Hello, good afternoon. My name is Carla Go. I'm board member for district 5 and I'm also the chair of the curriculum and discussion committee. Welcome uh to our members and also to our audience and to our presenters. We're super excited to have you here today. And before we
begin, we're going to begin with some introductions of our committee members for those who may not know. Um here >> hello my capacity mom. I have a child who's going to be graduating Irving from moving on to Mar High School next year
and my daughter is in the girls acting leadership academy. She's a seventh grader and a professional work for the center for teacher innovation and I learned so much from his group and I'm working um for doctorate instruction.
I'm always >> Hi everyone, my name is Trevor Latner. He him I'm here as a community member. Um in my day job I am the director of education at one institute where I lead
uh youth teacher and advocacy around K12 history especially under the education act. Hello. Wow. Wake up. I am Charlotte. I get the uh
privilege of serving in board district 1 as well as a mom. I have a fifth grader and a seventh grader that's in board district 1 as well. So, thank you for being here. >> Good afternoon everybody. My name is Francis, chief academic officer here at
LA Unified and it's a pleasure to be with here with everybody here in support of this curriculum and instruction committee. I'm ensuring that we provide all the information that this committee is requesting and that we're responsive to the needs of our school.
>> Hello, my name is Martis. I am a mother of four um former and current US students, a seventh grader at Franklin and a sophomore. I also states and in my
art or side hours I'm alone. So I'm alone. >> Hi, my name is Laura Vasquez. Um, this is my 26th year as an elementary teacher. I've taught fourth, fifth, and sixth grade. And, um, I've taught five
different curriculum. And, uh, I've been concerned with the direction it's going. Um, I just learned from one of my colleagues who teaches second grade that um, one of the language arts units focuses on the War
of 1812. And I think we can do better for our students with children's literature, engagement, age appropriate, etc. The same for math. Um, this year I've been teaching um, donkeyote in fifth grade as well as the Renaissance,
the Reformation, and now Midsummer Night Stream. So, I think we need something that's better suited to all of our students. >> All right. Thank you. and our presenters will have an opportunity to introduce themselves as they come up. So, um
again, thank you uh for being here. This is the curriculum of instruction committee and we've been, as you can see, it's uh board members as well as educators as well as community members and uh parents and we also have the
district uh personnel that supports us in all the work that we do. So, I want to send some appreciation for supporting us always with um our presentations and making sure that uh we have all the information that we need to present for our communities. Uh just to recap, we've
been um discussing throughout this year about how we can honor our children's identity in the classroom. We've been uh talking about it in the past three sessions. We looked at curriculum, but now today we're going to look at
professional development, right? How is it that professional development can support educators and schools and how can um it support educators to honor students identity and their whole selves and um the context around this we're
going to hear for Royal Allard um elementary school and they are a meaningful teaching and learning framework school that is so I'm going to explain a little bit about what that is. It's part of a resolution that was passed uh two years ago and uh basically
it allows for schools, community schools to create their own non-mandated assessments alongside their own professional development with the support of a community schools professional development subcommittee as well as their own meaningful teaching
and learning uh coach. um and they receive this coach as part of being in this uh meaningful teaching and learning framework. Um and the reason why this started with community schools is because community schools curriculum is supposed to be uh culturally relevant
and community-based. And so it was the work that happens in this is sometimes not captured by ESPA or by I Ready, right? So it's important for them to be able to create assessments that can capture that um that wonderful work that
is happening that is very meaningful um to our students and to the community. Um so we are doing this at community schools first and then trying to see can we replicate this right can this be something that we can do everywhere. Um
and in full bold transparency I will say that in the first year we have seen some challenges and a lot of it has to do with um time and space to collaborate. you know, when you're doing this kind of work, community based, project based learning, you know, it's not just the teacher doing it on their own, right?
And when you're creating PD at a school, it's not just one person creating PD. You need collaboration. You need to be able to work together. And sometimes that poses a challenge in our district when there are so many mandates that are coming down on school. So, I just want to be very transparent that this is
something that is still something we need to work through. Um now the meaningful teaching and learning framework um resolution called for schools to opt into this right and there were we have five schools currently we had um an application process this year
for another five schools and the application process closed on March 20th. Now if you're a school that has not u been able to submit your application let us know. I don't know if we can extend it. I don't know. Um I I have to communicate. I mean be like
don't make promises. I don't make promises but but you know seek us out and then we will see what what is possible. Um and just so you know we are looking uh for high schools because as of as of right now it's mostly elementary schools that um are in the
meaningful teaching learning framework. Okay. So now professional development autonomies passed a resolution last year that also allowed for community schools and pilot schools to have autonomy over their professional development. And why
is that important? Well um you know when professional development uh is created at the school site to meet the needs of a particular students right it is still you know standards based and um you still have to have a plan but when you
can do that then there is more agency there's more buyin from the from the professionals at the school there is more engagement and there's certainly more retention when the PD is created locally it is much easier for the students whole identity uh to be
centered in the professional development and then translate it to instruction and it's also good for family and parent engagement. So, some examples of uh schools that have creative professional development and schools that exercise
their autonomy are some of our pilot schools. And some of the the PDS that or the professional developments that they've um held include um inclusion, right? building together an anti-racist curriculum, deepening school themes in
the classroom and crosscurricular projects and supporting social emotional needs and building a whole school climate to support student well-being. So these are some examples of PDS that schools who have these autonomies have created. So today we're going to hear
from Boyall Allard which is a school in my district owls. Yes. And my hall is a very unique school. They are a community school. They are a pilot school and this year they are an MTL school, meaningful
teaching and learning framework school. So, uh we're going to hear from them first and then we're going to hear from um our staff at the district um who will be talking about the new um inter office correspondence around professional
development for next year. They have I will say that uh the division of instruction has been very receptive not only to the uh ideas that have come out of this committee but just in general from people on the field and so their
new uh professional development memo is trying to address some of the concerns that have come from the field and we'll be hearing from Dr. Elizabeth Bernal and Dustin Lau who when we talked about social emotional learning and just a reminder that this is a dialogue we only
have a few presentations so hopefully we can engage in more dialogue uh in this meeting. All right. So, why don't we get started? I talked a lot. Uh, why not? I want to welcome um Martha Gonzalez, who is the community school coordinator at
Royal Allard. And I also want to welcome Principal Heights W at uh at Royal. Thank you. And you can go to that. Yeah. Before we start, I'll let you know we both have
both right to be standing next to each other. Yes. Okay. join the zoom and I'm projecting my poweroint my Google. So, as board member said, my name is Miss Hangwin. I'm also a product of LD graduate of this
district and proud principal of all. And I'm here with my amazing community schools coordinator, Maronal. Um, just a little bit more about our school. I know that you mentioned that we do have those three approaches. MTL, Community School, and Pilate School,
Rebel Allard opened up 2012. Um and we're named after a retired congressman the Ali. She's actually the daughter of the center. Um and we opened in August with the July program. Subsequently from there two
years later we became a pilot school. We applied the staff agreed um and became a pilot school. Then in 2019 we opened the first dreams elementary magnet in the east right as kind of a feeder to Southeast Dreams magnet school. And then
in 2021, we became a community school. And then this last school year in 2025, we received the MTL pilot grant and we became a codec art of teaching foundation school as well. So there's a lot of different things that happened within this class.
A little bit more about the school. We are located in our 170 students wide. Our English learner population is about 25%. Um, special ed 17% with um within different programs
schools, 27 amazing teachers, amazing hardworking teachers as well as coordinators and coaches. We have two community reps funded through the community schools grant and then we also support our students through a PSA and resource cabinet.
everyone online. >> I'm going to transition over to Okay, so we're about as a community school everything uh revolves around our Anna, the assets and needs assessment
with community needs, community mapping. That's the way we started it all out and it is all built on relationships and trust amongst all stakeholders. Uh we became a community school right around the time of co. So instead of being an
obstacle though when we reopen that helped us to meet all our parents that they have to bring the students. So we saw the positive in that but every thing revolved around that and out of that we found out that our students needed a
pathway to higher learning into magnets and they could not get in in middle school and high school unless they were already a magnet in elementary and that's why we opened the dreams magnet. It's not like we had these three pathways and then try to fit in our
students. We assessed the community. We saw the needs and then we built our pathways. Okay, we have the three and then our PD is also around that and everything that
we were able to learn from community schools. The meaningful teaching and learning of course EGI that was one of the parts of being a community school that we committed right away. Our first year
we had several of us certified including myself. This year we're running the cohort at our school and hope to by the end of the year be 100% certified in EGI which will help with the PDM assessments. We have also been a leader
in knee school for multiple years not just when it became a choice on the district uh cell page but way before we had researched how can we best address this and we've been doing it for quite a while now
and so a lot of our PD has been around that then the district offered joyful disruptions which also overlaps and goes into cell and different things and teaching our our students through a culturally responsive lens and we had a
100% participation of our staff in the joyful disruption trainings and then we went on to two and three. So a lot of us have completed the entire series. We've also been part of start with hello the Sandy Hook model and we just celebrated
see something say something. We do the no one eats alone. um we've celebrated and engaged our students in all of that as we feel it is so important in their development and all of that has required PD for our staff.
