Anonymous commented online:

We had a lackluster meeting with my daughter’s counselor last year and the same situation is playing out this year. It took months to get in and she was not responsive to email either. Once we met, it wasn’t great in terms of direction, guidance or insight. I left feeling like we probably wouldn’t ever meet again. With such a big school, it feels really important to have engaged, responsive counselors. I basically feel we might as well not have a counselor at all. Could you survey parents so we can anonymously share which counselors are helpful and which are not? And why is Dr Lee so committed to high standards yet hundreds of parents are furious about this on the grade-group chats? It’s really frustrating. Pali needs to replace people who don’t want be there anymore.

Charlie Speiser

• Great first week
• Spirit week this week
• First football game this weekend

Nothing to report.

Andy Paris

• Great first week
• Things flowed well
• Cafeteria is serving all!

Martha Monahan

• Great first week of school
• Maintenance staff is working like crazy with great new system

Maggie and Nick

• Teachers want TAs back
• Good first week, great kids!

Martha Monahan:

We need to approve the Local Assignment Options for the 4 teachers that are teaching outside of their credential areas.  Until a few years ago, you could teach one period outside of your credential, but now everyone needs to be credentialed unless the board approves it.

Kuimars - will this not cause problems with our authorizer?

Martha - no.  This is the protocol.  

Martha went through each teacher and why they need the credential.

Martha introduced Joseph Lin and recommended that we approve his contract.

Maggie asked if he had been a CBO before and he has not but will be taking a CBO course this year.

Martha introduced the contract for the new Independent Director of Development, Rene Rodman.

Robert Quinn has been hired as a temporary employee to take over the job of Fiscal Director as it is currently empty.  He will make no more than $10,000, and has a $150 an hour contract.

Nick:  What is a Fiscal Director?

Mr. Lin: keeps accounts, helps CBO with budgeting and reports.

Maggie:  Is this job floated?  If we hire will we end his contract?

Martha: He does various jobs. We will not get rid of him necessarily if we hire a Fiscal Director.

Kuimars:  The contract is good to have because there is a lot of work to do.

Jessica: Do we evaluate him?

Martha: We do not do performance evaluations of contract employees.

Sara: But we check their work.

Martha presented the updated job description of the Administrative Director/Assistant Principal of Counseling and Academic Planning

There are no substantial changes to the job description, but it is a reflection of the job as it's being done.

Martha updated us on the updated Title IX policy.

Training is coming.  It has been significantly updated.

The main changes are how people file and how we process a Title IX complaint. The federal government has mandated the change of terms and is requiring the laying out of a Title IX complaint.  Filing, process, and appeal.

Martha shared the new employees!  It was an active summer in terms of hiring and we are happy in terms of our hires.

All the employees are replacements of existing positions except the Nurse's office assistant.

Stands as submitted.

Nothing to report.

Nothing to report.  Annual fundraising was underway.

Joseph Lin: In process of closing the books from last year. We will have a budget to actuals report next month.

Pam Magee:

1) Very exciting beginning with a lot of NEW energy.  New roles, new perspectives with lots of new developments and people!

Tyler Ferrell, Diana Kim, and Joseph Lin are all new.

2) We want to celebrate Dr. Chris Lee and his transition out of Pali.  We cannot overstate what Dr. Lee has done for this school.  In all of his roles, he has kept students at the forefront. This and so much more! We wish him all the best.  He is leaving behind a legacy. 

Amir thanked him too!

3) Teacher assistants - the reason was that we had over 300 students asking to be TAs.  We had under-enrolled classes that we wanted to fill and we wanted kids in places where they can learn. The priority was to put kids into classes.

Sara introduced Board on Track training.  We have trainers here remotely to train us on the software.

Yuna Shin presented a platform overview of the software.

Amir:  Do you share our data anywhere?

Yuna: Not at all.

Maggie: Do we have all of the capacities?

Yuna: Yes.

Kuimars: Surveys?

Yuna:  Except surveys because that is a new feature.

