Fullerton Joint Union High School Board Highlights & Commentary: January 9 Meeting

By Vivien Moreno on February 2, 2024

FULLERTON JOINT UNION HIGH SCHOOL BOARD HIGHLIGHTS & Commentary

For more information: (714) 870-2800 or http://www.fjuhsd.org

January 9 Meeting

January was School Board Recognition Month, and the FJUHSD Administration started 2024’s first FJUHSD board meeting by honoring the Trustees. Assistant Superintendent of Administrative Services, Dr. Karl Zener, presented Board Members with boxes of chocolates and voiced the administration’s appreciation for the Trustees’ service, highlighting Trustee Marilyn Buchi’s 40 years on the board and all the members’ care and common goals to ensure student success.

Facilities Updates

Assistant Superintendent of Human Resources, Dr. Ed Atkinson, introduced Mr. Vince Madsen as the Director of Facilities and Maintenance & Operation, replacing Ted Walstrom, who served as director from April 2022 to November 2023.

Assistant Superintendent of Business Services, Mr. Ruben Hernandez, reviewed ongoing facility plans to fence in La Habra High School. Architectural maps suggested 6’-0” high fencing wrapping around and between the front and side buildings of La Habra High School along N. Monte Vista St. and Highlander Avenue. The existing chain-link fenced areas along Whittier Blvd. will not currently be affected. After state approval, Mr. Hernandez expects the plans to be ready for an early February board vote.

Using the last of the Bond Measure I money, Mr. Hernandez showed pictures of October’s Sonora Aquatics Center opening and Fullerton High School’s demolished old pool site, making room for a new Fullerton Aquatics area. LHHS science room improvements were finished in December.

FJUHSD used Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSR III) funds to replace portable school rooms with permanent classrooms at Troy and Sunny Hills High Schools. Mr. Hernandez announced that the Trustees approved utilizing $1 million of general fund dollars to upgrade the Fullerton Auditorium’s seating, audio, and lighting systems coupled with Wi-fi installation. The first phase of Wurlitzer Pipe Organ upgrades has started and is projected to last most of the school year.

Safety Updates

Director of Safety and Risk Management, Dr. Chris Davis, informed the Trustees that phase two of the new safety plan focuses on training for staff and students. Dr. Davis started his report by emphasizing the necessary administration training to correctly utilize the new “robust” interdistrict/site radio system.

Safety teams are standardizing districtwide safety protocols by installing similar Incident Command System (ICS) safety plans, emergency supplies, drill protocols, and terminology.

Dr. Davis emphasized the vital need to use similar vocabulary between district personnel and community partners and within the district itself.

FJUHSD recently invested in additional Automated External Defibrillators (AED), installation of the Bluepoint Notification System (which notifies administration and first responders in case of emergency), and plans to increase cross-training with first responders to round out the updated safety plan’s next phase.

New Courses for 2024/2025

Trustee Buchi requested the administration report on new classes offered for the 2024/25 school year that were tucked into the Consent Calendar. Superintendent Dr. Steve McLaughlin said that Education Services will include information during the showcase planned for later in 2024. Under 7.3.5 in the agenda (fjuhsd.org; board meeting agenda tab; January 9, 2024), the report noted that FJUHSD will not delete any courses next year.

Sonora HS (SOHS) expands its high school dual immersion program by offering a remedial World History and basic Geography class in Spanish. Link Crew Leadership class will count for UC admittance (a-g requirements), focusing on interpersonal communication, social-emotional self-knowledge, and learning.

Troy HS will expand its Cambridge Advanced Learning program with an A-level Biology course, and SHHS will offer a remedial Business Finance class and an Advanced Journalism Class. The apparently outdated Journalism course outline listed research and fact-checking goals by using newspapers and books but did not specify any updated categories teaching students to discern false information or AI-generated stories on social media or online.

Career Technical Education expands at Buena Park HS and SOHS, offering a Coding and Gaming concentration and a Visual Communication “capstone” class, providing a G credit while advancing a student’s CTE pathway.

What the FJUHSD Board January Safety Update Missed

The district motto may be that FJUHSD is the place to be safe, but trustees are not discussing a couple of recent stories that may have students and parents reconsidering the district’s response to safety concerns.

On November 14 and 15, the entire district experienced what turned out to be a ransomware attack that compromised some current and former staff members’ data. Superintendent Dr. Steve McLaughlin noted that some students’ “nonsensitive personal data” were also compromised, according to a letter sent out on January 12, 2024, two months after the breach occurred. The district immediately resolved the data compromise and got most Wi-fi services up by November 16. However, how safe personal information will be going forward is not transparent.

The district provided staff complimentary credit protection for a year, while students were only informed about the data breach. The district did not offer technology safety protocols for students to follow in order to make their information more secure going forward or identify third-party experts. Superintendent McLaughlin referenced this in his January 12 letter, so it is difficult to take reassurance that the system is now more secure.

The recent FJUHSD board meeting safety update did not include personal data protection or technology protective updates, with no mention of the ransomware attack nor any questions by the Trustees. By not mentioning the matter, the district had no official information concerning new updated security measures to protect information in the future.

For a district with one of the nation’s top student cyber security programs, perhaps the district should consult with the students to protect an overwhelmed system. The Sunny Hills High School student newspaper, The Accolade (January 12, 2024), interviewed CyberPatriot president, senior Abhijit Sipahimalani, who, along with other CyberPatriot members, was not sur- prised this data breach occurred, saying that “the (district’s) response was very slow” to inform stakeholders.

Sunny Hills High School is also the focus on social media concerning an alleged sexual assault that occurred in mid-December to a student in the Special Education Program.

The student’s mother went on social media to express her frustration with the lack of response by the school administration. The Korean Daily newspaper picked up the story (January 24, 2024) and speculated through antidotes that this is tied to gender-neutral bathrooms and gender-affirming policies. There is no evidence that the assault has anything to do with gender-affirming policies.

The situation graphically outlined by the mother’s post tells of a bullying and predatory incident that has not been corroborated at this time. Sergeant R. O’Neil of the Fullerton Police Department reported that the onsite Student Resource Officer conducted a “thorough investigation” and filed a report claiming a lack of evidence made it difficult to confirm the crime had been committed.

Even if the district cannot comment specifically concerning this incident to protect student privacy (even if the mother posted the story on social media, under law, the school district must maintain the privacy of all student identities), the episode underlined the need for the district’s new safety program to cover additional issues other than preparing for statistically rare active shooter incidents and all city emergency drills.

The district needs to walk a tightrope of transparency that admits that bad things sometimes happen at school so that useful staff and student training concerning these uncomfortable subjects may protect students from the actual hazards confronting them and prepare them for knowing who to contact, what to share, how long to wait for responses, and what forms to fill out immediately, instead of finding out about how to handle a situation when it may be too late to get any productive response.