So, like Martha shared, when we're thinking about honoring the whole child, it does involve including the standardsbased instruction, right, the academics piece, but also identifying that there are social emotional learning needs, right? And ensuring that when those are addressed, students learn
better. So, moving forward, we do frame it for our staff, right? I think there's a high level of shared understanding around what our goals are as a school. And so we I describe it to the staff as not like a framework for success but a frame
right. So thinking about our work in terms of inputs and outputs. So at the foundational level we know that PD high level high quality PD is based on how we deliver effective first instruction. What are our best practices are as a school? What are our initiatives as a
pilot and community school? And how are we pushing forward the community- based learning? So that starts with again that professional development component and it is driven by our data right. So the teachers pause, we have checkpoints, we pause and we reflect on how well the students are doing and then we bring in
our other intervention pieces and our MTSS cycles to make sure that we're addressing not just kids at the top but those in the middle and those in the red that we also want to bring up as well. And then moving forward from that is this idea that there are processes right
structures that we have in place catalysts that kind of that we leverage to drive the work. And a big piece especially at our school site I believe is this calibration and planning right the teachers work very well together in grade levels and across grade levels to
articulate what those shared goals are. There's time for PD calibration and goal setting built into the the school day embedded into their school day. And then on top of that with our community schools funding and our pilot schools approach um and then the fact that we do
have several a lot of NBC teachers we do provide a lot of enrichment and innovation. Um and we strategically leverage much of the ELO funding to offer those to our community. And so students are engaged in clubs, right? They want to come to
school because there is a sense of belonging. There's a connection outside of the classroom to other components of our of our school environment and culture. Um and then the last piece around that is how do we leverage the different funding pieces to provide you know for for our students and our
community. And then we we keep in mind too the end the end goal right there has to be some type of output in this. There has to be some how does this translate into how well kids learn, how well kids are achieving and what are those measures that we're going to use to guide our practice. And so we do really
look at data in multiple and different ways um on a daily on a weekly basis. um we're looking at the 21st century social emotional competencies, right? Um to ensure that we're also meeting those and how are uh students leveraging those pieces too to support their learning.
And then again that bottom line is our kids coming to school. Attendance is a really really big factor at school. You can't teach a child that's not coming. So how do we build that sense of connection and belonging to make sure that they're in class? Um, and then just putting it in terms of
like like a timeline of understanding and thinking about how the school was established. Martha already alluded to much of it, but I think it goes back to at the heart of what we do as a community school, right? Which is assets and needs. Identify what is in your community, right? And we're not just
talking neighborhood, we're talking inside your school walls as well, right? There's lots of staff talent, lots of parents who are willing to come and support. Know your assets and needs, right? Identify what the community is asking for in terms of uh what how and
how the school can respond and keeping in mind that kids should be at the center of this work, right? It should be student centered and student focused. And as a result of that, like Martha said, the pathways came out came after, right? You know, the dreams magnet, we decided that because of a a need that
was voiced by our community, we're going to apply. We're going to try for this. the fact that it's dreams is really specific to something that the parents had said that wasn't existing in the community. Okay. And then again leveraging that teacher voice, choice, and talent. We don't have to go outside
of our school to find what that looks like. It's already existing in our in our building. Okay. And then again, making sure that those PDs that we offer to our our teachers and our staff align with those community needs. Okay. Okay. And then to connect it to so
what does this look like in terms of practice right so we are an MTL school it is a planning kind of implementation year for us and so we are trying to understand how to integrate this approach with our existing curriculum which is CLA right so as a schoolwide
initiative um and based on our assets and needs assessment we are developing um a health unit right and it's going to culminate in a health fair led by our students for our community based on a CKLA theme, right? So, if you look at
this, there's the theme of health in the human body that runs throughout the different grade levels. So, each of the grade levels is working on building a a shared uh CBL unit around that theme. Okay? And to in order to do that work, in
order to accomplish that, there has to be of course high quality PED and planning time and collaboration for the teachers. And so you have some samples of like their planning documents here. Some of them are hyperl to existing things that they're working on. But I really want to key you into the pictures
to the right are this is of our staff engaging in that professional development. Right? There's a lot of discussion. There's a lot of small roundt. There's a lot of grade level work. Um and there's high levels of engagement. And how do those features translate into how the teacher how the
kids learn? So if you look to the left, this is these are students, right? They're also engaged in discussion. They're also engaged in small level small group collaboration. There's lots of talk. There's lots of negotiating ideas, right? So we're hoping that the
way we engage teachers in their professional development also translates into how they engage their students. And then just another sample of something that the teachers are also working through because integrating different concepts and ideas, it's challenging, right? It takes time and so
um they want to be able to work more efficiently and to be able to create those connections for students. So here's an example of how they're taking the CQLA wall and kind of merging it together with the CBL. Okay. So, as Miss Ggo had said earlier or
board member Grigo had said earlier, um we definitely want student voice, student choice in there. So, giving them a lot of options in everything that we do and in those units that we've been working on and all the things at school. We also want them to want to come to
school, to be engaged, to love school. And so, we'll basically do anything to get them there. One of our biggest claims to fame has been attendance. Right after COVID especially, we had high levels of chronic absenteeism. At one point, we're at 46% chronic
absenteeism and to which we have now reduced to at this present moment we are 19% right now chronic absenteeism. And not only that, but our great attendance has really increased by a lot. So, um,
not to brag, but we're in an LPI brief also about that. Um, but, um, and we do different, even silly things. Hang wants to show you something that we we did. We'll just show you a little snippet. This is us being millennials speaking
like the students, speaking to the students. It's one of our highest social media um, little uh, >> this challenge. It's going to hit different. >> See how I come to school every day?
Very very >> just give me one second. >> But you could get the idea. All our staff members engaged, dressed like millennials and made this video to present to the students because it's it's important. And we put it on social
media. We send it through uh parent square. We communicate to our parents through a newsletter. multiple ways. We have a huge the de los muertos event which parents, students, volunteers, um
everybody participates in and we visitors uh come to see this from all over um the city council, other schools, other you know it's it's a big event. So this was a little snippet of this year's
there's some students working on it and you have parent volunteers but giving them the choice of to to decide what to display what to include. That's one of our students, you know, and all the different grade levels can
participate and they can honor family and we have a community table where anybody in the community can bring pictures, can bring momentos to honor their loved ones who have passed. So that's Oh, I get the chills. That's a real strong connection to the family. Uh
with Leader and Me, we just don't tell the students. We create videos, vignettes to show them. Um, and so they're they're learning about this, but this again about being proactive takes time. See the videos. It's okay. Um but
anyway just a lot of the um then the um through the CBL this year we are making it we are making it uniform from kinder or TK actually through sixth
grade but we started in classes we started in grade levels we started slow and it was not all the same across the board, but we're trying to be systemic and make sure that all our students have opportunity and that they're all getting
the same resources and can accomplish the same thing. So, just to preface this video, so um we do home visits, we do community walks, right? And we realize that in our community, a lot of families might live there's a front house and there's also a back house, right? So, there's lots of
people living in small shared spaces. And so to kind of integrate uh the learning, the students participated in the Minecraft challenge and they designed a tiny home. Right? So here's an application of that students understanding and I'll play a little bit.
>> Hi guys, welcome to my new tiny house. I'll move the mop soon. So I basically have a little >> You get the idea. And last year our uh we had a third grader actually win in the Minecraft challenge, one of these
students. So just a lot of opportunity. Uh we use we've done podcasts. We've done lots of different things. We're also moving on. You can go to the next one. We are also moving on to digital portfolios, studentled conferences.
We've done student le conferences but through leader and me we had a lot of PD on the digital portfolios but our staff cannot just add one page of language arts, one page of math. They've taken it further than that. And so we're creating
a portfolio that will follow the student from when they were little and it'll follow them through time and they've added like leadership pages. They've added their test scores. they have added um all these different things that
again takes the teachers a lot of time and it took a lot of training and PD time to get them to be able to get to this point. The next so a sample of our studentled uh
portfolios. You can see this in action at not that So you get the gist. But you could see some of them are still starting out a little more st slow slowly, still have a lot of documents. Some just had a computer in front of them and are
totally doing it digitally now. So that is our goal and that's where, you know, we're headed with all of our students. uh through joyful disruptions like I said we had 100% participation and I think you hear a theme that we trying to incorporate and think of the whole child
in everything that we do and we try to address cell not in just like we're doing um a particular curriculum and it stays there but teaching our staff that sometimes a student may need a break and they need an area to go to in the room
that's safe where they can express their emotions if they need to write, if they need to just read a book. So, every classroom at our school has a calm corner, a safe place where they can they can go, which we've also provided money
for and have given uh our staff time to give us a wish list and to be able to provide this type of area for our students. And then even though you're seeing three pictures of three different comm corners, there's a lot of PD that went
into this to ensure that the teachers have a shared understanding of what is expected in each of the comm spaces. So there is a common thread if you go through the different little corners in terms of what the teachers all agreed on would be included in their comm corner.
