City of Thousand Oaks Youth Commission, 7 Apr 2021

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From YouTube: Youth Commission Meeting | April 7, 2021 | City of Thousand Oaks

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Youth Commission 4/7/2021

A

Okay go the april seventh meeting of the thousand exits commission is now called the order. We will have the pledge of allegiance led by vice chair nash,.

B

Commissioners, please turn your mics on.

B

Please join me in the pledge of allegiance.

B

I pledge allegiance.

A

To the republic for.

C

A

D

A

Thank you. We will not have the roll call taken by staff. Ladies on francine spurgo, please.

E

Take your present when I call your name, chair slasher here vice chair nash,.

A

E

Commissioner, alpert is absent, commissioner, alaska.

E

Is absent, commissioner, emmanuel.

F

E

F

E

Mr good night, president, mr mattis, here, commissioners, mckeon and mccary are both absent um and commissioner melton is absent.

E

Is that correct um commissioner? Swanson.

C

E

Mr shu president, adult commissioner petrus is absent and adele commissioner don here. Thank you.

A

Item four on the agenda is public comments. This is the time in our meeting when we invite members of the public to state their concerns about youth related issues in our city or to present items for the commission for commission consideration. Are there any members of the public who would like to speak at this time?

A

Yes, okay, susan toy. Go ahead.

G

Commissioner schwarzer and vice chair nash and all commissioners present this evening. Thank you for letting me speak. My name is susan soy and I'm a resident of thousand oaks, and I'm here today in this month the national volunteer appreciation month to offer my thanks to you all for your volunteer service in the community.

G

I also want to tell you about the friends of the thousand oaks library, which is an all volunteer group that I'm proud to be a part of in the community.

G

Over the past several months, I've been attending the youth commission meetings and I really commend you all for the projects and undertakings that you have been doing on behalf of the youth in the community, I'm so impressed by your leadership and engagement, and I want to make an offer to urge any one of you to apply to be a board member at the thousand oaks friends of the library board.

G

We have a application process and our board application is at our website, which is.

G

Www.Ftol.Org national volunteer appreciation month is a month in which the friends celebrate ourselves and the accomplishments that we've had over the past year. Our mission, of course, is to raise funds for the library and also to raise awareness of the library we promote, learning, literacy and cultural knowledge.

G

Our membership is accounted at just over 300 members and we have 61 volunteers that are active in 2020. Our volunteers provided 8, 175 hours of volunteer service, of course, during curvin coburn we had to uh pivot because our fundraising activity, selling books inside the library had to go dormant.

G

The libraries were closed, so we quickly pivoted and opened an online bookstore. It's called good friends, good books and we take book donations from the community price them and list them online and sell them most are less than four dollars.

G

We also have a program called friends: community donation program, where we offer free books packaged very nicely to groups in the community like westminster, clinic boys and girls, clubs adopt adelante community dogs, safe passages and even the park district.

G

The fundraising dollars that we uh raise go to the library and with those funds the library is able to enhance its services.

G

They have provided a great deal of homework assistance online, virtually while the library has been physically closed. Some of those resources have been provided for with the funds that we've raised.

G

The friends also funded the podcast studio that the library has, and we feel that um every cent we raise that goes to the library that helps youth in the community is uh well worth it, and we are very, very proud of the work our volunteers do so I'm going to hold up my card with the url for the website, and I personally want to recognize all of you during national volunteer appreciation month for the work you do, and I hope, if you're, not a member of the friends that you'll consider being a member of the friends.

G

A

Thank you so much um there being no more public comments. We will move on to item five on the agenda, which is guest speakers. Will commissioner madis, please introduce this portion of the meeting.

E

Thank you. Today's guest speaker is sheldon agbayani. He is an admission counselor at california, lutheran university. In his six years he has constantly been working with students from the thousand oaks area originally from hawaii. Sheldon is familiar with the nuances in the college, search processes for both california and out-of-state colleges and universities.

H

Thank you so much thank you for having me come to um and process and how to navigate this. This time in your life I'll go ahead and start sharing. My.

