November 2017 State Council Meeting Minutes

Interstate Compact on Educational Opportunity for Military Children
California State Council—General Business Meeting
November 7, 2017

California Department of Education
1430 N Street
Sacramento, CA 95814

Minutes

State Council Members

Members Present:
Kate Wren Gavlak, Commissioner; Kelli May, Department of Defense (DOD) Liaison Representative; Kelly Frisch, DOD Liaison Representative; Jacie Ragland, State Superintendent of Public Instruction (SSPI) Designee; John Burns, Task Force Chairperson; Patricia Rucker, State Board of Education (SBE), Jennifer Lopez, Designee for Todd Gloria; Deanna Spehn, Designee for Toni G. Atkins; and Stacy Bengtson, School Liaison Officer (SLO) for Naval Base San Diego.

Members Absent:
Sylvia Crowder, Family Education Liaison.

Invited Participants:
Matthew L. Sagendorf, Command Master Chief U.S. Coast Guard; Jacqueline Leverich, Executive Officer U.S. Coast Guard; Barbara Pomerantz, California Department of Education (CDE); Jenny Callison, Assembly Veterans Affairs Committee; and Christian Mendoza, Travis Air Force Base SLO.

Welcome and Introductions

• Jacie Ragland, SSPI Designee: Opened the meeting of the California State Council for the Interstate Compact on Educational Opportunity for Military Children (State Council) at 1:04 p.m. at the CDE. She welcomed State Council members present and asked that introductions be made from all in attendance.

Opening Remarks

• Kate Wren Gavlak, Commissioner: Welcomed the group. Stated the last meeting was held in San Diego and there are a lot of things going on in the National Commission that she is going to address in the meeting.

Approval of Previous Meeting Minutes

• Kate Wren Gavlak, Commissioner: Made a motion to approve minutes from the April 25, 2017, State Council meeting; the motion was seconded by John Burns. The State Council voted unanimously to approve the minutes from the April 25, 2017, meeting.

Commissioner’s Update

Kate Wren Gavlak, Commissioner: Provided updates on the following topics:

• Commissioner’s Newsletter

• Kate Wren Gavlak, Commissioner: Stated the Annual Business Meetings over the years have grown and gotten better. The formatting was changed to hopefully meet the needs of people more. They had separate commissioners talk a lot about different cases and how people were approaching them. Asked Kelli Frisch to explain what they did that was separate from the rest of the group.

• Kelly Frisch, DOD Liaison Representative: Stated they put together some best practices and challenges that the SLO had encountered while working with the Interstate Compact Commission. They revamped the Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) Book and got feedback from SLOs and attendees as to what questions are really being asked in the field. They discussed what they wanted to edit or add to the FAQ Book that will be posted on the website.

• Kelly Frisch, DOD Liaison Representative: Stated they also looked at tools and resources that the Interstate Compact Commission can use to help the SLOs assisting and educating the schools and families in the field.

• Kelly Frisch, DOD Liaison Representative: Shared that it was a good networking opportunity as people brainstormed how to best work together with the commissioners, establish councils to those who do not have any councils, and figure out what the next steps are to achieve their goals and tasks.

• Kate Wren Gavlak, Commissioner: Emphasized the importance and value of SLOs as they are the first stop for many parents who need help. The Commission works very closely with SLOs to assist them across the state.

• Kate Wren Gavlak, Commissioner: Stated that a third of the commissioners are new to the program and the Commission is established and beginning to mature. They had their business meeting in Orlando and there is a new Executive Director and said the meeting went really well.

• Kate Wren Gavlak, Commissioner: Shared that they had a new commissioner’s luncheon and it involved some breakout talks about a variety of topics such as how to set up and be compliant with the State Councils. They also had Military 101 training, managing Compact cases, and how to train and assist SLOs.

• Kate Wren Gavlak, Commissioner: Stated the Commission had signed a Memorandum of Understanding with military impacted school associations to train those schools that are heavily impacted. Heavily impacted military schools have 20 percent or more of the students who are military dependent. The first training will be in Nebraska and there will be another training in Southern California after the first of the year, and additional trainings will happen across the country in different areas. Each training is about two to three hours on the Compact.

• Kate Wren Gavlak, Commissioner: Commented that she was amazed at the number of people who are not aware of the Compact and the details. Stated they started to collect data to understand more of what is going on.