We thanked her and she is sending us an email to follow up.

Sara introduced the election of the Executive Board. 

Kuimars and Maggie lauded Sara.

Sara - this is not that hard of a job.  She has done it.  You can get a good awareness of what is happening.

You get to sit in on the agenda-setting meeting.

Maggie: We don't have a Board representative on the committee right now, but Maggie Nance will attend and report until someone can take her place.

Sara: The AAC could be given the responsibility of looking at instructional minutes. Should we task them with some solutions and recommendations? 

Pam: It's an immediate need.  We have some concerns to resolve.

Kuimars: How are we making sure teachers are following their pacing plan?  How are they creating lesson plans that follow that? How are you teaching?  Is the AAC looking at teachers' pacing plans? Ensuring teaching is going on?

Pam:  The PLCs and administrators do that.  The committee hears presentations from each department, but that oversight is happening with PLCs, SLCs, and administrators.

Kuimars: How is the committee ensuring that standards are being taught?  If they aren't, perhaps they should rethink what they do.  Do we have a system in place to make sure we are covering the standards?

Pam: We do have that process, but it's not that committee.

Sara: Everyone needs to do committee work.  It's the administrative and fiscal piece of what we do. It's very detail-oriented. They are overseeing the fine details in the budget so the board can focus on the higher level oversight.  We meet once a month.  It takes place on a Monday, monthly. We always strive for consensus.   We need board members and/or parents in general.  It's a crucial piece of the work we do at this school.  

It's this Monday 8/26, at 3:30 PM in the library.  Everyone is welcome.

Sara: Nothing to report that has happened, but we need to hold a special election.

Tyler Farrell moved category from faculty to administration and needed to vacate his seat as a faculty member.

Sara and Kristina discussed the commitment.  Sara is happy to sit on the committee.

We need to sit this committee so we can elect a new member.

Sara:  Charter renewal is 25-26. We need to get started on this. 

Nothing to report.  Nothing has met.

Dr. Lee: Thank you for nice words about me leaving.

Independent Study Contract.  Stands as submitted.  It's our Virtual Academy and every year the Board needs to approve the contract.

Sara: What is the timing with doing the courses?  How do you switch in and out?  Entering and finishing? 

Chris:  If there are kids that need to move in because they are in the hospital or facilities then they could go in late.  Otherwise, it matches the calendar.

Sara: It's not written that there are exceptions to who gets in mid-semester as opposed to those who are denied entry because the semester has already started.  Can a full in-person student drop a class and move to virtual?  I don't like my teacher, I am having a hard time, and I want to go online.  Is that possible?  

Chris: No.  Maybe a kid with a 504 or IEP will drop a class and take a class online.  It's not part of the Virtual Academy.

Kuimars: If we have a group of students that are here and we get their enrollment and can then they go online?  Part time?  What about a kid who goes to the hospital?

Chris:  Hospitals used to have full-time schools. They don't have that anymore. We are responsible to provide them an education if they stay at Pali.

I think there is some confusion.  

Kuimars: No. Can a kid go to Virtual Academy for one class?

Chris:  No. If a kid is in a full-time program, he cannot just go to Virtual Academy.  To be a virtual student a majority of their classes must be taken in virtual.

Kuimars: Asked and got answers about how we serve kids in special ed.

Jessica:  How many kids are in Virtual Academy?

Chris: 200 right now.  We have caps.  We cannot have more than 10% and we have to have teachers to teach it.

Chris - I advocate that the Board look into School refusal.

Amir - How many online kids have 504 or IEPs?

Chris - Not sure.  Would have to look.

Kuimars - Do we get SB 740 money at Pali?  We are a Prop 39 school so we may not qualify.  Please look into it.  Who is getting that money?

Chris - this contract has been vetted by the legal team.

Maggie - there is great concern from the faculty regarding academic integrity in the Virtual Academy.

Sara would like to see the rules of timing. 

Pam introduced Tammie Wilson and Dr. Carolynne Beno and their report.

This process was school-initiated and this report will be public.

