There were no public comments. 

David Hussey gave the updates highlighting the following:

Winter Formal: We have our Winter Formal Saturday night. We have over 250 tickets sold for that. It'll be outside and in Anderson Hall. So we look forward to the kids having fun on that. 

Grad Night: We started selling Grad Night tickets on Wednesday. Disneyland gave us 725 tickets. We have already 600 students that have returned permission slips and over 500 students that have purchased tickets already. So it's working out well. And the timeframe is either we sell 725 tickets or a four week period, whichever comes first. So I think that is well underway. I want to thank royal families for getting that message out to the families as well.

Mr. Wright asks: How many seniors do we have?

Mr. Hussey Responds: A little over 900. But we only have 725 tickets. Disneyland will never give us the full amount. So it’s 1st come 1st served.

Academic and Extracurricular Achievements: A couple of things I want to recognize, ACADEC 2:54 they won the Southern California private schools and charter schools regional. They'll be going to state next month. Our NJROTC placed first place for the first time in school's history in the competition. So it includes drill, academics, some physical fitness. They'll be going to Pensacola, Florida in April. And then the boys and girls soccer teams are in the Division 1 championship this weekend. Friday the girls play eight o'clock. Saturday the boys play at seven o'clock at Valley College. So we wish them well. 

Recognition of Dr. Clark: And then lastly, I want to recognize Dr. Clark. I got an email from a teacher. “Just want to let you know that in my opinion, this has been the best run Black History Month since I've been here. This year has been more and more, been motivational and assemblies made the historical experience of the African Americans more relevant by being current versus civil rights history. Important but not easy for kids to connect with. Thank you and keep up the excellent work. And then one of the presenters said to Dr. Clark, it was amazing coming to your school for Black History for your Black History event. I spoke to a lot of students and we were definitely able to empower many lives. And one student wrote, hello, you don't know me but I'm one of the multiple students that was in the room during fourth period. And when you were telling your story and how you went through such bad trauma, it really got to me. I just wanted to say that your speech was amazing and to keep bringing others up.” So the messages that are being said and presented to our kids, I think kids are getting a good feel of what it's all about.

Mr. Wright: Are there kids that can't afford that and if there are, how do we supplement if we do, do we go anything like that?

Mr. Hussey: We will supplement for the unhoused students. Other students, we'd have to try to be creative. 

Mr. Wright: Like lower income, do we have anything for them? And The parent group, can they donate to that?

Mr. Hussey: NO we don’t have anything for them but yes parent group can donate

Mr. Wright: I know that, I know that some kids, like you know, we have the other campus and we have the extra bagels. I want to feed kids too because I asked Western Bagels, to give me a few extra bags. Some of the kids just can't afford to eat on the other campus.

Mr. Hussey: Like I was just saying our program for the unhoused youth, if they let us know, then our cafeteria provides them food after school for a night and as well as on the weekends.

Mr. Wright: Okay. The reason I say that's because I do a lot of things with DCFS, but the point is that if there are kids that really want to go into getting good grades, but they just don't have the finances, we do have a way to help them achieve the Grand Night don’t we?

Mr. Hussey: Possibly yes through donations.

Gregory Wood presented the update highlighting the following:

Second Interim Report: We have our second interim financial report, which is due to the LAUSD and the state. That financial report shows our actual revenue and expenses through January, and it also has our updated projections based upon known state funding and our own expense levels. 

Fiscal Review: We are also anticipating next week we’ll be getting visited by LAUSD next Thursday and Friday. One of those two days, both the fiscal group will be coming and we've been interacting with them, they've asked for numerous documents and so they've been getting that and that will prepare us for our fiscal review and hopefully we can achieve the same perfect score that we got last year. So that's, what's going on there?

Mr. Kofahl: These are people coming from the district who speak the same language as you so that you can interpret all these things that we don't understand. Is that correct? I just want to know if I should come to that meeting or not.

Mr. Wood: That's one way you can say it if you ask. And no you don’t have to come to that meeting. 

Cafeteria Updates: Iincluded in the packet is just a continued cafeteria updates. Even though with some of the declines primarily because of enrolment, but participation is down from last year, but we're still being profitable. Later in the agenda you're going to see we're asking the board for about $70,000 worth of additional cafeteria equipment. We’ve previously discussed with the finance investment committee.

Mr. Wright:  Will that include the coffee machine. There's a coffee machine we've had sitting there and all you have do is get hot water out there. Are we going to fix that thing or are we going to get rid of it? It looks like a statue. I know a lot of teachers in the morning for breakfast are hitting the button trying to get the hot water but they can't get coffee. Will that 70k include fixing that?

