Yeah. Okay. I think uh we can reconvene
to open session. Um Trusty King is
joining us online and so uh Jennifer um
I think you need to make a statement
before we start with roll call.
Yep. Good evening. Um sorry one second
before we proceed. I am participating
remotely under AB2449 due to just cause
specifically childcare responsibilities.
I am in a private location where I can
ensure confidentiality. Uh oh, sorry.
I'm currently in a private location. I
confirm that no individuals 18 years or
older are present with me. Only one
minor is present.
All right. Thank you. Uh Evelyn, roll
call. Trusty Lee here. Trusty King
present. Trusty Marquez here. Vice
President Weekley present. President
Wells here.
All right. Um, I'm moving on. Uh, I'll
do the report out on close session from
today, uh, May 28th, 2025. The board
received information and no action was
taken. Uh, so good evening. Uh, welcome
to the May 28th, 2025, uh, meeting of
the Redwood City School District
governing
boardto area interpretiano espanol.
Cinco
numero
solicondo de loala. Okay. Uh welcome. Uh
thank you for joining us. Um we're all
partners in education. The board
encourages all to participate and
provide comments on issues of concern uh
regardless of whether they are on the
agenda. So, if you're attending online
via Zoom and wish to speak, please
compete a speaker card online. Um, it's
linked from the agenda. You can find
find the links there. Um, if you're here
in person, you'll find speaker cards
available at the entrance uh to the
room. Um, just fill it out and then hand
it to Evelyn. Uh, and if you're
addressing a subject listed on the
agenda, we'll call you at the time that
item is being considered. Um, and if the
issue is not on the agenda, you'll be
called shortly during the oral
communication agenda item item that's
going to occur right after we approve
the agenda. Uh, okay. And then to be
fair to all speakers, uh, we do limit
public comment to three minutes per
person per topic unless otherwise noted.
Uh, with that, um, does anyone have
changes to the agenda?
Perfect. Then can I get a motion to
approve the agenda? Move to approve the
agenda. Seconded.
Uh, roll call vote. Trusty Lee here.
Trusty King. Oh, here. Uh
I sorry trusty Marquez. Hi. Vice
President Wake weekly. I President WS I
great. Okay. Now we are moving on to
oral communication and we do have a few
speakers in person and a couple online.
So I am going to start with Maria
Stockton.
Are we good? Okay. Hi there. Maria
Stockton, uh the president for uh the
classified employees. I'm coming out
hopefully get this done really fast. Uh
just want you to know that uh we raised
our dues months ago because uh you know
it's hard to appreciate and do for your
members as much as you can if you get $2
a month. So we raised our dues and what
we have now is we want to kind of like
share the wealth. So what we have done
is we have now created a scholarship
just like RCTA for a graduate of each uh
school that has 8th grade. And so I have
put that out to the uh principles.
Unfortunately, I've received one
positive response. I received one that
just asked for comments and I have not
heard back from any of the other
principles. So, we know everybody's
busy, but we really want to highlight
somebody that the school would like to
highlight that they don't have the funds
for or they haven't looked at, you know,
best grades or whatever. Maybe you have
a different category that you would like
to highlight. And so, we would really
like the principles to think hard about
that and let us know and we would like
to pres present that $100 uh scholarship
to them and hopefully continue it and
just maybe increase it each year. So,
that's one thing. Uh, also this year,
the third week of May is the classified
appreciation week. Uh, we share here
staff appreciation week in the school
district, which is great, but we still
want to take care of our own people. So,
we sent them, and I'm sorry I was going
to bring you each a little goodie bag of
things. Usually we do something nice,
but this year it was just a little
goodie bag because on a uh August,
Saturday, August 23rd, we are going to
have a welcome back classified
appreciation family picnic where the
employee can bring their whole family.
They're going to have games. They're
going to have fun. They're going to have
prizes. They're going to have food at no
cost to anybody. And that we're picking
it up in honor of our people. So, you're
all invited. Come get to know your
classified employees, your support staff
here of the Redwood City School
District. They would love to know your
schoolboard meeting and where you what
school you represent and you know get a
little get know get to know you more and
you get to know about them. So we hope
somebody will attend. Thank you so much
and have a good evening. Thank you Maria
for sharing the CSEA updates with us.
Um, our next speaker is uh I'm hope I
get this right. Uh, who's Sharifi,
right? Yes. Sharifi. Uh,
perfect. And you'll have three you'll
have three minutes. It's on the timer in
front. You can see it on the screen up
there when you start talking. Oh, can I?
Okay. Okay,
great. I'm Hasham and I've Okay, great.
It's useful. I've lived here in Redwood
City for four years. I have I'm here to
talk about the enrollment of my daughter
who is four and a half years old in the
Mandarin immersion Orion TK program. We
when we moved here, I had started her
along with my wife of course in the
Odyssey prechool that is on Orion campus
with the intention to enroll in Mandarin
immersion TK. And so we've been involved
with the community there the whole time.
and and when the time came, we enrolled
and we received confirmation of
enrollment and and went to tours and
were involved with all kinds of things
including the fundraiser and then only
this month received word that in fact
she's not enrolled. She's been dropped
from the register. Uh leaving us in a
situation where we actually have nowhere
to send her for this coming school year
in August. Uh apparently what happened
is you also need to be registered after
enrollment. And we have two kids. This
is our older one. This is the first time
we've gone through this process. And
we're told that we were called with the
the uh notification that we should
register. We have no record of being
called and we have no other
communication uh of any kind. no letter,
no email, no um text of any form and and
uh our contact information has been
available the whole time. So I I've had
a very good discussion with Jorge in in
Mandarin immersion uh about this in
Orion, but I also want to bring the
concern to to the board uh to the extent
that I I plan to be in this community. I
plan to be involved and also be involved
in the school and be supportive as I
can. But uh this was this was very
disappointing and it was a process that
I felt for really the first and most
simple step of starting a child's
education it there was a major failure.
All right. Thank you Sean. Um did you
have any comments you want to add?
Sounds like he's already in touch with
Jorge. He has spoken with Jorge. So, let
me talk to Jorge and see if I can get
some more information regarding it.
Yeah. Perfect. All right. All right.
Thank you. Thank you. Um Okay, then we
have two online and that's going to be
um Oh, was one of them. And uh next
speaker is uh Suzanne Ruiz
Dunlop. see if they have
[Music]
online. Yeah, there she is.
Hi, I'm sorry. Can you hear me? We can.
Yes. Oh, great. Sorry, I can't get
online with the computer, so now I'm on
my phone. Sounds perfect. Okay, say
thank you. Um, so I want to say good
evening to all the board members. My
name is Suzanne Ruiz Dunlap and I'm a
kindergarten teacher at Adilante Selby
School and I wanted to talk tonight um
to express my concern about the and
shared by many kindergarten teachers in
the district regarding the start of the
year schedule. As of now, we're
expecting up to 28 students in each of
our kindergarten classrooms. Despite
this, there's currently no plan,
actually there is no plan for an early
release days or staggered start, which
was critical support for us in the past.
Anyone who has spent time in
kindergarten classrooms knows that the
first days are absolutely critical. This
is when we build trust, teach routines,
comfort those who are scared or
overwhelmed, and begin to understand who
our students are. Now we're beginning
being asked to do all of this and begin
our assessments without any time to do
it. Well, attempting to do all of this
at full capacity without any additional
time or flexibility is incredibly cha uh
challenging. I also want to say we have
a strong experienced kindergarten
teachers in the district. We are deeply
committed to our students and we know
what's best for our kids. We want to be
part of this conversation. We would
really appreciate the opportunity to be
included in the conversations that
directly impact our classrooms and the
well-being of our students. We are
asking you please urgently to reconsider
the start of the schedule for the
kindergarten
classrooms. Thank you for your time and
consideration of this request to revisit
the kindergarten start schedule. Thank
you so much.
Thank you Suzanne.
Um, let's move on. I think that's it for
our speakers. Okay. So, now we're going
to move on to 9.1, which is the
facilities plan master update. Um, this
is just a discussion item tonight. I
know that in the past we had talked
about it um being an action item, but
we're just going to have it as a
discussion item
tonight. I
[Music]
to do we do have one um public comment
for this. I figure we'll kind of before
the board starts any kind of discussion
and questions, maybe we'll take our
public comment, but we can go with the
preamble and whatever introduction we
want to do now. Perfect. Good evening,
uh, members of the board community. Uh,
tonight we're here to give uh, a second
full update on the facilities master
plan. Uh, previously on April 23rd at
the study session, we went over the
first draft of the plan. Uh and since
that time uh our partners QKA along with
VPCS and district staff have wor been
working to refine uh the facilities
master plan that was included in the
board for tonight and that's shared on
the screen. Uh tonight joining me is
Aaron Jobson from QKA uh who will go
over uh the plan again and talk about
some of the I'll say additions and
modifications to this point uh in
preparation for additional board
comments uh input uh as we finalize uh
the draft with the intent to bring it
back on June 11th. So with that uh I'll
hand it over to
Aaron to start off the presentation.
Thanks, Rick. Um, thank you all for
having me back. I'm excited to be here.
Kind of a final step almost. Uh, but,
uh, so, as Rick said, I think we'll just
kind of go over quickly what we've been
working on over the last few weeks. I
figured we kind of go quickly through
the introduction and executive summary
sections and then pause uh, and and as
you said, kind of maybe take the public
comment and take and then questions and
comments from you all if that if that
sounds good. Um, so as Rick said, since
the last time we were here, uh, I guess
about a month ago, it's been um, our
effort has really been focused on kind
of making some of the changes and
revisions we talked about when we were
there. There were some refinements to
the cost estimate that we needed to
make. Um we also uh at per your
direction got additional feedback from
the site administrators by sending kind
of that specific request to them and we
got feedback from a number of them that
we're able to incorporate and respond to
some of their questions uh and have some
good good feedback there to to
incorporate a few changes and just
clarify a few things as well. Um and and
then put this final draft together. Make
sure we're kind of trying to cross uh
most of the te's and dot most of the
eyes. um one final pass through and kind
of correcting things and making sure all
the tables are correct and the numbers
line up and and all those things are are
one of the kind of last pass of
revisions that we'll be doing over the
next week uh to figure that out in
addition to responding to your comments
and any other um comments that come
through that need to be addressed. Um so
just kind of just kind of high level you
all have heard a lot of this before but
I'm sure there are folks that are in the
audience today in some form that
probably haven't. So I'll just kind of
quickly overview of the process. So
master planning is the first part of the
project development process. Um we'll
once project is we're really looking to
identify broad project scopes, cost and
prioritization so that we can create a
long-term plan and provide information
to the board to select which projects
are going to be most impactful with the
funding you have. And that's kind of
really what this page and those two
diagrams uh talk about is that we're
starting at the master plan level. We
had a lot of stakeholder engagement that
will continue throughout the programming
and design process of projects that are
selected and we're currently looking at
the facilities master plan and the next
step will be to select projects from
that facilities master plan to create an
implementation plan for measure S.
Um I think kind of one of the things I
wanted to clarify too is that that the
process of doing that is not formulaic.
It's not driven by any one piece of
information. We have the IOQ scores, the
indicators of quality that we'll talk
about and those are a tool in helping
understand the impact on education of
each proposed project, but they're not
the only factor that will that will be
considered when we decide which projects
get funded in the implementation plan.
There are a number of other things we'll
need to consider as well. Um, so go
ahead and go to the
next. There you go. So this is the
overall summary, sort of the drum roll
moment if you will. So this shows the
total uh identified project cost for
each school uh and the the over the
grand total of just under $820 million.
Um just a couple of pieces of context
with these. This is current um costs
today for what these projects would cost
if they were built um in 2025.
um we have information from our cost
estimator about what they might cost
into the future as well because costs go
up over time but um that's really part
of the implementation planning process
when we identify which projects and when
then we can build in an estimate for
escalation to that as well. Uh but this
is kind of the first step in that
process. Uh and then these are also
total project costs. So they include not
only the contractor costs but design,
legal costs, DSA fees, permitting fees,
all of the different pieces that go into
a project, uh contingency, all of that.
So that this is intended to estimate the
total cost of that project to the
district. Next,
uh so we have a few different graphs
that kind of break that data down in
different ways. So this first one just
looks at kind of three types of
projects, new construction,
modernization, site improvements. And
you can see this shows that the
significant majority of the costs and
projects that we identified are
modernization of your existing
facilities, which I think is probably to
be expected. There's a little bit of
site improvement cost and then a a good
chunk of new construction um in in some
cases replacing existing buildings that
it made more sense to to recommend
replacement rather than modernization.
Next. Uh, and then this is looking at
those indicators of quality um and those
scores for each project and kind of
sorting the projects into four buckets
of of kind of sorted by um score and
therefore kind of level of impact. So on
the right is the highest impact which is
is actually the largest category at just
over $360 million about 44% of the total
projects identified. And then the next
category is is 261
uh another 32% and then the last two are
130 and 67 million each as well. Um so
from that you can see that you know a
lot of your projects have a significant
level of need and will have a
significant impact on education and that
those are just and then this this graph
kind of shows you the darker blue being
the higher impact projects and kind of
gives it gives an initial pass at sort
of how those projects and um their
scores are distributed across the
different schools. So I think what you
can see here is you have a pretty broad
range of conditions across your
different schools both in the level of
need and the distribution of that need.
So some and that's kind of reflective of
a lot of things in some cases is
reflective of schools having different
levels of investment in past bonds too
which is a natural part of a process.
There's no um you know it's a kind of
continuous process of facility
improvement over time over multiple
years and multiple uh bond measures and
then also just different ages of
facilities, different conditions uh as
well and different sizes of facilities
too.
Next so you can kind go ahead and skip
ahead to the next one. So this kind of
just really the introduction is a bit
more in-depth on the process. So we talk
about some of the goals and the mission
that we identified early on. Next,
uh we talk about the the process wanting
to focus on transparency, uh being
inclusive and thorough and maintaining
an equity lens throughout that process
as well. Next, um and then this talks
about kind of the organization of how we
went about engagement, how we went about
organizing and managing this process. So
that focused on we had an executive
committee that had kind of um helped run
essentially the master planning process.
um which is really Rick and Martin and
our team and the Vanpel Construction
Services team as well working together
to do that. Um and then we had school
site committees at each site that we
asked to represent the views of staff,
students, uh parents and community
members and to help inform the master
planning process. And then we also had a
broader community input through
community meetings and a community
survey. and and then we had some
targeted kind of focus input from folks
like the technology department and
special education and uh facilities and
and things like that as well. And so all
of that kind of got mixed into the plan
which is presented to you all as a
recommendation uh for for you to take
action upon. Next
uh just just kind of history of some of
the things that we um want to make sure
we provide information on cost
estimating and facilities assessments.