and and that leads to we need to be able to build staff capacity and collective efficacy. And so again through PD doing that leadership some teachers took the the reigns and they were able to be the ones
to lead these. we're leveraging the teacher talent, their curiosity, their experiences, the relationships that they have with each other and that some of them will just maybe lead a PLC, but some of them can lead the entire school. Um, we're creating these structures
where they can share these effective practices, be it at a Tuesday back bank time where we're sharing best practices or being happy hours which are after school and content specific. I know. Play on words. There's no
>> funds other applications. >> Yes. Yes. Okay. We didn't forget the H there. It's app hours. And so it is after school, but people may say like I need more training on Google Docs or
Newella or Canva or some kind podcasts. That was what doing different things. And so a teacher who's an expert in that area will lead it. it's volunteer teachers who need who are requesting that support and more PD can attend
that. So, it's based on what the teacher need is and what they voice to us that um they'd like to see and then finding the experts that can can teach that. So, again, you see some of our samples
of this bottom left p picture. We have our um this is our specialed pals teacher. Uh this is a a TKCC teacher and then our speech teacher um doing a PD on
neurodeiversity to the rest of our staff and on inclusion which we really promote and push and our special ed students are part of MTSS and going to different classes. So it's important that all our teachers are aware. So who better to
train them than the special ed staff, right? So different PDs led by different staff members. So as Martha shared, we leverage our street data, right? What our community is telling us based on what they need and they want to learn um in order to
provide that in different collaborative structures. And I think the thing that you notice from a lot of the pictures is there is a high level of engagement from the staff. The teachers are participating, they're listening, they're engaging. We provide time for them after the whole um shared understanding piece to be able to talk
within grade levels, within programs, right, and pathways in order to meet the needs of their kids. So, we differentiate in different ways. Sometimes they'll be great by grade level, sometimes they'll be by pathways. So, our dreams magnet and our dual language and our uh our resident school,
which we rebranded as Claw, Community Leadership Academy. And because we're owls claw um so we give them we give different opportunities and time for people to meet together right and they voice kind of what they need and we
adjust our our PD calendar to accommodate those needs as well because we feel that in when we do that um teachers are more engaged there are higher levels of implementation in terms of what they do that reflect back in their classrooms. All right. And so back to what I we shared earlier. How do we
uh measure the impact of the approaches, right? And we're and again this is a lot of like empirical data. Um there's so much more that I think happens at the school site that if you come and visit, you'll get a sense of the the community, right? Um but in terms of our attendance, and we pulled this from the
community schools um um dashboard that they provide, our excellent attendance is trending up. Okay. And then our chronic absenteeism, we're reducing it. And this has been a tall order and a very challenging thing to do, right? But we know that the strategies that we're
implementing in our school are working because kids are are kids are coming. Okay. Um and then this is us in terms of the the district. Okay. And then other pieces of data that we use to measure the school experience
survey within the last two years and this year as well we were able to get 100% um participation in the survey from students, staff and our community. Okay. So they responded when we said that you know we're 50 more parent surveys to be
100% and in turn parents responded and did the survey. So we have the data that represents their collective voice, right? Um so we're pulling so students right opportunities for participation and leadership. So these are what the kids are agreeing and strongly and
there's um an improve compared to the district and then compared to the year previous right so students are finding opportunities at our school site to present at the Huntington Park city hall practice with peers. This is our students um doing the peer mediation
restorative rainbow. Okay. And then these oops the this student and another student who practiced it together actually helped me lead a coffee with the principal and we did this with our our community right and the greatest part about this was
Sophia she did it in English and Carlos translated in Spanish. So we were able to do both. Um and then here are our our parent survey data. Right. So there was a lot to pull from but this is just in terms of their overall customer service parent engagement. If you look at the
this it's it's trending at upwards. Okay. And this represents 100% of the parent voices. Okay. So this is them uh participating in a parent workshop. Um other ways that we're engaging parents in similar ways that we do with our our teaching staff, right? They're doing a
check-in, an opener. Okay? There's a lot of opportunities for discussion. And then we do multiple multiple family nights, you know, from robotics to steam to uh literacy night and our in our community comes out and they show up. Okay.
And then this is the impact on our staff and we pulled lots of different data but this is I enjoy teaching at this school 100%. And it's been like for for two years. Yeah. Three years in a row. Okay. And overall teaching satisfaction. people come and they want to stay
because they feel that the work that they do is important and they're engaged at high levels and they collaborate and they're seeing the results um in the classroom with their kids. And then this is also really telling how many adults at this school feel a responsibility to
improve this school 100%. Right? I think in terms of like having this sense of collective efficacy, this shared interest in in an outcome that we all feel that through the work that we're doing that we can reach together. I mean I mean I hear it every day but when you
see it in terms of a number it does really impact you right. Um and then how does it impact our our scores right at the end of the at the end of the year. So here are ESPA scores um in terms of our med and exceeded. Okay. And we also pulled this from the community schools
dashboard. So this is for E for math, right? And this is for ELA. And if you look at these bottom numbers, we we are trending upward. We know that there's still much more to be done. Um but we want to make sure that we recognize the hard work that our staff is doing and
leverage that positive momentum to keep on going. And then there's other measures. I mean, we did receive the California Gold PBIS award this last school year. We got America's Healthiest Choices. This year, the magnet is fairly new. It's what's
five years old. Uh, but we will we are we got the magnet merit award of distinction. So, there's a lot of collective effort working together towards common and shared goals, right? And I don't think this slide kind of reflects I wish I had I wish I could record what some of the I hear the kids
saying, what the parents say when they come to the campus, but there's other street data measures that indicate to us that parents feel welcome and and the kids feel safe coming to school and they want to come to school. So easy, right, to do all this? Yeah.
No. and there are a lot of challenges and so it's it's been hard. It's been very difficult especially being all of these things. I actually um presented at the board about the PD resolution last
year in May and we're still struggling a little and we thank the district that we had less mandated PDs this year and we hope it'll be even less next year because we all know community schools say the one thing about community schools is that there's no two alike.
We're all different. We're all going to have different focuses. We're all going to have different needs and assets. and so playing on those and using those. So, one of the the challenges is that we need more alignment between the
district, the region, and school-based understanding of those PD flexibilities and what they are and then how they match the initiatives because even though they may be there on a document in writing, what does that really mean
and how does that translate to the school site and especially when we have LA USD is so large that we have then region east then we have our costs and then we have different um groups. So
there is a lot of disparity and I go to different meetings as a community school coordinator and the demands on another coordinator may be very different than the demands on me based on who their director is, based on who their
superintendent is. And so how can we unify that? How can we make that more consistent so that we can use those flexibilities to to move our students forward to do the best for our students to give them that voice choice and
really address what they need. You know, then with the the tiered status, a lot of my peers this year, I hear them and because they are a tier 2 school or tier three school, it it can
be very demoralizing and to the staff, to the teacher, to us when we get our scores or sometimes after some conversations, um it is demoralizing because sometimes people don't come and say, "Wow, you're
doing this wonderful CBL work." they come and say like, you know, your I Ready minutes are low or this is going on or whatever. And so those are are some of our concerns, some of our challenges that how do we keep this
momentum going? How do we keep our teachers with that sense of of efficacy and urgency? Because believe me, we're also pushing and saying regardless, people are going to look at our ESPA scores. People are going to look at that. We need to work on that and we
need to make sure our students leave being able to read and write and are going to be productive citizens, 21st century learners, right? So, we know that like that's all on our plate. And so, um, how do we do that? And
we ourselves sometimes recognize that maybe we're doing too much, maybe we're trying to do too much. And then we have these competing priorities and with limited time to to go deep because sometimes we may do a PD and with the
PDSA cycles, we want to go back then and look at student work, analyze the data. What do we need to adapt? What do we need to get rid of? What do we um abandon? Then what else can we adapt? What can we All of that takes a
lot of time. And some of it is done whole group. Some of it we need to go by grade level. Um, more coaching. When does our coach get time to actually coach? You know, the teachers keep saying they need more time for planning, which is probably where they get the
least amount of time. And then feedback. Um, so all of these are things that some of it we realize it's it's in our hand, it's in our control, we can try and do better, but some of it isn't in our
hands. Some of it isn't stuff that we can easily remedy. So, how do we go about it? What is it that we need to do? And then how can the district support our practices to scale up and spread this? And I know that the word
sustainability comes up multiple times, right? We don't want to we don't want to provide a PD that is just, you know, one time, one and done. We want to make sure that these best practices happen in our classroom. So how do we make sure that teachers have the support to be able to implement these strategies and
approaches well and that they translate to what the kids are doing and then to the measures, right? So, one suggestion is to build in sustained job embedded time for collaboration, lesson design, and reflection during the school day. I think as a community school, an MTL
school, and a pilot school, we recognize that we do have things that we can leverage, right? I don't know if other schools have that same opportunity, but we do do that to try to build in time with our with the budget that we have so that teachers have time to meet and plan together, right? And we know that that
yields higher results. And again that idea of provide funding to match that protected time. So if you say that this is important in the work then ensure that the funding is there and then also to support integrated student centered initiatives right the
fact that we're implementing the community- based learning. It does take time right and is student centered. So ensure that that funding is available and that the schools have um connections to partnerships that encourage these
realworld learning contexts. Okay. And again what Martha shared in terms of just alignment, right? Making sure that we're all saying the same thing, that we're all voicing the same common agreements about what it means um to be a school with kind of multiple approaches, right? What are those flexibilities and what are some other
multiple measures that are going to match the school's approaches and initiatives that are going to be used to determine if we're meeting the goals and outcomes that we established, right? And then understanding too, and I mean
we could look up tons of different research that tells tells us all this that this work that we're trying to do, it does take time. So it might not result in immediate results, right? But there will be growth. There will be growth. And the research shows that addressing the needs of the whole child
long-term wise, the results are going to be there and it's going to be sustainable. And we know this because we have students who come back to us who tell us that they've they're at UCLA or they're at Stanford. They reached all these different places. It's because of the foundation that we established for
them at the elementary level. Okay. And then the biggest belief for us at our school side is in shifting this mindset around the work that it isn't just about instruction. It's about changing the culture of the school, right? In terms of how we teach, right? Student centered, connecting them to the
community and making it relevant for the kids so that they're they're engaged in their learning, right? And really identifying not just the student but the staff, their voice, their identity, and their choice. And then all of that is focused on how do we develop this whole child that we're putting out into the
world that's going to graduate right as a product of this district. Yes. >> Wow. Thank you so much. That was so inspiring and it makes me so proud that we are doing this in LA USD. Um, and
that you guys are doing I mean I visited the school. You're doing amazing work. Um, I'm going to open up space for folks to have some discussion around this, ask some questions. you. Thank you for providing some suggestions as well for
how the district can support schools like you and how we can scale this um so that more of our schools are are doing this kind of work, right? Um so, uh we can um have some discussion. You can stand there or you can go back with the
mic, whatever feels more comfortable to respond to any questions. Um, and then I just want to remind our committee to try to be lean so that we can um, uh, get as many folks to to share and ask questions
and of course give them an opportunity to respond. So, yes Cesily wow. I mean, 100% teachers saying that they want to be there. I mean that is phenomenal. That's 100%.