Mr. Wood: I will just ask our current cafeteria people.

There were no updates from the committees

Brad Wright did not have updates to share, but had a comment and the following question:

I would like to acknowledge and congratulate our elected parent representative Charne' Tunson for successful work with grad night; she's our parent liaison, and the other activities she's done. The Board would like to applaud her. She's not here right now, but we would all like to recognize the work she's done. 

Ms. Brandy and her staff that brought the food and we'd like to thank her for that. 

We have no updates but there's a question I have. If the kids cannot afford to go the grand night, not just the unhoused kids, but the kids that don't have the means to go there, but they're getting good grades and I'll accept the headnod as an answer, would we be able to supplement those kids. Do we have the funds for that? Historically the parent group have paid for it right?

Mr. Wood: Right, but whatever we decide to do whether it’s discounts or whatever, we should have some criteria but I would hate to make an exception for one parent group that won’t apply to others.

Mr. Wright: Well I think the parent group, the royal family, they have the option because just like our other group could help people out almost scholarship wise. Especially the kids that perform academically but just maybe don't have the means to get there.

Mr. Wood, CBO, and Ms. Ilyas, Director, Accounting and Finance, presented the January, 2024, Financial Update. 

Ms. Ilyas

Cafeteria Update: So this month we're just coming in with the cafeteria update because we're working on our second interim reporting. This is showing the performance of the cafeteria, how many meals we served, and how much revenue we received from serving those meals, and also the expenses related to it. So overall, in terms of meals served, we are down 5.67% from last year, but that’s attributed to having less students running through school. And then as you can see, the revenue and the expenses, the cafeteria is profiting. So this month for January, we've made $17,000, which equates to $0.73 per meal. So overall, the cafeteria is profiting and I think later on the agenda, you'll see equipment proposal, which would be using those funds that you see. 

Mr. Wood

State Financial Outlook: Outside of the school's finances, I'll just report that the state's financial news has deteriorated a bit since the governor's January budget update. More recently agencies of the state are suggesting in the month of January, the revenue came in $5 billion-under what the projection is. So in may we will hear the update of what they are going to fund. In January, they basically said education would get like a 0.76% increase with possibly some cutbacks. It's not looking as positive since the information the governor was using in January. We'll find out more in May. 

Mr. Kofahl: Does that explain the small negative here? 

Mr. Wood: No. This is this year's activity versus last year. So the number of meals are down 5.67%. Ms. Ilyas: Yeah, the number of meals that the cafeteria cafeteria has served is down, but that's also because we have less students here. So that number is to be expected. Its not shocking.

Mr. Wood: I'm going to say. If you've been following the news, all charter schools are having issues right now with LAUSD and a lot of charter schools have also dropped attendance. It's not just us. If you see what's going on right now, that's why LAUSD is making the change of not basically taking over those schools, which will never happen here as long as I'm here, but they have to fight over everybody on this board. But when we do have a drop in attendance, but we're not the only ones, Mr. Kofahl it’s everybody, it was in the news today that the second nation's largest school district is having these issues here with charter schools. And right now we don't have any issues because we're right on the plan with our budget. Am I right with that, Ms. Ilyas? 

Ms. Ilyas: We are right on target

Mr. Wood, CBO, presented the January, 2024, ECRCHS Investment Update.

OPEB Account: Our OPEB account is still maintaining some positive monthly results. Our OPEB account has $28.3 million in it, and given that we started the OPEB account having $25.3 million, so we're up almost $3 million. We have made contributions of $1.54 million. We've had investment gains of $1.65 million. And as we just started this year, we've made $200,000 in payments directly to our retiree health benefit account. So, that translates into our investments which are are up 6.5%. The total fund is up 11.8. And again, as I look today, the current balance, not in the month yet, but it's up another almost $400,000 so it’s at $28.8 million as of today. So, it's still up. Still performing very, very well this year. 

General Investments: The general investments, that's up about $100,000. So, again, less risky investments, but they're still performing very well. When we have more in the fund than we anticipated, looking back from the previous year or whatever it is you look at. Do you just let that money ride or because you know there are ups and downs or do we have a place that we put it? 

Mr. Wood: The OPEB account, by definition is a trust account. The account is legally a restricted trust account. And that helps us to be fully funded. We're still looking to fully fund it if we “exceed” that fully funded number as determined by the actuary. I mean, we can stop. One area where we could save money is that there's no mandate that we make the $220,000 contribution monthly to the OPEB account once we are comfortable, we would stop making that contribution until such time as either, that the market conditions would suggest we should refund it again. So those are kind of the options or variables on the OPEB account.