H

H

Perfect so, um like I said, my name is sheldon, I'm one of the mission counselors at california, lutheran university. I have been working with students from the thousand oaks area for the past few years um and I just kind of wanted to go over a little bit about what you should be looking for in different universities.

H

um Wherever that may be. As you can see, um we are located in thousand oaks right in your backyard, but we definitely encourage students to take a time to figure out exactly where they want to go for their college experience, whether it be in california or um in a different state even internationally.

H

There are over uh 3 000 universities and colleges in the united states alone. That will definitely give you that unique opportunity, one of the great ways that you can figure out what a college is all about is on this stats. um So lutheran is considered a small private, liberal arts institution. We only have about 3 000 students.

H

I know you've all heard of like the uc's, the csu system. Those are going to be your larger state.

H

Schools primarily focused on research, uh whereas private liberal arts schools are more teaching the well-rounded students, so you definitely want to look at the size to see if you want something closer to that of your current high school experience or if you want the big auditoriums heading or if you want that small school experience like california lutheran university, we are a faith-based institution, but for a lot of faith-based institutions you don't necessarily have to be a part of that religion to be uh to be considered for a mission.

H

uh We have 39 faiths and non-faith backgrounds at california. There are also institutions that you do have to be a part of that faith. So if faith is something that you want to get involved in, you can definitely do that. If not, there are definitely schools out there. That will give you that well-rounded holistic experience as well. That is a little bit more removed from the background as well.

H

um You also want to see kind of the breakdown of the student population of a number of students who may be first generation like myself, I'm a first generation student. uh You will also want to see if the the university does have um placement and um for life after cal er for life after university, so overall 97 of our students either get a full-time job or go on to grad school within nine months.

H

So you can definitely ask any of your college representatives um what their rate of that is also what's really important to know in your college. Experience is um the majors, so at kelly's room we have 41 majors uh you um at the state schools at larger schools, you'll have a lot more majors as well, definitely into the hundreds.

H

So you definitely want to know what you want to major in before you start this college search process. It's also noteworthy that um for some schools, like cal lutheran, it's okay to not know what you want to major in before you select the school. Some schools, like california, will admit students with an undeclared major and they will work with you to figure out what exactly that major will be.

H

Some schools do require you to apply to a specific program, so you definitely want to again reach out to the mission representatives like myself at other institutions, to see what um what if they require you to um enter in with the major or if they accept the student, is going undeclared as well.

H

um Some of the key factors of cal lutheran in terms of our programs is that we do not have any impacted programs, so it's really easy to switch, and then we also have a four to finish guarantee so we're able to finish students in four years guaranteed.

H

You also want to see what kind of learning opportunities are outside the classroom. Typically, that would be study abroad. Internships, research, what's really important to note, is that just because the school is a big research institution, it doesn't mean that they're, the only places that you can get these opportunities so right in your backyard, cal lutheran, has studied abroad opportunities in over 80 different countries. We definitely have really great partnerships with internships. Over 500 have been done, um specifically ones done at disney, google, you name it. We pretty much have students there and research.

H

Even though we are a liberal arts institution we do have research opportunities um and, what's great to know, is that smaller schools um typically will allow you to have these opportunities starting from your first year. So uh you don't think that just because a school is small or it's a private private school or a liberal arts school that we don't have these research opportunities and ways to get involved outside the classroom as well.

H

Housing is something that's very important, especially if you are looking at out-of-state opportunities. So you want to see if um their residence halls is part of their campus community um and you want to see what type of uh residence halls there are um so kelly turn. We do have suite style residence halls that we do guarantee housing all four years. So even if you're coming right around the corner, we'll still be able to house you, every school has their own housing policies. So you definitely want to check to see what that's going to look like.

H

So if you are applying to a school out of state, you want to make sure that they at least have housing starting from your first year, so that you're able to um to live on campus or if they partner with apartment buildings nearby. So you definitely want to look to see what the housing situation is um as well as parking, so we do guarantee free parking at cal lutheran.

