All
right, Evelyn, I think we can start with
a roll call.
>> Trusty Lee
>> here.
>> Trusty King is absent. Trusty Marquez is
absent. Vice President Weekly
>> present.
>> President Wells
>> here. Uh good evening. Uh welcome. It's
the November 12th, 2025 meeting of the
Redwood City School District Governing
Board.
interpret
also.
All members, thank you. Thank you so
much everyone for joining us tonight. um
all members of the public, you know, are
our partners in education and the board
encourages you to participate um and
provide comments on issues of concern
regardless of whether they're on the
agenda. Um so to speak, uh you can fill
out a speaker card online or if you're
on Zoom, you can raise your hand um when
the agenda item comes up, your Zoom
hand. Uh and if you're here in person,
you'll find a speaker card at the
entrance to the room. Uh if you just
grab one, fill it out, hand it to
Evelyn. Um that'd be great. And if
you're addressing something listed on
the agenda, we'll call you when that
agenda item comes up. And if it's not on
the agenda, then you'll be called
shortly during the oral communication uh
agenda item. And then to be fair to all
speakers, we do limit public comments to
three minutes per person per topic
unless otherwise noted.
All right. And with that, we will move
on to Are there any changes to the
agenda?
>> No. Can I get a motion to approve the
agenda?
>> I move we approve the agenda.
>> Second.
>> All in favor?
>> I. I. Okay. And then we're on to public
comment. I will shall look and see if we
have public comment today. Um
Evelyn, do we have cards?
>> A card is coming. Great.
None online.
And then I'm not logged into Zoom. Is
anybody
>> But it's for the community schools
presentation.
>> Okay. For the community schools. Um,
okay. Cool. And Augustine, this is for a
generic one or for an agenda item.
>> Okay, great. This is it's your time. You
want to come up and we'll call Augustine
Espia?
No, good evening.
Thank you for the opportunity to speak
to you all here. Uh my name is Augustine
Espino and we are here some parents of
uh Reboot City School District. We uh
we start talking to each other. Soon we
realize that the kids have been a
struggles our kids or every one of us.
And then so we start looking on it to
see what's going on. We start doing some
research. We find out that data
it show that uh our kids Latino kids
brown color kids is been a struggle for
so long. And then so since we are
looking on data proof from the state
that the current process is not yielding
the results that we wanted. So we are
here to ask to please look and work to
find a solution for this. We know we
recognize this is not an easy task but
we must do something for our kids. Uh,
one of the potential uh, options that
we've been talking about is possible
uh, adding uh, a teacher another uh, has
teacher assistant to the classroom
making small classes. We don't know. We
we just try to gather information what
we can do to come and asking for for
help. uh to our understanding on the
meetings is it's been knowing that our
kids because they are a second language
learner the district get additional fund
so we want that to be reflect on our
kids because the data that we've been
looking at is this is not happening last
year or two years we've been seeing this
for so long and also we want to
acknowledge that it's not only Grebble
city district,
but we collectively we want to to raise
a voice and say we need to see a change.
It's is just I was looking the data of
uh
Roy the school and uh uh Uber they're
very much the same amount of kids but
the outcome is so different. So that's
why we are all out here asking you all
to please uh consider working with our
kids. We need to make a a difference.
Our kids need you guys help. It's is
it's time to so that we all came
together to do something. Please take it
in consider. Thank you.
>> Thank you Augustine for your comments
and for the other parents for joining
you up here today. Um we hear you as a
board um as a governing team. We we know
um so thank you for raising it.
Uh okay. I don't see any other public
speakers.
>> Okay. Um,
then we're on to the bond program
consent items. We passed these as uh one
motion. They're considered routine. Can
I get a motion to approve?
>> I move we approve the bond consent
items.
>> Seconded.
>> All right. All in favor?
>> I.
>> All right. And there are no That was an
I for there no bond program action
items. So, we're on to uh the meat of
our meeting uh which is the school and
community reports and we're going to
start with the community schools and
partnerships department board report
on it.
>> So, tonight we have our community our
first report community schools with Miss
Michelle
her her last presentation and then we
also have her team here and I believe
all of her community school team is all
here today. So, welcome Michelle.
Thank you all. I now I have technology
to work. Thank you Anna for doing that.
Um, good evening Dr. Baker, President
Wells, trustees, and cabinet members. I
am Michelle Griffith and I am the
director of community schools and
partnerships.
Thank you for the opportunity to share
our community school report with you
this evening. We come before you to
share our work and our progress. But
understand that we will not be able to
share all you are curious about.
Therefore, if we end this presentation
with additional questions and
curiosities, we are happy to address
those this evening or in the near
future.
Wait,
there. Oh,
thank you. The success of our work is
rooted in collaboration and that spirit
is reflected in both tonight's report
and presentation. Here you can see the
dedicated individuals who will be
presenting this evening. I also want to
take a moment to recognize the many
members of our community school team,
including our incredible parent leaders
whose partnership is truly at the heart
of our work.
I'm trying.
Can you put it forward, Anna?
Okay. Tonight, we'll start with an
overview of our community schools work,
followed by key program highlights from
across our sites. Next, we'll share our
intentional practices and impact,
showing how our coordinated efforts are
supporting students and families. We'll
then launch on innovation, adaptation,
and growth and our intentional
collaboration that drives this work
forward. Finally, we'll close with
moving forward, outlining our next steps
and areas of focus for the year ahead.
Anna,
we will now move into our community
schools overview. Go ahead.
In essence, a community school is a hub
for the entire community that supports
the whole child by integrating academics
with health, social, emotional, and
family services while actively engaging
families and community partners to
create a safe, inclusive, and thriving
learning environment. The community
school model goes beyond traditional
schooling by addressing barriers to
learning and ensuring every student has
the resources and opportunities to
succeed. The community school model
rests on these four pillars. These
pillars support students, families, and
school communities.
Pillar number one, expanded and enriched
learning provides meaningful afterchool,
summer, and enrichment opportunities.
Pillar two, integrated student supports
ensures students and families have
access to services addressing academic,
social, emotional, and basic needs. We
have two starred pillars here. Pillar
three, collaborative leadership and
practices, is one of our two focus
pillars for the 2526 school year. as we
are working to build stronger site
leadership teams, improving coordination
among staff, families, students, and
partners, and creating structured
processes for shared decisionmaking.
And then pillar four, active family and
community engagement. This year, we're
also working to grow this pillar by
expanding family advisory councils,
increasing parent leadership, and
strengthening partnerships so families
have opportunities to share their
meaningful voices. Our department has
also established study groups to
research best practices for these two
last pillars with findings and
recommendations to be shared by year
end. Together, these pillars promote
supported students, engaged families,
and every student, every school
connected to the communities. Next one.
This slide provides a brief overview of
the Redwood City School District's
community schools initiative.
For 28 years, Redwood City School
District has partnered with the city of
Redwood City, the county of Sonteo,
and the John W. Gardner Center. This
collaborative partnership not only made
our community school model possible, but
has supported our sustainability and
expansion, allowing our work to grow
stronger year after year. Redwood City
School District currently ha operates
eight community schools, each with a
family center, a community school
coordinator, and family resource center
administrative assistance.
There is additional staffing at some of
our sites, which include case managers
addressing both housing and attendance
and mental health therapists supporting
student wellness. Our schools
collaborate with a wide range of
community organizations that provide
mentoring, expanded learning, mental
health, and family supports. In addition
to district funding, eight external
grants help sustain our infrastructure,
expanded learning programs, and mental
health services.
all together. This represents a strong
coordinated system that ensures our
students and families are supported both
inside and outside of the schools.
It is now my honor to bring to our
podium Amy Gerstein, the executive
director of the Stanford John W.
Gardener Center for Youth and Their and
Their Communities and Kristen Geyser,
deputy director and senior research
associate for Stanford's John W.
Gardener Center for Youth and Their
Communities.
>> Thank you, Michelle. My name is Amy
Gerstein. I'm the executive director of
the John W. Gardener Center. And um the
gardener center has been a center at
Stamford that engages in community
partnership work. We conduct research.
We provide technical assistance. And our
our main goal is to improve policy and
practice for the success of young people
and their communities.
We particularly um take a whole child
approach which is in the literature
refer often referred to as youth
development approach which means we're
really thinking about the whole child
all the time.
We know that in order for students to
learn they need to be healthy. They need
to be well-rested. They need to be well
fed. And if they are experiencing
distress of any kind, it really makes it
hard from even just a brain perspective
to access the areas of the brain where
they can learn. And so we are um we have
been
longtime partners with the Redwood City
School District
and our the a huge focus of our work has
been on supporting community schools. In
the very beginning we were involved in
supporting the learning and development.
We took folks to New York City to see
some of the oldest and strongest
community schools in the country. And
now and for many years now I have
recommended Redwood City as a place for
people to visit to see how this approach
really works and works well.
Um an important part of our work is that
um we think about communities and youth
being in a mutual engagement whereas
youth won't thrive unless communities
are thriving and communities thrive when
youth are thriving. And so that requires
a whole system approach and a
multiaceted approach and all of these
things um work together and coherently.
And one of the things I can tell you
after more than 30 years in working with
school districts and schools and being a
teacher is that um coherence is not
something we see typically in school
districts. So, we're it's um a huge
honor to work with a strong district
like Redwood City that really works to
make sure all of its programs are
working towards it kind of in the same
direction
and um it I just will say it's been a
real honor and I'm delighted to be here.
Thank you.
>> Thank you. Thank you so much. Amy, and
thank you so much, Kristen. About three
years ago, under Kristen Geyser's
guidance, our department undertook a
year-long process to develop our theory
of action. Kristen and her team
conducted 40 landscape interviews with
staff, board members, and district
leadership.
While at our school sites, our community
school team gathered input from
students, parents, and site staff. Then
our community schools coordinators came
together with all of this input and
district staff as well and we
collaborated to draft and refine the
living document that we call our theory
of action. The framework outlines core
strategies, key activities and
preliminary outputs and outcomes and
serves as a resource to strengthen
collaboration among everyone who invests
in our student success. It reflects
Redwood City School District's
intentional community schools approach
acting as both a framework and strategy
to promote equitable opportunities and
outcomes. The framework identifies the
central problem we seek to address. It
highlights key strategies aligned with
our four pillars and defines the
conditions needed at the system, site,
and individual levels to achieve
meaningful results.
Finally, it distinguishes between
short-term outcomes achievable within
five years and long-term outcomes
expected over five or more years,
showing how sustained collaboration and
strategy implementation can improve
access for students, families, and
schools across the district. Thank you,
Anna.
The community school theory of action
team developed short and long-term goals
to keep us focused on both immediate
priorities and a shared vision of where
we are ultimately heading. The
intentionality behind these goals is
that they are ongoing and reflect our
continuous progress. Our work is focused
across three key areas. the system level
which is the district level, the setting
which is are the sites and the
individual which are the children and
the families. Our shortterm goals are
designed to strengthen system alignment,
site capacity and family engagement to
advance equitable student outcomes at
the district level. We aim to build a
shared understanding of community school
goals, improve coordination among
departments, and expand partnerships
with highquality community providers. At
the school level, we're focused on
ensuring staff meet uh meet role
expectations,
reducing service and program gaps, and
using data and best practices to guide
continuous improvement for children and
families. This means timely access to
supports, increased participation in
programs, improved attendance and
academic achievement, and stronger
family school partnerships. These
short-term goals reflect our foundation
for growth.
Thank you. In addition to our short-term
goals, our theory of action outlines the
long-term outcomes we aim to achieve
over the next 5 years and beyond. At the
systems level, all stakeholders will
actively champion the community schools
initiative while district departments
work collaboratively to align and
combine resources. These collective
efforts in addition to strong and
lasting community partnerships would all
will not only sustain the model but
strengthen as well. At the school level,
staff will be highly effective and
datadriven, working collaboratively to
eliminate program gaps and continuously
improve outcomes for children and
families. We envision stability, health,
and success in every area, physical,
social, emotional, and academic, and
families leading as partners and
advocates in their children's education.
Together, these outcomes represent our
commitment to a sustainable, equitable
community school model that supports the
whole child and the whole community.
Okay. Thank you. Before we dive into our
program details later in the
presentation, I'd like to share some of
our department's highlights, key
highlights and accomplishments for the
2425 school year.
Thank you. Our family centers saw 12,272
student visits and 5,839
parent visits. Our parent visits
increased by 54% from the last school
year.
This in um demonstrating growth growing
engagement from both students and
families.
In addition, 2,854
students participated in expanded
learning programs and summer
programming, providing meaningful
opportunities to extend learning beyond
the regular school day.
Our community school specialists also
contributed to positive outcomes with an
average of a 5% improvement in
attendance rates, reflecting the impact
of coordinated supports on student
engagement and success.
These numbers clearly show the strength
of our community school model and how
our programs and services are supporting
students academic, social, and em social
and emotional growth with deepening
family engagement in our schools. Next
one.
Thank you. Over the past year, our
department has achieved several key
milestones. We're refi we've refined our
data collection and analysis creating a
more aligned system and consistent
results across schools. We also
developed and implemented
our expanded learning evaluation tool to
support highquality program which you
will hear more about in a bit.
Collaboration across our department has
strengthened through our committee work,
our community school showcases, our
community school coordinator showcases
which highlighted site programming
success, and we're we've now begun study
groups aligned to our two focus pillars
to research best practices for
implementation.
Thanks to the California Community
Schools and Partnership Grant, we've
expanded parent leadership, built new
community partnerships, shared our work
at statewide conferences,
and enhanced family support through
dedicated case managers addressing
attendance concerns and housing
insecurities.
Finally, expanded grants and
partnerships have allowed us to broaden
enrichment opportunities, increasing our
impact for students and families. These
accomplishments drive continuous
improvement and ultimately strengthen
outcomes for the communities that we
serve. I will turn this over to Elsa
Iceboro.
Good evening.
I'll be providing some insight into our
intentional practices as a department to
continuously address and improve the
work we do to better support our
students and families.
Um, here's a brief overview of just like
the different types of data our
department collects. Through our data
collection, we are able to assess the
needs of our students and families,
determine the types of partnerships to
seek and to reflect on our practices to
and adjust accordingly. Um, across all
sites, we collect what we call a data at
a glance, which is a snapshot of all
services and programs at our school
sites. We collect like different surveys
to get an idea of where families how
families feel when they visit our family
centers.
um we conduct uh narratives which are a
bit more anecdotal as well as we look at
our smart goals and the visits that we
have at our family centers to kind of
look at what the trends are. At our four
CCSP sites, we conduct annual needs and
assets assessments along with the
tracking of attendance, behavior, and
academics for those on case uh managers
case loads as well as pre and post
surveys on what the experience was going
through the different programs and exit
interviews with our parents to kind of
see what shifts they have seen occur
from the start to the end of
programming. As part of our expanded
learning, we track our program
attendance, enrollment numbers, as well
as annual surveys, mental health
numbers, and um PDs that we conduct, as
well as the evaluation goals and pro uh
progress monitoring.
And to reflect on a lot of these pieces,
we carry out what we call databased uh
inquiry days. Our every summer our site
every site teams of from each community
school participate in two days of
training to reflect and analyze
disagregated data to identify patterns
and inequities. We create goals uh to
address these inequities and we seek to
strengthen our practices through an
equity focused lens. These site teams
consist of everyone from like principles
to community partners, mental health
counselors, case managers because we
feel that it's important to have
everyone's perspective at the table. Um
because we each play a vital role in the
life of the child while they're with us.
And uh we use various protocols to
identify root causes because uh we
believe that it's important to reflect
on who we are and how we show up within
our identities and how this impacts the
work that we do with our students and
families. Each site then synthesizes all
this data to create what we call
problems of practice and uh determine
some actionable steps to guide
priorities as well as goals.
Midy year um our community schools data
team uh decided to do a mini DBI day to
reflect on all the data that's collected
specifically through family centers. And
this was just to kind of review our
first half of the year. This was an
opportunity for us to identify trends,
gaps, and adjust and align practices
across our sites and to reflect on
progress towards our goals as well as
identify capacity building uh trainings
and potential partnerships or
discussions that may be needed to come
back to partners on site.
And some of the data practices that we
continue as a data committee is to uh
conduct site visits to kind of look at
how data tools are integrated, how
operations are working at family centers
and to reflect on how to better align or
uh shift um because for us it's if
something is about assessing and
shifting shifting as like needed and we
continue to kind of just assess our work
to align it to our theory of action.
Some of the areas of impact that we have
been able to kind of see is to have that
corded care and case management case
management and kind of see how that
reflects in the work that's happening
with students. Um, we're seeing students
being more ready for learning as well as
beginning to see some acade academic
growth and continuing our holistic
wraparound services.
And so this is kind of like a summary
that's pulled from our data at a glance.
These are from the 2425 school year. And
when we talk about preparing for
learning, our goal is to address and
remove barriers to ensure students are
prepared and ready to learn. In the 2425
school year, we provided over a thousand
backpacks and uh 2,000 over 2,000
uniforms to students. Um when we talk
about wraparound support, our work does
not start or stop at the doors of our
schools. As a community school, we see
students as an extension of of their
families and their communities. We are
community hubs where over 10,000 units
of food were provided to families
through one of our food distributions
and over a thousand children receive
some type of holiday support.
We are safe and supportive spaces. Our
family centers provide spaces for
families to feel welcomed and where
trust is built. We operate with the view
that there is no wrong door and we're
there to support to navigate both within
the school setting and in the community.
We are intentional in our work and last
year alone conducted over 6,000
individual calls to connect with our
families.
And lastly, we really center and focus
on learning. Through our work with
partners, we ensure that students have
safe and supportive spaces to continue
their learning once the school day ends.
And just in the last year, over 500
students received tutoring.
And
it's all done with intentional support.
We work diligently to identify our tier
2 and tier three families to proactively
work with them and uh navigate new
systems and also when crises arise. Over
a 100 students received case management
last year and 15 over 150 families were
screened through our family intake
process.
To close off, I just wanted to highlight
two results from surveys conducted in
the family centers. In the 2425 school
year, we collected over 500 surveys of
vis visitors that came into the family
center. So 98% of responded that FRC's
were were helpful in responding their
questions and concerns and additional or
97% of families felt that they had a
plan after visiting to address those
concerns and needs. And as this quote
states, I'm this parent stated, I feel
very supported and listened to. Um
there's always support in the family
center and they have an answer or
solution to my concerns and needs.
Now I will pass it on to Enrique.
All right. Good evening. My name is
Enrique Caleron and I'm the coordinator
of expanded learning. Um we will now
share how our innovation, adaptation and
growth are driving stronger support for
students and families.
Some of the key strategies driving this
work are expanded learning opportunities
program, lived experience parent group,
thrive program, and community school
specialist attendance support.
Starting with our expanded learning
program, I'm proud to share highlights
from this past year, showing how we've
continued to grow and strengthen
programs across the district. We
streamlined enrollment by aligning our
process with the district's first day of
school packet, creating a more
consistent process for families. We also
maintain strong year-round participation
serving close to 3,000 students during
the school year and summer while at the
same time deepening our enrichment
programs which include music classes
focusing on band and mariachi dansa
puico martial arts paleontology
educational series and academic
tutoring. Through a new Sequoia
Healthcare District grant, we've
expanded our existing mental health
services to 56 hours a week, giving more
students access to support after school.
We strengthen professional development
through five learning series with our
seven partnered organizations, focused
on instructional quality and social
emotional learning.
Our program has also gained countywide
recognition, and we've shared our model
at multiple Satell County Office of Ed
convenings.
Finally, we launched a unified program
evaluation framework to ensure quality
and consistency across all of our sites.
Now, to share more about how we're
building staff capacity, I'll hand it
over to Giltoman, our staff developer,
who works exclusively with our expanded
learning programs, a role that is unique
to Redwood City School District. Gil's
work has been instrumental in providing
targeted coaching and on-site support,
helping elevate program quality for all
of our district schools.
Good evening everybody. Uh my name is
Hilbertman.
The goal of the EXLP is to ensure that
after school programs serve as an
extension of the school day by aligning
structures, expectations, and engagement
strategies with those of the Revit City
School District school day. In order to
achieve this, a scope and sequence was
created, beginning with rules, routines,
and relationships,
moving on to engagement and inclusion,
and ending with student voice and
empowerment.
Staff development includes different
levels of support, the focus areas,
programwide PDs based on needs, targeted
trainings aligned to site goals,
individual coaching, supports to
strengthen mentor practices when needed,
behavioral engagement strategies,
practical tools for consistent and
caring responses. Um along with creating
a sense of safety, belonging and
ownership and ownership, uh we also want
to support academic growth. And in order
to do so, I created a curriculum for PAL
which includes structured lessons
promoting engagement, comprehension, and
language development.