Prior to the vote, the Mr. Ryan Guinto presented the purchase of Qty. 830 Lenovo 300w student devices for the incoming freshmen Class of 2028

On the packet, we initially provided the RFP results. However, on the RFP, we did actually request two types of devices. So this is the proposal that we received from GST. And on their proposal, they provided us two different types of models. So what you guys are seeing in front of you is the model that we chose. Basically, the other model has more higher RAM. But other than that, the specs are mostly the same. So for the last two years, we have been fortunate that most of the cost of the devices were paid for by the government. There is a grant that we were able to get, which allowed us to pretty much be funded by the government for the devices that we're purchasing. So this is the first year that we are actually purchasing the devices with our own funds. And we published this RFP early this month. We only got one proposal. However, we also had another quote on the third page you guys will the other quote directly from the manufacturer. The manufacturer Lenovo normally gives a higher discount rate for resellers. Hence why you see that they have a higher quote. Yeah, and the total quantity of 830 is based off on, we expect to have an incoming freshmen. We did look into our numbers-currently this year, we have 697 students. So based off on that, we're hoping to possibly get 700-720 students for next year. Again, this is a projection. 

Mr. Wright: Question. Its just for freshmen right? 

Mr. Guinto: Yes. Freshmen. And we also do get foreign exchange students and roughly we get about 70 of them. And then we're getting surplus of around 30. That's why we come up with that number. 

Mr. Wright:  What do we do with the surplus?

Mr. Guinto: We actually just got a check this morning from the vendor that bought some of our surplus. When the device is no longer capable of running the applications that we have today, that's when we start surplusing them. They buy for around 20 to 30 dollars depending on the condition of the device. And we've been using most of the surplus as either loners or replacements for devices that get lost and all that stuff. 

Mr. Kofahl 22:42: So how long will they keep this computer?

Mr. Guinto: So when a student comes to El Camino, they get a device that they would hold on until they graduate. So the life cycle for our devices are actually four years for the students until they graduate. 

Mr. Wood 23:05: While E-rate helped supplement the cost that we filed for before, if approved, we can use some of the COVID ESSER funds that we have. This project could be funded, at least while we still have funding, but student devices could be funded with kind of the restrictive ESSER funds. 

Mr. Wright 23:38: If it happens that our freshman class exceeds the number that we've estimated when we hire 830 computers, are they readily available? 

Mr. Guinto: No. We are going to have to order but usually we do carry some some of the loaner devices that we have. We provide that for those students. And it has happened in the past, and that's why we cannot just order exactly how we think how many students will get because we normally, at least in our experience, we always succeed like at least by 30, 40. 

Mr. Wright: So as we have the foreign exchange students which I have dealt with before for over 12 years. We basically give them a loaner one as opposed to a freshman who gets a new one for the 4 years. And so basically with the other group where we're anticipating, an overage of students we will give them the loaner ones because they're only here for the 10 months. 

Prior to the Vote to recommend Approval, Mr. Wood, CBO, presented two proposals for the Cafeteria Equipment.

We had two proposals by two separate equipment manufacturers. One by Bargreen, and the other one by Southwest Supply. SouthWest Supply took two ovens and put it on one line and the Bargreen costed each ovenon different ones. So you can see the things being purchased are a range and a griddle and some equipment stands, a freezer, two different ovens, and a mobile heating cabinet. And comparing both of them, I recommended to the finance and investment committee, and they are in turn recommending to the full board, Bargreen prevail in terms of having almost a $4,000 lower price for comparable. So, we would be looking for the board to either ask questions pertaining to these proposals and or approve it for purchase. We will place the order as soon as the board signs on it.

Mr. Kofahl: That’s a substantial difference between the two? Does one provide service and the other doesn’t?

Mr. Wood: We’ve purchased from both of them. Both were recommended by our Chartwel our food service provider, and we specifically quoted to make sure that the warranties were similar. So, I'm comfortable that the $4,000 savings is real and it's not as though we're short-changing ourselves by going with the cheapest.

Ms. Ramirez: Are these things that we're replacing or are these just new items that are going to be coming in?

Mr. Wood: It's a combination. I think the griddle is new. The biggest items- we have existing ovens that are probably 30 plus years old, so. 

Basic Vision and Mission Statement: So thank you for having me here. Basic Vision and Mission Statement helps us to guide what we do here at ECR. And then the next page is really important because this is a summary statement, just a basic summary statement that you asked us to write for the video update. Basically just a focus statement. What are we looking at here at El Camino? Are we still targeting instruction and student learning? putting student learning first at El Camino? 

