December 2025 Meeting of the Board of Trustees

December 2025 Regular and Annual Organizational Meeting

all right let's uh stand for the Pledge of Allegiance begin to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands 1 nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all right here you get a motion to approve the agenda to see if you so moved second all in favor any public comment no report closed sessions yeah Brian so in closed session the board approved the Personnel list and that included uh for certification 1 new hire and for classified to resident patients and that was on a motion by March the second by Jennifer no public comment I see very good all right 48 this election of newborn president have we got a motion for and the second for a nominee I would like to nominate my compatriot of the last 3 years Mark Gilchrist to is our next board president enough in a second did we have a second I'll second that all right all in favor yeah yep I gotta ask do you accept okay very good all in favor all right very good Mark comes new responsibility let me write that down yeah Gracie mechanic figures okay so next we need a motion for nomination of the for Clerk I would like to forward a recommendation or a nomination for for clerk um I worked alongside Jennifer for a year now gotten to know her um I cannot think of a more engaging thoughtful person and I think he would be wonderful I think you genuinely care be sincerely care about our schools and strengthening our schools and everything that is entailed and I think you'd be wonderful I was a very quick thank you I'm going to go ahead and send it that way thank you Andy thank you Brooks um do you accept this I accept all right so um we'll go ahead and put that to a vote all those in favor imposed all right so I don't need to elect a representative to the Executive Board of the Madera County School Board Association do you have a nomination for that role she can't do it anymore no can't do it anymore yeah County School Board Association County School Board office I'd like to nominate Alan for that position all right do we have a second second everybody all in favor okay now to elect um 2 representatives to the way USD budget advisory committee I would like to nominate Bernie and Annie again they did such a wonderful job I think that they can continue to uh be our finance here the honor exactly second second second okay do you both accept this role except success okay all those in favor you all have a role congratulations item for consideration of the approval of the board meeting calendar for 20 26 so I need a motion to approve that motion to so granted second second any discussion on the calendar would you like me to speak to that yeah so every uh December the organizational meeting the board considers and approves the um all the board meeting gates from January to December so um based on board's preference we're sticking with the second and Thursday um each month however about half of those second Thursdays had contracts and so um there are some of the months where you moved it to either the first Thursday or the third Thursday but that's all laid out in the calendar which you see so if you approve that and then we will make that our official of the year will be posted advertising the all the invitation any further discussion all those in favor say I I I all right we're going to take a excuse me start getting over the cold that everyone has 5 minute break to play musical chairs back now stand where you want to sit no worries back of the line the only 1 that doesn't have to do not even in solidarity anything you want there thank you for making my job The Unofficial task of security between the 2 Lucas's shirts I'm in order store and I and new new um name plates will be ordered so that you all match and have a great time it's on the right side okay moving on to section 5 thank you the president on behalf of the certified staff is that a yes or no yes a clearing good evening this is so I believe depending on clearing uh that we're back to a full stop something that happens in the math department I don't know what it is but this stuff has got to stop is it causing neuroses of a lot of people Jamie I am truly truly sorry if you have had to get through this about the first part we're about halfway done uh with the semester uh leaving 25 uh in the in the rear view mirror moving on to 26 um all in all the staff is happy uh there will be a little happier uh when they get their retro checks um Christina Charlotte and the others that have dealt with the with the county software thank you thank you thank you both privately and publicly as you guys know that uh the county accounting system went down um luckily we had all the payroll in so I didn't have to deal with a bunch of phone calls from staff that didn't get a check so other than that thank you for those of you that uh made it out to the event um thank you and from there happy holidays whichever your faith May guide you csca I'm just doing representative our absentee ASB president again earlier I'd like to apologize for not being able to attend this month's board meeting I'm currently playing in a basketball game as we speak but for our future board meetings I will be attending so once again I apologize and I'll get straight into it starting off with River Road they held their annual Hot Wok on November 21st and raised a record amount 34,000 if there was an unbelievable turnout the fund will support classroom field trips banned intervention programs and River goals Awards incentive systems as part of the event 2 students movie I'm going to be around who initially performed with the wide chest Jasmine Olivia along with seventh grade Gian Brownfield will be auditioning for the presidenta honor band this weekend on Wednesday riverville students competed in the paragraphs this Friday the girls soccer team and boys basketball team will be competing in the sports tournament at MX they're helping to bring home 2 more championships looking ahead December 18th is their Holiday Fest which will include class performances to and pictures of Santa next week will also be their first trimester on to recognize student achievement the job river river gold and moving on to head office um little short this month I'm surely sweet um the adult schools are they in graduation this month on December 18th from the greater Sierra forestry Corps um look forward to seeing you on there to celebrate our graduates moving on to the course Field Report last week they had their grand opening of their Family Resource Center which was very well attended you want to thank those that were able to attend and are excited to share this with the community starting last week an attendance challenge for students with perfect attendance getting soda flood on Wednesday the battle of the books team competed in Madera and had been cast on team has been hard at work as well for the 3 weeks before breaks and celebrating in December daily events CES hosted Santa photos and art dates that were provided by PTO they are finishing up their Toys for Tots collection this week moving on to Sunday High School otherwise I'm having had a very very um in sports the boys basketball team is currently on a 2-way win streak including a stronger left side against watch show the girls basketball games off to a great start at 7 and 3 with a big rival when 2 nights ago soccer is at 1 and 2 after a tough loss last night now on to the student leadership side ASB teams hoping to launch a senior website page 2 uh this page will include him information on colleges career Pathways and scholarships to help guide seniors through their next steps UC and CSU deadlines just passed so many seniors were focused on getting their application submitted on time the entire student body would like to thank the righteous counseling staff for all of their support they provided around the stressful process last night the school hosted the annual winter performance from the music department always stay at the end of the season next week is finals week shows are ready to begin to shift into study mode Humanity will also be proceeding to win our formal decided by the ASB freshman class that's all I have for you guys tonight thank you and look forward to seeing you all we have to turn down the TV when he does that he yells at us need too much so we sit in our living room and Whisper to each other until he's finished I think we need a behind the scenes video okay section 5D superintendent reports thank you so normally you would hear from our principals at this stage of the game but we are actually we've saved them for the dashboard uh presentation they'll be joining Jared the report during that time so good evening to you all hope you had a great Thanksgiving which was a couple weeks ago I know I did still stopped actually um we're in the final stretch of the first half of our of the school year and after this week our students our teachers and staff members of the all winter break for the next 3 weeks and we turn on January 5th I want to start by wishing Andy a very happy birthday he tells me that he never gets tired of celebrating his 49th birthday and and he's thrilled to be celebrating a great time of the year here in the Mountain Community as you guys all know the last 3 weekends my wife and I had the joy of attending some nice events a very went to the Christmas tree auctions in the lodge and then we went to the uh vast Lake Christmas Parade in the tree lighting and this last weekend attended the ochre Christmas tree lighting which was very cool it was just neat to see um the community come out a lot of spirit on display and really cool to see all the great Community Support especially of our schools kids are out their staffs out their parents bought some great loaves of bread from a culinary um department just just really good stuff uh last week we attended myself um Mark Jennifer and Brooke attended the csba educators conference in Sacramento uh we enjoyed lots of learning we had fellowship with about 3,000 of our closest board member and superintendent friends from around the state in this in this annual big conference it was just really good learning and really good uh Fellowship but I know it's hard to get away for a board member so really be that could make a here thank you so much for making that happen within your schedules I know that it's really really tough but also sends a message and it models that our district is about learning um at all levels of our organization not just our kids and not just our staff but even our board members um and myself we're out learning as well uh congratulations to Mindy and Denise um did a really good job with the ribbon cutting and the grand opening of the Family Resource Center um it's really cool to see this come to fruition it's been a lot of work a lot of planning but it's 1 of those things that our community schools Grant has provided over there we're in a year or 2 of a 5 year Grant there and they provided that and want to thank Bernie for being there and representing the team and making a few remarks um on behalf of on behalf of the board um as has been mentioned our music department and held their Winter concert last night uh I hear it was awesome well attended I was more ill than I was tonight so I wasn't able to go um but Andy was there representing our team and was able to open this it so yeah so thank you Andy for for attending that see are thriving music students and our staff and actually really our music program is really thriving to come a long way this last few years very proud of it and congratulations to Jessica and Tony and so many others we have to kick off for our Valley build uh program which is really cool at our adult school it's off to a great start I think there's 17 to 20 students in this cohort which is really maximizing um the class and this is only the beginning of a program it's really going to provide work skills and job placements um in our community hopefully for a long long time in in the trades which is where there's a lot of a lot of opportunity and then congratulations to J and River Gold Hawk Nation on your Hawk walk you know they had a record-breaking year I was able to go out there and this is cool there because it just showcases the community support and the stack coming together there were like Sarah curly was there right she she moved out of town but she came back for the the hawk Bob Rose was there like everybody comes up for this and just shows their support so it's cool and then lastly uh thank you Brooke for your it's up to you thank you you're over there you're usually here uh thank you Brooke for your for your service as board president this past year um and for your services board clerk to fire year um what I'll say about you is you did it your way you you live with your heart you led for students um and ultimately which I know was was really 1 of your goals you led with the desire to unite and unify everyone around really what matters in our schools and you accomplished that as president so um it was it enjoy to work alongside you and and to see you make inroads as far as that goes you're very unique you're very special but you're also very effective as a leader um here on the board and in very in a very a lot of aspects of our community so thank you for that a lot of extra work a lot of time a lot of effort to serve on board leadership you guys are going to find out um Mark's already found out found out a little bit but um it did not go unnoticed and thank you very much for that appreciate it and I know our new leaders Mark and Jennifer will no doubt carry the torch it's an amazing job as well so look forward to our year together uh I just want to thank everyone in advance um or get well wishes for a merry Christmas and a happy New Year because next time we see each other at a board meeting we'll be beyond that and with that I'll turn it back over to to our new president 1 thank you so much um Section 5 e board reports so we'll start down at the end when it comes to Brooke I was hoping Tony beat me to it at it's not all period already you beat me yesterday though uh it's awesome I love I love to see the uh uh Valley Bill program opening up more opportunities for our our young young people in this community um it's absolutely uh a positive thing for lots of many young people it's awesome uh I am happy to turn over the new presidency and clerkship to to these 2 wonderful people I think they're going to uh continue to see her and die in an awesome way um csba conference was really cool um lots of lots of learning uh more class time than I'm used to but but um over the last 3 and a half years um everybody here has been asked to do more and train more so like if I can I think it's important for for me to do as well um 1 of The Amazing sessions I walked into are awesome uh Jaime Garcia over here was leading it uh you know csba finds the best people around to lead these sessions and inform all of the school board members so for them to find her is is proof that we continue to have amazing people here so you did well it was awesome very informative so good job um yeah so all right wow back to you mark sorry I'm I'm used to guiding I'm over here quietly you can cry I was waiting for you I sucked it up okay um well yeah I mean thank Brooke thank you for your year Brian said it best you know you know how I feel I told you many times and appreciate everything you do here and helping make us all look good you put so much into this and you're here the most evolved board member that I've served with in terms of actually being on site interacting and I appreciate that it works well on all of us so thank you for that Mark I'm excited I I think I'm excited to see your style I have a feeling these meetings are going to be shorter charge and that's that's a good thing that's okay I think everybody can make a lot of people happy so um and speaking of things there's so many things that I like to take credit for that nothing to do with um but when you're on the board I brag about this stuff the Family Resource Center and the Indonesian uh that was there um that's that's incredible I mean I went because I wanted to and I knew that I was not attending the school board convention so I thought this will be my my makeup uh by going down there and I was late and Brian says thank you for saying if you were it was a very few words because they were the scissors were out they were cutting on ribbon when I we waited for you there is a photo of me kind of but I I got there about 3 seconds before the room so thank you for waiting a few minutes for me and I just didn't you know we hear about this and I I didn't visualize what it is and I would encourage if you guys get a chance to go see what it is it's way more impressive than I