And I love how you talk about the whole child and it made me think about how it really seems that you address the whole teacher, right? Teachers as humans and learners and flaws and and strengths and everything like that. I'm very interested in the suggestion of sort of
jobmbed paid time to do the part of the work that is planning that is intentionality. What would that look like for you? Ideally, what do you think that that could be to actually carve out real time to collaborate?
So, it's something that we're working through too with our budgets. And again, we leverage our community schools funding, the grant funding, um, and other additional funds, right? And we do provide something during the school day. So, the kids receive um through a
program that's sponsored through the district, they receive uh physical education and social emotional learning um practice instruction outside and then that releases the teacher to have common planning time and we leverage that in different ways. They meet by grade
levels, they meet by pathways, sometimes we pull teachers depending on a specific need and so that happens um twice a week. Okay. And then along with that we have collaboration money through community schools the 7 through39T grant right and we use that to provide time
for teachers to plan um their PBL cycles other things as needed PLC >> and then we also have PLC time which we work around breakfast in the classroom and so then from 7:30 to 8 the teachers
are planning there's no student and then from 8 to 8:30 students are eating breakfast and the grade level gets to meet in PLC. So those are three examples of how we're doing it during the day to allow for planning and collaboration >> which all seem that they could get
scaled up and done in other places. Is there anything more you would ask for? I mean ideally >> or is that where is that >> money? Money. >> Yes. >> Yeah. Well, and we heard we're probably going to lose some of that collaboration
money next year, um, that we get in the 7339 grant, which is a community school grant, which is really sad because as an MTL school, it feels like we should be getting more instead of losing it. So, you know, so we're out there looking for
it. Wonderful. Oh, I'm sorry. Were you going to say something? I was going to say that, you know, I've been visiting schools and that is the one thing that principles have been sharing with me is that they're losing money for that they've been able to use for planning time and it's actually the schools that
are really thriving and doing really well who have used that money to have teachers plan uh collaboratively during the day. And um and these schools are doing so well and principles are like this is such important uh part of the
professional development and the instruction but the money is is lost right now for this coming year. Some schools are not having are not getting that. So but that doesn't mean that you know we're not advocating for more. So we certainly will be advocating.
Sherlette just looked at me like where are you going to get that from? But we will find a way. Um, all right. Anybody else? Yes. >> Hi. I just wanted to say this was just so amazing and I I want to say the pilot program, the community school, the
magnet, and the list goes on and on. And you presented it in a way that we could see it's totally fleshed out, right? It's not just a checklist where like we have this program, but really everything's maybe the same. You're you're really full throttle. And I I think so much and you're describing the
community and the staff and everybody being on board, right? And we know that there's part of the sustainability is that the community will be there in 2 years. The staff mostly will be there in two years. One thing that's often a variable for schools and so I just
wonder how you would address it is the person who's often at the center of things, the principal. So if you got a princ different principal who had a different point of view, a different approach, how how would things be sustained if you had let's say two
principles over the next four years, you know, a two-year >> or not? >> So how would that be sustained by the community by the by the teachers? Because that's a big variable >> and that's I wanted to speak to this because this is one of the beauties of
being a pilot school. Uh when we opened, Hang was part of the writing team. So was I that we opened the school and she opened as a teacher, then became our TSP coordinator and then went off to do a
little bit of uh to do her admin uh AP position somewhere else. And as a pilot school, we knew we were going to be able to interview. And we knew it had to be a person that's like-minded that believes in all of this that we're doing. And
that's a big issue. And I keep bringing it up with community schools because community schools that are not a pilot school can get a principal moved, appointed, whatever. We got to interview and hire. And so many of the people we
interviewed, I'll tell you, were saying, "I would do this. I would do that." as opposed to a we mentality or finding out about us before they even came to the interview. So that was a huge difference and that's one of the beauties of being
a pilot school and one of the beauties is also with the teachers they sign an elect to work agreement as a pilot every year. They all want to be there and there are people who are waiting for them not to sign so they can come in. So that's
>> Do you want to say something? But you will be there. So we've had much a lot of conversation around this too. Um and I and for me too and I hope you saw in the presentation that we never really described one person or one entity, right? And I think
for us it's about sustainability. So it's about building those relationships of trust that are going to be there despite whoever comes and goes. because I left I was there but I left for a period and I came back and I still saw those relationship pieces leveraged and
driving the work right so right now when we bring in these different types of things on the back of our mind we know this is a grant so it is about sustainability so what structures what processes what catalyst can we put in place so that despite because we're not
we're we're young we're youngish we're youngish right but there eventually a time that we might not be there So, how do we ensure that what we built together as a school stays and remains for the people who are still there? The teachers that we've grown together from I've
known some teachers from when they were single to now married to having babies. So, there's a community there. There's a work family there that we also want to make sure that we take care of as well, right? That are taking care of kids within the community that have grown up and have kids and now they're sending
their kids back to us. So it it is a family and so there's a lot of investment in making sure that what we create lives. I I want to commend you for your um your leadership and for your school community culture. I see that you've been very
strategic also and thoughtful about how you've been implementing these initiatives. I see that um joyful disruption was incorporated and those calm corners and anti-racist antibbias education which I was very proud to introduce to LA USD. So that goes to show that even though it's a central
initiative or that you were able to carefully tailor it to your needs. Um EGI again that's another district level initiative you were able to tailor it and leverage it. Your coordinator is certified. you found value in it and you found like this is something we can
scale up. Um when it comes to the Minecraft, we've been providing a lot of that um through our edtech innovation and we provide those Minecraft competitions and esports. We're having one this Saturday uh or in actually at the end of the month in April. So what I'm trying to explain here is that
you're able to personalize whatever is at the central level, personalize it to meet your needs, but you've taken it to a whole another level because your teachers owned it. you owned it and you made it yours. So, I could take the very same PD that other schools received and it's going to look a little different in
the implementation, but the way you carefully um implemented shows the heart and the care that your school community has. But I also want to call out that you figured out how to balance it. You figured out how to tailor it, but there's still challenges ahead and there's things that we want to support
you to do. But I just want to commend you for being able to do that at your school site. And that's something we had talked about and we didn't mention because even like with the mandated PDS, we do look at them and why reinvent the wheel if there's something there we can use and that we can fit and we use a lot
of the the programs are are great, you know, that that we use. What was the the sound one? Oh, Soundtrack. Soundtrack. >> Yeah. So, there's a lot of things district purchased that we've grabbed on to. Why
why start over? Thank you for those words we'll share with the staff because I feel like it's recognizing their hard work and efforts too and their engagement in the PDS and being able to implement this. So we're sitting here but we represent 27 plus
more other staff members and teachers right that are doing the work. So thank you. >> Anybody else before we go on? Go ahead. We This is another principle from another >> suspend you as well. I mean, I think the work that you're doing was just
obviously stated by Dr. Bias, but also I think what what I was thinking about um we've been discussing as a committee uh a district-wide challenge in terms of how to implement PD at a school site with uh fidelity and effectiveness,
right? And so this notion that we're working on as a committee to me the connection that you made to that to our work is that you built capacity in your mult in your different in your three different tiers right of of of your foundational work at the school your your faculty your students and your
families. So I think that when schools are able to do that effectively I think then we have a better chance of being effective and implementing district policy. And so the examples that you gave for for instance where students are becoming leaders at the school site, parents are engaged in meaningful ways
and the faculty is taking the leadership to to to learn together. Those are things that I think can help our mission as well because that's where we're trying to see how schools can take policy within a very complex structure at the site to make it actually work. So
your your example I think is uh clear that given your amazingness right as a team that it can happen right yeah so congratulations >> he has a great school by the way he has an amazing school as well so >> and you recognize it's also a work in
progress right there's also challenges that come up but I think the heart is there to try it out and see and then come back and it's a PDSA cycle in multiple ways cycle through so many different kids and families and yeah
>> thank you so much and I just want to note that you ended with that it's a cultural change right at the school and that you honor everybody you honor your teachers expertise you see them as experts you respect them you bring them in you're building leaders with your
educators and I think that at all schools when you have that kind of relationship between the administration and the out of classroom staff and the educators there is trust and so then they want to they want to help out they want to participate so they see