Dr. Beno - FCMAT came and interviewed people.  Their recommendations were based on onsite research. 

They use a deficit model.  They speak to places we need to be better.  We have a few standouts, but by design they only address the negative.  

Our continuum of services - Do we have kids in the LRE? Kids in general ed do much better. There are three metrics we use and we met them all.

Collaborative Teaching Program - Recommend that we expand that collaborative teaching program and we train teachers and create a master schedule that allows that.

Pull-Out academic courses - We could strengthen this.  We have pull-out courses that are only for Special Ed. The tendency statewide is to phase this out.  We have the special ed kids together in a support class as opposed to having those kids in a regular ed class, close the support classes, and put the special ed teacher in the regular ed classes to support.

Tammie discussed our planned roll-out.

Dr. Beno

Staffing.

• Looked at administration and administrative support.  (Tammie and administrative coordinator.)
• Staffing is about right administratively.
• Teacher staffing is slightly higher but that will be needed as we move to collaboration. We already have more staff, but we can use it as we move to new model.
• Instructional aide staffing - most of them are one-on-one. Instructional aides are very hard to find.  Kids are coming in with existing plans that need one-on-one aides.  The aides could be providing support in the general ed class if you shifted that model.  When a kid has an aide, parents don't want to remove it.  But it should be looked at. 
• The hiring of a school psychologist hire is a good idea. That person can help with assessment to reduce one-on-one aides.  
• Related service provider staffing - we have an appropriate number of contracts.
• School nurse staffing - Nurses are very hard to find and we're lucky to have one.  We need more nurse full time.  We have less than normal.  The assistant is a best practice.  Our plan is a good one.

IEP related suggestions

• We need more people trained to sit in IEPs
• We need a special place
• They need to be more efficient
• Training on agenda

How much money does the general fund contribute to special ed?

• Special ed is unfunded, so the general fund has to contribute.
• We are efficient and spend less than most places, but the school psychologist will offset that.

Questions:

Andy - don't we have a school psychologist?

Tammie - yes, and now we have another one.

Kuimars:  How many kids are receiving services.

8-12% of kids are receiving services.

A discussion ensued about our levels of kids receiving services and how it will look at charter renewal.

Chris proposes to have a Community College course weighted twice on a students' transcript so the kids' GPAs will be higher if they take classes at Community Colleges.

We discussed the pros and cons.

We reviewed and discussed the Form 130 Cal OES (for FEMA grants.)

This is for disaster grants such as fire mitigation, California state-only disasters, hazard mitigation, flood mitigation, etc. as outlined on the form presented.

We need to sign it and file it with the minutes.

Joseph Lin 

-Approve the Prop 28 annual report.

-It's how much we spent on the Arts, Music, and Schools funding.  It was $380,000 and we spent none of it.  We have three years to spend and are working on a plan with the VAPA department and other qualifying departments for those funds.

Kuimars:

How can it be spent?

Joseph:

80% on certificated and classified staff

20% supplies

1% indirect costs

Joseph Lin

The CharterSAFE Insurance Policy

It increased by 15% on one side, and 11% on the other side.

Kuimars:

Do we share any of this cost with the district?

Joseph: 

No.

Sara: 

Did we look at other providers?

Joseph:

I wasn't here.

Kuimars:

There will be no cheaper insurance.

Joseph Lin:

We need to update the authorized signature for contracts, and other checks.

The recommendation is to remove Chris Lee, Monica Iannessa, and Juan Pablo Herrera.

We are adding Joseph Lin, Jeff Roepel, and Tyler Farrell.

A majority of the Board needs to sign it tonight.

Sara:  Do I need a backup?  I am the only Board signator.

Joseph:  No.

Joseph Lin:

This is our tax return.  It will published on website.

Sara:

Trip for Dr. Magee

Annual goal setting retreat is Saturday, September 14, 2024 at 10:00 AM

It will be in the Swarthmore room at Palisades Village.

The next regular meeting will be on Tuesday September 17, at 5:00 PM.