expected and and it looks like it can really be truly what it says it is and a real resource to the entire Community you know I mean there's your stolen I mean new appliances they've got clothing they've got hygiene products for people it's it's um not just 1 part of it and then there's you know I missed the original tour but Mindy was kind enough fortunately so did sauce they got their leak too so mind he gave us the the after tour and I got to see the Zen den and the garden and um there's just a lot going on down there and I really enjoyed hearing Mindy kind of riffing thinking out loud her other plans as we took the tour about other things she wants to do and that was really gave me some insight into her vision and uh and just how how much she sees as possible down there and you why things have transformed their on earlier ship so so thank you I'm going to take credit for everything you guys did down there and say look at all the great things we're doing uh thank you guys for attending csba cons conference without me I don't go because I already know everything you know obviously that's not true but I could make it this year but I will try and I told Brian instead of I'll try to get on the every other year schedule so that I'm so that I'm participating and then Valley build same thing it's tremendous it's awesome thank you guys for making that happen I had absolutely nothing to do with it but I'm already bragging about it and yes you do you know so yeah I just happen to be on the board when you made it happen and Jessica Brooke and everybody who's been a part of that thank you very much thanks to Andy for the budget being on the budget committee there was a time I was on 3 of my first 4 years on the board and I felt a real obligation to go because I wasn't sure anybody else you know I wasn't sure of the there being anybody else who would be really paying attention to all the details and having Andy there makes me feel like I'm really not that needed more because his knowledge and his command of it is far beyond mine and um so I'm just going to keep you know Finding excuses to miss meetings any know so I'm sorry I missed the meeting yesterday but it was for this basketball coaching thing which is just a few more months and my son will graduate so thank you guys thanks to everybody for all your efforts appreciate it all right um I'll reciprocate I think um you not being there at the budget advisory committee meeting meant that Charlotte wasn't buffered from the onslaught of questions and peppered with just everything I could possibly think of to ask her she did wonderful as usual I'm very much looking forward to the presentation of the second interim tonight it was a great meeting think you work uh for your leadership being first year on the board I cannot think when when I Marx leadership I may think differently but for right now it it was I believe astounding to be introduced to board responsibilities by somebody so caring somebody so giving some so generous with his time I cannot think of another the person who could have said a better example for me and and as it sets a temperament for the board in cohesiveness and and keeping our eyes on the ball and focused on what's important and it was just wonderful so thank you for your leadership very much appreciate also for the valuability yesterday for Tony your leadership and Jessica and rook and everyone I was able to attend a little bit of that uh the budget advisory committee Charlotte thank you for all the hard work amazing you got it done with the county system problems um Winter concert last night was wonderful it was awesome Megan is a interesting person she made it um more interesting to introduce things and talked about music and opened my eyes to a lot of things um so um and I'm really looking forward to our new leadership so I appreciate you for being a new Wall Street looking forward to continue to work with you okay well Andy and Brooke were quite a bit shorter than usual so it's thrown me off I would also like to think uh and um Mark you know coming in and not knowing how this is done and it was just it's been the leadership has been just so smooth and I'm excited to move into this position and um so excited about that so thank you bro and I'm looking forward to good things if you are um well since our last meeting I've had the chance to learn more about uh just what's happening in our schools and visit this program yesterday and really was immersed in some really great learning and inspiration at the csba conference um it's been a month it's really reminded me why um I care so much about this work and about the kids and the families we serve so I want to acknowledge River Gold Elementary first for their your attendance rate is awesome 96% higher than last year and it's really an accomplished because I really think that it reflects the strong relationship between um the the families and the the campus and it shows that things are working well and that the students are where they want to be I also appreciate excited to hear about the Afterschool opportunities that the battle of the books the Lego Club and the theater Club what a great opportunity for kids to feel connected and to learn something new to build on their care curiosity and it just adds a lot of heart to the school so I really appreciate that I also want to recognize um course school elementary for their meaningful celebration of the Native American Heritage Month love love that when a school in increases a culture and history it really creates a deeper sense of of community and belonging for the kids there I think that's amazing um I Heard the ribbon cutting was really great I wasn't able to be there but I do want to come visit that space anytime um I I'll be there um I want to get real cozy in that Zen den and um I know that this Center will make a difference for the students the families the teachers and the staff so I really looking forward to seeing that um I'm also looking forward to hearing tonight's presentation from Dr by and the principal about the dashboard data so um where we are now the gains that we've made and what there is to do like where we want to go in the future um I feel the district is really working together in a meaningful way to improve What's um the students to understand what the students need and where we need to grow so I'm looking forward with that presentation and I know that the progress that we're seeing that we're headed in the right direction and I'm really grateful for the collaboration and for everything that's that it's taken to get to where you're going to show us tonight that we are um another highlight this um was last night was the valley belt kickoff which has been mentioned um the partnership with the adult school and the regional Workforce meeting the students and the people behind the program um along with their employers that were already there to support them it was really inspiring so that the pre-apprenticeship curriculum like seeing the curriculum and all the things that they're going to they're going to learn and they're going to get facility in with really amazing I mean it's it's creating a career path and possibilities for people who can change their whole lives and what a great thing to have up here in our Mountain community so um I'm just so so grateful for the work that it took to have that happen and I'm looking forward to everything that that provides and hearing all the success stories so um last week as has been mentioned I spent 3 days at the school board association annual conference friends and um I was looking over this 7 I think there were 7 break sessions that I attended and I focused on the SE sessions about um the titles were basically approving it attendance supporting student wellbeing gain strengthening school safety ensuring Equitable access to learning and creating environments where every student feels seen and valued these were just where I was drawn this is kind of what called to me um there were so much to choose from the the information and the the places you could go in this were just it was so great because no matter what your drawn toward no matter what you want to learn it's it's all there and meeting people all across the state that are passionate about this as well with really special but um I chose these sessions because at the heart of why I serve as a trustee is this that I really want every student in our district to feel that they matter that they belong that they're valued and that their potential is unlimited and um that's why I became a that's my passion and that's what I hope to be able to offer um so my hope is to bring what I learned back to our schools and ways that genuinely support our students in the adults who care for them there's um was a great breakout session I went to call them uh student voices which was a really great program that I want to kind of dig into a little deeper but overall it's been a month filled with connection and growth and meaningful progress so I'm the long 1 tonight thank you very much Mark I'd file an amendment that's all right on my Jennifer spoke too soon uh oh yeah yeah yeah so I got lost because I'm not used to people complimenting me and saying good things it makes me shy and Bash but so I'm gonna deflect okay see this red writing that says Brooke notes and red all over it right that's railen correcting all of my deficiencies down there so I'm going to give all of the credit that's been given to me railing has helped you know that's what I love she is the magic song lost behind all of this she does so much and she makes me look good she makes everybody else look good she is a Powerhouse and I want to make sure that I said it out loud before all right I'm done um well Bernie thank you for the nomination for for president and um Brooke thanks for your time as the leader definitely set the bar really high as far as um what being a board president is um I think you were great um people out there that don't know but I lobbied for an illegal second term go again but I concerns so um no but I'm happy to um be able to take on the uh president role and do what's required means position um just want to ditto everything that everybody said in their reports the resource center and the um the valley build um I saw both those come through on Facebook and I checked them out and so what was going on there so the deal was really see pictures of those things um did go to the conference uh I'd like to over said there's a lot of options in places to go so knowing that I was taking on the role of board president tried to focus on things that were challenges facing the board and things like that and the roles of a of a board things like that so I could better prepare myself for the position at hand um so just uh thank you everyone and I look forward to a good year and like that so with that we're moving on to the consent agenda so do we have a motion to approve the consent agenda motion to approve and a second second all those in favor say okay sent agenda approved so I'm moving on to section 7 discussion items so a first reading of the consideration of revised form board policies correct yes discussion items to note board acting tonight has always we bring board policies to the board 1 month due to a month to look at it ask questions and make suggestions we bring it back the second time for approval and out of our team for really trying to stay on top of keeping board policies updated remember how many we have 800 900 something like that and so keeping them you know we did a whole overhaul in 2023 to bring all of our policies up today so no policies older than 2023 um and so we're really trying to stay ahead of this and not get behind where we were before so we're trying to get you know 789 1215 policies in front of you each month and keep the ball low so thank you guys for doing that and paying attention to these yes we have and this month for first reading and then we have some later on for secondary you have a month to look at it and give us any feedback that you have all right any questions the moment we've all been waiting for the long anticipated um dashboard presentation so Dr boury want to kick us off getting the he's like good evening this is your work in the last 3 years fourth year um it's exciting and and and it's it's uh it's a time to reflect time this kind of taking a look at like my first first year walking to Brian's office and Brian telling me you know what a restructured this position I want it curriculum assessment um I'm really looking with this type of work so prior to me there was a different frame lens for instance first decision is like this is what he's going to focus on here now it's it's been a little bumpy coming in my my first year a lot of evaluation getting to know things uh get the pulse of the of the district and the reality is there's a lot of things absent and not by any any specific doing of any person or individual but it was a system lacking in a variety of areas around curriculum instruction assessment feedback data so there's a lot of research out there that shows you there's change coming right around year 3 see where we're at in your and my year 5 that's where you start seeing sustainability so we're at year 3 Brian was able to provide quick little overview of where we're at um in terms of the dashboard and what it says and kind of what I frame it from the district the sites have different areas of of colors um but our district has went on either red orange we are now yellow blue and green and in looking at our data um we really taking a look at um we're taking a look at change change over time so as much as we like to say you know leadership in the district it's going to be change immediately although it was a first in evaluation process getting systems in place developing things getting the right people um so there was a lot that went into this I've been looking kind of at our at our growth um overall we are on Pace with the state as well as other school districts in the New York County um I'll get ahead but as I conclude we are we are outpacing a lot of our districts in terms of our gains so we're at the cost so years ago I was not the case so we so with Ela scores have increased by 38 points right at 39 now of course I've increased by 28 chronic absenteeism improved by 5.4% suspension rate decline 2.9% graduation rate increased 13.2% collagen crew Readiness 30.7 and English learner progress that's where we've had significant growth in terms of red to blue um 27.8 so there's a a few areas in terms of um these big gains um where it wasn't my H my accident I just stumbled upon these games where the principals working like there was work and and specifically when you look at so when Jessica first came into the district um I said hey Jessica I'm in communication with a few superintendents that have a have a consulting company and they want to come in and work with our little small District they work with big ones we want to look at adg we want to we want to again there we want to look at we want to look at your course codes we want to evaluate transcripts um and I said wow this is actually what we need because our course codes have been off Jessica's work weekly working with her team developing this that was that was an area so just a a g study audit was what it's called provided a road map provided road map and through this road map there was a lot of areas where some we knew but some we were also able to look at you know what this is where we need to monitor we need to start a student Support Services um evaluation of transcripts a to G um so these this all came out through this study so that gave a roadmap to Jessica's team and Jessica's team could have uh woke it to that Jessica's team took upon themselves got in there separated transcripts looked at kids and as you see there's a significant graduation rate from grain so that was kudos to to Jessica and her team and really looking at graduation how to get because of the Finish Line um and that I mean that is amazing so um with that type of game is unbelievable and it really is but it took a it took a system it took away a of a team coming together Jessica leaving this work with your team and this is what we have with English language Learners program the blue so this this was this so this started so my first year and I'm going to just give you some contextual information some of you have so um English language learner achievement is very personal team only because my grandfather was from what is Mexico when he came over here not speaking English and he went to a segregated school because he had brown skin so he was not awarded opportunities he did not get a fair opportunity which really drove me for education Equity getting in schools working with kids um so because you don't speak