Next, uh the overall timeline. Um
there's a little bit of
um description of how we go about
looking at capacity and right sizing
school facilities. You notice today
there's a little paragraph on partner
programs that get inserted there
weirdly. So that's a formatting thing
we'll correct. Um and uh but this kind
of talks about what that process looks
like over time and how it's incorporated
into it. talking about safety and
security and what our approach to that
is and how we incorporate that into
planning
next. Uh and then kind of recapping a
little more detail some of the things we
talked about already as far as how
facilities master planning fits into the
overall
process. Uh and then we get to the
indicators of quality. And so this talks
about uh what each of those um six
categories are and some examples of
projects that might rate highly in those
categories.
Um, so you can see quality learning
environments, maintenance and
operations, safety and security, code
compliance. Um, and here's kind of the
grid that uh we reviewed previously with
with you all um around what those six
categories are and how they're weighted
and how that adds up to 100 points
available for each
project. Next
uh and then this is a little bit about
how we go about scoring the projects.
So, we have those six categories and
really what we're trying to do is look
at all of the inputs into this process.
So, starting all the way back with the
facility assessments we did, but really
focusing on what are uh what input did
we receive from site committees. So, we
use this little grid down at the bottom
to kind of facilitate a discussion about
which projects would be most impactful
um in each site committee meeting and
the second meeting we had with each
site. So that's a big factor into what
we think um you know what we rate as
most impactful in this process. We also
asked similar questions in the community
meetings about each school and identif
based on the projects identified how um
each person would distribute 100 points
across those projects in the way that
they thought would be most impactful. So
that was a good kind of piece of insight
as well.
Next. And then we also had input from
the community survey that went out to
and that provided kind of general input
not not school specific but across the
district on which things that they felt
folks felt were had the highest level of
need and what would be most impactful.
And I think across all those we saw
pretty broad you know differences but
pretty broad alignment that classroom
modernizations were the highest level of
need. kind of specifically calling out
in a couple different formats the HVAC
and providing air conditioning. Um also
had good discussions in different
formats about transitional kindergarten
and providing space to support that as
that's a new program and new facilities
needs to go with that. Uh we heard um
consistently about kitchens and being
able to support um the food program and
and really just focusing on
modernization and classrooms. I think
one of the other things that we talked
about quite a bit was uh providing more
appropriate and better designed and kind
of consolidated spaces for all the
student support services on campuses
that have often been kind of just housed
wherever there was a empty space and
being much more intentional about that
too. So for the most part, those those
different data points aligned pretty
well um to really support the same kind
of projects being most impactful. And
that's reflected in the IOQ scores where
the projects we see as scored highest
are the classroom modernizations, the
transitional kindergarten and and
kindergarten classroom projects, uh
things like that. And then there are are
other projects that are more specific to
each site, but across the district,
those are the ones that really rated the
highest.
So that's kind of the introduction and
summary and I think probably a good
place to pause as kind of the overview
of of where we are and where we're going
and maybe we can take questions from you
all and and public. Yeah, let's start
with our public comment and then we can
move to board questions and discussion.
Um so our speaker is Carlos Velasco
Areola.
Yeah, you'll have three minutes. Thank
you. Good evening trustees. Um and
Superintendent Baker. Uh my name is
Carlos Velascarola and I serve as the
policy advocacy and community engagement
manager at Kip Northern California.
First, thank you to the board and
district staff for your thoughtful and
inclusive work on the facilities master
plan. We deeply appreciate your
commitment to ensuring that all Redwood
City students have access to safe,
modern, and inspiring schools. As you
review th this plan and prioritize
investments, I would like to share our
concern. The district has created a 0 to
100 point system to prioritize where
funds should be deployed with districts
giving the highest priority areas uh a
rating of 91 to 100. Out of the
district's uh sites, 11 out of 12 were
given a 91 out of 100 whereas 0 out of
three charter schools were allocated the
highest priority. We understand that
this range plays a critical role in
determining which projects are
prioritized for funding. Yet Kip Kip
excalencia which serves 650 students uh
the majority of whom are from
historically underserved communities
operates on a campus with clear pressing
needs. The facilities master plan itself
outlines inconsistent and outdated HVAC
systems, plumbing issues, aging
classrooms, building in need of
modernization,
um safety and security challenges, a
lack of adequate drop off
infrastructure, limited play space due
to portables, and uh shared facilities
that impact day-to-day operations for
staff and students. Based on the
district's own criteria, educational
appropriateness, safety, code
compliance, and environmental quality,
we believe that at least a portion of
our $31 million in proposed upgrades
clearly qualify as highest priority and
should be rated in the 91 to 100
threshold. We respectfully ask the board
to revisit the rating process to ensure
equity in how needs are categorized
because facilities funding decisions
must reflect the lived reality of all
students, not just those in districtrun
schools. Our 650 students deserve
high-quality facilities just like every
other child in Redwood City. And so,
thank you for your time and
consideration and your continued
partnership. Thank you, Carlos.
All right, let's move to um board
questions, discussions, um comments um
about anything Erin said, anything
you've read in master's plan or heard or
been thinking about or or even what
Carlos has brought up tonight. Um anyone
like to start?
All right, Cecilia, it's you.
Um honestly I think what we are doing um
moving forward with the master plan
obviously is a discussion. I appreciate
the fact that we have been asking for
stakeholders input and
um obviously right now that um Carlos
just mentioned the fact that um Kip is
concerned about the rating. I mean,
that's probably something that I don't
know. Um, Rick, is that something that
you guys talk with
the architect about?
Um, definitely we're here to serve and
for the well-being of the students. Um,
I everything that you mentioned on the
on your presentation makes sense to me.
Um, I look forward to, of course, the
engagement moving forward when the final
plans um come to the district. So that
is my only um thoughts for right now.
Thank you
David.
Uh first thanks for the presentation the
revised um materials. I did notice that
some a lot of the feedback was
incorporated specifically providing the
overviews on the tables which was very
very helpful for me. I think probably
the trustes found that as well. Just a
lot of information there. Still a lot to
digest. Yeah. Um do have a couple of
specific questions and maybe I'll start
with the what Carlos mentioned because I
noticed the same thing. Um I would be
curious to hear a little bit more just
about the the the I guess the the
scoring process itself in terms of
allocating the specific. I know we have
the formula of each of the different IOQ
1,2.
I'd be curious to learn a little bit
more about how the specific scores are
provided for each of those because I did
look just as as an example at classroom
um modernization for KIPP uh as well as
Garfield just as a target. And I think
the I think what I saw was that the
current state um rubric showed that the
KIP and connect scores were fairly
similar if not slightly lower than those
for Garfield, but then IQ scores went in
the opposite direction. So I'm I'm sure
there's a reason for it, but I just
wanted to better understand that. Sure.
Um in in general, we talked about kind
of the different inputs that go into
that process. And so part of our job is
to kind of consider all those and and
try to distill that into that score. I
would say that that that you know
obviously what you guys are pointing out
about the the charter schools and their
relative is accurate. They are like in
the high 80s. So it is like a very a
pretty small difference and I and and
just just for context. Um and uh and I
would emphasize too that it is not a
formula. Uh and and the process here to
get to the implementation plan is not to
sort that table and then get as far as
our money goes and stop. Um it is is
going to be much more complicated than
that and much more nuanced than that to
get to the right um set of projects that
that try to have the biggest impact and
meet all of the district's obligations
including those obligations to the
charter schools which I know you all are
are familiar with kind of the nuances
and complexity that's around that too.
Um, so I think that's probably the best
way that I can answer that question is
that, you know, we did look at those
things carefully and tried to consider
all those and that and the modernization
scores are pretty similar, but yes,
those are a little bit lower. Um, and we
can revisit that and and look at that
over the next few days too for the final
version and make sure that we don't want
to make any adjustments there. Yeah, I
think it'd be helpful again. Few few
things. One, yes, know that this is not
the final form. Two, also know that this
is not the phase of like making
decisions or implementation, right?
Obviously, this is the vision. Mhm. And
from there, even looking at the the
highest priority total, right? Like that
is a a larger number than we have to
spend. So like obviously choice have to
be made. I totally get that. Um but the
prioritization I think is helpful as a
first cut for at least for me and I
guess also for other board members just
where to really focus in on. So making
sure that we get those scores um
reflective is super helpful. Again,
that's this is not a mandate of like it
needs to be like this, but it is
something that we spotted. I would also
say that the lines of those categories
are completely arbitrary, right? Like it
was really just selecting let's just
pick these 10 points and those 10 points
and that there's nothing magical about
that. So if we change that line from,
you know, 91 to 100 to 85 to 100, then
that sorts things in a different way and
and not a meaningful difference, right?
We're really looking at that
individually in more nuance. And I think
that's probably obvious, but I just
wanted to make sure I said that. I I
hear what you're saying. Um
I I will I'll leave it that I I think it
it did jump out to me. It's that it
jumped out to others. Um so something
just to to revisit. Absolutely. Um the
other the other question I had uh was
just about the feedback that I think
that you I know that last time we met uh
there was direction to reach out to
their schools to to these schools um to
get feedback on whether or not this
looks right. Generally, I think uh the
majority of schools have responded and I
just want to get a sense of what type
where that feedback landed. Was it just
like bits and pieces that need to be
adjusted or were there big changes and
prioritization that you guys heard? And
then I I think you mentioned that
there's still ongoing um feedback that's
being incorporated and just wanted to
make sure that that's is that from those
same schools or are we still waiting to
hear from others? um it's from the same
schools and we may hear from from others
in the next you know week or so that we
can incorporate before the final draft
comes to you guys all for approval as
well. I would say the
um in general the the questions were
mostly um ones that kind of we could
have a dialogue about and clarify a lot
of them were in a greater level of
detail than we really get into in master
planning. Um, so around kind of how
individual spaces would be used and how
we'd accommodate special education maybe
in which classrooms and things like that
which which are not the level of
decisions that we need to make right
now. Uh, and so we we answered those and
provided that feedback and let them know
that yeah, that's definitely possible
within what we're doing, but those are
decisions you guys get to make down the
road. Um, so there was a kind of a chunk
of of feedback that was really
essentially just a little bit more
detailed and nuanced and it's kind of
like that the first diagram, right? It's
kind of the next level down as we get
into programming design for those
projects. Um, I would say there were
also kind of a chunk of questions that
had to do with kind of the classroom
counts and capacity analysis and and how
that how those numbers are generated.
And that was also kind of similar where
there was some nuance around that. There
were a few tweaks where where maybe um
we didn't account for a special ed
classroom in the right way or or nuances
in that way. None that I remember that
were um impactful in the way that they
changed the overall master plan.
definitely changed some of the numbers,
but not in a way that like, oh, we need
to add four more classrooms to the site
because we undercounted things. More
just kind of clarifying things and
dialing that in a little bit more and
and just explaining that process and
what what it means and what it doesn't
mean um through that process. I think
those were the biggest areas. There were
um there were definitely a few kind of
um smaller level changes that we made in
response to that as well. um kind of
moving a few things around or responding
to comments where maybe we misunderstood
some feedback throughout that process
too where we could make adjustments to
the plan. So there were there were
definitely some relatively small but
important adjustments that were made um
through that process as well. And then
some of it was sort of like you know we
might show a suggestion of some things
we might do for the drop off and people
were like I'm not sure that would really
work and and and explaining that we're
not trying to design that right now.
We're trying to say this is an area that
we think needs to be improved and this
is about how much we think it would take
to improve it. Uh and then we'll get
into the design of that if that's a
project we decide to go forward with.
Yeah. So, broadly speaking, it sounds
like most of the feedback was in the
realm of fine-tuning or clarifying
certain things with some degree of
discussions around priorities, but no no
big shifts where it's like you got this
totally wrong. Yeah, I I think that's a
good characterization. Yes, that's
awesome. Thank you,
Trusty. weekly. Vice President Weekly.
Yes. Thank
you. So, um I I had a number of comments
that I had emailed over just uh sharing
some oop check feedback.
Okay, I will speak maybe at this
distance. All right. Um that there was
an agreement that there probably should
be an appendix with uh research and best
practices. uh specifically looking at
what research has happened since the
last facilities master plan that might
invol in inform a different plan than
what happened 10 years ago. Um so it
sounded like there was agreement that
yeah yeah we should probably have that
as an appendix. Yeah that makes sense. I
just forgot to add it from your comment
from the last time but there are three
specific reports that we suggested
including that are all freely I think
you probably got the answer to that with
the specific links and everything and
and we're just just attach those full
reports as an appendex. They're all
publicly available documents, so they'll
be there for reference. And they're all
three, I think, pretty comprehensive.
Great. Uh, pieces. Two of them are kind
of broader literature reviews that
reference a bunch of other studies, too.
Fantastic. Um, so we'll be very glad to
see that. Um, one of the things
mentioned in the literature, um, that I
found surprising and delightful was the
inclusion of hallway libraries as a
highly efficacious intervention to
improve literacy rates, um, just in in
helping encourage casual reading and
grabbing books off shelves. Um, and so
if we could include that as just
generally something that we're going to
be looking at as we refurbish these
different areas, the possible inclusion
of casual hallway libraries, uh, I think
that would be really good. Um yeah, we
can I think we plan to in response to
that to add that to the educational
specification sections around libraries,
kind of add a bullet point to that to
that list. Fantastic. Thank you. Um it
does feel uh similar to Trusty Lee um
and the comments from Kip, it it was
visible that there were no charters in
the high priority category. And I
understand some of that is just a uh
arbitrary uh cut point of like what is
high priority when it's just it's on
this numeric scale. Um that said like we
we should be aware that when we set
those cut points and some things are
above a line and some things are below
the line we may send a message that we
may or may not absolutely meant to to
send here. And it's important that uh
our funds be used uh fairly inequitably
across the district for all the learners
that exist in the district. Um to on
that like I really would have liked to
see uh some of the uh demographic
projections from the charters. I
understand it's outside the purview of
the district to actually provide those
projections but it was also a little bit
of a contrast to see the projections uh
for each of the district schools in
terms of how many learners we thought we
would get the capacity we'd have there
and then just see basically copy paste
numbers for the next decade for the
charters. Um that's not likely to
reflect reality of growing or declining
enrollment at those sites. Um yeah, I
think I uh definitely understand the
question. I would say and and we're not
demographers, but I can say that I think
projecting those is a much more
difficult thing to do. Um the can we
just ask them to do it? Like Kip
probably has some projections for like
what is your projected enrollment for 10
years? They he's nodding. I mean I would
guess that they have these numbers,
right? and just absent our own capacity
and funding to project their enrollment,
we could just ask them and run with
that. It's an option. Yeah, that's just
a very different methodology than we
don't, you know, we don't ask the other
principles what they think their
enrollment is going to be. That's looked
at their demographic projections, right?
But but we don't do that for the
charters. So, it just feels like that
would be one way to have a more
sophisticated process here. And then my
my final point is just like on the on
the rubrics maybe it's a subtle thing
but in terms of uh IOQ3 uh which is
about learning environment qual quality.