• Kate Wren Gavlak, Commissioner: Discussed that in California they had a lot of cases this year. Every case was resolved in a satisfactory manner for the parent. Shared some of the different cases they encountered and discussed how they were resolved.

• Overview of National Military Interstate Children’s Compact Commission Meeting and Key Issues

• Kate Wren Gavlak, Commissioner: Reported that the Finance Committee on the national level said there was a decrease in income for the National Commission, they are working on how they are going to resolve that for the future. They voted to split the Public Relations and Training Committee into two separate committees because they are large groups and they have different roles.

• Kate Wren Gavlak, Commissioner: Stated the Compliance Committee had issues with people not having their state councils set up. The Compliance Committee is working with states to get their councils up and making sure they are being compliant.

• Kate Wren Gavlak, Commissioner: Stated that the Rules Committee has housing issues and continues to have kindergarten issues.

• Kelly Frisch, DOD Representative: Added that there was a lot of talk about credits and what that looks like for each state. Proposed the idea of mapping out state by state graduation requirements and credits and what that should look like. Stated the big concern is that each state interprets them differently. They receive a lot of phone calls and questions regarding that topic from counselors and parents.

Appointments

Jacie Ragland, SSPI Designee: Provided updates on the following appointments:

• Replacement for Superintendent Justin Cunningham, School District Superintendent Representative

• Jacie Ragland, SSPI Designee: Shared that Justin Cunningham has retired. Stated it is a required position for the State Council for compliance purposes and they need to fill his position. Asked the Council what they wanted to do to go about filling in that position.

• Kate Wren Gavlak, Commissioner: Stated she will be looking at districts in Southern California during her training in January. Stated that she can get a list of names from the districts from the trainings.

• Kelli May, DOD: Suggested they can send something out to their installation school liaison to work with impacted districts and see if there are any interested with their direct link to their superintendents.

• Jacie Ragland, SSPI Designee: Stated they will touch base on this in the upcoming April meeting and told the members to go ahead and send over any suggestions to for a replacement.

• Family Education Liaison

• Jacie Ragland, SSPI Designee: Stated that Sylvia is still holding and maintaining the role as the Family Education Liaison.

• Update on Service Branch Appointments

• Kate Wren Gavlak, Commissioner: Stated she was informed by
  William Hampton that the service branch appointments were done, but she was then informed that the letters have been messed up, further delaying the process. He assured her that she would get the complete appointments, but she stated she still does not have the letter. She will keep following up with him to make sure the letter gets done. They are not out of compliance, but stressed they need the official letter. She hopes this matter will be rectified in the next couple weeks.

Non-Interstate Compact on Educational Opportunity for Military Children Topics of Discussion

• Kelli May, DOD: Shared that her department does a lot of legislative advocacy work for the Marine Corps and her role is working on education related state legislation that affects families.

• Kelli May, DOD: Stated that Senate Bill 455 was a cleanup legislation from SB 1455. Stated that SB 1455 provides opportunity for military families to remotely enroll their children in school with military orders before they arrive in their state or district. It was passed, but unfortunately it only affected school districts that contained a military installation within its boundaries. Schools without a military installation were not required to allow remote enrollment.

• Kelli May, DOD: Shared that the legislation was changed to open it up and it passed through without any opposition. Now every district in California is required to accept remote enrollment for special programs and families before they get here. Stated it will be effective as of January 1, 2018.

• Kelli May, DOD: Stated that Assembly Bill 365 adds military students and families to be included to receive partial credit from courses that were partially taken in other states and districts. Also allows military students to have additional graduation requirements that go above and beyond state requirements that a district might have. It gives the students an opportunity to waive any additional courses that the districts might require.

• Kate Wren Gavlak, Commissioner: Commented on how important AB 365 is because some states do not issue any credit unless a student has completed an end of course exam. Stated it is an issue because students would get zero credit if they have to move due to their parent’s relocation.

• Kelli May, DOD: Proposed the idea of having school districts post information about military related legislation and education code on their military web pages and websites and then link it to the CDE Military Resource web page and have a section that states “Military Related Education Code.”

• Jacie, SSPI Designee: Stated that she will need the support of the Council to help guide what they want it to look like and the CDE web team can post the narrative and update the links.