a language or because you have a disability doesn't mean you can't be successful so that fuel my passion and my research um was a case study in looking at teachers administrators and parents how do you have successful successful system so this was built upon 3 years so we were able with the board support through the El Cap we had we brought a bilingual leas on in so Leslie Ramirez very quiet you may not hear much about her but I can tell you she knows every Spanish speaking parent in this District she is in communication which was tremendous because that completely Bridges this Gap and the true story I was a bilingual as so I mean it was a family when I was a principal 1 year and the student came home and said uh are the parents not today we're doing great all A's and I looked at the transcript and then the specialist told them you have all FS that was fantastic was high achieving so there was a there was a there was a gap so that's what I'm trying to say so so we have we had a tosa well first we have we have an ELD class and a structure where we were compliant but we're looking at strategies to support English language Learners looking at curriculum we had we we we we had teachers devoted looking at prepping kids not only for literacy and language I got a language but but first and foremost how to how to take the test and and and this culture um I think I would say last year I think our district as a whole kind of internalized them like wow our guests stinks and I think only set the best is like this is a reflective of us and sure enough that's not so so the teachers are classified Staff All of Us rally together to really internalize our data stinks and we need to do something about it and now we got people watching us so um the locks are short so in terms of this red to blue um we now have a we now have a 1 tier um a tosa working directly providing instruction working with families to take the test to be enrolled in class to be compliant and um some of these were some some of the simple where we got kids to test but some of it was also working directly with families to make sure when they understand the importance of this so so um the School site did a great job um our did a great job and these are the games we get so we we I would expect to continue this step against only because 1 we've really found a system of of working with students families instructionally um so this is exciting um so when when we look at um kind of going back from this 3 years to where we're at now look at pacing guys so 1 of the things that um we took a look at a lot of districts have pacing guides a guide so if I'm a new tracking come in and say wow where do I start well pacing guides have been something where we're continuing to develop um at the high school they have they have departments that have completed some of these and at the case we've really started to surround Ela math we have we have we have a curriculum guide Swan math where it connects to kind of what we're doing which is the new state framework peer-to-peer observation and this is Led really by Matt focusing as a tosa who who works in my department and works with the schools um peer-to-peer obser reservation teaches observing other teachers I can tell you that year 1 it was teachers were very apprehensive for people coming in their classrooms and watching that's very new to me so um intrinsically specifically as of this year we now have teachers saying hey Swan math is here this is this year um I want them to come up to my lesson I want to give feedback so we have teachers now not more um apprehensive or feeling more value to it's more of like hey let's improve our craft so the that's a significant shift um when we look at our professional development plan we now have targeted professional development my first year we came in the feedback we received like we don't there's not much offered is what the the information we received wasn't very valuable so leveraging specific curriculum really curriculum how to utilize curriculum how to how to best use practice um what was around the area of professional development we were looking at special education professional development so we have we have full each year we have a an array of professional development and specifically this year it's it's it's a lot we got PLC we have Swan math profession I don't think it's at the end of swan math we have a mirror literacy training so there's a lot of support and a lot of work and then that is on the is on the front end of this working directly with teachers to really move our schools in the principles um with our um so with de differentiated assistance so we still are yes but last year we qualified for differentiated assistance we had 6 categories each is a little significant it's a lot so this year we have we have 1 1 category so and that is Native American around suspension and attendance and we're working with the county to do we're going to look at um really Improvement science and really take a look and drill down and look at why why are we having gaps in achievement in these areas so that is that is a specific way of looking at um achievement these are demographics so what I wanted to make sure even I I am I am very excited and and I want to make sure we understand this is great success but it's not not complacent and I and I think superintendent Beck has said a best is this is good but we need to we need to we need to get to Super Bowl not just when the not just when the conference Championship so this is a this so even though we may significant Improvement our chronic isn't still is in terms of out looking at the state we're not putting there is we weren't going the right direction the graduation rate significant Improvement significant uh from red to Red degree when you look at it where um you know right around there so even though we made these great games we are either a pace now with the state or or exceeding so I want to make sure that yeah we still work to do for sure so it's not a not a we're not there yet and um what I what I wanted to do before I get to the high school um and with with our cast so our schools really LED and we kind of targeted effort to reach out to families to say hey no no you need to test its 1 we have a variety of Assessments we got NWA we have IVs but your student needs to test it's imperative so there's there has been a significant and buy and this is what I love pursue through site principal leadership um but also through through Matt's work so Matt's work um so when I was a leader in 1 of my schools we had Fabs and iabs most those really helped and what I'm trying to also and I think Bernie's mentioned before about over testing and over assessment we do have a lot of a lot of metrics of way to look at student achievement this is good this is really good but our Fabs and iabs have really taken a look at to help kids take the cast that is specifically what it's for to prepare kids for for the cast so these may be some new terms but we are going to start working all 3 sites working with fibs and IBS to High Fidelity so what I want to do is bring that up because Matt really LED this work and worked with schools worked with sites and I want to match this just to kind of talk about his his role because it's significant because this is another metrics um it's not a benchmark assessment but it does tell you and it does correlate with um with with with past data and achievement Matty want to talk a little about if I uh president Gilchrist members of the board superintendent back um so I've been I've has to provide an overview of the focus interim assessment blocks I think you guys have heard fias a lot the last couple years um and just kind of talk about how they're contributing to them Improvement on our uh academic performance on our dashboard so I want to just kind of briefly go over the what and the why and how behind them um hopefully make it a little more clear for you so um what are they so fibs they're short um standards based um assessments 10 to 15 questions um there for language arts Math Science and there's also 1 for the English language Learners who will take that assessment um they're created by the uh Department of Education using the same um blueprint that's assigned to The Summit of assessment at the end of the year so the intent with them is to um to mirror the experience of the summative tests so um the um the platform they use is identical right how they log into this the state test at the end of the year is the same as fibs um the tools that they're going to use are are exactly the same the rigor of the questions are the same um and they also give teachers immediate feedback so they they get um results that are that are tied to the standards that were those assessments um so the why behind the Fib so there's there's basically 3 areas that that help to um influence Improvement for students on these on the state test at the end of the year um first being just being ready for the test like Dr poorti resolutions to you um same way you wouldn't want a student to take a driver's test without first driving the car uh we want to make sure the students are prepared for these so they're they have an opportunity to navigate uh the tools that they're going to use um there's highlighters there's calc that they have to learn how to use there's uh notes that they can that they can take on the computer um and then Additionally the question types were tricky right so a lot of times you hear students they they don't know how to answer the questions so they they have exposure to what the different types of questions are um and how to answer those whether it be um it's it's not just the multiple choice anymore there's multiple choice with multiple correct answers or they have to select 2 or 3 or all that applied so getting them to get comfortable platform at is really helpful um the second area is um academic stamina so um the tests are difficult they're long um through this process we provided the students with a um document they can use while they're practicing to give them a process for taking these assessments uh super simple so first first part just being read read what's on the page and highlight what it's both questions like learn how to identify what you need to answer um secondly identify the tasks so is it select 2 is it select 3 um if it's select 3 and you select 2 that are right and 1 that's wrong or 2 that are right and not a third 1 you don't get credit for it right so it's very important that they're answering it um specifically how it's um and then lastly they just mark their response and see if it aligns with what the task was right if they had to answer too did they choose to so it's it's just a visual for them to be able to follow along um and then lastly instructional Focus so this is more from the T perspective so uh students take the assessments there's data that the teachers can look at we provided them with a a digital document that they can um use to analyze this the results um to try to identify patterns so is there a specific standard that the are struggling with is there a specific um question type that they were struggling with or was there just a misconception or mistake that they made within the content area that they were tested on um and then there's a there's a tools for teachers so after they take the assessment the teachers can there's pre-made uh intervention lessons to address any of those patterns that they identify um and then finally so Dr by also mentioned that that this has kind of been an evolution of of rolling the South so this will be the third year of intentionally implementing fivs uh first year was kind of just introducing it and exposing teachers and students to it um it wasn't utilized to a high degree um last year there was a significant jump so we had about 95% of our third through eighth graders at both for school and River Gold school that took at least 1 before the test started um and I'd say the majority was was 2 to 5 depending on who the teacher was or what the what the content area was um and then this year um we have an opportunity to trying to make it a little more specific and systematic approach by um embedding the roll out into the field PLC process as we continue that um so that's a quick and brief FIB uh overview any questions or yeah you you've obviously been as Dr B so you've been playing a key part in this process it's good to hear from you thank you appreciate the opportunity you mentioned to me 2 or 3 years ago that you you spent time with me and you've seen how they prepped they taught how to take tests how would you compare where we are to what You observe down there as were they further along in the process of what you saw or is this are we doing the same things or doing different things uh well I mean I think what we're not to that point where where I was I mean they by the time I had gotten there they had already been doing this um but I'd say that we're we're on track to be in a in a better spot in terms of prepping students because it's it's more um intentional and systematic um it was important there but it was kind of up to teachers right and so it was important to me that my students were prepared and so I invested time and energy into it um but I I feel like we're we're like Dr again like Dr B said we're developing systems to put in place that are going to be sustainable with models so it will become the norm and the expectation as we as we continue to move 3 through the next um 3 years of the PLC process so you mentioned that um there was results that would come back and it would show patterns of areas that we need on is that based off of group like classroom or those individualized for students uh so both um so the um in order to get the fibs kind of out in Rolling there's a little bit of of um work that has to be done up front to um like upload the student rosters and assign them to the teacher once that once that's done so like a third through fifth grade teacher who self-contained they just have their class right um middle Middle School is different because they have several periods so um so it's created so that you know if you taught 7th grade language arts and you had 3 classes you'd be able to look at each of your classes um individually um within the um the recording system is called sirs I I California educator Reporting System maybe um you can toggle through the results pretty specifically so you can look at um uh like which questions were missed most frequently so maybe 90 percent of your students missed a question that's a question you're going to want to look at and figure out why did they miss it right and it goes back to is it was it the standard that they just didn't understand or maybe you didn't get to it um wasn't this question type that's really difficult a part A Part B where they have to answer both correct to get it um so that that part of it yeah you can look at it by by your whole class you can look at it also individually the part that you were speaking about really stood out to me um was understanding the question I think moving the entire Focus to Ward data-driven instruction and Shifting the entire model from knowledge transfer being a student teacher in the text to allowing somebody from outside of classroom to come in it's an amazing transformation but there's 1 aspect of it that you spoke to that I think was I found fascinating and that is make sure you understand the question I will never forget a college essay I wrote and pay a page answer to this question and the girl to my left wrote a paragraph So I got to pay with I got a D she got an A she answered the question she took the time to make and that overcoming test anxiety and teaching them how to make sure you know what's being asked my boy it's 1 little tiny little aspect of the whole transformation you guys are accomplishing is just getting a music formative test process contributing to that summit of and all toward the amazing results we're seeing now it's great to see ya thank you thanks man that's that's 1 of Matt's Big Rocks so we got some big rocks we have smart goals superintendent we're all going to have sparkles absolutely so that's what Matt's Big Rocks is so you see very well versed he's very comfortable talking about because he knows it so his charge is work with departments work with the teachers so they better understand how to utilize uh and we roll it out to with high availability so I'm going to close this and I'm going to pass it Jessica but you know coming in again from year 1 we're looking at a part of adoption cycle we've we've moved on we've moved to um again second year so you may not know this so second year we um we had just an abundance of break and we just kept ordering long story short I worked with Denise and Denise took a deep dive I think her first