City Council/PUSD Joint Meeting: March 7, 2022

get you another. Ok, we're live. Good evening everyone. Welcome to the special joint meeting of the pasadena city council and the city unified school district board of education. I'd like to welcome the superintendent and the board the board to city hall and why don't we begin with the calling the meeting to order and we'll start with local thank you mayor member cohalan here, member fredriks here, member here member holly here. Member phelps is not here yet. Vice PRESIDENT Richardson bailey here and PRESIDENT Pomeroy here. There's a quorum of the board of education present COUNCILMAN Roehampton unmuted but we can't hear you though it is a blessing to be here with our distinguished body of the usda. I'm already feeling smarter. Council member kennedy has not yet joined council members and has not yet joined council hermosilla here council member this is running a bit late. Council member williams here, vice mayor wilson your mayor cordeaux here there's a quorum of the city council present. Thank you. Why don't we move on to the pledge of allegiance and I'll ask our colleague dr pomeroy to lead us in the next year to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under GOD, indivisible with liberty justice for so as we know this is a this is a our annual opportunity to meet together and talk about issues of common concern, opportunities to work together and inform the community how it is that we're working together with our joint goals and today we have an agenda that covers everything from community safety to the joint use agreement to working together on early childhood development. And so I'd like to welcome the school board and the council and look forward to a good discussion. DR. Marmorated, you want to make any comments? Yes, I have had a number of opportunities to come and meet together and I am pleased that we were going to emphasize the joint in our joint meeting and I hope in the future endeavors that you see represented on this agenda that we will still be in joint endeavor for for our community. Absolutely. Why don't we move on to agenda the agenda item two and I'll turn it over to DR. Pomeroy to introduce this matter to involves usda programs in a highlight of those problems. Yes, they're there is so much to tell. It's a challenge just to put it into into highlights before we begin perhaps I can introduce our senior staff who are here, our superintendent DR. Brian mcdonald is here. You could wave to the crowd and don't let me MISS Any one. DR. Elizabeth blanko chief academic officer DR. Leslie barnes, finance and operations officer, are there others we also have our director of early childhood gary harris richardson rather. Oh yes. Yes. And she's very attached to one of these agenda items as well. If I missed anyone anyone behind your mask that I missed so welcome everyone and oh highlight of programs I believe DR. Blanko are you taking the lead for this? Thank you. Good evening. Mayor gordo's city council members board of education PRESIDENT DR. Pomeroy, superintendent mcdonald and members of the public for those of you who have not had the pleasure to meet and the chief academic officer for pasadena unified and I'm really happy pleased to be here to be able to share some of our programs. It's not all inclusive of every program that we have because we have many um but just wanted to give you some big picture highlights. Ok, just beginning with our mission statement that has been revised by our current board of education. Think some really key highlights are the deep love for learning embracing cultural background of every student globally a value in global education, our commitment to academic excellence and with our new vision statement it was really important to our board that we instill and inspire the joy of learning and every child every day. So our context of our district we have twenty three schools. We have a wide portfolio of grade spans to meet the needs of every parent and child in the community. We're also one of the employers of the community and we have twenty four hundred cert and classified employees. Um, our demographics for those who might be viewing from somewhere else we have a diverse group of students and our students come from gifted all the way to having many challenges acquiring english um disabilities in a variety of race and ethnicities. They're all welcome. We're one big happy family in pasadena unified. Um this is an overlap target group. Uh, membership table which I think is important for um the community to realize that children come with many diverse needs. So you might cross over into a group of being an english learner but also having a challenge and MAY need help with a disability would be a foster youth or um socioeconomically disadvantaged . So or you could be a gifted child. There's um many groups and when sometimes when we talk about the groups we don't take into consideration that it might not be the only group that you're part of and you might think you're being left out of a group when you are really being taken care of in a different way because you're falling into a different eligibility. So our context as a unified school district we've in supporting students and families and recovering from the impacts of the pandemic. Our staff has been an ongoing discussion and reflection about diversity, equity and inclusion throughout the pandemic and our teachers are implementing a research based practices to effectively adjust classroom instruction. Uh, we refer to that as accelerated learning. So new supports are accelerated learning to really stabilize them and adjust shifting to address learning gaps in a different way. We've learned over the years that remediation doesn't work. We have a lot of remediation programs and so it's teaching children um at the grade level and the standards that they need to learn to move on but also helping them make up for any learning that they MAY have missed. We've had a lot of opportunities for new in-person and expanded learning online tutoring offerings and then also increased summer offerings which will continue this year in the area of health and wellness. Uh, we have our robust mental health program, school based mental health with lots of community partners. In addition, we're adding telehealth services for both physical and mental health that we're starting launching in a couple of weeks for home health. We know a lot of families might not have been able to make it to a doctor during covid and they might have insurance barriers or other barriers that don't allow them to access mental health services. So that's one of the new adventures that we're on. The other is we have what we call the uber for health services. That's care soulis. They will help connect any family with making sure they find a provider regardless of their situation. Um, we're continuing our diy efforts through ethnic studies district wide. We have a student think-tank that is working in looking at our curriculum, helping us here a student voice they'll be presenting at our board meeting soon and then we've had continued staff training and parent partnerships. Uh, one of the important things that's come out of our efforts is that we look at all expenditures through a litmus test and to see how the decisions we're making or the way that we're spending resources impacts children, particularly children of color . So this is a snapshot of how accelerated