11 February 2025 PAUSD Board Meeting Comments
5. Open Forum
I want to express gratitude to our professional staff and leadership for their work on behalf of our kids. If there is bad news or hard problems, they are the ones who usually are responsible for fixing things. Thank you.
From January’s meeting’s information items that were not presented due to the length of the meeting. It is good that the PAEA and the District have together recognized the time impact for teachers and staff of IEP meeting outside of school. Our elementary special education teachers have effectively no prep time, unlike the 3+ hours a week that their peers have. I hope the District and PAEA also take the opportunity to do the esure there are no inequities in our work practices for any of our teachers or staff.
Also from the January Dashboard information – The state Dashboard report shows declines for several of our marginalized groups as well as going down slightly in English Language Arts with similar results in Math. Graduation rates for multiple marginalized groups also declined. Absenteeism improved but should still be considered troubling and, as noted previously, Suspensions jumped by 50%.
3D – LCAP
Let’s be clear, though chronic absenteeism has improved, the numbers should still be considered unacceptable in Palo Alto and deserve a detailed presentation to the board.
While not mentioned in the presentation, the LCAP detailed report shows once again that our suspensions have gotten out of control. We have jumped by 50% each of the past two years to 1.5% this year. As I’ve noted previously, these suspensions are highly concentrated at just a small number of elementary schools – Ohlone, Palo Verde, and Hays – and at Greene and Fletcher. I look forward to this being put on the board agenda soon. According to the LCAP report, disproportionality has also jumped substantially for our disadvantaged groups across the board. It is time to look at this program and reconsider the effectiveness of suspension for elementary age students.
Our high school drop out rate is at 3% – well above our own target of 2% with no break out data for different groups to address potential disproportionality.
6. Consent Agenda
D. Classified Staff Actions – 3 of the 5 resignations were special education aides. When is the board going to request a detailed presentation on staffing challenges and take action to improve our retention in problematic job areas?
Z. Absenteeism Policy – Please consider adding an annual report to the board on Absenteeism to this policy.
9. Information Items – Calendar
E. There are a number of important topics that are not on the calendar at all and they need to be addressed publicly. The District proposed a presentation on Special Education for the October meeting which they decided to defer. It looks like there is no presentation on changes to the Special Education program for the rest of the school year (there does seem to be an information item scheduled for April). There is no presentation on Suspensions which have gotten notably worse or Absenteeism which has improved, but should still be considered problematic, and of course, the 8th grade math problem with the large number of students failing – has it gotten better or better enough? Also the Alternative Diploma Pathways looks like it was not included tonight – when will it be rescheduled?