year I think we saved the district probably close to dollars in over ordering curriculum so what I'm trying to tell you is years ago we used to order curriculum just like push the button so we have really a systemized way of ordering curriculum like reaching out to to our our library folks working with our principals so it's very systemized now where years ago I'm not joking I think it was around 1 200,000 where we saved the district is over ordering curriculum so that's so we stopped on that you know around um the benchmark assessments um with with looking at informing the board um 1 of the new things when I came in my first or second year as the board was excited about looking at that superintendent Beck was like look like this is opposite we need to we need to put data in front of our board so that was a that was a a move from superintendent was like look let's let's let's better inform our board so they can when they're out they can also understand where we're at and what we're trying to do um um positivity projects so our so Denise's work she works in that services so she really works with community and um student student services type Network so she so she really drove the positivity project and worked with our principals to roll this out and the positive project is doing very well we've also increased we we brought bethan to a director to better look at support special education students we have an lcap goal around special education to support um students so so we made um we made some gains and it's exciting so I think I'm done talking and then I'll close this at at the end to give a better indication of this district-wide a Rock of where we're going Jessica okay so I got 2 slides here to go over some of the high schools and and I will be a little bit to add up as well um 1 thing to note when you look at all of this data and 1 thing I think I started coming in to the district was you just got to pay attention to the data and see what I'm selling here so we make a plan and figure it out um and that I I looked at it all the time in different areas of all kinds of different things so the scores really suspension rate is something we still need to continue working on um but all women in the right direction um so we talked about the English and the mass force and so I think I want to talk to you about that it's just when you see increased by our parents the dashboard scores it export the same but the numbers they measure are different than what you might see when you say oh they're 80% proficient it's not the same number but I'll explain that in just a second um but a lot of that did go to the fact that we were not testing enough students and they do have a requirement that says that we get hit with like you know the consequence like you're going to need a an extra game cuz you can't test and have kids um and so we don't want that extra dating we want to be able to see truly where we're at um and we got all kids uh above that percentage which is 95% to test so we're score is really showed where our students uh were at this year um we offered incentives for testing different things um I've already have the sophomores asking if they get off campus lunch which which it is a yes if you're watching um we'll get off campus lunch and they're excited and having them pay more attention just to their scores in general and their classrooms um so that did really help not that the instruction in the classrooms did not help um but that was the total play like can you really tell where you're at when you don't even have all the data you need to look at um so that was a big factor um the way the dashboard looks that they call it distance from standard um from proficiency so they look at how many kids you got me see that proficiency Mark and over so we have really good gains increased marks we raise scores really high but what you noticed is like the proficiency score did not move us like I mean it was significant for its pretty good on the ELA it actually dropped on the map but we did well because we we raised kids from the bottom and we raised them closer to the proficiency so where we you know over that proficiency know but we got them closer and they give you credit if you will for that there's a whole metric to where these scores are at um on the actual dashboard for the the English we that we ended up in the yellow we were in Orange for math we literally missed the Yellow by 1.5 points 1.5 points we'll probably stick in jolene's head for the rest of the are trying to make over that so we were almost no nothing in the orange and red in all groups so those are good things and so even though we still do have a lot of work to do especially in the area and some of the areas on the dashboard those are those are significant gains um for students to make um we are only 15 points below standard in English that that's that's doable to get an increase um to be um even even to hit maybe that grain mark this year which is a goal um so there is a lot of good things that are happening here and that have been happening it's just been able to find the right way um and and to be able to Showcase that so that's what I want to tell you is just even when you're looking like oh but it's not that proficiency yes but the dashboard measures it so it's just showing how much more you can get more kids closer and over special marks so I have a question real quick so we talked about these for a while and this might be something that we've already talked about like 5 times but just trying to wrap my head around it so we talked a lot about the um percentage of increase having a high effect on the overall rating for these scores um what does that look like as we start to normalize so as we see these numbers because we have more kids towards the standard what does it start to look like when we're not taking people from way down and putting up here and booster-ring those numbers well as close as you get to the proficiency and over thin as kids test a little higher you might say oh oh they're 80% oh they're 90% it's about getting over that threshold so they don't just Mark like like 50% from the other 50 they're looking at how close you're doing everyone over so they kind of give you the credit for the closer you get even though they might not have met the mark and getting it over so as you get higher you know Ela starts getting 8090 you might see slow increase from there I think you know as the years go along because you know there are maintaining and they're slowly increasing because of what what level work that might take and you really have to drill down within each of these scores we get sub scores of like areas um that we need that we need to increase in so it's not just even increase your Ela you might be looking at and going well our writing is what drops us down and our school or um it might especially for the elementary schools they might be looking at different grade levels of what they need to focus on some might be um in reading comprehension informational texts or whatnot so you can drill down so that to figure out how can you make the most paying for this books um but raising kids in just the way the metrics go for getting into a certain color band you have to increase you know to so from like yellow to orange or yellow to blue to green um but you also have to make other improvements keep raising up and it also looks at like the different student groups as well as you might have the student groups still in but overall you might be in yellow as well so you want to look at that just so you know which and that kind of will speak in the next slide of like what what and this may help as well so like if you look at Ela why just is 15 points below standard so until you get to 0 points below standard you won't hit green never so but once you get there um unless you declined significantly you'll stay at green and blue so I think your question is like if you get to a point you know and you're really not growing significantly anymore are you then getting back to red and orange as long as you're maintaining once you get to the green and blue you stay in the green so you get credit for the the significant increases even though you don't the standard the credit for those are still better to only increase by 1% and get actually closer to that 2 approaches actual performance level and how much was the Improvement and those 2 things go together to determine a solar right there's a whole Grid it's fairly complicated but um there's a whole grid that determines it but the bottom line is academically until you get to not until you get to not being below standard which we're not at um you won't hit green and then once you get there if you maintain that you'll get green and then if you get to so many points above that you have to do the world thank you and then you just got to keep maintaining the the the slides not the when you have a within the year it shows 20 23 24 and 25 overall dashboard colors 24 was a little worse than 23 was it the kids not taking the test yes that was the reason right there was no other cause of that um so another um we have parsiq um that also gathers our data as a company that we have I think we spoken to it and they have this little Nifty little tool in there that will show what our spores would have been and I don't have that in front of me that I can bring that and I can send that to you of what our scores would have been had we not taken the hit for kids not testing I remember you saying that like 50 kids 36 kids and we only test 11th graders so we have 36 kids and if you think I have about a hundred and twenty kids and that that would have been a medical work if I take out 36 I just pretty much took out like 25% when you say and they let you have 5% and its days of testing all right so they're these kids just well what happened was they had it on top of it's not really that big of a schedule that year they had um the IB and AP testing on top of the State Testing so if the kid shows to take the API testing which would significantly affect um them getting into colleges and the scores they may need then not investing there were a few kids that also took a hit if they were trying to get um the biliteracy to uh diploma because they had to have taken the test to have that score and they did not realize that so we had a few kids miss that opportunity even though they took us so it's really paying attention we do not overlap the AP and IB testing um we take the State Testing before they go into that so a lot of the kids that these were kids we would expect to score the kids that stopped or ones that would have been I call High Flyers that you know they are in our high level classes that we would have expected to have done well on so as you look at subgroups and your 1.5 points below making over the next color if I'm understanding correctly you can't focus on the group that's right underneath that that performance Tipping Point you you gotta focus on all of those subgroups so in fact No 1 gets left behind yeah in order to gain the system and get to a different color because you focused on some of the higher performing and what I would say this is this is 1 1 period of time a couple days in a school year it's a snapshot of where students are at uh teachers will use that data to start off their schooling areas but they need to continue to use data throughout the year they can't rely on this or do you their common formative assessments that if the Benchmark tests and then also games where my students at and where do we need to go um even taking at the nwea test compared to what we had last year at fastbridge the program was not as it's easy for teachers to use and get the feedback of the data like where do my students place after that uh Dr boury would send us results but it was usually by the time all of that was analyzed you know it was well past the time for the teachers looking at you know use that to drive their instruction or the current Benchmark that we've moved to the teachers get paid back right away so they can go oh look look at this 1 thing we noticed actually the math department did this all on their own was just that the kids did not do well this last test on Benchmark on statistics in that and they had kind of taken it out of teaching because of how many things they needed to hit and then they also realized how much statistics is on the Caps score test and so right after that they created a whole unit just for statistics um that they're teaching to the students because they saw the importance so they saw it and they went oh yep got a focus on this so they're using it to drive their instruction they got to continue to do that that throughout the entire year um this is you know what the state uses to to you know judge us and you know hey where you guys really at but this shouldn't usually be a a shocker like we know I I knew what these scores I was some of them I was like oh I was going to come in but um but you should really know because you get you're continually assessing to see where they're at and where they're going the situations where you'll have um the same topic at the top by multiple back see maybe 1 faculty is more successful with the scores and then the others are open to saying what are you doing what are you accomplishing we we hope that happens and I would love to say like especially at the elementary schools because they have multiple grades in hey how are they doing so well what are they doing here there is a lot of like where I teach ninth grade English now are there exceptions to the rule of course there are and we're looking at possibly structuring who teaches what in that way they have a shared Focus but they do have time especially in appeal sees to discuss where students are at and how their growth is happening like how did you get kids to grow so much and reading comprehension so it might be a ninth grade group and the 10th grade group but we're talking about comprehension um and you might see a growth so yes there is uh that's especially why the plcs are so important to the teachers have time uh to collaborate and discuss yes um so then moving on to suspension rate um I will say this was an area not that I did not focus on this um I hope to see what we are trying to make some other plans for this but just knowing is what I was handed um and getting some structures in I knew that was going to be the 1 that was not going to increase significantly I was kind getting it all going I'm hoping we see some good and I think that with the data that we have uh for um the supply data you've been seeing you know the deck the decrease in um discipline um so hopefully next year we do have more plans we are really focusing on what we can do instead of suspending um that that is also really hard a lot of times when you say that with teachers because like I'm out of my class they're disruptive all these things you know I got kids with bait pens and drugs and fights well you know you want the consequent to be like harsh and push them out but what we're finding and even though sometimes it gets them out of our hair for a day it isn't solving the problem that was in front of us by vaping or the fight or whatever so we're trying to bring in other means and figure out how we do that but right now we care how we do that within our current staff and if we might want to make any other changes and so uh my admin admin team has been having lots of discussions on how we can change this and I I will tell you our biggest area that we um suspend for and we do not suspend the first time because we put kids into a program but it is uh drug use but more along the way still trying to really how do we get back to the top of the schools and how do we help support students um especially if they are um College and Career Readiness um it increased by 3.8% um I was hoping I was going to see this a little bit more um but this is actually a pretty good increase and you guys have heard me talk about um this indicator quite significantly with the 8 and G stores and all of that there are a lot of things that factor in to that metric um and a lot of this is data cleanup um making sure courses are coded correctly 1 thing that we found so we started if he has a 8 to G review so we were tracking all 8 and G where is the world the kids where are they at well the college are in Peter doesn't just track 8 and G you have to to get to say your college ready or your college or ready the student has to have had 8ag plus something else and usually the next 1 would have been state test you would have had to have pass your math and your English both not just 1 so if you don't which for most of our kids are not because we don't need 8% of our kids passing that you have to have 1 of these other areas some are taking college courses passing ibab IB exams for