Entered closed session at 7:45. All interested board members left the room.

Public session for the evening ended at this time. 

Entered closed session at 5:20 pm 

Entered closed session at 5:20 pm 

returned to open session at 6:06 pm 

Directive given to administration 

Tammera Okumoto - submitting a grievance regarding the admin's handling of her daughter Aria O'Shea's case. She provided copies of a binder to each board member including clinical documentation and also documenting dates and interactions with admin and counseling staff. Regarding requests for student support services for her daughter. Submitted the binder into the record for the meeting.  

Michael Friedman - complaint regarding outsourcing of admin and HR duties. Increases costs, ends up with teachers out of class, bad subs, etc. They should use AI if they are shortstaffed in admin. Pali is trying to function as a business instead of a teaching institution. Don't schedule meetings during school hours so you can be present and enforce policies such as cell phone policies. Admin needs to be more active in monitoring and enforcing the cell phone policy. 

Alessandra Santini- introduced newly elected ASB president Jackson. ASB elections were just completed. Senior pool party this Friday. Freshman interest meeting. Planning more events for the rest of the school year. 

Alessandra Santini- introduced newly elected ASB president Jackson. ASB elections were just completed. Senior pool party this Friday. Freshman interest meeting. Planning more events for the rest of the school year. 

Lisa - lots of confusion around graduation events and senior activities. 

Negeen - parents excited about the parent and student surveys. Challenges with accessing it, partly from surveys going into spam folders. 

Fati - Kambiz Kamdar who is a current parent of a 9th and 11th grader - serves on the park/rec advisory board, advocating for our baseball team and tennis team to be able to use the facilities at the park. Serves on some other committees for the palisades. Has many questions about the baseball field, contractor, DSA review, schedule, etc. 

nothing to report

Martha - calling out our Pali Positives for this month - Sara Rosenthal and Christine Batt-Sterling

Minh Ha - finished a week of testing in all grade levels. UTLA negotiations ongoing. 

Maggie - only 5 or 6 weeks left for this semester 

stands as submitted 

stands as submitted 

stands as submitted 

stands as submitted 

report stands as submitted

Dr Magee - acknowledging the work that went into testing week and an orderly and positive testing experience. Participation rates looking excellent. Looking forward to see how well the kids perform on the assessments. 

There was a panel with Mr. Negroe today, focusing on sustainability and modernization of our campus as part of the restoration process. Clean energy task force and other ideas for the school environment. 

IB validation ongoing this week. New program that can help Pali stand out. 

Michael and Randy - 

• Last meeting discussed revisions to departmental questions so we can hit the ground running next year. Discussion became more about what do we think of the questions instead of finalizing the questions. 
• Suggestions for determining members for next year's committee before the end of this year so the August meeting can be more productive. Also to create the calendar of meetings now. 
• Michael adds that we discussed use of AI and how teachers can incorporate it. 
• Students voiced concerns - students taking a close in person or online, it looks identical on the transcript but the reality of the experience is very different. Also about grading policies, teacher fairness. 
• Maggie - the committee needs to have a tight agenda and stick with it. The committee has a clear purpose in the charter and needs to work to accomplish this goals. We can restructure in the next charter cycle to make it more clear and effective. 
• Fati - the committee needs clear goals. 
• Minh Ha - the committee made a report and recommendations so the ball is now in our court. 
• Maggie - we can agendize for May or create an ad hoc committee to review the report and make an action plan. Suggest board actions.
• Discussion about curriculum council and grading policy and the role of this committee.

Minutes from the meeting were not included in the packet. It can be added to the record now because it is available to everyone at the same time. Copies available for everyone in attendance. 

Sara could not be here so Maggie is making the report on her behalf - 

they voted to approve the transportation budget. 

they voted to approve the purchase of 780 lenovo chromebooks. 

Minh Ha - it's very tight for us to review the committee minutes. Would be helpful if there was a bigger space between the committee meeting and the board meeting. 

Sole Occupancy Agreement - has not been finalized yet. Attorneys still negotiating. 

Maggie - Election committee needs to meet and start the process. 

The composition of the committee is set out in the board documents. The people who are eligible to serve now have never done it before so can't guide the committee so we would like to bring in Brooke King and Rob King to help. Need 2 uninterested parties and 3 board members in addition to 2 UTLA members and 1 PESPU

proposed composition - 

Brooke King

Rob King 

Minh Ha

Lisa Cahill 

Fati Adeli

need 1 PESPU member as well 

nothing to report

Audit Committee - needs to form before budget approval 

all noninterested board members - Amir, Fati, Negeen, Lisa, Jessica, Jane

Survey Committee - has met and worked and got the surveys out. Thank you Jeff Roepel. Will have results next month. 

