11 March 2025 PAUSD Board Meeting Comments

4 Open Forum

We are over a year into the promised re-look / re-org / new story on special education in Palo Alto. 

So far, we have very little visible to show for it – some listening sessions, a couple of newsletters….

Meanwhile, without any fanfare, the board is voting to stand up a public committee on Sustainability tomorrow night. Surely, you could “cut and paste” “Special Education” for “Sustainability” and at least get something started before the end of this school year (less than 3 months away now).

Perfect??? is the enemy of the Good – let’s get moving.

“Something” was going to be presented about “Autism” to the board last October. As of now, it looks like no new program is coming – just some sort of generic 5 to 10 minute status update in April if history is any indication.

Our Cubberley program continues to be an afterthought. Individual staff members have had to shuttle meals to students from the new cafeteria at Gunn.

You rapidly added a student representative for Middle College – why not one for our Cubberley students – with a similar population this year? Why don’t they deserve a voice on the board?

Is the district and board going to do something to improve our special education programs?

Is the district and board going to do something about our staffing and program issues?

Is the district and board going to do something to close the widening academic gap between our disabled students and their general education peers?

Today, the silent answer is clearly “No”.

If you want special education change to be a district priority – you put it on the agenda. It is simple and obvious. 

That is precisely your job – oversight, staying in your lane – using your time and focus to drive change.

It has worked with The Promise.

It is working with Literacy.

And it is working (or failing to work) for Special Education. No time. No attention. No priority. No action.

3A – PAUSD Promise

Positive School Climate and Belonging – Chronic Absenteeism & Absenteeism– metrics need to be included. Our Absenteeism numbers are going badly the wrong way – up 50% each of the last two years. When are we going to hear about this at a board meeting?

Partnerships – where is the baseline data for work-based learning.

Data should be available now – at least as a baseline so that discussion of metrics and improving metrics makes sense.

3B – Mental Health

Some questions – Do we have previous year data? Without a previous baseline, there is no way to interpret the information provided. Do we have data on demographic groups for referrals? And has the district considered that teacher training may be one of the reasons that we have so many elementary referrals for behavior?

What is the reason for the big jumps in visits to Wellness Centers for our middle school students? This looks like a big jump in absolute terms this year – basically doubling! Do you have percentage rates as well to normalize the data?

3C – Every Student Reads Initiative

Literacy – Our literacy metrics need to include CAASP data. It is the state standard. What should be of concern and discussed here is why our CAASP scores for literacy (and math) went down this year. What is the reason for this change and why doesn’t it correlate with the iReady results? This is true in our elementary schools (at least from my quick look) where the iReady data and work is concentrated. We aslo need to look at the gap between our marginalized groups and our overall averages – it looks like are marginalized groups are falling further behind their peers. For example, the gap between Students with Disabilies and the overall district population has grown from 117 in 2022 to 128 in 2024.

5. Consent Agenda

C – Certificated Staff – 10 out of 37 certificated resignationg were from special education and it looks like both Greene and Fletcher were hit hard. When are we going to have a serious discussion about our staff churn rate and our use of contract teachers?

C& D – The lack of information on churn rates, comparison of rates year-over-year makes the data provided of minimal use for effective oversight by either the board or the public.

G – PAUSD Site Safety Plans may in violation of California law. There is supposed to be a public meeting at the school to review the plan (while we had a meeting at JLS – it was hardly publicized). There are also supposed to be meeting with law enforcement, fire officials which there is no indication of. There is also supposed to be an Emergency Plan for students with IEPs. Please review the state requirements for SSPs.