H

So you definitely want to ask what the parking situation looks like, because every school is different, I'm definitely just as important as where you're going to live on campus. um What the dining options are uh so at california, we do have uh almond commons and all you can eat style eatery. We do have a starbucks, the habit and jamba juice on campus as well um other uh other schools might have food courts available for students that work with the meal plan.

H

So you definitely want to see what each school has to offer in terms of food as well in terms of the application process. Now that now is a really great time to kind of look at your academic history and see kind of where you fall. Every school has their average admin student profile. Don't let those numbers scare you a lot of schools, um take the holistic review. So, like healthy term, we don't look at just your gpa test scores we'll look at your personal statements, your recommendations and everything.

H

So you definitely want to use the average emitted profile as a guide, but know that most schools will look beyond just your test scores and your gpa. um So if you are a sophomore or um a freshman or junior, you definitely want to see. um You know what your grades look like to see. If there is any area of improvement, um also know that we do um look at what's called a trend.

H

So just because you know you may if you have started off um your high school career kind of rocky, but you kind of got your your um your piece of you know where um how classes were going to go, what type of classes that you are interested in and typically taking ap or honors courses? We do look, look at what's called a trend. So if you get better over time, that speaks a lot for your academic ability than just having a flat flat trending grade.

H

So um you definitely want to um continue to improve and take more regular classes as possible. um Also a great great time right now is to look at your layers of recommendations. So by the time your junior year happens, you want to know about either one or two teachers that you would want to write your liars, a recommendation.

H

uh Typically, these layers of recommendation should be coming from someone who knows you both in the classroom and outside um so like a club advisor or a counselor, would be a great um letter of recommendation as well. So you do want to kind of gather a list of people you might want to be asking for liars of recommendation and also knowing timing.

H

So every school has different deadlines when it comes to when things are due. So you'll see our dates on the screen, but every school is different, so you definitely want to pace yourself to make sure that you're getting all the required documents in on time before that deadline happens. uh So you definitely want to you know, keep track on maybe an excel sheet, or something like that. That will have all the requirements that you need for every school.

H

Every school is different when it comes to their requirements as well, so some schools may require may still require test scores, sat or act. Some of us are test optional.

H

Some don't even require a live recommendation or a personal statement, so you definitely want to see the different schools that you're applying to to see to see what they require to finish your application there, and just you want to also know cost. um So we all know that uh the cost of education is escalating every year. um A lot of schools, like california specifically do have a lot of funding sources for our students.

H

So you definitely want to have that conversation with your family uh also have a conversation with um the admission representatives at the institutions that you're going to be applying for to see what kind of funding options are available. uh So at kelly 10 we do have our merit scholarships just for just based on your gpa and your academic rigor. We have.

H

We have scholarships for students who are interested in visual performing arts, so we have talent scholarships as well. Some of the larger schools like d1 and d2 schools will have sports scholarships and we also have a scholarship for students who are getting a matching scholarship for those are coming from places of worship. So you definitely want to see the different types of funding that we're able to offer. um There's a lot of funding to go around.

H

You just have to know where to uh look for it um and definitely um working with your family to see what's feasible in terms of cost. Any admission advisor will be able to walk you through kind of what each school costs and ways to minimize your balance.

H

At the very end like I did mention before, it's really really important, especially if you have those your dream school or if you have those schools that you really want to go to or are on your radar just know that with every institution you have at least one or two staff members whose sole purpose is to guide students through this process. I'm one of them I'm one of the mission counselors here at california. I've been here for six years and I've been working specifically with the thousand oaks community.

H

um So I'm just kind of sitting here waiting for any student to um to email me to ask any questions about our um our our requirements for applications. uh How to find the right major and things like that.

H

So every school has a team of admission, assoc admission counselors to be able to help you guide you through your admission process, so know that there are definitely people out there who are there to support you through this process and do not hesitate to reach out to the schools that you may eventually want to apply to on the screen. You'll see our general information. So if you want, if you have any questions or want to know more about cal return feel free to email. Us call us and we'll be more than happy to assist.

H

Thank you so much for um for inviting me to this forum and hope to work with you in the future.

A

Thank you so much for joining us tonight.

A

Okay, moving on item six, a is youth questions.