Now, I'll pass it back to Enrique who
will tell you a little bit more about
student and parent voice.
>> Uh next. Yeah. So, one of the things
that we're most proud of is that our
programs continue to be places where
students feel a real sense of belonging.
Based off of our spring 2025 partner
program student surveys, 86% of surve
students said they feel safe and welcome
every day. And on top of that, 84% said
they have trusted relationships with
adults they can go to for help. That
tells us that our staff are building
meaningful meaningful connections.
Next slide.
And it's not just our students who are
feeling that impact. Our families are
seeing it, too. In our partner parent
surveys, 94% of our parents said
programs provide a safe and welcoming
environment. Just as importantly, 91% of
families said they feel respected and
heard by our site coordinators and
staff, really reinforcing that sense of
trust and care. A little later, I'll
share how we're using this data to guide
our next steps, the proactive actions
we're taking to strengthen engagement,
expand supports, and continue improving
the student and family experience. And
speaking of how we're measuring
measuring and strengthening quality
across all of our programs, I'm going to
pass it over to Elsa, who not only led
the development of our new evaluation
tool, but really shaped it into
something meaningful for our programs.
So we developed an evaluation tool using
both the California quality standards
for expanded day learning as well as the
program quality assessment also known as
the PQA. Our our goal with the
development of this tool was to create
alignment across our expanded day
programs uh serving students within the
graduate city school district uh to
ensure that they are providing quality
um programming but also that to ensure
policies are and procedures are up to
date for potential audits. This um pilot
is kind of in four phases with the first
part being what we call the artifact
submission. Um we piloted this the
spring of 2025 and as part of it uh
programs or the programs that we piloted
this would submit artifacts uh according
to the different standards. We would
review them and follow up on these
submissions. Then that was followed by
site observations uh different days,
different blocks where we would observe
everything from um transitions to how
they conducted youth development and
engagement which then led us to kind of
debrief and an init create or write an
initial report with program
recommendations and identify top
priorities uh for areas of improvement
for the programs. And then we are now in
what we call the program improvement and
monitoring. For this phase, uh based on
priority areas, we determine short, mid,
and long-term goals. And we've developed
a plan to monitor as well as what we
call a program improvement plan to check
in on progress goals and kind of just
how they're aligning with our
expectations for uh expanded day
programming.
Next slide.
Um, so as we look ahead, our next steps
are directly informed by the data that
we've collected and continue to analyze.
We're expanding enrichment opportunities
to strengthen engagement and retention
with a particular focus on middle school
students, which is a critical age group
where consistent participation has a
lasting impact. In response, we've
applied for the K12 strong workforce
grant to launch new CTE college and
career pathway programs in an
intentional effort to make expanded day
learning more relevant and future
focused for our seventh and eighth grade
students. We'll know by the end of
November to if we receive that grant.
Beyond enrichment, we're also continuing
to grow our mental health supports
through the Sequoia Healthcare District
renewal with plans to advocate for
additional funding to meet the needs
we're seeing across sites.
At the same time, we're developing
tiered supports and stronger PBIS
alignment to reinforce the same culture
of belonging after school as during the
day.
Additionally, we're deepening shared
leadership through a new expanded day
subcommittee, giving partners and
stakeholders a stronger voice in shaping
our collective work.
We're expanding our evaluation tool to
ensure all partnered programs across the
district are part of our formal
evaluation process as well. And to
finalize it, I'd also like to give a big
shout out to our community school
coordinators um as well as our seven
amazing partnered programs and their
dedicated staff. um because a lot of
this would not be possible without them.
Um and so with that, I'll turn it over
to Liz Calderon Garcia, who will now
share about our community, California
Community Schools and Partnership
Program. Thank you.
>> Thank you, Enrique. Good evening. My
name is Leon Garcia and I'm the district
community school coordinator. The
California Community Schools Partnership
Program Grant strengthens and expands
our community school work, transforming
campuses into community hubs where
students and families are partners come
together to support student success and
well-being. Each CCSP site has a
community school advisory council which
is facilitated by our community school
coordinator and composed of parents,
students, staff, community partners, and
administrators. These councils meet on a
monthly basis to review data, set goals,
and take collective action based on each
school's unique needs and strengths. A
key component of this work is the needs
and asset assessment conducted with
students, families, and staff,
identifying priorities, gaps, and
opportunities. The results guide
planning and ensure our approach remains
responsive, equitable, and
communitydriven.
Now that we've covered the foundation of
CCSP and the role of our advisory
councils, let's look at how the needs
and asset assessment moves into action.
Each advisory council engages in a cycle
of inquiry, reviewing data, identifying
priorities, and creating a smart goal in
an action plan. They then come into
implementation, partnering with the
broader school community to carry out
the plan. Finally, they assess and
reflect measuring progress, identifying
what worked, and making adjustments as
needed. This mirrors our department's
database inquiry days, but at the site
level, it's led by the school community,
creating a shared datadriven approach to
continuous improvement. For example, MIT
set a goal to increase the number of
multil- language learners who
reclassified on the ELPAC by 10%
compared to the previous year's results.
The results they had a 26% increase a
clear demonstration of how targeted
demonstration sorry demonstration of how
targeted goals and strong collaboration
lead to real results. Next slide. Now
let's look at the results from our needs
and asset assessment. This is last
year's needs and results. This
assessment is conducted only at our four
CCSP sites which are Hoover, Taft,
Garfield and MIT. And last year we saw
an increased participation across all
student, parents, and staff focus groups
and surveys. We'll start with our
students. We had 55 students participate
in our focus groups across the four
sites. Students expressed a desire for
more tutoring and academic support.
Our parents, we had 23 parents
participate in our focus groups and 361
families completed the survey. Herren
echoed students feedback emphasizing the
need for additional academic and
enrichment opportunities.
Staff, we had 95 staff members complete
the survey. Staff highlighted the
holistic support provided by the family
centers and recommended expanding health
rellated services such as vision,
dental, and medical care. Each site uses
these results to create targeted action
plans. For example, Taft responded to
their feedback by increasing tutoring
services at their site. Overall, these
results show how our schools use data
not just to identify needs, but to take
meaningful and responsive action.
To bring the needs and asset assessment
to life, I would like to share a few
quotes that capture our experiences of
our students, parents, and staff. One
quote that stands out is they referring
to the family center are the heart of
the school truly an integral part for
supporting families with their
children's education.
This statement highlights the essential
role our family centers play in building
connection trust and partnership between
families and schools.
Our community school dean program
strengthens student success by focusing
on attendance, engagement, and
connection.
Born out of the post-pandemic attendance
challenges, this program has a vital has
been vital in re-engaging students and
rebuilding trust with families.
Community school specialists and the
dean of students work closely with the
MTSS coordinator and community and
community school coordinator to support
students who face barriers to attendance
or have a history of chronic
absenteeism.
Specialists partner directly with
students and families to identify
barriers, set goals, provide regular
check-ins, connect them to needed
resources, and promote consistent
attendance through the three-phase
cycles. Phase one, building trust and
setting relationships. Building trust
and setting goals, sorry. Phase two,
monitoring progress and adjusting
support as needed. And phase three, the
exiting and monitoring for sustained
success.
This work not only improves attendance,
it strengthens belonging, relationships,
and participation, creating the
foundation for long-term academic and
personal growth.
This slide shows how our program has
evolved over the past three years
through intentional growth,
collaboration, and continued reflection.
Year one, we introduced the concept
build shared understanding and laid the
foundation for consistent practices
across sites. Year two, we established
structured systems and clear protocols
and strengthened collaboration among
sites. This past summer, the summer of
year two, we debriefed with sites to
identify strengths, areas of improvement
and opportunities to enhance
communication.
We're currently in year three, and for
this year, we are focused on refining
protocols and stronger alignment and
efficiency, enabling earlier proactive
support for students. This timeline
shows how our work has deepened each
year.
This slide highlights the impact our
community school specialist and dean of
students has had across our three sites.
This past year, they have completed 476
student check-ins and 315 family
check-ins to build trust, identify
barriers, and strengthen engagement.
They have connected families to 124
services including mental health
supports, tutoring, basic needs assess
assistance, and transportation.
These efforts have resulted in an
average 5% increase in attendance for
students on their case load,
demonstrating how relationships,
consistency, and sustained partnership
drive meaningful re-engagement and
long-term student success.
I'll now pass it over to Jackie who will
share more about the next part of our
work and how it continues to build on
these efforts.
Thank you, Liz. Good evening board. My
name is Jackie Campos and I'm the
community school coordinator at Mckenley
and tonight I'm really excited to talk
to you about the Thrive program. So, the
Thrive program is part of our community
school's effort to support families who
are experiencing housing instability or
homelessness. It currently serves
families at Hoover, Taft, Garfield, and
MIT. Through thrive, we provide case
management support, connecting families
with resources that promote housing
stability and self-sufficiency.
Each family works one-on-one with a case
manager to address barriers, whether
that's housing, employment, or financial
literacy. Our goal is to ensure that
every student and family in RCSD has the
stability they need to thrive
academically and personally.
The Thrive model is built around three
main components. Identification, case
management, and housing stability. We
identify families experiencing
homelessness through referrals from
school staff, the screen team, or
community partners such as our
afterchool programs. Once identified,
families are connected with a dedicated
case manager who provides individualized
support. The team leverages community
resources and partnerships to help
families secure and maintain stable
housing. These partnerships include
organizations such as Life Moves and the
Fairs Community Center. This model
emphasizes collaboration and integration
of services to create long-term
stability stability, not just short-term
relief. Ultimately, the Thrive model
allows us to provide whole family
support aligning with the district's
community school model.
Next slide.
Now that you've seen how the Thrive
model works, let's look at the impact
it's had on the families we've served.
Here's a snapshot of our Thrive program
data from the 2024 2025 school year. We
case managed 46 families reaching 166
individuals. Our team provided 935
services and made 227 referrals to
community organizations.
We conducted 522 case management
sessions with heads of households. We
completed 18 rapid responses in response
to families in urgent need. Rapid
response happens when a household faces
immediate crisis. This includes
eviction, sudden loss of housing, or
fleeing domestic violence. Our team acts
quickly to prevent families from living
in unsafe conditions such as living out
in their car or living in the streets.
Ultimately, this data shows that Thrive
is more than services. It's a lifeline
that helps families overcome crises and
build a stable foundation for the
future. Next slide.
On this slide, you'll see a few
highlights from families who have
completed the Thrive program. These
quotes give a real sense of impact our
work has had on the families we serve.
Next slide.
On this slide, we hear directly from the
families we serve. Here's a quote from a
family that really shows the impact of
Thrive. I appreciate the support in
finding the shelter, and I'm happy to
finally be out out off the street.
Providing families with stable housing
isn't just about shelter. It directly
impacts a student's ability to focus,
engage, and succeed in the classroom. By
meeting this basic need, we help
students thrive academically and
personally. Thank you and I will now
pass it over to William Gomez.
>> Good evening everyone. As mentioned, my
name is William Gomez and I am a
consultant here with the district and
essentially I'm just here briefly to
introduce a group of parents, our lived
experience parent group that started
early last or actually this year. And as
we're hearing today, I think
historically what we look to address is
noticing that it's most often community
members that are most impacted by the
barriers we look to resolve are not
included at the decision-making table.
And this group really looks to address
that and it's really set to center the
voices of our parents. It has worked to
establish community with the parents
that are involved and looks to
redistribute power back to these
community members so they can begin
advocating on their own behalf. I want
to share we have one of those community
members here with us today, Natalia
Ramirez.
And what you all are now going to
witness is a video that highlights some
of the rest of our members who couldn't
be here today that just speak on the
significance of this group for them and
that just speaks to the urgency. I think
we can collectively begin to continue
watering so that we continue carving out
spaces. I also want to thank the parents
that showed up here today, but just
carving out spaces where parents can be
a part of the decision-m and addressing,
you know, these barriers for students
and our families. Listen.
Break.
Thank you. So now
is it ready? Okay. So now I'll talk a
little bit about the next steps for our
lived experience, our community school
specialist program and our thrive
program. So for our lived experience, we
will work on replicating our lived
experience at school sites by
establishing a parentled lived
experience group at the four CCSP sites.
We will also develop the lived
experience guide book created with
feedback from staff and parent leaders
and supported by the John W. Gardner
Center at Stamford.
for our community schools program.
Our next steps are to focus on
strengthening our systems to deepen
impact by strengthening data systems and
analysis, enhancing alignment across
sites, increasing student attendance and
re-engagement, monitoring progress for
continuous improvement,
and then for Thrive, we will roll out
Salesforce, which will serve as our
comprehensive data system to capture
services and supports we're providing.
will strengthen data systems and
analysis. We'll improve alignment across
our sites, monitor progress and
outcomes. Together, these next steps
will strengthen coherence, improve
datadriven decision-making, and deepen
the support we provide to students and
families. I'll now pass it on to Andrea.
Thank you and good evening. My name is
Andrea Hernandez and I'm the community
school coordinator for Hoover. Uh now
we'll be diving into a couple examples
of the intentional collaboration that is
happening at our sites. Beginning with
Hoover. Next slide please. At Hoover,
integrated student supports means caring
for the whole child, mind, body, and
overall well-being. We operate under a
simple truth. Students cannot learn
effectively if their basic needs are not
met. On the mental health side, we
provide Spanish language group
counseling for our students, social
emotional learning through Wayfinder,
and hands-on emotional development using
Kimochi kits for younger grades along
with skill building um sessions for
upper grade levels. To support our
students nutrition and physical health,
we partner with Second Harvest for
regular food distributions and pantry
access, including partnering with Costco
uh donations. Students also benefit from
vision screenings throughout vision to
through through vision to learn health
education provided by Stanford and
on-site nursing support. Together these
services ensure that our students are
healthy, supported, and feel prepared to
tackle the learning day. Next slide,
please. Integrated student supports also
extends to our students families.
Because when families are stable,
students can succeed. Through our Thrive
referrals and partnerships with
Pharaoh's Community Center, El Centro,
Faith and Action, and Libé, we connect
families to rent, utility, housing, and
immigration supports. With Operation
School Bell and the support of hope
uniforms and our on-site hygiene
supplies, every student has what they
need to feel confident and ready to
learn. Academically, our students access
tutoring through the North Fair Oaks
Library and Air Reading, while our dean
program provides case management and
attendance support for these for those
students facing barriers. And holding
all of this together is the face of our
family center, our administrative
assistant, who builds trust, triages
needs, and connects families to the
right supports quickly and
compassionately. I'll now turn it over
to Albert.
>> Uh, thank you, Andrea, and good. Excuse
me. Good evening board members. Uh my
name is Albert Lo. I'm the community
school coordinator for Clifford and I'm
excited to speak to you all this evening
about the pillar of active family and uh
community engagement and how we have
been really highlighting that at
Clifford. So like Elsa was mentioning
earlier in the presentation at the end
of every school year all community
school coordinators come together during
something called a DBI day. And during
that time, we analyze the data from the
previous year. And we disagregate the
reading and the math data based on many
factors including race, including grade
level. And we do this because of
districtwide trends. And one of the
things that we've noticed at Clifford
and throughout the district is that
there have been extreme gaps in
performance between uh Latino and black
students and Asian and white students.
So as a result of that we had many
conversations throughout the course of
those days about the root causes of
that. We developed a problem of practice
and then we developed two site goals. Uh
so if we go to the next slide please
we'll see the problem of practice that
guided our work last school year. So
this problem of practice states our
current teaching practices and
approaches to family engagement
primarily reflect the culturally
dominant norms. To create a more
inclusive and equitable environment, we
must intentionally develop the
knowledge, skills, and commitment
necessary to become culturally
responsive. So then on the next slide,
you'll see the two site goals that
guided our work last year. So I know
that you all have had a chance to read
these goals before and you asked great
questions about them. Um, but just to
refresh folks memory, the first goal has
to do with making sure that teachers
engage in professional development to
enhance that knowledge, skill, and will
to become more culturally responsive.
And then the hope from that goal is that
based off of that, we would be able to
support our Latino students because we
have a very large percentage of Latino
students and that's where we're seeing a
big part of that gap into having
improvement on grade level skills. The
second goal has to do with making a more
welcoming environment. So that means
that we were redesigning our family
engagement strategies to prioritize the
cultural and linguistic needs of that
community as well and success was
measured by participation in family
events. Uh so if we go to the next slide
please, we'll be able to see some of the
strategies that we developed through
that process. So those are under two
main buckets. The first one is through
culturally responsive PD and the second
one has to do with shifting that family
engagement to prioritize uh the needs of
the families that are coming from that
Latin American background. Uh I'm going
to dive a little bit further into the
PDS. So we leverage a strategic allyship
with the district family liaison because
of her deep knowledge of Latin America
and the way that schooling works there.
and she led a professional development
series for teachers on best practices to
create connection with Latino families.
In addition to that, we worked in strong
collaboration with the MTSS team uh
headed by the principal in order to make
sure that we were able to also bring in
other professional development including
an assembly on hate speech. There is a
peer-led professional development group
which I facilitate which is called the
Clifford I group and that's really a
chance for us as educators to come
together and really turn the mirror
inwards and think about how our own
experiences with race with education
with class show up in our day-to-day
work and what that looks like for kids
and how could we change our practice in
order to really push the needle on
student achievement for our most margin
iz students. Um, I also collaborated
with the student government in order to
do many of the hate speech initiatives
or the anti-hate speech initiatives
including a poster campaign and the
tolerance group. And the kids also
wanted to help out with some of that
food distribution. So, you'll see a
picture of the student government
actually packing the bags which we would
deliver to families. Uh in addition to
that um you'll see that we had many
events that were prioritizing uh Latino
culture. Uh last year we had our first
di no which is a uh holiday that's
celebrated in many Latin American
countries. It means day of the child. Uh
and it was a great event. It was very
diverse and it was a chance for some of
our families to get a little uh taste of
what home feels like. uh and we were
really excited to do that. Another thing
that we did was we prioritized our
tutoring for multilingual learners as
well as recently reclassified students
in service of closing that gap that we
talked about. If we go to the next
slide, we'll see a little bit of the
impact. So for tutoring, we had two main
programs. One was Mathnasium and one was
Healthy Cities Tutoring. So, Mathnasium,
of course, that was for math and um as
you could see, many of the students were
either unduplicated or multilingual
learners. And we had two cohorts. We had
one within the fall and one within the
spring. So, one thing to note is that
when the kids came in the fall, their
math performance, there were more gaps
in that, which is part of the reason why
you see more of a growth uh there. And
then the new cohort in the spring, there
were less gaps. they did have the fall
uh trimester before they they started.
We still see significant growth there as
well. And then for healthy cities, we
were focusing more on uh closing that
ELA gap. So with that, we saw an average
of 35 Lexile points growth and we were
really intentional with choosing the
students for all groups. Uh the healthy
cities students were chosen based off of
students who are an intermediate or
advanced level in terms of their English
language acquisition so that we could
help push them over. And the math
students we already spoke about. Uh one
thing that I do want to note about math
is that we were really intentional about
monitoring their progress from a pre-EST
to a post- test. And we also had a
structured curriculum. So instead of
just homework help and things like that,
we were really intentional about
progress monitoring. So if we go to the
next slide, um you'll see some of that
preassessment to post assessment growth
within the fall cohort. Uh one thing to
note is that the sixth grade um students
who were participating, they did when
they took the pretest scored 0%. So
that's what that bar is for the blue. Uh
however they there was significant
growth and there was significant growth
across the board. And then if we go to
the next slide uh as you can see they ca
all cohorts came in a bit higher and
there was still significant growth. And
if we go to the next slide uh you'll see
the focus for this year which were
actively engaged in. So the problem of
practice this year is that we lack co
cohesive culturally responsive teaching
practices and data analysis and that
consistently leads to an achievement gap
between white and Asian students and
Latinx and black students. So we have
two goals. One is to decrease that math
achievement gap by 10%. And we're
measuring that through unit assessments
and other common grade level
assessments. And then the second one,
we're still working on the wording for
that because we really want to make sure
that we are honoring the process and
service of our most vulnerable youth.
However, it will have to do with closing
the achievement gap between multilingual
learners and monilingual English
speakers in regards to ELA. So, that's
what we're working on in collaboration
in our MTSS um team meetings. So, with
that being said, I'm going to turn it
back over to Michelle.
We're almost there. As we've seen the
impact of our work so far, let's now
look ahead and focus on how Redwood City
School District Community Schools will
continue to grow and evolve our next
steps and vision to moving forward.
Thank you. To further strengthen our
work supporting our communities, we will
continue to integrate community school
efforts with the district's mission,
vision, LCAP goals, and initiatives.