Statute: It is important for you guys to know a few things. So I've listed them here for you. So for this one, it's simply a mid-year update. It's not a vote. It's informational only. It's not an adoption by the board or anything like that. There's no specific template required. So it’s been developed as something that I simply developed on my own. It won't be submitted to the county office or anything like that. And compliance for it will be through the annual fiscal audit. So this is just simply for your information. All boards across the state are required to know where we are in terms of our LCAP. So no vote required. It's just an update. Just for your knowledge, but feel free to ask questions if you want. 

Overarching Thoughts: So here are our overarching thoughts about where we are. Without a doubt, we know that the pandemic has caused like a great deal of learning loss and other issues here at ECR, right? But we know also that there are a number of things that we can do to help improve student success in all areas of like enrolment, mental health, staffing, instruction and all of these areas, right? And so some of the key impacts are: Significant instructional delays and these are some of the things that we've seen that have been kind of to the school's detriment. So significant instructional delays by students, of course, in-student learning. So in the classroom, teachers are seeing and reporting this. Higher than normal levels of anxiety and stress, that would be in the wellness area, and then a Lack of maturity; Lack of confidence from students. Someone literally just said in the meeting I came from before here, like our 11th grade students are literally like 8th or 9th graders. But it's because they missed out all that time from the pandemic. So their social skills are not where they should be. Mr. wright: And the leadership from before was lacking because some of them missed their entire 9th or 10th grade years. 

Dr. Clark: Lower enrolment. You guys just talked about that brifely. And then higher than normal absentee grades, these are all really things we're seeing still that are the result of COVID. I don't know if you remember in last year's report, where I gave more information into the lower enrollment where we realized that the students have decided to take on online learning instead of coming back into the school setting to finish their education. And then there's just a number of factors that prohibited keep children from being able to get here one time, or even at all. So there's all kinds of things. Social economic situations and everything since the pandemic. People have lost jobs, not gotten them back and all that kind of stuff. So those are some of the key impacts. 

Mid-Year Update

I actually used a lot of these terminology within the document, but I added some as well. So you'll also see the words, met and not met 36:52 with the document. 

In this illustration, the red, of course, means "Hey, we might not be achieving that. There's something going on there." The yellow means it's In Progress, but we're still working on it or it needs some work, and then Known or Completed or Met means, "Hey, we're doing well,” and at least we know that we're on the right track there. 

Dr. Clark 

Goal 1: Goal 1 was for students to demonstrate academic growth in ELA, math, and finance. So the first page basically is a replica of last year's LCAP. These are all the same metrics. Again, this is just the update. So basically, if you guys want to start by looking at the last column, the progress column, that really tells us where we are. So I will highlight a few.

ELA scores: One of the highlights noted by the charter division is our ELA scores. So we're at 66% this year. Our most recent scores reflect 66%. And it was a 3.3 point increase from last year. So the scores that English have steadily been on the rise and charter division has noted it in their report as a high from last year.

Math: And so math scores, not met, there were improvements in math though. So we did increase, we actually increased 18 points in math but we did not meet the goal if that makes sense. So we went up, but we didn't meet the goal so it was not met. 

Science: In science, not met. We're currently at 35% of students meeting or exceeding science standards. Does that make sense for everybody? Okay. So this is all based on the state standards, whether or not the majority of our students are meeting or exceeding goals. 

Mr. Wright: So what do we do? 

Dr. Clark: So that's the question. Right? So that's what LCAP is kind of for. So we all get together and we have these meetings and talk about our action plans for improvement. Some of the things are in here and some of them are not but we do things like added tutoring. This year, Mr. Heath 39:32 and I worked together on adding instructional assistance to all the CB classrooms. So the areas where we were seeing the weakest student performance like algebra one or English one. And where students don't really tend to push themselves as much, we added instructional assistance in there. So they have another adult in the classroom that helps them out with instruction and helps them out with one-on-one work with students group work, etc. And so the teachers are reporting that that has been really successful. So we currently have 11 instructional assistants and so they are supporting the math and the ELA right now. And it seems to be working for them.

College and Career Readiness: So in terms of college and career readiness, we did go down a little bit. That goal is not met. We're at 48.6% and the baseline in 2020 college was actually 5.9%. So we went down a little bit there. Again, that's something that we need to work on.

Special Education: Special education was an area that was noted by the charter division as a high needing area. Our students performed very poorly overall in ELA math and science in the special education department. And we are definitely struggling to find ways to be more successful.

Mr. Wright: How can we be more successful in special education?

Mr. Hussey: We have professional development that are working with our special ed teachers and our general ed teachers to make sure they're on the same page. It's a work in progress.

Mr. Wright: The question I'm asking is maybe having another special ed person helping out. I mean is that another possibility? A lot of the kids today, when I go to different places, I'm sorry to say a lot of people they have needs. And again, because maybe the dramatic difficulties that they have had from COVID-19. So maybe with the special ed, adding somebody or giving a little more assistance, just having one more person. 