learning has been working in the district. Um, our students are really resilient at the start of the twenty one twenty two school year we can see that I'm a grade level. Students are higher at rates of eighteen percent for mathematics and thirty two percent for reading with these rates the I read platform that we use expects about eight percent growth and we were able to show that we've grown twelve percent in mathematics and um reaching for thirty and nine percent and reading to reach to forty one percent. So additionally the students who were falling far below grade level has decreased. So this comparison is a little different because this is showing growth and uh mathematics. We we're using the already platform in mathematics longer than the reading platform. We just recently started using the reading platform when we were not going to give the state test. But you can see the diagnostic from um covid pre closure's due to the most recent diagnostic in the rate of growth is significantly higher now because we've been using accelerator and learning strategies as opposed to remediation. We've also had twenty four hour tutoring in grades three and higher and that's really proven to be an effective strategy in math. So our graduation rates continue to be higher than the state and county. So that's something that we're really proud of. We do have robust graduation requirements that are higher than most of our surrounding districts and students are still doing very well. So our children have continued to experience academic growth through increased supports and high quality education programs. And as I mentioned, we offer a full portfolio of schools to students and promote diversity through an open enrollment system. one of our core beliefs is that if we are able to have our schools be so economically diverse that our students will achieve more and we've worked hard to do that and many of them, as you know, have changed over time due to our magnet grants. So our graduate profile continues to be the north star for our school district. Our ultimate goal is self directness and learning and life. So these are just a few of the attributes of the graduate profile and you can see on here that um in creativity and innovation one of the long partnerships we've had with the city is my masterpieces. We've been able to continue that even through the pandemic and online over the last year and we return to in-person and then open stage really focuses on theater. We have steam magnet's arts magnets and electives and all forms. Tekakwitha really has really helped us through the pandemic because we had a one to one um device program prior to the pandemic so we were easily not you should say easily more easily than other school districts able to shift into learning from home college and career readiness. We have our link learning academies and um dual enrollment, lots of career technical education options and work based learning the graduate defense and also you robust rotc program at blair and healthy mind and body we have what's called posti thrive social workers at most of our schools interns that are supervised by our student wellness office. We adopted a lot of new social emotional learning curriculum farm to school um at many of our schools that provide uh resources uh for our families in terms of food and then wellness centers, counseling and intervention. Great athletics program. So we're really focusing on making sure that our children you know, we're looking at the whole child right. What they need both academically and socially, emotionally and health wise in terms of um, culturally competent citizens, many dual language programs, world wide international baccalaureate program and really encourage our students to be taking part in their community. We mentors for life as well as many other mentoring programs and we are developing leaders through our student think tank. Um, a variety of clubs and we were um head on ethnic studies before it was a state requirement and that was very well supported by the community . So this is just a quick snapshot of our road map to high school in terms of dual language. We have armenian, french, mandarin and spanish these the schools listed that um where the programs are housed our newest program will be launching next week webster elementary school that is a partnership with the armenian relief society. so we already have forty nine students registered and eleven students are not from armenian ethnicity. So there is a great interest our french program will be expanding to the middle school next year in terms of um magnet programs we you know have been afforded back to back magnet grants resulting in a k-12 pathways um both in visual and performing arts, science, technology, engineering and mathematics. So this is a snapshot of the schools where the magnet programs are. Um, I think that there are great opportunities for students to be college and career ready and many of the industries are state of the industry where students are able to leave and get a job in the community or be a 3g ready and pursue college. They really do have that choice. Um, so it's something that we're very proud of and welcome you to visit any time in terms of expanded learning. We have our learners program and that's been in the district for many years. We've had additional funding come this year and our launch director is becoming the director of learns and expanded learning opportunities. These are just some uh, additional things that happened during the after school before school programs, tutoring and some online opportunities for students. There's enrichment offerings. Um, one the children really like us driver's ed because they don't have that in high schools anymore and they can get their licenses. There's a lot of them based in richmond classes in addition to our um, robust college and career program, they have expanded college career opportunities um where there might not be as many opportunities at our alternative education. Um, schools and there is an entrepreneur um program that's for our middle school students and um we have embarked upon community schools even though we were in the pandemic we felt this was very important. We have been able to have both the state and federal grant seven of our schools are community schools and what um occurs through community schools is extended learning time additional oberto entities, more support for students in the summer and after school really a lot of family and community engagement because we've been able to add a community advocate and community liaison to every school that will connect the family and uh, students with uh other partnerships throughout the community. So um, it's been very collaborative and uh, practice is in collaboration with pacific oaks and collaborate pasadena have been very strong as well as many other community partners. So um another area that um, we're proud to be expanding in is our early childhood education area. So I'm going to turn the mic over to MR. Yat-sen. good evening, everyone. So I'm going to talk a little bit about our early childhood education program with ptsd, uh, with individualized support . Our programs develop the whole person by nurturing each child's physical social, emotional, creative, linguistic and cognitive growth. Ok, I have I thank these are our sites we have five children centers. Our children's centers serve families from seven A.M. To six pm there. It's