CTE pathway we are really focusing on the CTE p way is because that's something I can control compared to kids passing a test that might happen at the end of their senior year you know and I'm just leaving it to chance so we are looking at increasing how many Pathways we have and making sure things are really outed directly um because we if I will tell you how many kids were going to college and how many are 8 to G it is way higher than what you're seeing there but it's just it's just the information and the data they use to construct that so we have kids that are going to college that would not hit this faster 1 actually is my daughter that sheriff she's going to pass the test so she will not hit this backer but right now she would not be an indicator even though she's gotten into 4 colleges because she didn't have 1 of these other things and so she's going to take the IB test for me thank you Jocelyn so she does not hit that indicator so you think like that but okay she's College ready but they they make you do a little bit more so we are really focused focusing in on that little bit more so last we really focus on where kids in a g and make sure they have the right prescription um and when I say prescription our counselors are really focusing and prescribing the students coursework instead of this want to say like willy-nilly just taking classes I know I want to take this and I don't want to take this math class and really like having them understand what this might affect because they may think they don't want to go to college but we want to make sure they have that opportunity that they whatever they choose do they have the opportunity we don't want to shut it shut them out from that opportunity they say hey I'm really just going to go to a trade school I just want to work um in their sophomore year but then they don't take the right classes to make it accepted into college we want if we are able to we make sure they are on the right path so they have be able to choose whatever they want and not just well I can only go here so that is that is a huge area um that we have been focusing on I would say with all of the schools all the high schools counselors and the data people we weekly for 2 hours at least so that and then graduation um I just want to mention that the increases wrong is 16.4% not 1516 or if somebody High and we were at 96.9% graduating we had a 100% graduate last year but because it's a cohort range it it's at 96 um I would say the the way that changed with you just have to pay attention to the you didn't know what kids needed to get across the stage and there are ones to be dragged and push and P to get there um hey you want to finish this let's go come on 2 more seconds can I get you even if even if it was a some of them they do need a little bit more support and they just need to be able to pay attention and we were able to Target students and show them where at and that is that is how we were able to increase I know we had the increase with Ahwahnee and students and we had another class um and I will tell you I'm sure there's some of that some of the kids moved over there there was a huge push at at off and they are really focusing on how students are completing courses and if they are on track and we are they are a great job at that you know because all they know where kids are at again it's just paying attention to the data you can't make a plan 3 weeks before graduation to know where they're at you have to continue to look at it and they look at it quickly now I have I will probably we have within the specialist at Ops probably 5 6 kids Juniors that will graduate because we've paid so much attention so we're we are making those things in that area um um so this is all of the student groups represented in all the data that they uh score you know some of the high school um there's these 2 red lines and that does not make me happy and we will again suspension is an area that we are focusing on um and that was the students with disabilities English Learners and students um who've been reclassified um long time English Learners uh higher suspension rates than higher um so that is the negative and that is a big Focus for here at the school the only thing I wish I had up there was that you could see was what it looks like last year I think uh superintendent back showed up um last month and it was all orange and red um so the fact that we have more yellow greens and blues is amazing we have made um if you look at English Learners I think they were all on the red and now they were in the blue um being able to focus and again I was focusing on the data making sure those kids were tested making sure they had the right instruction um and we're continuing down that path graduation rate exactly what was happening um College and Career we were in able to increase significantly for a lot of the groups that are there um and then now we're just going to be continued focusing on academics and the suspension um but even within those we still did make a lot of gains um but we have we do have a lot of work to so um that is it in a nutshell very long special you guys have any questions I do um looking at the suspension rate and this this is probably can be said for all of the schools in the district I mean more you see it in the in the high school given that you're really focusing on that and you're making gains and you're looking at that the student groups at to have the biggest difficulty in this area are you also focusing on maybe what can be um directed specifically to like what are the needs of those kids as supposed to other groups that continually over the years they tend to have these behavioral problems are you are you looking at it as a as a whole for the school or are you looking at also some individual to be done for those groups we are definitely looking individually and we do have goals for that um but I do feel that right now we're trying we are trying to do a whole systemic of like looking at like what can we do to support these students and why why for these students making these choices um in that um sometimes your students with disabilities it's just knowledge um influence whatnot and trying to make sure we have the right supports for so they don't make some of those choices so yes there's a little bit of both but a lot of it has a sort of a how are we intervening because it wasn't working um but also right now with what we have we have to be able to make the plan with the resources that we currently have and see if we can make that and see if any of those make any impact to this uh but we are paying attention to our suspension rates especially with those especially those 3 student groups um because it is a it is affecting or Source on that but we don't want them to continue to affect that we don't want we don't even want to see a suspension right up there um but we we do need a way to intervene with those students and I don't believe right now we have the best when it comes to curriculum and um you know how we do our intervention uh to combat even if it's you know um you know um I'm sort of Justice uh student groups uh convers ations social groups um if they need any kind of support outside support that we may be able to refer them to for addiction um there is a lot more out there that we should be doing but it's also finding how we put that in I just think it's being able once the system is provided to be able to pinpoint it and adjust it to the needs of the the kids who clearly have a problem in that area because I just really think that high school is like the last to have with some of the kids before it is um where I think we felt we we've made the most gains is when we can get parents on board um and we have been trying to leverage that more um being able to do that as a whole group hasn't been as effective as like individual and really building those relationships um with those parents first and trying to get them on board like how do we how we help you help them um that is probably been this big or change that I've seen even when it comes across for students and you know that might need uh even academic support getting them involved and making them cuz what I do see they they you know in kindergarten they're still peering into the window and they won't leave that teacher alone and you know they're constantly they're bringing cookies to the teachers they we don't see a whole lot of them around so the because they believe you know they're like hey they're you know young adults they don't need as much support but they do um making sure they have that access so they can see their grades um and words and having that connection with their teachers and really reaching out we really want parent input and support it is hard to get but we have to continually to reach out um we're we're doing uh very well in the English or with our elac meetings and getting there was Community Schools um but we want everyone's input so we can we can really make a difference with them so that's yeah but I think it's going to take time it's going to really take time to kind of change that culture um and the belief of with parents and even when it comes to like um how the students are progressing in high school and you know really thinking about like teaching testing it's a culture not not just for the up on the students but also yes is it I think it's all right I'm gonna just go in because I've never done this before and so she's very knowledgeable of all of this so um you can kind of see where we were for last year um really all of our areas dropped in the areas that we needed to drop which is great all right and increase in the you increase so um when you look at our Ela scores um again Jessica talked about the distance from standard um we made you know minor increase with 4.4 points um masks scores as well we went up 6. 3 there's a little bothersome for me because when you look at um the percentage of absenteeism chronic absenteeism the percentage went down but we did make a big enough gain and so when you look at our dashboard we went from yellow to Orange which I didn't like because all of our other areas we did increase in colors um but it was because we didn't make a big enough change so um looking at that we're looking at with our um our Saba reach us families and those kids that are not um trans school if they're a Native American students um we are reaching out to the tribe they've got an education ational um liaison at this point now that we have got on speed dial that we will call and say hey so so has it shown up for 2 days we need to make a phone visit what do we need to get them to school um really you know for us um showing up at commercial last year our suspension rates were through the roof when I got there they were at 20% so 2324 20% of students have been suspended on which for me was a giant red flag um something wasn't happening so last year I report that our suspension rate uh dropped to um 8.7% so um what does that mean well that doesn't mean that the behaviors went away right the kids all of a sudden change and become these wonderful Angels um what it was that we started looking at discipline differently um we started looking at um how are we going to how are we going to meet the needs of those students Jessica have a limited and spoke directly to a kind of saying things that we're doing at course gold their s of Peace you know last year we had J as our VP and he was instrumental in pulling some kids talking with them figuring out why the behaviors were happening because ultimately that's what you want you know Jessica said the exact same thing as my teachers you know they want an immediate punitive suspension they go home they're gone I 1 here well they're going to show back up so what are you going to do with them when you get them back so for us yes academics were important but for last year it was really more important to increase the number of students that were on campus keeping them on campus and keeping them engaged so I was really pleased with that number to see that suspension rate dropped quite significantly um the you know I can go into so um superintendent Beck asked us to do smart goals and so I walk in to read all of them for you if you'd like to see my smart goals I'm happy with you um but we went through different subgroups so um the Hispanic population socio income has disadvantaged students with disabilities and then uh my school because we do have a high number of American Indian even though they don't show up on the dashboard for sake can yes um so my son is pretty is Jessica's but you know we're good oh this was yeah so um we'll get some greens and blues up there at some point but you know looking at looking at this the Native American population is still an area that we are focusing on adore school because we do have a large number of them there um so you can see that all of our numbers have you know we've gone all of these as bad as it kind of looks they're much better than it was last year before so we moved into the orange and a lot of into the red or the yellow which is really good is suspension rate for the yellow um soyo disabilities and Hispanic in math obviously is an area of concern um we are utilizing this 1 math this year and I can tell you that our um special education teachers really are depending on academics it's not just pushing them into a classroom and having them be a body they're really pushing academics with them um excuse me um so suspension right you kind of see overall the percentages um my goal is this year has to drop suspension rates and have from that so at least he gave down to about 6% so a little you know some of them were around 6% um overall um then I've got all the distance from standards oh my gosh okay she's gonna die I still think I'm better but what we look at and my goals and I stand are just for all of them and they all have a 1 year goal okay I know um soon as with disabilities and our native you're not supposed to be drinking this be doing it anyway there's my go I got to go okay no I don't need more no you're good you're good okay so no no no an American Indian um goals we've set our 2-year goal or a 3 year goal for that because there's so much further from standards than everybody else's that was it for you okay that that'd be great that was awesome so sorry next I got to go show good evening good evening how's my favorite school board and my favorite the last school I said so um going to talk about uh dashboard that just came out and I'm going to talk about some reason why we got those results and then I'm going to talk about um my goals for this coming year is it broken down into 4 categories Ela math chronic absenteeism and the suspension rate we're going to start with our uh suspension rate which is school climate uh so we saw a decrease of uh from 3.6 suspension rate um but down to excuse me 3.6 which is a 2.2% Improvement this was attributed to a number of factors we had a implementation of the soaring Hawks positive behavior system uh the uation of a intervention specialist and school psychologist for tier 2 and 3 behaviors and emotional supports and the addition of student Behavior Support plan sbsb I want to thank I wasn't there at riverville last year obviously um but Matt helped me get some of this data together I kind of knew and talking to Alan right in the transition but so I want to help I want to thank Mr Wilkins for giving me kind of a a looking back and putting this together uh The Chronic absenteeism um we were in the yellow so backing up we were yellow uh for our school climate which suspensions and we were yellow for chronic atheism that came in at 26.7% uh which was at 5.7% Improvement um from the 2024 year um this was attributed and tenants communication with our families regular attendance team meetings and 3 Family Support plan that included family meetings and documentation for ELA we saw a 36 point growth which put us 12.9 points below standard in the yellow almost degree so we're 12.9 points away from the green on that 1 for math we saw a 2225 Point growth which is 55 points below standard and we're yellow on that 1 is yellow so yellow so we came in yellow at all 3 of those categories and what attributed to to both uh Ela and math improving from the 2024 year was um the early plc like collaboration really kind of getting that going and starting that to uh uh to identify essential standards number 2 the use of fibs and IVs as an instructional tool um to adjust um IE to adjust a tier 1 instruction and ology there was an increased emphasis on writing specifically at the middle school level that was supported by Common prompts and sharing rubrics uh the plan for this year my goals for this year um to address Ela is to to our DFS which is distance from standard from 12.90 that would put us in the