The Pledge of Allegiance was led by Terri Keas.

ECRCHS Music teacher Pricila ChavezLara and ECR students in the Mariachi Band performed two songs.

ECRCHS PE teacher Billy Ramirez thanked the administration and Board members for another great year at El Camino. He came from Kennedy HS where he played baseball as a student, graduated, became a coach then a teacher, and felt like he was part of a family.  He found the same sense of family at ECR, is proud to be at ECRCHS and has great respect for Mr. Fehte.  He believes that Mr. Fehte has always acted in the best interest of El Camino.

ECRCHS dance and aerobics teacher and color guard coach, Shelly Marshall, thanked the administration for their support with her programs.  There were challenges in the fall when new AstroTurf was installed on the football field and new floors in the gym, but the administration accommodated the girls and saw to it that the new floors were protected with carpet tiles so her students had a place to practice. The girls won the City Championships in the fall and two weeks ago both JV and Varsity won Silver medals in the So Cal championships.

Caryn Cornell Michaels, a community member who lives in the neighborhood and is an educator with LAUSD, provided her outside perspective of some of the qualities of ECRCHS.  She applauded ECRCHS for having two college counselors (when other high schools don't have one) in addition to their five counselors, the ability to purchase supplies, technology, etc. without having to go through a bureaucracy, the freedom ECR has to hire teachers without the fear of having to displace them mid year disrupting the whole school's master, and the ability of ECR to offer enrichment classes during the summer, not just credit recovery classes.  ECR has kept the 230 credits which allows students to be exposed to different disciplines and defended ECRCHS' local board which has served the local community. These are a few of the reasons that Canoga Park HS tried to go charter with ECRCHS.  It seems to her that everything right about LAUSD, ECRCHS has been able to keep and anything that didn't work, ECR has been able to get rid of.  She thanked the administration and Board for all they do for the children of ECR and the community.

ECRCHS teacher and UTLA chapter co-chair, Carlos Monroy gave an update on a previous agenda item regarding the retirees.  UTLA is working to resolve the issue in an expedient manner.  Headway has been made which he could not disclose.  He requested that, in the event that things don't go the way they should, the Board would provide some measure of guarantee if possible, to provide some peace of mind to the retirees.  He requested that the Board do everything in it's power to  take care of these teachers who have given many years of service to ECR.

ECRCHS teacher Lori Chandler congratulated the softball team for going to the City Finals.  She stated that recently a law was passed in Tennessee that discriminates against people who are protected in California and she feels that federal and state funds should not be spent in a state that discriminates.  She urged the Board members and staff not to go the Charter School Conference in Tennessee, not to support that state and follow the example of others and end discrimination in the US.  She also stated that she has taught at ECR for 30 years and there's nowhere else she'd rather be.  She appreciates the time and efforts of the Board, the administration, Marshall and Melanie and knows there have been things said about ECR in the past year that are unfavorable, but ECR has been, and is the greatest school in Southern California.

Parent, Marlene Widawer, reiterated her previous comments that not all information is posted on the website for the public to review prior to Board meetings.  She contends that all information can and should be provided in draft form prior to the meetings.  She also stated that the public should know in advance of a meeting who are the candidates being considered for upcoming Board positions so that any information on the candidates can be expressed during the public comments session of Board meetings, to assist the Board in their deliberations.  She questioned what is the Director of Sustainability - what does he do, what is his salary, what is the cost benefit of his position and how is it related to the education of our kids?  She stated her opinion that any administrative positions created should be absolutely necessary for the educational goals of our school.  She urged the Board not approve the vote to cancel the trip to Tennessee for the Charter Schools Conference because she believes that puts individuals' personal political beliefs ahead of the needs of the students and the loss of funds for cancelling reservations should be born by each individual who cancels, not the school.  She estimates the total cost to cancel will be over $4,000.00.  She questioned the outside investigator being brought in to audit the financials and the accuracy of results of audits depending on what information is provided to an investigator/auditor and by whom.  She also asked to know what is the general nature of the litigation to be discussed during the Closed Session. She voiced her disagreement with staff members who want to decertify UTLA, which would nullify the recent contract negotiated in good faith, and asked the Board to stand by their previous vote.

ECRCHS teacher Lisa De Rubertis voiced her objections to the procedure conducted for the vote by the teachers for the upcoming Teacher Representative position on the Board.  Random papers with an individual code were handed out at a PD meeting with no control as to who could use the code to vote, and there was no way to ID the person using it.  Anyone with prior knowledge could have taken more than one paper - this vote could easily be manipulated and is not secure.  She stated that notification of the date of the vote did not give teachers enough time to make thoughtful choices.  She requested that the vote be conducted by paper ballot as has been done in all previous voting.

Approval of the Minutes of the Special Board Meeting on April 26, 2016 was included in the previous vote.

The Minutes were not available for approval.

