The Morongo Unified School District board of trustees had numerous topics to tackle at their regular board meeting last night (February 23). Reporter Andrew Dieleman has the details on some of those topics…
At last night’s meeting, Assistant Superintendent Amy Woods presented to the board the results of recent surveys on the district’s Local Control Accountability Plan, which included districtwide opinions on class sizes, instructional materials and technology, student attendance and graduation rates, and student safety to name a few. The responses will be used to prioritize goals for district spending and student priorities for the future. Interim Superintendent Doug Weller announced that 500 COVID-19 vaccines had recently been administered to MUSD and CMC staff members. The board also went into closed session to hold a public employment discussion on the district’s superintendent position. No board action was taken on the topic.
In action items, the board discussed and voted on six candidates for the 2021 CSBA Delegate Assembly, approve the tentative agreement between MUSD and the California School Employees Association, and approved an amendment to the district’s conflict of interest code.
Woods also announced that the federal government has issued a statement intending to possibly allow waivers for standardized testing. Possible situations include students taking the test, but not carrying the weight of the academic indicators; shortened tests; and remote testing. Woods went on to say that the California State Board of Education is scheduled to meet Wednesday (February 24) to further discuss the topic, but that MUSD is ready to deploy whatever standardized testing format that is selected by the state.
Woods then presented the findings of the district’s recent federal program monitoring review. A total of nine findings in three categories (Compensatory Education, English Learner, and Fiscal Monitoring) had procedures that need to be rectified or completed. Woods stated that resolutions for all findings are in progress. Woods then presented current dashboard data to the board on graduation rates and college/career readiness for 2020. According to Woods, the district largely maintained senior graduation rates despite COVID-19 challenges and increased the number of students who were college/career ready by the time they graduated.
Lastly, Woods and Weller treated the board to short videos on the Valentine’s Day drive-thru event at Joshua Tree Elementary School and of Twentynine Palms Junior High School music students performing digital duets with music teacher Kelly Corbin.