green so if I go from 12.9% I think that's definitely doable on Ela on our dashboard uh we're going to build upon what was done previously okay so we're going to add to that so um some ways we're doing that is a mirror which is a reading program NWA which is a math growth testing program paret uh which is a data analytics tool uh for math the goal is to reduce our discipline standard for 55 points below so 40 so I think that's a doable goal doesn't sound like a lot but for math um that definitely is a a heavy lift but we will get there um and that will uh keep us in the yellow but that much closer to the green um what is being done to address this is uh what's done for previously for ELA so those all those steps when of the uh Swan mapping for our teachers in the course of this year so that's helped quite a bit um in addition for those both of those areas is the PLC process so really it's going to make a big impact moving forward um tying in everything we're doing on campus approximately levels and so vertically horizontally uh and then our grow for my goal for chronic absenteeism you know decrease from 26% to 20% um that'll still be the but that's a 6% reduction um right now as a was it last week we're at 16% so as as of last week we're at 60% Michael by the end of the year we had 20% so we're we're tracking below that um which is um it's the best of the district not that that matters but right now that's why no competition um so uh plan to achieve this is by um uh so we have a solid position so a student uh uh tendency Behavior Support position that's a new for this year um and our our Jenny bird is doing that she's doing an outstanding job so we need to have that last year we have this that this year so um that's a retrieving greatly um and with our attendance our um our attendance and Center program and our classroom attendance challenges um and the immediate attention to students who have missed multiple days in a row we don't let that lapse so if that's happened um we immediately get on that um and any student does fall below 90% overall attendance over on that and then our goal for uh our school climate the suspension is increased from 3.6% down to 2.6% so 1 percentage point which will put us in the green so I go from 3.6 to 2.6 I'll be in the green on that 1 a river gold will as of last week we're at 0.7 so Roos going into into you know December or whatever it is uh reasons for that is really being present in classes uh cafeteria and Recess by your supervision staff um in addition to um everything that was mentioned earlier and then I think uh principal really trying to be present at those areas as well accessible to any questions for me I just want to maybe say a little bit of say anything out loud you know when when when you're following this code Tails Allen Allen was part of why your your number 1 and and I'm really we're really glad that you're here to continue the good work he did you know so I'm I'm awesome it's awesome you're here I just had to say his name out loud you know he's done so much good for us in the past we we miss him but you feel this big shoes so it's awesome appreciate that thank you have a question thank you guys show us your next slide there look at that there we go yeah the gold not our school colors are obviously the gold or yellow and then blue but the goal is is not just green it's blue right a couple years so um we won't stop until we so I have a great staff and that's with parts of patients we had a staff meeting yesterday and 1 of the things that I talked about with my staff is um how do you know where your students are at in your classroom academically right how how how does that look like if I the classroom and I asked you about certain students how do classes do it overall could you articulate that to me and could you tell me where they're at and in addition to that 1 interventions are you doing to get them where they need to be so we did a an activity we had some poster boards um and interventions assessments and they got sticky notes and they took some time that was your exit taken before I left the meeting right now what assessments are doing we're not talking about fibs and IVs that's that's obviously 1 of them right but write those down put those up there and then you're and then your interventions that you're doing your postures and then I'll compile those and put those especially we'll talk about those the next staff meeting but that gives kind of collecting those and footnotes in 1 spot when you read those they're all over the place not a bad way it's just you see what people are doing in their classroom um and then in January the goal is to have everybody will have done will have IE by The End by January 31st because we can't we have to know where our students are at and what they're doing we just can't guess that stuff right so if I'm running Athletic program but I got to know where my athletes are doing what they're doing they're quizzing their test is on if their football has had the barsi football coaches on Friday nights and my coach marching girls basketball is either on Tuesdays or Fridays right those were our quizzes or tests but what we did during the week and we pass it practice those are all the drills that we did and really that's where all the interventions came in play right condition watching that down beginning of the weeds athletically but that can tie into the our classroom as well right there should be no guess if is guessing but how can we make changes and also our password thank you guys appreciate it thank you close this out here so want to um do you feel a lot of assessment like words so here here too so um my little guy um we we have dyslexia screener called the mirror so really by November there's really 4 pieces of data you got Casp that's really available you got a mirror dyslexia you got NWA and you got fibs that's 4 pieces of data that I mean it's a snapshot but also there is some some Merit to to kind of what we're looking at so that's changed from year 1 where there wasn't so when I was apparently went to a parent teacher conference teacher right off the bat gave an NWA kind of breakdown where the students where my son was at its really good so not only are we using benchmarks to drive our instruction but we're also getting into our families so they can better understand and give a give a barometer of where they're at so we're going to have another NWA comparison which will be pretty robust in terms of comparing fall um well beginning of the year in the middle of the year so that that'll be a next kind of diagnostic figure Diagnostics but I wanted to capture that that that's for assessments possibly by November or a teacher can have formative data and summon a data to provide parents to give a better understanding so I just wanted to get that so you've seen this before so this was 2023 so some top highlights so I've got the longest presentation I'm going to put here so um and I want to be redundant so we we took a look at the achievement from blue with our um English language Learners and the progress and our long-term English learner so across the state 1 of the hardest areas to focus on are kids that are stagnant that are in ELD and they won't they can't they can't move well with our long term that was 1 of our greatest games so and there was a variety of of ways why we we made these changes so all so um raising the graduation rate so that's that's Jessica Jessica's team focusing in on looking at that graduation um providing looking at transcripts putting them by hand putting in places look oh the student needs it so there's there's lots of checks and balances um really through Jessica's leadership now that are really apparent so um when when a parent can come in know we're we're on this we're working with your child counselors monitoring and we've made um great strides in closing Equity back with Hispanic researching my disadvantage to the strong strong gains um positive Ela and math progress um which we kind of went up and we spoke about um reducing chronic absenteeism again um we would and specifically in areas of of where we see those growth um obviously the sites and and we went over and you've kind of seen this is really good um but what you may not know is we are we are leaving Madera County with top growth in ela and math and you all score so we are definitely outpacing our peers in man so that so we are it's nice to be at the top it's nice to nice to finally be you really where we're at and kind of continue that um and we are we are um performance we're a competitive Statewide District her trajectory suggesting well we're positioned to become a leader in many areas and Jaden Jade kind of touched on it but River Gold in terms of their data they're really close to be a lot of green so there's some there's some intrinsic things that they're working with staff so um so not only next year when we come when I'm here again we talked about knowing where we're at but we sustain an increase um so next step so what I what I use the word task force um I had a recommendation that what is it well task force what I'm looking talking about PLC process looking at looking at data getting it getting teams together looking at RTI and mtss that that is a task force and leveraging change and looking at that data um specifically in our high knee group so um also an area of growth that we need to kind of have some more focus on as our homeless our homeless youth so Denise leads a Foster and homeless youth Leah she works with the county and she works with with our foster youth liaison representative each site so we are we are providing more specific Outreach and supports not only that she's also working with the Tsar panel and and the Tsar at the district level to kind of not excuse me at the county level in terms of uh SAR panels getting getting Mountain Barb so another 2 areas that I um looking at English language learner success strategies so we've went from red to blue so kind of enhancing and kind of articulating and and manifesting kind of way we how this happened because that's the 1 first questions when I'm reporting out to actually I've had a meeting with CCE today a rep I went 1 of my networks 1 of the folks for cc in the state and they're like wow you guys made some great gifts every once in a while to do that how this happened so kind of walk folks through that so looking strategy success um enhancing Tier 1 math instruction so so with math we really we've really taken a strong approach um because we are we are making strides but there there needs to be more so with Swan math um so Swan math is really looking K8 and they what's nice about Swan math is it's not a 1-day professional um or 2 they are consistently working with our district working with with our staff modeling lessons working with each providing feedback so this is a very comprehensive program to really support teachers on new framework because we have a new math framework and Swan math has um really curriculum but also really first and foremost strategies to best enhance instructions Mass so as a focus and and at the high school level we're looking we have a we have a pilot with maghra Hill we're looking at their curriculum for math we got the teachers kind of playing around with with their math curriculum so we are we are looking at great strides in with math um so the PLC work is a big rock of our district and that is a big Focus effort in a way to to how to utilize data and we need a platform so parsec is our is our Mech for that and there's a lot of professional development being delivered to our to our teachers to our administrators not only with CCE and plc's but with um with parsec can teachers trained and have utilized data and understand data um NWA so we have that new platform but it's very robust and very comprehensive and specifically references where kids are at standard what standards they miss what standards they did better on so our NWA there's a professional development around that um a mirror so even though mirror is a dyslexic mandate screener for our little ones we also have we're using a mirror through through our elementary specifically to look at literacy intervention so not only does a mirror provide a mandate for deception screener that will provide professional available for our teachers at the elementary to utilize this Amira program to provide literacy supports so and it's it's AI focused so um the student can work work on pronunciation academic language it's it's very valuable so that that is another area of professional development of being cognizant of not pulling teachers out that's that's 1 of the main things too and then instructional walkthrough so we have now been instructional walkthrough form so uh it's a calibration form it's not an evaluative way to evaluate teachers but to better understand and get a baseline of instructional strategies and what those mean and we have we have um a process of working and all the principles myself map we're going to do some instruction instructional walks together to to better calibrate as a district but 1 piece of um or 1 component of instruction that was lacking was an instructional walk through form to calibrate our strategies not not not evaluate teachers but looking at specific instructional strategies but also and giving teachers some feedback so it's not um so that's that is something very new and where we're going so um I've done a lot of talking you know and this is um again this these are some of the slides that I've throughout the 3 years I kind of leveraged and provided um some some of the big rocks around high quality instructions special education services differentiate support which which Beth is really leveraging to get some consistency and commonality and compliance assessment correct in the guide of instruction again that is that is those are the the focus areas a lot of my work okay any questions concerns outburst um thank you for that Dr border boarding the principles um it's been really great to see this process grow and how all of the different pieces have come together to kind of this cohesive way and kind of create this whole different type right on all these cultural pieces and anyone hyped up and then you know with all the specifics coming in and building this whole web of of like it's just a web of intentionality which is really it's good to see it all you know come together and see the numbers increasing improve but we we saw 3 years ago the beginning blocks of building the structure so it's great to see through fruition so you have the good work Dr Morty yes I heard you give credit to the principles to Matt to the faculty um you haven't given yourself enough credit I came in a year ago and Jennifer and I sat in your office and I I saw what you were looking looking at just 1 year and you explained to me be patient and you had a vision and you saw something that a lot of people very few people saw a long time came mopped up a lot of inconsistent curriculum and saved the district Saturday 20200000 in the process implemented common curriculum across entire grades Plus sites transfer your vision to a lot of people who generally see the value of what you are trying to do you overcame an enormous amount of resistance to change people weren't ready for it and you're seeing you told us to be faithful or to be um patient patient I'm sorry yes and uh I just want to give you your due credit it's amazing um you are um to be credited as as 1 of the primary Architects behind us the initial believer in the person who moved the biggest Boulders perhaps with a lot of help from a lot of different people across the district I wouldn't be interesting I think it's just amazing I want to thank you thank you look forward to the to the games made next year great every year it's so cool it's like it's like there's a new season coming out excited to see it and it's just you know I find myself just so amazed with what you guys are doing in the process the green well done okay with that we'll move on to our action items section A so um item number a second yeah we had a few policies last month for first reading so they're in front of the board again for approval we filled it all your questions and inputs we put them into effect so the emotion to approve motion to second second discussion all right so all those in favor say I I um action item fee approval of the 2025 2026 first interim report good evening board so we did go over the same presentation yesterday at the budget advisory many so we went in a little bit more detail I'm going to do a kind of a high level overview especially it's it's getting late so if you guys have more kind of in-depth questions let me know as we go or if I'm going going too quickly so first interim reporting um we're always going to start start off with looking