Dr. Clark: I think that's a good point too. Because those students need extra attention. Absolutely. And so again, being more attentive to their needs and finding those things that really work for them is really what Mrs. LaRue was trying to hone in on along with us because she has been working together with CSUN. We started bringing in some of their professors to work with teachers more closely in professional development strategies and so forth that will help target that new learning and also the students. It's a benefit for all students. But it's definitely a matter of being more attentive to their needs and finding out what's really going to work for them. So, like Mr. Hussey said, definitely work in progress there.

EL Students: Our EL students they increased overall, but they did not meet the standard in English or math, again something that we will continue to work on. Our EL teacher position is actually a vacancy. So it's a vacancy that needs to be filled right now.

Graduation Rate: So our graduation rate actually went down as you can see the baseline was 93.5. Our goal outcome for this year was actually 95% of students graduating and we're currently at 91%.

Mr. Wright: Let me ask you a question. Just going outside the box. What about handwriting? Kids aren't handwriting much these days. Do we do anything about that at all? And also I do want to recognize too the English department. English department has gone up 3%. You head that department right? Congratulations.

Dr. Clark: No, but it is being put back into law next year in elementary schools here in California. So they will be writing cursive again in California starting next year. But they did stop it for many years.

Goal 1 Metrics: Financials

Arlene: With every metric, there's a cost associated with it. Dr. Clark has identified the metrics and we've identified how much have we spent towards meeting that metric as of January. So you can see the first metric, the percentage of 11th grade students meeting or exceeding the SBAC. That so far has cost us $450,000. Most of these metrics are tied to salaries, so that's why the numbers may seem high, but these are the costs of people who are helping us meet this metric. And then same with Goal 2.

Dr. Clark

Goal 2: All students are provided a high quality education with equitable access to standards based instruction, innovative strategies and programs, and rigorous learning.

What does that mean? Basically like today, for example, I had a meeting with the ILT meeting, our instructional leadership team, which consists of our teacher leaders. So right before I came here, we met. And I was explaining to them standards-based instruction based on what the charter division is going to be looking for when they come next week for their visit. And that standards-based instruction really goes beyond just the fact that you have your standards listed on your lesson plan, but that it means that someone that comes in or observes you whether it's us, charter division, WASC or anyone else, what they're looking for is a connection of the standard to the learning in the classroom. So for example, if I’m teaching English and I am working on figurative language or something like that, then they want to see in the classroom that students know what the objective is for the lesson. And what the student learning outcome is supposed to be, what they should know and should be able to do by the end of the lesson. So it's more than just putting a standard on the board. It's connecting it during the instruction and making sure kids know and understand that. 

Student Intervention: So with this metric, with student intervention, we developed those intervention classes. They're going well. It's completed. It's being revised annually and updated. So that one is going well. That's the first one. 

Math Assessments: Math assessments are being administered annually. That one's going well. 

Instructional Assistants: we hired the 9 instructional assistants. We're actually at 11 as of today. So we have hired the instructional assistants for the algebra 1 and English 1 classes. 

Disaggregating and Analyzing Data: The charter division and WASC noted that we needed to do deeper dives into data analysis. And so we have really done that. We now have a data team that works really diligently to analyze data. They work with Mr. Hussey and I both on analyzing school data and trying to get it out to teachers. And then we have data analysis within our PLCs that's our Professional Learning Communities. And so that was going well. Also, PLCs were noted as a highlight by the charter division last year as well. And each department continues to have one retreat per semester, where we allow them to go off campus to the shoot location and then just dig into the data. Just a professional development, learn from each other, build that professional relationship that they don’t often get to do because they're teaching. 

Mr. Wright: You're mentioning that we added instructional assistants. We have 11 you said. How many of those assistants help out with special ed? 

Dr. Clark: So they are immersed in the collaborative classes where special ed students are in those classes. 

Mr. Wright: So are the regular students then getting the attention they need? And is this working?

Mr. Hussey: There will be three adults in those classes: a teacher, the instructional teacher and a resource 48:27 teacher is an area. 

Dr. Clark: This is year 1, so we'll see if it’s working by the end of the year. We'll be able to come back to you at the end of the year. We'll see data on that.

Mr. Hussey: In April we’ll do the math test, then we'll be able to see if the students with disabilities, if their scores are rising or are they the same. 

Dr. Clark 

Goal 3: All students will graduate college and career ready. We will increase Graduation rate for students with disabilities, Latin, English Learners, African American students, Foster Youths and Homeless Youth. Again these are the students that typically have the lower scores.