everybody being involved 100%. So um thank you again and if there's no any any more questions in this moment we will move on to our second presentation and um but stick around in case somebody has more questions at the end. I want to
go ahead and introduce um Dr. Elizabeth Bernal who is our administrator of elementary instruction and um she's going to be speaking about
about the professional development that will be coming out of the district and the supports that we have as well. Good. >> Okay. Thank you. Um, good afternoon and thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak to y'all about our bank time
module PD. And so during this time, I will give you a brief overview of the policy that dictates the bank time modules and I will highlight specifically what the opportunities for flexibility differentiation and
planning time are. and then my colleague Justin Lowour will give you some ideas on how the PD modules are integrating social emotional learning. Okay. So with that I would just like to reintroduce or
introduce memorandum 6015. A lot of the information that I will be presenting to you today comes from this memo. It is updated on a yearly basis. So the one that you see here is 2526 but there is a 2627 coming up and this
memorandum includes a lot of information. Among them it gives you what the district instructional priorities are. It also indicates what the breakdown is of those modules that are district that are that whose topics
are dictated by are determined by the district and those that are determined by the school site. Okay. It also provides you with the number of required modules and their topics and it also includes the choice board topics and
important for this committee I think it encou includes considerations for implementation specifically addressing things around scheduling flexibilities and differentiation. Okay. So just to ground us a little bit,
I I do think it's important to remember that the bank time modules are one component of a larger professional development system that the district has. So the bank time modules along with summer PD, supplemental district or
region PD, the school site PD, okay, for example, all of them together work in tandem in order to effectively implement those district instructional priorities. Okay. Now when we look at the policy
surrounding the bank time modules over the last couple of years and this year we see that in general the breakdown between those topics or those modules whose topics are district determined and locally determined stays pretty consistent. It's about 50%. It has been
the last couple of years and as of now it seems to that will be the case for the 26 27th school year. Now when we begin to look at the required modules specifically when we look at those that
are mandated ones there are some changes. So if we look at this year and last year there were 12 required modules for the upcoming 2627 Allard will be happy to hear that it is
decreasing. Yay. And it's going down to seven. Okay. Now for those seven the topics include one literacy module, one math module, one science module, two
modules related to English learners, one module for universal design for learning and one module for NTSS. Now I do want to point out that of these seven, five of them, the first five A, B, C, D, and
D has two. So that's why there's only four. Um those are mandated either legally or by the state. Okay. Now here are some more details with regards to those specific required or mandated
modules. These are the proposed titles. And I say proposed because this memorandum is still in draft form. Okay. Now when we're talking about the choice board topics, there has also been a bit
of an evolution. If we look at 2425, at that point there were six choice board topics. Okay, that increased to 10 last year and next year it's increasing to 11. Okay. Now, I do want to point out
that within each one of those topics, there are several suggested possibilities that schools can select from. Those are topics that the schools can select from. We don't stipulate how many from each topic. The school gets to
decide that. Okay. Now, speaking really specifically about flexibility and differentiation, this is lifted straight from the policy. And I want to highlight what's in yellow and it does speak to principles having the
freedom to tailor sessions based on student achievement data based on school need data school need essentially they have the cap they are encouraged to adjust the format pacing and the focus of the professional developments and
very clearly there it also states that they can adjust the presentation materials. We include a deck. We also include a facilitator guide for each one of those mandated PDs. And the school site does have the flexibility to make
adjustments. Okay. Now again, for each one of those mandated modules, we have this slide. This is a generic slide that again, not just in the actual memo, but in the deck itself. Each one of them that is
mandated includes this slide that reminds the facilitator that they should differentiate for their schools and it gives some general suggestions as to how they might you know provide that differentiation. But then each one of the decks also has
an additional slide to or two that specifically calls out where in the deck they can make some adjustments. So this is an example of one where it speaks to, you know, we're doing some backwards planning. We have a suggested curriculum
or a suggested task that you use, but you can change it. So if you're doing CBL or PBL, you could use that particular task instead of what's there. Okay? And this is just an example of what one of those slides looks like. And
this is from um backwards the backwards planning module for secondary. This is an example of what it looks like for study sync. But the schools do not have to use study sync. They can use a different curriculum. High quality instructional material though that would
be the only caveat. And then the important here, the important thing here is that they are focusing when they're backwards planning with identifying that desired result, determining that acceptable evidence and planning those learning experiences are going to engage
the students cognitively. Okay. the process super important. Some of the details in terms of what they're using, what rubrics they're using, there's flexibility there. Okay, here's just another example and this is
from an elementary um deck on analyzing for student work. And again, in this particular deck, we provided a suggested protocol to use. In this case, it was a modified atlas protocol. We also included some samples
of student work that could be used, but very specifically it calls out that the school can use their own protocol, especially if it's something that they have been using and has worked for them. And it also specifically calls out that the schools could use their own student
work. And we encourage that because we all know that makes it a lot more meaningful. But we also know that sometimes things happen and there's an emergency situation and you need a backup. So this is a backup. Okay. And this is just an example of what that
modified Atlas protocol looks like. Okay. Now with planning time. So with planning time in the modules from this past year, we did have some specific modules that were on planning and they were labeled planning for
science, planning for ELA, backwards planning for ELA, backwards planning for math, backwards planning for science. Okay? And so again, we included a lesson planning template, but again, it specifically called out that if the school had a lesson planning template
that they were using, they could sub substitute that one. Okay, we made a suggestion for a task, a performance task. But again, if the school already had a plan, they could substitute. Okay, here's an elementary example. Same idea,
backwards planning. Okay, and we suggest we had some suggested templates, suggested tasks, but there was flexibility. And you'll notice that there are some parallels between elementary and secondary, and that's very intentional for a variety of reasons. Okay, here's another example.
This is um one of the modules that was really focused on using a high leverage um strategy. And so again, I just want to call out that even though this particular module wasn't necessarily titled backwards planning, part of the guidance that we give to the developers
of the modules is that they include time for the teachers to apply the learning or plan with that learning in mind. So in this particular module for example the strategy they were using was the claim evidence and reasoning right and so then after we kind of walked through
in the module what that is and what it might look like then there was time at the end for the teachers to determine how might we apply this or what might it look like in the lesson that we use. Again there was something similar for elementary. Okay. And this is actually a
math example just to you know highlight that it wasn't just for ELA where we f use that same strategy and again also very intentional because I understand you know that it becomes very challenging when there are multiple strategies multiple you know just
initiatives coming through. So we were very intentional in focusing on one strategy not just elementary and secondary but one strategy that could be used in different content areas. Okay. So, let me pause right there and I'll turn it over to my colleague.
>> Thank you, Dr. Banal. Uh, my name is Dr. Justin Lowour. I have the honor and privilege of not only supporting middle school instruction for division of instruction, but also overseeing social emotional learning. Um, I can tell you a little history of social emotional
learning. it kind of got stuck in the classroom for some years. Meaning that there are more folks on campus that are that have the responsibility to provide this pixie dust is what I call it of great teaching and great communities.
And as we've seen today with Roy Balard, that is what's going on there is you have an extremely inclusive community that has all kinds of forms of engagement for kids. You engage kids, they will learn. And so that is at the heart of and I'm here today to talk
about um our and I have notes because I get off base uh strategic systemwide approach that we have designed for PD that is aligned to our district goal 4. We had a problem of practice. We determined that there wasn't enough understanding of what social emotional
learning was in the field. that was pretty pretty prominent in our feedback that we received and it's why when we provided uh s uh p professional development for district-wide licenses for social emotional learning for second step and inner explorer for a number of
years that it kind of paused at about 30%. Schools were kind of making their own they weren't engaging the resources because they just didn't know how to use them. So our approach has changed and at the center of this we provide schools flexibility, choice and practical tools
that they can use immediately to support the students in their schools. Um our goal is not only to build capacity but to ensure that every educator um has access to readytouse resources. that's important um to make integration which
is what we decided is needed in our district that everybody plays a part in um to build more meaningful and manageable um you know programs u of daily practice. I'm going to go ahead and forward here. Okay. So um to build
the vision of this of this um of the district we we decided that PD is grounded in three interconnected components. Number one, we support educators in creating welcoming and inclusive classroom environments.