I I feel like that really centers on the
pupil the learner and the learning
environment that they have and the
quality of education they will likely
receive as impacted by their
environment. uh visav IOQ1 which is
about enabling educational programs
which you could say is like h helping to
power learning and different kinds of
learning but I just I really want to
make sure that in this whole process we
put the student first and we make sure
that uh all of the taxpayer dollars that
we're deploying in doing construction
for the district are focused on the
learner and the learner's environment
and their experience uh first and if I
had the power, I would twiddle the two
priorities from a weight of three on
IOQ3 and a weight of two on IOQ1. Uh if
we have to say like, well, it's got to
sum to 100 because that makes the
numbers tidier. It really does feel
better.
Sounds Yeah. I mean, I think I guess
what I would say and I think kind of the
response that we gave in writing to that
response too is I think in in a lot of
ways all six are really meant to measure
impact on students in different ways and
from different perspectives, but I think
those two in particular both do in in
different ways and and I think you'll
see in most projects like the ones the
projects that rate high in one often
rate high in the other too uh because
they are very connected in a lot of
ways. But, you know, I think that um you
can take like the transitional
kindergarten as kind of the prototypical
example of of something that we very
high in educational program. We need to
make these facility improvements to do
that. But it's obviously very closely
related to students and student
performance too. Um so I I think you
could argue that either way and I I
could see it either way. I don't know
that it would have a significant impact
in changing that across the thing
because I think most of the cases those
projects rate both of them. You know,
maybe one's a nine and one's a 10 and
then they get the the multiplier, but it
would it would come in pretty similar. I
mean, there's a certain degree to which
like gosh, did we choose the wrong
columns then because like if if the
columns are nonorthogonal like that,
then they're not really evaluating
separate characteristics of the
projects. They're not identical for
sure, but a lot of these things are
definitely related. Um, and some of the
things are going to rate higher in
educational programs where we're
providing space for, you know, a flex
lab or something like that. Those rated
a little bit higher, but we're also
modernizing that space at the same time.
So, it's going to improve the
educational quality. So, I I I would
think about it more like that where
we're um renovating a space. So, we're
kind of doing both things and we don't
separate out in the project like this is
the part of the project that converts
the building to this use and then this
is the part that updates it. So, it's
more like more of that kind of
alignment. Fair enough. Um, it it's just
me. Um, and I understand it's a subtle
distinction, but it it it would be one
that I would make if if I were sole
authority, which I'm definitively not.
That's the end of my comments. Thank you
so much for your hard work on this
topic. I would ask that maybe at the end
of this we kind of you guys give us
direction on whether you want us to make
that change. Yeah, we'll we'll bring
that up and have a have a quick
discussion. Um, Jennifer, did you have
any um comments for the board or
questions for Aaron while he's here? Uh
I think we probably can discuss at the
next uh meeting when they come with the
final plan, but I was just kind of more
curious about what the development of
the um implementation strategy was going
to entail and kind of look
like and we can table that for the next
next meeting. Well, it's going to look
challenging um because there's a lot
that can be done here and we're going to
have to window down to fit within the
budget and choose what the priorities
are. And I think that that's something
that we should all be thinking about
like how are we going to want to
prioritize these projects because this
is clearly more intentionally than can
be covered by the geo bond that was
raised. Um and even if you look at the
whatever matrix you look at you're going
to find more than we want to put in
there. Um there definitely some themes.
I think you've touched on some of them
like TK permanent structures instead of
portables, the kitchens. Um that that'll
kind of pubble up there, but those are
the other ones. I do want to um circle
back to actually real fast. Can we just
uh I wanted to do because it's not in
the memo. Um Rick, can you just run the
process of what we're going to do next?
So we're the next meeting in June comes
for approval.
Yeah.
uh barring any unforeseen circumstances
then we'll bring it back on June 11th
for approval where we had planned to um
talk about the process of the
implementation plan at that meeting uh
and then likely come back uh at the last
meeting in June with additional updates
on the
implementation plan. Okay. And then
bring it back in August for approval.
Okay. And then if members of a school
community have feedback they want to
make now that they have the the this
final draft um on the board and they
want to make feedback should we and they
come to us should we route them to their
principal to give feedback to is that
the right then you if they have
something about their specific site yeah
at their specific site route to their
principal and then it'll be routed to us
okay
consideration okay great great um yeah
so I think that was all the process ones
uh I think we do have a question of like
the IOQ. I mean, we've talked about this
all the time. We kind of had agreed on
the current waitings. You're wonder
you're wondering, Erin, if we want to
change those waitings. Was that kind of
your question? Yeah. I mean, that that's
a change that we can make, but I we need
to know one way or the other. Yeah. What
you collected, as you said, David, it's
not for you to make decision, but it's
it is for the five of you to make. Yeah.
Um, so I think uh is it fair to say that
David Weekly you're kind of in favor of
flipping one and three to make one two
and three three wait that that's that
that's my proposal. That's not the hill
I'm going to die on. I understand the
subtlety but it's just like I really
want to root the learner first in this
process. Yeah. Does anyone else feel an
urgency to change the the waiting at
this point?
I kind of feel a little bit in the
opposite direction. Okay. Mostly just be
I think in my head um we have a sense of
kind of what these look like now.
Obviously it'll be you know it's a
matter of formula and we know what that
looks like afterward but then there's
more time to digest it. Yeah. I think
from my perspective um I'm more
interested in making sure that the
outputs of the scores act sufficiently
and accurately reflect kind of what all
the other pieces are namely what the
school sites in the community have input
and at least what I've heard is that for
the most part they do subject to certain
adjustments. So I I think it might be I
would suggest staying the course subject
to re-evaluing certain portions where we
we have identified um might what might
be gaps.
Um Cecilia do you have any so just so
that I understand so what David is what
you want to do with one and three you
want to swap them the waitings.
Okay. to make one worth a total of 30
and no 20 and three worth a total of
30. This is basically how they get the
100 point score. They go in and give a
score and then they have a multiplier
for it. Yep.
Uh Jennifer, I don't know if you have
any any thoughts on that. You don't have
to. I'm just you're not here so I
can't I can only see the border. Um
okay. Um, I mean, I would I would agree
with David Lee that we've kind of gone
this far with all the feedback sort of
around the rubric set up this way that
um, you know, changing at the last
minute uh, might have you know, it might
I don't know what it would do, but uh, I
kind of feel like we should stay with
the the waiting where it is um, and
continue down that path. So, I think and
hearing no strong consensus either way,
I think that that's probably our best
path forward. Okay, awesome. Um, Dr. Dr.
Baker, I don't know if you had any
comments about the facilities master
plan, the process of this part. Okay,
not at the moment. All right, Rick does.
Rick,
I do. No, I just wanted to to point out
um I think it's a very good discussion
about the indicators of quality, but I
want to remind everybody as well that
this is one aspect to help with the
decision- making process, right? It's
not we're going to take the first 10
projects with the highest IOQ scores and
automatically put those into the
implementation plan that we're going to
ask you to approve, right? There's going
to be more dialogue and discussion about
that. U you know, at the end of the day,
it might be uh if 10 projects were
selected, seven of them might come from
the 80 range or the 70 range depending
on what we need to see happen uh at our
school sites, right? Even if they didn't
score as high. And then another thing uh
and I know Erin has said it before and
and we've discussed it is the FMP is a
living document right and uh you know
things in here that are put in here for
uh conversation and ultimately approval
uh it's for this moment in time right
and when we look back or look forward to
projects uh in three months six months
or two years it's going to change at
that point as well on the needs of the
district um you know the enrollment
trends if they stay what we thought they
were going to be or if they're not
anywhere close to where we thought they
would be and the one that Aaron touched
on uh at the beginning of tonight you
know the cost today of 820 million are
cost today right so every project that
isn't selected for uh completion this
summer which will be
uh facilities master plan other than the
HVAC that's already been approved
uh and the lighting, those costs are
going to change by next summer, right?
So, I I just want everyone to know that
this will be a a it's a basis of a plan
to move forward uh and that we'll use it
as a marker uh that we'll have to adjust
and refine as we go through this
process. So, uh, that's what I really
wanted to share just as a reminder to,
uh, people listening and and to all of
us that this is this point in time and
we're going to move forward from this.
Yeah. Thanks, Rick. It's a starter. It's
a starter for the implementation plan
and that work really starts after it
gets approved. So,
uh, All right. Well, thank you, Erin.
Thanks for multiple times coming through
and we'll see you one more time in in
June or many more times, but we'll see
you again in June. Okay, definitely
then. All right, thank you all. All
right. Um, great. Let's move on. We have
uh one item for our bond program
consent. Uh, and so we'll we'll pass it
with one vote conveniently. Uh, can I
get a motion and a second to approve the
bond consent?
I'll make a motion.
Seconded. Okay, then we'll do a roll
call. Trusty Lee. I. Trusty King. I.
Trusty Marquez. I. Vice President Weekly
I. President WS I. All right. Perfect.
House. Um great. There are no action
items. So we're going to move on to our
school and community reports. Uh this is
our special education study. It's an
implementation update from our last
update um a year ago. April. Yes. And
this evening we have Dr. May Mahalan
who's here to give an update on the
report that took place last year. And um
she's been working on it now for a year
and a half, I believe. Yeah. Yeah. Thank
you so much for for um the opportunity
to present to you all this evening. Can
you hear me? Okay. Sure can. A little
echoey to myself. So, as Dr. Baker said,
I'm Mave Mhalland. I'm the director of
special education in services in Redwood
City School District, and this is my
third year with the district. in my
second year. Last year in the fall, we
had a special education study um
prepared and it was presented to the
board um in April last year. So this
evening's presentation is an update on
implementation of the study
recommendations. When we did the initial
presentation last year with the report
preparers, we included a plan of
implementation. So that's what we're
going to look at this evening. Next
slide, please.
So, um, the study, uh, recommendation
areas fell under four broad headings,
and that's what we're going to look at
this evening. We have a legend. Um, so
we're counting shortterm as up to one
year, meaning this year, this school
year 24 25 school year, and long-term as
three years. So, this school year and
the next two years. Um although we have
a check mark for many items that have
been implemented, we also have uh a C
and an arrow to indicate continuous
improvement. So we know that in
education in general um nothing is
static. We're in a constant state of
flux and growth. So even items that are
completed continue to be modified and
updated. Uh next slide please.
I'm super pleased and thrilled this
evening to include in this presentation
some feedback from a recent survey that
we gave to special education staff at
the end of the year. So the reason to
include these direct quotes is to um try
and connect um the work of the board or
the work of me and the team in the
district office with what's happening at
the school site and the direct
interaction with the individual student
or the staff experience of being an
employee in the school district and um
working with students who have IEPs. So
this first slide is from a veteran
school psychologist.
um she's been working with this bold
child for about a year on counseling and
seeing some beautiful progress in terms
of how the child is able to navigate the
social environment. Uh I think it's
during recess. I'm not going to read the
slides unless you um want me to do so.
Certainly let me know. I'm assuming that
you can read them as I go along. Thank
you. Next
slide. Okay. So, a little bit of
background. I know that we have some
newer people on um the board, newer
trustees. So, I wanted to include this
before we dive into our um
implementation updates. So, just some
information. Um here we have a
breakdown. We have about 1,500 students
with IEPs. That's a pretty high
percentage of students. It's coming in
around 20%. Uh the state uh percentage
of students with identified disabilities
is about 13% but that's a little out
ofd. I'm going to guess it's closer to
14 or 15% now. It's hard to get the most
recent data. Um just wanted uh you to
see how um the distribution of students
across the district. And as we move
through these slides, you'll see that
some um sites are weighted just by the
placement of programs. Um right so it
doesn't happen by chance. there can be
an unequal or an uneven distribution
depending on the makeup of the site.
Next slide please. Oh, one sorry one
final comment on this. Um we do provide
um services or we have a responsibility
a child find responsibility uh for
students within our district who attend
non-public schools or private schools.
So you'll see that number included
there. Um the majority of those students
are parentally placed and we have a
smaller number who are placed through
their IEP but we do include them in the
numbers because we track the services.
Um next slide please. Thank
you. So by disability um this again um
pretty closely mirrors what's happening
at the state level. I think we have
slightly uh fewer students identified
with specific learning disabilities. The
state level is about
40%. Um but slightly more students
identified as other health
impaired. Next
slide. Go ahead Anna with the next
slide.
Thanks. Okay. So this um is uh one way
of looking at at um a map of the
district like a visual map of the
services that we have for our kids. So
we begin responsibility for students
when they turn three. Our earliest
learners are provided services currently
at four sites. Next year this will be at
three sites. So the chart I'm showing
here is the projection for next year of
where our various services will be
provided. We have inclusive practices
across all of our schools and the
majority of students receiving special
education services spend the majority of
their day in general education. All of
our school sites sites also have
resource services. So resource learning
centers, that's where the special
education teacher um provides services
often an individual or small group
model, a pull out model for part of the
day. Sometimes it's a push-in model. Um
our specialized learning center um
programs are not at every site. What we
try to do is cluster them so a child in
one of those programs can continue
across grade levels and stay with their
general education peer group until they
graduate onto middle school or high
school. The specialized learning center
program generally has 12 to 14 students
um a teacher and at least two support
staff. So it's a more intensive level of
services than is available in general
education. And then our extensive
supports learning center programs. This
is our most complicated um students. The
name of the program is after the current
credential for teachers working with
these learners. And um we have three
three sites um providing services to
this population including um a dedicated
program at Hoover for medically fragile
students. So that's just a little
snapshot of where everybody's located
right now. Next slide, we're going to
move into the um update. So a key key
area was on around organizational
structure and compliance. Um, you could
think of this as the business of the
district and developing systems that are
sustainable that live beyond the
individual leader or the individual
teacher um or service provider. We did
create a special education manual that's
continuously updated and that's
accessible for all staff. Um, just
district norms, rules and guidelines
around special education services,
frequently asked questions, um, things
like that. We're very excited in the
fall to have an education specialist
handbook. Education specialist is the
more formal term and the term used by
the credentiing uh authority in
California for special ed teacher. Um
likewise for our school psychologists
and speech language
pathologists.
[Music]
Um the yeah and they they again will be
continuously updated and will also be
referenced we'll see a little bit later
for new people who join the district.
Right. So that um they they kind of have
something to start them off um if
they're joining uh as an as a maybe
somebody newer out of college who
doesn't have a lot of experience. Uh we
have focused this year on behavioral
support. We have two board of board
board certified behavior analysts. So
these are professionals who are really
expert in the area of applied behavior
analysis and positive behavior supports.
Um a huge focus has been on articulating
steps in responding to challenging
behavior. So this is a pattern across
general education and special education
especially postcoid. We see a higher
level of dysregulation among many of our
students, especially our youngest
learners. And we're really looking for
datadriven systems to inform our
decisions. Um we can see here a quote at
the bottom from um feedback from one of
our teachers. I believe Dr. Baker was on
campus one day when um this particular
student eloped. So the teacher saying,
"Knock on wood, students have not eloped
campus gates in months, right?" um
working very collaboratively with our
behaviorists to put systems in place to
support the students to stay regulated
and access instruction within the
classroom. Um finally, uh last year we
did develop program descriptions. So if
I think of um discussing a particular
program with you or with a parent um
with a member of the public, I want to
be able to describe what's happening in
a very systematic way. So it's
individualized to each site, right? We
know every site has a flavor, but there
are core components that are very basic
expectations that should be visible
across sites, um, consistent across
programs. Next slide,
please. Oh, I'm so sorry. I hear my
alarm going off. I'm just going to turn
it off.