Align our district department and site
objectives with our theory of action.
Revise and enhance our data practices
and systems through reflection and
analysis with our data committee.
evaluate and deepen community
partnerships to maximize impact and
design and implement department and
sitebased professional development that
directly support our theory of action.
Thank you. Next one.
As we conclude, I want to express my
heartfelt gratitude to the board, Dr.
Baker, and our cabinet for your
unwavering support. Continued funding
for community schools is essential
because the model directly addresses the
barriers that impact student learning
and family stability. By integrating
academics with health, mental health,
and social services, community schools
ensure students are ready to learn and
thrive. Importantly, the district's
investment is amplified by numerous
outside partnerships and funding sources
that align with and strengthen the
community school model. Bringing
additional resources, services, and
opportunities to our students and
families. Sustained investment
stabilizes critical supports such as
case management, counseling, and
afterchool programs while deepening
partnerships that connect schools to the
broader community. Without this funding,
many of these vital services, food
access, housing support, mental health
care, and enrichment opportunities
would disappear, leaving significant
gaps for our most vulnerable students.
In short, funding community schools is
not just an investment in education.
It's an investment in equity,
well-being, and the long-term success of
children, families, and communities.
In conclusion, I want to thank our
presenters this evening and the entire
community school team for their
dedication, their care, and their
commitment to this work. But most of
all,
I want to thank I want to thank the
incredible parents that are here this
evening and at our schools.
Your trust,
your engagement, and your partnership
make everything we do possible.
I would also like to share that it has
been
a true privilege and honor
to be part of this district,
to be able to contribute to this effort,
and to witness the profound impact on
our students and families.
Now,
I am thrilled to welcome your new
director of community schools, Liz
Calderon.
Liz brings exceptional talent, insight,
and experience to this role, and I have
every confidence she will lead our
schools to even greater success. With
that, we look forward to your comments
and your questions. Thank you.
>> Thank you, Michelle, and
congratulations, Liz, on your new role.
And of course, thank you Elsa, Enrique,
Alto, uh Jackie, Andrea, Albert, all the
school um you know, all the community
school coordinators um William for the
work you're doing with Thrive uh and you
know, our partners, particularly the
gardener center, Amy and Kristen, thank
you so much for being here tonight and
participating in the program. Um and
then really all all the partner programs
that help make community schools
successful. Um before we move into board
discussion, we do have one speaker and I
was thinking of taking that comment now.
Uh is that right? Okay. And so uh at
this time it's on Zoom and we will ask
uh Lthrada
Hello.
>> Hi. Yeah, we hear you. Um,
interpreter.
Okay.
Curry and
>> thin. Okay. Um,
okay.
Educas
Satisf.
establishment.
Fore
estros.
Hoover.che.
Foreest
departments.
classes.
Yeah, I can use
>> I've gotta stop it now. I'm sorry, but
we have to keep comments at three
minutes to be fair to everyone.
>> Um,
>> okay. Thank you.
>> Translation. No.
>> Can you hear me?
>> Yeah. Thanks.
>> Can you hear me?
>> Yep.
>> Okay. Wonderful. I'm going to go ahead
and do the translation from Lisette.
Okay,
good afternoon, good good evening, good
evening to all of you. My name is
Elizabeth Estrada and I am a mom of two
kids from uh Hoover School
and
I wanted to say I want to speak about
our community schools that are truly
special. They make a huge difference in
the supports for our kids, families,
uh educators and communities. And I and
they offer solutions, practical
solutions to our problems that are
unique that our kids may face and their
families. These uh schools turn into the
heart of our communities, giving
services that truly satisfied the needs
of our students, families, and
neighbors. At the same time, they help
support creating stable neighborhoods
and health healthy neighborhoods is not
only about another program. It is a way
of thinking about schools that go
further into only than only supporting
the kids and students. My community
school, Hoover, is not only a place to
learn, it's also the heart of our
community, of my community, helping to
create an environment where learning and
teaching are better.
here. Teachers and families and the
members of the community and all the
service providers unite to work together
making sure that we satisfy all the
needs of our students of the community.
As a mom of uh younger kids grades, we
would love to get support getting more
workshops to prepare them for the
families and and your younger kids. So
by the time they go to Hoover they are
better prepared. These workshops they're
not only a benefit for the kids
individually but also they facilitate
the teachers work giving students um
more preparation and getting readiness
for school and self-awareness. As a mom,
I believe that a teacher, I am the
stronger teacher of my kids and
therefore those workshops will turn into
strategies and tools for the families.
As a mom, I making this call with all
respect to the department of educational
services. I express my interest and I
request a meeting
to discuss about the possibility of uh
creating new workshops if we could.
Also, I want to emphasize
something really important for me
because the kids, my kids are from
special education and I can say that
this year that we make uh those cuts of
not only that affected our schools but
also the teachers that unfortunately
it's uh that has an effect on the kids.
the resource uh classes in special ed
are not receiving right now a lot of
support the support needed given that
and that's the end of the translation.
>> All right. Thank you Lisbat for your
your comments. Um
and Gonzalo for the translation. Um I
think we're you're just coming up to
answer questions. Yeah.
>> You want me to or Yeah. No, that's
great. That's
>> I can sit down.
>> Uh Trusty Lee, would you like to to
start? Um, and just a reminder, we're
over the allocated hour, but by all
means, take your take your time. I'm
just pointing out the time piecing.
>> I'm hearing uh things go both ways
there. President Wells.
>> Um, first, thanks for the presentation.
Um, the video, all the materials, but
obviously more important than that, the
underlying work that goes into it, which
you already know, but really appreciate.
Um, there there was a lot of
information, and this is super helpful
for me as I'm getting up to speed. I had
some context but lots of deep dive. Um,
so I want to start off with maybe just
some framing questions to make sure I'm
understanding it right. So I think what
I what I heard from and saw in the
presentation is one like Redwood City is
a school district started 28 years ago
kind of earlier on than the Fed of
conceptualizing this idea that community
hubs as schools as community hubs would
be good um great long-standing
partnership and I think if I'm
understanding right the um the current
iteration of the program the elements
that were talked about like the expanded
learning program Thrive etc it sounds
like um at least some of those are kind
of tied directly to grants that were
tied I do activities and then some are
some of the activities are more sight
driven based on the needs assessment and
community input. Is that a fair?
>> It is. We've had expanded learning um
programming and um grants for an I don't
know like 20 years or so and but it has
never been
I don't believe as deep as as the um
alignment is now. And the ELOP money has
allotted us to bring in many more
partners and programs at our sites. It
was we used to have expanded learning
programs at six of our sites only and
when we were actually a bigger district
as well. And so with the the new money
that has come in,
the program itself has changed a lot and
we have now our in-house
um staff developer. We have a director
of expanded learning. We it used to be
run by the principal at the sites and in
direct partnership with the with the
organizations. And we only had two
organizations really. It was uh Boys and
Girls Club and REACH. And now we have um
I think we're up to seven expanded
learning and we now have expanded
learning programs that are not that are
out in the communities that we partner
with as well. and does and we we went
way back when 20 years ago we had um I
think we started with four community
schools and there was a lot of support
by the county at that point and that
support has changed over time and um has
really forced us inhouse to build our
program up more and so all through those
years in in
um lean times and in times In terms of
abundance, we have kept the community
school model going.
>> Got it. But in terms of the program
elements, it is
>> the thrive program, the C CSS's and the
the dean and some other programs that we
have mentioned have come in and the
advisory councils have come in because
of the the new grant, the new California
wave in community schools and the CCSP
piece. And I guess my question is those
grants are those grants specifically
tied to those activities or
>> no they they do require an advisory
council and they require a needs and
assets assessment. But we looked, we met
with those four schools when we were
developing the grant and we asked for
the we had their input and then we've
aligned those programs more over the
years and we've looked at the need for
increasing attendance and we also
brought in the housing in security
program, the thrive program based on a
partnership that we had established with
life moves that was piloted at Kennedy
before we had the grant. and that was
very successful.
>> Got it. Okay, that's super helpful. So,
a lot of based on needs assessment and
community voice. Um, that's great. Uh, I
guess I'll also put this out there. I'm
the schools that are community schools I
imagine are not chosen at random. Um,
based on those that are and theirs are
not, I would say that my my
interpretation is that they are very
much um an effort at equity based on the
higher need schools. Is that fair? Okay.
And then I guess the last thing is it
sounds like based on the data that we
saw which is quite a bit um um the
programs that we have at these schools
are generally showing positive results
tied to the specific initiatives whether
that's
parent parent surveys or academic
results or um attendance like we're
seeing results from that.
>> Yes.
>> Okay, great. I mean that's super helpful
for me. Just wanted to clarify that. Uh
big those great for me. I'm I'm I'm
sold. I think it's a great program. Um,
obviously we're dealing with um a
difficult budget environment, but it
would be great to, you know, continue
the core elements of this program
because obviously we're seeing
effectiveness. Um, so thank you for
that. The I have a couple more comments
and I'll I'll I'll try to keep
>> try to keep it short. Um, just a few
thoughts that I had. One is I I love to
see the the emphasis on the alignment.
Um, obviously things are coming
grassroots from the the schools, but
like to the extent that we can tie that
up um to uh the the LCAP or whatever so
that we're all kind of marching to the
same beat would be um I'm excited that
that's already something that are
thinking about looking forward to that.
>> Uh also again on the data piece uh there
was so much data. Data is great. I know
I'm developing a reputation and it's
fine. I'll own it. I will say um Dana is
only it's only useful in so far as it's
driving um action and impact and I love
to see that like that's exactly what you
guys are doing. So one thank you for
doing that but also thank you for
communicating it so clearly. Um it's
just very very uh happy about that. Um
and then actually on that point this is
not so much a community school thing per
se but more just a general thought. Um I
really love the examples that were
brought forward um for uh Clifford in
particular and also the uh community
school specialists right where we have
very tangible issues that we're actually
seeing across multiple schools and some
schools are operating kind of as
laboratories of um
>> uh of change and we're seeing impact. So
>> obviously we have to figure out what the
funding is. But I I love the idea like
where we can see actual effectiveness
like that's an opportunity for us to say
would that work elsewhere. Um and one
actually just another sorry one more
thought on the um the math uh piece from
Clifford a lot of great stuff there. I
think one missing data point that I
think is probably relevant and it's not
something that Clifford would
necessarily have access to, but you love
to have the comparison, right? Like you
have your they have Clifford. Uh then
you want to see was Clifford did they
outperform other schools that didn't
focus on that. Uh and I I believe uh
based on the data I've seen the answer
is yes. Um which is super positive. Um
that that I should caveat that because I
don't have it in front of me, but that
is my understanding. So, please correct
me if I'm wrong, but again, I just like
the idea of like we have we're getting
these ideas where we can see
effectiveness through community schools.
Um, and they're driven by community
input at the Skype level. Like I I hope
that we can leverage that uh going
forward. The last thing I promise uh is
just this is such such good work and I
would just love for us to be able to
make it clearer to the community on a
more regular basis of like this is
there's so much that we are doing once
the work but it is also driving impact.
So not I know we have a rule of like not
really addressing um public comment but
I think there is a perception right that
we could be doing more and that's always
the case but like we should also for
sure celebrate the wins and there are so
many wins that we have um that we could
be putting out there so we we can figure
this is kind of back burner but I would
love for us to figure that out because
um I want the perception to match like
the reality of all the work that's been
going on.
>> Thank you.
>> Thank you all so much. My goodness,
there was a armada of present presenters
and uh there's an armada of people uh
who are behind this trying to care for
our communities, trying to care for our
children and I'm really grateful for all
of the work that that goes into that. Um
I really love a bunch of the different
themes that were presented in particular
around parental engagement. uh trying to
activate that community, trying to help
learn what they care about and also to
teach them how to be advocates for their
children and how to be teaching
partners. Uh I think that's that's
really important and that's an area I
would love to see us continue to to
develop. Um
there's so much that's going on. One of
the things that I didn't get a great
sense for in the presentation is which
parts are working and which parts are
not working. um what are we trying to
double down on and what did we learn
something from because it didn't work
out as well as expected and um it's
going to be impossible for a program
that's doing so many things to have oh
everything's going absolutely
wonderfully you know the expectation is
not that everything is perfect but
rather that that we learn from
experiments that we try and didn't work
out as hoped so like what's working
great that we're going to be doubling
down on in the coming year and where did
we try something and it didn't work out
like we hoped and and we learned
something from that
>> you want that answer right now. Um
I would say one of the pieces that we've
had to um really revamp and look at um
more in depth is the C CSS's the
community school specialists on
engagement with the students. the 5%
growth was an average, but this year in
particular with changes that we've put
in with the way um the program is
structured and the engagement with not
only the students but with the parents
as well and the ongoing um support is
that we've seen um students
I I mean there's at Hoover it's my
husband that's the dean of students
there but and he showed me the data and
like we we've seen some students from
first trimester last year at like I
think it was a 65% attendance rate
actually one student that's at 100%. And
so we've made a lot of changes in that
program so that we could keep better
track of the data because when we
started it was not that
um intentional with what we were
gathering and the work was very new to
us and how to do this. So, that was one
learning that we've had. Um, something
that hasn't worked that we've let go of.
Um,
I don't know. Can you help me there?
Anything?
I I that I'd have to think about. I
think that
um in the over the years that I've been
here, there used to be less alignment
between the sites. So we've made a lot
of intentional moves to bring all our
sites together. We meet at least twice a
month with community school coordinators
to strengthen
individ.
But we also are finding that balance
between
alignment and and autonomy at the sites
to re to respond to the cultures and the
needs at the site. So, that is a that's
a dance we do a lot and that we're still
working on, but I I don't know what to
I'll think about it. Thank you.
>> Fair. Fair. Um, one of the things that's
that's a little bit hard here is the
acknowledgement that the student doesn't
exist in a vacuum, but is a part of a
community and a community that may have
issues that go well beyond reading,
writing, and arithmetic. M so I I I feel
like something that a district might
struggle with is what is our boundary of
jurisdiction? You know, I I I hear about
a program like Thrive and I think it's
wonderful that we're able to help these
families and also the burden of solving
Bay Area homelessness feels like a
little bit more than our district can
take on even with the wonderful
partnerships that we have. So, how do we
you you've thought so much about this
theory of action. How do we think about
our jurisdictional boundary where we
say, "Yes, those are real problems.
They're serious problems. Maybe even
they impact our students, but like that
just goes beyond what we can reasonably
tackle."
>> Well, I will tell you that we spend a
lot of time
working with our communities outside and
we have to do warm handoffs just like
you have to do with mental health.
>> Oh, go.
>> No, go.
>> Okay. Hi. I got a little signal from um
superintendent.
>> Yeah, we got Yeah, Wade. Yeah,
>> right.
So, um, it's a great question and a
really important point and something
that should always be wrestled with. And
I think that, um, if if you think about
community schools as one of their
primary goals is removing barriers to
learning, then we need to kind of again
think about it from that really, you
know, narrow perspective. It's like what
is getting in the way of this student
learning?
>> Yes. No way is Redwood City School
District I mean I wish that you could
but is going to solve Bay Area
homelessness or Bay Area housing like
you know with all due respect.
>> So um I think part of it is really
understanding where the significant pain
points are and
very significant to the model of
community schools is fullervice
partnerships.
So the partnership with life moves is
what's critical here. I don't think you
could engage in something like this
without Life Moves, without the
expertise, with again with all due
respect. So that's that's for me part of
what's so powerful about Redwood City's
work and community school model in
general is creating the partnerships so
that families know where they can go.
The reality is that schools are
hopefully the most trusted institution
by families and certainly, you know, if
they're entrusting their children with
us.
>> Yeah.
>> So, we can use that bridge to help them
learn about how they can engage other
services. That's the way I look at it.
But um I mean this is actually a
conversation John and I have had for
like for decades
>> because it's you have to wrestle with
it.
>> Yeah. You wrestle it with it and it's
the wraparound services that are created
at the community schools that really
will support that. And we're not going
to ever come up with Redwood City School
District can help with you know your
being unhoused. that's we have a
resource that you can go to
>> that we can connect you with but without
those resources I think parents come to
us and they don't know what to do and
that in turn uh stress that they are
experiencing goes right to the kid and
when you get them in the classroom then
it's a whole different story because
they're worrying about you know where
are they going to go as a family am I
going to lose my family because we can't
all live together or afford go into one
location. So I think the the wraparound
services are very prominent with the
community schools and what we have now
compared Michelle even 10 years ago has
really really changed and expanded.
Could it expand even more? Yes. But then
when you expand even more, you know,
there's the resources that need to come
with it. So in answer to your qu to your
question, David, we're not going to be
able to solve that problem. But if we
can give them the services and provide
them with the guidance of where they can
go with the help of our community school
coordinators, with the help of those um
case managers and so forth, that's a
plus and a plus for our kids as they
come to school each morning to learn.
>> Thank you. I want to make just one more
comment which is
it's it's more typical for community
schools to be one or two in a district.
It is not typical to have a
district-wide approach. Even though
there are eight specified community
schools
for all the time that I've been working
with this district, it's been very much
a community school approach. So there's
an understanding that if you're at a
school that doesn't have a family
resource center, you are guided as a as
a parent to another school to go to that
family resource center. Those boundaries
are permeable. And the the way that the
district has continued to think about
how do what should we do from the
central
um perspective and what should we do
from sites is critical. And it's and and
it's again some of the research we've
done in partnership with the district
has really shown there was tremendous
school variability in ways that also
were inequitable. So having the district
support has really made a difference.
>> I really appreciate the perspective on
like what's different about our district
because I'm only the trustee of this
district, right? I don't get to spend a
whole lot of time at other board
meetings and the like. Um I it it sounds
like we've got a lot more investment and
involvement here uh than than other
districts do. Is this like is this a
model that that you feel like other
districts should be more like Redwood
City District than this?
>> Yes. And I I mean Oakland Unified has um
also tried to be a full uh district-wide
community school approach and they have
you know and theirs look so different
because it's a different community. I
mean they have
multiple clinics for example at school
sites and you know they have lots of
different ways they're doing it but it's
the same idea and we do research there
too same idea and these are really two
of the very few districts I mean again
New York was a great place to learn from
in the beginning but even New York City
which is like you know the biggest um
has pockets
doesn't have a whole approach and I
think it it it's not easy to do this but
one of the things that's been
established over time is creating a
culture of shared leadership of respect
and know so that teachers know like the
way I always think about it is you know
if my son looked a little off I'd want
the teacher to have a place to go and in
Redwood City they do they can contact
the school counselors they can contact
the community school coordinators, they
can say, "I'm, you know, that kid needs
a little attention and figure out what's
going on because I can't as the teacher,
but I can identify there's an issue."
>> Thank you.
>> Done. Can I
>> One of the things that became pretty
clear from the graphs and the like where
you maybe you heard me snapping in my
excitement. Um, it was that tutoring
works, right? And we've known this for a
long time. You know, Bloom's two
singular problem and the like. Um and we
need to find ways to do it at scale. One
of the surprises is delighted to see is
like students are like I want more
tutoring. I want more academic supports.
Parents were like I want my kid to have
more tutoring and more academic
supports. There's enthusiasm
for it from the guardians from from the
learners. The data seems really clear
like holy moly we get some big
improvements there. What are some ways
that we could go and scale that out to
give these kids the full education they
deserve here? Because like that those
were some amazing transformations that
were grafted there.
>> I think one of the keys to tutoring is
finding the right programs because it
has to be a program that and it has has
to be driven by the school and it has to
be a program that is going to be aligned
to enhance what is happening in the
school day. can't to me it can't be a
standalone. So I think what you saw what
you saw at Hoover I mean at Clifford's
in his um
in what happened at at at Clifford it
was very much aligned. They knew the
student profile they were going to focus
on. They had the programs that were
going to meet the needs of those
students. It wasn't just I've seen
tutoring programs that come in and they
just like kind of sit with the student
and read with them or do homework help.
This was very intentional. How to make
it how to do it on a bigger scale
is dependent on how we as a district
come together and pull those resources
and and align that kind of a program. I
it's it it's not free
and it's in and it's it's coordination.
It takes a lot of coordination. It takes
a lot of communication
and so it but it can be done but it has
to have oversight and it I believe it
has to be aligned. It has to build on
the tier one experience
and the students that you are focused on
looking at their needs and addressing
those needs on an intention in an
intentional way.
>> Thank you very much.