So what have we done? 

CTE Pathways: some of the things we've done is create additional pathways for them. Some of them don't have the goal of going straight to college. Some of them want to go straight to careers. So we wanted to make sure we had more pathways for them to explore and we are now from none in 2020 to four. And I have visited the four: culinary, carpentry, graphic production, and video design. We 100% met our goal of making sure that all of our freshmen have a minimum of three or more academic classes in their 9th grade schedule that was a concern of teachers since years ago. 

AG Completion Rate: Our AG completion rate is 55%. 

College and Career Focused PD: We've been providing the college and career focus PD for the staff every year. This was something requested by teachers as well. They wanted to make sure that they were aware of college and career standards and expectations for students including like FAFSA 50:37, expectations for admission and that kind of thing. 

Seal of biliteracy: Something we're always proud of is the students who earn the seal of biliteracy. As of today, 130 students will have earned the seal of biliteracy. 

Fund PSAT: We continue to fund the PSAT for all students so that means they don't have to pay for anything. That kind of eliminates your point earlier about socioeconomically disadvantaged students who can't afford things. We cover that cost as well.

Additional Counselors: And we have increased our counselors. We're at 9 now and it has decreased their case load from 480 to 360. And so it's much easier for them to be attentive to the needs of students.

Mr. Wright: We've had grades come out. How many seniors do we have this year? How many of those are paced right now to graduate and ones that aren’t, what do we do? And maybe help guide them to the next level because once they have finished that year, they can’t really come back to this campus.

Dr. Clark: We have 900. So I'll say this, I don't have the exact numbers, but I will take it back and get back to you.

 Mr. Hussey: So I'll just say that we reach out to Mr. Alba who’s in charge of counseling, but I'll say the second part of your question is that's why we have the Flex Program, that's why we have the Independent Study Program. We know that not all kids are made to graduate in four years, especially when they get off to a rough start. So a lot of times, if you look strictly at data, people will say, oh, your graduation rate is low, but we keep those kids that are at risk for a fifth year. 

Goal 3 Financials

Arlene: To implement Goal 3, here's what it has costs us thus far. Most of the costs associated with implementing the actions and metrics of Goal 3 are part of Certificated salaries. So we don't have an actual cost. They're just part of having teachers. 

Dr. Clark 

Goal 4: To provide a safe, more inclusive and culturally competent learning environment and targeted efforts that support students of color, students experiencing opportunity gaps and LGBTQ+ students.

Develop Equity calendar: So one of the things that we wanted to make sure that we did is develop an equity professional development calendar for our staff, meaning that we would focus on equity and equity in instruction, equity across the school in different ways. Mr. Hussey also leads the equity advisory committee and he has those meetings once per month after hours. And so that has been pretty impactful a couple of years ago. They did the Black Lives Matter resolution. Just making a firm stance against that El Camino is an anti-racist school. Essentially is what we are saying. 

Monthly social event: Creating a monthly social events calendar, making sure that our parent groups and ECR has good two-way communication. This is something that was noted by charter division last year that ECR and teachers and parents need to make sure that we beef up our two-way communication. We need to communicate more with them, they need to communicate more with us and that we need to make sure that that is reciprocal and continuing throughout the year. 

Administered staff equity and school climate surveys and a DEI inclusion plan: So we administer the surveys through the LCAP and the DEI plan. It's something that we are still talking about and in progress. 

Conduct Student Round Tables: And then the last one is that we in conjunction with our teacher leaders will conduct student round tables and we have done that. We did some last year, 22-23, and we did some this last fall 23-24 school year. 

Goal 4 Financials

Arlene: A lot of the financials associated with implementing Goal 4, there is not really any cost associated with things such as creating the calendar, but we have spent about $3,360 so far for our email communication platform and about $5,000 to implement a climate survey.

Dr. Clark 

Goal 5: All Parents of the school community will have increased, safe, authentic, opportunities to give input with regular effective to-way communication for shared decision making.

Improve Communication: This is a goal that the state requires, also something like I said, charter highlighted, that we need to really increase our communications with parents and our methods of communication. It came out in the parent surveys last year that I conducted, 22-23 school year, that they felt like we parents should be getting text messages. Things beyond just the Sunday newsletter, we were only doing the newsletter and maybe the social media sites. Now parents can receive text, I don't know if any parents are here, but they get text messages. All the time, the robocalls, we have social media. Ricardo has done a really nice job of cleaning up the social media and the way that we present information and how he puts it out there, and so parents are telling us that they are getting the information in one way or another whereas before it was kind of like where do I find it? We are also getting reports from parents that the new website is better. 

