With a Lot of Drama CCP Is No Longer a Graduation Requirement

Board Agenda at page 703

Board Audio at 1:54:10

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Consensus of the Board to make CCP an elective can be heard at Board Audio at 3:12:40

Trustees (all seven "a Consensus") gave direction to staff to eliminate CCP as a graduation requirement.

CUSD BOT Meeting February 28, 2018 SECOND READING AND PRESENTATION - BOARD POLICY 6146.1, HIGH SCHOOL GRADUATION REQUIREMENTS

Board Meeting Agenda at page 863

Board Audio at 2 hours 35 minutes 4 seconds

Trustees changed their minds and voted to keep CCP as a graduation requirement. 4 Trustees vote to keep CCP as a Graduation Requirement. 3 vote to end CCP as a Graduation Requirement.

Trustee Hanacek changed her vote when she saw that three other Trustees were voting to keep CCP as a graduation requirement.

CHAOS - Then Trustee Hanacek made a motion to reconsider. This time 6 Trustees voted to reconsider the motion - 1 voted NO (Trustee Pritchard)

Upon the re-vote on the motion to eliminate CCP as a requirement to graduate the motion passed 5-2 (Trustee Pritchard and Trustee Jones voting NO).

Unbelievable Audio- worth listening to

Bottom Line- CCP is now an elective. CCP is no longer a Course Required for Graduation.

Board Audio

2:35:50 Presentation by Joshua Hill, Assistant Superintendent, Secondary Education

Staffing Issues: 18 Teachers 60 sections of CCP = 10 Full Time Equivalents

CUSD staff does not want to layoff these senior teachers.

2:42:50 BLUE CARDS

2:42:55 Sally White: CUEA President (Teachers Union)

Advocating to keep CCP and the Teachers that Teach CCP

2:46:30 Dawn Urbanek Student and Taxpayer Advocate

Eliminating CCP and Health as a class resuired for graduation is in the academic interest of students.

Note: It is in the Educational interest of students to eliminate both CCP and Health as a class required for graduation. This would allow 9th grade students to have an entire year long block to take an A-G course, rather than waste a full year long block on classes that no college will consider for acceptance. This class was created during the great recession to make up for all the Counselors that were laid off, and were replaced by "Academic Advisors".

SOME HISTORY THE CURRENT ADMINISTRATION MAY NOT EVEN KNOW

During the great recession (Starting 2007-08), CUSD was forced to cut $152 million dollars from it's budget (about 32%). In an effort to balance it's budget, CUSD laid off almost all of it's School Counselors. By 2011, CUSD had decreased the number of School Counselors to 16 for the entire District- 1,056 students per School Counselor.

The American School Counselor Association recommends a ratio of 1 Counselor to 250 students.

CUSD replaced the School Councilors with "Academic Advisors" and initiated CCP classes (College and Career Planning Classes) as a means of compensating for the laid off School Counselors.

A school "Counselor" is required to have equivalent to the completion of an earned Master of Arts or higher degree in psychology, counseling, or guidance, and hold a valid California Pupil Personnel Services Credential authorizing service as a "School Counselor".

"Academic Advisors" are classified staff that are required to have a minimum 2 years of college level course work in education and a valid Driver License.

In 2011, the average compensation for a Certificated School Counselor was $108,392.

The average compensation for a classified employee designated as an "Academic Advisor" was $53,567.

CUSD was able to cut it's salary expenses by hiring less qualified staff, and implementing CCP as a required class for graduation.

CUSD's reporting of Support Staff was intentionally meant to mis-lead the Public. SARC reports reported the number of "Academic Advisors" as "School Counselors", while on reports to CDE showed that most support staff had been laid off due to budget cuts. THE PUBLIC HAD NO IDEA STUDENTS WERE NO LONGER RECEIVING ADEQUATE PUPIL SUPPORT.

CUSD implemented CCP and made it a requirement for graduation to ensure that EVERY student would be trained in basic computer skills and have some access to an academic counseling without needing a live Counselor.

The downside of this solution was that CCP/Health made it very difficult for high achieving students (students on track to enter a four year selective University) to complete their A-G requirements.

In an effort to compensate for declines in A-G Completion rates, CUSD worked very hard to get CCP classified as a CTE class (College Technical Education class). This would allow students to use the CCP class as an elective A-G course.

CTE classes require a special Teaching Credential.

Unfortunately, all of the Certificated teachers teaching CCP were not adequately credentialed to teach a CTE class- hence the "challenge to staff" (see slide below).

17 CCP Teachers
18 Health Teachers

The combined current compensation of these 35 teachers is over $4.5 million dollars with average compensation per teacher of $130,000.00 per year.