at our guiding principles looking at our mission vision and core beliefs because even though it's just our finances our finances are what drives and we should be following this um and again uh keeping with our this is supposed to be a joke our principles a little after the evening but looking up what our goals are and we're always looking at how do our finances get us to our goals are because all of these things that we're talking about cost money so first intern reporting that's where we're at here is the budget cycle and so you can see that we are here in December whereas usually you're going to be seeing audit report and first interim reporting um this is going to be a snapshot of time where you've got updates on your revenue and expenditures with forecast for the current year and the subsequent 2 years because we'll talk about multi-year projections this is the time that we adjust the budget based on the state budget that happened right after we did adopted budget any subsequent trailer bills and closing of the prior fiscal year which is the UN audited actuals that were brought to you guys in and then any other factors that have happened it basic basically is looking at July 1st through um October 31st that first core like quarter um and we're going to compare that to the adopted budget and this is that comes to the County Office of Ed we need to submit it to them um no later end December 15th the audit report uh this year is going we have a 45 day extension I think um you guys have been alerted to that there's a single audit compliance guideline from the Feds that hasn't come out um and so because we didn't have that information the county office was um gracious enough to give all of the districts in Madera an extension so we didn't have to issue 2 separate audits which would have cost all the districts more money so we have an extension um through through the end of January so we'll be working on that um once the Auditors get the information they need to do the odds that that rest of that portion of the audit so the first thing that we're going to look at is in that big packet that you guys get in your in your board packet I think was 180 something Pages this is a little snapshot of our unrestricted and our restricted dollars together and you'll see the adopted budget versus first interim and you'll see you guys are kind of looking this way but um stupid laser doesn't like it doesn't it doesn't like to go on there so I'll just talk original budget um and board approved operation you approved was the original adopted by budget we would have had a 45-day revision that we brought or if we would have brought an updated budget at an audited actuals you would see different numbers in there you've got your actuals to date and then you have your projected year totals which is your first interim recording so you'll see there that we have increased the revenue by uh just under 1.2 million and so there are some material changes I won't go through every single dollar like I did yesterday and tell you where they every single dollar is but for federal income it by about 310,000 and most of that is unearned revenue from last year in 2425 getting moved over into the 2526 year we had some little minor changes in our CSI funding type 2 title 4 but they were all kind of small um in the state funding it's in about an additional 425% of that is some increase to the Extended Learning opportunity program and addition of the 1-time block grant um that came in 2526 after the adopted budget so that's when the enacted budget happened that's something that we added that was 390,000 and then we had some other differences like the transportation reimbursement went down a little bit all of that equates to to that increase of about 425,000 and then the last there you have is a local revenue and that increased by about 333 and that really is most due to the behavioral health agreement that we brought that pays for our SRD and gives us some other funding for some um other services so kind of as a brief overview you've got an increase of Revenue about 1 right at about 1.2 so if we look at all of our funding together that's restricted and unrestricted you can see about just under 70% is that local control funding formula which is our biggest pot of money and you kind of gives you a piece of the pie of local state and federal then if we go ahead and look at our unrestricted which is more of those dollars that we have a little bit um more to where we can decide what to do with them not as restrictive of restricted funds you can see that's about 95% your state revenue are there at that 3% is the unrestricted Lottery that we go so expensive so we have that Revenue increase but on the other side we also had some expenses um that increased and that's what those those were by about a little over 1.2 million dollars so you're going to hear the story of you know hey we got a million dollars more we also have the expenses that needed to be added for those things so we're kind of right where we were when we started with some things added and moved over from the other year some of the um factors were the UN audited tools or sometimes where you have expenses that didn't happen the prior year that we thought they were included in our estimated costs didn't happen we needed to move them over same with the revenue the revenue moved over we also need to move those expenses over we had um the Williams visit and that was about the facilities um items that we needed to do we're about 80,000 dollars and that needed to be added to the budget and we updated all of position control through October 30 first so that's 1 of the biggest things we talked about our biggest cost is people um in the district so we start out with adopted with what we think is going to happen for the year now we're a few months in and we've had vacancies we've hired people so those some of those things were done on estimates now we've updated that we've had negotiations um so salary schedules have changed that has all been updated so we have the actual true actual cost through October 31st and the new estimates through the end of the year so what does that look like when we look at this is all of our expenses which includes all of our restricted dollars um this is how kind of lays out here for you've got your people certificated classified management employee benefits and then your books and supplies Services capital outlay and other outgo that's when you look at those tax forms you've got your object code was there that are your ones twos threes this is what it looks like kind of in the piece of the pie but when we looked at our unrestricted expenses um this is that mostly that lcff funding and Lottery and where it's spent and you can see we have budgeted about 72% of our unrestricted dollars are for Staffing when I pull this just by restricted 46% of our restricted dollars are also for Staffing so I want to spend a little bit of time though on enrollment and attendance so this is the same chart that I brought at adopted and I just added first interim um and what we have and this these are numbers that we use for the lcff calculator again biggest portion of our funding so what we find here is we can see that our enrollment there is a 1353 and an adopted budget we had it at 13887 so we have um decreased in our enrollment our average daily attendance will we're just starting out it looks like attendance is is a little bit better than last year we will have have some attendance numbers and be recording them to the county and to the state and early January for our P1 attendance we're actually funded off of P2 attendance but that will give us a really good indicator of where we're going this year and so the second interim will be able to use those numbers and estimates to see how that plays out right now we're looking at about 90% attendance for held harmless for 1 year or a 3 year Rolling average for attendance is better this year here and those numbers are up we'll be able to use that so you kind of get to use the best calculation for the district but right now this is what we kind of can Bank on and know that we're going to get and then you'll see the I do believe it if people count we've got a single year and a 3 year Rolling average that goes into that and we're right at about 66% so kind of holding steady you can see we were on the up tip for a couple of years and now we lowered a little bit on our single year and we're right holding steady at our our 3 year Rolling average so why is enrollment in 88 important so California is 1 of the few states that funds its Public Schools primarily based on average daily attendance not enrollment so what does this mean let's attendance equals less Revenue districts only receive state funding for students who are actually in their seats every day that a student's absent even if it's excused or for illness the district loses updates portion of state revenue so low attendance due to Chronic absenteeism which we heard about and we're and we're working on um can lead to significant unplanned budget reductions forcing districts to cut programs layoff staff or even closed schools Enrollment drives budget planning so why is it important how many kids we have is because that's how we know how many teachers we need um The District's budget higher and purchase materials teachers textbooks utilities all based on enrollment so declining enrollment long-term declining enrollment leads to reduced funding overall even if you have that same you know you get your attendance up but your kids are coming down you're still going to you're going to see less funding so that can create a strain on fixed costs such as building Administration those will remain high but you've got fewer resources per student also like that's just about money and that's the world I live in but we're in education so we have an educational Mission and Student Success so consistent attendance is directly linked to better student outcomes so regardless of funding we want kids chronic absenteeism students who are chronically absent missing 10 or more um school days 10% or more of school days are significantly did you have a question Tony um there's significantly less likely to read proficiently by the third grade to succeed in middle school and to graduate from high school and then access to curriculum students who are not enrolled or are frequently absent they miss out on instruction so social emotional development and access to essential resources like free meals and Health Services so we're talking about the whole kid it's important that they're here the learning environment um Quality High iconic absenteeism impacts the entire classroom frequent absences make it harder for teachers to maintain continuity Pace the curriculum and for students to learn effectively High attendance allows districts to better utilize resources and focus on improving instruction rather than spending excessive time on truancy intervention so in summary enrollment is the foundation for strategic planning and attendance is the daily cash register for student funding both are very vital for fiscal stability and fulfilling the mission of educating our kids so that's just really important like I stand up here and talk about its money like we don't look at kids as you need to be here because of a dollar sign um our mobile control funding formula right now it's the same Cola and we'll kind of get into that but it did go up a little bit 1 thing that I did see while doing the calculator is that our TK students are are enrollment of them of those those students have gone and there was in the enacted budget there was an increase on the add-on for TK so that is 1 of the reasons that we saw a little bit of an uptick about dollars and increase in the estimated lcff any questions on this so multi-year projections which is always what we're looking at making sure that we can meet our Reserve so this is a just a kind of a snapshot there's 6 pages in multi-year projections just for the general fund in the packet that breaks it down by your unrestricted and your restricted dollars and then there's a combined we look at the combined here um so again Cola cost of living increase for current year we have that set 2.3% that's what we have in the calculator at adopted um that's what we have in the calculator now um at the adopted budget for the 2 out years we were at 3.02% and then 3.42% and you can see now in 2627 we are at 2.51 so that is lower and 3.7 in that next out year which is a little higher so this is the best information we have with the the data points that they have for the legislative analyst office and what they put out now we will have this again updated with estimates for our second interim when we have the January Governor's budget and they have a few more data points that that they use in order to calculate that so you'll also see at the bottom I'm sure you guys have already looked at the that part you've got 11.8% ending reserve and current year 6 .5 in the next year and 3.4 in that third year out this is really really close to what you saw at adopted at adopted you were at 9. 0 8 so it's just a little tiny bit increased again we've added almost the same amount of Revenue as we added expenses so not much has changed um so none of this is going to come to a huge as a huge surprise so going into fiscal responsibility and what we would have to look what are the projections that we have in here in order to make those numbers and you can see here in 26 27 we have about 5 million dollars in restricted funds being removed now I have down here that's also the water brand so we have a water grant for core schools that is um about 2.3 million dollars that's really 1 time we wouldn't see that in the next year but the rest of that is things like the Arts and Music and or the Arts music instructional block grant that is expires as of the um the end of the year CSI we don't know if we're going to get that funding again so we have to plan as it were not Equity multiplier changes year-to-year our our um sites may or may not qualify for that so I have to look at those things and say well if we don't get them then what happens honey educator Effectiveness actually ends this year we've had it I believe for 5 years title 2 had a reduction to it in the last allocations we saw the Community engagement initiative also is going to end at the end of the year strong Workforce program is money we got for some CTE Pathways that's restricted those will be used at that time we have some donations that are running out that we've been using and Farm to school grant that is um we use for the garden at core schools and for 1 staff member um we'll also be indeed so of that 5 million there's about a little over 400,000 in staff that is covered by that restricted funding so we have to look at those positions not continuing if we do not get or in here that we're going to get that funding if we do we can add those back in we can take a look at those plans so then we look at our unrestricted and that's really the unrestricted dollars is what's used for that reserve and its 3 you have to have at least 3% of your expected expenses so in 2627 we would have about 426,000 of ongoing reductions currently in the multi-year projections 300,000 of that is in Personnel so we are really going to need to take a look at our priorities and what we're doing and to be able to save this please solve it we're probably going to be looking at making plans depending on does that come out of personnel or does that come out of another place we'll have to take a look at that at adopted that number was 280,000 so this isn't a surprise and something that we didn't know about and something we I'm thinking about all year then in the next year out when we're looking at those ongoing reductions the only restricted funding that we would be cutting is we have some Equity multiplier that we specifically are using year after year to keep funding some ES Maze and so those are kept in there but then that funding would be gone if we if we don't get Equity multiplier and then in order to stay at that 3% right now we'd be looking at about a 350,000 in unrestricted and right now now those are in Personnel lines again those are the 2 years out but we are at first interim then we'll be at second and then we'll be at adopted and adding another year so these are things that look like they are coming as a reality and we've got to take a look at those things so strategic priorities moving forward um we need to finish the audit um as of right now I don't know of any findings that are going to be a large fiscal impact to to the budget so that is that's the audit extension as I mentioned is 45 day extension due um to the single audit report guidance not issued um I think that probably had to do with the federal