Hire social media marketing person: We hired Ricardo, that's the social media marketing person, so when it's completed, 100%, all enrolled parents for 21-22 will be prompted to create and update their areas 57:27. This is done annually. When parents come in, we ask them to update their areas. We only have the information that parents provide, so that's why each year we ask them to update contact information because if it's outdated, you moved or changed your number, you're going to be getting all the information to those old places. 

Develop and Implement Comprehensive Student Attendance Plan: The attendance office in conjunction with the dean's office has done this. And now we have the school River website. You might have seen the school river website that tracks students' attendance. It's another really cool website where you can go in now and you can request the absence and approve the absence and request an early leave for your child. And that also produces data. So we have some data now that we can actually use in the area of attendance.

Goal 5 Financials

Arlene: So here's what it costs us this far to implement Goal 5. So some of the items, there's no cost associated because they're built within the other costs, but for like our communications platform and our attendance platform and our marketing person, you could see the costs associated. 

Dr. Clark

Goal 6: To provide specific support and sufficient and optimal equipment to meet social, emotional, mental health and physical needs of students. And that just means do we have everything that we need on campus to make sure students are safe for one, or getting the services that they need. So it means programs and equipment and services to meet all these needs for students, to meet the mental health needs. 

Onboarding of 2nd PSW: We went from two PSWs-Psychiatric Social Workers, but LAUSD no longer funds that program. So those are all gone. Now we have LPC's- Licensed Professional Counselors and we have 4 of them by a group called SAGE 59:40. We get really great reviews overall about our wellness center, they are housed in the wellness center, and Mr. Alba overseas them. They provide daily and weekly services for students and parents. It's really a good benefit to the ECR. And they also put out a monthly calendar of events and activities that they are doing. 

0% Expulsion Rate: Our expulsion rate continues to be at zero, so we'll have an outcome for you when I present again at the end of the year with the LCAP that you do have to vote on that. 

Maintain 5% dropout Rate: We're trying to maintain our dropout rate of less than five percent. It has increased a little bit, but we are still under five percent. So if you look at the baseline in 2020, we were at 2.2 and we're at 4.6 now, so we're still under five percent, and we did meet the goal. Attendance Rate: Not met. We're a little bit under where we want to be. In 2020, 2021, we were at 96.5 and we're now at about 92.7, which, like I said at the beginning, we kind of attribute it to all the things that have gone on with COVID-19 and not regaining a lot of students that we lost. 

Mr. Wright: Dr. Clark, last year what was our expulsion rate?

Dr. Clark: Zero. And the year before that was zero as well.

Mr. Wright: And the question I want to ask is, with our discipline, the question I want to ask, we've had some knockouts drag outs last year. Are we not expelling because of accountability and the safety of our kids or are we doing it because of funding? I mean, last year when one kid came on campus and brought other friends and attacked another kid. Was that kid expelled? 

Mr. Hussey: It depends. There's a process that students go through. They have due process. Some students will check out before it gets to the expulsion process. So that's why sometimes you may not see an expulsion come to the board, but because the students checked out before. 

Mr. Wright: Okay. I mean, I don't want us to be afraid because of any stigma from LAUSD or anyone else to make a move to keep our kids safe, both physically and mentally, and being attacked by bullies. So, I’m just trying to make sure that that's not an issue here.

Chronic absenteeism: Chronic absenteeism rate is not met, its at 21.7. 

Identification of Students and Training Schedules: The current LPCs identify students whom they can train to help assist them in matters that are not confidential. 

Staff Training: They provide yearly training to staff members to support staff wellness, behavioral and mental health as well. 

Decrease Tardy: This is a highlight and something that we really want to emphasize to charter division when they come. Is that we started implementing tardy sweeps and it has really helped clear the hallways just like that. I mean, the students run to get into the classroom. And so it has been really helpful and impactful and the idea that you can't just walk around and be late or hide in the restroom. 

Maintain Clean, Safe Facilities: Maintaining clean, safe facilities that are in good repair. And that is continuous. I know sometimes we might hear otherwise, but that is continuous. And we do make every effort and our best efforts to make sure that bathrooms, classrooms and everything is safe and secure for students. And do know that if a bad restroom does happen to be shut down, it is really for the safety of students. We're protecting students when we shut them down. So it really is a safety measure and not us trying to stop or prohibit. 

Mr. Wright: And also going back, I received an email and complaints from parents about not having facilities. Which now we've done that and I appreciate that. But no matter how many they tear down, we got to put them back up. And we don't need people telling us because of a Tik Tok thing. My point is, if they tear down the toilet, and we don’t put them back up, it’s a big OSHA violation to have our kids not be able to be sanitized. 