• Patricia Rucker, SBE: Stated that the federal legislation reauthorized No Child Left Behind and that the Every Student Succeeds Act now requires a military identifier in CALPADS. Mike Hurst, Board President, asked her to work with the Governor’s Office to resolve and address the policy concern. Stated there are now conversations going on about this issue and that the Governor’s Office is working on it.

• Kelli May, DOD: Commented that the Governor has a Military Council that he holds regularly and during the previous meeting, every service branch leader brought up the same issue. She stated that it is a good team effort that a lot of different entities are advocating for it.

• Kelli May, DOD: Asked about the possibility of getting the military population added as an indicator in the CDE Dashboard.

• Patricia Rucker, SBE: Stated the first step is get the identifier in there and then get the students called out in their local school report cards. Stated she will continue working on that within the Board.

• Kelli May, DOD: Proposed an idea of a possibility of looking for someone who can support legislation that would keep kids in school for the entire school year. She described some situations where if a military family moves into temporary housing and then they receive housing, some districts require students to move in the middle of the year no matter when the change of address happens. She also described another situation when school districts fill up in capacity, a lot of them have a local policy called “last in, first out.” Military students are usually the last ones in and they end up being moved to other school districts. She hopes for an opportunity and proposed to put forth an effort to allow kids to stay in the school for the full year and believes it will be very beneficial for military students who already transition a lot.

• Kate Wren Gavlak, Commissioner: Stated she will address that issue during her trainings and agrees the fewer moves the kids make, the better things will be for them. The method you sometimes have to use is an appeal to the superintendent to persuade them in not having the child move, but that is not considered legislation.

• John Burns, Task Force Chairperson: Commented that it is ideal to work directly with the superintendent to get that kind of issue resolved, but the problem with that method is that there are frequent changes in superintendents and that same kind of sympathy may not always be in place. He suggested it may be worth exploring legislation and not relying on the goodwill of superintendents to allow a student to continue at the school.

• Patricia Rucker, SBE: Stated that it may require a conversation and educating with statewide stakeholder organizations like the Association of California School Administrators or the California School Boards Association to get them to work with us to develop a language to make a bill.

• Deanna Spehn, Designee for Toni G. Atkins: Stated that San Diego Unified School District (USD) received a huge grant that will go to schools where military children are enrolled. She also stated that the housing situation is critical because 60 percent of the Marine Corps’ personnel and equipment has moved to San Diego County, but no new housing is being built.

• Kelli May, DOD: Shared that their department would meet with the stakeholder organizations, the CDE Legislative Affairs Office, and various superintendents to see if any of the legislation they come up with would be feasible and what the secondary effects might be. Stated they work very collaboratively with the superintendents through events and trainings and the majority of the superintendents are very supportive of their ideas, but they must be able to justify it with the rest of the community.

• John Burns, Task Force Chairperson: Stated that it is important to have legislation because it would give a reason for the superintendents to enforce or advocate for a rule.

• Kelli May, DOD: Mentioned that San Diego USD already has a policy in place that would not move a student already enrolled in school until the next school year. Stated that it could be a good opportunity to use that policy as a best practice.

Public Comments

• There were no public comments.

State Council Member Comments

• Kate Wren Gavlak, Commissioner: Stated that she is glad the Coast Guard is on board.

• John Burns, Task Force Chairperson: Stated that when California first joined the Compact it only covered a slice of potential issues and they discussed that over time there would be more opportunity for state legislation to deal with many situations regarding military families. Stated that these bills are an excellent direction and encouraged to keep thinking along those lines.

• John Burns, Task Force Chairperson: Stated that the best ideas come from SLOs because they are the first to hear the issues that emerge regarding a military family. He encouraged SLOs to be forthcoming with new ideas as they have different perspectives.

Quarterly Meetings Schedule

• Next meeting will be in the spring in San Diego.

Closing Remarks

• Jacie, SSPI Designee: Shared an idea of having people of interest in leading several sub groups to collaborate with the CDE and explained the different committees. Shared the template to get people interested in the committees.

• Barbara Pomerantz, CDE: Stated on how happy and encouraged she is to see these subcommittees being developed, and how the growth of the State Council has helped address the needs of military families.

Adjournment

• Kate Wren Gavlak, Commissioner: Adjourned the meeting at 2:24 p.m.