Um, okay. A transportation plan was a
recommendation of the study and we have
one, but we've been kind of monitoring
case law has changed over the course of
this year in terms of requirements
um responsibility for the district to
provide transportation to students with
IEP. So, we do hope to bring that to you
soon, but um want to make sure that it's
reflective of the current norms um uh
across the state for offering
transportation
um communication. I think
um probably our most successful um
portion of the organizational structure
and compliance focus this year has been
communication. So, we really streamlined
and formatted
um job alike meetings which we already
had for staff. But the big new one this
year I feel that's been successful is
monthly meetings with site
administrators. Um it's a shared agenda.
Um the site administrative team puts
their items on. We put items on from
special education services that are then
also replicated across the other M focus
group meetings. So there's a real
closing of the loop there in terms of um
me or someone in the department having
an expectation for a teacher or school
psychologist and the principal as the
instructional leader at the site being
aware of what that expectation is. So
really working in partnership together
to support staff and to implement our
priorities. Uh the transition planning
is something that we did last year.
SEPTAR is our special education parent
teacher association of Redwood City. So
it's a real highlight for us in the
fall. It's usually the largest SEPTAR
meeting when we present to parents on
the various transitions that um their
child identified as having a disability
may have um preschool to kindergarten,
leaving elementary school, going to
middle school, going from middle school
to high school. Um we also had an annual
internal staff transition fair. This is
where we have service providers from the
various grade levels um meet um discuss
individual children, problem solve,
brainstorm um really trying to prepare a
successful transition for um all of our
diverse learners. So, I love this quote
here. When you know um depending on how
one phrases the questions in a
questionnaire, I can get um positive
responses or negative responses or
something like this, a more nuanced
critical response where this is a
veteran middle school teacher who's
really echoing what we're trying to do
within the department in in that she's
saying she wants guidelines for how
middle school resource is structured.
So, that's telling me that um oh, I'm
missing um something here. I I thought
my resource services, my resource
learning center was fairly well
articulated. This person is letting us
know, no, I need to revisit that, that
continuous improvement. She's asking for
something uh more rigorous in terms of
how she uh implements her program or
what the expectations are for her
program. Next slide,
please. I'm motoring through this just
because there's a lot. feel free to stop
me at any time. Uh we continue to
conduct um file reviews and focus on
compliance. So um a huge portion of
special ed is that um not what's
happening in the classroom in terms of
instruction, but really um all of the
paperwork related to special education.
Um I have my meeting with parents, but
um the actual compliance components are
fairly lofty. And we can see here a
firstear teacher um just noticing that
balancing balancing the responsibilities
of the paperwork the assessments with
the responsibilities of teaching is a
big task. So um we do provide a lot of
um focus support for new teachers in
that area. Want to talk about service
tracker. So recently the state um
implemented
um service tracking. They want to see
how much of the offered services we're
actually providing. And um so there's an
audit. The first audit was last year.
We're going through the current audit
right now um over this period of time.
And we um our special education
information system is called SACE. And
we chose to use safe service tracker to
track our services. And then based on
feedback from our teachers um
from now what is that committee called
where
we the climate committee where we
discuss well-being from the climate
committee. We're actually going to shift
to um probably Google Sheets next year
just as a more efficient model, better
use of teachers time and um more
responsive to student changes and
placement and stuff like that. uh for
our budget um planning process. uh
you'll see it in later slides that has
to go handinhand with human resources
and um just continuously looking at how
can we the the really one of the biggest
um recommendations from the report
increase internal capacity and decrease
um contracting with outside service
providers who um have been part of our
services provision for good reasons for
for um for some time and now really
looking that at that more closely and
trying to become more efficient and more
um just expertise in house. Uh next
slide
please. So this leads directly onto our
um contractors to district employees. Um
the teacher here is a veteran teacher
who shift roles that shifted roles this
year into a very complicated setting. Um
where she had uh four power educators.
They were all district power educators
and um they they are a joyful team doing
sometimes very challenging work. So, I
included this to um really emphasize the
district commit commitment and the um
special education services and human
resources commitment to really having
district employees fill as many of our
um positions as possible. Um it it just
we we have wonderful um outside people
that we work with, but um there's
something much more authentic and kind
of to be a member of the RCSD team and
by being an employee just seems really
important. So we continue to work on
this. Next slide, please.
Um, last thing I want to shout out, we
have a program specialist, Rob Krueger,
and two program coordinators, Meta Noi
House and Bernie Bernardet Garcia, who
have office hours every week. And I have
tried office hours in other um districts
and other positions and not particularly
successfully, but these office hours are
busy. This is an hour and a half every
week where um any service provider from
around the district can jump on and get
their questions answered um brains
brainstorm and problem solve and what
they are coming up with in the execution
of their workday
today. Next slide
please. Okay. I I um do not have a ton
on the
MTSS portion of the recommendations
here. However, I do have a a big
takeaway um that I I feel is most
important and that is that the core work
of the district, the LCAP goals, the
interest and commitment to supporting
all of our learners to be successfully
academically and um socially and to um
be well-rounded individuals moving
through the grades successfully. um is
the foundation of instruction for all of
our learners, not just those identified
with disabilities. So um all Redwood
City School District students are
general education students first and
some of them receive special education
services. So what we expect to see as we
increase capacity in the general
education setting through the use of
MTSS, universal design for learning, um
rigorous um instruction,
um professional development, a focus on
attendance, um a commitment to
multilingual learners is we expect to
see a decrease in referrals to special
education services because needs
including more nuance needs are being
met within the general education
setting. So that's the big takeaway. I'm
not reporting on this. That's the
purview and primarily of assistant
superintendent Herrera. Um but I really
appreciate that partnership and
recognizing that there's a strong
connection there between what happens in
general education and special education.
Next slide, please.
Um and this is again just referring to
the LCAP um goal really impacting um
what happens in special education
services. Um next slide
please. Um a little reflection on the
newly eligible students by school year.
We see a little dip here. It's a a
slightly preemptive dip because we have
some pending assessments and I pulled
data um anybody who's being assessed um
is in that data load but
um majority of these assessments will
actually happen in the fall. It just
happens that we open them in the system
at this time of year. So I think we can
um point to um some slight um decrease
in referrals for special education
services and uh continue to monitor that
over the next several years of course.
Next slide please.
Okay, my favorite favorite part of the
presentation um not a huge part of my
work but um a the primary focus of the
work of the teacher on special
assignment for special education in
collaboration with our staff development
department um looking at the um skills
of both our par professional staff and
our credential teaching staff. So um we
do have we're collaborating with human
resources to have a kind of onboarding
module the the the basics before I go
into the classroom. very brief module a
couple of hours just to get me set up
with some norms before I start receiving
um ongoing professional development both
from my teacher right who's directing me
in the classroom and teaching me a lot
of things but also from very planned and
specific professional development
opportunities that we provide to our
classified staff across the
instructional instructional year we did
have another survey this was from our
par educators I have a bias in favor of
power educators. My first job in a
district was as a PAR educator um
supporting a young child with autism. Um
so um again trying to relate the what
we're doing here with the reality of
being in a classroom and the wonderful
engagement that our power educators have
with our students daily. So this person
it's their first year and um she was
reviewing as part of this um
questionnaire there was a list of all
the trainings this year and um she she's
looking forward to next year so she can
solidify everything she learned which is
exactly what I want to hear um because
the best practices go round and round in
this spiral of learning um so I I felt
that was a very um highlevel reflective
um comment and um really speaking to
someone um who's committed to um the
power the power educator as a
professional um within the classroom.
Not helping students but not as a helper
truly as a professional. Next slide
please. And these are um kind of wished
I did a slightly different sequence
here. I'm jumping now to teachers.
Um so as we build up our repertoire of
expectations for what is in the teacher
toolbox. Um so so the the teacher as as
an educator is you know has a lot of
autonomy but we have some core things
that we really expect everybody um to be
trained in to be using um and then they
can add in all of their extra pieces
along with it. This uh core training on
these items was provided to our new
teachers at the beginning of this year
will be provided again with additional
items at the beginning of next school
year. Um we did uh some focus on
handwriting this year. This quote
doesn't exactly belong here. This is
from a Taft teacher, a veteran teacher
um who I I just really enjoyed this. He
has um five children who love to write
daily and wanted or love to write now
and want to do it daily. Um implying
that it may not have been so earlier in
the year. Next slide
please. Um so one of the key things I
think the takeaway from the study is
that the work is grounded in um
something sustainable. I've used the
word sustainably before something that
um lives beyond an individual. Um for
PAR educators, the core competencies for
special education power educators are
recognized as the
[Music]
um the gold standard for what we want
our power educators um to know. We're
focusing on three areas. They're broad
professional practices, social,
emotional, behavioral supports, and
instructional supports and strategies.
And everything we do falls within those
three areas. The plan for par educators,
this was year one, we have another two
years in the plan, will continue under
the broad three areas with a lot of
repetition and we get new people come
in. Um we have um veteran people in a
different place with the same
information, processing at it at a
different level, but we're really
targeting these core competencies. Um so
it's it's not a random training. it
belongs somewhere very specific and we
can track the training that people have
had. Next uh slide
please. Um so classified staff we're
going to continue um another for me
highlevel feedback. Can we please have
breakout groups according to the age
group we support? So um PAR educators
it's a large group right we can have
easily have 100 people in a in a large
training and people ask to be um really
reflecting on their own practice I don't
know who this is from but maybe it's
from a middle school person who's
identifying my middle school students
have very specific and unique needs and
one of my asks is that as I moved
through the training I have opportunity
to speak with my peer group about this
so very high level engagement and
reflection on the professional
development they received this year.
Next slide
please. Um we prior to the
um I guess the year of the study we had
implemented some science of reading um
around sips and read 180 and special
education. So um they were already
establish established as kind of cores
in our toolbox. Um this year we were
focusing on math and and some of the
other items up there. Um I do not have
this evening. I hope to have I was
looking at it. We're just now comparing
our um SIPs data over the course of the
year looking at individual teachers um
last night and I can see that um
consistent implementation
um let's see I looked at Garfield Orion
um
Roosevelt several schools each of the
children is making at least a year of
growth and um some of them more than a
year of growth and these are children
with identified disabilities um really
thriving having this scientific
approach. Um it doesn't have a a
computer component either which I find
um just important um in the in the
current
world. Uh we have here um uh a specific
this is Vicki Benavvente VB. I don't
know why I hid that. Um this is a
teacher at Adilante um demonstrating
some real success for a student who
participated in that um reading program,
learned how to decode and learned how to
read. Um the comment is actually from
the school psychologist at that site,
Christina Praau. Uh one thing I'll I'll
point out here, it wasn't in our
original plan. Teachtown is a very
specific curriculum for extensive
support students. It has an online
component, but it really has a very
hands-on um component as well that works
well for that population. Next
slide. Um we're going to um continue. Uh
a lot of this stuff is aligned with
what's planned for general education. Uh
we do have our spiral focus of course.
Um the cohesion model um refers to the
the gestalt, right? the whole plan of
what's in place um across curricula,
across subject areas, across grade
levels for the district. Um so I am
working really closely with uh Anna and
um Katherine from um multilinguish
multilingual learners department um to
make sure that in special education
we're we're including all of those
components. So, we're not doing an
add-on before we haven't accessed um
what's being offered to all of the other
students.
Um okay, let's continue. Thank
you. Uh our educationally related mental
health services. So, for students with
IEPs, they can have a specific
assessment to determine if they're
eligible for counseling services through
their IEP. We've spent some time
articulating various uh tiers or
intensities of counseling um over the
last couple of years. Our school
psychologists see many students. We have
a fantastic partnership with Behavioral
Health and Recovery Services of San Mato
County, another public agency.
um they are particularly valuable
because they have connections with lots
of other community agencies and can
really um go a little beyond the student
to look at the family system as well um
where we feel that's important for the
child's success. Um a focus for next
year is discontinuing contracted
services for some of those more
intensive level of services that we
provide inhouse. We'll be um beginning a
team of two uh mental health counselors
um to very much complement the general
education team, but this team will be
focused on um some uh students who are
often at risk of losing their placement
in the public school system. So, a very
specific targeted population and we'll
continue to develop the referral and the
step down processes over about the next
year. I think um handlewick care um we
have provided that training to pretty
much all sites all our general education
teachers. It's a wonderful opportunity
for people to learn how to um work with
and approach students who may be
elevated, how to support students who
are quite escalated um through the
escalation cycle and um yeah very
valuable. there is a physical
intervention component um for more
targeted programs um and and staff
receive that additional training. Next
slide
please. Okay, a shout out. This is
Principal David Camarena and Charlene
Deena, one of our international
teachers. Um they uh principal Camarina
host the therapeutic learning center
program at Taft Elementary. They were
recently awarded a prize um by San Mo
County County SULPA and the CIC
community advisory committee of San
Mateo um appreciation of their support
for students with disabilities. So this
is a really specialized program. After
the presentation, three different
directors came up to ask if we had
space. Was there any room in the inn for
the children in our specialized program?
Um which felt uh really wonderful. Shout
out to this team. Our focus next year
actually will be on moving some of those
children along.
Um yeah, but very very thrilled with and
proud of that program. Next slide,
please. Um I hope this is the last slide
on the effective instructional programs
because it's going on for some time. I'm
returning to the board certified
behavior analysts again. So you'll see
with the presentation there's a lot of
overlap. um the the nothing in the
system works in
isolation. Um so this
is again returning to this experience
across sites that um our staff want more
support and more training in um positive
behavior interventions for children who
are um struggling with attention and
regulation. Um this wonderful quote from
a par educator um sophistication right
antecedent behavior and consequences
um really um relevant scientific
language grounded in the field of
applied behavior analysis in how they
look at the students in their class and
their behavior and how they're going to
um support them around behavior. I think
in the next slide do I have a data slide
here? Yeah, I'm not going to unpack
this. It's just to show you the level um
of the skill that our um staff are
looking at when we um talk about um
figuring out behavior and basing
decisions on data, right? Um we're going
to be building capacity for that over
the next several years. Next slide,
please. Okay, so we're on to the last
section of the report, the culture of
inclusion.
And um this has been a mixed journey I
would say. We do have a wonderful
partnership with supporting inclusive
practices. That's a state agency and um
we're a grantee. We got some money from
them this year. I think we got some
money from them last year. I meet with
them periodically to talk around
inclusive practices on a more systems um
level and then also to problem solve
just daytoday items. Um we had a target
this year to really um look at belief
systems and how belief systems
ultimately drive um how
we how we treat our children, how we
treat our students, including our
students with identified disabilities.