Second, we provide training on delivering uh explicit instruction that is aligned uh to the six competencies. And third, we focus on real world application uh helping students to use these skills to strengthen executive
functioning which is critical and it's something that we're focused on for next year. uh especially importantly all across all these areas we provide flexible entry points um and readytouse strategies so uh educators can immediately apply what they have learned
in ways that align with their classroom and school context um as we connect this work to the district goal for flexibility becomes more critical uh as the approach to is
personal for every school community. Uh we offer professional development through multiple pathways including our bank time Tuesday choice board offerings as described on attachment A on the screen. Um and we have a variety of differentiated learning opportunities
that that are aligned to the three components of SEAL. This allows schools to plan, select and implement PD based on their unique needs. This is critical and uh while maintaining strong alignment to district priorities again using prescribing
diagnosing the need in their schools uh and aligning the the resources accordingly. In this way, we we are not prescribing a single approach, but we are creating opportunities for schools to design their own path forward using highquality readytouse resources that
are self-prescribed in their schoolwide approach to SCCL. Uh so one example of this flexibility and action is our professional development that we offer many different as you see in the middle uh in order to
create welcoming learning environ environments. Educators in our district can engage in a range of of sessions that support relationship building, student belonging, and positive uh school climate while also accessing practical tools and structured resources
that they can use immediately. Whether through our bridge readiness programs, peer-to-peer mentoring, or belonging focused strategy, schools have the ability to plan and implement re uh supports that uh reflect their school community while using district provided
readytouse materials. The second component of the three-legged stool, as we call it, um is uh the approach to explicit instruction uh uh in the classroom. RPD includes um
provides educators with structured lessons, activities and planning tools that support instruction of u with the six competencies through micro credentiing and targeted training. Educators are not only building knowledge, they are gaining immediately
usable resources that strengthen rigor engagement and student outcomes. Um this ensures the planning for is is not an added burden. This is critical for our teachers. they have a lot on their plate but rather a supported and integrated part of instructional practice that can be weaved into their
lesson planning. The third leg of the stool is uh integration which has really driven uh usage in our district quite a bit. Um, when we move from instruction to integration, we continue to pri prioritize both flexibility, again, I
keep mentioning that, and application. And our PD supports educators in embedding SEAL across uh all content areas utilizing tools like social emotional learning uh portfolios and implementing restorative practices. Uh, at the same time, we provide planning
resources and models that help educators seamlessly incorporate into existing curriculum. This approach ensures that is not only a standalone initiative. It is not a standalone initiative but a fully integrated educator-driven practice
that's supported by um accessible readytouse uh tools. So that is the current plate of opportunities for our teachers that can be um decided upon with choice. We provide lots of choice. We have about
we're going to go over 16,000 uh participants in our PDS this year and um two years ago it was 200. So as you can see the scale has the demand the interest has gone up and you know why? Because as reported by your teachers
when they are doing things that bring smiles to kids faces it fills their heart and that's why they love to come to school and we know that and we're going to be looking at data that actually aligns with that. Looking ahead, we can we continue to expand the work um with a strong focus on scale,
flexibility, and impact. Uh goal is to reach over 17,000 educators and support staff while maintaining uh access to diverse PD pathways and planning resources. We will introduce new PD aligned to a cell diagnostic which will
support us in really getting a great understanding of students are applying what they're learning to real life scenarios in different grade levels. Um, ultimately our vision is very clear to provide every school with a choice, tools, and support they need to
implement in the ways that they see as meaningful, sustainable, and responsive to their school communities. Every school is different. We're confident that the data, including the school experience survey, which we understand will continue to go up and reflect the
growth we're witnessing with the demand created with our district goal. Thank you very much, board members. Thank you everybody. >> Wonderful. Thank you so much Dr. Lowour. Um well um I'd like to open it up for any
discussion, any questions of both our district presenters as well as uh Roy Bal Allard if you >> missed a question. I know I have a couple of questions that I wanted to ask both but I want to provide space for you all especially those who did not have an
opportunity to ask one yet. Go ahead. >> Thank you. I have a question about the seal because I'm currently um so I'm a dual language teacher just so I'm currently taking the first microcredential
uh yeah and I learned a lot about >> one of the things that I learned is that we are supposed to have uh sanctioned social emotional learning period and beyond that the integration
comes from integrating it throughout the day, right? And this integration wasn't just like dealing with students uh like solving problems like the trans that it was tal so it's the transformative right and so
the transform transformative aspect of came >> with the vision of being equitable and building like relationships and collab collaborative work as well as and I'm let me go let me go back to the
equity the equity that I really honed on because being on this curriculum was the equity and culture and making cultures relevant. So like one of the statistics that we were shown was that 40% of the students in middle school and high
school didn't feel like they belonged and part of that was that they don't see themselves in the curriculum which was why I love being in this committee because we're trying to like have their voices heard. So this was the LGBTQ plus
community as well as Native Americans and African-Americans and just people of color, right? and so that they're not really representative in the in the um curriculum. So anyway, going back to the seal, what I really want is a sanctioned
because we're supposed to have the sanction period and then from them grow. However, we don't all have a sanctioned period >> and what we get instead and so I heard the presentation, but what stuck with me is like why aren't we doing it? I was
like, we're not doing it because of we don't have >> the the time >> the actual tools. We have the tools. I am actually a very aware of the tools. However, I don't I can't go to those tools if I'm not giving a sanctioned time. Yeah. >> To actually have and so one of the
things that is important is because it actually increases student belonging sense on belonging and when the students feel that they belong, they will come to school and it increased actually attendance. So if we know that these things are happening, my hope and I
guess my question would be is like are we planning is as LSUD have it in the plans as to like have a sanctioned time for not like this is breakfast time plus seal plus I take attendance we can't really do that and that is exactly what
it is and so you can't get a one minute of social emotional learning in that way and I feel actually that's one of the things that actually has saddened me throughout my career is that this is the important part. This is the most important part that's going to make our kids better humans. And this is the part
that we don't have the time for. I don't I don't So I want to I want to know if we're going to have the time to have a sanctioned time. >> So with respect to offering a sanctioned time, we can definitely offer some suggested um schedules. I know that the
school day is very very impacted. Um and there are some mandates like EL, physical education, language arts and math. We want to support with providing some recommended schedules. Um but I also want to recognize that there's a lot that teachers that are on their
teachers plate and the and what and how to stretch the instructional day. So it's that's why we really focus a lot on the integration for now, but we will offer we can offer some suggested schedules to offer that. I don't see the integration being >> Yeah. >> It's not
integration doesn't work >> if I do CSL >> we're going to integrate but integration comes beyond the sanction period. So I can't integrate something that the kids don't know. >> Yeah. >> We need the knowledge. >> Thank you. Tell me. I'll have Dr. Laauo
respond and then um Charlotte will say something. So you absolutely we agree that there should be some time to offer SEAL instruction that tier one instruction to have students understand what the competencies are right uh every
school does it a little differently some schools have it injected into different classes um and so it again what Dr. Bayas is saying that it's difficult for us to to kind of put a mandate that you
have to do this because it's something that we believe that from the principal down should be a vision for the school that we believe that that this the integration of SEAL and the components of the should be appearing in multiple
areas not only for our teachers which it's difficult for teachers to try to make the time to do this but we have our counselors going around in advisory right now doing SEAL um uh lessons. So we are finding more ways to involve more
folks on campus to provide that integration. So it's not just content integration which is how Castle defines it. Luc defines it as integrated across the school day. And so the more that the students get exposed to SEAL, whether it's an activity, a struct uh
instruction, or even modeling it, showing them what it means, that builds capacity and students understanding. So we're working on that. >> All right. >> Wanted to say thank you to both of the presenters. Um I appreciate I heard
flexibility flexibility flexibility um and choice. And um I think you guys demonstrated that as well in what you presented and wanted to ask I know the schools open in 12 of the teachers that
have been there how is the turnover because of course having a leader there who's been from that school raise up obviously it brings a different lens than a at a school that hasn't had that. So Martha, what's been our turnover?
Last year, no, couple of years ago, we lost a teacher. She calls every year, "Have you grown yet? Can I come back?" Um, but we've pretty much stayed the same. >> Yeah, it's uh, like I said, I get the
chills. We've all pretty much been been there. >> Yeah. the continuity of who wants to stay is fairly consistent. Um, just so everyone knows, Martha's actually retiring this year. So, >> oh, uh, oh, >> as I was looking through pictures of
like all the years, you could see us progressively age >> because there's such a collective amount of photos together. But the and we have one teacher who did leave had to leave and then like two
years later she is back now as a fifth grade magnet teacher. So yeah it's it's really heartwarming that the staff is happy and wants to be there. several of our were like she said a coach in school the the mentor out of the classroom
person was her student and then she became a teacher at our school and now she's the mentor and so we have a lot of also community um that now we're on the third generation and stuff and they keep
coming back to us >> and it's beautiful I mean I we hoped that many of our schools can be like that right where they're, you know, raising up the next generation within their school cycle and that there is a professional development that can do
that. Um, but wanting to, um, just also with the flexibility that you guys mentioned, um, and I know you guys are a pilot which have a different governance with the flexibility, how does that work if you do not have the governance model
that they have? >> The flexibility The flexibilities that are outlined in this particular memo are for all schools across LUSD. Um for pilot schools, it means they have added flexibility.
