Public comment  started at 4:40 pm.

Leslie read an anonoymous comment:  I would like to express my concern about the possibility of imposed maximums on the assessment category of my grade-book. It is my opinion that teachers, PLCs, and departments are better equipped to determine how to best set up their own grade-books in order to make sure that students are learning the material and that grades actually reflect that learning.

I understand that the present circumstances are difficult for students and make their learning more difficult. I would definitely take that into consideration when deciding on a fair way of grading. However, I do not think that being imposed grading weights from the administration or this board best serves the students and in fact make my job as a teacher more difficult."

Minh Ha Ngo:  While teachers are working during unprecedented times, we are still tasked with the same mission.  They are being asked to teach digitally (and all that involves) and care for students wholistically.  The MOU approved by faculty and administration was approved by 95% of faculty and respected the teachers enough make decisions in the departments and PLCs taking into consideration the current situation along with administration and Curriculum Council.   Board should not supersede MOU with grading policy that hasn't been discussed and vetted in departments.  They should respect teachers enough to use professionalism/expertise to accomplish their daunting mission.

Maggie Nance:  Expressed concern that Dept. Chairs had the opportunity to give input on some of the items many of which are brand new.  As far as she knows they were not given the opportunity to weigh in as educations.  What was the source of the problems that led to the creation of this policy?  If there are concerns about how as a faculty issue grades there should be meaningful professional development and the trust PLC and depts. to make the correct decisions.  She is concerned that this will reduce the rigor and we are not providing the boundaries that the students need.  We are allowing students to excel with lower standards in kids who are not impacted by this pandemic.  

Dave Suarez - There are a number of issues that will be discussed and he is curious to why we are putting out info. that is in violation of current contract, MOU, and Ed. Code.  Why are we discussing issues that are in violation of the above.  He will speak up as the issues are discussed.

Susan Martin - Due to eLearning, student is anxious about not being able to meet with teachers for help.  How does the school plan to address this limitation?

V. Nicholas - Why was Tutoring Center Coordinator position cancelled.  Will Pali offer tutoring for students?

Michael Brent IV - I’m here to speak on behalf of parents and students that ride the bus at Pali and the new model that has been presented on how bussing will work. In regards to busing, for there to be a post out saying parents have to either pay full tuition for busing or just opt-out is not only ridiculous, but it’s also not right. It’s not right for parents and students to have to go through this while still not seeing a plan from Pali on how they will even do a hybrid model. No matter how many days in a month a student rides the bus or will be on campus they will still have to pay their full price. I don’t know any alternatives, yet I’m honestly not surprised this is the path Pali has taken on this as busing is something that is always pushed back and pushed away from the public eye. I’m being honest here, if you want to say you care you’d have to ensure parents and students aren’t having to think about opting out of busing knowing that public transportation is still a struggle for students. Along with that, we are in the middle of a Pandemic. To socially distance on a bus? Sounds like something else that isn’t feasible. Anyone can see that pushing back the deadline for the down payment and scholarship is only due to a lack of people paying any price for an unknown and egregious case that is being presented to them. I’ve seen and experienced for years now how the impact transportation has on me and my peers. We've been very calm and  understanding. This is the last straw. For me and others. Does the board not see this as an issue? I’m aware that not many parents or individuals here know much about busing on a first-hand basis, but can we talk about genuine care for the first time? Can we discuss methods in which students that ride the bus and their parents aren’t having to choose to opt-out? If there has ever been a time where someone needs to step up it is now, again I know for a fact many people want the easy way out on busing. To me and others this is wrong and foolish. Too many students have been fighting for years on the transportation crisis and I feel the board needs to fight for transportation like it is a crisis that they want to fix. All we are fighting for is something that makes sense. While I may not know everything or be able to talk about any prices specifically, it’s not as if that information is out in the public to review. I’d appreciate a more thoughtful review on the transportation issue and I know others would too. When will parents and students get the transparency that they deserve?