2:47:59 TRUSTEE COMMENTS

2:47:59 Trustee Gila Jones

Wants to keep CCP as a Graduation Requirement with the ability of students to "OPT OUT".

2:50:29 Student Advisor Max Eunice

Eliminate CCP add Career centers at high schools.

Health needs to be increased - students need discussions about drug use and mental health.

Worried that if CCP is no longer required students won't be required to meet with their academic advisor.

2:54:25 Response by Joshua Hill

It is Mandatory that Academic Advisors meet with their students.

2:56:06 Trustee Gary Pritchard

Concerned with all the new things CUSD is doing - it is troubling and disruptive. This helps the students who need the most help.

2:57:38 Trustee Judy Bullockus

Is there alternative classes we can offer to CCP that would be one semester.

2:59:44 Joshua Hill

Any new classes would not be implemented until 2018-19

3:00:17 Trustee Jim Reardon and Trustee Martha McNicholas

Why is the word If in this discussion - Trustees unanimously gave direction to staff to bring back CUSD's High School Graduation Policy with CCP eliminated as a requirement to graduate. That decision has already been made. We are simply approving the High School Graduation Requirement Policy that has now been amended to eliminate CCP as a graduation requirement. We are not discussing wether or not to eliminate CCP, that has already been decided.

References bottom of page 2

Staff recommendation, in conjunction with principal input from all 6 comprehensive high schools, for the 2018-2019 school year is the following: Board Agenda at page 864 of 966

1.) Require that students who choose to take Health on campus also take CCP as a “partner” semester elective, unless they are planning to take another available semester-long course where there is room.

2.) Encourage students who determine not to take CCP, to take Health on campus until their eleventh or twelfth grade year when students typically have more flexibility in their schedules.

3.) Develop semester offerings for students who elect to take Health on campus to be launched during the 2019-2020 school year.

Trustee Martha McNicholas concurred with Trustee Jim Reardon's statement.

3:02:16 Trustee Amy Hanacek

This caught both her and "Sally" by surprise. [Trustee Hanacek is referring to CUEA (Teachers Union President) President Sally White]. She understands that the PUBLIC is already telegraphing that CCP has been eliminated.

Note: Trustee Hanaceks indicates that CCP was initiated to help end drop outs and increased graduation rates and truancy rates. Graduation rates improved when CUSD lowered the requirement to graduate from a "C" to a "D".

I don't want to see CCP replaced with just any inane class. What would that "partner elective semester class be?"

3:06:17 Trustee Patricia Holloway

A consequence of eliminating CCP is a big up-tick in students taking Health on-line. The Teen Talk should not be taught on line- it must be taught in a classroom with a teacher.

3:07:44 Trustee McNicholas and Trustee Reardon

Students are not allowed to just take Health on line. They can only take Health on-line if they have an impacted schedule.

3:07:51 Joshua Hill

That was changed.

3:07:55 Trustee Jim Reardon

Students are being advised that they can only take Health online if they have an impacted schedule.

3:08:05 Joshua Hill

I need to verify that.

3:08:15 Trustee Martha McNicholas

That was our discussion on providing students with increased flexibility.

3:08:25 Trustee Martha McNicholas and Trustee Reardon

Just to remind everyone - we did unanimously ask staff too bring this back eliminating CCP as a graduation requirement. We are not eliminating CCP. It will become an elective.

CUSD offers Futurology- they offer personalized CCP

We do have semester classes band- jazz - PE - some athletics

Health needs to be in person.

We need to vote on this

3:11:39 Trustee Jim Reardon

Makes a motion to approve Staff's recommendation to eliminate CCP as a graduation requirement.

Second by Trustee Judy Bullockus

Comment: Re: Quality of Semester Classes going forward.

3:12:35 Superintendent Kristen Vital

Amend your motion to also include the ammendement to the Board Policy.

3:12:45 Trustee Gila Jones

Those of us who sit on the Dias are parents of college bound kids. Not everyone is like us. Not everyone in our district is an english speaker, not everyone is literate. We have parents who cannot read and write. There are a lot of students who need CCP. I think it should be a graduation requirement with an opt out for certain students.

3:14:01 Trustee Martha McNicholas

We have a motion and a second. All in favor say Yes.

You cannot hear part of the audio (the volume has been turned down) but what happened at the meeting was that Trustee Amy Hanacek voted Yes then as others started to vote she saw that there were three No votes, so quickly changed her vote to a NO. What cannot be heard on the audio is a member of the PUBLIC Connie Lanzisera screamed out "Oh she changed her vote" Where I screamed out "Yes- Yes she did- Amy Hanacek Changed her vote".

