District Approves LCAP and District Budget
Staff Reviews Support Services for LGBTQ+ Students
Update provided on Ethnic Studies Curriculum Development Process
This month’s Board report will be brief since this month’s meeting was largely routine and non-controversial.
District Approves LCAP and District Budget
The Board approved the Local Control Accountability Plan (LCAP) and the District Budget for the 2024-25 school year.
The LCAP describes specific goals and actions the District will take to improve performance of certain groups of students (English language learners, economically disadvantaged students, etc.) The LCAP was discussed in detail at the prior Board meeting, and this approval was largely a legal formality with no substantive Board discussion.
Similar to the LCAP approval, the Board also formally approved the District budget that was discussed in detail at the prior Board meeting. There was little change to the adopted budget from the prior presentation.
Staff Reviews Support Services for LGBTQ+ Students
In association with Pride Month in June, staff reviewed the myriad support services that are available to LGBTQ+ students. To appropriately keep students safe in school, we must 1) ensure that our Board policies state clearly and comprehensively that we support all students and we do not tolerate bullying, 2) have targeted training to ensure that everyone knows and understands our policies, and 3) have processes to investigate complaints such as bullying or insufficient student support.
We have strong Board polices in place to cover these issues, and we have strengthened them in recent years.
The District is implementing its “One San Dieguito” initiative to provide appropriate training to both staff and students.
The newly staffed position of Director of Community Resolution and Outreach (also known as the District’s ombudsman) will act as a confidential resource to parents and students and investigate any claims of bullying or other inappropriate behavior.
Update provided on Ethnic Studies Curriculum Development Process
Staff provided an overview of the process the District intends to follow to develop a new Ethnic Studies course, required for graduation starting with the class of 2030.
School Districts can meet this requirement by offering a stand-alone Ethnic Studies class, or they can integrate ethnic studies materials into existing required courses. Our staff is recommending we integrate ethnic studies requirements into 9th grade English classes at all our high schools.
Specific content and materials choices will be developed by a design committee of teachers, and then introduced to the public for their input. The Board will then review those choices and comments and provide feedback to the design committee. After an iteration the Board will select the final syllabus and materials to be piloted in the coming school year.
This process of committee / public / Board / committee / Board will be repeated for each teaching unit of ethnic studies.
This transparent process will help expose all stakeholders to the content, materials, and decisions made by the District and the Board, and will therefore hopefully build confidence in the curriculum.
At the end of the discussion, Board President Viskanta took the opportunity to describe her recent experiences attending several ethnic studies public presentations. I very much appreciated her remarks about her hope in finding common ground, no matter where we stand philosophically, politically, or otherwise, even when discussing controversial topics. After she spoke, I expressed my gratitude and concurrence with her remarks. These topics can get heated, but if we work toward common ground, I am also hopeful that at the end of the process, we will all agree that we have a curriculum that we will be proud to say is our own SDUHSD Ethnic Studies.
The next regular Board meeting will be held in August.