The training at the beginning of the
year for principles was a little
disappointing and I think I felt a
little deflated after that and want to
revisit that. says here TBD TBD I've set
up a a series of meetings with the
supporting inclusive practices uh
partners um to really reflect and get
some better feedback on um that work
around belief systems. Um the metric
here, the LE least restrictive
environment metric, we can see we're
doing pretty okay for 5A. 5B is one of
those devious reverse ones, right? So,
we're actually looking for a lower
number than we have. I have to say all
of the data reporting when I see this um
what I want to do is go in and look at
the data more closely. There's often an
error in reporting just the way the
system is um set up. So, I believe that
we probably are lower than 21.7. This is
something I pulled for this evening's
presentation.
Um
the kind of bright spot I think include
around inclusive practices this year is
individuals at sites working with
individual students and individual
families to um and and colleagues to
provide opportunities for students in
separate classrooms to spend more time
with their general education peers. So
um this is a a child from a special
education class, a specialized learning
center who's spending an increasing
amount of time in general education. Um
a joyful thing to see. Next slide
please. Okay. So for the technical
skills, if I have a belief that um
students um can be engaged, can be
successful across settings, um I am
going to need the technical skills to
carry that out. So we do have, it
started last year, um our preschool,
special education, and child development
center partnership. And Carmona, the
principal of the child development
centers, has been a wonderful committed
ally to inc uh creating inclusive spaces
for our youngest learners. Um and we
have provided um some professional
development to the teams there, general
education and special education teaching
side by side. We have a wonderful um
recess buddy program that we provided
some training on. Universal design for
learning. I apologize. I'm not sure why
I didn't spell that out. So that is
again a partnership with um general
education, a huge middle school focus um
last year and we um provided some of
that to our special education teachers
this year. And then also um some
specific tools around planning for
inclusion. If I have a child with um
unique needs, how can I put a plan in
place that makes sense and that
everybody can implement? Um we hope to
do not we hope we shall do a middle
school co-eing pilot at Roy Cloud um
next year. This will be a collaboration
with Innovations Collaborative out of
Santa Clara County Office of Education.
So at the Sequoia Union High School
level, they don't have separate
programs. All of their classrooms are
Kof. And um this is a model that
um this is a model that we're just
looking at and um learning more about at
this time. We're not in a position to
roll this out districtwide, but we have
a very good plan in place to run a model
program at Roycloud next year and
explore opportunities to expand that um
uh the following year. And you'll you'll
hear more about that as we uh move
along. Here's a little story about a
child who's um moving
from prek inclusion and she's going to
go right into kindergarten inclusion. So
that feels like a real positive win. Um
next slide
please. And then the organic work at
individual sites. So Garfield, a recess
buddy program where extensive support
students are partnered up with the
general ed kids such that people are
asking to join, children are asking to
join, teachers are asking to participate
which is wonderful. Roosevelt um hosted
inclusive drama classes uh funded
through Septar um which is uh yeah a lot
of fun activities there. In middle
school, most of our children in separate
classes actually mainstream for some
portion of their day or large large
portions of their day. Just wanted to
put that out there. Um, you can see the
quote there. Four students moved on to
some dead end classes. Here's the
classes they're in. Visual icon boards
for recesses. So, there there's
something uh our speech language
pathologists help implement at sites. um
big uh banners that for children who are
not verbal, they can point to what they
need and their general ed peers can also
understand what they're wanting to say.
Um and then our TK program at Ford, this
is a specialized learning center
program. Wonderful collaboration with
GenEd TK over there at Ford. They do a
lot of stuff together.
um our librarians, one of the librarians
reached out and I apologize I did not uh
record her name here wanting to know how
to better serve students with
disabilities in the library and we've
provided um a course of um professional
development on that for our school
librarians. So excited about that. Um
next slide
please. I think this may be just about
the final slide. Um, our Septar
Association also won um the prize from
the county. This is uh Elena Levina and
Michelle Gilliardi. Um, two wonderful
parents and wonderful partners um in the
work. Septar takes the lead on inclusive
schools week, which is our celebration
of diversity each year for the first
week in December. Just want to
acknowledge that work. Um, another child
here, one of my students. I believe this
is a first grader going into second
grade, going to go into general
education next year. Um, I think final
slide, please. Let's
see. Yes. So, I wanted to end with a
wow, a student walked for the first
time. again. Um,
just trying to share some of the
miracles that happen daytoday with all
of our students, general education and
special education students, um, that are
far removed right from the the boardroom
and and the slide and and the data and
the report. And so, um, for special
education services, for me as the
director, it's really important that
everything we do that there's a a
thread, a throughway down to that
student experience in the classroom. Um,
so, so yeah, that's why I finished with
with this slide. Thank you so much for
your time this evening. Thank you very
much, May. That was a lot of information
and good to hear the update since we saw
the study presented a year ago by
Anjanette and you and Jude. So, that was
that was great.
Um, I'm going to flip to the trustees to
see if you have questions for me or just
comments or discussion items that you
want to share. I'm going to start David
Weekly. And there we go. Threw me under
the bus. May, thank you so much. Uh,
love this comprehensive update. Uh, it's
it's great how much thought and care
gets gets poured into this. Um, I think
I've I've asked this question in a
couple other forms, so I'm just curious.
What do you believe based on what you
know now are some factors that lead to
our district having a much higher
percentage uh burden of of students that
are classified as special ed versus uh
nationwide or statewide? The percentages
seem marketkedly higher.
Um this is a great question. I think
that we probably see some increase
postco
um some students who missed learning
opportunities and um then we get this
bubble postco
uh I think that attendance challenges
related to co have really impacted um
student ability
to progress in general education and so
kind of in a roundabout way
[Music]
um are offered assessment for special
education services
and I
would surmise but I don't have the data
to back it up that a greater focus on
multilingual learner support will um be
realized in fewer referrals for special
education. Um, so they're they're kind
of the things I I would be thinking
about or looking at. Um, someone has
said to me before by dent of our
location,
um, we're in an area with a lot of
specialized u medical services and so
um, maybe families move to this area
because of that, but I actually have no
data to back that up particularly.
Thought it was an interesting point.
It's not an urgent thing, but it might
be interesting to see if we could
formulate some hypotheses along those
lines and over time see if we could, you
know, ask parents uh of sped students
like what caused you to be here? So,
just so we can have some understanding
of what's going on and also be able to
project it uh to to a certain degree.
Um related to that, uh should we measure
graduation rates from an IEP? uh to
mainstream as a as a goal and like how
are we doing it in ter in terms of the
percentage of students uh who manage to
exit uh a plan every year and like what
what kind of targets should we be
setting for that
um so I would it's kind of you've asked
two questions on winning well done um so
the first is re related to say the
location of services and I think that's
a really worthy goal um to to track data
on and that's something the state tracks
in terms of the least restrictive
environment and how many students are we
um moving such that they spend greater
amounts of their time in general
education. So we're building their
capacity or we're building the capacity
of the staff to support them and and the
peers in the room. In terms of exiting
special education services,
um there's one fairly predictable educ
uh exit point and that's for younger
students identified with speech language
impairment that often is ameliated um by
the time they get to kinder, first,
second grade and we see an exit. Then
independent of that um exiting special
education services is is fairly
atypical. So our numbers hold steady
across the years in general as they do
um across the state and across the
nation. So
um it's
the the need for the the need for
continued support the need for support
continues. Um the challenges remain and
they just change as the child changes.
Um, but maybe I could do some research
on that as well and report back to you.
Yeah, that would be interesting. I mean,
because I I guess I could understand
that for for some kids it it's going to
be what it is, but I I could imagine
that for some percentage of the
population, it's not going to be 100%.
There there could be a plausible target
to over the course of a few years exit
them from a plan. Um, and maybe that's
aggressive, but I like to be aggressive
and and have, you know, high hopes for
for what our students can achieve. For
sure. Yeah. Cool.
Um, so when when I went to visit with
school sites, uh, one of common theme
that I heard back from administrators
was the IEP reporting burden. And we can
that's related to this as well because
if close to a quarter of their students
are on IEPs, that's an it's an awful lot
of plans um, and paperwork and
documentation around that.
um how are our explorations going to
offload some of that, you know, IEP
reporting burden onto other qualified
administrators while maintaining the
same high quality of uh service and
support for the students that that we
have today. Um for sure. So um I would
say kind of we're looking we've looked
at that in a couple of ways. Um the
first um really basic basic thing is um
the agenda and the time assigned to the
agenda. So I move the meeting along in
an efficient manner. It seems like such
a a you know a simple thing but that's
something we've looked at um recently
and said to all staff that this is going
to be an expectation moving forward. Um
there will always be exceptions right
where we need a longer meeting but for
whatever reason but just really have
having reasonable times and moving
through providing more training to
teachers on facilitating the meeting
such that we move through the meeting.
Maybe providing information to parents
in advance so that um they have
opportunity to digest it and can um more
um readily engage in the business of the
meeting.
um with in terms of the administ Oh, and
then the other thing is um we do we are
in a pattern of having an IEP meeting
for an hour which we might call a part
one and then reconvening for part two,
part three and so on and so forth which
is absolutely necessary some of the time
but um not as much as we are doing that.
So again looking at efficiencies um
because the scheduling the logistic is
the logistics are so uh challenged in
terms of working with our administrators
who I have to say turn up to every
meeting. They're they're so amazing and
so committed um to being there. Uh we
have talked with them about the greater
efficiency in terms of scheduling of
meetings which they are all on board
with and I'll agree with. We can
technically have a designate at a
meeting, right? It just has to be
someone who can speak to um what the
meeting is about and we have developed a
training and that we can provide to um
anybody identified to fill that role.
So, it's definitely something we're
looking at. Yeah, just looking at the
dotted lines, it's going to become
pretty pressing because I know that next
year a number of the different supports
um on the administrative side are going
to go away. And so I I think we're
that's really going to make it pretty
pressing for us to be as efficient as
possible with these meetings while again
providing the level of required care and
service. So I think some of those those
ideas are great and um we'll we'll need
to put them into practice next year.
Cool. Um those are my questions. Thank
you so much. Cecilia, do you have
I really don't have any questions. Um, I
really want to just say how I appreciate
your first of all, thank you for the
presentation and just how you express
about you your staff. I mean, again,
beginning from all the paraprofessionals
to the certificated staff, how you're
incorporating and really taking into
consideration what they said, including
even one of the um persons that you
weren't really sure, and I forget
because I didn't write it down. Um, so I
I just want to say I appreciate that. I
know with with special ed there's you
know um a lot of work that again from
the teacher to the psychologist all the
work that
um takes place to assist the student and
serve them well. Um again there was so
much information as you were going
along. I know that there's a lot of
improvements. I do appreciate the update
on this. Um, obviously we haven't heard
about, you know, settlements and so that
tells me that we are doing a good job
here in Riverwood City. So, I just want
to say thank you so much and I hope that
your staff does know that you do
appreciate them. So, thank you so much.
Thank you. Thank you,
David.
Um I'll echo all the things that have
already been said but really I I think
as you alluded to I'm one of the newer
trustees so I was not here for the
original report but um found it super
super interesting going through the
report which maybe goes does it but it
was a great report very informative um
particularly the the pieces about the
way in which special ed uh is funded. So
uh at least my interpretation is you
know as you've noted right irrespective
of the reasons why we have higher than
average uh special
populations you know we have to meet
these needs right so that takes up
resources and so in some ways it feels
like we are being asked or you are being
asked to do more with less so I just
want to acknowledge that and say you
really appreciate it and the voice over
to accompany the slides that summarized
all the work have been super helpful and
I really appreciate the um even the
anecdotal pieces to tie to the
narrative, not just looking at the
numbers and the words, but to hear all
the the work there. So, want to express
that appreciation. Um, the only question
that I did have was on the piece of the
in-housing certain of the the staff. Uh,
I think there's a chart that you put
together on the slides. It shows the
different rates over time. The only one
that seemed to be kind of a little bit
stuck is or I don't know if straight,
but relatively stagnant. Um, and then an
increase in contractor was the the PAR
educators. And I think my understanding
is that be I mean please correct me if
I'm wrong but is it is it because um is
it because a lot of our pair educators
there's kind of an additional bilingual
requirement where it makes the search
process a little bit more um challenging
or just love to hear a little bit more
about about that piece. Um no I wouldn't
say um particularly that is the reason I
think it's the current job market
probably in in San Mo County. Um the
board did approve a race for power
educators I believe last year that has
made a significant difference. Um we
have some good um when people join us
they stay. So we have some pretty good
retention among our PAR
educators. Um we have worked closely
with HR and um a particular agency who
were hoping that the people we
contracted and we know well will now
roll over into being district employees.
that was part of the contract with that
agency. So, um I'm not the the other
thing that I think is has been a
significant improvement and I I don't
have those numbers there are u maybe
vacant positions when where nobody is in
them. So, we really are fully staffed
right now. Um even though some of those
people are are contractors and we're
looking forward to them being district
staff. Um, it it feels great that we
have the staff that we need. Okay. Thank
you. You're welcome,
Jennifer. I'll move on. Um, she might be
tied up. Um, all right. Dr. Mahal,
thanks. Thanks so much for first year uh
report card. You know, as we said about
this report, um, great to see all the
green check marks. uh very impressive
and the continuous improvement items
that are still marked in there. Um you
know, glad to see the work for replacing
contractors with permanent staff,
bringing in our own PAR educators and
certificated staff. Um really good to
see the MTSS work really starting to
help kind of bend that curve on new
eligibility. Um you know, I I understand
there's a little bit of uncertainty
about where it's going to really land,
but we can already see that it bent.
It's not on that steep uh trajectory up
that it was there before. So,
um, that's great and and Anna for the
work that our NPSS is doing to be able
to really push into tier one and maybe
even tier two. Um, also want you
acknowledge Septar. Just wanted to thank
their involvement with the district. Um,
you know, the inclusive schools week,
the site grown projects like the the
inclusive drama, I don't know, were they
involved in the recess buddies, you
know, all that stuff. But just makes for
a joyful inclusive environment. Um, you
know, it's really nice to see that. Um I
know that uh and I had mentioned this in
the comment. I had missed that 5B was a
negative one. Um but that 5A hitting the
70% target for least restrictive
environment. Um that's that's great.
Like we we want our kids to be able to
be um you know in mainstream classrooms
as much as possible. Uh and so getting
that what is that like 80% of their day
is is outside of that is wonderful. So,
um, yeah, I think that there's there's a
lot in here to celebrate, a lot of work
to continue doing. Um, of course, uh,
things to watch and monitor, uh, and
make sure that the directions keep
going, but really appreciate the report
card, uh, and the update. Thank you.
So, one thing that Mave did not mention
was that I think it was a year ago,
maybe a year and a half ago, you started
seeing that many parents were coming in
with doctor
referrals from a neighboring entity
where you actually took the initiative
to go out and meet with that clinic and
say, "Before you start referring per
parents, please give me a call so that I
can start talking to parents. So, I
applaud you for that. You didn't put
that in there. But this is what she did,
you know, because you know, we are
getting more students that parents want
their children tested even though they
haven't gone through the student study
team portion yet. They just want to jump
right to the test. So, I applaud you
definitely for for doing that right off
the bat when you came. That piece. And
then the other piece that um is not
mentioned and I know this is all about
the report and the study and when we
decided to do this study many years ago
was called an audit. They took away the
word audit and it a reflective study
which anette who had worked within the
county for many many years as a director
is now in charge of this portion of her
her new job um brought this forward. And
one thing like I said that you did not
mention is that you also
um take
staff and make sure that
you give them the wherewithal to be very
successful in what they are doing
whether it be a pair professional or
whether it be a teacher so that we can
keep them and they don't move on to
another district. Uh, so, so that's a
really big plus. And the RLC's and the
SLC's that you
started. Hey, remember your do you
remember your TLC,
Anna? It has changed. It has changed.
