there's so
many different things that go into a
test score on those two days when they
show up it's like hard to say you know
and I'm a principal I've been in it for
35 years in education my kids have been
in school so it's really hard it's
really hard to say I don't have a I
don't have a good answer for you last
year when I came before you we had the
we had had the hack right we hit all of
our goals the I ready uh correlated
exactly with the Caps I was following
the data all along um and this year this
last year that that at least that one
grade level didn't make what I thought
it was going to be interesting thanks um
same feedback as for the last
presentations would be good to see some
of the Deltas in terms of the rate at
which students are advancing versus just
the static snapshots I think that'd be
very helpful for all the schools um
similarly this is probably going to be
feedback for all the schools um per uh
trustee Lee's question uh anytime we see
a percentage it'd be really nice to see
the N that goes with that because um if
it's a small n you're by definition law
of small numbers going to see Violent
fluctuations that may not actually be
representing underlying Trends whereas
for a large end big movements you really
want to pay attention because something
really big did happen there um so just a
request there cool thank you so much for
your presentation all right thank you
yeah I think for the presentation I
think that we heard last year when we
were looking at the I ready data just
even across the district how it didn't
correlate with the um you know the cast
stores uh and so it's not surprising
here um I'm a big supporter of us having
dropped down to just two tests because I
know that in the spring at least we were
doing lpac Casp uh I ready like back to
back to back it just sounded like the
kids were never actually getting
instructed they were always getting
tested and as much as we're up here
saying we want to see this data like
there's got to be a different way to do
this right and two days to say that this
is culminates 180 days worth of learning
seems like a real real Folly and yet
here we are we have to look at it right
this is an important thing we need
something to be able to measure it so
right so I get it it's it's it's
frustrating um but on the right side
love the focus on relationship building
that you're doing there and I think
that's really an important part of
school especially for our K through FS
or TK through FS um to make sure that
they're really building a relationship
in a love as school and hearing that
Focus that you're talking about at the
beginning is important I want to make a
meta comment about your slides I really
like the actions um separated into tier
one and tier two tier three I thought
that was really helpful to understand
where they come into the um you know
into the the the daily cycle the weekly
cycle for the students and how you're
using it so I wanted to appreciate that
um Cecilia you already mentioned about
the integrated ELO that you're working
with it's happening across the district
but you highlighted it there um one
thing that you added uh and I thought it
was really helpful and I hope everybody
was paying attention to it just the
impact that the um you know the end of
these onetime funds were is having like
the positions lost and where the impact
you're seeing in them now and where
you're going to have to adjust to them
in the future yeah I mean it's
unfortunate that this this is the
situation we got that taste of what it
feels like to actually see real programs
funded even Beyond just in the immediate
classroom um and it hurts to see that
impact I'm sure it hurts there too I I I
love your optimism of we're going to
figure it out what we're going to do
there but but being highlighting that
and showing that is is really helpful it
just keeps it really real um and the
last thing I wanted to say was one of
the questions I had asked was just um
you know it was how families you know
like the parents the Guardians the
supporting adults of our emerging
bilingual student Learners you know how
they were getting engaged to really
support their students you know their
language development at home and just
understanding the whole process there um
because I was a little worried when I
just read the slide I was like ah the
elac meeting is it really well attended
like is it sort of like
you know site couns are important but
they're not Monday sounds yeah it sounds
great and like I remember the first time
I saw it like a principal's coffee you
know the explanation of how the lpac
works and just you know it was
enlightening to me but I could also see
how it was just so enlightening to the
parents that were there learning about
the different domains how the test Works
what the scores mean and how the
students are preparing for it what
they're working on at home um and that's
just for the elpac I mean you're talking
about even just supporting the students
throughout the day um throughout the
year
uh so that that was really really
heartening to see I have a um I I I
really appreciate that Outreach and the
and the parent Outreach there well I
think the we had a presentation last
night from Familia Zas and secundino and
and NFA zuno and with our PTO and rpto
NEOS has this great uh Equity they have
a really strong Equity lens I think um
we really want to in increase our
involvement and and work with them and
have at least three sessions a year for
for our families and they they um they
do really great work um helping helping
families uh kind of navigate the system