mostly for working families. It's a subsidized program but we do offer services for families that don't qualify for a subsidy. We have um, two full time spanish programs. We have one mandarin program that has two classrooms there at field. We have two inclusion programs one at altadena, one at madison and we have eight part time preschool programs to go along with our full day preschool programs are part of preschool programs are ampm uh programs. So we have a three hour program in the morning and a three hour apartment in the afternoon with different families to serve at each site and those are for families that just what the preschool experience and don't necessarily need child care currently these are our enrollment numbers which are low this year last year of course due to covid. Um, but we're hoping that the numbers will increase by AUGUST. they are increasing this spring. We have a lot of parents that are interested in returning with the numbers lowering with covid. So we're happy to hear that. We also have our field mentor program which is a self supporting program so there's no subsidy there. It's all run by family and parents and these are our children centers which again the enrollment numbers are very low but they are picking up. We have jefferson, cleveland, longfellow, washington and willard and they are serving families within pasadena and outside of pasadena. The families are aware that their enrollment in our preschool programs does initially guarantee there a spot in. However, most of them do end up getting involved so we're happy about that. And so, um, DR. Baiocco mentioned a little bit about our universal preschool um anti program expansion under the umbrella of upcher, which is the p three um program that seediest is working toward implementing. So beginning next year twenty to twenty three we'll have our first year of the new expanded program and that expanded k program will serve to students for nine hours a day six hours will be in the classroom and then three hours are the extended learning opportunity programs which would be before and after school care and there is oh ok that's ok. I was going to talk more about pre-k. There is a timeline and it goes by birthdates so by twenty twenty five it should be fully implemented. Thank you. And these are the collaborations that our department uses recently I've been honored to join the task force city of pasadena on early childhood we work with the office of the young child. We work with the PRESIDENT Of directors alliance which consists of directors throughout this community private preschools and other subsidy programs throughout pasadena and we meet at least once a week. So that's been very helpful. I'm also working with carla atwood. Um with the office of the young child reviewing the results, making sure again that we can meet all the needs of the community. I'm also a part of the L.A. Child planning committee because I think it's good to collaborate with L.A. Unified to let what know it's doing what we're doing and they offer a lot of support, uh, other ways that we work closely with our glendale unified school district, culver city unified school district, santa monica medical school district and local especially the and professional development which offers our teachers professional development on an ongoing basis. And that's it for early child unless there are any questions uh uh yes. I believe we can take take questions from our colleagues or even from each other at this point. Uh, thank you for your for your presentation both of you. Thank you so much. Are there questions so MR. Massouda followed by MR. Wilson thank you so gene, go ahead syste. Thank you very much. And thank you very much for the report. I have a am I on right now? Yes. Ok, one question you talked about the internship's at whorls high school. What kind of internships are they? There's a variety of internship depending on which academy the students are in. So if there would be like arts and entertainment and it would be like a media internship, um, there's various partners throughout the city depending on what the student's interest is. Um, so lots of different offices or businesses have given our students, um, opportunities to work um during the summer or work based experience during the school year. And my last question is that you mentioned that the early childhood enrollments are low. Um, is it primarily the pandemic that's making those numbers low? Um, yes. I think um a lot of parents have had maybe a fear of putting their children in settings where there's lots of other children or adults during covid but the enrollment is coming back up. Thank you very much. Thank you for the report. Thank you. MISS Kenny. Good evening everyone. I I just kind of wanted to give a quick shout out for the international baccalaureate program which one of the original magnet program survey k-12. About thirteen hundred students with a primary year's program at willers middle years program for sixth grade at blair and in two different diploma programs for eleven through 12th grade. And I and I also just want to also mention the math academy which is another popular program that we think thank you vice mayor wilson by um thank you so much for the report. It said a few questions. I was curious, uh, in terms of the students coming back from the classroom, are some students still learning remotely or are they all in the classroom at this point? So, um, we do have the academy which has about four hundred students enrolled right now k-12. So some students have elected to stay remote at this time. And how many students I'm not familiar specifically with that program. How many students are we're kind of traditionally in that program versus or was it put up just because it was traditionally a high school program? Um, and some sometimes middle school for alternative education reasons. Um, so I would say the enrollment would be closer to one fifty or two hundred in the past. So maybe a couple of hundred are still doing distance learning. Uh are you working trying to bring them back in the classroom or do you feel like it's we did some students return um when the vaccination changed and then we had some students that um decided that they wanted to go back to distance learning even after so there has been movement in and out of the program is the sense that um some students learn better maybe or is it a sense of the people don't feel comfortable returning to class? What do you think is still driving the fact that a couple hundred maybe or there wouldn't have been otherwise? I think the majority of um younger children enrolled because of concerns with covid um in terms of older children it is an alternative education setting where um for a variety of reasons children um pick to learn in a different way. Um, we've had um students that have graduated from cps that have gone to harvard so it's um just different reasons in people's lives why they might be an industry where they are working on work permits and um want to attend that type of alternative education. Do you measure the academic performance of that group as a cohort? Uh, we measure their performance the same way that I showed you on the I ready system but we can see their performance separated by school now where I mean are they do it keeping up I guess it's I don't know enough I'm just curious whether they're able to maintain academic standards that are consistent in the school that