12 November 2024 PAUSD Board Meeting Comments

3A. Middle College Report

Clarification on special education at the college-level. The formal education protections for college are covered under Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973. Both Section 504 and ADA apply to both college and high school (and elsewhere of course). IDEA is the only law that is limited to a particular education window – hopefully this will change.

The report description talks about the “Disability Resource Center” for Foothill. Presumably, Middle College students are receiving IEP services delivered by and under the supervision of PAUSD? If not, this would seem to be problematic for a high school program as colleges do not support IEPs.

3B. Support programs for New Teachers

This is an excellent looking program. I am not sure what enrollment targets are, but I hope participation increases. I also hope the district considers some additions and prioritization:

  • Formally prioritize helping aides transition into special education teachers and other professional areas (such as speech and OT) as these are areas of ongoing staffing challenges and provide tracking data to the board and public on the usage of these programs for special education related staff.
  • Add a program to support general education teachers getting cross-certified for special education. With more than 10% of students having IEPs, all teachers are special education teachers and having all teachers formally certified to support our special education students would be a benefit across the board.
  • Work with education training organizations to create expedited “special education credentials” for teachers who are already certified. If we can have executive MBAs in a year, we should be able to have accelerated programs for teachers with appropriate incentives.

5. Consent Calendar

Policy Comments – District and School Web Sites should be broadened to include “application platforms” such as Schoology and ParentSquare as these are used functionally in lieu of web sites and should be subject to the same requirements (notably including accessibility).

Student and Employee Use of Technology implementation should include a clear and explicit sign-off and acknowledgment that they DO NOT have a presumption of privacy on any of these platforms.

Student Board Members – it is great that the policy is being amended to welcome a student board member from Middle College. All of the same logic should apply to our students in post-secondary and other intensive programs. These students deserve a voice in this forum.

Classified Staff Reporting – JLS lost 2 Campus Supervisors this period. Apparently, this position has a high rate of turnover and the base funding provided by the district to the sites is insufficient so that sites have to use some of their funding reserve to increase salaries. In addition to lookiing more closely into this position category, please provide better data on staff turnover by category, year over year data, etc. to give a better sense of where there are weaknesses or just ordinary and acceptable turnover rates in our staff.

9. Information Items

I’d ask that the district and board include a list of all public meetings, such as advisory board meetings, site councils, and such for the next month as an information item going forward to encourage public participation.

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