Stacy Henzel:  What will the Friday schedule look like.  Will it be flexible for families to plan field trips as a family?

Douglas Westen, As a new 9th grade parent, the school has been good about communicating and help her feel welcome.  Would like updates on what formal structure will be put in place to help parents.

Rachel Davis:  Working with USC on best practices for fall semester launch.  Offered her help to assist Pali with eLearning structures.

Mary Capelli - Why are parents being required to buy transportation passes during remote learning?  Many families are trying to make ends meet during this time.

Adam Amster - Do you think that they will do hybrid any part of the first semester or only online.

Razina Hadar Fazani. - appreciate for all hard work. It would be appreciated if you can please come up with a fair solution for busing.

Lisa Wood - Wondering if office hours will be scheduled.

? - Surprised to see that school day will be ending at 12 pm.
 

Dr. Magee, expressed interest in the feedback given.  Policy was created to try to develop structure moving into the fall.  She gave kudos to the teachers for being able and willing to pivit to a virtual model.  Administration listened to teachers, parents, students about what worked well and what didn't.  Now having legislation, state, LAUSD, making academic requirements and mandates.  It is not the school's sole discretion as to whether we are going to hybrid even in small groups/cohorts so we are not going to discuss what that model looks like yet.

eLearning model is how we are starting in the fall and trying to make it as positive and informative as possible.  Teachers have been amazing!  They have been working hard all summer about how to make this work for students and teachers.  Students/parents expressed that they needed more face to face interaction with their teachers.  Opportunities for students to have student interactions and want to make sure this is addressed.  How do we address intervention (academic and mental health) with students who haven't been able to interact and how to support AP students who might need additional different support.

We have to work together and need to work together to get to a place where we are all productive, healthy and supportive of each other.

Dave Suarez, asked as Principal and ED did she support the plan that is being presented and should he wait until presentation is done and then Dave to weigh in on how this violates the contracts.

Monica stated that the policy is a natural progression from Spring and taking into account State, CDE, legal, and county health departments.  Staying with objectives of meeting learning needs of students, maintaining academic excellence and quality learning time for students.  Addressing any learning loss from school absence and to maintain health and safety of school community in distance learning and to provide support to students and families as we begin eLearning.  Report as submitted.

SB 98 points to synchronous and asynchronous minutes per day and there are a minimum of both required for a total of 240 minutes per day.  Synchronous is real time with direct instruction and can be a video created and posted by the teachers.  There are many types of synchronous learning  and the administration respects the teachers professionalism and expertise to choose how this learning is provided to students.  Asynchronous learning is independent work done by students.  

Ellen shared that her students in the spring mentioned that the daily assignment was too much for them.  Tami stated that the law does require the daily assignment.  Per Dave, contract required 1 graded assignment per week.  Tami stated that the daily assignment does not need to be graded.  Assignments can also be listed as ungraded.  

Brenda suggested socially distanced tutoring in small groups to supplement kids who are struggling.  Dr. Magee agreed that this is a model that they would be looking at inn the future.

Mary Bush:  Monica mentioned earlier about a coordination of services team we've had that for mental health for the past couple years. And so we're now developing one for the academics.  So, a lot, a lot of our focus, especially during remote is to keep those kids engaged.  That's why we're looking at attendance as why we're going to be reaching out to those who haven't participated for at least 60% of instruction during the week.  So we want to know why they aren't engaged.  Is it a device. Is it the internet. Are there issues or are there stumbling blocks that are keeping these these students from being successful and trying to address that through a team of adults that are assigned just to to them. So we're, we're looking at tutoring Pam mentioned that we want to make sure that they have socio emotional connection so that they have clubs. and that there's peer to peer interaction included so that we have multiple things that are drawing our kids in make this as meaningful situation as we can, you have in your document and I'm not going to list everything that you have the current pyramid of interventions and we've had this in place and we keep expanding it every year.  So once we find we found out that there are no health or connection issues, those types of things will also then pull from our pyramid pyramid of interventions.  And the laws always required a multi tiered system. So the level one are really all those things that teachers are doing every day in their classrooms and so we'll be looking at how can we support that.

