4 June 2024 PAUSD Board Meeting Comments

3A – The Promised at Palo Verde Elementary – by the numbers. Another elementary school with no suspensions. It is possible. Why not make it district policy? Chronic absenteeism seems to be a substantial problem with Asian, White, Social-ecomomically disadvantaged, and students with disabilities in the red. Hispanic students also very high and no groups in blue, green, or yellow. Multiple groups either below standard or with a large gap between them and their peers for English Language Arts and Math. English learns seem to be doing particularly well at Palo Verde academically. Once again, it is frustrating that the school itself doesn’t report out metrics for the very groups that need most attention for equity.

6N – Alta Vista High School MOU – no data on previous usage or outcomes/performance. The district should be providing some sort of reporting on success/ usage / performance on these contracts and MOUs when providing them for renewal.

Accessibility for Software Platforms. 2 contracts proposed. I spot checked their business web sites… not great for accessibility. This needs to be made a standard requirement.

6O – Contract with Mindset Labs SAAS?– public web site fails accessibility badly.

6P – Contract with Care Solace Inc. – general concern with level of reporting – how will we know if they are doing a good job? NOTE – web site seems to have accessibility issues – did the district evaluate them for this? (mental health SAAS)

6Q – SWIFT Update The hard numbers for Students with Disabilities are disturbing. The substantial academic declines for our high school students and the continued problems with chronic absenteeism should have spurred some action over the past year – yet nothing seems to have changed.

6R – The Promise – no baseline data, few specific measurable goals or goals that are tied to actual outcomes for students. Comments raised previously.

6S & T – In reviewing the checklist for evaluating textbooks, there is no mention of accessibility. PAUSD should include accessibility criteria for the approval of new textbooks and instructional materials and tools to comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act. In reviewing the textbook process listed, it seems the textbooks are available to the public, however, I do not recall it being mentioned in any board meeting that these texts were being reviewed or an announcement of the availability of the texts for public review. I hope PAUSD and the board work to make these public reviews more publicly known.

6W – Comprehensive Safety Plan Policy – should include a reference to the Americans with Disabilities Act.

6X – Emergency and Disaster Preparedness Plan Policy – Technical comment – the first redline change mentioned is citing the ADA which passed in 1990 while the Rehabilitation Act (and most relevantly Section 504) passed in 1973. I’m not sure which they are referring to here (though both could be safely cited I suspect)… but he ADA in 1973 is in error from the CSBA?

I will note that it is required in the existing templates that the Site Safety Plans explicitly address Students with Disabiliites (and probably some 504 plans as well), based on the Site Safety Plans that I have seen, they do not.

I’m not sure there is even a mechanism in our IEPs for parents to raise this or know if there is a problem – so there is no “checking” mechanism.

I raised this during the review of that JLS site safety plan as a member of the Site Council and escalated it to district staff back in February (this problem existed in my previous district as well).

7A – LCAP Public Meeting – The detailed LCAP plan includes some important information that did not seem to be highlighted in the summary. There are too many places where our ambitions seem very modest. Real improvement in the academic performance of our students who are most behind – students with disabilities, homeless students, and long term English learners as well as others – is not going to come with 5% annual improvement targets. I do look forward to hear how PAUSD is going to meet the more ambitious changes in absenteeism and suspensions.

7B – Budget Public Meeting – Thank you to the PAUSD staff for putting this package together. If people take the time to go through this, there is a lot of useful information as to where the budget is at and where it is going. I would enjoy a more extended explanation of all of this with extensive questions and answers, but I suspect I would be here alone. The Comments and the budget and Excess Reserves documents are worth reading to get a better picture of some of the areas of the budget which people have concerns about. The continuation of the long term demographic changes in our district with a continued projection of a loss of 200 students a year absolutely needs to be addressed by the district and this board or its successor.

8B – School Improvement Plans

As a member of the JLS School Site Council and a parent at both JLS and Nixon, I am concerned that both this document and the Site Safety Plan reviewed by the School Site Council ar treated more as shelfware to meet a state or district requirement than a living document driving and reflecting school practice. These can be important documents where there is real potential parents to have an important impact on what happens at the school. For example, the tool that PAUSD use substantially restrict the ability of the site team to tailor the document to reflect the needs of the site and, at least in the case of the site safety plan, there are portions that are flat out incorrect (the explicit handling of students with IEPs in the site safety plan even though it is specified).

Online Agenda and resources: https://go.boarddocs.com/ca/pausd/Board.nsf/Public

4. Just over a year ago, I was asked to support the movement to remove Dr. Austin. I thought it was a bad idea then, and I shared my reasons:

1. Expect transition turmoil of one to two years… maybe more.

2. Palo Alto is an expensive place to live .

3. PAUSD is a challenging district with a very demanding community.

4. No one is perfect and we rarely know what is actually going on from the outside.

5. Many of challenges he faced were circumstances he didn’t create.

6. Did his management (the board) and the community help him succeed?

7. Beware what you ask for – are you going to reliably be able to hire a better replacement in a timely fashion?

I raise this as we are facing a serious turnover and morale problem for our teachers and staff…and not just in special education. These same questions need to be asked when we consider laying off staff and how we work to retain current employees. Dr. Austin isn’t a replaceable widget… and neither is anyone else.