The review and approval of the March check register will be added to next month's meeting after Jackie Keene has an opportunity to review the register.  Marshall stated that they are working to add more detailed information on the check register and credit card statements.
Jon Wasser stated in response to requests to post the check registers and other information on the website before the meetings, sometimes there is personal information that should not be made public, for example a student with special needs who is receiving a service.  The check registers should be posted immediately after they are approved and any private information is removed.

Jon Wasser addressed some concerns about how the vote for the Teacher Rep Board position is being conducted.  He recommended conducting the election using paper ballots and a ballot box, monitored by two staff members, one possibly a UTLA Rep.  The vote will take place tomorrow and Friday, May 19th and 20th.  Odus Caldwell introduced the two candidates for the Teacher Representative Board position, retired teacher Peter Vastenhold and community member Scott Silverstein.  Each candidate spoke to the Board and guests present at the meeting.  Peter Vastenhold stated that he has taught at ECR for many years, before some of the young teachers were even born and knows the school inside and out.  Scott Silverstein stated he was informed of the election last week and stated he does agree with how the vote was conducted - open ballots is not a secure system.  He was Chair of the Woodland Hills Warner Center Neighborhood Council for the last 5 years and was on the Board for 12-13 years and is no longer on that Board.  He lives 2 blocks from the school and is invested in the school performing, and the way for a school to perform is to have the teachers perform and he intends to make the school run the way it should. He knows the Roberts Rules of Order, the Rosenberg Rules of Order and the Brown Act very well.  He will force transparency and will make sure that information is posted 72 hours prior to meetings with any private information redacted.  He stated that any student or teacher should be able to speak to the Board at any time and feel comfortable and not feel intimidated.  As a Board member he would make available his cell phone number so he can contacted at any time.

Obie and Jon stated that there will be a ballot box in the Main Office in the morning for voting, monitored by two teachers.

Assistant Principal Lisa Ring gave an overview of the LCAP.  She complimented Melanie Horton (her partner on WASC) and thanked her for her hard work and assistance and Eric Wilson for his work on the LCAP.  She explained that the LCAP is three working documents that work together for a charter school, which includes the Charter Petition (which was just renewed for 5 years), WASC, which is a self study 6 year plan which analyzes instruction and student achievement, coming up next year and the LCAP, which we are required to do since we are a district.  LAUSD does it for all of their schools.  Because we collect Title 1 funds, we also need to so the Single plan for student achievement, which is similar to LCAP.  The LCAP gives us our action plans and our ESLRS, which are now called SLO's.  With LCAP you want to have 4 goals but there can be many actions and strategies.  She handed out packets to the Board members which also include actions and timelines, responsibilities which will be filled in by the administrators for next year, metrics which will measure that and an update on WASC. Mr. Bennett and Melanie have done the school profile for WASC, Mr. Bennett has done the progress report update and the leadership team will work on the critical areas of need this summer.  The 5 focus groups will get together when school starts.

This is not a vote item.

The update on WASC was included in the previous section.

All Board members abstained.

The calendar for 2016-17 is as follows:
Pupil free days:  Aug 11 & 12th
First day of school:  Aug. 15th
PD Day (pupil free):  Aug. 24th
Finals first semester: Dec. 14, 15 & 16
Last day of first semester:  Dec. 16
First day of second semester:  January 9, 2017
PD Day (pupil free):  March 31
Second semester finals:  June 5, 6 & 7
Graduation:  June 9, 2017 (Friday)
Additional PD days (shortened days): one in August, two in Sept., two in October, two in November, one in January, two in February and two in March.  WASC comes the first week in April.  One PD day in April and one in May.
ECRCHS tries to follow LAUSD's calendar as closely as possible in consideration of families with kids in different schools - same Winter Break, Spring Break.
 

Mr. Hussey stated that Mrs. Ring has not acknowledged how hard she has worked on the LCAP - it's up and running.  There was a WASC meeting yesterday focusing on our vision statement.  AP testing is done and makeups are being done now.  We reached our threshold of 95%  of 11th graders tested for the CBAC, the Common Core testing.  Monday night is Senior Awards, Prom will be Saturday, May 28th and graduation will be Tuesday, June 7th at 6:00pm.  There are a lot of highlights and successes to celebrate.

Jon Wasser called for a short 5 minute break and the Open Session resumed at 6:35pm.

FCMAT is scheduled to come July 19th.  FCMAT offers workshops and Marshall has requested some training for our staff, review our policies and make recommendations to tighten controls.  Prior to next month's meeting, Marshall will meet with the technology staff, figure out where we are with ERP and try and implement the new practices before FCMAT arrives.  We may see a new fiscal policy in June and another in September after FCMAT's review.  Board members will be welcome to be involved on the committee.

This item was informational - no vote necessary.

Chang Patel presented the Budget submitted to LAUSD, which will be approved by the Board in June.

This item is informational only.  No vote required.

Chang Patel presented the financials prepared by EdTec.

There will be an update next month.