Level two would be like Student Success team meeting or those things that the the general population doesn't need to be successful, that maybe that's something an extra layer we can add for a smaller group of students and then the most intensive tier might be our Special education or intense support, whether it's through a behavioral con tracked a section 504 plan credit recovery, those types of things.

We have quite a lot to offer our students. And now I think with this coordination of services team focused on academics, we can more better developed learning plans for individual students. Does anyone have any questions about that.

Paula Anderson: Just had a real quick question. Um, the study center center is listed on here as a school wide level one intervention. In what capacity is the Study Center going to be available to students?
Mary Bush clarified that we're still looking at that fall. And I think Pam alluded, we're looking at as many options as we can.

Mary Bush: And have it not just be during school hours. And so we're not sure yet if that Study Center is going to take place, or if we're going to be contracting with someone who can provide a broader range with longer hours of support.
Paula Anderson:  So just to be clear, study center is not going to happen.
Pamela Magee: It will happen.  I can say is there will be tutoring.  We're just still refining like which plan will it be.
Other suggestions were made re: tutoring and creating learning environments and Dr. Magee clarified that we are not there yet but we will be, at a point in the not terribly distant future and that these suggestions are exactly the type of models that we want to look for are things that were in small groups or we can support kids.

Brenda Clarke: It's great, thank you. Because I think some kids are just better in person. Some aren't. and some can't get to us, but the ones that want to be there, some of the time in person. If we're allowed to do that with the rules with LAUSD that would probably be very helpful.

Met with teachers, administrators, auditors and union and thinks they have a plan that is workable and not too time consuming.  Most teachers didn't care for attendance quizes so they will take attendance via Infinite Campus.  Students have to take attendance by themselves.  By law we have to ensure that students are attending more that 60% of classes.  Virtual attendance will be confirmed with Infinite campus and updated accordingly so that the school can track absent students.  Teachers will have the ability to revise the attendance for the day if a student was in fact present if the student is accidentally marked as absence.  Absent students will be referred to Tammy's office so that they can reach out to students/parents who haven't been participating in school.

Paula, what do we do if students take attendance and then do nothing else.  Teachers need to check in to confirm active student involvement to confirm participation so that we can identify them.  If not engaged, teachers will go back and referring these students to Tami's office.  If they were identified as not engaging, they would be marked as absent. Ellen asked about tardies and there will not be tardies.  Tammy clarified that the 2 am cut off time was the furthest out that she was allowed to push the deadline.  Dave Suarez clarified that this can't be pushed into a Sat. because this violates their contract and it can't be a requirement.

Tami Christopher: Period. We are referring to our school wide policy where a student may fail a class if they have seven absences. What we are asking is for this school year that that policy be waived.

Ellen Unt: I'm just curious. One thing that I understand is that there has to be a lot of flexibility in this situation.  And and I get that. And I guess it's kind of been up to teachers discretion to be able to provide that flexibility, given the individual circumstances of the students and and the families that need that.  And I just, I just, I just have a concern about holding students accountable in terms of attendance and and i don't i'm not saying that it should or shouldn't be waived. But you know, it's just, I've noticed in my experience teaching online. The last semester. I had students that didn't check in at all. and they still passed. 

A discussion ensued about the pros and cons of amending the attendance policy and whether or not students who were not affected by the current situation.  The case was made that we don't want to penalize students who do have connectivity issues, who have other obligations at home, and who may have been effected by the current environment.  Monica also reiterated the policy has built in support for those students who "attending class".  Brenda also clarified that we need to be concerned about penalizing kids who do have issues in lieu of trying to keep kids from taking advantage of the situation. 

Dave Suarez: To the best of my knowledge administration has per view over the attendance policy. It's just you'd hope that all stakeholders have input in that because the attends policy is designed to make sure that we maintain academic rigor.