>> Yeah, thanks Michelle. You know,
community schools are really their core
district work. Um and you've done a
great job of being the director of the
program. So we're we're going to miss
you as you're gone. Um, you know, uh, if
I I truly believe that if if we believe
in our in our vision and mission, um,
then this is really the kind of
integrated academic wellness and family
support that is necessary to see that
through and it's it's what our families
really deserve. Um, I'm also grateful
that our, you know, the model centers on
parent voice. Um, it was really good to
hear about the lived experiences, parent
groups, and the advisory councils. Um
because you know asking families to help
shape the work instead of just receiving
services is really it'sly kind of the
definition of an equity centered
approach. Um you thanks for all the data
that you shared. I remember I think it
was last year where you were saying you
were just putting in the data collection
mechanisms and we had a bakery analogy
or something like that. Um, so it was
neat to see that that is all coming
together and as we go through the years
of implementation, seeing the program
keep thriving and thriving, you you're
really building what is clearly uh a
coherent data informed model. Um, and
it's a strategy that aligns with MTSS
and our LCAP goals and vision for whole
child support. So thank you for the work
that everyone's doing here. Um, again
for all the speakers uh for the
presentation tonight.
>> Pass to Dr. Baker.
So as I said previously um it's come a
long ways in the past 20 years and just
in the last 10 last five even um with
the resources that you have brought
forth into the district which are still
going to be with the district for a
couple more years which is great. Um,
the other pieces are the staff that
you've brought with you that are quite
competent and know what they're doing.
Um, I want to express my gratitude to
Gil, Elsa, and Enrique for everything
they've been doing and also Liz Calderon
who has been with us for many years and
started out way back when with the
community schools as a coordinator at a
site. Um, with all that being said, um,
Indica, you didn't talk very much about
the grant that you have submitted. He
talks about the kids in the middle
school and how, you know, there's
something at the middle school. If you
don't if you're if you're behind, I'm
I'm reading two grade levels behind,
three grade levels behind. I'm coming to
the after school program. I know I have
some tutoring I have to do, but I'm
still not really excited. So this grant
that he has applied for and we talked
about it is about getting kids
interested in maybe something that they
would want to do. Is it something like
coding? Is it something like automobile
repair? Is it something like an
electrician?
>> This was the CTE grant.
>> This is the CTE grant that he's talking
about. So kudos to you and the group for
putting that through and thinking about
those kids who Anna and I and Wendy C
when we're at the middle school
sometimes that are like oh gosh I really
don't want to be here and you you have
to have a hook and this could be that
hook for those kids you know to make
them really interested in coming at
school coming to school and really
interested on yes I have to go to math
because I have to learn this because
this is what I want to do or I need to
really understand what I'm reading and
comprehend it Well, so I can learn what
I want to do after school. So, I applaud
you. I hope we get it. I know we're
competing against others. It It's um for
the middle school, but I know didn't say
the high schools are also competing for
it.
>> So, you can come back.
>> Yeah.
>> Just so you know about this. It I
thought it really exciting.
>> So, yeah, it's the K12 strong workforce
grant. Um and so it's specifically for
at least for us for seventh and eighth
graders because it does go on into high
school. Um, and so what it's aimed at
doing is to uh, at least what we applied
for was to address early CTE, college
and career exploration at seventh and
eighth grade level. So that that way we
build alignment with Sequoia Union High
School District which we've already
connected with so that when they get to
9th grade we kind of have a warm handoff
and say students have been exposed to um
CTE pathways in green tech in ICT and AM
arts and media entertainment um as well
as um uh business entrepreneurship. And
so the goal is to bring experts in those
field, do field trips, do externships in
seventh and eighth grade so that when
they get to 9th grade, they have that
exposure so that they can transition uh
a little bit more seamlessly into if
they want to continue those fields um as
well as into the the community college.
So the research that we did, we saw
those three areas of those three
pathways for CTE and made sure that
Sequoia, uh, Woodside, MA, Carlmont,
they all had those pathways as well as
well in the in the community college um,
districts. And then ultimately in the
that we see that there was a a equity
gap in the job market. So we did land um
we did job market um research to see so
that we could do a through line from
middle school all the way to um families
getting these uh living wage jobs especi
when they're when they're older. So
yeah.
>> Yeah. I'm excited about that. I hope I
hope we get it. Cross our fingers. Um
in in closing, Michelle, you've done an
outstanding job with the community
schools. um you should have started this
a long time ago, but I couldn't pull you
away from the school uh for years, but
what you've brought to the community
school program is
what others are looking for. My
colleague from Sonteo Foster City, who
some of us know better than others, um
brought a group of people here and I
didn't even know they were here until I
I think honest that somebody's at Taft.
and go who's at Taft and it was um the
superintendent from Sonteo Foster City
brought a group of teachers and
administrators to come out and visit the
community schools because he wanted to
also start the same type of programs in
Sanonteo Foster City and went after the
grant and did get the grant to start the
planning grant I believe and then
>> Marcela isn't it and they it went on
further didn't it
>> well funding for an additional five
years versus about $5 million.
>> So, see, we're kind of that model and he
took it to heart and went with it. And I
thank you and everyone here from the
community school program. It's an
awesome job. Thank you so much for all
you've done, Michelle. You're going to
be missed, but we know where you live.
>> Thank you.
>> All right. Thanks again.
Uh, all right. Let's move on to um
usually around nine o'clock we see if
the trustees want to have a quick like a
two or three minute break. Good. Keep
going. Okay.
>> Yeah, grab a bottle of water as we
switch topics. Um and this is on
u uh community schools. Okay. So, let's
we have one more public comment on
public on community schools. We'll take
that now and then we'll switch over to
um mental health. Uh this is Leanne
Thompson. and Leanne, you'll have uh the
microphone's on so
>> Awesome. We can hear you and you'll get
three minutes.
>> Great. Um so my name is Leanne Thompson
and I am the um PTO president at
Clifford. Um I just wanted to make one
note. You talked about um tutoring and
the mathnasium program specifically at
Clifford. I wanted to make a note and I
think it's really important to know that
that program is owned and run by a
parent at Clifford and so we are using
resources within our own school. Um, and
I think that there are a lot of times
that we miss opportunities to um, reach
out to our parents and those who own
businesses and have things that we can
use within our own community. Um, so
that's it. I just wanted to to note that
um, that finding a way to to resource
those those people and those businesses
that we have in our community is very
important. Um, and then also to note
that that program specifically was paid
for by the PTO. Um and so you're
welcome. Um so um we are as parents are
supporting the community centers as well
uh with donations and and things like
that. So that's it.
>> Thanks Leanne. Thanks for the the
additional context. Um all right. So now
we're on to our mental health program
board report. Anna.
>> Okay. So today we're going to have uh
Anna Paola that I is going to be coming
up to present along with her team also
some Stanford people that also
collaborate with her
>> and I can share.
>> Yes.
Just going to give people a second to
move around.
All right, I'll go ahead and get
started. Uh, good evening, Dr. Baker,
trustees, and cabinet members, and those
sitting here with us tonight. I really
wanted to spend some time to share the
progress we've made towards building out
our district's mental health system and
how this is impacting our students on a
daily basis.
Using the same framework you just saw in
the community schools presentation, our
mental health program is a really a
cornerstone of our district-wide system
to support the overall well-being for
all of our students. It plays a key role
in advancing district capacity and in
turn support students learning growth
and development by working within its
system and all its moving parts. So we
are part of the LCAP goal one. There's
MTSS framework by participating in
different site level meetings. We are in
both community schools and traditional
schools and really focused on student
and family well-being.
a little backstory of kind of how our
program came to be. In the about six
years ago, um we well I wasn't actually
here yet, but Dr. Baker elicited the
help from Stanford University to try to
see what we could do to prepare our
students returning from COVID. And so
with partnerships from the gardener
center and the center for youth
providing a lot of feedback, they were
able to have the vision for the for the
start of this program. The first two
years of this program, so 2021 to 2023,
the focus of the counseling program was
really to get how do we help the kids
coming back from COVID, right? There's a
lot of anxiety with their health, with
their parents' health, a lot of social
anxiety. We haven't had to socialize
with people in person for a year and a
half. So what's that what's that going
to be like? What we've seen in years
three and four, so last year and two
years ago, we're still seeing a we're
still seeing a little bit of that, but
we're really seeing a lot more
things that are impacting their
academics that are not linked to co. So
we're seeing a lot of trauma. We're
seeing immigration trauma. We're seeing
inter intergenerational trauma. We're
seeing a lot of suicidal ideiation and
self harm. So things that maybe that's
not why the program was created, but
these are things that we are addressing
and solving for. Now we are currently in
year five of our program. So not only
are we continuing to do the mental
health work that we've been doing the
last four years, but our focus this year
is also how do we create more
sustainability moving forward, just
being aware of budgets and funding
sources, you know, kind of going away
over the last couple of years.
So what are we talking about when we're
talking about a system? So a lot of
effort and focus is often placed on the
technical aspects of a program. Who do
we need to hire? What level of expertise
do they have? Do we have an curriculum?
The the things that are tangible that
you can kind of check off a list. But if
we're only focusing on those, we're
really not focusing on how we're going
to help a larger group of students. So
by simultaneously focusing on creating a
culture and building structural
supports, we can make sure that the
technical supports are available
districtwide.
Previously to the system, every school
operated counseling services very
independently. There was a district-wide
contract, but every site managed their
contracted partners kind of as they saw
fit. So there was no oversight on
referrals, how long the students were
being seen by the partners. We've had
situations where a parent has called us
and been like, "Oh, my kid was seen for
counseling at your school two years ago.
Can I get a record?" We don't even know
who that student saw because we weren't
keeping any records. So, it was really
hard for us to even engage parents
because we couldn't even tell them who
met with their kid 2 years before. Now,
we can. So, having the system has
created alignment across the district so
that student, staff, and parents know
what to expect when they go to any of
our school sites and request counseling
services. It's the same systems and the
same protocols across all 12 schools.
Um, I have a parent who would like to
say a couple words about our counseling
program. So, Augustine, if you would
like to come up.
>> Hi. Uh, good evening. Uh, my name is
Augustine Espino and I am a parent of a
student at Kennedy Middle School. I'm
here today to share my experience with
the mental health service available at
Kennedy. Having mental health at school
has helped my daughter so much by
allowing her to visit them when she
feels stress bullying by by her peers.
That's the fact. And insecurity when she
has a test. It is incredibly important
to have counselors available on campus
be because when our kids have their need
to see someone who they can feel safe to
talk to.
Therefore, having having access to
service at the mental health on campus
has been for me and my daughter a great
experience. And when I say me is real. I
walk in one time myself crying because I
didn't know how to help my daughter. So
it is uh uh
having a team of the mental health let
me uh and then when my daughter visit
the mental health I get a call from from
that department they to let me know that
my daughter was there. They didn't tell
me the details for the loss.
However,
to conclude, mental health on campus is
essential, more so than ever before. Our
childrens are going through so much
stress due to the current political
atmosphere. Thank you.
>> Thank you, Augustine.
When we help our students, we're not
just helping our students. We're helping
the families that they live in. We
recognize that our students don't
operate in a vacuum. They are they have
families, they have parents, they have
communities. And as much as we can, we
support the families as well.
We have been able to expand capacity
over the first four years of our
program. Again, we're in year five, so
we have data for the first four years.
Last year, our district counselors
provided almost half of all of the
counseling services provided despite the
fact that they only make up just over a
third of the overall number of counselor
counseling hours on campus.
They have provided four times the number
of tier 1 services in year four than
they did in year 1. In years two and
three, this was due to increased SEAL.
As we've decreased counselor leal to
facilitate teacherled, we've increased
the amount of check-ins we're doing. So,
individual short touch points with
students to get them back to baseline,
back to class. And obviously, we have
very high quality licensed clinicians
across our school sites that are able to
implement evidence-based practices with
support from our Stanford partners.
I would love to introduce Dr.
Shashankoshi.
He was part of the team 5 years ago who
helped shape the creation of this
program. He has supported us beyond that
initial start 5 years ago through
ongoing consultation and guid guidance
around best practices and we are
extremely fortunate to have such an
expert in the field of mental health
partner with us on a regular basis. So
Dr. Yoshi
>> thank you on
Dr. Baker trustees, it's a real
privilege to be with you. Um, hearing
from Augustine, this is very
inspirational to hear firsthand from a
parent
what kind of impact this kind of work
can have. So, I've been in this field
for 30 years.
This is one of the first districts from
New York to Texas to California that I
have been in with the leadership that
you all have. It was not difficult for
us to come into the district when we did
because we had the partnership you all
had the partnership with the gardener
center. So when the center for youth
mental health and well-being came and we
got a grant from the provost as part of
the Redwood City Sequoia partnership,
we had already come to a place that
believes and knows that mental health is
part of overall health and their
students have to be healthy enough to
learn to access the wonderful resources
that were just presented. And our
teachers
have to have the tools. They have to be
well themselves
in order to reach and teach every
student.
There's really very few districts in my
experience like this district
in spite of all the challenges you have
now and in particular the Bay Area
districts facing challenging financial
times. Basic aid districts being hit the
hardest.
This is the time we have to protect
the aspects that you heard about today.
Your students ability to learn, thrive,
and stay engaged
is part of their mental health. It's
inextricably linked to their academic
performance and well-being, right?
Better brains, healthier brains, more
likely to engage, more likely to get to
school, which is how obviously districts
like Redwood City gets their funding.
So, I know that I'm preaching to the
choir here, but mental health really is
the foundation
that allows students to access learning
and achieve their potential. You all
know that one in five young people in
this country experience a mental health
condition each year. And mental health
conditions are the leading cause of
absenteeism and underperformance.
when students receive timely support
such as through Anapala's program and
the MHC's at each of these sites. You've
heard some of the data. You've heard
about the 5% increase in attendance.
That's very important. We've seen that
in other basic aid districts as well.
We've seen that at East Palo Alto
Academy. We have six clinicians there as
part of the Stanford School Mental
Health Team. We have seen similar rises
in engagement and in attendance and in
graduation rates over the last 15 years
that we've been there. Simply put, as
you know, healthy minds better able to
access the curriculum.
We have also seen in other districts
that don't have the kind of engagement
that you all have and the leadership
that you all have that students in
distress are going to go unnoticed.
They're more likely to disengage, to
drop out, or require very costly
downstream crisis interventions. All the
things you're hearing about today and
what you're going to be hearing about in
a few short minutes is all about the
early interventions, the upstream, the
linking mental health to overall health
and access to the curriculum.
We also know that from experiences in
other districts,
mental health is not an extra
in spite of what some insurance
companies will have you believe where
it's a carve out,
right? And um Trusty Weekly asked a
really good question like where is the
line?
How do we support our community? We
don't have endless resources.
And I really loved what Dr. Gerstein
presented which was around well we have
this community
that we take care of. We are not in
charge of doing all things for the
entire community. However, our students
are here and we need to make sure as we
help them to learn how to think and how
to learn how to reflect. We have to
create the conditions that allow them to
do so. So if that means we're engaging
with a community partner around housing
insecurity or we're engaging with
community partners around mental health,
these are all parts of the conditions
that are essential
for our students to be able to actually
get to school and learn and when they
leave the school day continue to have
that intellectual curiosity.
So every dollar spent on early support
yields multiple dollars saved in
academic recovery and downstream
intervention costs.
I just want to say a couple of more
things that I've noticed here in the
work over the last 5 years and in
general in underserved districts in Sato
and Santa Clara County. This systems
approach is very rare. When I first met
Dr. Baker,
I could tell that he was someone who
really understood this connection
between mental health and overall health
as well as what is the role of a
district that is constantly facing
financial challenges
as we search thoughtfully for the next
superintendent. And of course, no one in
the room would say for Dr. Baker's
replacement that is not possible. But
for the next superintendent, the next
leader,
we must stay committed to this overall
approach.
The capacity to support the whole child.
You've heard that tonight over and over.
It's on your mast head. You use the word
love in your mission statement. So, we
have to build and sustain on the on the
good work that you're all doing.
Um
so I really want to thank you all for
this partnership.
Applaud your efforts during COVID and
postcoid to not only look after the
needs of the students and families but
also for your teachers and staff and we
really heard that in the beginning years
of this partnership how the staff felt
like there was intentional effort placed
on their health and their well-being.
not only to support the students but for
themselves. So teacher well-being has
been seen not only as a means to an end
to support the students and families but
that the teachers deserved to have that
kind of support from their district
leaders.
So in closing, let me just say
now more than ever in very strained
financial times and here to for unseen
political times where our communities
are systematically marginalized.
Mental health is a smart investment.
It not only protects students learning,
it also strengthens staff well-being and
retention.
And it sustains this district's
beautiful core mission, educating
the whole child.
Let's ensure every student has both the
opportunity and the emotional capacity
to learn.
Thank you, Anabola.
As you can see, Dr. Yoshi has been an
invaluable partner for the last five
years. Thank you.
So, our district counselors, who what do
they do all day?
Um, I first want to introduce you to
some of them who are here in the
audience. I'm going to ask them just
quickly to stand up, say their name, and
what school site they're at. I'm gonna
stand this way.
It's Renee Rodriguez. I'm at Clipper
site.
Hi, I'm Catherine Kennedy.
>> I'm Maryanne and I'm at Henry
and we had a counselor who had to leave
because she has a young one, but she was
here earlier and Shirley at MIT. So,
introduce her for you. And so, in this,
this is our team picture we took at our
the be kind of the beginning of the year
kickoff meeting we had that was actually
hosted at Stanford. Thank you to our
lovely partners and um includes actually
some of our interns from this year.
So I know there's a lot of information
on this slide and we really tried to
come up with a visual, thank you to
Kristen and her team to really capture
all of the work that our counselors are
doing. There's the very obvious direct
work, the sitting down with a student
face to face in an office. However,
there's so much more to the work that
they do that helps create and maintain
this system that we've been able to have
up and running for now five years.
There's participation in screen teams
and 504s and IEPs. There's the
integration of goals at a site level and
district level. Stanford hosts echo
presentations which is a worldwide once
a month mental health conversation. And
one of our counselors presented last
year and actually during that call there
were people from Egypt and Germany like
asking questions. It was a beautiful
moment.
They really oversee data collection at
at their site levels. Without the
district counselors at the sites, we
wouldn't have the data that we have and
just ongoing infrastructure. When we're
applying for grants and I need last
minute data, they've got it because they
know their sites. They're there day in
and day out and they know their
communities. So this is just a quick
snapshot of all of the work that they're
doing.
We are fortunate enough to have many
successes to be able to share 5 years
into the program.
The first is that we've really been able
to cultivate a culture that embraces
mental health. We do a survey at the end
of the year. We've done it three years
in a row now where we survey our
students, our parents, and our teachers.
We want to know is what we're doing
working? Is there anything that we're
not doing that would be helpful? Um
because again, if we're going to collect
data, we should be using it to inform
our decision- making. So, year after
year, we've seen that students know who
their counselor are and where to go to
find them. This percentage has increased
each time over the last 3 years, our
students feel comfortable talking to
their school counselor. And this
includes middle school. So, four out of
five kids, if you just go up and ask,
hey, do you want to talk to a counselor?
The answer is yes.
And over half of our check-ins,
individual and group therapy referrals
come from students and parents.
The majority of our referrals for
individual therapy come from parents. It
means we've done a really good job over
the last four years to build rapport
with a community that maybe historically
didn't have trust in mental health
counselors for them to feel comfortable
enough to be like, "Hey, I trust you.
Can you help my kid? I don't know how to
help them." And for check-ins, students
are asking for them. Whereas in year
one, if we look at the data, almost 75%
of all referrals came from school staff.
And so we're seeing less staff referrals
and more parent and student referrals,
which was the goal of the program from
the start.
In our student survey, we asked them a
couple open-ended questions. So just,
has a counselor changed anything for
you?
There's the students who had a very
clear answer to that. Yes. and this is
how it helped me. We also saw a lot of
responses that said, you know what, it
hasn't helped me, but it's really helped
my friend. And so there's a level of
awareness that although a counselor
might not help you, that's a resource
that your friends are accessing or that
they could access if they if they needed
something. And then the lot of tangible
this is what I learned. Coping skills,
emotion regulation and management, how
to express themselves both in academic
and in social settings.
We asked teachers, the question was,
"Think about a student in your class who
received individual or group counseling.
Do you think it helped them stay engaged
in school?" And 97% said yes.
They shared that although it it might
have decreased time in the classroom, it
ultimately helped their overall academic
engagement because it helped decrease
the noise in their head that was going
on with all the worries, whether it was
a social situation or a situation going
on at home. By having that 30, 45, 50
minutes once a week, they were able to
get things off their chest, practice
their coping skills, and be able to
refocus into the classroom.
Again, we asked teachers some open-ended
questions
and again most of them found that these
services were very helpful. Um, a lot of
the the responses also said that they
recognize that this is an area that they
cannot fill. This is not their area of
expertise. So, they really appreciated
that there is an expert and a thought
partner on campus where if they feel
like their student is struggling with
something that they can't help with,
they know where they can go to ask for
that help.