That's why David is smiling in there
with and and with that teacher that I
remember going to Taft and Anna running,
kids punching and socking and kicking.
She got really hurt her her hand. You
have to have an operation.
Um, totally different now. I was a
little skeptical when we were going in
that direction, but you look at the
programs
now. They're amazing. I was at Hoover
today and Hoover this morning had the
This is one of my music concert. Yeah.
Yes.
uh you know Mary Khan of course is
always very kind and generous and sends
out all these invitations and all the
special ed kids the I should say the
SLC's
uh along with Mary's class the Peninsula
Symphony has a music program that
they've been
participating with the students of
special needs students at that school
for the last couple years. What an
amazing job. And to get it get those
kids to get up and sing solos. I mean,
it's only for a couple minutes or and as
a group. And we've got our most
medically fragile kids there that are
participating. They're in wheelchairs.
I'm sure you've all visited, right?
They're in their wheelchairs or their um
walkers. Walkers and ones they've been
kind of laying back quite a bit. Uh kind
of similar to a gurnie, but it raises up
and down.
um amazing an amazing job for you know
35 minutes. So in talking to Jackie and
I guess the video videographer didn't
show up so she was there doing it with
her cell phone. She had students that
were coming up and singing and at one
point when she received them I guess in
first or kindergarten they weren't even
talking or walking. they were up there
now a second grader and she was going to
miss them because we're going on to
third grade next year. So wonderful
things are happening with our program.
It's sometimes really unfortunate
because of the cost,
but there's a
sense for myself
that many of the times people hear about
the really great program that Red River
City has for special ed students. And
that has also been something that has
gone around for quite a while within the
communities that um if you have a child
with special needs,
this is a place where you should bring
them. And that's not only echoed by
people within our own community, people
outside our community. And that's why in
some manner we have people coming to to
visit our classrooms. And how did you
get that started? But when I was at the
the the quote that was in there where
you mentioned I was at the school that
day when the child eloped. Yes. It was
the first day of school. It was a
kindergartener and the mother just
dropped No. Yeah. It was a
kindergartener just dropped him off and
and kid took off took off his shoes and
here I am running after the kid. Um so
don't want to go out in the street or
anything like that. and teachers are
amazing and so we want to make sure that
with those teachers that we have and
those pair professionals that we have
working with us in the special ed
department that we keep them. So I do
thank the board for allowing us to raise
the salaries for the pair educators
because we're now very much in in
comparison we're doing just we're doing
good well if not better so and you've
done an amazing job with HR staffing so
I appreciate that very much I mean
you're fully staffed right now keep our
fingers crossed I know it's fantastic it
stays that way and and honestly thank
you Dr. Baker and Associate
Superintendent Wendy, Kelly, and Anna
for their ongoing support. It really is
phenomenal. I appreciate it a lot.
Thank you for all your hard work.
Outstanding. Um, okay, let's move on to
our uh discussion items. Um, our first
one, maybe we'll get through this
discussion item and then we can talk
about taking a break at 9:00. Uh it's
the discussion of the CSBA's policy
development workshop.
Thank you. So it's always a pleasure
meeting with the board policy committee.
It's uh quite a lot of fun as we work
through the handful of ones that we can
get to each month. But upon reflection,
there was a discussion about trying a
new method
uh that is listed here tonight where
Gamut offers a workshop style
opportunity to really take a deep dive
on the all of the board policies,
uh bylaws, exhibits, and then ARS,
uh for kind of a mass approval. So, it's
a a different idea than what we've been
doing. Dr. Baker did this work in 2010.
So that's why many of our board policies
are from 2010. And then behind the
scenes, you may or may not know, but
every quarter we receive an update of
approximately 20 board policies, some
relevant, some not relevant to an
elementary district. And then we need to
decide which ones are the most important
ones to look at. And also balance that
with current items that might need to be
brought up for specific reasons. for
example, the cell phone policy coming up
next time and and other items,
independent study when we had the
pandemic. So sometimes things pop up ne
as needed. But to be realistic, even if
we were to map that out, if we bring a
handful at every meeting, we're just
slowly chipping away at an iceberg. And
the iceberg has grown over many over a
decade or so.
So David did a fantastic analysis on a
spreadsheet where we have a a rough
estimate. Gamut will do a very
scientific one, but I think his was
pretty good by downloading and looking
at the Gamut site. Approximately 650
items that need to be reviewed. Now some
of them once again may not be completely
applicable to an elementary district,
but we're still looking at a large
number. Those also include ARs,
administrative regulations that are
reviewed by staff and I mentioned in the
board memo about 200 and some odd. So
there's quite a bit of work to do. This
is a a great idea. Um but I reached out
to Gamut because I wanted to talk
through what some of the process is for
this type of work because it seems sort
of insurmountable.
However, what I've learned and I asked
some of my colleagues up and down the
peninsula that essentially what happens
is that Gamut does a review of all of
the applicable board policies, exhibits,
um, board bylaws and ARs and then and
sets a meeting with the board policy
committee and district
staff for approximately 3 days. Now,
that's their estimate without without
diving into our particular circumstance.
So that might be you know plus or minus
a few days considering the number and
then over a 3 to sixmonth period. So
this entire process is 3 to six months
where we meet with Gamut in a room with
provisions and then we really look at
all of these items as a board policy
committee and then essentially they are
curated
into a book of all the items that need
to be updated and given to the board
for a review and approval over a two
meeting period. you know, the first
readings and the second reading, but
you're essentially getting a lot. So,
when I I reached out, we've been playing
phone tag a little bit and I saw Mike
had some good questions. Thank you. I
didn't get those answered by Gamut, but
I will and I'll get back um on this
because this is just a discussion item
tonight. Um how many staff hours? A lot.
So I think that three to six month time
period is pretty reasonable where after
looking at the board policies, spending
these days and days reading through
things, making sure they're RCSD
applicable because, you know, 95% of the
time we go with CSBA's recommendation,
but there is some nuances. And then the
administrative regulations are the the
heavy lift really for the staff. They
have to of course see the proposed board
policy, but then they have to say, what
will that look like in reality?
And of course it would be divided up by
department, right? Student services, HR,
ed
services, business, etc. So that's where
the 3 to six month window comes from is
that sort of heavy lifting in between.
And then whatever is determined is
brought to the board for
approval. Because at first I thought, oh
my goodness, we're going to take 20
here, 40 there. You know, there's just,
you know, how it is at these board
meetings, too. I mean, we we're we have
a handful tonight and it and it seems
like a lot a lot of reading, too. So,
that is what they proposed. That's also
what other districts have done that they
just used that process as the most
efficient of a laborious process uh for
this consideration. That being said,
once that process is done, we still have
our quarterly
updates. So, we're back to that, you
know, the five a meeting or what have
you. So that's not going to go away, but
it's essentially regrouping and having a
mass approval and then starting fresh
again, similar to Dr. Baker did in 2010.
And that wasn't even um electronic. I
can only imagine the amounts of
paperwork that you had physically. So
that's what I've learned.
um the cost, you know, I wrote in the
board memo approximately 10,000 for that
entire process for their
supports, their um review and then
compiling the large document for the
first reading and second reading.
All right, let's discuss. Um does anyone
have thoughts, comments,
um things that we wanted to discuss?
We're not taking any action. So, this is
really just about like discussing the
item.
So, I'll tell you from experience, as
all of you know, I work for a
neighboring district. Um, we did the
same thing back in 2019 and it was very
extensive.
Um, obviously I didn't really pay
attention like at the six months or
whatever period, but I know that Gamma
did come in for like an entire week and
every department worked. I mean they had
a whole bunch of um paper and electronic
copies. So um obviously it was a good
you just get everything done and then of
course you do get the quarterly. So just
my point. So is that a um it was a
positive experience or it was a positive
experience. It was a positive. Yes. I
mean I don't know but how Yeah, for
sure. I
think there were some from like 1997 or
something like that and then they update
it. Yeah. So it was it was way overdue.
Yeah.
Did Did David do it? Yeah. I I'll just I
mean obviously it's partly here because
we've talked about in the policy
committee, but I I do think it would be
helpful um to have this. I think there's
a separate question of of when and how.
Um, obviously there's quite a few things
that the district has its hands full
with over the next couple of months
probably. Um, so I think that's
something that should be figured out
collectively, but I think it'd be good
to to revisit a lot of these policies
that are 10 plus years old uh to make
sure at the very least that we're in
compliance. Then two obviously like you
know we should actually be using them
and then making sure that we're we're
doing what's best practice.
maybe weekly. Nothing. Okay. Uh
Jennifer, um I don't know if you're if
you're here, but I had to drop off.
Okay, great.
Um and then Dr. Baker, you've been
through the experience before. Can you
can you share? Um prior to my time, and
this is, you know, when I was a school
site administrator, um there was a
person that was their only job here at
this district to do policies, right? and
policies were coming. Well, at the time
I wasn't at the district office, but we
would get them and like every board
meeting there were policies coming and
she kept it up to date. And um I think
it's back probably two superintendents
ago is when that ended and then it got
dispersed out to different people and
then when I came to the district it
started get I got it and it it it's hard
to keep up. You have not only your your
regular responsibilities but this is
another one on top of it and to just
keep going and making sure that they're
updated in a timely fashion.
I I would say I would go with it. I
definitely would. But as David said, we
need to think collectively what's a good
time to do this because we're coming to
a time now where school is ending and
then we're ramping ramping up for the
next school
year. So I'm all in favor for it. Yeah.
I mean it strikes me as a good idea like
particularly since some of them are like
15 16 years old, haven't been updated. I
don't even know if they're really
applicable to the district anyways. But
really the question in my mind would be
when you know is like right now the
right time maybe maybe not. Um but well
I think uh the it would be the board
policy committee and gamut doing some
heavy lifting at the beginning. Yeah.
But then the dispersement out to the
departments.
You know in a perfect world the summer
but I don't think we could pull it
together for this summer. It would be it
would be over the course of multiple
months in the fall or or do it next
spring and have it run into the summer
then if that's the actual right time
like I don't feel like it's an onfire
kind of thing that we have to get done
immediately if we said that would be the
best time. So I I just think there's a
little bit of flexibility in the timing
if we wanted to come into that. Um one
one of the thing I mean I think you had
alluded to this like a one-time scrub is
great. It's a good place to get us to
but of course there's going to be the
ongoing one. Do we think that this would
actually make the ongoing updates easier
or I don't know if we get that out of
this workshop of like how to actually
make those easier and less laborious
like for example if we hued closer to
CSBA language would taking the updates
just be like take the red line you know
take their suggested maybe pick a few
options and move on um and make it
easier for that process I
I I'm not on the policy committee so I
have no idea
I'd be curious for Wendy's perspective.
My my my view is kind of yes. Um in in
that I think the quarterly updates are
they can be a decent number but over you
know it's a three-month peri or yeah
three-month period right. So, um I I
think if if we get in the habit of like
going through it regularly, it it should
be something that can that upkeep is
relatively doable, but we have quite a
backlog right now, which is what I think
is making it very challenging. I would
agree. I I think we need to get up to
date. It just seems like the right thing
to do. I mean, we have things from 2010,
2014. I mean, just there's a lot of work
there. Um, I think perhaps having the
board policy committee meet more than
once a month would help because
sometimes just the way the timing works
to get our memos to Evelyn and so forth,
it just we miss these meetings and so
forth and so it can it appear to be like
two meetings before we bring another
one. So I think meeting a little bit
more often might be better if we can
manage that.
Um, so that would help. And then
probably bringing, you
know, about five to each board meeting.
Yeah. I would imagine if there's only
two a month. So, uh, a after the
overhaul is done. Yeah. Right. It's a
terribly predictable question I might
ask like, gosh, can AI help with this?
Right. Um, to love that. go through each
one of our policies, take a look at what
CSP had to say about it, look at do the
research on like state legislation and
updates and then like point out a
suggested red line, right? And then
rinse repeat for all of our policies
like the models have gotten pretty good.
Like so could we have it do some of the
heavy lifting and grunt work to actually
propose something? Obviously still
having a human go and review it before
it gets presented to anyone. But like
that's sort of like question number one.
Question number two is it seems to me
with a lot of the policy work and again
I'm also not on the policy committee but
like 90 it it's a little bit of a
frustrating thing where like 95% of it
is you kind of got to have this language
or it's illegal. It's like and it
doesn't represent uh an opportunity for
substantive debate. But there's so much
that is that that it's very easy to
brush past the 5%. Oh wait actually this
is extremely high leverage. This is an
important fork in the road for us to
take as a district. This is something we
should talk about what the pros and the
cons are here. We do have an opportunity
to make a choice, right? Let's highlight
those things that we can discuss and
then spend as little time as possible on
the stuff that's proform. No, literally
it just legally needs to say these
words, thank you, right? Um that that
would be my hope for what we get out.
Well, it's a really interesting point. I
think um when we have some time to get
perhaps some board focus on what that
collective thought might be for example
um the HR related ones are just that
very even some of them tonight very very
straightforward there's not a lot of
wiggle room there's a lot of law a lot
of these are of course based on ed code
and law um some of the items that are a
little bit more interesting is the one
that's coming up on the promotion
acceleration retention right That's
there is still some nuances in there,
but that might be an area to stretch or
maybe some creative work within the ARS,
right, which I know is not the board is
voting on. However, that that outlines
the work of the district. Um, so or
even, you know, independent study, I
know that can be a hot topic especially
during pandemic that was so I do think
there are ones that rise to the occasion
for whatever moment we might be in or
the direction of the board that might be
a focus. Um, you know, certainly our
work with data and so forth have been
has been discussed and there is language
in these board policies about that, but
that that might create a more insightful
conversation at our discussion meetings
for first reading where we can look at
it or direction to the board policy
committee to, you know, highlight
certain things that might be of interest
before it gets to the first reading. But
once again, that we would need direction
on that or else we're making some
assumptions and so forth. So maybe at a
future meeting um offsite or what have
you, we can walk through what that might
look like. Yeah, cuz I thought the CSBA
quarterly updates almost came that way
of like, all right, here are the five
policies that are just updated legally.