Ellen Unt: I just one more question, please. Because I brought up a concern. But I also want to ask Tammy were there teachers who you felt were not working with students in their situation if they were in hardship. Is that why there's you feel the need to bring this forward because there were teachers that weren't cooperative and trying to support students with the difficult times.

Tami Christopher: Yes.

Tami Christopher: And I just want to clarify that this will not effect our ADA funding.

Dr. Lee gave a huge shout out to counselors who have been working hard all summer to schedule classes as best as they can.  If you have submitted a schedule request be patient.  Schedule mirrors what the teachers had presented to meet many of the needs as they pertain to eLearning.  0 period at end of even day and 7th period as the end of odd days.  Each class has 60 minutes but will also need to meet the 80 minute requirement to meet the 240 minutes state mandate.  Fridays will also start out with community outreach and to provide connectivity for the students.  Schedule as submitted

If there is a holiday on Monday, the schedule shifts to a block for Tues-Friday.  

Dr. Lee clarified that Fridays are time for intervention, faculty meetings but students will need to check in to each class and will have assignments to complete that day.  He confirmed that they are still held accountable.  He also clarified that Friday is club time as requested per the ASB.

Dave asked what are study seminars and is it really office hours.  Paula clarified that this needs to be added so parents and students know that this is expected vs. assumed that there isn't a study seminar.  Mary clarified that she didn't feel originally that it needed to be included but it can be re-examined and addressed.  Brenda asked whether tutors and math paraprofessionals can be assigned office hours after school office to support students who need help.  She believes there is going to be a large need to support these kids.  Teachers have flexibility on the design of their office hours.

Pam discussed using Learning Loss Mitigation $ to look at a 24 hour tutoring service because the administration is hearing the need for tutors outside of office hours and they are looking into solutions to provide support.  Looking for multiple options available for students.  Suggestion to have Schoology group for the math lab for students to access.

MONICA IANNESSA: As I said before, PCH is has seriously been discussing grading policy well before covert hit.  It has been discussing at curriculum Council, LTSP, it has been discussed at a Board level, it has been ever present.  It has been presented in professional development.

She clarified that the Pali Administration does respect teachers professionalism and their expertise and and do respect our mission together to maintain academic excellence for students. And in fact, in the spring, being very concerned about COVID and its impact on our families and we did have families and students that were affected and impacted by this national crisis and still do.

Monica clarified that PCHS think needs to really look closely holistically at our student population. We are very wide population of families at Pali but we also are in many different communities and have very many different economic levels and have very many different situations. So

She reminded everyone that in the spring there were discussions with Dept. Chairs, curriculum council, and administration to create  a more forgiving grade band.

Moving into the fall, the majority of teachers wanted to go back to  traditional straight grading scale.
The only thing that we've kept is the no credit grade in place of the F, the traditional F grade. 

Dave Suarez pointed out that the materials we received for this meeting are different than the MOU to be reviewed at the next meeting.  He clarified that the MOU includes a waiver to follow another grading scale by department or PLC with approval of their department administrator. 

The weight of summative assessments was discussed at length with Monica and Russ Howard explaining the reasoning behind the decision and the need to support PCHS students that may already be struggling.  He further clarified that this was not intended to punish teachers of whom he has a lot of respect.

Dave Suarez: The assessment issue is violation of academic freedom within the Ed code and is something that needs to be negotiated.  Dr. Magee then confirmed that the administration has a legal opinion and would not ask the Board to do anything that wasn't legal.

Ellen Unt expressed questions on how this will impact project based classes.  She is concerned that this is perhaps over-reaching.  She also said that she is concerned about voting on something that people may not have enough time to look through.  She also expressed concern for teachers who have set up their grading scales to work with the courses they teach.  

Dave Suarez: If this is a weighting issue, which is different than the assessment issue all of the lead up to this took place prior to us coming up with our MOU.  Dave read the MOU verbatim.  He points out "that weighting of categories will be determined by departments and or PLC/SLC".   He further clarified that this is a very important issue for teachers. 