And then lastly, we interviewed some
parents. Um, and again, a lot of
parents, we had a lot of positive
feedback
just sharing how the services helped
their children
and many of them were worried about not
having access in coming years.
Our second success is that over the last
four years, we've been able to increase
the number of services we've been able
to provide. We've doubled the amount of
services from year 1 to year 4. And
that's thanks to having systems in place
that streamline the process that make it
easier for referrals to come in to be
assigned to counselors to go through the
counseling process, exit, and then get
the weight lists going a little bit
faster.
Last year, over half of our students, so
3,300ish students, received some sort of
mental health intervention at their
school site.
From year 1 to year four, here you can
see kind of the increase in check-ins
we've been able to do with students.
Last year, we averaged 14 minutes per
check-in. The year before was 21. Our
goal was to bring it down to 15. Again,
the goal of a check-in is not to address
a big situation and go deep. The goal is
what's going on? What's a coping skill
we can use right now? How do we get you
back to normal and back to class? If if
we then find that maybe individual
therapy or group therapy would be
appropriate or community referral,
that's a separate conversation. But a
check-in is really how do we get you
regulated again so that you can
re-engage in your learning. And so
really having it down to 14 minutes is
quite spectacular considering that we
were at 21 minutes the year before and
about 2425 the year before that.
Here
we see the number of students who
received individual therapy again from
year 1 to year four. Last year there was
almost 6,900 individual therapy sessions
conducted in our district. So most
students are a are able to receive
individual therapy. We do have sometimes
weight list across some of our school
sites. We aim for students to receive
about 10 to 12 sessions when they're
receiving individual therapy. We want
individual therapy, school-based
individual therapy to be short-term and
solution focused. We do have some
students that need additional supports.
And in those cases, we do try to refer
out to community partners to provide
maybe more intensive, more longer term
things that maybe aren't as appropriate
for a school-based counselor, eating
disorders, suicidal ideiation. We can
really help crisis management in the
moment, but we're not necessarily the
place to hold those those referrals. But
for the we have obviously over 600 kids
that it it is appropriate and we're not
referring out.
And then in terms of crisis services,
unfortunately those have increased.
There are two main categories that we
categorize crisis interventions in our
district. The first is extreme emotional
dysregulation. So that's what we call
when a student needs 45 minutes or more
of a counselor support in order to
regulate and go back to class. So, that
15-minute check-in wasn't enough. They
It's a big meltdown in class. Um, you
know, they were triggered in the
classroom, they were triggered on the
playground. Kind of doesn't matter where
the trigger came from, but they really
needed a lot of intensive one-on-one
counseling support. We've actually seen
that number decrease year after year for
the last 3 years, which means that we're
we've done a better job building
capacity with our teachers and staff so
that there's other people other than
counselors who can help support and the
kids are reaching baseline quicker. We
typically did see it with younger kids
more towards the beginning of the year,
but the great news is that we're seeing
less of it year after year. Where the
increase comes from then is self harm
and suicidal ideation.
And so we have unfortunately seen those
numbers increase year after year. And
not only are we seeing them increase,
when we do see suicidal ideation, it
does tend to be more severe and more
significant.
So far this year, we've had three
students hospitalized, which to my
knowledge is the most we've ever had in
the first three months of school. So,
this is something that our counselors
and our families are dealing with on a
pretty consistent basis. The good news
is that we're able to identify these
students before any actions are taken
and we're able to provide interventions
and resources and guidance to get them
the additional supports that they need.
And our Stanford partners have been
wonderful actually for several of our
students in crisis who have required
hospitalization. Our
third success is our in-house intern
program.
This we are in our third year of
implementing our intern program. Our
first year we had one. Last year we had
three. This year we hoped to have four,
but we had a school contract kind of
fall through. So we have three. As you
see on the slide, each intern saves our
district approximately $19,000
as opposed to finding someone of similar
experience through a community- based
organization. When we partner with CBOS,
we often get trainees who are still in
graduate school who are, you know, doing
their practicum site through an agency
and get placed in our district. We when
we partner with organizations like Camar
and One Life and previously Star Vista,
we don't necessarily get a say in what
level of experience of a counselor we
get and in trainees need experience and
so they're the ones most often in these
agencies and our school sites. So our
thought process was if we're going to be
getting trainees anyway, why not recruit
them ourselves, go straight to the
graduate schools, and then the cost
savings comes from the supervision is in
house. The electronic health records and
trainings and oversight, all of that is
in house and we're not paying a
community based organization to provide
that management. We do it in house. So
this also allows us flexibility. We
decide when their supervisions are. So
they're not during school hours. We work
with them to figure out, okay, like we,
for example, this year we have two
interns at MIT. So we were able to work
with their schedules to make sure that
they were at opposite ends so they could
share an office, which isn't always
possible when working with the CBO
because they have so many partners and
availabilities maybe aren't as flexible.
In order for this program to continue,
we do need a couple things. It does
require a lot of work kind of in the
middle of the school year to go to
graduate school fairs, recruit,
interview, onboard the trainees and then
it does require our licensed district
mental health counselors to provide the
ongoing supervision so we don't have to
outsource that cost.
We have improved district-wide
protocols.
So in terms of a referral process, each
school has both a staff referral and a
parent referral. So there are multiple
avenues and it's very clear by the
number of referrals that we receive that
both staff and parents are very familiar
with the referral process. There's a lot
of collaboration in screen teams. So
every student that's referred is brought
up in a screen team so that the whole
team can have feedback on oh yes I knew
the student or maybe this student
received counseling two years ago. Do
they need it again? Maybe we need to do
a community based referral or this
student is already receiving services
through their IEP. This shouldn't be a
school-based referral. So
going through the screen team really
allows us to see the whole child. In
terms of data collection,
each district counselor is responsible
for the data for their school site. So
they really make sure that all the
partners are entering their data. So at
the end of the year, there's efficacy
within the data and we know that
everything's been entered correctly. It
allows us to see trends. So we can then
make decisions and we can see patterns.
If at one school, one year, fifth grade,
wow, we got tons of check-ins for fifth
grade. Well, then maybe we can think
about what do we need to implement next
year in sixth grade. So, that's what the
data collection has allowed us to do.
And we have a lot of protocols for
crisis management districtwide. I have
been out to most school sites and offer
trainings both in suicide prevention
protocols and CPS trainings for staff.
Just making sure everyone's familiar
with the protocols, who's responsible
for what, what are the forms, when do
you contact parents, when do you contact
the crisis line. So having these this
district-wide crisis protocols really
lets us catch our students and make sure
that we are supporting them in in a
crisis as opposed to not being able to
catch it and address it in the moment.
Our fifth success success is expanded
access to grant funding. So because we
have all of this data when we find
grants that ask for data, we have it. We
have it ready. We have tons of it. We
have actually probably usually more data
than grants are asking for, which means
that we can submit applications faster.
And we haven't received every grant that
we've applied to, but we've received
some pretty big ones. We are in the
second of two years of our CYBHI grants.
So, this is where we were able to
implement cognitive behavior
intervention for trauma in schools,
CBITS, which is an evidence-based
practice for addressing trauma in a
group therapy setting. Unfortunately,
that that was a $750,000 grant over two
years. We hired two counselors. We
trained I think this year we're up to
almost a hundred staff in working with
students with trauma.
And unfortunately, that grant does end
June of this school year.
Uh Michelle and I recently applied for
Get Healthy San Monteo and were awarded
it. So that is $200,000 over two years.
Our goal is to hire a clinician
part-time to kind of be in the
enrollment center to be able to provide
limited amounts of family therapy or
some parent child work. We recognize
that we work a lot with students, there
are still family needs in place. So, if
we can meet with some parents, maybe
just two or three times, not long term,
not kind of the same way we meet with
students, but just be like, what's going
on offload what h how can we problem
solve together from a clinical
perspective? We're hoping to be able to
offer that to some of our families. And
then lastly, our partnership with
Stanford University. We've had it for 5
years and that also ends in June. And
that has totaled an investment of over
$1.5 million over 5 years. So, we've
been exceptionally fortunate to have
that partnership um and sad and a little
concerned that that's coming to an end.
And lastly, our partnership with
Stanford. So there's us, the Gardener
Center, and the Center for Youth. And
the Gardener Center has really elevated
our clinical work through their support
with data collection. They've helped us
write a lot of our grants and how to
when we have to do grant reporting and
implementation. Their support has been
very helpful. They've helped us approach
the program from a like a systemic lens.
how do we create a system of mental
health and not just kind of an outlying
program and they really amplified our
work. They really they as they mentioned
they've talked about us and they they
really show that Redwood City is the
place that's doing this work correctly.
The Center for Youth Support has ensured
ensured timely and quality care that's
extremely difficult for our students to
access through our psychiatry fellows
which Dr. Dr. Bot will speak to next and
their their clinical expertise they
provide through both formal trainings
and informal consultations means that
we're able to then provide students with
the highest quality of care.
So with that I would like to introduce
Dr. Porvabot.
She facilitates group consultation on a
monthly basis for district counselors.
So anytime counselors have questions or
concerns, maybe something a kid is
display displaying is out of the scope
of practice for us and we're not sure
where to go, we're able to consult with
her and she gives us kind of next steps
and guidance. And she oversees the
psychiatry fellow we have each year in
our district, which we've also been
fortunate to have for 5 years now. So
I'll let her take over and she can say
more about the amazing work her and her
team are doing.
>> Thank you, Anna Paula. It's an honor to
be here in front of you all today. Um,
and thank you for the warm welcome. Um,
you know, one thing that's not in my
body, I do a lot of things at Stanford,
uh, but the thing that I enjoy the most
is probably the school's work. And I
work in several districts, but this is
probably my favorite. Um, one thing I
don't think a lot of folks know is I
grew up in a school where children were
having a lot of big behaviors. I was a
very quiet student growing up. Um, and
there were at least four different kids
in each of my elementary school years
that would be having very big meltdowns,
very big behaviors. And I remember one
year something changed. I saw these
children being able to access somebody.
I don't I at that age I didn't know who
it was. I later learned it was actually
a school-based counselor. Um, and at
that time I saw that they were able to
stay in the classroom, stay engaged, and
actually as a little kid, me being my
little 8 nyear-old self, I actually
started to enjoy being with them. So,
I've been able to see I've personally
experienced from as a peer um what it
means to have a counselor in a school
and now I'm here. So, I'm going to talk
a little bit about what I do. Um so, the
child and adolescent psychiatry team
services offers multiple different
things. We offer systems level supports
where we are supporting district leaders
where we have meetings with different
folks from district leadership trying to
address things that might be coming up
troubleshooting or even thinking forward
forward thinking about think trends that
are coming up uh and where we might be
of support through that. We've done uh
program development day workshops for
teachers um and program staff on various
topics that they have identified as
wanting. Um including a teacher
well-being workshop. Uh we also have
offered like as mentioned as needed
support. Uh there have been times that
I've gotten in these meetings where I've
learned things and I'm like oh I
actually know a resource that might be
really helpful. Um and so those have
been very impactful. We also lead
monthly group clinical consultation
across all district schools. Um and so
school psychologists and school mental
health counselors can join this meeting
and we facilitate shared learning. They
bring situations or cases that are
coming up um that they're really
struggling with. These are usually kids
that are having really big challenges or
the kids that have just stopped showing
up and we have no idea what's happening
um with that child. Um and so we've had
been able to kind of create a space
where they are all able to support each
other. I try to create a space where we
are leveraging group wisdom where you
all are very fortunate. You have very ex
um folks with so much expertise that
come to these who have different
backgrounds um and we're able to kind of
see how they can complement each other
and support each other even though
they're not at the same site. So I think
that's been very helpful. At the setting
level, we also provide support and
training for school staff and school and
teachers and also family members. Uh,
and at the individual level, our fellows
um who are there for a half day per week
on site um for the entire year. This is
a and I'll talk on the next slide of
where they're at in their training, but
they um I conduct student evaluations
that have been identified by the school
as um a child who's having significant
mental health concerns. Sometimes those
are also the children that are not
coming to school. Sometimes there are
the kids who have been to the ER several
times for suicidal ideiation or suicide
attempts. Uh these are the kids also
that are might be having um more
dangerous behaviors off campus um or
having big meltdowns in the classroom
that's disrupting everyone's ability to
uh stay in that classroom.
So we operate at all different systems
and this systems approach is something
that is pretty unique to Redwood City.
uh and I think it's been lovely to see
how intentional it was from the very
beginning. So I'll talk about actually
how many of you are familiar with the
child psychiatry fellow or even a child
psychiatrist
raise of hands. Excellent. We've got two
people. Um awesome. So this slide might
actually be useful. Um so child
psychiatry training is a long training
process. These are um this it involves
going to medical school um which is four
years then getting your MD or DOE. After
that, you will complete your adult
psychiatry residency training program
where you learn about adult mental
health um and thinking about also uh how
the parents might be showing up um in
that child's life. And then after that
you do two years of child psychiatry
fellowship. The fellows that we talk
about that are coming into your district
are in that tail end. They're in that
last year of their training and they
have around 23,000 hours of clinical
experience. So these are people that are
coming in and hopefully being helpful
and also learning. For our fellows, it's
a unique opportunity to see a child in
their natural environment. When we do
evaluations, we not only, you know, meet
with the parent and get history. We're
meeting with the all of the school team
members, right? We're talking with the
principal, we're talking with the school
psychologist or the counselor or the
speech therapist, whoever is working
with that child, even the teacher. Our
fellows also go inside the classroom and
we'll do classroom observation and
recess observations. So these are very
in-depth evaluations that you you cannot
really get even in our child psychiatry
clinics where we don't get to see that
child in their natural environment.
So our fellows do several different
things. Um they work with students
who've been identified as having some
sort of mental health need. Um and then
they consult with the mental health
counselors to determine what is the next
step. Um they also then will do uh
evaluations. Um the feedback that we've
gotten is that those evaluations are
very helpful at determining whether that
child will qualify for a 504 or an IEP
evaluation. Um and then when that child
is able to get that, we've seen that
they've been able to engage in the
classroom in a more meaningful way.
We've also been able to provide
referrals and resources. There have been
um times where there are kids that are
flying under the radar who are having
serious mental health concerns that are
getting in the way of them being able to
access their curriculum or show up to
school. Um and once we had this
evaluation, we were able to connect them
with the right supports, getting them
connected to a mental health clinic or
getting them the medical care that they
needed.
Um we also increase capacity building
and education. And so in addition to all
of the things I mentioned, we are
supporting clinical consultation for for
our clinicians.
I wanted So there's been so many success
stories and I I was asked to pick one,
so I will quickly pick one. Um you know,
uh there was an 8-year-old student who
we got consulted on this past year who
was having severe suicidal ideation. Um
unfortunately across the USA, we've been
seeing this as a problem. Suicidal
thoughts and suicidal behaviors are
happening earlier and earlier. Um, and
this is not the only district that is um
encountering students who are uh having
students having these sorts of concerns.
So, this little 8-year-old had been h uh
to the ER several times. The counselor
at the elementary school had been
working with this student on a weekly
basis, but this uh and knowing that this
kid was navigating passive SI, maybe
sometimes not, having some self harm
behavior, this counselor had tried to
get this child into mental health care
um on multiple attempts but was not able
to for various reasons. The family was
encountering every barrier imaginable uh
that was getting in the way of that kid
getting a proper evaluation and support
that they needed. Um, and so again, the
burden was on this counselor to figure
out what to do. And then that child
stopped showing up to school. And so,
and then we found out later that they
had been seen by a pediatrician and the
pediatrician's office was very worried.
They said, "This child needs to go to
the emergency room. You know, we think
that they're having pretty significant
behaviors." And in that whole process, I
was con um the counselor reached out to
me. I reached out to the pediatrician
and we created a team plan to support
that student. We did determine after um
uh collaborating that that hopefully
that child felt comfortable coming back
to school and meeting with the counselor
uh the next day uh to figure out a plan
and we did game plan that situation
saying that okay we're going to do an
assessment and determine what the next
steps are. uh that child ended up
getting hospitalized and um
unfortunately due to a lot of what I
would consider intergenerational mental
health trauma the the family pulled the
child out of the hospital quickly um
that was not against that was not for
the what was the recommendation by the
psychiatrist in that unit. And so again
the counselor is now in this position
where they have this knowledge that this
child has been discharged is going to
come back to school. What are we going
to do? And so we were able to deploy our
fellow um to conduct an evaluation to
help support that student and get them
connected where they needed to go. Um
that surpassed every barrier including
wait times within the county, including
wait times in my own clinic at Stanford.
Uh we were able to get that kid seen
within a week. Uh that is like unheard
of at most other places for an
evaluation of that acuity. Um and so I
think you know that inter that systems
collaboration is a big piece. I will
also mention that uh when that child
showed up at Stanford Children's ER, I
got a call from my colleague who works
in the ER who actually was a Redwood
City Child Psychiatry Fellow those years
ago. So, our fellows are staying in our
community. They are staying and work
choosing to work with with this
community because of the positive
experiences that they had in this
district. So, I want to just really
highlight that our last year I would say
was a major highlight. We had a fellow
who was Spanish speaking who actually
asked to be placed in this district
saying I want to work here. I want to
work with my community. Um he uh had a
great year working at Hoover and now is
working for San Mato County. Um seeing
kids and adults there. So, you know,
that that birectional relationship that
and this partnership that we've had goes
beyond just what is serving our our
community, but also building out that
workforce of of community providers who
are going to choose to work and stay
here. So, with that, I have the um
immense pleasure of introducing Kristen
Geyser, who's the deputy director and a
senior researcher at Stanford's Gardener
Center, John W.
Garden Gardenner Center for Youth and
Their Communities. And she's a friend
and partner of the district for over 20
years.
Good evening. Um, Dr. Baker, board of
trustees. Those of you I haven't met
before, it's really lovely to meet you
and and I I trust we'll continue the
conversation. For those of you I have
met and probably interviewed many times,
it's really good to see you again. Um,
you've heard a lot of data tonight
between the two presentations. I want to
acknowledge that, maybe invite you to
take a breath.
Um, and so I get the pleasure of sort of
offering a few thoughts as your research
partner and sort of some things that
stand out to me. Um, and then to be
continued, right? We can continue these
conversations.
Um, and the first thing I need to do is
figure out how to push this button.
There we go. um Anna Paula began um and
Dr. Bot and Dr. Joshi have emphasized
how our intention all along has been to
build on your commitment to creating
systems that support students and one of
the reasons you have had that commitment
and one of the reasons we were eager to
continue to embrace that approach with
the mental health work is that it's only
when we think about things as systems
that we're going to ensure that every
child actually has equal access to the
resources that are somehow available and
webbed in and knitted together in that
space. So when we have a smattering of
really great services at a school or
across a district, some kids may get
them and some kids may not. Um, and some
kids who need them may not. And so we
all began together years ago saying,
"Let's really think about this as a
systems approach." And so one of the
things I'm really delighted to share is
that this slide is actually from a June
21 board presentation right here in this
room. And that's when we all gathered
here after about a year and a half of
being in the work together and said when
we talk about systems and what we might
see in a few years together that would
tell us we're making progress toward a
system here's some of what we might see
and I think we've heard tonight between
the two presentations lots of data
points that would populate each of those
spheres right each of those domains.
And so that's the first thing I want to
highlight is that in our decades of
work, the gardener center and Dr. Jooshi
and and his team and their work in the
mental health space in particular, we
see a lot of folks begin with a
commitment to systems. We see a lot of
folks use language that they're working
on a system and we don't always see it
really happen.
So really building and cultivating and
tending and sustaining a system takes
real commitment and real effort and real
steps and continuous learning and all
the things you've heard about tonight.
But I think this is something to really
acknowledge and celebrate. And it's also
what's allowing all these services to
multiply and the partnerships to thrive
is that you have the the real beginnings
of a strong strong system and that's
getting you the grants that's allowing
Stanford to partner with you um in the
way that our team has all the things. So
I want to first offer that as a
reflection.
The second thing I want to offer is um
it's one thing to see some great data
points and that is really important and
as your research partner we do that with
you um we encourage you to do that. We
partner with Annapala all the time on
data collection, analysis and meaning
making. But the other thing we need to
do is we need to understand why are we
seeing some of the things we're seeing,
right? We can't just say that worked
well, cross our fingers, it goes well
again. We want to sort of understand
what are the levers that are
facilitating that and what are the
things that are creating friction or
making it not happen as fast or as far
as we might anticipate or hope.