Here are the ones where you have three
options to choose between. Pick the one
that's right for your district. And you
know, we don't see any of that outside
of the policy committee. So we have no
idea what the difference is, but maybe
that could get that is a lot of behind
the scenes work that Yeah. Yeah. No
doubt. No doubt. I think from the policy
committee, there's the two two
questions, I guess. On the second
question, I think yes, we can I think we
the policy committee can do a better job
of the way in which it's presented to
flag like hey actually this is something
that we change that's not just CSBA. I
will also note though that that CSBA's
samples are not purely um like this is
the statuto lang you have to do a lot of
it is but not some of it is also just
general best practices no citations in
which case like like I have already made
we the committee has made suggestions
that we've changed so it's not there's a
little bit of nuance there just be aware
of but again I think that if we can do
the policy committee can do a job of um
of flagging right highlights or whatever
of like this is different like note on
the first question on the AI piece. Um,
interesting question. I I would assume
though that that's hopefully what CSBA
is kind of that's that's the work
they're doing for the 10K, which is
maybe a question for them of like I
don't know how to do it, but but not
specifically reviewing our policies,
right? But just general guidance on
policies. So the question would be like,
could you point AI at Redwood City
School District's policies and say, I
want you to go through each and every
one of these one by one and flag if
there's anything that's critically
offaxis with current California ed
code. CSBA doesn't do that. Like our
membership fee doesn't give us like
detailed policy review for all of our
published policies. No, but we do have I
mean we do have the the latest uh CSBA
sample which theoretically contains the
updated statuto language. So like you
could do a red line of like each of the
policies. I imagine that is basically
what CSBA is doing. Whether that's
something that AI does fally I I'm not
opposed to it either way. Yeah.
Interesting question. And then I think I
read that it said there are only 90 that
they recommend for school districts. Did
I did I read that right? Only 90
policies. Did I make that up? I don't
know where I got that from. So let me
rephrase this question then. Will this
process winnow down some of the policies
that we have and so you don't really
need need this one. It's out of date or
something like that. Would it actually
reduce the number that we have to keep
up to date over time? Yes. Okay. Yeah.
Great. Um anything else for this disc?
It sounds like there's general agreement
that we should um pursue this. The
timing is TBD um figure out when it
would actually work out well for the
department heads for the policy
committee. Um but generally, you know,
go for it. Okay. One more follow-up
question I had is when this is all said
and done and the 3 to six month passes
and we receive a
volume to bring to the first reading. I
know that seems into the future, but we
can maybe figure out how to make this
palpable. Would the board just want to
sort of go with and trust these these
board policy committee reviewed policies
in one lump sum? Here you go. or do you
want us to chunk it over time? If there
are 600 and well, let's say there's 400
board policies, bylaws, and exhibits,
and then there's the ARS, but we'd want
to bring them all together. You know,
that's because actually that's a little
bit more of what I'm worried about is
because that the easy part, not easy,
time consuming, but manageable is to get
it all done. How the board ends up
approving it is one question that I
would like. What did what did you do the
last time you did the refresh? Just out
of curiosity. Do you I don't know if you
remember.
Period. So several chunks of approval.
Okay. And is that what other districts
are doing several several I've I've
seen. Yeah, I've seen it just here you
go here's this 400 and 600 and but that
is one way to do it. Maybe it's even
also by department or focus. Yeah. I
mean, my preference would be to say like
just do it and say like go for it. Maybe
separate policies from ARS and do the
policy book separate and something along
those lines. But selfishly, yes, I'm
more in favor of the polic or I care
more about the policy the board policy
pieces. I might also suggest though
that the way I expect it to kind of
unfold is that there will be some subset
where we've flagged like hey Redwood
City has had very material you know
changes from the policy pass and those
are ones that we probably as a board
want to highlight. And then for the ones
where we feel pretty confident that it's
like this is kind of just the latest and
greatest and the statutory requirements
like those could be kind of on a consent
sort of folder or view which like yeah
you know take the time to look at it but
like know that that's kind of what they
are focus your plan on the other pieces
and I don't know what the the numbers
going to shake out like but that might
be an approach to take. Okay.
Okay.
Did you get the discussion you were
hoping for? Okay. Thank you. Um great.
Uh then before we move on to 13.2 um we
normally offer a break at nine o'clock.
It's now quarter after 9 almost quarter
after 9. Do people want a few minute
break or I'm looking around the entire
table? Uh not just 30 second stretch.
Stand up. No no no. Do you want to does
anyone No. Good. Keep going. Stand
stretch.
All right if everybody else is good. All
right. Let's move on to 13.2 which is
our first reading discussion
of 6158. This is on independent study.
Yes. So independent study has changed
over the last few years and the board
policy has come to the board with each
of these events that have occurred of
course prior to the pandemic and then
the pandemic. Um something new that uh
the director of student services Antonio
Perez is working on is this
instructional continuity plan which is
referenced in the memo and also in the
policy and AR sections that it was
started this spring. The county gave us
a Sanonteo County Office of Ed gave us a
template. Site council started grappling
with it but it's actually going to come
for vote next year uh with all the
safety plans. It'll just be attached to
part of the safety plan. And really what
it that document is outlining what
happens if there was an
emergency, a a dire earthquake or some
other type of event, a pandemic again,
and how would the district pivot
quickly? So, now that we know what we
know in hindsight, what what were some
of those items that will be included?
And so, the in the fall, the site
councils are going to um spend a little
bit more scrutiny in in that particular
document.
Um, and then it also brings up some
opportunities for looking at independent
study work that will help segue into our
work next year when we're looking at,
you know, potential new pathways of
learning. So, that, uh, language is also
in this updated policy. Um, I do
recognize there were a couple of
questions about this board policy and I
um responded about the instructional
continuity plan and then also the the
tool that the teachers were using to log
asynchronous engagement or ones that we
already have been using. So, those are
in place. We're familiar with it. Would
there might be some updates on nuance
trainings of course, but that wouldn't
be really difficult now that we know
what we know with the pandemic. We had
some practice runs. Any additional
questions or comments about this policy?
Yeah, it's a discussion item. Anyone
have questions, comments?
No. Um, that change the change to 16
days though seems like really smart
legislation. It kind of like gives you
three weeks plus one before you have to
get into this kind of overregulated
regime. So, I thought that was kind of a
a good change, you know, that came into
it. Um, okay. Uh, sounds good. Thank
you. Uh, let's move on to 13.3, which
is, uh, board policy and administrative
regulation
1312.3. This is the UCP, the uniform
complaint process. So, uniform complaint
process is one of the complaints that
the district oversees. And this board
policy is quite lengthy. It comes with
ARS and exhibits and forms and so forth,
which I appreciate your oversight on.
Um, Trustee Wells uh suggested a
one-page flowchart, which is a brilliant
idea that I summer project for me. Um,
so I oversee these complaints and
Antonio focuses on studentto student
bullying and things like that, but um I
oversee all of them really. Title 9 has
also morphed into UCP. So that is an
important note um based on changes in
the law last year. So anyway, there is a
whole complaint process. There is a log
that's kept. There are I have a binder
that's organized with all the responses
to the parents and everybody involved.
The principles have also been trained.
So what happens is when there's a
complaint that comes in, they call me
and we we walk through all the parts
that are happening. Who's the
investigator? Who's the decision maker?
and all of these pieces that go with
these complaints. UCP is primarily about
harassment and discrimination. Some of
the big ticket items,
97% of our complaints are complaints
against district employees. You know, I
didn't like that the principal told me I
couldn't park in the red zone, you know,
off with their head. Um, I'm kidding.
Those everyone's working out really
nicely. But um those tend to be some of
the items that happen, not these larger
discrimination, harassment topics.
However, when those do come up, we have
a very
straightforward rig uh rigorous uh way
to make sure that the investigations are
happening and the responses happen in a
timely fashion. So those were a couple
of the questions from this particular
item.
Questions,
comments? I support.
Yeah. No, I mean it's complicated,
right, of which one has to go through.
Um, nice to see SP 153 language coming
in and this one and some of the other
policies, too. So, you know, they're
very, very reactive to that. So, um, all
right, cool. We'll move on to the next
one. 13.4. This is uh board policy 6020,
parent involvement. Yes. And we do have
Katherine Rivera, our director of
multilingual services on in case there
are specific questions. But this board
policy is one of very few board policies
that read like an administrative
regulations. It's a little bit annoying.
I'm not going to lie. But the guidance
that we received from federal program
and monitoring that happens every few
years were very rigid about how this
particular policy was written. And so
that is why it reads that way. I just
wanted um all to know. And there were
some great questions that were asked
about this policy in advance.
Um, so I know those were noted. Is there
any additional questions that we can
help answer?
Additional questions or comments?
I'll just note that I uh very much
appreciate Wendy and Katherine uh for
walking me through this in particular.
As Wendy noted, it reads very very
differently and I I would say
confusingly, frankly. Um, but uh I have
heard all of the efforts to kind of work
with the the auditors to to make it a
little bit more usable and you know
there's just challenges on that front
and I I think we've sounds like everyone
including myself has has tried to to
push on that front but um we are where
we are and hopefully we we still get the
content that we need to but just wanted
to express appreciation
and federal program monitoring's
threeyear cycle. So, okay. So, this this
is we're getting towards the end of the
policies that have to get updated from
that cycle and we'll have a couple years
until we do it again. Okay. Um, great.
Uh, no other questions or comments.
We're going to move on to 13.5, which is
board policy
1312.2. Uh, these are other complaints.
These are complaints concerning
instructional materials. Right. And this
is the ability um under the Williams
Act, which is another type of complaint
surrounding Mrs. teacher miss
assignments, facilities, or curriculum
or instructional materials specifically
um that would allow a parent to actually
complain about the instructional
materials as as a concern about unlawful
discrimination. So, this is new uh
however very appropriate. You know, when
we choose curriculum, this would be
taken into account clearly before it's
brought to the board with honest team.
So, but it is a new item.
Great questions,
comments. Perfect. We want we want
inclusive curriculum. So, that's great.
Um, last one in our discussion items
13.6. This is uh board policy 0450. This
is a comprehensive safety plans. And I
alluded to uh the information about the
instructional continuity plan and the
other board policy, but there were some
great questions that were posed um
regarding this regarding subgroups and
data and how that's reported. The
administrative regulations breaks this
down um more so the board of policy is a
little bit more vague, but the
assumption is that we're meeting the
needs of all students. So if a student
in a wheelchair, for example, we were
speaking about that, needed extra
support in a in a safety concern,
clearly we would move forward and assist
in that regard. Um, and part of the
training at a school site is to work
through all of the students that are
there and what the needs might be in an
emergency, an evacuation or what have
you. I also do want to point out there
has been um there was a question about
how students can be empowered to raise
concerns about safety at their own site.
And one of the items that director of
student services Antonio Perez started
this year is a platform called Stop It.
And it's an anonymous reporting system.
So it's being used at our at four
locations, four of our school sites for
students to share concerns. And he's
gathering data on that.
So, any questions or comments about this
board policy or AR?
Yeah, I mean that that was that was my
main one was it was kind of interesting
that the policy didn't actually talk
about anything that the memo talked
about. It was all in the ARs for this
one around the subgroups and stuff, but
everything was addressed there. So, any
other question questions or comments?
No. Okay. So, we've made it through our
discussion items. We'll move on to the
consent agenda and we'll pass all six
items with one vote. Move we approve the
consent agenda. Is there a second? Uh,
we will do roll call still or addition.
So, trustee uh King dropped off the
call. So, I think we can All in favor?
I uh Okay. So, now we're on to action
items uh 15.1. This is uh consideration
of approval of multitudes as dyslexia
screener.
It's late, so I will try. You guys have
all seen this. try to get through it as
quick as possible. So, I do want to say
Briana also is on the call and Briana
helped me um and the committee through
the committee with all of this and did a
lot of research um on the screener as
well. Um we started last year and into
this year so it was a lot of information
gathering. Um so um again this is one of
our new policies that we have to put
into play and needs to get adopted by
July 1st of the new year. So the we're
lucky to have be able to follow
California Department of Ed had an
adoption toolkit. So we really just
followed this for our adoption process.
Um it was very well outlined. Um all the
counties are using it and so we just was
very easy to follow with our
committee. Um there are four areas um
that we follow through the toolkit.
Developing the district lens,
investigating, making the decisions and
the next steps. um really in developing
this the lens um we looked out to seek
out parents and teachers um from the K2
um staffing so that we could um have a
good group of of of individuals who
Oops, I'm sure probably get the
slideshow
um of individuals who would be actually
administering the test. We thought that
was very important. So we also on our
first one went through SB114 and what it
was and what is the purpose of the
screener. So the purpose of the screener
really isn't to diagnose dyslexia. It's
to really provide us one more um data
point in our formative assessments um to
help our teachers inform our
instruction. Um so it really will allow
us to measure our students progress,
identify what needs they are. um it
enables our parents. One of the things
that it comes with is the information
has to be sent to parents in a certain
timeline. Um and so we definitely have
to plan for that um as we are thinking
about um the process of as a as a roll
out. Um but one of the things that we've
been uh communication with Dr. McCullen
was also talking about what does this
mean in the long run as students
continue to struggle with reading? what
does that mean? Um, so she's also
working with her staff um what does this
mean? So we've been really working in
conjunction um about the screener
because we don't we're not diagnosing
dyslexia but we're on the trajectory to
looking for kids. So it does take time
for us to do this um a screener um from
kindergarten, first and second grade. So
it's done every single year. Okay. And
it's it has to be monitored.
So our universal screener as it is, it's
very it's a quick assessment um that
targets very high highly predictable
future outcomes. So it's it's takes
about 10 minutes. So it's pretty quick.
Um the state approved four of them um
that were Amira Mclass which many uh
comes from Dibbles which has been around
for many years and then at UCSF had
developed multitudes and then we had our
Stanford rapid war and where we were
using here as part of the trial. So we
were actually practicing with war. Um,
but as you can see in our languages, as
you know, Redwood City has a huge
population of Spanish speakers. And so
part of the disc screener is that we
actually have to test kids in Spanish.
We can't just say, "We're going to test
you in English." So if they're Spanish
dominant, they must be tested in
Spanish. Um, so for us, um,
automatically ruled out ROAR. We
couldn't do that because that was just
in English. So it really tapered down to
the last three. Amira um Mclass and
UCSF. So in our meetings with um the
committee we really looked into um which
just so you know it was a very quick
timeline literally right before we left
on December break they came out with the
screeners and the we were ready to go.
We had met our team. We were ready to
move forward with it, but we had to sort
of back off because our timeline was
like, we're going to do this in January
and screeners were not available to us
until end of January. So, push back our
time a little bit, but it allowed us to
be able to look at all the screeners um
as they came out um and look at what we
needed to do for our next steps and
investigate. So, as we were gathering
information, uh, Brian and I going to
meetings at the county office, we were
way ahead of the game. We really wanted
to move forward, and I don't think our
the the publishers are quite ready for
us. Um, but neither none neither um but
we move forward with a lot of what we
could meeting with the team. Um, we were
very fortunate to be able to see the
three of them um, Amamir, MClass, and UC
Multitudes right away. Um we had like I
said we had teachers and we had even
reading intervention teachers who were
on the trial who were doing some of the
trials with a mirror. All of these again
are
computerized and uh a mirror was um we
had full access teachers actually had
access to the program so they got to see
it live and what it would look like in
class in multitudes. we only had demo
lessons um and demi account so they can
then see what the information was um and
they were able to administer the test
but couldn't see the scores right so it
wasn't not like a mirror a mirror they
could see at all um and so part of that
this is just one of the things that we
had again one of the things that we
found is they weren't quite multitudes
wasn't quite ready for us um Amir is
something that's already in practice
right now in MC class but mult
multitudes was not um so things were
being developed very quickly. Again, we
were very fortunate to have many many a
number of teachers on our panel from
kindergarten to second grade, both
Spanish and English teachers. So, they
got to test use the assessments um which
was very important for us. Um when we
finally were able to do this about
March, we were ready to gather and
prepare look at gathering our
information. What did we discover from
the usage and what the teachers had
actually been able to apply and test?