Monica Iannessa:  Didn't feel that this excludes PLCs from making determinations on the 
weighting.  What it does is set a limit.  She further clarified that she thinks there will be a shift as teachers are concerned about how to ensure that students show up and engage.  What this does is provide a cap so that summative assessments are not 90% and she clarified that it does exist.

It was also clarified that when Departments make weighting determinations, these decisions are then to go to the Board for approval.  

Leslie read a legal opinion:  April 1, 2020 - Guidance by the California Department education stated that local educational agencies have the authority to determine how final grades will be assigned and teachers have final discretion when assigning grades.  Ed code section 49067 authorizes school boards to prescribe regulations regarding the education of each pupils' achievement ie. to adopt grading policies.  it remains our position that the decision to adopt modify grading policy is not negotiable and specifics of a grading policies such as weighting of tests or student work are equally not subject to bargaining.

Based upon this, the validity of the current MOU was then discussed.  Dave Suarez clarified that this is a huge, huge sticking point because as educators because math and science and art and foreign language special ed every subject matter is different. 

Dr. Magee also clarified that the MOU is only valid during the period of eLearning.  She also clarified that the Board has been requesting a grading policy multiple times.

Brenda Clark expressed her gratitude for everyone's hard work.  She expressed concern as a teacher for large # of students with 504s and kids transcripts being damaged by eLearning.  Test taking has been much for difficult during this environment. She wants to be very careful not to hurt students during this challenging time.  Suggested a tentative MOU with a stipulation that each Dept. brings to the Board their weighting decisions.

MONICA IANNESSA expressed the need to have these policies to hold accountable and to provide equity and consistency for students.

Ellen Unt clarified that I know she did a lot of extensive work with PLC & department chairs and submitted our syllabi and they are in the Google docs. if people wanted to access them.  She also asked if it would be possible to ask for a waiver based up the type of class a teacher teaches.  She also expressed that this grading policy creates additional work as she has to pivot.

Dr. Magee clarified that the administration would be willing to consider some types of waivers as noted above.

Multiple choice were also discussed and Monica Iannessa clarified that there were a lot of challenges to these and to get authentic answers.  She clarified that this didn't work in her department.

Mary Bush clarified that she has seen students hurt by prior policies and that student surveys have indicated that they would prefer project based math assignments.  Project base assignments
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Sara Margiotta asked if teachers have time to adjust to the new grading policy if they needed to adjust their curriculum or assessments if they had spent the summer working towards a different model.  Ellen stated that she would need to reconsider a lot of things that would need to change or she would need to rethink a lot of things.  Monica clarified felt that she didn't think it would create a lot of change.  Tami shared the need to provide consistency for students.  

Dave Suarez: start this off by saying I represent the teachers in the situation, this is why I'm speaking. I don't have the authority to to change what has been voted on.  He clarified that teachers should be leaders at PCHS and when the school went to Independent Charter, it was teacher driven.  He further stated that they are going to stick with the MOU.  He also expressed concern about the timing of the release of the grading policies as it related to the start of school.

Monica Ianessa further clarified that the grading policy was discussed in curriculum council and that document was built with the department chairs.

Dr. Magee also reiterated the need for the Board to be involved in a long term grading policy. 

Dave Suarez stated that it the Board votes for the Grading Policy we will be voting against the MOU.

Sara Margiotta stated that she agrees that we need a consistent grading policies.  But again expressed her concern about allowing people enough time to pivot to adjust to the presented Grading Policy.  

Brenda Clark gave some alternative options but clarified that bottom line we need to be careful not to hurt the students.

Dave Suarez clarified if MOU is invalidated, we will go back to the rotating Bell schedule and the whole FaceTime will follow whatever the state mandates us to do.  Asynchronous synchronous learning will be whatever the state mandates us to do.  Voting for this grading policy is saying we don't trust teachers and we don't trust department chairs. We don't trust PLC. 
Legal Council was consulted  

The agenda item was tabled at 7:58 pm.