So that's what you see here in the
second bullet in the top bunch is we
really pay attention um as a research
partner with you into what are the
factors facilitating and complicating
your work to create the system of
support.
Um and so I would love to tell you all
the things we've learned. Um I won't do
that tonight but I can say that um over
the last 5 years we've done over 110
interviews. All of our observations,
reviewing of your data, all the things.
Um, this last spring, the cycle of
inquiry involved 18 interviews with
folks from 10 schools and in a number of
roles. So, in a forthcoming research
brief, I'll go into the details of what
we learned about factors. But tonight, I
just want to highlight
something most of you probably know,
which is in any good system, what you
are going to have are some really
critical roles, right? that are really
key to that system working together so
that we don't just have standalone
programs, projects, services.
So the one I want to highlight tonight
that is something that um Anna Paula
cannot highlight because she can't look
at herself um is what we see over and
over and over in our data on the
implementation of your work and that is
the role of the mental the lead mental
health clinician. So having someone at
the district level who has clinical
training and expertise,
it has been critical to really
facilitating maximizing and I would say
multiplying um the effects and the
capacity of your program.
So again, we'll talk a lot more about
that in a brief and I'm happy to to
answer questions about that um later.
These are some of the highlights, some
of the ways that that lead role
facilitates behind the scenes, right?
And Apollo showed you that slide that
was just the surface of all the things
that counselors do. Behind a good
counselor is a really good lead
clinician, right? Someone who can help
connect the dots, block and tackle,
notice themes, um, all those things.
I think if you've been on the board for
more than a few months, more than a
year, you've heard our team come every
year and we share quotes like this. And
this is from this year's round of data
collection.
So what we hear over and over from site
leaders, from principles, from teachers
is that there is so much need that's
beyond their scope, beyond their
training, um beyond their capacity, and
they cannot imagine doing their job
without the counselors.
What they don't say in these quotes
because it's not visible to them is how
the lead clinician and the district and
the board's support of this makes that
possible. So our job as the research
partner is in part to help make those
less visible pieces more visible. And so
that's the one I wanted to bring to you
tonight. I mentioned the multiplying
factor or how the lead clinician
contributes to um maximizing sort of the
growth and development system.
It's not just for the district. It's
actually for your students after they
leave Redwood City as well. So what
happened last year is in all of our
mental health meetings, one of the
conversations that came up was something
like this. It was we are doing so much
here to support our students while
they're in our district. What happens
when they leave
and what happens specifically when they
move into nth grade and what happens to
their sense of well-being and their
sense of belonging. So I think this
brief was in your packet. Um but we
brought to together folks from Rapid
City, from Ravenswood, from Sequoia and
we worked on this. Um so more to come.
But I do encourage you to look at the
brief. It has voices from your students
and your parents in it. Um, and it's one
example of how the work we've been able
to do together has directly supported
your schools, your families, your
community, and you're also setting the
bar and now saying to the neighboring
districts, join us because we cannot do
this alone. And these are our students
coming to you in high school. Join us in
this.
So with that, I'm going to pause and
pass it back to Annabella.
Our counseling program has been
highlighted through a variety of
conferences and professional events.
Most recently in September, we presented
a poster at the Stanford School of
Medicine Community Health Symposium. And
you can actually I hung the poster on
the wall there in case you wanted to
check it out. Um, so the picture on the
top right is actually from the school of
medicine health symposium.
As I mentioned, uh, one of our
counselors presented at the schoolbased
mental health echo. Kristen featured
Redwood City during her presentation at
Wellness Together conference last year.
Michelle Enrique and I presented at
United for Youth. U, Michelle, Dr. Baker
and I presented at CSBA conference last
year. So, we're really highlighting the
work that we're doing and we're getting
recognition for it as seen by the awards
our counseling program has won over the
last couple of years.
With all of these wonderful successes do
come some challenges.
We're seeing community resources
decrease, funding decrease, and so these
this lack of resources really being felt
by our students in our communities.
Our first challenge is really the the
reduction in the district counselor
staffing. So in year one, we had 12
full-time. We had were fortunate enough
to go up and have 13 full-time the
second and third year. uh we went down
to 10 in year four and this year we're
at at 6.5 FTEES. Every year that we've
seen a decrease in the number of
district counselors, we've also seen a
decrease in the number of contracted
counselors. So the decrease in district
counselors has not been met with an
increase in contracted supports. It's
just been a a general overall decrease.
While we've been able to maintain the
quality and and amount of services
through the end of the fourth year of
the program, this year that we don't
have district counselors at every site,
last year we had at least part-time. We
are seeing more challenges with equity
and system systematic implementation
across the district. When we contract
with community- based organizations, we
we don't receive licensed counselors. We
often receive trainees. If we're lucky,
we get an associate. Associate, someone
who has graduated from the graduate
program but isn't licensed yet. they
have to acrue 3,000 hours before they
can get licensed. So, they're kind of in
that that in between time. For many of
the counselors we receive, it's their
first time providing clinical services.
So, this does limit the the breath of
clinical services that those contracted
counselors can do in our school sites.
Just as an example, this year I've
received calls from multiple sites that
don't have a district counselor needing
support because their contracted
counselors either weren't on site
because they're usually part-time and
we're hodge podgeing several different
part-time counselors to fulfill the
hours at a specific school site or that
counselor didn't have the expertise
needed to deal with the suicidal
ideiation or a family situation that
required somebody with more experience
to handle. It was fortunate that in
those situations I was able to go in
person and support, but if I hadn't
been, it would have been calling the
crisis line, waiting for a mobile crisis
unit or not being able to provide that
student with that intervention at all.
using the same graph that I had kind of
used before to to amplify all the work
the district counselors are doing. The
items that are crossed off are items
that are completely eliminated without
district counselors and the items in
orange are the areas that are affected
or impacted. So for example, we lose
participation in screen team and 504s.
That's not something our contracted
counselors have done in the past or are
currently doing because they're they are
currently able to focus on providing
filling their case load and providing
back-to-back counseling supports because
the district counselor is able to do all
of the advocacy and assigning of case
loads. They also don't have the
familiarity with our systems and what is
the role of a counselor in screen team
of a 504. We have a lot of turnover with
contracted counselors. So we spend a lot
of time teaching a contracted counselor
at the beginning of the year how the
systems work, what the expectations are,
and then we do it again year after year.
In terms of the the areas that are
impacted, we lose a lot of the
visibility and rapport. Again, because
of that turnover, we don't have the same
counselor there Monday through Friday,
year after year that we do with our
district counselors. We actually saw a a
decrease for the first time in students
who felt comfortable talking to their
counselor. And using the Gardener
Center's research powers, we were able
to gather that the the reason for the
decrease was the four sites that went
from a full-time counselor to a
part-time counselor. Those four sites
had a decrease in the number of students
who felt comfortable talking to their
counselor.
There there now exists also a a
potential question of of equity across
our school sites. Some of our school
sites have a licensed counselor who is
capable of dealing with any and all
issues that may arise and some do not.
And those that do not are also at sites
that may not be able to access that
elsewhere. So whereas before there was
consistency and a systematic approach,
we are we are struggling with that this
year.
One of our biggest our our biggest uh
community- based organization that we
work with is One Life Counseling
Services. They have been a wonderful
partner and resource for our district
for the last four years. Um I I asked
them to share what it's been like to
have with our partnership and to have
our district leads. They are feeling the
loss of our district leads as much as
our students are. So, this is um
something that they were able to share
with us.
And then it goes on.
They they really speak to the fact that
because they're they're coming in, they
have someone who knows who the teachers
are, who knows who the students are,
who's met with the parents before. So
when we get a referral for a student for
behavior, the one life counselor in the
situation isn't starting from scratch,
reaching out to the parent, introducing
themselves, trying to figure out what's
happening. the district counselor can
say, "Oh, yeah, for the last three
years, this is what we've been working
on." Or, "I can tell you that this
parent works two jobs and they're free
in the evening." And so, you have a just
so much more guidance and support that
lets you just get down to brass tax and
get doing the work without having to
learn everything at the beginning of the
year.
Our second challenge is funding for our
Stanford Mental Health Collaborative. As
I as I mentioned, that partnership is
ending in June. We are trying to figure
out if there's a way to secure funding
um at least for our work with our
psychiat psychiatry fellows that Dr. Bot
supervises. Um as she mentioned, it's
it's been invaluable. Even I think three
weeks ago, I texted Dr. Bot and our
fellow from year one who still works at
who works at Lucio Park and I was like,
"Hey, we've got a kid headed your way."
Within 30 minutes, she was like, "Great.
What's the counselor's name and number?"
I gave her the counselor's name and
number. that counselor got a phone call
45 minutes later, we've got your kid,
we're assessing. And so having that
partnership and that connection benefits
our students to an an immeasurable
degree and and and to the parents, it
gives them so much peace of mind to know
we're going there. They know we're
coming. They're looking out for us.
They're a trusted institution.
So we are actively pursuing funding to
to try to sustain that partnership.
So, what comes next?
This is the big scary beast of the
statewide multi-payer school linked fee
schedule, which is also a mouthful.
This this is basically a system where we
can bill insurance companies for mental
health services that we are providing in
schools. That's kind of the brass tax of
it. Historically, that happened at your
community clinics, through your
community- based organizations, right?
They there may be Kaiser providers you
know this basically allows us to build
Kaiser Athe blue cross blue like most of
the insurance companies directly
where we're at now we are the only
school in cohort 2. Nobody from the
county was in cohort one.
So we are we're going first. We we are
we've been kind of in a in a waiting
pattern for about a year as most state
processes go. It has not been as quick
to get going as maybe initially planned.
We are currently waiting on our
county office of education to partner
with Santa Clara's county office of
education. Santa Clara was in cohort one
and they have started billing. So
they're getting anou going. They're
actually hired a contractor that Dr.
Baker and I met with a couple weeks ago.
That contractor is really going to try
to help our district get up and running
before everybody else because all of our
paperwork is in and approved by the
state. We're ready to start billing. We
just need the system, which is what our
county office of education is trying to
get up and running. So, we're ready to
go. We're just waiting for all the other
pieces to kind of fall in line. We are
we're hoping to start billing this
school year. There's a couple barriers
in place this year. How do we get
students health insurance information?
How are parents going to feel about
this? So the plan is for me to start
attending a lot of cafesitoss with the
that the principles host and just being
able to have an open question answer
session and answer as many questions
answers answer as many questions as I
can answer with the information we have
so far and then in the enrollment
packets for next year include a form
that asks for that information. It's
voluntary obviously you don't have to
provide it but that would make it easier
for us to then bill moving forward
because we'll already have that
information. we don't have to ask for it
every time we're calling and asking for
consent. So, we are looking at ways to
how to decrease barriers for next year.
For this year, we're going to trial and
error it as soon as they give us the the
green light to go. So, this is kind of
how we're trying to build some some
sustainability into this program.
This year, we are also starting to try
to get some outcome measures. So, we are
asking students after they do a a
check-in with a counselor, was this
helpful? So, we have a a little diagram.
It's in English and Spanish, thumbs up,
middle, down, so it's consistent across
all grade levels so that we could the
data would be appropriate for all nine
grades. And 80 over 86% of students
found it helpful. Only 1% said it
wasn't. And so students are really um
finding value in those average 14
minutes of talking with a counselor and
getting back to class.
And this data is just for the first
trimester that ended on Friday because
we just started implementing that this
year.
And then as mentioned, this program
really requires us all to work together,
be on the same page and about having a a
systems approach to mental health. and
we so appreciate the partnership that we
that we've received for the last 5 years
since before the program started even
just thinking about it to where we are
now.
And then I do have a student and the
student wanted to be here tonight but
she had some sports and then homework so
she couldn't be here tonight so she
recorded a video. And then I also have a
parent um
and we'll see how the sound works.
Nope. Nope.
Maybe I'll
>> I will share that via email. So,
apologies for that.
All right. This is this is this is back
on a quote from one of our parents.
Again, like Augustine had mentioned, we
have a lot of parents who have provided
a lot of feedback and positive
interactions from communication with our
counselors and just they appreciate
being kept up up to date and knowing
when we're meeting with them, why we're
meeting with them, how long we're
meeting with them.
So, just thank you so much for your
ongoing support of all of our mental
health services and a big thank you to
Stanford's community engagement office
just for their five years of financial
support to be able to continue doing
this work.
>> Thank you.
>> Thanks so much for the presentation on
Apollo and uh our presenters um Dr.
Yoshi, Dr. Bod, Dr. guys. Um, and our
mental health counselors are here
tonight. Saw Augustine left. Um, but
also it was great to hear the parent
voice. Um, no public comments, so we can
dive right into questions, comments. Why
don't we start with Trusty Weekly?
>> Thank you so much. And, uh, to repeat
what Mike had said, thank you to the
mental health counselors and clinicians
and to the doctors from Stanford. Um, go
Cardinal. So wonderful to have you all
here across both presentations. It's
really uh incredible the Stanford
presence here tonight. Um
you you've all seen so many districts
and practices and and we heard a lot of
praise for Redwood City and like it's
always great to hear that of course and
there's a lot of good work behind that
as well. Uh but surely not everything
that we're doing is perfect and there
are probably some reflections on things
that we're doing differently that maybe
are not ideal or helpful. Where do we
need to revise our approach or where do
we need to set a new long-term goal? We
we presented some goals from many years
ago and it looks like we're ticking a
bunch of the boxes and that feels great.
So, you maybe we need to move the
goalposts again. What are your thoughts
on that?
>> That's that's a great question. I feel
like we've one of the the great focuses
over the last couple years is to be able
to the data gathering to inform the
decision-making. And so, I feel like
we've really been able to do that. I
don't know off the top of my head what
we need to be doing differently because
we have pivoted as needed over the last
couple years. So nothing immediately
comes to mind.
>> And in terms of like when is it the
right time to set new long-term goals
because we did a pretty decent job at
the last set of ones or maybe the last
set of ones are eternal goals and so
like we don't need to revisit them. What
what's your take on long-term planning?
>> For now I think the main concern is how
well is this just sustaining this
program?
>> Right. I I think the there is no
long-term goal if there's no sustainable
sustainability long term.
>> And so I think if if we're able to to
figure that out and I think this new
building system is going to be a great
help with that and that's kind of where
a lot of at least my focus at the moment
is to build the infrastructure to be
able to build that out.
>> Do we think the insurance billing is
going to cover 100% of the issues here?
50% 5% like like how helpful is it if it
lands and how uncertain is it landing?
>> It's definitely not going to be 100%. So
that that I can tell the the rest of it
I I don't know. It's really going to be
a combination of will parents share
their health insurance information with
us. What what are the barriers going to
be once we actually start this process
of which we won't know really until
we're able to start? Um and then there
was a second part to your question that
I'm now blanking on both sides.
I I think you're you're you're hinting
at it here, but just like I if we get
very effective at asking pretty please
can you share your health insurance
information because it's this is going
to be very effective at letting us care
for your kid and make sure your kid gets
a great education which is the point of
why they're here at school. Um
how much coverage does that give us and
how certain is it that u sorry there's
uncertainty around the parents? Are they
going to give us the insurance
information? Like what we're not going
to get to 100% coverage. Um what what do
we think is the achievable number there
for the other parts in terms of billing?
Um and the back office, the electronic
medical record system and submission. I
is that just paperwork, but we're 100%
confident it that functions and we're
going to maybe it'll be more of a pain
in the butt than we wanted it to be, but
we're going to be able to work through
that and get it done. And that the focus
of the uncertainty is on the parent
side. providing us with insurance
information. Is that the main
uncertainty?
>> Correct. Okay. So, the reason I'm I'm
much more certain about the back end of
it is because our county has a capacity
grant for two years where they're paying
basically for the tech support and the
back end, the billing oversight and
making sure the claims are good before
they get submitted so that they can get
reimbursed. And so, our county is
covering the cost for all of that for a
couple years. So, we're up and running.
And then we at that point we'll have a
better idea of what the financial
returns are in terms of what the cost is
to then maintain it as opposed to
starting it up.
>> Okay. So the big question is I guess how
what fraction of our parents have
insurance and then of those what
fraction are willing to give us their
insurance and if that number is high
we're in goodstead and if it's not then
we're in trouble. Is that kind of
roughly where we're at? pretty much sums
it up.
>> Okay. Um
what are quick ways that we could start
sniff testing where those numbers are at
um to get a sense for what kind of size
of task we have before us.
>> So that was actually what the consultant
that Dr. P and I met with her suggestion
was for me to go to cafesitos and start
talking to parents and just saying is
there a lot of resistance? Are we pretty
open to it? Just kind of get a feel for
it. And then once we get a feel for it,
then we know how to like more widely
mark market it to the district in terms
of flyers or district-wide
presentations. So the the consultant
suggestion was to start with gapitos.
>> Have we early identified any concerns
because I mean just I guess some of what
I'm struggling with was hey we could
provide a bunch of services to your kid
if your kid were to need them. Are you
open to that? Um and and I would feel
like that's a relatively compelling
pitch. Like yes, I will give you my
insurance information. So it's like h
have you surfaced some concerns where I
don't know if I want the school district
having my insurance information or
>> not yet. One I will say one of the
benefits that a parent might ask like
let's say your Kaiser co-ay is $20 per
counseling appointment.
>> Have to pay 20 bucks.
>> The state's covering the copay.
>> Oh.
>> So actually there is no co-pay.
>> This seems like a really straightforward
pitch then. Like I mean well I I I heard
like lots of doubt and concern like we
don't know if parents are going to be
happy with this but like but the pitch
seems very strong. So it seems likely we
should be able to get a very large
percentage of of parents to to say yes
and and hand it over.
>> That that is my hope. I think just
initially this first year because we
don't have the system in place to gather
that information. It's hard to like
oneon-one on the phone call being like
your kid was referred. Would you like to
yes by chance? Could I have your health
insurance information for this reason?
because we haven't had like a
district-wide messaging or method of
gathering that information, which is
going to be a harder mountain to climb
initially. I think once we have the
system in place, it'll be much easier.
We're like
>> Kaiser has something to say.
>> By all means,
>> by all means do it together. So, one
thing I want to offer is again sort of
like a slight step back a little bit.
So, what we're at right now is a very
interesting policy moment. So, state of
California is saying, okay, youth mental
health, we need additional support.
schools have been shown to be a really
good place to locate this because the
families then can access it and they
have trust in their team who's known. So
when the team says we can provide these
services, the next step we want to chat
about is insurance, right? So now
there's a trusted space. So policy
makers are saying this could be a way to
help fund sustained mental health
support that is school-based which will
be timely and effective and all the
great things. It is a new policy, right?
So I was part of healthy start
evaluation 1992
and that was a new policy then of like
what happens if we locate health
services including mental health
substance abuse counseling but also
physical health on a campus. No one knew
right they had a lot of evidence to
suggest this would be a good thing but
no one knew. So there was a policy there
was implementation there was learning
right? So five years ago you implemented
counselors across all schools very
evidence-based strategy we talked to the
best in the land right so implemented
learned learned a little this year what
happens when you reduce someone to a
half FTE a lot happened that wasn't a
small change it was a small policy
change with a big practical impact right
so what's happening now with this is the
state's giving us a chance to say like
could this work the state's asking the
same question. How much will this offset
the cost? How much will this cover? How
much will the gap be?
>> Will parents do this? What's the effect
on the counseling team? Right?
>> More will be revealed. So, the nice
thing about being in partnership is we
are listening very closely to all those
things so that we can share back. the
state's doing an evaluation, but it's
going to feel very high level for you,
not necessarily actionable, but we're
going to be up close listening and
helping understand the story to again
look at what helps and what hinders this
from being net value ad versus sort of a
drain. So, and just to say to be the
first in the county, I am in a lot of
meetings where people are like waiting
for Redwood City because they didn't
have the system in place to get all the
paperwork in order to get on the list to
be ready to go. No one else is ready to
go.
It it sounds like the state is still
trying to figure this out very much. And
is the program being rolled out
provisionally like hey we'll see how
this goes for two years, three years or
something and then at the end of it
we'll by default it'll die and like you
can't do it anymore or is this like a
permanent new thing and we're hoping it
works but but it's permanent
>> as permanent as state policy.
>> Um and I will there are districts who
are doing it so not that you're the
first in the whole state but um so
there's already learning underway.
There's a couple districts finding some
really great success with it um in terms
of parent takeup, student take up and
the reimbursements coming in. So, more
will be revealed. So, really good
questions and I would encourage you like
as they come because they may come to
you tonight as you drive home, send them
like it'll be great to sort of hear what
you're wondering.
>> All right, I have unmuted my laptop
>> because we're all in the room talking.
