Pali High Board of Trustees Meets as End of Academic Year Approaches

By MAGNOLIA LAFLEUR | Reporter

The Palisades Charter High School Board of Trustees conducted a meeting on May 17 where school updates were discussed—including the upcoming graduation of the board’s student representative and a faculty report with information concerning a shortage of coverage when substitutes are needed—as the academic year comes to a close.

Due to COVID-19 cases being reportedly up and the school being back to indoor masking, the board voted to continue Zoom conferencing versus in-person meetings for the next 30 days.

The Pali High student report was given by student representative Christopher Clausen, who discussed that after two weeks of exams, the students were happy to make it through. The seniors at Pali High had Grad Night at Disneyland from 9 p.m. to 2 a.m. where they were able to celebrate the end of their time at the school.

“It was great to bring back a lot of the events that we missed the past two years,” Clausen shared.

The seniors will have a picnic on May 27, where they are encouraged to wear college merchandise, with games and food trucks being offered until the end of the year and yearbook signing.

“It’s a great book, unlike the past years it’s super full, it’s not shortened due to COVID,” Clausen said. “So buy the yearbook.”

Clausen thanked the board for “this incredible opportunity” as a student representative and member of the board, reminiscing from his first days being too nervous to speak to where he is today, an active member who’s had the “pleasure” of working besides the BOT staff as a representative of the student body at Pali High.

Members of the board congratulated Clausen, who was admitted into USC, and thanked him for his service as a student member of the board.

Board Member Jewlz Fahn discussed the number of parents that contacted her in regard to there not being a known deadline for when to return an administration and student experience survey at school.

During public comment, an anonymous parent expressed their disdain for the survey, which was given to assess the administration. They expressed it contained no neutral or negative ratings, but merely a variety of ratings that ranged inside a positive spectrum.

“Regarding the parent survey, how can the administration possibly send out a multiple-choice survey where the only options for rating the administration are different shades of positive?” the parent shared. “I don’t agree with any of these self-serving congratulatory descriptions of the administration.”

There was not an option for “none of the above,” Fahn explained, so parents expressed they felt like their choices were being relegated to votes that favored the administration and their kids’ experiences.

The faculty report was later given by Lisa Saxon, Maggie Nance and Brenda Clarke with the issue of a substitute teacher shortage being on the forefront.

“There’s a lot going on in terms of the shortage of substitutes, myself included,” Nance shared.
“I was out two weeks with COVID. [The school is] going and asking us daily to cover other classes, and that’s time that we’re supposed to be planning and grading. Under the best of circumstances, you’re covering a class of 30 to 40 students, and what they’re doing and where they’re going. Even if you’re not instructing, it’s impossible to get things done.”

In the report, the faculty shared that this is “unsustainable” and that teachers are “being asked to do this, whether [they] want to or not,” Nance reported.

“Also the classroom teacher, we make more hourly than substitute teachers, so it has a budgetary effect also,” Nance said. “That’s a problem that needs to be solved.”

Nance reported that faculty morale was low, with the concern of teachers feeling that they are being “asked to do more and more, and are being pulled in many different directions, without the promise of budgets keeping up with inflation.”

Saxon reported that student absenteeism is at an all-time high, affecting the budgeting process as well as impacting student learning. They requested that the school reinstate an attendance policy that “emphasizes” the importance of attendance.

During the meeting it was also reported that a former student contributed $25,000 to the transportation endowment, which aids students from afar to be able to afford to attend Pali High.

With the goal of the board to ensure that students have everything they need, Board Chair Dara Williams commented that this was the most important function of the meeting, telling the Palisadian-Post: “The most significant thing at the meeting is that we are trying to ensure that the students have access to up-to-date educational materials.”

The next board meeting will take place Tuesday, June 7, at 5 p.m.