Item was resumed at 9:25 pm.  Leslie informed the Board that in speaking with Mark Breese we are allowed to vote on Grading and MOU in the same meeting.  Interested parties (Certificated Employees) are not allowed to vote.

Dave asked to speak to the Board and Leslie.  Steve asked to see the legal recommendation in writing.  Leslie stated that she would provide him what the attorney said.  Steve argued that he could provide UTLA legal advice which contradicts PCHS legal advice.  

Leslie asked that the discussion be discontinued since we have talked about this item for over an hour.

.

Russ Howard introduced himself.  

Disciplie rules are still in place and can still suspend and expell students.  This addresses AUP (internet disciplie policy)  if you have questions please feel free to email him.  Students will still be held accountable to this.

It was presented that there was a desire to waive this graduation requirement in order to make this equitable for all students.  The pros and cons of this community service were discussed.  However, it was highlighted that some of PCHS students have other at home obligations and just don't have the capacity and there is a need to make this equitable for all students.

Brenda suggested doing a random act of kindness club where people can do/get community service where this can be done.

A discussion about how to handle the community service hours for 9th-11th grade and it was decided to simply focus on waiving this graduation requirements and handle the service hours for current 9th-11th grade at a future time.  It was also clarified that currently this only applies to the Class of 2021.

Discussing with LAUSD as to when we will be able to open facilities outside school but couldn't do it until we receive liability waivers from LAUSD.  Don still hasn't received these so this is a pending item.

Discussed flea market that is at Fairfax HS.  Can we bring pool and FM back for income and perhaps outside sports.  How can we push to allow these outdoor activities.  Fairfax is allowed because it is part of LAUSD vs. Pali which is an independent charter.  Jewlz also commented that Loyola is also moving back to sports etc.  

Don clarified that we could have some practices based on CDC guidelines, etc. but we are waiting for our LAUSD's approval and a waiver of liiability signed by PCHS.  There were also discussions about individual parent liability waivers for sports.  There were discussions about how that this will lift the spirits of families  But there are differences between club teams and PCHS sports clubs.  These sports practices would be club teams vs. PCHS practices at this point.

LAUSD is our landlord and our lease says that we are responsible for maintenance issues other than a few property related issues that are the responsibilities on LAUSD.  In 2018 to present there were infrastructure issues (gas, water) and these were built in the 60's and there is now infrastructure issues.  LAUSD makes the repairs and then charges PCHS.  We never received these bills or invoices.  In winter 2019, we were given invoices for these repairs.  This was $308,000.  The biggest aspects of this bill is the aging infrastructure. 

To raise money to pay for district aging infrastructure, LAUSD approved the use of bond money which was available to them.  Once the use of this bond money was approved, we no longer have to pay for repairs.   However, Don's argument with LAUSD is that the Bond $ should be used to repair aging infrastructure that was done before the bond money use was approved because these were infrastructure repairs .  Don is trying to negotiate this to have LAUSD $168,000 credited (Like the other $500,000+ repairs that were credited because of the available bond money). 

LAUSD isn't allowing us to negotiate the $168,000 at this point.  There are concerns if we don't pay the pending repairs are going to continue to be delayed. 

Pali Academy is now "off limits" and we cannot bid to use the facility until we pay our bill.

Our material revision of an additional 100 students he believes will not be considered until we pay the bill.

Brenda stated that we just need to pay the bill.  Attorneys have been consulted and the sentiment is that it is in our best interest to pay the bill.  

James asked why they are not responsible for paying for all of the repairs because they are our landlords.  Don clarified that our based on our lease from 2010 (same as other conversion charters), we do not  pay a rental fee.  We pay an oversight fee of 1%.  If we paid a 3% fee we would have more LAUSD involvement but financially this doesn't make sense.  

The Board consensus is that the bill amounts will be reverted to B&F Committee on Monday for allocation of payment.  

 

Meeting was adjourned at 8:42 for 10 min break.

Meeting resumed at 9:25 pm.