they're able to do that. But in an independent study program there has to be a strong committed adult to help the student be successful because it is independent study and the requirements are for face time with an actual teacher are much less and that's really driven by um the ad code and so that is the model that the state gave us to use as an alternative during the pandemic. Ok, and then um kim mentioned I was curious with the math academy still going along and I heard her call it outrageous to me that that is yes. Math academy is doing great to excellent. Thank you very much. Uh, PRESIDENT Pomeroy in the q is council member hampton followed by board member frederik's followed by board member cohalan. You know I have a couple of questions I can go after wordman fredriksson former taylor in that time I'm just not getting good reception right now. I am so there's been a couple oh you mean well thank you so much for hosting, uh, capacity now it's great to have this in-person meeting. Um, I want to ask about my own district so I have two girls one sixth grader at by the way there's a typo our middle school washington is now called octavia e. Butler. My daughter goes to and uh my other daughter was fourteen went to math academy and she actually went on to early entrance program at cal state L.A. So my kids are doing well in district. Um, the question is, uh, during the pandemic schools were closed. I had to pick a school for my sixth grader without going in touring the school. Uh, we were lucky we got to good school but are we now open for tours if people prospective families are interested, can they go see the preschools and all the elementary, middle and high schools now? So we are open for tours with um some restrictions that we have asked that um there be a mutual agreement with the teacher and um the principal before going into their classroom and that we limit to four parents at a time in a classroom and um you know not for parents on the tour but just making sure that we really are being respectful of um the educators and the students in the classroom. But we know it's very important that um, our parents and community get to see what our schools are like in person. So yes, we were open for uh tours with accommodations and modifications and thank you for bringing up the name change. I had that in my notes and that I don't have questions. I just wanted to supply some additional information for council member wilson. I just happened to tour six two weeks ago and uh former board president uh larry tortas as you MAY remember is now the principal there. So he and I had a large chat about the current set of conditions there. Interestingly, they are still getting applications for transfer into cias and he says that's for a wide variety of reasons. It MAY be that a parent has been uncomfortable about changing health guidance or whatever but also he says remarkably there's a very strong sibling interested this growing among the parents there. So for the people that have opted into the program and for as long pointed out, some kids really just do better in an independent study environment, especially have the supports at home. We MAY actually see a bunch of that enrollment sustain next year. Um, that's going to be a tricky part for district administration because measuring how many teachers we have and what sites they're going to be at is going to be hard when this is really an evolving situation and we won't know for sure of course how many people are going to stay at the site until they show up in AUGUST or don't. So but if you'd like to know more, I can put you in touch with larry and jennifer. Hayley, I believe you in the next thank you. You know, ok, I just wanted to give a shout out to the junior rotc program at blair which is exceptional and my daughter is in that and the sergeant is fantan and they do all types of events around the city and it's just phenomenal. So I just want think give that chatter. Thank you. That's very good. And DR. Mcdonald, did you want to add something initially? Yes, I wanted to point that our enrollment at cias is over four hundred the we have I don't know somewhere around two hundred or so elementary age students and those families seem to enjoy the program. Like DR. Glocal mentioned, we do have a dedicated teacher for as a grade level at the elementary level. And you know, I think this offers an opportunity also for the parents that are the robust homeschooling community. So we're hoping that by offering this service to our families and community that we have more people enrolling their kids in this program. Like helen said, it's really going to be tricky because we don't know next year how many families put your kids back into the regular program. But we are able to keep I think around three to five the three to about three to five teachers just in case. And I also want to point out that the cia's program is an excellent program. My daughter is a student at year and she's chosen not to go back to a comprehensive high school because of the quality of the program at six. And so MR. Mayor, if I MAY before we leave this topic, I'm wondering how many people here have ever served as principal for a day in the pef program? I see one I see and you were principal for a day so I would say and I could be the read across america as well. Oh, that's good to hear lungful so when when it becomes more possible the best way to get a look at our schools and get the feeling of our schools to make the visit when you can. So let us hope that time is coming when we can invite you to make the visit in person you have to have MR. Hampton and then I've got to just a couple questions MR. Council member hampton, are you there? I know you he was having some connection. I am sure you got to. I mean we can you can go ahead. First and foremost I want to say thank you to the for the presentation about the programs initiatives that they are putting forth and and making sure that our young people have the best education that they possibly can. What are the most popular initiatives or programs that you guys hosted over at the usda that well there's many options and I think it depends on the individual or based on enrollment and enrollment um or interest. I mean not everyone you get into a dual immersion program but is there are big interests for that or the big interest for the program and you know, I just want to know you know, based on your information data that you've received on applications and I understand everybody can get into trouble that they want to be in but what has gotten the biggest interest? Well, I think you know, I'll start with high schools. Every high school is, um, unique based on the configuration and what they offer. So, um, blair having the six through 12 um you know, international baccalaureate ariat um program has a high interest for a certain population where high school is a dual college enrollment students can leave with um enough credits to have an a um marshall tends to focus on particularly advanced placement classes and um this is uh robust comprehensive high school with um a lot of uh I am pretty sure no no need to go in depth and all of the programs I'm very familiar with I was just wondering what is receipt of high interest if you don't have that data that um could you tell me you don't have that or you could bring it back? We could look at it by by student interest um and get you a more concrete uh, data based answer because