Rafael Negroe - LAUSD has shared limited summary of their recent sampling. Everything was found to be safe and within reasonable ranges. No buildings or rooms need to be closed. A few areas identified low level detection that was within safe levels but they undertook cleaning of those areas again. One area of the gym remained for additional cleaning that was done last Wednesday. Use and occupancy not impacted, closure not warranted. TO-15 method was used. Air sampling did not identify fire related impacts or areas of air quality concerns. 

Randy Tenan-Snow - 

• We are revamping the legal aspects of Virtual Academy following a rigorous audit. Would like board approval for some of the proposed changes. Also have their annual contract with the state. Issues of attendance collection that impact funding. Changes in how we track and record attendance - time based or assignment based independent study program. Popularity of the program makes it very difficult to manage via time based approach and most larger programs have shifted to assignment based. The programs are asynchronous for the most part but trying to align with PLCs. They now want approval to move to course based so they can meet their ADA requirements and make the reporting more accurate.  Presently assign minutes per assignment per student. But it was being done incorrectly and the auditor identified issues because it has to be done for each student individually. 
• Course based programs - teachers determine needed/appropriate interventions, communications to the families in real time based on completion deadlines, etc., recommendations by the principal and coordination if they determine a student should return to in person learning.
• For next year the program is going back to pre-covid policy for testing - All testing required to be done in person, on campus. 
  Hybrid students will be limited - for very few courses. This will likely decrease enrollment.
• Outliers such as on set performers or athletes or students in residential facilities are a very small portion of the enrollment. They can find ways to accommodate for when those students are able to come on campus to complete the assessments.
• Teachers must be accredited within the LEA unless there's an MOU.
• Teachers will have to collect attendance and sign off by acknowledging if a student has completed the work.
• Teachers must be available weekly for their students on zoom and in person. 
• Will have required in person orientations for both students and caregivers, contract to be signed at that time to confirm they will come on campus for testing when required. 
• Also will have one designated counselor for VA students so that counselor really knows the program and can handle the intervention needs and help keep things organized. Allison Rayner 
• Minh Ha - They will come to campus to take all assessments? Randy says not quizzes as those are only 5% of the grade in this program, but yes for unit tests, spoken assignments, midterms and finals.  Asks who is creating the tests. Each PLC is using different test - some are using APEX plus common assessments from PLCS, some are using UC-Scout. So the students will have to come in during the week that the test is scheduled to take the test. Part of the reason to limit hybrid is to avoid conflicts at assessment times. We will allow them to take a class on campus if it's not offered by UC-Scout. What if a class is offered by UC-Scout? There will be 2 designated periods for them to take non-VA classes in person. Contract draft says it's only classes that are not offered online. Maggie says maybe we can have a waiver process to let them take more. 
• Amir - how many students would decide against VA if we don't allow it? And how does the attendance change impact funding? The change in attendance will make it easier to get the ADA funding. 
• Randy says only 15% are fully virtual and the rest are hybrid.
• We can vote now on the attendance model and table to vote on the contract. 
• Minh Ha would like the transcript to reflect how a class is taken in person or VA but it's not clear if that is permissible by law.

Marie Arce of Charter Impact - 

financials and presentation stand as submitted 

Revenue and Expense forecasting for the year

FY25 audit is complete 

2364 enrolled students 

report stands as submitted. 

Report was completed by Foster & Foster as part of the audit. 

The auditor advised this needs to be completed annually, not bi-annually as was previously thought.

They evaluated current staff and what financial contributions will need to be made for post-retirement benefits.

Pali had accounts at Merrill Lynch. LAUSD has required that these funds be housed in a trust. It was a lengthy legal process. The trust was completed last week. Merrill Lynch will now review it for compliance with their financial requirements. 

Discussion of what the trust structure is meant to do.

Temporary Teacher Makenzie Whiteley. We have to approve a declaration of need in order to hire her. 

We had a teacher leave unexpectedly in January and we interviewed candidates but were not able to find someone with the necessary qualifications and correct credential. She is a fully credentialed teacher and was teaching out of state and but does not have the full, right credential yet for CA so she needs a little time to get the other required credentials. It is in process and she has the temporary credential. This is a temporary position filling in for a teacher on leave. PE department will have to decide about after this year. 

Policy has to be updated to comply with changes in state and federal law and categories of complaints. 

Next meeting Tuesday May 19 at 5 pm.