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The Pleasanton school board is set Thursday to review possible changes to world language curriculum, new accessible pathways at Foothill High School and how effectively police resource officers are serving schools.
The Pleasanton Unified School District has worked with the Pleasanton Police Department since 2002 to implement the school resource officer program which was meant to “enhance the safety and wellbeing of students,” according to a report by Leslie Heller, director of student services.
“Through this partnership, the City of Pleasanton has provided two full-time School Resource Officers throughout our school district to enhance school safety, strengthen the relationship between youth and law enforcement, and enhance educational opportunities centered on positive interactions with our School Resource Officers (SROs),” according to Heller.
In November, the city of Pleasanton and PUSD entered into an official agreement through a memorandum of understanding (MOU) regarding SROs on school campuses. Because of that, the school board will be able to review an annual update and progress report on the program.
Some of the key items they will discuss are highlighted in the update presentation provided to the board which offers data on how students, parents and staff feel about officers at their school.
And while the report states that for the most part, parents and staff feel the schools are safer with these officers around, that sentiment is not shared by all students.
According to the presentation provided in the meeting agenda, many students would not approach an armed officer as they do not feel comfortable. Some stated they are intimidated by the uniform and firearm while some did not know there was an armed officer on campus.
While some students responded that they would be open to learning more and having more positive interaction with these officers, some were unsure of their purpose on campus.
Overall, the common themes from the responses in the presentation do point to schools wanting more of these officers on campus and to continue the program in order to build more visibility and positive relationships with students.
The school board’s open-session meeting is scheduled to start at 6 p.m. Thursday (May 26). Read the full agenda here.
In other business
* The board will be reviewing financial impacts and overviews of the implementations of the Dyslexia Action Plan and the Language Essentials for Teachers of Reading and Spelling (LETRS) program.
LETRS is a multi-year program that will be provided for all transitional kindergarten through fifth grade classroom teachers, resource teachers and educational specialists to help teach kids components of literacy instruction like phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary and comprehension.
With that program, the board will also review the Dyslexia Action Plan which focuses training teachers on research-based reading instruction such as LETRS so that, “all students benefit from research-based reading instruction.” The board will take the training and instructional materials, including specific materials to support dyslexia, that will be reflected in Thursday’s financial impact report and discuss the implementation of this program.
* The board will also vote on the approval of adopting a new curriculum for world languages. According to the report from the board meeting agenda, current world language materials were published before 2006 and will become obsolete after the 2021-22 school year.
This year a committee of Spanish 1-3 teachers spanning all secondary grade levels and schools piloted new materials which will possibly be part of a 8 year adoption cycle. However, this number of years is dependent on the California Department of Education’s framework and standards adoption cycle for World Language and funding available at the end of the 8 year cycle.
* To comply with Americans with Disabilities Act requirements, the board will look to possibly approve an agreement with KYA Services, a general contractor company, to place asphalt and equipment at Foothill High School for ADA accessible pathways to the stadium, baseball field and new basketball courts.
This is the first of a two-phase project which will create two new ADA compliant parking spots near the baseball field, an ADA compliant walkway from those spots to the field, an ADA compliant walkway from the nearest ADA compliant parking near the tennis courts to the entrance of the stadium and add new half court basketball courts.
Phase two will be the work inside the stadium, which is pending Division of the State Architect (DSA) approval. The Phase 2 scope will be brought to the board at a future meeting.