MR. I'm asking this question is it is that you know, there are so many programs at the usda you know it maybe it would I mean I like going to restaurants that have a lot of things on the menu right now. It doesn't make a difference. I'm going to order pancakes. I know that's what I want. I'm pretty sure that maybe the top seller in the and the holder restaurant is just pancakes maybe you should really kind of focus on what is the success you say. but of course I'm not a school board member. I was just thinking if there was a way that we knew what was your success as a city standpoint? Let's see how we can support those successes and those initiatives that you see as moving in that direction or whatnot. I just want to know how we can support the initiatives that will garner you the most amount of enrollment and most amount of interest and most beneficial to our young people. And it has been an area that's it. So if you can give me that information I would really be helpful just so I can know as a policymaker for the city of is to make sure we do things that are supportive of those programs that you need to try to I guess maybe figure out more space for or or or invest more that no other programs they get any investments. But I'm I'm just thinking if you have programs that you're turning people away, maybe that's the reason why they decided not to come to d let's figure out how to as a city in a collectively jointly let's figure out how to enhance those programs so that we can offer those to the to the families that are are looking for we are in the process. So the question is oh sorry I was going to finish answering that one. We're in the process of going through a return on investment project and so we'll be able to share that data with you looking at all of our initiatives, I think that's what you're asking for. Absolutely. Thank. And how is the pcc partnership going over to john, your high school? How many students are graduating with college credits ? All of the students that attend mirada year olds as freshmen into a college course so they're all graduating with some college credit. But uh, as I mentioned that some of them can achieve almost you know, the credits to have an aa or having a degree by the time they leave. I could get you that exact number as well. That would be great to have as well because I think that program is amazing and it's something that a lot of people still don't really understand how exactly how it works and more information that I have to share with my residents and young people that are thinking about our parents, that are thinking about sending their kids to me or more into the U.S. High schools. It's it's helpful for me to have that and I appreciate you mentioning, you know, the career ready piece. I think that's important because not every student we have to recognize not every student's going to go to a four year university when they when they graduate is so so thank you so much. And then my big question is the social emotional which you brought up in the presentation our our teachers and staff trained in recognizing maybe things that they haven't seen in students, whether they be online or whether they're there in person. You know, they see that the person the student is down or I just want to know are teachers trained to notice these type of things that ask and reach out to the student before it turns to something I'm never working on training more in that area. We also have a new program that's called shupe heartbeat and the students can go into the class and log in and let the teacher know how they're feeling and so the teacher's getting a read on how the class is doing that day. So that's been something that's been really effective for letting them know before they start their lessons how the students might be feeling. We have seen a rise in social emotional needs of children, teachers and families and that's why we've engaged in the two programs or areas that I mentioned with cara solis. We started with our employees, um, being able to reach out and get the help or support they needed outside the school district and we're um, moving into letting students also participate in that and then having the direct services online through heysel health. Um, every family will have those services available at school and um I mean physical um social emotional health available at home and then our seven community schools are piloting the services at school . Oh that's awesome that it's really wonderful a year. So I'm to ask a question because I mean this literally just happened today and I'm just trying to understand how you know, the big approach is looked at. Right. I mean you had yesterday there was a gun scare so the individuals involved with that is puft totowa. It sounds like there's been some sort of altercation or maybe a fight or I'm not sure exactly how it went down but the individuals that were involved in that is to usda is there a social emotional person talking to those individuals now and then the other students that are around that are we also MAY not we but is usda or staff from the usda talking to those students to see how they're feeling with everything that's going on having police department on your school side is probably not the greatest feeling so I just want to know like in a in a big picture with an issue like that, how does to you as the handle oh I wonder if DR. Mcdonald would speak about that please. Yes. Council member hamilton so we don't have all of the the facts at the moment. What we do know is that there was a scare. It wasn't substantiated the allegation that was made and so we're still gathering information but we have a number of central officers, staff members that went over to us to provide support. And so, you know, once we investigate and find out what exactly happened, then we'll be able to provide the school the support it needs and specifically the students. So at the moment we don't have all the facts. So it's hard for me to respond to that to the question that you're asking. But we do have plenty of support from our child welfare and attendance department to support school to support students with their social emotional needs. We want to just remind us we have we've allocated thirty minutes for this matter and we're going in close to an hour and we still have three more items and in a closed session um, so I just want to make sure we're conscious of it. We have we are ok. MR. Hampton was lose gordo perhaps it's time to conclude. Why don't we I did have one question related to the graduation rates like ten of your presentation, DR. Blanco. So I believe it's eighty four percent graduation rate eighty four percent. What's the measure? Incoming seniors. So this is the measure of cohort of students. So students that are with us for the whole four years for the whole four years and so you take the initial measure from the incoming freshmen class and then with that eighty four it's ok. That's good to hear. I wasn't sure if that was the case. Freshman versus seniors we do look at the data and different ways. um but this is a cohort data group I think with that we have one public comment then we can move on to the next MR. Thank you mayor. In terms of correspondence received for item to the city clerk's office received one letter expressing concerns with the district staff not recognizing their high school's junior reserve officer training corps program in their powerpoint presentations so that letter