E

Does anyone have any.

A

Questions yeah lindsay.

D

What would you say is like an appropriate, not an appropriate time like when you say it's like the best time to really start like focusing, not worrying about college, but like focusing on it and really starting to like yeah. If that makes sense,.

H

I would say the earlier the better just to get kind of the general information, um the applications open uh the the fall of your senior year. um So if you want to kind of work it backwards that way, if you're able to do virtual tours now, I'm ahead of that.

H

That would be great, but everything can be done within your senior year, but the more uh work you do before that, um the easier it will be to kind of narrow it down, because um even after you finish the application process, and um we um send you a mission um offers of admission. You then have your chance to kind of um pick your one school that you'll be attending, so it is kind of uh it is kind of a long process.

H

And that's what we're here for to kind of guide you through this, but the more um the more you put into it, the more you're going to get out of it. I know that's kind of I'm cliche, but um you know the the more you put um the effort into figuring out exactly exactly what you want uh now the earlier the better it is for you um once you start applying and start getting your acceptance, players and all of that.

D

A

Yeah catherine thank.

D

You so much for coming today. um I just had a question on regarding: um when do you recommend people should start like writing their essays and like supplemental essays, because I thought that you would write it in the spring of your junior year, but I was completely wrong when I found out, like you actually read it like september october, but do you think that's too late? If you write then, or should we start in the summer.

H

Yeah, so it just depends on each application so, um like the the ucs have a specific set of questions as part of their application process we're on the common app. So we have a set of questions. um I would say the perfect time to start working on that would be during the summer before you on the summer before your senior year. um That way.

H

There's you know not a lot of school going on and then you can um start um to revise um your your um your essay, so it technically is due like in in the fall, but, like I said, the more you put into it, though the more you prepare, your your um your personal statements and your essays and all of that, the easier it will be once uh school starts in the in the fall um and then that's one less thing you have to worry, so you can google, like the um the uc, see inside questions or the common app personal statement questions they typically are the are very similar from year to year.

H

um They may switch one or two, but if you could find one or two prompts that you resonate with the most, then you can start working with that over the summer before your senior year.

A

A

Questions: okay: item: 6a is youth master plan implementation. Would commissioner emanuel please give this report.

F

Thank you, youth master plan. Implementation has been focused on four committees throughout the year. Each committee is coming close to the end of their project, so I'll now ask the chairs to speak on their respective committees. uh Commissioner shu, would you please speak on the environmental committee.

D

So we have basically wrapped up the work of our environmental committee and right now we're working on finishing up the report, um so essentially what we ended up doing was we created like um like we set goals and like what we want to accomplish in our committee from the beginning, which is like education and awareness on sustainability and environmental topics. So um that's the way we're going to format the report on like the progress like what we were able to do in order to like accomplish that goal.

D

um So a lot of it was like videos to elementary school students, um educating them on like how to recycle, reuse, repurpose and like we gave them a little art project as well. So we'll definitely be I'm writing that into the report.

F

Thank you, commissioner nash. Would you please speak on the mental health committee.

C

I'm actually going to give our report for that today, uh hello, so our scene for the vaping prevention and mental health subcommittee is coming along really well. Our colleagues at wright are uh we're working with them to build the digital scene right now and we're planning to work with other community organizations to help promote it. Thank you.

F

Thank you to all the committee chairs a reminder to turn in all reports as soon as possible. I'll now turn the meeting back over to chair sloshing.

A

Thank you all item. 6B is youth recognition, wood, commissioners, goodnight and shoe. Please give this report.

D

So right now we have 80 nominees and that's after the nominations closed and they have all been sent a link to complete the volunteer questionnaire, which is due very soon. um I believe that it is next monday and I'm just if you received that link and you were nominated. Please fill that out as soon as possible um and then also for commissioners.

D

We need to start reviewing and rating the nominees um soon and then the ratings will actually start on the 13th, maybe the 14th, and then they will be closed um on april 23rd and then april 30th we're planning on having the interviews from 3 30 to 5 30 p.m and then just a reminder of who's. On the interview panel. It is commissioner lasky, commissioner melton um commissioner shu commissioner good night, commissioner friedman and adult commissioner dobb, and we actually have one more availability for whoever's interested.