>> So, for for those online, there are some
technical difficulties here. Uh the
meeting is still being streamed
obviously because you're here and being
recorded but the uh connectivity to the
cameras and the audio system in the room
is not functioning. We are going to
continue the meeting. Um we are going to
uh change whose laptop is muted uh or
not but hopefully all of you can hear
me. I'm seeing a yes people online can
hear me. Great.
>> Says yes it says yes. Yeah. Okay.
>> Great. Okay. Where were we?
>> Can we figure out how this whole
building system works? We can actually
have our contracts
built.
>> Yeah.
>> And I've had preliminary talk with their
organizations.
basically
they don't have to travel there.
>> Seems like a very strong pitch. So,
here's hoping it land.
>> Fair enough. Cool. Thank you. Um, great.
I think that's
Oh, oh, so we we've got this cool board
report that um that's for community
schools. Um, Dr. Geyser mentioned that
in the presentation you couldn't tell me
all of the wonderful things that you had
learned, but I'm hoping that you can
send us and maybe members of the public
uh some of the the research so we can
learn more about what has been learned.
Yes.
>> So that research brief on the role of
the lead will be done.
>> Brilliant. Thank you so much.
>> I think that's all I have for questions.
So I can hand it to Lee. I will get to
mute.
>> Okay.
>> So all right. I'll move my laptop. It'll
be quick. I I don't really have any
material questions other than just to
say thank you. Obviously part of this
whole presentation and the last one was
to keep us informed um about how these
works in the context of uh really what
is a difficult budget environment and I
think I'm the only one here uh of the on
the dice that is not privy to those
conversations but it's something that
I'm taking very seriously obviously um
it is very clear that the there's value
to the programs that are already
happening um so I will just acknowledge
that I am keeping that in mind as well
Um the only other thing that I worry
about which is not this is more just a
general comment is and I mentioned this
before. So part of it is part of what's
a little bit alarming is um obviously we
have to respond to what's before us. Um
but it sounds like there's a material
chance that
>> it is not there are incidents rising
across the board. Um, and back to what
David Weekly mentioned, um, I it's
something that troubles me and I don't
know whether that is within our purview
to address. Um, but, um, it's just very
challenging and I hope that we can
I don't know how to deal with it. Um,
but acknowledge that we are see um,
these incidents and so it's part of our
job to make sure that we can do the best
that we can to to treat what's before
us.
>> Thank you again.
All right. Okay. Um, yeah. So, thanks.
Um, just I want to acknowledge just how
transformative it's been over the last
four or five years. Um, just mental
health is now it's visible. It's
normalized. It's it's woven into daily
school life. Um, you know, for so so
many of our students, our families, and
our staff. And that that kind of
cultural shift it just doesn't happen
accidentally, right? It's the result of
this intentional system building by our
mental health team and by our partners.
And speaking of our partners, our
collaboration with Stanford, you know,
the Gardener Center, the Center for
Youth Mental Health and Wellness, um
it's just clearly raising the quality
bar. Um the clinical consult
consultation, the CAP fellows that we
talked about, um the shared protocols,
the real data systems that um Dr. is
putting together, you know, that
positions our CSD just as a regional
leader and not not just a participant in
this. Um, you know, and and I really do
appreciate how how the your report shows
how important the the school the
district-based mental health counselor
is. Um, just how they're
they're anchors for our system. Um, you
know, they hold the relationships. Uh,
they they do the crisis response. just
their the roles kind of it's it's really
critical and that their institutional
knowledge is really priceless. Um so the
question, you know, for me at least
isn't really whether we keep mental
health services, it's how we're going to
protect and strengthen them. Um you
know, this this kind of system for the
long term. Look, I I totally understand
the budget challenges that we're facing.
We're not the only district. All
districts are kind of facing that and
that that is going to be a real
challenge year after year to kind of put
in there. yet this an award-winning um
datadriven model that's meeting this
level of need. Uh it really it shouldn't
be precarious, you know, as as it is
year after year. Um so I'm hopeful that,
you know, we'll be able to find a
replacement for this last 5-year grant
um that you're looking for to continue
the partnership, the deep partnership
with Stanford. Um funding always comes
up is thinking about this because
not just because we're worried about
money, but because for me, I'm worried
about this program. I think it's so
important and critical and I I really
appreciate all that it's done. Um, you
know, for my five years on the board,
I've gotten to see it from like
inception to to today. So, thanks again
and I'll pass it to Dr. Baker.
>> All right. I kind of want to ditto
everything that Mike said, but the most
important piece for me at this point in
time is six years ago when this started
met with Amy, Dr. Josie, Dr. Bot. Um, we
knew that at that time when we were
talking about this and the COVID hadn't
hit or anything, but it was a need. We
saw a need in the community of what our
students were were feeling. uh the
manner of having to come to school, but
at the same time there was all of these
other characteristics and things that
were going on at home that we didn't
know how to handle. And as a
superintendent, I had no way in hell how
to know how to start this program up.
And so with your support and your
assistance
in helping us through especially that
first year with finding the counselors
which
I I I was thinking there's no way we're
going to be able to do this in the first
year and find what we need and we did
and you brought that forth. The other
piece is Dr. Josie and you talking with
me in order to maintain you need to have
someone who's going to be in this lead
position. I can't do it. That's not my
background. Get me in front of kids,
know about educational resources,
curriculum, strategies, how to work with
kids, that's my background. The whole
mental health piece is not. So, your um
leadership in guiding me in this manner
to get someone of the expertise that
Anapala has to move this forward was
immensely appreciated. And where we are
now today compared to where we were at
the beginning
is amazing. As Micah said, yes, we are
in um this too bad we have to worry
about budgets. That's just I don't No, I
I did have a couple years I didn't have
to worry about budget, right? Just
that I never had to come before the
board and start worrying about budget.
But um we are you know hopeful that
maybe we can find some other funders and
I know I have some my one funer I still
have some dollars left from her and so
that's probably where those dollars
should go as she has said to me it's
your last year you do what you want with
it. Um, so it's it's not the great
pocket a great pocket of dollars, but at
least it's some that we'll uh we'll be
able to utilize, but um it's such a need
mental health and I know um if you have
not experienced it yourself as a child
as we did in my family when my
youngest brother experienced it and and
luckily my parents were financially
capable of having him put in a
residential placement where they could
pay for couple years for him to get
through this. Um because even though we
were he was in a private school, the
private school had no no counselors
whatsoever. And so my parents were like,
you know, fish out of water trying to
find out what to do. So this is just an
amazing program. Um, and I will
definitely
after retirement even get out there to
see if I can find the funding for it um,
for this program because I feel so
strongly about it. So, with that being
said, I just want to give my gratitude
and thanks to everyone here from
Stanford who has helped us move this
project forward. Uh, Dr. Josie, Dr. Bot,
Dr. Gstein, and Dr. guys there and of
course Anna Paula who I see every day
and we commiserate together now no not
commiser but we talk about great things
that are happening too uh because I'm
you know worried about the program just
like uh many of us are but from the
bottom of my heart thank you so much for
helping me bring this forward and I'm
hoping that it will be able to continue
thank you.
>> All right.
>> I'm
>> okay. Um, so now we're on to uh our
discussion items, uh, which is we can
through pass through a bunch of
policies. Um I know one we have to
discuss. Uh but many of the other ones
um Wendy I don't know if you're going to
do a preamble for each of them or if we
need it or no.
>> Let's do the express.
>> Express. Perfect. Okay. So let's start
with uh the first one. First reading and
discussion of board policy 3311.1 which
is uniform public construction cost
accounting procedures.
Uh are there any any questions or
comments? It looks like it's a brand new
policy for us all from CSBA.
All right. Um the second one is the
board policy and administrative
regulations 0420.4
uh charter school authorization.
Um I only saw CSBA changes in it. Look
good to me. Any questions? Okay. Uh then
we can talk about the discussion of
board policy 0422041
which is charter school oversight.
Looks like new policy from CSBA. Yeah.
For us. I mean new for us. Yeah. Okay.
Um, okay. Next one is, uh, board policy
and administrative regulation 3100, the
budget.
Um, just double checking that we're all
good with option one, the selected one
about, um, budget advisory committee
appointed by the superintendent.
Okay, perfect. Um, the next one's number
five. It's board policy and AR 3260,
fees and charges.
Again, all CSBA revisions.
No questions, no comments. Okay, then
we're on to board policy 3312, which is
contracts. Um, again, this one had an
option. All good with option two. That's
a public hearing for the making or
renewal of each contract.
>> Oh, what did I skip?
Oh, I skipped number six. Sorry.
Table of contracts. Coming right back to
it. Um, hang on to it. Um, so this will
be board policy administrative
regulation 3311 bids.
also all from CSVA
changes.
>> I'm a little slow on the express train
here. And uh on the budget one, that's a
change from where the board decides on
the budget committee and maybe the
superintendent decides. I just want to
make sure.
>> I didn't think that was a change. I
thought that was just selecting the
option from the template. Um, and in the
um, currently I believe this is the way
that we do it today. Um, because I don't
think we had a board decision about who
was actually appointed into the budget
advisory committee. It was a
superintendent um, advisory committee.
Uh,
>> I know we do have the just committee
selection is something that we discuss
like once a year. We talk about who's
going to serve on what committee.
>> Uh, so that is different. That is not
trustee representation at uh this is
refer. Okay, I'll let the policy expert.
I'm going to I'm going to try it and
then I'll let Wendy um jump in. But I
believe this one is talking about the
makeup of the members of the
superintendent um committee around
budget advisory. So for example, next
Tuesday we have Tuesday we have a
superintendent budget advisory committee
around um the looking at the budget. Now
all the members that were on that were
selected by a process that the
superintendent or his delegate put into
place. Whereas ours coming in we do that
like we decide which trustees are going
to be
>> but both are budget committees and so
Right. That made me a little confused.
>> Right. No, no, this would be a different
budget advisory committee is decided by
the superintendent. Yeah, but the
board's budget committee is decided by
>> That's right. Yeah.
>> Thank you. I appreciate that.
>> Perfect. Yeah.
>> Good question. Good question. Um, but
lots of words, very similarly
constructed. Um, okay. Uh, so now we're
on to uh board policy and administrative
regulation. Um,
oh gosh, no, we contracts. Thanks. 3312
contracts.
This one also had an option. Um, this
was option two about the public hearing
for the making or renewal of each
contract.
Um, I think that's our typically what we
do right now anyway. So I no change.
Okay, great. Um, just making sure we're
discussing the options. Okay, so now
we're on to 3550,
food service and child nutrition
program.
Um, I I did appreciate the addition of
prioritizing serving freshly prepared
on-site meals using whole or minimally
processed sustainable foods. I'm
assuming Richie probably added that. Um,
so thank you.
My only call out on this one was that
not not all carbonated beverages are
unhealthy beverages as a span fan of
Spin Drift.
>> Yeah.
>> Yeah. And it seems like the language was
kind of bucketed just if it had any
carbonation at all, it was in the same
bucket as unhealthy foods.
>> I was actually referring to advertising
>> or carbonated beverages in high schools
in the past, right? You always see the
Coca-Cola or machine which gave them
>> exclusive rights to sell that product on
campus.
>> Right.
>> So this is about the the advertising
portion of it.
>> Thank you.
>> And to the other point the country time
lemonade just for reference we go under
unhealthy beverages.
>> Yes.
>> Yeah.
>> Thank you.
>> All right. Thanks for that
clarification.
Um
>> are you saying we skip one?
>> Go ahead. I think we're at number nine,
food service. Um, so that's 3551, food
service operations in the cafeteria
fund. Um,
this one also had an option to do what
we do already, which is pay our caf our
food service employees from the
cafeteria fund. We all know it as fund
13. Um, the uh Okay, questions,
discussion, anything?
>> We're on 3550 or 3551.
>> We just did 3551.
Okay. Did Did we talk about 3550?
>> Uh we we did. You had asked about
carbonated beverages.
>> That was under that was 3312. What was
carbonated beverages?
>> That was
okay.
>> 3312 was contract
>> contracts. Okay.
>> Included contracts around advertis
advertising forated beverages.
>> Okay. So then 3550 food service child
nutrition program. Did you have a
question for it? Um, yeah, I was just uh
I was hoping that we could just clearly
reconcile what's here with uh what's
currently in 49430.7
because it seems like we partially align
with it but not fully
based on my reading of 49 uh40.7
49430.7.
>> So where's that reference?
>> 3551, right?
>> Yeah. So So we're three no 3550
>> 3550. We're back.
>> Agenda item 9.8.
>> Yeah. So, um, we we struck a lot of the
prior detail because that that prior
detail was actually struck in the ED
code itself, which makes sense. We have
to align with ED code, right? And and
just in following that dotted line says,
hey, we need to align with ED code. I I
went and took a look at 49430.7
and there's a focus on trans fats and
there's a number of different provisions
in there which were not uh included
either explicitly in 3550 in our
proposed language. The simple suggestion
that that I heard back from staff on
this question was just like and shall
comply with education code 49430.7
would be sufficient to make make me
happy that we're aligned there. So we
just need like that that clause needs to
be in that.
>> Sorry wait just to confirm though the
the reference that you just mentioned is
not referenced in the policy itself
correct like that is your spontane it is
it is referenced in the policy for the
subsection talking about trans facts. So
you
>> Yeah. Sorry, I'm trying to this 3550 and
then it's you said 49
430
4 9430 decimal 7 code.
>> I'm I'm not I'm not finding that in the
policy. That's why I'm
>> okay.
Where's the
um
which one?
What?
Not trying to waste the board's time
here. I know it's late. Um,
which was the one that talks about trans
fats.
Thought this was food season.
Ah, is it it's it's in the AR. Sorry.
Ah,
sorry. Finding it now.
in the AR.
>> Yeah. So in the AR clean nutrition
standards for school meals bullet point
to not to be deep fried, park fried or
flash fried as find code 4930 and
49430.7.
Um there was just it's a knit. Um I'm
not trying to hold everyone out, but
like just that that ED code included
some other things as well beyond frying.
Um if I recall the ad code correctly,
it's like basically you can't put like
margarine and stuff. You got to use
butter, right? Um, and so I just wanted
to make sure that like if we're passing
stuff to go and update these policies to
be compliant with ED code that we
actually are aligned with ED code.
>> Got it.
>> Well, either way, if it's the ARS, this
is not technically something that the
board is approving.
>> Um, but sounds like the district staff
is taking it under consideration.
>> Is that fair?
>> Yeah. Is that something you can
>> Yeah, you can take back
for a second.
>> Thank you.
>> Perfect.
>> Thanks, lady. Um, okay. So, then we'll
do 3551 again, the food service and
operations cafeteria fund.
Nothing. Okay. Then I will move on to
3553
and reduced price meals.
The AB95 permits us to sell a paid lunch
after offering a free lunch. Um, we're
recognizing that, but we are not
currently planning to sell paid lunches.
It's just was my only comment on this.
So, looks good.
>> Yep.
>> Um, move on.
>> Yeah.
>> Okay. 4121. This is temporary and
substitute personnel.
>> Sure.
>> Um, two two option choices there. Um, I
think they all look fine to me.
Um, okay. Then 6144,
controversial issues.
Anything on controversial issues?
Feel like we should have more of a fight
about this one.
>> Actually, well,
>> sorry. This is one that I should have
looked at uh the clean for because I
there's a portion that's highlighted
there of the teacher should help
students separate fact from opinion and
warn them against drawing conclusions
from interested efficient data. Uh and
so I wanted to check whether or not that
is something that we included in the
clean um as effectively um proposed.
>> Not seeing it. So it looks like that.
>> Okay. I think Okay. Sorry. I we we
talked about in policy committee and
there are different approaches to it. So
this is one that I did want to have
before like a a board discussion on my
my general opinion is that that that was
struck that was in the previous version.
It was struck from CSBA.
I kind of liked it. Um like I think the
things that are discussed there are I
think helpful and should be
non-controversial. Not saying that they
are um but I think it is helpful to
separate fact from opinion. Yeah,
>> warn against strong conclusions from
insufficient data. Um,
>> to I feel like the strength of the claim
should be backed by strength of the
data. The more ex the stronger the
claim, the stronger the evidence needed
to support it.
>> Yeah. And I think importantly, the way I
read this clause is not that they are
that the teachers are being told or
instructed to tell students what is
sufficient or insufficient. Um but it is
more of recognizing that there are these
abstract ideas and we should have an
approach to it. That said, it was
obviously deleted for a reason. I
imagine um it can be controversial um
because
varying ways that people will interpret
it. Um I would be in favor of keeping it
because I I feel like we can do it, but
I want
>> Which class are you talking about? just
>> in in the mark in the marked copy on
page one students fact from opinion and
warn them against drawing conclusions
from insufficient data. That was the
phrase.
>> Uh I see this one. Yeah.
>> Yeah.
>> Within their age and maturity students.
So if you're talking first
graders,
>> the trap I want us to avoid falling into
is teach the controversy, right? It's
like, oh well, some people believe that
the earth is flat and so we need to make
sure to give respectful and equal air
time to all different possible
viewpoints here, right?
something like that.
But I guess case in point for me the way
that I would interpret that situation is
this poly this policy does not say
teach them that this is opinion or fact
but it is encouraging teachers to say
here's how we should think about a
statement
>> like we should think about what facts
are that we know through concrete data
and then what are our opinion and then
where where does the balance lie that's
how I interpret it uh that said it's
like a lot easier to have this abstract
discussion than it is in a classroom.
And so I imagine that's part of the
controversy, but that is for board
discussion. And I would also love input
from uh the staff is I'm sure that you
guys have feelings as well.
>> No, I was just I was actually reading
the line. I'm glad we wrote it. Right.
So it's not just read the line below it.
That's about suppressing any student
views.
So I think that's where it becomes the
controversy.
How do you handle that? You have to be
you have to be able to handle it as a
teacher like you said, right? And I
think that's where that controversy be
like and the opinion matters, right? And
a student's opinion matters and parent
opinion and that's where it becomes that
gray line that I think that's probably
why check out.
>> I'll say I'm not advocating for adding
that part in. I'm only looking
all of that together. It makes that
whole you know that to me that's how the
way I would read it and become it's not
just that I think it's the struck all of
it struck out for that
and after reading some of his comments
from our discuss
that we've dumped out parents are very
local and some things that doctors that
are coming out actually are about
it is controversial
>> I I guess
>> so that's where I that's just thinking
about overall what I've been seeing
there are topics that parents really do
not want us to talk about in school
>> in in the whole
>> is your do you have a view on
>> I mean I think we we've always taught
back to that's part of our educational
background and teaching especially now
that we're writing argumentative essays
we're they're we're trying to teach them
to have two points of view balance it
out and take an opinions take so that's
part of our standards right um and I
really more that argument is the middle
school or the elementary. It is just a
state your opinion and polite evidence,
right? So I mean that is still the
standards that are teaching.
Um but it can be controversial depending
on the stance a student takes or a
teacher takes. Right? I think that's
where you walk the fine line. I think
that's the fine line. I don't have one
or another because I bought both and I
think they're both relevant. It's about
as a teacher, how do you portray that
and how do you have that open-ended
conversation and dialogue? Um, so that
no one points of views are being heard
and you're being respected.
There's no right or wrong.
>> I I would Yeah, I I don't know. It's
It's a tough one. I see I see the point
that you're bringing in, but I got to
imagine that there was some sort of
thought and and consideration that went
into taking it out. And I don't think
that it weakens the policy at all, the
intent of the policy by not having that
in there. Nor do I think that it
necessarily strength strengthens it to
say like, oh well now they wouldn't have
done this without these words in that
policy. So
>> I also want to point out that I think
the primary context of that section is
about the teacher's delivery and
instruction, but the first paragraph
speaks about the students critical
thinking and fact versus opinion. So,
it's honored in the board policy. Um,
but it's sort of restructuring the
teacher to choose a certain path in in
the instruction of the information.
I I I don't like bullet point 2 as it
stands because it really does imply that
if any person whether parent or student
could consider a given topic to be
controversial that it becomes incumbent
upon the teacher in complying with the
policy so written to go and present all
the different possible points of view
evenly in a balanced manner. manner
and I I don't think that helps our
students navigate reality. Um I I think
that helping students evaluate
claims, how strong is this claim,
helping them evaluate data and then
helping them evaluate what is the degree
to which the data is supportive of the
claim. Those are core critical thinking
skills and to what I don't want us to do
is to fall into a place where it's like
well everyone gets to have their beliefs
and truth is subjective. We live in a
subjective
truth of a reality. Like I I don't want
that to be what our students get from
instruction in our in our district. I
think there are some things that are
true and maybe it make those some of
those truths are uncomfortable.
but controversial
>> but controversial. So I think it's it's
it's it's about like you get to have an
opinion and also reality has certain
things that may or may not be true and
it's incumbent on you to gather the data
that you can about this thing and be
willing to go and challenge your own
belief. So instead of an environment
where everyone gets to be right. No,
it's like for some of these things, some
people are going to be right and some
people are going to be wrong. And and
it's it's up to you to figure out might
you be wrong? Are you right? Are you
wrong? To to interrogate yourself and to
be thinking about how do I gather the
data that could not just support the
belief that I have, but that might
contradict it and it might force me to
change my mind about a thing. Like
that's learning.