3:14:24 Trustee Martha McNicholas

"So it passes... Oh... so the motion to eliminate CCP as a graduation requirement fails 4 to 3?

Can we do a Roll Call?

Student Advisor Eunice - YES

Trustee Hanacek - NO

Trustee Reardon - YES

Trustee Bulluckous - YES

Trustee Pritchard - NO

Trustee Holloway - NO

Trustee Jones - NO

Trustee McNicholas - YES

The motion fails 4 to 3

3:15:05 Trustee Jim Reardon

So would direction to Staff be to go back and get Trustee Jones vote back?

Note: Apparently Staff will not bring an item before the Board unless they are sure how Trustees will vote. So it would appear that before this Item was brought before the Board, There were four Trustees that wanted to Eliminate CCP as a requirement to graduate:

Trustee Reardon - Trustee Bulluckous - Trustee McNicholas and Trustee Jones.

So when Trustee Jones changed her vote to a NO - that gave Trustee Hanacek an opportunity to change her YES vote to a NO and the motion failed. Hence Trustee Reardon's comment.

3:15:17 Trustee Martha McNicholas

Expresses her frustration

The audience reaffirms Trustee Hanaceks vote change (Volume again turned down)

We had a unanimous vote - now where do we go from here.

3:16:00 Superintendent Kristen Vital

The current policy will remain in place- CCP is still a required class for graduation.

3:16:23 Trustee Amy Hanacek

We do have a conundrum with the way this has been presented to the PUBLIC. We do have students that are currently registering for classes that are being told CCP is not required. I apologize for my waffling. The word on the street somehow got out that CCP is an elective.

3:17:17 Trustee Martha McNicholas and Trustee Reardon

Well if you listen to the board audio we gave direction to staff to eliminate CCP as a class required for graduation.

3:17:34 Superintendent Kristen Vital

The conversation from the last Board Meeting was pretty clear that CCP was to be eliminated.

(Inaudible Audio)

3:17:58 Trustee Gila Jones

There was NO VOTE at the last meeting.

3:18:02 Trustee Martha McNicholas

We gave direction to Staff to bring back the Board Policy eliminating CCP as a class required for graduation.

(Discussion about consensus at last meeting)

3:18:28 Superintendent Kristen Vital

Unless there is any other feedback... the policy stands as is. CCP will remain a class required to Graduate.

3:18:43 Student Advisor Max Eunice

So I know that in my conversations with students and teachers they were very excited about the prospect of semester long electives returning to High Schools. So does this mean we will not have semester long electives?

3:19:18 Superintendent Kristen Vital

We will not- the resources for those electives would only come if we were able to eliminate CCP. A reduction in CCP courses would have allowed for those Full Time Equivalents to be used to teach other courses.

3:19:59 Trustee Amy Hanacek

Lets re- vote. To avoid chaos and mis-understanding.

3:20:30 Superintendent Kristian Vital

I want to make sure we do this procedurally correct. Trustee Hanacek can make the motion to reconsider since she was a NO VOTE.

3:20:35 Trustee Amy Hanacek

I make a motion to reconsider.

3:20:40 Trustee Jim Reardon

I second.

3:20: 41 Superintendent Kristen Vital

Let me clarify if Trustee Jim Reardon can Second.

Trustee Patricia Holloway Seconds stating she was a NO VOTE

Trustee Martha McNicholas - We have a Motion to Reconsider by Trustee Amy Hanacek and a Second by Trustee Patricia Holloway

3:20:57 Superintendent Kristen Vital

Lets do a Roll Call Vote on a Motion to Re-consider

Student Advisor Eunice - YES

Trustee Hanacek - YES

Trustee Reardon - YES

Trustee Bulluckous - YES

Trustee Pritchard - NO

Trustee Holloway - YES

Trustee Jones - YES

Trustee McNicholas - YES

The Motion to Reconsider passed 6-1 with Trustee Pritchard voting NO.

3:21:54 Trustee Jim Reardon

Makes Motion to adopt Staffs recommendation to eliminate CCP as a class required for graduation and amend the Board Policy to reflect that change.

Second by Trustee Judy Bullockus

Roll Call Vote

Student Advisor Eunice - YES

Trustee Hanacek - YES with apology for being unprofessional.

Trustee Reardon - YES

Trustee Bulluckous - YES

Trustee Pritchard - NO

Trustee Holloway - YES

Trustee Jones - NO

Trustee McNicholas - YES

The Motion to Eliminate CCP as a class required to graduate and amend Board Policy 6146.1 High School Graduation Requirements Passed 5-2 with Trustees Jones and Pritchard voting NO.

Trustee Jones got up and left the Board Meeting in a Huff.