18 June 2024 PAUSD Board Meeting Comments

4. Open Forum – Raising the Bar – The US Department of Education is supporting a range of postsecondary and career pathways for education programs such as dual enrollment and work-based learning. There are many PAUSD students, not just those with disabiltiies, who are not heading to a 4 year college. Reading closely into what PAUSD delivers, I think the district has some if not all of these programs going on. I hope that when we return in the fall, the district staff will provide a systematic presentation for both the board and the community about what these programs are and how well they are currently serving our students. (Needless to say, I would appreciate a similar presentation on all of our special education and vocational programs).

5C – Classified Staff – 4 special education aide resignations out of 8 total. There is a substantial cost to staff turnover in every field, the disproportionate turnover in special education costs our students and teachers.

5E – Settlements. $139K + Tollner $137K. From what I’ve seen and heard, we are trending higher on settlements this year. Concern about personally identifiable information (initials)

5E – MOUs for alternative education program with Palo Alto Veterans Administration. Revenue is stated, but no information on costs (presumably we pass funds through the PAVA), no information on number of students served, how the program is/has operated, if it has or should grow or be reviewed (I assume there is a separate MOU or contract with PAVA that isn’t cited either). Who is overseeing the program programatically?

(2 other programs as well)

6A – LCAP Approval – In the budget overview, LCFF spending for Increased or Improved Services for High Needs Students was under-spent by $543,641. It looks like the budgeted funds were not spent on professional learning and training. Somehow, no negative impact is listed yet in the Indicators Guide the need for more staff development is called out as being needed (page 21).

6B – Budget Approval – no comments. Worth reviewing in detai and for reference.

6C – Structural Deficit Resolution – I am glad that the structural deficit is being taken seriously, though I am concerned that no option for closing or mothballing schools is being considered. We have been losing students at a rate of 200 per year. This is a well-established long term trend and continues to be a part of our budget assumptions. Closing or mothballing one or more elementary schools should result in operational cost savings as well as a direct improvement of services for existing students as today some staff resources are split between multipel schools. As this would not reduce our district revenue, capital could be allocated more quickly to improve a consolidated infrastructure. The district could also look at redrawing school assignment boundaries to better match staffing and students and reduce the need for portables and otherwise smooth usage of our schools, staff, and infrastructure.

6J – Dreamcatchers MOU – as described Dreamcatchers “free after-school tutoring, enrichment, and

mentoring program for socio-economically disadvantaged (“SED”) PAUSD middle school students. It

also serves as a sustained service-learning organization for PAUSD high school students.”

I ask that PAUSD include students with disabilities and other disadvantaged groups in these programs.

The inclusion of students with disabilities in the elementary level ELOP program has directly benefited my son and other disabled students and I know from discussions with other parents that there is a crying need for similar services extending into middle school, high school, and our post-secondary program.

I asks that PAUSD collaborate with Dreamcatchers and the PAUSD community to define what such a program would look like so that it can benefit our broader communities with unmet needs.

7A – ESRI updates. The good news is that the program seems to be performing consistently year over yea, the serious concern is that there does not seem to be any meaningful improvement for any of our undeserved groups from year to year. The performance gap is not continuing to close. I would suggest that we are not going to see meaningful changes without more ambitious targets. Closing the performance gap by 50% in 3 years is likely to drive more insight and innovation than a modest “do better by 3%”.

I actually think the Median growth report (slide 23 or 19 in the other package ) may be quite important where it shows ALL groups growing at or above “100%” except one and where we should also be concentrating our attention (and perhaps expanding this information for the different cohorts).

This is a direct reflection of the velocity of learning that our students are achieving.

8A – It appears that this is a new grades dashboard for PAUSD, as a middle school partent, I am pretty concerned about the jump in non-passing grades by 8^th graders acroos the district and the reports for each school raise questions about the differences between schools. Fletcher seems to have notably fewer students who receive failing marks than either Greene or JLS (4% vs. 8.8% for F and 9.5% for JLS) and all schools seem to have a real problem with their 8^th grade students (15.2% at JLS, 14.7% at Greene, and 8.8% at Fletcher).

This is extra puzzling as the high school grade reports show notably lower non-passing grades… I hope that the grade reports are harmonized between high schools and the middle schools going forward so that all of the same data is provided and it can more easily be compared (the middle schools provide much more information on studetns who aren’t passing while the high schools provided more overall information – both sets of data are very helpful).