>> Thank you. And the choice board that we offer uh there are the mandated uh PDS that every school should be doing and should be building capacity in but the choice board they have a choice of different varieties of things and as seal you know it's not a mandated subject matter so we try to inject it in
many different areas and provide that interest. >> Got it. Thank you. Um I I have a couple of questions. Um regarding the priority schools um what are the um what are the ways that they
can get support because I know that there's a lot of mandates on priority schools in terms of the PDS that they have to have and where they're supposed to be. So how does the uh get uh integrated into the priority schools and
what are some of the the flexibilities that they have? Thank you. Uh Dr. Whitman and I have been working together for a few years. Uh they uh have been using Rethink Ed for which has a a very um studentfriendly model of of providing
uh uh um curriculum to students that is student student delivered. And so they've been working with a number of our different resources. Now all of our schools including the priority schools have choice of all of their resources. they get to customize their choices in terms of all of the um you know this in
the seal offerings on the bench. But it's interesting you bring up uh we just started a stackable micro credential program just for priority school teachers and we had our first PD uh for that and it's basically the foundation of SEAL that is again specific for
priority schools and the teachers and what they you know what their challenges are and where their struggles are and how can help build that community in those schools. uh that's important and we had 84 teachers come to that first uh that training. So that's another uh PD
that we're offering u in collaboration with HR. >> Okay. And then another question I have is what is the role of the region? to how do they support our school sites and and for Roy Ba Allard have you received any support from the region in the way
that you you called out that you've received support from the PBIS office from uh fromCal from different uh divisions in our district that have come out and done PD so is there a space for the region to also support
so I I know that the regions provide supplemental PD options ions you know for the for the schools and those PD offerings are tied to the instructional priorities. So again all of the PD is working towards the implementation of effective you know of effectively
implementing those instructional priorities. So that's one way. Another way if if I may speak as a as a former KOSA and director, you know, it was in supporting the schools in developing their PD plans and supporting the schools in the implementation and
monitoring of the PD plans is another way. >> Okay. Thank you. And then just lastly, I wanted to make a comment that I think you said that for all of the things that you do, it requires planning time. even
for SEAL, right? So, I see how you were mentioning this this protected time not only to do the instruction but also to plan and because sometimes if you just get a folder that gives you the the lesson plan but you don't you're not in
it, you haven't practiced it, you haven't had the time to to figure out how you're going to deliver that, it's just it become it just fails and you see it in the classroom, right? So I think that that's what I'm learning here is again that protected time for planning
funding to support uh planning time and that I know that SEAL is not a mandate but it is it may not be a state mandate. It may not be a federal mandate but it certainly is one of ours. It's going to be part of our strategic it is part of
our strategic plan. And so we need to uphold that. the the the importance of that is just as important as literacy and numeracy and science. So man, >> and I'm glad you mentioned the embedded
planning time. All of our PDS and have embedded planning time. We have teachers in their uh grades spans break out. We we we give them time that we support uh with planning with their colleagues within the PD. So it's not a give and get. And that's really important so that
they can start planning and looking at their lesson plans to see where it's embedded and how they can embed their learning from today. >> Ma Manny. >> Yes. >> Okay. Um I wanted to thank you so much and um I want to echo what my colleague
said. I understand the idea of sprinkling pixie dust throughout the day. We do that as teachers with regards to bloody noses and all kinds of different roles that we play. Um I want to mention again the importance of language arts. Um when we have stories
uh when we have literature that is focused on community, heritage, cooperation, medicine, um identity, etc. That provides so many more opportunities for SEAL uh than when
we're doing the Reformation and the War of 1812. and especially those of us at tier three schools where we're expected to be on script all the time, no deviations. Um, additionally, I just want to say the importance of picking out good curriculum when it comes to
social studies. That's a great place for SEAL as well as health. We no longer have health books and I think I mentioned this before. Um, we now have health packets that get delivered to us about once a month. And so health books
uh as long as I've used them include things like self-esteem, friendship, family, mental health, safety, drugs, gangs, etc. I say bring back the health books. Let us have time in the last hour of the day to do social studies and
health. And also lastly, I do remember a time with second step where it was in our in our schedule 20 minutes a day or whatever whatever it was. I do remember what where it was embedded. So, I would love to have that protected time. I've
done lots of restorative justice and I love it, but it's not always easy to find a time. Thank you. >> Thank you. And I'll just uh echo what Dr. Bayas has said. We're happy to support in providing, you know, opportunities to show school leadership because it is a school leadership
decision uh about where it can be where it can find its way into the program. It's a little easier in elementary to deliver, but it all depends, right? It depends on all the different things that have to be taught and the day and how it goes. I appreciate you bringing up the pixie dust. I just think that our
teachers feel more supported now because more folks and support staff on campus are modeling or showing and you brought up a good point. Social studies is a wonderful curriculum to show modeling of what growth mindset and what fixed
mindset looks like in real life and so that they can vision it and when students see it and they see an opport they see an example of it that's when the that's when it cements in. So I appreciate you saying that. Thank you. >> Yes. Thank you so much. Um we are almost
at time but I just also wanted to uplift that in some of these you know we have very small schools. I was at a very tiny school today and it's only the principal and their coordinator and the coordinator as you know anybody who's worked at a school will do everything at
the school site. So wondering like okay well who gets to uh monitor the implementation of any of these of these things right the seal curriculum any of the uh once we do PD and then how do we see it in the classroom and uh because I
think that's one of the things that you uplifted is that how you see the application of the professional development and so how do we um how do we ensure that this is happening at some of the schools where they have only the
administrator in an out of classroom and you know every both of them are wearing a billion hat. So um any any yes from from the district >> if I may um there um this teaching and learning framework and the school
leadership framework both call for observation of um the practice in the classroom and how PD is transferring into the classroom. Um and so principles establish goals for that. uh best practices are that the principal even
though it's a single-sided administrator and I've been a single-sided administrator indicates this week we're going to be observing XYZ or at the end of the PD the expectation um we're going to provide you X amount of time to plan and this will be implemented at this period of time and the observations will
take place at this point with some feedback um the teachers also are familiar with that the transfers between the PD and the classroom practice um and of course we know that part of the informal observation is that teacher principles go into classrooms and observe the teaching happening and
provide them feedback a really quick observation really quick one run through um and so of course principal manages their time to be able to manage the different things they have to do but also going into the classroom. So those are some ways that that they're um monitored um it's challenging but it's
it's it's a craft that can be achieved um even in a single site administrator school. So somewhat connected to the previous conversation around flexibilities, flexibilities, flexibilities because I also heard it as a theme too and in the memo we also highlighted that portion of
the memo in regards to flexibilities and I nodded many times when you were sharing uh that piece but I feel like there is a there is a piece at the school site that is also around alignment at the site level. there has to be alignment in terms of what those flexibilities look like when we're doing
PDS because we do take the required district bank time modules, right? And we do tailor it to our staff based on their need and the data. And I feel that in doing that and exercising that flexibility, it then translates to what the teachers perceive that they can
flexibly using and leveraging their understanding of their students to be able to adapt, pivot, and adjust their instruction to meet their targeted needs. Right? And then trickling down to the kids to in the community- based learning to identify there's multiple
ways that I can demonstrate my understanding. There's not just one measure, right? So back to again those flexibilities have to be aligned and people have to be given the freedom um and the support because there's a lot of planning that takes place to adjust the
bank time to make it flexible and relevant to our staff to change the student samples to make them our student samples right so that that job embedded time not just exists with the teachers but with the IoT's developing the PDS but that flexibility that theme needs to
trickle down so that the teachers also feel empowered. There's a sense of efficacy that we also can do things that are going to impact our learning and make it relevant for kids, right? So they're not just taking the cookie
cutter model and just going down. Okay. Thank you. Just wondering if you had any thoughts on how the the principal can can uh monitor the implementation of SEAL PBIS and I especially or Mr. Reyes
as well especially at a school where um you're very limited with your out of classroom staff >> it's it's really hard isn't it? It's really hard to monitor. >> It was it is beyond difficult. uh but I think what you touched on in terms of
the way your school operates when you build capacity within the faculty and there's more buy in you have a greater chance for there to be implementation more effectively whe whether you're there or not observing it because if you're not observing it which is not practical every day but when you're not there and they're actually believing in whatever they're doing then they'll do
it regardless of you being there that's a good thing >> right >> but I was to close out just by saying that thank you by the way both friends for sharing I love the PD evolution we've come uh to these days this is my 31st year in the district and 14 as a student. So that's 45 years, folks. It's
a long time. PD has evolved beyond what I expected. It's it's it's amazing how effective it's become, how relevant it is. Uh the the challenge, however, is that the current structure we have in the district for bank time Tuesdays,
it's not cutting it. Uh it doesn't work it because it's archaic. Everything evolved except Tuesdays. It's like Tuesdays, people are exhausted. We're busy. It's hectic. It it just it's not working the way it's supposed to be according to the design. The model is great, but for teachers to just run to
the PD and kind of re just set themselves, it it's just not easy for us. So I I I don't know if eventually sometimes maybe we'll think about different structures and teachers don't want to be out of the classroom. They want to be with their kids. So that's
also difficult. So your models are good, but teachers, my teachers resist. We don't want to be out of the classroom. We don't. And so I get that too, but when do you do the PD and everything takes like the hour is nice, but you need time to really reflect and practice. This year we adopted uh a best
practice called peer observations, which has really supported our work, but that in itself also is just time consuming out of the classroom, takes funds, but it's it's helping, but it's just it's a challenge for us. And we're in a very unique situation because we opened the
school and everybody started there because they wanted to be there. And so that's very different from your typical school and we're you get a must place or you're tiered and they're checking what page you're on. And I hear that from my
colleagues, which is horrible when I go to these community school meetings and we're all trying to accomplish something and we're all talking about transformation, but somebody's on them. And it depends what region, what cost, what director,
all those factors unfortunately impact each school. And we're very lucky that we were in the position that they were opening those schools. We were all in different places and jumped on it. the group got together and wrote this plan.