D

So if anybody can't make it right now, um can you let me know kennedy would not make it whoever I called what time is it from that day, 3 30 to 5 30.

I

Sorry, can you repeat the date one more time.

D

um April 30th.

C

um I'm not sure, but I'll get back to you on that.

D

Okay, but everybody else could make it awesome, um so, commissioner, swanson, if you can get back to me as soon as possible, that'd be great, um and then I just wanted to hand this off to riley to talk more about the event.

B

Yeah, so right now, basically, what our general plan is is that we plan on. After obviously we do our interviews, we plan on giving the top nominees or whatever goodie bags full of some thousand esteemed goodies as well as their awards, and then we also plan on the mayor, giving our youth of the year their physical award and in terms of how this event will be shown.

B

We plan on pre-recording a video where we get do all this stuff and then we will edit it together and it'll, be aired on the day that we usually have our live, streamed, awards ceremony and that's pretty much it so I'll pass. It.

A

Back perfect, thank you. Both item 6c, the therapeutic dance. Will commissioner friedman please give this report.

D

Thank you. So the party in the bag assembly is april, 14th, which is this wednesday, and it will be from 5 p.m. To whenever we finish. So, if the more people that come the fast we'll get it done, if you are able to come, please rsvp by tuesday the 13th and the actual therapeutic dance is on april 24th and the pickup for the bags for the attendees is april.

D

23Rd from 9am to 5pm at the old meadow center um be sure to sign up, and if you have any questions or you want any more information feel free to reach out. Thank you.

A

Thank you, commissioner. Freeman item. 60 is public information, and will commissioner swanson give this report.

C

There we go hi everyone, so one of our commission's goals for this year was inclusion. It was inclusion and education, so I posted earlier that earlier last month about unity can a host town hall on gender ed for k-5. This has already taken place, but it's still available on their youtube. I believe I also shared information on joining the youth commission and I'll be posting more soon.

C

If you have any information on events in the area, please reach out and follow us and follow us on twitter at to youth and on instagram at thousand oaks yc for any other questions or concerns. Please email us at to youthcommission gmail.com.

A

Thank you at this time, I'd like to turn the meeting over to vice chair nash,.

B

Thank you item. Seven is school and liaison reports, in addition to being an advisory body to city council. The youth commission also appoints commissioners to access liaisons to various youth organizations.

B

Library, representative karina, will you please introduce item 7a, the thousand oaks library, teen advisory league or total item on the agenda.

J

Absolutely can you hear me all right, excellent, hello, everyone um I, my name is karina kiefer and I'm the teen services librarian here at thousand oaks library, I'm representing our thousand oaks teen advisory league or total um hello. It is spring break. The library has many great books and movies. You can request for curbside pickup if you're getting tired of staring at screens, books are often better than the movie so come check out our books, but you can also stream music movies tv, borrow ebooks or listen to audio both as well.

J

We recommend getting immersed in a new world from your library. Additionally, we do also want to appreciate all of our volunteers, our friends of the library, as well as our teen volunteers. Without our volunteers, we would not be able to put on such wonderful programs.

J

Just this week we had in anime, manga and anime your way, drawing class as well as a podcasting um how to create your own podcast class as well. So these programs are um helped out by our friends of the library, and we very much appreciate all um our volunteer support um april is national poetry, month and earth day. So, to celebrate this, we have a take and make craft um they're, basically um upcycled book pages.

J

We have some damaged books and we rescued and salvaged some book pages from them and decided to make them available for arts and crafts as well as blackout, poetry. So if you're curious about blackout, um poetry or creating um a bookmark out of an old comic or creating some origami or some custom cards out of old book pages, please sign up for our libraries, take and make craft um they're great for dunk journals uh cards, um bookmarks and just basically we're looking for a way to upcycle and recycle some old book pages from damaged books.