was posted online distributed and is part of the record for the item we do have one speaker who is gabriel lozado for item two before we call him in I would just want to say that pursuant to the brown act that this brown special meeting requirements public comment is limited. The items on this special meeting agenda also related to public comment for any item members of the public shall direct comments to the body as a whole, not to staff individual members of the body or the public. Any person making personal and pertinent or slanderous remarks about members of the body staff or the public or who shall become boisterous or threatening or personally abusive of the body staff or members of the public shall be asked by the mayor, the PRESIDENT To cease and desist such activity MAY be requested or required to leave the meeting in the event the behavior continues, disrupt the meeting proceedings and with that we will bring in gabriel lozado. Hello. thank you. Can you hear me? We can one minute. Thirty seconds. I'll ring a bell when you have thirty seconds left. Thank you mr gonski. Good afternoon. Well I appreciate the program in progress made by the U.S. In these trying times we must not just celebrate the highlights but also focus on remedying the gross and systemic inequity the district latinos represent. Almost 60 percent of the enrollment appears to be over this majority of students have left without a voice in the board of education, none of whom are latino despite a quarter of the eligible voters in the U.S. Being latino to examine the consequences of this backing lack of representation we need to look any further than the district's own statistics which consistently show the latino community as a whole is being built by a lack of representative leadership for their communities. Latinos are the demographic with the lowest graduation rate for the past three years running below the district average below the L.A. County average and below the california state average. Over 60 percent of latino students are not reading at or above them by contrast with almost seventy five percent of white students who are reading at or above grade level and additionally 70 percent of latino students are not meeting very little standards in math against sixty six percent of white students who are being paid little attention. That's the problem I'm trying to get here is that we the redistricting efforts done by the past three years by school district was grossly inadequate to the latino community black community meetings where no public input was really sourced from these groups yet the maps were put forward as if they had been received large portions of support from all of these communities. If we truly are embracing the cultural background of every student as was stated earlier, one big happy family usa and we need to start with representation on the board of education and the groups that are being left out. MR. Lazaro, your time has expired. Thank you, MR. Thompson. Thank you. That completes public comment on this item on the microphones are not working sources in el we're having a little bit of tension on MR. Kennedy has got his hand. MR. Kennedy and then we'll move on to the next time PRESIDENT Of pomeroy and mayor gordo, thank you for the opportunity to briefly address two matters. One, I just simply like to commend the young man who just spoke gobbo early varnedoe I think that someone needs to respond to his line of questioning of the facts that he has provided and my assumption is that he's a resident of the city of pasadena and I have one member of the council think that the great legitimacy in the concerns that he's raised particularly having gone through the public school in pasadena, that reading is fundamental to learning. So the first question to any member of the council or usd is are you willing to sit down with MR. Lozado? I have a more expansive discussion about the issues he's addressed and then act upon them that could be for DR. Brian mcdonald as well. If I MAY, council member kennedy, I'd be happy to sit down and meet with MR. Lozano to address the matters related to for example, reading some of those issues that he surfaced as far as redistricting, I I don't think that would be my place to to address that. I think I'd leave that to the board PRESIDENT But I'd be more than happy to meet with him. I greatly appreciate the DR. Mcdonald as always and I would say to MR. Lazaro that you have an entree now DR. Mcdonald has provided that and then the last comment I would like to make is one of commending the post the board trustees and also DR. Mcdonald, the principal at blair high school when we were kid sister gordo and myself. But certainly others who went through pwp each high school each then high school had its own junior rotc. I want to make sure that we whether it's the city of pasadena in conjunction with the U.S. Or the singularly the junior rotc program at blair high school as strong as possible. It is critically important those folks have been helping me for the past nine years in elected office and simply coming in to my community meeting and posting color and leading us in the pledge of allegiance. But I can say this about all of the students who work with first sergeant dean who is a senior army instructor at the blair high school army junior rotc program that we have no problem with educational attainment either the top student because they are engaged and I don't want to comment about whether these programs need to be at all of the high school or now commitment needs to be that we will keep this one program robust and will not be that it fall on a cutting block somewhere or thought somewhere . So again, I want to thank the people at the and its leadership for the strong support for the blair high school junior rotc program. The honor guard. Thank you, MR. Mayor. And thank you PRESIDENT A little bit pommer so are the next item we have is also has also we've also allocated 30 minutes to that matter and so I hope we do a better job of sticking to that 30 minutes otherwise will be here well beyond our hearts stop of six P.M. So we have an hour left before we go into the council's closed session. So the next matters item three community safety intervention programs for youth presented by the city manager brenda harvey williams. Are you want to brenda? good afternoon, mayor council. Good afternoon mayor council school board members PRESIDENT Pomeroy, I'm pleased to present to you a listing of pasadena safety intervention programs for youth. I will show you the entire list and highlight a few of the programs in more depth. So to begin currently pasadena budgets over eight million dollars over about twenty nine programs for these programs help keep our young people busy and thereby not available to engage in non positive behavior. For ease of discussion and illustration we've divided these programs into four categories and I will go through each of those categories the first brenda mayor, is there a reason why we can barely hear brenda? Is this better? Yes. Ok, new microphone. Um, let me just begin again then currently pasadena budgets over eight million dollars for about twenty nine programs for youth. These programs keep our young people busy and therefore not available to engage in non positive behavior or for ease of discussion and illustration. We've divided these programs into four categories. The first is children and youth engagement. The second