and support their students at home and I
also additionally wanted to say our ano
group is I think they're the only PTO
that actually has a line item budget
that they're they're donating a
percentage of their funds to the
rcef um because they feel very strongly
that um they should be um we should be
contributing to to everyone in in the
district so I wanted to thank unidos for
that yeah that's awesome to hear thanks
um and I will Sayo and Z send us videos
of some of the classes every
periodically and when I saw him at the I
can't remember where it was I was like I
love the videos he's like oh that's
great I'm Gonna Keep s oh he's very very
enthusiastic yeah yeah all right PS I
Love the hyperlinks in the deck really
nice
to I know she gives me like six slides
and she says I have 20 minutes to do a
presentation like yeah
okay I'm going put all these hyper
links so Warren um one thing I wanted to
comment on is you know the teachers are
doing a great job with a small group
because I was in right before winter
break in the classrooms they were all
they all had group work going and they I
mean their kids were working either in
their own small groups or individually
and then they had their own group the
teacher had their own group that was
doing some intensive work with the kids
yeah and and the classroom wasn't on
fire and there wasn't
it was great it was really great and
even TK was doing it walking into those
T TK classrooms and there are four of
them at that site and so it's really
interesting to see these little guys
there's four Kinders and two TKS two TKS
four but I'm talking the 4K 4ks now yeah
because um walking into those 4ks each
of those KS were doing small group
instruction um it was busy uh it wasn't
silent so and that's what it should be
but the teacher had their four or five
kids with them working at something
specific that needed some extra support
and those are the largest uh Kinder
classes we've had in a long time too you
keep reminding me thank
[Laughter]
you there are 27 in each classroom yeah
um and and but the teachers are doing
fantastic yeah we have great stuff
fortunate yeah you're really lucky and
the other thing uh just to mention
you've been as a principal more than
five years no for for adante Selby yeah
it's more than five years at adante
Selby because
remember don't
start what we went through what we went
through together when I closed school do
you remember did you do that yes I
remember yes we all can I my left eye is
gonna start twitching stop don't you
remember our first night of bringing
those two communities together yes yes
yeah it was more than five years
ago okay I said war no no you're making
me older than I am no but a lot has
happened a lot has happened we didn't
know it was going to go as well as it
has now because that group that both
groups were very stuck in their ways but
to bring them together um and where they
are now that's to your leadership and to
the staff at the school site because the
staff also came together and it was not
easy when we met with both the staffs
either but yeah ironically I think Co
brought us more together you think so
believe it or not
yeah as a staff as a staff but but I
mean the community the community really
cessed and was really because it was
really hard it was those first couple
meetings I and there were hours and I oh
my God are we going to be able to make
it through this and we did and and
thanks to your leadership it it has
really helped and the teachers being so
amable with one another too and working
things out it's it's come to a place
where I did not expect that and it is a
fantastic environment where they care
about one another parents care about one
another you go to the Unos meeting or
you go to the
citos it's it's really different it's
real different than which you would see
at some of our other school sites not to
say that they're not great also but to
see this community that came together
these two groups that came together and
where they are right now because I can
say it was not I don't think they liked
each other to begin with to be perfectly
honest but here we are I think we did
better than some of the other merge
schools as I've heard through the Great
Vine but but they we had we had our
times but it worked out really well it
worked out really well it's a it's a
fantastic Community I was talking to a
TK parent today and um she has three
children in our in our school and the TK
is the is the last one
and and I said well where's the TK going
and because his parent uh was at work
she we were talking about another item
that she wanted to discuss and and she
goes adante uh because she has one kid
right now uh in Sunnyville where she
works but she's bringing the kid back to
to Redwood City um an older child and
she was I just love that school the
principal the vice principal the
community school coordinator they're out
there when we get there in the morning
they're greeting everybody
D director whose jacket is this don't
forget to pick up that's lost and found
and you're out there yeah the things
they don't teach you in administrative
school she says I I just love it the the
community and how one reacts with one
another and it is just
fantastic I said well thank you I I will
just he's presenting tonight so if you
want to uh tune in go ahead just sleep
I'm
sorry she was giving you a wonderful
compliment theide so thank you so much
Warren all right thank you
guys all
right all right good night all uh go go
have successful days tomorrow at school
thank you so much
yeah H we have just a minuscule amount