J

No actual books were harmed in the creation of this. um We just took some books that were like partially damaged, and we wanted to use some of those pages um if we could so in honor of national poetry month as well. If you check out the team page on the library's website, we have a one poetry prompt a day, so um check it out if you're interested in some writing inspiration- and we also have a lot of writing- prompts on our website as well.

J

um This month we have a book and movie club recommendation where we highlight books and then recommend some activities along with those books and movies. So this month we'll be highlighting divergent and the lorax. You can read book, watch the movie and participate in those activities that are recommended and you can do them safely from home, with friends or by yourself. um So the last thing I'd like to mention is: we do have tutoring.

J

So um if you're interested in tutoring for algebra geometry, chemistry or physics, um we will be having special zoom tutoring sessions for high school students, tuesday april 13 and tuesday april 20th, so you're going to sign up online to get the login details, but we'd love if anyone's needing help with those algebra geometry, chemistry or physics. um Please check out the library so um yeah. Additionally, this is national library week so check out the websites. We have a guessing jar.

J

You could win a prize if you guess the correct items in that jar and just a lot of stuff is going on virtually, but also just a lot of stuff happens at the library. So we hope you will check out the www.tt.

J

And check out our library soon. Thank you.

B

Thank you karina item. 7B is the teen center advisory council will teen center liaison? Commissioner friedman, please introduce this portion of the meeting.

D

Thank you very much at this time. I would like to turn the mic over to adult commissioner dog.

I

Good evening, yes, I'm sarah dobb and I'm the teen services director, I'm here to talk about canada, recreation and park districts, teen center programs, um currently we're in the midst of our spring programs, which I'm so happy to announce that we have a great handful of classes that have filled up for the spring session, including some art classes.

I

We have a volleyball class outside mountain biking class, and this week we have a surf camp going on in ventura for spring break. um Our summer program guide is going to be mailed and is currently available for viewing on the canelo recreation park, district's website, which is crpd.org, and you can look to see all the great programming that we have planned for the summertime, which we suspect are all going to be a go given the current announcement of possibly being open this summer.

I

So that's fantastic news for us also this next coming week, which is april 13th and 14th. I wanted to um let you know that canelo recreation and park district staff will be sharing the progress of the teen center expansion and renovation project and getting feedback from teen participants and or community parents. That want to also attend we've been working really close with the design team on the project and we're excited to share all the current plans that have been submitted for permitting to the city.

I

Again, that's tuesday april 13 and wednesday april 14th, both at six o'clock p.m. It will be via zoom and you don't have to attend both as the meetings will have similar formats. um The information can be found at um the teen center website, which is www.

I

Project, um if you go to that page, we do have some information um about the plans that have been submitted and then we'll also have a link to the zoom on there as well.

I

We look forward to continuing to be able to open more programming. We upcoming will be offering gym and game room rental time for individuals of groups of no more than six from three or less households.

I

It will be on a hourly rental basis, which will be twenty dollars for the gym forty dollars for an hour for the game room and that will be available until we could actually open for drop in recreation to the general public. So visit us at thousand oaksteencenter.com and thank you.

B

Thank you adult commissioner don item. 7C on our agenda is the asg asb portion of our meeting, seeing as it is spring break this week we have zero representatives from asg and asb, but we hope to have some next meeting.

B

I would now like to turn back the meetings to cherish washington.

A

As we come to the close of our meeting, I'd like to ask commissioner emmanuel to introduce item 8 commissioner comments.

F

This is the final portion of our meeting where commissioners can provide any information comments or announcements on which no action by the commission will be taken at this time. Are there any commissioner comments, chair, slasher.

A

A reminder to all commissioners here and not here that our report to city council deadline is coming up soon. So please send all reports to me as soon as possible. Thanks.

F

Are there any other commissioner comments there being none? I now turn the meeting back to chair slaughter.

A

Thank you before I adjourn this meeting. I have a few reminders if you would like any information about the youth commission or have questions about the agenda items discussed, please call 805-381-7362 or email youth, commission, t oaks.org or like thousand oaks commission on facebook, follow us on twitter and instagram there being no further business to come for the commission. The youth commission meeting is adjourned until our next regular.

A