job training and career exploration in third intervention and prevention programs and finally the first area of programs I'd like to highlight our children and youth engagement. you see we have about 12 programs that fall into that category here. Various city departments provide a number of activities for young people during after school hours school breaks and summer vacations. These range from our sports leagues for elementary and middle school students are sports that we offer our sports leagues that we offer our flag football, soccer, volleyball and basketball pre covid we had nearly two thousand kids playing soccer with us and that was just in our soccer program . Now that we're sort of coming out of covid our soccer and basketball seasons are currently underway. Soccer began this past saturday with six hundred students playing on fifty two teams. Omicron did delay the beginning of our winter basketball but we currently have two hundred and thirty five kids playing on twenty eight teams. In addition we operate a boxing program out of villa park and we are very proud that one of our participants qualified for the olympic trials for the 2020 summer games and she emphasis she was one vote away from making the olympic team. We are also excited to offer a fun summer camp experience for children again pre covid we operated six camps and we had about hundred participants. We will again offer the six camps this coming summer but at a slightly reduced capacity summer camp not only offers offers the opportunity for children to have a fun experience throughout their day and child care for their parents but it also also offers many teens the opportunity to secure their first job as camp counselors as we can we take them for camp counselors as young as 14 and I would like to I would like to give a plug right now that we are currently recruiting for recreation leaders for summer hire. So if you have any young people in your house over the age of 14, please have them go to city of pasadena met check out our job site. We have jobs for them. We have openings. Please apply end of shameless plug. We also have reduced the participation fees for most of our recreation programing to ten dollars that's ten dollars per week for summer camp or ten dollars to participate in one of our summer one of our youth sports leagues. Our libraries also offer a robust robust programs for young people from storied times book clubs and homework assistance. And I would like to say that we do look forward to the opportunity to learn how we can better advertise our program with ptsd students who are our target participants. Next slide please. Moving on to our second area of programs that would be job training and career exploration . I'd like to highlight a couple of these programs the first being our cities mash program which is a two year job training program is for both teens and adults and at the conclusion of the two years many of these participate are able to secure employment with the city or in the private sector between our roes intern program and the youth ambassadors we employ 70 or five young people between the ages of 14 and twenty four for the rose program for high school students within pasadena in our pasadena ambassadors program and these are year round paid positions that provide both job training skills and again oftentimes they're that first job for many of the participants in our programs. We also have programs that expose young people to particular career through our for example our fire and paramedics program. Finally, the library provides numerous classes on its youtube channel with information on building trades and apprenticeship and these are one day or one time trainings and if we could move to the next slide please next is our intervention programs. The item I'd like to highlight here is our community and gang intervention services program. This is a boots on the ground operation that provides gang intervention services, that engages gang members and gay gang associated youth to interrupt gang and gun violence ,the gang intervention team performs the following. They help dispel rumors that would spark retaliation. They provide mediation and conflict resolution with disputing known gang or community members. They conduct outreach gang impacted areas such as parks and known gang hangout and hotspots and they target gang involved individuals to provide referrals and resources to provide an alternative to the gang lifestyle. And I would like to point out that the members of our intervention team are here with us today. Should there be any questions for them? And finally, I'd like to highlight our community security these three programs help create a safer community to be enjoyed by all of our residents and visitors. These include our graffiti abatement program through which we remove graffiti and gang related tagging generally within twenty four hours. And this is a program that the city is quite proud of and I call it one of our all star programs because of its rapid deployment and we also have the installation of security cameras in parks and community centers. Currently we have security cameras installed on the buildings in the following parks robinson villa central park and la pinteresque, a park at our education center later this year installations will be completed at the jackie robinson community center robinson park in the park area lopinto ruska park also in the park area as well as villa park in the park area included in your packet for today's meeting is a matrix with more details of our twenty nine program. i would like to conclude right here at am open to respond to any questions that you MAY have. Thank you. The city clerk tells me that we have a number of cards. How many a public speaker I believe it's around fifteen. Why don't we go MR. First and then we'll go to the public commentaries. So you said to go now. Yes. Was kenny great thing. I just wondered if I could get a little more information about I'm going to call asep the afterschool adventures program for instance. Is there an approx number of students served? And I just wanted to know if you could maybe explain the fee structure. I think there's a fee but I wondered if we waive it for some students or if there's a sliding scale and then whether that cost that was on the spreadsheet you mentioned reflected the the fees that come in or if that was on top of the fee um asep is um our after school adventures program and we operate on eleven elementary school campuses. It's a program that we offer similar to your learns but different our program in non covid times we would have up to eight hundred enrolled in our program this year and I apologize I don't have the number on me of the number of enrollees we have. I am very proud and thankful that we were able to operate this program during covid when the schools weren't open we were able to jointly partner with up usd and provide some care for children that parents otherwise would not have had. Right now as I mentioned in my presentation we have a lower participation fee for youth in all of our programs. So for right now we are charging thirty dollars per quarter to for our after school are a fee and pre covid we had two different fees that we charged some of the fees or by the week and some were by the semester. But right now as I mentioned it's thirty dollars per quarter and the fees the money listed in our in the matrix are the expenses. That's what