>> I'll give you a great example. Teaching
religion in seventh and eighth in eighth
grade. I mean, seventh grade world
history is all the different religions.
And so, the teacher through the state
standards is charged with this is this
is the set of tasks that you need to
have the students know and understand
about X religion. Now, we're going to
shift gear to this religion. And so, I
think part of this board policy is to
allow for those experiences. So, the
child can do that, which I think is more
outlined in paragraph one. But at the
same time, the teacher isn't charged
with giving their opinion, hosting an
opinion about religion in the classroom.
It's not to say students can't can't
have thoughts and opinions and explore
those. Yeah.
>> But it's more about like comparing
religions. What do people believe about
them? How did they begin? Where was the
impetus of it? What is still happening
today? Much more on a factual level and
then draw conclusions accordingly. But
um you know I I think you know like if
an assessment came out about religions
it wouldn't so much be about opinions.
Now was that an after effect or or a
conclusion of what happens? Of course.
And I think typically we would have
those thoughts more teased out at home
with the family on a much deeper level.
>> Right.
>> But um I'm a former history teacher in
this district. It's all coming back. Um
but and you never want to dissuade
students from you know speaking their
mind and opinions but you also have to
curate this properly too in the
classroom setting in a public school
too. So I think I think that is probably
what led CSBA for to um strike
accordingly but then also note in
paragraph one that we really want to
develop students critical thinking
skills differentiate to fact and
opinion. So what are people saying that
are true and what are people saying that
are not true on certain topics and for
controversial issues it's definitely an
art to navigate that properly in the
classroom given the state standards and
the requirements. So but this is why
it's a good discussion because it's
exactly what the board policy committee
was going through.
>> I I I feel like part of what you're
saying is that paragraph one is is so
strong that you can more or less ignore
bullet point number two. Right.
>> Yeah. because it sort of it's already
implied. So it's like I I I I would
almost be I I I would be happy if we
actually just struck num number two,
right? Provided that the teachers are
already being guided to help develop the
students critical thinking skills,
right? But just giving the teacher some
sort of mandate that for anything that
might ever be considered controversial
that they present all of the different
points of view evenly and in a balanced
way feels feels a bridge too far.
>> Just want to make sure I'm understanding
because I don't see a bullet here.
>> Number two,
>> you're talking about the highlighted
instruction shall be presented in a
balanced manner addressing all sides of
bias and pre in the clean one. I think
>> your suggestion is to strike it all
together. the whole
>> I would be more com So I mean the the
fantasy would be some beautiful language
that articulates the complexity and
nuance here we're probably not going to
be able to word smith it at 10:46
>> I don't know David does a pretty good
job in architect these meetings
>> so I mean absent that striking too feels
like it actually gives the teacher more
leeway and clarity than than keeping it
there feels like it puts them in a weird
box where where they have to take all
the different possible points of view
and and and broadcast and advocate them
for them equally.
>> Yeah. Although I do like the terms
without bias or prejudice
because teachers come with their own
hosts of thoughts when they walk in the
room and their own life experiences and
so they're charged with doing that but
this explicitly calls that out. So but
you know I think maybe there might be
other spots where it might work itself
out. Um
>> well if you look at number three maybe
that's where it needs to be. A teacher
may not advocate is your personal point
of view but it should be I added but I
have some prejudice without
encompasses it all.
>> Can I just remind you to unmute
otherwise audio
got Mike do you have an opinion?
>> No I mean I think that it's a it's
obviously a
it's an interesting conversation that's
here. Um I I do think there's something
to be said about presenting like it's
not saying that all sides of the issues
have to get equal airtime. You know it's
just saying that you you know you need
to present the multiple sides of the
issues if it's being controversial. I
also point out that for when there's a
guest speaker there's the same
requirement there. So if we were going
to do it here we might want to look at
the same thing for guest speakers and
yet you wouldn't want a guest speaker to
come in and talk about something that
you might find controversial and not
have the counterbalancing part um
presented there. So, you know, it's uh
look, it's a controversial issue. It's a
thorny thing that's here. I don't think
that this is bad policy to say that
there has to be, you know, multiple. We
shouldn't have, we wouldn't want a
classroom on one extreme presenting only
one side of the view. Um, so it feels
like it's a good policy to say that
that's not allowed. Um, but I don't know
how you do it without saying that
generally speaking, you must have a
balanced uh view to present it. I don't
think that they could just say you must
have a balanced view only when it's
something that I find
to be needing of it.
>> I mean, so it sounds like there's
perhaps value in keeping two, but
perhaps with the additional
clarification that is highlighted. So
that highlighted one was highlighted
because it was removed by staff.
>> No, because it was removed by CSBA, but
I wanted to
>> You wanted to highlight it. Okay. Okay.
>> Yeah, I think that's in there.
>> Okay.
>> Yeah, add it in.
>> Cool.
>> We have it in. Is that what I
>> Yeah, we'll add it in. It's the um
>> the highlighted one.
Uh it's very similar to what's in the
first paragraph around separating fact
from opinion.
>> Um and then and I think it says warning
against drawing conclusions from
insufficient data.
>> Um it's very similar to the opening one
of
um
you know some should be designed to
develop students critical thinking
skills, ability to discriminate fact and
opinion, respect for others and
understanding and tolerance of diverse
points of view.
>> That part is great. Yeah, I think it's
>> love paragraph one.
>> I think that second second one is is
very similar.
>> So in summary, we are keeping the um
highlighted item that was struck
through, but we're going to unstrike it
in case.
>> Perfect. Thank you.
>> Thanks for the discussion, folks.
>> Yeah,
>> great. Um let me go back to the agenda.
So done with controversial.
Uh okay. Um, general obligation bonds
7214.
I've learned to pause just a little bit
longer. So, just making sure. Looks like
it's all from CSBA. Looks like it's all
stuff that we already do. So, it looks
good to me. Uh, okay. And then 14. So,
this one does have a little bit to
discuss. And this one is um bylaw 9250
uh remuneration reimbursement and other
benefits.
>> Yeah, thank you. So the board policy
committee met. There's actually also a
resolution that comes with this. Um but
I think the main topic of conversation
that we wanted to ensure the board had
was the different options at the top of
the bylaw. And so Rick and David had
done some research about the actual
dollar amounts and opportunities. So
Rick, I can hand it over to you if you
want to speak about um or David, either
one. Um about the current maximum
monthly compensation
for board members. Currently, I believe
it's at 240 a month. And so we there was
research done and I think the maximum
for our size district was 1,200 a month.
as as what the maximum compensation
would be per per board member. Option
two is when the board might come up with
another figure within that range. So
instead of 1,200 maybe they say okay
well for this next year it'll be 500 or
you know make up a number whatever is
determined.
Uh and then
the third one is that we don't elect to
receive the compensation. So anyway, we
wanted to bring this because there were
different ideas about what should happen
and of course you receive payments. So
this is the time for that discussion. Is
there anything else clarifying or did
you want to add anything David or Rick?
>> What is the current policy? I just I can
I can't remember.
>> I so I think the current policy we don't
have a current policy. So this is this
is introduced to make it clear.
>> What's our current behavior? So that's
240 a month.
>> 240 a month. And that's two, right?
>> Yeah. 240 is the maximum for a school
district with ADA between 1,000 and
>> 10,000. And
today as well as when this takes effect
January 1st
by 5% above the count.
>> So effectively that would be option one
which is
>> it could yes or it could be option two
if we put in 240 in the blank.
>> Okay. B is that I think.
>> Yeah. And then every year you could
choose to increase whatever you set this
at at 5%.
>> Even above the cap.
>> Yeah. I guess if we were to be below
1,200, we could go anywhere between 120
to,200 and then after that 5% on top of
that each year.
>> Yeah. So for additional context and I I
wanted to make sure that we have this as
a full conversation because obviously
we're in an environment where we need to
be conscious about things. Um but
broadly I think to your point our the
policy committee's main goal was to set
it up um to reflect what is basically
current practice uh across the board um
both for the first line but as well as
for the bottom bottom lines that we
could talk about too. Um, in terms of
the top line, I'll say that um I I think
about
the representation on our board and the
extent to which it um mirrors our
community and I I think about um
what we ask of of folks and what the
opportunity cost is of them. Uh, and
just in light of that, I I don't think
that the increase is
um I don't think it's unreasonable
relative to the time commitment. And I
fear that if we don't do something that
reflects the cost of living in the area
and the amount of hours that are put
into it, then we are artificially
um closing the funnel for candidates
that we may want to be on the board.
Well,
>> and so that would be recommending which
>> option one
>> option one current practice
>> current practice.
>> Yeah, I agree. I mean I think that you
know that it's sort of
I mean
sure I would gladly not you know option
three would be fine but I realize that
that's not a um that may not be an
option for everyone that wants to be on
the board. Uh I think that it's
important
>> and I'll sorry just one other thing is I
know that there's there's no obligation
to take it right. So board members can
make the decisions that are right for
them on to the extent that they're
compensated. They you know I think
several do make decisions on what they
do but we I don't I want to make sure
we're not artificially limiting the pool
in advance.
>> Sure.
>> And so what does that reflect back for?
What's current practice for the second
choice?
When do you mind benefits?
>> We're talking about through uh the
health and welfare benefits piece or
what are you talking about?
>> Yeah, I don't even know. I was like
I don't know what current practice is
for.
>> Can I just summarize? So, in the top
section, the board is interested in
option one, which would be the $1,200
per month. Just want to make sure at
this moment make sure I'm understanding.
Wait, is that not current policy or
>> current policy is to pay the max. The
max is 240 a month.
>> I see.
>> If if we to if we formalize our policy
is to pay the max permissible by
California law, then as of January 1st,
that'll become 1,200 a month given the
size of our district.
>> Because they've changed the law.
Correct.
>> Because they've changed the law.
>> Okay. Just Yes. So we always used to pay
the max which was 240 and now the max
has been updated to 1,200. Okay. Yeah.
Yeah, I still think we should probably
just align with what the state is
setting as the goals there.
>> Yep.
>> And uh yeah, do that.
>> And what do we do for the health health
insurance one?
>> Yeah, this one I'm going to have to
defer more to
health insurance.
>> So because it's going up. So right now
board members are entitled to single
payer at the maximum offer to RCTA.
Uh
so that increases naturally. If the rate
goes up then your plan goes up. Uh this
is really uh
one
third one third one.
option one.
>> So the the current the current practice
is option one.
>> Um
keep it.
>> Yeah.
>> Okay.
>> Okay. That's great.
>> Okay.
>> Um yes. Yes.
>> Oh, I missed it.
>> Former board members is the next zero.
>> Ah, I see.
I missed that one.
Cobra.
>> Yes.
>> So, as I understand that prior to me
being here, there's never been a request
for an offer for board member benefits
beyond their
time as a board member. And so right now
they are eligible for any of you at the
end of year would be eligible to
participate in the to continue off of
benefits if you were taking them or if
you decided you wanted them but we're
not there hasn't been historically any
other offering to board members.
>> So in this case um it is the highlighted
and then none of the options.
>> Yes.
>> Which I'm I'm fine with as well. And so
wait, there's a way to say
>> yeah, there's so there's an option to
say it's not offered at all.
>> Okay.
>> Except for
>> run that by me again.
>> The So the bottom of page three.
>> Yeah.
>> The highlighted board members may elect
to pay Cobra. That is I guess we'll call
it option zero, which is also current
practice.
>> I see.
So the second read will have all of
those options eliminated. It will just
end with that Cobra sentence
>> if that is what
>> if that's the choice.
>> Are there
>> and take COBRA benefits who pays for it?
>> They would have to pay the individuals.
>> So isn't that option too
>> effectively? But it's limited time and
and it's it's Cobra versus just
>> I see.
>> Yeah. Okay.
>> So, option two, I'll pick on Kaiser. Got
it. Right. If you were elected into
Kaiser and then you leave, some
districts allow you to continue with
Kaiser. You just show up at the district
office every month, pay you premium,
>> right?
>> Okay.
Yeah, sounds good. Option one's like not
even relevant. So, but yeah. Okay,
great. So, it's all all resolved. Did we
I'm fine with the files.
>> Yeah,
>> great.
>> That's how uh many many jobs would work.
It's paid for by the if the member
chooses to take it, they're paying for
Cobra. It's like no cost to district,
right? Yeah.
>> We are codifying currents.
>> Yeah, sounds good. And
>> was there a question on the resolution?
>> Yes.
>> Is that the next?
>> Okay. Well, I'm happy to talk about it,
but
>> uh I I think as part of the policy
to note that there is a section that
basically says board members are paid
effectively I think proretta based on
their attendance at meetings. There is
an exception um if or if the board wants
to compensate the individual or
individuals who did not attend for
whatever reason then it would um require
a resolution. So the exhibit is a form
resolution but nothing for us to do on
that today but more of a acknowledgement
that that is the procedure going
forward.
>> Okay.
>> The default is you miss a meeting you
don't get you only get paid for
>> Yep. That's right. And did I misstate
anything?
>> Okay.
>> Got it. Sounds good. Um shall we extend
one more time?
>> 10 minutes.
>> All right. speed run. I move we extend
meeting to 11:10 p.m.
>> Uh second.
>> Okay. All in favor?
>> I I Great. Uh we're on consent agenda. I
think we finished our discussion items.
So consent agenda. We're going to
>> Is there a second?
>> All in favor?
>> Perfect. And then we're on to so long.
No action items. So board and
superintendent reports. Trusty Lee, why
don't you start us off?
Um
>> oh the things that I wrote down uh went
to I think the latest DAC meeting um
which was great um focused on board
engagement great turnout
um this is general pattern that we're
seeing um which is excellent across
schools um people are engaged good
conversation on challenges to engagement
um from um the eel community and their
families u which some of them can I
think probably be addressed and some are
just really challenging to address um
but I know that Dr. Baker and staff are,
as we already heard, like doing quite a
bit of work to um help keep people
engaged, informed. Um it was a
productive meeting. uh and then had a
policy committee meeting um which led to
what we just
uh not a whole lot to report from you
but I think I have successfully
>> not a whole lot to report for me but I
think I have successfully recruited a
member of a taxpayer organization to uh
fill that seat on CBOC application
should drop in uh tomorrow or the next
day
>> you got another also.
>> Okay,
>> we'll talk there.
>> And speaking of which, that's my one
reporter. We had the citizens bond
oversight committee last week. Um, they
approved their annual report for the 232
24 fiscal year for both measure T and
measure S. So, I'll come to the board uh
for presentation at some point. Um, and
then they received a bunch of
information about they got the same
measure S implementation plan that we
saw. Um, they got measure S progress,
bunch of stuff. Um, lots of questions,
things like that. So cool.
Thank
>> all right. uh same as David Lee at DWAC
and Sebach with Mike and then I had uh a
meeting with Taff parents on Friday in
regarding the superintendent's advisory
council because I'm doing them English
and then I go to each of the schools and
then did that again on um at Garfield on
Monday evening. Great turnout, 12
parents in person, 14 online. So really
good,
right? That's it for me.
>> Awesome.
>> There's no no information items. Um
anything from correspondence that people
want to um read into the record?
Other business suggested items for
future agenda?
>> Reflection.
Um, kind of sucks that the Zoom went
out. Um, so hopefully you
>> Yeah. Um, do you feel
all right? Uh, I've unmuted on my
laptop. Um, so reflections. Um, it's
great to have the presentations, but I
would have loved even more discussion
and dialogue. It felt like each of the
presentations went like over an hour
long and then that kind of constrained
how much back and forth and discussion
we we got to have about them. uh which
was a little unfortunate. Um clock in
the back of the room is an hour off by
the way. Uh that sort of got me. Um um
yeah. Um for for a bunch of the
presentations it felt like one of the
things that I would love for especially
for a major report to have is when will
we we hear from you next, right? Um so
there was a mention at the community
school that there was going to be a
report out on family engagement that was
going to be shared by year end. um
roughly what date via what medium. It
would be good to know that stuff. And
just in general, if members of the
public want to learn more about the
subject matter, is there a link they can
follow to kind of dive more into the
topic would be would be really nice. Um
yeah.
>> Uh I will echo I think everything that
Trusty Weekly mentioned. Um the present,
sorry, I should say I think the
presentations were really helpful for
me. They're just very long and I think
the discussion is frankly some of the um
most important stuff. Uh I don't know
how to I wonder I don't know if it's a
policy but I I wonder if we can create a
norm of like having some sort of like 30
minute or something of like a
presentation time and then let's
dedicate the rest to actual
conversations. Um or and I think we
should have exceptions when necessary
and maybe this is one of them. Um it is
very long but again I learned quite a
bit so who knows. Um I really
appreciated that a lot of but there was
quite a bit of focus on kind of student
outcomes um across a range of things
probably not just academically but um
mental health and everything else like I
think this is kind of the core of what
um what our job is. So I thought that
that was really helpful that we spent
>> a lot of time on it. Um but it was like
that that's what we should be discussing
which is great.
>> Um I appreciate Mike you keep doing your
best fighting valiantly. I gave up
fought valiantly to to keep us um on
track and I we're all guilty of it. Um,
so we all have room to get better. But I
appreciate like yeah, I don't need to
talk all the time um as I talk. But I
appreciate the those check-ins and then
I really actually appreciated the the
variety of community engagement that we
got um
>> um from like
>> having the the public comment from
Augustine and having public comment on
the phone. It's kind of all part of the
same effort of like we want to make sure
that we are
>> letting the full community know that
they can come to board meetings and so
starting to see the fruit of that that
labor is um it's good.
>> Amen.
>> A lot of praisew
noticed
>> seeing results quantitatively we can and
qualitative. Elizabeth was texting and
email.
I'm on I'm on. She wouldn't make sure
she was on. She was emailing me.
>> Yeah.
>> That's awesome.
>> Good. Well, thanks for thanks for
supporting that. Yeah.
>> Yeah.
>> Mike, what are your reflection?
>> I don't have much to add other than I
did give up just on the pacing side of
it. I think that yeah, we just should
get maybe get a little bit better about
like padding 20 minutes to whatever
presenters need so that we can have a
little bit.
>> Yeah, I know. I knew me would be
lobbying. Yeah,
>> look, it's so important, too. Like,
look, I don't I wouldn't want to cut any
of the material that was in there. I
think just setting the expectation, you
know, of like, yeah, we should have put
hour 20, hour and a half on the I mean,
for that one, that was two hours. Maybe
that was a little excessive, but we
should have at least u set our own
expectations for it. Um, something I've
seen done at companies is you you you
prepare a lot of material and you send
it out and you basically enforce
everyone's got to read this before we
show up at the meeting. And then there
can be a presentation, but it's just
it's an executive overview of this meaty
amount of material. So there's no
narrating of deck. So I think like
there's a little yellow flashing light
that should come over our heads anytime
that somebody's up at the podium. And
most of what they're communicating,
they're just reading a slide out loud
because we all have read the deck in
advance.
>> Yeah. On the flip side, I really
appreciated hearing from the site
counselors coming up, the partners
coming up and talking and getting
everybody to have a few minutes. I
thought the variety of speakers was
important and that obviously is going to
add to the amount of time that's going
to happen anyway. So,
>> um, great. Should we move on to meeting
calendar?
>> Evelyn,
>> is there a meeting next week?
>> There's a closed session the week after.
Yeah. Yeah.
>> Unmuted this.
>> Um, there are two meetings. There's a
close session at 6:30.
That should only take about 20 minutes
on the 19th
>> and then the closed session on the 21st
from 5 to 8.
>> Yep. Okay.
>> Thank you, Evan.
>> Perfect. Um adjournment. Can we get a
motion to
>> Yes, but we're not adjourned yet.
>> You had mentioned about some items you
wanted to add to the board
>> regarding PSA.
>> Oh,
>> regarding
>> PSA a lot of people.
>> Oh, right. Right. Yes. Yes. Um, I think
we are just going to I appreciate that.
Um, going to uh divide and conquer at
AEC in terms of the topics that we're
going to tackle um at at AEC. So,
morning of
>> Okay.
>> Yeah. Okay.
>> Thank you, Doc. Appreciate you.
>> Okay. Can I get a motion to adjurnn?
>> I move we adjourn.
>> Second. are there. All right.