So, um we realize that so we don't have as much resistance from the the peers, but we understand that and that momentum and the keeping the teachers, the staff feeling motivated and and happy. And I
was telling uh Miss Cedra Dudley over there who's been a great support this year. Thank you. Um I'm retiring this year and she was telling me I should be proud. I'm actually feeling like we didn't accomplish what I'm leaving not
feeling accomplished because it's not about me. It's about our school and we were going to transform and change the world. Did we? I mean, I'm sure we've, you know, we've made impacts and whatever, but it's not where we want to
be because like he said, we're trying to fit a circle into a square or a square into a circle and we're not changing the systems that control us, the systems that hold us back. So, that's really what it's about. And so, you know, it it
was a pleasure being here with you and presenting how wonderful our school um is doing. But am I happy going out and feeling like woohoo we changed the world? No. A lot yet to be done. >> There's a social emotional piece that
I'll support you with that. >> I wow. Well, thank you for ending with those words, Martha. Really appreciate it. Um you certainly have, you know, set the bar for our schools and also we recognize that we we have a lot of work
to do. not only in this district but in education because you're right the systems that we have in place honestly are very repressive right when you are told what page to be on what to teach when you can when you're told you're a tier this tier that h how is that
supported how does that align with SEO right so there's a lot of work that we need to do and you know we are taking all of the information and all of the conversations that we have in this space to come up with some recommendations ations. We already made our first
recommendation and I want everybody to know that they're already work the division of instruction is already working on that which is to bring culturally relevant um curriculum to CKLA to the uh the planning guide and have something that is easily accessible
by everyone who is teaching for each of the units. Um so let's see what comes out of this semester in the conversations that we've had. Um please um thank you again. Thank you both again. I would hope that you know the presentation Dr. Bernall that you gave
on the IOC I would hope that that is the way that it's presented to principles so they have clear understanding that there are flexibilities that they don't have to follow all the things in there that they don't have to do it in the way that it's scripted that they're you know they're they have you know immense
wealth of knowledge and expertise at their school sites and they should use them to in their PDS. So thank you again uh Dr. Lower. Uh, wonderful. Dr. Bayas, thank you. And to all uh in the division of instruction and of course our committee. Um, we have another meeting,
right? We have another Okay, we have a meeting, but then we also have public comment. So, I'm going to hand it off to uh Mike McClean. Thank you. >> All right, we have five folks signed up. I'll hand the mic to the people who are signed up to speak in person and then we'll call in the person who's uh remote. Edward Rosini, are you here?
Edward R. All right, you'll have two minutes to speak once you begin. When you hear a timer go off, that's your time. >> Amazing. Thank you. >> Hi. Um, I'll make this as fast as I can. My name is Ed Rosini. I am an MSW student at USC. Uh, and I've been teaching in and out of schools in the LA area for a couple years in a bunch of
different capacities. I also play Dungeons and Dragons with kids all across the spectrum. It's an incredible tool. Uh, and today I I'm so happy we've been talking about curriculum. I have something a little bit off subject, which is a uh a sort of gap that I found in the LA USD system. I was looking
online because I wanted to see what sort of mental health resources there were available to schools through the LA USD system and what I found was a little bit confusing. Uh on the website there are collective well-being strategies like say heyday uh IMAT studentled clubs and optimism rooms but those are all
studentled and studentfacing uh programs. Uh the phrase like a drowning person can't save a drowning person kind of occurs to me. We can't put the onus of mental health and well-being on students. And when I was looking at uh
more sort of uh faculty-led programs, it was all very vague. It was a collective well-being strategy such as mentorship, counseling, and schoolwide campaigns, but there was no actual plan laid out. So my sort of question is where are the professionals, where are the faculty,
where are the administrators providing mental health care? I was so grateful to uh uh excuse me, Principal Nugen and Miss Gonzalez uh talking about your initiatives like the say hello model and the social emotional mastery in your schools because that is mental health care on a local level. I was also really
happy for Dr. Laauo and Dr. Bernal talking about in schools like that is mental health care but those are all sort of localized. So, I guess as a sort of pitch for a solution might be a centralized mental health database with programs, resources, and events
supported and offered by LS YAUSD in and out of schools somewhere where students can easily find all of this online because I was having trouble finding things beyond like phone numbers and PDF pamphlets. I think having like one centralized area the students can go if they need help, if they need answers, if
they have questions could be an incredible resource to provide as a school system. It could also be done by branches and individual schools like your guys school. Uh or it could be broken down into districts where various schools can add their own resources to this sort of database. But I think something easily accessible and easy to
find online for students just as mental health resources for things offered in and outside of school would be incredibly helpful. How do I do on time? >> That's that's good. My timer was way too discreet. >> Amazing. >> Okay, the next speaker is Mr. David Tokovski.
You'll have two minutes to speak. Why don't you begin? Enjoy. >> Well, enjoy. Thank you. David Zakovski, a former member of the board of ed. as you focus on the strategic plan and you talk about SEAL, um it it seems to me that there still is no measurement tool
being used. If you look at the survey that was presented here today, 90% were positive on all categories. Um as somebody in politics, any survey that gets a 90% is probably an inadequate survey because 20% of people disagree
with anything that you have. So there has to be better surveys and it has to be something about civics and and participating in the society. Number two, on your next meeting with um community schools, it would be good to compare a cohort two school with a
cohort five or six school to see if they're evolving and what what is it that is being learned from each of the the various cohorts. Number three, uh the issue on on the bank time and other instructional goals, those should be put on the table, the board should make sure
management puts on the table of negotiations, issues that need to be changed contractually like that or supervision or what was put on the table in this negotiations that were going into the final hours to reform instruction and curriculum. And finally,
I want to salute Anton Elementary School for teaching the War of 1812 and Reformation in elementary school. Uh, last time I checked, that's not part of the curriculum, but um, there obviously in the spirit of Bill Anton, our former superintendent, um, bringing the
Reformation to East LA is probably a very engaging idea as long as it doesn't break out into the War of 1812. Thank you. Okay, our next speaker is Ashley Mayfield. Ashley Mayfield, are you here?
Ashley Mayfield, not here. All right, the next speaker is Encore Patel. All right, you have two minutes to speak. Why don't you begin? My name is
84 school board district 4 and I am here at the curriculum and instruction committee because this is at the core of what our district should be about is about and what we're focused on and it would be nice if more board and you've
done an amazing job board member GGO and uh board member new bill. This is an amazing committee, but it would be nice if more board members were active and engaged and focused on this. Um, one of my experiences working for board member Schmson in the past on a specific
professional development was how to teach the Armenian genocide at grade level and curriculum aligned. And that was an amazing initiative that also came with salary points. And uh I saw the agenda beforehand and seeing
professional development, how do we make it relevant and engaging? This is such a fundamental mission of the district and it's a huge opportunity to change the culture to actually address so many concerns that we have.
One in particular I bring up is we are underenrolled in our Asian population, right? the Asian population is underenrolled in LA USD and this kind of curriculum, this kind of instruction that connects to the Asian population
would be something to look at in some more detail because there's so many different communities that LA has that want to see themselves, their history, their roots taught in a way that draws
them to our district, that connects the kids to their to the relevance and meaning of what they're learning. So much of what we talked about today. Um, right. I loved what you uh what you said, Dr. Lowour, in terms of if you
engage kids, they will learn. One of my experiences, I was actually a substitute teacher for five years at Oliv Vista Middle School in Silar. And again, when you engage kids, they learn. It doesn't matter if you come with a pamphlet but or or a a folder and you just got to
teach, but if the curriculum and all this stuff that we're talking about is there, it'll make a huge difference. Thank you all for the work that you're doing and keep it up. >> Thank you for your time. The next speaker is remote. Let's see. Concerned parent, I see you're on the line with us. Concerned parent, please press star
six to unmute yourself and you'll have two minutes to speak once you begin. concerned parent. >> Hi, good afternoon committee members. Thank you so much for the presentation. Um, I do have to say that in a
presentation uh labeled inclusive practices, I'm saddened to see that special education was not included. It seems that the curriculum of instruction and many other committees seem to forget that special education students are provided with
services. they're not um they seem to continue to be excluded from many of the district um policies and and the district um curriculum. So with that said um I also want to point out that in
social emotional learning there's a component about child development. So this is something that I feel is often missed in a lot of the district uh professional developments that not every student will develop the same way or at
the same pace. So not including special education really really impacts how students will be able to make progress in some of these um strategies that the district is using. On the other hand, I
echo what uh Mr. Tokovski Tokovski said about contractual agreements. It say it states that teachers are provided with opportunities, but how many teachers really want the extra work? Not many, I'm sure. So, it shouldn't be a a um it
should be a requirement really, not a uh an opportunity. And on the other hand also is how can you make recommendations on data that's a little bit skewed because oftentimes I understand we want to highlight the good things that are happening but if we're not looking at
what's not working how can we make the program better so just some thoughts something to consider but I really really encourage you all to include um special education staff in your curriculum um committee because it's
very important and it's very needed. Thank you. >> Thank you for your time. That concludes public comment. >> All right. Thank you so much again to all of our presenters, everyone who came to our committee meeting. Our next
meeting will be on May 20th and hopefully a uh we will soon have some recommendations and we will present it to everybody. Thank you. Have a good evening.