Minutes

September 30, 2005: Sacramento County Office of Education

President Dennis Wiechmann called the meeting to order at 10:30 a.m.

Present: Dennis Wiechmann (State President), Jan Treff (President Elect and Bay Section President), Sheri Hanni (State Secretary), Jerry Hime (State Treasurer), Debbie Morris (Immediate Past President), Tom Mangione (Membership and Website) Rob Jacobsen (Southern Section Legislative Rep.), Greg Bass (San Joaquin Section), David Kopperud (CDE), Dr. Donna Dalton Opaku-Agyman, (Southern Section President), Tom Neeb (San Joaquin Section President), Joe Taylor (Delta Sierra Section President, Legislative Rep.), Jeff Owen (School Innovations and Advocacy)

Agenda additions: One addition to the agenda was made under New Business (e) the National Truancy Board Proposal from Joe Taylor.

There were no official minutes from the last meeting. Items for review will be discussed under Reports.

Reports

a. Review of Retreat

Dennis handed out a summary of the retreat for members to review. Some focus areas were discussed.

Dennis recommended that the Boundaries Committee have a final proposal ready for a vote at the State Conference in April. Jerry suggested we include a survey in the Intercom. Dennis thought using an email service such as "survey monkey" would work better. It was clarified that the purpose of this committee was to see if changing boundaries in the Southern Section would bring in more representation from the Ventura/Santa Barbara area. Greg Bass stated that the same thing was tried in 1988/89 with no change in participation from that area. Kern County and Bakersfield were in the San Joaquin Section and were moved to the Southern Section.

The committee that met last year did not come up with any recommendations.

Dennis questioned whether or not this committee should continue to look at boundaries. It was decided that past State Presidents, including Jerry Hime who chaired the committee last year, will meet to look at continuing or not. Dennis will send something out to start this process.

David Kopperud offered to do any outreach between CASCWA and CDE on focus areas. He gave examples of 1) CASCWA having input on how truancy data is reported, and 2) legislation wording in regard to the issue of 18 year olds not being pushed out to adult education if they are making satisfactory progress toward graduation. David also shared that he will send a letter from Jack O'Connell to any County who has 100% participation from Districts in the collection of SARB data and reporting it to their County Superintendent.

David also brought up for discussion the model board policy being developed through State SARB and CSBA to standardize procedures for truancy case workers when dealing with difficult situations such as home schooling. October 20th is the deadline to finalize a sample policy which will then be presented to Jack O'Connell for approval and placement on the CDE website. It was decided that CASCWA will write a letter of support when the proposal is sent to Jack O'Connell.

b. State Conference 2005

Joe presented a memo to the Board showing the final figures for the conference. Sheri will email a line-item report to the State Board. A check will go to Jerry Hime for membership. Tom Neeb has a notebook that Joe Brucia put together on planning the

state conference. A copy will be given to each section.

c. Section Reports

Delta Sierra: Sheri reported that there will be 3 repeating workshops next week. The Section decided to take the workshop to different locations throughout the section in order to reach more people. There will be a spring workshop planned with the Bay Section for Feb./Mar.

Bay: Jan reported that a section workshop is planned for November as well as the Spring workshop with Delta Sierra.

San Joaquin: Tom reported that the Annual Bass Lake workshop is happening on Oct. 7th. The State Conference is their big focus this year.

Southern: Dr. Donna reported that Oct. 14th is the ACCESS workshop in Palm Springs, November 18th there will be a Legal Forum with Lt. Scott Madden focusing on Legal and Illegal uses of the Internet, Free Speech and District Policies on student generated web sites.

Tom shared that the National School Resource Officers Assn. has a good presenter and resources to access.

d. Treasurer

Jerry passed out the current budget report. Our current balance is $22,590.40. In response to a question by Dennis, Jerry estimated that $1500 - $1800 is spent per State Board meeting. It was clarified that the State Board will reimburse mileage at the current state rate.

e. Intercom

In Frank's absence, Dennis stated that Frank would like to get the next issue out in October. He needs to have it ready for the printer by the end of next week. Section Presidents need to send him a section report. Tom has done one for San Joaquin. Sherman is doing a legislative update and Joe will do an "Ask the Expert" article for Frank to include.

f. Legislation

Rob reported on Assembly Joint Resolution 22 that would amend FERPA in order to allow sharing of information between schools and child death review teams. There was discussion on CASCWA supporting the addition of child death review teams to the list of agencies who can share information. Rob will write something up to present at the next

meeting or use email if a letter is needed before the meeting.

