TVEA Board Comments at TVUSD Governing Board LCAP Workshop

Good Afternoon,

I am speaking to you today on behalf of the TVEA LCAP Committee Chair Julianne Dickinson. On March 17th, following a consultation with district staff, Julianne sent board members our consult presentation with notes, and we hope you have had the chance to review. Today, we would like to highlight some of the most important aspects of TVEA’s perspective on the proposed TVUSD 2021-22 LCAP Actions and Services.

Through member feedback, we found that TVEA membership respectfully disagrees with TVUSD’s mostly status quo direction with LCAP direction and would like to see some services increase in response to the impact of the global pandemic.

We believe a proactive LCAP approach is a moral imperative at this time.

The most frequent comments across all three goals were regarding ELA, SEL and Translation Support services.

The strongest request for action under Goal 1 was to increase Lit Specialists and or Literacy supports throughout the grade levels. Second, an overwhelming 64% of comments made regarding Goal 3 asked for translation or bilingual services.

Across all three TVUSD LCAP goals, supports for SEL represented 28% of all comments submitted. Further, 41% of all comments in this area referred to increasing social workers. TVEA is recommending not only an increase, but also equitable application of increased SEL services as only 20 students can be on a social worker’s caseload. That is between .65% and 4% of students able to access social worker support. Does TVUSD data support less than 1% of students needing social emotional support?

Additionally, we would like to suggest that conversations with counseling and those with SEL backgrounds are held in high regard when considering next steps in the Actions and Services. These members are seeing firsthand the social, emotion and mental health impact of the pandemic.

We do not believe that the currently proposed Actions and Services meet our current needs in this critical area.

Doug Reeves and Tyrone Howard spoke to the dire needs of today’s students in TVUSD Staff Development.

TVUSD Superintendent Dr. Jodi McClay requested teachers to place Maslow’s hierarchy of needs at the top of our priority list.

The TVEA LCAP Committee asks TVUSD to do the same with its’ supplemental funding by increasing Social Workers, Counseling, and other SEL supports as the highest priority.

We are calling on our district leadership, and our board, to take an “intentional” proactive approach in your 2021-22 LCAP direction.

Thank you for your consideration.

TVEA LCAP Committee Chair Julianne Dickinson