Um, one of the things you can see on the
toolkit is we looked at funding. What
what is the cost of this as something
that was very much provided a you can
see there's a cost of $21 per student um
which about estimated about 40,000. um
AMC class is about 32,000 and then UCF
multitudes all they do is charge us for
um training but it's free
um and so in our discussion with the
parents who were on our committee and um
and the teachers as we went through this
we actually didn't really take into
account the money our parents said we
should look at multi parents were very
much in favor of multitudes and looking
at something that wasn't going to cost
us over time. Um but in the ratings
after we gathered all the information we
the teachers quickly rolled out MC class
it was very quick that it wasn't wasn't
wasn't it was very complex. They just
didn't feel like it was easy to
administer. In fact this instruction
said you can do this whole class. Well
teachers did it whole class but it
wasn't very successful. So they quickly
rolled out class. So it leveled it down
to air and UCF multitudes um which were
you know one had 2.2 2.3 they were very
similar in the ratings of what they felt
we wanted to use. The only issue is
again Air Amir they got to use the
platform UCSF they only got to use a
dummy a dummy account right. So in
making our decision they really had a
consensus that they wanted UCSF
multitudes. So but they wanted more
information. So we um Brana um got in
contact with UCSF and right away we set
up a meeting with them and we met once
again and they were able to share um
several things that question answer the
questions from the team about the UCF
multitude. So it was very it was very
practical. We got to see what the
accounts look like, what the what it
would look like when a teacher's point
of because it when in the account it
sort of showed gave them a video, but
she got to show us live what it would
look like when teachers how what would
look like the teacher facing page when
they got their results. Um, and so very
much the teachers um all of them were in
support of us adopting UCF multitude by
far.
So our next steps is coming to you guys
for approval and then starting begin to
plan our professional development in
August because we have to start
assessing in the fall. Um and then just
thinking about all of these questions,
what do we have to do? Our timelines for
communication with parents, parents can
opt out. Um we also have to test any
special ed education student unless a
parent opts out. So we all we have to we
have a timeline they have to we have to
provide parents information on this
tight
timeline. So before we can do just a
little bit more about IMTI just want to
make sure we um appreciate all our staff
and our teachers and everybody who was
part of the committee um for helping
support in making our
decision. Um UCSF just want to go over
very quickly what multitude is. This is
exactly what um the assessment will be
including in kinder first and second
grade. You can see there are number of
of of test um that the children will be
this is all oneonone. Okay. So kinder
first and
second. So multitudes we will only
administer it once in the school year.
So we are looking at trying to figure
out the timeline and the best time to do
it. We know the beginning of the year is
not the best. Um we have 15 days prior
to testing for parents to opt out. So we
have to send something out. Um and then
once we do the assessment, we have 45
days to send a letter to parents about
their results. Um so it is the results
um are given in the various languages.
As you can see they're make sure they're
working on making sure we're
communicating with all of them. Again,
if we are testing in Spanish, we have to
make sure we have people who can test in
Spanish versus English. Um, again, it's
a one-on-one. We do know there's two
devices needed, one for the teacher and
one for the
students. So, again, we are looking into
our professional development and our
costs. We're working in uh trying to get
that settled as to when we can do that.
We're hoping to do this in August as we
return. Um there are two you can see
there the the quotes here of the prices
of what we'll be doing. We've been very
fortunate as well. The state actually
has provided us money for this for
actually for part of the screeners and
part of uh paying stipens for teachers
to be part of the committee. So it's
nothing that we've had to pay. They've
actually given us some money to do this.
So um which we've been very lucky. Um so
for us we are now in the process of
looking at when is the best time we know
kindergarten and actually the suggestion
is that we do not do kindergarten at the
beginning of the year that kindergarten
be done after in after several month
after several weeks of
instruction. So what we want to what
we're thinking is kindergarten probably
will be tested between either December
or January giving us some time in um
being in school. first and second grade
though because this is their second year
going in or third year for some of our
TKs. We're looking at sometime in the
late fall probably before report cards
so that the letter can go home with
report cards. That's our thinking. C can
you share just like 30 seconds of color
on why that timing kindergarten? Because
I could imagine some parents being like
it's really important to know right
away, right? Why are you waiting so
long? Because we have some students who
may have not been in school in in
kindergarten. So if we test them right
away, we might get false results versus
giving them some opportunity um to have
been in school because it is very quick.
It does show them words right away and
then if they can't read them, it may
just say, "Oh, you're you know, you
didn't you failed it." And one of the
things we found because of that was
ROAR. So us as a district and our kinder
teachers um assess the student. It's not
a very easy test. It's very quick. So
students who aren't reading or don't
have any ability will just look at it
and just like freeze. So it's a ve it
it's very quick. It it does when I did
roar it was very like it it showed on
the screen sort of like when they do the
eye test you you're doing the little dot
on the thing. That's exactly what it's
like. So it's very quick. So a student
really has to be focused. And one of the
things that we know with this test, it h
the teachers will be fortunate because
it'll be one-on-one and help support it
versus when you're doing a whole class,
you may have more error. That'll make
sense. I just I would anticipate parents
being curious about that and maybe like
having some proactive materials for So
it is it is and it's a different
assessment. So, you know, I think one of
the things that we have to take into
account is how do we assess our
students, kinder, first and second
grade, when they're going to have to do
a one-on-one test. But it did, they did
say it doesn't really take too long,
about 10, 15 minutes at the most um for
test. So, that's something that we'll
have to work out with each of the sites
with their um guest teachers hopefully
to be able to Does the same student get
reassessed year over year? So, it's like
they'd be assessed in kindergarten and
first and second. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, and
we're already assessing them on many
similar things on on our current
assessment. So, it'll be good to see my
in c curiosity is what is the
relationship to what we're currently
doing to actually this test? Yeah. And
are students who are coming out higher
on our test, are they going to come out
higher on this test? Right. So, it'll be
interesting to see the
correlation. So, that's what we're going
to be doing. Uh, and we have to start
this in the fall 2526.
All right. Any questions or
comments? Cecilia. Yeah, just one
question. Thank you. Um, have you
thought what you're going to do for
those teachers that don't speak Spanish
and have to test their students in
Spanish? Like, who would be the next
person to be able to test? The test is
online. It's just the teacher sitting
with them to make sure they're clicking
and understanding. Um, the teachers who
did it in Spanish said it was pretty it
was fairly easy for anyone just to sit
there and do it because you're not
really and they're acting, but you're
sitting there with the student to make
sure they're listening and they're
pushing the right buttons and the arrows
on the
keys. So, but we also can do have
instructional aids be help support which
we also have. So, I think it'll be okay.
Yeah, that's it. Yeah,
I I I my concern is not that is how do
we identify the kid who is not in a
bilingual classroom who needs to take
that? That's a bigger
challenge. So, we really have to know
what their home language is and what
their home strength is if they're not in
a bilingual program so that we make sure
we assess them in that language versus
just in not in English. because I'm
wondering I mean I don't know um when
the letter goes out to the parents
because I know some parents say don't
disclose that like Spanish is their
first language because they don't want
their kid to be tagged as an English
learner but they really are. Um I'm
wondering if that letter could be like
this is very important please let us
know if we should test your student in
Spanish or English. I I haven't I know
they have all these letters that they've
given us for the I have to go through or
we haven't given seen the letters but
I'm sure everything will be given out
for an opt out. We don't create it. It's
something that will be given to us I'm
sure. So we'll have to look at that
information from multitudes.
Thank you questions. Not not a question
but just a comment. Um and I know it's
not really the point of this but I found
the presentation the presentation very
helpful just in terms of explaining the
thought process. So thank you for
pulling that together. That's all. Thank
you. Yeah. And I got a chance to talk
with one of the parents that was in the
committee, a parent that, you know, a
child with dyslexia, and they spoke
really highly of the process that it was
super inclusive. Um, really happy with
the outcome and the recommendation, and
me too. Uh something that's like Brie
and uh bilingual like uh it seems great.
Uh seems like a really good gatekeeper.
It'll be interesting to see what
happens. um and also how it informs
instruction if if any practices change
as we do this more. Um all right, so we
need to approve this. It's an action
item. Uh can I get a motion to approve?
I move we approve this. I'll second. All
in favor? I
I welcome. Thank you, honor. All right.
Um okay, now we're on to 15.2. This
these are the Sips and this is for our
five middle school our five schools with
middle school. Hoover, McKinley, uh
Kennedy, Northstar, and Roy Cloud.
Yeah. So again, you guys last five
um to approve looking to approve the
SPSS for the fi the last five schools.
Do we have questions on the SPS?
Not a question, just a comment. And I
know that these are living documents and
this is you know kind of like the first
step of it and obviously we're getting
more test data but um just I'll say the
same thing I always say which is I'd
love to make sure that we do get goals
um that are aligned with the LCAPS and I
know there's some work on just being
getting everyone on the same page but
would would love to get to that point.
Yes.
Thank you.
Any other questions or
comments? Okay. Well, thanks to the
administrators and the school site
councils and the district office for
helping to put these together. Um, you
know, it's they're pretty lengthy
documents, you know, per school. I mean,
30 30 about 30 35 pages. Some of it's
just template. Um, but a lot of it is
really nuance to each of the schools.
So, um, really appreciate that work that
they're all doing there. Um, these also
need to be approved. Uh, and so can I
get a motion to approve?
I'll move to approve the seconded. All
in favor? I. All right. I um and lastly
is the approval of the personnel report.
Wendy,
just any questions? It's customary to
bring this quarterly or so and so it
outlines
um the resignations, retirements and
different situations. There was a couple
questions about the large number
um of resignations and I replied that
with our international teachers there is
a percentage that do need to have a
temporary contract and so the format for
that is signing a temporary contract the
board releases in March and then we show
that the resignation happened and then
we rewrite the contract again. So it's
just part of the process and also with
our um through the visa partners that's
how it works. So there was a much larger
number about 17 that um fell in that
category. And then our guest teachers
they're in the same boat in the sense
that they have a temporary contract for
one year it ends and then we rewrite
another one. And most of them are
staying with us and most of our
international teachers. So it's more of
a formality but it did show an elevated
number. Any other questions or comments
about the personnel report? Yeah, that
was my major question. It just it seemed
larger than normal, so I just wasn't
sure. Um, any questions, comments about
the personnel report. All right, this is
also an action item. Uh, so can I get a
motion to approve?
I'll move to approve the personnel
report. Seconded. All in favor? I. I.
Great. I'm saying.
Okay.
Um, we're on to board and superintendent
reports.
Uh David Lee, do you have anything to
report?
Uh attended the health and wellness
committee uh with Trusty King and
Superintendent Baker. Okay, just just us
then. Um it was good to get updates on
all the partner organizations and all
the the things there. Then I also made a
I was able to get out to Kennedy for a
quick site visit um and meet with
Principal Leonardo, which was great just
to to get on campus. Obviously there's a
lot going on there. so quick, but good
to see the see the site and talk a
little bit about what's going on.
Cecilia, um I attended Redwood City
together meeting um and
uh oh, the last DAC meeting here at the
district.
Nothing for Dave Weekly. I don't I don't
really have anything to report. Um I
don't know about you, Dr. Baker. Yeah,
we had the um DACA meeting which was
great because we had a lot of people
here so for dinner. Was this the pizza
one that it was Was it pizza? It was It
wasn't pizza. It was Wasn't pizza. We
had really great um it was from Laorona.
Yeah. In S Carlo. It was great tacos and
rice and beans and great presentation
that that Katherine had done. Good
questions, very good questions and good
uh comments from parents on how they
really need to move this group forward
and get more people involved in in the
educational process and to really um
come and discuss what you what your
feelings are about your child's
education and how to move it forward and
that all voices need to be heard. I
thought it was a
great night for parents to really tell
other parents, you need to bring other
people to these meetings. Yeah. And so
there was this one lady that was saying
she's making it like her goal to get
more people involved cuz it's been like
that. And I mean, as I've told you guys
before, there's been meetings where, you
know, only two or three people show up.
And it's like, what happened? There's 12
schools. We should have at least one
representative. So this time around, I
forget I didn't count them, but I think
there was like nine represented
represented um and more students
actually came in with um their students.
So yeah, and then we had the um
stakeholder meeting for AB 3216.
We did the Spanish one uh at Hoover
School and had about 30 parents there to
discuss the policy and how we're going
to move that forward. Gave information
to Wendy and then again we did that in
the evening. Uh so good presentation and
good participation that was on Tuesday
and then I went to the
multicultural presentation that they
were having at Orion uh that they
provided for those of us who couldn't
attend over the weekend. really great
presentation that uh I was there and
also um Alisa Makavoy invited Lisa
Makavoy because she normally goes also
in the past that took place and
then what else? What was the other? Come
on.
Uh Wendy and I both attended the Ken
Kennedy ELA enrichment meeting which
Chandrret and uh Katie Murphy did an
outstanding job of presenting to parents
who um came to the meeting. And if you
did not come to the meeting for those
parents who were invited, she went the
next day and sent them the presentation
along with a letter. If you're
interested, please sign. Even though we
still we're still waiting for cast
scores for fifth grade, but it was a
very good presentation by both Chandra
and Katie
Murphy. And I already mentioned about
the musical, right? Yeah. Yeah, you did.
You mentioned that one earlier. Okay.
Um, we got some information about the
Sanonteo County Investment Fund for
April. Questions,
comments? All right. Let's move on to
correspondence. Um I did I got one
letter from the San Mo County Office of
Education. They reviewed the second
interm report um for the current fiscal
year and the county superintendent
concurs with positive certification um
with just a few comments. Uh did anybody
else have any correspondence that they
wanted to share? And I I I actually got
one for the first interm um a while
back. I just forgot to report on that
one. So made sure I got this on this
time.
No, no, no other correspondence. Great.
Let's
I I think we were all in receipt of a uh
email about curriculum coverage. Yep.
So, I just want to call that out. Yeah.
Um I think I think we all saw that.
Uh and I got another one just to myself
today. This evening, I should say. Okay.
So, I'll follow up on it. Okay.
ECCO. Okay, great. Um, other business
items, possible suggest items for future
agenda. Um, I don't think we have any
discuss board meetings calendar. I don't
think there's any changes to the
calendar. Then we're on to adjournment.
Can I get a motion to move if we
adjourn?
All in favor?