shutdown um fiscal alignment we're going to need to incorporate the governor's January budget assumptions slipping at our second interim when we do our next check-in we need to develop and implement the necessary budget reductions that we just talked about so we need to identify buy those and then we'll be preparing second interim second interim is going to show from now through January 31st so in February I'll that's when I'll be doing the bulk of the work on second interim build the second interim that reflects all current realities we want things as exact as possible even though they change every day um we need to move towards a no deficit spending and right-size the organization we can see in our unrestricted we had some money come over at our ending balance we had some negotiations things in the budget but we are seeing in our unrestricted dollars that we are deficit spending and that something that we need to look at and we need to act early to protect the fiscal stability and future years so right now if we didn't know these you know we might be okay because we're at 11% and the next year we're at 6 but anything we do now that we can make changes to get where we're going the sooner you do it the more impact that it has and it causes to not have to just have such harsh things in the future and we'll also see what the state does because I wish I had a crystal ball but but we're going off of our best guesses so um with that if you have any questions I can answer them and then I'd be asking for approval to submit this to the county office I have a question I like that your um multi-year reflect identified reductions necessary to number 1 reduced deficit spending and to to achieve a a more balanced budget you I think you put in 425,000 in reductions in the first projected year in about 300,000 in the second projected Year all of which are the 300 in the here are all reflected in the Personnel lines mhm so I was looking at thick mats website there's a indicator of potential fiscal insolvency your top 10 list so I'll read you know this you spoken to it tonight continued deficit spending out of the unrestricted general fund deficit spending is 3 sub points deficit spending in the current or 2 2 subsequent fiscal year work that was spending in all 3 lack of or failure to implement a board approved plan to reduce Andor eliminate deficit spending and the failure to decrease deficit spending over the past 2 Disc years so I don't believe we're headed for fiscal insolvency because I've listened to you I've heard you you I've listened very carefully to your methodology you're using for multi-year projections but you have identified for us to remain solvent you've identified changes in reductions in expenditures to to reduce deficit spending I used to wonder what your thoughts are about how that can be done I know you've numbers but what's the how do you get to a more you know reducing that deficit spending and identify the changes that have to equate to the 425 reduction in first year out and 302 year out how do you do that so I think 1 of the things that again Going Back to Future Readiness act early so I think we start looking at that now so you know you heard me talk about like okay well when I did adopted budget we were able to make this because I slept money um you know money that we didn't use hey we know we're not going to need that we're we're not going to do that this year and so we're going to take it out of the budget um and say may when I'm preparing it I think we need to do that earlier we need to start looking at our budget now to make make sure because if we go in and we just make Cuts because that's what it says and we don't look at what's really happening in the next month say and we go in and we look at this is back this is based off of budgets that have been sent out to all different departments and we need to look at what have we spent what what's not spent maybe there's some things we can pull back on we might want to look at you know how much extra time and overtime do we have throughout the district let's look at those things first that we might be able to reduce and put things in place so we don't have to touch as many positions totally agree I think um for example you're cutting for 25 out of the first projected year if you didn't do that you waited till second year out to make any changes that means you're adding the fourth 25 plus the 300 you're trying to cut 725,000 in 1 year so the pain of changes if you postpone at all grows exponentially yes and and you know you're talking about people it's not just like it's not just numbers it's people it's people's livelihoods it's you know they're they're people are affected and we care about our staff we also have to say fiscally solvent so we need to be able to work together early identify these things and we don't want to bring things to the board if we're coming at March 15th deadlines and saying hey we want you to vote on this and you're like hey wait we didn't know that this is where we're heading well if we have less students here were probably going to have less funding we don't get our kids in the seats we're going to have less funding so that that's why we have these we have these conversations we have budget advisory so we can dig into it a little deeper like we did with some of the stuff yesterday and also I'm going to keep putting these in here I'm also very conservative because I'm not going to come in here and say everything looks really Rosy I'm going to count on this money that I hope comes because you know somebody over here told me like I'm gonna we're gonna get more money and I said okay hey I have to have something that I can give to the county that they can look at it and say you have something to back this up if I just added the money and said I I hope we get more I'm going to make a calculator that says we're going to have more students here next year they're going to look at that and say well why is that that's also why you'll see at the Chris criteria and standard so that's in the sax forms if you are outside of certain variances you have to put in their why and why are you making those assumptions um so the county office can look at it mind you they could they do a calculator I do a calculator we compare them before we even do this and I'll say you did your calculator but I know this this and this and they're like okay we we discuss all of these things they will review first syndrome and any questions they have I have to give them my presentation we have all of these conversations so um yeah this is you know I I feel like I do come up here and I say I pray that that last year out doesn't look so great but we do a lot of work to make it not look like that that um speaking of work you give up last weekend because the county system was down for 2 weeks and then you came in here and worked all of our days on Saturday and Sunday to hold this together for us so I want to thank you for for doing that although you guys probably tonight because this is so long we're like hey we could have taken another meeting the only which chair is that I know you included everything I would want you to have put into this projection the the colas the cost of the uh stepping column advancement um cost of the Consumer Price index changes all of the variables that you put into a multi-year you've got reflected in your plus the the parking agreements that are already agreed to and the likely agreements that are on you know the immediate Horizon youth reflected all of that so I strongly believe that your projection is solid and if my hope is that when you sweep early in May and when you don't fill a position and when some unexpected pot of money comes in and those those numbers begin to look a little bit better next year that people don't look back and say well you told us it was going to be this and it's all a lot better and it's because during the entire throughout the year you pinched and you scraped and you've looked for sort new sources and you you've done everything you can to make it better there's a lot of effort throughout the year that makes that happen and uh you couldn't know that a year from now you can't Bank on that a year from now you're back in negotiations again and the picture is better than what you said tonight correct but tonight the numbers are the way they are because of solid assumptions that you built into this projection it's very true and what you'll see is what you guys have seen in the last few years is the state continues to give us these block grants and kind of like this this last 1 after the budget has been passed those are restricted dollars but they are for any operating costs and so like I hear that we might get another block grant next year I don't know how much that would be I can't put that in we then as a district can say hey we want to use that because we want to keep certain positions but what we have to remember is we're just speaking in the C the can down the road when we use 1 time funds to do that so that is 1 of the reasons why these projections keep looking this way is we're making decisions to keep things in place by using some of those 1-time um at some point 1 1 time dollars might go away but that that has played into our projections for sure and your cuts on your all the restricted programs that are going or may go away or the likely um identifying those for reduction and elimination not just picking up those expenses off the unrestricted side to keep those programs going you we have to do that it's going to be painful and those are going to yeah and those are going to be conversations with you know with the District of it's not that I say like that position has to go away I can identify the funds that are going away what we're currently paying for and then we as a district with our goal and our mission have to look at that and say well maybe this position was paid with restricted dollars but it is a priority so if we shifted to unrestricted what has to give an unrestricted it's a little bit of a shell game back and report on just the myp all combined it doesn't tell the whole story but um yeah it it's a lot a lot of moving pieces thank you any other questions to improve first interim seconding all right all in favor hard work and conservative approach and integrity and doing all these things we appreciate it okay um action item DC um for the contract for the every 15 minutes program just um so this contract is for you we would like to bring back the every 15 minute program um I don't know who knows about this program looks like it is done at high schools every so often uh we haven't done I think about 8 years 7 years haven't done it in 7 years I've been here I want to see somewhere around there is what we were trying to calculate and so what it does is it it talks about every 15 minutes and actually it's no longer the statistic it's a little bit better because of programs like this um but it's about the effects of drum training um and so uh it's a coordinated event with the c it's actually a grant from the CHP um and we set up a mock accident and through the whole motions and students are in there and they are acting and there's a whole presentation I guess with it and it's just really talking about what the effects and looking at the effects there would be parents that would give you these um kids are taken out of class uh this is actually going to be a senior project it's highly impactful it's been um done very well um we actually did a grant to complete this um about up to 2000 it's really about 15 they put a buffer just in case we need the 5 and that would be for all the different you know getting the cars here um if we have to pay for anything hotels for some of the students there's a whole program we have to get to participate and act and I actually take them away um and they they spend a night in a hotel with shop around um they don't go back home to families and they don't get to have their cell phones either um just so you know um and but it's really to the impactful and I'm not going to tell you the date that this would happen because my nails are just not what people hearing me um and so because this is a contract and there's money tied in facilities like with this you guys have to and I don't know if you've ever seen the videos um on there but if you ever looked it up rather some amazing videos in 1 of our students will actually be 1 um giving the recording just the 1 where CHP sometimes brings out a helicopter yeah we're looking for making sure I have clearance and see where I made clear that says yes and then um yes there were there was potential for a student to be here lift it up yes to approve 1 second you got questions discussion items so we can attend I will give you I will give you the dates yes you'll actually get some invitations or some things because you guys would be considered some of our VIPs so they'll be something on a later date yeah so once this is approved we've already had a few meetings and I thought you 1 until I have this in place um and then the students uh will be working um we have 2 contacts with the CHP uh that helped us coordinate this whole effort so you'll get more information a lot and 3 students are taking this on as their um senior project 1 might be my daughter so all those in favor okay um and then uh Section 8 e number memorandum of understanding hey so we are very excited for this so if you think about how we have um bulldog bound and we have students if they meet certain criteria I get an automatic Acceptance in the present State this agreement gives us that with DC Mercedes so now we have a pathway for our students to attend EUC school and that would be ucet there's criteria the same thing with a GPA and adg courses and criteria um and we are looking at maybe some more work with you see very excited about this that we have more than just 1 pathway for students with automatic acceptance if they need the criteria and time just gives us that as yes 275 steps this is awesome I don't have a question I just want to say I think this is really cool yes it's it's amazing I don't think enough of our students understand what a resource you see Mercedes there's such a long history of connection to Fresno geographically I think it makes sense but okay you see an hour and 15 minutes away they can get a guaranteed admission to who you see which is pretty remarkable and they have uh some great Pathways um that you have to go pretty far um that we have right here in our neighborhood and we're we're looking at some other connections and working with consumer said that we're pretty excited about the least experienced leader but it is a it's an amazing resource um and being able to offer them a CSU option and a UC option is just amazing if you go there I went there when it first opened with my rotary club and the UC has big money if you want to see that probably somebody it's just amazing every time every few years the thing doubles state-of-the-art Laboratories it's amazing it's got more money than the so the facilities are on hold yeah and you've seen Mercedes probably 1 of the viewers but yeah so it is it's it's it is pretty amazing and it's not too far I think the 1 thing I want to highlight is that this isn't just like you qualify to go to federal state through through Bulldog bound or use whom program this is you are guaranteed admission right admission so um not every District in fact not very many actually have this agreement with both a CSU and a UC so we'd be kind of on the Leading Edge of every kid who graduates from our district with the minimum GPA and we need add requirements can go to these 2 schools if they choose there's no barriers all right motion to approve second second discussion all right all in favor thank you so much okay 69 information items District enrollment reports yep just briefly we know we are a lot about it but we're down 36 students from the same time last year the financial implications and everything else so something we're still keeping an eye on and trying to figure figure out how to turn that tide and we will um and then we just want yep and then this fund report is always the good news item you heard our principals talk about things that they're doing um to help students and look for different ways to change behaviors without um suspensions and so compared to this time last year we have 35 fewer students and incidents and that means there's been 112 fewer days missed um at this time of school because compared to last year excellent significant any questions okay um having no more closed session items we're going to wave the second closed session for Section 10 um so closing items would be next Board of trustee meeting January 18th February 8 here um and then I need a motion to adjourn so move second second all those in favor