Joe Taylor will get Dennis copies of ACSA sample letters on support, non-support and no position. Greg Bass asked about SB660 Keuhl on police interrogations. Rob found that it had been placed in the inactive file so the earliest action on it would be in January 2006.

Joe Taylor shared that as an ACSA Rep for Area 3 he could provide a link between ACSA and CASCWA in lobbying for bills.

In regards to home schooling, David reported that the most we could do without legislation is to ask parents to present an attendance record. Districts need Board Policies with the input of SARB on what the process will be for addressing this situation. David does not see support for legislative action at this time. His recommendation is that we would need to have data showing the number of students being effected in order to involve CDE.

Further discussion took place on legislation for 18 year olds staying in K-12 education, allowing a 5th year of High School and the connection to the High School exit exam, areas that David is looking at. David shared that with upcoming amendments to NCLB, more focus will be on districts to have Board Policies/Administrate Regulations on dropout prevention and attendance.

A question came up on parent employment for residency SB 136 and if there is a designation of a minimum number of hours the parent needs to work in order to qualify. After some discussion, Rob confirmed that an amendment in April designated 20 hours per week.

g. Membership

Tom faxed all Section Presidents the current membership lists. The current count of active members is 54 for Bay, 90 for Delta Sierra, 58 for San Joaquin, and 163 for Southern. This does include the State Conference registrants. There are 523 inactive members. It was clarified that Section Presidents will send letters of welcome, dues are expiring and an invitation to rejoin if they are inactive. All sections should have samples of each letter to use. Dennis will send a letter from the State Board. Tom will send each Section President their inactive lists to look at for possible renewals although it was noted that we have done this and many of the people on that list are no longer in the field of CWA.

Tom asked for sections to send him current job openings, hot topics and workshop flyers to put on the web.

New Business

a. School Innovations and Advocacy presentation

Jeff Owen did a presentation on the eTruancy program. He stressed the importance of a connection between CWAs and business offices. Jeff reported that the State average for attendance if 95%. At approximately $5,000 annually in ADA per student, this would calculate into 314,413 students not in school each day at a cost of $1,574,605,000 in lost revenue annually.

eTruancy is a centralized tool to track all steps in the truancy process. It includes sending all letters, habitual truancy management, data analysis and reporting, and timely consulting. There is currently no statistics on the success of using the program as eTurancy is a new tool.

Further discussion took place on an official partnership between SIA and CASCWA. Jeff has distributed information for CASCWA through SIA's email lists and given out flyers at meetings he attends. In addition there has been discussion on an advocacy contract between the two groups. Jeff provided feedback on meeting structures and section conferences and formats to bring in more participants and make meetings more useful to the larger membership.

Dennis suggested that a starting point may be developing an MOU or Operational Agreement between SIA and CASCWA. Jeff will get drafts based on agreements SIA has with other groups for Dennis and him to start looking at. The advocacy proposal will be looked at as well.

b. Past Presidents Committee on Re-Sectioning

This item was discussed during the review of the retreat. Joe Taylor asked how a section could annex a county. Greg Bass clarified that a proposal would be brought to the State Board, both sections involved would have to agree, then the Board could approve the proposal. Anyone with concerns should take them to the re-sectioning committee. The State will cover expenses for this committee to meet. Tom reemphasized that those areas not participating should be surveyed to see if splitting the Southern section would bring them in.

c. Other

Joe Taylor shared information he got from a conference in Colorado hosted by the National Truancy Prevention Association. The conference included a perspective from all states on addressing truancy. Included was the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges and the Office of Juvenile Justice Delinquency Prevention which is a possible funding source. Sherman Garnett is a member of the Truancy Prevention Assoc. and Joe would like to become a member. Joe asked the Board if they were approved to become members that CASCWA cover the $200 each membership cost. Tom moved to approve the expenditure, Jan seconded. The motion was unanimously approved.

Old Business

a. 2005-06 State Conference

Wednesday's academy will include 2 sessions. One session is on CWA 101 including Joe Brucia, Phil Kauble and a legal firm. The second session is on Drug Recognition and Identification.

Many of the speakers are lined up. There will not be a baseball game going on during the time of the conference like the section had hoped. Sponsors include SIA, Atkinson, Andelson, Loya, Ruud and Romo.

Closing

The next meeting is scheduled for December 2, 2005 at SCOE. The March 10, 2006 meeting will be in Fresno.

The meeting was adjourned at 2:20 p.m.