the cost that's the cost of the program what the city is paying in terms of labor materials and supplies those are not fees that we collect. That's simply the expenses for the program. So the fees cover part of the expenses that they do. But um as you can imagine, not all of it. The city's general fund pays for the rest of the program and then are there opportunities for the students to get scholarships or to pay a reduced fee? Is that something you guys do? Absolutely. We have a program called passport to fund where we do provide a scholarship for students whose family income based on hud guidelines is either low or very low. We can provide a scholarship for up to 50 percent of our fee which as I mentioned right now is thirty dollars per quarter. And I would like to also add that we do provide scholarships for all for all of our recreation programing for families that qualify. Right. Thank you so much. We'll turn to public comment. Oh, I'm sorry MISS Tina. Did you I will be mercifully short. Um, I wonder if there's some duplication of programs between psg and the city of pasadena and I hope that we can go beyond symbolically coming together and maybe have joint collaborative integrated program between the two two agencies. So I'm not sure who the right person is to start that going. Maybe it's you. Um, so I just want to throw that out there and I hope that we will be following up with each other. Thank you. We'd be glad to have that discussion. It's certainly if you see things on the matrix that you think MAY be duplicative of anything that you're doing or we could just sit down with whomever the superintendent might identify and go through your programs at ours and make sure should we be combining them into one or they is there a way to have a bigger impact by changing one or the other? Absolutely willing to have that discussion at any time. An opportunity to do that will be when we sit down to talk about measures. I think there's an oversight component to that piece and you know, I intend to have the city manager, the superintendent, the vice mayor and the PRESIDENT And vice PRESIDENT It have an initial discussion on how we go about that and then bring it back to the council and the school board for a discussion. I think it would be appropriate at that point to maybe talk about joint program so that we can bring together as we're talking about resources that are on the table. Ok, MR. Kennedy, keep in mind we have fifteen cards. I'll be very quick, mayor. Thank you for the opportunity. DR. Mcdonald does the post we have a similar employment program like the city of pasadena, a summer road like DR. Blanco mentioned earlier, we do partner with certain companies in the community to offer internship opportunities for our students. But I'm not aware of us having a program. I say like the summer program that pays students during the summer. MAY I at least invite the opportunity for further dialog beyond this meeting to see if in fact the possible or you need to mirror our summer program particularly when inflation in the economy is not doing as well as we would like and young people need a way to work and garner skills that possibly will take them through a lifetime. So that's my comment. Mayor, thank you for helping DR. Mcdonald or his designee will be able to at least have conversations with brenda and lola and other staff about that program. Yes, MISS Williams, just just a quick question about the gang intervention programs and I'm really happy that everyone is here to talk about them is a really important programs just given what we've been seeing in the city. So I did want to hear from the people who are providing the programs what how have they changed over the years and what gaps do you see in the funding that that we could do a better job or be more effective in the community? What are the needs that are not being fulfilled? I would just like to understand that we can also further discuss that during budget season. Thanks MR. Piggins. Do you want to give him a but uh, council member williams that's a great question. So the main thing there's a lot of changes because no one is a social media. So social media has changed the dynamics in the in the gang intervention but also substance abuse and so it has never been popular for gang members and youth to to have substance abuse issues. They're normally we're on the other side of it I mean being the providers so that that becomes a challenge for the city and what we can do citywide is is sustainable, more comprehensive. Well thought out plans to address the root causes of violence. What we do is we we interrupt violence, immediate violence but after the interruption is done, when we're asking somebody to put down a gun to pick up a shovel I mean father greg boyle's motto in homeboy is nothing stops a bullet like a job. But when we actually did put down a gun and pick up a shovel and replacing that gun, the thing is is that people say we'll get them jobs, get them jobs, get them jobs where jobs is not is one piece of it is we can get you on the job but can you stay on the job and that's where the substance abuse so there there are many factors that we can talk about over a period of time but the media thing is right now I like the city right now. You know, we're having a little bit of some quiet periods, those quiet periods and I'm going to say this publicly because I think people don't really know this those quiet people don't come without a cost. We're working to keep it quiet. We don't work very hard when the shootings are happening. We work hard now to make sure that the next shooting doesn't happen. So just so you york, this is not the time to educate you all on this stuff. But just want to give you a little bit of context to understand that the quiet peers are not quiet when you have some of the violence that we've had in most cities that's ongoing violent retaliation just keeps going, keep going. But we've had some shootings we haven't had retaliation from. those are little things that everyone don't pay attention to but those are victories for us . Thank you, MISS Curtis. I just add to that thank thank you rikki. And it just add to that that the matrix that you heard this evening was originally done for our public safety committee and it was for exactly the purpose. Remember williams, that you just suggested they've had one discussion of it. We've offered some ideas what we think are the gaps at staff level and where we should address that in the budget. But it's coming back for a second and possibly a third discussion there. So that's exactly what we wanted to do with this information. Thank you. So public comment and we uh still 15 uh, so far item three the city clerk's office received three letters of correspond and advocating for the language of gang intervention and prevention to be changed to quote violence interrupters and made various inquiries related to the contracted services of each quote strategy team member working in the community expressing concerns with the formation of the past nine activities league pal program and providing comments on utilizing the city's existing fiber infrastructure. Those comments were posted online distributed in our part of the record or the item. So in terms of speakers, helena hill is not in the meeting. we'll move on to nicole king not in the meeting alan shey not in the meeting. So we have michael williams followed by britney followed by julia ah. We'll ask w