PAUSD Board Meeting Comments – 12 March 2024
Open Forum – I made a public records request for information on the demographics of PAUSD executives, teachers and staff. The results were interesting and should have been provided during the HR report. Unfortunately, apparently PAUSD does not collect data on disability status of our employees. I ask that the district and board do so for the same reasons we collect the other demographic data. This is especially relevant for disabilities as we are supposed to be training some of our disabled students to join the workforce yet there is no data that we hire them. Additionally, there is a 37% employment gap for disabled adults and PAUSD should be a leader in hiring this 15% to 25% of our community.
3A – PAUSD Promise – Fairmeadow – It is frustrating to see an “Equity” Report with literally no data or information about ANY groups where equity is a concern. Here are some Fairmeadow numbers: 1/3 of suspensions SWD and SED each though the numbers are small. It should be noted that there are other school districts on the Peninsula who don’t suspend elementary students at all.There are substantial jumps in Absenteeism for both SED (28.8%) and SWD (21.6%). Math performance for SWD declined 49.7 points and English Language Arts declined 28.8 points. Once again, while it is wonderful that schools are pursuing different programs, I hope the district moves to standardize and expand data reporting in the future.
3B – PAUSD Promise Annual Report. The highlighted 63% of SPED students in general ed for more than 80% of the day puts us below the national average of 66.2% and only slightly above the CA state average of 59.5%. This isn’t a reflection particularly of Palo Alto, but of California. If you are going to pick a number, I’d use the 8.52% of students who spend less than 40% of their time in general education. That is much better than California’s dismal average of 18.2% which is the worst in the US. We are in 20th Nationally for inclusion by that metric by the way.
3C – Special Education Update – I hope that this is Part 1 of a long series of presentations to the board. The persistent focus on reading and equity at our board meetings reflects our priorities and values. If we go a month without a presentation on reading, I’m surprised and we have an equity presentation every meeting. Please do not use California state “color codes”, use the numbers which in many cases reflect well on Palo Alto. The codes are almost meaningless and do not reflect the high standards and aspirations of our PAUSD community. You can use the hard numbers to track actual student outcomes. By the numeric date, we are doing better objectively than others districts in the state, but we have larger gaps between our SWD and our general education students. Similarly with the IDEA reporting. California’s SPED program would be an embarrassment if anyone bothered to talk about it. We can track against other states and target being better. I’m looking forward to more special education reports in coming board meetings.
3D – Strong Bonds – I am a huge supporter of the bonds and parcel taxes that support the excellence of our PAUSD schools and look forward to helping when the next set of measures come up for a vote. However, I am greatly concerned that the loss of 1300 to 1500? students from our peak enrollment and the continued projected losses of 200 students per year needs to be better reflected in our spending and investments. We should not take the current excellent financial health of this district for granted to avoid dealing with these major demographic changes. It does not serve our students or community well and reflects poorly on our stewardship.
5. Consent Agenda – Everyone should take a look at 5C – Certificated Staff. It is very unfortunately that the Classified Staff report which shows a substantial 24 resignations does not break out the loss of 11 special education staff. To say that again, 11 SPED certificated resignations out of 24 for the PAUSD district as a whole. I look forward to the district and board embracing real transparency and clarity in these critical staffing reports. Teachers and staff are what make this district function.
8A – Communication Plan – I was expecting information on the PAUSD plan for the content of our communications, not branding. I thought the district did respond impressively and effectively to the incident at Gunn several weeks ago, but the response to the JLS incident last spring probably made the situation unnecessarily worse. I look forward to the district putting together a systematic crisis communcation plan … which should exist either here or in the site safety plans, but doesn’t seem to be in either place.