of agenda left I recommend that we just
power through instead of taking a normal
nine o'clock break okay great so we
already have 9.1 pulled so we're going
to move on to our consent items uh
number 10 do I have a motion to agenda
sent
agenda a second I'll second all right
all in favor I perfect agenda we have no
AC we have no action items so we're on
to report um for the board and
superintendent reports I'm happy to
start uh our last meeting was like days
before the holiday I have nothing to
report since
then me NE I just wanted
to Japan and Taiwan were great
nothing else to report okay anything to
report no okay that was an easy one too
uh moving on to information this is the
investment fund um if I look at the
agenda it was like 3.7% return uh any
questions uh anything to discuss on the
investment fund monthly monthly report
back on that perfect um correspondence
um we did get all the deck that was
presented today plus all of those
letters um I'm sure if you haven't seen
your email it came later this afternoon
um that's there I think we can knock
that off anything else from
correspondents that people have got a
letter complaining about uh the C 2025
2026 school year calendar I think
everyone got that one yep um and then
for me which I don't know because I
don't know whether we're being like bccd
or not um some staff member emailed
regarding the summer program yeah so
yeah I got that too
all right cool um so other business
suggested items for future
agendas there was certainly a lot of uh
voice for uh asking the board to give
support for the Mander immersion program
I don't know if we want to agendize that
for a future
meeting do we we normally have something
around future enrollment that fits um
the enrollment closes the 17th which is
a week from Friday so I would imagine
that we could do something one of the
meetings in February and can you talk
about when I know that the one of the
outcomes from the Orion growth plan
committee was to have something
presented to the board is that one of
the go or is that not to have a
presentation to the board that that is
to be a there will be a presentation to
the board but this is one of the items
that was brought up tonight has been
something we've been discussing okay but
um I want to look at numbers because I
was text texting back forth right when
some information came forward and it
doesn't match okay so but I I need to
look at that before makes sense I make a
recommendation but also we can do that
in one of those first board meetings in
um February because I will have the
numbers of those kindergarten parents
those TK parents coming in and then talk
about enrollment for kindergarten for
next year because as I have mentioned to
a couple of you we can go to
28 okay yeah um yeah I think that makes
sense is it's a challenging topic
because I know that
what what comes in now is not
necessarily what real is realized in
August um but yeah that is true yeah
okay does that does that work um
possibly I mean I some of what we heard
was explicitly asking for us to agendize
it next week so I'm just trying to
figure out how to balance you waiting
for the growth committee to wrap up
having all of the firm application data
versus like being responsive to the
community feedback and I would like to
also meet with Winnie you know of course
and sit down with Anna and Rick to
really look at this and then to meet
with and and Wendy because then I mean
Staffing too and what does that meaning
how uh viable is it you know moving
forward with uh additional staff and if
we do that in some manner what does that
mean for other sites right so so we
that's a discussion to have as as I have
mentioned um in in individual emails to
to some of you uh it all depends on on
the numbers and how the numbers play out
plus using um contract language of How
High we can go at these grade levels and
then also what I um am looking at
as we come to talk about enrollment is
keeping with contract numbers and then
combination classrooms which I know is
not a popular item but we're going to
have to start going in that direction
especially with our budget so that's a
conversation to have and I can get that
probably all together in February but to
come back and at the next board meeting
and have something for you yeah it's
really tight yeah maybe I can meet with
Winnie and and a couple of parents from
that group along with I need to make
sure that I have someone from the
committee because I don't want to leave
them out y because it they'll feel yeah
totally um so let me see if I can do
that and and talk to them the reasoning
why I'm going in that direction I would
like to wait and then come back with a
recommendation and fingers crossed at
the ability to flex up to 28 lets us
actually seat everyone who wants to be
part of the program that would be
wonderful right
else uh okay great then we're at the
calendar any changes to the
calendar no changes just a reminder uh
the location was finalized yesterday
afternoon it's at the fs Community
Center and I did send out an email with
the address and the room number great
menus yeah as a heads up my boss's boss
has summoned her entire org including me
to DC for the first week of February
which includes a board meeting um that
first week of February
then we cannot do it that first week in
February or I'll just have to find a way
to tune in from the East Coast but
anyhow just data point okay all right
good that's good to share um I think
that's it we're at adjournment is there
a motion to adjourn and move we adjourn
second oh all those in favor second all
in favor I
I thank you