Steven Kofahl: The chronic absenteeism rate in the last column says not met, it's at 21.7%. What do we want to get down to? And does the district have a number?

Dr. Clark: So, if you look at the baseline category, that kind of tells you where we started. So there was none when we started this because we were in the middle of COVID-19, the students were online. In our final one we're going to designate a number. But we'll have to come and talk about that to decide what we want that to be.

Mr. Hussey: Zero I would say is the goal, but I think as a group, we'll be realistic and work towards zero. 

Goal 6 Financials

Arlene: So here's the cost of implementing Goal 6. So a lot of the costs associated like our PSW, that's the cost of the company SAGE. It provides those service workers and then the cost you see for like its expulsion and the attendance rate. That's the cost of people in the Dean's office and the attendance office. And then maintaining safe, some clean facilities. That's like our buildings ground team and some of the repairs that have been undertaken on campus. 

Dr. Clark 

Goal 7: To provide support and optimal equipment to meet the discipline and attendance of all students. This is just saying, do we have everything that we need on campus to ensure that kids are safe discipline wise and attendance wise, this includes things that we need for lockdowns and that kind of thing. 

Develop Discipline Referral Process: So our discipline referral process was the first metric. Our baseline was that we were pretty much using our handwritten referrals. And then now the target was to create a dashboard and I know this is in progress. Fernando was doing this. So this is something that is being worked on currently where Dean's can go in and input information to track the rate of students who come in for infractions. That’s basically what Fernando is building. And so that is something that we are excited about. 

Develop Student Attendance Plan: And then to develop and implement a comprehensive student attendance plan, trying to combat that poor attendance and chronic absenteeism, something that is also in progress. 

Relocate Deans Office: We relocated the Dean's office. That was a goal of ours a couple of years ago when we went back talked about how that was going to look and we were able to find something that was successful. So they are now in the old college office and it has really worked out. So we just switched. And so the college office is now the first office that parents and visitors see when they come in and it didn't cost a lot of money like were talking about last year. 

Mr. Hussey: We still have to reinvest in those two offices.

Dr. Clark: And it's been good for school culture too. Because one of the biggest things we talked about is you don't want to come in and see a fight as the first thing or the police talking with students or doing whatever with a student. 

Dean Counselors, Intervention Collaboration: We got the Dean collaboration between the Dean's counselors and intervention team to help behavior management. That is something that is ongoing in progress. And I'll be able to have an actual rate because in the target, our rate is to reduce referrals by 3%. So we'll know at the end of the year when I come back to report on the LCAP that you do have to vote on, I'll do that in probably May because we have to have one voted on before July 1st. So when I come back to the final, then we'll have that rate. 

Track Student Attendance: Student attendance system to create early alerts, etc. And that is the attendance at school report that we have. That is like I said, really great for parents. Easy. Just go in and create relieve or absent report, it comes right to your phone. Parents don't even have to get out of their cars if they don't want to. So it's a real simple process and it has work really well. 

Goal 7 Financials

Arlene: So these are the costs of implementing Goal 7. A lot of it are costs with us developing the actual systems that are being used to track attendance or track discipline. So a lot of it is like software related costs. And then the last action because it's part of the software, there is no cost associated.

So the last page, we have a budget overview for parents comparison. So during the time we adopted the LCAP back in June, you could see the revenue we were projecting along with the total LCFF of general fund expenditures and what's been budgeted in the LCAP, and then the column to the right shows the current projection that we have based on what we know as of like December, January ish and then the same with the expenditures. 

Mr. Wright: I would like to say that you've been very thorough, and I appreciate this and the hard work you’ve done.

An atmospheric winter storm caused school attendance on Monday, February 5th. The request for allowance of attendance requests ADA credit for the lack of attendance for the day mentioned. 

Mr. Hussey

So what happened was the governor declared the county of Los Angeles as emergency. Also, the mayor got on, and declared a local emergency and urged everyone to stay home and stay off the road. We did keep El Camino open. But a lot of people I guess listened to the reports and thought it was going to be worse than it was and our attendance. For the day was 72% which is about 20% less than what a normal day would be. So we're filling out a request for allowance of attendance due to emergency conditions. And asking the state to supplement that 20% because a lot of people did stay home listening to the governor and the mayor. And in the packet you have the proclamation of state emergency from the governor's office. I also include emails from the mayor's office which talked about mudslides down trees and then some articles from local news agencies talking about the emergency. So we are requesting the board to approve and then sign off on this request. This will next go to LAUSD charter school division then to LACOE and then to the state of California.

Secretary: The board voted while in closed session with five votes by members who were present, two of them we not present.

The completed investigation report regarding financial concerns with friends of the ECR referred to the attorney general.